Asara Harugei Malchus: The Ten Martyrs and Their Names

Twice a year, in the Mussaf of Yom Kippur and in the kinos of Tisha B'Av, Klal Yisroel pauses to remember ten great Tannaim who gave their lives under Roman rule. They are called the Asara Harugei Malchus, the ten killed by the kingdom. Their story is one of the most moving in our tradition, and it still teaches what it means to love Hashem with all your soul.

Who Were the Ten Martyrs

The Asara Harugei Malchus were leading sages of the Mishnaic era who were put to death by the Roman authorities for teaching Torah and refusing to abandon it. The best-known list, found in the piyut Eileh Ezkera, names them as follows.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi (head) of the Sanhedrin. Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha, the Kohen Gadol. Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef, the greatest teacher of his generation. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon, who gathered public assemblies to learn Torah. Rabbi Chutzpis HaMeturgeman, the interpreter who conveyed the words of the Nasi to the people. Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua, a talmid of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Chanina ben Chachinai, another talmid of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Yeshevav HaSofer, the scribe. Rabbi Yehuda ben Dama. And Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, who gave semicha (rabbinic ordination) to five talmidim at the cost of his life.

Eileh Ezkera and Arzei HaLevanon

The fullest telling is the piyut Eileh Ezkera ("These I will remember"), said during the Mussaf of Yom Kippur in Ashkenazi kehillos, and the related kinah Arzei HaLevanon ("Cedars of Lebanon") recited on Tisha B'Av morning. Both draw on an older Midrash, also called Midrash Eileh Ezkera, and on accounts scattered through the Gemara and Midrashim.

In the piyut, a Roman ruler studies the Torah and comes upon the pasuk, "One who kidnaps a man and sells him shall surely be put to death" (Shemos 21:16). He demands to know why the ten sons of Yaakov who sold Yosef were never punished, and declares that ten of the greatest sages must now bear that sentence. The sages ask for three days, and Rabbi Yishmael ascends to Heaven to learn whether the decree truly comes from Hashem. He is told that it does, and the ten accept it with love.

In many shuls the chazzan's voice breaks during Eileh Ezkera, and the whole kehillah weeps together. The piyut is not only a history lesson. It comes in the middle of the Yom Kippur Mussaf, right after we describe the Avodah of the Kohen Gadol in the Beis HaMikdash, as if to say that when there is no Mikdash, the mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice) of the tzaddikim also brings atonement. We ask Hashem to look at their blood and their love, and to forgive their children.

Rabbi Akiva

Rabbi Akiva continued to teach Torah publicly even after Rome forbade it. When asked why he would risk his life, he answered with a parable of a fox who invited the fish to escape onto dry land: if we are in danger while in the water where we live, how much more so if we leave it. For a Jew, Torah is that water.

The Gemara relates that he was executed at the time of Krias Shema, and while the Romans tore his flesh with iron combs he accepted upon himself the yoke of Heaven. His talmidim asked how he could do so in such pain. He told them that all his life he had longed to fulfill "with all your soul," meaning even if Hashem takes your soul, and now that the chance had come, should he not fulfill it? He drew out the word Echad until his soul departed with it (Berachos 61b).

Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon

Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon was found sitting and teaching Torah in public with a Sefer Torah in his lap. The Romans wrapped him in that Sefer Torah, piled branches around him and set it alight, placing wet wool over his heart so that he would not die quickly.

His talmidim asked what he saw. He answered that the parchment was burning, but the letters were flying upward (Avodah Zarah 18a). The executioner, moved by his holiness, asked whether he would merit the World to Come if he removed the wool and hastened the end. Rabbi Chanina assured him that he would; the executioner did so and then leapt into the fire himself, and a voice from Heaven declared that both were destined for Olam Haba.

The Other Martyrs

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael Kohen Gadol are described as being led out together, each asking to be killed first so as not to see the death of the other. Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, an elderly sage, went out between two mountains to give semicha to five talmidim so that the chain of Torah authority would not be broken. When Roman soldiers arrived he sent the young men away and stood alone, and he was pierced by many spears (Sanhedrin 14a).

Of the others, Rabbi Chutzpis HaMeturgeman, Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua, Rabbi Chanina ben Chachinai, Rabbi Yeshevav HaSofer and Rabbi Yehuda ben Dama, we know less. Their names have been carried for centuries in the tefillos of Klal Yisroel, and that remembrance is itself a crown.

When Did They Live

Eileh Ezkera presents all ten as killed under a single decree, one after another. The Gemara and Midrashim show that their deaths actually stretched over a long period, from the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash through the persecutions that followed the Bar Kochba revolt, roughly the late first and early second centuries. Some lists of the ten also differ slightly in their names or order.

Our sages have long understood that the piyut gathers these deaths together to teach a single truth rather than to record a timetable. Whatever the exact years, each of these tzaddikim died al Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying Hashem's name), and that is how Klal Yisroel remembers them.

The Lesson of the Ten Martyrs

On Yom Kippur, when we beg for forgiveness, we recall that the greatest of our people gave everything for Torah. Their merit stands for us, and their example asks us what we are willing to give. Most of us will never face a Roman decree, but every day brings smaller tests: keeping a commitment to learn when it is inconvenient, saying Shema with real kavanah, remaining honest when no one is watching.

Rabbi Chanina's words remain a source of comfort for every generation of loss. Parchment can burn, buildings can fall and lives can end, yet the letters of the Torah fly upward and cannot be destroyed. The Jewish people, carrying those letters, endure.