Meron Travel Guide

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Here you will find a strange combination of a huge picnic area and a sacred synagogue. Right next to the tomb, in the inner courtyard you will find the BBQs.

The Lag Ba'Omer fest is celebrated 33 days after Passover. Whence its name, which stands for "the 33 day in the Omer count". This is the count of 7 weeks from Passover to Pentecost. Accodring to Jewish tradition there are no weddings from Passover until Lag Ba'Omer to commemorate the death of Rabbi Akiva's pupils during that time, in Roman times around 130 AD. Anyway, because of that this holiday has the largest amount of weddings than any other day of the year.

As a kid, you don't really care about weddings. For you the importance of Lag Ba'Omer is that at this night it's traditional to fire bonfires. So, this is also the day in the year with the largest number of fires...

Anyway, back to the point. Every year in the night of Lag Ba'Omer there is a huge fest in the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai on Mount Meiron, next to Zefat. According to tradition, Shimon Bar-Yochai is the author of the Zohar book. The base of the Kabala. In this fest there are of course plenty of bonfires and religious people come with their 3 year old kids to give them their first haircut.