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Bar Kochba was a man of tremendous strength, leadership qualities and also of great scholarship. In fact, if it were not for the fact of his scholarship, Rabbi Akiva would not have thrown his support behind him.
Bar Kochba fielded an army of 100,000 men, which actually succeeded in ejecting the Romans from the land of Israel, an unprecedented feat at that point in Roman history. The Jewish people declared independence and started preparing the building materials for the Third Temple.
This the Romans could not allow. Hadrian sent Julius Severus--who had conquered England--to crush the revolt. At first they were unsuccessful--to the extent that the entire 22nd Roman legion was destroyed in an ambush. By the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, the Romans had almost half their entire army--12 of 28 legions and 120,000 soldiers--in Israel trying put down the Jewish revolt.
Beitar was the site of Bar Kochba's last stand. The Romans killed everyone in the city--though they sustained punishing losses themselves. As many as 500,000 Jews lost their lives and some 1,000 towns and cities were wiped out before the revolt was put down.
(By way of comparison, in 1948 the British had some 100,000 soldiers in Israel, trying to control 600,000 Jews; at the same time, the British also had about 100,000 in India, trying to control a half billion people. It is one sign that when the Jewish people are united, their power is most formidable indeed.)
After the revolt, Hadrian set out to make an example of the Jewish people. While at times the Romans could be remarkably tolerant, if they chose not to be, they were cruel nearly beyond human description. During the years 135-138, Rome embarked on a policy of massive spiritual and physical destruction of the land of Israel. The Romans executed many of the generation's leading Sages, including Rabbi Akiva. The Temple Mount was ploughed under, an event that was forseen in the prophesy of Micha (3:12), and Jerusalem was turned into a pagan city. (The Cardo is a remnant of that undertaking.)
Finally, as a result of the Roman oppression, Jews became a minority in the land of Israel for the first time in 1000 years. It would remain that way for nearly 2000 years.
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Byzantine rule is generally considered to have stretched from 324-612. Over time the Byzantines combined traditional Roman anti-Semitism with Christian anti-Semitism, and the Jewish community in Israel fell into a period of decline during these centuries. The Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of the Jewish people, stopped sitting in Israel. In the 4th century, the system of declaring the new moon had to be abandoned in favor of the fixed calendar. In spite of these unfavorable conditions, the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled from the ancient Oral Tradition in 368.
Finally, in the 5th century, the Roman empire no longer recognized the position of the President of the Jewish People. Although a strong Torah presence always continued in the land of Israel, by the end of the Byzantine era the Jewish academies in Babylon became major centers of Torah scholarship.
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However, within a short time, Ezra sparked a tremendous resurgence of Jewish life and learning in the Land of Israel--including the rebuilding of the Temple. Such was his stature as a Jewish leader that he is considered to be as great as Moshe in certain ways.
Ezra found a strong ally in Nehemia, who arrived several years later, armed with a Royal Persian edict to continue the efforts to fortify Jewish life in Israel. Nehemia helped to complete Ezra's work and is credited with rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem.
Both men were prophets and members of the Great Assembly, a parliament of sages who led the Jewish people during the century after the destruction of the First Temple until the Greek conquest of Israel.
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Against this background, a small band of Cohanim--Priests--rose up against the might of the Greek empire. Mattisiyahu and his five sons lead a guerilla revolt to drive the Greeks out of Israel and to rededicate the Temple. Never numbering more than a few hundred to a few thousand men, the Maccabees took on some 30,000 to 40,000 Greek soldiers.
Within three years, the Maccabees succeeded in liberating the Temple, which is the source of the miracle of Chanukah. As they were restoring the Temple service, they soon realized that there was almost no pure oil left with which to light the menorah. One small container remained, enough for one day. The miracle, as we know, was that it lasted eight days.
For the record: Until the Maccabbees, it was unheard of for one people to go to war with another over religious or ideological reasons. Thus, you could say that it was the Jewish people who taught the world that some ideas are worth dying for.
But even more than simply dying for a cause, the Maccabbees taught the world that if you're willing to die for a cause--then live for it, too! Their willingness to sacrifice their lives to fight the Greeks was a direct outgrowth of--and also brought about--an intense desire to live freely as Jews.
The Maccabees ruled for 103 years (167-63 CE), and succeeded in expanding Israel's borders to their largest extent in history.
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Hirkanus, the weaker of the two, had an advisor known as Antipater. A descendent of the Edomites, who had come under Jewish control and were forced to convert to Judaism, Antipater was a shrewd political manipulator and power player. He convinced Rome to "mediate" the conflict between the two warring brothers, and in doing so eventually paved the way for his son, Herod Agrippas, to be placed on the Jewish throne.
The son of Herod Agrippas was also known as Herod, whose tyrannical reign stretched from 37-4 BCE. In an effort to gain credibility with the masses, he married the last female descendant of the Maccabees--only to eventually kill her in a fit of rage. He also executed nearly all of the great Sages of his time.
Later he would try to make amends by renovating and expanding the Temple, and, in fact,the structure that he built was one of the most beautiful buildings of all time. He also embarked on an ambitious construction campaign. Cesaria, Masada and Herodia, were all built in his time.
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- MISHNAH
- A generation after the Hadrian oppressions, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius would
maintain a more favorable policy toward the Jews. He learned with the great sage, Rabbi
Yehuda Hanasi, who is also known as Rebbe.
It was Rebbe who brought together a thousand Sages in his effort to formalize the Mishnah. What emerged was a work that contains all of the major principles of Jewish law, including a detailed description of the full range of activities that took place in the Temple.
Jewish children today compete with their friends to memorize the more than 2,500 separate mishnayos, which are arranged in six separate subheadings. It is the Mishna that serves as the basis for the Gemora--the backbone of higher Jewish learning in the yeshivas--which includes the full commentary and explanation of the mishnah.
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- PHARISEES: (Perushim)
- These are the great Sages of old. Unlike the bad press they receive in the New
Testament, the Pharisees dedicated their lives to the survival of the Torah and the Jewish
spirit. They were the Rabbis who ensured that the unbroken chain of transmission of Jewish
teaching from the time of Moshe would not be forgotten. The great Rabbi Akiva, for
example--who taught us that "Loving your neighbor as yourself" is the great
unifying principle behind Torah--was a Pharisee.
The word itself means to separate. The Pharisees separated themselves from the spiritually destructive forces of their day and strengthened the fortress of Torah.
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- PTOLEMY
- The Greek Egyptian rulers who took over the land of Israel after the death of Alexander the Great. Alexandria in Egypt was the cultural center of the world at the time, and the Jewish people were generally well treated under their rule. However, in 198 BCE, Ptolemy lost control of Israel to the Selucids, who were centered in Syria and whose attitude toward the Jewish people would soon turn most threatening indeed.
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- SADUCEES (Tzedukim)
- The Saducees were the ideological followers of Tzadok and Bytus, who tragically fell under the spell of Helenism and then challenged the validity of the Oral Law. Many believe that Tzadok and Bytus felt they had been passed over for certain honors in the Yeshiva academies and began their campaign against Torah out of wounded pride and a desire for revenge--two powerful, if dark, motivating forces.
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