Rabi Yesheivav The Scribe
Rabi Yesheivav was a colleague of Rabi Akiva. Throughout his long life—he lived to be ninety—he was renowned for his generosity. Indeed, he was so enthusiastic about the mitzvah of giving tzedakah that he had to be restrained from giving too much to charity.
Midrash Eleh Ezkerah recalls his final moments. As he was being led out to be executed—he was sentenced to be burned alive—his students asked him, “What will become of the Torah?”
He replied that because of all the innocent blood that was being spilled by the Romans Torah would be forgotten. His talmidim, alarmed by this dire prediction,then asked, “Our teacher, what will become of us?” He said, “Each of you should be strong for the other, love peace and justice – perhaps there is some hope.”
Rabi Yehudah ben Damah
Had Rabi Yehudah ben Damah not been mentioned as being one of the Ten Martyrs, his name would have been lost to us since he is not referred to in the Talmud or the Mishnah.
According to some opinions, the name “Damah” is incorrect, or perhaps a symbolic name; damah can mean silence. Thus, the real Sage who was martyred was Rabi Yehudah ben Teima, who is mentioned in Pirkei Avot 5:20 as saying: “Be brazen as a leopard, light as an eagle, quick as a gazelle and strong as a lion in performing the will of your Father in heaven. He used to say: The brazen go to Gehenom and the shamed-faced go to Gan Eden.”
Others, however, say that it was Rabi Yehudah ben Damah who was martyred and Midrash Eleh Ezkerah tells us that Rabi Yehudah was executed on Erev Shavuot (although there are some who say it was Erev Sukkot). When he asked for another day of life so that he could praise Hashem, who gave the Jewish people the Torah, the Roman Caesar became angry.
“There are no people on earth as foolish as you who believe that there is a World to Come!” he thundered.
Rabbi Yehudah was not perturbed. “There are no people on earth as foolish as you who deny the Living God,” he replied. “Woe to you when you see us with Hashem in the eternal light of life! You will be sitting in Gehenom, on the lowest level.”
The Roman ruler responded by devising a particularly gruesome death for Rabi Yehudah. The Sage’s hair was tied to a horse’s tail, and he was dragged through the streets. Afterward he was cut to pieces. Eliyhau HaNavi came and gathered up the pieces and buried them in a cave.
Rabi Yehudah ben Bava
Our piyyut ends with Rabi Yehudah ben Bava, which is fitting as what cost him his life was the act that ensured the Romans wouldn’t win and that the Torah would be remembered.
The Talmud, in Sanhedrin 14a, recounts that he took five of Rabi Akiva’s greatest students—Rabi Meir, Rabi Yehudah ben Illai, Rabi Shimon bar Yochai, Rabi Yossi and Rabi Elazer ben Shamua—to a place that was located between the cities of Usha and Shefaram, and there he gave them semicha. He chose this out-of-the-way place because the Romans had not only forbade, on pain of death, giving smicha, but had also decreed that the city in which it took place would be demolished and its boundaries uprooted. Rabi Yehudah and the five talmidim therefore went to a spot in the Galilean hills that was beyond the Shabbat boundaries of both cities so that neither one would suffer.
Moments after they gathered, a Roman patrol noticed the group. Rabi Yehudah warned the others to flee. “What will become of you?” they asked him. He insisted that they not worry about him. They were the future of Klal Yisrael while he was an old man. If he ran with them, he would only slow them down. Therefore, he would remain, but they must escape!
