Following the IDF’s announcement last week that the Meron site will be closed to the public on Lag B’Omer, the Boyaner chassidus announced on Erev Shabbos that due to his longstanding mesorah, the Boyaner Rebbe will carry out an hadlakah at Meron on Lag B’Omer with a minyan of chassidim.

This mesorah of the Boyaner chassidus began in the 1800s when the Ruzhiner Rebbe, HaRav Yisrael Friedman, purchased the rights for himself and his descendants to light the Lag B’Omer hadlakah in Meron from the Sephardi Rabbanim of Tzfas, who had carried out the hadlaka for centuries. The kavod was passed to his son, HaRav Avraham Yaakov Friedman of Sadigura, and then to the latter’s sons, Rav Yisrael and Rav Yitzchak, also known as the Pachad Yitzchak, who began the Boyaner chassidus. Since then, the kavod has remained in the Boyanis chassidus.

Lag B’Omer is on Motzei Shabbos/Sunday in two weeks and for the first time, thousands of chassidim will spend the Shabbos before Lag B’Omer with the Rebbe in Yerushalayim.

On Motzei Shabbos, the Rebbe will carry out an hadlakah in the Boyaner Beis Medrash in Yerushalayim and he will then travel to Meron with a minyan of chassidim and carry out a hadlaka there – fulfilling the mesorah of his ancestors.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)