Page:Philip Birnbaum - ha-Siddur ha-Shalem (The Daily Prayer Book,1949).pdf/745

720 of the wall of Jerusalem and cried out: “We say to you, wicked Bagris: This covenant of our fathers which you intend to destroy shall never cease from us nor from our children’s children.” She cast her son down to the ground and flung herself after him so that they died together. Many Israelites of that period did the same, refusing to renounce the covenant of their fathers.

Some of the Jews said to one another: “Come, let us keep the Sabbath in a cave lest we violate it.” When they were betrayed to Bagris, he dispatched armed men who sat down at the entrance of the cave and said: "You Jews, surrender to us! Eat of our bread, drink of our wine, and do what we do!” But the Jews said to one another: “We remember what we were commanded on Mount Sinai: ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work; on the seventh day you shall rest.’ It is better for us to die than to desecrate the Sabbath.” When the Jews failed to come out, wood was brought and set on fire at the entrance of the cave. About a thousand men and women died there. Later the five sons of Mattathias, Yoḥanan and his four brothers, set out and routed the hostile forces, whom they drove to the coast; for they trusted in the God of heaven.

Wicked Bagris, accompanied by those who had escaped the sword, boarded a ship and fled to king Antiochus. “O king,” he said, “you have issued a decree abolishing sabbath, new moon festivals and circumcision in Judea, and now there is complete rebellion there. The five sons of Mattathias cannot be defeated unless they are attacked by all the combined forces; they are stronger than lions, swifter than eagles, braver than bears. Be