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The Day Two Great Rabbis Were Sentenced to Die for Joseph's Sale

The Romans sentenced them to death. The crime belonged to their ancestors. Rabban Shimon wept in confusion. Rabbi Ishmael told him to stop and listen.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Chains on Men Who Had Done Nothing Wrong
  2. The Debt That Was Seventeen Centuries Old
  3. The Daughter of Rome and the Face of Rabbi Ishmael
  4. The Jose ben Yoezer Who Came Before

Chains on Men Who Had Done Nothing Wrong

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi of the Sanhedrin, walked toward his execution in Roman chains and could not make the mathematics work. He was not a murderer. He was not a thief. He had spent his life in the study and application of Torah law, had led the Jewish community through the Roman occupation with as much grace as any man could manage, had been scrupulous in his own conduct. He wept. Not from fear but from the specific confusion of a man who believed in a moral universe and was watching something happen in it that violated every principle he had used to understand the world.

Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha walked beside him. The High Priest. The greatest halakhic authority of the generation. Also in chains. Also walking toward his death.

"Why are you crying?" Rabbi Ishmael asked.

Rabban Shimon said: "I cry because I am about to be executed like a murderer and a profaner of the Sabbath, and I cannot understand what I have done to deserve this."

Rabbi Ishmael said: "Are you willing to hear something that might help?"

The Debt That Was Seventeen Centuries Old

Rabbi Ishmael told him the theology he had been carrying. The ten brothers who sold Joseph into slavery had committed a crime for which no earthly court had ever convened. Joseph had forgiven them. Jacob had not demanded blood. The brothers had lived out their lives. The punishment had been deferred. It was still on the books. And the heavenly court, which tracked these accounts across time with a precision no human institution could match, had designated the ten great sages of this generation as the ones through whom the debt would be paid.

Ten brothers had sold one man. Ten sages would die in their place. The correspondence was exact. The count was deliberate. This was not random Roman violence, however it appeared from the outside. It was a cosmic settling of accounts that had been accumulating interest for seventeen hundred years.

Rabban Shimon stopped crying. He said: "you have consoled me."

The Daughter of Rome and the Face of Rabbi Ishmael

What happened to Rabbi Ishmael after the sentence was carried out entered the tradition as one of the most viscerally disturbing accounts in all of martyrology literature. The daughter of a Roman official had seen his face and desired it. She appealed to her father to have the skin preserved rather than destroyed. The request was granted. The account does not dwell on what followed except to say that the heavens convulsed, that the divine throne trembled, and that a voice called out: shall I destroy the world for this?

The answer was no. The accounts were being settled according to a decree that had been sealed, and the settling would be ugly, and the world would absorb it. The martyrs had accepted the theology. The angels had not yet found their footing with it. The tradition records both responses without adjudicating between them.

The Jose ben Yoezer Who Came Before

There had been an earlier rehearsal of this kind of death. Jose ben Yoezer of Tzreda was executed by the Greeks during the Seleucid persecution, hanged on a cross. His nephew Yakim, who had collaborated with the Greeks, stood beneath the cross and mocked him: "look at the horse your master rides you on." Jose ben Yoezer, dying, replied with a teaching about paradise that the tradition preserved as one of the great deathbed statements in Jewish history. He said: "if this is what happens to those who do God's will, what will happen to those who transgress?" And Yakim, hearing this, was struck so profoundly that he administered to himself the four death penalties of the court and died before the day was over. The martyrdom converted his executioner.

The tradition placed these stories side by side because they shared a structure: death that came from outside the moral logic of the individual dying, accepted as meaningful despite the unfairness, and producing something in the witnesses that the martyr's life had not managed to produce alone.

SimeonMartyrdomTorahDeathRomeTen Martyrs
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From the tradition

Sources

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 76Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

When the Romans executed the Ten Martyrs, the greatest sages of Israel, two of the first to die were Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi (prince) of the Sanhedrin, and Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, the High Priest. They were led out together, bound in chains, condemned by an empire that saw their Torah as a threat.

Rabban Shimon wept. Not from fear of death, but from confusion. "Why is this happening to me?" he cried. "Am I a murderer? Am I a thief? What sin have I committed to deserve execution?"

Rabbi Ishmael turned to him and asked: "Did it ever happen that someone came to you for a legal judgment or a question, and you made them wait while you finished your drink, or tied your sandal, or put on your cloak?" Even a moment of delay, making a petitioner wait unnecessarily, could be counted as a sin deserving the harshest punishment.

Rabban Shimon fell silent. He accepted the rebuke and went to his death with composure.

But when Rabban Shimon was beheaded first, Rabbi Ishmael lifted the severed head, held it to his chest, and wept: "O holy mouth! O faithful tongue that spoke words of Torah! Now you lie in the dust, and who will gather the ashes?" The Talmud in Sanhedrin (11a) and the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Ele Ezkera preserve this scene as one of the most devastating moments in Jewish martyrology. Even in the face of imperial slaughter, the sages measured themselves not against Rome's cruelty, but against their own impossible standards of righteousness.

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Legends of the Jews 7:35Legends of the Jews

Remember the story of the daughters of Moab? It's a troubling episode in the Torah where the Israelites succumbed to temptation and idolatry (Numbers 25). According to the biblical narrative, the men of Israel began to have sexual relations with Moabite women, who then invited them to sacrifices to their gods. This led to a plague sent by God, which was only stopped by Phinehas's zealous act.

Moses, it seems, just couldn't let go of Simeon's involvement in this dark chapter. So, when it came time for the final blessings, as recorded in Deuteronomy 33, Simeon was. conspicuously absent. No specific blessing was given. Ouch.

Here's the thing. According to Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, Simeon wasn't entirely forgotten. Moses, in a roundabout way, included them in his blessing for Judah. He prayed that God would hear Judah's voice whenever they prayed for Simeon, especially when they were in distress. And he asked that they would have their inheritance in the Holy Land beside Judah. It’s a bit like saying, "I'm not blessing you directly, but I hope your neighbor helps you out."

So, why this near-omission? The text highlights a connection between Simeon and Levi. "Simeon and Levi 'drank out of the same cup,'" the verse says, meaning they shared a similar nature or destiny. Both tribes were known for their fierce actions, particularly their revenge against the people of Shechem for the rape of their sister Dinah (Genesis 34). They acted together.

But here's where their paths diverged. Levi, eventually, made amends. The tribe of Levi, in their zeal for God, took action against those who worshipped the Golden Calf. It was a Levite, Phinehas, who slew the wicked prince of Simeon and his Midianite mistress, Cozbi. This act, rooted in religious zealotry, actually atoned for the earlier violence in the eyes of God. Levi's actions redeemed them.

As a result, Moses praised and blessed the tribe of Levi. Simeon, however, "added another new one," another sin on top of the old one. As Legends of the Jews emphasizes, Simeon didn’t learn from the past. Because of this, they didn’t earn a blessing.

It’s a powerful reminder: our actions have consequences, not just for ourselves but for generations. And sometimes, even when we think we've been forgotten, a glimmer of hope can still shine through, even if it’s just through the kindness of a neighbor. Maybe that’s enough.

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Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 24Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

Jose ben Yoezer of Tzeredah was one of the first of the zugot (pairs), the great paired leaders who guided the Jewish people in the centuries before the common era. He was also one of the first rabbinic martyrs, and his death became a foundational story about the cost of faithfulness.

The historical context is the Hellenistic persecution under the Seleucid Greeks, the same period that produced the Maccabean revolt. Jews who refused to abandon the Torah, who would not eat forbidden food, would not bow to Greek idols, would not surrender their children to Greek education, were hunted, tortured, and killed.

Jose ben Yoezer was captured and condemned to execution. According to Midrash on Psalms (Psalm 11:7) and Genesis Rabbah (65:22), his own nephew, a man named Yakum of Tzerorot, who had abandoned Judaism and embraced Greek culture, came to watch the execution. He came to gloat.

"Look at my horse," Yakum said, riding up to his uncle who was being led to his death. "My master", meaning the Greek overlord, "gave me this horse to ride. And look at your master, look at what your God has given you." The cruelty was deliberate. The apostate nephew wanted to prove, in his uncle's final moments, that collaboration paid better than faithfulness.

Jose ben Yoezer's response cut through the mockery like a blade. "If this is what God gives to those who anger Him," he said, gesturing at Yakum's wealth and comfort, "imagine what He gives to those who do His will."

The words struck Yakum like a physical blow. According to the tradition, the nephew was so shaken by his uncle's faith in the face of death that he went home and killed himself in remorse, choosing death over a life built on betrayal. Jose ben Yoezer died a martyr. His nephew died a penitent. And the tale endured as proof that true faith is more powerful than any empire.

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Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 21Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

The city of Lod. Lydda, was no stranger to Roman cruelty. But the story of its two most famous martyrs, Pappos and Lulianos, stands out even among the darkest chapters of persecution.

The Talmud (Pesahim 50a, Baba Batra 10b) records that a Roman decree threatened the entire Jewish community of Lod with destruction. The charge was likely fabricated, perhaps a murdered Roman soldier, perhaps an accusation of disloyalty. The specifics varied in different tellings. What remained constant was the sentence: unless the guilty parties were found, every Jew in Lod would die.

Pappos and Lulianos stepped forward. They were not guilty of any crime. They knew this. The Romans knew this. But the two brothers, some say they were brothers, others say merely companions in righteousness, confessed to the crime they did not commit. They offered their own lives to save an entire community.

The Romans executed them without hesitation. The blood of the innocent soaked the ground of Lod.

When Rabbi Akiba heard the news, he declared: "No creature can stand in the place reserved for Pappos and Lulianos in the World to Come." Not the greatest sage, not the most devoted scholar, no one could match the merit of those who gave their lives so that others might live. The rabbis taught that the place where their blood was spilled became holy, and that in every generation, their sacrifice was remembered as the purest expression of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 349:4Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Another interpretation: "If you afflict him at all" (Exodus 22:22) tells that one is not liable until he afflicts and repeats [the affliction]. Now Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael were once being taken out to be killed. Rabban Shimon said to Rabbi Yishmael: "Rabbi, my heart fails me, for I do not know why I am being put to death." Rabbi Yishmael said to him: "Did it never happen in your life that a man came to you for judgment or for a question, and you kept him waiting until you had finished your cup, or until you had fastened your sandal, or until you had wrapped yourself in your cloak? And the Torah said, 'If you afflict him at all,' one who afflicts much and one who afflicts a little." And at this he said to him, "You have comforted me."

When Rabban Shimon and Rabbi Yishmael were killed, Rabbi Akiva said to his disciples: "Prepare yourselves for calamity, for had good been destined to come upon us in our generation, none would have received it before Rabban Shimon and Rabbi Yishmael. But now it is revealed and known before the One who spoke and the world came to be that a great calamity is destined to come upon us in our generation, and these have been taken from among us," to fulfill what is said, "The righteous man perishes, and no one takes it to heart; he is gathered away, that he may enter into peace; they shall rest; draw near here, you children of the sorceress."

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Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 76Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

The Romans led Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha to their execution together. Both were among the greatest sages of their generation, and both had been condemned to die as part of Rome's campaign to crush the leadership of Israel.

Rabbi Shimon wept as they walked to the place of execution. The weight of what was about to happen pressed down on him, not fear of death, but grief at the injustice, at the suffering of Israel, at the silence of heaven. "Why is this happening to us?" he cried. "What sin have we committed to deserve the death of criminals?"

Rabbi Ishmael turned to his companion and spoke with the calm of a man who had already made peace with his fate. He offered words of comfort, reminding Rabbi Shimon that God's ways are beyond human understanding, and that their deaths would sanctify the divine name before the nations.

Rabbi Shimon was executed first. When the blade fell and his head was separated from his body, Rabbi Ishmael lifted the severed head of his colleague and held it to his chest. The man who had just spoken words of comfort and acceptance now broke down completely. He pressed his face against the dead man's face and wept.

"Holy lips!" he cried. "Holy lips that spoke pearls of Torah, now licking the dust!" His own execution followed moments later. The Rabbis preserved this scene as one of the most devastating portraits of martyrdom in all of Jewish tradition, the moment when even the strongest faith buckles under the weight of grief.

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