When
the plague of Rabbi Akiva's students ended, only five students
survived. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was among them.
Like his teacher Akiva, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was a great scholar
and political leader. He believed that all Jews should be immersed
exclusively in Torah study, and only late in life did he come
to understand that not every Jew could make such a total commitment.
His own intense study of Torah brought out the deeper, esoteric
meanings of the Torah. With the approval of his teachers, Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yochai set out to share the hidden secrets of the Torah,
what is today called Kabbalah, with his fellow Jews
With the arrest of Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his
son, Rabbi Elazar, were forced to go into hiding from Caeser's
army. For 13 years they dwelled in a cave on Mount Meron in the
Galilee, not far from the city of Safed, where, according to tradition,
they sustained themselves with the fruit of a carob tree. When
the throne changed hands, the pair of scholars were able to come
out of hiding and once again share their knowledge with their
people.
The teachings of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai were set down in a book
called the Zohar, which means "splendor." According to tradition,
on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer, Rabbi Shimon Bar
Yochai's last insight of Kabbalah was given over and he died.
Just before he passed away, he requested that his death not be
marked by sadness, for he felt that death should be a time of
rejoicing as the soul takes its proper place with G-d. The great
sage, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who revealed the secrets of the
Kabbalah, was buried in his cave on Meron. For this reason, tens
of thousands of people gather on Mount Meron every year on Lag
B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer, to celebrate
the anniversary of his death.
