Avot153

7:
We have seen that Akavya ben-Mehalal'el was offered the second highest position in the Pharisaic hierarchy, the position of Av Bet Din (possibly as a companion to Hillel the Elder). We have also seen that he refused the offer because there were strings attached. Throughout Tannaïtic literature we find that Akavya holds halakhic views that differ from those of the majority of the sages. He was asked to recant his halakhic opinion in four cases so that he could be installed as Av Bet Din. His noble refusal, which we quoted last time, deserves to be repeated:

8:
There is some confusion in our sources as to what happened next. According to the continuation of that same mishnah he was excommunicated. (We have already noted the threat of excommunication with regards to several sages: see Avot 034, Avot 089, and Avot 128. In Avot 128, Explanation #16 also explains the nature of this excommunication.) But we must ask ourselves why the rest of the sages imposed such dire consequences upon Akavya's independent stance. From an oblique discussion in the Gemara [Sanhedrin 88a] we gather that he was held to be a recalcitrant or insubordinate sage – Zaken Mamré. We discussed this term at length when we studied Tractate Sanhedrin [see Sanhedrin 127 and Sanhedrin 128]. Briefly: when a sage holds an halakhic view which is different from halakhah as established by the majority view of the sages and insists on continuing to teach his own view he is considered to be a Zaken Mamré. (He was permitted to publish his own view; he would only be considered to be a Zaken Mamré if he also taught that halakhah was according to his view and not that of the sages.)

9:
Akavya ben-Mehalal'el could not bend his opinion to that of the rest of the sages. We saw a similar intransigence in the case of Rabbi Eli'ezer ben-Hyrkanos [see Avot 127]. He too insisted that he was right and they were wrong. According to the mishnah [Eduyot 5:6] Akavya was not only excommunicated but, like Rabbi Eli'ezer, he stubbornly maintained this status until his dying day. The outraged sages laid a stone on his coffin as an indication that he should have been stoned to death.

10:
But we do have a more sympathetic understanding of why Akavya maintained his different view. The Mishnah [Eduyot 5:7] teaches:

From this it is clear that Akavya was not being pig-headed. He felt that he was following the rules. The halakhic views that he taught were not his own: this was what he had heard from his teachers. But the rest of the sages had received from their teachers a different version, and neither side was prepared to budge. But Akavya does recognize that in principle a lone sage should not stand out against the view of the majority of the sages.

11:
The Tanna, Rabbi Yehudah ban-Ilai, who lived some 150 years after Akavya ben-Mehalal'el, maintains that the mishnah here is confusing two different cases: the sage who was excommunicated, he says, was one El'azar ben-Ĥanokh who refused to accept the rabbinic innovation concerning the washing of the hands. [For a full understanding of this innovation see Tractate Yadayyim in the web archives.] However, the view of the mishnah is also supported by the Midrash [Sifré Bemidbar, Naso 7].

To be continued.

In Avot 146 I quoted Rambam as reminding us that The ancient saints would wait one hour before reciting the Amidah and one hour afterwards and its recitation would take them one hour.

My colleague, Joel Berman writes:

Isn't it true that the word sha'ah which now means "hour" also had the definition of "a period of time, a moment" in Mishnaic times? This would make the original saying that the Rambam is quoting a bit more reasonable, no?

I respond:

Well, Rabbi Ya'akov ben-Asher certainly seems to agree with Joel! In his great work the Tur [Tur Oraĥ Ĥayyim 93] he quotes the same mishnah as does Rambam about the saints; but he interprets that quote as follows:

However, surely it could also be that he is saying: although the ancient saints would wait one full hour, we cannot attain such saintliness but we should, nevertheless, wait "a short while…"