Medieval Jewish History: The Jews Fight Foreign Occupation by Dr. Deborah Polster

last week we introduced our course our goal this year is to examine the survival and achievements of Jews in a world that became increasingly hostile as Christianity became dominant in Europe but before we can turn our attention to the development that heralded those moves we need to briefly look at the world as it existed at the beginning of the era we began last week by looking at the Jewish people after the destruction of the first temple the Babylonian captivity was extremely traumatic for Jews the monarchy was gone so too was a bigdash the temple and its corbon oute and daily service Jews found themselves in Alien lands with none of the institutions that were fundamental to their practice of Judaism in 537 BCE before the Common Era KES AKA Cyrus King of Persia invited the Jews to return to ER Israel and to rebuild the BAM mdash the small group who returned was generally illiterate jewishly and in violation of many of the laws of the Torah about a century later Ezra and Nya began a process of Education which led to a degree of repentance and a reconnection between God and his people we indicated that the Jews returned but they restored neither the monarchy nor their independence they were subservient to the dominant ruler of the area and so today we will examine we will look at the Jewish attemp Ms to revolt first let us examine the maban Revolt of 168 BCE we haven't gotten to zero yet but we'll get there today during this period drastic changes took place in Judea particularly particularly during the reign of antias the most devastating change for the Jews was the cusd policy of henis ation along with draining the temple treasury money is always beyond all evil when the Jews refused to comply with these policies the Empire enacted degrees against decrees against the Jewish religion these anti-jewish decrees provoked a popular Revolt led by Theon this Revolt of theim was supported by kazal it is clear that the rabbis of this period were not simply a religious community but they were immersed in the political events of the day they were leaders they looked upon the Jewish people as a political entity that needed full political expression they looked upon the Torah as a dynamic blue print for the entire range of Social and economic problems the Revolt of the kashim was undertaken as a desperate Act of resistance of Rel for religious persecution under the momentum of the initial success of the Revolt it expanded its goals to become a movement for National Liberation this is something we see often in almost every uh instance of national rebellions and revolts if there is Success then the goals continue to expand some would argue it's happening today as well perhaps the most important factor in the success of the Revolt was the boundless loyalty of the Jewish masses to their religion now we know that a lot of them were not not really what we would call observant but nonetheless they were dedicated Jews they were bound to their religion they didn't want a foreign government telling them what they could more importantly could not do the ideals that had evolved in Jerusalem and Judea during the centuries preceding the persecution had penetrated to the masses the Torah had become part of their everyday life tens of thousands of Jewish farmers in Judea felt that the Torah was essential to their existence this Spirit inspired the ranks of the insurgents with an enthusiasm and a confidence that stood them in good times and in times of trial there were other factors it was a Jews good fortune that the house of celcus was divided against itself and unable to bring the full force of its military against the Jews now those of you who have studied with me before certainly know that one of my themes is that Jewish history must be studied in the context of what's going on in the world around and in order for Jewish history to continue to evolve we need to understand completely what was going around so one of the reasons why the hash monim were able to be successful was because the Empire that was ruling them the cusd and the cusd come after the macedonians Alexander the Great you will recall from world history 101 Alexander the Great conquered half the world and then after his death it was divided into three Palestine ended up under the rule of celus and then the victory of the Jews was in no small measure due to the fact that the Jews in opposing CIS had the help of other foreign powers just think you know I I don't have time unfortunately to bring the comparisons of what's going on today into our discussions but all think that there's really nothing new Under the world and we are revisiting many of these same themes the rabbis accepted the ensuing Kingdom of the hashmonai as a legitimate Jewish government in Israel their local victories were celebrated as religious holidays the Festival of Kaneka itself commemorating the original Victory and the cleansing of the temple remained permanently enshrined in the Jewish calendar even after the discussion of the B hamash the second temple although relations of the rabbis to the later kashim had their ups and downs as relations tend to do there was never a question of the legitimately the pardon me the legitimacy of the kashman as rulers of Israel even 100 years later the rabbis continue to support the efforts of the kashman with the notable exception of the rule of Herod and his son archelus in the first place herod's jewishness was in question and hence he was ruled to be halachically unfit to be the king didn't bother him very much did it um significantly significantly Herod weakened and ultimately destroyed the Sanhedrin he strengthened the foreign population of the country and he encouraged Greek Pagan acculturation of the Cities he preserved the existing order and at the same time was UNF linly loyal and dependent on Rome now again this is a theme that we will see over and over again it's always a challenge does the ruler make his decisions based only on what is good for his people think today if you want or does he have to he she mostly he's have to take into consideration what's going on around the foreign powers what do they have to say now also during this period we have and we're going to be talking about it more and more as we progress and that is what we're calling heniz heniz is the imposition of Greek culture or elements of Greek culture and heniz is a bane to the Jewish people because it challenges it challenges what the Torah has to say and by the way we are dealing with the um modern form of heniz today right we could call it modern Western culture call it whatever you want that attracts for all kinds of reasons Jews and challenges the adherence and the dedication and the loyalty to the Torah so we see that there were um under Herod that the old order collapses part of the upper classes of the kashon name were actually killed because Herod is a determined he we would call him in history we would call him an autocratic despot that's what we would call Herod and generally speaking autocratic despots do a lot of very good things they also do things that are not so very good others of the leadership the old leadership of the Jewish people lost their economic power and were deprived of their influence because they no longer had the economic power in their place we have new elements and our new elements rise to positions of power some came from the outlying areas you know not the center of the country what we would call today the periphery but more important was another Trend which Herod exploited he encouraged and that was the integration of leading families from the helenistic or other parts of the diaspora and remember last week we talked about how large the diaspora was we'll return to that next week as well and um and they were integrated into the Jewish Society of Palestine and so hostility between Herod and the people continued until the end of his life it is instructive that toward a grippa agria was the last Jewish ruler the rabbis remained generally positive his mother was aash monay her name was barones and she was a daughter of Miriam aashay who mother I'm sorry what who mother the the Agrippa the last ruler the last Jewish ruler the last Jewish king um his jewishness was considered acceptable more importantly he behaved as a Jew and he tried to follow an independent political line he tried not to side with the cusd or the Romans he tried not to even be so adhering to what the rabbis had to say but nonetheless he was generally accepted of course there were some rabbis who opposed them to be expected in the 22 years from the death of agria to the outbreak of the later war in 66 CE so we have now turned right and we are now in the modern era we are now in what we call SE the Common Era in history books you'll see that referred to as ad which is by the way not correct all together conditions in Palestine turned truly miserable under the rule of the Roman procurators for the Jews the question arose as to whether political realism was still to be found in the traditional path of quiessence or whether perhaps more daring initiatives were indicated now this we have always should we be quiet and put up with the pams should we fight back and we could talk about this in every era of Jewish life right now we're in the Romans by the end of the year maybe we'll get to Spain maybe not but we'll see um most perplexing to the rabbis was the question of Roman domination everybody agreed that Rome had no right to be in Judea put it in modern terms everybody agrees right that the Gaz and terrorist should not be reigning bombs about on Israel every on a daily basis but was the Roman Conquest to be born with sufferance or were we supposed to resist and resist at this point in time means the same thing that it means now it means Fight It Means War it means people our people will be killed not only theirs um we know that earlier Persian domination had been tolerated and had been accepted because number one Persia had liberated is Isel from the Babylonian captivity remember even though PE a lot of people didn't come back we know that after 70 years of captivity that when Cyrus invited the Jews to come back very few came back okay but the Persian government was viewed to be positive towards the Jews it also permitted the rebuilding of the temple clearly it was viewed as the instrument of God and as confirmed by the prophets and generally speaking Persian rule had been benign toward the Jews however the Revolt of the kashim against the cusd rule upon which the miracle of Kaneka had conver uh had conver conferred Divine approval had resulted in a successful albeit brief restoration of Jewish science sovereignty so that was something that the Jews got from the mbans right the kashon that they had not gotten even from the Persians and that was the question of sovereignty and rebuilding the temple in fact pardon me that was misspoken they actually began to rebuild the Temple under the Persians in fact even under Romans the local Jewish institutions were left a lot of autonomy at first and by the way this is again something that we will see repeated in history over and over again the Jews were held responsible for maintaining Law and Order for collecting direct taxes and for supervising the Jewish population of Israel the most respected of the Jewish institutions was still the sanedrin I know we tend to think of the San H as being way back then but it isn't it's already as we talk of we'll talk about that more next week yes um I have a question I know it comes and goes like you're saying but what is surrounding uh the situation that makes it peaceful and no problems for the Jews hardly when that happens what's the analysis of what's really going okay that's you're going to come to those kinds of conclusions on your own however let me say a lot has to do with the ability of the current ruler to navigate among the various pressures that he has put under the ability of the opposition rulers the other countries for other reasons that may have nothing to do with Jews in other words wanting peace look we know that everything that happened in the United States in the 50s no matter what it was and with with whatever country it was was a result of come on no was result of the the the the Cold War the Russians everything that the United States did including recognizing the state of Israel and 1948 including the attitude that it took after the 1956 War including everything else was primarily determined by the fact that there was the clash between the West United States and its allies and the East Russia and its satellites and that determined so all of those factors are going to play an important role okay Excuse me yes you mentioned mention with the Roman domination you said resist War but you don't mention the fleeing part I know in my parents a lot of people when they had pums or problems they fled they came to America we're going to see that if you hold on okay well we will get to that okay I hope today okay but they do flee in yes definitely there are always going to be Jews who flee persecution and pams if they can it's not always so easy you don't always have the money to flee there are always going to be Jews who opt out for Better Business Opportunities don't think that business opportunities are a fabrication of the 20th century there were business opportunities why when we look at the map of where the Jews were spread at the turn of the world right the year zero let's say the beginning of the Common Era how do they get there a lot of them went as military they were what we would call in our modern lingo mercenaries they agreed to fight for other countries others left for business opportunities others left because they were persecuted and again when you're persecuted do you succumb do you fight do you give up and we will find that we the Jewish people have not always been so steadfast in our beliefs when forced to [Music] um meet somebody who wants to kill us okay the Sanhedrin was still the highest legal and religious authority of the Jewish Nation it controlled the religious life both inside Palestine and outside by the way I'm using Palestine as a um synonym if you will for ER Israel but there really is and it's very important in today's world there really is no Palestine at this point but it was called it was an area of the of the Roman Empire and it was called Palestina just as as an area yes was F Palestina after the the Revolt OFA I before we have that ter we have that we have that name Palestina even before we're after the Kash now we're we're okay we're the Romans right okay yes rudah correct ins right because Judah was only really heart of er Israel and so the whole rest of er Israel at this point of time remember Ashu came the Assyrians came and exiled the 10 tribes okay that's before our class even began yes it Muslim you what Muslim we'll get to the Muslims the Muslims don't even exist for another 700 years in in our discussion yes is this a spiritual thing or physically the Romans wanted to destroy the Jews both because I always thought it was like a spiritual thing like like the Greeks in Kan I thought that was a spiritual thing not a physical thing okay we are interested in the politics we are interested what is happening to the Jewish people as a result of what is going on in the world and what other countries are doing to them certainly there's always a spirit ual component and certainly as I just mentioned the Sanhedrin had civil jurisdiction over the Jews but Capital jurisdiction capital crimes were not given to them and we'll see this as true very often particularly capital crimes that involved a Jew and a non-jew and by the way at this point in time the non-jewish the Gentile world is not Christian they're certainly not Muslim but they're not Christian they're pagans yes they are pagans we we don't have Christianity as a religion really for another 300 years if we say that we're at zero Christianity does not become an accepted religion it's not true that we'll get to this but it's not true that the year zero all of a sudden we have a Christian religion didn't happen didn't happen that way it took centuries right now the Gentiles the non-jews are pagans P pagans they believe in lots of gods okay now um with the Advent of Pontius Pilate now Pontius Pilate already we're talking he lives he he reigns from 26 to 36 in the Common Era ER so we're already in our time period makes it easier because at least the numbers will go up when we talk about before the Common Era BCE the numbers go down so sometimes it could be a little confusing but anyway reports of un unrest and riots became more frequent and a gradual disillusion came about from the hopes that had been attached to Roman rule Pont IUS pilate took money from the temple treasury surprise surprise he fought a bloody war in the Galilee because in the Galilee what we call the Galil today in the Galilee there were a lot of people who were very supportive very we could use the word religious spiritual whatever word you want to use he struck coins with Pagan symbols in the forms of culted objects something which none of his predecessors had done because they had a little bit of respect for the Jewish population he did not and so as we continue our Gallop through this period we finished with we are now going to the Great War here the I'm going to tell you give me a chance okay all right so now we have J um Jew the Jews who live in the area and remember by the way there are no boundaries of any of these areas these areas are just areas within the great big Roman Empire and they are ruled by the procurators their Chief responsibility the procurators is to collect and deliver an annual tax to the Empire now guess what they had to collect a certain amount of money if they collected more guess what they got to keep the extra so we find and by the way this is not just the procurators the Roman procurators we will find this true in every era of Jewish life we will find it TR true that the whoever is charged with collecting the taxes will very often try to collect a little more if I ask you for a hundred bucks more and you for a hundred bucks more that's $200 that I get to keep okay now then um more infuriating to the judeans Rome took over the appointment of the high priest the cohain Gad they decided that they want to appoint someone who was a little bit more willing to abide by what they wanted and that really rubbed that really rubbed the Jewish leadership in a very bad way and we know that kohen gutto was a representative of the Jewish people before God on the most sacred occasions which of course is going to be yum kipor and increasingly with the Roman rule with the rule of the procurators these high priests did not come from inherited through the the tribe of Lei the kohanim but they came from Jews who collaborated with Rome so we are beginning to see that the Romans are attacking some of the basic tenants of Judaism yes would it have been possible at all to have a discreet more secretive amongst the Jews uh Co a real the real and look we we tried that know the we tried that during the Spanish period it didn't work very well right okay let's continue and so we are going to meet a new group of people and we are going to call them the Ze or the kanim and they were active for more than six decades they later instit instituted what we are calling and what historians call the great Revolt their most basic belief by the way we have Canan today too yeah was that all means were Justified to attain political and religious liberty fill in the blank you could put them on both sides of our argument arents today they gained many adherence by playing on the anti-roman feelings of many Jews for many these anti-roman feelings were exacerbated by Caligula Caligula ordered his statue to be set up in the bam mikdash in the decades after Caligula's death Jews found their religion subject to periodic growth indignities in what and there the gamarra really has many many of them I'll just mention one or two in one instance Roman soldiers exposed themselves in the temple in another they burned a tus skull we have this both in the gamarra and also in the writings of Josephus in the year 66 Flores the um last Roman procurator stole vast Quant ities of silver from the temple so we have the recurring theme where the money that the Jews collect and next week we'll talk about how they collected this money and where it came from a lot of it is thek the half shekel that every Jew no matter where he lived contributed now so they um the Jews were outraged and they rioted and they rioted successfully and they managed to wipe out the small Roman Garrison that was stationed in the temple their motives also included precipitating a social Revolution the lower classes of the large cities mostly landless deers and refugees helped to incite the masses and by the way this is also the way revolutions tend to work you can incite the masses by playing on their insecurities and their fears the social character of the Revolution was particularly prominent among those extremist groups that produced some Messianic leaders as manakum the Galilean and Shimon bar to them the Revolt was not only a war against Rome but also a status a pardon me a challenge to the state status of leadership particularly the wealthy leadership so in addition to what we have right we have Rome versus the kanim versus the Jews we also have the lower classes of the Jews who feel that everything is being enacted done in order to preserve the wealth of the upper classes yes the success of the the can was because of the Romans were prepared they only had a Garrison there they didn't have more tro they didn't but just bear with me for about two minutes and you'll see that that will change oh it's going to change yeah of course it's going to change we know that the Jews lost the war to the Rome so it so it had to change oh I just like right okay now then um and what a lot of the lower classes did is their first foray into fighting here was to burn the municipal archives in order to destroy the records of their debts and again we see this again we will see this in the French Revolution we will see this in the Russian Revolution that the the people the lower classes will get a hold will enter will the um and so they can get to the records that will Destro destroy any uh record of their debt and then they began a campaign of Terror against the representatives of the upper classes now then cestius Gallas the Roman ruler in Syria again Syria was not a country Syria does not become a country until 1920s so we have areas and so Syria was an area and um he sends a larger force of soldiers you're not going to like this so bear with me these Roman forces were also defeated by the Jewish insurgents and so many Jews were convinced look you know first Garrison we defeated them they send some soldiers in from up North there we defeated them I guess we could defeat the Romans but but not even though the ranks of the can the zealots grew geometrically the Roman Empire could not allow themselves to be defeated by this rag tag Army of Jewish insurgents and so the Romans returned but this time they returned under the leadership of Titus oh Titus Titus yes and they came with six ,000 heavily armed and highly professional troops many more than the even most outrageous estimate of Jews who were involved 23,000 there were still three times as many Romans and as always the Romans were better equipped they had better arms they had better training they weren't what history calls a ragtag army the Romans launched their first attack in the Galilee they vanquished the Galilee and there were about a 100,000 Jews who were killed or sold into slavery wow now this great Revolt unlike the hashman Revolt which we talked about see how much we're ground we're covering centuries okay or the barov barovo which we'll get to in a few minutes did not produce even one Central personality whose leadership was accepted by everybody right in in the makan remot the Revolt of the you have yud makab in the bar Revolt we are to have Bara himself and so on and so forth the enmity and competition between the leaders and the various factions did much to interfere with the conduct of the war on the Jewish side and we know there were clashes among Jews I've already referred to the clashes of the lower classes against the upper CL but there were other clashes the um but you know the whole great Revolt which the Jews lost big time and you know the stories but it was a major victory for the Romans and in Roman history they referred to their defeat of the the Jews they refer to the um Valiant resistance that the Jews in gamla and in Mada and Jerusalem it's written in the Roman history books it was reckoned as a major victory of the success of the flavian dynasty flavus flavian Dynasty throughout the Roman contest Jewish leadership did almost nothing to help they apparently had concluded unfortunately too late that the Jewish Revolt could not be won these Jewish leaders wanted to hold down Jewish deaths and that's always are we going to worry about how many of our people are going to be killed in order to you could fill in the blank the refugees who succeeded in escaping the Galilean MERS fled to Jerusalem there they killed anyone who was not as radical as they so now we have the refugees from the Galilee who lost to the Romans fleeing to Jerusalem and they are a belligerent Force they kill those people who don't those people meaning Jews not Romans thus all the more moderate Jewish leadership who headed the Jewish government at the revolts beginning in ' 66 were dead by 68 significantly they were not killed by the Romans but by the Jews they killed each other the final catastrophe was not long in coming the Romans prepared to besiege the city inside Jerusalem the Jews were engaged in a suicidal Civil War in later generations we know that our rabbis have said that the problem with this war the Great War war was sinam causeless hatred and that's discussed in y and many other places there is no question that the Romans would have won anyway the Romans were stronger they were better equipped but the Jewish unrest the Jewish Civil War hastened their Victory and immensely increased Jewish C casualties one horrendous example in expectation of a Roman Siege Jerusalem's Jews had stockpiled a supply of dry food that could have fed the city for a very long time some people even suggested years but one of the Waring Zealot factions burned the entire Supply apparently hoping that if the Jews didn't have this secur blanket of food that they would then participate in the Revolt the starvation that resulted from this mad act caused suffering as great as any of as the Romans inflicted moreover we do know that some great figures of ancient Israel opposed the result most notably Rabbi yanan Ben zakai since celot leadership ordered the execution of you all know the story of anyone advocating surrender to Rome Rabbi yanan arranged for his disciples to smuggle him out of Jerusalem disguised as a corpse once safe he personally surrendered to the Roman general we know that he called the spaan and that he treated him with honor and the spaan as him what he wanted in return and he said yav and he wanted to have the city of yav and be able to have a possibility of um reinstituting Jewish observance and more importantly learning in the city of yava during the summer of 70 the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem and initiated an or orgie of violence and destruction that by the way quote from the Roman sources shortly thereafter they destroyed the second temple and this was the final and most devastating blow against Judea it is estimated that as many as one million Jews died during this Revolt not only by the Romans but also by the Jews when people today speak of the almost th000 year span of Jewish homelessness and Exile they are dating it from the failure of this revolt and the destruction of the temple indeed the great Revolt of 66 to70 was followed 60 years later by barova and um this great Revolt was one of the greatest calamities prior to the Holocaust in addition to the more than 1 million Jews the um this Revolt this great Revolt as we're calling it the Roman Revolt uh led to the total loss of Jewish political Authority until 1948 the loss in itself exacerbated the magnitude of later Jewish catastrophes since it precluded Israel from being used as a refuge for the large number of Jews that were trying trying to feel flee other persecutions and other attempts to rid themselves and now we come to the barova Rebellion 132 in our Common Era Fe so we have about 60 years right a little less after the destruction of the temple in the year 70 the spiritual leadership regrouped under RAB yohanan Ben zakai in yava his m effort was to RIT the fabric of Jewish life around the synagogue the study hall and the holidays and the festivals we will see next week when we talk about the aneka the great assembly that that will be much more formalized a little bit later with the temple ruins in Judea still occupied by the idolatrous foreign power the idea the yearnings for a redeemer for someone who was going to come a messiah if you will came and continued to grow this was despite the teachings of Rabbi yohanan which tended to blunt the immediacy of Messianic expectation he tried to focus the attention of the people on the idea of mitv and Torah and learning and those kinds of things that you could do today without waiting for something to happen and the that every we say that mikash also kind of told a lot of Jews who lived in this period it's coming we only need a leader we need somebody to do it and so just 60 years after the destruction of the temple thousands of Jews followed Bara into what was perhaps the bloodiest war of all the disunity and the interess in fighting which had played during the Great War was no longer operative we have Unity within the Jewish people this is of one about 130 120 130 we're getting there okay the bar for revolt the immediate cause of the uprising were the thoughtless P policies of hadrien hadrien wanted to turn Jerusalem into a pagan City and he renamed it alio capalina what he he renamed it aolia capitalina and he outli circumcision as barbaric mutilation now you have that today too right we have circumcision breed Mila outl in certain areas as being barbaric on the other hand there is evidence that there were secret preparations even before parosa that the desire to get back the desire to have a monarchy the desire to reinstitute Jewish practice and religion and get rid of the Romans right there is evidence there is General agreement among kazal that the Bara Rebellion had the active support and encouragement of the main rabic leaders no less than rabbe AKA Ben yose was at his head according to the Jerusalem talad Rabbi AKA upon seeing Bara exclaimed he is the mashia or he is Mel hhia depending on which version Bara saw himself as carrying out Messianic functions in the talmud barova is not described as particularly learned or as a Mystic or as a navi or Pro or possessing any Supernatural Powers except for unusual physical strength and ability in the military Arts he it is not even claimed that he was of the davidic line indeed he took a much less dramatic title and he called himself the Nasi the prince or maybe the president but not the Mel most revealing of all is that nowhere in the sources that we have have from Arab Israel is barova called a false Messiah it's just not there he is not condemned for Leading the People astray barova was seen as a national leader and had he succeeded he would have brought about maor major Messianic changes but he failed and the gamarra attests to the fact because of his own sins and pride and arrogance along with the unworthiness of his generation during the entire period of the second Commonwealth through the barov of rebellion and up to the Muslim Invasion the polit which I told you 700 years from where we are so you have to hold on oh my go okay um the political problems of Judea were considered religious problems this was primarily because they involved the freedom to work ship and because political sovereignty in erid Israel was one of the prerequisites for the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven therefore the Messianic view of the rabbis during this period was primarily National and realistic because the restorative in other words of the yearning for Mia um was not something that could be implemented mented by the leadership that they had it is said one second it is said that the journeys of Rabbi AKA to different parts of the diaspora may have been for the purpose of trying to coordinate other uprisings against Rome and if barova had reason to expect help from Parthia or other disgruntled areas of the Roman Empire then maybe his Rebellion could not have been considered unrealistic you had a question yeah I was saying I thought RAB AKA mentioned in the gamar that he was supported it as the Messiah I thought that's he was called the Messiah he he called bar yes that's right and then at the end later on when he was defeated then they said he was a false Messiah okay I I can't attest to that so no but I'm saying if he wasn't really the the rabbis okay I didn't come across that but that's okay I'm I'm not a um very well trained in gamar so no that at the end they called him a false Messiah at the end because they he didn't if Bara had reason to expect help then maybe his efforts were not unrealistic if political dependence Independence could be restored the nation would be roughly back to where they were during the days ofis Kahu and maybe that's what they hoped for the Bara rebellion was in effect the Watershed between the Messianic perspective that existed during the second Commonwealth remember the second Commonwealth began right with the hashman okay and uh was to develop and pretty much dominate Jewish thought for the next 1900 years the historical situation of Baraka was just about the last in which it could be easily argued that these restorative elements could be achieved by ordinary political and Military means after that we will enter a period Well in order to restore right the Messiah and whatever we have to have um the help of akaro not that we didn't need it before okay and with the expulsion of most Jews from the land and with the consequences of confrontational politics with the world power and with The Disappearance of Israel's military capability Messianic fulfillment gradually joined the utopian elements and a vision of the far distant future yeah there were nonetheless many changes that took place in Palestine both before and after the destruction of the second temple and I'll just very briefly go through through some of them the material achievements of helenistic civilization in agriculture town planning and finance all combined to create farreach changes even in Judea the settlements of the Jewish population were surrounded by a hostile gentle population always while this population was of differing ethnic Origins helenistic rule provided with something like a United heniz leadership a Syrian Greek block took shape and The crucial question arose as to whether the Jewish Nation could hold its own or whether it would lose its specific National Religious and cultural character the same issues that we're dealing with in 2024 can the Jews being exposed to if we will broadly talk about Western culture can we hold our own and still become an or are we going to be absorbed and become part of the general whole around the year 200 see how much ground we've covered today right 700 years now around the year 200 it seemed that the victory of Hellenism was assured the outer Glamour and material Su superiority of the dominant civilization seemed liable to endanger the Contin continuity of Judaism or at least to deprive the leadership class of its Jewish character the upper classes including the priest increasingly adapted its way of thinking and style of life to those corresponding classes of a non-jewish section there was a desire to merge into the upper strata of gentle Society should sounds so familiar as we begin to examine what goes on in 2024 the other classes also came under increasing influence of the general Helen Helen helenistic atmosphere many Jews lived in towns where the majority of the population was heniz Jewish Merchants who traded with far off cities acquired Greek civilization together with their merchant and passed it on to the other Jews next week we will look at the internal Jewish devel Vel M During the period of the second temple we will briefly look at a number of and I say briefly I mean briefly because it would be a whole course just to do the different sex secs within Judaism then we will look at the aness haa and the tremendous accomplishments that really changed the way Judy [Music]