Page "Semikhah" Paragraph 8

After the failed revolution by Bar Kokhba in 132 – 135 CE, the Romans put down the revolt, and the emperor Hadrian tried to put a permanent end to the Sanhedrin, the supreme legislative and religious body of the Jewish people.

According to the Talmud, Hadrian decreed that anyone who gave or accepted semikhah would be killed, any city in which the ceremony took place would be razed, and all crops within a mile of the ceremony's site would be destroyed.

The line of succession was saved by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava's martyrdom: he took no other rabbis with him, and five students of the recently martyred Rabbi Akiva, to a mountain pass far from any settlement or farm, and this one Rabbi ordained all five students.

These new Rabbis were: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Yehudah ( ben Ila ’ i ), Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua – an entire generation of Torah leadership.

When the Romans attacked them, Rabbi Yehuda blocked the pass with his body allowing the others to escape and became one of Judaism's ten Rabbinic Martyrs himself by being speared 300 times.

Hence, semikhah is also granted from one Rabbi to a new Rabbi, without the need of two witnesses, and the above five Rabbis carried on this tradition.

The footnote gives a page of Talmud in Aramaic.

See Sanhedrin 14a.