From a bird's eye view, Israel on Saturday night resembled a mosaic of flames. The Jewish people celebrated Lag Ba'omer, as is our custom, by lighting bonfires. The origins of this tradition are shrouded in fog. In one opinion, the holiday commemorates the plague that afflicted Rabbi Akiva's students. The more widely accepted view is that the day commemorates our great victory over the Romans in the Bar Kokhba revolt, which ultimately ended in defeat in 135 C.E. From that time until 1948, Jews were prevented from holding sovereignty in the land of Israel. The Zionist movement adopted the revolt as an exemplary event. Little schoolchildren are taught to sing that Shimon Bar Kokhba "was a hero / called for freedom / the entire nation loved him."Well, not exactly. Rabbi Akiva definitely believed he was the Messiah and gave him the name Kokhba, star. Those contemporaries who disagreed with his actions called him Ben Koziva, or false messiah. Israeli archaeologists of Yigael Yadin's generation determined that his real name was Shimon Ben Kosiba. Bar Kokhba's contemporary star began to fall when he was harshly criticized by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yehoshafat Harkabi, and this has continued with Yochi Brandes' latest historical novel, "Akiva's Orchard." On Friday, MK Ruth Calderon (Yesh Atid) joined the fray, describing this great man as an "extremist nationalist," and suggesting that we change the character of the holiday. In the three years of Bar Kokhba's revolt and independence, about a million Jews were killed. Was it worth it? Professor Shimon Applebaum, a forgotten scholar whose biography merits detailed description, raised the hypothesis that though the price was heavy, the revolt prevented the Romans from making yet another attempt to destroy Judaism, and in this way both Rabbi Akiva and Ben Kosiba accomplished their goal. Applebaum's colleague Menachem Mor wrote a book that reached the opposite conclusion: After their defeat, the Jews realized they had been left with no military option. There will always be speculation. There will always be another archaeologist or historian who will find evidence to back this theory or that. Opinions tend to be a function of scholars' views of the contemporary Arab-Israeli conflict since the Six-Day War. I tend to side with those who believe the revolt was a mistake. Some have compared it to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis in 1943. There is no comparison. In Warsaw, there was nothing to lose and something to be gained; at a minimum, there was dignity and myth building and inflicting damage on the German war machine. The Bar Kokhba revolt weakened the Jewish people. But we were still sitting in our land and could have waited patiently, even though we did not possess mastery or sovereignty. Nevertheless, I believe Calderon is mistaken. It's true that myths are often created that do not jibe with historical fact, yet become fixed in our minds as exemplary acts of courage. This is true of all wars. Looking back, it is possible that the paratrooper battle over Ammunition Hill in 1967 was unnecessary. So what? For soldiers, it rightfully remains an exemplary battle. Ben Kosiba will always be Bar Kokhba in our minds, even if what he achieved deserves the epithet of Bar Koziba. Postscript: Why isn't one day off from school sufficient for this holiday, as was the case for so many years? Why are teachers and parents pampering children to the point of negligence by doubling this to two days off from school, where the educational fare in Israel is already very thin?
