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According to the explanation that Rabbi Akiva’s talmidim stopped dying on Lag Be’Omer, why should that be a reason to celebrate this day?? Why does that make this day stand out as a special day, a cause for celebration?! It’s not pshat that this day is SPECIAL, rather the other 32 previus days were HORRIFIC! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to MOURN on this day, for the loss of the 24,000 talmidim! No? Anyone have a pshat?
Why do most of us celebrate Shabbos Nachamu? In essence, it Halachically is a regular Shabbos, and if anything during the 9 days, in 70c.e. at least we still had a Bais haMikdosh whereas by 11-16th of Ov of 70c.e. we had no more Bais haMikdosh.
Booze- I always knew that the reason we really celebrate, is because the day is so Heilig and many Nissim can happen on this day.
I’ve heard this question. People ask “Why are we celebrating when 24,000 talmidim stopped dying when there WAS only 24,000 students? there was noone else lefttt to die, they didnt STOP dying cuz they ALL died.
So i heard a great answer.. that we’re celebrating the Greatness of Rabi Akiva. Any other person would have given up at this point,
“Hashem i tried to hard to make you happy and do your will and this is what i get in return?!” But NO, Rabi Akiva did not say a word, he had 24,000 students and buried every single one of them.
We are celebrating that Rabi Akiva did not DIE with them. Not physically, but spiritually. He continued and made the best of the situation, taught only 5 new students with happiness and had full trust in HK”BH. We should take a lesson from Lag baOmer to never lose hope and to know that every challenge we get is from our loving father,Hashem!
Brother
What a beautiful thing to write.
Very inspiring.
Thank you for sharing this.
Baal: I’m not sure if that’s true. We weren’t saying Tachanun on Lag Ba’omer long before they had Hilulas.
Actually Lag Ba-Omer might have been a sad day
In the year 363 Jullian the Apostate emperor of Rome had promised to allow rebuilding of the Bais Hamingdosh. Jullian was the last non-christian emperor of Rome and tried to return Rome to Pre-Christian days.
On Lag Baomer in 363 there was a massive Earthquake in the Gallile which destroyed what was left in Israel and shortly afterwards Jullian the Apostate was killed in Battle and all plans for rebuilding the Bais Hamigdosh were shelved
its a good question baalhaboozer, i heard once from a rebbi a few answers.
1) in the minhagei maharil it is written thatwe rejoice for the students who were spared
2) in th Biur haGr”a, the vilna goan brings a mekor from the torah that we must rejoice when suffering ends. Hashem had decreed that those over 20 yrs who left mitzrayim would die in the midbar. 40 yrs later, when the decree of death had ended, they marked the 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) as a Yom Tov.
3)the pri chadash says the celebration of lag b’omer is because that is the day r’ akiva gave smicha to his new 5 talmidim: r’ meir, r’ yosi, r’ yehuda, r’ shimon bar yochai and r’ elazar ben shamoa. it was these 5 students who disseminated torah after the tragic death of the other 24,000 students.
peace.
Sam2- Baal: I’m not sure if that’s true. We weren’t saying Tachanun on Lag Ba’omer long before they had Hilulas.
Sam2, Then when did we stop saying Tachanun on Lag B’Omer? Was it long before hilula d’Rashbi? When do you figure?
MZ: I think I read that Hilula D’Rashbi really only became a popular thing a few hundred years ago.
Wow baal, same dvar Torah! You answered your own question! 🙂
In the time of the Rishonim, at least out of Eretz Yisroel, Lag Ba’omer was only celebrated for the fact that the Talmidim stopped dying.
Rebbi Akiva’s Talmidim were not all dead because there were still at least five left. You can argue that it is Mashma that he found them afterwards, but some hold that they only stopped dying that day but continued to die afterward. Or, those that were sick beforehand died after.
The Maharal in Nesiv Hatorah says that Lag Ba’omer, which is Chai in Iyar, is a day of life and healing. That is why they stopped dying.
The Bnei Yisaschar has a lot of Remazim for Lag Ba’omer.
We are celebrating recieving the zohar
I was wondering, where did this notion begin that Lag Ba’omer is a relic of a celebration of the Bar Kochva revolt? It actually doesn’t make any sense to me to celebrate it.
Hi BH.
I can only imagine the sense of doom they felt back then, so when it finally came to an end, on that day they saw fit to celebrate and could lift their hearts a little at a time.
With G-d’s help, they find a cure for all the terminal diseases. While we would feel pain for what happened up to that point, there would also be cause to celebrate at the same time.
I was wondering, where did this notion begin that Lag Ba’omer is a relic of a celebration of the Bar Kochva revolt? It actually doesn’t make any sense to me to celebrate it.
Actually it makes plenty of sense
It is unlikely that Rebbi Akiva had 24,000 students (Think how big that really would have been) And its was also was likley illegal under the roman to celebrate the Rebellion.
So they said it was for the “Students” of Rebbe Akiva rather than Bar Cochba Soldiers to bypass Roman censors.
The Gemara was written under the rule of the Parthians, a constant enemy of the Romans. They would have been more than glad to see all the anti-Roman messages in the Gemara. So that one makes even less sense. Are you oblivious to the countless anti-Roman statements of Chazal?
But it actually makes no sense to me to celebrate an unsuccesful revolution. What exactly are you celebrating, the fact that people desired to revolt?
What are the 400 benchfuls of Talmidim that came to Beis Medrash when Rebbe Gamliel left? Are they also soldiers?
Are you oblivious to the countless anti-Roman statements of Chazal?
Not all Chazal were Anti-Roman especially Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi and Likely Rebbi Yochanan Zakai as well
We celebrate Lag BaOmer because R Shimon Bar Yochai revealed the Zohar. He revealed the penimius of the Torah for the first time allowing the light of Moshiach to finally break through into the world so it is an amazing day. It is held in such high regard in the olamos that a student of the AriZal was punished for crying over the Bais Hamikdash on that day. To intertwine the two, the penimius of the Torah allowed people who disrespected one another to finally realize to the holiness of every single Jew – hence the connection between the students who stopped dying and the Reb Shimon revealing the Zohar Hakadosh.
I think also the dispute between Rabban Gamliel and Rebbi Yehoshua was at least partly about the Romans, One of them favored good relations with the Romans and the other didnt.
(I think Rabban Gamliel was pro-roman as he was a decendent of Rebbe…but I could be wrong and have them mixed up)
AC: The Zohar was only revealed publicly about 500 years ago. (For a thousand years prior it was secret.) Lag Bomer has been celebrated longer than that.
Derszoger, it may have been revealed publicly 500 years ago, but we celebrate Reb Shimon finally revealed it on LagBaomer. That we always knew.
Not all Chazal were Anti-Roman especially Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi and Likely Rebbi Yochanan Zakai as well
Let’s keep in mind that the period of “Chazal” covers several hundred years and several thousand miles.
Saying that Chazal were anti-Roman (or not anti-Roman) with any consistency is like trying to say that Americans are anti-British because of all the anti-British rhetoric that existed in America between 1763 and 1820 (or that they weren’t anti-British based on their alliance in World War II).
In other words, one could easily expect that they weren’t so anti-Roman before the churban (in R. Yehuda’s time) and vehemently anti-Roman after the churban. Statements of Chazal about surrounding cultures, powers and people have to be viewed through the lens of what was actually happening in those times. You can’t take statements made across the centuries by different people in vastly different places and make general statements.
The Wolf
AC: How did the public know of the existence of the Zohar prior to its public release 500 years ago?
Yes, I realize my mistake — R. Yehuda lived well after the churban. My apologies. Nonetheless, my main point still applies.
The Wolf
The Romans made plenty of trouble long before the Churban. They almost destroyed the Beis Hamikdosh many years before they actually did.
Just because Rebbe Yehuda mentioned a good point doesn’t mean he was “pro Roman”. There was nothing to be pro about. They were Machriv the Beis Hamikdash, and they had already crushed Bar Kochva’s revolution, that you celebrate.
Regardless, that whole conversation was in fact recorded, unsencored, in the Gemara. There is no reason to make up stories different than what Chazal told us.
Wolf,
It never really got much better, besides for those good years during Rebbi and Antoninus. During the time of Rebbe Yochanan the empire split. That is why the Talmud Yerushalmi ended then. They couldn’t continue learning the same. They were still called Malchus Harisha many generations later.
This is all, of course, besides my point that there was no fright of censoring in the early days about anti-Roman remarks in the Gemara. So, if Chazal tell us that we mourn the Talmidim that died because they didn’t honor one another enough, then that’s exactly what it means. And when Chazal actually mourn the Harugei Beitar they didn’t hide it. And when they tell us that the Bracha of Hatov Umeitiv is because the Harugei Beitar remained whole they didn’t hide that either.
I didn’t question the veracity of Chazal’s words. My question was if there is any true source that anything significant about the Bar Kochva revolt happened on Lag Ba’omer.
HaLeiVi
You really need to read the History books, The Romans even intended to rebuild the Temple under Julian the Apostate around the year 363 , but the Earthquake hit and it was not possible anymore.
If Rebbe was not Pro-Roman why was his good friends with the Roman Empereror Marcus Antonious.
Because the Roman Emporer realized Rebbe’s greatness, and asked Rebbe if he will have a Chelek in Olam Haba although he is from the rulers of Esav. Yes, that was a good period under the Roman’s. Rebbi Yehuda Hanasi knew that it won’t last, and he therefore organized the Mishnayos.
Roman trouble started pretty much from when they were introduced to the land. There might have been some better times after they felt the Jews were weak enough and unorganized. That was many generations after the Churban. There were probably barely any Amora’im left in Eretz Yisroel. Once the Bizzantine government took control things got much worse.
This is all a side point, though. Am I safe to assume that the Lag Ba’omer-rebellion connection is a recent invention?
HaLeiVi: Very recent. I once heard someone (not a rabid anti-Zionist either) claim that there is no such source pre-Zionism. It’s quite curious, actually.
From The Real Meaning of LaG BaOmer by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
Ramah quite seriously.
A number of reasons are cited by Torah authorities for commemorating Lag BaOmer:
(Shla Psachim 525).
inner secrets of the Torah (Chayei Adam Moadim 131:11)
493)
Also,
students, the Minhag is to celebrate a little bit and not to make it
into a full-fledged holiday. The Chsam Sofer points out that our
Talmud does not mention it as a holiday at all.
So how do we commemorate this day? The Bnei Yissasschar states that
the custom is to light a number of candles in Shul on this day. We do
bad dream. We do not recite Tachanun on this day, nor the Mincha
before it. We get married and attend weddings. We join in with
singing and dancing, and we listen to music (See Pri Magadim Aishel
Avrohom 493:1).
The regular R’ Yehuda, one of the five students mentioned above, whose full name was R’ Yehuda bar Ila’i, was very pro-Roman. R’ Shimon bar Yochai, on the other hand, thought lowly of the Romans.
In regards to what Rav Meir Stern Shlita I just confirmed with someone very involved with the Yeshiva Gedola of Passaic that Rav Stern did not make a public statement and said everyone should follow their own Rov. Though many people in Passaic are attending the Yeshiva Ktana of Passaic dinner that night, there are those who send their children to other schools in and outside Passaic so just wanted to clarify that. Also, there is an addition venue now for the Asifa at the Tennis Stadium near Citifield which has over 22,000 seats.
Sure Yitay, he was probably against getting the Semicha he got because it was against the rules of the ‘Great Romans’.
You cant make up your own history
Yes there were many members of Chazal like Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai who hated the Romans and the Romans Destroyed the Beis Hamingdosh
But you seem to be forgetting Yavneh, where learning occured for hundred of years until Rome itself fell into disarray.
The Romans left Yavneh alone and the Misha and Yerushalmi was written there
The fact is that when this Rebbe Yehuda was in middle of getting his Semicha, he had to run off because a Roman soldier spotted him. The one giving the Semicha was killed on the spot.
You are deciding pro or con based on certain facts. But the Gemara’s title Malchus Harish’a is not bestowed on just anyone. This is the attitude that Chazal actually portray, not what is assumed based on some event or another.
The Medrash Tanchuma relates that when Rebbe Yehuda Hanasi was in Rome and one of his sons was impressed by the Roman soldiers, the other son showed him some fruit flies in the market and remarked that they are worth the same. When the first son told this over to Rebbe Yehuda Hanasi, he replied that the flies are worth more, for they actually fulfill their purpose. Now, that’s from Antoninus’ great friend.
I heard two other answers that no one has yet mentioned to answer the OP:
1) The Ramban says that the days of Sefiras ha’Omer are like a “Chol ha’Mo’ed” between Pesach and Shavuos. The truth is, therefore, that ALL of them should be celebrated. However, we mourn the deaths of the students on all of the other days of Sefira. When this is not applicable, we celebrate that day itself! (Heard from a Chashuva Rav)
2) Rebbi Akiva was also supposed to die during this time period. We celebrate that he was spared. (Heard from a very fine Yid, but not the same level as the first.)
HaLeiVi –
You can bring up whatever facts you’d like, but the fact is the only thing we have R’ Yehuda saying about the Romans is praise. ??? ?’ ????? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ???? ??????? – Shabbos 33b. The Romans even gave him the position of always being the first speaker because he lauded them so.
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