The Rabbinic Revolution

Beginnings

Before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE the Sadducee Party widely believed to be descended from the House of Zadok sought to preserve the priestly line and the authority of the Temple. The religious responsibilities of the Sadducees included the maintenance of the Temple in Jerusalem. Their high social status was reinforced by their priestly responsibilities, as mandated in the Torah. The Priests were responsible for performing sacrifices at the Temple, the primary method of worship in Ancient Israel. This also included presiding over sacrifices on the three festivals of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Their religious beliefs and social status were mutually reinforced, as the Priesthood often represented the highest class in Judean society. Of course, not all priests or aristocrats belonged to this group, but the Sadducees were predominant in the upper classes. According to Josephus himself a priest, the beliefs of the Sadducees were: There is no fate.

God does not commit evil.

Man has Free Will (choice of doing good or evil)

The soul is not immortal, no afterlife, no reward or punishment after death. The Sadducees rejected the belief in the resurrection of the dead and the authority of any law besides the written Torah. As in the Written Torah its depiction of the priesthood as the sole source of divine authority enforced the power of the Sadducees over pre-destruction Judean society. As they oversaw many of the formal affairs of the state.

Members of the Sadducees:

• Administered the state domestically
• Represented the state internationally
• Participated in the Sanhedrin (The National Assembly), lead by the High Priest (most often a Sadducee) and often encountered the Pharisees there.
• Collected taxes. These also came in the form of international tribute from Jews in the Diaspora.
• Equipped and led the army
• Mediated domestic grievances.
• Most important were the class that interfaced with the Roman Government both in Judea and Rome.

With the destruction of the Temple the Sadducees lost their most important source of religious authority. The Romans also lost their interest in them as maintainers of the peace in Judea. Despite the legend of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai predicting Vespasian to become emperor of Rome it was a wise choice on the Roman’s part to place in charge of the remnant of the Judeans a member of the Hillel faction of Pharisees who were very pronounced in their support of peace at any price with Rome. At the Yavne camp where refugees who were acceptable to Roman rule gathered a new form of Jewish self-government was organized with the permission of Roman rule. A Jewish High Court and assembly was formed consisting of the followers of the Pharisaic schools of Hillel and Shammai. Rabbi Yochanan soon took on the title of Rabban which was the way the leader of the Jewish people was to be known as he sat at the head of their High Court and Assembly. The religious and judicial leaders now took on the title of Rabi (My Master) though as a group they were known as Hakamim (The Wise). They took little time in establishing themselves in authority not to be questioned by a reassertion of rebuilding the Temple and reinstituting the authority of the priests. This was done by Rabban Yochanan’s ruling annulling the possibility of the sacrifice of the “Red Heifer.” Without purification by the waters of the “Red Heifer” every observant Jew is forbidden to enter the Temple Mount and so the rebuilding of the Temple and the reinstitution of the sacrificial cult with the concomitant reassertion of priestly and Saduccean authority was abolished for all time. What was the remnant of one party described by Jospheus now by chance of circumstance became the religious and, in many ways, the ruling judiciary of the Jewish people for the centuries to come. From this time on the rabbis interpreted the past to suit their doctrines, ruled the present by their courts and influenced the thought and actions of Jews from waking in the morning to how they would sleep at night. There can be little doubt that as the arbiters of religious, moral and social behavior what was to be the rabbinical class, they forged for all time the attitudes and mores of “the Tribe. These Hakamim were part of an international group of intellectuals who could converse with each other in what probably was the Greek of that time. Talmud Bavli Avodah Zarah 54b Mishnah and Gemara. In the words of Henry A. Fischel: In Spite of strong ethnic, religious and other areas of independence of ancient cultures in many parts, there was a general context in late antiquity the representative and ideal of which was the sophos -sapiens-hakam, the Sage, i.e., this special brand of scholar-believer-bureaucrat, who under the precarious and often tragic developments of late antiquity strove mightily to uphold rational and emotionally balanced positions in any aspects of civilized life, who was loyal to native aspirations and traditions, yet also devoted to an intercultural contest which had its own momentum and its own ethos. ¹ This set the standard of respect and admiration for learning and the learned person that became one of the most salient attributes of the “Tribe” to the present day.

Footnotes

1. Preface XII Rabbinic Literature And Greco-Roman Philosophy, Henry A. Fischel, Leiden, E. J. Brill 1973 ↩