of the law, as opposed to the Hillelite concern with both the letter and the
spirit of the law and its social and emotional affect. Gradually, the disciples of
Hillel emerged as the leaders of the rabbinic movement as the latter emerged
dominant after 70 C.E.
The rise to prominence of the rabbis stemmed in large part from the lat-
ter’s Pharisaic heritage. The rabbis had appropriated those elements of
Pharisaic Judaism most viable without a temple and a priesthood: personal
prayer and faith, and oral tradition. Moreover, the rabbis inherited the
Pharisees’ ability to accommodate and thrive under foreign rule. The lead-
ing rabbinic figure after 70 C.E. was Yohanan ben Zakkai, a disciple of
Hillel. According to legend, during the Great Revolt, ben Zakkai had nego-
tiated a deal with the Romans, allowing him to reconvene the Sanhedrin in
Yavneh. Whether this story was true or apocryphal, by the mid-second
century the Romans recognized the religious authority of the patriarch,
the presiding officer of the Sanhedrin confirmed by the Romans, who after
70 C.E. replaced the high priest as the central Jewish leader. In exchange,
ben Zakkai and his successors agreed to abide by a Roman-imposed trunca-
tion of the Sanhedrin’s authority to religious affairs. From 85 C.E. on, the
patriarch was a descendant of Hillel, thus affirming the triumph of the
Hillelite dynasty.
The constructive tensions within the ranks of the rabbis persisted under
the leadership of the Hillelites. The disparate interpretive approaches of
Ishmael and Akiva, two disciples of Ben Zakkai, illustrate the continuation of
the dualist scholarly tradition. Ishmael, an exegetical minimalist, approached
scripture with the mantra “dibra Torah bilshon bnai adam” (the Torah speaks
in plain human language). This axiom, he believed, precluded the need for
extensive or overly expansive interpretation. To this end, he laid down thir-
teen rules of exegesis and insisted that these were the only legitimate tools for
interpreting the Torah. Most notable among these are kal va-homer and gez-
era shava.
Kal va-homer(literally, lenient and stringent) meant that a prohibition
imposed in a lenient case could be implicitly presumed in a more stringent
case, and that which was allowed in a more stringent case could be implicitly
presumed to be permitted in a more lenient case. For example, the laws pro-
hibiting work were more stringent regarding the Sabbath than festivals.
Thus, work permitted on the Sabbath was presumed to be permitted on festi-
val days, and work prohibited on festival days was presumed to be prohibited
on the Sabbath.
Gezera shava(literally, equal or parallel pronouncement) meant that an
explicit understanding of a word or phrase in one part of the Bible could
be applied to the word or term anywhere it appeared in the Bible. This
principle was employed, for example, in attributing each of the three daily
prayer services to one of the biblical patriarchs. Abraham was credited
The rise of Rabbinic Judaism 53