Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai רבן יוחנן בן זכאי
leader of the sages, founder of the academy at Yavneh
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was the youngest of Hillel's disciples. The Talmud says he left no field unstudied, from Scripture to the finest points of aggadah; tradition gives him 120 years.
His hour came in 3828. Jerusalem was under siege, and zealots inside had burned the food stores to prevent surrender. Seeing the city was doomed, he had his students carry him out in a coffin, the only way past the guards.
Before Vespasian he greeted him as emperor; when word of the election arrived days later, the general invited him to ask for anything. He did not ask for the city, which would have been refused. He asked: «Give me Yavneh and its sages, the dynasty of Rabban Gamliel, and physicians for Rabbi Tzadok.»
The Talmud debates whether he should have asked for more; but that request preserved the tradition. At Yavneh he re-established the Sanhedrin and enacted nine ordinances «in memory of the Temple». Asked by a disciple how sins could now be atoned without an altar, he answered: «We have an atonement as good — deeds of kindness.»