Lag B’Omer at Mt. Meron: What both sides get wrong

In the days leading up to Lag B’Omer, Israelis saw the writing on the wall – quite literally. “One who comes to kill you, rise early…” was the heading of a poster plastered throughout Haredi neighborhoods. The unwritten continuation of the text, a quote from the Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a, is “…kill him first,” incendiary language linked to a celebration that many find troubling and puzzling. 

The deep significance of the Lag B’Omer Hillula – the annual celebration at Mount Meron – is often lost on non-religious Israelis and others outside of the Haredi community. Why did the masses come to Meron this year despite the wartime restrictions issued by the police in coordination with the IDF? And why do they come year after year with seemingly unstoppable force through security threats, a pandemic, and just five years after a catastrophic crowd crush claimed the lives of 45 participants?

A hillula is a Jewish celebration on the anniversary of the death of a sage. The traditional Lag B’Omer Hillula is a pilgrimage-celebration held at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai – known by his acronym Rashbi – on the anniversary of his death at his burial site on Mount Meron in northern Israel. The celebration has been held for hundreds of years, but as Kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions grew stronger and Rashbi’s stature rose in the Jewish religious imagination, the Hillula became a defining event for various religious communities in Israel, primarily among those from Hasidic and Sephardic-Mizrahi backgrounds. 

In Talmudic and Midrashic sources, Rashbi is portrayed as one of the greatest disciples of Rabbi Akiva. But in the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, he is transformed into an altogether different kind of figure – not merely a sage from the Mishnah, but something closer to a new giver of Torah, the man through whom the inner secrets of the Torah were revealed. For entire communities, he embodies an encounter with a hidden depth of holiness, a promise of salvation, a religious fire that refuses to be contained within the boundaries of ordinary life. Meron, accordingly, is much more than just a burial site. It is a site of religious eruption: fire, song, tears, prayer, and a palpable closeness to the transcendent.

From the state’s perspective, Mount Meron is a dangerous mass-gathering site to be managed through regulation and enforcement. But many of those who ascend Mount Meron on Lag B’Omer experience a security checkpoint or prohibition on gathering not as a safety decision but as a violation of sacred space. This two-way misunderstanding is no justification for breaking the law, and certainly not for violence. It is, however, a necessary distinction, because Meron cannot be managed by orders and barriers alone.

Two years ago, the government imposed restrictions on the Hillula pilgrimage, again on security grounds, and yet tens of thousands of believers tried to make the ascent. Police enforcement was vigorous, and Haredi media circulated jarring images of elderly men beaten and collapsed on the ground. Out of this grew a collective memory of injury and humiliation, one that extremist circles are now attempting to recast in the language of struggle.

And so we return to this year’s writing on the wall: “One who comes to kill you, rise early [and kill him first].” The poster circulated across Haredi neighborhoods last week referred explicitly to law enforcement. The body of the poster promised “a special distribution of self-defense equipment for all those ascending to Meron, who fear a recurrence of police violence like that of two years ago.” The list included helmets, pepper spray, and electric tasers for the general public, and gas pistols, smoke grenades, and body cameras for community representatives. The poster was signed by “those who have drawn lessons from police violence at Meron.”

Those behind the poster are from a small minority of militant Haredi factions for whom confrontations with state authorities and the police are standard fare. To this we say unequivocally: This poster is not Meron, and it does not represent the tens of thousands who make the pilgrimage up the mountain. It is fringe, dangerous, and violent. But there is a crucial distinction between extreme elements that paint the police as the enemy, and a broad public seeking to reach a place of prayer, longing, and sanctity.

The poster exploits a deep religious impulse – the longing for the transcendent at the Meron Hillula – and twists it into a call for war. It replaces the real question – how to sustain a Hillula without endangering lives – with a false and dangerous one: how to fight those who are preventing us from reaching holiness. This interpretation distorts the religious significance of Meron. 

Here is where we see just how important the role of responsible Haredi leadership is – leadership that will reinforce the adamant statements of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rishon LeZion Rabbi David Yosef, who has discouraged ascending the mountain at this time. Haredi leadership must speak out against a romanticism of confrontation and for public responsibility and safety.

Five years after the Meron crush that left 45 dead, protecting life is not a betrayal of the Hillula. It is the only moral and religious condition for its continued existence.