{"id":64371,"date":"2019-10-15T10:11:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T07:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64371"},"modified":"2023-05-09T12:37:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T09:37:11","slug":"audacity-and-doubt-between-yavneh-and-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/audacity-and-doubt-between-yavneh-and-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Audacity And Doubt Between Yavneh And Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[898,402,627],"acf":{"old_id":"64371","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"329","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The death of Rabbi Yochanan sheds light on the life of King Hezekiah","content":"

Hezekiah combined deep faith \u2013 \u201che trusted only in the Lord God of Israel,\u201d (II Kings 20:5) – with staggering boldness. In the name of his faith and mission, he was willing to depart from the obvious path that simple faith might seem to require.<\/span><\/p>\n

An example occurs in our chapter, when Hezekiah becomes dangerously ill, and the prophet Isaiah tells him he will die. Rather than submit meekly to the divine sentence, Hezekiah turns to God in whole-hearted prayer. Before Isaiah can leave the palace, God tells him to return to the king and say that his prayer for recovery has been answered. Out of a deeper faith in God\u2019s mercy, Hezekiah disputes and overturns the prophet\u2019s decree.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a fascinating piece of Talmud, the rabbis seem to grasp this striking attribute: <\/span><\/p>\n

King Hezekiah performed six actions. About three of them, the Sages agreed with him; and about three of them, the Sages did not agree. King Hezekiah dragged the bones of his father Ahaz on a bier of ropes and the Sages agreed. He ground the copper snake and they agreed. He suppressed the Book of Cures, and they agreed.\u00a0
\nAnd about three actions, the Sages did not agree. He cut off the doors of the Sanctuary and sent them to the King of Assyria, and they did not agree. He sealed the waters of the upper Gihon stream, and they did not agree, He intercalated the year during Nisan, and they did not agree. (Pesachim 56a)<\/span><\/p>\n

All these acts were audaciously innovative. Destroying the copper snake that Moses himself had made; denying his wicked father an honorable burial; cutting down doors of the holy sanctuary to pay protection to the King of Assyria, rerouting the waters of Gihon and transgressing the usual laws of the calendar; all these infringed on the ordinary canons of nature or of religion, for what Hezekiah judged a greater purpose. The rabbis endorsed half of these steps; as for the other half they thought the King went too far.<\/span><\/p>\n

This reading helps understand a haunting Talmudic tale (Brachot 28b) that I never grasped before studying Hezekiah\u2019s story. When Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai is on his deathbed, his students find him crying. Why, they ask. Because, Rabbi Yochanan answers, because he doesn\u2019t know if he is bound for heaven or hell. Rabbi Yochanan, recall, made the revolutionary decision to abandon Jerusalem and refound Jewish life in Yavneh. To the very end he doesn\u2019t know if he was right.<\/span><\/p>\n

His last instruction to the students is \u201cprepare a seat for Hezekiah, King of Judah who is coming.\u201d Why Hezekiah? The Hassidic commentary, Mei Shiloach answers beautifully, \u201cbecause Hezekiah too was in doubt all his life whether what he did was right, as it says about three things the rabbis agreed and three things they didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At Rabbi Yochanan\u2019s moment of leaving the world, Hezekiah, who also made choices of comparable bravery, fatefulness and magnitude without any guarantee of their correctness, comes to vindicate him.<\/span><\/p>\n

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