National Scholar Updates

The Cambridge dictionary defines integrity as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.” Integrity and courage go together, since the most stressful test of integrity occurs when the cost of adherence to principle is exceedingly high and demands unusual courage. When joined together, therefore, integrity and courage yield a stellar reputation worth more than its weight in gold. It is perhaps because the combination of these two traits is far from common, that King Solomon tells us, Tov shem miShemen tov—a good name is better than good oil.[1]

Integrity Begins with the Beginning

Over the course of millennia, some of the greatest Jewish leaders behaved not only with the greatest integrity, but did so courageously despite the cost of doing so. Mordechai and Esther are often viewed as Scriptural paragons of integrity and courage. And rightly so. Nevertheless, the Torah itself offers models of both of these admirable character traits.

In the course of two consecutive chapters in Bereishith, the Torah recounts acts of courage and integrity on the part of the two great progenitors of Israel’s royal families. Chapter 38 tells the story of Judah mistaking his daughter-in-law Tamar for a harlot, who then conceived a child from their intercourse. Tamar had disguised herself in this manner because Judah had failed to marry her to his third son Shelah, after she had been widowed from his first two sons.

Judah’s first reaction reflected the male domination of women that prevailed until only the past several decades and still prevails in some traditional societies: He ordered that she be burned as an adulteress. When she proved that he was the father, Judah nevertheless could have acted in the manner of many contemporary politicians. He could have covered up what clearly was damning information and, given the norms of his day, had her burned anyway, since she clearly was a source of sufficient embarrassment to harm his reputation as a tribal leader.

Instead, Judah demonstrated both integrity and courage. He publicly acknowledged the rightness of Tamar’s case,[2] even though it exposed him as a reckless philanderer. In so doing, he not only salvaged his reputation, but merited that his progeny would become the royal house of Israel.[3]

The following chapter of Bereishith offers a similar story with at least in the short term, an unfortunate outcome. Joseph had been sold as a slave to an Egyptian senior official (the sale had been instigated by none other than Judah). Despite his youth, Joseph was immensely talented and having earned his master’s absolute trust, became his senior administrator. His talent and good looks rendered him exceedingly attractive to the official’s lascivious wife who tried to seduce him. Many men might have simply gone along with the woman’s wishes. The husband was unlikely to discover his wife’s adultery. As for the woman, she was not acting in an especially unusual manner; license was common in Egypt, as it remained common among ruling classes for centuries afterward and is not exactly a rarity today.

Joseph surely recognized the cost of denying the woman’s overtures. He was, after all, still a slave and she could ruin his reputation, which indeed she did. Moreover, he was not immune to a woman’s blandishments; the Talmud relates that it was only his mental image of his father that restrained him.[4] In any event, Joseph rejected the woman and paid a high price for doing so—he was slung into a dungeon that no doubt was as vermin infested as any medieval cell.[5] Ultimately, like Judah, his integrity and fearlessness in the face of certain adversity saw him through and he became the ancestor of Joshua bin Nun, as well as of a line of kings of Israel, and, indeed according to tradition, the Messiah who will initiate the redemption prior to the arrival of the Davidic redeemer.[6]

Judah and Joseph are of course only two of the many models of courage and integrity that permeate Tanakh and Midrash. The Bar Kokhba rebellion in particular was the backdrop for the martyrdom of many of Judaism’s greatest rabbis. Rabbi Akiva, perhaps the greatest of all martyrs, brought on his fate by resisting the Roman ban on teaching Torah publicly. So did nine of his leading colleagues. The tradition of the Ten Martyrs, which many Jews recite on both Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, indicates the impact that their principled defiance of Rome’s injunction had on the later generations of Jews who suffered from persecution but clung to their beliefs.

Two Heroes of the Middle Ages

Many great leaders followed the example of these great men throughout the course of Jewish history. The Middle Ages, notably the era of the Crusades, were witness to the courage of countless Jews, both famous and anonymous, who, like R. Akiva and his colleagues, made the supreme sacrifice rather than sacrifice their integrity. Still others, who did not submit to martyrdom, nevertheless refused to compromise their values regardless of the cost to their personal well-being. One prominent example was Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, the great Tosafist and “supreme arbiter in ritual, legal and community matters in Germany.”[7] When leading an exodus of thousands of Jews from Germany in response to an increase in their already crushing tax burden, R. Meir was arrested and delivered to Emperor Rudolf I. When the Emperor demanded a huge ransom, R. Meir, refused to permit his great disciple, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (known by his acronym Rosh) to pay. He argued that the Talmud had ruled against paying excessive ransoms for Jewish prisoners. He died in prison, refusing to compromise his principles.

Two centuries after R. Meir’s passing, another Jewish leader had the courage to uphold his values in the face of adversity. Don Isaac Abravanel, the wealthy and powerful financier, who had lost a fortune when driven out of Portugal in 1483, had become the financial advisor to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile and once again amassed considerable wealth. In 1492, however, faced with deportation if he clung to his Jewish heritage or conversion if he remained in Spain, Abravanel chose deportation despite considerable pressure from the two monarchs that he convert as other Jewish leaders had done. Instead he emigrated to Naples, leaving behind another vast fortune.[8] Once again, however, he found himself forced to flee in the face of a French invasion; once again he left his possessions behind, including, by his own account, his “enormous wealth” as well as “much of his precious library.”[9] He lived briefly in several Italian towns until, as he recounts in his commentaries to Tanakh, he finally found peace in Venice where once again he became an invaluable advisor to the city’s rulers.

Heroes of the Holocaust

Courage and integrity in support of Jewish values certainly did not disappear with the Middle Ages. Among those who exemplified these values in the twentieth century was R. Yisroel Meir Kagan, better known by the title of his great work, Chofetz Chaim. “The Chofetz Chaim”—as he was universally referred to—was a model of integrity, even if that meant significant financial loss to his exceedingly modest means. Indeed, his moral probity was so great, and so widely recognized, that not only did the New York Times publish his obituary, but it also related an example of his exalted character. As the Times recorded: “Despite his fame as ‘the uncrowned spiritual king of Israel,’ the Chofetz Chaim was a modest and humble man. His career as a merchant was of short duration. Because of his popularity all the Jews of the town [Radin] flocked to his store. The Chofetz Chaim thereupon closed the store on the ground that he was depriving other Jewish merchants of a living.”[10]

The Holocaust represented perhaps the greatest challenge Jewish leaders had ever faced. Yet some rose to that challenge. One of these truly great men was Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam, founding rebbe of the Sanz-Klausenberg dynasty. Having been arrested and released, he returned to Klausenberg, where in spite of the risks of capture, he refused to leave his Hassidim and made no effort to save himself from further searches for Jews.  On the contrary, he devoted his efforts both to assisting those Jews who had managed to escape to Hungary as well as to supporting his Hassidim. When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944, R. Halberstam was arrested and deported to Auschwitz. While in the camp he not only personally adhered to rigorous standards of kashruth despite the horrible environment—often going hungry—but also fostered and strengthened the religious faith of his fellow inmates.

R. Halberstam was then dragooned into a forced march to the camp at Dachau and then moved again to a forced labor camp at Muldorf. There as well he was a source of spiritual leadership for fellow laborers, adhering to the norms of kashruth, living for nine months on a diet of bread and water. Indeed, he would not eat the bread until he had completed netilat yadayim (ritual washing of the hands), and since water was scarce, he would often wait days before he collected sufficient drops that dripped from a water tank in order to carry out the ritual.[11]

At the other end of the Jewish religious spectrum stood Rabbi Leo Baeck, no less a man of integrity and courage. Leader of Germany’s Reform Jewish community, he refused to leave Germany when the opportunity was afforded him. Instead, he “was fearless in the face of the Nazi menace, emotionally steady, and a source of strength, courage, and inspiration for Germany’s Jews. He refused to abandon what remained of his people as anti-Semitic persecution intensified in Germany before the war. As a moral actor he followed his people into the concentration camps, though his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter escaped to the United Kingdom.”[12]

And Then There Were Others

There were many other rabbis who likewise served their flocks with integrity during the Holocaust and the years that led up to it. And then there were others. These men, many of them Hassidic rebbes, looked after themselves and left their followers to their deadly fates. Perhaps the most prominent among these individuals were two Hassidic leaders, the Rebbeim of Satmar and Belz.

The story of the Satmar Rebbe is a complicated one. On the one hand, he actively raised funds to rescue both ordinary Jews and leading rabbis from deportation and incarceration; on the other hand, beginning in 1939 he attempted to escape from Europe on multiple occasions. Moreover, during his time as an inmate of the Cluj ghetto, or his subsequent stay in Bergen-Belsen, where he “was given preferential treatment,”[13]  or when he reached in Budapest, he chose to remain aloof from his fellow Jews and even refused to interact with leading rabbis.  Moreover, despite his vehement and seemingly uncompromising anti-Zionism, the rebbe chose to join the group of Hungarian Jews that Zionist Rudolf Kastner had ransomed from Adolf Eichmann. The Rebbe did have misgivings about Kastner’s plan and “the fact that the [Kastner] train would be under the supervision of Zionists.” Nevertheless, “Rabbi Yoel decided to embark on the journey …with the knowledge that no other rabbis…would be considered for the [Kastner] list, nor would the rest of the Satmar entourage” that had joined him in Budapest.[14]

Once the Rebbe escaped on the Kastner train, he moved to Switzerland (where his efforts to rescue Jewish children from Christian homes came to little), in contrast to many other rabbis who returned to their hometowns or Displaced Person camps to assist their surviving followers.  During his brief stay in Palestine, he failed to acknowledge those who had sought to assist him such as Rabbi Moshe Porush of Agudat Yisrael and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, both of whose institutions he instead attacked. Indeed, he attacked the American Agudath Israel as well as the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, “whose leaders had headed the Rescue Committee that endeavored to rescue Hungarian Jews.”[15] The Satmar Rebbe may have been a great scholar, but he was also what the Talmud criticizes as kfui tov, one who is ungrateful for the good that others do for him.

The behavior of Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, the Belzer Rebbe, was perhaps even more disturbing than that of the Satmar Rebbe. He too was fully aware of the danger that his community faced. Yet on January 17, 1944, a mere two months before the Jews of Hungary began to be deported to Auschwitz, Rokeach and his half-brother Mordechai fled from Budapest to Palestine with the help of Zionists, although like the Satmar Rebbe, they too were bitterly anti-Zionist. The day before they escaped, however, Mordechai publicly read a farewell sermon that his half-brother had approved to an audience of thousands in the great hall of Budapest’s Kahal Yereim synagogue.

Mordechai denied allegations that the Rebbe was leaving his flock to their fate. He asserted that the Belzer Rebbe had always dreamed of moving to Palestine and now had the opportunity to do so. Moreover, Mordechai assured his audience that “the Tzaddik [the Rebbe] sees that rest and tranquility will descend upon the inhabitants of this land [Hungary] …the Tzaddik sees that good, and all good, and only good and grace will befall our Jewish brethren the inhabitants of this land.”[16] As was the case with respect to the Satmar Rebbe, it could hardly be said that either the Belzer or his brother displayed anything in the way of courage or integrity.

Power Corrupts

Even as the power of Orthodox political parties has grown over the past several decades, integrity on the part of some of their most prominent leaders has remained in short supply. If anything, they have repeatedly borne out Lord Acton’s aphorism that “power corrupts.” Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger was arrested in 2013 on charges of bribery, tax fraud, and interfering in the trial process. He was jailed four years later.[17]

R. Aryeh Deri, leader of the Shas Party, who had served in a variety of ministerial posts beginning in 1988, was convicted in 2000 for taking $155,000 in bribes and sentenced to three years in jail. Remarkably, he returned to politics just over a decade after he was released from jail on good behavior in 2002. He was elected to the Knesset in 2013 but resigned after an Israeli television station released footage of the great Sephardic leader Rav Ovadia Yosef “calling him a wicked man and a thief.”[18] Remarkably, the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah, the ultimate rabbinical authority for the Shas Party, refused to accept his resignation and it was only accepted by Yuli Edelstein, speaker of the Knesset.

Deri’s resignation hardly meant the end of his career, however. Once again he headed the Shas list in 2015. Once again he was elected to the Knesset. Once again he held the first of several ministerial offices during the Prime Ministership of Benyamin Netanyahu, who himself has been charged with corruption. Deri was again charged, this time with tax evasion, while serving as Netanyahu’s Interior Minister. He only left the position when the Netanyahu government fell, but then acknowledged his guilt in a plea bargain, resigned from the Knesset and was fined 180,000 shekels (about $50,000) and received a year's suspended sentence.[19] He may yet return to politics and yet another ministerial post in a new right-wing government.

Then there is Yaakov Litzman, long time Knesset member and former Minister of Construction and of Health. The leader of the Agudat Yisrael party and a leading figure in the Ger Hassidic community, Litzman was convicted for criminally assisting alleged pedophile Malka Leifer's attempt to evade extradition to Australia. She eventually was extradited.  Like Deri and Metzger, Litzman agreed to a plea deal; he paid a relatively small fine and resigned from the Knesset.[20] He too could return to politics.

Whatever their degree of piety, and Torah knowledge, all of these men violated a fundamental talmudic principle: The lack of integrity results in hilul Hashem, the desecration of the Creator’s name. Hilul Hashem offsets Torah knowledge. The Talmud speaks of a scholar who sullied his reputation for which R. Judah placed him under a ban (Shammeta). R. Judah’s basis for imposing such a harsh penalty was the verse: “For the priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts,” which was interpreted as “if the Master is like unto a messenger of the Lord of Hosts…seek the law at his mouth; but if not, do not seek the law at his mouth.”[21] It is indeed regrettable that instead of serving as positive role models for their communities, they did quite the opposite.

Men and Women of Integrity

Happily, there are still leading figures in the Orthodox community both in the United States and in Israel, who are unafraid to take risks in the name of what is right. Deborah Lipstadt, currently the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, has long been an outspoken critic of Holocaust denial. She famously defeated a libel suit in Britain against the denier David Irving, despite the fact that English law places on the defendant the burden of proof of innocence. She has spoken out against racial hatred in all its forms, regardless of the consequences to her own career. Indeed, she did not back down when Senator Ron Johnson blocked her confirmation for months because she tweeted that he “advocated white supremacy/nationalism."[22] Ultimately she was confirmed by voice vote.

To cite another example, the Vishnitzer Rebbe, R. Yisroel Hager, is no moderate; he opposes the use of smart phones. Nevertheless, in the face of violent attacks perpetrated by supporters of the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Alter, against those who support his cousin, Rabbi Shaul Alter,[23] R. Hager issued a public statement condemning the violence.[24] Moreover, he made it clear that he was not only speaking to his own followers, but to Orthodox Jews of every stripe. Such condemnations can enflame radicals, who have no compunction about verbally abusing and physically attacking their critics. It took both integrity and courage for R. Hager to speak out as he did.

Conclusion   

Integrity is not risk-free. Integrity in one’s personal life requires courage. Integrity in the public sphere, where personal loss can be significant and permanent, requires an extra dose of courage. That, however, has long been the Jewish standard for true leadership. Perhaps Yitro put it best when he outlined for Moshe those qualifications that he deemed necessary for all who would assume leadership positions under the greatest leader of them all: “men of substance, God fearers, men of truth, who hate monetary gain, and you shall appoint over them [Israel] leaders over thousands, leaders over hundreds, leaders over fifties, and leaders over tens.”[25]

Such persons could be found in every generation. They can be found in our own time as well. They can be men, or women, Hareidi, Modern Orthodox, or non-Orthodox. What these individuals, like their many illustrious predecessors, have in common is commitment to the truth, abhorrence of corruption, and the fearlessness that enables them to speak out in support of what is right and just. And in so doing they not only meet Yitro’s demanding standards for leadership, but serve as role models for the Jewish people wherever they may reside.

It is one of the great paradoxes of Jewish history that antithetic events, centuries apart, should have had the same effect on Judaism. The reestablishment of Jewish independence and the ingathering of exiles have proven as catastrophic for the Jewish religion as were, in their day, the destruction of the Jewish state, and the dispersion of the people. After the Roman conquest of 70 ce, the generation of Yohanan ben Zakai was confronted with the fateful question: Can a valid Judaism survive the loss of the sacrificial system? The revolutionary turn of events that has now produced the State of Israel confronts our own generation with an equally fateful question: Can a valid Judaism survive the emergence from conditions of Diaspora and political subservience in which it has subsisted for so long?[1]

The first and the twentieth centuries have probably been the two most tumultuous in Jewish history: the destruction of the Temple and the beginnings of exile and Diaspora on the one hand; the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel on the other. Although they can be viewed as opposite to one another, dispersion to ingathering, they must also be seen as having a major common denominator: the rupture of a long-enjoyed status quo and the need to adapt to completely new circumstances.

My attempt here is to sketch the biography and thoughts of two outstanding rabbinic leaders in the period from 70 to 135 ce—their attempts to adapt, formulate, and apply their beliefs and ideals in circumstances of such major upheaval—and to see them as alternative models for our own generation’s orientation toward the events of our day and engagement with the questions with which we are all concerned.

Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai: The Courage of Compromise

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was the major rabbinic leader in the year 70 ce as the Roman siege of Jerusalem neared its close. Deep divisions existed between those trapped behind the city walls regarding what approach they should take to the Roman armies outside the wall. On the one hand were the kana’im—the zealots—who rejected any form of compromise, and would rather fight to the death than surrender to Rome. On the other hand were those willing to negotiate with Rome, albeit from a position of weakness—better, they reasoned, for something to be salvaged from the impending unavoidable defeat. It was to this latter group that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai belonged. To be opposed to the policy of the zealots was not easy—they had burned the food provisions within the city to strengthen the inhabitants’ resolve, and would kill anybody seeking to escape whom they suspected of leaving to negotiate with Rome. It is in this context that the following near-mythic story of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s escape occurs.

[When R. Yohanan ben Zakkai saw that the zealots of Jerusalem did not accept his plan for compromise,] he sent for his students and told them to place him in a coffin (to escape from Jerusalem). Rabbi Eliezer held him by the head and Rabbi Joshua held him by the legs and carried him until dusk. As they arrived at the gate, the guards said to them, “Who is this you carry?” They responded, “It is one who has died, and do you not know that a corpse may not pass the night in Jerusalem?”… They carried him out of the city until they reached the Roman general Vespasian. They opened the coffin and he stood before them. Vespasian said, “Are you R. Yohanan ben Zakkai? Ask of me and I shall grant it.” He responded, “All I ask from you is Yavne, where I will teach to my students and institute prayer there and perform all the commandments.” Vespasian said, “Go! And do everything that you propose.”

In this short exchange, one of the most seismic shifts ever to take place in Jewish history occurs: The central location of worship moves from Jerusalem to Yavne, a small community of scholars on the coast, which would develop into a major academy, and from which the foundations of the Mishna and Talmud would emerge. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, seeing that the resistance’s days are numbered, gives up Jerusalem in order to save something from the flames. The Jewish people will lose their national center and political independence, and will cease to worship God through the medium of sacrifices. But their continued existence will be safeguarded by the new central practice of the study of Torah, an activity that is at once portable and democratic. As we will see, whether he had made the right decision was a question that would plague Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai for the rest of his life, but the decision had been made and would shape Judaism and Jewish practice for the next two millennia.

In addition to the replacement of the sacrificial order with the study of Torah, another major theme can also be discerned in Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s work: the renewed emphasis on the power and centrality of gemilut hasadim, acts of kindness.

In Avot DeRabbi Natan, chapter 4, we read:

It once happened that Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was leaving Jerusalem with Rabbi Joshua, and they witnessed the destruction of the Temple. Rabbi Joshua said, “Woe to us, for the place where the sins of Israel were atoned for has been destroyed.” Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai said, “Do not be bitter, my son, for we have another form of atonement which is as great, and this is gemilut hasadim; as the verse states, “for it is kindness I desire and not burnt offerings” [Hos. 6:6].

As they pass the Temple mount in ruins, Rabbi Joshua laments to his teacher that the prime mechanism through which Israel gained forgiveness from God—the sacrifices—has been destroyed. How could Israel now maintain its relationship with God? Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai responds—acts of loving-kindness are just as efficacious at achieving atonement. We do not detect in his words even a hint that a relationship with God that is mediated through acts of kindness rather than sacrifices is in any way bedi’eved—a non-ideal second best—but that it is certainly on a par with the sacrifices. In fact, from the verse of the prophet Hosea that is quoted, the strong implication emerges that kindness and charity are far more preferable in the eyes of God than burnt offerings![2]

A simple way to put these developments is to recall the words of Simeon HaTzaddik, who, while head of the Sanhedrin when the Temple stood, had said that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, avoda (the sacrificial order), and gemilut hasadim. After the destruction of the Temple there was no longer avoda. If the world is to be pictured as a three-legged stool, the question arises as to what one can do after one of the legs has been destroyed. Two options present themselves: Either find a new leg, or strengthen the remaining two. It seems that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai chose the latter, building on gemilut hasadim and Torah to maintain and rebuild the Jewish people’s world.

The Role of the Temple in a World without the Temple

After the momentous events and decisions of the year 70, the most significant work of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai appears to have been nine pieces of legislation. All nine were concerned with various laws and practices that had taken place in the Temple, whose place in a world without the Temple was now uncertain.

This raft of legislation can be seen as having a dual goal: (1) remembering the Temple so that it would not become a distant memory; (2) articulating a Judaism that did not require a Temple and that could flourish even without political sovereignty, a centralized religious structure, or the sacrificial service.[3]

An obvious tension emerges between these two points: Does not ensuring the remembrance of the Temple hamper attempts to come to terms with a world without the Temple? The genius of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s enactments is that they manage to embrace both objectives. To take but a single example, we read in Tractate Rosh HaShana regarding one of the enactments: “Kohanim [priests] are prohibited from ascending to perform the priestly blessing [in the synagogue] while wearing shoes.”[4]

The priestly blessing was one of the most ancient and significant features of the service in the Temple. By decreeing that it must also be performed in every synagogue, the significance of the ceremony and the special status of the kohanim were preserved, and the memory of the Temple retained.

The purpose of the enactment, therefore, would appear to be preserving the memory and significance of the Temple in the life of the Jewish people. Yet reading between the lines of the Gemara another theme emerges. The kohanim had been forbidden from wearing shoes in the Temple due to the sanctity of the location, in the same way in which Moses had been told to take off his shoes at the burning bush: “The place upon which you stand is holy ground.”[5] Viewed from this angle, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s decree is radical. Every place where Jews gather to pray, no matter where, no matter how many of them, now has the level of sanctity of the Temple, and those who ascend to perform the priestly blessing must remove their shoes just as they would have done in the Temple.[6]

Thus, as well as maintaining the memory of the Temple and its service, a very different objective was also achieved: The synagogue took on the role and even sanctity of the Temple, and allowed for religious and national continuity in a world that had been ruptured by the destruction of the Temple.

What, then, characterizes Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s life and work? A crucial shift of Judaism away from the Temple and sacrificial order as circumstances dictated, and the replacement of this with a teaching that emphasizes deeds of kindness, intellectual study, and prayer. An ability to compromise, and a daring to innovate new strategies and practices of religious and national import when the larger goal is unattainable.

At certain moments history may be compared to a crucible. The material inside the crucible reaches such heat that its shape can be changed very dramatically and very quickly. Once the material cools, those changes assume a permanent nature and a return to the original shape is impossible. The master craftsman is able to manipulate the material in the heat of the moment in such a way that its shape when settled is the one best suited for the object’s purposes. The year 70 was such a moment, and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was such a craftsman. What Isaiah Berlin said of Bismarck could easily apply to him: “Political genius consists in the ability to hear the distant hoof beat of the horse of history, and then by a superhuman effort to leap and catch the horseman by the coat tails.”[7] Jerusalem fell, Yavne was saved, and Jewish history was changed forever.

Rabbi Akiva: Theology and Politics as One

R. Yohanan ben Zakkai said, “Give me Yavneh and her wise men.” Rabbi Akiva said, “He [God[ turns wise men backward and makes their wisdom foolish.” [Isa. 44:25].[8]

Akiva ben Joseph lived two generations after Yohanan ben Zakkai, a student of his students. The major political event of his day was not the destruction of the Temple but the Bar Kokhba revolts 65 years later. Whereas Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had opposed the zealots by advocating accommodation and compromise, Rabbi Akiva considered this foolishness—lamenting that had Rabban Yohanan ben Zakai had only requested of Vespasian that Jerusalem be spared, then everything could have been saved.

Presumably Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had also understood that potentially he could ask Vespasian for Jerusalem—but fearing that the magnitude of such a demand might make the general renege altogether, his political realism pushed him to choose the lesser, yet attainable, goal. In his cast-iron conviction Rabbi Akiva viewed this as a terrible missed opportunity and a decision of weakness.

Perhaps the best known story regarding Rabbi Akiva’s response to the destruction of the Temple is the episode described at the end of Tractate Makkot:

Once Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues ascended to Jerusalem. When they reached Mt. Scopus, they tore their garments. When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. The others started weeping; Rabbi Akiva laughed. They said to him: “Why are you laughing?” He said to them: “Why are you weeping?” They said to him: “A place [so holy] that it is said of it, ‘the stranger that approaches it shall die,’ and now foxes traverse it, and we shouldn’t weep?” He said to them: “That is why I laugh.”[9]

Rabbi Akiva goes on to explain that the prophet Isaiah had foreseen both the destruction of the First Temple and the rebuilding of the Second Temple. The Temple Mount would fall into desolation and be ploughed like a field. Yet Jerusalem, after falling to such a low, would one day be rebuilt. He goes on to explain that until he had seen the first prophecy of utter devastation fulfilled, he was doubtful as to whether the second one of hope would come true. But now that he has seen a fox running through the Holy of Holies, he knows with certainty that “Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem.” His colleagues respond: “Akiva, you have comforted us! Akiva, you have comforted us!”

The story is usually read as illustrating Rabbi Akiva’s optimism, his ability to comfort his colleagues—and the moral of laughter over tears in the face of calamity. But to my mind there is another, more fundamental element that lies at the root of Rabbi Akiva’s behavior: his conviction that the destruction and absence of the Temple is only a temporary situation, and one that would soon be rectified. Do not cry that the Temple has been lost, he says to his colleagues—for its return is guaranteed.

This reading of the story is borne out by the striking parallel to the passage from Avot DeRabbi Natan quoted earlier. In both cases Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiva are walking with their rabbinic colleagues past the Temple mount, which lies in ruins. In both cases the colleagues lament the loss of the Temple and in both cases Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiva respond with words of comfort. But these parallels only serve to draw attention to the enormous gulf between their words of consolation: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai tells Rabbi Joshua not to be downcast at the loss of the Temple for even in its absence the relationship of the Jewish people with God can and will be maintained. We can survive and flourish without the Temple. Rabbi Akiva, on the other hand, tells his colleagues not to be downcast at the loss of the Temple, for before long it will be back with us.

Consideration of the argument between these two rabbinic leaders raises the question of whether their dispute is simply one of tactics and strategy vis-à-vis Rome or a more deeply rooted dispute over theology. From a number of sources it emerges that Rabbi Akiva has a very clear response to the fundamental question of to what extent our theology and politics are related to one another. His answer is that they are one and the same.

The Talmud in Tractate Hagiga discusses a difficult verse in the book of Daniel, which mentions two heavenly thrones. If one of the thrones is for God, then who is the other one for? “Rabbi Akiva taught, one is for Him [i.e., God] and the other for the House of David. Rabbi Jose HaGelili responded, ‘Akiva! Until when will you make the Shekhina [Divine Presence] profane?! Rather, one is for justice and the other for charity.’”[10]

If Rabbi Akiva’s understanding of the verse is not immediately apparent, then the sharp response to it makes it clear: For him there is no division between sacred and secular, no distinction between realms of religious belief and of gritty reality. If God’s throne represents the heavenly or religious ideals, then the second throne for the earthly House of David represents the immediate implantation of those ideals.

For this reason, the Jerusalem Talmud tells us not only of Rabbi Akiva’s support for the Bar Kokhba rebellion, but of his belief that Bar Kokhba was himself the King Messiah.

Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai taught: Rabbi Akiva would expound the verse “A star [kokhav] will emerge from Jacob” as “Koziba will emerge from Jacob”—for Rabbi Akiva considered with certainty that Bar Koziba was the Messiah. Rabbi Yohanan ben Turta said: “Akiva—grass will grow over your face, and the son of David [i.e., the Messiah] will still not have come.”[11]

For Rabbi Akiva our deepest-held beliefs and ideals can and must be made tangible in the politics of this world—without compromise, adjustment, or dilution. From the response of his colleagues in both of the pieces just quoted, we see just how controversial and contested such a position was. How great is the contrast to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who understood that what he valued the most was unattainable and instead set about reformulating his values so that they could be compatible with the politics and realities of this world.

To really capture the difference let us contrast the stories of the deaths of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiva.[12] Concerning the former, we read:

And it was that when Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai fell sick, his students came in to visit him. As he saw them he began to weep. His students said to him, “Candle of Israel, mighty hammer, for what are you crying?” He responded, “If I was to be brought before a king of flesh and blood, who is here today and tomorrow in the grave, who, if he is angry with me, his anger is not forever, and if he imprisons me, the imprisonment is not forever, and if he kills me, that death is not forever—and I could pacify him with words and bribe him with money—even if this was so I would still weep. And now that I am being brought before the King of kings, the Holy One who reigns forever, who, if He is angry with me, His anger is forever, and if He imprisons me, the imprisonment is forever, and if He kills me, that death is forever—and I cannot pacify him with words nor bribe him with money. Moreover, I see two paths before me, one stretches to Gan Eden and the other to Gehinnom—and I do not know which one they will lead me down—and should I not cry?!”[13]

Rabbi Akiva dies not at home and not of illness, but is executed at the hands of the Romans during the Hadrianic persecutions:

“And you shall love the Lord your God”—When they were taking out Rabbi Akiva to be executed, the time for the recitation of the Shema had arrived, and as they removed his flesh with iron combs he accepted upon himself the yoke of Heaven. His students said to him, “Rabbi, even until this point?!” He responded, “All the days of my life I was troubled by the verse ‘[love God] with all your soul’—even if He takes your soul.” I would say to myself, when will I have such an opportunity? Now that the chance is here shall I not fulfill it?”

He extended his pronunciation of ehad until his soul left him proclaiming the unity of God. A heavenly voice proclaimed, “Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, whose soul departed proclaiming God’s unity.” The ministering angels proclaimed, “Happy are you Rabbi Akiva, who has merited life in the World to Come!”[14]

Rabbi Akiva meets his death with calm determination—Judaism’s paradigmatic martyr, willing to undergo terrible pain secure in the knowledge that he is fulfilling God’s will. His place is assured in the World to Come. He was one of the ten martyrs executed by the Romans—an embodiment of the principle, “Better to die on his feet than to live on his knees.”

Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai is anything but calm—he is in terror in his final moments. He sees two paths stretching before him—one to heaven and one to hell—and has no idea which he will be led down. Astute readers of the passage have seen the two paths as a clear reference to that fateful decision made all those years before: in responding to Vespasian’s question two paths stretched before him—he could choose the ultimate goal of the Temple and Jerusalem yet risk losing everything, or he could choose the lesser yet attainable goal and sacrifice Judaism’s greatest symbols of national and religious pride.[15] He chose the latter—fatefully changing the next 1,900 years of Jewish history—and even at the very end of his life he did not know whether he had made the right decision.

The Historical Legacies of Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiva

Ulla said: Since the destruction of the Temple, God has had no place in this world except in the four cubits of halakha.[16]

In the end, the Bar Kokhba revolt failed, Masada fell, and a Diaspora of nearly two millennia began. National existence with a single religious and political center ceased, and Jewish peoplehood was maintained by common prayer and study, and a shared lifecycle. Rabbi Akiva had failed, his enormous contribution to the world of the oral law faring far better than his religious-political vision. Although, as far as we know, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai never left Israel, his legacy created the infrastructure for a religion that could survive and even flourish in the Diaspora—a framework for a people without a land. God had withdrawn from history; Jewish religiosity and national existence had withdrawn to the private sphere, existing within the four cubits of halakha: Shabbat, kashruth, and family purity. Grand themes and narratives—king messiahs, armies, nationhood, land, agriculture, and politics—became distant memories.

Even with the rise of secularization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, newly emancipated Jews embraced many of the values Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had positioned at the center of Judaism: study and intellectualism as central practices of Jewish life and shaping the necessity of an existence devoid of political power into a virtue.

And then Zionism came. In the words of Amos Oz:

The Zionist revolution aspired not only to obtain a bit of land and statehood for the Jews, but also—perhaps mainly—to upend the spiritual pyramid as well as the economic one. To change the norms, create a new ideal, new focuses of solidarity and a new scale of desires…. Everyone agreed to undergo metamorphosis and be a new person, no longer a Jew but a Hebrew, tanned, strong and brave, free of complexes and Jewish neuroses, a person who loved to labor and loved the soil.[17]

In the search for models and historical templates to provide the imaginative underpinnings of a project that necessitated such a sea change for Jewish life, the attributes associated with Rabbi Akiva and ideological cousins of his such as the Maccabees returned to the fore, even though they frequently underwent secularization in the process.

From Trumpledor’s “It is good to die for one’s land” to Rav Kook’s equation of messianism and politics, Rabbi Akiva’s image loomed large, if only subconsciously. Even mainstream secular socialist Zionism exhibited this trend: The ethic of pioneering, of giving oneself up completely for the national dream and collective, draws, if only selectively, on the sorts of convictions Rabbi Akiva expresses.[18] The commitment necessary to settle, cultivate, and defend a land, to establish and maintain institutions of state, could only be brought about through ideologies that inspired belief in large, powerful ideas and inculcated a willingness for self-sacrifice. Without the energy and collective effort on the part of thousands inspired by the images and ideas associated with Rabbi Akiva, the reality of Zionism and the State of Israel would never have come into existence.

BaYamim HaHem, BaZeman HaZeh

It would be an overstatement to say that in the Rabbi Akiva–Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai tension all great figures and thinkers of the last century have emulated Rabbi Akiva. In every stream of Zionist thought there have been those who emphasized themes and ideas that could be associated with Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai.[19]

Nevertheless, contemporary discussions about Zionism, not to mention current events and politicians’ statements, can often feel straitjacketed within a Rabbi Akiva view of the world. The commitment of Diaspora Jews to the State of Israel is viewed as an all-or-nothing question, and advocating compromise on core issues is often seen as weakness or as stemming from a lack of conviction. The first stage of Zionism, the necessary hard graft of state-building, is long over. The critical priorities of today are not draining swamps or training an army, but resolving core issues about the state, society, and citizens. Questions of religion and state, the balance of the Jewish and democratic elements of the state, of the status of Israel’s non-Jewish minorities, of borders and relationships with the Palestinians and the Arab world, of social and economic justice all require answers.

Might now not be the time to turn back to the figure of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai for guidance, and absorb afresh his teaching that a meaningful and flourishing existence can be attained even when reality falls short of our dearest dreams; that compromise is often necessary (and that this is nothing to be ashamed of); that acts of kindness and social justice are as valuable as worship in our holiest places; that authenticity can be attained even under the most trying of circumstances—and that all of the foregoing points are thoroughly Jewish?

There is a space between absolutes, between redemption and damnation—and it is called life.

Several years ago a group of young, married, highly successful Orthodox professionals (physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc.) invited me to lead them in discussions of Jewish texts at their monthly get-togethers. The project broke up after several months when one of the couples divorced, creating a split in the community. But even before the couple broke up, it was quite evident to my wife (who joined me) and to me that I was not providing the sort of instruction they sought. I thought that I was being asked to teach them as a (then young) professor of medieval Jewish philosophy; it turns out that what they really wanted was the sort of homilies they had been hearing from rabbis and teachers ever since grade school.

I love Rashi, but I am very much aware that he provides an interpretation of the Torah, an interpretation full of biblical and midrashic literalism, not to mention superstitious beliefs.[1] We all learned Rashi’s Torah when we were in grade school. My wife and I have been consistently surprised over the years to encounter friends and relatives whose professional lives (physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc.) are carried on at a high level of sophistication but whose Judaism remains at the level they were taught in grade school. The same can be said of many rabbis.

Many people are happy living Jewishly like this, and we say, more power to them. But what of those who are not? Some leave traditional Judaism altogether, some live bifurcated lives, and some live as anusim, marranos, hiding their true views from friends and family. Apropos marranos, we once asked a woman we know, wife of a very prominent rabbi, a renowned scholar in her own right, and a forthright feminist, how she “got away” with her “outrageous” views. Her answer was simple: I dress the part I am expected to play—my old-fashioned sheitl allows me to think and say things not usually expressed by people who look like me. Similarly, I once asked a Chabadnik of my acquaintance, prominent in his community, but whose views on Judaism were closer to mine than to those usually found in Chabad circles, what he told his children. He answered that he never lies to his children, but does not feel obligated to tell them all that he thinks either.

Rav Sa’adia Gaon was well aware of this problem in Baghdad in the eleventh century. He wrote his Beliefs and Doctrines for Jews who were not satisfied with “Rashi’s Judaism.” He did not address his book to those who were satisfied with the Judaism taught to them as children, and warned them not to read the book. I am sure he would have said about them: “More power to you.” Rambam was himself also deeply aware of this issue. As is well-known, he wrote esoterically, hiding his true views from “Rashi Jews” in order to protect them. He also wrote carefully, modulating the way he expressed himself so that my beloved Lakewood relatives would be sure they understood what he was writing, while I am equally sure that they did not understand what he was really trying to say (for examples, see the first sentences in Mishneh Torah—“Laws of the Foundations of the Torah: i.1 and further on, vii.1). If I had a shekel for every time a traditionally educated student said to me after reading a Rambam text black on white, “But it is not possible that Rambam could have written that!” I could have retired years ago.

“Rashi’s Judaism” is certainly warm and comforting, something we all need. But it is also disappointing to people who accept modern science as a route to truth, who reject superstition, who believe that all human beings are actually created in the image of God. “Rashi’s Judaism” is also challenging for people who accept the values of liberal democracy. I must emphasize, the issue is not one of intelligence or personal sophistication, let alone of Jewish education. The following story illustrates this point:

When a friend of mine was a scholar-in-residence at a prominent Modern Orthodox synagogue years ago, he taught the passage at the end of “Laws of Slaves” in Mishneh Torah in which Maimonides emphasizes that Jews and Gentiles are all created equal by God and formed "in the same womb", i.e., there is no essential difference between Jews and Gentiles.[2] In the synagogue there was a sophisticated Torah scholar in his 20s who was also the son of a prominent yeshiva head. He protested this purported equality, and stayed with my friend for almost an hour after the Sabbath arguing that Maimonides did not say this because he could not have said it. The belief in Jewish superiority was an essential part of the young scholar’s personal sense of Jewish identity. He had formed this identity under the influence of his parents, their peers, and his peers. The text was merely secondary and after the fact. When he saw the text, he was forced either to distort it or to deny its importance. After my friend proved to him that the universalistic interpretation was correct by citing numerous other Maimonidean texts in the Mishneh Torah and in the Guide of the Perplexed, this product of the best Modern Orthodox education gave up on Maimonides and said it really didn't matter what Maimonides said because he (and presumably "the Torah world") had decided in accordance with the views of Judah Halevi anyway.  His prejudice was so deep that he preferred the opinion of the non-halakhist Halevi to that of the greatest halakhist in Jewish history!

I had a similar experience in my own synagogue in Haifa many years ago. I sought to prove to an older friend in the synagogue, a wonderful man and a learned Jew, that Rambam did not agree with Halevi (or with Kabbalah, or with much of Orthodoxy today, “yeshivish” or not) according to which Jews are inherently distinct from and superior to non-Jews. In contrast, I maintained that Rambam held that when the Torah taught that all human beings are wholly and equally created in the image of God, it meant it. I ended up writing a whole book on the subject (Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People, 1991). My friend read the book and then told me that I had made a compelling argument and that, in consequence, his respect for Rambam had declined.

I am not foolish enough to think that Rambam’s Judaism, not Rashi’s Judaism, should be taught to first graders. But when do our educators start the transition from grade school, to high school, to college, to yeshiva? All too often it appears that the answer today is: Never. I trust and hope that readers of Conversations will not and should not be satisfied with that answer.