Response to the sixth challenge: Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kokhba

We continue with our series "The Certainty of Redemption," which notes three different approaches towards the national-historic process the Jewish Nation is currently experiencing. One holds that the Ingathering of Jews in the Holy Land is not a significant Redemption development, as the State of Israel is not run by a Torah government. Another view holds the opposite: The State of Israel is definitely the fulfillment of many Biblical prophecies, and we are on a one-way journey of undetermined length towards Redemption. The third approach is that the current situation is a bona-fide opportunity for Geulah (Redemption) - depending on our national and personal behavior.

Many challenges have been presented to the second approach, and Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Veitzen, the Rabbi of the Binyamin community of Psagot, responds to five of them here, here, here, here, and here. A sixth challenge, and his response, are presented below.

Challenge #6:

During the Mishnaic period, 1,890 years ago, the great sage Rabbi Akiva was sure that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah – but he was soon proven wrong. Does this not show that we can never be sure that a given situation is irreversibly Messianic? R. Akiva even said that the Torah verse "a star will go forth from Yaakov" (Bamidbar 24,17), which speaks of the defeat of Edom (Rome), applies to Bar Kokhba – yet within three years, the Romans had soundly crushed his short-lived Jewish administration.

Response:

1. The Big Difference

R. Akiva identified a particular man as the Messiah, and saw Bar Kokhba's Jewish might as the basis for the Redemption. The great sage then sought to harness this strength for that goal; this was to be a Redemption starting with one man, who would then sweep up many Jews after him. Yes, some great Sages were supportive, but this would be a Redemption whose engine was flesh and blood. And then, because of Bar Kokhba's sins and other reasons, the rebellion failed and the Redemption was thwarted.  

As we explained in our previous article, the Prophet Yeshayahu says about the Redemption, "In its time, I [G-d] will hasten it" (60,22), and the Talmud explains that though this prediction appears to be self-contradictory, it actually indicates two different forms of Redemption: "If Israel is meritorious, I will hasten it; but if not, then it will come in its time." The Bar Kokhba rebellion was an attempt to bring about the Geulah in the "meritorious, hastened" form. 

But the Redemption taking place today is very different. It is not rooted in Israel's great merits and good deeds, nor is it being led by individual righteous people. It is rather a product of the special nature of Klal Yisrael, and G-d's decision at this time. As the venerated R. Yisrael Yehoshua Kotna (1820-1893) wrote in his work Yeshuot Malko: "… and especially now when we see the great passion [in the entire nation] among simple people, among the mediocre, and among those with great integrity of heart – it is practically a certainty that the light of Redemption is shining."

This is a nation-wide uprising in the positive sense, and those at the forefront were not even specifically aiming for a Redemptive objective. This teaches us that the shining of the Redemption stems from G-d and not from our actions alone. This is an "in its time" Redemption, powered not by humans but by  G-d. 

2. Bar-Kokhba Continued the Second Redemption; We're Now in the Third

Many sources in Rabbinic literature indicate that the Third Redemption – i.e., the one currently underway, following 1) the Exodus from Egypt and 2) the predicted return, with Ezra the Scribe, after the 70 years of Exile in Babylon – is the final one, and that no exile or destruction will follow it. In 1942, when Nazi forces appeared to be on the verge of invading the Holy Land and its more than half-a-million Jews, Rav Yitzchak HaLevy Herzog (who later became Israel's first Chief Rabbi) greatly uplifted their faith and spirit by saying that our Prophets had foreseen two exiles – not a third one. 

For instance, the Medrash Tanchuma (Shoftim 9) explains that the words "the third will remain there" (Zecharia 13,8) mean that the Jewish People will only finally settle in the Land during the Third Redemption, which will never end.

But this is difficult – for did not the Bar Kokhba government of renewed Jewish rule in the Holy Land come to an abrupt end after only three years?

The answer is that the Bar Kokhba period was really only a continuation of the Second Redemption. True, the Holy Temple had been destroyed some decades earlier, but many Jews were not exiled at that time, and remained and participated in the Bar Kokhba uprising. R. Akiva, Bar Kokhba, and others attempted to revive the last embers of the Second Redemption and give new life to the national entity. Their failure, and the resulting exile and enslavement and persecution of many thousands of Jews, was the final blow to the Second Exile and Destruction. 

Thus, what we see happening in our generations – the return of millions of Jews and the rebuilding of the Land of Israel – is in fact the long-awaited Third Redemption, which will never end.

So wrote HaRav Kook to the youth of the Bnei Akiva movement in the Holy Land in 1934:

"… and precisely because [R. Akiva's] vision failed in his time [see Tr. Sanhedrin 97b], and Bar Kokhba failed, and with them Israel fell in terms of its national freedom – we are certain that the time has come for the Torah of Truth of [R. Akiva's] mouth to come true – and it is coming soon, and 'the tribulations will not happen twice' (Nachum 1,9), and not for naught did Israel fight for its existence and its eternity, up to and including the final generation." 

We will continue next week with a response to yet a seventh challenge to the view that we are surely in a one-way historic national Redemptive process.

Translated by Hillel Fendel