LAG B'OMER AND BAR KOKHBA -- Eli Kavon has some reflections in "The birth of Lag Ba'omer" in the Jerusalem Post. Excerpt:

IN OUR own epoch the centuries-old rabbinic critique has been replaced by a much different perception. The Zionist movement rehabilitated Simon Bar Kosiba, failed messiah, and converted him into Simon Bar Kochba, rebel hero.

Lag Ba'Omer, a minor Jewish holiday rooted in the legend of the cessation of a plague that killed the students of Rabbi Akiva, became a celebration of the last chapter of Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael.

No longer did Jews associate Bar Kochba with the devastation of a hopeless rebellion fueled by a messianic fantasy that a small group of Jews could overthrow an all-powerful empire. Rather, Bar Kochba was the forerunner of the heroes of the modern Zionist movement and State of Israel.

Although Bar Kochba himself signed his letters as "Bar Kosiba," the latter name has been expunged from the collective memory of the Jewish people. Today we celebrate the man's heroism as a national icon, forgetting that his rebellion was crushed in a national catastrophe.

WHILE WE should certainly celebrate the Bar Kochba revolt as a heroic attempt to establish an independent Jewish state in the face of overwhelming odds - that is, indeed, the story of modern Zionism - we should not just discount a long-standing perception of the rebellion's leader.

Rabbi Akiva, despite his best intentions, his fervent love of the Jewish people, and his death as a martyr at the hands of Rome, was, in the end, tragically mistaken. Bar Kosiba was not the messiah, and the Roman Empire would not be defeated in an apocalyptic final battle.