Rabi Yochanan said: The brains of three hundred children were dashed upon one stone …
Rabi Yonatan said: The voice is the voice of Yaakov—the voice of distress caused by the Emperor Hadrian, who slew eighty thousand myriads of human beings at Beitar …”
Hadrian decreed that the Jews could not bury the bodies of their dead. But even though the bodies remained out in the open for many months, they didn’t rot—a miracle that we commemorate in the fourth blessing of Birkas Hamazon.
His plan to eradicate Torah from Israel also failed. Despite the ban against teaching Torah, Rabi Akiva and many other Sages continued to teach and raise disciples, who became the leaders of the next generation. It’s true that the horrific deaths of Rabi Akiva and the other martyrs was a terrible blow. But this was a blow that signaled the end of the Hadrianic persecutions—and not the end of Torah.
When Antonius Pius became the Roman emperor after Hadrian’s death, he chose the path of tolerance and, unlike Hadrian, stuck with it. Many scholars say that he is the “Antonius” who was friends with Rabi Yehudah Hanasi, the compiler of the Mishnah.
Eleh Ezkerah
When hundreds of thousands of Jews died during the Hadrianic persecutions, we could ask why the medieval paytan Yehudah Chazak chose to focus on the Aseret Harugei Malchut, the Ten Martyrs. Ten in kabbalah represents a complete unit, so perhaps the inclusion of ten martyrs is meant to represent all the Jews who were persecuted and killed during those times—and in the years since. We can’t know, but we can remember.
Next week: These I Will Remember—Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel
