There’s some confusion creeping in with the numbering of the verses. R. Travers Herford and Joseph Hertz call this verse 9, whilst Jacob Neusner calls it verse eight, and furthermore only the first part of verse 8. His verse 9 starts with what Hertz and Herford call verse 14. I’m sticking with the old numbering, in part because it’s rather a special day, and I don’t really have much time. Here’s the Hertz translation, which I like in its faux-Elizabethanosity:
Rabban Yochanan, the son of Zakkai, received the tradition from Hillel and Shammai. He used to say, If thou has learned much Torah, ascribe not any merit to thyself, for thereunto wast thou created.
Yochanan was the one who saved Judaism by getting permission from Vespasian to move the Sanhedrin to Yavneh. The story is that he got himself smuggled out of the siege Jerusalem in a coffin; emerging alive to persuade the Roman General on the verge of his becoming Emporer. The coffin thing is a metaphor, of course, although it can’t be stated enough that the Judaism that is carried out of Jerusalem in a coffin is not exactly the same as the one that emerges from it in Yavneh. But that coffin business would change a person, wouldn’t it?
At any rate, the Temple is destroyed, the zealots and separatists die, in caves or fortresses, the other strains of Judaism lose out to the victory of Yochananism, a portable Judaism that is called Rabbinic Judaism, although (have I said this before?) that term puts too much of the focus on the Rabbis. Perhaps siddur Judaism would be better; the real genius of Yavneh was giving us a prayerbook in place of a sacrificial altar. This radical reinvention to suit the times is the heritage of Judaism that is obscured by the trappings of traditionalism. Although, to be fair, I’m overstating the influence of two thousand years ago and understating the influence of the last thousand years, and the last two or three hundred particularly. But still.
So when I come to this saying, thinking about Yochanan in his coffin, the Temple in ruins, and his extraordinary reinvention of Judaism— what stands out for me is the modesty of it. What credit does he deserve for saving the Torah and the people Israel? Well, after all, what else was he there for?
Papa Rabbi at Temple Beth Bolshoi is fond of the end of Esther 4:14, where Mordechai says to Esther who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for [such] a time as this? Yochanan seems to be saying, all of this stuff that needed to be done so that I could study Torah, in safety, in Yavneh, well, all of that was just what needed to be done.
The verse is often interpreted to imply that the study of Torah is the sole reason for your creation, and that all activity that takes away from the study of Torah should be avoided, or even prohibited. I’m not so sure. I look at the verse, and at the speaker, and I think: perhaps I was created to sit and study, or perhaps I was created to reinvent and act, so that then I can study. Certainly it’s hard to imagine that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, for his first forty years, expected that the moment would come when he would need to change the world to carry out the mission he was created for.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.