Bar Kokhba: When (rabbinic) leadership fails
In 130-131 CE, Hadrian, emperor
of Rome for more than a decade already, traveled to the east — one of
the many trips he made around his empire. He thought it would be a good
idea to invest in rebuilding Jerusalem, which had been destroyed 60
years earlier: it could once again be a grand city, a jewel in the Roman
empire. He may have considered allowing the Jews to re-build their
temple, but in any event that was not in the final plans. Those did
include a temple to Jupiter. The rebuilt city, to be home for the Jews
and the Romans, would be called Aelia Capitolina — Aelia for Hadrian
himself, whose family name was Aelius, and Capitolina for the god
Jupiter, for whom a temple would be built.
The
Jews were less grateful than Hadrian may have expected. After a year of
planning, including the digging and construction of hundreds of
underground tunnel complexes throughout the land of Judea, the Jews
revolted.
The entrance to one of hundreds of underground cave networks used in the revolt led by Bar Koseba.
They were led by a man named Shimon bar
Koseba, along with a priest named Elazar. We know next-to-nothing about
these men — where they came from, how they came to lead, what they did
before the year 132. Elazar’s name is known only from coins. Bar
Koseba’s name — his real name — is known to us only from letters he
wrote, which were found in the middle of the twentieth
century.
The name of Shimon ben Koseba, from the beginning of a letter dictated by him. (http://cojs.org/bar_kokhba_letter-_132-135_ce/( With the discoveries of the letters, we know
something of the man. We also know something of his administration, and
of the people involved in the revolt — at least of those who fled to
caves in the Judean desert, documents in hand, and hoped that the Roman
threat would dissipate and they would be able to return to their homes.
Perhaps the most interesting is the woman named Babatha, originally from
the other side of the Dead Sea, who came to a cave together with some
of Bar Koseba’s warriors, carrying her ketubah and other legal
documents. From these we get a sense of her life — and of the people
supporting Bar Koseba.
A
text from the archive of Babatha, a woman caught up in Bar Koseba’s
revolt, who died in a cave in the Judean Desert. (Wikipedia)
None of those people in the caves escaped,
though. A bag of skulls was found in the cave, too. In the long run, the
Romans always win.
Bag of skulls found in a cave where Bar Koseba’s fighters and others had hid (http://www.yadinproductions.com/)
According to a later text, Rabbi Akiva himself
acclaimed Bar Koseba as the messiah. No doubt that was how he got the
name Bar Kokhba “Son of a Star.” But he was, at most, a failed messiah.
The results of his revolt were catastrophic. A Roman writer puts the
number of Jewish dead at 580,000. Jerusalem was destroyed once more,
more thoroughly this time. Jews were banned. Hadrian never forgave the
Jews, and the stories of martyrs proliferated. Intellectuals throughout
the Roman empire castigated the Jews, condemning them as ingrates (and
far worse) for not appreciating the stability and enlightenment brought
by Roman rule.
Rabbi Akiva’s students, the Tannaim, left us a
lot of texts — the Mishnah, the Tosefta, halakhic midrashim. What do
they have to say about this episode? Nothing at all. He is never
mentioned in any of the works of the Tannaim. No Jewish text for the
next century or more so much as mentions his name.
Why? I think it’s not hard to discern the
reason. What can be said? There is nothing positive to say, certainly
not for those living in the aftermath of the devastation. The Tannaim
for the most part lived in the Galilee, having been banished from Judea
or drifted away from there after the catastrophic revolt. But they also
have nothing negative to say. How could they? To criticize Bar Koseba
would be to criticize Rabbi Akiva, to concede that the great scholar and
teacher, the intellectual master of nearly all the Tannaim, and the
mind behind the Mishnah, was wrong on the most important of worldly
matters. It would be to concede that great rabbinic scholar as he was,
Rabbi Akiva’s judgment led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Jews. Better to remain silent.
It is worth comparing this to reactions to the
Holocaust. Setting aside the question of God’s involvement, what of the
rabbis? What of the many great rabbinic scholars who advocated
remaining in Europe, rather than assimilationist America or — Heaven
forfend! — the Zionist settlement in Palestine? What to say about the
rabbis who could have, had they offered different advice, perhaps saved
the lives of thousands of followers?
The paths diverge: while the Tannaim remained
silent, twentieth-century Haredi thinkers offered a multitude of words.
It was the fault of the Zionists; it was the devil himself;
assimilationist tendencies had to be punished; the most precious Jews
were being sacrificed by God; and so on. Is it better to speak or to
remain silent? Norman Lamm wrote that one cannot remain silent in light
of the Holocaust, but neither can one say anything.
Jews have grappled with the image of Bar
Koseba for nearly 1,900 years. A rebel leader and failed messiah, he
became a Zionist hero in the 19th century, and is now the protagonist of
Lag ba-‘Omer celebrations. Bows and arrows and bonfires show the
rehabilitation of a man whose origins are lost to history, and whose
ill-fated revolt changed Jewish society.
—
Aaron Koller’s mini-course, “Bar Kokhba:
Rebel, Failure, Hero,” is taking place at the Drisha Institute for
Jewish Education, on Tuesday May 9, 16, and 23. For more information,
see http://drisha.org/product/bar-kokhba-rebel-failure-hero.