Talmudic Whistleblower – Akavya ben Mehalelel

Addendum - at end of Article

An extremely unusual and non typical mishnah occurs in the obscure  Eduyot tractate, which  when I mentioned to several Ultra Orthodox rabbis, they seemed to be unaware of. On the other hand, the Modern Orthodox [intelligentsia] rabbis not only are aware of it, but they use this as their mascot and ideological source code.  But it has some very surprising and powerful lessons in understanding rabbinic system of authority, and below are the 2 mishna texts of interest.

Mishnah, Eduyoth 5:6

Akavya ben Mehalelel testified about four things. They said to him, Akavya, retract the four things you have said and we will make you the head of the court of Israel. He said to them, Better I be called a fool all my days, so long as I don't do wickedness for a single moment before the Omnipresent, so that they won't say, he retracted because [he wanted] power. He used to declare impure hair [from leprous skin], and yellow blood. And the sages declared it pure. He would permit the hair that had fallen out of a firstborn animal that had a blemish and had been put in a window, and they had afterward slaughtered it [and the hair should be consecrated like the animal], but the sages forbade [its use for non-sacred things]. He would say, One may not make a converted woman drink [the Sotah waters if she is accused of adultery], nor a freed maidservant. But the sages say, she is made to drink it. They said to him, There was the case of Karkamit, a freed maidservant in Jerusalem, who was made to drink by Shamayah and Avtalyon! He said to them, The ones who made her drink were like her[, converts! Shamayah and Avtalyon were not valid administrators!] They excommunicated him. He died during that excommunication, and the Court stoned his coffin. Said Rabbi Yehudah, God-forbid that Akavya was excommunicated! For the gates of the [Temple] courtyard were never locked for any man of Israel who had the wisdom and fear of sin like Akavya ben Mehalellel. So who did they excommunicate? It was Elazar ben Chanoch, who mocked the [laws of] purity of hands. And when he died, the court went and placed a rock on his coffin, teaching that anyone who was excommunicated and died in excommunication, they "stone" his coffin [i.e. they place a rock on it as a sign].

7: In the moments of his death he said to his son, My son, you should retract the four things that I used to say. [His son] said to him, And why didn't you retract [your statements]? He said to him, I heard [these things] from many people, and they [sages] heard [the opposite] from many people. I stood by what I heard, and they stood by what they heard. But [now], you [only] heard [these things] from a single person[, me], and [the opposite] from many people. It is better to leave aside the words of the single person, and to grab hold to the words of the many. [His son] said to him, Father, commend me to your colleagues [either referring to those on earth, or those in heaven]. He said to him, I cannot commend. He said to him, Perhaps you don't find in me worthiness? He said to him, No! Your actions will bring you close, or your actions will distance you.

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What takes place in mishnah 6 is  Akavyah, who was one of the greatest Rabbis of the Pharisees, is relating information he knew about 2 of his predecessors, Shamayah and Avtalyon. These 2 men were non Israelites who converted to Rabbinic Judaism (and presumably brought with them a considerable amount of Hellenist influence]. This was one of the 4 things that the other sages, who held majority power, asked him to retract. They offered him a bribe, namely the position of Head of the Beth Din, which he refused on moral grounds.

The 4^th dispute, on the surface, is about the administration of the bitter-water ceremony to non Jewish-born women, which Akavya says is not done. When the majority sages retort that they did administer this, he says it was done only as a piece of theatre, without the correct ingredients. For this statement (which in the next mishnah we see he had heard from a majority), the sages excommunicated him, and then stoned his coffin.  Although R’ Yehuda tries to deflect attention away from Akavya, this argument is not convincing.   In the next Mishnah, he tells his son not to follow his path, as he himself has been broken and does not wish his son to suffer the same excommunication.

What does this tell us about the legal and political structure of the Rabbis in the Mishnaic era? I believe this episode gives a counter-narrative to the traditional orthodox view on the oral law and its guardians.  First, we need to do a bit more detective work to uncover the activities of the other actors in this scenario. Shamayah and Avtalyon were non Jews who had for whatever reason become Pharisee converts, that is following the words of the rabbis.  One of the greatest academic scholars of the Mishnah is Professor Jacob Neusner, who has determined that the method of the Mishnah was largely derived from Stoic philosophy and physics. This deserves a separate post or essay in itself, but it helps to put things into perspective.  In the Talmud and mishnah, there is a large propensity of converts to the cause of Phariseeism, and in the 2^nd temple period, Hellenism was something that the Maccabeans fought, but the Pharisees imported. Indeed, Josephus tells us that in the wars between 2 sects, the Pharisees sought the help of Demetrius, of the Seleucid enemy which the Maccabees fought in the Hannukah story. In the Talmud, Yoma 71b, it tells of the pair, Shemayah and Avtalyon, who insulted and cursed the High Priest after the Yom Kippur service in the Temple.

Going back the Mishnah, we see that Shemayah and Avtalyon administered the bitter waters, which was believed to be seriously flawed by Akavya.  Num 5 gives the Laws of the bitter water ceremony, which was to be carried out by the Kohen, and the Kohen alone. As converts, the dynamic duo could not be Kohanim, since Kohanim are descended from Aaron. We now see the reason, or at least part of the hatred of Shemayah and Avtalyon towards the Kohen gadol.  In the late Hasmonean period, there was a power struggle with the Pharisees trying to wrest power from the legitimate administrators of the temple, the Kohanim, descended from Tzadok.  The Pharisees would terrorise the Kohanim, and those who resisted would usually end up dead. The rabbis installed their own people into the Temple, who were impure, and not even real Kohanim (or perhaps not even real Jews).  The Hellenist takeover of the temple led to its destruction, which I hope to further illustrate in future posts.

Back to the mishnah in question. That Shemayah and Avtalyon were violating Torah law is demonstrated by the  Mishnah itself. Akavyah may have been aware of this, but as a Pharisee, his objection was (at least on the surface) to the use of phoney potion being given to non qualifying women.  He paid a heavy price for standing up for what he perceived to be the truth.

Now, some conclusions about the reliability of the rabbinic system.

1)    The concept of “majority” is logically flawed, but it is politically expedient.

2)    Truth is not important, and if truth conflicts with political or egotistical interests, then the messenger should be bribed to conform to the interests of those in power.

3)    Being head of a Beth Din – in Mishnaic times – was not based on the moral or scholarly qualities of a Rabbi, but on his political malleability. Akavya was offered this job if he would suppress the truth.

4)    “Oral tradition” is used as a political mascot by the rabbis, and they claim to have reliable tradition all the way back to Moses. However, the Mishnah demonstrates that even a tradition of information going back 30-40 years, is not taken seriously, when it conflicts with political interests.  If a tradition of a historical matter of 1 or 2 generations is not to be relied upon, then logically the alleged tradition of over 1000 years, for which there is no evidence, is totally fallacious.

5)    Pharisees employ thuggery even amongst their own non conformists, very much like the Medieval church.

6)    Whilst the Modern Orthodox praise Akavya, for being incorruptible, this very claim proves that the majority of their predecessors, the Pharisees, were highly corrupt.

Conclusion

The administrators of the oral Law were Hellenized, and used whatever illegitimate means to suit their own political ends and hunger for power and dominance.  The honesty and reliability of the majority of their claims must be called into question, and on the rare occasion this was done internally, by someone such as Akavya,  he suffered immediate excommunication.  This violent power structure exists even to this day.

ADDENDUM

I wish to make the following points, since this is my own interpretation of matters.  No mishnah or talmudic argument has a single interpretation. Even within the Rabbinic world, there are perhaps hundreds of commentaries and ongoing interpretations, which question all the assumptions and draw new inferences.  And what I have proposed is just looking at some basic texts.   My arguments could well be challenged. One example could be that the law of majority is a here and now law, so whether yesterday there was a majority view,  today it could be reversed - which is actually stated further on in this MIshnah.

However, the point still stands that this system is not dealing with truth or reality, but the shifting sands of the personalities of the so-called Sanhedrin. No such system could have been employed by Moses, where nothing is real, and nothing is permanent, but subject to change.  Even the law of majority is a false one - the Torah says do not follow the majority to do evil.

A modern Rabbi, the late Mendel Lewittes, writes regarding this story that it is proof of the honesty and

incorruptibility of the Talmudic rabbis. He misses the point. The single person, Akavya is the exception to the rule. He was honest, and paid the ultimate price for it. The mishnah proves the opposite of Lewittes' assertions - that the realpolitik and the majority of the rabbinic class were totally corrupt, and acted not upon truth but upon political expediency.