You Can't Sit With Us: Elitism in the Beit Midrash

Our Rabbis have taught: It happened that a student came before R. Joshua and asked him, "Is the evening-Tefillah voluntary or obligatory?" He replied, "It is voluntary." Then he came before Rabban Gamaliel and asked him the same question. He replied, "It is obligatory." He then said to him, "Didn't R. Joshua tell me it was voluntary!" Rabban Gamaliel said to him, "Wait until the shield-bearers (Torah scholars) enter the House of Study." When the shield-bearers (Torah scholars) had assembled, the questioner stood up and asked, "Is the evening-Tefillah voluntary or obligatory?" Rabban Gamaliel replied, "It is obligatory." Rabban Gamaliel said to the Sages, "Is there anyone who has a different opinion on this matter?" R. Joshua said to him, "No" Then Rabban Gamaliel said to him, "But has it not been reported to me in your name that it is voluntary?" And he added, "Joshua, stand up that it may be testified against you." R. Joshua stood up and said, "If I were living and he dead, the living would be able to deny the statement of the dead; but since I am alive and he is also alive, how can the living deny the statement of the living!" Then Rabban Gamaliel sat and began his discourse while R. Joshua remained standing, until everyone began to murmur and cried to Huspit the interpreter, "Stop!" and he stopped. They said, "How long is [Rabban Gamaliel] going to continue distressing [R. Joshua]? Last year he slighted him on the question of the New Year; he slighted him on the question of the firstborn in the incident of R. Sadok; and here again he has slighted him. Come, let us depose him! Whom should we appoint in his place? Should we appoint R. Joshua? [No;] he is related to the incident. Should we appoint R. 'Akiba? [No;] perhaps Rabban Gamaliel will plague him because of his lack of ancestral merit. Let us, then, appoint R. Eleazar b. 'Azariah, for he is wise, rich, and he is of the tenth generation from Ezra. He is wise, so if anyone asks him difficult questions, he will be able to answer him; and he is rich, so if it be necessary for someone to attend at the palace of the Emperor, he will be qualified to do so; and he is of the tenth generation from Ezra, so he possesses ancestral merit and Rabban Gamaliel will not be able to worry him on that score."...

It has been taught: That same day, they removed the doorkeeper [of the Beit Midrash] and permission was granted to the disciples to enter; because Rabban Gamaliel had issued a proclamation: "A disciple, who is not inwardly the same as outwardly, will not be allowed to enter the House of Study." That day many rows had to be added. R. Johanan said: Abba Jose b. Dostai and the Rabbis differ as to the number; one declaring four hundred rows were added, the other declaring it was seven hundred. This [vast addition] depressed Rabban Gamaliel who said, "Perhaps, God forbid, I have withheld Torah from Israel !" He was shown in a dream white pitchers full of ashes. It was not really so; but he was shown this to relieve his mind. It has been taught: That same day 'Eduyyot was learnt, and wherever we find the phrase "on that day" it refers to that occasion. There was not a Halakah which had been left in a state of uncertainty in the House of Study which was not then made clear. Even Rabban Gamaliel did not stay away from the House of Study. For there is a Mishnaic teaching: On that day an Ammonite convert, named Judah, came before them in the House of Study and said to them, "May I enter the Community [of Israel]?" Rabban Gamaliel replied to him, "You are forbidden to enter the Community." R. Joshua said to him, "You are permitted to enter the Community." Rabban Gamaliel asked R. Joshua, "But has it not been said, 'An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord '?" (Deut. xxiii. 4). R. Joshua answered him, "Do, then, the Ammonites and Moabites still inherit their lands? Did not Sennacherib, king of Assyria, long ago come up and confuse all the nationalities? As it is said, 'I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and have brought down as one mighty the inhabitants' (Is. 10:13); and whoever issues [from a mixed body] issues from the majority." Rabban Gamaliel said to him, "But has it not been said, 'Afterward I will bring back the captivity of the children of Ammon, says the Lord' (Jer. xlix. 6)? and they have returned!" R. Joshua retorted, "And has it not been said, 'I will turn the captivity of My people Israel' (Amos ix. 14)? but they have not yet returned!" They immediately permitted him to enter the Community.

Then Rabban Gamaliel said, "Since it is so, I will go and appease R. Joshua." When he arrived to his house, he noticed that the walls of his house were blackened, and said to him, "From the walls of your house I can tell that you are a charcoal-burner." R. Joshua replied, "Woe to the generation whose leader you are, for you do not know of the struggle of the disciples to support and feed themselves!" He said to him, "I have insulted you, forgive me!" He took no notice of him. "Do it out of regard for my father!" He made peace with him...

R. 'Akiba said to him, "R. Joshua, have you been appeased? We only did what we did to defend your honor. Tomorrow you and I will go early to the door of [Rabban Gamaliel's] house." They asked, "What should we do? Should we depose [R. Eleazar b. 'Azariah] ? We have the tradition, 'We may raise to a higher degree of sanctity but not degrade to a lower degree! ' If we ask one of them to give the discourse on one Sabbath and the other on the next Sabbath, it will lead to jealousy. Let, then, Rabban Gamaliel give the discourse three Sabbaths [in the month] and R. Eleazar b. 'Azariah one Sabbath," That is what the teacher meant who asked, "Whose Sabbath was it? It was R. Eleazar b. 'Azariah's" ] And the disciple was R. Simeon b. Johai.