Our rabbis teach us that time is a tunnel.
That means that every year Pesach isזמן חירותנו , a time of freedom , not because it was originally in year 2448 and now it’s 5779 and we just go through years and years. It’s that each year we go through a tunnel, and just like a fun house ride, we swerve off into different sections, with different lights and scenes.
Every day of the year is a branch off the tunnel. And each day that you go through, you will go through again next year.
The same applies to the days of the week.
This is a deep and kabbalistic concept but we can speak about it today in honor of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai’s yarzheit.
The Shulman Aruch explains in סימן תכח
that all of our holidays are always in sync. He uses a Siman/sign called א"ת ב"ש to explain it. Aleph, the first letter, matches up with Taff, the last letter. Bet, the second letter, matches up with Shin, the second from the last, and so on...
Based on this, The first day of Pesach, which is Aleph א- lines up with Tisha B’Av, which starts with ת and these holidays always fall out on the same day of the week.
The second day of Pesach, Bet ב, is the same day as Shavuot, which starts with Shin ש
And so on. The last one is Vav.
The 6th day of Pesach is Vav, which lines up with Purim, so those come out on the same day.
This is the system. Certain holidays are always on the same day of the week.
This year, אדר ז׳ , Moshe Rabbenu’s yarzheit, fell out on a Thursday. Purim was also on a Thursday, the 6th day of Pesach was on Thursday and Lag B’Omer is today, a Thursday. (Another hint to this is פלג P’leg- Purim/ Lag B’Omer)
This means that we went down the Thursday tunnel and met up with all these holidays. What do they all have in common? Rav Avraham Schorr says it’s Bitachon.
Moshe Rabbenu’s yarzheit’s theme is Bitachon because he was a pillar of Bitachon. He prayed and prayed to Hashem.
Purim is about Bitachon as well. The whole holiday is about crying out to Hashem and the Hashgacha pratit/ divine intervention that occurred.
What about the 6th day of Pesach? Rabbi Schorr says the 6th day was a major Bitachon-test day, when the Mitzrim were chasing us and we were stuck by the water. The salvation that came on day 7th day, he says, came because of the Bitachon energy of that 6th day.
And finally we have Lag B’Omer-what’s the Bitachon connection? As mentioned earlier, Rav Shimon Bar Yochai was the king of Bitachon. He taught us Bitachon, first with his reliance and total dependence on Hashem, and then by teaching that we can’t always understand what’s happening because there are deeper secrets.
Furthermore, there is something very special about Rav Shimon that draws hundreds of thousands of people to his kever every year in his yarzheit. What is it? There are other Gedolim but they don’t draw those crowds. And it’s not just the religious Jews that go, but Jews from all walks of life. What’s the secret?
Rav Shimon was all about revealing secrets. He taught the hidden secrets of the Torah. Every Jewish soul is like a sefer Torah with hidden secrets inside. And so every Jewish soul feels connected to that. That secret spirit that connects us all is our Bitachon. We all heard the words אנכי ה'at Har Sinai. We all have that Bitachon hidden under layers and layers. And BeH with the power of Lag B’Omer we will bring out a little more of that special soul in all of us.