Avos 1:6: Rabbis give up temporal power

Shemaia said: "Love work (melacha). Hate authority (rabbonus). Don't get friendly with the government (reshus)." 

Shemaia's teaching continued to develop the ideal of the withdrawal of religious men from any association with temporal power and authority. He defines the role of a religious leader as working for the benefit of the community but exercising no coercive power over it, his authority being based solely on persuasion and ties of love and devotion.

A per our general approach, the stories that are preserved about the early Tannaim must be analyzed on the assumption that they represent a pattern and that they were preserved in order to teach as something and not haphazardly. We do not know much about Shemaia but this is what we do know.

The following story is told in Sanhedrin 19 about Shimon ben Shetach but in Josephus it is about Shemaiah. When Herod had extra- judicially put the leader of the national party to death, King Hyrcanus permitted the Sanhedrin to cite him before the tribunal. Herod appeared, in royal purple robes, whereupon the members of the Sanhedrin lost courage. Only Shemaiah was brave enough to say: "He who is summoned here on a capital charge appears like one who would order us to execution straightway if we should pronounce him guilty. Yet I can blame him less than you and the king, since ye permit such a travesty of justice. Know then that he before whom ye now tremble will some day deliver you to the executioner." This tradition is found in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews xiv. 9, sect. 4.

Neither was Shemaia's relationship with the Priestly aristocracy any smoother. Once, when the high priest was being escorted home the close of Yom Kippur, Yoma 71b relates that the crowd deserted him upon the approach of Abtalion and Shamaia and followed them. When the two Sages came to greet the High Priest he told them: Let tthe descendents of Gentiles go in peace. (Rashi explains that the High Priest spoke in tones of contempt because they were of the descendants of Sennacherib, as mentioned in Gittin). The Gemara continues: "They said to him, 'the descendents of the other peoples greet you in peace, because they are like Aaron who loved peace and pursued peace. But you who are the descendant of Aaron do not behave like Aaron."

(This episode reminds us of the teaching that Shamaiah was a gilgul of prophet Zechariah, who was killed by the Yoash, of whom this High Priest is said to have been as well a gilgul. Interestingly, Avtalion was a gilgul of Aristotle - but we will discuss this later)

This mishna uses terms that are specific and uncommon. We will take up the exact meanings of "melacha", rabbonus", " reshus" later. What we can say, however, is that Shemaia carried the teachings of Shimon ben Shetach even farther, eschewing any participation or co-operation in the corrupt temporal power structure of his time.

Shemiah and Avtalion are presumably "one Nasi and one the Head of the Court" (Chagiga, beginning of the 4th chapter). However in Pesachim 66a they are described as "Gedolei Hador", the great ones of the generation, a term suggesting acceptance by acclamation and not an official position (see Pesachim 49b). Perhaps the description in Chagiga refers to the other "zuggos" and not to these two, for as descendents of converts, they would not be eligible to hold the posts of Nasi and Court President (as Kneses Hagedolah to Choshen Mishpat 7 asks). In Shalsheles Hakkabola this problem is sidestepped by positing that their mothers may have been Jewish by birth, but this contradicts Rambam's explanation of Eduyos 1:3 that as converts they could not prononce the letter "hei" (I assume because this sound does not exist in Greek).

Perhaps, in conformity to their teachings on the nature of rabbinic authority, Shemaia and Avtalion declined to serve in the official capacity on the court system, leading by advice and example, a function that converts can certainly perform, and as the passage in Yoma 71b implicitly suggests.

Comments

[Jonathan]

How interesting. Shemaia and Avtalyon, as "outsiders", alone could stand up against the problems within the system. Perhaps that is why Shemaia was considered a gilgul of the prophet Zecharyah, and Avtalyon the gilgul of a respected chocham from outside system entirely, Aristotle (these two figures representing respectively revelation and reason from "outside the system").

There is ever the tension in our heritage between the respect and authority accorded the reigning power structure, and the burning spirit, the prophetic impulse, that wants the power structure to transcend itself. Thus we maintain our own "balance of powers" in Jewish governance-human and divine.

Perhaps we in particular are so ambivalent about power structures because we are the nation that does not deify human beings; we always maintain an awareness of the fallibility of man.

[Evan Zuesse]

I have long noted some confusion in the descriptions of Shemaiah and Abtalyon: on the one hand, they are described as "the descendants of converts," which means that they themselves were born as Jews and their non-Jewish origins could have been several generations back. It is even possible for some to say their mothers were born Jews, but their fathers were converts, which would still allow them to sit on the High Court as Nasi and Av Bet Din. And then there are those traditions saying that they themselves were converts. Similar confusion surrounds Rabbi Meir, and some others who are great rabbinic figures who had some non-Jewish ancestry.

How telling that both the zugot of that generation, the leaders of Judaism, were "converts" or "the descendants of converts." And the authoritative Aramaic translation of Torah was by another convert, Onkelos. This certainly proves the broad tolerance of Jews at that time, and their willingness to respect and welcome converts. I think we tend to underestimate the number of converts Judaism had in those days. They were massive. One learns in passing when reading the history of the Jews of Egypt that almost the entire population of farming villages in the Fayyum, the Nile Delta, and along the coastal areas on the Mediterranean, had converted to Judaism by the end of the first century CE, and such was their fervour that they recklessly rose up in messianic rebellion against Rome in 113-15 C.E. despite the Sages counseling caution. The Romans, characteristically, wiped out almost the entire population, leaving most of northern Egypt uninhabited burnt-over waste, as archaeologists have found. Most villages of the region show a carbonized layer, together with Jewish symbolisms, and then evidence for a long period of desolation and low population.

As for the saying of Shemaiah to stay away from the government and avoid authority, this reflects, I think, the evil governments of the day. It is not an absolute rule, but one depending on the nature of the political system and rulers. Both the Roman government and the various local kingdoms of that time were extremely cruel and rapacious, and it must be confessed that this mostly continued to be the case down through the later centuries too. It is also worth noting that when Jewish figures ended up as powerful court advisors, their lack of natural allies within the court system often led to their downfall, but unlike the downfalls of other court figures (frequent enough in those arbitrary environments) they also often brought down with them extreme persecutions upon the entire Jewish community. This is because the environments in those lands and even at those courts were bigoted, cruel and without conscience, and often inclined to murder. Even the service of Samuel Ha-Nagid in the relatively more tolerant Muslim Kingdom of Granada of the early 11th century ended up badly, although he died a natural death in old age, still honored. But his son, Joseph, who took his place as grand vizier, hardly had much chance: fanatical Muslim enemies unable to dislodge the father were able to assassinate the son, and the very next day they launched a horrific pogrom upon the entire Jewish community in which it was said 4,000 Jews, most of the Jewish population of Granada, were slaughtered. So the advice of the Sages was good. There were few really righteous states or cultures in the pre-modern period. The Jewish tendency then to "lie low" was sensible. But it need not apply now, at least not in all cases.

On this, I like the saying of Confucius, the well-known rabbinic sage of the East. "When the Way prevails in your own state and you are poor and in a humble position, be ashamed of yourself. When the Way does not prevail in your state and you are wealthy and in an honorable position, be ashamed of yourself." (Analects 8:13 in Wing-Tsit Chan's translation). As for the general Jewish critical view of government, it goes back to the response of the prophet Samuel to the tribal elders of his generation, when they pleaded for a king "like all the other nations" (I Samuel 8 and 12-15). It in turn reflects the deeply grounded realism about human nature that radiates through the entire Torah account of history. It is striking that even despite finally accepting kingship, ancient Israel based it upon a kind of covenantal responsibility of the king to God and the Torah and politically to the people whose consensus and support founded the kingly institution to begin with, so there were already democratic aspects to it and transcendental norms and legal structures generally absent in the cultures of the ancient world. The tribes could even dismiss their king and/or secede from his sovereignty if they did not like his policies (II Samuel 5:1-3; I Kings 12:1-24). On these issues, with extensive extracts and analysis of the later views of the Sages and medieval and modern Jewish thinkers as well, see the multi-volumed anthology The Jewish Political Tradition edited by Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum and Noam Zohar, with other contributing editors, still in process of being published - two volumes have appeared so far (Yale University Press, 2000- ).

On political theory generally in Judaism, there are many excellent studies I could list if you are interested. One very good analysis is Ruth Wisse, Jews and Power.