When Silence Fuels Radicalism: The Tragic Cost of Not Speaking Out”
Was it Sin’at Hinam that destroyed Jerusalem, or perhaps the culprit lies elsewhere?
Under the Hasmonean Kingdom, two voices emerged from the Jewish people — the Pharisees (1) and the Sadducees (2). These were days when kings wore the robes of the High Priest, and the Sadducees held both the crown and the sacred flame. Their power spoke to the rulers and the elite, while the Pharisees, with their devotion to learning and interpretation, found their place among the scholars and the common people.
When Queen Salome [שלומציון המלכה] — The Peace of Zion — passed, the fragile peace she had nurtured shattered. Civil war erupted, leaving the land scarred and its people divided. Herod rose from the ruins, a king in name but a servant of Rome.
Herod’s rule was one of iron and blood. He silenced the leaders of both Sadducees and Pharisees, but the strife between them did not die. Even weakened, they continued to tear at one another until the Great Rebellion rained down upon them, washing away the Priesthood and the last remnants of Jewish royalty into the seas of time.
In the aftermath of the destruction, the Rabbis attempted to create a narrative that would end the hostilities and bring the people together. To do so, they shifted the blame from the Romans over to the Jewish People.
In this new storyline, the Romans were a tool of God, not the perpetrator of death, rape and the enslavement of loved ones. As such, their role was believed to highlight our people’s divisive nature and the need for them to come together as one under God. The takeaway is one we recite every year on Tish’a B’av: Sin’at Hinam, hating the other for no reason, brought the downfall of the Jewish People.
This story, with its enduring morals, holds a value that time cannot erode. Yet, the truth it carries remains clouded by inaccuracies.
To believe that the unification of these two factions could have altered the course of history is not only misguided but ignores the overwhelming reality they faced.
Even united, the Jewish people would have stood before Vespasian, the architect of Rome’s might at its peak. No nation could withstand the force of Rome in its prime — least of all, our own.
The outcome was never in doubt. Even together, we would have fallen.
This leads us to the true culprit of our destruction — the zealots. Unable to fathom the power structures of their time, they led the people on a suicide mission. The flames of zealously led our people into darkness. Our leaders’ failure was not that they couldn’t speak to one another but that they failed to reign in the “crazies” who ran amok in their communities.
The Rabbis, and to some extent, the Priests, did not see the dangers of unbridled fanaticism. They downplayed it as overenthusiasm and, at times, even praised it as religious patriotism.
Then, the tables turned. The leaders understood. But it was too late. It is mirrored in the texts that no longer distinguish between Pharisees and Sadducees once the rebellion begins but rather between the “Moderates” and the “Zealots”. The leadership’s most significant flaw was that they did not see this coming and recognised this distinction too late.
When Vespasian confronted Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, questioning why he hadn’t come sooner, Ben Zakkai pointed to the zealots. When he pleaded with his nephew, the leader of the zealots, to restrain his men, Abba Sikkara’s response was chilling: ‘If I try, they will kill me.’ By then, madness reigned, and the leadership had lost control — but it wasn’t always so.
The rise of the zealots did not go unanswered. The Romans retaliated, executing ten members of the Pharisee leadership, including Raban Shimon ben Gamliel the Elder. A descendant of King David and Hillel the Elder, Raban Shimon was not only the leader of the Pharisees but also the Nasi, the Prince of the Jewish people. His title and lineage made him a messianic figure in the eyes of the zealots, but his execution sent a clear warning. Why he was chosen for execution remains unclear — perhaps the Romans sought to quash any potential rebellion. Josephus suggests in his Vita that Raban Shimon may have tacitly supported the zealots’ acts or, at the very least, remained silent. His silence was a choice, one that spoke volumes to the people. He could have denounced the zealots, but he did not.
Yehoshua Ben Gamla and later Natan Ben Natan, the High Priests and leaders of the Sadducees, also failed to act. Raban Shimon’s execution should have been a stark warning of the chaos to come if the zealots were not restrained. They, too, had the chance to speak out, to take a stand — but they remained silent.
The cost of that silence was their lives. When the zealots seized Jerusalem, they murdered the two High Priests, desecrating their bodies in a final act of violence. Only then did Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai act, turning to the Romans to save what little remained.
In the well-known story, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai asks Vespasian for three things: the lives of Rabbi Zadok, the priest; Raban Gamliel, the Prince; and the city of Yavne with its scholars. By securing these, he preserves the Priesthood, the Davidic lineage, and Jewish scholarship, hoping to rebuild the Jewish people.
However, a lesser-known part of the story offers a deeper insight into this request. Vespasian shares a parable with the rabbi:
“ If there is a barrel of honey and a snake [derakon] is wrapped around it, wouldn’t they break the barrel in order to kill the snake? Similarly, I am forced to destroy the city of Jerusalem in order to kill the zealots barricaded within it.
Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai was silent and did not answer.”
[Bavli Gitin 56:1]
His silence speaks volumes; it acknowledges the bitter truth: the moderates had lost their battle against the zealots. He realises that the true enemy was never those with differing opinions but those who refused to compromise. A community thrives on opposing views — it is not only acceptable to disagree; it is essential. But there is no place for radicalism and violence, whether verbal or physical, even under the guise of tolerance and pluralism. This violence, even when it supports your worldview, devastates the community. When people disagree, a zealot will always emerge, someone whose truth is more important to them than the community as a whole. Sometimes, these zealots lean right; other times, they lean left.
The political centre is not merely a middle ground between right and left but a firm stance against zealotry. The centre’s core belief is that contradictory ideas hold value as long as they are expressed peacefully, contributing to a narrative that builds rather than tears down. When either side accuses the centre of being their adversary, it is a chilling sign that zealots are at work.
Zealots, like weeds, must be regularly uprooted. Failure to do so risks losing the entire garden — or, in our case, the “pot of honey.” Once this happens, there is no going back; we must find our Yavne and start anew.
As I spend the day fasting and contemplating, I find myself attuned to the silence in our Talmudic story. In Rabban Yochanan’s silence, I hear the great, enduring tragedy of our people: the times we elevated our proverbial Pinchas instead of restraining him, our failure to define the boundaries of discourse, and, most of all, those moments when our need to be right silenced the call to curb extremism simply because it aligned, however slightly, with our own point of view.
- Pharisees [פרושים], from the root P.R.S. [פ.ר.ש] 1. to break away [from the Mainstream] 2. interpretation — the central value of their Jewish outlook.
The Pharisees, led by Rabbis [Teachers], believed in the power of the written word and the revolutionary idea of interpretation — that how humans chose to read the biblical word of God was of greater importance than a so-called “God’s Will” as claimed by prophets or those in power. - Sadducees [צדוקים] from the root S.D.C [צ.ד.ק] — Justice. The origin of their name is unclear. One suggestion is that they are named after Shimon Ha’zadik, Simon the Righteous, a high priest known for his kindness.
The Sadducees, led by Priests, believed in worshipping God through Avoda, Temple work. As they cared little for the written word, the sources available to us today are scarce. From the little we know of them — they believed that the soul dissipated upon death. As such, they did not care for the idea of Messiah, Divine Providence, or the ideas of reward and punishment. - While the Sadducees and Pharisees accounted for the lion’s share of the people, there were other sects, which historians group as the Essenes. Essens [איסיים] is a modern identity term not recognised by those labelled by it, nor would these sects ever see themselves as one entity. The Essenes is a collective term which includes both groups like the Sikarim — a violent religious sect known for their “terror” attacks on both Roman and Jewish civilian populations alongside “Hippie-like” sects, which were vegan and would not harm a fly.
