During the Roman siege of Jerusalem (1st century CE) an old teacher, Yochanan ben Zakai, managed to slip away and with the permission of the invading army, established a Pharisaic academy at Yavneh, on the Mediterranean coast near Jaffa. At that time, the Jewish people were divided. On one side were the Sadducees, mostly priests, who recognized only the written Torah, especially the Temple service, the sacrifices, and the leadership of the Kohanim. A second group were the Pharisees, heirs to a broader tradition, who had expanded, interpreted, and applied the Written Torah in what they called the Oral Torah. Their followers were men skilled in the law and its interpretation. A third group were the Essenes, who also rejected the priestly hierarchy and lived in rural communes devoted to manual labor and strict religious discipline. A fourth group were the Zealots, revolutionaries who were close to both the Pharisees and the Essenes and who sought to free Israel from the Roman yoke. A fifth group were the Nazarenes, Jews who attended the Temple and observed Jewish laws, but who were followers of Jesus.

The war with Rome destroyed the Zealots, totally reduced the influence of the Sadducees, disintegrated the Essenes, and Christians ceased to be a sect within Judaism and became an external movement made up of non-Jews. The Pharisees, with their synagogues and houses of study, were the only ones who survived this hecatomb.

The merit of the Yavneh school was that it managed to demonstrate that Judaism did not depend for its existence on the Temple, now destroyed, nor on sacrifices, but on an inner religious life full of spirituality and good deeds. The teachers of Yavneh created a new way of practicing Judaism without sacrifices, without priests and without the Temple. They dedicated themselves to compiling the teachings of their predecessors, such as Hillel and Shammai. It is interesting to note, by the way, that they were more inclined to the more flexible and less literal style of Hillel’s disciples than to the rigidity of Shammai. The title of «Rabbi,» which means «my teacher,» began to be used to distinguish that wise man recognized by his colleagues. The title was conferred upon them with a certificate called Semijah, which gave them authority to teach and decide on legal matters.

At that time, the Sanhedrin, the highest assembly of the Jewish people, was made up of rabbis who came from the most diverse ways of life and who depended on a trade or occupation to generate their own income to be able to live. They owed their religious leadership to their expertise and wisdom in the interpretation of the Torah, which attracted followers who became their disciples. The heirs of the Pharisees led religion along the path of personal ethical responsibility and obedience to the commandments of the Torah. They were the founders of Rabbinic Judaism and laid the foundations for what we have today. And it all began in Yavneh.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: “The Jewish People” by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.