Celebrations Lag baOmer Evening

Avodah
1

See SA OC 493:2, and the MB s"q 6-7.
https://www.sefaria.org/Shulchan_Arukh%2C_Orach_Chayim.493.2?&with=Mishnah%20Berurah

The Mechaber doesn't end the mourning until the END of Lag laOmar. (Although
you can cut your hair lekhavod Shabbos when Lag laOmer is Erev Shabbos.

The Rama, following the Maharil, says the mourning ends at Haneitz on
Lag BaOmer.

the MB says similarly.

I am not saying those who actually have a minhag to celebrate at a
bonfire Lag la/ba'Omer evening are wrong. It's all minhag after all.
I am just asking about the permissibility of the more recent spread
among yeshivos and other communities, for whom the custom of ending the
mourning is at haneitz (dawn), not the night before.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

2

Again, it depends what it is that one is marking in the first place. The end of aveilus for Talmidei R Akiva doesn't happen until at the earliest the morning of the 33rd day. But Simchas Rabbi Shimon begins in the evening.

So perhaps what is happening is simply that as the influence of toras hanistar is felt more widely, communities where the celebration of Simchas R Shimon was not common in previous generations are beginning to celebrate it, and thus to turn it from a mere cessation of aveilus to a day of actual simcha.

3

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 09:09:56PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: >> I am not saying those who actually have a minhag to celebrate at a

bonfire Lag la/ba'Omer evening are wrong. It's all minhag after all.
I am just asking about the permissibility of the more recent spread
among yeshivos and other communities, for whom the custom of ending the
mourning is at haneitz (dawn), not the night before.

Again, it depends what it is that one is marking in the first place...

Does it? I am talking about not obeying consensus in sifrei halakhah.
I said nothing about motive.

Suspending judgment about the early Chassidim and Talmidei haChidah who
veered away from a minhag that was already over a millennium old, I am
not sure how an existing community can jsut decide "We don't hold like
the Rama anymore" wihout any contemporary pushback. Without even hararas
nedarim?

...

So perhaps what is happening is simply that as the influence of toras
hanistar is felt more widely...

Yes, but does that conform to halachic process?

I also question if this is about anything more than the trappings. We're
talking about people who like the kumzitz but by and large aren't learning
more Zohar or sefarim based on it.

I can offer a compromise position.

There was a time when the celebrarions and hair cutting, perhaps the
bonfires as well, were on the 43rd of the Omar, Shemu'el haNavi's
yahrzeit. Poses no halachic questions for those who keep the aveilus
in the first part of the omer. (Unlike 2 Iyyar to the night of Lag
baOmer which was part of every minhag of mourning.)

You can give the bachurim in your yeshiva a pre-Shavuos bonfire and
kumzitz, no halachic questions raised.

But in any case, we're veering from my original topic, which was formal,
not motivational. According to how minhag avos works, is "the growing
influence of Chassidus" really permissible grounds for changing a minhag
this old?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

4

I think it does. The sifrei halacha are talking about the end of aveilus for Talmidei R Akiva. That happens, as they say, on the day of the 33rd. And it's not a celebration, any more than the end of shiva.

That remains the case, but what has happened is that people are adopting a new and different occasion, Yom Simchas Rabbi Shimon, which is a positive simcha, and starts in the evening, and just happens to fall on the same day. And the custom is that it overrides the aveilus. Not that the aveilus is over, because that doesn't happen till the morning (or even till the following evening, according to the Mechaber), but something new that overrides it, just as those who celebrate Iyar 5 say that it overrides the aveilus.

This doesn't contradict the sifrei halacha because they're simply not talking about it. And the authority would seem to come from the AriZal, though the Shaar Hakavanos notes that it was already an established simcha before then; he just gave the reason for it, which I suppose had been forgotten.