18 Josiah and Ezra

No Uninterrupted Tradition in Judaism

The Scripture itself admits that for long periods the Torah's tradition was forgotten by the Jewish masses: "And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe: 'I have found the Book of the Torah in the Temple of the Lord. And he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it... Then Shaphan the scribe told the king: 'Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.' And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his garments... And the king gave this order to the whole people: 'Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your G-d, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.' For such a Passover had never been observed since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah."(II Kings 22:8-23:22)

"And on the second day, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to learn the words of the Torah. And they found written in the Torah, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month... So the people went out, and brought [branches], and built themselves booths, each on his roof, and in their courtyards, and in the courtyards of the house of G-d, and on the street by the Water Gate and on the street by the Gate of Ephraim. The whole congregation that had returned from exile built booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it this way. And their joy was very great."(Nechemiah 8:13-17)

The Torah scroll found in the Temple was a great surprise for the king and his scribes, and the basic commandments of Passover and Sukkot were not observed by the Jews for hundreds of years. The great Rabbinic commentators of the Scripture also admitted that the People of Israel forgot the Torah for long periods: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." (Radak on II Kings 22:8)

"In our sinfulness, it had already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments." (Nachmanides on Numbers 15:22)

Even if there had been an original mass tradition of the Torah, it was forgotten by the vast majority of Jewish people for long periods, and then, as result of certain events, the tradition regained its mass popularity. Of course, neither the Scripture nor the commentators exclude the possibility that selected individuals preserved the original tradition even in the times of mass forgetfulness, but from the texts above it is clear that Judaism does not even pretend to have an uninterrupted mass tradition of the Torah and the commandments. It is equally possible that: a) there was an original tradition, forgotten by the masses but preserved by certain individuals, which was then readopted by the whole people, or b) that there was no original tradition whatsoever, but a group of certain individuals, claiming to have discovered old texts, actually "invented" the whole story, which was then believed by the masses.

Indeed, one can never ignore the possibility that at some point certain charismatic people, in order to bring Jews closer to G-d's will as they understood it, simply made up the whole Scriptural narrative either using popular ancient traditions or their own creativity -- and the Jews, because of an absence of their own written history before that point, due to a deep spiritual desire for religious repentance in hard times, owing to the personal charisma of the "inventors," in order to achieve national consolidation, or because of any of a million other motives, simply accepted this story upon themselves, just as the Christians accepted the story of Jesus's divinity, the Moslems accepted the story of Muhammad ascending to the sky on his flying horse al-Buraq, and so on -- each religion and its own story, firmly adopted by believers even if it had very little to do with historical reality.

To answer your main question, the reason why the tradition is reliable is not simply because it is carried by the majority of our nation. For example, the amount of religious Jews in our generation is only around 10% of the entire Jewish population – the majority of the Jewish people do not have this tradition today. The tradition remains trustworthy nonetheless, because even that 10% comprises about 2 million people, and having that amount of people carrying this tradition, makes it important enough to warrant us to evaluate it with all due seriousness.

A tradition can very easily be forgotten over a long period of time, as is well evidenced by the Yemenite tradition about locusts that I mentioned earlier, that most of the Jewish people do not have anymore. But it still remains true, because of the people who still retain it. So even if I would accept, for the sake of the argument, your charge that the majority of people forgot it at certain periods of our history, that really does not have much bearing on the truthfulness of the tradition.

I find it hard to accept the idea that this was re-adopted by the people at a certain time, after a period in which it was forgotten, as again, the tradition does not stem from the Torah’s account, but is rather that we were told that this happened from our parents, who were told by their parents in a chain stretching all the way back to Mount Sinai, where the first generation testified that they had witnessed that event themselves – and if the chain was broken, that should not be the tradition that we have.

As for your alternative suggestion, that this tradition was promulgated by a single person, or by a few core people, why aren’t their names featured in the tradition?

I think the above sufficiently answers your question, but once you already brought up Josiah and Ezra, let me address them as well. 

Starting with Josiah, most commentators explain that the reason why he was so distressed about this find, was because he found the original Torah scroll written by Moses, rolled to Deuteronomy 28:36: “G-d shall lead away the king you have placed upon yourselves, to another nation...”

This can be easily read into the verses themselves. In Chronicles II 34:14, where we have recorded the identical story to Kings II 22, the verse says, ‘And when they took out the silver that was brought into the House of the L-rd, Hilkiah the priest found the Scroll of the Law of the L-rd by the hand of Moses.’ And although the word ‘beyad’ is usually understood figuratively in other contexts, as in ‘through’, it can easily be understood here literally, that this was the Torah scroll written by Moses’ own hand. Additionally, some commentators point out that this is why the verse refers to this scroll as ‘Sefer HaTorah’ – the Torah scroll, the famous one written by Moses.

It is also well understood why Josiah gathered the people, and had it read to them; not that they had forgotten it, but rather, since he interpreted (correctly) this find, as a sign of G-d’s wrath against the Jews (and had that understanding confirmed with the prophecy of the prophetess Huldah), he understood that the only way how to annul, or at least push off,  the punishment levied against them, was to inspire the people to start following again the ways of the Torah. For this reason, he gathered them and told them how things stand; and read to them from the Torah, to inspire them to change their ways.

While it is true that the Radak says that the people had forgotten the Torah, he himself brings a question against his own explanation, from the Seder Olam that states that Manasseh only indulged in his evil ways for the first 22 years of his reign. This would make the Radak’s suggestion quite tenuous, as in addition for that amount of years being too small to make everyone forget the Torah, Manasseh spent his next 33 years practicing it again.

But as for your suggestion, that one can infer from this passage that the people had forgotten about the festival of Passover for hundreds of years, I frankly find that very difficult to accept, as chapter 30 of Chronicles II is dedicated to recording the Paschal observation of Hezekiah and his generation.

As to the meaning of the verse, ‘For such a Passover had never been observed since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah’, it seems quite straightforward to me that the meaning is that they had not celebrated the festival of Passover with that amount of dedication, for hundreds of years. This can also be inferred from the verse in Chronicles II 35:18, ‘And a Passover sacrifice such as this had not been made in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet; and neither did any of the kings of Israel make such a Passover as Josiah did, and the priests, the Levites, and all of Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’

Moving on to Ezra, already the Talmud (Eirchin 32b) has a discussion about the meaning of this verse: “Is it possible that David came and they didn’t keep Sukkot, until Ezra came [and only then they kept Sukkot]? Rather, [the verse] compares the arrival [of the Jews to the Land of Israel] in the days of Ezra, to the arrival [of the Jews to the Land of Israel] in the days of Joshua: just as in their arrival in the days of Joshua, [the Jews commenced the] counting of Sabbatical years, the Jubilee, and sanctified the walled cities, similarly, in their arrival in the days of Ezra, [the Jews re-commenced the] counting of Sabbatical years, the Jubilee, and sanctified the walled cities (as is described in Nehemiah 12).”

And as Rashi comments: “This [that it says] ‘for they did not do’, is not referring to [the keeping of] Sukkot, rather, the intention of the verse is that [the Jews] did not do what they did now, from the days of Joshua, and what was this [action]? Sanctifying the Land [and counting the Sabbatical years and the Jubilee].”

Two more points are worth mentioning:

Firstly, it is quite debatable whether the story recorded in Nehemiah 8, is the same story that is mentioned in Ezra 3. If they are in fact two separate stories, it would be very difficult to interpret Nehemiah 8 as to mean that the Jews had forgotten about the festival of Sukkot, as the verse says in Ezra 3:4, ‘And they observed the feast of Succoth as is written, and the burnt offering of each day in its day, in the number, as the ordinance of each day in its day.’ If this is to be understood as a separate story, it would have only occurred about 25 years before the story recorded in Nehemiah 8, too short a time for it to be re-forgotten.

Even among Judaic sources, it is not clear if both accounts should be interpreted as one account or not, as one can infer from some sources, such as Megillah 16b and Midrash Rabbah Shir HaShirim parshah 5 section 4, that these are two separate accounts, while from other sources, such as Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, end of chapter 38, and Midrash Tanchuma, parshat Vayeshev, section 2, one can infer that the stories of Nehemiah 8 and Ezra 3 are two accounts of the same story.

Secondly, it is quite debatable the extent of Ezra’s influence on the rest of world Jewry. By Ezra’s times, the Jewish nation was already spread out in Israel, Babylonia, Yemen, Egypt and Europe (see Obadiah 1:20). This point is highlighted even more, with the tradition the Yemenite Jews have, that they originate from the tribe of Reuben, and when Ezra ascended to Israel, he tried to convince the Yemenite Jews to ascend with him, which they refused to do, and because of that, Ezra cursed them that they, and their descendants, should never have an individual that would be exceptionally wealthy.  I don’t know how willing they would be about accepting Ezra’s guidance, after such an encounter.