Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion רבי חנינא בן תרדיון
burned with a Torah scroll, one of the Ten Martyrs
After the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt Hadrian forbade the teaching of Torah. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion gathered people and taught openly, a scroll in his hands. Rabbi Yose ben Kisma warned him: "Are you not afraid of this nation?"—and heard in reply: "Heaven will have mercy" (Avodah Zarah 18a).
They took him with the scroll. They burned him wrapped in it, and to prolong the death they laid wet wool on his heart. His disciples asked, "Master, what do you see?"—and he answered in words repeated ever since: "The parchment burns, and the letters fly away" (Avodah Zarah 18a).
The same passage records his exchange with the executioner, who agreed to remove the wool and raise the flame if Rabbi Chanina would promise him a share in the world to come; having the promise, he took away the wool, and it was quickly over—and then threw himself into the fire. A heavenly voice said that both were received.
His daughter Bruria, wife of Rabbi Meir, is in this reference too; another daughter was taken to a brothel after her father's death, and Rabbi Meir ransomed her. Chanina ben Teradion is counted among the Ten Martyrs read of on Yom Kippur.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Avodah Zarah 18a — «the parchment burns and the letters fly away»; the wool and the executioner
Rishonim
- Eleh Ezkerah, the piyut of the Yom Kippur Musaf — he is named among the Ten Martyrs; the same memory stands in the kinah Arzei haLevanon of the Ninth of Av
Basis: Talmud and midrash.