The Forgotten Sage

Maurice D. Harris

Description

Just after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., there lived a poor and ugly nail-maker who was also, for a time, the leading rabbi of his generation. His name was Joshua ben Hananiah, and he helped give us the Judaism we know--the complicated, word-filled tradition of debates, multiple viewpoints, and endless questions. Through his humanity, humility, and occasional audacity, Joshua helped set Judaism on its course towards becoming the decentralized, multi-opinionated, exile-surviving, other-religion-respecting, pragmatic-yet-altruistic, wounded-yet-hopeful religion that it is at its best. And yet, inside and outside the Jewish community, few people know about him.
This book wants to change that. In these pages, people of all faiths or backgrounds will find accessible and vivid translations of some of the most stunning stories in the Talmud and in Midrash. Rabbi Maurice Harris is a friendly guide through the texts and dramas of early rabbinic Judaism, providing general audiences with clear and compelling explanations of complex narratives, legal issues, and historical contexts. Venture inside this book and discover Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, one of the bravest and humblest heroes you'll ever meet in sacred literature.

Sujets

• Religion
• Jews
• Joshua ben Hananiah
• Rabbinic literature
• 1st century
• Theology
• Judaism
• History of religions
• History
• Genius
• Essence
• Talmud
• Nature
• Jérusalem

Informations

• Publié par: Wipf and Stock Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781498200776
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Forgotten Sage
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah and the Birth of Judaism as We Know It
Maurice D. Harris
Foreword by 
Leonard Gordon

The Forgotten Sage
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah and the Birth of Judaism as We Know It

Copyright © 2019 Maurice D. Harris. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8 th Ave., Suite 3 , Eugene, OR 97401 .

Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8 th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-0076-9
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8651-0
ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-0077-6
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Harris, Maurice D., author | Gordon, Leonard David, foreword writer
Title: The forgotten sage : Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah and the birth of Judaism as we know it / Maurice Harris, with a foreword by Leonard Gordon.
Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-0076-9 ( paperback ) | isbn 978-1-4982-8651-0 ( hardcover ) | isbn 978-1-4982-0077-6 ( ebook )
Subjects: LCSH: Joshua ben Hananiah— 1 st century. | Rabbinical literature | Jewish legends | Jews—History | Judaism—Essence, genius, nature. | Judaism—History—Talmudic period, 10–425.
Classification: BM502.3 H377 2019 ( paperback ) | BM502.3 ( ebook )
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 09/17/15

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973 , 1978 , 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
OJPS translation © 1917 Jewish Publication Society.
Table of Contents Title Page Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: Setting the Stage Chapter 2: The Rabbis Also Have a Resurrection Story Chapter 3: After the Holocaust Chapter 4: Clash of the Early Rabbinic Titans —Part I Chapter 5: Clash of the Early Rabbinic Titans —Part II Chapter 6: Boom! Chapter 7: Eliezer’s Gaze Burns Everything It Touches Chapter 8: Diplomacy, War, and Passing the Torch Chapter 9: Don’t Trust This Book—It Could Be Wrong Chapter 10: Why This Rabbi Matters Now Chapter 11: About Joshua Podro Bibliography
For Bob and Glenda Crabbe -
May their memories be a blessing.





Foreword
W e all know Abraham and Sarah and we all know Moses, Miriam, and Aaron, but few of us know the names and stories of the leaders who recreated Judaism after the Temple was destroyed by Rome in 70 C.E. Their task was monumental: a religion and a nation that had been focused on the Temple in Jerusalem and that had been led by hereditary priests and kings, would now need to reimagine itself. The physical center of Jewish life would now be in the verdant north of Israel, the Galilee, and not the rocky, often dry hills of Judea. As worship and learning replaced sacrifice, the religious center of the people’s lives would be the synagogue and the house of study. And the central symbol of the Jewish people would be the Torah scroll, God as manifest on earth through text, in place of the menorah, shofar, and firepan that were symbols of the Temple and its grandeur.
Rabbi Maurice Harris, a teacher and author with a distinctive capacity for rendering the complex accessible in his books on Moses and the book of Leviticus, now turns his attention to the central question of Jewish survival. He brings to the project his experience as a congregational leader and a thinker devoted to building vibrant Jewish communal institutions in the pluralistic American environment. Ultimately, The Forgotten Sage asks what resources does our past have as we try to reimagine Judaism today? Like the rabbis of the second century C.E., we are a community living in the aftermath of catastrophe. Within the living memory of some, our American Jewish community is a post-traumatic community living in relative comfort in a place removed from, and connected to, the place where just seventy years ago European Jewry was almost extinguished. Like our ancestors living in the Galilee after the Jewish center in Judea was destroyed, we know that an older way of life needs to be both recalled and reimagined. What will that work of memory and reconstruction look like? The work of the first generations of rabbis is a distant mirror that can inform our own conversations.
In order to give his story a narrative focus, Rabbi Harris looks at the traditions around Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah. Joshua was a figure who bridges two eras in the history of Judaism. A Levite whose family would have had vivid memory of the Temple worship, he became a leading sage in the era of rebuilding, someone who studied, we are told, with Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, the figure most often credited with saving the young rabbinic class as the Romans prepared to destroy the holy city.
The stories of the early rabbis are complex and their relationship to history remains subject to scholarly debate. Rabbi Harris’s goal is not to decide what actually happened, probably an impossible task. Instead, he gives us a portrait of how the rabbis imagine this fruitful and creative period in Jewish history. The sources he draws on were close enough to the events described to more or less accurately reflect the earliest layer of Jewish thought on the death and resurrection of Judaism and Jewish life. In this book, you will learn about the relationship between the early rabbis and the leadership of Rome, and the complex relationships among the rabbis themselves. The rabbis needed to not only figure out how to do God’s will in a radically new environment, they also needed to learn how to debate the Jewish future without destroying one another. Their commitment to compromise speaks directly to our day when those who argue about matters of religion and state often seem incapable of finding common ground.
When the Temple was destroyed it was not clear if Judaism and the Jewish people would survive. For hundreds of years small groups of rabbis, masters and their disciples, moved around the Galilee thinking and debating, preserving the past and building the institutions that would ensure the Jewish future. The success of their conversations is evidenced both in the dominance of rabbis, synagogues, and houses of study in the medieval and early modern eras, and in the way rabbinic Judaism continues to inform the outlines of Jewish life today. As our generation considers the rebirth of Judaism in the aftermath of the Shoah, I can think of no more important stories for our generation to consider and learn from than those gathered in this book.
Rabbi Leonard Gordon, D.Min.


Preface

“
M oses delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage, making free men out of slaves, giving them a new religious dispensation, eradicating the rebels, and keeping the remainder in the wilderness until they were strong and disciplined enough to invade and hold Canaan. David’s heroic adventures as a guerrilla leader, his eventual defeat of the Philistines, his restoration of Israelite independence, have equally glorified his name as a national deliverer. Ezra and Nehemiah won deserved praise for bringing back the remnant of Israel from Babylonian captivity and rebuilding the ruined walls of Jerusalem. . . . In desperate fighting against enormous odds, the Maccabee brothers prevented the Seleucids from Hellenizing Israel.
. . . Yet, if I were asked to name a national deliverer of Israel who performed the most difficult and thankless task of all, and showed the greatest faithfulness, I should unhesitatingly name Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, the poor Levite nail maker who judged Israel, saved her from complete demoralization in a most unhappy phase of her history, and conditioned her to survive even worse ordeals during the next eighteen centuries.” 1
—from Robert Graves’s foreword to Joshua Podro’s The Last Pharisee: The Life and Times of Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananyah—A First Century Idealist ( 1959 )



1 . Podro, The Last Pharisee , 7 .


Acknowledgments
I n the fall of 1999 , I took my first courses in Rabbinic Civilization and Talmud. I was in my second year of studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) just outside of Philadelphia, and I had so much to learn. It was my good luck that RRC had just hired Rabbi Leonard Gordon, D.Min., to teach the year-long required course, “Rabbinic Civilization.” I was equally fortunate to begin what would be multiple semesters of Talmud study with Rabbi Sarra Lev, Ph.D.
These classes quickly became the ones I looked forward to the most. Few teachers can tell a story, and then raise questions to mine and undermine that same story, with the clarity, humor, and precision of Rabbi Gordon. In Rabbi Lev’s class, I broke my head over and over again against the pivots, turns, bumps, and sudden twists of Talmud. My study partner and I would attempt to diagram the sugya (a distinct section of Talmud) that we were studying, only to end up with drawings of incomprehensibly nested flow charts that could have doubled as science-fiction engineering schematics. With focus, patience, support, and high expectations, Rabbi Lev helped me learn to love the workout that is Talmud study. I could not possibly have set out to write a book like this without the educational foundation I gai