R. Eliezer ben Shimon
130 CE–200 CE · Tanna Gen 4 · Meron (Galilee)
Rabbi Eliezer ben Shimon was a late Tanna of the second century, remembered as the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai, the legendary mystic of Meron in the Galilee. He inherited his father's spiritual authority and was active in the decades following the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Eliezer ben Shimon is known in Talmudic tradition for his sharp interpretive skills and his willingness to challenge established practices. He was involved in the important legal reform permitting the levying of taxes by the Jewish community for civil purposes—a ruling that drew criticism from more conservative colleagues. His teachings survive scattered through the Mishnah and Gemara, often in dispute with his contemporaries, and he represents a generation attempting to rebuild Jewish communal life under Roman rule.
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Meron (Galilee)מירוןGalilee, Israel
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Meron (Galilee) in this era
Under Roman rule, in the shadow of the Bar Kokhba Revolt's devastation (132–135 CE), Meron in the Galilean hills was a center of Jewish learning and piety during the decades when R. Eliezer ben Shimon lived there. The Jewish communities of Galilee, though diminished by Roman repression, rebuilt themselves around Torah study and rabbinic courts; Meron became known as a place of ascetic devotion and mystical contemplation, drawing students who sought intensive study of Jewish law. The Roman authorities, having crushed the rebellion and annexed Judea more firmly, allowed Jewish life in Galilee to flourish again—at least in spiritual and intellectual terms—though the memory of the recent war shaped every community's caution and resolve. R. Eliezer ben Shimon embodied this period: a tanna whose teachings emerged from a generation that had witnessed apocalypse and learned to rebuild meaning through rigorous exegesis and ethical discipline, establishing Meron as a beacon of post-rebellion Jewish renewal.
About Meron (Galilee)
Traditional burial site of R. Shimon bar Yochai; major Lag BaOmer pilgrimage site.
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