Lag Ba’omer marks two special events on thne Jewish calander.
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, A great Kabbala teacher and auther of the Zohar, passed away on this day. Before his passing he instructed his students that this day should be remembered as “the day of my joy”.
In the second century CE a terrible epidemic ravaged Israel in which 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva perished. On Lag Ba’omer the epidemic suddenly stopped.