Exile as Survival - Rabbi Sacks' Fallacy

In an interesting article about Shavuot, and the Counitng of the Omer, Emeritus Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks analyses the opposing views of the Sadducees and Pharisees regarding the Omer and the Oral Law.  what is enlightening about this article http://www.rabbisacks.org/double-celebration-thought-shavuot/
is that logically, it seems to prove that the Sadducees were correct in their understanding of the Torah.
However, what is fallacious about his argument, is that the errant way of counting (the Pharisees and Rabbis) has ensured Jewish survival in the last 2000 years of exile.

This is fallacious for a number of reasons.

The Pharisees were instrumental in the desecration of the Temple, by falsifying the laws of impurity, murder of the High Priests, cancellation of many Torah laws, and addition of many more new Testament styled D'rabbanan laws.  Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai colluded in the Kohanicide - the murder of the Priests, and also enabled the Romans to destroy Jerusalem, in exchange for the creation of a new centre for Phariseeism in Yavneh (from which he was eventually deposed by the more honest Rabbis who could not accept his treachery).

The "success" of the Rabbinic exile that Sacks refers to includes the pogroms initiated by Rabbis of Iberia against the Karaites, and its punishment - the Spanish Inquistion. It includes decimation of populations of Jews, and the diabolical Holocaust.  If Sacks claims the State of Israel is a Rabbinic achievement, he would be clearly deluded. It was the Talmudic "3 oaths" that stirred the oppositionof the majority of Rabbis to Zionism. A few lone genius rabbis like Abraham Kook and Shlomo Goren, who supported the Zionist enterprise, are not really accepted by majority of Orthodoxy. Finally, it was David Ben Gurion, the secularist, who declared the State of Israel. Although he was externally secular,  his acceptance of the truth was expressed in his comment that we do not need the rabbinic laws and midrashim, we have the TeNaCh. This perhaps, was a sign that it was not the "oral law" that brought about our return to the Land, but the soul of the Tenach that even secularists still cling to.

Lessons for Machiavelli, from the Prince - Yehudah HaNasi II

Jerusalem Talmud – Sanhedrin 2.1

source: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IPFrMccNp0kC&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=talmud+yerushalmi+sanhedrin&source=bl&ots=gqT02xxunq&sig=NSA6PYYlW63fS2qsKPvJOVYe3Jg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EwyHU-IWxKDsBpPpgNgP&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=true

The above gemara on a mishnah, shows the reaction of Yehuda II, the Patriarch or Prince, and grandson of the editor of the Mishnah, Yehudah HaNasi, to comments made by Shimon ben Laqish (Resh Laqish).   Resh Laqish is teaching that even a ruler (such as Yehudah) can be punished by a Bet Din if he sins.  The editor of the Mishnah, who had claimed for himself the position of "Prince" of Israel, was allegedly of the Davidic line. However, there is no evidence that the Davidic line was known in Maccabean times, which preceded the Mishnah.  However, a new "Princehood" was instituted, and his grandson kept the same title.

This seems to be a) particularly violent behaviour on the part of the Yudah II, who had the inherited title of Prince (Patriarch).  Is that the norm for discussing the oral law and alleged traditions from "Sinai"? In other words, if these rabbis really believed in Oral Law,would they bring hired assassins to shoot the messenger, when the message threatens their political position of power and comfort?
It took the intervention of Yochanan, who was partner of Resh Laqish, to save him from serious harm.
 And b) this is remarkably reminiscent of Nico Machiavelli's teachings, although the inheritor of the title of "Prince" had over 1000 years head start on Machiavelli!


Here is a Yeshiva article justifying the writing of the Mishnah, which allegedly existed 500 years prior.
http://ohr.edu/explore_judaism/literary_corner/dawn_to_destiny/4695

The article suggests that there never really was an Oral law, since it had existed in previous mishmayot, which were written down.  This is a circular argument.