Sephardic chief rabbi calls to forgo Lag B’Omer pilgrimage to Meron

Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef issues a rare rebuke against sectors of the ultra-Orthodox public who are planning to ascend Mt. Meron in Northern Israel to mark the festival of Lag B’Omer tomorrow night in spite of Home Front Command guidelines.

“I hear that there are people in certain circles who are unwilling to give up on Meron,” he says in his weekly class, according to a Rabbinate spokesperson. “Self-sacrifice, that’s what they call it.

“[The commandment of] preserving life overrides the entire Torah,” he adds. “Here, there is not the slightest doubt: The experts unanimously say there is a real concern for danger to life, especially since, in Lebanon, they hear and know that Jews go up to Meron, and then, deliberately, on that very day, they are firing in that direction. In recent days, there have been several impacts near the Meron area.”

Yosef emphasizes that Jewish law requires transgressing Shabbat and even Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, in order to protect a life.

“Now, if preserving life overrides Shabbat, would it not override Lag B’Omer?” he says, stressing how the Meron pilgrimage is not even a Torah commandment, but rather a tradition.