As long as you are a bachelor you can dance to your own beat. Marriage by definition is a restrictive experience. Shmuel could have said, “The world that we are passing through is like a day,” or “like a dream,” or “like a thunderstorm,” or “like a sun shower.” Why the example of a wedding to describe a fleeting experience?Ĭlearly, Shmuel is conveying a deeper message to his student than “life is short, live today!” The example of the wedding is essential to the understanding of the message.

But to illustrate the brevity of life, why does Shmuel give the example of a wedding? There are other events that pass swiftly. John Lennon was the not the first to understand that “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.' But life is short, and you can’t delay your happiness till tomorrow. Some people will never allow themselves to enjoy their wealth and success today because there is always a “tomorrow” they have to save up for. Sometimes, in our eagerness to think about the long-term – which is important – we forget that life is happening now and we must live in the moment.

Life is similar to a wedding which swiftly passes. Shmuel's point was to warn his student not to wait until tomorrow to use his money, because a person has no assurance that he will be alive tomorrow to enjoy his money. Obviously, the great Talmudic sage Shmuel was not training his disciple Rabbi Yehudah for a career in gluttony! What then was he telling him? The 11th century French Talmudic commentator, Rashi, explains: The sage Shmuel said to his student Rabbi Yehudah: 'Sharp one! Grab and eat, grab and drink! The world that we are passing through is like a wedding.' (Eiruvin 54a) The Talmud makes the following observation: Why would a yahrzeit, a day of passing, be called a “wedding?” And why, from all yahrzeits, was it Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's which first received the title of hilulah – wedding? Never before has a yahrzeit been described as a “ helulah,” a wedding, and for good reason: death and marriage are diametrically opposed. Yet there is something strange about this day: In many Jewish works it is called “ Helulah D’Rashbi” – the “wedding” anniversary of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Since then, Jews the world over, especially at his resting place in Meron, Israel, celebrate this day with singing, dancing, kindling fires, Torah study, parades and field trips for children, and an increase in acts of love and unity. That day was 18 Iyar, or Lag B’Omer.īefore his passing, Rabbi Shimon instructed his disciples to observe his yahrzeit (the day of his death) as a time of joy and festivity, since the day of a person's death marks the culminating point of all that he achieved in the course of his life on earth. The most significant revelation came about on the day of Rabbi Shimon's passing, on which he expounded for many hours on the most intimate secrets of the divine wisdom. He was responsible for revealing to the world the wisdom of the Kabbalah, initiating a new era in the development and exposure of Jewish mysticism. Rabbi Shimon, who lived in Israel under Roman occupation around 165 CE (approximately one hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.), was an extraordinary scholar and author of the Zohar, the chief work of Kabbalah. Lag B'Omer, the thirty-third day of the Omer that links Passover to Shavuot, is the anniversary of the passing of one of the greatest sages and spiritual giants in Jewish history, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

Omer definition