Season 1: Episode 9 -The Eve of Destruction

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A story is more than just names, dates, and places. It's a frame. It's a lens through which we know the world. And the stories we tell help us to know the world. And the way in which we know the world will in turn inform the stories that we tell. I'm Rav Mike Foyer, and this is The Jewish Story. We're telling a story of the past that can empower us in the present to take us to the future of which we dream. Episode 9 On the Eve of Destruction So here we are, perched on the edge of destruction. The coming shattering of the vessels is going to break the model of national covenantal relationship that we've built up until now and take with it the ideal that embodies the kingdom of God in a kingdom of flesh and blood, which was really a holdover from the first couple times.

it's going to move us finally into the full establishment of religion where the kingdom of God is now a state of consciousness in which every individual could dwell no matter where they find themselves. And the question that we face at this point of the story is really who will lead Israel through this transition? Because we take it for granted that when the sages taught us that God always ensures that the cure exists in the world before he brings the illness that that leadership must be out there. Now, Josephus told us about these four divisions of society, and we've been following them for the last few episodes. The priest and the nobility of the Sadducees, the ascetic world-rejecting Essenes, the fiery nationalist zealots, and the Pharisees.

But now they've been joined at this point by a new claimant to the title of true Israel, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Emerging, on one hand, out of Hellenistic Judaism, On the other hand, with a root in the Beit Midrash of Hila himself, they're carrying significant influence from the Essenes as well, but they'll ultimately offer a vision which is all their own. And it's first the temple burns. Then, over the course of the 60 years following, the remains of the Judean state are shattered. Only the Torah will be left standing as the sole vessel that can hold the next phase of the Jewish story. And as the fire grows under the National Historical Vessel in our episode, the struggle will focus on the text, and that struggle is coming to a boil.

Before we get to the primary focus of this episode, which is really that struggle in the text, I just want to note that the coming 100 years, basically from about the year 30 until 135, will hold not one, not two, but three revolts against Rome. We'll detail each. But for now, it's important to understand that these upheavals come squarely in the mix of the Pax Romana, that new world order brutally established, but eventually gratefully accepted by a Mediterranean world which was exhausted by centuries, if not eons, of war. Only the Jews will prove continually hostile to its attractions, something that is going to have consequences for many centuries to come as Greco-Roman culture becomes Christian European culture, and the mark left by a hundred years of upheaval will not fade quickly.

But for now, suffice it to say that the reason Israel refuses to accept the New World Order is rooted in our belief that the truth lies in the revelation that we've inherited and its embodiment in the text of the Torah, and not in the events of the world that we call history. Remember Daniel. This is a story about a young boy, far from home, scared and alone, who has a dream. In fact, it's Nebuchadnezzar's dream. And Daniel's interpretation was that the world of kings and their wars is an idol, which masks the divine kingdom. And the task of the wise is to see behind the mask. Now, in a certain way, you could compare the process that we're going to lay out over the next few episodes to setting a pot of water on the stove.

You know, you put a pot of water on the stove, you crank up the heat, certain point's going to come to a boil, might boil over. What happens if you weld the lid on? Well then, eventually one would say it's going to explode if you keep adding heat. But imagine if you could super secure that vessel. You could make it so strong that no matter how much heat you added, it wouldn't blow. Well then, you get the birth of something wholly new. In physics, we call it plasma. And in the coming contest, we're going to call it religion. It's going to be both midrash and allegory, and they'll combine into religion. Eventually, of course, though, the vessel will not hold. And that plasma will be unleashed in a nuclear explosion that is going to rock the Roman Empire.

Okay, onwards into the contest. Because the battle over text is indeed that. It's a contest. And it's not essentially about who's holding the authoritative version, although that will come up, or even about whose reading is most correct, though we'll spend a lot of energy on that. In truth, this battle in the text is going to be about negotiating the relationship between word and meaning, and how one knows that they're reading the right path of divine intention in the text. Now by reading the right path, what I mean is, who has the reading which makes them the subject of the divine drama unfolding in the text, and not its object? Ultimately, it will be the Pharisees, and their inheritors, the sages, the rabbis, whose reading will birth a new path of divine consciousness for Am Yisrael out of the ashes of the temple.

and they will aim not just to survive in exile or even to thrive, which they will do. Their path will be a transformation of exile a transformation into a crucible for the perfection of Israel in order that when the opportunity for redemption comes we will be capable of realizing it. And in particular we will be able to trace the power of constant creative engagement of the text to hold Am Yisrael together in the face of the waves of great disruption to come over the next millennia. Remember, since the time of Ezra and the returnees, way back when, it's been the vessels of land and temple and Torah together that have held the national drama together. And within these vessels, the battle was over exclusivity, who was actually part of the people.

We trace this from the geographic in the first temple period to the genealogic in the time of transition and ultimately to the ideological with the birth of conversion and religion. So there's exclusivity. And entirety, who owns the story? Who gets to say what this is all about? And now, with the breaking of the temple and the land on the horizon, the twin tools of Mishnahh and Midrash will serve to tell the story within the text and to embody it in the world. Now, we're going to explore the full evolution of these two elements over the coming episodes, but for now, a working definition. Mishnahh is the embodiment in law of the belief that God cares about every action. And what we call the halachic project, the extension of the law into every realm of life, is itself made up of two elements.

First of all, the simple willingness to ask God's will in every possible situation. Because even though when I teach Jewish law, oftentimes my students will say to me, does God really care about this particular item, Rabbi, that you just taught me? And yet, after a reasonable consideration of their question, I'll always ask them to reverse it, which is, is there anything that God doesn't care about? So the halachic project begins from there, a willingness to ask what God's will is in every possible situation. Combined with this is the prophetic audacity to believe that the tools of human experience, meaning tradition and engagement of present reality, and the tools of human intellect, that being logic and textual analysis, can actually divine God's will in a way which is revelatory.

Now we identified the roots of this process with the Pharisees and saw one of its chief early fruits in the life of Hillel and the seven principles by which the Torah can be understood and interpreted, exegesis. And so, for now, that will be Mishnahh. Midrash, which is really going to be the focus of our story today, is the embodiment of the belief that we're partners with God in authoring the story of creation. God, of course, maintains primary creative control, but nevertheless, when we couple this assertion of partnership with an honest engagement of the world as it actually is, rather than trying to see it as it ought to be, as we want it to be, it's going to demand a rather heavy editorial hand on our part.

In many ways, people who are familiar with the notion of post-biblical theology are experiencing Midrash in its most raw. How do I, in my belief that I'm a partner with God in telling the world of the story, deal with events that seem to contradict the main plot line? Midrash is the attempt to fuse faith with imagination in the effort to tell a story which can stitch all of reality into one whole. And by the way, in this sense, it's critical to recall that the oneness of God, which Am Yisrael is always striving to realize, is not a matter of physics, unified field theory, n-dimensional strings, matter, all that stuff, nor is a matter of metaphysics, the unity of being, even the great chain of being and the platonic ideals which will make their way into Jewish thought before long.

It's a moral unity. It's a unity which teaches us that there is only one will, which flows through all creation. Physics, metaphysics, and human behavior are all expressions of one will. And that's the unity of God, which will drive the Midrashic process. So, in their quest to establish Mishnahh and Midrash, law and story, as the templates for the future of Am Yisrael, as the vessels which will hold us in the exile and wherever we go, the sages will also forge another new path, and that's to demand from anyone who wants to be an active part of the story a level of creativity and individual engagement that we have not yet seen. But in return, they will offer a degree of agency and a depth of intimacy with God in the world, which will indicate that exile was not an accidental failure, but rather a failing forward into a greater revelation of the divine will within the world.

And thus, the Torah, now seen through the lenses of Mishnahh and Midrash, is not just a story about what was. Even a revealed epic saga, it becomes a lived reality. In this sense, if you'll excuse a little bit of philosophical language, the Torah is a narrative epistemology. It's a story which creates its readers by teaching them a way of knowing the world in which every action, no matter how seemingly insignificant, embodies essential elements of the story itself and therefore moves it forward. Our actions, our very being, our very way of knowing the world are shaped by the story, and they in turn assist the story in unfolding into the world. And in the coming exile, Israel will find the most intimate presence in the most far-flung places.

But we're not there yet. First, we have to talk about how it all falls apart, and the heat is rising. Now our last marker in the flow of time was the end of Hillel life which was approximately 10 of the Common era We are now in the time of the rule of the Roman procurators direct rule of Judea by Rome from 6 of the common era when Herod's son dies, until the destruction of the temple in 70 and well beyond. Now, the prefect actually sat in Caesarea and not in Jerusalem. And let's remember the sense of existential opposition that exists between the two that we mentioned in a few episodes. ago, right? If Quesariah is up, Jerusalem is down. If Jerusalem is up, Quesariah is down. You can't have both, taught the rabbis.

The rule of the procurators, by the way, also began with a census for tax purposes. Sounds reasonable, I'm sure, but it sparked the fires of nationalist opposition to Rome to a degree which would ultimately contribute to the whole province going up in flames. Because Judea was small in the Iams of Rome, and insignificant in terms of her treasury, but nevertheless, as a border province with the Parthian Empire to the east, sitting directly on the land and coastal routes to Egypt, which is the breadbasket of the empire, control of the Judean province was non-negotiable in Rome's eyes, despite its financial insignificance. Now, the best known prefect from this period is, of course, Pontius Pilate, who, according to most historians, was prefect from the years 26 through 36 of the Common era, during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.

It's during this time that the sages began to read the writing on the wall about the imminent destruction of the temple. As the Gemara and Yomer teaches us, 40 years before the destruction, the doors of the temple began to open on their own. It was a part of the morning ceremony that the Levites would come and open the doors of the temple, and to their great consternation, they began to show up in the morning, and the doors were wide open. They all started yelling at each other, hey, who left the doors open? No, no, no. it turns out when Rabbi Yochanan, that great student of Hillel that we mentioned at the end of the last episode, came to check out the scene, he realized that the doors of the temple had been opening on their own.

And he stood up and rebuked them, saying that he knew that the destruction had already been prophesied by Zechariah, the great prophet of the beginning of the second temple period, but did they have to lay themselves bare? And of course, this is also the time period of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth as well. And now perhaps it's time to give my big caveat. I am not a scholar of Christianity, not from the academic or the traditional perspective. I don't pretend to be. I'm also a believer that people who hold by revealed religions shouldn't throw stones, especially not at each other. Meaning that though I'm aware of the significant scholarly debate around the historicity of Jesus himself, as well as around the chronology of his life offered by the Christian scriptures, I'm going to use the traditional narrative of his life in my story.

This is both because of my caveat, and because this type of debate is actually not the main focus of the Jewish story. The traditional narrative, by the way, is also the primary perspective of Christians themselves through time. And that is what will shape the relationship between Christians and Jews, which definitely will be a significant part of our story going forward. That being said, there is one reminder I have to make. If you recall, we spoke back in the early first century before the Common Era, in the Hasmonean period, Yanni, the Hasmonean king, persecuted the sages. It seems to be a fairly popular pastime. And Shimon ben Shethach, who was the brother of his wife, Shlom Tzion, went into hiding, and his compatriot, Yehoshua ben Prachiah, fled to Alexandria.

It was in the story of his return from Alexandria that the sages introduced the story of the Jesus of Nazareth, placing him as a student of Yehoshua ben Prachiah. Now this event is not important to me because of the chronological challenge to the traditional narrative. Because frankly, in my experience, the words of the sages are always about issues of essential meaning. And they almost always trump a pedantic literalism, especially in matters of chronology. But it's important rather because it locates the original context for the spiritual awakening of Jesus of Nazareth and his break with the rabbis in Alexandria, the capital of Hellenistic Judaism. As we've seen, two important links already exist between early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.

The first was the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, which will become the base text of early Christianity, second only to the Gospels. In fact, the early Christians would come to see the Septuagint as a divinely inspired translation, and therefore actually more accurate than the original. The logic behind how one could consider a translation to be more accurate than the original is a critical one and will be explored shortly. The second link between Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism were the God-fearers, the people whom, according to many scholars, had congregated around the life of the Torah and the synagogue without undertaking full conversion, particularly circumcision. they may have indeed served as the primary growth medium for the early followers of Jesus to spread his mission.

What the Christians still lacked as they were coming to formation the actual apostles, the people who learned from Jesus himself mostly within the schools of the Pharisees what they lacked was a way in which to uncouple the text of the Torah from Am Yisrael in order to free the universal truths of the story as they saw it from its embodiment in an actual historical people. If they could undermine the claim of exclusivity and open the doors to the world at large and entirety and take ownership over the story, then they could claim ownership over the truth and therefore a new covenant of their own. And the foundation for uncoupling the meaning of the text from its embodied context, which will be the great battleground which precedes the burning of the temple came out of Alexandria as well and that through the thought of Philo of Alexandria also known as Philo-Judaus Philo lived in Alexandria hence his name he was born in 20 before the common era and died in approximately 50 of the common era and in many ways he can be considered the crown jewel of Hellenistic Judaism wealthy, cultured, educated in both Torah and Greek wisdom likely from a priestly family.

It's said of Phila that he was a Jew in religion but a Greek in philosophy, a dualistic approach to life which will repeat itself down through the ages. And it's said because he held that the truth of the Torah was the supreme revelation of God to humanity and therefore binding in all of its words, including the commandments. However, he also held that the truths of Greek philosophy were the supreme product of human wisdom. And therefore, Philo dedicated the lion's share of his considerable literary output to reconciling the two, the revealed truths of the Torah within the narrative as it's presented, and the abstract truths of philosophy. And his primary vehicle was allegory. Allegory, in this context, is the explanation of a scriptural passage based on the supposition that its author intended something other than what is literally expressed.

An example. In his commentary on the first 17 chapters of Genesis, Philo states very clearly that the history of mankind, as it is related in Genesis, is in reality nothing other than a system of psychology and ethic. Meaning the stories that we read in Breshit in Genesis, their primary meaning is to be found in understanding the psychology and ethical lessons which they teach. Now, this method of reading is itself rooted in Greek philosophy. It's in the distinction made by Plato between the sensible world, which we perceive through our bodily senses, and the intelligible world, which he considered to be far more important. The realm, not only important, but real, the realm of ideas, which we grasp intellectually in Platonic thought is actually more real than the world of the senses.

In allegorical reading, the sensory corresponds to the immediate literal or historical meaning of the text, the parochial aspects of the text, and the intellectual reading is its deeper symbolic or spiritual intention, meaning that everything which is local, parochial, and ultimately dubbed carnal in the eyes of early Christianity lies in the literal world. And those who use it to literally shape their behavior are secondary to those to whom the universal spiritual truth offers understanding. And therefore, those who are able to penetrate past the veil of the world, past the veil of the words, will live its truth. Allegorization of the text surely predated Philo. and will grow in many directions after he's gone.

But it's critical to emphasize that Pharoah was a committed Jew and more or less a follower of the Pharisaic understanding of law and commandments. Therefore, his innovation was a struggle within the text within Am Yisrael. And he sensed the danger of allegory. How by relegating the literal meaning of the text to a second-class status, one could quickly come to strip the commandments of any binding force. Therefore, he issued his famous warning in the section of his work titled On the Migration of Avraham. He says that the meaning, the literal meaning, is the body of the Bible. But the allegorical one is its soul. Both must be kept in due consideration, says Philo. The body-soul split in thought and culture is on the horizon and will stick around for quite some time.

But for now, it's worth noting that just by dividing between them, in text as well as in human experience, Philo has taken a big step toward what the Christian scriptures will later teach in 2 Corinthians. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Thankfully for the flow of our story, Philo was not just a philosopher. He was also a community leader. And it's that aspect of his life that will tie him back into time. As I said earlier, the direct rule of Judea by Rome lasted from the end of the Herodian dynasty through the destruction and beyond. Now, to say that there were no more Herodian kings in the time of the procreators is not entirely true. Because the last 30 years or so before the destruction, the Herodian house actually made a comeback and served as client rulers of their Roman masters once again.

And that comeback happened in the person of Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great and his Hasmonean wife Miriam. Agrippa was actually sent to Rome at a very early age by his grandfather, something which, by the way, likely saved his life as Herod began to eat his young in his final pre-death madness. There, he was educated with another future madman, I mean future emperor, Caligula. And when Caligula ascended to the imperial throne, he rewarded his lifelong friend and supporter, Agrippa, and quite wealthy supporter, by the way, with portions of the kingdom of his grandfather, Herod, though not at first including Judea. It's important too to know that Agrippa's dedication to Judaism and to the Jewish people is well recorded by Josephus, Philo, and the Gemara.

And perhaps that's why, when on his way from Rome to Eretz Israel, in order to take possession of his new kingdom, Agrippa stopped in Alexandria and the considerable Jewish population turned out in crowds to cheer him. This enthusiastic response in turn triggered anti-Jewish riots throughout Alexander against the, you guessed it, king of the Jews. Philo in fact in his work on the embassy to Gaius Gaius being Caligula name as well he wrote a report of what is about to follow He reports that Phlacus, the Roman governor of Alexandria, actually permitted a mob to erect statues of the emperor Caius Caligula in all the synagogues of Alexandria. Philo then says that Phlacus was destroying the synagogues themselves and not leaving even their names.

Then he issued a notice which called on all the Jews as foreigners and aliens to leave and allowed anyone who was inclined to exterminate them to treat them as prisoners of war. In response, the mobs, say Philo, drove the Jews entirely out of four quarters of the city of Alexandria, cramming them into a very small portion of one. And the populace overran their desolate houses, plundering and dividing the spoils amongst them as if they were at war. this pattern of conflict between the Jews and the Greek-speaking citizens of various cities in the Mediterranean will repeat itself in the next hundred years so remember it, we're going to come back to it in the wake of this destruction Philo was sent to the head of an embassy to try and secure the ancient rights of the Jews of Alexandria rights which, by the way, Josephus claims go all the way back to Alexander himself but before Philo could even do so Caligula who was never one known for his stability, decided that he should be worshipped as a god.

Which may sound bizarre, but is not exactly as crazy as you might think in the context. Nevertheless, in this case, his declaration included the intention of placing a statue of himself not in the synagogues of Alexandria, but in the temple at Jerusalem. And now, Philo's plea became something entirely different. And this is from the embassy to Gaius. We only ask one thing, instead of and to counterbalance all of what else I would ask, namely that no innovations may take place in respect of our temple, that it may be kept such as we have received it from our fathers and our forefathers. And if we cannot prevail with you in this, then we offer up ourselves for destruction, that we may not live to behold a calamity more terrible and grievous than death.

you have to hear not only the pathos in philo's plea but the existential role that the temple played in the consciousness of am israel as a people remember philo was from alexandria he was embedded in hellenistic judaism it was a rich culture which in its daily interactions had nothing to do with the temple nevertheless his perception of himself as a member of am israel was bound up intrinsically with the temple such that its defilement was worse than his own destruction. At this point, at the risk of his own life, Agrippa intervened with his childhood friend the emperor and convinced him that to put a statue of himself in the temple would be a move so disastrous that it would actually threaten the stability of the entire eastern provinces.

Agrippa saved the day, and Caligula was actually assassinated for reasons unrelated soon after. And according to Josephus, Agrippa played a critical role in the negotiations between the Senate and the Praetorian Guard who had killed Caligula, which led to the rise of the Emperor Claudius soon afterwards. And Claudius, gracious emperor that he was, rewarded Agrippa with a kingdom which almost matched the extent of his grandfather, Herod the Great, and of course had Jerusalem as its capital. Agrippa himself died in 1944 and his son Agrippa II ruled as a client of Rome he remained king of the Jews until the destruction of Jerusalem in 1970 during his reign a religious revolution truly occurs it will begin small but before long it's going to shake Am Yisrael and the Roman Empire to its core because though Jesus of Nazareth was crucified sometime around 34 of the common era For our story, it's Paul who's the key, because he's the one who will universalize and spiritualize the text in order to take his mission out of the realm of an internal Jewish struggle and into the larger Gentile world.

So born Saul of Tarsus, with the Latin name Paul or Paulus, around approximately five of the common era. Paul was, by his own account, a Jew and a Pharisee and a student of the school of Rabban Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel, who held the title of Nasi at this point in history. In fact, there are some scholars who believe he may be the student of Rabban Gamaliel, whom the Gemara in Shabbat refers to as a difficult student that disparaged the teachings of his master, specifically Rabban Gamaliel's teaching that in the time to come, it is this world which will achieve a repaired and higher state. Paul also describes himself as so zealous for his Pharisaic upbringing that he was engaged to persecute the sectarian followers of Jesus who had sprung up amongst the Pharisees following his ministry and execution.

The transformative event of Paul's life, which really takes him into the crux role in our story, occurred on the road to Damascus. normally dated somewhere between 31 and 36 of the Common Era. He recounts that Jesus of Nazareth appeared to them there in the Spirit and appointed him as an apostle. And after being struck blind for three days and then healed, he got up and got to work. Now, this is the period of what's known as apostolic Christianity, when the nascent church really consisted mostly of Jews from within the Pharisaic school and elsewhere as well, led by those who were actually Jesus' disciples in his lifetime. And in one particular event, Paul became their opponent. In order to understand why, we have to see what happened to him.

Because the conclusion which Paul drew from his experience on the road to Damascus was going to rocket him into leadership of this new movement. And that conclusion was that the birth of divine savior as a human being and a Jew, his death and then resurrection as a spiritual and universal being, was meant to be the model for the transcendent of the physical and particular Torah that had been given to the Jews alone. It's transcendence by a spiritual and universal expression, which would become available to all. because Paul had become illuminated by a vision that humanity be one under the sign of the one God. And what may strike us as odd, but it's actually perfectly consistent, is that this universalism was predicated on a dualism of the flesh and the spirit because the body is always particular.

You're a Jew or a Greek, man or a woman, but the spirit, he said, is universal. It's also predicated on the dualism of the Torah itself. It's composed of outer material signs and words, and inner spiritual significance. And this is the origin of the Pauline teaching I mentioned before, that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. It also shows Paul as a partner in the culture of Hellenistic Judaism that we mentioned in the person of Philo. In fact, there are some scholars who say that it's Paul and not Philo who is actually the most famous product of Hellenistic Judaism. But either way, Paul will employ the powerful tool of allegory, but refuse to maintain the stance of philo that both body and soul, text and meaning, are required.

Because he sought to universalize the text by cutting its anchor in time, place, and people, and uncoupling it from its embodiment within the historical evolution of the people of Israel. ultimately in Paul's reading the Torah will become a metaphor that signifies and illuminates the gospel of Jesus and not the life of the Jewish people because he believes that the Jews are reading the text rather than listening to God and for that them the word has become a veil over the meaning and since according to him the nature of the gospel is such that its truth lies in the spirit and not in the text, then what you need is a community of faithful that will become its embodiment and not historic Israel.

By the way, this is how the early Christians come to adopt the Septuagint as their text. Again, as we said, not despite it being a translation, but because of it. Because in the end of the day, a translation strips away the physical manifestation of the text and exposes the understanding of the translator. now Paul opposed in particular the law because the law of course literally insists on the priority of action in flesh embodied action in the world is what the commandments are about and the ultimate symbol of the law is of course circumcision and therefore the most powerful expression of Paul's vision of a covenant that emerges through the allegorization of the text through the separation of the letter and the spirit and the elevation of the latter to the sole source of truth is found in 2nd Romans.

In the midst of the debate, I'll just pull you out two lines here. It says, A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. A sign of the flesh, says Paul, doesn't make you a Jew. No, he continues, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, And circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the spirit and not by the written code. This is the circumcision of the heart, which Paul used to free the text from its embodiment. Now, scholars debate whether Paul himself saw the church as completely replacing historic Israel, and whether he completely rejected within his own life the confines of the law. But by the time Justin Martyr calls Christianity spiritual Israel in the 2nd century, the game is up.

Because the notion of supersession, also known as replacement theology, the idea that the Church has come along to replace historic Israel, will have far-reaching consequences for our story. But for now, let's consider the other side of the battle boiling within the text. because what is the difference between Paul and the Pharisees? Anyone who spent any time with Midrash might have sensed that Midrash and allegory have quite a bit in common. And it's true. The tools of Midrash and Mishnahh, of narrative and law, will also free the text from structural literalism to a significant degree. And in doing so, will open up fields of exploration and understanding, which will ensure its relevance for many ages to come.

in order for Midrash to emerge as a means of telling the story of the Torah in a way in which we can move the world forward on an evolutionary arc toward redemption the masters of the Midrash in the Beit Midrash would have to avoid the following problems number one freezing in the forms of the past because if you're not growing you're dead or you're never alive to begin with and in our story we can see that the Sadducees fall prey to this They can't offer a future to Am Yisrael because they're dependent on the existence of the physical temple as the priestly nobility. They also tend toward literalism in their reading of the text and therefore adapt only slowly, if at all, to changing circumstance.

And, as we said, they reject the eternality of the individual soul. So once the national vessel dissolves, the individual will have no promise to look forward to. The response to the Midrash is when you constantly re you ever new and ever alive So the Bali Midrash the masters of the Midrash will also have to avoid rejecting the world as completely broken Because the early Christians will imbibe a healthy dose of world rejection from the Essenes and will also refute the binding nature of the commandments, which are meant to engage the physical world as the primary playing field of the divine drama. As we said, they're going to see the literal text as a veil which hides the truth. The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

They'll free the spirit of the text through radical allegorization, but only by killing its body. And they, of course, will see the temple as having been replaced by the final sacrifice of their savior, and perhaps as having only ever been a metaphor meant to prefigure his role. The Midrash, on the other hand, recognizes that the body is the vessel through which the soul finds voice and takes meaningful action in the world. They will also have to avoid destroying the world, because the zealots' unbending adherence to the spirit of the Maccabees, that powerful notion that absolute sovereignty over particular geography is essential to Israel's mission to serve God, that unbending adherence will culminate in their destroying Jerusalem through their desire to possess it.

and in this sense they have to avoid apocalyptic thinking as well apocalyptic thinking is not going to go away quickly but in this context it's being convinced that the only way that the mess of the world is going to be worked out is through a miraculous remaking of the world it's its own type of world projection you know the Essenes turned their back on the temple not because they thought that the temple was not an important critical central part of the Jewish task but because they believed it was too broken to be fixed. Now, a full discussion of the Essians, I decided, is outside of the scope of our story. But it's important to note in our battle over the text that they add an important element.

That's called pesher. There are pesher documents written on a number of the prophets. And pesher is a means of interpretation which will apply the text to the author's own historical context, which is assumed to be the end of days. I want you to stick that in the back of your pocket and wait for another episode or two until we come to Rebbe Akiva. So here are all the things that the Midrash had to avoid, but what exactly does the Midrash do? The last point was that you don't need to destroy the world in order to remake it. So what does the Midrash do? Number one, the Midrash recognizes that the body is the vessel which allows the soul relationship to God. Circumcision of the flesh is what allows for circumcision of the heart.

Remember, the image of circumcising the heart comes from the profits. It's not a foreign import, but it is a product which emerges at a stage of relationship. In text, the sages will teach that we never uncouple ourselves from the simple meaning of the text. Now, in the postmodern era, to even speak about simple meaning might make you cringe. Nevertheless, without falling into the trap of literalism, this means that text is a point of contact and an anchor in the search for a truth, which ultimately meaning will reside in the reader's encounter with the text. Meaning can never completely leave the text. That's the idea of Ein Mikri Yotze Midei Pshuto, because it is, then you become self-referential, and then, of course, you fall into relativism in your thought.

You know, along with Midrash, of course, we've mentioned Mishnahh, which is going to get a greater place in our discussion post-destruction. But it is critical note that the place in which the Jews continue to listen to the voice of God instead of simply reading the words of the text is actually in the extension of the oral law. We're seeking God's will in every situation, not as an adherence to the communication of the past, but as an ongoing revelation. And the text will also be a story into which Am Yisrael will progressively move deeper and deeper as the outer realities of the world become increasingly difficult to navigate and reconcile with our understanding of the divine will. So we have the body, and we have text, and finally we have temple.

The perspective of Midrash on the temple is that it's broken, as is the world. But that's okay, because our mission is tikkun olam, fixing the world. The very brokenness of the world is what allows us to be partners in creation. And the temple will not be rebuilt until it becomes the physical manifestation of Am Yisrael's ability to connect a united world to heaven. The connection of heaven and earth can't simply happen through specific geography. It has to be a universal phenomenon. In that sense, you should absorb Rav Kook's perspective, who points out that in the first temple period, The klal, the general vessel of Am Yisrael, was on a very high level. Kings, prophets, the temple. And yet, the individuals were worshipping idols and killing each other in the streets.

The prat was weak. In the second temple period, where we're at its height right now, the individuals were giants. We have Hillel and the masters of the Midrash. And yet, we'll see before too long that the social fabric could not hold them together. The temple was destroyed for causeless hatred. The Kalal, the general, was lacking. The third temple will be an expression of the ultimate redemptive power to reconcile Kral. The third temple will be an expression of the ultimate redemptive power to reconcile Prat and Kal, to reconcile the particular and the universal. You know, this process orientation to healing a broken world through law and story, through Mishnahh and Midrash is what will drive the decisions of the sages straight through the destruction.

So, for the last few minutes, let's get back to our boiling pot. In the year 50 of the Common Era, the Council of Jerusalem occurs, or also known as the Apostolic Council, held, of course, in Jerusalem, and accounts of it are found in Acts of the Apostles in chapter 15. The core issue was a dispute between those who believed that in order to enter the new church coalescing around the apostles. One must observe the Torah. And on the other side was Paul who believed in no such thing. And it was in this moment as his opponents cited the defect of his authority that he came into his own. Because they said that their apostleship say Peter and James was from, actually directly from Jesus. Whereas Paul's was through a vision.

He said no. Yours was from Jesus in the flesh. It's a human teaching of a human teacher. My revelation, said Paul, was that of a Savior in the Spirit. And Paul carried the day, resulting in what's known as the apostolic decree, which in a sense made the seven Noahide laws the requirement for entrance into what was rapidly becoming a new covenant. By stripping away the law, by circumcising the heart, by separating the text from the Spirit, it, Paul threw the doors wide to a whole new mission. But it's critical not to lose sight, because this boiling battle within the text is still, on a historical scale, small potatoes, because the phase change is yet to come. Our slide toward the destruction begins really in 64, when the last of the Roman governors of Judea was appointed, Gassius Floris.

At the beginning of his rule, the Emperor Nero declared that the seat of the prefecture, the city of Caesarea, was now officially a Greek city. And in this, the path of the Jewish day and state that had been set out by the Hasmoneans has now been completely reversed. The Jews are foreigners in their own land. And almost immediately, the Greeks sought to assert their primacy by publicly sacrificing to idols directly outside the main synagogue of Caesarea. Violent riots resulted. And this, in turn, made tax collection in Judea, which was difficult at the best of times, all but impossible. Now, the prefect, Floris, decided to use the time-tested tactic of Roman rule. You goad the local population into open opposition.

You use legions to restore order. You enrich yourself from the plunder. rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. The people's appeal to the Syrian legate about Floris' brutality fell on completely deaf ears. As far as they were concerned, the Judeans were stiff-necked people and deserved what was happening to them. And so King Agrippa II traveled to Rome to seek the emperor's direct intervention. But when he left the city, the situation spiraled out of control. According to Josephus, the people resolved never to pay taxes to Rome again. They broke into the offices of those who held documents of debt and burned them. The priests in the temple ceased the daily sacrifice in honor of Caesar, which itself was tantamount to a declaration of rebellion.

And even when Agrippa returned, he was unable to stem the tide of war, despite significant ailments of the Pharisaic and priestly leadership who joined him in begging the people to stop before it was too late. The city quickly split into warring factions. The upper city fought the lower city, the lower city fought the upper city, both of them fought the Temple Mount. The Roman troops garrisoned in the Antonia Fortress and at Herod's Palace were enticed to come out with promises of safe passage, but were slaughtered when they let down their guard. In response to the growing unrest, Cessus Gallus, the Legate of Syria, assembled the Syrian Legion, the 12th Fulminata, reinforced with units from the 4th and the 6th, plus auxilias and adds a total of 30,000 soldiers in order to restore order in his neighboring province.

And the legions began to slaughter their way southward. Eventually, they surround Jerusalem, but in spite of initial gains, for some reason they withdrew back toward the coast. Here, in the valley of Beit Huron, they were ambushed and defeated by the Judeans, a result which shocked the entire Roman Empire's leadership. In fact, the defeat of the Romans at Beit Huron is considered to be one of the worst military defeats of the Roman Empire by a rebel province throughout its history. Some 6,000 Roman troops were killed, many more wounded. The 12th Legion actually lost its standard as Gallus abandoned his troops and fled quickly to Syria. Now the die is cast. The cautious wisdom shared by Hillel and Herod that Rome was here to stay and the promise that those who recognize it will be those who survive has been tossed aside.

The spirit of the Maccabees is blowing through the land, driven to almost hurricane force by apocalyptic reading of texts and the desperate hope that salvation is at hand. But unfortunately, this wind is the wind that will carry the ships of Vespasian and his legions from Rome to Judea. And it will fan the flames of fratricide, which will cause Jerusalem to burn before the Romans ever breach her walls. I just want to thank a few people. You know, there are 27 individuals who keep this material free, available, and syndicated out there. If you want to join them in supporting the project, you can go to Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com, and find my page, Mike Forer, and you can support the project there. I'd like to also thank the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, that's P-A-R-D-E-S dot org dot I-L, for giving me a platform for teaching such a broad swath of the Jewish people.

I want to thank all the folks at the Land of Israel Network for getting the word out beyond any reach I could ever dream of for myself. And I want to thank you for listening. Keep telling the story. I'm Rav Mike Boyer, and this is The Jewish Story.