"You depart from God's command and hold onto human tradition." Mark 7:8

Lag B'omer

The day of Lag B'Omer comes during "Counting of the Omer". (Counting seven weeks or fifty days from the Shabbat after Passover up to the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot. Leviticus 23:15-16. Lag B'Omer is held on the 33rd day.

This is not biblical feast. Lag B'Omer involves famous rabbis and traditions including activities like stretching out on the graves of the dead in hope of infusing some of their spirit. Hardly a good idea!

Mount Meron

(You may have heard of the time the crowding was so bad that 45 people lost their lives.)

Today, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews go to the Galilee gathering, to the tomb of a second-century rabbi-Shimon Bar-Yochai; on Mount Meron near Safed. Shimon Bar-Yochai is seen as the patriarch of Kabbalah, a dark form of Jewish mysticism, but in the sixteenth century, in Safed, there was a movement of New Kabbalists who twisted the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob completely beyond recognition. These kabbalistic rabbis recommended trying to acquire spirits from the graves of famous rabbis, and much of their practice and liturgy resembles witchcraft.

Whatever the source of teaching that contradicted Scripture, ungodly phenomena and belief systems were common in that movement. They taught that sparks of God were scattered by the creation event and were in need of regathering, and that the world needed to be fixed by good deeds before the Messiah could come. This is an inversion of the truth that we cannot keep God's law, we are sinful, and we need salvation brought by the Messiah. These heresies reached the entire Jewish world and have become integral to Orthodox Judaism today. Because of this Kabbalist movement, most Jewish people today believe in reincarnation (rather than one judgement leading to eternal life or death)

The LAG B'OMER celebration must pain God's heart greatly.

How can such a pagan event be found within Judaism today, The Jerusalem Post writer wondered: "One can imagine Moses watching this feast and responding the way he did when the sight of the pagan, Golden calf celebration at Mount Sinai's foothills made him shatter the tablets."

After describing the importance of mountains and the dangers of pagan worship of the dead, the Jewish publication explains, "People, including Jews, want to worship what they can see, hear, smell and feel. That's why pagans made so much of fire, and that is why fire plays such a central role on Mount Meron, where competing rabbis kindle separate bonfires, each for his own followers. The same pagan spirit is what makes so many people replace the Jewish journey to God and His laws with a journey to the bricks above a dead man's bones, the bricks on which they sprinkle oil and throw candles, not so much finding the meaning of life but the spirit of death."

Please pray for more Jewish people to see through the darkness and lies; exposing the pagan idolatry of this feast.

Pray that there will be a great hunger and thirst for truth so that Jewish people will become open to the Gospel of Jesus.

Pray for revelation, repentance, and restoration. God promises to meet us when we turn to Him.

"For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 3:7)

Adapted from - Jerusalem Post, "Idolatry: the Jewish Version" by Amotz Asa-el, May 5, 2023

Updated 19/02/18

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