Background
The first sage to be given the title of Rabban (our master), he was active throughout the last decades of the Second Temple and died a few years before its destruction.
Gamliel; Gamiliel
The first sage to be given the title of Rabban (our master), he was active throughout the last decades of the Second Temple and died a few years before its destruction.
As one who enjoyed supreme religious authority, Gamaliel I maintained regular contact with Jewish communities in Palestine and in the Diaspora, dictating numerous letters (three of which are quoted in the Talmud) on matters such as the proclamation of a new moon or the approach of a leap year.
Following his grandfather’s example, he also enacted various ordinances to protect divorcees and enable widows whose husbands’ deaths could not be proved by the statutory two witnesses to remarry after a single witness had provided evidence. This liberal and humane interpretation of Halakhah (Jewish law) was further visible in Gamaliel’s care to prevent miscarriage of justice and in his positive attitude toward Gentiles.
He had close ties with the Judean royal family, and King Agrippa I relied on him for expert legal advice. According to New Testament sources, Gamaliel was an honored and popular “doctor of the law” who intervened on behalf of Peterand his companions when they were arraigned before the Sanhedrin; Paul, the erstwhile Pharisee, also took pride in the fact that he had studied under Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-40, 22:3).
He was the founder of a dynasty that included his immediate successors, R. Simeon ben Gamaliel and Gamaliel II of Yavneh, and his great-great-grandson Judah ha-Nasi.
“When Rabban Gamliel died,” said the rabbis, “the glory of the Torah ceased, along with purity and saintliness.”