D. Falk, 2002
Check out the literature, images, and FAQ on Second Temple Synagogues at Donald Binder’s web site (follow the links)
Literature: http://www.pohick.org/sts/lit.html
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A dedication inscription for a synagogue
in
Theodotus, son of Vettanos, a
priest and an archisynagogos,* son of an archisynagogos
grandson of an archisynagogos, built the
synagogue for the reading of Torah and for teaching the commandments;
furthermore, the hostel, and the rooms, and the water installation for lodging
needy strangers. Its foundation stone was laid by his ancestors, the elders,
and Simonides.
[Translation by K. C. Hanson and Douglas Oakman;
http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/greek/theodotus.html]
Picture of Theodotus Inscription: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dfalk/courses/ejud/synagogues.htm
[Mishnah Avot records traditions about the rabbinic “fathers.” It purports an unbroken a chain of tradition from Moses to the rabbis]
Chapter 1
1. Moses received the Torah
from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua,
and Joshua to the elders,
and the elders to the prophets,
and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue.
They said
three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many
disciples, and make a fence around the Torah.
2. Shimon the Righteous was
one of the last survivors of the Great Synagogue.
He used
to say: By three things the world is sustained: by the Torah, by the (
3. Antigonus of Socho received the Torah from Shimon the Righteous.
He used
to say: Be not like servants who serve their master for the expectation of
reward, but be like servants who serve their master without the expectation of
reward; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
4. Yose
ben Yoezer of Zeredah and Yose ben Yochanan of
6. Joshua ben
Perahyah and Nittai
the Arbelite received the Torah from them.
Joshua ben Perahyah said: Provide for
yourself a teacher and get yourself a friend; and judge every man towards
merit. …
8.
10. Shemayah
and Avtalion received the Torah from them. . .
.
11. Avtalion said: Sages, be careful with your words lest you
incur the penalty of exile …
12. Hillel
and Shammai received the Torah from them.
Hillel used to say:
Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving others
and bringing them close to the Torah. …
15. Shammai said: Make your study of the Torah a fixed habit. Say
little and do much, and receive all men with a cheerful face.
16. Rabban
Gamaliel said:
Provide
yourself with a teacher and remove yourself from doubt, and do not make a habit
of tithing by guesswork.
17. Shimon [ben Gamaliel] said:
All my
days have I grown up among the sages and I have not found anything better for a
man than silence. Study [of Torah] is not the most important thing but doing
[it]. Whoever multiplies words makes occasion for sin.
Chapter 2
1. Rabbi [
… Be as careful
about a light precept as of a weighty one, for you do not know the reward
allotted for each precept.
Count the
loss of fulfilling a law against the reward [from it], and [count] the gain
[from committing] a transgression against the loss from it.
Consider
three things and you will not fall into the power of sin: Know what is above
you: a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and all your deeds recorded in a book
2. Rabban
Gamaliel the son of Rabbi
Great is
study of the Torah when combined with a worldly occupation, for toil in them
both puts sin out of mind. And all study of the Torah not accompanied by
worldly work is in the end futile and leads to sin. Let all who work with the
congregation do so for the sake of God [literally, for the name of Heaven], for
then the merit of their fathers sustains them and their righteousness endures
forever. And as for you, God will then say: I count you worthy of great reward
as if you had done it all yourselves.
4. He
used to say: Do His will as if it was your will that He may do your will as if
it was His will. Make your will of no effect before His will that He may
make the will of others of no effect before your will.
5. Hillel said: Do not
separate yourself from the community. Do not trust yourself until the day of
your death. Do not judge your fellow until you have been in his place. … Do not
say: when I have leisure then I will study—you may never have leisure.
8. Rabban
Yochanan ben Zakkai received the Torah from Hillel
and from Shammai. … Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai
had five disciples: Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Joshua ben Hananiah, Yose the
Priest, Shimon ben Natanel,
and Elazar ben Arach. …
10. They each said three things.
Rabbi Eliezer said: Let the honor of your fellow be as dear to
you as your own. Do not be easily provoked to anger. Repent one day before your
death.
…
18. Rabbi
Shimon said: Be careful in the reciting of the Shema and in the Tefillah.
When you pray do not make your prayer a fixed task but [a plea] for mercies and
supplications before God…
…
Chapter 3
…
2. Rabbi Hanina,
the deputy high priest said:
Pray for
the welfare of the government, since but for fear of it men would swallow each
other alive.
5. Rabbi Nehunya
ben Hakhanah said:
Whoever
takes upon himself the yoke of Torah, from him will be taken away the yoke of
the kingdom and the yoke of worldly care; but whoever throws off the yoke of
Torah, upon him will be laid the yoke of the kingdom and the yoke of worldly
care.
…
8. Rabbi Jacob said:
If a man is
walking by the way and is studying and then interrupts his study and says:
"How fine is this tree!" or "How fine is this ploughed
field!" Scripture reckons it to him as though he was guilty liable
for his life.
9. Rabbi Dostai
ben Yannai said in the
name of Rabbi Meir:
He who
forgets one word of his study, Scripture reckons it to him as though he was
guilty liable for his life… a person is not guilty unless he deliberately puts
those lessons away from his heart.
10. Rabbi Hanina
ben Dosa said:
He whose
fear of sin comes before his wisdom, his wisdom will endure; but he whose
wisdom comes before his fear of sin, his wisdom will not endure. …
12. Rabbi Elazar
of Modiim said:
If a man
profanes sacred things, and despises the festivals and puts his fellow to shame
publicly, and makes void the covenant of Abraham our father, and teaches
meanings in the Torah which are not according to Halakhah,
even though he has a knowledge of the Torah and good works, he has no share in
the world to come.
…
14. Rabbi Akiva
said:
…Tradition
is a safeguarding fence around the Torah. …
16. All
is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given.
4:16. Rabbi Jacob used to
say:
This
world is like a vestibule before the world to come. Prepare yourself in the
vestibule that you may enter into the banquet hall. …
5:10. There
are four types among men:
He who says, "What is mine is mine and what is yours
is yours"--this is the common type, though some say that this is the type
of
He who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours
is mine"--he is an ignorant man.
He who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours
is thine own"--he is a saintly man.
And he who says, "What is
yours is mine, and what is mine is mine"--he is a wicked man.
5:22. Ben Bag-Bag used to
say of the Torah:
Turn it
and turn it again, for everything is in it. Ponder it, and grow gray and old
over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it.
(Ben
Bag-Bag is supposed to have been a proselyte and a disciple of Hillel. In Aboth
d’R. Nathan this saying is
attributed to Hillel)
[Adapted from Danby translation]
On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder's cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.’
. . . said they, Shammai's impatience sought to drive us from the world, but Hillel's gentleness brought us under the wings of the Shechinah.
[modified from Soncino Classics translation]
"And
raise up many disciples":
The
--"Do not teach a man unless he is wise and meek and the son of wealthy
parents!"
The
--"Teach every man! For there were many sinners in
[Translation by Mahlon H. Smith, http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/index.html#texts]
[Re: the written law]
143 Another most admirable injunction is that nothing should be added or taken away [alluding to Deuteronomy 4:2], but all the laws originally ordained should be kept unaltered just as they were.
For what actually happens . . . is that it is the unjust which is added and the just which is taken away, for the wise legistlator [Moses] has omitted nothing which can give possession of justice whole and complete . . .
147 . . . Addition will beget superstition and subtraction will beget impiety.
[Re: unwritten laws]
149 Another commandment of general value is “You shalt not remove your neighbor’s landmarks which your ancestors have set up.” Now this law, we may consider, applies not merely to allotments and boundaries of land in order to eliminate covetousness but also to the safeguarding of ancient customs. For cusoms are unwritten laws, the decisions approved by men of old, not inscribed on monuments nor on leaves of paper which the moth destroys, but on the souls of those who are partners in the same citizenship.
150 For children ought to inherit from their parents, besides
their property, ancestral customs which they were reared in and have
lived with even from the cradle, and not despise them because they have been handed
down without written record.
Praise cannot be duly given to one who obeys the written
laws, since he acts under the admonition of restraint and the fear of
punishment. But he who faithfully observes the unwritten deserves
commendation, since the virtue which he displays is freely willed.
[adapted from Loeb translation]
. . . What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have passed on to the people a great many observances handed down by their fathers, which are not written down in the law of Moses. For this reason the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to consider to be obligatory only those observances which are in the written word, but need not observe those which are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.
[Whiston translation]
5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?" 6 And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
`This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' 8 You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men."
9 And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! [RSV]
Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the elders; the elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah. [Danby translation]
Our rabbis taught: It happened that a certain foreigner came to Shammai and said to him: “How many Torahs are there for you?"
He told him: “Two! A written Torah and an oral Torah.”
He said to him: “I will trust you on the written but I will not trust you on
the oral. I will be a proselyte providing you teach me (only) the written
Torah.”
(Shammai) rebuked him and drove him out in anger.
(The foreigner) came before Hillel who made him a proselyte. The first day (Hillel) told him: “Aleph, Beth, Gimel,
Daleth [= ABCD]”
The next day he turned them around for him.
(The disciple) said to (Hillel): “But yesterday you
did not tell me like this!”
(Hillel) told him: “Did you not then trust what I
said? Trust me likewise [with regard to Oral Torah]!”
[Adapted from translation by Mahlon H. Smith, http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/index.html#texts]
And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said, “‘Upon them’—‘And upon them’; ‘all’—‘according to all’; ‘words’—‘the words.’ Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, halakhah, and aggadah. Even that which an experienced student will teach, has already been taught to Moses at Sinai.”
[translation S. Berrin in Schiffman, Texts and Traditions, 10.5.2, p. 536]
They shall teach Jacob your ordinances (mishpateyka) and
“And your Torahs to
Agnitos, the governor, asked Rabban Gamaliel, saying to him,
“How many Torahs were given to
[translation by J. Neusner, Sifre to Deuteronomy, 2:428]
Rabbi Eleazar of Modi'im
said:
--"He who profanes holy things and spurns the set times, he who exposes
his colleague in public, he who voids the covenant of our father Abraham, he
who discovers parts of the Torah contradicting halakah, he has not share in the world to come,
even if he has a grasp of Torah and good deeds."
[Translation by Mahlon H. Smith, http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/index.html#texts]
“In the beginning God created” (Genesis 1:1).
R. Oshaya commenced [his
exposition thus]: Then I was by Him, as a nursling (amon); and I was daily all delight (Prov.
[modified from Soncino
Classics translation]
Now, they were disputing in the
[modified from Soncino
Classics translation]
We learnt elsewhere: If he cut it
into separate tiles, placing sand between each tile: R. Eliezer
declared it clean, and the Sages declared it unclean; and this was the oven of
‘Aknai.1 Why [the oven of] ‘Aknai? — Said Rab
R. Nathan met Elijah and
asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour? — He laughed
[with joy], he replied, saying, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have
defeated
A Tanna
taught: Great was the calamity that befell that day, for everything at which R.
Eliezer cast his eyes was burned up. R. Gamaliel too was travelling in a
ship, when a huge wave arose to drown him. ‘It appears to me,’ he reflected,
‘that this is on account of none other but R. Eliezer
b. Hyrcanus.’ Thereupon he arose and exclaimed, ‘Sovereign of the Universe!
Thou knowest full well that I have not acted for my honour, nor for the honour of my paternal house, but for Thine,
so that strife may not multiply in
Ima Shalom was R. Eliezer's wife, and sister to R. Gamaliel. From the time of this incident onwards she did not permit him to fall upon his face. Now a certain day happened to be New Moon, but she mistook a full month for a defective one. Others say, a poor man came and stood at the door, and she took out some bread to him. [On her return] she found him fallen on his face. ‘Arise,’ she cried out to him, ‘thou hast slain my brother.’ In the meanwhile an announcement was made from the house of Rabban Gamaliel that he had died. ‘Whence dost thou know it?’ he questioned her. ‘I have this tradition from my father's house: All gates are locked, excepting the gates of wounded feelings.’
[modified from Soncino Classics translation]
On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder's cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.’
[modified from Soncino Classics translation]
Rabbi Akiva used to say: Beloved is the man that he was created in the image of G-d; an extra love is made known to him that he was created in G-d's image, as it says (Genesis 9:6) "for in His own image G-d made humankind". Beloved are the Jews that they are called sons to G-d; an extra love is made known to them that they are called sons to G-d, as it says (Deuteronomy 14:1) "You are children of the Lord your G-d." Beloved are the Jews that there has been given to them the precious instrument; an extra love is made known to them that they were given the precious instrument of the world's creation, as it says (Proverbs 4:2) "For I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching."
[from http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/avot.html; Copyright 2000 Gil Student]
[“THEREFORE GAVE HE THEM TORAH (TEACHINGS) AND MANY COMMANDMENTS . . .”]
R. Simlai when preaching said: Six hundred and thirteen precepts were communicated to Moses, three hundred and sixty-five negative precepts, corresponding to the number of solar days [in the year], and two hundred and forty-eight positive precepts, corresponding to the number of the members of man's body.
Said R. Hamnuna: What is the [authentic] text for this? It is, Moses commanded us torah, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob, ‘torah’ being in letter-value, equal to six hundred and eleven, ‘I am’ and ‘Thou shalt have no [other Gods]’ [not being reckoned, because] we heard from the mouth of the Might [Divine].
David came and reduced them to eleven [principles], as it is written, A Psalm of David. Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in Thy holy mountain? — [i] He that walketh uprightly, and [ii] worketh righteousness, and [iii] speaketh truth in his heart; that [iv] hath no slander upon his tongue, [v] nor doeth evil to his fellow, [vi] nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour, [vii] in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but [viii] he honoureth them that fear the Lord, [ix] He sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not, [x] He putteth not out his money on interest, [xi] nor taketh a bribe against the innocent. [Psalm 15]. . . .
Isaiah came and reduced them to six [principles],19 as it is written, [i] He that walketh righteously, and [ii] speaketh uprightly, [iii] He that despiseth the gain of oppressions, [iv] that shaketh his hand from holding of bribes, [v] that stoppeth his ear from hearing of blood, [vi] and shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil; he shall dwell on high [Isaiah 33:25-26]. . . .
Micah came and reduced them to three [principles], as it is written, It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: [i] only to do justly, and [ii] to love mercy and [iii] to walk humbly before thy God [Micah 6:8].
Again came Isaiah and reduced them to two [principles], as it is said, Thus saith the Lord, [i] Keep ye justice and [ii] do righteousness [Isaiah 56:1].
Amos came and reduced them to one
[principle], as it is said, For thus saith the Lord unto the house of
To this R. Nahman b. Isaac demurred, saying: [Might it not be taken as,] Seek Me by observing the whole Torah and live? — But it is Habakuk who came and based them all on one [principle], as it is said, But the righteous shall live by his faith [Habakkuk 2:4].
[modified from Soncino Classics translation]
Resh Lakish said, What is meant by the verse, and there shall be faith in thy times, strength, salvation, wisdom and knowledge [Isaiah 33:6]? ‘Faith’ refers to the Order of Seeds; thy times, the Order of Festivals; strength, the Order of Women; salvation, the Order of Nezikin; wisdom, the Order of Sacrifices; and knowledge, to the Order of Purity. Yet even so the fear of the Lord is his treasure.
[modified from Soncino Classics translation]