Q&A: Lag BaOmer
Lag BaOmer
Question
Hello, Rabbi!
A. Today I heard that Rabbi Shimon left all kinds of secrets in the world before his passing. Can the Rabbi share what secrets these were and give an example? I have a feeling this is an attempt to create an aura around the figure, and not necessarily anything meaningful.
B. If the death of Rabbi Akiva’s students was such a difficult event, why didn’t the sages of that period establish customs of mourning?
Answer
A. It would be worth asking whoever you heard it from.
B. I don’t know. There are claims that there was an ancient custom of mourning during that period, and they pinned it onto Rabbi Akiva’s students. Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri says that the judgment of the wicked in Gehenna is between Passover and Shavuot.
Discussion on Answer
Fire rises upward. The secret is that human beings fall downward and die.
In your words too, dear decisor, deep secrets are hidden within the mysteries of the mysteries of existence! To my great sorrow, I am also unable to explain them to the simple masses, but the enlightened person at that time will learn and know that everything you know in Torah is only the most external outer shell. Foolish people think that all there is is an ox that gored, and that doubt does not override certainty. Wise people know that all this is but a garment and shell for the loftiest grandeur in the radiant soul of the Torah, and enough said.
A. I heard that too. I’m not permitted to reveal the secrets themselves in public, but the first secret has to do with the reason fire has shades that recall the rainbow, which is the sign of the covenant concerning the floodwaters, which are the opposite of fire. Therefore on Lag BaOmer they light fire, and the whole matter, profound as it is, can be found in brief in the Book of the Zohar according to the Sulam commentary.