Wrestling with Ben Zakkai

Some concluding thoughts about Ben Zakkai. See my preceding article, discussed today.

I concluded with a little bit of disagreement with the Stamma’s process and conclusion — that maybe 40 and 120 were not precisely 40 and 120, so it could have been Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. And regarding the conclusion, that it was him, maybe we should ignore the one random brayta; and Ben Zakkai can even be a descriptive name.

There were other aspects in the analysis up to that point that I had issues with. For instance, we have:

1. A Mishnah (with explicit brayta) that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai participated in this capital case.

2. A Mishnah that just says that the Sanhedrin moved from a location on the Temple Mount forty years before.

3. An Amora interpreting this to mean fines.

4. The Talmudic Narrator, perhaps Savoraic, reinterpreting the words of that Amora, so that the Sanhedrin didn’t stop ruling on fines; they stopped ruling on capital cases.

5. The Talmudic Narrator using that reinterpretation to attack the conclusions one would draw from the Tannaitic sources.

I would rather have attacked the reinterpretation of the Talmudic Narrator. He’s going against clear words of an Amora, and that rewording causes problems! And, in terms of the logic — even if nowadays courts are issuing fines, this could have been a self-imposed restriction or a restriction from the Roman government, for that era. In terms of other logic — how could they be prevented from issuing fines but not from judging capital cases — sometimes, decrees from tyrannical governments don’t make sense and work along the lines of a kal vachomer. In terms of maintaining law and order, dealing with murder and rape, or particular religious law like violating Shabbat, the Roman government might have been OK broadly with such Jewish court impositions. So too with straightforward monetary law. A stole money from B, so he should return it; the contract said X, so the court will impose X. But, acting imperiously and taking money from A and granting it to B, for something that was not straightforwardly owed — that might be interpreted as at odds with Roman law, or acting too much in control of everyone’s property.

There may be other sources, perhaps in Yerushalmi, that make the suspension of capital cases earlier clearer. But based on the sources in Yerushalmi, I don’t see it.

Further, we grappled with just this issue the other week, on Sanhedrin 37a.

וְהַאי בַּר נָחָשׁ הוּא? וְהָאָמַר רַב יוֹסֵף, וְכֵן תָּנֵי דְּבֵי חִזְקִיָּה: מִיּוֹם שֶׁחָרַב בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁבָּטְלָה סַנְהֶדְרִי, אַרְבַּע מִיתוֹת לֹא בָּטְלוּ. לֹא בָּטְלוּ? וְהָא בָּטְלוּ! אֶלָּא, דִּין אַרְבַּע מִיתוֹת לֹא בָּטְלוּ.

The Gemara questions this account: But was this murderer fit to die by being bitten by a snake? But doesn’t Rav Yosef say, and so the school of Ḥizkiyya also taught: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, although the Sanhedrin ceased to be extant, the four types of court-imposed capital punishment have not ceased. The Gemara asks: Have they really not ceased? But they have ceased, as court-imposed capital punishment is no longer given. Rather, the intention is that the halakha of the four types of court-imposed capital punishment has not ceased to be applicable.

This does not state that it was forty years before the Temple’s destruction that they ceased ruling in capital cases.

Tosafot ask some questions there. For instance, the story with Shimon ben Shetach who was able to impose death penalty via Divine assistance, via a snake, was while the Temple still stood. An obvious answer is that it is the same basic idea - just because the court cannot impose the penalty, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean that Hashem would not take care of it.

But also, this does not say 40 years before; it says after the Temple’s destruction. We might answer that there is no need in a brayta to be so wordy and precise. Close enough!

Tosafot write:

מיום שחרב בית המקדש - תימה דהוה מצי למימר דאף בזמן שבית המקדש קיים כי עובדא דשמעון בן שטח א"נ שלא בעדים והתראה כדאמר במכות (דף י:) כאשר יאמר משל הקדמוני מרשעים יצא רשע בב' בני אדם שהרגו אחד הרג בשוגג ואחד הרג במזיד הקב"ה מזמינן לפונדק וי"ל דנקט משחרב בית המקדש משום דאז בטלי דיני נפשות לגמרי וא"ת והא אכתי הוו מצי למינקט מ' שנה קודם חורבן הבית כדאמר בפרק היו בודקין (לקמן סנהדרין דף מא.) שגלתה סנהדרי וישבה לה בחנות ואמר שלא דנו דיני נפשות וי"ל מ"מ כשהיו רואים צורך שעה היו חוזרין ללשכת הגזית כי ההיא עובדא וכיוצא בו והא דפריך לקמן בפרק היו בודקין (שם) ור' יוחנן בן זכאי מי הוה בסנהדרי משום דמה שבדק בעוקצי תאנים בדין רוצח הוא והא דגלו משום דנפישי רוצחים הוו ומשום רציחה לא היו חוזרין וא"ת והא חזינא כמה כופרים בעיקר דמתים כדרכם וי"ל דזכות מילה תולה ושכר מצות שעשו משתלמין בעולם הזה כדכתיב (דברים ז׳:י׳) ומשלם לשונאיו ועובדא דריש הפועלים (ב"מ דף פג:) דאפקוה לגברא וזקפוה דהוא ובנו בעלו נערה המאורסה התם נמי זכות תולה לו שלא נענש בסקילה ונידון בקלה א"נ הוא ובנו לאו דוקא אלא בנו תחלה ואחר כך הוא דמיתתו בחנק וי"מ דנקט משחרב בית המקדש משום דבזמן בית המקדש בגדי כהונה היו מכפרין מיהו ה"מ כשעשו תשובה:

“And if you say that it should have stated 40 years before the Temple’s Destruction, as we say in perek Hayu Bodekin (later, in Sanhedrin 41a), that the Sanhedrin was exiled and sat in Chanut; and we said that this means that they did not judge capital cases. And there is to say that, even so, when they saw a (true) need, they returned to the Chamber of Hewn Stone. And Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who was in the Sanhedrin, based on that which he interrogated based on the stems of figs, was a murder case. And meanwhile, the reason they exiled was because there were so many murderers, and so because of murder, they would not have returned.”

This is a well reasoned and consistent answer that addresses all sorts of potential objections, such as what to do with Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, and why if they returned on occasion, we wouldn’t provide that as an answer in our gemara.

But one thing I recall from Dr. Zvi Arie Steinfeld was the idea that Tosafot ask great questions, which are strong and should be considered even absent the answers, which are harmonizations. What they notice “off” in a sugya is indeed a potential issue, and a good starting place for a someone studying academic Talmud.

So, this is another Tannaitic or Amoraic source that declares the capital case change from the precise point of the Churban.