In a country that doesn’t lack for drama, bonfires on Lag Ba’omer can feel like a quaint sideshow. Kids gather wood for weeks, youth movements plan singalongs, and the night sky shimmers with light and smoke. It’s fun and nostalgic – and easy to dismiss as little more than a cultural tradition.
But Lag Ba’omer is not just about marshmallows and campfire songs. It’s one of Judaism’s most quietly radical days. Its deeper layers speak directly to the soul of Israeli society today, especially as we navigate deep internal divides, existential threats, and questions about what kind of country we want to be.
Lag Ba’omer sits strangely on the Jewish calendar. It’s not mentioned in the Torah. It emerges in rabbinic literature almost as a footnote: the day when a deadly plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students finally ended. The Talmud (Yevamot 62b) hints at the reason: “They did not treat each other with respect.”
It’s hard to think of a more relevant warning. The last few years have seen Israelis protest against one another in the streets, political rhetoric descend into bitterness, and societal trust wear dangerously thin.
Lag Ba’omer comes along and sounds an ancient alarm: the greatest threats to Jewish continuity aren’t always external.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l captured it perfectly: “The Judaism of ‘we’ is greater than the Judaism of ‘I’.” Without mutual respect, even the most righteous community can collapse from within. That’s not just a lesson for religious Jews: It’s a message for all of us who care about the future of this country.
From rebellion to resilience
Lag Ba’omer is also associated with another famous figure: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the mystical sage who, according to tradition, died on this day. Rashbi hid in a cave for 13 years to escape Roman persecution, where he survived on carob and water and immersed himself in Torah and spiritual vision.
Later tradition links Lag Ba’omer to the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans, casting Rashbi as its spiritual heartbeat.
That combination – resistance and revelation – has resonated for centuries. For Jews under oppression, Rashbi symbolized quiet defiance and inner freedom.
For the early Zionists, Lag Ba’omer became a nationalistic celebration, complete with bow-and-arrow games, stories of Jewish heroism, and a spirit of rebellion.
In today’s Israel, where security, identity, and memory all blur into each other, this symbolism still speaks. Rashbi’s cave wasn’t just a hiding place – it was a crucible for vision. His example reminds us that resilience isn’t just military or political: It’s spiritual. Cultural. Emotional. Sometimes the most important revolutions start underground – literally.
Meron, memory, and responsibility
Of course, we can’t talk about Lag Ba’omer in 2025 without recalling the tragedy at Mount Meron in 2021, when 45 people died in a preventable crowd disaster. That day ripped away the illusion that our spiritual celebrations are immune from bureaucratic failure or communal negligence. The light of Rashbi’s fire cannot shine if it is not grounded in responsibility.
Since then, the pilgrimage to Meron has been scaled back, regulated, and – crucially – reconsidered. That’s a painful but necessary shift. Because if Lag Ba’omer is about anything, it’s about taking spiritual energy and applying it wisely in the real world.
The fire that illuminates
One of the more poetic teachings about Lag Ba’omer comes from the Kabbalists, who associate it with the sefirah of Hod sheb’Hod – humility within humility. That’s the spiritual quality we’re meant to embody on the 33rd day of the Omer count.
In a country as vibrant and argumentative as Israel, humility isn’t exactly our strong suit. We’re proud, pioneering, opinionated. And that has built miracles. But there’s a quiet fire we need to tend alongside the louder ones: A fire of listening. Of backing down sometimes. Of choosing relationship over righteousness.
Micah Goodman, the Israeli author and thinker, recently observed that Israel today is “a society stuck between memory and destiny.” We remember everything – our traumas, our victories, our claims – but we struggle to agree on what we’re building together. Lag Ba’omer, in its modest, mysterious way, invites us to pivot. To shift from reactive to reflective. To use our fires not to burn down, but to light the way.
The kids get it
Ironically, it’s the youngest Israelis who often understand Lag Ba’omer best. For them, it’s not a day of theology or politics. It’s about collecting wood with friends, guarding a flame, singing late into the night. And maybe that’s the point.
We transmit Jewish identity not just through laws or slogans, but through moments. Shared heat. Shared light. Shared memory. In a hyper-digital age, when everything feels fast, fractured, and transactional, the bonfire becomes a space for presence; for story, for belonging.
And that may be the most important lesson of all. In a society torn between tribes and ideologies, maybe what we need isn’t more arguments – but more fire circles. Fewer podiums, more listening. Less echo chamber, more campfire.
One day, many meanings
Lag Ba’omer is weird. It’s ambiguous. It’s loaded with mysticism, history, and paradox. But maybe that’s what makes it so Israeli. It holds contradiction and unity together. It celebrates rebellion and reverence. It remembers tragedy and insists on joy.
And maybe, just maybe, it holds a blueprint for us. If we can respect difference like Rabbi Akiva’s students failed to do; if we can learn from Rashbi to nurture resilience in quiet caves; if we can hold responsibility and joy in the same hand – we might yet turn our many fires into one enduring light.
Let’s not wait for another crisis or tragedy to remember that.
The writer is a rabbi and physician who lives in Ramat Poleg, Netanya. He is a co-founder of Techelet-Inspiring Judaism.