The following is
from the tractate Horayot, which is one of the most interesting Mishnayot/and
Talmud – since it deals with the fallibility of the Legal system, be they Kohanim or Rabbis. Some background on who the main protagonist
is. Simeon ben Gamliel II was the leader
of the post-Bar Kochba “Sanhedrin”, or actually a gathering of leading rabbis.
Because of his lineage, a descendant of Hillel, he is alleged to have been of
Davidic descent.
This should be taken
with several grains of salt, since:
a) there is scant record of who was the Davidic
line in the 2nd temple period
b) It could easily have been fairytale, to give
them a position of authority, whilst opposing the Maccabean Kings.
c) In any case, Hillel’s claim was to have had a
mother who was of Davidic descent, hence no actual Royalty would be passed down
to any of the Hillel line, and their so-called “Nesiut” or princehood is
therefore of little value.
Nevertheless, Simeon
II was a distinguished scholar, and was also a moderate, relaxing the excessive
rabbinic laws of his time, so as to lighten the burden on the people. Of
course, he was not a Sadducee, but this was a little step in the right direction.
His son, who was Yehuda HaNasi, and the redactor of the Mishna, is of pivotal
importance in the development of Rabbinic Judaism (and the consequent disasters
that befell upon the Jews).
Talmud Horayot 13b:
Our Rabbis taught:
When the Nasi enters, all the people
rise and do not resume their seats until he requests them to sit. When the
Ab-beth-din enters, one row rises on one
side15 and another row on the other [and
they remain standing] until he has sat down in his place. When the Hakam enters, every one [whom he passes] rises and
sits down [as soon as he passed] until the Sage has sat down in his place. Sons
of sages, and scholars may, if the public is in need of their services, tread
upon the heads of the people. If one [of
them] went out in his need to ease himself he may re-enter and sit down in his
place. Sons of a scholar whose father holds the office of Parnas may,
if they possess the capability of understanding [the discourses], enter and sit
down before their father with their backs to the people. When, however, they do
not possess the capability of understanding [the discourses] they enter and sit
down before their father with their faces towards the public. R. Eleazar son of
R. Zadok said: In a festive gathering
also they are treated as attachments [to their father]……….
R. Johanan said:
That instruction was issued in the days of R. Simeon b. Gamaliel [II],
when R. Simeon b. Gamaliel was the President, R. Meir the Hakam, and R. Nathan the Ab-beth-din. Whenever R. Simeon b. Gamaliel entered all
the people stood up for him; when R. Meir and R. Nathan entered all the people
stood up for them also. Said R. Simeon b. Gamaliel: Should there be no
distinction between my [office] and theirs? And so he issued that ordinance.
R. Meir and R.
Nathan were not present on that day. Coming on the following day and seeing
that the people did not rise for them as usual, they inquired as to what had
happened. On being told that R. Simeon
b. Gamaliel had issued that ordinance, R. Meir said to R. Nathan, 'I am the
Hinkam and you are the Ab-beth-din, let us retaliate. Now, how are we to proceed against him? — Let
us request him to discourse upon the
tractate of 'Ukzin with which he is unfamiliar,
and as he will be unable to discourse upon it we shall tell him: Who can express the mighty
acts of the Lord; make all His praise to he heard; for whom is it becoming to express the mighty
acts of the Lord? For him who can make all his praise to he heard. We shall
then depose him and I shall become Ab-beth-din and you the Nasi.'
R. Jacob b.
Korshai on hearing this conversation
said, 'The matter might, God forbid, lead to [the Nasi's] disgrace.' So
he went and sat down behind R. Simeon b. Gamaliel's study, expounding [the
tractate of 'Uksin], and repeating it again and again. He said, 'What could this mean? Did anything, God forbid, happen at the college!'
He concentrated his attention and familiarized himself with it.
On the following
day when they said to him, 'Will the Master come and discourse on 'Uksin', he
began and discoursed upon it. After he had finished he said to them, 'Had I not
familiarized myself with it, you would have disgraced me!' He gave the order
and they were removed from the college.
Thereupon they
wrote down scholastic difficulties on slips of paper which they threw into the
college That which he solved was disposed of and as to those which he did not solve they
wrote down the answers and threw them in. Said R. Jose to them: The Torah is without and we are within! Said
R. Simeon b. Gamaliel to them: We shall
re-admit them46 but impose upon them
this penalty, that no traditional statement shall be reported in their names.
[As a result] R. Meir was designated 'others', and R. Nathan 'some say'.
In their dreams
they received a message to go and pacify R. Simeon b. Gamaliel. R. Nathan went;
R. Meir did not, for he said: Dreams are of no consequence. When R. Nathan came, R. Simeon b. Gamaliel remarked to him: The
honorable position of your father has
indeed helped you to become Ab-beth-din; shall we therefore make you also Nasi?
Rabbi taught his son R. Simeon: Others say that if it had been an exchanged beast
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This interesting
piece of Talmud describes an attempted putsch by Rabbi Meir and Nathan, against
Simeon. It was due to pride and official
honours. Simeon is saved in the nick of
time, by doing some quick revision of certain learning he was not versed in,
and staves of the attack, thus securing his family’s control of the Sanhedrin,
and his son’s eventual inheritance of the title.
I am not here taking
sides in the in-fighting that went on, and sometimes cost lives. However, it is
important to note that there was in-fighting, and that the men who were
founders of the religion as commonly
practiced by Rabbinic Jews today, were driven by self interest, and ego as much
as anyone else. It is also interesting to note that had the
rebellion been successful, the religion could well have been quite different,
and it is not clear that the same Mishnah, or any would have been written down,
or what authority it would have taken.
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