Background
Rabbi Eliezer was born in 40 in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Eliezer was born in 40 in Jerusalem.
A native Jerusalemite, he first showed signs of genius after becoming a student in his twenties. According to his teacher, Johanan ben Zakkai, Eliezer then outshone all other pupils in memorizing traditional sources like “a plastered well that retains every single drop.”
Together with Joshua ben Hananyah, he was responsible for Rabbi Johanan’s escape (in a coffin) from Jerusalem when the Roman siege was at its height, after which the Roman general Vespasian gave permission for the Sanhedrin’s reestablishment at Yavne.
Eliezer became one of Yavne’s foremost sages after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, undertook various overseas missions, and once accompanied Rabbi Johanan on a journey to Rome (c. 95 CE).
When Eliezer defied a majority vote by the Sanhedrin on a legal issue (c. 97 CE), his brother-in-law, the Patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, proclaimed a ban excluding him from the company and deliberations of fellow sages. This unusually severe decree embittered Eliezer until his dying day.
Not only did the sages mourn Eliezer’s passing, but they also rescinded the ban and reaffirmed many of his decision which became authoritative legal rulings.
Eliezer’s great prestige and contribution to rabbinic lawmaking are widely demonstrated by the recurrence of his name in the Mishnah, numerous debates in the Talmud arising from his legal opinions.
He founded an academy of his own at Lydda, where the most famous students were Rabbi Akiva and Aquila the Proselyte, who produced a Greek version of the Bible for Diaspora Jews.
A dynamic but inflexible personality, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus seems to have followed the school of Shammai in his legal conservatism and anti-Roman outlook. While ready to accept genuine proselytes, he distanced himself from heathen, advocated minimal social contact with them, and believed that his wrongful arrrest on one occasion was the punishment ordained for his thoughtless approval of a Judeo-Christian teaching.
Quotations: One of his memorable injunctions was to “repent one day before your death,” in other words, as a daily routine. “Know before whom you stand!” another celebrated aphorism, is a text often displayed on the reader’s platform or lectern in synagogues.
