How does intuitive insight provide new possibilities in philosophy, theology, science, and literature? Catholic Theologian Thomas Dubay and the noted scientist Michael Polanyi point to the mystery that understanding comes almost like revelation. Augustine taught that all progress in knowledge is by illumination of the Spirit. Well, I am back in Israel and had an amazing experience with my jet lag in the early morning, dozing. It was an insight about the rejection of the Messiahship of Yeshua in the Yavne community of Pharisees that launched Rabbinic Judaism, Judaism without the Temple. It is an approach I have not encountered, but maybe someone else has promoted these ideas. I would not be surprised.
Rabbai Ben Zakkai’s Quest for Peace
About a week ago, I finished a book by the famous now-retired Rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, former chief rabbi of Efrat in Israel. I wrote a review of it. Riskin described the difference between Rabbi Yohannan Ben Zakkai, who founded the Yeshiva in Yavne when Jerusalem was being destroyed. He comforted his disciples by stating that prayer, study, and good deeds could substitute for the Temple until its restoration. Ben Zakkai was from the school of Hillel, not the school of Shammai. The school of Shammai dominated the Pharisees in the period before the destruction of the Temple. They supported the revolt against Rome. Messianic claims were part of the revolt. After the revolt, the more merciful school of Hillel, then led by Ben Zakkai, became dominant. Zakkai was now strongly motivated for peace with Rome and against war. I believe this made him reject messianic claims. A messianic claim meant revolt against Rome.
Rabbi Akiva’s Embrace of War
Riskin then describes Rabbi Akiva. Akiva supported the second great revolt against Rome led by Bar Kochba. He even proclaimed him as the Messiah. Akiva was executed with torture, and the revolt was quashed. However, they put up a great fight. Riskin then looks at modern Israel and its founding, requiring a war of liberation and wars for preservation. Despite the terrible loss in the second revolt, Riskin ends up being more sympathetic to Akiva. Akiva is an example of joining the promise of redemption with the human component of fighting for redemption. This is an interesting perspective and quite new to me. For Riskin, this is the hukan and divine working together.
Passages Emphasized in My Dream
This background is a context for my dream and interpretation. It connects to the Biblical evidence that the Pharisees were not in agreement in opposition to Yeshua. Yes, the more rigid Shammai school of Pharisees opposed Yeshua, but how did the Hillel early Rabbis in Yavne come to oppose Him. The passages of Acts came to mind in my dream.
- Note that the Hillel Rabbi Gamliel who was the teacher of the Shaliach Shaul (the Apostle Paul) speaks in opposition to the persecution of the new messianic movement in Yeshua. He was the leader of the Hillel school Pharisee. “A certain Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Torah respected by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. Then he said to them. Men of Israel, be careful what you are about to do with these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody; and a number of men, maybe four hundred, joined up with him. He was killed, and all who followed him were scattered and came to nothing. After this fellow, Judah the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and got people to follow him. He also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So, leave them alone. For if this plan is of God, you will not be able to stop them. You might even be found fighting against God.”
We should note in this context that the Sadducees drove the early persecution and were filled with jealousy. (Acts 5:17)
In Acts 15, a party of Jewish Yeshua followers say that unless the Gentile believers are circumcised, they cannot be saved. This was the position of the Shammaite Pharisees, not the position of the Hillel school. Apparently the Shammaites influenced these Messianic Jews, but the Hillel school did not agree. In the Hillel school, Gentiles would have a good destiny in the Age to Come if they rejected idolatry, turned to God and kept the universal laws of God summarized in the seven Noachide Commands. (On this see Markus Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches)
- When Paul was under arrest in Jerusalem, he spoke to the Sanhedrin, dominated by Sadducees. “But recognizing the one group was Sadducees dn the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Sanhedrin, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees! I am on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.’ When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees. For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection or angel, or spirit, but the Pharisees affirm them all. Then there was an uproar. Some of the Torah scholars of the Pharisees’ party stood up and protested sharply, ‘We find nothing wrong with this man! What if a spirit or angel has spoken to him?” (Acts 26:6-9)
It hardly seems from these texts that the issue of Yeshua as the Messiah was settled among the Pharisees and the Hillel school would probably be more open. However, with regard to legal authority, keeping Paul bound and then appealing to the Romans, the Sadducees had government power.
In Acts 26”5, Paul states before King Agrippa, Paul says, “I lived as a Pharisee.” He never repudiated this part of his identity as we read in Acts 26:6)
These texts prompted W. D. Davis in his classic, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, to state in his appendix, that Paul remained an Orthodox practicing Jew until his death (according to the traditions of the Pharisees).
The Fear of War with Rome and Destruction
One other background text is important. The Sadducees were fearful that a rebellion against Rome, which was associated with any claim to be the Messiah, would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and their loss of power. He presents a double entendre of meaning when the High Priest Caiaphas says, “You don’t take into account that it is better for you that one man die for the people rather than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” For the high priest, any messianic claimant, especially one showing supernatural powers (Lazara had just been raised from the dead) would raise up a rebellion against Rome which Israel would lose. That Yeshua had no intention to do this and taught against it, did not make a dent on these leaders. Of course, the irony is that Yeshua did die for the people.
Forty years later, Jerusalem was destroyed. The power of the Sadducees in leading the Sanhedrin is over. The power of the more rigid school of Shammai has been diminished and the School of Hillel dominates. The Messianic Jews had escaped from Jerusalem and followed the prophetic warning of Yeshua to flee. The destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple and the terrible slaughter was incomprehensible. I imagine, with some justification, that the last thing Rabbi Zakkai wanted to hear was any claim for anyone to be the Messiah. Could this have meant to him that a new army would be raised under someone who claimed to be the Messiah who would again oppose Rome. As Riskin described it, Zakkai was the proponent of God bringing the redemption of Israel with no human military part in it. Was the rejection of Yeshua really part of lumping all messianic claims together and rejecting all messianic Claims. The days of the apostles and their signs and wonders ministry was over. Other than John, we do not read of other apostles in Israel during this period.
Drawing Boundaries: Judaism and Christianity
Now that this trajectory was set, the succeeding generations of Rabbis had to defend this rejection and define themselves against the new Christian movement. In his great book Borderlines, Daniel Boyarin, a well-known Jewish scholar says that there was nothing in Messianic Jewish/early Christian doctrine that was contrary to what was within the acceptable boundaries of first century Judaism. (See also his book The Jewish Gospels) However, from that time the movement of Christianity and Judaism defined themselves against the other. Ideas that were acceptable in 1st Century Judaism were no longer acceptable. Judaism sought to cleanse out of itself such ideas such as a divine Messiah. This idea is common in scholars of what is called, “The parting of the ways.”
If this thesis is true, the rejection at Yavne was not so much a rejection with a clear perception of who Yeshua claimed to be according to his disciples, but a response to trauma and wanting to avoid any messianism. Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews reject the state of Israel as a hindrance to God bringing supernatural redemption and restoration in the real coming of the Messiah.
I wonder if this understanding could contribute to Jewish/Christian dialogue and with Messianic Jews as part of a reconsideration of who Yeshua is.