Yochanan ben Zakai as a model for innovative Jewish leadership

Leadership is the ability to cope with change, when past solutions are not useful anymore.1 Leaders have followers, people that make a conscious decision to follow them. Judaism is both a religion and an ethnic group; a connection between an ethnic group and religion occurs also in the Greek culture, where Greeks are also followers of the Greek Orthodox church. Jewish leaders are members of the Jewish community that cope with change, and their leadership is based on the framework of Judaism. Innovative leadership could be defined as the introduction of new or different ways to cope with change. Yochanan ben Zakai could be considered an innovative Jewish leader. He was a student of Hillel, and one of the most influential Jewish leaders before and after the destruction of the second temple. Ben Zakai's source of authority was based on his knowledge of Jewish tradition and his connection to powerful figures, although he was not part of the second temple aristocracy.

Ben Zakai's moment of leadership and innovation came after the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE, when he needed to create a framework that made it possible to continue Jewish life without a physical center-- The Temple in Jerusalem. Ben Zakai was not the first Jewish leader to cope with this kind of change. In 586 BCE, Jewish leaders had to cope with the destruction of the first temple, but the second temple was built only 70 years later. During the Babylonian exile the Jewish people still felt the presence God, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah affirmed God's connection to the Jewish people.2 It is possible to assume that Ben Zakai did not think that the physical center of Jewish worship's absence would become a permanent fact. Although more than nineteen hundred years have passed, there is still no sign of the construction of the third Temple.

Ben Zakai's leadership is embodied in his long term thinking, political skills, and the influence of his jurisdiction and innovation. Ben Zakai's long term vision was to legislate laws that would prepare the Jewish people to keep on practicing the Jewish religion in a reality without a physical center, while they waited for the construction of the third Temple. In 70 CE, Yochanan ben Zakai was a religious authority figure among the Jewish people that were soon to be defeated by the Roman Empire. Ben Zakai was not in a position to negotiate with Vespasian, the conqueror of Judea, because of the asymmetry between the Roman Empire's might and the Jewish people's weakness. He needed political skills in order to convince Vespasian to spare Yavneh and its sages. Ben Zakai expanded Yavneh's influence as Rabbinical Judaism became Judaism's dominant form in the land of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

An example of Ben Zakai's leadership and innovation is in allowing the use of the shofar during the Rosh Hashanah Sabbath in every beit din, not only in Jerusalem's temple. During the Second Temple period, the use of the shofar during the Rosh Hashanah Sabbath symbolizes the connection between the Jewish people and God.3 Ben Zakai's innovative act came to show that despite the destruction of the temple, the Jewish people were still connected to God. Ben Zakai's leadership was innovative, for he came to renew Judaism in a way that could cope with the destruction of the Temple. His innovation later helped the Jewish people survive two thousand years of exile from the Jewish homeland. Ben Zakai played a crucial role in the process of natural selection that made Rabbinical Judaism the common practice of the Jewish faith, overcoming other Jewish schools of thought like the Essenes and Sadducees.

Reference list:

1. Kotter, John P. What Leaders Really Do. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press, 1999. Print.

2. Levine, Lee l. Jerusalem: Portrait of the City in the Second Temple Period (538 BCE-70 CE) . Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002. Print.

3. Lau, Binyamin. From Yavne to the Bar-Kokhba Revolt. Vol. 2. Tel-Aviv: Miskal, 2007. 3 vols. Print.