On the Threshold of Geulah: The Secret Rashbi Left Especially for Our Generation | Lag BaOmer in Light of Chassidus

00:00 Who doesn’t know the story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the cave? Rabbi Shimon and his son. The Gemara in Shabbos, page 33b, tells the whole story: how Rabbi Shimon spoke about the Romans, and they pursued him and wanted to kill him. So he and his son Rabbi Elazar fled to a cave, where they hid for twelve years. During those years in the cave, they rose to ever higher levels in Torah—in the revealed Torah, and especially in its hidden teachings, as the Gemara describes in detail. We all know this story. But there’s one part of it that we’re going to focus on today, a part we may not pay much attention to. What is the deeper message? What can we learn from it, especially now, in these great and special days of Lag BaOmer, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s day? As is well known from the sefarim, Lag BaOmer is the day of the passing of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the G-dly Tanna who revealed the Torah’s secrets, its inner dimension, the Zohar. On this day, as we know, a great light shines in the world. And there is something extraordinary for us to learn from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s story, especially in our own times. There’s a passage in the story that says that when he and his son came out of the cave after twelve years, they saw people working, standing in the fields, plowing and sowing. They couldn’t bear it. What do you mean? People are out working instead of learning Torah? Wherever they set their eyes, the Gemara says, went up in flames. They were righteous, holy and pure people. For twelve years they had been completely cut off from the world. They saw reality from an entirely different place. After so long being attached to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and to Torah, they couldn’t bear to see

02:16 Jewish people working at physical, material tasks in this world. They were burning up the world, as the Gemara says. A heavenly voice called out: What’s going on here? What are you doing? Have you come to destroy My world? Go back to the cave. So they returned to the cave for another year. They spent a full thirteenth year there, and only afterward did they come out again. Then they understood that they were ready. The Gemara continues: They left the cave. Rabbi Shimon had changed, but his son Rabbi Elazar had not yet changed. Rabbi Elazar still looked at the world through his holy, pure eyes. He couldn’t bear its materiality, the sight of people working and occupied with the affairs of this world, and he continued to burn up the world. But Rabbi Shimon would heal it. The Gemara says that wherever Rabbi Elazar destroyed and burned, Rabbi Shimon healed. He was already seeing things differently, with eyes of compassion and mercy. He understood that there was no point in burning things down. As the Gemara says, he told his son, “You and I are enough for the world.” It’s enough that we are on this holy level. The world doesn’t need more than that. Let people be. But the Gemara goes on to tell another story, and that’s really the interesting point here. It was Friday, close to Shabbos, and they saw an elderly man running down the street, holding two myrtle branches—or two bundles of myrtle branches—in his hands. The Gemara says they went up to him and asked, “What are these myrtles for?” He said, “It’s Friday. I’m bringing them home to give the house a pleasant fragrance.” They asked, “But why do you need two—two bundles of myrtles? Why isn’t one enough?” He told them, “What do you mean? It says

04:24 ‘Remember’ and ‘Observe’ were said in a single utterance.” Regarding Shabbos, there are two verses: in the Ten Commandments it says, “Remember the Shabbos day to sanctify it,” and in the Ten Commandments in Parshas Va’eschanan it says, “Observe the Shabbos day to sanctify it.” So one bundle is for “Remember” and one for “Observe.” That’s why I’m taking two bundles. When they saw this, they were reassured. The Gemara says that Rabbi Shimon then told his son, “See how precious the mitzvos are to the Jewish people.” Look how dear the mitzvos are to the Jewish people. From then on, both Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Elazar changed the way they saw things, and they were completely at ease. This is a story connected with Lag BaOmer, about Rabbi Shimon and his son. What exactly happened here? It’s worth looking closely at the details and understanding what took place. What happened in the cave that brought Rabbi Shimon and his son to a point where they couldn’t bear the world? They couldn’t bear physical, material reality, and burned it up. Then they had to return to the cave. On the face of it, another year in the cave, even more cut off from the world, should have made them burn up the world even more. But no: that thirteenth year in the cave changed Rabbi Shimon first, and then Rabbi Elazar too. What was it about spending one more year in the cave that suddenly changed their outlook? And then what was the story with the myrtles? It’s interesting. Couldn’t they have found a more striking example of someone cherishing a mitzvah—an act of kindness, or one of the mitzvos the Jewish people do? They didn’t see a Jew putting on tefillin or a Jew observing Shabbos. They saw a Jew walking with bundles of myrtles on Friday, and that changed their entire outlook. What exactly did they see in that episode? What is

06:27 the deeper message of this story? When we look at its details and remember who we’re talking about—Rabbi Shimon, and Lag BaOmer—we find something much deeper than appears on the surface. It connects with what the sefarim, especially the works of Chassidus, say about the significance of this great and wonderful day of Lag BaOmer. It is well known what the Arizal said: Lag BaOmer, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s day, is not just the day the plague stopped. That alone would not be a reason to dance and rejoice and do all the things we see people doing everywhere—the great joy and celebration, the widespread custom of rejoicing so intensely. If the only reason were that Rabbi Akiva’s students stopped dying, that might be a reason to end the mourning, but not for the extraordinary, widespread joy, especially in Meron, as everyone knows. There is something deeper here. The Arizal revealed to us that on Lag BaOmer, the light of Moshiach, the hidden light, shines and is revealed in the world. We know that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai merited to reveal the Torah’s secrets, its inner dimension. The Torah was given at Matan Torah through Moshe Rabbeinu, and the Torah Moshe gave was the entire Torah. Moshe Rabbeinu gave both the revealed Torah and its hidden teachings. Every part of Torah was given at Matan Torah. But there is its revealed dimension. Moshe Rabbeinu revealed the revealed dimension, the halachic part of Torah, while its secrets remained hidden. It was the Divine will that the secrets remain hidden, and so they remained for hundreds of years, until the great Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai came and merited to reveal them. As is well known, the Arizal says that Rabbi Shimon had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, a spark of the soul of

08:38 Moshe Rabbeinu. That is why it says in the seforim that “Lag BaOmer” also has the same gematria as “Moshe.” Rabbi Shimon merited to reveal the part of the Torah that Moshe had not yet revealed openly: the hidden part of the Torah. This is the Torah connected with the teachings of Moshiach. In other words, with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a glimmer of the light of Moshiach’s Torah—which will be revealed soon—began to shine. The new Torah, the inner dimension of Torah, the secrets of Torah: Rabbi Shimon began to reveal them. As the Zohar says in several places, including these wonderful words: “Through this book of yours”—your book, the Zohar, containing the secrets revealed by Rabbi Shimon—“they will leave exile with mercy.” Through the secrets of Torah revealed in the Zohar, we will soon merit the Geulah and leave exile with mercy. That, essentially, is the significance of Rashbi’s teachings. The Arizal says that on Lag BaOmer, something of Moshiach’s light shines in the world. He even relates that one of his students, Rabbi Avraham Halevi, was among his saintly disciples, one of the great Kabbalists, and had a spark of the soul of Yirmiyahu the prophet. That is what he relates. Every night, this man would weep over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. He was the gabbai appointed to wake the whole community in Tzfas to rise for Tikkun Chatzos, the time when people weep and lament the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. He had a special connection to the soul of Yirmiyahu the prophet, whom we know as the prophet of the destruction. So it is understandable why exile, weeping over exile, and mourning affected him so deeply. Every day, he would even say a prayer that we customarily say only once a year. On Tisha B’Av, in the Amidah of Minchah, there is a special prayer: “Comfort, Hashem our G-d, the mourners of Zion and the mourners of Jerusalem.” It is a special text

10:57 said only once a year, on Tisha B’Av, and only in Minchah. Rabbi Avraham Halevi would say it every day, whether during davening or in Bircas Hamazon. There are different versions of when he said it, even on holidays. One day he dreamed that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was very, very angry with him. He was told that he would be punished. He did not know what he had done, what sin he had committed. Then the reason was revealed to him: why was there such displeasure with him? Because on Lag BaOmer he had mourned the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Think about that. This man mourned the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash on holidays, and that did not bring any objection. But Lag BaOmer, the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s passing—and now you are weeping, now you are lamenting? No. On this day, that is simply not possible. Why was he forbidden to mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash on Lag BaOmer? Because, as it says in the writings of the Arizal, on this day a revelation of Moshiach’s light shines in the world. That was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s entire purpose: to prepare the world for the revelation of Moshiach. With this explanation, we can understand many details of the events in Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s life. The stories about him are not just stories about the period in which he lived. Of course, Rabbi Shimon lived under the Romans, at a time of decrees, an extremely difficult period of persecution of Torah and Judaism. It was a difficult time, as the Gemara tells us in several places. But the essence, the inner meaning behind the stories the Gemara and Midrashim tell us about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, is connected not only with the exile of his time, but

12:57 also with his special soul and his unique role in the process of preparing the world for the Geulah. Rabbi Shimon had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, and a spark of King Moshiach also shone within him. As it says in the writings of the Arizal and in works of Kabbalah, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai also had a spark of Moshiach’s soul. So his entire story, everything he worked for, was about preparing the world for the era of Geulah. In light of this, the story of Rabbi Shimon in the cave takes on an entirely different dimension. On the simple level, the story is about Rome. The Romans were persecuting the Jewish people in Eretz Yisroel, and Rabbi Shimon, undaunted by the situation, spoke openly against them. This led the Romans to pursue him and seek to kill him, so he fled to the cave. But on a deeper level, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the cave represents exile and the suffering of exile. The suffering in the cave is the suffering of exile. The Jewish people in exile are the Jewish people in the cave. Precisely in the cave, and precisely through its suffering, as the Gemara says there, he merited. Rabbi Shimon said that he merited to reveal the secrets of the inner dimension of Torah through the suffering, through the cave. It was precisely in that most difficult time of persecution, when his life was in danger every day, when he was hiding in the cave, buried in the ground, enduring all the terrible suffering the Gemara describes—it was there that the light revealed from within the darkness shone most deeply. Where were the greatest secrets of the inner dimension of Torah revealed? When he was in the cave. When we are in the darkness of exile, that is where the great light shines out of the darkness. Rabbi Shimon was in the cave for twelve years, and the longer he remained in its darkness, not only did it not break him—on the contrary, he became more spiritual, rose higher, and ever loftier secrets of Torah were revealed to him. But as long as he had been there for only twelve years, he still could not understand how to bring the two together.

15:10 Either you live a holy, pure, G-dly life, immersed in the secrets of the inner dimension of Torah, or you live in the world. The two do not work together. The number twelve is connected with the twelve constellations and the twelve months of the year. It is a number associated with nature, with physical reality, with the world. The number thirteen expresses the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. Thirteen is already a number associated with what is beyond nature. “Echad,” meaning “one,” has a gematria of thirteen: alef, ches, daled. “Hashem is one and His name is one.” This is already a revelation connected with Moshiach’s light. During his first twelve years in the cave, he could not reconcile the two. If you reveal the secret, the deeper dimension, then you cannot live together with the world and with nature. When he reached the thirteenth year, he rose to a level beyond nature, to the level of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, to the level of “Hashem is one”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “Hashem is one and His name is one.” Then he began to understand that, on the contrary, the purpose is not to burn up the world. The purpose is to bring G-dly light into the world. That is the whole purpose of the Geulah. As is well known, the Rebbe spoke many times about how “Geulah” and “golah,” exile, have the same letters, with an alef as the only difference. In other words, golah is the reality of nature when G-dly light does not shine there. The alef is missing—the Alufo shel Olam, the Master of the world. Geulah does not mean fleeing exile or breaking it. It means illuminating exile, transforming reality as it is—the natural world, the world we live in—so that G-dly light, the infinite light, the light of

17:14 Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But Rabbi Shimon began to understand this, while Rabbi Elazar still did not. How can we truly understand, when we are living through a time of darkness, through the deepest darkness of exile—and especially at the end of exile, when the darkness grows even greater? As is known, before daybreak the darkness becomes much harder to bear. Usually, when people stay awake all night, drowsiness overtakes them toward the end. They cannot go on; their eyes close. That is precisely when they need far greater strength to hold on. The same is true in the footsteps of Moshiach, at the end of exile. That is what the Gemara is telling us here. Here is the hint. The Rebbe explained this story at a Lag BaOmer farbrengen in 5711, near the beginning of his leadership. It was a wonderful farbrengen. The Rebbe spoke about this Gemara, about this point, and explained it. Friday, close to Shabbos. What does Friday represent? The Zohar says that the six days correspond to the six millennia of creation. Friday represents the sixth millennium. The Ramban also brings this in his commentary on the Torah. Its source is the Zohar: the six days of creation correspond to six thousand years. Friday, the sixth millennium, is the day when the Geulah comes. It is the time at the end of exile and the beginning of the Geulah. In just a moment, the Shabbos candles will be lit. Shabbos is coming in—the great Shabbos, the Shabbos of rest for everlasting life. We are approaching the seventh millennium, but before the Geulah, the darkness intensifies. As the Gemara tells us at the end of Tractate Sotah, in the footsteps of Moshiach, when we reach the threshold of the Geulah, we will see immense darkness in the world. Very difficult moments. We were like dreamers. The world is in its most difficult state in all

19:26 kinds of ways, materially and spiritually. And then Rabbi Shimon, on Friday at twilight, walks around, wanting to see what can be seen here. How can we overcome this great darkness? How can we hold on through the final moments? Then he meets a simple Jew walking with two bundles of hadassim. What do those two bundles of hadassim represent? Hadassim have a fragrance. The Gemara speaks of it, and so does the well-known Midrash—and that is also the reality. Among the lulav, esrog, hadassim, and aravos, it is the hadassim that have a fragrance. And the Midrash says that hadassim represent fragrance. There is a scent here, a special scent: one bundle corresponding to zachor, “remember,” and the other to shamor, “observe.” We are talking about a simple Jew. He is not living with Torah, mitzvos, and the service of Hashem twenty-four hours a day. But he wants to. He can smell it. He has a sense of its sweetness; he has the desire. That is where he is. What does he want? He wants zachor and he wants shamor. What are zachor and shamor? Positive commandments and prohibitions. Zachor is a positive commandment, as the Midrash says: the mitzvah to remember Shabbos. Shamor is a prohibition. Wherever it says “observe,” “lest,” or “do not,” it refers to a prohibition—in this case, being careful not to desecrate Shabbos. More generally, zachor and shamor represent “turn away from evil and do good.” This Jew is not yet a tzaddik; he is far from being a tzaddik. He does not yet observe everything. But he already has two bundles of hadassim. He has the fragrance, the desire, the yearning. He is running, still out in the street, in the public domain—a world of darkness, full of kelipos and sitra achra in the public domain, as Tanya explains. But he is running with hadassim. What does he want to smell? What does he want? He wants zachor and shamor. He wants both to turn away from evil and to

21:40 do good. He is not perfect, but that is what he wants. That is his longing, his fragrance, what he feels. The Gemara in Tractate Sanhedrin speaks of the fragrance of the hadassim, of the self-sacrifice of Chananyah, Mishael, and Azaryah: “And he stood among the hadassim.” The scent of the hadassim represents the scent of self-sacrifice. Precisely at the very end, when holiness is not so openly visible, we do see self-sacrifice. We see that a Jew has a thirst: “My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and weary land without water.” Precisely in times of a dry and weary land, in the darkness of exile, there is a tremendous awakening. Jews have that fragrance, that thirst and desire, the power of self-sacrifice. That is what moved Rabbi Shimon: “See how precious the mitzvos are to the Jewish people.” When he saw how dear the mitzvos were to a simple Jew, who cherished their observance even at the most difficult time, he said to them: “Look, Moshiach is coming; the world is ready for the Geulah.” They had wondered, what is going on here? The world seemed to be somewhere else entirely. We are in the final moments before the Geulah, but the world around us does not seem to be with us at all. Yet when they saw this simple Jew with two bundles of hadassim, one for zachor and one for shamor, they saw that he had this pleasant fragrance, with which he wanted to awaken from a faint. As is explained in the seforim, when someone faints, a strong scent can rouse him. Although during exile we are in a state of spiritual faintness, there is the powerful fragrance of the revelation of the inner dimension of Torah, the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. In the later generations, these teachings were revealed with particular strength through the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov. As is known, the Baal Shem Tov revealed the secrets of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai through Chassidus. After that, the Alter Rebbe,

23:52 through Chabad Chassidus, explained Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s profound teachings in a way that everyone could study and understand. So today, through this fragrance, we have our task. What message should we take from this story for our own times? First of all, we must know that we are on Friday, approaching twilight—on the eve of the Geulah. Moshiach is about to arrive; the world is ready for the Geulah. Ah, you stand there and cry out: Where are the Jews? Everyone is caught up in their own affairs, their business, their ordinary, everyday lives. We are told: No. Every Jew has the fragrance of zachor and shamor. Even in the lowest, simplest state a Jew may be in, he wants to observe Torah and mitzvos. We only need to give him the fragrant spices, open his eyes, give him the pleasant scent of the Torah’s secrets, of the inner dimension of Torah. That is why the Baal Shem Tov told us that now, in particular, “your wellsprings shall spread outward.” This is the time to reveal the secrets of the inner dimension of Torah, so that one more Jew and then another will study, know, and receive the light of the Torah’s secrets, of its inner dimension. And that, specifically, will turn the darkness of exile into the light of the Geulah. Then we will truly merit to see the light of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the light of the inner dimension of Torah, the light of the Torah’s secrets, revealed openly in the world. As we find ourselves in the days of preparation for Lag BaOmer, we pray and ask that we truly merit the revelation of the hidden light, the light of Moshiach, in this physical world; that we merit to see Moshiach himself, and together with him all the tzaddikim, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and all the Jewish people, with the complete Geulah at last. Amen, may it be so.