Yohanan ben Zakkai

We're up to chapter 2, Mishnah 16.

Again, these are the five students of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai.

These are the great Jewish titans of the end of the first and beginning of the second century.

As we mentioned, this is a very critical juncture in Jewish history.

"Keshe nichnasu," Rabbi Rosen, "le kerem." When the Talmidie Chachamim of the Dor went to the Kerem, Kerem B- Kerem ...Yavne, which was after the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed.

And Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai was able to ask for three requests from Vespasian, right? Before Titus of Russia came.

[clears throat] One of the requests was to allow Yavne be-Chachma-- be-Chachma, I think the lesson is.

Leave Yavne and its Chachamim, don't destroy them.

The Talmud and other ancient Jewish writings also associate Nimrod with this rebellion.

Interpreters such as Philo and Yochanan Ben Zakkai, even in the first century, analyzed the expression, "a mighty hunter before the Lord," Gibbor zahid lifnei Yehovah, in a different way.

For them, the word before could be understood not as proximity, but as opposition, as if the text were suggesting that Nimrod did not merely live before God, but that he stood against him.

This reading completely changes the meaning because it transforms Nimrod from a simple hunter into a hunter of men, a leader who not only gathered peoples, but led them in a direction that may have been far from the divine will.

And yeah.

Okay, so when it comes to Noyach, Probably one of the most well-known debates about Noach must be the debate in Masech to Sanhedrin between Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish, and the debates also in Medrash Rabbah and in Zoya, so it's everywhere.

The two approaches of how to view Noach's accomplishment with his life the people around him.

It says he was a in his generation.

It took the faith of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla to build already in the first century the world's first ever system of universal compulsory education.

And it took the faith of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai to realize that Judaism could survive the loss of independence, land, and temple on the basis of an academy of scholars and a culture of scholarship.

In the modern age, even though many of Jewry's most distinguished minds either lost or abandoned their faith, nonetheless, that ancient reflex survived.

How else are we to understand the phenomenon that a tiny minority in Europe and the United States was able to produce so many shapers of the modern mind, each of them a pioneer in his or her own way? Einstein in physics, Durkheim in sociology, Lévi-Strauss in anthropology, Mahler and Schoenberg in music, and a whole string of innovative economists from David Ricardo to John von Neumann to Milton Friedman to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

There's a Gemara that Stifler points out in Meseches Brachos.

It says that Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai gave a bracha to his Talmidim as he was, you know, caught him on his deathbed.

He gives a bracha to Talmidim, my Talmidim, my students, I want to give you a blessing that the fear of God should be as important to you as the fear of flesh and blood.

That you should be as God-fearing as you are human-fearing.

But they're, you know, they make the ayin shelamayla kiluayna roa, as if God's eye doesn't see.

And he says, halavayit should be, the yiras Hashem should be equal to that of basavadam.

Now, we're talking about the students of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai.

Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai was the greatest of the great.

When the Talmidei Chachamim of the Dor went to the Kerem Keren B, B'Yavne, which was after the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed.

And Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai was able to ask for three requests from Vespasian, right, before Titus Haroshah came.

And one of the requests was to allow Yavne b'chachma, b'chachma, I think the lesson is.

Leave Yavne and its Chachamim, don't destroy them.

The Gemara says in Berakhot, says Rav Chachas, "V'yoakhim ben Zakai talmidim," they asked him before he passed.

They came in to visit him, and they said, "Before you go, Rebbe, give us a few last ideas, a few last guidance." And he said, amongst other things, "Ukhsheh Atem Mispalelim." No, what did he say? "De'u lifnei mi atem omdim." He didn't say, "Go get the ArtScroll.

Go get the Babylonian ArtScroll, understand the words better, or go understand the Radak and the Smak and the Pakak and everyone." No.

"De'u lifnei mi atem omdim." Just imagine yourself, and if it helps, I give you a heter to imagine a golden throne.