Lag Baomer is commonly said to be the day on which Shimon ben Yochai died. Neither Chazal nor the Rishonim mention that the date of his death was Lag Baomer; the first known appearance of this claim is in the Sabbatean Hemdat Yamim (1731), but it was later popularized by a misprinting of Hayyim Vital, which replaced שמחת רשב"י "the celebration of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai" with שמת רשב"י "when Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai died". The actual origin of kabbalistic traditions of visiting Meron on any of several dates in the month of Iyar date to the Middle Ages; but it is not clear when, by whom, or in what way Lag baOmer was first connected to Shimon ben Yochai.[16] Nachman Krochmal, a 19th-century Jewish scholar, among others, suggests that the deaths of Rabbi Akiva's students was a veiled reference to the defeat of "Akiva's soldiers" by the Romans, and that Lag BaOmer was the day on which Bar Kokhba enjoyed a brief victory.[13] In pre-war Europe, Lag BaOmer became a special holiday for students and was called "Scholar's Day". Students were freed to engage in outdoor sports.[17] According to another suggestion, Lag Baomer was the date on which the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem began under the Emperor Julian. With the failure of this project and the death of Julian, Lag Baomer initially became a fast day. After the Muslim conquest and the end of Christian oppression of Jews in Israel, mourning practices ceased to be observed. The choice to begin the reconstruction on the 33rd day of the omer may have been an anti-Christian polemic, as Jesus was said to have been killed at age 33.[18] Another theory posits that the connection between Lag Baomer and Shimon Bar Yochai arose from a general pilgrimage to Mount Meron on Pesach Sheini (15th of Iyar), specifically to Hillel's cave wherein water filled up the cave's cisterns and sometimes overflowed; the natural phenomenon poorly understood then was considered miraculous and attracted Jews and Muslims alike. As Hillel's cave is close to Mount Meron it was customary for the pilgrims to stop by the graves of other holy saints on Mount Meron, among them Shimon's tomb. During the 16th century, when the Ashkenazic community came to Safed, the pilgrimage naturally moved up to Lag Baomer (3 days later), already a joyous day according to Ashekaniz custom (Rema OC 493:2), as it was believed to be the day the plague of Rabbi Akiva's students ended. As one of the latter's prominent students, Shimon's tomb ultimately became the focus of the pilgrimage |
