Lag Ba-omer, literally the 33rd day in the counting of the omer or the 18th of Iyar, is a mysterious day since there is no obvious explanation for why the day is special.
The traditional reason for the holiday is that it is claimed that this is the day when the students of R. Akiva stopped dying. The Talmud (Yevamot 62b) records that 12,000 pairs of students of R. Akiva died at one time since they did not respect each other, and the Talmud explains that they died from Pesach to Shavuot.
The Talmud makes no mention of Lag Ba-omer, and also in the time of the Geonim (9th, 10th centuries) there is no mention of Lag Ba-omer. Interestingly in the 9th century there is a reference to the 18th of Iyar in a piyyut which refers to the day as the fast of Yehoshua due to the battle of Ai, Joshua 7:6 (quoted in Levinsky, 1955, vol. 6, p.357), but again there is no mention of Lag Ba-omer. Also, the Rambam does not mention Lag Ba-omer, and in Yemen, the Dardaim, who did not accept the Zohar, treated Lag Ba-omer as a regular day (Lavinsky, p.363).
In Provence, France in the Middle Ages, we have the first references to Lag Ba-omer. R. Avraham Hayarchi (1155, Provence, to 1215 Toledo, Spain) writes in the Sefer Hamanhig (quoted in Zevin, 1956, p. 299) that in France and Provence the custom was to marry from Lag Ba-omer onwards. To support this practice, he writes that he heard from R. Zecharya Halevi (1125 Gerona to 1186, Provence) that a text was found in Spain which records that R. Akiva's students died until "peros" Shavout. R. Hayarchi writes that peros means half, and as the word half appears with regard to the law of learning the laws of Pesach 30 days before Pesach, then peros means half of 30 or 15. Thus, he writes that Lag Ba-omer is 15 days prior to Shavout.
This explanation of peros is very difficult since even if peros means half why should the word be related to the 30 days before Pesach and mean 15? In addition, Lag Ba-omer is not 15 days before Shavout but 17 days. In fact, because of this reason of peros, the Shulchan Arukh (1488-1575, Orah Chayyim 493:2) writes that the period of mourning ends during the 34th day of the omer, which is 15 days less than 49. It seems that the Shulchan Arukh did not consider Lag Ba-omer a special day. Finally, Daniel Sperber (1995a, pp.237-239) quotes Saul Liebermann that the word peros means the day before, and then the phrase peros Shavout means that the students of R. Akiva died until the day before Shavout, which corresponds to the Talmud.
The Meiri (1249-1306, commentary on Yevamot 62a) who was also from Provence writes that there exists a tradition from the Geonim that the students of R. Akiva stopped dying on Lag Ba-omer. Most likely he knew the drasha of peros but because it was so weak he just relied on saying that a tradition existed without quoting the drasha. He also wrote more that due to this tradition people do not fast on Lag Ba-omer, which implies that he knew of the initial custom to fast on Lag Ba-omer.
This idea from Provence that Lag Ba-omer is because the students of R. Akiva stopped dying on the day is difficult independent of the problems with the drasha of peros. First, it contradicts our Gemara, and secondly, as the Prei Hadesh (1659-1695, 493:2) asks what is the happiness that the students stopped dying as all the students were dead?
The Maharil (1365-1437, Germany, Sefer Maharil, 1989, p.156) writes that Lag Ba-omer was a day of happiness, and he suggested a new reason for the day. He follows the Talmud that the students of R. Akiva died throughout the entire period, but he claims that they only died on days when tachanun was recited. There were 17 days when tachanun was not said (Pesach, 7, Shabbat, 7, and Rosh Hodesh, 3) between Pesach and Shavout, and hence the students died for 32 days. With this rationale Lag Ba-omer is celebrated not because the students of R. Akiva did not die on the day but as a sign that they died only for 32 days. Thus, the Maharil ingenuously combined the Talmud that the students of R. Akiva died throughout the entire period, the idea in Provence that they died for only thirty three days, and Lag ba-omer. However, this is also a difficult approach. How did he know that the students of R. Akiva died only when tachanun was said? In addition, there are other days when tachanun is not said, the month of Nisan, Pesach Sheni, and the three days before Shavout, and also one of the days of Shabbat was on Pesach, see Sperber, 1990, p.104 and 1995a, pp.239-241. Again, it seems that Lag Ba-omer was an accepted holiday and the derivation is a justification for the holiday.
A modern explanation of the deaths of R. Akiva's students is that really these students were soldiers fighting in Bar Kokhba's rebellion (132-135). Some "proofs" for this idea is that we know that R. Akiva was an ardent supporter of Bar Kokhba and the reference to pair of students in the Talmud could mean small army (guerrilla?) units. This rationale could also explain the custom of going out with bows and arrows on Lag Ba-omer though more likely this custom developed in the Middle Ages under the influence of Christians who had archery contests in May.
Based on the connection between R. Akiva's students and Bar Kokhba, Levinsky (1955, p.342) suggests that Lag Ba-omer was the day when Bar Kokhba had one of his early victories. According to this idea, from the time of this victory onwards, there was a custom in Israel to celebrate Lag Ba-omer, and from Israel this custom spread to Provence and Germany.
Zechariah Goren (1992) argues that this connection of Bar Kokhba to Lag Ba-omer is due to Zionist ideology. The idea is that Bar Kokhba, the fighter, was viewed as a prototype of the new Jew that the Zionist movement wanted to create, and thus the Zionist movement wanted to stress the connections of the people to Bar Kokhba. However, Goren rejects the connection between Bar Kokhba and Lag Ba-omer for several reasons. One, if the holiday is celebrated due to a victory, then the holiday should be known as the 18th of Iyar since the victory has no connection with the omer. Goren notes that some people have claimed that the reference to the omer was a subterfuge to fool the Romans, but he doubts such a possibility. Also, as mentioned above, in the 9th century there is a piyyut that refers to the 18th of Iyar as the fast of Yehoshua and Goren points out that it seems that the author of the piyyut had no knowledge of any special events relating to Bar Kokhba or R. Akiva's students on Lag Ba-omer since no mention of these events are included in the piyyut. Furthermore, if Lag Ba-omer was from the second century, why then was it not mentioned until the Middle Ages? I can accept that the deaths of the students of R. Akiva relate to the Bar Kokhba revolt, but I doubt that people would celebrate any victory of Bar Kokhba in light of the fact that his rebellion led to disaster when he eventually lost to the Romans.
The second popular rationale for celebrating Lag Ba-omer is that it is claimed that this was the day that R. Shimon Bar Yochai died. However, the Hatam Sofer (quoted in Zevin, p.301) points out that the deaths of the righteous are reasons for fast days and not celebrations. Thus, there was (is?) a custom to fast on the day that Moshe died, so why would we celebrate the day that R. Shimon Bar Yochai died?
Avraham Yaari (1962) has a fascinating article where he traces the source of the celebrations at R. Shimon Bar Yochai's grave in Meron on Lag Ba-omer. He finds that there are no sources that refer to this celebration before the 16th century, though people did refer to the graves of Hillel and Shamai that were in the same area, and celebrations on the 14th of Iyar by those graves. The initial custom of the Kabbalists of Sefat in the 16th century was to go to the grave of R. Shimon Bar Yochai 10 days before Shavout and 10 days before Rosh Hashanah and not on Lag Ba-omer. Yaari claims that the source for the celebration in Meron on the Lag Ba-omer was a custom in Yerushalayim to go to the grave of Shmuel ha-Navi on the 28th of Iyar, and when this was prohibited by the Ottoman authorities, the people started going to Meron on the Lag Ba-omer.
Accordingly, there is no intrinsic connection between R. Shimon Bar Yochai and Lag Ba-omer. Furthermore, the claim that R. Shimon Bar Yochai died on Lag Ba-omer is first attributed to the Ari (16th century) but Yaari points out that the one source that makes this claim is most likely a corrupted text. Yaari notes that this point had already been made by the Hida (R. Hayyim Jospeh David Azulai, 1724-1806), and thus the Hida suggests instead that Lag Ba-omer was the day when R. Akiva started to teach his new students. Yet, this rationale just returns us to the idea that Lag Ba-omer was the day when R. Akiva's students stopped dying, which as mentioned above is difficult to accept.
From this review we see that in the Middle Ages, Lag Ba-omer had become a special day, and that the "holiday" seems to have begun in Provence. Maybe there is another possibility for the holiday based on the mourning customs during sefirat ha-omer in the time of the Geonim. Otzar Ha-Geonim (7:141, on Yevamot 62b) quotes two responses that in the time of the Geonim, there was a custom not to marry and not to work from dusk to dawn throughout entire period of the sefirat ha-omer due to the deaths of the students of Rabbi Akiva.
This custom not to marry was for quite a long time, and my guess is that in Provence there developed a "break-away" custom to shorten the period of mourning. Why starting on Lag Ba-omer could people marry? It is quite striking that Lag Ba-omer is two thirds of 49 (32.7), and thus the day signifies that two thirds of the sefirat ha-omer period has passed. Thus, as a justification for shortening the mourning period, in Provence they decided that it was enough to keep two thirds of the mourning of sefirat ha-omer. This would mean that people would only have to wait at most 33 days to marry instead of 49 days. After the restrictions ended, the following day would be a happy day, since people could then marry on that day. Most likely, this idea of a majority was not accepted by all and hence the drasha of peros was devised to support their new custom. Finally, this idea connects the holiday to sefirat ha-omer, and not to the 18th of Iyar, which would explain why the day is referred to as the 33rd day of the omer.
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