The First Two Thousand Years of Jewish History  -  The Bar Kochba Revolt  -   The Exile  -  The Talmud

The Temple was no more. Jerusalem had been conquered. Rome had asserted its might and crushed the Great Revolt of the Jews. Now there could be quiet.

Hardly.

Virulent anti-Semitism continued unabated in the Roman Empire, generated by the Hellenists who, not happy to leave well enough alone, seemed determined to pour salt onto Jewish wounds.

(This same need for overkill would be exhibited by later enemies of the Jews, who, having exterminated entire Jewish communities, and having no more Jews left to slaughter, would then go on to desecrate Jewish cemeteries and mutilate Jewish corpses.)

The level of hostility and mistreatment of the Jews escalated throughout the Roman Empire to the extent of becoming unbearable.

In response, the Jews revolted several times more. Each time thousands of their number were killed. As a result, the average Roman looked at every Jew as a person hostile to Rome. Jews were officially designated as having "enemy status" -- dediticci in Latin.

Of course, the Jews in the Land of Israel had been crushed in the Great Revolt, and -- at least, right after the destruction of the Temple -- did not have the strength to fight. But we must remember that at this time, a considerable number of Jews were living outside Israel. In fact, historians estimate that there were about 6-7 million Jews living in the Roman Empire and at least 60% of that number were living outside the land of Israel. Places like Alexandria, Egypt (one of the most cosmopolitan cities of that era) alone had a Jewish population of about 250,000 and boasted the largest synagogue in the world.

These Diaspora Jews (and eventually those living in Judah as well) rose in revolt, encouraged by blows dealt the Romans by the Parthians in 116 CE during the reign of Trajan.

The Roman response, with the help of anti-Semites of the region, was to slaughter the Jews. Now it must be noted that while the Romans could be absolutely vicious and brutal in the heat of battle, they did not embark on any kind of policy to exterminate the Jewish people. That's something that you only see with Hitler and the Nazis in the 20th century. (In fact, the term "genocide" did not enter the English language until 1940-1945.)

At the time, it wasn't seen as in the Roman interest to attempt a total massacre of the Jews. It would not have sat well with other conquered peoples, who might think they were next and who might rebel. The Romans were very practical people and this is not something they wanted.

HADRIAN

When Hadrian took the reigns of power in 117 CE, he inaugurated - at least at first - an atmosphere of tolerance. He even talked of allowing the Jews to rebuilt the Temple, a proposal that was met with virulent opposition from the Hellenists.

Why Hadrian changed his attitude to one of outright hostility toward the Jews remains a puzzle, but historian Paul Johnson in his History of the Jews speculates that he fell under the influence of the Roman historian Tacitus, who was then busy disseminating Greek smears against the Jews.

Tacitus and his circle were part of a group of Roman intellectuals who viewed themselves as inheritors of Greek culture. (Some Roman nobles actually considered themselves the literal descendants of the Greeks, though there is no historical basis for this myth.) It was fashionable among this group to take on all the trappings of Greek culture. Hating the Jews as representing the anti-thesis of Hellenism went with the territory. (For more on the subject of Judaism vs. Hellenism, see Part 28 and Part 33.

Thus influenced, Hadrian decided to spin around 180 degrees. Instead of letting the Jews rebuild, Hadrian formulated a plan to transform Jerusalem into a pagan city-state on the Greek polis model with a shrine to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish Temple.

Nothing could be worse in Jewish eyes than to take the holiest spot in the Jewish world and to put a temple to a Roman god on it. This was the ultimate affront.

BAR KOCHBA

Jewish outrage at his actions led to one of the single greatest revolts of the Roman Era. Simon Bar Kosiba led the uprising, which began in full force in 132 CE.

For many years, historians did not write very much about Simon Bar Kosiba. But then, archeologists discovered some of his letters in Nahal Hever near the Dead Sea. If you go to the Israel Museum you can see these letters and they are absolutely fascinating. Some of them pertain to religious observance, because his army was a totally religious army. But they also contain a tremendous amount of historical facts. We learn that the Jews participating in the revolt were hiding out in caves. (These caves have also been found - full of belongings of Bar Kosiba's people. The belongings - pottery, shoes, etc. - are on display in the Israel Museum, and the caves, though bare, are open to tourists.)

From the letters and other historical data, we learn that in 132 CE, Bar Kosiba organized a large guerilla army and succeeded in actually throwing the Romans out of Jerusalem and Israel and establishing, albeit for a very brief period, an independent Jewish state.

Bar Kosiba's success caused many to believe -- among them Rabbi Akiva, one of the wisest and holiest of Israel's rabbis -- that he was the Messiah. He was nicknamed "Bar Kochba" or "Son of Star," an allusion to a verse in the Book of Numbers (24:17): "there shall come a star out of Jacob." This star is understood to refer to the Messiah.

Bar Kochba did not turn out to be the Messiah, and later the rabbis wrote that his real name was Bar Kosiva meaning "Son of a Lie" -- highlighting the fact that he was a false Messiah.

At the time, however, Bar Kochba - who was a man of tremendous leadership abilities - managed to unite the entire Jewish people around him. Jewish accounts describe him as a man of tremendous physical strength, who could uproot a tree while riding on a horse. This is probably an exaggeration, but he was a very special leader and undoubtedly had messianic potential, which is what Rabbi Akiva recognized in him.

Jewish sources list Bar Kochba's army at 100,000 men, but even if that is an overestimate and he had half that number, it was still a huge force (equal to four Roman legions).

United, the Jews were a force to be reckoned with. They overran the Romans, threw them out of the land of Israel, declared independence and even minted coins. That is a pretty unique event in the history of the Roman Empire.

ROMAN RESPONSE

Rome could not let this be. Such boldness had to be crushed and those responsible punished -- brutally and totally.

But the Jews were not easily overcome. Hadrian poured more and more troops into Israel to fight the Bar Kochba forces until the Romans had enlisted almost half of their entire army, a full twelve legions in Israel (three times as many as they had sent in to crush the Great Revolt 65 years earlier).

Heading this mammoth force was Rome's best general, Julius Severus. But even with all this might behind him, Julius Severus was afraid to meet the Jews in open battle. This fact alone is very telling, because the Romans were the masters of open battle. But they feared the Jews because they saw them as being willing to die for their faith - a mentality the Romans thought suicidal. So what happened?

The Roman historian Dio Cassius tells us:

"Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups. Thanks to the numbers of soldiers and his officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able -- rather slowly to be sure, but with comparatively little danger -- to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground, and 580,000 men were slain in various raids and battles, and the number of those who perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out.

"Thus nearly the whole of Judea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regarded as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed. And many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into the cities. Many Romans, however, perished in this war. Therefore, Hadrian, in writing to the Senate, did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by emperors: 'If you and your children are in health it is well and I and my legions are in health.'"

This account of Deo Cassius - even if he is exaggerating the numbers - is very interesting. He tells us that the revolt was very bloody and very costly.

Indeed, the Romans lost an entire legion in battle. The 22nd Roman legion walked into an ambush and was slaughtered. By the end of the revolt the Romans had to bring virtually half the army of the entire Roman Empire into Israel to crush the Jews.

WHY DID THE JEWS LOSE?

Apparently the Jews came very close to winning the war. Indeed, they did win for a time. Why did they lose in the end? The sages say they lost because they were too arrogant. Having tasted victory they adopted the attitude of kochi v'otsem yadea asiti et ha chayal hazeh, "by my strength and my valor I did this."

Bar Kochba too became arrogant. He saw himself winning. He heard people calling him the Messiah. Certainly, if Rabbi Akiva thought so, then he had the potential to be Israel's Ultimate Leader. But all this adulation went to his head, and he began to lose battles.

In Judaism we are taught that while people must make the effort, it is God that wins the wars. It is not human strength nor human might that's doing it.

THE FALL OF BETAR

Bar Kochba made his final stand in the city of Betar, which is to the southwest of Jerusalem. You can go visit it today, thought ancient Betar has not been excavated. The Talmud (in Gittin 57a) relates what happened in Betar:

"They had the custom in Betar that when a baby boy was born they planted a cedar tree and for a baby girl they planted a pine tree, and when they would marry they would cut them down and make a marriage canopy of the branches. One day the daughter of Caesar was passing and the shaft of her litter broke. They cut down a cedar and brought it to her. The Jews of Betar fell upon them and beat them. They reported to Caesar that the Jews were rebelling and marched against them ... they killed [Jewish] men, women and children until their blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea ... It was taught that for seven years the gentiles cultivated their vineyards with the blood of Israel without requiring manure for fertilization."

The city fell on the saddest day in the Jewish calendar -- the 9th of Av of the year 135, the same day as both the First and the Second Temple fell.

The Romans, in their fury, did not want to allow the Jewish bodies to be buried; they wanted to leave them out in the open to rot. According to tradition, the bodies lay in the open for months but did not rot. Today, when Jews say the Grace after Meals, Birkat HaMazon, they add a special blessing (ha tov u'mativ) as a way of thanking God for this act of mercy in Betar.

Exhausted, the Romans have had enough of the Jews who had caused them more manpower and material losses than any other people in the history of Empire. At the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, Hadrian decided that the way not to have another one is to cut off the Jews from connection to their beloved land.

 
No people had revolted more or caused the Romans greater manpower or material losses than the Jews. But they had done so at a great price to themselves as well.

The Roman historian Dio Cassius writes that over half a million Jews died in the fighting. Even if this figure is exaggerated, there is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of Jews did die and the country was laid low.

The Jewish challenge to Rome that had begun in 66 CE had lasted almost 70 years. How such a comparatively tiny group could take on the might of Rome over and over again and for so long is hard to fathom. But perhaps the answer lies in the reason behind the conflict.

It was not so much a fight over territory or property, as it was a fight over the very way of life. Monotheism and the laws of the Torah were so deeply ingrained in the Jews that any attempt to separate the people from the essence of Judaism was seen as the death of the very soul of the nation.

The Jews found reserves in themselves beyond normal human boundaries, like a mother who is capable of superhuman feats of strength to defend the life of her child.

In the end the Jews were crushed. And the Romans did everything in their power to make sure that they would stay crushed. They wanted to make sure that no Jew was ever in a position to rally his brethren again.

Their solution: separate the Jews from their land.

AELIA CAPITOLINA

As part of this policy of erasing the Jewish presence from Israel, Hadrian leveled Jerusalem and on top of the rubble rebuilt the pagan city he had planned, which he named Aelia Capitolina.

Through the heart of the city, he built a columned esplanade called the Cardo.

(Today, the excavated Cardo in the Old City of Jerusalem stands as a reminder of that time. Cardo means "heart" in English, and is related to the medical term "cardiac arrest." Tour guides are fond of pointing out that if Hadrian were alive today, he'd have cardiac arrest to see all the Jewish shops in his Cardo today, with Jerusalem and Israel alive and well.)

Whatever Jews remained in the area were strictly forbidden to enter Aelia Capitolina. The only day that Jews were permitted to enter the city was the 9th of Av, so that they could be reminded of their greatest disaster and weep over the ruins of the Temple, of which nothing remained, save some of the retaining walls surrounding the Temple Mount. (The Kotel -- a section of the Western Wall that was dubbed the "Wailing Wall" -- was the only piece of those retaining walls that Jews could access for hundreds of years. And this is where they came and wept and prayed.)

For the first time since King David made it Israel's capital a thousand years earlier, Jerusalem was empty of Jews. It's ironic that the first city in history to be made intentionally and completely Juden rein, "Jew free," (to borrow a term later used by the Nazis) was their very own Jerusalem.

But that was not all.

To further squelch any nationalistic feeling, Hadrian renamed the land Philistia (Palestine) after the Phillistines, an extinct people who once occupied the Mediterranean coastal area and who were some of the bitterest enemies of the Jews described in the Bible.

This name survived in Christian writings, to be resurrected in 1917, after World War I, when the British took over the Middle East, having conquered the Ottoman Empire. They named the lands east and west of the Jordan River - including the country of Jordan which the British created in 1923 -- the Palestine Mandate. It is from this time that the Arabs living in this area get the name Palestinians. (Of course, at that time the Jews living in the Palestine Mandate were called Palestinians too.)

RABBI AKIVA

The Roman plan sought not only to separate Jews from the land of Israel, it also sought to separate them from Judaism.

Writes historian Rabbi Berel Wein in his Echoes of Glory (p. 217):

"Their [Roman] plan was to eliminate the scholars and sages of Israel, who were, after all, the true leaders of the Jews, and to forbid the practice of Judaism, the lifeblood of Israel, thus guaranteeing the Jews' demise as a counter-force to Roman culture and hegemony. The Sabbath, circumcision, public study and teaching of Torah, as well as observances of all Jewish ritual and customs, were forbidden."

One of the great rabbis of the time who simply refused to abide by these decrees was Rabbi Akiva. Although many rabbis did likewise and were killed by the Romans for their acts of disobedience, Rabbi Akiva deserves special mention because of his stature in the Jewish world and the particular way he met his death.

It is fascinating to note that Rabbi Akiva did not even begin to study Torah until age 40. Until that time he had been an uneducated shepherd. But then he fell in love, and his beloved Rachel said she would marry him only if he studied Torah. At first he thought the task impossible, but then he saw a stone that had been hollowed out by dripping water. He said: "If water, which is soft, can hollow out a stone, which is hard, how much more would the words of the Torah, which are hard, be able to cut through and make an impression on my heart, which is soft."

Thus he began his studies and in a short period of time was considered one of the wisest men of Israel. Students from all over flocked to learn from him, and at one point, he was reported to head a chain of schools totaling 24,000 students.

The Talmud abounds with stories about Rabbi Akiva. One of the most famous is the story of four great sages who entered pardes, the "orchard" -- that is they engaged in mystical meditative techniques and ascended into realms of Divine consciousness. Of the four, three met terrible fates as a result of their mystical foray -- one died, another went insane, and the third became a heretic. Only Rabbi Akiva "entered in peace and emerged in peace."

A person like Rabbi Akiva, who lived on such a high spiritual level and who possessed an uncompromising dedication to Torah, could not be silenced by Roman decrees.

When the Romans learned that Rabbi Akiva was openly teaching Torah they decided to make a public example of his punishment.

They arrested him and took him to the hippodrome in Caesarea where on (or around) Yom Kippur in 136 CE, they staged a prolonged torture of the great sage. This horrible spectacle included having Rabbi Akiva's skin flayed with iron combs.

Rabbi Akiva went to his death, sanctifying God's name, with the words of the Shema on his lips: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." Rabbi Akiva's spirit exemplified the spirit of the sages who against the greatest odds sought to keep Judaism alive. We shall see next how they succeeded.

 At various times during the Hadrian persecutions, the sages were forced into hiding, though they managed to reconvene at Usha in 122 CE, and then in a time of quiet managed to re-establish again at Yavneh in 158 CE.

With so much persecution and unrest, with the Jewish people fleeing the land of Israel, the rabbis knew that they would not be able to keep a central seat of rabbinic power alive for long.

Yet, during these great periods of chaos, some of the finest rabbinic minds made their mark. Among them:

Now, another man was to emerge and make his mark -- the son of Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel II -- Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (in English "Judah, the Prince").

In a time of chaos, the rabbis decide that they must do the unprecendented -- write down the Oral Law.

He is one personality who is absolutely fundamental to understanding this period of time, and one of the greatest personalities of Jewish history.

So great was he that he is now affectionately referred to in Jewish scholarship as only Rebbe.

He had a unique combination of attributes -- being both a great Torah scholar and a strong leader -- that gave him the power to lead the Jewish people at this chaotic time. He was also a man of tremendous personal wealth, which put him in a position to wheel and deal and do what needed to get done, not just with the Jews in the Land of Israel but with the Roman authorities as well.

During a period of relative quiet, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi managed to befriend the Roman emperors who succeeded Hadrian, particularly Marcus Aurelius. Writes historian Rabbi Berel Wein in his Echoes of Glory (p. 224):

"Providentially, in the course of the Parthian war, Marcus Aurelius met Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi], and they became friends and eventually confidants ... Marcus Aurelius consulted with his friend in Judah on matters of state policy as well as on personal questions ...

"The years of Marcus Aurelius' reign, ending in his death in 180, was the high-water mark in the intercourse between Rome and the Jews. The Jews, under the leadership of Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi], would use this period of blissful respite to prepare themselves for the struggle of darker days surely lurking around the corner."

At this time -- circa 170-200 CE -- the Mishna was born.

What is the Mishna?

In past installments we discussed the fact that at Mount Sinai the Jewish people received the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. (See Part 11.) The Oral Torah was the oral explanation of how the written laws should be executed and followed.

The Oral Torah passed from generation to generation and was never written down. (See Part 26 and Part 32) Why? Because the Oral Torah was meant to be fluid. The principles stayed the same, but the application of those principles was meant to be adapted to all types of new circumstances.

This worked exceptionally well as long as the central authority -- the Sanhedrin -- remained intact, and the chain of transmission was not interrupted. (That is, teachers were able to freely pass on their wisdom to the next generation of students.) But in the days since the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin had been repeatedly uprooted and teachers had to go into hiding.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi realized that things would not get better any time soon. He saw that the Temple would not be rebuilt in his generation and possibly in many generations to come. He saw the Jews fleeing the land as a result of the constant persecutions and impossible living conditions. He saw that the central authority was weaker than ever and might cease altogether (which is what happened in the 4^th century as we will discuss in future installments.)

To make sure that the chain of transmission would never be broken, he decided that the time had come to write down the Oral Torah.

This was a mammoth undertaking. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi had to go to as many rabbis as possible in order to extract from them their entire memories. He asked them to tell him all they knew about the legal traditions they received that could be traced back all the way down to Moses at Mount Sinai. He put all those recollections together, edited them, and the end result was the Mishna. (Incidentally, the word Mishna means "repetition" because it was studied by repeating; mishna then, by extension, means "learning.")

The Mishna was divided into six basic segments dealing with six basic areas of Jewish law:

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi finished the Mishna in 219 CE in the town of Tzipori in the Galilee. You can visit the site today which is very interesting from an archeological perspective. At a place called Beit She'arim, archeologists found a series of catacombs at the side of a mountain. And they actually found his tomb, with his name on it, along with many other great scholars of that time.

No sooner had Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi finished the Mishna, did the rabbis realize that the Mishna was not enough. It was written in shorthand fashion and in places was cryptic. This is because it was very concise, written on the assumption that the person reading it was already well-acquainted with the subject matter.

So they began to have discussions about it and to write down the substance of these discussions.

Since at this time a significant portion of the Jewish population was living in Babylon, which was outside the bounds of the Roman Empire, the rabbis there put together their discussions, the end product of which was called Talmud Bavli or the Babylonian Talmud. In the land of Israel, another set of discussions took place and the end result was Talmud Yerushalmi or the Jerusalem Talmud. (Incidentally, the Jerusalem Talmud was not written in Jerusalem; it was written in Tiberias, the last place where the Sanhedrin sat, but was called the Jerusalem Talmud in deference to the Sanhedrin's rightful home.)

The Jerusalem Talmud is much shorter and much harder to understand than the Babylonian Talmud because the editing had to be much more rushed. The situation in Israel was much worse, while in Babylon it was much more stable. (Today, Jewish students pouring over the Talmud in yeshiva are using chiefly the Babylonian Talmud.)

The Talmud is more than just an application of the details of the Jewish law as expounded in the Mishnah. It's the encyclopedia of all Jewish existence.

The Talmud also contains a lot of agadata -- these are stories that are meant to illustrate important points in the Jewish worldview. These stories contain a wealth of information on a huge range of topics. you name it, it's in there.

This information was vital to the Jewish people because Jewish law was never applied by reading a sentence in the Torah and executing it to the letter. Take for example, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." It was never Jewish law that if someone blinded you, that you should go and blind him. What is the good of having two blind people? It was always understood on two levels: 1) that justice must be proportional (it's not a life for an eye) and 2) that it means the value of an eye for the value of the eye, referring to monetary damages. Thus, the Talmud presented the written and oral tradition together.

To read the Talmud is to read a lot of arguments. On every page it seems that the rabbis are arguing. This kind of argument -- the purpose of which was to arrive at the kernel of truth -- is called pilpul. This word has a negative connotation outside the yeshiva world, as people read these arguments and it seems to the uneducated eye that the rabbis are merely splitting hairs, and that some of the arguments have absolutely no basis in everyday life. But this is not so.

The reason why the rabbis argued about things that may not have any application to everyday life was to try to get to truth in an abstract way -- to extract the principle. These rabbis were interested in knowing what reality is and in doing the right thing. Reality is what Judaism is all about -- the ultimate reality being God.

Another important point that must be made about these arguments is that they never argued about the big things. You don't see a single argument as to whether or not you eat pork, or whether or not you can light a fire on the Sabbath. These things were a given, they were totally agreed upon. Only small points were subject to discussion. And these rabbis were wise enough to know that a day would come when the principles established by getting to the core kernel of truth would have far reaching implications.

When you look at the page of the Talmud today, you will find the Hebrew text of the Mishna is featured in the middle of the page. Interspersed between the Hebrew of the Mishna are explanations in Aramaic which are called the Gemara.

The Aramaic word Gemara means "tradition." In Hebrew, the word Gemara means "completion." Indeed, the Gemara is a compilation of the various rabbinic discussions on the Mishna, and as such completes the understanding of the Mishna.

The texts of the Mishna and Gemara are then surrounded by other layers of text and commentaries from a later period.

The text of the Mishna is quoting rabbis who lived from about 100 BCE to 200 CE. These rabbi are called the Tanaim, "teachers." In this group are included such greats as Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Rabbi Akiva, and of course Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. (In the Gemara, they all have the title Rebbe before their first name.)

The text of the Gemara is quoting the rabbis who lived from about 200 CE to about 500 CE. These rabbis are called, Amoraim, "explainers" or "interpreters." In this group are included Rav Ashi, Rav Yochanan, etc. (Names of the Amoraim are not so famous, but they all begin with Rav.)

The surrounding text of today's Talmud also quotes Rishonim, literally "the first ones," rabbinic authorities who predated Rabbi Joseph Caro, the 16^th century author of the code of Jewish law known as the Shulchan Aruch. Among the most prominent Rishonim are Rashi, his students and descendants who were the chief authors of the Tosaphos, Maimonidies and Nachmanides. We will discuss the contributions of these rabbis in future installments.

Just how important was the work of Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi and those that followed him would become very clear in the next hundred years when the Jewish people face another threat to their religion. This is when the Roman Empire decides to convert its entire population to Christianity.

During a time of cruel oppression of the Jews, a number of splinter sects sprang up whose members believed that the Apocalypse was at hand.
by Rabbi Ken Spiro

The idea of the Messiah is one of the 13 principles of faith within Judaism.

The teachings of these splinter sects did not catch on in any significant way among the Jews.

Josephus is all but mum on the subject of Jesus.

The gospels make much use of the term "son of Man" which is taken from the Messianic writings of the prophets.