April 30, 2021
9:59 am
Mourners gather at the funeral of one of those who died in the Lag b'Omer stampede at Mount Meron in Israel, April 30, 2021. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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(JTA) — “If you haven’t seen the joy of Lag b’Omer on the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, you haven’t seen joy at all,” wrote the author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israel’s first Nobel Prize laureate.
That description reflects an aspect of the annual pilgrimage to Mount Meron in northern Israel that was underlined by the deaths on Friday of at least 45 revelers in a stampede: It is a place whose symbolism reflects a mix of grief and euphoria.