When Constantine, the emperor of Rome, became a Christian it meant that the empire became Christian, with momentous consequences for the Jewish and pagan worlds.

As Jews began to establish an autonomous way of life and put down deep roots in Babylon — a place at the far end of the Roman Empire and insulated from a Rome in steep decline — a Roman general by the name of Constantine rose in the ranks. His conversion to Christianity would literally shake up the entire world.

His mother, Helena, secretly converted to Christianity in about 310 CE. Had she done so publicly she would have been executed. She also kept her Christianity hidden because she had her son’s career in mind. If it was discovered that his mother was an avowed Christian, he would lose his rank if not his head.

Constantine, who was a great warrior and man of considerable talents, rose to the top of the political ladder until he was able, through a bloodless coup, to usurp power and become the emperor of Rome. Then, his mother was able to convince him to mount what really was the first crusade against the infidels in Palestine… even though Constantine was not yet a Christian! However, his mother had been drumming it into him for so many years that he was already filled with great zeal.

When he finally became emperor, he took a large Roman army east with the intention of settling the score once and for with all the guerilla bands that were picking Rome apart. On the eve of one of the great battles, in 330 CE, Constantine saw a vision in which his mother stood on the right hand of Jesus. He promised him, “If you will give me victory in this battle, then I will officially become a Christian.” Constantine won the battle and fulfilled his promise.

When the emperor became a Christian it meant that the empire became Christian.

Suddenly, the persecuted became the establishment. Constantine cleansed the Roman bureaucracy of pagans and replaced them with Christians. As happens many times with converts, he became more fanatical than those who had long been believers before him. In short, he was determined to make the entire empire Christian.

And he probably would have done it if not for making the mistake… of dying.

Christian Persecution of Jews in Israel

Before he died, he came to Israel and built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. He also came to Jerusalem and built a church on Mount Moriah. He tried as well to establish Christianity throughout the rest of the country.

He naturally did not find a favorable response from the Jewish community. This intensified the anti-Jewish feeling of Christians. Indeed, the beginnings of official Christian persecution of Jews can be traced to this time.

Those Jewish individuals and small communities that remained in the Land of Israel had to go underground. Although there has never been a time without some Jewish presence in the Land of Israel — even when the numbers of Jews was very few and life there very tenuous — Constantine’s conversion marked a very significant, long-term weakening of the Jewish presence in Israel. With the weakening of the Jewish presence also came the weakening of the Sanhedrin, as well as the weakening of the Prince of the Sanhedrin, with momentous consequences, as we will explain just ahead.

Constantinus – More Bad News for the Jews

When Constantine died, his son – Constantinus, also called by historians Constantine II – took over. He, too, was a strong Christian. In modesty, he renamed Byzantium “Constantinople.” Now the early Church fathers really began to gain control of the Roman Empire.

As with all revolutionaries, when the Christians gained power they were more brutal than those they replaced. They, who had for years pleaded for religious tolerance, now said no other religion was acceptable except Christianity. Instead of throwing Christians to the lions they threw non-Christians to the lions. The religion of love, peace and brotherhood looked very much like the religion of Rome. The same people that ran the prisons and public executions for the Romans ran them for the Christians.

This put the Jews under tremendous pressure – so much so that a relatively large amount (perhaps a few thousand) converted to Christianity. Some of them rose to high office in the Church, a situation that will be repeated many times in history. These apostate Jews became the worst enemies of the Jewish people. They understood Jewish life and understood best how to completely destroy it.

Therefore, we have for the first time in recorded history – in 350 CE — the phenomenon of synagogues being burned under official Church sanction. They also officially closed all schools of Jewish learning, banned circumcision, kosher food, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath and other practices.

A Brief Relief

In 360 CE, after three consecutive Christian emperors, a pagan by the name of Julian the Greek took the throne. He tried to undo what his predecessors had done. Because of his enmity toward Christianity, he was probably the most favorable emperor the Jews ever had.

He espoused Jewish causes, and even promised to destroy the Church on the Temple Mount and rebuild the Temple there. To prove that he was serious, he set aside a large amount of money and sent Roman contractors who indeed tore down the Church there and started building the Temple.

It was a wild, incredible moment in Jewish history.

Meanwhile, he took his army east to fight the Persians and Parthians — but unfortunately made a few very bad tactical errors. The first was to take a pagan army into Christian territory to fight the Persians. What happened is that while he was fighting the Persians the Christians were decimating his army behind him.

For three years, no one in Rome knew what happened to his army, until they confirmed that it had been destroyed and he had been killed. With his death, the project of rebuilding the Temple unceremoniously also died.

Establishment of the Permanent Jewish Calendar

The next emperor, Theodosius, was again a virulent anti-pagan Christian. He not only set about to undo what Julian had done but to Christianizing the empire more than ever.

He passed a series of decrees that affected the Jewish people. One was that he forbade the meeting of the Sanhedrin. Among the consequences of that was the effective abolition of a Jewish calendar, because, as we have discussed before (see the article on The Men of the Great Assembly), it was dependent upon declaration of the dates by members of the Sanhedrin. Without knowing the dates of the Jewish holidays there is no way for Jews to survive as Jews.

When the Communists came to power in Russia in 1917 they banned the Jewish calendar even before they banned the prayer-book. They realized that without knowing the precise dates of the Jewish holy days no Jew could possibly maintain his religion. If one Jew thought Yom Kippur was Wednesday and one thought it was Thursday and another thought Friday the structure of Jewish life would collapse. Therefore, they banned the calendar first.

More than any other decree, this decree of Theodosius impelled the establishment of the permanent Jewish calendar, as we know it today. Starting in 380 CE there was serious discussion to officially adopt it. By 415 CE, it was officially adopted by the Jewish people.

The permanent Jewish calendar, based on mathematical calculations,[1] had always been known to and used by the Jew leaders. The Sanhedrin met because, within certain parameters, they had the power to adjust the calendar. For instance, the Sanhedrin had the power to lengthen a year by a month if the farmers needed it or if the date of Passover would not fall in the spring or other possible considerations. This flexibility was its genius. It allowed human beings to tweak it as needed. Nevertheless, the Sanhedrin always had mathematical calculations to guide them – and it was those calculations that were used in the permanent Jewish calendar.

The permanent calendar operates on a nineteen-year cycle. Every nineteen years there are seven leap years (years with an additional month). It is so accurate that even now, after 1500 years, the Jewish calendar is only off by a couple of minutes. Compare that to the Julian calendar, used by the Western world, which already centuries ago had to be corrected by more than 11 days.

The permanent calendar was made official by the Prince of the people of the time, a man named Hillel, who is not to be confused with the more famous Hillel who lived four centuries earlier. In fact, this Hillel would be the next to last Prince of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. He saw that Christian persecution was ruining Jewish life, including making it impossible for the Sanhedrin to meet and set the dates of the Jewish calendar. It was he who proposed, at a clandestine meeting of the Sanhedrin, that a permanent calendar be instituted.

After successfully doing that, he was then able to get the permanent calendar instituted in all Jewish communities throughout the world no matter how remote. From then on, there were always Jews who could figure out the calendar no matter the situation.

There are stories of Jews who were shipwrecked on islands (for example, after they were expelled from Spain in 1492) or imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps who were able to use the principles of the Jewish calendar to recreate it accurately for themselves. Some of these calendars are on display in the Israel Museum. There is one Jewish family that was shipwrecked on an island for 11 years! Can you imagine? There was this Jewish family alone on a desolate island celebrating Passover and Yom Kipper, etc. at the correct times.

As would be true throughout history, this is a prime example of how the attempt of the Christian world to break the Jewish people and religion only strengthened it.

The Witness People

After 50 years of intense Christian persecution against Jews, the Church leaders came to the conclusion that the Jews were not going to be easy to get rid. The raging problem that exists in the writings of the early Church fathers is how to explain the Jewish people’s existence after the coming of their founder.

On one hand, the Jews are portrayed as the vilest and evil people, the people who are guilty of deicide, who have no reason to survive and are damned to eternal fire and brimstone. On the other hand, they are here; they exist.

As a result, the Church fathers came up with the theory of the “Witness People.” This postulated that since the Jewish people were present when Jesus came in the world, and since he himself was Jewish, then the Jews, who rejected him, are condemned to live throughout history so that in End of Days they will bear witness to his Second Coming – whereby they will become Christians.

It’s a very important theory to understand that explains a great deal of Christian attitudes toward Jews. For instance, the Pope always has outside of Vatican City a number of Jews who live under papal protection. They are called, “The Pope’s Jews.” The Pope has to keep them alive because he needs them for witnesses. The only protest that Pope Pius XII, the pope at the time of the Holocaust, made against the deportation of Jews to concentration camps was when the Gestapo, in 1944, took the Pope’s Jews out of Rome.

Today, the doctrine of Witness People may no longer hold the importance for many people that it once had, but it colored all Christian-Jewish relationships until our time. That is a very important point to remember going forward.

The history of Jews and Christians took an irrevocable turn for the worse when Constantine converted himself and then the Roman Empire to Christianity. It was not just a one-time event with short-term repercussions. The pattern of Christian persecution against Jews was institutionalized through beliefs and doctrines that grew directly out of the Church leaders during those formative years. Their canonization of certain prejudices ensured that the next 15 or more centuries would be fraught with theological landmines that would make of relations between Christians and Jews difficult, painful and often deadly.

From a sect of Jews to a world dominating religion that defeated the Roman Empire, the story of Christianity is – for better or worse – intimately intertwined with Jewish history.

In the beginning of the second century it looked as if Christianity would die out. Many of them were Essenes, who believed in celibacy. They simply could not replace their numbers from within or without. And it probably would have died out if not for a man named Paul of Tarsus.

He was raised a Pharisee. He converted to Christianity on the basis of a vision of Jesus that he claimed to see while going on the road one day. In this vision he was told that his mission was to spread the word about Christianity. Paul realized from the outset that the success of Christianity lay not with the Jews but with the non-Jews.

Paul said that the “New” Testament cancelled the “Old” Testament; the ideas of Christianity are the culmination of the Hebrew bible. Once their Messiah came it was no longer necessary to observe the Sabbath, dietary laws, circumcision, etc.

Then Paul went out to sell this to the pagan world. And there was no better salesman than he.

He had an enormously receptive audience because he was selling the moral dream of Judaism – love, fairness, honesty, monotheism (albeit imperfect monotheism; it was certainly monotheistic in comparison to the Roman theologies of the time). He was also selling the coming redemption of the world. The early Christians believed that the “Second Coming” of Jesus was imminent. It was a matter of years or perhaps decades. Now, 2,000 years later, they are still waiting. However, that was not the expectation in the early years. The kingdom of heaven on earth was imminent.

In a world dominated by Roman cruelty — where the majority of the world’s population was slaves or vassals to Rome; where the idea of human freedom (as we in the Western world know it) was unimaginable – if you spoke in terms of Jewish moral values, albeit minus the lifestyle that embodies it, you had a ready audience. If you said that slaves are as good as masters; that the poor as good as the rich; that the weak are as great as the mighty; and that God loves everyone; and that everyone could make it to eternity – people were going to listen.

On top of that, when you made it easy by saying you don’t have to do anything except say that you believe, then have the ticket to instant success.

Rome Grows Old

Christianity spread like a wildfire after the downfall of Bar Kochba in about 135 CE. Almost one third of the Roman Empire became Christian in little more than 100 years.

That development evoked a great and bitter response from Rome, which saw it as a subversive religion that bred rebellion and diminished the power and stature of the Caesars. Therefore, the Romans persecuted the Christians without mercy, inventing all sorts of fiendish methods of public execution and torture in order to dissuade conversion to the new faith.

However, the harder the Romans tried to put it down the more popular it became.

The years 260 to 360 CE saw a fundamental change in non-Jewish world, a change that would forever alter the Jewish world. The Roman Empire, which had reigned supreme for almost 300 years and been in existence almost 500, started to decline.

When empires reach the zenith of their strength they begin to get old fast. An observer in the year 260 CE would have scoffed at the statement that the Roman Empire would not be around forever. However, in the perfect hindsight of history, we can see how the fabric of the empire was beginning to unravel. It was not what it once was – neither externally nor internally.

There were many causes for it. One of the main ones was Christianity. Rome was not strong enough — or able enough or ruthless enough — to destroy the Christians. Yet, in persecuting them they guaranteed their popularity among the downtrodden.

The second cause came from external pressure. Rome had bitten off more than it could chew. It had controlled virtually the entire civilized world – from England in the west to India in the east; from Gaul and Germany in the north to the sub-Sahara in Africa. All those places paid tax to Rome, but policing such an empire required an enormous expenditure of effort and money.

After a while, the empire simply got tired. In the early days, volunteers would head off enthusiastically to places like England. There was a romance to it and for lure of financial or other gain. After a period of time, however, few wanted to go; everyone wanted to stay in Rome. Why go to fight against the Gauls and Germans? Why bother with the Persians and Parthians?

Once the Roman Empire got tired it began spiraling downward until it essentially collapsed on its own. In the early 400s, when Rome was finally conquered and sacked by the barbaric tribes of northern Europe – the Gauls, Visgoths, etc. who plunged the world into the Dark Ages — it was essentially a shell of itself. It was like a rotted, hollow wall that someone could push over with a relatively slight kick.

The Byzantine Lifestyle

At the beginning of the third century, the Roman Empire was so large that it could not be effectively governed from Rome. As a consequence, it divided into two. That division still exists today, albeit in the Christian Church: the Eastern and Western Churches. In Roman times, the capital of the eastern part of the empire was the city of Byzantium, which is the current-day city of Istanbul (which had previously been called Constantinople). It is the bridge between Asia Minor and Europe; it lies at the crossroads between east and west.

The city was not only strategically placed, but large and possessed of great beauty. Even though the Roman officers in charge of the eastern empire nominally paid lip service to Rome as the capital they wanted to make Byzantium more magnificent than Rome and, ultimately, the capital of the empire. The competition between the two cities became so intense that it almost led to civil war. The tax collectors in the east siphoned off so much money that very little of it got to Rome. They used the money to “out-Rome Rome” – and built enormous buildings, palaces, amphitheaters and temples.

At the same time, they developed a lifestyle that today we call “Byzantine,” which refers to a lifestyle of tremendous luxury… as well as tremendous immorality, intrigue and violence. It combined the worst of the East and the worst of the West. Words meant nothing. Nobody said what they meant. Cunning was the operative word in business dealings; excessive and acrimonious bargaining was the norm.

Byzantium had a large Jewish population. And, not surprisingly, for better or worse, the Byzantium lifestyle impacted Jewish life. For the first time, for instance, we find synagogues decorated with Jewish art — with mosaics and frescos, albeit with a Jewish theme. Art – now known as “Byzantine” — had become fashionable and Jews took it on with their usual passion and genius, adding their own Jewish flavor.

Nevertheless, Jewish writings of the time saw reflected in this trend the warning signs of assimilation, which had previously slowed over the years under the of persecution by the Romans. When the host culture is unfriendly or unattractive, Jews tend to find inner strength and rally around Jewish identity. When it is friendly or attractive – even superficially, as in Byzantine culture – assimilation slowly creeps in like a midnight fog.

Indeed, Byzantine culture not only affected Jews in Byzantium, but elsewhere – and especially in the Land of Israel. Unfortunately, it was a vehicle that set in motion the process of assimilation.

Christianity Creeps In

The Byzantine culture produced a reaction not just from Jews but also non-Jews. That reaction was the emergence of Christianity more strongly than ever before. The more Rome oppressed the lower classes, the more Christianity appealed to elements like the downtrodden and slaves. More than ten percent of the Roman Empire was slaves, with another ten percent comprising former slaves. They were a ready audience for the Christian message.

Likewise, proselytizing efforts of the Church concentrated mainly upon women. The basic reasoning was that if the women would become Christians, then the men would as well. In a world where women counted for less than nothing (with the exception of the Jewish people) — in a world were even free women in marriage were little more than slaves – the Christian message was very appealing to women. It spoke to their loftiest ambitions and goals.

Christianity at that time also appealed to the intellectual element that could no longer believe in the nonsense of paganism and Roman mythology. As Roman society teetered on the brink of complete moral collapse, Christianity offered a new, much more appealing vision of the world, promoting what looked like a pristine, simple viewpoint of life, love and religion.

Christian ideals contrasted the Roman-Byzantine way of life so starkly that it made tremendous inroads in the four decades from 260 to 300 CE. The Roman and Byzantine emperors did not know how to handle it. On one hand, they continued the persecution, executing thousands. Moreover, if an officer or nobleman was caught practicing Christianity they executed them with particularly cruel public tortures. On the other hand, deep in their own hearts they wondered if perhaps there was truth to the Christian ideas.

When the Romans came to doubt their own correctness it was the beginning of the end for them.

Babylonian Jewry Puts Down Deep Roots

Further complicating the story, the Persians revolted against Rome in 290 CE, and swept Rome out of Babylonia and Israel. The Persian leader was Tadmor, whom the Talmud mentions a number of times. The Jews had sided with the Romans against the Persians. The Jerusalem Talmud records a curse uttered by Rabbi Yochanon against anyone who supported Tadmor and the Persians.

As Jewish luck would have it, after 400 years of dominance over Persia the Romans finally lost. The Persians drove Rome out of Babylon and Israel, and caused the Jews terrible suffering. Jews were persecuted; the academies had to go underground; Judaism had to be observed clandestinely. And so forth.

Of course, the Persian victory was another strong indication that the Roman Empire was weakening. However, not everyone read the signals that way. Rome, for one, regrouped and sent a large army to join up with the Roman armies in Byzantium and marched east. They defeated the Persians, killing Tadmor.

However, rather than a unified empire, Rome now resembled more a series of small kingdoms loosely aligned with each other. The unifying thread was the taxes each paid to Rome. This satisfied Rome, which operated under a hands-off policy.

However, this time period (from about 260 to 500 CE), with a decentralized Rome, saw the greatest accomplishments of Babylonian Jewry. The academies flourished, scholars abounded and ultimately the Babylonian Talmud was completed. Furthermore, Jews lived an autonomous, independent lifestyle. They established Jewish roots so deep that Jews remained there until recent times, the early 1950s, when Jews from Iraq were sent to Israel.

Constantine’s Conversion

As Jews began to settle in Babylon, a Roman general by the name of Constantine rose in the ranks. His conversion to Christianity would literally shake up the entire world and mark a dividing line — arguably the most significant dividing line — in non-Jewish history.

How he converted and how his conversion impacted the world – Jewish and otherwise – is the next remarkable step in the odyssey that is Jewish history.

The shift of Jewish life from Israel to Babylon marked a transitional period fraught with danger. Luckily, such leaders emerged and set the foundation for Jewish life until today.

Rabbi Judah the Prince marks the end of a period known as the era of the Tannaim, which lasted approximately until 200 CE. A Tanna (pl. Tannaim) is one who mastered, taught and engaged in the study of the Mishnah and its attendant works. The ensuing period — from 200 CE until about 550 CE — is called in Jewish history the Era of the Amoraim. The Amoraim were the ones who elaborated upon the Mishnah and whose discussions fill the pages of the Talmud. One could say that the Talmud is a transcription of lectures, conversations, discussions and stories that occurred in the academies during those 350 years.

Rabbi Judah the Prince had a student — and then colleague — by the name of Rabbi Chiya. He originally came from Babylon, where he was apparently well-established, and came to the Land of Israel along with his sons to study in the academy of Rabbi Judah. He was held in such esteem that when the Talmud lists a number of key individuals in history — including the likes of Ezra and Hillel – who were able to restore Jewish knowledge to its rightful place in their time it mentions “Rabbi Chiya and his sons.”

After the destruction following the failed Bar Kochba revolt (circa the year 140 CE and onward) the Jewish population in the Land of Israel diminished… and continued to diminish steadily, like a graph going downward in a straight line. Jews were moving from Israel to Babylon, not the other way around.

There were people that would come from Babylon to learn in Israel for a year or two, but then return to Babylon. These visiting scholars, so to speak, created an effective cross-pollination of ideas and differing viewpoints.

Nevertheless, most the traffic was one way: leaving the Land of Israel. This was especially true after the death of Judah the Prince. With his death the ascendancy of the Babylonian Jewish community over the community in the Land of Israel began in earnest.

The Transitional Age

When Judah the Prince died the disciples who survived him were a collection of some of the greatest men in the history of the Jewish people. And such a collection was needed to make it through the difficult times ahead. It was a transitional age – which is always the most difficult and dangerous of times.

The transition encompassed the shifting center from Israel to Babylon, from the Tannaim to the Amoraim. The transition really is from an independent Jewish people to a completely subservient, Diaspora-oriented Jewish people. Special leadership was needed to blend them together while not losing their unique qualities.

There are many such leaders to discuss, however there are five main ones especially worthy of mention. These five lived in the generation after Rabbi Judah the Prince. The last of them lived until about 240 CE. They laid the foundations for the Talmud and the Jewish way of life in existence today.

Rav and Shmuel

Rabbi Chiya had a nephew who was called Rav, but whose real name was Abba (and who is sometimes called in the Talmud, Abba Aricha, “Abba the Tall”). He had come from Babylon to Israel to study in the academy with Rabbi Judah the Prince. Indeed, he made the trip between the two lands a number of times.

He was relative unknown until he reached his sixties. He is the man who, more than anyone else, made Babylonian Jewry. He settled in the city of Sura, one of the main cities in Babylon, the same city where the prophet Ezekiel lived when he came with the exiles of the First Temple era. Ezekiel had founded an academy which was then close to 700 years old by the time Rav became head of it and turned it into the foremost house of Jewish scholarship not only in Babylon but anywhere in the world. Indeed, it remained the “Harvard” of Jewish academies until around 1000 CE. From the time of Rav onward, the person who headed the academy in Sura was the spiritual head of the Jewish world.

Rav had a compatriot by the name of Shmuel, who was head of the Jewish community in Neharda, which means the “City of the River” (a reference to the Euphrates). Shmuel not only was an expert in all Jewish subjects, but an incredible astronomer well. The Talmud remarks about him that he was as familiar with the pathways of the stars in heaven as he was of the pathways of the streets of Neharda.

Shmuel was the father of the permanent Jewish calendar, even though it did not come into effective use for another two centuries. He formulated the calendar based on his vast knowledge of astronomy. He coupled that with an uncanny knowledge of mathematics, which we find evidence of all over the Talmud. Besides discussions of concepts in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, etc., the Talmud comes to the reckoning of pi. Most of these discussions in one way or another came through Shmuel. (This is not to suggest that these mathematical equations and concepts were not known before his time, but rather that he codified them, so to speak.)

While Rav headed the great academy in Sura, Shmuel headed the great academy in Neharda. They were the originators of the give-and-take in the Talmud, which is the hallmark of the Talmud. They had differing opinions on most subject matters. These opinions were recorded, discussed and analyzed.

When Shmuel died, Rav wept and said, “The man that I feared has died.” By that he meant to lament over the fact that now there was no one equal to him in Torah knowledge, no one whose opinion was a serious challenge to his own.

Rabbi Yochanon and Reish Lakish

In the Land of Israel, the two great people of this transitional generation were Rabbi Yochanon and his brother-in-law, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, also known as Reish Lakish.

The Talmud remarks that Rabbi Yochanon was one of the handsomest people in the world (even though he did not have a beard, which the Talmud reckons as a defect in his handsomeness). He lived a terribly tragic life. He had 10 sons who died before him, but was able to use his personal tragedy as a source of comfort to others who were bereaved. His entire program in life was to help others, to be kind and considerate.

He was the main editor of the Jerusalem Talmud. (It was edited after him as well, but he was the primary editor.) In his lifetime, he kept the academies in Israel strong. While he and Reish Lakish lived, scholars traveled back and forth between Israel and Babylon. After his passing, the academies in Israel experienced almost a complete demise.

The most famous story of Rabbi Yochanon is how Reish Lakish became his brother-in-law. Shimon ben Lakish was an outlaw. One day, Reish Lakish was swimming in the Jordan River when he saw what he thought was a beautiful woman from afar. Wanting to impress “her,” he performed an incredible feat and jumped across the river. It was only then that he realized that the beautiful woman was a “he.”

Not batting an eyelash, Rabbi Yochanon convinced him on the spot to use his strength for Torah. To sweeten the deal, he told him that if he was successful he would talk to his sister to marry him. Reish Lakish agreed and then tried to jump back across the river, but could not do so. The lesson learned, the Talmud remarks, was that the acceptance of Torah weakened him. He hadn’t learned a word yet, but his commitment already sapped some of his natural, physical strength.

Indeed, he put his heart and soul into learning and eventually became the great Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, the prime learning partner of Rabbi Yochanon. Together, they built the academies in Israel.

When Reish Lakish died, Rabbi Yochanon was presented with a different learning partner, a brilliant man scholar in his own right. However, he was a “yes man.” Everything Rabbi Yochanon said he agreed with.

“Every time I say something,” Rabbi Yochanon remarked, “you bring me 24 proofs that I am right. However, when Reish Lakish was alive he would tell me 24 reasons why I was wrong. Woe unto me.” He lamented the fact that he was missing the critical analysis that is so necessary for true scholarship. The fiery disagreements that can go on between scholars sharpen them.

“Give me a learning partner or give me death,” Rabbi Yochanon said. Sadly, he could not find a replacement for his brother-in-law and died shortly thereafter.

Life in Babylon

Economically, the Jews fared very well in Babylon. They served as merchants and shippers, taking advantage of the commerce to be had along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and from there all the way into the Persian Gulf and throughout the known world.

Spiritually, Jewish life was reinforced by massive twice-a-year conventions of Torah learning. These conventions took place in the months before Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Tens of thousands of Jews came to hear Torah lectures and study it in depth. The Talmud says that there were so many people in attendance that one could see a dust cloud rise from far away when the lecture was over.

The Jews also had a type of autonomous government. The head of the Jewish community was called the Reish Galusa, the “Head of the Exile,” or Exilarch in Greek. He was descended from the House of David and was in actuality the pretender to the throne. If and when the Jewish community would be returned to the Land of Israel with its government he would be king.

He was granted temporal powers by the Babylonian authorities, including a Jewish police force. The Reish Galusa also could collect taxes, run a court and even had the right to enforce capital punishment.

Jewish life in Babylon spread out through many cities where Jews were the majority. Entire cities were closed on the Sabbath and in general moved to a Jewish rhythm, so to speak. This autonomy helped strengthen the idyllic age of the Jews in Babylon, which would become the center of Judaism for the next 800 years.

Rome Rules the World

While Jewish life was developing in Babylon, Rome ruled the rest of the civilized world. She suffered no serious foreign threat to her hegemony.

Jews were very active in the Roman world. In the city of Rome itself, Jews formed a very influential part of the population.

At the same time that Jews operated in Rome and her environs, the early Christians began to grow despite – or because – of persecution at the hands of the Romans. Jews did not participate in the persecution of the Christians, but they certainly separated themselves from the Christians. Consequently, a strong enmity between the two groups began to grow. Indeed, the beginnings of Christian anti-Semitism were laid now.

The Jews in Babylon were excluded from this conflict simply because the Christians did not have a strong presence there. Indeed, Babylon remained pagan until the Muslim era. There was no real Christian period in Babylon and therefore Jews did not have to compete with them there. This might also explain why Christianity is almost completely ignored in the Babylonian Talmud. It was not an everyday issue in Babylon.

Nevertheless, it was an issue in the Roman world, an issue that neither Jew nor Roman could avoid… much to their chagrin.

Rabbi Judah the Prince was not only wealthy and head of the Sanhedrin. His greatest accomplishment transcended the time in which he lived. That was Mishnah.

The Mishnah is the first written record of what was the Oral Law. As the name implies, the Oral Law was never written down as a formalized text or permanent record. It had been passed on from one scholar to the next, from one generation to the next.

In each generation there were experts in different areas of the Oral Law. One scholar was an expert in the laws of the Sabbath, for example, whereas another man was an expert in torts and damages. All together, they were the ones who transmitted the full body of the traditions of Moses down through the centuries to the Jewish people.

After the defeat of Bar Kochba, when it became abundantly clear that the Jewish people would be in for a long exile, the system of learning based upon oral transmission began to change of necessity.

Individuals in earlier generations had kept notes that summarized the Oral Law, but these notes were kept private. Rabbi Meir, whom we discussed previously, was one of those who possessed such a body of notes. However, these notes were not necessarily fully organized and did not always reflect the varying opinions in Jewish law.

The Mishnah would finally be published in an organized, authoritative form a generation after Rabbi Meir by the great Rabbi Judah the Prince. Rabbi Judah did not start from scratch, however. He was the redactor or editor of the Mishnah, not its creator.

Rabbi Judah the Prince

Rabbi Judah the Prince was son of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel II. In his time, the center of Jewish activity moved north to the Galilee. Previously, it had moved from Jerusalem to Yavne and then from Yavne to the lower Galilee and then the upper Galilee to the town of Beit She’arim.

Rabbi Judah the Prince was literally the man who had everything. He was a descendant of King David and Hillel. He was aristocratic and handsome. He was known as a pious and holy man.

He had as dear friend the man who later became the emperor of Rome, Antoninus. There is a dispute among scholars whether this was speaking about Antoninus Pius, who was the successor to Hadrian, or Antoninus Marcus Aurelius, who was the successor to Antoninus Pius – and who was one of the most famous of the Roman emperors and one of the leading philosophers of the ancient world. Either way, Rabbi Judah the Prince was in close communication with and an advisor to the emperor.

The Talmud says that Rabbi Judah the Prince was wealthy beyond description. Yet, he was able to lift his ten fingers before his death and say, “I never benefitted from this world.” What he meant was that although he was fabulously wealthy he never used a penny of it for personal aggrandizement or pleasure. Indeed, the Talmud records how he suffered enormously in his life, including what was apparently a very painful urinary tract disease.

Rabbi Judah the Prince was not only wealthy and learned; he was the head of the Sanhedrin. Yet, his greatest accomplishment transcended the time in which he lived. That was Mishnah.

If It’s the “Oral” Law, Why is it Written?

In his time, Jewish tradition was faced with an enormous problem. Jewish law demanded that the Oral Law remain oral. It was forbidden to write down. How, then, did Rabbi Judah the Prince write it?

Citing the verse, “It is the time to do something on behalf of God because Your Torah has been desecrated” (Psalms 119:126), he reasoned that when the Jewish people are threatened with extinction, and therefore the Torah itself is in danger of being forgotten, one can go against the Torah, so to speak, to save it.

If one thinks about it, of course, one will see what a dangerous concept that was. If one takes that concept to its illogical conclusion one can do anything. Indeed, that has happened many times in Jewish history. People have misapplied this principle and used it to change the Torah.

The greatness of Rabbi Judah the Prince and his generation is that they violated the rule in order to save the Torah — and they were right. Their decision has withstood the test of time. By contrast, all the other later attempts have not withstood the test of time.

The Tip of the Iceberg

The Mishnah was written in classic Hebrew. In fact, today we call it “Mishnaic Hebrew.” It is written extremely concisely, like notes or highlights of a much larger body of information; it is the proverbial the tip of the iceberg. In many places it is written almost cryptically, as if the meaning was intentionally hidden. The purpose of all this was to make the Mishnah a vehicle upon which the Oral Law would be expounded by a teacher to a student. In other words, the cryptic nature perforce demanded a teacher who possessed and was master of the larger body and a student who would learn from him. This student would in time become a teacher himself and then pass it on to a student and so on.

Rabbi Judah the Prince did not develop the Mishnah on his own. He had a tremendous academy and in it were great men in their own right. One of them was Rabbi Chiya (Chiya is the Aramaic name for Chaim, “Life”). He was author of what is called Braisos, which in short were notes that did not make it into the Mishnah for one reason or another. (The Aramaic word braisos literally means “outside,” because these notes were “outside” the official Mishnaic text.) They cover the exact same subject as the Mishnah — some Braisos are even word-for-for the Mishnah –nevertheless, most expound upon the Mishnah.

Rabbi Chiya, who was the colleague and disciple of Rabbi Judah the Prince, published the Braisos after the Mishnah. Together, the Mishnah and the Braisos form the basis for the Talmud. Very often the Talmud analyzes a topic by comparing a Mishnah and a Braisah. Why was this nuance added? In short, the Talmud uses the Braisos to develop the Mishnah.

It would be another three centuries before the Talmud would come to be written – and for much the same reasons that the Mishnah was: persecution. Nevertheless, the basis for the analytic discussions that came to characterize the Talmud were already in existence in Rabbi Judah the Prince’s time.

Seeds of Dispersion

The publication of the Mishnah occurred approximately 190 to 200 CE. During the time of Rabbi Judah the Prince the Jewish community in the Land of Israel already began to dwindle. There were a number of reasons for this. The first was economic. Without the Temple there was very little “tourism,” so to speak.

Furthermore, the country had been devastated by centuries of war. It had become a backwater land. Instead of playing the prominent role it once played in world and Roman politics it now played a second or tertiary role.

Jews began to move. Approximately three out of four who moved went to Babylon where there had long been a Jewish infrastructure, including academies, synagogues and communities. Babylon also had the advantage of being fairly free of Roman domination and Christian influence.

Among the other places that Jews moved to was Spain. Originally, they came to North Africa, where they conducted business, and then they crossed into Spain, which by then was a Roman colony. Undoubtedly, Jews must have come to France and Germany as well. They did not necessarily settle there, but followed in the heels of the Roman legions as traders and merchants.

Even as Jews began to inhabit all areas of the Roman Empire there remained a strong community in the Land of Israel, but it was a community in decline. Indeed, from the death of Judah the Prince it would continue to decline steadily. Finally, a century and a half later it would almost be completely gone. When Rome will fall and the Dark Ages ushered in the Jews will be primarily in two places: Egypt and Babylon. The community in the Land of Israel will be very small.

Therefore, this was a turning point in Jewish history. That makes it all more the necessary to understand the importance of the Mishnah. It was how Jewish laws, ideas and customs were preserved.

Rabbi Judah the Prince was almost prophetic in his foresight how the future would unfold. He knew that the system of transmitting the law orally without a strong centralized body in the Land of Israel would no longer prove successful. It had to become a written document.

A Living Document

The problem with a written document, of course, is that it becomes frozen. The genius of the Talmud — and the later development after the Talmud — is that it never was frozen. It was and remains a living Oral Law. Every age and every society breathes life into it all over again.

The credit for that goes to Rabbi Judah the Prince who put together the Mishnah in such a way that it would be a vehicle for a living document not a mausoleum to a past that was no longer alive.

There are perhaps 20 to 30 people in history who are the teachers of the Jewish people. They are the key players in the chain of Jewish tradition. Rabbi Judah the Prince, by all accounts, is one of them. Through his own great efforts he was able to communicate the entire Torah to all of the Jewish people for all ages in a manner that maintains its life and creativity.

Out of the suffering of the Bar Kochba holocaust Jewish leaders emerged who made it possible for the Jewish people to survive into the long night of exile.

After the demise of Bar Kochba the Jews prepared themselves for a long exile. Indeed, had Hadrian lived longer there is no telling what would have happened with the Jewish people. However, in 141 CE he died and was succeeded by someone diametrically opposite him, a kind and gentle person called Antoninus Pius.

Had the decrees and attitude of Hadrian continued unabated with his successors then the Jews may never have survived.

The Enigmatic Rabbi Meir

Jewish history – any history – is a history of people. The dates, places and events are only to give Social Studies teachers a chance to mark a test paper. They do not tell the story of the world. The story of the world – the real story – is the story of people. Even more so the story of the Jewish world.

Rabbi Meir, disciple of Rabbi Akiva and leader after his death, was one of the most enigmatic figures in Jewish history. We do not even know his real name. The Talmud says that his name was Rabbi Nehorai or Rabbi Nehemiah. The reason he was called Meir is because the Hebrew word “Meir” means to emit light; he brought a great deal of light to the rabbis. In truth, we do not know what his real name was. Indeed, he exists in a veil of anonymity.

Jewish tradition tells us that he was descended from non-Jews (as was Rabbi Akiva). As we discussed previously, there was a tremendous influx of Jewish converts during these few centuries when Rome was at her mightiest. The best of the non-Jewish world came into Judaism. Therefore, it is not surprising that in very short period of time many of the great leaders of the Jewish world were either converts or the descendants of converts.

Rabbi Meir was the greatest man of his generation, the Talmud tells us. He formed the bridge from this post-Holocaust generation, so to speak, to the next generation, the generation of Rabbi Judah the Prince, redactor of the Mishnah.

The Talmud said that there was no one equal to Rabbi Meir in Torah knowledge. Nevertheless, the law does not follow his opinion because no one could understand it. He was too great to comprehend. Too deep.

The Rabbi who became an Agnostic

Rabbi Meir was the student of another enigmatic personality mentioned in the Talmud, Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah, the only great man of the Talmud to lose his faith. The Talmud offers several stories in an attempt to explain it.

Once he saw a man crawl out on the limb of a tree to fulfill the commandment of sending away the mother bird from the nest before taking the egg, which the Torah says is rewarded with “length of days.” However, the man slipped off the limb and died. Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah could not reconcile what he saw. In essence, he was tripped up by the classic question of why do bad things happen to good people.

We survive because we never think about it. We don’t think too much about anything. Therefore, life poses no problems. Of course, sometimes, God forbid, a tragedy occurs with no easy answers. A good, kind person leaves over orphans, God forbid. How does one justify that?

Of course, God is righteous. It’s just that it does not make sense to us. We cannot figure Him out.

Another story about Elisha ben Abuyah is that he saw the Romans behead his teacher, Rabbi Chutzpis, who was known as the man of the golden tongue. Rabbi Chutzpis was a great orator. When Elisha ben Abuyah saw his tongue roll in the dust he cracked. How could that happen to a man whose tongue only spoke Torah?

In short, Elisha ben Abuyah saw Auschwitz and he could not bear it.

After he abandoned Judaism the rabbis gave him a name, “Acher,” which means, “Another.” He was no long Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah they used to know. He became a different person.

Most of the rabbis avoided him because he was a bad influence, but But Rabbi Meir used to learn Torah with him. When they asked Rabbi Meir how he could do that he answered, “I ate the inside of the fruit and threw away the peel.”

Redeeming Acher

The Talmud records incredible conversations between Rabbi Meir and Acher. They were once walking on the Sabbath together and reached the boundary beyond which an observant Jew was allowed to walk. Acher said to Rabbi Meir, “Return back.”

“My teacher,” Rabbi Meir replied, “you also turn back.” He was alluding to more than just literally turning around and not going past the physical boundary. He was telling him to repent, to come back to his people, to God, to his senses.

Acher replied, “But I heard from a heavenly voice say that even the most wayward Jews can come back to God – except from Elisha ben Abuyah.”

He felt he was doomed. As an aside, many commentators say that while the heavenly voice he heard was real it was actually a test to see if he would return for the purest of reasons, without expectation of acceptance or reward. That would have made up for his mistakes.

In any event, Rabbi Meir remained a fierce defender of his teacher until the end. When Elisha ben Abuyah died Rabbi Meir believed he had repented. However, when they buried him they saw fire coming out of his grave, which was obviously a bad sign.

Rabbi Meir spread his tallis (prayer shawl) over the grave and prayed on his teacher’s behalf. In essence, he noted how the world is night; it is black. There are always unanswered questions. It contains cruelties that cannot be explained. Terrible things happen in the night called this world. In the night we have no answers. Nevertheless, in the morning, when the sun rises – in the World to Come – we will see things clearly, Rabbi Meir added.

Then Rabbi Meir remarked, “If God will redeem you, my teacher, good. If not, however, then I will redeem you.”

This remarkable statement is the Talmud’s way to teaching that the actions of one’s disciples affect the soul of the teacher even after it has departed this world. In other words, even if the person’s deeds are not enough to earn redemption on their own it can be won for him, so to speak, when the deeds of his disciples (or children) are added to the equation.

The Master of the Miracle

Rabbi Meir is sometimes referred to in the Talmud as Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess. Baal HaNess means, “Master of the Miracle.” The story behind that appendage to his name is told in the Talmud.

After the destruction of Beitar and the terrible decrees of Hadrian ten great sages were executed. One was Rabbi Meir’s father-in-law, Rabbi Hannaniah ben Tradyon, who was wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive. As part of the attempt to destroy the Jewish scholars and their families, the Romans took the daughter of Rabbi Hannaniah ben Tradyon and impressed into service in a house of ill-repute.

At the urging of his wife, Beruriah, Rabbi Meir went to see what he could do to redeem her. He discovered where the Romans had placed her, disguised himself as a patron and asked specifically for her. She did not recognize him and made all sorts of excuses why she would be unable to accommodate him. Rabbi Meir saw from that that spiritually she had not been compromised. Then he told her who he was and promised to get her out.

This was a consistent trait in Rabbi Meir. He was not fazed by things. If he could tell his teacher that he would get him out of hell into heaven, then he could take his sister-in-law out of the brothel.

He found the Roman keeper of the house and offered him a bribe to release the girl into his custody. In the strange logic of Roman “morality” the keeper told him that he would be happy to sell him the girl but that the Romans kept count and if one of them was missing he would lose his life. It was not worth the money.

Rabbi Meir told him that he would give him a secret incantation that would protect him. The Roman did not believe him. He had two very large ferocious guard dogs and Rabbi Meir offered to prove it to him with the dogs. Let the dogs loose on him, Rabbi Meir offered. The Roman was happy to accommodate him.

As the dogs leaped at him Rabbi Meir said, “God of Meir, answer me!” We have to understand who Rabbi Meir was and how real God was to him. The dogs fell away from him. Rabbi Meir told him the Roman that if the authorities came for him he should say those words, “God of Meir, answer me!” The Roman took the money and Rabbi Meir took his sister-in-law.

Indeed, one day the Romans came to the keeper and took inventory. When they found one missing they took him away to be executed. Then he said, “God of Meir, answer me!” Suddenly, all of the guards fell away and he escaped. He converted and became a Jew.

After that incident became public people began calling Rabbi Meir, “Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess.” That is why there is a famous charity today called the charity of “Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess.” On the back of the charity box is the famous words, “God of Meir, answer me!” The idea is that if you put money in the box and say the words, “God of Meir, answer me!” you can look forward to miracles. This charity began in the 18^th century and came to have such a mass appeal that it is still going strong today.

A World Ebbing Away

Rabbi Meir was married to one of the great women of the Talmud, one of the great women of all time: Beruriah. The Talmud tells us that when Rabbi Meir could not deliver the lecture in synagogue she put up a curtain and said it over.

Yet, these two incomparably great people had a very hard life together, a life of terrible tragedies – one upon the other. They had children who died. They went into exile. They had misunderstandings between themselves. According to some versions, she committed suicide because of a misunderstanding.

Left alone, Rabbi Meir departed the Holy Land and died broken on the coast of Turkey in Asia Minor. His last words were, “Bury me by the seashore, because the waters that brush the coast this land are the waters that brush the Holy Land, and those who are attached to something that is holy are holy.”

There is a legend that Rabbi Meir is buried in Tiberias. However, that is probably not true, although it makes for good tourism. The Talmud, however, tells us that he was buried in Turkey.

In short, stories of the generation that experienced the “Holocaust” of Roman wrath during Bar Kochba’s defeat contain all the human problems imaginable. Simultaneously, it produced leaders for all time. These were the people who constructed the basic floor for Jewish life after the loss of independence.

Like Rabbi Meir who died on the shores of the Mediterranean, this generation was connected to and formed a bridge from a world ebbing away to a new world with new challenges flowing inward. Their connection is what made it possible for the Jewish people to survive its exile.

Hitler at a 1914 rally celebrating the outbreak of World War I

Among the tragic events that occurred in this mourning period of the Jewish calendar was the outbreak of World War I. Naively termed the “Great War,” it was the catalyst for World War II, the Holocaust, and all the other murderous events that would follow in the 20th century. It was brought about by catastrophic miscalculations of the great European powers, a combination of reckless politicians, stupid generals, and strong jingoist fervor. Yet when it first broke out, people all over Europe cheered – in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Here is a picture of a cheering crowd with Hitler himself right in the middle of it. The First World War was going to raise the art school reject out of his anonymity.

The war was a total war and therefore a total disaster. But in a perverse and not too surprising twist of events, the Jewish population of Europe suffered most. As individuals, the Jews fought in the armies of all sides, becoming super-patriots in their respective countries, determined to prove that they really “belonged.” This was especially true of German Jewry. Over 12,000 Jews died fighting for the “Vaterland.” Their patriotism and sacrifice would turn to ashes, literally, within twenty years.

German Jewish soldiers fighting for “der Vaterland". Picture courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of the Culture and History of German-Speaking Jewry

But in spite of their super-patriotism, the Jews in Germany were subject to accusations of disloyalty. In 1916, the German General Staff ordered a census of all Jewish soldiers in the army to determine how many actually served on the front line. The fabricated census was publicized with great fanfare, intimating that the Jews were shirking their duty. The actual results showed that 80% of all Jewish soldiers served on the front lines, far higher than the general population, but this was never released to the general public.

Anti-Semitism had been virulent in Germany even before World War I. Germany’s subsequent defeat only served to exacerbate it. The stage was already set for the “Jewish-led-stab-in-the-back” betrayal theory that brought Hitler to power.

For the Jews in Eastern Europe, the war also brought unmitigated tragedy. A quarter million died in battle, and over a million became refugees because the Czar accused them of being German collaborators, forced them to leave their homes, and settle in inland Russia. Because of the Czar’s behavior towards the Jews, many actually welcomed the conquering Germans and Austrians as liberators and benefactors. The Jewish infrastructure in Eastern Europe, socially, economically, culturally and religiously, was almost completely destroyed by the war.

The war also served to radicalize much of Eastern European Jewry’s youth into secularists and Marxists. The yeshivot were scattered, and many of the Chassidic courts and dynasties were decimated. The Bolshevik revolution brought on by the war attempted to destroy the practice of Judaism. The anti-Semitism of the Polish and Lithuanian nationalists became overt and violent. In perfect hindsight, it seems clear that even without the Holocaust, Eastern European Jewish life was on the wane.

As we see in current times, divides within the Jewish world are not easily bridged. But what we must appreciate is that the ideologies that drive them were annealed in the heat of the First World War. The Jewish people are still paying the bill for it.

To learn more about World War I, please see our film, “Faith & Fate, Part II: The Implosion of the World Order“

Photo courtesy of painting by Zalman Kleinman

Among the many great figures in Jewish history, Rabbi Akiva arguably represents a combination of everything that is heroic about the Jewish people more than anyone else. At the least, he is one of the most beloved figures in Jewish history, a person whose influence and stature is a source of inspiration throughout all of the ages. Whatever one says about Rabbi Akiva one can never say enough. The Talmud (Menachos 29a) compares him favorably to Moses, which is the ultimate compliment in the Jewish lexicon. He is the national hero of the Jewish people for all time.

There are numerous reasons for this.

First, Rabbi Akiva represents every man, so to speak. He did not descend from Jewish aristocracy or nobility (see Berachos 27a). He came from a family of converts. There is an opinion that his father was a convert. If not his father, then certainly his grandfather was. Not only that, but he descended from the evil general Sisera, who was the persecutor of the Jews at the time of Deborah. The rabbis tell us that the descendants of Sisera, Nebuchadnezzar and even Haman studied Torah and became prominent Jews. In our time also there are descendants of German officers and SS, as well as descendants of Communists, whose found their way to the Jewish people, and even in areas of prominence in the Torah world.

Nevertheless, Rabbi Akiva’s lineage created a social handicap. It says to be careful of converts 36 times in the Torah. There is no mitzvah that is repeated so many times. The reason is because it is human nature to be clannish, to not like outsiders. Therefore, the Torah emphasizes over and over again that we also are strangers (as though we need that reminder). Nevertheless, apparently we do need that reminder because sometimes we behave that way towards others.

Although Rabbi Akiva began life handicapped in the sense that he lacked pedigree in a society that honored pedigree, he turned it into a positive by becoming the symbol of “every man” who has within him the ability to rise above his limitations and become truly great.

Water Wears Down Rock

Rabbi Akiva had a second great handicap. During the first 40 years of his life he was unlettered and unschooled.

Imagine! A scholar so great that he would be compared to Moses was an illiterate man in mid-life! He had to go with his young child to school to learn to read the Hebrew alphabet. And not only was he unlearned, but resentful of those who were. The Talmud records him as saying that he had such hatred for Torah scholars during those years that had he had the chance he would have bitten them like a wild donkey (Pesachim 49b).

What turned him around? Once, after despairing that he could ever comprehend the Torah, he saw water dripping onto a rock and even though the water fell drop by drop it had eroded the rock. The verse says, “Water wears down rock” (Job 14:19). Even great stones are rubbed smooth by the force of the water. This became Rabbi Akiva’s motto. If water can wear down a stone, Akiva came become a scholar…

If water can wear down a stone, then every Jew can and will study Torah…

If water can wear down a stone, the Jewish people can overcome Rome…

If water can wear down stone, then the Temple can be rebuilt…

His Marriage & Rise to Prominence

While still illiterate, Akiva became chief shepherd to one of the wealthiest men in Israel, Kalba Savuah (so named because anyone who entered his house hungry like a dog, kalba, went out satiated, savua). Once, he chanced to meet Kalba Savua’s daughter, Rachel, who was so impressed with his character that she consented to marry him — on the condition that he would devote himself to Torah study.

When the wealthy father-in-law learned of their marriage he disinherited them, and the couple lived in dire poverty (Nedarim 50a). However, Rachel continued to believe in him and encouraged him to leave home to study Torah, as was the custom. He left for 12 years and then returned. Before greeting his wife, he overheard her say to a neighbor, “If he wants to go back for another twelve years I would gladly agree to it.” He then returned to his studies for another 12 years.

In those 24 years he studied under great men like Rabbi Eliezer ben Horkenus and Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah. Even Rabbi Tarfon, whom we meet all the time in the Talmud with Rabbi Akiva, originally was his teacher. Nevertheless, Rabbi Akiva rose to become a colleague with them. He rose because of his great tenacity… because water wears down rock.

After 24 years, he returned home with 24,000 students, head of the largest yeshiva in the land of Israel. Although his reputation preceded him, Kalba Savua did not know that the great man coming to town was his son-in-law, Akiva. Nevertheless, he had been harboring regrets over his vow to disinherit his daughter and decided ask the great man if he could annul his vow.

“Had you known that her husband would become a great man, would you have vowed?” Rabbi Akiva asked him.

“Why, if he even knew one chapter, even one law!” Kalba Savua answered.

Rabbi Akiva then said, “I am him.”

He bowed and kissed him on his feet, and gave him half his assets (Kesuvos 62b-63a).

The Talmud (Nedarim 50a-b) said that during the course of his life Rabbi Akiva became wealthy from three different sources. The first was from his father-in-law, Kalba Savuah. The second was from a shipwreck. There had been a large treasure hidden in the front part of the ship and when it washed up on shore Rabbi Akiva found it. The third source of his wealth came from his third wife. After Rachel died, he married the widow of the Roman procurator, Turnus Rufus (“Turnus” meaning “Tyrannus”), who was brutal to the Jews. Nevertheless, his wife had a different soul and after he died she converted to Judaism. Rabbi Akiva eventually married her, and she brought with her the wealth of Turnus Rufus.

Rabbi Akiva was a wealthy man from different sources, but it was not the wealth that made the man. It was Rabbi Akiva that made Rabbi Akiva. It was his inner wealth that made Rabbi Akiva.

The Meaning of Love

Rabbi Akiva was wont to say: “Love your fellow man as yourself – this is the great rule in the Torah.” He fulfilled it in many ways. No one dispensed more charity than he. He was in charge of the charity organizations and supported all the poor people.

It was Rabbi Akiva who said that if all the Torah is considered holy, then Solomon’s “Song of Songs” – which uses the love between a man and woman as a metaphor for the love between God and Israel — was the “Holy of Holies.”

It is one thing to love others and love God when things are going well. However, it is another thing to feel and express that love when times are tough. Rabbi Akiva suffered tremendously throughout his life in many ways, experiencing all sorts of terrible events and defeats. Indeed, he lived the life of Job. Yet though he lived the life of Job, his soul churned out songs of love. When Rabbi Akiva was being tortured to death by the Romans he said, “Loving God with all one’s soul means even if He takes your life.”

Rabbi Akiva’s favorite maxim was, “All that God does He does for the good.” Once, after he was unable to find any place to sleep in a certain city, he passed the night alone in the forest and repeated his maxim calmly, “All that God does is for the good.” Then, one after another, a lion devoured his donkey, a cat killed his rooster and the wind extinguished his candle. Each time he said, “All that God does is for the good.” When dawn arrived he discovered that a band of robbers had fallen upon the city and carried its inhabitants into captivity. Only he had escaped because his donkey and rooster were not around to make any noises and his extinguished candle did not give away his location (Berachos 60b).

Rabbi Akiva’s teacher was Nachum Ish Gamzu, who would always say, “This too is for the good.” Rabbi Akiva similarly lived by the rule that whatever happens is for the good. He furthermore understood that from the bad good can come. From the problems, from the adversity, we can build it into something good.

Therefore, we find that Rabbi Akiva laughs when others weep. While Rabbi Akiva was walking with some colleagues they came upon the Temple in its destroyed state. The other rabbis that were with him wept, but Rabbi Akiva laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” they asked.

“Why are you weeping?” he replied.

“Why are we weeping? Look at the Temple Mount? Is that not something to weep over?”

“For that very reason I laugh.”

Then he explained that alongside the prophecy that the Temple will be destroyed was the prophecy that the Temple will be rebuilt and the Jewish people redeemed. “Until I saw that the prophecy of doom was fulfilled I thought that it was not meant literally. However, now that I see that the negative prophecy is fulfilled literally, then I know that the positive prophecy will also be fulfilled literally. From the bad I see the good. From the troubles I see the redemption.”

Rabbi Akiva said: “Beloved are sufferings” – a person should appreciate troubles, because from the troubles we grow. Without troubles a person does not access the deepest recesses of his potential. A great person becomes greater from great troubles. That was Rabbi Akiva’s view on life. That was Rabbi Akiva.

Supporting Bar Kochba

Although Rabbi Akiva suffered greatly in his life and experienced many calamitous events, arguably the worst was the disastrous Bar Kochba rebellion. Indeed, he was one of the leading supporters of Bar Kochba and declared him to be the Messiah. One might have thought that after the debacle of Bar Kochba Rabbi Akiva would fall apart, especially considering that he was a very old man by then, well over 100 years old. He had every reason to go to his death quietly.

Yet, he started all over and taught Torah to five students who would become the next generation of Torah leaders. Although the man who once had 24,000 students now only had five, nevertheless it was through these five that the Jewish people were rebuilt. They did what Bar Kochba couldn’t do. They beat Rome. They became the “waters that wear down rock.”

With “One” on his Lips

When Hadrian issued his terrible decrees outlawing the practice of Judaism, and in particular making it illegal to teach Torah on the pain of death, it was Rabbi Akiva who boldly stood up in a public square and began teaching Torah. The Romans, indeed, arrested him and put him in prison. In the same prison was his friend Pappus, who was caught for selling goods on the black market. “Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva,” Pappus told him, “that you were arrested for teaching Torah. Woe to Pappus, who was arrested for trying to make a few dollars.”

Rabbi Akiva was executed by the Romans on the eve of Yom Kippur in the city of Caesarea where even today one can see the ruins of Hippodrome, which was the arena where the Romans executed people publicly. Even as they tortured him to death he recited the final words of a Jew, the great proclamation of faith in God and His oneness, “Hear, O Israel, God is our God; God is one.”

His students, who stood nearby as the Romans were flaying flesh with iron combs, asked, “Even till now?” Are you still thinking about your obligations to God even at this horrific, tragic moment?

“All my life,” he said to them, “I waited for the opportunity to show how much I love God, and now that I have the opportunity should I waste it?”

Then, “he died with the word One” on his lips, the Talmud (Berachos 61b) says.

According to legend, Elijah the Prophet came together with his students and took his remains from the field of execution to a cave outside of the city of Tiberius, which is today the traditional place that we mark as the burial place of Rabbi Akiva. However, Rabbi Akiva is not dead. Rabbi Akiva is alive within each and every one of us. Every hero and martyr that the Jewish people have had since is Rabbi Akiva. Every moment of love is Rabbi Akiva. Every piece of Torah is Rabbi Akiva.

That is why the Jewish world treasures him. That is why he is the hero of heroes. He possessed all of the great human traits that the Jewish people possess: love, compassion, warmth, humor, etc. He became every Jew at his best even under the darkest circumstances. He became the person who whose humanity is victorious in the end despite unparalleled suffering. He became the water that wears down stone.

“The Tribunal of the Inquisition” by Francisco de Goya

The current three-week period on the Jewish calendar carries with it many sad and bitter memories for the Jewish people. The destruction of both the first and second Temples occurred on the 9^th of the Jewish month of Av, so we are in a mourning period that will culminate with a fast on that date.  However, over the long centuries of Jewish exile other tragic events occurred during this season, and their importance and effect on Jewish history should not be overlooked. One of those events was the final expulsion of the Jews from Christian Spain in 1492.

Faced with the choice of converting to Christianity or leaving Spain, the Jewish community divided. About half left Spain searching for new homes in the Mediterranean basin, Asia Minor, the Middle East and Europe. The remainder accepted Christianity as their faith, mostly in a pro forma manner, attempting to retain their Jewish identity and faith in the secrecy of their cellars. Eventually, most of these crypto-Jews became Christians and were thus lost to the Jewish story and people. Even today a significant number of Christian Spaniards are descendants of Jews whose Jewishness was lost after the trauma of the decree of 1492.

The Al Hambra Decree that expelled the Jews from Spain

There was a significant and vital Jewish community for almost nine hundred years in Spain before the decree of expulsion. Under Moslem rule, the Jews enjoyed a “golden age.” There were Jewish courtiers and even prime ministers, financiers and army generals. Jews excelled in medicine, philosophy, poetry, astronomy, diplomacy, finance, and naturally in Torah study and creativity. The advent of the rise to power of the fanatical Almohad sect of Islam in much of Spain in the twelfth century signaled the end of the “golden age.” The gradual Christian reconquest of Spain by the Christian armies of the north culminated in total victory in the fifteenth century, putting even greater pressure on Spanish Jewish life. Yet Jews were still better off than their Ashkenazic brethren in the rest of Europe who were expelled from England and France and faced continuing and unrelenting pogroms and persecution in Germany and Central Europe, eventually driving them eastwards to Poland and Lithuania. The Christian rulers of Spain exploited the skills of their Jewish subjects and a thin layer of upper class Jews remained wealthy and influential. The Jewish population of Spain generally still felt comfortable there. After all, they had lived as Spaniards for many centuries. Why should the situation change now?

However, the pressures of the Spanish Catholic Church against the Jews mounted. Frustrated by the Christian inability to defeat the Moslems in the Crusader wars, the Spanish Jews were to serve as a convenient outlet for Christian fanaticism. Radical priests, some of them apostate Jews, preached against the Jewish presence in Spain and demanded the forcible conversion of Spanish Jews to Christianity. A furious demagogic preacher by the name of Ferrer instigated a countrywide pogrom against the Jews in 1391. Thousands of Jews were slain, maimed and/or forcibly dragged to the baptismal fount. Don Isaac Abarbanel’s grandfather was forced to convert to Christianity, though he managed to send the rest of his family out of Spain to then safer haven of Portugal. The Catholic Church created the Inquisition to make certain that the newly converted former Jews behaved like true Christian believers and not as secret crypto-Jews. In fact, most of the Inquisition’s attention was directed towards the New Christians, as the former Jews were called, and not directly against openly practicing Jews who had never converted even under duress. But the last century of Spanish Jewry, from 1391 to 1492, was hardly a happy time for the Spanish Jews.

Approximately fifty years before the expulsion, the Church forced the rabbis of Spain to debate theological issues with it before a less than impartial tribunal. The Jews were led by the great Rabbi Yosef Albo, but all arguments and evasions advanced by him were to be of no avail. When King Ferdinand married Queen Isabella, thus uniting Aragon and Castille, the Christian reconquest of Spain was complete, with the last Moslem territories in the south of Spain overrun by the Christians. The Jews were next on the list. By midsummer 1492 (on the 9^th of Av) all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity had to leave Spain. So many Jews left port that day that the explorer Columbus was delayed a day before embarking on his historic journey. Meanwhile, thousands of Jews died trying to make their way to new homes and climes. The glory of Spanish Jewry came to a sad end. For this reason, the story of Spain and its Jews should be part of our 9^th of Av remembrances.

Only forty years after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jews attempted to rebuild it –with the permission of the Roman government. The Emperor at the time was named Trajan and they negotiated with him at length to rebuild the Temple.

However, he made certain conditions that were untenable, one of which was that it should be built in a different location. The Jews were naturally unable to accept such an idea, but they were also unable to explain to him why it was unacceptable and could only be built on that mountain in Jerusalem.

That led to the second of the three wars against the Romans. The first one lasted from 63 to 73 CE, culminating in the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem. The second war took place in about 110 CE and was led by two brothers with Roman names, Pappus and Lulianus (the Roman name Julius or Julian). They made a strong effort to deliver the Jewish people from under the Roman yoke. Their main headquarters was in the city of Lod. The Romans pursued them and dealt with them very severely, massacring of all its inhabitants, including Pappus and Lulianus.

The Romans thought they had now brought the matter to an end; that Judea was pacified once and for all.

Immediately after this war, Trajan was assassinated and succeeded by Hadrian. He, too, entertained ideas of allowing the Jews to rebuild the Temple and have a measure of autonomy. He felt that the destruction of Lod would guarantee that the Jews would not rebel again.

However, he misread the situation.

A “Star” Emerges

The next war was led by one of the most enigmatic people to appear in Jewish history, a man whom we know very little and yet for the role he played we should know a great deal. His name was Shimon (or Simon) bar Kosiba.

What we do know about him is that he was a person of tremendous physical strength. He was able to uproot a tree while riding a horse. He was able to hold back a Roman catapult. His feats of personal valor were legendary, which all lent to a superhuman aura about him.

The Talmud says that anyone who wanted to join his army had to be willing to cut off their little finger. However, the rabbis objected to such an act of self-mutilation, and therefore he resorted to the test of “simply” uprooting trees. In the writings of Dio Cassius it says that he had an army of 200,000, each of whom was strong enough to uproot a tree.

By any measure it was a large and fearsome Jewish army.

As testified in Yadin’s book he was a very charismatic, intelligent person, as well as a religiously observant and pious Jew. He had a great and sincere faith. This in combination with his charismatic personality produced a natural leader that captured the heart and soul of the Jewish people.

A “Star” Shines

He said that the only way that the Jews would get anything from the Romans would be to take it by force. He, therefore, organized this very large army and began the rebellion against Rome, which lasted almost six years. During four of those years there was an independent Jewish state.

Bar Kochba followed the same strategy that the Jews had followed in the first rebellion against Rome. He first reconquered the Galilee to cut the Romans off from the sea. Then he surrounded Jerusalem and forced them out.

He had active support of most of the rabbis – in contradistinction to the first two revolts against Rome. In those instances the rabbis were at best neutral. In this war, the most influential rabbi lent his name to the cause, was Akiva ben Joseph.

It was Rabbi Akiva who ascribed to Shimon bar Kochba the famous messianic verse: “A star will shoot forth from Jacob” (Numbers 24:17). That is how he got the name “Kochba,” which means “star.” In essence, Rabbi Akiva crowned him the Messiah. Rabbi Akiva was so widely respected among the people that if he saw in Shimon messianic qualities then the people immediately elevated him to the level of the Messiah. The helps us understand very well why the Christians would take no part in the war; it would have made one messiah too many.

Shimon bar Kochba’s reputation became so great that, according to the records of the times, many non-Jews came to fight in his army. They saw it as a real chance to bring down the Roman Empire. Many people were not very happy with the Romans and their ways.

All told, Bar Kochba eventually mustered an army of almost 350,000. In the ancient world that was an enormous army, greater in number than the entire Roman army.

The Romans were so hard pressed that Hadrian brought his best general and all of his troops from England, Gaul, Germany and all of the provinces scattered throughout the Roman world. The reason was simple: Rome felt itself threatened as no other time. It was total war.

Many details of the war are unclear to us. We know that at one point Bar Kochba took back Jerusalem and proclaimed that he was going to rebuild the Temple, which was one of the steps the Messiah was supposed to do according to prophecy and tradition. However, due to Roman pressure and internal dissention he apparently never got to actually rebuilding it. By the third year of his reign there were already signs of disenchantment.

A “Star” Fades and Burns Out

After a string of almost unbroken successes for four to five years he now began to suffer reverses. As the pressure of Rome bore down upon him he began to worry about betrayal and was on the lookout for spies. However, he looked in the wrong places. He felt that the rabbis had turned against him.

This happened while he commanded a very large force at the city Beitar, which was the key to Jerusalem. Today there are a number of archaeological sites that could be Beitar, which was the location of the last great battle of this war, but the exact site is not known conclusively.

In either event, the Jews were so well-fortified and supplied they could have held out at Beitar indefinitely. Had they done so, the Romans, who were constantly harassed by guerilla warfare and marauding Jewish soldiers, would have retreated. However, Beitar was betrayed. Its secret fortifications and entrances were revealed to the Romans by insiders — but not the rabbis, as Bar Kochba feared. Yet, in a fit of almost insane paranoia Bar Kochba accused the great sage, Rabbi Elazar, of being the spy and executed him. He then lost the support of the rabbis completely. It eroded all chance of reconciliation. Then they began calling him, “Bar Koziba,” meaning the son of a lie; a false messiah. Their hopes were dashed.

Beitar fell to the Romans on Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, in 135 CE, adding it to calamitous national tragedies of the Jewish people. Bar Kochba was eventually killed in battle. According to Dio Cassius and Jewish sources, at least a half a million Jews were killed. It was a tremendous blood bath.

Hadrian’s Final Solution

After 135 CE, when the rebellion was crushed, Hadrian acted even more ruthlessly and set about on a campaign to wipe away not only the remnants of the Jewish people but the memory that they had ever existed. In effect, he decided to “solve the Jewish problem” once and for all.

He realized that the final solution to the Jewish problem lay not only in killing Jews but in destroying Judaism. As long as the Jews had their religion no one would ever really be able to eradicate them entirely. Therefore, he issued decrees that outlawed Judaism on the pain of death. The decrees of Hadrian were the most fearsome in history against the Jewish people.

Teaching Torah was the worst “crime” a Jew could commit under these circumstances. Jewish tradition is rich with stories about the “10 Martyrs Murdered by the [Roman] Government.” It is during Hadrian’s reign that this happened. He was not content merely killing these great rabbis, but doing it in public display of brutality and torture, hoping to crush the spirit of the Jewish people. Foremost among the martyrs was Rabbi Akiva.

Hadrian did not stop there. He forbade mention of the name Jerusalem and renamed the holy city, Aelia Capitolina. He also forbade Jews from living there. Most notable of all, he employed an army of slaves to plow over the Temple Mount. He simply lowered it almost 1,000 feet. When one goes to Jerusalem today, the mountains around the Temple Mount (such as the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus) are taller. Before Hadrian, however, Mount Moriah (the mountain upon with the Temple stood) was the highest mountain there. Hadrian literally reconstructed the landscape in order to prove to the Jews that it would never be rebuilt again.

Overall, Hadrian unleashed and eight to ten year reign of persecution after the defeat of Bar Kochba almost unmatched in Jewish history. It did not end until Hadrian died. His successor, Antoninus Pious, not only overturned his decrees but was very benevolent toward the Jews. Even so, the Jewish people after Hadrian were crushed almost beyond recognition. Bar Kochba’s defeat marked the end of any sort of Jewish autonomy in the Jewish homeland until the twentieth century.

What is much less known about Jefferson is that he had a great connection to the Jewish people, and to appreciate this, we first have to understand the prevalent attitudes toward the Jews at the time.

The founding fathers were people of tremendous vision who wanted to try a new experiment in government, a nation without monarchy. And because they had seen how religious warfare racked England, they also had a healthy antipathy toward organized religion.

Of all the founding fathers, Jefferson was the fiercest fighter of religious intolerance. In his home state of Virginia, for example, he repealed “the Law of Disabilities for Dissenters and Jews,” a carry-over from English rule that limited Jews and dissenters (meaning Protestants that aren’t “my kind” of Protestant) in property rights and banned them from holding public office. To the Jews, this was not a major issue; they were accustomed to legal disabilities. As long as nobody was making pogroms against them, they felt they were ahead of the game. They didn’t care that they couldn’t serve on the Virginia House of Burgesses. But what was no problem to the Jews was a problem for Jefferson, not so much because he loved the Jews – he had hardly any contact with them – but because he had not led the revolution to have a country that enforced legal disabilities against minorities.

Thomas Jefferson's gravesite

Jefferson replaced that law with a new bill, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the precursor to the Bill of Rights. He considered this bill one of the major accomplishments of his life. The epitaph on his gravestone, which he wrote himself, reads: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.”

But his “test case” for religious tolerance was not Virginia, but Maryland. Maryland was founded as a haven for Catholics, but Section 33 of its Constitution read: “the State grants equal and religious rights to all persons professing the Christian religion.”

That law went unchallenged until 1818 when Maryland legislator Thomas Kennedy proposed to amend it to read “all persons” and not “all persons professing the Christian religion.” Thomas Jefferson came to Maryland to lobby with him. But revered a figure as he was, the bill lost by a margin of 50 to 24.

Kennedy and Jefferson refused to give up the fight, and in 1819, the bill was reintroduced and lost again. It lost in 1820, 1821, 1822. . . They reintroduced it every year, and it lost each time. Even when Jefferson’s health began to fail, he continually bombarded the legislature. He felt that if Maryland would rescind the law, no other state would again dare to have such a clause in its Constitution, and his idea of religious freedom would be attained. Interestingly, he did not pursue it in the Supreme Court. He did not want the Court forcing it upon the people; he wanted the people, or at least their legislators, to change their minds.

In 1824, Jefferson took a different tack. He approached Maryland legislator William Worthington with the argument that Jews in other states were building up the economy, and if Maryland continued this discrimination, it would be economically crippled. That argument won the day, and in 1824, the Maryland Constitution was amended so that equal and religious rights were granted to all persons, period.

Jefferson saw that as one of his major victories. He felt that the treatment of the Jews was the true test of how much America really meant “all men are created equal.” In that way, the Jews were the forerunners of all other minorities in America. It is therefore not difficult for us to appreciate his pride in obtaining rights for Jews. That guaranteed that the ideas he wrote into the Constitution were actually followed in practice.