Eliezer ben Hurcanus

In Jerusalem, he entered the academy of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and for years studied diligently despite having to cope with great privations.

Ben Zakkai, recognizing Eliezer's receptive and retentive mind, styled him "a plastered cistern that loses not a drop, even a cask coated with pitch that preserves its wine.

Ben Zakkai, having heard of Hyrcanus's arrival and the purpose of his visit, instructed the usher to reserve a seat among those to be occupied by the elite of the city and appointed Eliezer lecturer for that day.

At first, the latter hesitated to venture into Ben Zakkai's place but, pressed by the master and encouraged by his friends, delivered a discourse, gradually displaying great knowledge.

Having recognized his truant son in the lecturer and hearing the praises that Ben Zakkai showered on him, Hyrcanus now desired to transfer all his earthly possessions to Eliezer.

Subsequently, Eliezer proceeded to Yavne,[10] where he later became a member of the Sanhedrin under the presidency of Gamaliel II,[11] though he had established, and for many years afterward conducted, his academy at Lydda.

[12] His fame as a great scholar had in the meantime spread; Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai himself declared that Eliezer was unequaled as an expositor of traditional law.

The main feature of his teaching was a strict devotion to tradition: he objected to allowing the Midrash or the paraphrastic interpretation to pass as authority for religious practice.

It was also felt that the circumstances brought on by the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem and the disappearance of national independence required a strong religious central authority to which individual opinion must yield.

As he thus acted in direct opposition to the decision of the majority (though, according to the Talmud, a heavenly voice, a tree, a nearby stream, and the walls of the house of study all agreed with Eliezer's interpretation), it was deemed necessary to make an example of him, and he was excommunicated.

[21] Thenceforth Eliezer lived in retirement, removed from the center of Jewish learning, though occasionally some of his disciples visited him and informed him of the transactions of the Sanhedrin.

[23] Rabbinic accounts in the Tosefta, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Kohelet Rabba all relate that Eliezer was arrested for "heresy" after agreeing with a religious teaching proposed by a man named Yaakov who was a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

Scholars connect this arrest and subsequent trial with the persecution of Christians by Roman authorities as demonstrated in the letters between the Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger.

At last he remembered that once, while on a road of Sepphoris, he had met a follower of Jesus, Yaakov of Kfar Sikhnin, who communicated to him a singular Halakha in the name of Yeshu ha-Notzri that he had approved of.

He specified what injunction had been broken citing: "Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house,"[26][27] which the sages applied to broad sectarianism as well as to heresy.

It is probably from this melancholy period that his aphorism dates: Let the honor of thy colleague (variant, "pupils") be as dear to thee as thine own, and be not easily moved to anger.

The last word he uttered was "tahor" ("pure"), and this the sages considered as an auspicious omen of his purity after they all tore their garments in token of mourning, and Joshua ben Hananiah revoked the sentence of excommunication.