Lag BaOmer 2019 Date, Significance, Observance, Customs, Practices: Lag BaOmer is a Jewish holiday which is celebrated every year on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer. The day occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. The day is celebrated with outings, bonfires, parades as well as further festive events. A lot of people visit the resting place (in Meron, northern Israel) of the great sage as well as mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the anniversary of whose passing is on this day.

When is Lag BaOmer this year?

This year in 2019, the celebration of Lag BaOmer is going to start from Sunset, 22 May to Nightfall, 23 May.

Significance of Lag BaOmer

This day marks the hillula – which is the celebration that is interpreted by some as anniversary of death – of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Mishnaic sage and foremost follower of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century, and the day on which he discovered the earnest secrets of kabbalah in the form of the Zohar (Book of Splendor), a milestone text of Jewish mysticism.

This association has laid a number of renowned customs and practices on Lag BaOmer, comprising the set alight of bonfires, pilgrimages to the tomb of Bar Yochai in the northern Israeli town of Meron, as well as numerous customs at the tomb itself.

An additional purpose for why Jews celebrate Lag BaOmer is that it marks the day that the plague that executed Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 followers came to an end, and for this cause, the grief period of Sefirat HaOmer accomplishes on Lag BaOmer for some people.

Customs and Practices of Lag BaOmer

However the Counting of the Omer is a semi-mourning period, all restraints of grief are raised on this 33rd day of the Omer. As an outcome, weddings, parties, listening to music, and haircuts are usually arranged to happen together with this day among Ashkenazi Jews.

Families, on the other hand, go on picnics and outings. Children go out with bows and rubber-tipped arrows to the fields along with their teachers. Tachanun, the prayer for special Divine mercy on one’s behalf, is not said on days with a celebratory appeal, together with Lag BaOmer; when God is showing one a “smiling face,” so to express, as He does particularly on the holidays, there is no need to request for special forgiveness.

Lag BaOmer Observance

There are several practices which are held on Lag BaOmer and some of these are:

First haircut for children:

It is customary at the Meron celebrations, that three-year-old boys get their first haircuts (upsherin), while on the other hand, their parents distribute wine and sweets.

Bows and arrows:

Traditionally, children al over Israel used to go out and play with bows and arrows, imitating the Midrashic proclamation that the rainbow (the sign of God’s promise to never yet again abolish the earth with a flood; Genesis 9:11–13) was not seen for the duration of Bar Yochai’s lifespan, as his merit secured the world.

Weddings:

Lag BaOmer is a widely held day for weddings among Ashkenazi Jews. For those who do not conduct the festivities amongst Pesach and Lag BaOmer, the date often symbolize the first prospect for a wedding in the spring or initial summer.

Parades

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, encouraged Lag BaOmer parades in order to be held in Jewish communities all over the world as a parade of Jewish harmony, unity and pride.