Background
Simeon Yochai, also known as Rashbi, was born in 100.
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רבן שמעון בר יוחאי
Simeon Yochai, also known as Rashbi, was born in 100.
For thirteen years c, he studied under Akiva in Benei Berak, developing a reverence for his teacher as well as the intellectual independence that was to characterize his own legal methodology. Unlike Akiva and most other sages of the time, Simeon had a high opinion of himself, which may in part explain Akiva’s failure to ordain him as a rabbi. Together with Rabbi Meir, he was one of the five surviving disciples of Akiva who received ordination from Judah ben Bava during the Hadrianic persecutions that followed Bar Kokhba’s ill-starred revolt against Rome (132-135 CE).
He was an outstanding pupil of the martyred Rabbi Akiva. There are well over three hundred references to him in the Mishnah, where he is almost invariably called Rabbi Simeon (without the patronymic). Owing to the multitude ol legends woven around his personality in Talmudic lore and in the Kabbalah, precise biographical data are hard to establish.
Having witnessed the Emperor Hadrian’s systematic attempt to eradicate Judaism by prohibitive laws, torture, and wholesale execution, Simeon bar Yohai became an uncompromising Jewish nationalist. Whereas Akiva’s generation had readily accepted martyrdom, Simeon believed that there were other ways of resisting oppression by preserving the Jewish heritage. Condemned to death after his outspoken attack on the Romans’ anti-Jewish policies had been reported to the authorities, he went into hiding to avoid execution. Tradition relates that he and his son Elcazar found refuge in a cave near the village of Peki’in in Upper Galilee, where they spent the next thirteen years studying Torah and were sustained by mulberries, carob pods, and a spring of fresh water. Once it was safe for them to emerge under the more tolerant regime of Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138-161), Simeon may have taught at Usha, where the Sanhedrin had been relocated after its move from Yavneh. He eventually founded a school of his own at Tekoa (a Galilean village, rather than the town of that name devastated in Judea), where his students included Judah ha-Nasi. As an acknowledged leader and spokesman of the Palestinian Jewish community, Simeon bar Yohai is thought to have undertaken a successful mission to Rome, personally persuading Antoninus to repeal a ban on circumcision and other religious observances.
Anxious to determine the meaning and purpose of the teachings which he had received, Simeon often boldly rejected the views of his predecessors when dealing with legal questions. Thanks to the ascetic way of life adopted during his prolonged sojourn in the cave, he became an admired exemplar of the Torah sage who placed study before everything else.
From the early Middle Ages, Simeon bar Yohai was thought to have written various apocalyptic or mystical compilations; and. while hidden in the Galilean cave, he was said to have authored the mystical classic, the Zohar (“The Book of Splendor”). In its present form, at least, this central work of the Kabbalah dates from the late 13th century; but Simeon’s explicit belief in his own supreme merit and holiness, coupled with his reputation as a wonder-worker, may explain his frequent appearance in the Zohar and the growth of this cherished legend. From about the 16th century, his traditional grave at Meron (near Safed) became a center of pilgrimage, especially on Iyar 18, the minor festival of Lag ba-Omer, taken as the anniversary of his death.
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According to popular legend, he and his son, Eleazar b. Simeon, were noted Kabbalists. Both figures are held in unique reverence by kabbalistic tradition.
Quotations:
SAYINGS OF SIMEON BAR YOHAI
• Three people who dine together and do not exchange words of Torah are considered as though they have eaten an idolatrous sacrifice.
• Hatred upsets the social order.
• Throw yourself into a blazing furnace rather than shame a neighbor in public.
• To honor parents is even more important than to honor God.
• God is angry at him who does not leave a son to be his heir.
• It is a duty to save a woman from rape, even at the cost of the assailant’s life.
• There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of Priesthood, and the crown of Royalty. The crown of a good name is superior to them all.
• It is forbidden to observe a commandment by performing a transgression.
• A liar’s punishment is that he is not believed even when he tells the truth.
• Great is work, for it honors him who performs it.
