Yesterday we explained that by the middle of the first century of the common era, the Jews lived under the Roman Empire. The Romans tried incessantly to eliminate Judaism and transform Judea into a “normal” province of the Roman Empire. The aggression of the Romans against the Jews reached its peak in the days of procurator Florus, who ruled Judea from 64 to 66 of the common era. Florus had been appointed by the extravagant and tyrannical Roman emperor Nero, who reigned from 54 to 68.
The master plan of Florus was to plunder the Bet-haMiqdash (Great Temple of Jerusalem) and to steal all its treasures: that is, the sacred objects of the Temple which were made of pure gold. Florus wanted to weaken the Jews and thus breaking their resistance. And he had no scruples to achieve his goals.
In the year 66 Florus arrived at Yerushalayim and stole twelve talents of silver from the Bet haMiqdash, with the excuse that he was acting on behalf of the Roman Emperor. He also demanded that all the Jews of the city should come to bless him and praise him. Many did so out of fear of Florus’s unpredictable reaction. But the next day, Florus demanded that all Jewish leaders who were not there last night should be executed for disrespected him. Florus ordered his soldiers to attack any Jews they encountered in the streets of Jerusalem. In one day Florus murdered 3,600 Jews: man, women and children. And he ordered his soldiers to crucify the Jewish leaders alive.
As if this were not enough, Florus summoned the Rabbinic leaders and the Cohanim to come from the Bet haMiqdash and bless him and his army. The Jewish leaders naively agreed to Florus demands hoping this will stop the massacre. But when they approached, Florus army attacked them and killed many of them, crushing them with their horses. This is when the Great Rebellion of the Jews began. Some historians believe that Florus deliberately provoked the Jews of Jerusalem, knowing that they will eventually rebel. And he planned to use this rebellion as an excuse to destroy and plunder the Bet-haMiqdash
Flavius Josephus writes that the Jewish leader Agrippa II tried to calm down the Jews claiming that the problem was Florus, not the Romans. And that the Jews should ask the Emperor to replace Florus, and they should not rebel against the Roman Empire. That with be a suicidal act, without any possibility of success. But for many Jews it was now a matter of “life or death”: if they did not rebel, they thought, they would be destined to disappear. They had reached a point of no return and the Great Rebellion of the Jews against the Romans was set in motion.
The Romans brought reinforcements from Syria. Rome sent the powerful 12th Legion called “Fulminata.” But before it could reach Jerusalem, this legion was ambushed and destroyed by the Jewish militias led by El’azar ben Shimon at Bet Horon. The Roman leaders wee stunned because they did not think that the Jews could fight with such courage.
In spite of these sporadic victories the Jews did not agree on having a unified leadership, and the different groups were not only divided, they were actually fighting against and killing each other (sinat hinam). This happened, for example, between the Yehudim and the Tsaduquim. This situation was explicitly reported by Ribbi Yohanan in the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin, chapter 10), saying that the destruction of Yerushalayim and the exile of the Yehudim did not occur until the Jews were divided into 24 different groups. א”ר יוחנן לא גלו ישראל עד שנעשו עשרים וארבע כיתות של מינים.
With so many internal divisions, defeat was inevitable.
(To be continued….)
