Joshua ben Hananiah (Hebrew: יהושע בן חנניה d. 131 C.E.), also known as Rabbi Joshua was a leading rabbinical sage of the first half-century following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem as a result of the First Jewish Revolt, 66-70 C.E.
A disciple of Johanan ben Zakkai, he was an opponent of asceticism who represented the more liberal school of Hillel against the strict legalism of the house of Shammai, especially in disputes with Johanan's other leading pupil, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Rabbi Joshua also worked in concert with Gamaliel II, the president of the emerging rabbinical academy at Jamnia, to promote Hillel's views, but he ran afoul of Gamaliel on issues of authority. He went on to become president of the rabbinical council after Gamaliel's death. A rich tradition has developed concerning Rabbi Joshua's interactions with Emperor Hadrian, although the historicity of some of these conversations is dubious.
Joshua's character was that of a peacemaker who respected and forgave even his strongest opponents. His influence is thought to have prevented the Jews from a second violent rebellion against Rome. After his death, however, his own most prominent disciple, Rabbi Akiba, became a supporter of the messianic revolt led by Simon Bar Kochba against Rome, which led to tragic results.
Together with Johanan ben Zakkai, Gamaliel II, and Akiba, Joshua ben Hananiah was one of the key founders of the rabbinic Judaism, which has been at the center of Jewish life and civilization for the last two millennia. He is one of the most quoted sages of the Mishnah, the Talmud, and other classical Jewish literature.
... Tradition places him at the head of Johanan's disciples along with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. These two are frequently mentioned as upholders of opposite views, with Joshua representing the house of Hillel and Eliezer representing that of Shammai. Eliezer and Joshua cooperated together, however, to rescue their teacher Johanan from the besieged city of Jerusalem in the closing days of the Jewish Revolt, reportedly smuggling him out of the city in a coffin.
An opponent of asceticism
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem Joshua opposed the exaggerated asceticism with which many wished to show their grief, such as going without meat and wine because the sacred altar, on which they had sacrificed animals and poured libations of wine, had been destroyed. He argued that to carry this policy to its logical conclusion, they ought to eat no figs or grapes either, since no more first-fruits were offered, and that they ought even to refrain from bread, since the loaves of the feast of first-fruits could no longer be sacrificed (Tosef., Sotah, end; B. B. 60b).
... In regard to the severe regulations which had been adopted by the school of Shammai shortly before the destruction of the Temple, he said: "On that day they overstepped the boundary."
Joshua saw the greatest danger to the community in the sickly offshoots of supposed piety. Classes of people he condemned as "enemies of general prosperity" included:
- Foolishly pious men
- Sly sinners who appear pious
- Women who show an over-pious bearing
- Hypocrites who pretend to be saints (Sotah iii. 4, 21b; Yer. Sotah 21b)
When Johanan ben Zakkai asked his pupils concerning the best standard of conduct, Joshua answered that one should seek association with a good companion and avoid a bad one. He recommended temperance and the love of humankind as the best assurance of individual happiness. On the other hand, holding grudges, lustful passion, and hatred of humankind brings only loss and ultimately death (Ab. ii. 11).
Various anecdotes illustrate the opposition between Joshua, who represented the teachings of Hillel, and his colleague Eliezer, who represented the teachings of Shammai, much in the same way as the opposition between Hillel and Shammai is depicted elsewhere (Gen. R. lxx; Eccl. R. i. 8; Kid. 31a).
... After the death of Johanan ben Zakkai (c. 90 C.E.), Rabbi Joshua was a supporter of the efforts of Gamaliel II, the president of the academy, to promote the views of Hillel's followers over those of Shammai's and bring to an end the discord which had so long existed between the schools. Nevertheless, he and Gamaliel clashed severely on questions of authority ... [after one clash] Gamaliel was now obliged to share his office with Eleazar ben Azariah (not to be confused with Eliezer ben Hyrcanus), who had earlier been appointed his successor (Ber. 28a).
n order to plead the case of the Palestinian Jews at Rome, the co-presidents, Gamaliel and Eleazar, went as their primary representatives, with rabbis Joshua and Akiba accompanying them. This journey of the "elders" to Rome furnished material for many narratives and legends. In one of these,
the Romans called on Rabbi Joshua to give proofs from the Bible of the resurrection of the dead and
of the foreknowledge of God (Sanh. 90b). In another, Joshua came to the aid of Gamaliel when the latter was unable to answer the question of a philosopher (Gen. R. xx.). In one anecdote, Joshua's astronomical knowledge enabled him to calculate that a comet would appear in the course of a sea voyage in which he and Gamaliel were involved (Hor. 10a).
After Gamaliel's death, the presidency of the rabbinical council fell to Joshua, since Eleazar ben Azariah had apparently already died, and Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was under a ban of excommunication due to his irascible opposition to the will of the majority and his sewing the seeds of disunity. Later, Joshua, hearing of Eliezer's mortal illness, went to his deathbed despite the ban against him, and sought to console him: "O master, thou art of more value to Israel than God's gift of the rain," he declared, "since the rain gives life in this world only, whereas thou givest life both in this world and in the world to come" (Mek., Yitro, Bachodesh, 10; Sifre, Deut. 32). After Eliezer's death, Joshua rescinded the excommunication against his old colleague and opponent. Later, when other scholars contested some of Eliezer's legal rulings, Joshua said to them: "One should not oppose a lion after he is dead" (Gittin 83a; Yer. Git. 50a).
Under Hadrian
In the beginning of Hadrian's rule, Joshua, as council president, acted as the leader of the Jewish people and a proponent of peace. When permission to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem was refused,
he turned the people away from thoughts of revolt against Rome by a speech in which he skillfully made use of Aesop's fable of the lion and the crane (Gen. R. lxiv., end). About the same time, Joshua—ever the Hillelite—used his eloquence to prevent the whole area of the Temple from being pronounced unclean because one human bone had been found in it (Tosef., 'Eduy. iii. 13; Zeb. 113a). Joshua lived to witness Hadrian's visit to Palestine, and in 130 C.E., he followed the emperor to Alexandria.
The conversations between Joshua and Hadrian, as they have been preserved in the Talmud and the Midrash, have been greatly exaggerated by tradition, but they nevertheless present a fair picture of the intercourse between the witty Jewish scholar and the active, inquisitive emperor. In Palestinian sources, Joshua answers various questions of the emperor about how God created the world (Gen. R. x.), the nature of the angels (ib. lxxviii., beginning; Lam. R. iii. 21),
the resurrection of the body (Gen. R. xxviii.; Eccl. R. xii. 5), and with regard to the Ten Commandments (Pesiḳ. R. 21).
In the Babylonian Talmud three conversations are related, in which Joshua silences the emperor's mockery of the Jewish conception of God by proving to him God's incomparable greatness and majesty (Ḥul. 59b, 60a). Joshua also rebukes the emperor's daughter when she makes a mocking comment about the God of the Jews (ibid. 60a). In another place, she is made to repent for having made fun of Joshua's appearance (Ta'an. on Ned. 50b). In a dispute with a Jewish Christian, Joshua dramatically maintained that God's protective hand was still stretched over Israel (Hagigah 5b). Some of the questions addressed to Joshua by the Athenian wise men, found in a long story in the Babylonian Talmud (Bek. 8b et seq.), contain polemical expressions against Christianity.
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Not long after Joshua's death his peace-making spirit gave way to the men of violent action. The messianic leader Simon Bar Kochba raised a revolt against Rome that was enthusiastically greeted by Joshua's most influential pupil, Rabbi Akiba. The rebellion ended tragically with more than 100,000 Jewish lives lost and the Jews banned from Jerusalem. That such a rebellion had not been undertaken earlier is thought by many to be due to Rabbi Joshua's influence.
The work of rabbis Johanan ben Zakkai, Gamaliel II, Joshua ben Hananiah, and Akiba set the tone of rabbinic Judaism for the next two millennia. Facing a crisis in which the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem had destroyed the physical and spiritual center of Jewish religious life, they adopted the flexible and broad-minded principles of Hillel and rejected the narrow legalism of Shammai
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