Rebbe! This means that Lag Ba’Omer, the day of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s hilula, is a day of forgiveness of sins, truly like Yom Kippur! Thus, it emerges, as the Gemara says (Ta’anit 30b): There were no days as good for Yisrael as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur. Why the great joy? Because Yom Kippur is a day of forgiveness of sins, as it is written:
ַדִּ יק וּלְיִשְׁרֵ י לֵב שִׂמְחָה אוֹר זָרֻ עַ לַצ – a person whose sins are forgiven is found in joy! Therefore, Chazal wrote that the festival of Sukkot comes immediately after Yom Kippur, because if all sins have been forgiven and it is now possible to rejoice!
If Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says to us: “I am able to exempt the entire world from judgment,” this means that Lag Ba’Omer is like Yom Kippur, a day of forgiveness of sins! It seems to me that when the Ruzhiner came to daven at the cave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Lag Ba’Omer, his Chassidim asked him: What is at the cave? The Rebbe answered them: “בַּחוּץ שִׂמְחַת תּוֹרָ ה בִּפְנִים יוֹם כִּפּ וּר – Inside is Yom Kippur, outside is Simchat Torah!”
We have learned that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is in the aspect of a Kohen Gadol in the Kodesh Hakodashim on Lag Ba’Omer; just as the Kohen Gadol atones for Bnei Yisrael on Yom Kippur, so too does Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on the day of his hilula.
May Hakadosh Baruch Hu grant us, in the merit of the divine Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, to merit the complete redemption speedily in our days, Amen and Amen! ◊
