Lag ba-Omer: The 33rd of the "Sheaf"

by David Bivin

Thursday night, May 10, 2001, 7:00 p.m. -- Tonight is Lag ba-Omer. The neighborhood kids are busy outside. (I can hear their shouts.) They're making a last attempt to scavenge more boards for their bonfires. They've been busy all day -- in Israel, Lag ba-Omer is a school holiday. Some of the kids have been collecting scrap lumber and fallen tree limbs for over a week. In about an hour, when it's dark, the bonfires will be lighted and the country's firemen will begin to earn their salaries. The sky will reflect the myriad bonfires and the air will be thick with smoke. (Asthma sufferers, stay indoors!) Nothing can be done except keep the windows and doors tightly closed!

At 9:30 p.m. I take Jack, Jerusalem Perspective's office administrator Barbara Chamber's dog, for a walk. We see bonfires everywhere -- in empty lots, at the edges of construction sites and other open areas. Several families are joined together around each bonfire. The piles of wood have burned down a bit and fathers and children are busy roasting wienies (kosher, of course, made from turkey) over the fires. Aluminum-foil-wrapped potatoes are baking in deep beds of coals.

Friday morning, May 11. -- The odor of smoke hangs in the air. The trees and plants (and, if a window was left open, curtains and drapes) have absorbed a lot of smoke.

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Lag ba-Omer (literally, 33 [that is, the 33rd day] of the [counting of the] omer) is to Christians one of the least-known and least-understandable of Jewish holidays. And small wonder; this minor holiday is shrouded in the Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) of the Middle Ages.

God instructed the Israelites: "When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you must bring to the priest the first sheaf [omer] of your harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD...with the meal offering of two-tenths of a measure of fine flour...until the day you have brought this offering of your God, you must eat no bread, or roasted or new grain" (Lev. 23:10-11, 13-14).

Israel's ancient sages interpreted "omer" as a measure of flour rather than a sheaf of grain. Based on Exodus 16:36, "An omer is one tenth of an ephah," they defined the measure as a tenth of an ephah. They understood "harvest" in this passage to refer to the land's annual barley harvest. The measure of flour was an offering of the firstfruits of the barley harvest

While the Second Temple was still standing, on the 16th of Nisan, the day after the first day of Passover, enough barley was reaped to provide an ephah of grain. This grain was brought to the Temple where it was ground into flour. The flour was sifted thoroughly, and a tenth of it was given to a Temple priest, who, after mixing into it oil and frankincense, waved it before the LORD. Finally, a handful was thrown on the altar and burned, the remainder being eaten by priests serving in the Temple.

The Israelites were also instructed by God concerning Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks: "From the day on which you bring the sheaf for the wave offering -- the day after the sabbath -- you must count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. Bring from your places of residents two loaves each made of two-tenths of a measure of fine flour, baked after leavening, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the LORD." (Lev. 23:15-17).

Since the loaves represented the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, the fine flour from which they were baked was wheat flour. The wheat harvest began approximately seven weeks after the beginning of the barley harvest. It is between these two festive occasions that Lag ba-Omer falls.

The 49-day counting-of-the-omer period begins on the second day of Passover, the 16th of Nisan, and ends on the eve of Shavuot (Pentecost), the 5th of Sivan (May 27 this year). Lag ba-Omer falls on 33rd day of this period, the 18th of Iyyar, which this year corresponded to May 11.

Various explanations have been put forward to explain the origin of this holiday: 1) 24,000 disciples of Rabbi Akiva died of a plague during the Omer period; 2) the manna began to fall on this day; 3) the second-century sage Shim'on Bar-Yochai, regarded by kabbalists as the author of The Zohar, died on this day. (Actually, Moses ben Shem Tov of Leon wrote The Zohar between 1280 and 1286 A.D. See my "Medieval Jargon on First-century Lips," Jerusalem Perspective 56 [Jul.-Sept. 1999], 32-35.) However, the origin of Lag ba-Omer remains a mystery -- the holiday is not mentioned in written sources until the 13th century A.D.

For some reason the Omer period became associated with mourning, and consequently, marriages, haircutting and the use of musical instruments are not permitted during these 49 days. (The earliest reference to this custom comes from an 8th-century A.D. source.) However, for one day of the period, the 33rd (Lag ba-Omer), these prohibitions are lifted. The many marriages that take place on this day add to the festive character of the holiday.

Some scholars have suggested that the custom of mourning during the Omer period, especially the prohibition of marriage, can be traced to a Roman superstition about getting married during the Lemuria, the 32 days from the last night of April until the end of May. It was then, the ancient Romans believed, that lemures (ghosts of the unburied dead) returned to haunt the living. To appease these spirits and to exorcise them from their homes, the Romans held Lemuria, or funeral rites, for the dead. The conclusion of this period, the 33rd day, was celebrated as a festival.

The center of Lag ba-Omer festivities is the tomb of Shim'on Bar-Yochai on Mount Meron near Safed. Yearly, up to 100,000 attend the celebrations there, participating in the singing and dancing. In one of the ceremonies, three-year-old boys are given their first haircut, their long curls being thrown into the bonfire.

According to Friday's Jerusalem Post, "Roads leading to Safed and Mount Meron from all directions were blocked with traffic yesterday as revellers made their way to parking lots where buses waited to take them to the tomb. For the first time, there were two separate access paths -- one for men and the other for women. The main celebrations began with the traditional procession of an ancient Torah scroll from its home in Beit Abo in Safed to the tomb. Thousands of tents had already been pitched at the site, and by afternoon the air was filled with the aroma from scores of cooking stoves and barbecues. Many of the revellers believe that visits to the site of the sage's tomb helps people overcome ailments and brings blessings to the righteous."

*For further reading on this minor Jewish holiday, see the entries "Omer" and "Lag ba-Omer" in Encyclopaedia Judaica.