Episode #40   The First Schism

In this episode, Rabbi Reinman discusses the origin and effects of the Tzedoki movement.

Before we further investigate the fractious relationship between the Greek kingdoms and the Jewish homeland, it is important to consider the spiritual conditions in Judea during the first two centuries under the Alexandrian successor states. Who were the custodians of the Oral Law, and how did they perform their duties? What was the religious level of the people?

As discussed in Chapter Thirty-six, when the Persians allowed the Jewish people to return to Judea and build the Second Beis Hamikdash, the ruling body of the nascent state was the Anshei Knessess Hagedolah, a council of one hundred and twenty elite leaders, prophets and scholars. They shaped the contours of Jewish life for the rest of history. The last surviving member of this august council was Shimon Hatzaddik, the Kohein Gadol, who had multiple roles in addition to his duties in the Beis Hamikdash. He was the custodian and arbiter of the Oral Law as well as the political, judicial and spiritual leader.

After he passed away, the office of High Priest passed to members of his family, and the custodianship of the Oral Law passed to Antigonos of Socho, who presided over the Sanhedrin. He was by himself the ultimate authority on questions of law and religion, just as Shimon Hatzaddik had been, and Ezra before him, going back in a one-by-one succession all the way to Moshe Rabbeinu. Under his watch, an event occurred that would have profound effects on the Jewish people for the rest of history.

Every day, Antigonos taught the laws of the Torah to an inner circle of students, who discussed and reviewed the teachings until they became experts. Then they taught them to a wider group of students. These were the future rabbis and teachers of the Torah. Among his inner circle were two young men named Zadok and Baisus.

It was the custom of the great sages also to convey to their students life lessons they considered especially important. One day, Antigonos told his students, “You should not be like servants who serve their Master in order to be rewarded. Be rather like servants who do not serve their Master in order to be rewarded.” Serve Him out of love.[1]

As usual, Zadok and Baisus were sitting in the front and listening to the words of their teacher. Afterward, when they were alone, they discussed the rabbi’s advice. “Are these the teachings passed down to us from our ancestors? Why would they say something like that? If a laborer puts in a good day’s work, shouldn’t he be rewarded? If our ancestors had believed that our souls survive in the afterlife and that the dead would be brought back to life, would they tell us to forget about being rewarded? Surely, there is no reward. There is just the here-and-now. So what are we doing here? Let’s enjoy our lives.” The two young men decided to leave the beis midrash and form two splinter groups called the Zadukim and the Baisusim.[2]

This story raises a number of questions. All the students of the great sage Antigonos were undoubtedly among the intellectual elite of the younger generation, bright and intelligent young men destined to join the Torah leadership of the Jewish people. Surely, they understood that even when there is a promise of reward for living by the Torah, doing so out of love without focusing on the eventual reward is a higher level of service. And if they had doubts, why didn’t they just ask Antigonos? He would have reassured them.

This story must be viewed in the context of the times. It took place a few decades after the Greeks arrived and introduced their culture to the lands of the Middle East. It was intoxicating. The Jewish people did not recognize it immediately as the implacable enemy of the Jewish religion. They did not recognize the underlying ideology that worshipped humanity and denied the primacy of God. They saw the outward attractions − sports in the gymnasiums, athletic competitions in stadiums, tragedies and comedies performed on the stages of theaters, beautiful art, sculpture, music, poetry and literature, the exploration of science and mathematics − and they were intrigued.

Almost against their will, people started to become Hellenized. They took Greek names and learned the melodious Greek language. Even the great Antigonos, who must have been born after Alexander’s conquest, carried a Greek name. They wore Greek clothes. They spoke Greek in addition to Aramaic, the dominant language of the Middle East. Some of them sang popular Greek songs. Some may have surreptitiously visited the theaters and gymnasiums, at first out of curiosity and eventually out of obsession.

No one was immune to the pervasive Greek influence. It would take years until the Jewish people identified the danger to their religion and culture and more years until they would mount a stiff resistance. The youth were especially susceptible to the lure of Greek culture.

Even among the inner circle of Antigonos students, the highest level of Torah scholarship, some young men such as Zadok and Baisus dreamed of joining the games and attending the theaters, but leaving the Jewish community and becoming Greek was not really an option. Their strong Jewish identity, based on history, family, community and culture, would not allow them to assimilate seamlessly. They would always be outsiders, tolerated but not embraced. The only option was to start a Hellenizing movement within the Jewish people that would allow them to enjoy Greek culture without relinquishing their Jewish identity.

This is what Zadok and Baisus set out to do, but there was a problem. How could they start such a movement? The Torah was such an integral part of people’s lives, their history, their very identity. How could these two young men persuade others to abandon it and enjoy Greek culture?

Antigonos’s statement presented an opportunity. Zadok and Baisus were sophisticated enough intellectually to understand that serving the Almighty out of love without thinking of the reward did not mean that reward did not exist. But it could be presented that way to simpler folk who struggled to survive, encouraged by the thought of a wonderful afterlife. They could be told by these two brilliant young men that the rabbi had revealed in his lecture that there would be no reward.

Spreading such falsehoods prepared the ground for a Hellenizing movement, but it was not enough. Jewish life was too enmeshed with the traditions and rhythms of a Torah life. The festivals, the pilgrimages to the Beis Hamikdash, the serenity of Shabbos, all these were very important to people even if they could not expect reward in the afterlife. They would not follow leaders who preached abandoning the culture of their ancestors.

Zadok and Baisus had a solution. They claimed that the Torah was true and holy, our priceless legacy from Sinai. But only the Written Torah was authentic. The Oral Torah was the invention of the Rabbis who wanted to control the people. We do not need the rabbis to interpret the Written Torah to us, they insisted. We need only be guided by a literal understanding of the text.  If we do that, we will be truly faithful to the religion of our ancestors.

In order to prove their sincerity, they chose to follow the Torah more stringently than the Oral Torah dictated. The Torah commands, “You shall work for six days, and the seventh day shall be holy … lo sevaaru eish in all your dwellings.”[3] What do these words mean? The rabbis understood them to mean that you should not light any fires in all your dwellings on Shabbos, but if a fire is already burning you do not have to extinguish it. The word haavarah means kindling. Zadok and Baisus, however, claimed that it means no fires should be burning in your homes on Shabbos. All fires had to be extinguished before Shabbos, and people had to sit in the dark and cold and eat only cold food.[4]

While the language tolerates both readings, it would seem that the rabbis’ view is more reasonable. The seventh day is holy and should not be spent building fires, but why should people sit in the cold and dark on a holy day of rest?

Nonetheless, Zadok and Baisus were adamant in their interpretation, They were willing to endure the privations of being without fire rather than allow the rabbis to impose their programs on the sacred text. And thus, the people were convinced that these young men were sincere scholars seeking the truth and not hedonists seeking to break from rabbinic restraints. And if these reliable young men reported that the leading rabbi of the generation had revealed that there would be no reward in the afterlife, what was the point of following the rabbis and living a life of restrictions? A much better option was to live a Jewish life and follow the Jewish traditions according to the written words of the sacred texts.

Starting with a small nucleus, Zadok and Baisus had set in motion a movement that would blend Jewish tradition with Greek culture. They formed a distinctive Jewish subculture that allowed its members to join the activities in the gymnasium, stadium, theater and literary symposia without feeling like outsiders. The movement began with each of the two leaders gathering his own group of followers, the Zadukim and the Baisusim, but they were essentially one and the same. Eventually, there would be no distinction between them. They were all Zadukim.

This was the first schism in Jewish history. There had been times when some of the Jewish people had strayed into paganism and worshipped idols, but they did not do so under the guise of a form of Judaism. Now, however, there were people who purported to practice Judaism, but were really renegade Hellenizers. The Zadukim became the Hellenizers who played such a deleterious role in Jewish history.

Zadukism did not survive the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, but they left a breach through which others would pass. Hundreds of years later, the Karaites formed a movement that was strongly similar to the Zadukim, as will be described later. Christianity started as a Jewish sect. In modern times, Sabbateans, Frankists, Reformers, Conservatives, Reconstructionists and Progressives would also pass through the breach and form movements antithetical to Classical Judaism, but the Zadukim would always have the dubious honor of being the first schism.

[1] Pirkei Avos 1:3.

[2] Avos d’Rabbi Nassan 5:2.

[3] Shemos 35:2-3.

[4] Tosefta Shabbos 1, 12.