Common wisdom has it that one person was conspicuously responsible for ensuring the survival of the Torah and of the Jewish People in the wake of the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash. That person was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. According to this understanding, Rabban Yochanan accomplished this by easing the people into a mode of existence wherein Avodat Hashem was possible without the sacrificial service, and without ‘the place that God will choose’ (Deut. 12, 5).
One way he achieved this was through a series of enactments by which mitzvot that had hitherto been associated with the Temple were henceforth transferred to the synagogue (e.g., holding a lulav and etrog throughout Sukkot (M. Sukkah 3:12). In this way, it is maintained, Rabban Yochanan b. Zakkai substituted the synagogue for the Temple in Jewish life, observance, and religio-national awareness. As far as it goes, such a conclusion is both solidly based on the evidence, and unobjectionable.
However, not infrequently, even more far-reaching conclusions are drawn from R. Yochanan’s actions (even among Orthodox thinkers). It is claimed that he consciously deemphasized the role and importance of the Beit HaMikdash and the avodah in religious life. Some would even argue that Rabban Yochanan’s actions effectively replaced the Temple with the synagogue.
These conclusions are not only incorrect; they are a distortion of the historical and religious record.
We will recall that our Sages identified the “Lesser Sanctuary” (Mikdash Me’at) mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel with the synagogue (Targum, Ezek. 11:16). This, however, does not mean that the synagogue is a substitute for the Temple but that it is rather a portal to the Temple. In other words, the sanctity of the synagogue derives from that of the Beit HaMikdash. This belief preceded the destruction of the Temple.
For example, among the remains of the synagogue at Migdal (north of Tiberias), which was destroyed two years before the destruction of the Temple, there is an engraved stone with an engraved Menorah and other Temple furnishings. Its function was to convey the belief that the bet knesset was an extension of the Beit HaMikdash.
Even after Tisha b’Av in 70 CE, this did not change. The Sages of the Land of Israel taught that the Third Beit HaMikdash already existed, having been fashioned (mutatis mutandis) by the Hands of G-d Himself (Targum Yonatan and Rashi, Ex. 15:17). In His good time, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, will cause the Temple to descend to its proper place on Har HaBayit. The point is that now, synagogues derive their sanctity from the not yet descended Third Temple, and create a spiritual and halachic reality based upon its heavenly existence.
Far from de-emphasizing the Temple, the Sages demonstrated how to live in a keen, spiritual awareness and tangibly realistic experience of the Temple and the avodah (largely through study and prayer), even as the Jews waited for its reappearance at the chosen time (Rashi, Sukkah 41a s.v. I nami).
To a significant degree, it is this ability to anticipate and even experience our as-yet unfulfilled redemption that facilitated Jewish survival over the long years of exile, persecutions, suffering, and longing. Our capacity to eagerly anticipate an unseen redemption made Jews a laughing stock. (Desiderius Erasmus, the famous Christian humanist, thought it was crazy, or stupid). Yet Providence, working through history, proved us right; even as we still await the full plenitude of G-d’s promised redemption of our people.
In these days of truly unprecedented challenges to the Torah, to the Jewish People and to the State of Israel, one must strive to reinforce our religious awareness that survival. salvation and redemption, like the Temple itself, already exist and only await G-d’s decision to reveal them. This requires of us patience, persistence, humility and spiritual determination, menschlichkeit, and commitment to G-d and to Torah in its broadest sense.
