Background
Gamaliel II was born in Palestine in 40AD.
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GAMALIEL II OF YAVNEH
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Assuming office in succession to Johanan ben Zakkai around 80 CE, Gamaliel consolidated the work of religious and national reconstruction that Johanan had undertaken a decade earlier after the Romans laid waste the Temple.
While under suspension, he continued to discharge his ordinary duties with a good grace, believing that every step had been taken “not for his own honor, nor for that of his house, but for the honor of God alone, so that factions might not grow apace in Israel.” At his bidding, therefore, a nineteenth benediction was added to the Amidah prayer, designed to exclude Judeo-Christians and other heretical elements from synagogue worship. At the same time, righteous proselytes were mentioned favorably in a separate Amidah blessing; and the delegation of leading sages, headed by Rabban Gamaliel, that journeyed to Rome (c. 95 CE) apparently aimed to avert a decree outlawing conversion to Judaism, after the Emperor Domitian’s own cousin, Flavius Clemens, had embraced the Jewish faith.
Achievements
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His principal aim and major achievement was to make Yavneh not only a focus of Jewish scholarship, but a great fortress of Jewish leadership as well — one to which the nation could look for guidance and inspiration after the rallying point of the Temple had vanished.
This ambitious program involved the setting of new standards of conduct for admission to the academy, ending the old strife between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, establishing a coherent policy toward the outside world, and centralizing Jewish authority in the sages (with Gamaliel himself at their head). It was this very insistence on unquestioned authority, however, that brought Rabban Gamaliel into conflict with other leading scholars, notably his own brother-in-law, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, and Joshua ben hananiah. As a result of the culminating humiliation suffered by Joshua over the date on which he calculated that the Day of Atonement would fall, Gamaliel was deposed and temporarily replaced by Eleazar ben Azariah. His true nature soon became evident when a reconciliation brought the expatriarch and his offended colleague together once again; the sages promptly restored him to office, nominating Eleazar as vice-president of the Sanhedrin.
Religion
One of the foremost teachers of his generation, renowned for his authoritative judgment and for his broad cultural interests, Gamaliel attained vast prestige as the official spokesman and representative of his people. He was responsible for many enactments that had far-reaching impact on Jewish life: determining the biblical canon; perpetuating remembrance of the Temple in various laws and customs; reformulating the Passover seder ritual; giving a set form to the Amidah prayer, the recitation of which became a daily obligation; and, through his personal example, doing away with elaborate burial rites so as to avoid social distinctions. Above all, he promoted a unification of Jewish legal, theological, and ethical traditions that served as the basis for his grandson Judah ha-Nasi’s later achievement in the Mishnah.
Personality
Though somewhat high-handed and domineering in public life, Gamaliel was a modest, saintly, and kind-hearted individual whose consideration for others extended not only to pupils and the Jewish community at large but also to well-intentioned Gentiles and his own faithfbl, pious slave, Tabi.
Connections
- Father:
- GAMALIEL I THE ELDER
