Devarim: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with this week's insight: Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said before his passing that he did not know which way he would be led. Yet wasn't he the greatest of his generation? At the conclusion…

00:00 Speaker 1 A few days ago, we learned the sugya in Nezikin about Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, and the destruction of Jerusalem. The Gemara tells the story of how Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai managed to leave Jerusalem and meet Vespasian, who put difficult questions to him. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai answered him, and somehow Vespasian understood. He said to him, “Ask me for something, and I’ll give it to you.” So Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai asked for three things: Yavneh and its sages, the line of Rabban Gamliel—the line of the nesi’im—and healing for Rabbi Tzadok. The Gemara says that Rav Yosef, or some say Rabbi Akiva, applied to him the verse, “He turns wise men backward.” He should have asked for Jerusalem. Why didn’t he ask for Jerusalem? What was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai thinking? Had the idea not occurred to him? He thought that if he asked for something so great, he wouldn’t receive anything at all. Elsewhere, the Gemara relates that when Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai fell ill, his students came to visit him and saw him crying. They asked him, “Our teacher, pillar of the right, mighty hammer, why are you crying?” He told them, “If I were being led before a flesh-and-blood king, who is here today and in the grave tomorrow, I would cry. Now that I am being led before the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, how could I not be afraid? And there are two paths before me, and I do not know which path I will be led down.” The question is: Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was the leader of his generation all his life. He spent his whole life learning and teaching Torah. He didn’t know which path he would be led down? What did he mean by “I do not know”? There is a beautiful explanation from the rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. He explained what troubled Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai: it was that very question. Maybe

01:57 Speaker 1 he should have asked for Jerusalem after all, and he could have saved Jerusalem. All his life, he wrestled with that question: Maybe, if I had asked for Jerusalem, I would have received it. That is what he meant when he said, “I do not know which path I will be led down.” So Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai wrestled with it his whole life. I don’t know. Maybe I should have asked for Jerusalem after all. We need to ask for Jerusalem, and with Hashem’s help, may we soon merit to see Jerusalem rebuilt.

02:24 Speaker 2 Amen. Amen. May it be so.