Mt. Meron, Zohar, and Us

This week, we are in the sefirah of hod, using our mystical method of counting the Omer. 

Hod, mapped on the body, is the left leg or left foot, and literally it means “splendor.” The word hod is also embedded in the Hebrew root, l’hodot, giving it a secondary meaning of “gratitude.” So this is a week for splendor and gratitude. 

Another line of thought is that netzach, the preceding sefirah represents “victory,” and hod then represents “surrender.” Two ways of approaching obstacles: conquering them or surrendering into them in a way that renders them non-obstacles. It could be said that the place where splendor and gratitude meet is in surrender – surrendering simply to what is. Surrendering to what opens us to the splendor in the everyday, that lets gratitude well up for this very moment, regardless of whether this moment sits in a broader landscape of happy or sad. This is what is: I am in this moment; I surrender to this moment; how splendid; I am grateful; hod. 

Some moments, though, are admittedly harder to surrender into than others. Yesterday’s Lag BaOmer tragedy in Israel is shocking and haunting. There is nothing we can do with the fact of what happened. No moral to draw. No perpetrator to point to. A terrible thing happened in a moment that was meant to be ecstatic celebration – the 33rd day, Lag Ba Omer hod sheb’hod, splendor within splendor. All we can do is surrender into this moment, with its awfulness and also an awareness of the beauty of what the people there on Mt. Meron were hoping to experience. 

I know that the Ultra-Orthodox Jews that were there represent a very different kind of Jewish community than ours, in all sorts of obvious ways, doctrinal and political, as we can see in a glance from the fact there were tens of thousands of people gathered and women were not among them.

And still, they are our cousins. We branch from the same root and drink from the same lineage. We are inspired by many of the same words. The history they were marking by being together is drawn from the mystical texts that we also study and quote with such frequency in this synagogue community. 

So to honor these 45 souls, and as an iluy nefesh, a petition that their souls may rise and return to the Source, I’d like to offer a piece of the lore of Zohar, our most famous mystical text, to help us understand why these thousands were all on Mt. Meron yesterday, and to help us feel some of the ecstasy that was running through that crowd. 

Yesterday was Lag Ba’Omer, the 33rd day of the counting. Lag Ba’Omer also marks the day of the death of a legendary rabbi, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, sometimes known in the rabbinic tradition by his acronym, the Rashbi. 

The actual historical Shimon bar Yochai lived in Judaea in the 2nd Century. He was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva. His words are all over Talmud; he is the author of many midrashim.

But his importance surges in the Middle Ages with the spread of Spanish mysticism among the world Jewish communities. Our mystical book, the Zohar, first appears in Spain in the 13th Century, penned by Rabbi Moshe de León. But Zohar’s own story is that it comprises the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, teachings which came to him from Moshe and Adam. 

The Zohar contextualizes this through a frame story in which Rabbi Shimon and his nine companions, called in Aramaic the chevraya, walk in nature, or wake up in the middle of the night to study, or have supernatural adventures. On their ramblings they encounter strange people, or birds, or flowers whose perfume would transport them instantly – literally – to Paradise. Each of these occurrences provides an opportunity for Rabbi Shimon to speak to the chevraya and give over to them secrets: the mysticism that fills the Zohar, as it fills so many of our Beit Midrash classes and meditation sessions here at Ner Shalom. Luminous teachings about the sefirot, about the flow of Divine energy, Divine shefa, into this world; about the presence of the Divine Feminine; about the union of the Holy One and the Shechinah, the Shechinah garbed like a bride in light, wearing a crown made of our prayers.

More than just the voice of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon is the portal to all Divine knowledge. He is the lens through which Divine light can emerge and enter the world. 

According to the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gave over the last of his visions on the day he died His death was an ecstatic one, and is referred to not as yom moto – the day of his death – but as yom simchato – the day of his joy. He died and was buried on Mt. Meron, having instructed his disciples to visit his grave and celebrate his memory annually. Which is what was happening yesterday, because the number of his disciples has grown, no longer ten, but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and includes all of those people who were there, just as it includes us as well.

So here’s how Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Rashbi, died.

He had a long illness and some close encounters with death. After one of these he was able to report back that he would not be judged by the heavenly court upon his death, but had been granted the special dispensation to be judged directly by the Holy One. Rabbi Shimon is glad for this; the Holy One, unlike the Heavenly Assembly, is entirely disposed toward mercy. Rabbi Shimon would be allowed into Paradise without having to deal with the doorkeepers. In other words, a VIP pass. 

As he relates this to the chevraya, he says a word and suddenly he vanishes. The disciples are astonished and a hush falls over them. They smell a perfume of spices, the scent of Eden. Then Rabbi Shimon seems to reappear. Now he is talking, engaged in a dialogue. But they are unable to see or hear who he is talking to.

Rabbi Shimon now turns his attention back to the chevraya and asks them what they saw. They respond that they could not see or hear who he was speaking with. Rabbi Shimon is suprised that none of them had yet attained the level of enlightenment to see what he was seeing. He reveals that for that moment he was in paradise, preselecting his seat, and that he had been speaking to Adam who had asked that his sin remain concealed in the Tree in the Garden of Eden and not be revealed to the world. Alas, too late, Rabbi Shimon had told him.

After this visit to Paradise, a kind of fire began to surround Rabbi Shimon to keep him protected; only his disciples, the chevraya, were able to be with him inside this ring of flame.

On the 33rd day of the Omer, word gets out it is to be the day that Rabbi Shimon would die. Crowds of the curious fill the house; Rabbi Shimon realizes his strength is waning and the fire is failing, allowing the house to fill with strangers who are not ready for the secret teachings he would impart. 

Rabbi Shimon rallies his energy and the fire returns The crowd flees. Most of the chevraya also wait outside, except for Rabbi Abba and the Rashbi’s own son, Rabbi Elazar. They drew close. The Rashbi raises his hands and prays and is happy. He told them, “There are sacred matters that have not been revealed. I wish to do so now in the presence of the Shekhinah” – he says this because Shekhinah is always present at the head of a sickbed – “so I shouldn’t leave this world with my work incomplete. I will give over these secrets. Rabbi Abba will transcribe them. And my son, Rabbi Elazar, will explain them. And the chevraya will be able to meditate on them.”

Rabbi Shimon goes on now and speaks from his vision which now seems to incorporate all the worlds. The Holy One and the angels have come into the room – the Rashbi can see them. And the Sages of Old are present, their faces reflecting the light of the Holy Countenance. Rabbi Shimon even makes Abba and Elazar scooch over to make room for them. 

A light begins to illuminate the room all around Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi Abba reports he could not lift his face, the light was too great. It is the Shekhinah’s light, and Rabbi Abba throws himself to the gound and looks away. In this moment, Rabbi Shimon becomes the living embodiment of the sefirah of Yesod, the gathering place of all the Divine energy destined for this world. As Yesod, Rabbi Shimon joins in union with Shekhinah! And in this ecstatic moment of yichud, Rabbi Shimon at last leaves his body.

When the light recedes, the chevraya find Rabbi Shimon lying still, on his right side, his face smiling and peaceful.

But the chevraya are struck. They begin to weep. Rabbi Elazar says that all of Creation will mourn – the animals will leave their dens, the birds will hide in the rocky clefts. The celestial chayot will throw themselves into the great ocean of Shekhinah and seraphim will hide under their wings. 

The chevraya place Rabbi Shimon on a bier and carried him out of the house. When they emerge into the daylight the bier flies up into the air and fire flares from it. They hear, or more precisely overhear, a heavenly voice saying, “Come assemble for the feast of Rabbi Simon. He enteres Paradise in peace.” 

The chevraya are bereft. For them all light has been extinguished from the world. Rabbi Yehudah has a vision of Rabbi Shimon ascending to heaven mounted on some winged celestial being, carrying the Torah and all of the other holy books, taking them out of our world. 

But Zohar goes on to reflect that while the death of Moshe was the end of an era also, Moshe’s luminous teachings survive and come to all of us in the form of Torah. And so equally the luminous teachings of Rabbi Shimon would survive and come to all of us in the form of the Zohar. 

And thus the Zohar imagines its own immortality and its own influence. Maybe not in detail, maybe not knowing how it would inspire men in black coats and hats to gather on Mt. Meron on Lag Ba’Omer, or how it would inspire us, people of all genders, in tie-dye and denim, an angelic bunch, each of us curating our own spiritual life. The light that came through Rabbi Shimon now pours through the Zohar’s pages, streaming forth for all seekers, from Jerusalem and B’nai Brak and Mt. Meron to North American Miwok land, at the edge of a far continent, pouring forth even into this Zoom Room that holds this holy chevraya. 

May we all be filled with Zohar’s light. May we all merit a place in Paradise, with the smell of spices and good seating. May Rabbi Shimon personally greet the 45 who died yesterday celebrating him, with whom he now shares his yahrzeit. And may he meet the rest of us humble seekers when the time comes.