Lesson 2—The Centrality and Importance of Israel for the Diaspora in Second Temple Times

Introduction

In our previous lesson we saw some expressions of the connection between the Diaspora and Israel in late Second Temple times. We saw that the primary connection of Diaspora Jews was to the Temple in Jerusalem which was expressed in terms of financial support for, and occasional participation in, its religious functions. We also saw that, in the context of expressing their connection to the Temple, Diaspora Jews also connected to the people living in the Land as expressed in the atmosphere of brotherhood exhibited during the pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

In this lesson we will try to understand the centrality and importance that Israel assumed in the lives of Diaspora Jews in Second Temple time. We will begin by showing the central role of the religious leadership in Israel in determining some critical aspects of religious life even for Jews outside the Land and then proceed by showing the importance of the political leadership in the Land for Jews in other communities. We will conclude with a fascinating formulation by a leading Diaspora Jew of the importance of Israel for Diaspora and of the nature of the relationship between the two communities.

Go to the Discussion Board. Try to describe and analyze the importance, if any, Israel has for you as a Jew living in America.

Let us now examine the importance Israel had for Diaspora Jews in late Second Temple times.

Before we begin our text study, however, we must provide some critical background information regarding the Jewish calendar:

1. The Jewish Month – In the Gregorian calendar, commonly used in the Western world, the year is determined by the rotation of the earth around the sun – a period of 365.25 days. A regular month is simply the division of the 365-day yearly cycle into twelve units: 365 divided by 12 is approximately 30.4. Hence, a month is a unit of 30.4 days, which is rounded off to 30 days in some months and 31 in others.

A Jewish month, however, is determined by the rotation of the moon around the earth. The moon rotates around the earth approximately every 29.5 days (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3.3 seconds to be precise). It is most visible when the sun’s light reflects off it unobstructed by the earth. This time is known as the full moon. The moon then continues rotating until it is directly between the earth and the sun (but not on the same plane, for that would create a solar eclipse). During this time the moon seems to disappear. When it continues its rotation, it “renews” itself when it reappears. Thus, a Jewish month is the period of time from one “renewal” of the moon to the next.

Since, as we mentioned, a month is roughly 29.5 days, the moon will reappear, or “renew” itself, on the 30^th or 31st day. Furthermore, from biblical times, through the period of our study and all the way until the 4^th century CE, the renewal of the moon had to be observed by witnesses who would come forward and offer testimony of their sighting in front of a Jewish court who would then declare the “New Moon”, i.e. the beginning of the new month. If witnesses did not come forward on the 30^th day then the 31^st was automatically the “New Moon”.

The importance of this process cannot be underestimated. Whether or not witnesses came forward on the 30^th day would determine whether the date of the festivals that fall on that month was a day earlier or a day later. If there was confusion on this matter then a situation might arise in which Jews in different places might celebrate Jewish festivals on different dates. It is hard to imagine a more divisive scenario, as though we haven’t already had enough divisive issues to deal with!

2. The Jewish Year –

As we mentioned above, the Gregorian year is based upon the rotation of the earth around the sun – a period of 365.25 days. The lunar year, however, is comprised of twelve months (see above) and has only 354 days (12 x 29.5 = 354). This explains why the Jewish holidays fall on different dates in the common calendar. But if the lunar year is 11 shorter than the solar year and Judaism is determined by the lunar year, then why don’t the Jewish holidays fall out in varying seasons? (For example, why is Chanukkah never in the summer and Yom Kippur never in the spring?)

The answer lies in the fact that the Jewish calendar is not based solely on the lunar year. For, if it were, how would the agricultural dimension of the Jewish festivals holidays (see lesson 1 texts 5-6) ever find meaningful expression? What would it mean to celebrate the harvest if the festival occurred in the middle of the winter when everything was covered with snow? How could Pesach be also a spring festival if it falls in the sweltering heat of the summer? The ingenious solution devised to solve this problem is called the “intercalation” of the year, i.e. the adding an additional month every few years to allow the festivals to “catch up” to their appropriate seasons. This synchronization of the lunar and solar years means that the Jewish calendar is, in actuality, lunisolar.

Recommend internet sites Check about the calendar. Something about the particular web site. If more than one, what is the perspective of each?

Now we are ready to proceed with our text study.

Text Study 1

Read texts 1-5 and try to answer the following questions.

1. Where was the decision made to sanctify the New Moon? By whom?
2. How was the news regarding the sanctification of the New Moon originally communicated to other Jewish communities? See also the map.
3. What was the subsequent method? Why was the original method discontinued?
4. Where was the decision made to intercalate the year? By whom?
5. How was the news of the intercalation communicated to other Jewish communities?
6. What is the significance of the fact that the Jerusalem court declared the New Moon and the intercalation of the year?
7. Other than the calendar in what other matter did Jerusalem serve as the central authority for world Jewry? 

1. Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:5, 7

There was a large courtyard in Jerusalem called “Beth Ya’azek”. There all the witnesses used to assemble and the court used to examine them. They made for them large banquets so that they should have an incentive to come… The Head of the court says “sanctified” and all the people repeated after him “sanctified, sanctified’. 

2. Mishnah (third century compilation of rabbinic teachings) Rosh Hashanah 2:3-4

How did they light the beacons? They used to bring long poles of cedar and reeds and olive wood and flax fluff which they tied to the poles with a string, and someone used to go up to the top of a mountain and set fire to them and wave them to and fro and up and down until he saw the next one doing the same thing on the top of the second mountain: and so on the top of the third mountain. Whence did they carry the [chain of] beacons? From the Mount of Olives [in Jerusalem] to Sartaba,and from Sartaba to Grofina, and from Grofina to Hauran, and from Hauran to Beth Baltin. The one on Beth Baltin did not bulge from there but went on waving to and fro and up and down until he saw the whole of the Diaspora before him like one bonfire.

3. Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:4

Beforetime they used to kindle flares, but after the evildoings of the Samaritans they enacted that messengers should go forth.

4. Babylonian Talmud (commentary on the Mishnah completed by the end of the 5^th century), Sanhedrin 11b

It once happened that Rabban Gamaliel [leading sage in Israel in the 1^st century CE] was sitting on a step on the Temple-hill and the well known Scribe Johanan was standing before him… “Take one sheet”, he said, “and write… to our brethren the Exiles in Babylon and to those in Media, and to all the other exiled [sons] of Israel, saying: “May your peace be great for ever! We beg to inform you that the doves are still tender and the lambs still too young and that the crops are not yet ripe. It seems advisable to me and my colleagues to add thirty days to this year.”

5. Josephus, Against Apion I, 32-33

And this practice of ours is not confined to the home country of Judea, but wherever there is a Jewish colony there too a strict account is kept by the priests of their marriages; I allude to the Jews in Egypt and Babylon and other parts of the world in which any of the priestly order are living in dispersion. A statement is drawn up by them and sent to Jerusalem, showing the names of the bride and her father and more remote ancestors, together with the names of the witnesses.

Suggested Answers

1. From text 1 it is clear that the decision to sanctify the New Moon was made exclusively by the Head of the Court, also known as the Sanhedrin, which was situated in the precincts of the Temple.
2. Originally the news regarding the declaration of the New Moon was passed on by an elaborate system of fire signals starting on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and reaching all the way to Babylon as the map indicates. It must have been extraordinary to behold such a display, an ancient equivalent to fireworks except that these ancient fireworks served a critical function, in communicating the exact date of the Jewish festivals to Jewish communities around the world.

It is interesting that while the Mishnah concludes by telling us how the news was communicated to the “whole of the Diaspora” it only traces the way in which it was communicated to the Jews in Babylon. Certainly, the Rabbis could not have been ignorant of the existence of large Jewish communities elsewhere, such as Egypt! It may be that the emphasis on Babylon was due to the fact that it was among the largest, if not the largest, Diaspora community and therefore came to symbolically represent the “Diaspora” as a whole. Alternatively, given the fact that Babylon was outside Roman rule and the Jews there enjoyed a great deal of autonomy within the Parthian Empire, they may have developed a feeling of independence from the religious leadership in Israel which required a more concerted effort by the latter to maintain stronger ties with the former than with other Diaspora communities. In lessons 3-5 we will have occasion to explore the unique features of the community in Babylon in greater detail.

3.   As text 3 points out the subsequent method was the sending of messengers who personally informed the various communities of the New Moon. The original method was discontinued because a group of Samaritans (a group which claims to have descended from the Joseph tribes but which the rabbis regard as descendants from various non-Jewish tribes which converted to Judaism.) who, because they had a competing calendar, decided to cause confusion by lighting the beacons at the wrong time.

4.  Just as the sanctification of the New Moon was made by the Head of the court in the Temple Mount, so too the intercalation of the year.

5.  The news of the intercalation was communicated through letters sent to all the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

6.  The significance is that the court in Jerusalem effectively had complete control over the Jewish calendar. Jewish festivals could not be celebrated in Rome, Alexandria, Babylon, or anywhere else for that matter until word of the exact date of the festival was received from the religious authorities in Jerusalem. This system lasted until the fourth century ce, when the permanent calendar was set by astronomical calculations and so was no longer determined by the testimony of witnesses and the declaration of a central authority.

7.  According to Josephus, Jerusalem served as the central archive for world Jewry. Diaspora communities used to notify the religious authorities at the Temple of their marriages and at the same time check the lineage of certain families whose daughters wanted to marry kohanim – priests.

What emerges is a picture of Israel, or more accurately Jerusalem, as the center of authority in essential matters pertaining to the daily religious lives of Diaspora Jews.

Go to the Discussion Board. What do you think of the idea of a central religious authority? Would you want such an authority today? If so, should it be based in each community, in each country where Jews reside, or in Israel?

Text Study 2

Read texts 6-7 and try to answer the following questions. However, before answering these questions some historical background is necessary. When the Roman general Pompey took control of Judea in 63 BCE (see timeline) he handed authority over to his Idumean advisor Antipater and Judea became, in effect, a vassal state of Rome. Not long after his death in 43 BCE, his son Herod took his place and became the ruler (or more accurately the subordinate ruler) of Judea until 4 BCE. Throughout his reign, Herod needed to balance potentially conflicting forces: Jews, pagans, and Romans. He had to keep his Jewish subjects under control, retain the good will of the pagan population of his realm, and avoid any action than ran counter to Roman interests.

In the year 14 BCE, Herod traveled through Asia Minor (roughly Turkey of today) accompanying the commander of the Roman army and right-hand man of Caesar Augustus, Marcus Agrippa. During their journey they reached Ionia (western Turkey) where tens of thousands of Jews lived.

1. What is the complaint of the Jews in Ionia?

2. To whom is this complaint directed?

3. What can we learn from this incident about the importance of Israel for Diaspora Jews?

6. Josephus, Antiquities XVI, 16:27-29

It was also at that time, when they were in Ionia, that a great multitude of Jews, who lived in its cities, took advantage of their opportunity to speak out freely, and came to them and told them of the mistreatment which they had suffered in not being allowed to observe their own laws and in being forced to appear in court on their holy days because of the inconsiderations of the examining judges. And they told how they had been deprived of the monies sent as offerings to Jerusalem and of being forced to participate in military service and civic duties and to spend their sacred monies for these things, although they had been exempted from these duties because the Romans had always permitted them to live in accordance with their own laws. While they were protesting in this fashion, the king [Herod] induced Agrippa to listen to them as they pleaded their cause, and he assigned Nicolas, one of his friends, to speak in behalf of their rights.

Suggested Answers

1. The Jews of Ionia complained that their traditional rights had been denied: they could not observe their laws, they had to appear in Roman courts on Jewish holidays, they had to serve in the Roman military, and their half-shekel Temple contribution was seized and used to fund Roman civil needs.
2. Their complaint was directed to Herod who they hoped would exert influence and help them in their cause. Indeed, Hero induced Agrippa to listen to the Jews and he asked his friend Nicolas to speak in their behalf. Josephus later tells us that Nicolas delivered a lengthy speech praising the Jewish community which led Agrippa to announce his willingness to help them in any way that he could. Upon his return to Jerusalem, Herod told the Jews how he helped restore the legitimate rights of the Jews in that community.
3. The fact that the Jews of Asia Minor appealed to the ruler of the Jewish community in Israel to intervene in their behalf coupled with the fact that his intervention did not surprise the Roman authorities is an indication that it was not at all uncommon. Indeed, Roman rulers often mentioned in their decrees that the kings of Judea had petitioned them concerning the rights of Jews in various places in the Empire. Thus, we see the importance and centrality of the leadership in Israel to the Jews of the Diaspora not just in matters of religion but in matters of their own political and material well-being as well.

Go to the Discussion Board. Can you think of communities in the Diaspora today that seek assistance from Israel to better their own situation? In what ways, if at all, do you think Israel today may be helping improve the lives of Jews in America?

The importance of Israel to Diaspora Jewry is further underscored in the following text. But before proceeding, we have to review a few historical facts.

From 6 CE, Judea (along with several other regions in Israel) was turned into a Roman province and the Jews there were subject to the direct rule of Roman governors (see timeline). In general, Roman rule left the local institutions a great deal of autonomy and the Jewish institutions, such as the High court (the Sanhedrin) in Jerusalem, retained their traditional religious authority. Relations between the Jews and the Roman Empire, for the most part, were not markedly hostile. The first open break occurred in 40 CE during the reign of Gaius Caligula at the time when a half-Jew named Agrippa I ruled in the Galilee and nearby cities. Caligula was completely convinced of his own divinity and demanded that his subjects worship him as a god. When the non-Jewish citizens of a Judean town called Yavneh set up an altar for the cult of the emperor, the Jews, who would not tolerate pagan practices on Judean soil, destroyed the altar. As a punishment, Caligula ordered that a golden statue of himself be set up in the Temple. As was to be expected the Jews were incensed. They organized mass demonstrations and used every means at their disposal to rescind the order. In this text, Philo (see lesson 1) cites a letter of Agrippa I to Caligula in which he attempts to persuade him to rescind this order.

Text Study 3

1. How does Agrippa I in this letter try to convince Caligula to rescind his order?

2. In what way can this letter be seen as a veiled threat?

3. According to this text, what is the term by which Diaspora Jews refer to Jerusalem?  What does this reflect about the nature of their relationship both to Jerusalem and to the countries in which they reside?

7. Philo, The Embassy to Gaius, 281-283

As for the holy city, I must say what befits me to say. While she, as I have said, is my native city, she is also the mother city not of one country Judaea but of most of the others in virtue of the colonies sent out… to the neighboring lands Egypt, Phoenicia, the parts of Syria… and the lands lying far apart, Pamphylia, Cilicia most of Asia up to Bithynia and the corners of Pontus, similarly also into Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth and most of the best parts of Peloponnese. And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies but also the most highly esteemed of the islands Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I say nothing of the countries beyond the Euphrates, for except for a small part they all, Babylon and of the other satrapies those where the land within their confines is highly fertile, have Jewish inhabitants… so that if my own home-city is granted a share of your goodwill the benefit extends not to one city but to myriads of the others situated in every region of the inhabited world whether in Europe or in Asia or in Libya, whether in the mainlands or on the islands, whether it be seaboard or inland.   

Suggested Answers

1. Agrippa I describes at length the enormous importance of Jerusalem to Jews around the world. By extending his good-will and rescinding the order to set up an idol in the Temple, Agrippa argues, Caligula will certainly win the support and popularity of Jews all around the world.
2. Although the letter is worded in a positive tone it contains a veiled threat. Any offenses to Jerusalem or violations of the sanctity of the Temple will arouse the wrath of the “myriads” of Jews around the world who will fight to put an end to them using all their power and all the means at their disposal. Just as the leadership in Jerusalem made every effort to help secure the status of Diaspora Jews (see our previous text), Diaspora Jews were willing to defend Jerusalem from defilement even if that meant putting their status and very lives at risk. 
3. Why were Diaspora Jews so committed to Jerusalem? Because, according to this text, they viewed Jerusalem as their “mother city” (in the Greek original the word for “mother city” is “metropolis”). Jews may live in cities – “native cities”, or “father cities” which is the literal translation of the Greek original “patris” – throughout the Diaspora and even seek to secure their status and their rights there, but one of those inalienable rights was to maintain close ties with their “mother city” of Jerusalem and their national homeland, the Land of Israel.

Go to the Discussion Board. How far would you be willing to go in defending Israel from threats to its existence? What do you think about Jerusalem as a “mother-city” or Israel as a “motherland” and Diaspora communities as “fatherlands”? What alternate terms might you use to describe your feelings about America on the one hand and your feelings about Israel, on the other?