This is a photograph of a young boy standing in front of a bonfire on Lag B’Omer in 1972. The black and white photograph depicts a big bonfire made of large branches. The boy, with his back to the camera, is watching the flames.
Bonfires are a popular Lag B’Omer tradition and are made throughout Israel on the night of the festival. There are various explanations for this custom. According to tradition, when Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi), whose yahrzeit is commemorated on Lag B’Omer, was giving his final lesson to his students, instead of darkness falling as it became night, the sun miraculously continued to shine, enabling him to complete the lesson in daylight. The bonfires represent the light that Rashbi brought to the world through his writings and teaching. Another explanation for lighting bonfires on Lag B’Omer is to remember the participants in the Bar Kochva revolt (132–135 CE), who lit torches on the mountaintops to signal the beginning of the revolt. The Bar Kochva revolt became a symbol of strength and self-determination to the early Zionists.
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Lag B’Omer – Lag B’Omer, literally the 33rd day of the Omer, is a minor holiday celebrated during the Counting of the Omer, the forty-nine-day period between Pesach and Shavuot described in the Torah. According to the Talmud, this period became a time of semi-mourning due to a plague that killed thousands of Rabbi Akiva’s students. Tradition holds that the plague ended on the 33rd day of the Omer (Lag B’Omer), also the day on which Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai – the mystic who, according to tradition wrote the Kabbalistic text, the Zohar – is said to have died. Lag B’Omer is celebrated with bonfires, visits to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s grave on Mt. Meron, and music. Some people also celebrate Lag B’Omer by having their three-year old sons’ first haircuts at Mt. Meron.
Bar Kochva Revolt – This was the last Jewish revolt against the Romans that was led by Shimon bar Kochva between 132 and 136 CE. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the failure of the Great Revolt, the Jews remaining in Judea were under the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. The Bar Kochva revolt began as a result of the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a pagan city called Aelia Capitolina and as a protest against religious prohibitions on practices the brit milah (circumcision). The military leader Bar Kochva was supported by Rabbi Akiva, who even pronounced that he was the Messiah. Initially, the Jewish army was victorious against the Romans, and after conquering vast areas in Judea, a Jewish independent state was established with Bar Kochva as “president of Israel.” However, after two years, the Romans sent additional forces to Israel and slowly regained its rule over the Jewish state. In 135, Beitar, the last stronghold of the Bar Kochva’s force, fell after a long siege. Bar Kochva was killed, Judea was captured, Jewish villages and towns were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. Following the defeat, many sages who had not supported Bar Kochva’s struggle against the Romans renamed the leader Ben Kusiba, meaning the “deceptive,” and identified him as a false messiah. The years of Bar Kochva’s rule signified the last independent Jewish rule in Israel until the establishment of the State of Israel close to 2,000 years later.
