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The Tenth of Av Background In 63 B.C.E. Judea became a vassal state of Rome, but the Jews were allowed to have a Jewish king. The kingship was actually bought from the corrupt Roman officials, who would attempt to make as much money as possible from their regions through bribery or legal means and then keep as much as they could. Even with a Jewish ruler, the hardship that the Jews felt under Roman rule was extremely difficult. The Jews revolted against Roman rule in 70 C.E. and the Second Temple was destroyed later that same year. One response to the destruction of the Second Temple and the continuing Roman rule was embodied in the actions of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai. Fearing that all of Judaism would end, Ben Zakkai escaped Jerusalem with his disciples and founded an academy of learning in Yavneh. He also moved the Sanhedrin, the governing body of rabbis, to this town on the Mediterranean. Ben Zakkai helped Judaism adapt to a new way of life outside of Jerusalem. Another response to the destruction of the Temple can be seen in the actions of the Zealots who refused to surrender to Roman rule. After the Temple's destruction, they fled to the mountain fortress of Masada. After a prolonged siege, in 73 C.E. the Jews of Masada committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Along with Roman rule, the Jews faced another difficult issue after the fall of Jerusalem. With the Temple gone, sacrifice, the primary means of communicating with God, came to an end. But the Jews had been through this before, with the destruction of the First Temple and the first exile to Babylon. During this first dispersion they established synagogues in Babylonia and developed a system of religious practice based on the mitzvot of the Torah. (The word "synagogue" is actually a Greek translation of beit k'nesset -- translated from Hebrew as a house of gathering -- and means "place of assembly.") When Jews returned from this exile and the Second Temple was built, these new practices did not disappear. The idea of a local synagogue was appealing to people who lived outside of Jerusalem and who would likely only visit the Second Temple during the three pilgrimage festivals (Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot) if at all. With the Greek conquest in 332 B.C.E., an emphasis on literacy followed; by the end of the second century B.C.E., literacy was widespread throughout Judea. There had been public reading of the Torah since the time of Ezra in the fifth century B.C.E. Archaeology, especially with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, confirms the existence of written scrolls of Torah, history and law as early as the third century B.C.E. At this time two components existed in Jewish law. The written law, meaning that given on Sinai (the five books of the Torah) and the oral law, the interpretations of the generations that followed. These traditions were maintained in oral form until the second century B.C.E. when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah. Later the Mishnah would become one half of the Talmud. Over the next few centuries, commentaries elaborating on the Mishnah were written down in Jerusalem and Babylon. These additional commentaries are known as the Gemara. The Gemara and the Mishnah together are known as the Talmud, which was completed in the fifth century B.C.E. There are actually two Talmuds: the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud is more comprehensive, and is more frequently consulted and studied. Classroom activities for The Tenth of Av
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