רבי שמעון בר יוחאי

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Rashbi, was one of the foremost students of Rabbi Akiva, and among the five who re-established the Torah after the twenty-four thousand students of his master died. But his name became known for the generations because of thirteen years inside a cave.

One day the sages sat and spoke in praise of the deeds of Rome, and the Rashbi answered that everything they built, they built for their own needs. The words reached the government, and he was sentenced to death. The Rashbi fled with his son Rabbi Elazar, and they hid in a cave (Shabbat 33b).

For thirteen years they sat in the cave, buried in sand up to their necks to preserve their garments, and learned Torah day and night. A miracle was done for them: a carob tree grew and a spring flowed, and from them they were sustained. Out of the darkness and utter confinement an immense light was born.

When they finally emerged, they saw people plowing and sowing, and were angry: they forsake eternal life and busy themselves with fleeting life, and every place upon which they set their eyes was burned. A heavenly voice went out: 'have you come to destroy My world? Return to your cave!' They stayed another year, and learned to balance the holy with the world. When they came out, everything the father had burned, the son healed.

The Rashbi is the father of the hidden Torah. Tradition attributes to him the Book of the Zohar (Zohar, Idra Rabba), the wellspring of Kabbalah from which all the generations have drunk. He is the one who joined the revealed and the hidden, the sharp halacha with the secrets of creation.

On the day of his passing, Lag BaOmer, he revealed the deepest secrets of the Torah, and said that this day would be a day of joy. To this day hundreds of thousands ascend to his grave at Meron on Lag BaOmer, kindle bonfires and rejoice, and this is the greatest hilula in Israel.

The Rashbi teaches that precisely out of confinement and suffering a great light can burst forth, and that there is no contradiction between the depth of the secret and life itself, but a balance that must be learned.