Lag BaOmer

Lag BaOmer (Hebrew: ל״ג בעומר‎), also known as Lag LaOmer amongst Sephardi Jews, is a Jewish holiday celebrated on the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer, which occurs on the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. According to the Talmud and Midrash, this day marks the hillula (celebration, interpreted by some as anniversary of death) of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Mishnaic sage and leading disciple of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century, and the day on which he revealed the deepest secrets of kabbalah in the form of the Zohar, a landmark text of Jewish mysticism. In modern Israel, Zionist ideology redefined Lag BaOmer as a nationalist holiday, connecting it to the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire.

Etymology

Lag BaOmer is Hebrew for "33rd in the Omer". (According to gematria, the Hebrew letter ל (lamed) or "L" is equivalent to "30" and ג (gimmel) or "G" is equivalent to "3". A vowel sound is conventionally added for pronunciation purposes.)

Some Jews call this holiday Lag LaOmer, which means "33rd of the Omer", as opposed to Lag BaOmer, "33rd in the Omer." Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson writes in his Likkutei Sichos that the reason why the day should be called Lag BaOmer and not Lag LaOmer is because the Hebrew words Lag BaOmer (ל״ג בעמר), spelled without the "vav", have the same gematria as Moshe (משה), and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was mystically a spark of the soul of Moses.