Johanan ben Zakkai

The Jewish teacher Johanan ben Zakkai (active ca. A.D. 70) was the leading expounder of Jewish law of his time. He founded an important academy at Yavneh.

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.C. He evidently lived to a ripe old age, for he survived the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (A.D. 70). Tradition speaks of his span of life as 120 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. While in Jerusalem, he also presided over an important yeshiva. Johanan foresaw that the Jews could not be victorious in their desperate struggle against Rome; he was determined, however, that Judaism should not perish even if the Jewish state and the Temple were destroyed.

While Jerusalem was under siege, Johanan was unable to receive permission to leave the city. He therefore had his pupils carry him out of Jerusalem in a coffin, presumably for burial. Once outside the city, Johanan went to see Vespasian and asked the Roman general to spare the town of Yavneh on the Mediterranean coast, together with its scholars. According to a Talmudic tradition, Johanan predicted to Vespasian that he would soon be chosen emperor, and when this came true, Vespasian granted the rabbi his requests. This was a turning point in Jewish history, for in this unimportant town of Yavneh, Johanan established an academy that had immense influence.

Johanan was not formally designated as Nasi, prince or head of the Sanhedrin, probably because he was not a descendant of Hillel or of Davidic stock, as Hillel was. He nonetheless assumed the duties of this office and the title of Rabban, meaning "our master," which was commonly attached to the rank of Nasi. Yavneh replaced Jerusalem as the new seat of a reconstituted Sanhedrin, which reestablished its authority and became a means of reuniting Jewry.

With the Temple gone, a substitute was necessary for the sacrificial cult. The aged Johanan suggested that the Temple worship be replaced by benevolent deeds; under his influence, the synagogue and house of study replaced the Temple. The important principle was thus established that Judaism does not depend for its existence on land or sanctuary but rather on the preservation of the Jewish spiritual heritage - the Torah and its teachings. This principle played a vital role in the survival of Judaism in the Diaspora.

True to the ideals of his master Hillel, Rabban Johanan advocated peace among men and nations. He was scrupulously ethical in all his dealings and behavior. He taught that the best character attribute a man could possess is a good heart, which he believed included all other virtues. His lofty attitudes and doctrines made Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai the most revered teacher of his times.

Further Reading

Jacob Neusner, A Life of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai (1960), is a good general study with a bibliography. The sage and his work are discussed in "Disciples of the Wise" in Louis Ginsberg, Students, Scholars and Saints (repr. 1945). A good sketch of Johanan ben Zakkai's work at Yavneh is in chapter 7 in George Foote Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, vol. 1 (1927). A historical account is in Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. 2, translated by Henrietta Szold (repr. 1940).

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He spent 18 years in the town of Arav in Lower Galilee but was not happy there because during those years he was only twice asked to give a halakhic opinion, a fact caused him to express forcefully his disapproval of the Galilean's neglect of Torah (TJ Shab. 16:15d). From about 30 CE he lived in Jerusalem. Here he abolished the ordeal of the wife suspected of adultery (Num. 5) as adultery had become too common, and it was probably he who also discontinued the rite of the "beheaded heifer," which atoned for an unresolved murder (Deut. 21:1-9) as murder multiplied, particularly during the siege of Jerusalem (67-69 CE; Sot. 9:9). Tradition accorded him the honorific title Rabban (our master), which was a higher title than Rabbi (my master) and was usually reserved for the Nasi.

Johanan's considerable authority as head of the Pharisaic party can be gauged from his confrontations with the Priests and the Sadducees, these two groups largely overlapping. These controversies mainly concerned the regulations of the Temple service and the laws of purity and impurity, but also civil and criminal law as well. Johanan tried to curtail the privileges and arbitrary powers of the priesthood, such as their claim to be exempt from the annual Temple tax (Shek. 1:4).

The Temple and Temple Mount were at the center of religious and communal life. Johanan's task was to supervise the Temple services and to see that they were carried out in accordance with Pharisaic tradition. Sitting in the shadow of the Temple, he would expound the law all day long before a large assembly of pilgrims who came in their thousands from all over, particularly for the Passover (Pes. 26a).

When the revolt against the Romans broke out (66 CE), Johanan kept clear of politics. He, like many others, probably opposed the revolt and did not believe it could succeed. As in besieged Jerusalem things went from bad to worse, Johanan decided to escape from the city by feigning illness and death and having himself carried out in a coffin with the help of his pupils, Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus and Joshua Ben Hananiah. Outside the city, he was taken to the Roman camp and, according to a talmudic story, was received by Vespasian, the general commanding the besieging legions, whom Johanan greeted as King-Emperor. Rebuked by Vespasian for giving him an undeserved title, Johanan quoted Scripture that Jerusalem, and the Temple, would not fall except through the hands of a king. While they were talking, a message arrived from Rome that the Emperor Nero was dead and that Vespasian had been chosen as his successor. Before Vespasian returned to Rome, he permitted Johanan to make a request, upon which he asked: "Give me Yavneh and its sages" (Git. 56a-b).

Scholars have cast doubt on the historical value of this story, which appears to be a mixture of fact and fiction. However, it became engrained in Jewish tradition.

The Temple, Jerusalem, and much else were now doomed. Johanan, watching the fire from a distance, "tore his clothes, took off his phylacteries, and sat there weeping and his pupils did likewise." But when his pupil Joshua ben Hananiah lamented the destruction which had deprived Israel of atonement for their sins, Johanan comforted him by quoting Hosea 6:6, "Do not fear, we now have charity as a substitute." He saw the national-religious disaster as punishment for Israel's failure to observe God's Torah.

By asking for Yavneh (which was the center of learning even before the destruction of Jerusalem) and its sages, Johanan secured a substitute for what was lost in the disastrous war against the Romans: a new seat for the Sanhedrin and the preservation of its leadership. Johanan successfully transferred to the academy of Yavneh some of the important functions of the Temple Sanhedrin, in particular the sanctification of the new Moon and the determination of leap years, on both of which the universal Jewish festival Calendar depended.Johanan himself was the head of the court in Yavneh, as he had been in Jerusalem, and various important regulations are ascribed to him (RH 31b). He was joined by senior colleagues from Temple times and together they clarified and settled halakhic controversies. He lived in Beror Ḥayil, not far from Yavneh (Sanh. 32b). Torah study was supreme in his scale of values. He used Hillel's Hermeneutic rules to establish the finer points of law, but also tried to discover the underlying ethical ideas of apparently neutral rules of the biblical codes.