LIVE: Hundreds of Thousands Celebrate Lag B’Omer in Meron

Photo Credit: Kan Moreshet / YouTube screenshot

Hundreds of thousands of Jews from across Israel and abroad streamed into the mountaintop town of Meron in northern Israel to celebrate Lag B’Omer at the tomb of Talmudic Sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi). As he does every year, the Boyaner Rebbe Rabbi Nachum Dov Brayer will light the first bonfire at the sacred site.

Lag B’Omer marks the passing of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who is believed to be the second century CE author of the Zohar, the mystical commentary on the Torah, as well as the end of a deadly plague that took the lives of thousands of yeshiva students and followers of the saintly Rabbi Akiva in the Land of Israel.