Avot078

7:
We have described the insurrections of the Jews against the Romans in the lands of the Diaspora, but nothing can compare with the elation and the despair generated by the bar-Kokhba revolt. I have assumed that most of the participants in RMSG know something of the great Jewish War against the Romans (66-72 CE); I am also going to assume that most participants know very little about the bar-Kokhba revolt (132-136 CE) which in many respects was far more fateful for the Jewish people than the former rebellion.

8:
The revolt led by bar-Kokhba in 132 CE was not the work of a single, radical revolutionary. It was the inevitable result of years of promises to the Jews that had not been kept on the one hand, and laws which suppressed the basis of Jewish nationhood on the other. The rebellion of the Jews in the Diaspora had alarmed the emperor Trajan, and in order to make certain that the Jews in Eretz-Israel did not join the rebellion he had to send Tineius Rufus to be governor of Judea. Tineius Rufus had a reputation for the harshness with which he treated people – a reputation that he had already earned by the manner in which he had put down the rebellion of the Jews in Parthia.

9:
But, truth to tell, the Jews in Eretz-Israel did not really want to rebel in any case. Trajan had promised them that he would rebuild the Bet Mikdash! However, the non-Jewish inhabitants of Eretz-Israel – and they were almost one third of the population, if not more – did not want the Bet Mikdash to be rebuilt; they thought that if it was rebuilt it would be the rebirth of an independent Jewish nation. Trajan, the Emperor who had made this promise, had died (117 CE) and was succeeded by Hadrian. The Jews were unsure if Hadrian would keep Trajan's promise. Indeed, Hadrian decided to go to Jerusalem in person to see what he was rebuilding before he started the construction. When Hadrian got there he was impressed by the sight of a once great city in desolation and ruin. He immediately wanted to start the reconstruction. But Hadrian's intentions and the Jews' expectations were not identical. We can imagine the despair and outrage that possessed the Jews when they discovered that Hadrian wanted to rebuild Jerusalem not as a city for the Jews, but as a pagan city dedicated to the pagan god Jupiter and Hadrian himself was to be the high priest; what once was called Jerusalem would now be called Aelia Capitolina. This was a mockery to the Jews. They had waited sixty years for Rome to restore to them their Bet Mikdash. They held themselves back from rebelling with their brethren in the Diaspora because they had believed that Trajan’s promise would be kept.

10:
But worse was to come. Hadrian, apparently completely unaware of the enormous implications of his policy, now prohibited circumcision. (The Romans despised and detested circumcision.) To the western world Hadrian is one of the "five good emperors" – Trajan, Hadrian, Nerva, and the two Antonines. But to the Jews he had become a second Antiochus Epiphanes [see Avot 020]. The Romans had by now either banned or mocked some of the most important beliefs in Judaism. If the Jews did not revolt against the Romans they would have died, in a spiritual sense. Even if the Romans didn't kill them, they would not really be Jewish anymore. Their only choice was to gain their independence.

11:
Rabbi Akiva, the greatest sage of that time (and one of the greatest of any time) also once believed in Tineius’ promise. The Talmuds recall several conversations between the sage and the Roman Governor. Akiva felt that he had been deceived, so the great rabbi helped organize thousands of soldiers to fight for the independence and welfare of the Jewish people. He also consented that a man named Shim'on bar-Koziba should lead this army. Rabbi Akiva was sure that bar-Koziba would turn out to be the long-awaited Messiah. Based on a phrase in the Torah [Numbers 24:17] Shim'on bar-Koziba was renamed bar-Kokhba, "Son of a Star". Not all of Akiva's contemporaries agreed with his enthusiastic hailing of bar-Kokhba as the Messiah. The Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Ta'anit 24a] records that

Bar-Kokhba had such confidence in his army that he is reported to have said before each battle, "Sovereign of the Universe, do not help us but do not hinder us!" Presumably what he meant was, "Let nature run its course, we do not need God's help."

To be continued.

In Avot 075 I wrote: It has often been suggested that in Judaism the greatest sin is ignorance… One cannot perform the mitzvot properly if one does not know them or understand them. Therefore 'study' is an essential prerequisite to 'performance'.

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