The Rabbinic Tombs of Tiberias

"Lets name him after your father." "What? Tiberius? No! That's a terrible name!" Sorry, inside joke between and other extreme Trekkies. Fill in the next line in the comments if you can.

I'm now spending over a week in the Jewish holy city of Tiberias, first here at the Aviv Hotel, soon with the Hewerdine's, a Catholic couple I met at Mass who have been gracious enough to take me in for the rainy weekend.

What makes Tiberias one of the four holy cities of Judaism? To begin with, it was the center of Jewish learning in the centuries after the destruction of the temple, where 'Tiberian vocalization' was codified and the Jerusalem Talmud came into being. But most people today would know it by the illustrious rabbis that are buried here.

The other day I made my way to the tombs of a few of them, and I'll do my best to explain their significance.

The central tomb of the city is the tomb of Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish philosopher. He stands out as one of the great defenders of reason against blind faith within his own and all monotheistic religious traditions. His insights were picked up by medieval Islamic philosophers and, in Christendom, by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Unfortunately, the structure that adorns his tomb is one of the strangest and most uninspiring structures I've ever seen (see above), and I couldn't get a picture in the actual tomb complex. Worse still, the tomb has been heavily commercialized, so that now it contains boggle-head Ramban (a nickname for Maimonides among the Jewish faithful) for sale and blaring Israeli pop music.

Another major figure buried in this tomb complex, who is of personal interest to me, is the Rabbi Yoanan ben Zakai. It's not too strong to say that Ben Zakai is the link between the Pharisees and Rabbinic Judaism of today. Seeing his grave was extraordinary.

During the Second Temple period, Judaism was split into a dozen sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, the Qumranites, zealots, Sicarii, Christians, Samaritans, etc. Many claimed to be the precise group of faithful Hebrews who had returned from exile, whom the Messiah would come to save (Christians, Qumranites, Samaritans); others were split along the lines of legal debates (Pharisees, Sadducees, and again Qumranites). And some were split into further subgroups.

The Pharisees were one such group, split into the liberal School of Hillel and the conservative School of Shammai. The Pharisees of the New Testament are likely Shammaites, who were in the majority at the time. What happened to all these groups?

Quite simply, the Romans wiped most of them out, except the Christians and the Hillelite Pharisees; it was this latter group, saved by Yoanan ben Zakai, who became the early rabbi of Rabbinic Judaism.

When the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, Jews had to ask the question: How do we live in a world without the temple? The temple was everything; it was the center of their world, of the physical and spiritual universe, the point at which God and man met.

Yoanan ben Zakai was the one who said: To be Jews in a world without the temple, we mark ourselves out as Jews by obeying the law. We show that we are distinctive by keeping Shabbat; by being circumcised; by staying kosher. And by obeying the law, we will be a people that is a temple unto itself. We will remain in covenant with Yahweh by being the place where the law of Yahweh is kept.

And I'm quite convinced that without this revolutionary (i.e., liberal Hillelite) reconception of Jewishness, Judaism would have been absorbed into Christianity, which had its own answers of how to live in a world without the temple. That is the massive place that Yoanan ben Zakai holds in Judaism.

I then found a bus that led near to the tomb of Rabbi Akiva, and eventually found my way there. This tomb was far more peaceful. Akiva is buried in a cave surrounded by the shrine complex. A cenotaph, or tomb-like grave-marker like the ones at the Sanctuary of the Patriarchs in Hebron, is present as an object of focus for the venerating pious.

The Rabbi Akiva lived in the next generation, when Jews were still fighting to restore the kingdom of Israel and, hopefully, rebuild the temple. Akiva had lived his life as a scholar and philosopher. He thought long and hard about the philosophy of Judaism, something rarely done within the tradition. Aggada, or the story (theology) of Judaism, has always taken back seat to halakha, the jurisprudence of the law. Akiva thought long and hard about both.

When Bar Koziba led a revolt against Roman rule in A.D. 132, Akiva supported him. The rabbi considered him to be the long-awaited Messiah, and thus gave him the name by which we know the rebel in history, Bar Kokhba, 'Son of the Star.'

In supporting this rebellion, he incurred the wrath of Rome. He was captured by the Romans and taken to Caesarea, where he was skinned alive. His dying words were "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One!" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Put differently, "Only God is Lord, and Caesar is not!"

As Lyndsay put it: "My last words would have been "AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHAAAAAAANOOOOOO!!!!!!"