Season 1: Episode 7 - Herod and the Two Faces of Kingship

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What do you think of it? We're in the same tale still. It's going on. Don't the greatest tales never end? No, they never end as tales, said Frodo. But the people in them come and go when their parts ended. Our part will end later, or sooner. I'm doing my part to bring this tale to you. This is The Jewish Story, and I'm Rav Mike Foyer. We're riding the waves of time, hoping to catch the present and take it into the future of which we dream. Episode 7 Harry, the Two Faces of Kingship Since Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream back there in the Babylonian exile we've been tracing the past of Malchut kingship as it left the hands of Israel and entered into the possession of the nations. Now Malchut can certainly be understood in its literal sense but if we abstract it just a little bit I think it will aid our understanding of our story.

Mahlchud, kingship, is the ability to hold the context in which the pieces come to right relationship. And in our story, it's going to be the ability to shape the socio-political context in which Israel will develop, in which our ongoing mission to maintain the connection between heaven and earth through the temple and the Torah will unfold. now we saw that Babylon Bavel, Babylon destroyed the first house and they took away that kingdom of flesh and blood which was meant somehow to live out the kingdom of God on earth and then out of the silver mists of the Persian period we saw the arms of Cyrus return Israel to their land supporting the rebuilding of the house but as a province of empire rather than as a kingdom and finally we met that bronze body of Greece.

And the advent of Greece brought an entirely new wrinkle to our story. As the Hasmians first wrested kingship away from the Greece, in what at first appeared to be a reversal of fortune, and perhaps even prophecy, only to discover that they themselves had become that which they fought, a Hellenistic kingdom whose pursuit of power brought them into direct conflict with the dictates of the Torah and the lives of those dedicated to living it. the state they built, however was strong enough to hold Judean society as it began to fragment and transform under the question of which vessel is the primary one holding our relationship with God land, Torah, or temple Herod's kingdom will be the extension of this path essentially finishing the process of becoming that which we reject by building a powerful Roman client state on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and becoming, in fact, a regional power under their ages.

And the state that he builds will be so strong that it was like welding the lid on a boiling pot of Judea. You know, you keep adding heat, and it turns from water to steam. And eventually, one of two things is going to happen. If you could super-strengthen the walls of the pot, you'll actually go through a phase change, become plasma, which, in a certain respect, we'll have to speak about the birth of the whole western concept of religion, which is a turning point in human consciousness, that indeed comes out of how strong this state is before it finally blows, because that's the other option. When you keep heating a pot, you weld on the lid, eventually you've got a bomb. Because the divisions and internal struggles will become so intense that when they finally erupt, they will shake the entire Roman Empire and birth Christianity into the world.

So, who was Herod? born in 74 before the common era to Antipater, the Idumean advisor of Hyrcanus the last of the Hasmonean rulers now let's recall Rome's first appearance in our story literally as Pompey and literarily in the figure of that pig that was hauled up the walls of Jerusalem by the defenders inside now Pompey, Roman representative that he was saw quickly that Hyrcanus was the weaker of the two brothers vying for control of Jerusalem in that civil war that destroyed the Hasmonean kingdom. And in turn, Antipater saw immediately the reality that would guide he and his son successfully through the challenges of the coming 70 years, that Rome was here to stay. In a certain sense, that will be the sum total of political wisdom that he brings to the table.

Rome is here to stay. and furthermore Pompey saw in him in Antipater a man who could be counted on to serve power without scruple and therefore they were a match made in heaven it's important to note that at this point in history Rome itself is undergoing its own upheaval soon after Pompey conquers the Hellenistic East he and Julius Caesar start to square off for supreme power in the empire, sorry republics not an empire yet and in 50 before the common era they indeed begin to fight. Now, Judea is intimately bound up with the transformation of a republic's empire and in particular, as Herod's kingdom emerges we're going to see the delicate position it holds. Pompey was far from loved in Judea for reasons that lie behind the scope of our discussion but Hyrcanus, nominally king, an antipater who was really in charge, had no choice but to support him.

He was, after all, the ruler of the Roman East and when Caesar crushed Pompey at Thessaly they found themselves in a particularly tight spot back the wrong horse now Caesar became distracted by Cleopatra while chasing Pompey in Egypt and was caught basically with his pants down by an armed uprising against him in Alexandria and this near disaster was the opportunity for Antipater to save the day because he arrived in the Nicotan with 1500 troops and incited the Jews of Alexandria, who are a significant portion of the population, as we've discussed, to rise in Caesar's defense. This not only redeemed him from his support for Caesar's chief enemy, but also he ended being appointed the first Roman procurator of Judea.

Well, those of you who are a little bit knowledgeable about Judean and Roman history may say to me, hey, wait a minute, the time of the Roman procurators is yet to come, but I'll tell you, this is what Josephus calls him. It's unclear if it's an official status, but since anyway the republic is rapidly becoming the personal possession of the powerful that's an academic distinction. For our purposes Antipater is now in charge in the eyes of Rome while Hyrcanus is high priest and nominally still ethnarch no longer king but rather a client king. So Antipater points his son Faisal, governor of the Jerusalem district and his son Herod, governor of the Galilee. Now we want to call at this point that the governor of Syria, Gavinas back in the year 57 before the common era on the heels of Pompey's conquest had broken Judea up into five different districts after stripping away most of the conquests that had expanded the Judean kingdom under the Hasmoneans so before we get into what exactly happens in the Galilee if we want to understand Herod we also have to remember the Adumians are the descendants of the forced converts from the time of that mighty Hasmonean king Yohanan-Herkinus.

And this inheritance of non-chosen membership in the chosen people is going to reduce within Herod a split identity. Is he king of the Judeans or a slave of the Hasmonean house? It will also cause his populace to look at him somewhat askance. Is he a legitimate Jewish king or a pagan Roman stooge? So, the year 47 before the common heir finds Herod governor of the Galilee. Now, the Galilee is legendarily intractable at this point. They don't really like to be ruled by anyone, and certainly not by someone they perceive as a foreigner. The Galilee also was conquered by the Hasmoneans, and forcibly curled, likely by Alexander Yanai. But at this point, they identify quite deeply with their national roots.

So Herod cuts his teeth in the politics of the day by clearing the region of a brigand named Hezekiah, who had been terrorized in the countryside. He captures and executes, in fact, the leaders of the band. Depending on how you tell the story, this was an act of public security, for which the people ought to be grateful, or it was the crushing of a rising tax revolt that threatened to turn to nationalist rebellion and cemented the people's perception of Herod as a Roman client. Either way, his brutal execution of the leaders, as well as his popularity with the Roman administration, brought him into direct contact with the Sanhedrin. That council of the Jews that we first spoke about back in the time of the Hasmoneans was now based in Jerusalem, sitting on the Temple Mount, and is a legitimate power unto itself.

And in particular, in conflict with the Sadducee aristocracy, who dominated it at this point. They were not only the landed interests of Judea, but they were also the amalgamation of the Hellenistic roots of the Sadducees and the Hasmonean beneficiaries who had helped create a Hellenistic state out of Judea. Josephus tells the story of a confrontation between Herod and the Sanhedrin which is deeply reminiscent in both theme and details of the conflict between Yanni and the Sanhedrin under Shimon ben Shethach, which we mentioned in the last episode. The problem was that Herod had usurped the most important power that this council had, that of life and death. So they, in turn, put pressure on Hyrcanus, Ethnarch, nominally in charge, who of course, in his weakness, folded, and he demanded that Herod come and stand trial before them.

But instead of presenting himself in black as a penitent, which was the custom, Herod appeared arrayed in purple, the color of royalty, and attended by a significant armed guard, I'm sure capable of meeting any contingency. In fact, he didn't offer any defense of his conduct, but rather he tendered a letter from Sextus Caesar. the governor of Syria, the young cousin of Julius Caesar, in which Hyrcanus himself was threatened with severe consequences if Herod was not cleared of all charges against him. Now at this point, there are deeply conflicting accounts of what happened. Either Herod was tried and acquitted, or Hyrcanus adjourned the proceedings and helped Herod slip quietly out of Jerusalem at night in order to avoid the confrontation.

but either way you look at it Herod found refuge with Sektus Caesar, that governor of the Syrian province up in Damascus and in his rage having been thwarted and accused he collected an army and prepared to advance on Jerusalem and sack it but he was dissuaded by the pleas of his father and brother from doing that Herod left this confrontation victorious and it's important to remember that because he was victorious largely because the Roman governor backed him, and the Hasmonean king, or ethnarch, was too weak to stop him. But it also left Herod with a very clear sense that he would never be accepted by the aristocracy and the Sanhedrin they dominated. And since, as we'll see, Herod doesn't aim to leave any competing power base in his kingdom, that doesn't bode well for the council.

Before we go on with the flow of time, I want to take a second and talk about taxes. because the issue of tax revolts is going to become increasingly pressing as we approach the imminent destruction. And aside from the role they place triggers for social unrest and revolution, there's always an existential aspect to taxes as well. Death and taxes, after all, are the two unavoidable realities of civilized life. Now, taking that case of the uprising in the galley, these tax revolts can be seen as subsistence farmers who are increasingly unwilling to give their lifeblood to a colonial power. The Persian occupation, the Greek occupation, the Roman occupation. Or they can be seen as stiff-necked lawless men who are simply unwilling to pay their dues to society.

I mean, hey, you've got to pay your taxes. It's important to remember that the Judeans, in addition to being legendarily stiff-necked, are also a long-time tax-paying people, arguably the longest that we know of. because from biblical times, from the time of the Judeans or the Jews or the Israelites, I should say more properly, wandering in the desert, they've been paying a half-shackle levy for the maintenance, first the construction and then maintenance of the temple. And if you recall, we said that one of the defining characteristics of the Hasmonean state, which Simon founded back in 142 before the Common Era, was its freedom from taxes and an ability to collect them instead of paying them to someone else.

And the Hasmoneans created a taxation system which combined the temple tax with the needs of their expanding state, which, as priests-kings, made perfect sense in the eyes of the people, despite the fact that, as we said, that this is the lifeblood of a subsistence farmer. Herod will inherit and build on this infrastructure, but he'll also lack the legitimacy of the Hasmonean kings in the eyes of most Judeans. Therefore, according to Josephus, he'll revert to mercenaries and secret police and increasing violence in order to exact the heavy taxes his military and building efforts are going to demand. But since the temple tax is part of this mix, I want to speak about something more than a simple sociopolitic reality of paying your dues.

now the half shekel annual tax used to maintain the temple to offer the sacrifices represents the collective contribution of the Jewish people to the altar which remember in their holy imagination is that which connects heaven and earth and is a primary vessel for the relationship with God and at this stage of history in fact it is a defining characteristic of what it is to be a Jew because it shows active allegiance to that temple as a vessel which holds the divine relationship. And furthermore, it's also a key element in the transformation from Judean to Jew, meaning from a turn whose roots are geographic, you're Judean because you're from Judea, to one which is a marker of religious identity.

No matter where you live, you could be a Jew. What do I mean? Josephus tells us very clearly that Babylonian Jewry collected the half-shackle tax, even though, of course, there was no Roman infrastructure to force them. Philo also speaks of the funds collected throughout Egypt. And one could imagine a Jew in the far-flung Roman province of Hispania, in modern-day coastal Spain, who may, in fact, have never set foot in Judea. He may not be so knowledgeable of what the Pharisees say to be the oral law, which later will become the defining characteristic of religious identity, and he doesn't even necessarily speak Hebrew. But every year, he sends a half-shackle, because he knows that he's part of the service of his God.

Therefore, the idea of being a Judean, of being a Jew for this person, will be defined by that half-shackle tax. And even after the destruction of the Second Temple, In the dissolution of any Judean kingdom whatsoever, the Jews will be forced to continue paying this temple tax, but now toward an idolatrous shrine to Jupiter, capital Linus. So back into the flow of the time, enough of taxes. In the year 44 before the Common Era, Julius Caesar consolidates absolute power in Rome after his struggles with Pompeii. But unfortunately, he doesn't really live to enjoy it. and his assassination in the same year leads to another triumvirate another three person rule and for our story it's important to note that Mark Anthony gets the rule of the east and of course Cleopatra apparently went with it so Herod and his brother Faisal are named as tetrarchs by Mark Anthony of the Judean kingdom tetrarch is kind of a sub prince and it seems that they were placed in this position in order to support the weak Hercules II and perhaps to prevent Herod from just outright seizing ultimate power.

In the year 40, the Parthians invade Judea. In fact, they invade the whole eastern side of the Roman Empire. That's right, it's a Persian comeback. Well, in truth, it's not a comeback, because they've been here for years. But it's important to remember that Judea lies on the eastern boundary of what is soon to be the Roman Empire, and abuts the rising Parthian Empire, the rebirth of Persian national consciousness. and therefore it will be a place of importance and intrigue throughout. So the Parthians actually back Antigonus, Hyrcanus' nephew, who is a Hasmonean nationalist, and they succeed in assisting him in seizing the throne from his uncle. Herod flees to Rome in order to plead with the Roman Senate to restore Hyrcanus II to power.

Now, this is a long, slow process, and it is unclear exactly what he says in the many audiences he has with the Senate and Mark Anthony and other powerful people. What is clear, however, is that in the year 37 he emerges as a close friend of Mark Anthony and is himself appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. He then gathers an army and it takes him three years of bloody conflict until in the year 34 before the Common Era Herod and his Roman troops finally capture Jerusalem and he sends off Antigonus for immediate execution by Mark Anthony it's at this point that Herod is truly king and in order to show his might and consolidate his power he begins to build it's at this point that he rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem and those of you who have seen modern day walls of Jerusalem and you have seen in particular the southeastern corner which is built around the Temple Mount have seen the awesome might of his construct.

Furthermore, he also builds the Antonia Fortress, named of course for his patron, Mark Anthony. This palace fortress, which lies to the northwest of the temple enclosure, in many ways symbolizes Herod's kingdom. First of all, in purpose, it was a reincarnation of the Akhra, the fortress military complex built by the Seleucids to dominate Jerusalem which the Hasmoneans so hated and eventually destroyed Except it was much bigger The Antonia will serve as a base of Roman power looking down on the Temple Mount for a hundred years to come And according to Josephus, it's also where Herod locked up the vestments of the high priest, those eight sacred clothes without which the temple service could not be complete.

He did this, Josephus says, because believing that while he had them in his custody the people would make no innovations against him meaning if he held the keys to spiritual power, he was secure in a physical sense. Herod then proceeds to marry Hyrcanus' daughter Miriam, to whom he'd actually been engaged for almost five years. He does this in order to enhance the legitimacy of his rules in the eyes of Jans, as well as to satisfy his own desire for beautiful women. It's important to note that despite the descent of the Hasmonean house, which we described in the last episode, they are still viewed, and in fact perhaps increasingly viewed as the brutality of Rome really moves in as the standard of a legitimate Jewish kingship and at this point in history all it will take is one person to claim to be a Hasmonean and two people to hear him and we'll have the beginnings of a revolt that doesn't bode well for the Hasmoneans as Herod will systematically hunt down and kill them, even to the point of destroying his own children well, just when things are actually starting to look a bit secure for Herod and he might be able to enjoy being king the upheavals in Rome nearly unseat him once again the triumvirate rule had run its course and in the year 31, Octavian and Mark Antony squared off for their final battle at Actium those of you who are familiar with Roman history know that Octavian in a classic military battle defeats Mark Antony who flees to Egypt and the story plays out as it does it's not our topic but what's important for us is that Herod like his father before him had backed the wrong horse but like his father before him he solves the problem first step he executes Hercanus his erstwhile master it's an unfortunate move but one which was wise in his own eyes because he was making sure that no one else could possibly have a legitimate claim on his throne It's furthermore a pattern of behavior that will mark Herod's reign, the summary execution of all suspected rivals, as I said, even including his own children, as he fears they're plotting against him.

Then, he sails to the island of Rhodes, where Octavian is celebrating his victory. And here, undertakes perhaps the greatest act of chutzpah in Jewish history. In a brilliant speech, Herod boasts of his loyalty to Mark Anthony, to Octavian's defeat in anime, and, to the shocked expressions of all around him, then promises the same loyalty to the new master of the Roman Empire. Octavian is impressed by the man's sheer audacity and confirms Herod's monarchy. Not only confirms it, but adds the coast of Judea and Samaria to his realm. And now Herod is unquestionably king of the Jews. But apparently not, because there is one more power base against which he'll need to move. he's taking care of the Sadducee and Aristocracy we didn't mention it, but they were crushed when Jerusalem fell to him and there are many opinions that say in the beginning the Pharisees actually took at least a quietest stance in non-resistance and perhaps even encouraged the defenders of Jerusalem to open the gates to Herod seeing in him a legitimate king but as time goes by Herod soon discovers the Pharisees don't love him either the Gebarim Baba Batra which you should look on 3b and 4a if you want to see the extent of the rabbinic story about Herod shows Herod asking the question who are they, he, beeping Herod said who teach from amongst your brethren you shall set up a king over you the emphasis in the Gebarim is on the word brethren from your brothers it's a quote from the Torah in the book of Davarim that talks about kings and the emphasis on a king in the Torah is that he should be one of you.

Here we hear those echoes of Herod's internal attention about his Idumean descent. Is he a legitimate Jewish king or a pagan stooge of the Roman Empire? So he says, who's even asking the question? Who would dare question my role as king in all the power says that he's king? It's only the tradition that would question it. So he answers his own question. It's the rabbis. Therefore, the Gemara says, he arose and killed all the rabbis, sparing only Baba Ben Buta that he might take counsel of him, because of course, the wise are still the wise, after all. And then, in a somewhat convoluted and grim story, he puts a crown of hedgehog bristles on Baba Ben Buta, pokes out his eyes, but eventually is convinced that he must do something to repair the damage he's done by destroying the rabbis, and so Baba Ben Buta tells him to go and rebuild the temple.

And in fact, after destroying the Sadducean aristocracy and cutting the knees out from under the Pharisee and religious aristocracy, Herod was indeed ready to consolidate. And how better to do that than build? The Roman historian, Pliny the Elder, actually calls Jerusalem, in the wake of Herod's construction, the most famous and beautiful city of the East. The Gemara itself in Sukkah says, he who has not seen Jerusalem in its beauty has not seen a beautiful great city in his whole life. And he who has not seen the building of the second temple has not seen a handsome building in his life. And in case you think they might be speaking about the Hasmonean temple, they ask, what's meant by this? By answers, it means the building of Herod.

Again, those two faces of Herod, this awful Herod who had destroyed the rabbis, who was a Roman stooge, and we'll see, we'll actually build idolatrous structures throughout the land of Israel, we're glorifying his temple? And the answer is yes, we are. Herod starts to rebuild the temple in 20 BC. Now, there was quite a bit of civil unrest in the approach to the construction because the Jews feared Herod would tear down the temple and simply not rebuild it. So in order to demonstrate his good faith, Herod actually amassed the materials for the new building before the old one was ever taken down. That must have been quite a visual commitment. And furthermore, the new temple was rebuilt as rapidly as possible, the functional portions of it being finished apparently in almost a year and a half, even though we know that work was in progress on the structure as a whole for almost 80 years, well beyond Herod's lifetime.

And it's important to remember, in terms of the power of the temple as a make-work project, is that the temple itself is forbidden for anyone but priests and Levites to enter, so Herod ended up employing a thousand of them as masons and carpenters to build the sacred precinct. But the question still arises, to whose glory exactly was this house really built? On the top of the gate of this new temple, Herod placed a golden eagle. That's right, the symbol of Roman power in the heart of the holy city, on top of the entrance to the sacred precinct, a symbol that will be increasingly resented by all of the pious, and in fact will lead to rebellion. at the end of his life. And furthermore, we know that Augustus, which is the name that Octavian was granted by the Senate when they declared him emperor, he paid the priests of the temple to sacrifice twice a day on behalf of himself, the Roman Senate, and the Roman people.

Again, a questionably pagan practice in the heart of sanctity. Nevertheless, the temple will stand until it's destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 of the Common Era as the central pilgrimage point of the Jewish people and indeed is a great glorification of the God of Israel. Herod undertook building throughout his whole kingdom in addition to the temple. He created the building over the cave of Machpelah, those who have been in Hevron. It's important to know actually that that building is the oldest building in the world which is still being used for the purpose it was originally constructed for. He also built the fortresses of Herodian and Mossad and Sebastia and I recommend that if you haven't seen them, it's worth it.

But Herod's crowning achievement really was his new port city of Caesarea. Of course, he built Caesarea in honor of Caesar, hence the name, and its construction lasted for nearly ten years. It was dedicated in approximately nine before the Common Era, built to rival Alexandria, not only to steal from it the land trade from Arabia, from where all the spice and perfume and incense were imported, but also to rival it in beauty, laid out in a Greek grid plan, market, aqueducts, vast villas, circus, and of course, pagan temples. In fact, a giant pagan temple which will dominate the harbor. But the harbor was really the great achievement of Hesoria. It's important to know that the coast of Judea lacks any natural deep water port.

A deep water port is where deep water actually abuts the land, so that you can dock a ship which has significant volume of carrying in order to offload it directly onto the land. Here in Judea, you would have to anchor your boat in deep water and use ships to ferry which is not only inefficient but in bad weather quite dangerous Herod used the most advanced engineering of his day to create wave structures and a pier constructed with hydraulic concrete that hardens underwater to make Caesarea into the first deep water port of the Judean coast. So not only was it a great glorification of his building ability and a symbol of his dedication to Caesar, it was also a link to the Roman world. A link, by the way, which moves in two directions.

Many people, when they see the ruins of the Colosseum at Caesarea, are of course reminded of the Colosseum at Rome, but it's important to note that the Colosseum at Rome won't be built for another hundred or at least eighty years, like it was the ruins of Jerusalem to fund it, meaning Herod's building will precede the great building of Rome. Now, even before it was completed, Caesarea became the civilian and military capital of the Judean province in the eyes of the Romans, and eventually would become the official residence of the Roman procurators when it becomes a prefecture in Six of the Common Era. And much later in a time that we'll discuss in coming episodes, after the second revolt of the Jews against Rome, which ends with the true destruction of the national home, Caesarea will become the center of early Christianity in the land of Israel.

So here we have the two faces of Herod. Herod the wicked, Herod the great, Herod the Jewish king who rebuilds the temple, Herod the pagan Roman stooge who builds the idolatrous city of Caesarea. Which one is he? So the Gemara in Megillah says a very simple thing. Caesarea and Jerusalem are rivals, it says. If one says to you that both are destroyed, don't believe him. If one says that both are flourishing, don't believe him. If he says that Qesariah is waste and Jerusalem is flourishing, or that Jerusalem is waste and Qesariah is flourishing, then you may believe him. Rav Nachman Bar Yitzchak learns this lesson from the following verse. And the one people shall be stronger than the other people. It's not just about cities, says Rav Nachman Bar Yitzchak.

It's about peoples. because we know, of course, that Jerusalem and Rome represent in the minds not only of Am Yisrael but of a good portion of Western civilization two poles of the possibility of human society two faces of kingship but it's critical to note that the Gemara does not say Rome and Jerusalem it says Qesariah and Jerusalem now, there's a couple of pieces that we have to add in order to understand this there is a long battle to come for Am Yisrael now in many ways that battle will be a classic battle of kings and swords and fire and destruction but we know really that that phase will end in the second century when we lose however there's a deeper and more powerful battle which is ongoing and that's the narrative battle the exegetic struggle to assert who's telling the right story about history and therefore who's actually going to make it to the future of which we dream.

And this struggle with the Greco-Roman culture will primarily take place within the context of Christianity. Therefore there's a particular association we have to understand. In the rabbinic mind, Aesop is Rome. How does that happen? Aesop is Edom. Edom is Rome. And Rome is Christianity. Now the first link, Esau is Edom, is explicit in the Torah. Even though Esau, who is the son of Yitzhak and the brother of Yaakov, is born in the land of Israel, his inheritance lies in Edom, in Edomia, as we've spoken about, that area that lies to the south and east of Jerusalem and Judea. The last piece, we can also understand the association that Rome is Christianity, because the rabbis lived through the period in which Christianity conquered the Roman Empire.

The question is, how do they make a link from Edom to Rome? Because they go from Esau to Edom. Edom to Rome, Rome to Christianity, thus making Esau the representative of Christianity. This matters because that proof text that Rav Nachman Bar Yitzchak brought to tell us that it's either Qesariah or Jerusalem. Don't believe it if someone tells you that they're both coexisting? that proof text is about the struggle between Esau and Yaakov in the womb. If you want to go look it up, it's Genesis 25-23. Meaning that there's a titanic struggle which begins back with Esau and Yaakov and is playing itself out in Quesaria in Jerusalem. So how do the rabbis make that link? Esau is a dome that the Torah does. Rome is Christianity.

We learn from history. But how do we know that a dome is Rome? There doesn't seem to be any smooth geographic route, or even a simple story of cultural continuity that we can tell, except if we remember the two faces of Herod. Herod the Edomian, Herod the Edom, is also Rome. We just said, is he the legitimate Jewish king, despite his Edomian descent, despite his entry into the chosen people in a non-chosen context of forced conversion? Or is he the Roman stooge? Not only the Roman stooge, but actually more Roman than the Romans themselves. Herod illuminates the two potential faces of the Jewish people. Are they, just like everybody else, only more so? More Catholic than the Pope at times? Or are they a nation that dwells alone?

Dedicated to their mission of maintaining the connection between Heaven and earth, even when it means swimming upstream against the entire current of human culture and history? The only answer to that question is to remember that Esau and Yaakov aren't just brothers. They're twins. They're two sides of the same face. And in this we'll see that the narrative battle, the struggle that Am Yisrael will continue to fight down to our very day about who's telling the right story in history, and therefore who's actually going to take us into the future of which we dream, that's an internal struggle. An internal identity struggle. Because the two faces of Herod, those two faces of kingship, are going to be the two faces of Am Yisrael itself.

Now, the madness and details and paranoia of Herod's latter years, killing his own children in ways that were so monstrous that it eventually alienated even his Roman patrons, they lie beyond our story but before we're too quick to simply dismiss Herod as wicked I think we need to appreciate the power of the state which he built it was a flawed vessel to be sure and filled with many problematic things but it was strong enough to hold the pieces of Judean society in its fragmented state And that's a discussion we're going to return to in the next episode, when we speak about what face of Jewish consciousness actually emerged out of the power of this holding vessel. How the Tenayim, the authors of the Mishnahh, and a rabbinic culture, which would actually birth Christianity itself into the world, were able to come to being within the context of the kingdom that he constructed.

and in this light I think it's important to remember that when the Rambam that masterful teacher of the 12th century tells the story of Hanukkah in the third chapter of the laws of Hanukkah in the first law in describing the story as we've discussed it up to now he ends with the following statement and they appointed a king from the priests and sovereignty returned to Israel for more than 200 years until the destruction of the second temple. This means that according to the Rambam, what we're celebrating every year when we light our Hanukkah candles is not just the passion of the Maccabees, who are willing to give everything for the sake of the law. It's not even just the complicated story of the Hasmoneans, who built a Jewish state of priest-kings more powerful than any we'd seen before.

It also includes Herod. Herod's kingdom was a vessel that could hold the pieces of society together long enough that something new something which would survive could emerge I want to thank all the people at Pardes Institute that's pardes.org.il they give me such an amazing platform to reach a broad swath of Am Yisrael I want to thank all the good folks at the Land of Israel Network for helping me get this story out there. I want to thank Suom Yaakov. I love it because it's my home. I want to thank all the individuals who gave their hard-earned money and support in order to make my dream happen. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story.