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Bar Kappara Bar Kokba

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

extremely valuable as a specimen of Neo-Hebraic poetry in Talmudic times; its few lines furnish,

is

His Poetry,

perhaps, the sole testimony to the activity of the Jews of that time in secular poetry. Its language is classic, but

not slavishly so; forceful and pure, yet easy and flowing. It is a curious coincidence that the one other specimen of Bar Kappara's poetry which has been preserved in the sources should be the eloquent words in which he proclaimed Rabbit death to the assembled people of Sepphoris. They are " Brethren of the house of Jedaiah [an epithet of the inhabitants of Sepphoris] barken unto me Mortals and angels have long been wrestling for the possession of the holy tablets of the Law; the angels have conquered. They have captured the tablets " (Yer. Kil. ix. 326; Yer. Ket. xii. 35a; Bab. Ket. 104a; Eccl.

a vast

number

and the guests him. Bibliography

of fox fables left the

—

300, it is reported food untouched in order to

listen to

Aqada

Bacber,



der Tannaiten,

ii.

503-520

Mebo

(lor other passages in the same, see the Index) ; Briill, 244, 289-292; Frankel, Darke ha-Mishnah, p. 313; idem, Mebo, 20a et seq., 7la Griltz, Geseh. der Juden. 4th ed., iv. 198, 199, 211 Hamburger, Supplement to R. B. T. pp. 36-38 ; Kohan, in Ha-A.tif, iii. 330-333 (Kohan

ha-Mlshnah,l.



here

pointed out the identity of Bar Kappara with Eleazar ben Eleazar ha-Kappar) Abraham Krochmal, in He-Ifaluz, ii. 84; Rapoport, in Uteraturblatt des Orients, i. 38, 39'; Reifmann, Peslier Dabar; Weiss, Dor Dor we-Dorshaw, ii. first



191, 219.



,

!

vii. 11, ix. 10, with many variants of the text, which is here given according to Eccl. R. I.e.). Bar Kappara's presence in Sepphoris at Rabbi's death shows that, despite Rabbi's unjust attitude toward him, he duly appreciated his great obligations to his teacher and there is no cause to doubt the sincerity

R.



of his grief for Rabbi's death. Bar Kappara was especially known to the Amoraim as the author of a Mishnah called the Mishnah of Bar Kappara (Pesik. xv. 122a; Yer. Mishnah Hor. iii. 48e and many other places).

L. G.

SR.

J.

BAB KOKBA AND BAB KOKBA WAR: The

insurrection of the Jews of Cyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt in the last years of the emperor Trajan had not been entirely suppressed when Hadrian assumed the reins of government in 118. The seat of war was transferred to Palestine, whither the Jewish leader Lucwas had fled (Abulfaraj, in Munter, "Der Jiidische Krieg," p. 18, Altona and Leipsic, 1821). Marcius Turbo had pursued him, and had sentenced to death the brothers Julian and Pappus, who had been the soul of the rebellion. But Turbo was himself executed upon special orders sent from Rome,



of Bar

This Mishnah compilation has not been Kappara. preserved, and probably at the final redaction of the Talmud it was no longer extant (Mei'ri, in commentary on Abot, ed. Wilna, p. 14, does not mention the fact of having had such a Mishnah collection [thus Schorr, " HeHaluz," i. 44, and A. Krochmal, ib. iii. 118], but a Baraita cited in Bar Kappara's name in the Talmud). Nevertheless, the numerous passages from his Mish-

nah that found their way into the Talmud for judgment upon its character.

suffice

Mei'ri (I.e.) quite correctly designates it as a supplement to the Mishnah of Rabbi, intended chiefly to explain it, and, on rare occasions, to give differing opinions (see Baraita). Bar Kappara's Mishnah also presented variants to Rabbi's Mishnah, and later on became occasionally so interwoven in the text of the latter that doubt arose whether the Mishnah in question belonged to the one or to the other The Mishnah of Bar Kappara (Yer. Pes. x. Zld). was also used by the redactor of the Tosefta, who

derived many decisions from it (for instances, see Weiss, "Dor Dor we-Dorshaw," ii. 219). Whether Bar Kappara's Mishnah ever reached Babylonia has not been definitely ascertained, the one passage in the Babli referring to it having originated with

[ComLakish, a Palestinian (B. B. 1546). Is. Halevy, " Dorot ha-Rishonim," ii. 123125, who, without sufficient reason, denies the existence of Bar Kappara's Mishnah.] Bar Kappara is the last one in Talmudic times

Simon

b.

pare also

who

stated to have

is

His

of fables.

Knowledge

2) relates

The Midrash

had knowledge

(Lev. R. xxviii. that because Rabbi did not of Fables, invite Bar Kappara to the wedding of his son. Bar Kappara revenged himself in the following way At the feast which Rabbi subsequently gave in Bar Kappara's honor, the latter told

Bronze Coin of the Bar Kokba War. Obverse: upr>tt> ("Simon") (error tor pjJDtt') Simon, within a wreath. Reverse: [dSjiptv nntnS], "The Deliverance of Jerusalem, " surrounding a cup struck over a coin of Titus.

(After Madden,

" Jewish Coinage.")

and the

lives of the brothers were saved (Sifra, Emor, 9 [ed. Weiss, p. 99d] Meg. Ta'anit xii. Ta'anit 186; Sem.viii. Eccl. R. iii. 17). Lucius Quietus, the conqueror of the Jews of of

viii.







War

Quietus.

now in command Roman army in Palestine, and

Mesopotamia, was of the

Lydda, where the Jews had gathered. became so great that the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II., who was shut up there and died

laid siege to

The

distress

soon afterward, permitted fasting even on Hanukkah though other rabbis, such as the peace-loving R. Joshua b. Hananiah, condemned this measure (Ta'anit ii.10; Yer. Ta'anit ii. 66a; Yer. Meg. i. 70d; Soon afterward Lydda was taken and R. H. 186). masses of the Jews were executed; the "slain of

Lydda "

are often mentioned in words of reverential Talmud (Pes. 50a: B. B. 106; Eccl. R.

praise in the

Pappus and Julian were among those executed by the Romans in the same year (Ta'anit 186; The foregoing are the most imYer. Ta'anit 666). portant events of the campaign of Quietus as mentioned in rabbinical sources (see also " Revue Etudes Juives," xxx. 212). An ancient Jewish source states that sixteen years elapsed between the "polemos" (= war) of Quietus and the rebellion of Bar Kokba (Seder 'Olam R.. at ix. 10).