Police have deployed 1,200 officers as the masses flock to the grave of R' Shimon Bar Yochai
Tens of thousands of people have flocked to Meron in honor of the hilula [memorial celebration] for the mystic sage, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi), author of the seminal kabbalistic text, the Zohar, and to take part in the Lag Ba'Omer bonfire lighting near his grave.
Rashbi and his son spent 13 years in a cave hiding from the Romans, who accused him of sedition, subsisting on carobs and water from a spring - both miraculously found in their hiding place.
Lag Ba'Omer, the 33rd of the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, is considered the day on which the innermost secrets of the Torah were revealed by Rashbi as he was surrounded by an aura of light - one of the reasons for the bonfires. It is also the day celebrating the stoppage of a plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's disciples in the early 2nd century C.E.
Events will include students meeting to learn Torah with residents from Elon Moreh and Yizhar and Torah lectures about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who was also a prolific Torah scholar with over 3000 halakhot attributed to him. Read the rest on: Arutz7
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