Lag BaOmer from an Angle You've Never Seen - The Deep Meaning of the Day in Light of Chassidus

00:00 What is it about Lag BaOmer that makes it such a great day? Such a joyous day—one of the most joyous days throughout the Jewish world. We see it in every country, every town and every place, especially in Eretz Yisroel, but outside it as well. Lag BaOmer is an extraordinarily special day: dancing, bonfires, singing, and gatherings for children. What is it all about? What does it mean? Why is Lag BaOmer such a joyous day? When we begin looking through the holy books and the writings of the great Torah sages, the answer is not so clear. The first point we find is that Rabbi Akiva’s students stopped dying. This is mentioned by several of the early authorities and in the works of halachic authorities. We know that during this period, a terrible plague struck the group of Rabbi Akiva’s students, as the Gemara relates in Yevamos, page 62. And it was no small group: 24,000 students died because they did not treat one another with respect. The tradition passed down by the sages is that they stopped dying on Lag BaOmer. All right, that explains why the mourning stops. We know there are various customs of sorrow and mourning observed during the days of Sefiras HaOmer, so we can understand why those who have the custom to stop observing certain mourning practices do so. But the question is why we make it not just a day when mourning ends, but a day of special joy—of dancing and all the celebrations around it. That is much more, far beyond that. The works of Kabbalah, in the writings of the Arizal and his students, say that the real reason for this joyous day is that it is the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s hilula. We find that at the end of the Zohar, in Parshas Haazinu, the Zohar describes at length the events

02:25 that took place on that special day, the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s passing. Although the Zohar does not explicitly say that it happened on Lag BaOmer, it does describe in great detail how, on the day of his passing, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gathered the holy fellowship, his holiest and most righteous students, and revealed secrets of the Torah to them. It also describes the great joy of that day. Rabbi Shimon said that all his life he had waited for this moment, when he would reach the most complete union with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Zohar itself says that Rabbi Shimon asked them to rejoice with him, because this was his day of joy. So we understand that here lies the secret of the great day of Lag BaOmer. But here too, we need to understand: why, really, is there such great joy because Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai passed away? Usually, the day someone passes away is not a day of joy. The day a tzaddik passes away is not a day of joy. Let’s look at the yahrtzeits of other tzaddikim: we do not see people making a celebration of them. We all know that 7 Adar is the day of Moshe Rabbeinu’s passing. We have never heard of or seen anywhere in the Jewish world a celebration of 7 Adar like this. Then Lag BaOmer arrives, the day Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai passed away, and the entire Jewish world holds a full celebration, as we said. What is it? What is Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s secret? What is the secret of Lag BaOmer that makes it such a special and joyous day? And there is another question: what is this name, “the hilula of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai”? Everyone calls it “the hilula of Rashbi,” the day of the hilula. The word “hilula” comes from the Zohar.

04:32 In the Zohar’s account of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s last day in this world—which was Lag BaOmer—he calls that day a hilula. He says, “Come in and gather for Rabbi Shimon’s hilula.” In other words, he invites his students to his day of hilula, and that is how the name remained. Now, if you think about it, “hilula” is an Aramaic word meaning “wedding.” In the Talmud, in several places where the word “hilula” appears, it means the day of the chuppah, the day of marriage, the wedding day, as Rashi explains. And that raises the question: a day of passing, a yahrtzeit, a day of departure from this world—how does it become a wedding day, a day of hilula? What is the explanation? Here we come to the inner meaning of Lag BaOmer, as revealed in the teachings of Chassidus, particularly in some of the Alter Rebbe’s early maamarim, which explain it in a profound and wonderful way. Today we will look at the deep and wonderful explanations the Alter Rebbe gives us for the meaning of this day. As we said, the joy of Lag BaOmer, as we see in the books, had existed for many years before, but when the Arizal came, it took on greater significance. The great Kabbalists and Torah sages, and the Jews living in the Galilee at that time—we are talking about four hundred years ago—increasingly made it their custom to travel to Meron. There they would hold the well-known chalakah, the children’s first haircut, with singing, dancing and celebration. Over time, it became a bigger and bigger event. But the teachings of Chassidus, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov and his students, brought the observance of Lag BaOmer to a far more elevated, expansive and wonderful place. In his maamarim delivered on Lag BaOmer, the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya, gives

06:54 us the wonderful, profound explanation that helps us truly understand and connect with this great day on a deeper level. What does this joy mean? Today we will focus on two points. The first is the hilula: as we said, why is this day called a hilula? The second is the name “Lag BaOmer”: what does it mean? What is the meaning of those words, the name by which the entire Jewish people commonly call this day? What is there in the words “Lag BaOmer” that gives us a deeper understanding of this wonderful celebration? And we will see just how great this day is. With Hashem’s help, we will discuss how, as it says in the works of Chassidus, based on the works of Kabbalah, on Lag BaOmer the light of Moshiach shines down here in this world. So let us begin with “the day of the hilula,” as we said. A hilula is a wedding. We find a reference to a wedding in the Gemara at the end of Tractate Taanis, when it speaks about the day the Torah was given. The final Mishnah in Taanis quotes: “Go forth and see, daughters of Zion, King Shlomo wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day and on the day of his heart’s joy.” This verse in Shir Hashirim speaks of the day Hakadosh Boruch Hu received the crown placed upon Him on His wedding day. The Mishnah asks: What is “his wedding day”? It is the day the Torah was given. In other words, the giving of the Torah on Shavuos is considered His wedding day and the day of His heart’s joy. That is the wedding day—the wedding of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel, the Jewish people. The Torah is the kesubah that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives the Jewish people: the Ten Commandments and the 613 mitzvos. So Shavuos, the festival of the giving of the Torah, is the wedding day of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Knesses Yisroel. And on this they explain to us that the Torah was given on Shavuos, when the entire Torah was given.

09:21 Of course, the Giving of the Torah happened only once and will not happen again. Even when Moshiach comes, there will not be another Giving of the Torah, because there is no need for one. On the day of the Giving of the Torah, 6 Sivan or 7 Sivan, as discussed in the Gemara, the entire Torah, with all its parts, was given. Nevertheless, its revelation happened in stages. We see that although the Torah was given on that day, there were different stages: first came the Ten Commandments, and then more followed. Throughout the forty years that Moshe Rabbeinu was with the Jewish people, more and more was revealed, until we received the complete Torah scroll. After that came the Oral Torah, and later the revelation of the inner dimension of the Torah, the Torah’s secrets. The mystical dimension of the Torah was also included in the Torah given on Shavuos, at the Giving of the Torah, but it remained a secret—a deeply hidden secret, concealed from the eyes of all living beings. Moshe Rabbeinu certainly knew the Torah’s secrets, but many years passed before they were revealed in the world as a body of Torah that people knew about. Who was the first to bring the mystical dimension of the Torah to the world? It was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That is, more than a thousand years—or let’s say more than fifteen hundred years—after the Giving of the Torah, the great Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai arrived. He had a group of students in the Galilee with whom he studied and to whom he revealed the wondrous secrets of the Zohar. This is where the remarkable story of the revelation of the Torah’s inner dimension begins—what the Zohar itself, in Parshas Behaaloscha, calls “the soul of the Torah.” The Zohar says that just as a person is made up of a soul and a body, the Torah too has a soul and a body. There is the halachic part of the Torah, the Torah’s body, and there is the part that is

11:35 the Torah’s soul, its inner dimension. So the revelation of the Torah’s inner dimension began in the time of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And on this day, his last day, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai himself reached his highest point. As he said, “Today my soul reaches the fullness of its union and merging with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” “With one bond I am bound to Hakadosh Boruch Hu,” as the Zohar says. With one single bond I connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; my soul reaches a state of oneness, aflame with cleaving to Him. My soul now reaches union, closeness, and yearning in the most wondrous and profound way. On that day, he revealed the greatest secrets. He said, “Today I am going to reveal to you the secrets of secrets.” That is why Lag BaOmer is considered a day that continued the Giving of the Torah. The Rebbe Rashab writes in his maamarim: Lag BaOmer is the day the inner dimension of the Torah was given. In a sense, Lag BaOmer and Shavuos are two days that continue one another. And again, to be clear, these are not two Givings of the Torah. The Giving of the Torah was one event. On Shavuos we received the entire Torah, but the Torah’s hidden dimension took longer to come down into the world, through Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. As written in the works of Kabbalah, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. This is also brought in several places in the Zohar. There is an entire section of the Zohar associated with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai called Raaya Mehemna, “the Faithful Shepherd.” These are secrets of the Torah that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai received from Moshe Rabbeinu, as it is written that Rabbi Shimon himself had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. The Rebbe was once asked why we call this day Lag BaOmer. It is an interesting point, by the way, and important to what we are

13:46 saying here. Why is it called Lag BaOmer? After all, the common custom when counting the Omer is to say “laOmer”: “Today is such-and-such days laOmer.” Nevertheless, this holiday is called Lag BaOmer. There are several explanations. The Rebbe gives a very interesting one: the words “Lag BaOmer” have the same numerical value as “Moshe.” If you write “BaOmer” without a vav, as it is written in the Torah, “Lag BaOmer” has the numerical value 345, exactly the same as Moshe Rabbeinu’s name. Rabbi Shimon had a soul connected to Moshe’s, and that is what we want to hint at by calling the holiday Lag BaOmer rather than Lag LaOmer: this way, its numerical value is the same as Moshe’s name. So Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was, in effect, the continuation of Moshe Rabbeinu. He merited to bring the Torah’s secrets, its inner dimension, down into the world, and that is why the joy is the joy of a wedding. Shavuos, too, is called “the day of His wedding and the day of His heart’s joy.” A day of joy. A wedding day. The great wedding of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people beneath the mountain, under the wedding canopy of the mountain held over them like a barrel—the wedding canopy of the Giving of the Torah. The same is true of Lag BaOmer, and in an even deeper way, because this is the Torah’s inner dimension. When the time came, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai received permission and merited to bring the wondrous light of the secrets, the inner soul of the Torah, down into this world. So this day is certainly a wedding day—and not just any wedding, but the wedding of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people at the deepest, most inward place in the Torah’s soul. That is why the joy bursts through all boundaries. We see that the joy at a wedding is the greatest joy. A person has many happy occasions in life—may Hakadosh Boruch Hu give everyone many happy occasions. There is the joy of a bris,

15:48 the joy of a bar mitzvah, the joy of a bas mitzvah, the joy of a wedding, and many other happy occasions and beautiful days in our lives. But we see in everyday life that there is no joy like the joy of a wedding. The reason, as explained in the sefarim, is that at a wedding the power of the Infinite is revealed. Why is the joy at a wedding really so great? Because at a wedding there is a radiance of the Infinite, the greatest Divine revelation. This is then expressed in married life in what is called “an everlasting edifice.” In the blessings under the chuppah, in the Sheva Brachos, we say, “And He fashioned from him an everlasting edifice.” An everlasting edifice means the power to bring children and grandchildren into the world: “Be fruitful and multiply.” This is the most wondrous power of the Infinite that we see down here in the world. The revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s infinite power at the celebration of a marriage itself produces boundless joy. When an unlimited light is present, the joy that bursts forth in the soul is unlimited. That is the reason for the joy at a wedding. From this we can understand the reason for the joy on Lag BaOmer: Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s infinite power is revealed in the inner dimension of the Torah, in its secrets, and we have received it down here. This is also why it remained secret for so many years. Even the mystical teachings that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed nearly two thousand years ago in the Galilee, in Eretz Yisroel, were later hidden again. Once more, the Torah’s inner dimension was concealed. It took another thousand years or so before sparks of Kabbalah slowly began to appear here and there. The most famous figure among those who revealed it was the Arizal. It was through him that Lag BaOmer acquired this deep meaning as the hilula of Rashbi, and he himself celebrated it, as written in Pri Etz Chaim.

17:59 In Shaar Hakavanos, the Arizal’s book of kavanos. That is when the teachings of Kabbalah began to spread more openly, through yeshivos devoted to Kabbalah, until the Baal Shem Tov and his students, the Maggid of Mezritch, the Alter Rebbe, and the students of the Baal Shem Tov came and made Kabbalah—the inner dimension of Torah—accessible to everyone. Today we can see how Jews everywhere celebrate Lag BaOmer. So we can also understand the meaning of this day. And its meaning is extraordinary: every year on Lag BaOmer, the light of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the light of that great Lag BaOmer, shines anew. In other words, every year Lag BaOmer is the wedding day, the day of union, the day when the infinite power to reveal the inner dimension of Torah to the world is revealed. Now let’s say a few words about the name Lag BaOmer. Here the Alter Rebbe offers a profound and wonderful explanation. The Alter Rebbe says: There is a principle, “There is nothing that is not alluded to in the Torah.” Where is Lag—the letters lamed and gimmel—alluded to in the Torah? If we read those letters in reverse order, we get gal, a mound. Where does the word gal appear in the Torah? We have one verse in the Torah and one in Tehillim. If we look closely at both verses, we’ll see their wonderful connection to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The verse in the Torah that forms the basis, the secret, the allusion to Lag BaOmer, is: “This mound is witness, and this monument is witness.” Yaakov is in Lavan’s home. Lavan’s home symbolizes darkness, deceit, everything that runs counter to the way a Jew should conduct himself according to the Torah. Lavan the Aramean—Lavan the deceiver. Yaakov Avinu is in the midst of all that darkness, and there he establishes his home, establishes

20:26 the Jewish home, marries Lavan’s daughters, fathers the twelve tribes, and establishes the—then the time comes—establishes the House of Israel. Then the time comes for Yaakov Avinu to flee Lavan’s home with his entire family and all his flocks. Along the way, Lavan notices and pursues him. At the end of Parshas Vayeitzei, we read how Lavan catches up with Yaakov. After their entire exchange, they decide to make a gal, a mound of stones. They pile stones one on top of another, have a meal, and then make a covenant together, Lavan and Yaakov. He says to him: “I will not cross this mound, and you will not cross it. This mound is witness, and this monument is witness, that neither I nor you will cross over to do harm.” In other words, this mound creates a separation, a partition between Lavan and Yaakov. Lavan stays on one side, Yaakov on the other. We won’t interfere with each other. The word gal is Lag BaOmer. What does it symbolize? That is the first verse. The second is, “Uncover my eyes, and I will behold wonders from Your Torah.” This verse in Tehillim 119 tells us, “Uncover my eyes, and I will behold wonders.” Once again, the word gal. Let’s talk first about the first gal, then we’ll come to the second and see how wonderfully it gives us the meaning of this day. The mound that Yaakov makes with Lavan—why does he make a mound? We understand that he wanted to say: There is a partition here. I won’t interfere with you, and you won’t interfere with me; each of us stays in his own place. So why a mound? A mound is made of stones thrown one on top of another. It won’t stay that way. Eventually, the mound will fall apart. Wouldn’t it have been better to build a wall, something sturdier, something more permanent? What stopped Yaakov from saying, “Let’s build

22:32 a wall between us”? No. He says, “No wall. I want a mound.” Why? This is where the whole principle lies. Lavan symbolizes physicality and materialism, to the point of kelipah and the impure sitra achra. Yaakov symbolizes holiness, G-dliness, Torah, mitzvos—everything holy. Yaakov Avinu says to Lavan: We are making a mound. We need to distinguish, to create a partition between the physical world and the spiritual world, between the physical world and the G-dly world. Things cannot remain mixed together as they have been until now. It has to be very, very clear what is holy and what is impure, what is light and what is darkness. On the other hand, what is the goal? Why must there be a partition between the physical and the spiritual? Not so that it will remain forever. Ultimately, the goal is to refine the physical, to make this world a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The ultimate goal is just the opposite: that this partition should not remain. The goal is for the light of holiness to shine within physical, material reality and elevate it. That is why we need a mound. If you don’t have that mound, if you don’t have that partition, if you haven’t clarified what is material and physical and what is G-dly and spiritual, then everything is mixed together for you, and you cannot master the physical. A person for whom everything is jumbled together inside, who doesn’t know exactly what is holy and what is not, lives in a world of confusion. We all have both a body and a soul. We all have a G-dly soul and an animal soul, a good inclination and an evil inclination. But if we don’t first create a partition that clearly distinguishes between them, everything becomes mixed together. Of course, we are people with a G-dly soul, and from the standpoint of that soul we study Torah, observe mitzvos, and daven. We also have

24:40 a body, which means we have to eat, do business, live in the world, and be part of it. But without a partition, everything becomes a muddle. So the first thing we need is to make a distinction, to clarify what a life of holiness and purity is and what belongs to the physical realm. A Jew is not a materialist. For a Jew, Torah, mitzvos, G-dly light, spirituality, and the soul are what matter most. Physicality is secondary. But the goal is not to break the body, do away with the physical, or flee the world and remain detached from it. That is not the goal. On the contrary, the goal is to make the physical a vessel for the spiritual, to reveal G-dly light within matter, within reality, so that G-dly light shines within the physical world. Even when a Jew walks down the street, eats, does business, or engages in physical activities, the light of Torah and mitzvos, the G-dly light, should shine within him there. This is the power expressed by Yaakov Avinu’s mound. The goal is not separation for its own sake. The goal is for the separation to lead to the right connection, the true connection, in which the physical is transformed into the spiritual. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed this secret. Lag BaOmer—gal. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who revealed the secret, the inner dimension of Torah, revealed the deeper meaning of this partition. Today there is a partition in the world, certainly, and there must be one. But who revealed its deeper meaning—how a Jew can live in the world? Through the teachings of the Zohar, the teachings of the hidden dimension of Torah, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gave us the tools to look at reality and see the G-dly light within the reality of the world. The inner dimension of Torah speaks to us and explains that matter is something entirely different from what your physical eyes see. On the contrary, you look

26:52 At the world through the eyes of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Through the eyes of the inner dimension of Torah, you understand that the whole world has the potential to become a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that is the Jew’s task. And so there is a gal here, a mound. The gal is not a wall or a barrier; it is only a mound. There has to be a distinction between the material and the spiritual, and then a Jew can truly be master of the world and reveal the Divine light within the world’s reality. This is one of the main things Lag BaOmer teaches us: a Jew does not have two separate domains, two partitions, two kinds of life. “Here I study and daven, and I am a holy person. When I go out into the street, I am a completely different person. Be a Jew at home and a non-Jew when you go out.” There is no such thing as two domains, two worlds. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed this wondrous unity through that mound: on the one hand, the spiritual and the physical are certainly not one big jumble. There is a spiritual world and a physical world, and then we can unite them and make the physical a vessel for the spiritual. And then comes the second point: “Uncover my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah.” It all begins with Torah, so that we can look at the world in the right way, with the right eyes, and see that the world truly is a G-dly place, a place where the Shechinah dwells, and transform physical reality into G-dliness. It begins with Torah. In Torah, too, we say, “Uncover my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah.” The request of Lag BaOmer, the request of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, is: “Uncover my eyes.” Open my eyes, so that they will not see things only in a superficial, shallow way. “Wonders from Your Torah.” Torah also has two parts. There is the revealed part, the part of halachah, and there is the inner dimension, the secrets. Sometimes

28:56 a person looks at them as though they were two unrelated Torahs. When I study halachah, it is halachah. That’s it—dry. You study Gemara, you study halachah. There you think in terms of Gemara, nothing else. When you study mussar, the secrets of Torah, Chassidus, the inner dimension of Torah, now you are dealing with spiritual things. As though there were two Torahs. With Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, we saw that the two were one Torah. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai appears in most of the Mishnah. He was one of the great halachic authorities, one of the five students of Rabbi Akiva who established the Oral Torah. Much of the Torah of halachah is founded on Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his colleagues, Rabbi Akiva’s students. And that same Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed the Zohar, the inner dimension of Torah. He showed us how they are really one Torah. They are not two separate things. And this is the request of Lag BaOmer: “Uncover my eyes”—may Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveal and open my eyes, so that I can see “wonders from Your Torah” within the revealed Torah, within halachah; so that, by looking at the revealed Torah, I can discover there its secrets, the inner dimension of Torah. There are not two Torahs. It is truly one Torah. One of the wonderful things we have seen with the revelation of Chassidus, especially Chabad Chassidus and especially the teachings of the Rebbe Rashab, is that he always spoke in a way that showed us how the inner dimension of Torah is found within the revealed Torah, and the revealed Torah is found within its inner dimension. He united the two parts of Torah in the most wonderful way. And that, in fact, is the secret of this great day, the secret of the joy of this great day, Lag BaOmer. On Lag BaOmer, each and every one of us needs to plead with Hakadosh Boruch Hu and say: Today, on Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s day, on the day the inner dimension of Torah was given, let us ask

30:57 Hakadosh Boruch Hu that “Uncover my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah” be fulfilled—that Hashem open our eyes and refine our vision, so that we can see the inner dimension of Torah within the revealed Torah. Then we will truly be able to look at the world with the right eyes, to see how the world is moving toward that great process, the coming of Moshiach, when Divine light will shine within the physical world itself. As the Zohar explains at length in many places, with the coming of Moshiach the entire world will be filled with the light of Torah, with Divine light. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says that even little children, in the days of Moshiach and also in the period close to those days, will be able to understand and grasp the inner dimension of Torah. And we are already beginning to see, in this last generation, how remarkably and without limits the inner dimension of Torah is spreading and being revealed. All this tells us the secret of this day, Lag BaOmer, also in connection with preparing for the light of the Geulah. The books of Kabbalah tell a story about one of the Arizal’s students, named Reb Avraham. He was a great kabbalist among the Arizal’s students who lived in Tzfas, and he was one of those who wept often over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. He led the minyan for Tikkun Chatzos in Tzfas and woke people for Tikkun Chatzos. He had a special soul; he would weep often and lament the destruction and the exile. He was accustomed to saying the prayer that we customarily say only on Tisha B’Av, during Minchah—the well-known prayer Nachem, said in the Amidah of Minchah on Tisha B’Av. He would say it every day, day after day. It was part of his prayers: praying over the destruction, praying for the Geulah. Once, on Lag BaOmer, he also

33:03 said it. Then his teacher, the Arizal, appeared to him in a dream and told him that Rabbi Shimon was very upset with him. How could you say the Nachem prayer on Lag BaOmer? And the question he asked, seemingly, was: What do you mean? He says it every day. He had said it on other festive days too, and nevertheless received no punishment and no expression of displeasure. But on Lag BaOmer he was not supposed to say it. The explanation is that, in light of everything we have explained until now, Lag BaOmer is a day when the light of Moshiach shines. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu within him, revealed the inner dimension of Torah here below. He began preparing the world for the great light of the revelation of the inner dimension of Torah, the Torah of Moshiach. It all began already on Lag BaOmer, and so Lag BaOmer is a day when the light of Moshiach shines in the world. On such a day, a Jew does not say Nachem. On such a day, a Jew does not weep over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. In particular, a Jew who studies Kabbalah needs to feel on this day the light of Moshiach being revealed in the world. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us truly merit, this year, to be within that revelation already on Lag BaOmer, so that we can see it with our physical eyes. “Uncover my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah.” May we merit to see the complete Geulah already, to hear the secrets of Torah from Moshiach’s own mouth, and to have the light of Moshiach shine here below in this physical world with the building of the Third Beis Hamikdash, speedily in our days, amen.