Meron, Israel – Aaround 30,000 revelers thronged the night’s Hillula ceremony marking the Lag Ba’omer holiday at the tomb of Shimon bar Yohai on Mount Meron in the Upper Galilee. As this year’s holiday fell on a Saturday, many arrived at the shrine honoring the first-century mystic only in the evening hours.
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Motti Bukzin, a volunteer with the ZAKA emergency-response organization, has been at the site since the middle of last week. “There’s something electric in the air that can’t be found anywhere else in the world,” the Petah Tikva resident said. “It’s an uplifting experience that’s difficult to describe in words.”
Among those in attendance were secular visitors drawn to Meron to take in the extraordinary sight. “We came with a group of hikers,” said Danny Nir of the Lower Galilee community of Yuvalim. “We were told to prepare for an unusual – and packed – event. I’ve already been in India and other places in the world, but I’ve never been to an event of this kind, even though it’s been taking place under my nose.”
Virtually unprecedented measures were taken ahead of this year’s event, with thousands of police officers, Magen David Adom staff, ZAKA volunteers and firefighters deployed at the shrine. Dozens of buses transported celebrants from a number of parking lots set up on Meron, Israel’s highest peak after Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights.
Around 11:00 P.M. a number of bonfires were lit, with dozens of bar-mitzvah age boys granted the honor of lighting the central fire on the tomb’s roof.
At the shrine’s entrance, hundreds of visitors danced cheerfully. “Here there are none of the disputes or arguments that preoccupy us the rest of the year,” Bukzin said. “Look up there – a man in a shtreimel is dancing next to a man in a fedora, who’s dancing next to one in a knitted skullcap and another in a black yarmulke,” he said. (A shtreimel is a fur hat worn by members of certain ultra-Orthodox groups on festive occasions.)
“All of our problems and worries are forgotten here,” Bukzin said.
L’kuved ha’taneh elokei rabbi shimon bar yochai!
Semachti Simcha Gedolah! Chareidim, Mizrachim, Sfardim, and Chassidim all getting along.
We actually get along all year long. Ein hachi nami,we have our differences and sometimes it flares up, but it’s only the outsiders who think we hate each other. Actually we love each other all year long!
I don’t like the use of the word raucous, it insinuates a wild, out of control, rowdy excitement which is NOT what is being described, a better word would have been lively or spiritual!
it was a lot more then 30,000
Rebbe Shimon bar Yocai is named as the Rebbe of all “Rabbe Shimon La kol” every jew is so precious no matter what, where, how, You can see this at the Hilulah
for goodness sake what is this big fascination with india? takeh look in your “own backyard” and you’ll find spirituality.