1. Mishna beats the Gemarah.
2. What about the story of R' Shimon Bar Yochai and his son in the cave. They were punished by G-d for not understanding that Torah needs an occupation by G-d sending them back into the cave until they learned their lesson. Plus what about the Talmud saying that there were those who practiced like one Rabbi who said Torah Im Derech Eretz and there were those who practiced like another Rabbi who said study all day and G-d will support you and all were successful with the first approach and few were successful with the last approach. I am not familiar with your story, elaborate.
Most Gedolim in 1948 were wrong on the issue of Zionism but were not evil. Notice what I said. I meant that if you say that Israel should cease to exist if it means saving one Jewish life then you are evil.
The Gemara quote you are referring to is in brachos, perek keitzad mevarchin, in regards to Rashbi and one of his colleagues, I forget who exactly, but i am not advocating learning all day, however focusing on work the way some people do leads to lessening their learning. The story I brought up goes as follow: Reb Yochanan and Ilfa were studying torah together, they said to themselves that they should take on an occupation, fulfilling the verse in the Torah that says "lo yeheyeh becka evyon" among you there shall be no destitute", since they were very poor at the time. They sat beside a dilapidated wall(note: rashi says that had they known that the wall was dilapidated they would not have sat under it, since you cant put yourself in danger), anyway, they were eating bread, and two mala'achim came to them, RZ'Yochanan overheard what they were saying. One said to the other that they should kill the scholars, because they foresake life in Olam Haba for the temporary life in this world. the other angel said not to kill them, since one of them was approaching his hour of greatness. R'Yochanan overheard this conversation, and he asked Ilfa if he ddi too, Ilfa said he did not, so R'Yochanan took that to mean that he was meant to hear this, and that his hour of greatness was approaching, so R'Yochanan returned to the study of torah, he said to Ilfa that he wanted to fulfill the verse "and the poor will never cease from inside the land"..the story goes on to recount the appointmenrt of reb yochanan as the head of the yeshiva, and they said to ilfsa when he retunred that if he had been there, they would have made him(ilfsa) the head instead of R'yochanan..so Ilfa went out on a ship's mast to prove that he was greater than reb yochanan, he said that he would let himself drown if he could not deonstrate the basis of a braisa from a mishnah from the braisa edition of Oshaya and reb chiyah...then an old man quoted a braisa about what happens when a person says to the beis din that the should give a shekel a week to the trustee of his estate, and then it says that if it is appropriate fro the to have a Sela we give them a sela, but if he said takah give them only one shekel, we davka give them a shekel, now, if he said to the regarding the other inheritors "if they die let others inherit the remains" whether he said give them a shekel or give them davka a shekel, we we give them davka a shekl, then Ilfa says that the author of this braisa is R"Meir who says that we must fulfill the wishes of the dead.
Anyway, to say that most gedolim were wrong, is an issue we had already discussed, and I woud like to avoid arguments about that, let's just agree to disagree.
Regarding the isue I did not yet address about Bar Kochba, it IS possible for the gedolim to make mistakes, but they reversed themselves, didn't they? the gedolim have not reversed themselves for the ost part about the issue of secular zionism
