How did the Rambam know that Rabbi Akiva was the instrument bearer of Bar Kochba?

Maimonides (Photo: Shutterstock)

Chapter III: In the previous chapter, we discussed whether Rabbi Akiva’s students were Bar Kochba fighters.

Directly related to this discussion are the Rambam’s famous words that the Rabbi himself was a fighter in the Bar Kochba rebellion, and it is likely that if he resigned from the leadership of the yeshiva that was closed on the occasion of the war, the students also mobilized, and not just the revered Rabbi.

The following are the words of Rambam:

“Rabbi Akiba was a great sage among the sages of Mishnah, And he was the bearer of his vessels that the king lied, and he said of him that he was the Messiah, and he and all the wise men of his generation thought that he was the Messiah, until he was killed in his sins.” 17, Book of Judges, Laws of Kings and Wars, Chapter 11, Law 3).

Another genius in Israel wrote the same about the mishna “Mr. Rabbi Akiva, I asked Rabbi Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua going to the regiment” (Negaim 7:4), and the Gaon explained Rabbi Israel Lifshitz The owner of the ‘Glory of Israel’ that the sages of Israel fought for “in the battalion” with Bar Kochba and did not stop them from studying the Torah:

“Defilo when they went out for weapons, and their souls were always in their hands, even the most, their hearts were tied to God and His Torah as their flame in an ember.”

How did the Rambam know that Rabbi Akiva would carry the tools of Bar Kochba? Was it literal, or can it be demanded in an allegorical way that the Rabbi only supported Bar Kochba (as an example, the Rambam simplified the verses of the Bible and the legends of many Sages who demand that he not Literally)?!

From a fascinating lesson by an old Yemenite rabbi, I was able to learn great and wonderful things on this subject.

What are the Rambam’s sources for this issue of Bar Kochba?

The Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevi (Rabinovitz) was one of the founders of the Agudat Israel movement. All his life he fought the opinions of the educated, and overruled them, and for this purpose he wrote his book ‘The First Generations – The Book of the Times for the Children of Israel’.

The owner of Dorot Rashonim completely denied the connection between Rabbi Akiva’s students and the warriors of Bar Kochva, and he understood that the educated can be ‘caught’ in the language of the Maimonides, who wrote that Rabbi Akiva was the bearer of Bar Koziva’s vessels.

Therefore, after extending and proving that Rabbi Akiva did not participate in the rebellion, but went to spread the Torah and mitzvot, and there is no hint anywhere that this is related to the rebellion, he encountered the problem that he opposes the Rambam’s explicit words.

According to the old Rabbi of Yemen Hagari Ratzavi: “So that they would not be caught in the Rambam’s language, he saw fit to write [בחלק חמישי עמ’ שט”ו הערה פ”ד] Thus, we don’t want to talk about the Rambam’s words at the end of the Laws of Kings, that Rabbi Akiva was in Beitar carrying the instrument of Ben Khuziba, which is known because our first rabbis did not deal with such matters, and it was not their kind of work.

Geri Ratsavi continues and explains:

“‘The known,’ in the language of Baal Dorat of the first generations, we were the Christians. This is brought up in many places in his book. He did not want to write this explicitly. All these scholars and scholars will clean the books of the Gentiles. That is why he says that the whole concept, the name of ‘Bar Kochba’ , you took from the writings of Gentiles.”

The Geri Ratsavi explains that the owner of the first generations wrote gently, respectfully and carefully about Rambam also for the reason that rabbis did not deal with history: “It is known that our rabbis did not deal with history. Rambam did not deal with history, that is not his job.”

On this claim, that the Rambam took what he wrote about Bar Kochba not from Israeli sources, but from other sources, the Gaon Rabbi responded at the time Meir Mazoz[1] that he had a source, and he possessed a version of the Gemara, a chapter of the Sanhedrin that was only known to him, and so his words:

“The Rambam writes that Rabbi Akiva was the instrument bearer of Bar Kochba. Where is this thing in the Gemara? It is not written in our Gemara, but the Rambam had this section in the Gemara and it was omitted in all our Gemaras. It is found in the Yemenite version in the Gemara, part one, where it is written that Rabbi Akiva was the vessel bearer of Bar Khuziba, and that is where the Rambam took it from. Why didn’t the Gemara explicitly say that they died in the war? For the sake of honor, so that there is no quarrel between us and the nations, we are captives of the Roman Empire. So the Gemara didn’t want to tell it.”

Indeed, the great historian Yeruham Horowitz In his book ‘Alf Dor’ 12 p. 121, he wrote at length about this polemic, and presented a copy of the manuscript of the Gemara that was placed before the Rambam where it is explicitly written “Tana R. Akiva carries a klein shelban kozba hoh”.

“Tana R. Akiva carries a klin Shalban Kozba Hoh” – the version before the Rambam that RA was the bearer of the Khilin of Bar Kochba. From the book ‘Alf Dor’ 12 p. 121 by Rabbi Yeruham Horowitz (Photo: Treasury of Wisdom)

It should be noted that already in the lesson of Geri Ratsavi, a hypothesis was raised that Rambam had a source, and this is how his words continued:

“The owner of the first generations wrote this so humbly, he did not want to harm the Rambam’s honor. On the one hand, there is something here. Admittedly, everyone says that they do not know what the Rambam’s source is, and how he came to this conclusion. But apparently, he had a source. It cannot be ignored. It is possible that Rambam had a source.”

In fact, the historian R. A. Halevi, author of “Dorat Rishonim”, believes that the whole assumption about Rabbi Akiva’s participation in the rebellion is incorrect.

“It’s true,” R. Halevi asserts that “at a certain period, Rabbi Akiva erred in Bar Kochva and tended to see him as the Messiah, and about this period the Rambam tells about Rabbi Akiva ‘who was the vessel bearer of Ben Khoziba the king, and he used to say of him that he was king The Messiah, and Dima is him and all the sages of his generation who is the King Messiah’, but this opinion of his was not accepted.”

The researcher from the university who believed that there was no connection between RA students and Bar Kochba

In recent generations, the researcher Gedaliah Alon sided with the method of RA, author of Dorat Rashonim, that the students of RA were not among the fighters of Bar Kochba, and Geri Ratsavi in ​​his lesson points to this, quoting his words:

“Certainly the case with Halevi, who distanced these travels of Rabbi Akiva from a political-military purpose, and it turns out that they (the travels) even preceded the Trienos War” (see his book The Jews in the Land of Israel during the Mishnah and Talmud period, page 42)

24 thousand RA students were married couples?!

Finally, Hagari Ratsavi scoffed at the claim of Rabbi Mordechai HaCohen of the Leumi religious sector that twelve thousand “couples” who were Rabbi Akiva’s students were actually married soldiers and women soldiers who lived up to their article: “Everyone will come out, even a groom from his room and a bride from a veil” (Mishna Sota 87), and defined it as “hukha and atalula”.

May this short article stimulate the discussion and polemic on this topic, which is before us these days.

[1] Brought in Beit Na’eman bulletin 267

  • For comments, comments, clarifications, as well as for sending materials, documents, and ideas for articles dealing with the field of Jewish history, please contact the email address: sisraerl@gmail.com

The full article about the connection between the RA students and the Bar Kochba fighters by Rabbi Shmuel Yashmach:

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