Jewish History BY JEWISH HISTORY
The seeds of strife planted earlier took root as the Hasmonean era produced sacrilegious heirs and pitted Jew vs. Jew in a bloody civil war.
The Sadducees, who were the heirs of the Hellenists, formed a very potent and powerful force in Jewish society, but they subscribed to a philosophy that was essentially non-Jewish, to a Greek view of the world.
The rabbis did not take it lying down. They understood that if the Sadducees prevailed there would be no Jewish people.
Throughout Jewish history there have always been groups who arose to espouse some type of non-Jewish âJewishâ philosophy â and they have always been met with a great deal of antagonism. On the surface, it looked like the establishment had no tolerance for them. However, that would be a bad over-simplification, because these groups represented an ideological threat that put at risk the very survival of the Jewish people.
The Jewish people could not have survived under the reign of the Sadducees. Indeed, the Sadducees themselves would cease to exist after the Roman persecution. The only thing of theirs that has survived is that which was recorded by the Pharisees. It was as though an unseen hand came and erased them.
In the final analysis, theirs was not an ideology connected to anything eternal. Rather it was a non-ideology couched in flowery words and pledging allegiance to some vague idea they called Judaism, changeable to whatever prevailing winds of culture would help them maintain and consolidate their status, wealth, power and pleasure.
We will see this story repeated over and over and over again in Jewish history. We will also see that the ârace is not to the swift, nor the battle to the mighty.â It will always look like Traditional Judaism will be on the way out. Yet, somehow they will be the only ones who will survive.
