The Bar Kokhba Revolt and the Fall of Betar

Sixty years after the Temple's destruction, Judea rose again. The trigger was Hadrian's decision to build a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, on the site of Jerusalem, and to ban circumcision. At the head stood Shimon ben Kosiva, a man of enormous strength and hard will.

Rabbi Akiva saw in him the Messiah and applied to him the verse a star shall rise from Jacob — hence Bar Kokhba, son of a star. Not all agreed: Rabbi Yochanan ben Torta told him bluntly, Akiva, grass will grow from your cheeks and the son of David will still not have come.

The first years went well: the rebels took hundreds of settlements, struck coins reading Year One of the redemption of Israel, and restored a semblance of sovereignty. Rome recalled its best general, Julius Severus, from Britain, and he fought by attrition, cutting off one stronghold after another.

The last to fall was Betar in the Judean hills, on the Ninth of Av, 3892. The Mishnah lists five calamities of that date, and Betar was captured stands beside the destruction of both Temples. The dead were left unburied, and when burial was finally permitted the sages added a fourth blessing to the grace after meals — He who is good and does good. Judea was emptied, and Jewish life shifted permanently to the Galilee.