What is so great about the sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai?

What is so great about the sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai? that brings 250,000 people to his grave every year on his anniversary of his passing?

What is so great about the sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai?
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a student of Rabbi Akiva, who was the spiritual leader of the Bar Kochba Revolt against Rome in 135 CE, which began in glory and ended in tragedy. His teacher was one of the four great Sages who entered the "Pardes," the "Orchard" ; specifically, who probed the depths of Kabbalah, and came out mentally and spiritually whole. Clearly, Rabbi Akiva was the recipient of a living tradition which he passed on orally to his beloved student, Rabbi Shimon.



As a student of the spiritual leader of the revolt, bar Yochai was pursued relentlessly by the Romans. He and his son, Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon, took refuge in a cave, where they remained for thirteen years.



In the Cave



During those years, Rabbi Shimon studied Torah with his son, the Revealed Torah and the Hidden, or Secret, Torah, the "Torat HaSod," also known as "Kabbalah," and translated, or mistranslated as "Jewish Mysticism."



Rabbi Shimon wrote down the latter material, for the first time, in a book called the "Zohar," meaning "Splendor" or "Radiance." This mystical tradition, kept alive by the RAMBAN, in his Commentary to the Bible, and others, resurfaced with a vengeance in the sixteenth century, and became the splendor and the glory of the "Ari" (the "Lion"), Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, and his followers in "Tzefat," or Safed, Palestine. It also became the basis of the unique spirituality of Chassidut, founded in the eighteenth century, by Yisrael ben Eliezer, the "Baal Shem Tov," in Eastern Europe.