"Moses received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and passed it on to Joshua. Joshua received it from Moses and passed it on to the elders and the elders received it and passed it on to the prophets. The prophets received it and passed it on to the men of the great assembly." (Pirke Avot 1:1)
This paragraph is a summary of the story of the Jewish people. Jewish history is the story of the passing down of Torah from one generation to the next.
Now it has been passed to us...
The
holiday of Lag Ba'omer originated in the era of Roman rule in Judea, when Torah
study was forbidden and Jewish teachers had to carry on a guerilla war (on the
battlefield and in the classroom) to insure that the Torah would be passed on.
A legend tells us that Lag Ba'omer commemorates a day on which a plague which
had been killing Rabbi Akiba's students suddenly ended. But--many say that the
'plague' was really 'the Roman plague,' the students were dying in battle, and
Lag Ba'omer commemorates a victory, perhaps even the recapture of Jerusalem.
On Lag Ba'omer it's traditional to go on a picnic to remind ourselves of the secret study of the Torah and the secret planning meetings for the rebellion which were conducted in the woods. By so doing we remind ourselves that there have been times when (and still are places where) Jews have risked their lives to study Torah and to pass it on.
Lag
Ba'omer has become a day for honoring teachers of Torah, those who own Torah
and pass it on.