Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb - 33rd Day of the Omer: Rabbi Shimon's Folk Festival

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Hidabroot - Torah & Judaism’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

What I'd like to do is come at a single subject from two different angles, two very different angles. Uh some of you, I suppose, were privileged to be here for Lag B'Omer. I was returning back from Los Angeles late Lag B'Omer afternoon, so and we had a grandchild who had a haircut there. So, I missed it. But, I've done it before. Um it is the great Jewish Israeli folk festival. Um and for a country this size, it's by far the biggest gathering ever during the year. Nothing matches it. Hundreds of thousands of people, now depending on who you trust to say that 200, 300, 400,000 people within the space of 24 hours, or let's say 36 hours. What's going on? Obviously, it's centered on Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Who was he? What did he contribute? Why is he so special? Why is he the one that attracts this kind of occasion? Indeed, the Talmudic coin says that had it not been for the fact that Rabbi Akiva died as a martyr, it would have been celebrated on Rabbi Akiva's yahrzeit, not on Rabbi Shimon's yahrzeit. So, it's it's a long and complex story. Now, people associate Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai with the Zohar. That's correct. But, I don't think many people associate him correctly. Rabbi Shimon had a had a yeshiva. And in that Yeshiva, they specialized in what we would call today Kabbalistic topics. They had many discussions. Outsiders came from time to time and participated. Some identified, some strangers. Rabbi Shimon assigned one of the Talmudic one of the disciples named Rabbi Abba to edit the discussions. These were free-standing discussions. He edited them and he associated them

Jump to a moment

1. 0:21What I'd like to do is come at a single subject from two different angles, two…
2. 4:27it went through evolution. It wasn't taught publicly to the vast majority of people. It was…
3. 9:05as God's attributes. The Zohar thinks it's a step further and says, all we have are…
4. 13:41Ufi Yagid Tehilatecha." "Hashem, open my lips and my mouth to declare your glory." Your praise.…
5. 18:17Zohar." That's a good illustration of what the Ramah is talking about. Everything is related to…
6. 22:56plus one for the left and you move left as you add them in. When you…
7. 27:32That's the cabalistic idea that there's a there that there surrounds us. It underlies everything that's…
8. 32:05there. And I think it works two ways. Since there's greater glory for the king, there's…
9. 36:40There's a sense of unity that's that's very precious. Now, I think that that's contributes something…
10. 41:16there are levayas. Well, if people who are of some importance announced it, you know, sometimes…

Every second of this shiur plays inside Lehallel — a filtered YouTube library of Torah, music and shiurim. No ads, no comments, no autoplay.