Avot123

22:
The bold and assertive innovativeness of Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai was not limited only to the sounding of the Shofar on Shabbat in Yavneh. Over the years we have had occasion to refer to at least one other striking change that he instituted in established halakhah.

23:
This change was in connection with the Sotah, the woman whose husband accuses her of an illicit liaison with another man. The details of the ceremony made the experience humiliating in the extreme for the poor woman. Therefore it comes as a relief to learn that at a certain stage in Israel's spiritual development a religious leader had the sensitivity and the courage to put an end to this Torah-mandated ceremony. That person was, of course, Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai in his capacity as President of the Sanhedrin in the difficult decade after the collapse of Jerusalem and the ignominious defeat of the Jewish resistance by the Roman military machine. During that decade, approximately 70-80 CE, Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai made momentous changes in halakhic procedure, but perhaps none was so welcome to our modern susceptibilities as the abolition of the ceremony of the Sotah.

24:
His action was justified, as we shall see, by a quotation from the words of a prophet, but we may be reasonably certain that these words were nothing more than a later peg upon which to hang his religiously courageous deed. What, perhaps, is most pleasing to the cultural mind of the 21st century is that 20 centuries ago there was a religious sage who recognized the inherent inequality of the sexes that the Sotah ceremony entailed. This inequality is emphasized by the prophetic quotation [Hosea 4:14]:

Here is the commentary of Rabbi Avraham Ibn-Ezra on that verse:

So, because the menfolk of Israel are now steeped in fornication there is no justification for them demanding with false piety that their wives be subjected to the experience of the 'cursing waters'. Thus Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai 2000 years ago; today, of course, he would be branded by the orthodox as a "Conservative heretic, or even worse, as a Reform Jew" for daring to make changes in the application of Torah legislation for such 'flimsy' reasons.

To be continued.

Sometimes I am myself surprised at the effect that our studies here can have on the outlook of people. Here is a very personal 'cri de coeur' sent to me by David Baird.

At the risk of being too political, the recent lessons on Avot have pushed my own stance on Judaism as a whole to the realm of a religion, rather than a nation. The wars against the Romans taught us, as students of Hillel and as Rabban Yochanan ben-Zakkai were pushing at the time, and as you seem to be teaching in your lessons, that the objective of Judaism is to acts of kindness and charity. I'd like to take that point a step further, and suggest that today, our nationalist movement, Zionism, has been muddled with our religious ideals, to the point were it becomes difficult to distinguish the two. I especially don't like the term Religious Zionism, as if our nationalistic endeavours are one in the same as our religious convictions. Now that Jerusalem is ours, it appears that we, as a people, have forgotten our history, and lost the love of Judaism purely as a righteous way of life. I've felt for a long time that I feel most connected to my Judaism when I am in America, where there is no interference from the nationalistic fervor which has been reaching boiling point in our land. Not only do I believe in a division of religion and state, I now add to that a belief in a division of religion and nationalism. The two have always been proven to be a self-destructive formula.

I respond:

I was not "pushing … that the objective of Judaism is to acts of kindness and charity." I was describing the "pushing" of Rabban Yoĥanan ben-Zakkai. I think that many Israeli Jews have the same quandaries as David describes. I believe that it is the urgent task of Conservative-Masorti Judaism to give to life in the State of Israel an appropriate religious meaning.