Rabi Yehudah lay down on the ground, pretending to be dead. When the Roman patrol arrived, they drove 300 iron spears into his body until it was riddled like a sieve. But the time they spent on this act of vengeance cost them dearly. All five of the newly ordained rabbanim escaped—and became the future leaders of Klal Yisrael.
However, the era of persecutions was not yet over. Although Hadrian, the Roman emperor who had instituted the harsh decrees during the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt, died in 138 CE, the rulers who followed him continued the policy of forbidding the study of Torah and the practice of mitzvot such as brit milah. It was only during the twenty-year reign of Marcus Aurelius that the harsh decrees were rescinded.
It was during that time that Reb Yehudah HaNasi, the son of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II—who was born on the day that Rabi Akiva was martyred (Talmud Yerushalmi, quoted in Tosafot, Sanhedrin 5a)—codified the Mishnah and wrote it down. He did this so that the Oral Torah would not be forgotten in either Eretz Yisrael or the Diaspora.
May we merit seeing the rebuilding of Yerushalayim and the Beit HaMikdash speedily in our days.
