רבן יוחנן בן זכאי

When Jerusalem burned, one man saved the Torah. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was the youngest of Hillel the Elder's students, and when Hillel died it was said of him that he was 'a father of wisdom and a father of generations.' But his great hour came at the moment of the destruction.

During the siege of Jerusalem, when the zealots refused to surrender and blocked any compromise, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai understood that the city was lost, but that the Torah need not fall with it. He asked his students to smuggle him out of the city inside a coffin, as though he had died, since the living were not allowed out (Gittin 56a).

Outside the walls he came to Vespasian, the Roman commander, prophesied that he would become emperor, and when it came true at once, he made a request that saved Judaism: 'give me Yavneh and its sages.' He did not ask to save Jerusalem, which he knew was lost, but the study hall, eternity itself.

At Yavneh Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai rebuilt the Torah. He instituted many enactments 'in memory of the Temple,' so that even without the Temple the bond would be preserved, and so the people would know that though the House was destroyed, the covenant was not. In his merit we have Torah to this day.

His teaching at Yavneh was short and deep: 'if you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, for that is why you were created' (Pirkei Avot 2:8). The humility of one who held a whole nation on his shoulders.

Before his death he wept, and told his students that he did not know by which path he was being led, whether to the Garden of Eden or to Gehinnom (Berakhot 28b). The greatest of the generation, and trembling in awe. This was his greatness.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai teaches that there are moments when one must give up the obvious in order to save the essential, and that the Torah, and not the stone, is the eternity of Israel.