Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah רבי אלעזר בן עזריה
made head of the academy at eighteen — “like a man of seventy”
The Gemara quotes his words in the Passover Haggadah, and it is the best-known line from him: "here I am like a man of seventy, and I never merited to understand why the exodus from Egypt should be recalled at night, until Ben Zoma expounded it."
Why "like": according to the account in Berakhot he was eighteen, and when he was made head, his hair turned white overnight so that his appearance would match the office.
His appointment changed the terms of access to learning. Under Rabban Gamliel a doorkeeper stood at the entrance, and only those "whose inside matches their outside" were let in; on the day of the change the guard was removed and hundreds of benches added — the sources give different numbers. On that day, the Gemara says, there was no law left unexplained.
Afterwards Rabban Gamliel was restored, and the office was shared: three Sabbaths the Nasi spoke, and one Rabbi Elazar. Jewish tradition cites this episode as showing that authority in the house of study is not property.
On the timeline
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Berakhot 27b–28a — eighteen years old, grey overnight, the guard removed and hundreds of benches
- Mishnah Berakhot 1:5 — “here I am like a man of seventy” — the words that entered the Haggadah
Basis: Talmud and midrash.