Blame, blame, blame

This post has been revised, and will be followed by another.  The title is also changed.  the blame is something that may be easy on paper, but we are not certain of the realities that prevailed 2000 years ago.  This provides a Sadducee polemeic against  our opponents, especially Ben Zakkai, although he was largely revered by his Pharisees colleagues. he is considered by many as the founder of modern Judaism, and thus has to be  respected, even if we disagree with him.

As we have seen in the previous post, Talmudic Whistleblower – Akavya ben Mehalelel the Rabbis installed fake "Kohanim" such as Shemayah and Avtalyon to administer counterfeit ceremonies.  The MIshnah has a difficult history when dealing with imposters and fake administrators.   The Sotah - bitter water ceremony had become ineffective, since the Pharisee installed cronies  were either non Jews or ritually impure and doubtful Priests.   Thus, one of the most contorversial leaders of the Pharisees, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai began to dismantle the specific Temple ceremonies that his band of imposters  could not effectively perform.   In the mishnah we see the following statement:

Sotah 9:9

When adulterers multiplied, the ceremony of the bitter water was discontinued, and it was Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai who discontinued it, as it is said [i.e., thereby fulfilling the prophecy,]: “I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, and your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, for they themselves [consort with lewd women...].” (Hosea 4:14)

The mishnah is doing 2 things. a) It is telling a story of how Judaism was reformed by the arch-Pharisee Ben_Zakkai.   b)  It is adding a moralising twist to the story, as if to justify this act and camouflage the onslaught of Zakkai onto the Temple and Judaism.   Ben Zakkai was involved in a war on the Priesthood, bringing the worst impurity into the Temple to disqualify the Priesthood, and install his own cronies.  Priests who protested ended up dead.  This will be the subject of a future post.

Ironically, elsewhere in the Talmud it makes the opposite claim to that made in the above mishnah:

" [Yoma 9B] teaches that the first two Temples were destroyed for very different sins: "The First Temple, why was it destroyed? Because there was idolatry, adultery and murder. But the Second Temple where they were involved in Torah, mitzvos {fulfillment of the commandments} and acts of kindness, why was it destroyed? Because of the 'sin'as chinam,' the baseless hatred, that existed between them."

The Mishnah in Sotah, therefore, is bringing the increase of adultery (and murder) to cover up the fact that the Pharisees had no ability to run the Temple, and started to abandon Jewish practice wholesale. A more appropriate verse in Hosea 4 would be this:

6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

The Hellenized religion of the Pharisees and its internal destruction of Judaism and the Temple may have been one factor in the spiritual  fall of Jerusalem, and the long bitter exile.