5:
We continue our brief survey of events after the Hasmonean uprising with what happened upon the death of Simon, that eldest of the Hasmonean brothers and the last to survive. Simon was assassinated by his son-in-law and this son-in-law and Simon's son Yoĥanan made a mad dash for Jerusalem to claim what must now be recognized at the throne of Judah. Yoĥanan won the race and was recognized as his father's successor. It is important to note the change that was coming over the Hasmonean dynasty: Yoĥanan has two names: Yoĥanan Hyrkanos. The first is a pure hebraic name but the cognomen is pure Greek – it means "tiger". Yoĥanan Hyrkanos ruled Judah from 135 BCE until his death in 104 BCE. He was succeeded by his son Judah Aristobulos, who reigned for one short year before succumbing to illness and death. Note that here too the prænomen is Jewish but the cognomen is Greek. Both Yoĥanan Hyrkanos and Judah Aristobulos were ardently pro-Sadducean, so it seems that the Pharisaic party was temporarily in eclipse.
6:
When Judah Aristobulos died he had no son to succeed him so his brother married Judah's widow, according to Jewish law. (This was in direct contradiction to what was later to be encoded as halakhah, that a king may not contract a levirate marriage since the dignity of his office will not permit him to grant ĥalitzah.) We have mentioned and explained levirate marriage on many occasions. The last time we did so was in the shiur Sotah 074, explanation #2.
7:
Judah's brother, the one who succeeded him and married his widow, was Alexander Yonatan. Note, that by this time, barely 60 years after the Maccabean uprising, the head of the Judean state – the grandson of Simon and the great-grandson of old Matityahu – has a Greek prænomen and only the cognomen is Jewish! However, Jewish tradition remembers him by his Jewish name, Yonatan, which is invariably rendered in its familiar form: Yannai. Yannai's wife was Salomé Alexandra. Her prænomen is but a hellenization of either Shulamit or Shlomzion.
8:
Yannai reigned for 28 years (104-76 BCE). The start of his reign is thus approximately 60 years after the crucifixion of Yosé ben-Yo'ezer. For a good part of his reign Yannai followed the leanings of his father and was rabidly pro-Sadducean. This, even though – or maybe because – his wife was the sister of one of the leaders of the Pharisaic movement. It seems that at the start of his reign there was an active persecution of the Pharisees. Since Yannai turned out to be one of the cruelest tyrants the Jewish people has ever produced (unless we include Herod under the rubric Jewish) it is perhaps not surprising that he had no qualms at persecuting his fellow Jews.
9:
This, at last, brings us to Yehoshu'a ben-Peraĥyah, the first of the pair mentioned in our present mishnah. The Gemara [Sotah 47a] tells us that
When King Yannai was killing the sages Shim’on ben-Shataĥ was hidden by his sister [Salomé Alexandra!] and Rabbi Yehoshu'a ben-Peraĥyah escaped to Alexandria in Egypt. When peace was restored Shim’on ben-Shataĥ sent [a coded message that purported to be sent by/from] Jerusalem the holy city to my sister, Egyptian Alexandria: "My husband is staying with you and I am desperately lonely."
Yehoshu'a ben-Peraĥyah correctly interpreted the message as meaning that peace (of a kind) had broken out at that it was safe for him to return to Judah.
To be continued.
I have received several messages concerning the exposition of Gordon Rattray Taylor concerning matrist and patrist societies (see Avot029). There is only room here for one of these messages, but I shall present the others in our next shiur.
I wrote: Thus far Rattray Taylor. We are, in western society at any rate, at the present time in the upswing of matrism (and a consequent reaction from patristic quarters). This matristic upswing began, as a reaction to Victorian patrism, in the last decades of the 19th century and has been gathering momentum ever since. Other parts of the world are heavily patristic at the moment.
Michael Lewyn writes:
I wonder if your view isn't a few years out of date. I look around and I see a rising tide of patrist reaction: of Orthodoxy in Judaism, of radical Islam everywhere, and of right wing reaction in Christian America. Once the Islamic terrorists get nukes, I'm not sure there will be any "matrist" societies left.
I respond:
I am unrepentant. The psychological introjection of western society today is strongly matrist. This can be seen in so many of the phenomena "predicted" by Rattray Taylor: a permissive attitude to sex, equality and high status for women, welfare being valued higher than chastity, progressive and even revolutionary social activism, research is booming, spontaneity and exhibition are the general rule, gay people have no fear of identifying themselves and are demanding equal rights, sex differences are minimized in clothing and hair styles, and so on. As regards what Michael wrote we should notice two things. Firstly Michael himself describes the patrist backlash as a reaction, which is what it is. That reaction is most obviously manifest in the United States, but its protests are making not even the smallest dent in psychological nature of that society which remains essentially matrist. And even that patrist reaction is mostly manifest only in the United States: in Canada, in Britain in the European Union, in Oceania matrism reigns supreme. Secondly, please note what I wrote: "other parts of the world are heavily patristic at the moment", and this is certainly the case as regards Islamic strongholds.
