Who is yohanan ben zakkai

Johanan ben Zakkai was the youngest among the numerous disciples of the great Hillel and also of Hillel's opponent Shammai. It therefore appears that Johanan was born about 15 B. He evidently lived to a ripe old age, for he survived the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem A. Tradition speaks of his span of life as years. His brilliant mind and diligence enabled him to become conversant with every field of Jewish learning. Johanan ben Zakkai was a member of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the assembly of 71 ordained scholars that functioned both as supreme court and as a legislature.

In that body, Johanan, a Pharisee, often debated his Sadducean colleagues on issues of Jewish law. Emerging from the ruins of the destroyed Temple, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai led the Jewish people through the dangerous first years after the devastation of the last remnants of their state by the Romans.

In his most famous act, he arranged to fake his own death in order to escape his enemies among the Zealots to negotiate a peace treaty with Vespasian, who would later become Emperor. Prof Abramson, Have enjoyed your lectures. Heard you are coming up north next year? Where will you be teaching? Best Michael Sherman Manhattan.

Hello Mr. This had always been done in both the temple and the synagogues, but if the first day of the year was a Saturday, the Sabbath was observed and the music was heard only in the temple. Since there was no temple, there was a problem. Yohanan now decided that from now on, the shofar would be blown wherever the court was — in Javne.

Pharisaism had always known two complementary branches: the precise House of Shammai and the moderate House of Hillel. In the discussion between these houses, Yohanan and his students sided with the latter, which means that a significant part of the Pharisaic traditions was now discarded.

The scholars of Javne also made their own choices: the Mishnaic tractate Eduyoth begins with a list of disputes in which both Shammai and Hillel had, according to the rabbis, both been wrong. Thus, the scholars of Javne set the first steps on a road that would lead to the emergence of the rabbinate.

The title was transferred through a ritual of laying on of hands. Whether the rabbinical authority was already accepted by many people in these years cannot be determined, but success may have come quickly because the alternatives were rapidly discredited in a Jewish world that was still in turmoil.

When Yohanan gave his verdict on the blowing of the shofar in 71, the battle for Masada still had to begin. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus says that it attracted so many former insurgents that the Alexandrian Jews and the governor of Egypt started to worry, and in 74 CE, the last Jewish temple was closed. There may well have been other parties who wanted to fill the power vacuum.

It is conceivable that a group of priests went to Arabia and tried to build a new temple in, for example, Dedan or Tayma , oases with Jewish minorities. Arab Judaism is one of our blind spots and there may very well have been other alternatives to Javne. The destruction of the Temple that we commemorate on Tisha Be'av symbolizes above all the defeat of the Jews at the hand of Rome, the failure of the so-called "great revolt" that resulted in the exile of many Jews, the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of Jewish independence in the year 70 CE.

It is impossible to exaggerate the depth of the crises that this brought to Jewish life. The very future existence of Judaism was at stake. To my mind there was one man who was central to keeping Judaism alive, one true hero of the time. It was not the defenders of Masada, as tragic and brave as their stand may have been, for in the end their legacy added nothing to the continued existence of the Jewish people.

They followed a Roman ideal in which suicide was seen as an honorable way to die rather than to surrender or fight to the death. We may understand their pain and mourn for them, but they were not the salvation of Judaism.

Ben Zakkai early on saw the folly of attempting to revolt against Rome and urged the rebels to cease the fighting which he believed would only lead to the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem.

To some, his way may have seemed traitorous, for he preferred living under Roman rule to bringing about the destruction of Jerusalem. This does not mean he thought the Romans were right.

On the contrary, he considered them to be "a low people" Ketubot 66b , but he did not allow himself to be carried away by the enthusiasm of the rebels, rather he recognized the reality of the situation. Had they listened to him, a great tragedy would have been averted and the entire course of Jewish history would have been altered.

Seeing that the rebels were not going to surrender and destruction was unavoidable, he did not simply wring his hands in despair but devised a plan for the future. He who foresees what will happen," said the rabbis. The stories and legends that are told about his escape from Jerusalem in a coffin are well known see for example Gittin 56a-b.

As with so many ancient tales, we may never know exactly what happened, but the general story is clear. He escaped from Jerusalem, made contact with the Romans and was given permission to reside in Yavne together with "its Sages.

Whatever the case, Yavne then became a center for the preservation of Jewish tradition and the Sages were able to lead the nation when all political frameworks had been destroyed. Ben Zakkai was responsible for a number of practical measures that were needed in order to keep Judaism alive following the destruction of the Temple.

For example, he ordained that the shofar be sounded when Rosh Hashana fell on Shabbat wherever there was a rabbinical court Rosh Hashana , something that previously had been done only in the Temple.