While everyone else is out burning down the town with their bonfires to celebrate the yarzheit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (who probably didn’t die on Lag B’Omer anyway), I wanted to take the opportunity to remember someone who actually did die on this day, and was almost as influential (certainly for Ashkenazi Jews) as the RaSHBI.
Lag B’Omer is the day that the Rema passed away, in Cracow in 1572. He was 52 years old. Rema (or Rama) is an acronym for his real name ‘Rabbi Moshe Isserles’.
He is most famous for his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch (known as the Mapa – the tablecloth) which not only included Ashkenazi customs within R’ Yosef Caro’s code of law, but more importantly ensured that there would be only one standard text of Halacha for all of Jewry, rather than separate books for Ashkenazim and Sefardim. According to tradition he had written a work similar to the Shulchan Aruch, but destroyed it upon finding out that R’ Caro had already written his book.

Here is a video recording of a class I gave about Rabbi Moshe Isserless on WebYeshiva:

And here is the source sheet I created about Rav Moshe Isserless:

May his Soul Be Bound in the Bonds of Eternal Life