A Soulful Journey

On Bar Kochba*: And what did they do?  They assembled and went forth to battle and many of them were slain.  Why was this?  Because they did not believe in the Lord and did not trust in His salvation, but anticipated the end and transgressed the adjuration – Midrash, Shir HShirim Rabbah   So much of what we do depends upon our trust, our faith in the outcome.  Whether in business or in relationships, trust will decide whether we meet success or not.  Why should it be any different with God? *The Bar Kochba revolution was supposed to bring  about the end of the Roman occupation and the beginning of the Third Temple.  Instead, the revolt failed.  

Akiba himself did not long resist the contagion of messianism.  When he saw Roman legions yield to untrained Judean youths, new hope blossomed in his heart.  "Yet once, it will be a little while," he quoted from Haggai (2:6), "and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ."  He went so far as to encourage the popular delusion concerning the miraculous role to be played by the new leader and applied to him the verse (Numbers 24:1), "The star hath trodden forth out of Jacob."  Once he even said outright, "this is the messianic king." The dismal response of one of his friends, "Akiba, grass will grow out of your jaw and the messiah will not yet have come!" shows that some of the sages were till sane enough to realize the hopeless inequality of the struggle.  -Rabbi Louis Finkelstein In many generations when disaster confronted our people we have prayed and loved for the redeemer to be dispatched and deliver...

During the Bar Kochba rebellion in the second century, the rebels met in fields.  In order to recognize one another they had their own secret password.  They said, “David, King of Israel, lives and endures. It would have been similar to saying in Nazi Germany, “Winston Churchill.” –Louis Jacobs