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Opinion & Comment
The Idealism of the Wicked

by Rabbi Meir Yisroelovitch

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.


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