Post Temple Judaism: Creating a New Religion

     After Massada the students were away from Tzuba for a week. After a weekend hiking at Ein Gedi, swimming in the Dead Sea and repelling down mountains they headed to Gadna for a week. At Gadna they got a small taste of what it's like to be in the IDF (Israeli army). From the stories I've heard it sounds like it was a really interesting experience and I'd encourage you to check out the students blogs about it. After Gadna they headed down to Eilat, Israel's southernmost city and only access to the Red Sea, making it an important port to Africa and the east. It also has gorgeous coral, which the students enjoyed while snorkeling. Finally they stopped at Kibbutz Lotan, a kibbutz founded through the Reform movement, which focuses on environmental issues such as creative recycling and green building.
     When the students got back to Tzuba we spent most of our first day reviewing. This time, when we talked about Massada I asked the students whether the Zealots' behavior is really something we should admire, or whether we should think of them as religious/nationalist extremist. I suspect the answer, as usual, lies somewhere in between the two extremes. Historically, however, the answer is clear. The zealots at Massada were barely mentioned for centuries. Traditionally the hero of the Great Revolt (66-70) is Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai, or "the Ribaz" to his friends (virtually all great Jewish scholars are also known by their initials, such as, famously, the Rambam).
     Yohanan ben Zakai was a Pharisaic leader (another way of saying he was a rabbi) who opposed the rebellion. Stuck in a besieged Jerusalem, he faked his own death and was smuggled out of the city in a coffin, apocryphally filled with dead fish (he had to fool both the Zealots, who refused to let anyone leave the city, and the Romans). Once out of the city he finagled his way into a meeting with Vespasian, the Roman commanding general. According to tradition ben Zakai addressed Vespasian as Caesar (emperor), and while Vespasian was explaining to him that this is not the case a herald arrived to tell Vespasian that, yes, he had in fact just been declared Caesar. Ben Zakai then requested as a reward that he be given "Yavne v'chochomeha" (Yavne and the sages). Essentially, he asked for a small, out of the way town, at which to re-establish his academy and continue learning/teaching Torah. Though it may not seem like it at first glance, this meeting between Vespasian and Yohanan ben Zakai ended up being one of the most important events in Jewish history. At his academy in Yavne ben Zakai continued the development of the Torah she'be'al peh (oral Torah) and, crucially, designed a new Judaism not based on Beit HaMikdash (The Temple).
     But in order to understand these developments we first have to understand the Oral Torah itself. The problem with written law is its inflexibility. Inevitably the world changes and the law, if it is to remain relevant, must adapt with it. Traditionally, Am Yisrael says that when Hashem gave the Torah to Moshe on Mt. Sinai, Hashem also explained it to him. These explanations were then passed down in an unbroken chain from Moshe to Joshua to the Judges to the Prophets, etc. This divine pedigree is critical, since oral law is the source of the vast majority of Halacha (Jewish law).
     From a more scientific perspective we can't trace the oral law back to Moshe (and, honestly, what CAN be traced back 3500 years?), but it's clear that it's existed for a long time. Again, given the way that law typically develops, this is almost inevitable. For example, in the time of Ezra (~450 BCE) you can imagine one of the scribes reading the Tanakh out loud, translating it as he goes. At some point, some member of the crowd calls out that he didn't understand a certain word or phrase. The scribe, in order to translate, has to explain the intent of the original Hebrew, and, voila, we have an oral law. Historically, there's no evidence of a written law existing independent of the oral law.
     In the last few centuries BCE, as Hellenism was taking hold in the Middle East, the oral law took a great leap forward. One of the results of the contact between Judaism and Hellenism is that Jewish scholars began to use Hellenistic thinking and logic in their thinking about the law. This new, logical approach (rather than waiting for divine revelation) led to the rapid development of the law. One of the earliest proponents of these new methods was Rabbi Hillel, who lived right around the turn of the millennium.  However, I'll leave the lives and innovations of the specific scholars for another post.
     Reform Jews view the oral law quite differently. According to the Reform view the oral law is simply the opinions of very bright Jewish scholars. This repudiation of the sanctity of the oral law is one of the things that sets Reform Judaism apart from traditional Judaism. Do you think the oral law should carry more weight among Reform Jews? Can we really make an educated decision about how important it is without studying it (as most Reform Jews, myself included, haven't)? Do we have any more or less evidence that the Oral Torah is more/less divine than the Written Torah? Even if it's not divine, should the consensus of the Rabbis carry weight?