Lessons on Rav Shim'on Bar Yochai
The Secrets of Lag BaOmer
The minor holiday of Lag BaOmer, coming up next Thursday, is traditionally associated with the Divine Tannaitic Sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi) – as well as with the thousands of students of Rabbi Akiva, who "stopped dying" on this day. Both of these are connected to each other...
Rabbi Yossef Carmel | Iyar 12 5782
Rashbi - Basing Law on Thought
Many Jews visit the grave of Rashbi on Lag BaOmer, but the real point of this occasion is to attach oneself to this righteous sage through his teachings. The sages thus say, “We do not make gravestones for the righteous; their words are their memory.”
Rabbi David Dov Levanon | Iyar 5768
Success and Ideal
Why do we continue to praise and commemorate the activities of Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kokhba generation after generation? Was not their war on the Romans a reckless step, a lost cause that brought nothing but tragedy and hardship upon the Jewish people?
Rabbi Ya'akov Peleg | Iyar 5767
The Physical Spiritual
Lag Ba'omer
Lag Ba'omer
Rabbi Gideon Weitzman | 5765
R' Yehuda the Head Speaker
Lag Ba'omer
R Yehuda said, “How pleasant are the doings of this nation (Rome). They have built marketplaces, bridges, and bathhouses.” R' Yose kept quiet. R' Shimon ben Yochai responded, saying, “Everything they have built, they have built for their own good.”
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaLevi Kilav | 5755
Lag BaOmer
The accepted way of marking the death of a righteous person is by fasting. How then is it that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's expiration has become occasion for joy and festivity?
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed | Iyar 5761
