Lag baOmer

This year, Lag baOmer was celebrated for two nights in Jerusalem!

The holiday was "officially" postponed one day so that no one would violate Shabbat to prepare for it, but I smelled bonfires on both motzaei Shabbos and Sunday night. In fact, Sunday night, the air was thick with smoke.

I recently read that Lag BaOmer may have originated in a brief victory of Bar Kochba's troops against the Romans after a series of defeats. That rings true for me. It would mean the holiday is older than Shimon bar Yochai, and attributing it to a later figure reflects the rabbinic inclination to avoid celebrating rebellion or war. Dancing around bonfires for Shimon bar Yochai or the Kabbalistic "splendor within splendor" seem like a later accretion. The Bar Kochba rebellion origin also makes sense of the bows and arrows, symbols associated with the holiday.

Google image

Update: According to my employer, the Minister of Education made the announcement postponing Lag Ba'Omer just three weeks ago and it was a vain attempt to control people who don't observe Shabbat; people who are Shomer Shabbat obviously waited until after havdallah to light their fires. Most people had already made plans for the long weekend and didn't change their plans. So the real question, is "Who celebrated Sunday night?"

(Yay! Israeli kids have an extra day off from school!)