Part 3:  Rabbis and the Community Today – Plus ca change …?

In his Introduction to the Book of Ezekiel in The Living Nach, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1934-1983) writes the following:-

The ‘love affair’ between G-D and Israel would reach new heights after the trauma of Destruction and Exile … A remnant … would survive and revitalise Judaism … The [Men of the] Great Assembly fostered the growth of halakha.

In a well-known story narrated in the Talmud (Gittin 56b), R’ Yochanan ben Zakkai was enabled to escape besieged Jerusalem in a coffin and met with the Roman emperor-elect Vespasian.  Growing to appreciate R’ Yochanan’s wisdom and perspicacity, the new emperor declares to him: “request of me anything and I will grant it to you!”

Our Sages wonder why the great rabbi did not request the Roman siege on Jerusalem to be lifted.  The answer the Talmud gives is that R’ Yochanan did not believe the emperor would fulfil such a huge request and that the Jews would be left with nothing.

However, reading between the lines, it is also possible that R’ Yochanan in his wisdom believed the Temple already to be doomed and that he was preparing for a Jewish renaissance beyond the Temple and even, if necessary, in exile.

R’ Yochanan’s actual request (ibid) was for the establishment of a yeshiva in the town of Yavneh where scholars of Torah would be able to study undisturbed. As a result of this epoch-changing event, generations of tanaitic scholars brought Torah scholarship to a new level, resulting in the redaction of the Mishna by R’ Yehuda haNasi in circa 200CE.  This feat was followed by the even more stupendous achievement of the super-analytical amoraic scholars mainly in the Babylonian Torah centres which resulted in the Talmud Bavli redacted by R’ Ashi and Ravina circa 500 CE. Thus was launched the Golden Age of rabbinic scholarship which was to extend into the eras of the Saboraim, Geonim and medieval Rishonim such as the illustrious scholars Rambam, Ramban and Rashi.

All this was a far cry from the turbulent closing years of the Second Temple period when the dominant grouping of Torah-observant Jews known as Perushim (Pharisees) were beset by opposing and even hostile forces from within such as the reactionary, aristocratic Sadducees who denied the Oral Law  as well as the ultra-nationalist, fanatical biryonim (Zealots) who were prepared to fight the Romans to the death.  Ultimately neither sect was to endure.

We do not have to search too far to recognise contemporary parallels in the Jewish world. However, if we examine carefully some details in what has become a famous if tragic Talmudic story we shall be amazed as to how deep some of these parallels run.

Here is the story in full as narrated in Gittin 55b:-

A certain man who had a friend named Kamtsa and an enemy

named Bar Kamtsa made a banquet.  He told his personal assistant

to invite Kamtsa but [by mistake] he invited Bar Kamtsa.

 When the host arrived and found Bar Kamtsa already sitting there

he ordered him to leave.

Bar Kamtsa [trying to reason with him] said: “[I can now see there has been a mistake but] since I have come [don’t embarrass me but] let me stay and I shall........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)