Bar Kokhba's cries for freedom and liberty shook an empire

...A nation's existence throughout history demands the ability to see through the fog of dark skies. Bar Kokhba's cries for freedom and liberty ("He was a hero, he called out for freedom, the whole nation revered him" -- author Levin Kipnis) shook an empire from its seven pillars. And the Roman empire fell. The statue of Hadrian today looks out over the city of Jerusalem, which is thriving. That's the difference.

Dr. Gabi Avital..
Israel Hayom..
18 May '14..

How many other nations can see things with the same broad historic perspective as the Jewish people? Who else can face history, judge its many illusions, and come out on top?

Only the Jews, it seems. Indeed, many cynics out there immediately disregard the historic parallels that can, every once in a while, be discerned. Take, for example, the statue of Hadrian that was discovered in 1984 at an archaeological dig in Beit Shean, and remains on display at the Israel Museum. The question it begs is: "Where are they, and where are we now?"

The statue of the Roman emperor is standing at the heart of the very city whose name Hadrian sought to change to Aelia Capitolina. The Roman empire disappeared, but Jerusalem persists, nested and flourishing on its hill. Nearly two dozen empires wandered through the lands of Israel, and each and every one of them has vanished from the main stage of history.

The nation of Israel, though, never boasted an empire. Even during the reigns of kings David and Solomon, people never spoke of it in such terms. Still, that being the case, this tiny nation probably should have disappeared. But such are the jokes of historians. Indeed there was no shortage of subversive efforts against the Roman empire, even among the rabbinical elite, in the period that preceded the Bar Kokhba revolt. But then Rabbi Akiva came along -- one of the greatest of his generation, perhaps of all generations -- and instilled the epic revolt with a faithful spirit.

Bar Kokhba -- whose title of "controversial hero" completely fails to do him justice -- led the Jewish people under his historical-national jurisprudence on a bloody, heroic struggle, leaving aspirations of freedom and liberty pumping through his veins. In reality, Bar Kokhba, with Rabbi Akiva's support, fine-tuned our nationalistic genetic code. So now, 1,800 years later, even dogged cynics are forced to admit that the Jewish nation has returned to its homeland, rising from the ashes like the legendary phoenix.

Although the revolt failed and the toll was unbearably high, there is no dispute among historians, even those outside Israel: the Jewish rebellions throughout the Roman empire caused irreparable cracks. The Bar Kokhba revolt fundamentally undermined beliefs that the Roman empire's culture and fortitude would last forever. Letters written by Roman commanders stationed in Israel back to the homefront attested to that fact. The thrill of victory was gone; the price Bar Kokhba's warriors exacted was a painful one.

Lag BaOmer - The Fire Burns

It is Lag BaOmer, an obscure holiday to most, even to those who come to the fires. The remnants of the Jewish Revolt against the might of the Roman Empire are remembered as days of deprivation in memory of the thousands of students dying in the war, until the thirty-third day of the Biblical Omer, part of the way between Passover and Shavuot, the day when Jerusalem was liberated.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
27 April '13..

The circle of men whirls around the fire, hand in hand, hand catching hand, drawing in newcomers into the ring that races around and around in the growing darkness. A melody thumps through the speakers teetering unevenly with the bass, the sound is both old and new, a mix of the past and the present, like the participants in the dance, the traditional garments mixing with jeans and t-shirts until it is all a blur.

It is Lag BaOmer, an obscure holiday to most, even to those who come to the fires. The remnants of the Jewish Revolt against the might of the Roman Empire are remembered as days of deprivation in memory of the thousands of students dying in the war, until the thirty-third day of the Biblical Omer, part of the way between Passover and Shavuot, the day when Jerusalem was liberated.

Deprived of music for weeks, it rolls back in waves through speakers, from horns blown by children and a makeshift drum echoing an ancient celebration when men danced around fires and shot arrows into the air. The fires and bows have remained a part of Lag BaOmer, even when hardly anyone remembers the true reason for them.

The new Yom Yerushalayim, the day of the liberation of the city, is coming up soon, but the old Yom Yerushalaim, came thousands of years ago and ten days before it on the calendar. Time is a wheel, and, like a circle, everything comes around again. Hands pulling on hands, years pulling on years, on and on like the orbits of planets and stars. The Divine Hand of G-d pulls us along, and we pull each other in the dance of life.

The circle speeds up, men racing faster and faster, the children left behind, as the flames sputter and night falls. The rebellion, although bravely fought, failed, and Jerusalem fell again, and then Betar. The joy of the celebration turned to ashes, but, even in the shadow of the empire, their spirit endured. The stories were changed a little, the rebellion encoded into a story of Rabbi Akiva, the pivotal scholarly figure in the war, and of his students who perished because they had not been able to get along with one another. The failure of unity had been the underlying reason for the Roman conquest and the Jewish defeats. It is the ancient lesson still unlearned that the circle of the dance teaches us.

Lag BaOmer is not the first Jewish story of physically and spiritual heroism to be encoded for fear of the enemy. There is much that we know, without knowing what it truly means, messages from the past, that exist only as echoes reminding us of our purpose. Few of those in the circle passing around the flame know what they are truly commemorating and yet the act is its own commemoration. Thousands of years later the echo of a fierce joy, the pride of a people emerging out of a momentary darkness in a burst of wild energy, is still here. Though the details are forgotten, the joy endures, the song is sung and the fire still burns.

In the darkness, there is nothing but the fire and the dark shapes racing around it, leaping with the guttering flames. A teenager pours oil on the flames and they rise higher and higher. A new song begins but they are all the same song. Even the new songs are old. The music changes, but the words remain the same. Arms rise and fall, feet kick and the participants run around the fire only to end up right back where they began.

Codemaking is a dangerous business, for the keys to the code can be forgotten. In Spain and in the American Southwest there are men and women who keep odd rituals, but who no longer remember that the reason they keep them is because they are descended from Jewish Conversos. They have lost the most important part of the code, the part that explains everything. The men dancing around the fire have not lost that. They may not remember the liberation of Jerusalem, but their feet remember it, their arms remember it, their hearts remember it and most of all they remember who they are. They retain the key to the entire code. They remember that they are Jews.