Every year on Lag BaOmer, some 200,000 people attend the 'Yom Hillula' (day of rejoicing) at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Meron, Israel.

According to the Idra Zuta, one of the works printed together with the Zohar, when Shimon bar Yochai died, a divine voice called for the occasion to be celebrated as a feast.

It is popularly believed that if one donates or offers 18 rotels of liquid refreshment (grape juice, wine, soda or even water) to those attending the celebrations at bar Yochai's tomb on Lag BaOmer, then the giver will be granted miraculous salvation.

[12] The Bobover Rebbe, Ben Zion Halberstam, sent a letter from Poland to his Hasidim in Israel asking them to donate chai rotel in Meron on this holy day on behalf of a couple that did not have children.

Nine months after Lag BaOmer, the Ohel Rashbi organization even invites couples who prayed at the tomb and had a child to come back to Meron to celebrate the births.

[11] It is customary at the Meron celebrations, dating from the time of Rabbi Isaac Luria, that three-year-old boys be given their first haircuts (upsherin), while their parents distribute wine and sweets.

[13] In a tradition started in 1833, on the afternoon preceding Lag Baomer a Torah scroll belonging to the descendants of Rabbi Shmuel Abu is carried on foot from their home in Safed to the tomb.

[8] Organizers said they would be supplying 100,000 liters of cold water and juice and offering parve food which they claimed most pilgrims preferred, (half of the 500 litres of prepared cholent was meatless).

[21][22] On 30 April 2021, with about 100,000 people in attendance, there was a crowd crush that killed 45 men and boys, and injured over 150, in the deadliest civil disaster in the history of the State of Israel.