History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

Both arrangements, the employment of the authority of the Patriarch in maintaining the Halachic decisions, and the precautions for admitting members and disciples, met with opposition, which at first was only timidly expressed. The Patriarch endeavored to keep down contests by the use of excommunication, which he employed with great energy, and with that entire disregard of consequences which arises from deeply rooted conviction. The excommunication (Nidui) had not at that time the gloomy severity of later ages, but was of a mild form; forbidding the interdicted man to hold any close intercourse with others until he had penitently submitted to the required demands. During the interdict, which lasted at least thirty days, the sinner wore a black mourning-garb and kept several mourning observances; if he died during this period without having submitted or repented, the Court of Justice had a stone laid on his coffin. Gamaliel had the courage to excommunicate several of the most important personages of his time, whereby he made many bitter enemies. He acted thus even towards his own brother-in-law, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Deeply impressed by the unfortunate results which disunion must bring to Judaism, threatened as it already was by various half-Jewish, half-Christian sects, Gamaliel did not hesitate to proceed with severity against trifling offenses, in order to avoid the destruction of religious unity. There was once a discussion about an oven of peculiar structure, which a decision of the majority had pronounced liable to become unclean, like earthenware vessels. Eliezer, following a special tradition, did not wish to yield to this decision, and acted in opposition to it; at Gamaliel's instigation, Eliezer was excommunicated.

Gamaliel thought that he had united the two schools, and had brought about peace, when his power was destroyed by a man from whom he had not expected any energetic opposition. Joshua, who was of a yielding disposition, and apparently the least dangerous of the opponents of the severe Patriarch, became his worst enemy. Joshua was just as discontented with some of Gamaliel's regulations as Eliezer had been, but he did not venture to show his disapproval on account of his poor and miserable condition, and when he happened to utter any contradictory opinion he quickly withdrew it again. Gamaliel had received the report of two untrustworthy witnesses in order to fix the commencement of the month of Tishri, on which depended the dates of the chief festivals, including the Day of Atonement. Joshua showed that the Patriarch had committed an error in this act, and demanded that the college should change the date of the holiday. Gamaliel remained firm, and sent an order to Joshua that on the day which, according to Joshua's calculation, was the Day of Atonement, the latter should appear before him in workaday clothes, with his staff, knapsack, and money-bag. This dictatorial proceeding seemed so harsh to Joshua, that he complained of it to his most important colleagues, and appeared determined to oppose it. Those, however, who saw the necessity for unity persuaded him to yield. The venerable Dossa ben Harchinas convinced him that the arrangements of a religious chief must be uncontested even if they are erroneous, and that every man must follow them. Joshua allowed himself to be persuaded, and submitted to the Patriarch. His appearance filled Gamaliel with astonishment. He greeted him heartily, and said to him, "Welcome, my teacher and pupil—my teacher in wisdom, my pupil in obedience. Happy is the age in which great men obey inferior ones." But this reconciliation was not of long duration. The severe proceedings of the Patriarch had raised a hostile party against him, which began secretly to act in opposition to him. He knew of this opposition party, and referred to it in public addresses. It is related of him that his mode of opening the sittings of the Synhedrion varied. If none of his opponents were present he would ask the assembly to propound questions; if, however, any of his enemies were present he would not give this invitation. The opposition party seem therefore to have put him in a dilemma at these meetings. Gamaliel may have had reason to consider Joshua as the chief of this party, and often made him feel the power of his own higher position by offensive demeanor and severe treatment. One day the mutual ill-feeling led to an outbreak, and caused a change in the Synhedrion. The Patriarch had once again offended Joshua by his severe manner, and accused him of secret opposition to one of the Halachas. As Joshua at first denied the fact, Gamaliel was so angered that he cried out, "Then stand, so that witnesses may give evidence against you." This was the form of an indictment. The school-house was full of people, amongst whom there arose a tumult at this contemptuous treatment of a member who was respected and loved by the people. The opposition party took courage, and gave utterance to their dissatisfaction. They called out to the Patriarch, "Who is there that has not constantly felt thy severity?" The school was turned into a tribunal, and the college deposed Gamaliel on the spot from the dignity of Patriarch. With his fall ended the regulations made by him. The porter was removed from the door of the school, to which all could now gain unobstructed admission. The members of the Synhedrion immediately sought for another Patriarch, so that this important office might not be unoccupied. They had too much tact to heap fresh contumely on the late Patriarch by choosing Joshua, his chief opponent, and Eliezer, who had a claim to the honor, lay under an interdict. Akiba seemed fitted for the post by his intellect and character. He had quickly risen from ignorance and poverty, had rapidly passed the intervening steps between the degrees of pupil and master, and had obtained admiration even from the profoundest teachers of the Law. But his greatness was only of yesterday; he had no distinguished ancestors to show that he was worthy of the dignity of Patriarch. The college therefore chose a very young member, Eleazar ben Azariah, who at that time must have been only in his sixteenth year. The choice was made on account of his noble descent from a long line of ancestors, which reached to Ezra, the regenerator of Judaism, a further motive for his election being his immense riches and the consideration in which he was held by the Roman authorities. Eleazar was not wanting in character and understanding, and was therefore considered worthy to succeed Gamaliel.

This deposition and election had great results, and the day on which these events took place was considered of such importance by after-comers that it was known by the simple designation, "that day." It seems that the college of the Synhedrion, perhaps on the suggestion of Joshua, again revised those laws which, through the influence of Gamaliel, had been decided according to the spirit of the school of Hillel. The college, which at that time consisted of the extraordinary number of seventy-two members, therefore undertook the revision of one-sided laws, and examined those who were in possession of traditions. More than twenty persons are recorded to have given testimony before the college as to the traditions which had been handed down. In many points the majority of the college took middle ground between the opposing doctrines of the schools of Shammai and Hillel, and they decided "neither like the one nor like the other." With regard to other contested questions it appeared that Hillel himself, or his school, had renounced their own views, and had been inclined to follow the Shammaites. The witnesses with regard to the Halachas seem to have been formally examined, and perhaps their evidence was even written down. The testimony of witnesses on this day bears the name Adoyot (evidence of witnesses), or Bechirta (best choice), and the code drawn up is without doubt the earliest collection. One recognizes in its contents the ancient and primitive form of the traditions. The laws are put together quite promiscuously, and without any other connection than the name of the person who handed them down.

The day of the assembly of witnesses was also of general importance, on account of two questions which were discussed. The first question arose thus. A heathen of Ammonite descent came before the meeting, asking whether he could be legally accepted as a proselyte. Gamaliel had turned him away with the sentence of the written law, "Moabites and Ammonites may not be received into the congregation of God, even in the tenth generation." The disputants treated the question with warmth, and Gamaliel endeavored to have his view carried. Joshua, however, carried his view that the sentence of the Law no longer applied to those times, as, through the aggressions of their conquerors, all nations had become mixed together and confused beyond recognition. The second question concerned the holiness of the two writings ascribed to King Solomon, Ecclesiastes (Kohelet), and the Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim). The school of Shammai had not recognized them as holy. This old contest was now taken up by the College of Seventy-two, which had not approved of the decisions of Hillel, but it is not clearly known with what result. Later on these Halachas were included in the collection (Canon) of the Holy Writings, after which the Canon was completed and several writings in the Hebrew language were rejected as Apocrypha, such as the proverbs of Sirach, the first book of the Maccabees, and several others.

It is a noble characteristic of Gamaliel, which his contemporaries readily recognized, that notwithstanding the many insults he received on "that day," he did not for one moment feel a desire, from petty revenge, to retire from his office of teacher. He took part in the discussions as before, little prospect as there was for him to carry through his ideas in the midst of an assemblage which was so opposed to him. But in the eager controversies of the day he no doubt became convinced that his great severity had estranged the others from him, and that he had thereby suppressed many a true opinion; he felt his courage broken and he determined to yield. He therefore went to the most respected members of the Synhedrion, to apologize for his offensive demeanor. He visited his chief opponent, Joshua, who was following his handicraft of needle-making. Gamaliel, who had grown up in riches, could not suppress his surprise at seeing so learned a man engaged in such heavy work, and said, "Is it thus thou makest thy living?" Joshua took the opportunity frankly to put before him the indifference shown to the sad condition of several worthy men—"It is bad enough," said Joshua, "that thou hast only just discovered it. Woe to the age, whose leader thou art, that thou dost not know of the cares of the learned and what difficulty they have to support themselves." Joshua had uttered the same reproach when Gamaliel had admired his astronomical knowledge; he had modestly repudiated his admiration, and pointed out two pupils who possessed distinguished mathematical attainments, but who hardly had bread and clothes. Gamaliel at last besought his enraged opponent to forgive him, out of consideration for the highly honored house of Hillel. Joshua thereupon expressed himself as satisfied, and promised to work for Gamaliel's reinstatement in the position of Patriarch. The next step was to induce the newly-elected Nasi to give up his dignity, upon which he had only just entered. There was a certain amount of delicacy in making the suggestion to him. Akiba, who was ever ready to be of service, undertook the delicate commission, the execution of which, however, was not made at all difficult for him. For hardly had Eleazar, the newly-elected Patriarch, heard that peace was made between Gamaliel and his chief enemy, than he was immediately prepared to return to private life; he even offered to pay a visit to Gamaliel, attended by the whole College. The arrangement made between the Patriarch and Eleazar was that the former should always preside for the first two weeks, and hold the classes, and that the latter, as Vice-President, should do the same in the third week.

In this way the strife ended; it had arisen neither from ambition nor pride, but only from an erroneous view of the Patriarch's functions. These disagreements were soon forgotten, and thenceforward Gamaliel lived in peace with the members of the Synhedrion. Perhaps the position of affairs under the Emperor Domitian had diverted the public attention from internal matters, and caused the necessity for union to be felt, in order to avert the dangers which threatened from without.

Gamaliel represented in this circle of scholars that desire for unity and authority which might regulate from one center the entire religious and national life of the people. His brother-in-law, Eliezer, son of Hyrcanus, represented the other party, namely, those who maintained their own views and refused to submit to universally binding enactments. From his earliest youth Eliezer had devoted himself to the acquirement of Halachas, and these he impressed so firmly on his memory that, as he himself said, not a grain of them should be lost. His teacher, Jochanan, therefore called him "a sealed cistern which lets no drop pass." It was in accordance with this method that Eliezer taught at Lydda (Diospolis), a place which had formerly been a race-course. When he was questioned as to a law, he either replied as he had been taught by his teachers, or openly acknowledged "I do not know; I have not been told." During his stay once in Cæsarea Philippi in Upper Galilee, thirty questions were put to him for decision, to which he replied, "To twelve of these I can give the decision which has been handed down to me; for the other eighteen I have no tradition." Being asked whether he only taught what had been handed down to him, he replied, "You compel me now to impart something which has not been communicated to me; for know that in my whole life I have never taught a single word which has not been handed down to me by my teachers." In order to escape troublesome questions which he did not know how to answer, he would put cross-questions from which could be seen his disinclination to discuss the matter. He was once asked whether an illegitimate child could succeed to property, and he asked in return, "Whether it would be legally considered as a brother." To the question whether one might paint a house white after the destruction of the Temple, he put the cross-question whether one would paint a grave, thus keeping firm to his rule never to pronounce a decision which had not been made certain to him by oral tradition. To the keenest deductions he usually opposed the simple reply, "I have not heard it." In order to maintain this peculiar view, he seems to have impressed on his pupils, "Keep your children from searching (Higayon); let them rather be brought up on the knees of the wise."

Eliezer was therefore the conservative element in the Synhedrion; he was the organ of tradition, which retained the Halachas precisely as it received them; he was the "sealed cistern" which did not permit one drop of water to run away, nor one fresh drop to find entrance. His contemporaries and successors gave him the honored name of "Sinai," a living tablet of the Law, inscribed with unchangeable precepts. Greatly as he was respected, however, as a faithful keeper of the traditional Law, he nevertheless was somewhat isolated on account of his clinging exclusively to traditions. His colleagues had gone too far on the road pointed out by Hillel to be satisfied with merely keeping the Law; they desired also to extend and develop it. Eliezer necessarily came into collision with the tendency of the times. He was most strongly opposed to his brother-in-law, Gamaliel, and his method of exclusion in striving for unity. On the one side was authority supported by a powerful will, which kept down any revolt against the law adopted; and on the other side was the secure knowledge which finds its sanction in the past. Such opposites could not be easily reconciled, nor was Eliezer the man to give up his convictions. He was in fact reproached for his unbending character, which refused to submit to others, and which made him express his opinions in harsh terms. The respect which was felt for him personally made it difficult to inform him of the fact that he was excommunicated, but Akiba once more undertook the office of conveying the unpleasant news. Dressed in black, he went to Eliezer and gently broke to him the sentence, and addressed him in these words, "It appears to me that thy comrades shun thee." Eliezer understood the hint, and took the blow without murmuring; he submitted to the excommunication, and lived apart from his friends. He took only a distant interest in the discussions pursued in Jamnia. When he heard any important decision, he used to look among the treasures of the Halachas in order to confirm or dispute it.

Without exercising any influence over affairs or taking part in the development of the Law, Eliezer lived his last years in flourishing material circumstances, but in a dreary state of mind. In his misery he gave utterance to a sentence which is in marked contrast to the sentiments of his comrades. "Warm thyself," he said, "at the fire of the wise, but beware of the coals that thou dost not burn thyself, for their bite is as that of the jackal, their sting like the scorpion's, their tongues like the tongues of snakes, and their words are burning coals." These are the bitter words of a pained spirit, but they do not deny to his opponents a measure of justification.

A striking contrast to the stubbornness of Eliezer, and the no less unbending despotism of Gamaliel, is offered by Joshua ben Chananya. He was the yielding, pliable, peaceable element in this newly constituted Jewish body. He protected the Law and the people from one-sided and exaggerated ideas, and became the promoter of the study of the Law and the benefactor of his people. As a young Levite of the choir he had seen the glory of the Temple, and had sung the psalms in its halls. Together with his teacher he had left Jerusalem, and after the death of the latter had founded a school in Bekiin. Here he taught his pupils, and carried on the humble handicraft of making needles, by which he maintained his family. Through his twofold occupation Joshua was brought into communication both with scholars and the common people; and he endeavored to unite the two, and was the only man who possessed power over the minds and will of the masses. He was personally so ugly that an empress's daughter once asked him how it was so much wisdom was incorporated in so ugly a form. Whereupon Joshua answered that wine was not kept in casks of gold.