The gemora in Yoma (9) relates that in the
First Temple period, lasting 410 years, there were only 18
Kohanim Gedolim, whereas in the Second Temple, which
stood for 420 years, there were over 300 Kohanim
Gedolim. Most of them did not finish out their first year
of service. The descent in the level of righteousness over
several centuries was reflected in the untimely deaths of so
many Kohanim Gedolim. Indeed, the gemora terms
these "the years of the wicked." Rashi explains that the
position of Kohen Godol was largely for sale during
these years, and the deaths were due to the fact that they
were not fit to serve.
The question that is often asked here is, having seen what
happened to the last one who bribed his way into high
position, who would be foolish enough to follow in his
footsteps? How many times does a Kohen Godol have to
die before finishing out his first year in office before
people begin to get the message that it is a risky job?
The Ben Ish Chai, in his commentary Ben Yehoyada,
offers an astonishing answer. He explains that those who
bought the kehuna in those years were the
tzedukim. They rejected the Oral Law as handed down
generation to generation from Har Sinai. They accepted as
Divine only the Written Torah, and interpreted the verses
according to their view.
A major point of dispute was over the manner of the incense
offering on Yom Kippur. Chazal had a tradition that the
incense and the hot coals should be brought into the Holy of
Holies, and then set alight; whereas the tzedukim
argued that the correct reading of the verse indicated that
the incense should be burned before entering. The Ben Ish
Chai suggests that the tzedukim were convinced of the
rightness of their cause, and that they felt that it was
worth sacrificing their lives in order to ensure that the
Service be performed their way.
How, then, did they explain that their man would, year in and
year out, die in this just cause? After all, it does not say
anywhere in the Torah that the Kohen Godol must die on
Yom Kippur! Could they not see this as an expression of
Hashem's disapproval?
He answers that they attributed those deaths to their own
personal failings, middos ro'os, which made them unfit
to survive the avoda in the Holy Temple. To their
minds, the cause remained holy, even though they themselves
were not.
One must bear in mind that this was not the peculiar
reasoning of a handful of cranks on the fringes of Torah and
Yiddishkeit. On the contrary, for long periods of time
they were the dominant faction in the Sanhedrin and the
Temple. Nor were they all patently wicked or ignorant.
Yochanan was Kohen Godol for 80 years before
succumbing to the enticement of the tzedukim.
In fact, such was the power of their ideas that the bitter
struggle against the tzedukim lasted hundreds of
years. To this day, the deep-seated will to reject the Oral
Tradition as transmitted by Chazal and their disciples has
not disappeared. Though it may be said that the ideological
fires of the heretics do not burn nearly as fiercely as they
once did; what is the will to rejectionism? And why is it so
strong?
A look at the historical origins of the
tzedukim is in order. The earliest source available to
us is that of Pirkei DeRabbi Nosson, quoted by Rashi
in the first chapter of Ovos on the mishna of
Antignos Ish Socho: Al tihiyu ka'avodim hameshamshim es
horav al menas lekabeil pras, elo ka'avodim hameshamshim es
horav shelo al menas lekabeil pras. The midrash
relates that Tzodok and Baitus were disciples of Antignos who
interpreted his words to mean that there is no reward in the
afterlife. Otherwise how could their master have taught those
words?
The midrash requires explanation. How could they have
derived such a conclusion from the words of Antignos. Clearly
-- to us -- he was teaching about the highest level of
service to Hashem; serving purely for the glory of serving
the Creator, without thought of personal benefit, even in the
next world. Reward in the next world there surely is; it is
just that the master never thought it necessary to mention it
in this particular teaching. What, then, could have possessed
his disciples to reach such wrong conclusions? And, knowing
that their conclusions were indeed radically different from
the mainstream doctrine concerning Olom Haboh, why did
they not at least bring their questions to Antignos for
examination? Perhaps he could have pointed out the error in
their thinking?
In the History of the Jewish People -- The Second Temple
Era (ArtScroll's English adaptation of Yekutiel
Friedner's classic Divrei Yemei HaBayis HaSheini), the
explanation is straightforward in its historical context. The
two disciples, Tzodok and Baitus, were among the many Jews
who had come under the sway of Greek culture. The magnificent
libraries, sports arenas, and pagan temples which abounded in
Eretz Yisroel at the time presented a dazzling and alluring
array of the beauty and power of Greek civilization.
"These assimilationist Jews, like all those who went away
from previously kept beliefs and practices, sought to
rationalize their departure from them. To quiet their
conscience and fear of heaven they deluded themselves by
inventing some justification for their deeds. The logical
conclusion of this philosophy -- that there is no reward or
punishment in the World to Come -- was that one's main goal
should be the pursuit of pleasure in this world. They denied
both the truth of the Oral Tradition and the authority of the
Sages to interpret the Torah and to issue decrees."
Now we can understand how they arrived at their conclusions
and why they did not present them to Antignos for critical
scrutiny. They were not interested in critical scrutiny,
because their interest was not the truth, but some rational
justification for throwing off the yoke of Torah and mitzvos
so that they could more easily pursue the pleasures of life
with the Hellenists.
What remains a puzzle, though, is the commentary of the Ben
Ish Chai quoted above. For if all that truly concerned the
tzedukim was the pleasure of this world, since for
them the World to Come was a moral irrelevance, why all the
self-sacrifice for the kehuna and the ketores?
What principle could be worth dying for? What transcendence
can there be for those who deny transcendence itself?
In a sense, the answer lies in the words of the British poet
John Keats who, in his famous Ode To a Grecian Urn
wrote, "Beauty is Truth; Truth Beauty. That is all ye know on
earth, and all ye need to know." That there is nothing of
consequence for us beyond this world does not preclude the
existence of any overriding values in this world. There is
still "Beauty and Truth." For these people, the Greek
aesthetic rules supreme. In it Keats and many others have
found ultimate meaning in life. Some may even find in it
something worth dying for. For their perception of beauty;
for their truth.
Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary to Parshas
Acharei Mos, gives us his insight into the motive
underlying the tzeduki approach to the ketores
on Yom Kippur: "The true High Priest . . . is nothing else
but a ministrant of the Will of G-d, completely subjugating
his own ideas to the Divine Torah. To him, the altar-fire is
the Torah-fire, the fire of the Law, and only that which is
pleasing, giving satisfaction to G-d, is pleasing, giving
satisfaction to him. But the Sadducean priest makes the altar-
fire into his fire, as a receptacle for his handling, and [it
is] outside the area of the Law [that] he first lights the
ketores . . . in a way that appeals to him, gives him
satisfaction, and that which he imagines is right and good
and considers proper, he carries into the Sanctuary of the
Law, forces his own idea of what is suitable for G-d's
satisfaction, and that which has passed the test of his
conception of rei'ach nicho'ach, G-d too must be
pleased with, as His rei'ach nicho'ach!"
Once a system of thought has been established to rationalize
the pursuit of worldly pleasures, that system itself must be
defended even unto death, lest the way of life it serves be
unmasked for the single-minded selfishness that it really is.
Hence, the ultimate irony: sacrifice of the self in order to
preserve a life of serving the self. Those who could not
suffer the constraints of an authentic Torah life as embodied
in the teachings of the Oral Law would even suffer martyrdom
and, in the end, bring on civil war and national ruin by
their stubborn rebellion against Tradition.
And we, on Yom Kippur, recall the glory of
the avoda of the Kohen Godol in the Beis
Hamikdash. We recall it in its pristine purity, as the
Written and Oral Law prescribe, free of the corruption of
those who place themselves outside of Tradition. We identify
ourselves rather with those who valiantly devoted everything
and gave up everything for the immutable truth of Torah; that
same Torah which calls upon its loving disciples to serve the
Master without thought of reward, even in the knowledge that
reward for faithful service will surely come.
Rabbi Meir Yisroelovitch teaches in a yeshiva in
Israel.
