Q&A: When Fire Breaks Out and Finds Thorns
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
When Fire Breaks Out and Finds Thorns
Question
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yonatan: “Calamity does not strike a group except through the righteous.”
In the Rabbi’s opinion, could it be that this worldview was formed after the Bar Kokhba revolt, in which Rabbi Akiva’s students died?
Rabbi Yonatan lived, from what I read, in the second century CE.
Answer
I have no idea. This is the kind of question that seems uninteresting to me. One should address the statement on its own merits, regardless of when it was formed. That’s a matter for archaeologists, not for students of Torah.