Eleazar ben Azariah
Eleazar ben Azariah · Historical & Religious Figures
Tanna who was made head of the Sanhedrin at Yavneh in his youth and whose words are spoken at every Passover Seder — 'I am like a man of seventy years'
Ier siècle, Judée romaine — début du IIe siècle, Judée romaine
Yavné
Eleazar ben Azariah is recognized among Jewish contributors to Historical & Religious Figures — Tanna who was made head of the Sanhedrin at Yavneh in his youth and whose words are spoken at every Passover Seder — 'I am like a man of seventy years'
Origins and early life
Eleazar ben Azariah was a priest of Judea, a Jewish sage of the second generation of the tannaim, the teachers whose rulings make up the Mishnah, and by tradition a descendant in the tenth generation of Ezra the Scribe; he was also rich, the owner of herds that paid a tithe of thousands of calves a year, and the Talmud remarks that the wisdom of a wealthy man is listened to.
Work and career
He became famous in a single day: when the colleagues of Rabban Gamaliel II deposed him as head of the academy of Yavneh for humiliating Rabbi Joshua, they chose Eleazar in his place, a youth of eighteen by the tradition of the Talmud, who tells that his beard turned white overnight so that he might look the part — the source of the saying he speaks in the Passover Haggadah, 'I am like a man of seventy years'. On that day he opened the doors of the academy to every student, and hundreds of benches were added; when Gamaliel was restored, Eleazar kept a share of the office and preached one Sabbath in three.
He travelled to Rome with Gamaliel, Joshua and Akiva to plead the cause of the Jews, and his teaching survives across the Mishnah and Tosefta — that the Day of Atonement atones for sins against God but not for sins against one's neighbor until the neighbor is appeased, that 'where there is no Torah there is no right conduct, and where there is no right conduct there is no Torah'. He died early in the second century, and Rabbi Akiva said that with him a crown of the sages had been taken away.
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Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eleazar-ben-Azariah
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Tanna who was made head of the Sanhedrin at Yavneh in his youth and whose words are spoken at every Passover Seder — 'I am like a man of seventy years'
Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eleazar-ben-Azariah
