Yavne יבנה
The coastal town that became the new centre of Torah after the Temple's destruction and the seat of the restored Sanhedrin.
Yavne is the answer to the question of how a people survives when everything it stood on collapses. In besieged Jerusalem, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai has himself carried out in a coffin and asks Vespasian not for the city but for something small: «give me Yavne and its sages». The modest request proves decisive.
After 3828 the Sanhedrin convenes in Yavne: the calendar is fixed, festival practice without a Temple is defined, the canon of the Tanakh is settled. Rabban Gamliel of Yavne orders the Shemoneh Esreh, which takes the place of sacrifice. Here Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua rise.
The Talmud preserves the famous scene of sages weeping at a fox emerging from the ruined Holy of Holies while Rabbi Akiva laughs: if the prophecy of ruin came true, so will the prophecy of comfort.