When the Romans sought to destroy the chain of Torah transmission, they targeted the sages who ordained new rabbis. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 14a) records that Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava knew that if ordination ceased, the Torah itself would be lost — for without authorized teachers, who would rule on matters of law?
The Romans had decreed death for any rabbi who performed ordination and destruction for any city where ordination took place. Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava found a way around both threats. He took five students — including Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai — to a spot between two mountains, between two cities, between two Sabbath boundaries, so that no single city could be blamed.
There, in the open wilderness, he ordained them all.
Roman soldiers discovered them. Rabbi Yehuda turned to his students. "My children, run!" he commanded. "But Rabbi," they protested, "what will happen to you?" He told them: "I will lie before the Romans like a stone that no one bothers to overturn."
They ran. The Romans found Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava alone, an old man standing between two mountains. They drove three hundred iron lances through his body. He died where he stood.
But the five students escaped. They carried their ordination to new cities, taught new students, and kept the chain of Torah unbroken. Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava's body fell, but the transmission he died to protect has continued without interruption for two thousand years.