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Lag BaOmer
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When is Lag BaOmer?"Lag BaOmer" is the thirty third day of counting the Omer (Iyar, 18) . The word "Lag" means 33 because it is comprised of the letters "lamud" and "gimmel," corresponding to the numerical values of "30" and "3." Why do we celebrate Lag BaOmer?According to the Torah (Lev. 23:15), we are obligated to count the days from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavu'ot, seven full weeks. This period is known as the Counting of the Omer. An omer is a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering. In the time of Rabbi Akiva, who witnessed the destruction of the Second Temple and who was the greatest Torah Sage of his generation, twenty four thousand of his disciples died in an epidemic. The underlying spiritual cause of the epidemic was the students' lack of respect for each other. This sad event and others took place during the Counting of the Omer. As a result, this period is a time of partial mourning, during which weddings, parties, and dinners with dancing are not conducted, in memory of a plague during the lifetime of Rabbi Akiba. Haircuts during this time are also forbidden. But because the epidemic was suspended on the 33rd day - Lag BaOmer - Lag BaOmer has become a joyous day of celebration. The mourning practices of the omer period are lifted on that date. The word "Lag" is not really a word; it is the number 33 in Hebrew. What are the customs of Lag BaOmer?Bonfires
List of DatesLag BaOmer will occur on the following days of the Gregorian calendar:
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Some people light bonfires on Lag BaOmer and sing songs in honor of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who revealed the teachings of the Zohar to the world on Lag BaOmer.