Is Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai really buried at Meron? It’s complicated
On one hand some rock cut burials dating back to the time of the Mishna are present in Meron. On the other, no archaeological evidence linking them to the Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was ever found.
By ROSSELLA TERCATINUltra-Orthodox Jewish man prays outside the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Mt. Meron in northern Israel on May 6, 2020(photo credit: DAVID COHEN/FLASH 90)
Every year tens of thousands flock to Mount Meron to celebrate the festival of Lag Ba’omer at the tomb of 1st century Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Last week, the overcrowding of a site that was never conceived to welcome such numbers resulted in one of the worst civilian catastrophes in the history of Israel, leaving 45 people dead.But what exactly is the area that is commonly referred to as Mount Meron? And is the great Jewish sage whose figure is deeply connected to Jewish mysticism really buried there?On the one hand, some rock-cut burials dating to the time of the Mishna are present in Meron. At the same time, no archaeological evidence linking them to the venerated Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was ever found, and the known hewn burials are located in a different area from the current mausoleum. Above all, a question remains on whether the true nature of the site matters at all.“First of all, people in Israel and all over the world call the site where Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s tomb stands Mount Meron, but this is not correct,” said Prof. Mordechai Aviam, director of the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee. “The structure is located at the base of the mountain, not on top, in the modern moshav called Meron. Meron is an ancient Jewish settlement inhabited during the Roman and Byzantine times. We know that it was Jewish because of the remains of a synagogue dating back to this period.”As often happens in Israel, researchers were able to identify the modern settlement as the same site of ancient Meron not only because of the remains, but also because an Arab village in the area that existed before 1948 carried a very similar name, Maarun.“The settlement was partly excavated in the Seventies and Eighties,” said Aviam. “A team of American archaeologists dug the area of the synagogue and some private dwellings. A Jewish ritual bath was also uncovered, as well as many typical Jewish stone vessels from the Roman period.”Jews settled in Galilee beginning in the 2nd century BCE. From the archaeological point of view, Meron is not especially different from many other sites in the region.“Several dozens of ancient synagogues have been found in Galilee, and Meron is one of them,” Aviam explained. “Everywhere Jews lived, they also died. In every ancient site, we usually also find a cemetery and here we found several burials hewn in the rock.”According to a medieval tradition, another great Jewish sage was buried in Meron, Hillel.“A medieval tradition attributed the most prominent grave in the site to Hillel and his students,” the professor explained. “However, from the 12th century on, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s burial started to become increasingly important and Hillel’s one to be neglected.”Both he and a spokesperson for the Antiquities Authority said that there is no archaeological evidence that the rabbis are really buried there.“We do not have any archaeological evidence for any tomb of Rabbi Shimon,” Aviam said. “Moreover, we do not know if the building actually stands on a tomb. It is possible, but we do not know.”The only tomb dating to the time of the Mishna that has been identified by archaeologists with some certainty is the one of Yehuda Hanassi, the scholar who compiled the Mishna. Researchers found inscriptions in Beit She’arim featuring the names of his two sons and of his servant.“However, it is important to remember that people do not need archaeological evidence to believe something,” said Aviam. “And nobody is going to pray on the tomb of Yehuda Hanassi, because it was found by archaeologists, it was not brought to light by traditions.”Ancient Jewish texts do point out that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai lived and died in Meron, including Midrash Tanchuma and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, whose original dating is uncertain but are believed to have been compiled as early as the 5th century.According to Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Rabbi Shimon’s son, Rabbi Elazar, was buried in another settlement, Gush Halav, but the people of Meron brought his bones back to be buried with his father.As explained by the IAA spokesperson, the first to connect the site at Meron with Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s tomb was Rabbi Yaakov ben Netanel Hacohen in the 12th century.“The basis and sources for determining these ancient traditions – which burial site belonged to which of the rabbis known in Meron – are not known to us today,” said the spokesperson.It is certain that people living in the settlement maintained a tradition of revering the sages’ memory.“While the location of the Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s tomb was marked and well-known in the 12th century at the latest, it seems that only in the 16th century was a preliminary structure built on it. The construction is attributed to Rabbi Avraham Galante, an Italian-born Kabbalist from Safed, and a disciple of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero,” said the IAA spokesperson.The main mausoleum standing on the site today was built in the 19th century.According to Tel Aviv University historian Prof. Elchanan Reiner, “the tradition identifying the tomb goes back much earlier than the 12th century, maybe the seventh to 10th century. Is it important whether this is Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s real grave? What matters is that Jews believe that place is his burial, and this is much more powerful than any archaeologist saying that they have found evidence linking the site to him.”
