“There is No decree that may override the truth, nor sword that can cut the wisdom.”
— Inspired in their decision to keep alive the semijá despite the ban on roman.

1) Identity and time

Rabbi Yehuda ben Bavá was a wise tanaita active in the first half of the second century, in the framework of the decrees hadriánicos that restricted severely the jewish life after the destruction of the Second Temple (70) and, then, the revolt of Bar Kojbá (132-135). His name appears in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and in the Gemara, and the liturgical tradition of the account between the “Asará Harugéi Maljut” (Ten Martyrs).

2) historical Context: the veto of the semijá

Under Hadriano, Rome forbade the semijá (rabbinical ordination). The Talmud relates that it was decreed the penalty of death for both who order as for the orderly; the city where it was made would be razed and its limits voided. This context explains the clandestine nature and risk of any transmission of rabbinic authority in those years.

3) The decisive act: the ordination of five future leaders

In defiance of that veto, Yehuda ben Bavá led to his five disciples suitable for the ordination of a mountain pass “between Usha and Shefar'am”, the ordered and, discovered by roman soldiers, he ordered his students to flee while he remained in his place. There was executed —the tradition says that pierced him with three hundred spears—. The five ordered were: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rabbi Yosé ben Jalaftá and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamúa. This episode is considered key to the institutional continuity of rabbinical judaism in Galilee.

4) Martyrdom and memory liturgical

By that act, Yehuda ben Bavá is revered as a martyr. Poetry Electric Ezkera (Yom Kippur), and the Kinot of Tishá beAv preserve their memory along with other sages executed at different times, by the power of rome, setting up the motif of the “Ten Martyrs”.

“When the law takes the risk, the fair is not silent; then silence also kills the Torah.”

5) Lessons and failures halájicos

5.1 Testimonials Eduyot 6:1

The Mishnah together “five testimonials” attributed to Rabbi Yehuda ben Bavá, which show your profile regulatory and weight as a transmitter of halachot in critical times:

1. Meiún of minors: instructs the lowest (in the case of marriage rabbinical prior) to refuse (meiún), thus defeating the link and resolving conflicts of levirate and prohibitions related.
2. Getting married to the woman with the testimony of a single witness on the death of her husband —which opens the door for free agunot—.
3. Responsibility lethal animals out of “shor”: paradigmatic case of rooster stoned for causing death of a child, extending by analogy responsibility to other species.
4. Wine of forty days: recognition of the suitability of the wine after forty days (in front of “wine winepress” freshly pressed).
5. Tamid of the morning offered in the fourth hour in a landmark case exceptional, preserved as a precedent.
   All of this is explicitly included in Eduyot 6:1 and abstracts authorized of the mishnah.

“Who teaches us in times of persecution holds the world on his shoulders.”

5.2 The rule of a “witness” to allow a new marriage

The line's most influential attributed to Yehuda ben Bavá is ok a single witness to give up for dead when absent and to allow his wife to marry again, with particular emphasis on contexts of war or commotion. The Talmud (Yevamot 115-122) is a record of discussions and stories that confirm this trend and its transmission by authorities as Rabban Gamliel; later, he formulates the principle “mišum aguná akilú bah rabbanán” (“for the agunáthe rabbis relaxed”), which will mark the praxis halachic. Scholarly sources and halájicas modern acknowledge that lineage policy.

the Mishnah and the Gemara shows that, although the general rule in the law of evidence is “two witnesses”, on the specific topic of agunot accepted extensions (e.g., types of witnesses, signal quality, and circumstances), line in that Yehuda ben Bavá figure prominently.

6) intellectual Profile and networks of influence

• Relationships doctrinal: some fonts presented to Rabbi Akiva as its counterpart more demanding in dispute; however, the same complex talmudic validate it indirectly when you confirm the tradition of a “witness” in the name of Rabban Gamliel.
• Institutional impact: when ordering figures that would later become pillars of the second generation of Galilee (Meir, Yehuda bar Ilai, Shimon bar Yochai, Yosé b. Jalaftá, Elazar b. Shamúa), ensured the continuity of the chain of semijá and the leadership of the Sanhedrin (Usha, Shefar'am) in the post-war period.

7) Geography and memory material

The story puts your act between Usha and Shefar'am (Lower Galilee), headquarters early in the Sanhedrin in the era post-Yavne. The local tradition identifies a site of burial revered in the area of Shefar'am.

“Do not be afraid to be the only fair in the way: when you walk with the truth, you are never alone.”

8) approximate Chronology

• Activity: c. 120-135 e.c., under the proscriptions hadriánicas.
• Martyrdom: back to the ordinations in the underground; his memory is integrated into the cycles of the liturgical national mourning.

9) historical Significance-religious

The figure of Yehuda ben Bavá condenses three vectors:

1. Resilience institutionalshe held the continuity of the semijá when its disruption would have fractured the rabbinical authority.
2. Pragmatism halachic with social compassion: its acceptance of the a witness for free agunot it marked a turning humanizing within the parameters of traditional legal, with projection of legislation up to the halachah medieval and modern.
3. Model of sacrifice: his martyrdom was as a symbol of responsible leadership that is exposed to save both people (wives chained) as structures (the string of the semijá).

10) primary Sources key

• Talmud, Sanhedrin 14a: decree roman against the semijá, sort of five wise and martyrdom.
• Mishnah, Eduyot 6:1: the five testimonies of Yehuda ben Bavá.
• Yevamot 115-122: development of the principle of a witness and their validation by tradition from Rabban Gamliel.
• Midrash and liturgy: Electric Ezkera and kinot on the Ten Martyrs.

Conclusion

Rabbi Yehuda ben Bavá embodies the point at which the leadership of law and morality becomes inseparable from courage. Your decision to organize, knowing the cost, and its line halachic to alleviate the suffering of agunot gave continuity and humanity to the rabbinical system in their most fragile. To study it is not just a review of a biography: it is to understand how they preserved the nerve institutional judaism after disasters successive.

“If the Torah falls, which is on my bones.”
— Traditionally linked to the spirit of his final words before the martyrdom.