What Is the Connection Between Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and the Closure of Synagogues in 5780?

Last Shabbat, I prayed in a building yard, and truly felt humbled. Hashem cast me out of the synagogue... As I was contemplating, I received a "gift" from a pigeon perched directly above me... and then I felt completely broken. I said: 'Not only did the Master of the Universe cast me out of the study hall, but He also banished me from here...

Then I remembered the famous Talmudic account of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who fled with his son from the authorities, and at first, where did he flee to? To the study hall! But then, ‘when the decree intensified!’ he had to leave the study hall and flee into a cave.

We, too, in the last two weeks, have experienced the meaning of ‘when the decree intensified’. Every two days, the decree gets more severe, the noose tightens more and more. Initially, we still hid in the synagogue, and then came the stage where ‘the decree intensified’ and Hashem expelled us from the synagogue.

Not only were we expelled by Hashem from the synagogue, but so was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. "Rashbi, too, was expelled from the study hall, and he fled to a cave. So what is Rashbi supposed to do now? Feel dejected, walk with his head down and say: Hashem cast me out... Well, no. Rashbi was a student of Rabbi Akiva, who said, 'It’s not enough for me that Hashem shows me love! I also want to show love to Hashem! If Hashem smiles at me and shows me how happy He is with my prayers and learning, then Hashem is showing me love, it’s wonderful, I feel like a beloved child. But if Hashem doesn’t show love, and even ‘casts’ me out of the synagogue – right there is my opportunity to show Him love: ‘Master of the Universe, I love you!’

When Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was cast out of the synagogue, he didn’t put on a pitiful face… Quite the opposite: he stormed into the cave and began to engage in Torah and serve Hashem with even more vigor and strength...

Until our days, the entire nation of Israel sings: 'Bar Yochai, you sat in a goodly dwelling, day of fleeing, the day you escaped, in the rocky caves where you stood - there you acquired your glory and splendor'.

The glory and splendor of Rashbi, where does it come from? From the cave he was cast into, the synagogue he didn’t pray in, the Torah reading he didn’t hear, the Shabbat table, and the Seder night he couldn’t celebrate, not with family, matzah, nor wine.

And Rashbi had all the reasons in the world to be sad, even in the name of Judaism: ‘Master of the Universe, you cast me out, you don’t want my prayers in the synagogue, you don’t want my Torah study in the study hall’.

But no! Rashbi seized the opportunity: if Hashem isn’t showing love – then it’s my turn to show Him love, and there, there, in the cave, there you acquired your glory and splendor!

This is a different mindset. Indeed, it is impossible to ignore the series of reproofs we've received from heaven, that we have truly been distanced from the study hall and the congregation and the Torah reading, but we must know that if we take this to the right place and show love to Hashem here, specifically here we will acquire the glory and splendor.

Rabbi Yitzchak Fanger – What is the Secret of Rashbi's Greatness? Watch: