My Trips to Meiron…

Have you ever been to Meiron on Lag B’Omer? Well over 200,000 Jews ascend to Meiron each year on eve of the 18th of Iyar to pray at the gravesite of the Holy Tanna, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
(This year: Wednesday/Thursday May 25-26).

I had been to the Kever (gravesite in Hebrew) several times before I went on Lag B’Omer.
About 30-40 people can be found praying in the small complex surrounding the grave on any given day.
On a regular day of the year, you can park your car about a two-minute walk away from the Kever, which is situated on a green hilltop.

A miniature makeshift souvenir shop is situated in the parking lot. There one can find red Kabbalah strings, tiny books of Psalms (Tehillim), shiny headscarves and more at
reasonable prices.

Fast-forward to Lag B’Omer.

Thousands of Egged intercity buses departing from strategic cities all over Israel start going up to Meiron on the afternoon/evening before the onset of the festival.

The buses finally arrive and park in a gigantic makeshift parking lot erected about a mile away from the Kever.

Tens of smaller inner-city buses pick up the throngs of people who have arrived and take them, free of charge, up the mountain, a bit closer to the site of the grave.

I personally went on this exciting journey over two decades ago, when I was still single and studying in college.

My good friend Shira and I travelled on a Friday morning from Jerusalem to Tzurit, a quaint moshav near Carmiel (northern Israel) where my British-olim cousins live.

There we spent a lovely Shabbat overlooking the olive-tree-studded valleys below and the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

Uncle Frank, Shira and I were out the door and in his Mazda just minutes after Havdallah (ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath day), on our way to Meron!

Lag B’Omer fell on a Saturday night/Sunday that year, so it all worked out really well for us. We arrived at said parking lot about 45 minutes later, what with all the traffic and all,
parked and crammed into an overstuffed bus up the mountain. We, along with literally tens of thousands of others, were dropped off at the beginning of a looooong path leading up to the Kever.

What sights did we see along the way! Dancing Breslover Chassidim, the Lubavitcher Rebbe on a big screen overhead, women giving out candles, peddlers selling their wares. All the while
we were just being kind of pushed. We didn’t really need to use our legs to walk. There was this ‘flow’ going on there…!

Somehow we managed to stop to catch our breaths for a few moments (before we had even reached the gates leading into the complex).

Cellphones had just barely been invented back then, so we all made up to call each other when we’d be done praying at the Kever. We also made up a meeting spot, for good measure.

Off we were husked to the Kever.

It went something like this: flows of people kind of drifted us in…. and… out… of the Kever… That was quick!

There was no way in the world we could just stand in place in that tiny room… The pushing was incessant! I did see a few Chalakeh ceremonies taking place.
Many religious Jews wait to cut a boy’s hair for the first time at the age of three.

According to tradition, this first haircut is a festive occasion when the boy also begins learning the Hebrew alphabet. The honor of cutting the hair is usually given to several sages.

Family and freidns are invited. It has become quite popular in recent years to postpone a boy’s Chalakeh till Lag B’Omer and to do it at Meiron. Yes, so there’s lots of haircutting going on
there too amidst all the commotion.

One wonders what attracts so many Jews from the world over to Meiron on Lag B’Omer. Some simply thrive on being near so many other Jews (over 200,000), so close together, all united by the
desire to pray for something special, for a speedy recovery, to find a spouse or to have children. Literally hundreds of stories abound regarding the miracles that took place following
a sincere prayer at the Kever on Lag b’Omer.

So, go for it- it’ll be a trip to remember!