[Avodah] Will the real Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha please stand up?

[Arie Folger via Avodah]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:41 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> R Yeshoshua ben Chananiah was niftar in 131 CE. He sang in the BHMQ
> (Eirakhin 11b). We know from Avos 2:8 that he was onew of R Yochanan
> ben Zakkai's 5 prise talmidim. And he often is in machloqes with R'
> Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Might have even been chavrusos, as Ymi Chagigah
> 77b have them learning Tanakh at Acher's bris, and they are the once who
> sneak their rebbe out of Y-m to Vespasian. That estimate of the date of
> his petirah is because he is niftar shorly after following Hadrian y"sh
> from EY to Alexandria, and thatwas in 130. (Medrash Rabba and Chullin
> 59b each have him fielding diferent questions from Hadrian.) Mind you,
> that would mean he was killed after he eft Israel!? Did he return?
>

This argues for Rav Yehoshua ben Chananya having been an adult before the
Churban, while Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha was then a lad who was captured,
and whom RYBC freed.

<SNIP>


> : B) Jewish Action Magazine once featured an article arguing that the Beit
> : haMikdash, though very heavily damaged, still stood for another few
> : decades, until Hadrian had it fully destroyed. During those decades, the
> : sacrificial service continued...
>
> It didn't even need to stand. Avodah began before the walls went up,
> with just curtained marking the various areas. Could be avodah continued
> after.
>
> However, I thought that from churban bayis until Bar Kokhva, there was
> no Avodah, and it restarted with BK's attempt to build bayis shelishi.
> Probably a machloqes hahistorians.
>

Good enough. It means that paam achat nichnasti lehaqtir qetoret lifnei
velifnim happened not before, but decades after the Churban.


> What about Elisha? This is the gemara where the kohein gadol's two
> children are enslaved and stuck in the same room by their respective
> masters to produce beautiful children together.


Weren't those the children of RYBE, in which case they would have been
carted off as family members of leaders of the rebllion, or otherwise been
victims of teh Hadrianic persecutions and/or the aftermath of the Bar
Kokhba rebellion.

And if the above reconstruction is correct, one of the questions on the
elegy Eleh Ezkerah (which I previously mistakenly referred to as the far
more historically easy Arzei HaLevanon Adirei Torah), namely that Rabbi
Akiva was killed together with a Rabbi Yishmael Kohen Gadol, but decades
after the kohanim gedolim were out of business, would be resolved: that
Rabbi Yishmael Kohen Gadol may have been the RYBE who possibly served as KG
during the Bar Kochba rebellion, as the 'avodah had been reinstated (or
never terminated, whichever).

Yasher koach,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/

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Brüderlichkeit
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* Frag den Rabbi – Wie backte man Mazzot in der Bibel?
* Frag den Rabbi – Seit wann und warum bedecken jüdische männer beim gebet
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* A Critique of Liberal Orthodox Approach to Halacha
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