By Abraham M. Simon
ABRAHAM M. SIMON (born in Kalvaria, Russian-Poland, in 1886; came to America in 1904) received his A.B. with honors from Harvard College in 1910, and his M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1911. During 1910-11 he was a Fellow in the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning of Philadelphia, and he spent the summer of 1911 at the Bodleian Library at Oxford and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, reading and copying Arabic manuscripts. In 1913 he won his Ph.D. in Semitics at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Simon was one of the original members of the Harvard Menorah Society, and read a Hebrew poem Ner Yisrael ("The Light of Israel") at the dedicatory exercises of the Society.
THE Jewish commonwealth was dissolved; the Jewish nation disrupted. Jerusalem was taken; the Temple had become a ruin. The last vestige of independence seemed to have been wiped out. All who had taken up arms were either dead, or enslaved, or banished. The infuriated Roman conquerors had spared neither the women nor the children. It seemed as if Judaism had breathed her last in that terrible year 70. Sadduceeism was annihilated; the Zealots were exterminated; the austere sentiment of the Pharisees, continually looking back to ancient customs and institutions, tried to assert itself. It is no longer permitted, they announced, to eat meat or drink wine, now that the Temple has fallen, because animals can no longer be sacrificed on the holy altars, nor wine offered there as a drink-offering. By such asceticism, these Pharisees of the strict school would have caused the destruction of Judaism. But there was a Hillelite still alive—a man who had inherited the spirit of Hillel, who rated conviction higher than ceremony, and consulted the times more than the ancient forms. It was he who kept the remnants together in close union, and did not permit the spirit to vanish, although the material bond was broken. This Hillelite was Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai.
The Disciple and Favorite of Hillel
OF the eighty disciples moulded by the great Hillel to continue his policy, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai was especially distinguished. Before his death, Hillel is said to have designated Jochanan as "the father of wisdom," and "the father of the coming generation." Tradition divides Jochanan's life, like Hillel's, into three periods of forty years each. The first forty years were spent in mercantile pursuits; in the second he studied; and in the third he taught and managed the affairs of the Jewish spiritual community.
Even before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jochanan's fame had spread far and wide. He was a member of the Synhedrion and taught the holy law within the shadow of the Temple. His school was called the "Great House," and was the scene of many incidents which formed the subjects for anecdote and legend. He was the first man who successfully combatted the Sadducees, and who knew how to refute their arguments, which were partly religious and partly juridical. But Jochanan's great fame was chiefly due to the influence which he afterwards exercised at Jabneh.
Jochanan's Escape from Jerusalem
OWING to his peaceful character, Rabbi Jochanan had joined the party of peace when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, and on several occasions urged the nation, and in particular his nephew, ben Betiach, the leader of the Zealots, to surrender the city. "Why do you desire to destroy the city, and give up the Temple to the flames?" said he to the leaders of the revolution. But his well meant admonitions were disregarded by the "war party." When he saw the end approaching, and recognized that all was lost, he determined to leave the doomed city. He counselled with his foremost disciples, Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, Joshua ben Chananja and others. It was decided that Rabbi Jochanan should leave the city, go to the Roman general, and plead for those people who had no share in the rebellion. But to depart from the city was extremely dangerous, as the Zealots kept up a constant watch and slew all who attempted to leave. Rabbi Jochanan, therefore, caused a rumor to be spread of his sudden sickness and later of his death. Having been placed in a coffin he was carried to the city gates, at the hour of sunset, by his pupils Eliezer and Joshua. When the funeral procession approached, it was stopped at the gate within.
"Whose body do you carry here?" asked the Hebrew guard.