Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and Yavneh

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was the youngest of Hillel's students. In besieged Jerusalem he was trapped: no one could go out to the Romans, since the biryonim killed anyone who spoke of negotiation. So his students Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua announced that their teacher had died and carried him out in a coffin — the dead were buried outside the walls.

He came to Vespasian's camp and greeted him as emperor. The general objected that if he were king, the sage would deserve death for not coming sooner. As they spoke, a courier arrived from Rome: Nero was dead and the senate had proclaimed Vespasian emperor. He said, ask what you wish.

Rabban Yochanan asked for three things: 'Give me Yavneh and its sages, the family line of Rabban Gamliel, and physicians to heal Rabbi Tzadok.' He did not ask for Jerusalem. The Talmud asks painfully whether he should have — and answers that he feared he would then receive nothing at all.

So a choice was made that determined everything after. Jerusalem could no longer be saved; but Jewish life could be moved somewhere it did not depend on a building. In Yavneh a Sanhedrin arose, the calendar was set, prayer replaced sacrifice — and the work began that would end, a hundred and twenty years later, in the Mishnah.