Pt2 Power, Pedagogy, and Internal Rabbinic Politics: The Deposition of Rabban Gamliel, the Appointment of R' Elazar ben Azarya, and Eventual Reconciliation (Berakhot 27b-28a)
This is the second and final part of a two-part series. Part 1 is here; the outline for the series can be found at Part 1.
Part 2: Reconciliation
Reconciliation - Rabban Gamliel visits R' Yehoshua, sees his poverty; R' Yehoshua’s rebuke
Rabban Gamliel visits R' Yehoshua.
Seeing his house, he’s shocked at his poverty.1
R' Yehoshua rebukes him: a leader who doesn’t know the suffering of Torah scholars is unfit.2
אמר רבן גמליאל:
הואיל והכי הוה,
איזיל ואפייסיה לרבי יהושע.
כי מטא לביתיה,
חזינהו לאשיתא דביתיה דמשחרן.
אמר ליה:
מכותלי ביתך
אתה ניכר שפחמי אתה.
אמר לו:
אוי לו לדור שאתה פרנסו!
שאי אתה יודע בצערן של תלמידי חכמים,
במה הם מתפרנסים
ובמה הם נזונים.
Rabban Gamliel said to himself:
Since this is the situation, that the people are following R' Yehoshua, apparently he was right.
Therefore, it would be appropriate for me to go and appease R' Yehoshua.
When he reached R' Yehoshua’s house,
he saw that the walls of his house were black.
Rabban Gamliel said to R' Yehoshua in wonderment:
From the walls of your house
it is apparent that you are a blacksmith, as until then he had no idea that R' Yehoshua was forced to engage in that arduous trade in order to make a living.
R' Yehoshua said to him:
Woe unto a generation that you are its leader!
as you are unaware of the difficulties of Torah scholars,
how they make a living
and how they feed themselves.
Rabban Gamliel begs R' Yehoshua for forgiveness, which is granted only for the sake of the honor of Rabban Gamliel’s father/ancestors (=Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel/House of the Nasi)
אמר לו:
נעניתי לך
מחול לי!
לא אשגח ביה
עשה בשביל כבוד אבא!
פייס.
Rabban Gamliel said to him:
I insulted you,
forgive me!
R' Yehoshua paid him no attention and did not forgive him.
He asked him again: Do it in deference to my father, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, who was one of the leaders of Israel at the time of the destruction of the Temple.
He was appeased.
R' Yehoshua sends a cryptic message to the Study Hall
After R' Yehoshua forgives Rabban Gamliel, the question arises: who will inform the rabbis? (The group is hesitant to undo the public removal of Rabban Gamliel and reinstate him.)
A launderer volunteers.3
R' Yehoshua sends a cryptic message to the beit midrash:4 “He who wears the uniform should [continue to] wear it, and the one who doesn’t wear the uniform should say to the one who does: remove yours so I may wear it.”
אמרו: מאן ניזיל ולימא להו לרבנן.
אמר להו ההוא כובס: אנא אזילנא.
שלח להו רבי יהושע לבי מדרשא:
מאן דלביש מדא —
ילבש מדא,
ומאן דלא לביש מדא --
יימר ליה למאן דלביש מדא:
שלח מדך, ואנא אלבשיה
Now that R' Yehoshua was no longer offended, it was only natural that Rabban Gamliel would be restored to his position.
They said: Who will go and inform the rabbis? Apparently, they were not eager to carry out the mission that would undo the previous actions and remove R' Elazar ben Azarya from his position as Nasi.
This launderer said to them: I will go.
R' Yehoshua sent to the rabbis to the study hall:
The one who wears the uniform --
will continue to wear the uniform, the original Nasi will remain in his position so that
the one who did not wear the uniform --
will not say to the one who wears the uniform:
remove your uniform and I will wear it.
R' Akiva urges that the doors of the Study Hall be locked so that Rabban Gamliel’s supporters cannot impose their will
The rabbis suspect the messenger represents Rabban Gamliel’s faction and ignore him.
R' Akiva urges them to lock the doors so Gamliel’s supporters cannot impose their will.
אמר להו רבי עקיבא לרבנן:
טרוקו גלי
דלא ליתו עבדי דרבן גמליאל
ולצערו לרבנן.
Apparently, the rabbis believed that this emissary was dispatched at the initiative of Rabban Gamliel and they ignored him.
R' Akiva said to the rabbis:
Lock the gates
so that Rabban Gamliel’s servants will not come
and disturb the rabbis.
R' Yehoshua makes another cryptic statement: “only someone from a lineage of those who purify via the red heifer ritual should perform purification”
Upon learning this, R' Yehoshua decides to go in person.
He delivers another cryptic allegory:5 only someone from a lineage of those who ritually purify should perform purification; not someone without such a background.6
אמר רבי יהושע: מוטב דאיקום ואיזיל אנא לגבייהו.
אתא טרף אבבא.
אמר להו:
מזה בן מזה --
יזה.
ושאינו לא מזה ולא בן מזה --
יאמר למזה בן מזה
מימיך --
מי מערה
ואפרך --
אפר מקלה.
When he heard what happened, R' Yehoshua said: It is best if I go to them.
He came and knocked on the door.
He said to them with a slight variation:
One who sprinkles pure water on those who are ritually impure, son of one who sprinkles water --
shall continue to sprinkle water.
And it is inappropriate that he who is neither one who sprinkles nor son of one who sprinkles
will say to one who sprinkles son of one who sprinkles:
Your water --
is cave water and not the running water required to purify one exposed to ritual impurity imparted by a corpse
and your ashes --
are burnt ashes and not the ashes of a red heifer.
R' Yehoshua affirms his change of heart
R' Akiva is surprised. He asks R' Yehoshua: “Have you been appeased?” and reminds R' Yehoshua that the rebellion was on his behalf.
R' Yehoshua affirms his change of heart and proposes they go together the next morning to Rabban Gamliel’s door to reinstate him. R' Akiva accepts this without protest.
אמר לו רבי עקיבא:
רבי יהושע!
נתפייסת?!
כלום עשינו אלא בשביל כבודך?!
למחר --
אני ואתה נשכים לפתחו.
R' Akiva said to him:
R' Yehoshua!
have you been appeased?!
Everything we did was to defend your honor. If you have forgiven him, none of us is opposed.
tomorrow --
you and I will go early to Rabban Gamliel’s doorway and offer to restore him to his position as Nasi.
Resolution and Compromise - Leadership shared
A new problem arises: what to do with R' Elazar ben Azarya?
He cannot be removed, since there’s a general rule that “we elevate in sanctity (קדש) and do not downgrade” (מעלין בקדש ואין מורידין).
Alternating weeks would provoke jealousy.
A compromise is reached: Rabban Gamliel will lecture 3 out of every 4 weeks; R' Elazar ben Azarya will teach once.7
The student who initiated the entire episode is identified as R' Shimon ben Yoḥai.
אמרי:
היכי נעביד?
נעבריה?
גמירי:
מעלין בקדש
ואין מורידין.
נדרוש
מר — חדא שבתא
ומר — חדא שבתא?
אתי לקנאויי.
אלא:
לדרוש רבן גמליאל -- תלתא שבתי
ורבי אלעזר בן עזריה -- חדא שבתא.
והיינו דאמר מר:
שבת של מי היתה?
של רבי אלעזר בן עזריה היתה.
ואותו תלמיד --
רבי שמעון בן יוחאי הוה.
The question arose what to do with R' Elazar ben Azarya?
They said:
What shall we do?
Remove him from his position?
That is inappropriate as we learned a halakha through tradition:
One elevates to a higher level of sanctity
and does not downgrade.
Therefore, one who was the Nasi of the Sanhedrin cannot be demoted.
Let lecture
one Sage — 1 week
and the other Sage — 1 week?
they will come to be jealous one of another, as they will be forced to appoint one as the acting head of the Sanhedrin.
Rather:
Rabban Gamliel — will lecture 3 weeks
and R' Elazar ben Azarya — will lecture as head of the yeshiva 1 week.
That arrangement was adopted and that is the explanation of the exchange in tractate Ḥagiga: Whose week was it?
It was the week of R' Elazar ben Azarya.
One final detail: That student who asked the original question that sparked this entire incident --
was R' Shimon ben Yoḥai.
Appendix - Ammonite Convert Case - Halakhic debate over convert's status (Berakhot 28a #4-8 = Mishnah Yadayim 4:4)
Berakhot.28a.4-8 = Mishnah_Yadayim.4.4
Can an Ammonite Convert marry into the Jewish community? Rabban Gamliel: no, R' Yehoshua: yes
Even Rabban Gamliel does not absent himself from study.8
Yehuda, an Ammonite convert, asks whether he may marry into the Jewish community.
Rabban Gamliel says no.
R' Yehoshua says yes.
ואף רבן גמליאל לא מנע עצמו מבית המדרש אפילו שעה אחת.
דתנן:
בו ביום
בא יהודה גר עמוני לפניהם בבית המדרש.
אמר להם: מה אני לבא בקהל?
אמר לו רבן גמליאל: אסור אתה לבא בקהל.
אמר לו רבי יהושע: מותר אתה לבא בקהל.
And even Rabban Gamliel did not avoid the study hall for even one moment, as he held no grudge against those who removed him from office and he participated in the halakhic discourse in the study hall as one of the rabbis.
As we learned in a Mishnah:
On that day,
Yehuda, the Ammonite convert, came before the students in the study hall
and he said to them: What is my legal status in terms of entering into the congregation of Israel, i.e., to marry a Jewish woman?
Rabban Gamliel said to him: You are forbidden to enter into the congregation.
R' Yehoshua said to him: You are permitted to enter into the congregation.
(Deuteronomy 23:4; Isaiah 10:13)
Rabban Gamliel cites Deuteronomy 23:4.
R' Yehoshua says yes—since Sennacherib’s policy of forced population transfer dissolved national identities (Isaiah 10:13).9
אמר לו רבן גמליאל:
והלא כבר נאמר ״לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה׳״?
אמר לו רבי יהושע:
וכי עמון ומואב במקומן הן יושבין?!
כבר עלה סנחריב מלך אשור
ובלבל את כל האומות,
שנאמר:
״ואסיר גבלות עמים
ועתודותיהם שושתי
ואוריד כביר יושבים״,
וכל דפריש —
מרובא פריש.
Rabban Gamliel said to R' Yehoshua:
Wasn’t it already stated: “An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of YHWH; even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the congregation of YHWH forever” (Deuteronomy 23:4)? How can you permit him to enter the congregation?
R' Yehoshua said to Rabban Gamliel:
Do Ammon and Moab reside in their place?!
Sennacherib already came
and, through his policy of population transfer, scrambled all the nations and settled other nations in place of Ammon.
Consequently, the current residents of Ammon and Moab are not ethnic Ammonites and Moabites, as it is stated in reference to Sennacherib:
“I have removed the bounds of the peoples,
and have robbed their treasures,
and have brought down as one mighty the inhabitants” (Isaiah 10:13).
And although it is conceivable that this particular convert is an ethnic Ammonite, nevertheless, there is no need for concern due to the halakhic principle: Anything that parts from a group
parts from the majority, and the assumption is that he is from the majority of nations whose members are permitted to enter the congregation.
Final Ruling: Ammonite Convert Permitted to Join the Community (Jeremiah 49:6; Amos 9:14)
Rabban Gamliel counters with Jeremiah 49:6 ("I will restore the Ammonites").
R' Yehoshua replies with Amos 9:14, prophesying the return of the Jewish exiles.10
The convert is permitted to join the community.
אמר לו רבן גמליאל:
והלא כבר נאמר:
״ואחרי כן אשיב את שבות בני עמון
נאם ה׳״,
וכבר שבו!
אמר לו רבי יהושע:
והלא כבר נאמר:
״ושבתי את שבות עמי ישראל״,
ועדיין לא שבו.
מיד --
התירוהו לבא בקהל.
Rabban Gamliel said to R' Yehoshua:
But wasn’t it already stated:
“But afterward I will bring back the captivity of the children of Ammon,
says YHWH” (Jeremiah 49:6)
and they have already returned to their land? Therefore, he is an ethnic Ammonite and he may not convert.
R' Yehoshua said to Rabban Gamliel:
That is no proof. Wasn’t it already stated in another prophecy:
“And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them” (Amos 9:14),
and they have not yet returned? In rendering the ruling, only proven facts may be taken into consideration.
immediately --
They permitted him to enter the congregation. This proves that Rabban Gamliel did not absent himself from the study hall that day and participated in the halakhic discourse.
מכותלי ביתך, אתה ניכר שפחמי אתה -
“From the walls of your house, it is apparent that you are a blacksmith
(פחמי - literally: “charcoaler, one who works with charcoal”)”
אוי לו לדור שאתה פרנסו!
שאי אתה יודע בצערן של תלמידי חכמים,
במה הם מתפרנסים
ובמה הם נזונים.
“Woe (אוי) to the generation that you are its leader (פרנסו)!
as you don’t know the pain (צערן - i.e. difficulties) of Torah scholars,
how they make a living (מתפרנסים)
and how they feed themselves (נזונים)”
ההוא כובס.
An unnamed launderer is a recurring trope in rabbinic stories. See especially in my piece here, in the appendix “Additional Talmudic Stories of Bat Kol Proclaiming One’s Destiny for Life in the World-to-Come“, section “The Launderer and the Attendees at the Funeral of R’ Yehuda HaNasi (Ketubot 103b)“:
ההוא יומא דאשכבתיה דרבי
נפקא בת קלא ואמרה:
כל דהוה באשכבתיה דרבי, מזומן הוא לחיי העולם הבא.
ההוא כובס כל יומא הוה אתי קמיה, ההוא יומא לא אתא.
כיון דשמע הכי, סליק לאיגרא, ונפל לארעא, ומית.
יצתה בת קול ואמרה:
אף ההוא כובס מזומן הוא לחיי העולם הבא.
On the day of the funeral of R’ Yehuda HaNasi,
a Divine Voice emerged and said:
Whoever was present at the funeral of R’ Yehuda HaNasi is destined for life in the World-to-Come.
There was a certain launderer (כובס) who would come before R’ Yehuda HaNasi every day. On that particular day, he did not come and was therefore not present at the funeral.
When he heard this, that R’ Yehuda HaNasi had died, he was so full of grief that he ascended to the roof and fell (i.e. jumped, to commit suicide) to the ground and died.
A Divine Voice emerged and said:
That launderer too is destined for life in the World-to-Come.
As an aside, “launderer” in the context of Talmudic literature technically specifically means a fuller—one who cleans wool, as a step in woollen clothmaking.
With the Aramaic word for “formal attire, uniform,” (מדא) as a recurring term.
On this word, see Jastrow (modernized):
מַדָּא
masculine, Aramaic
= (biblical Hebrew מַד; מדד)
the priest’s cloak.
Berachot 28a
see לְבַשׁ.
For the cognate Hebrew term, see Hebrew Wiktionary, my translation:
(Primarily in the plural) formal attire; a set of representative garments indicating the wearer's role and status.
This time with the Hebrew word for “[ritually] sprinkle” (מזה) as the recurring term.
On this word, see Hebrew Wiktionary, my translation:
Biblical usage: to sprinkle liquid onto a surface or object, usually as part of a ritual.
And see Hebrew Wikipedia, “דרכי היטהרות מטומאה“, section “הזאה“.
And see Wikipedia, “Water of lustration“:
The water of lustration or water of purification (Hebrew: מי נדה, romanized: mê niddāh) was the water created with the ashes of the red heifer, according to the instructions given by God to Moses and Aaron in the Book of Numbers.
The Hebrew Bible taught that any Israelite who touched a corpse, a Tumat HaMet (literally, "impurity of the dead"), was ritually unclean. The water was to be sprinkled on a person who had touched a corpse, on the third and seventh days after doing so, in order to make the person ritually clean again […]
The water was to be used as follows:
“An unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin, and running water shall be put on them in a vessel. A clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, on the persons who were there, or on the one who touched a bone, the slain, the dead, or a grave. The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, and bathe in water; and at evening he shall be clean.”
The water was used again in Numbers 31:23 for the purification on the metallic booty brought back by the Israelites following their victory over the Midianites.
The passage concludes with categories of invalid ingredients for the above-mentioned “lustration water” (the purification waters of the red heifer upon one who contracted impurity imparted by a corpse):
“cave water” — מי מערה - i.e. regular water, as opposed to the correct water from a flowing river/stream (מים חיים)
“ashes of burning” — אפר מקלה ; i.e. regular ashes (e.g. wood ashes leftover from the wood used as fuel in a cooking oven), as opposed to the correct ashes from the burning of a red heifer.
On the latter, see Jastrow (modernized), who translates it as “wood-ashes, vegetable ashes“:
מקלה - masculine - (קלה II) - roasting place
אפר מקלה - ashes from the roast, i.e. vegetable ashes, contrasted to אפר which includes any crumbled substance.
Taanit 2:1 - Ibid. 15b (referring to ונותנין אפר וכ׳, ibid.) - אפר מקלה הן מביאין - “they must bring wood-ashes (not dust, crushed bones etc.).”
Parah 9:7 - אפר כשר שנתערב באפר מקלה - “ashes fit for lustration (ashes of the red cow) which were mixed with wood-ashes.”
Tosefta ibid. 10 (11), 1 - הרי הן כא׳ מקלה - “they are as unfit for lustration as wood-ashes.”
Berakhot 28a
and elsewhere
see מזה II.
The phrase in our sugya is taken from Mishnah_Bekhorot.4.6:
הנוטל שכרו לדון —
דיניו בטלים.
להעיד —
עדותיו בטלין.
להזות
ולקדש —
מימיו —
מי מערה
ואפרו —
אפר מקלה.
In the case of one who takes his wages to judge cases —
his rulings are void.
In the case of one who takes wages to testify —
his testimonies are void.
With regard to one who takes wages to sprinkle (להזות) the purification waters of the red heifer upon one who contracted impurity imparted by a corpse,
and one who takes wages to sanctify (לקדש) those waters —
the halakhic status of his water —
is that of cave water,
and the status of his ashes —
is that of mere burnt ashes.
This arrangement preserves honor while avoiding institutional instability.
The Talmud thus explains the phrase found in a baraita quoted elsewhere in Chagigah.3a.15-16, where a baraita is cited giving an anecdote about early-/mid-2nd century CE tannaim:
תנו רבנן:
מעשה ב
רבי יוחנן בן ברוקה
ורבי אלעזר [בן] חסמא
שהלכו להקביל פני רבי יהושע בפקיעין.
אמר להם: מה חידוש היה בבית המדרש היום?
אמרו לו:
תלמידיך אנו
ומימיך אנו שותין.
§ The Sages taught:
There was an incident involving
R’ Yoḥanan ben Beroka
and R’ Elazar ben Ḥisma,
when they went to greet R’ Yehoshua in Peki’in (פקיעין)
R’ Yehoshua said to them: What novel (חידוש) idea was taught today in the study hall?
They said to him:
We are your students
and we drink from your water, i.e., all of our Torah knowledge comes from you, and therefore how can we tell you something you have not already learned?
אמר להם:
אף על פי כן,
אי אפשר לבית המדרש בלא חידוש.
שבת של מי היתה?
שבת של רבי אלעזר בן עזריה היתה.
ובמה היתה הגדה היום?
אמרו לו: בפרשת הקהל.
He said to them:
Even so,
there cannot be a study hall without a novelty.
He asked them: Whose week (שבת של מי) was it, i.e. who was the lecturer this week?
They said to him: It was R’ Elazar ben Azarya’s week.
He inquired: And on what subject was the lecture (הגדה - aggadah) today?
They said to him: He spoke about the portion of (פרשת - parashah) the mitzva of “Assembly” (הקהל - Hakhel)
On the town of Peki'in, see Wikipedia, “Peki'in”, section “Identification with ancient Peki'in“ (with slight stylistic adjustments):
A set of Jewish traditions is associated with a certain Peki'in, often appearing in writing under the names Baka, Paka and Peki'in, near Lod.
According to the Talmud, R’ Yehoshua ran a Beth Midrash, R’ Shimon and his son R’ Elazar ben Shimon, hid in a cave from the Romans for 13 years, and Shimon went on to teach at the city.
And see Hebrew Wikipedia, “פקיעין“, section “התקופה הרומית והביזנטית“.
As shown by the Mishnah section discussed over the next few sections.
For the previous Mishnah sections in that tractate, see my previous pieces:
בלבל את כל האומות -
[Sennacherib] scrambled all the nations
See Wikipedia, “Assyrian captivity“:
The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which tens of thousands of Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
One of many instances attesting Assyrian resettlement policy, this mass deportation of the Israelite nation began immediately after the Assyrian conquest of Israel, which was overseen by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V.
The later Assyrian kings Sargon II and Sennacherib also managed to subjugate the Israelites in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah following the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, but were unable to annex their territory outright.
The Assyrian captivity's victims are known as the Ten Lost Tribes, and Judah was left as the sole Israelite kingdom until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, which resulted in the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people.
Not all of Israel's populace was deported by the Assyrians; some of those who were not expelled from the former kingdom's territory eventually became known as the Samaritan people.
On the relevant Hebrew term for exile—galut—see my extended discussion in the intro to my piece “Chronology, Calculations, and Royal Reigns: The 70 Years of Babylonian Exile Between the First and Second Temples (Esther 1:2, Jeremiah 29:10, Daniel 9:2; Megillah 11b-12a)“, section “Note on the word “Exile” (Galut)“. There, I point out—and discuss—two meanings of the word:
“1) Forcible Relocation / Population Transfer / Expulsion”
“2) The Period of Living Outside of Israel, When There Was No Temple”
R' Yehoshua (or a gloss) adds the halachic rule (in Aramaic): “anything that separates (פריש - i.e. from a group/population), [it can be assumed that it] separates from the majority” —
On this halachic presumption, see Hebrew Wikipedia, “כל קבוע כמחצה על מחצה דמי“.
On halachic presumptions in general, see my recent piece.
Implying that such prophecies are not proof of actual return. Presumably, the implication is that the prophecy may not have happened yet, and will happen in the (messianic) future.
Good observation about the ההוא כובס trope. It is probably similar to the way "Baal Agala" is used in stories from Eastern Europe, ie, an amharetz, Joe Ballabos.
I would not use the word "deposition" as you do in the title. One can be "deposed", but the word "deposition" in the modern context has a completely different meaning.