Various sources say that "12,000 pairs" of Rabbi Akiva's students died between Pesach and Shavuos because they did not treat each other with respect. See Genesis Rabba 61:3, Ecclesiastes Rabba 11, Yalkut Shimoni Kohelet section 989, for parallel sources. Also see Tana Dbei Eliyahu Zuta chapter 22. This is cited in the Shulchan Aruch (493:1) as the reason why we observe a mourning period between the two holidays. But Rabbi Akiva was also known for his support for Bar Kochba, leading me to wonder whether -- not withstanding the statements otherwise in Midrashim (which sometimes aren't meant to be understood as the literal truth) -- Rabbi Akiva's students actually died fighting for Bar Kochba's unsuccessful revolt against the Romans. Are there any sources that support this? Is there any known sources that his students did fight for Bar Kochba?
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Taken from this blog post (emphasis mine)
Translation of the bold parts: And since he (Rebbi Akiva) considered Bar Kosiba the Moshiach he called to his students to fight on the side of Bar Kosiba. ...And in each battle many soldiers of Bar Kosiba fell, among them students of Rebbi Akiva |
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That's a very interesting suggestion, and I'm surprised I've never put two and two together here. After some searching, I've found that a similar suggestion was made by Shlomo Yehuda Rapoport (Shir) in the journal Kerem Chemed (vol. 7, p. 183). He suggests that the Romans chased and killed the students of R' Akiva on the suspicion that they were involved in the Bar Kochba revolt, like R' Akiva himself was. He supports this with the description of the students' death in the Iggeres R' Sh'rira Gaon:
He posits that "שמדא" was a term used to refer to the Roman persecution. And even though the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) identifies their death as being though "אסכרה", which means something like "suffocating" or some type of disease, Shir suggests that since the students were forced to flee to the desert, they very well could have died of thirst or hunger or disease. [Incidentally, see this aish.com article n.9: The Talmud says that the students died from the croup which is the English word for askara, a term which denotes choking. The association with Bar Kochba may explain this term, as Bar Kochba's death is described as taking place when a snake (a symbol of his sins) choked him: Jerusalem Talmud Ta'anit 4:5, Midrash Rabbah – Eicha 2:4.] However, R' Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Rabinowitz in Doros HaRishonim (v.4, ch.31) disputes this idea by refuting the "proof" from R' Sh'rira's letter, and citing the above gemara in it's literal sense (i.e. they died in a plague). Rabinowitz also concludes that the incident with the 24,000 students actually happened before the destruction of the second Temple (by comparing with Talmud Bavli Nedarim 50a), in which case their deaths could of course not have been associated with Bar Kochba at all. |
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The students mentioned in yevamoth could not have died in the times of Bar-Kochba. Firstly the talmud speaks of students in his (R. Akiba's) youth and students in his old age - so there had to be a respectable amount of time between the death of his first students and the studies with his latter students. Secondly, R. Akiba was arrested in tishre after the fall of Betar and was killed two years later (137 or 138). He spent those two years in jail. (The five students were meanwhile getting ordained by R Yehuda ben Babba (Sanhedrin 14a), and then fleeing the land of Israel.) There was no time for R. Akiva to "go south" to teach the 5.(Anyway after Bar-Kochba the south was totaly destroyed (see para 14, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/69*.html. Also R. Meir came first to R. Akiba but didn't have the pre-requisites so he studied with R. Yishmael and then returned to R. Akiba. R. Yishmael was killed in the beginning of the war... So the first students would have had to die earlier. I guess there are maybe two other possibilites: they died during the Hurban or they died during the Kitos War? |
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According to the information in the gemara and other places Rabbi Akiva was born in the year "0" and lived for 120 years, to the beginning of the Bar Kochba period under the first of the three people of that dynasty (father, son and grandson). He was 40 years old when he began studying (40 CE), so presumably he did not have students for a while after studying under R. Eliezer ben Hyrkanus. So if he began having students after the death of R. Yochanan Ben Zakkai, he was approximately 70-72 years old (72 CE). It is difficult to imagine that 24,000 people were his direct students, as opposed to the idea that they followed his psakim. And then if he had to have had enough time to teach his later 5 students who replaced the 24,000 before he was killed in 120 CE, then he must have taught those five from around 100 or 110 CE. Of course we know that Rabbi Akiva came home to his wife and father in law Kalba Savua who was alive until the chorban. So according to this, Rabbi Akiva made his talmidim during his first 24 years of learning Torah. But WHY do our sources not discuss the implications of such a major inyan of so many talmidei chachamim being lost at one time as they do other events after the chorban? And if it involved two SEPARATE events in the life of R. Akiva, what are the sources describing these two events? Thanks. |
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