The controversy with the Sadducees - not what you thought

Parasha in the everyday Life - Parashat Emor - Lag Ba'omer - Rabbi Eliezer Shenvald - 5780

This Shabbat we will read Parashat Emor, and on Tuesday it will be Lag Ba'Omer. It is well-known that the timing of the sacrifice of the Omer and the beginning of the counting of the Omer was the focus of a fierce controversy between the Sadducees and the Pharisees (Tzedukim vs Perushim). The significance of the dispute was so great that when resolved, it was decided to make those remembrance days, happy days where eulogies are not recited. But who were the Sadducees? What was their worldview? (hint, not what is usually explained) What were the basics of the controversy?

On the sacrifice of the Omer it is said:

וְהֵנִ֧יף אֶת־הָעֹ֛מֶר … מִֽמָּחֳרַת֙ הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת …

“He shall elevate the sheaf … shall elevate it on the day after the Shabbat” (Vayikra 23:11)

And in the counting of the Omer:

וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙ מִמָּחֳרַ֣ת הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת …

“And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the Shabbat… “(Ibid 15)

What is "the day after the Shabbat"? The Sadducees claimed that it was simply what it says, the Shabbat day, and the Pharisees received the tradition from generations that the meaning is the first day of Passover, since the "Moed (מועד) ("festive season") is also called "Shabbat" because you rest from working.

According to the Pharisees Sages, there is a possibility that the harvesting of the Omer will also occur on Shabbat setting it aside! Compared to the Sadducees, where the harvesting will always occur at the end of Shabbbat.

The Sadducees (Tzedukim) and Boethusians (Beitusim) are called after two of Antigonos, the man of Socho’s students, Tsadok and Beitos. (Avot D'Rabbi Natan 5:1-2). They lived at the beginning of the Hellenistic period, some two hundred years after the return to Zion. (They and their students became heretics, and they are called so to this day).

משֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי, וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ…. וּנְבִיאִים מְסָרוּהָ לְאַנְשֵׁי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה.

“Moshe received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua… and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly.” (Pirkei Avot 1:1) 

In their time, the spiritual leadership and authority passed by tradition the Torah and its meaning orally from the Great Assembly to the Sanhedrin.

According to Yosef Ben Matityahu (Josephus Flavius) the Sadducees were aristocratic, opinionated, and arrogant:

“And the Sadducees are also hard on their brothers and greeted their friends in anger, as if they were foreigners to them " (The Wars of the Jews, Book II, 8:13)

Some were from the priesthood families who came into contact with and were influenced by Hellenistic culture. They challenged the authenticity of the Oral Torah tradition from Sinai, and the exclusive authority of the Sages to rule and teach how to put the Torah into practice:

"And most of their ambition is nothing more than the observance of the laws; For to dispute their teachers’ wisdom is seen as a good deed. This Torah reached (only) a few people…" (Wars, Book II, 8:13). In their opinion, only "the written" was valid, and they were also given the option to "read" the script and understand it in their own way.

The controversy with the Sadducees on the "the day after the Shabbat" took center stage in the confrontation. Paradoxically, it has been pointed out that the Sadducees are more anxious about the holiness of the Shabbat, as in their view, there is no way the harvesting of the Omer could fall on the Shabbat.

The controversy came so far as to where the Sadducees even tried to deceive the Great Assembly in the sanctification of the month so that the Passover holiday would take place on the Shabbat and the harvest on Saturday night.

“The Sages taught a baraita that describes the decisive incident: What was the manner of the corruption in which the Boethusians engaged? Once, the Boethusians tried to mislead the Sages with regard to the day of the new moon. They hired two people for four hundred dinars to testify falsely that they had seen the new moon on the thirtieth day of the month. One of them was from our own, i.e., a member of the Pharisees and the Sages of Israel, and the other was one of theirs.” (Rosh Hashanah 22b). Therefore:

בראשונה היו מקבלין עדות החדש מכל אדם משקלקלו הבייתוסים התקינו שלא יהו מקבלין אלא מן המכירין

“The Mishna adds: Initially, the court would accept testimony to determine the start of the month from any person, as all are presumed to be qualified witnesses, absent any disqualifying factors. However, when the Boethusians, a sect whose members had their own opinions with regard to the establishment of the Festivals, corrupted the process by sending false witnesses to testify about the new moon, the Sages instituted that they would accept this testimony only from those men familiar to the Sanhedrin as valid witnesses”. (Rosh Hashanah 22a).

In order to highlight the opinion of the Sages regarding "the day after the Shabbat", the harvesting of the Omer was held in public, with demonstration, even when it occurred on Shabbat. During the harvest, the reaper would announce each step three times, and the entire public would answer to him out loud.

כֵּיצַד הָיוּ עוֹשִׂים. שְׁלוּחֵי בֵית דִּין יוֹצְאִים מֵעֶרֶב יוֹם טוֹב, וְעוֹשִׂים אוֹתוֹ כְרִיכוֹת בִּמְחֻבָּר לַקַּרְקַע, כְּדֵי שֶׁיְּהֵא נוֹחַ לִקְצֹר. וְכָל הָעֲיָרוֹת הַסְּמוּכוֹת לְשָׁם, מִתְכַּנְּסוֹת לְשָׁם, כְּדֵי שֶׁיְּהֵא נִקְצָר בְּעֵסֶק גָּדוֹל. כֵּיוָן שֶׁחֲשֵׁכָה, אוֹמֵר לָהֶם, בָּא הַשָּׁמֶשׁ, אוֹמְרִים, הֵן. בָּא הַשָּׁמֶשׁ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. מַגָּל זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. מַגָּל זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. קֻפָּה זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. קֻפָּה זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. בְּשַׁבָּת אוֹמֵר לָהֶם, שַׁבָּת זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. שַׁבָּת זוֹ, אוֹמְרִים הֵן. אֶקְצֹר, וְהֵם אוֹמְרִים לוֹ קְצֹר. אֶקְצֹר, וְהֵם אוֹמְרִים לוֹ קְצֹר. שָׁלשׁ פְּעָמִים עַל כָּל דָּבָר וְדָבָר, וְהֵם אוֹמְרִים לוֹ הֵן, הֵן, הֵן. וְכָל כָּךְ לָמָּה. מִפְּנֵי הַבַּיְתוֹסִים, שֶׁהָיוּ אוֹמְרִים, אֵין קְצִירַת הָעֹמֶר בְּמוֹצָאֵי יוֹם טוֹב:

“How would they do it [reap the Omer]? The agents of the court used to go out on the day before the festival and tie the unreaped grain in bunches to make it the easier to reap. All the inhabitants of the towns near by assembled there, so that it might be reaped with a great demonstration. As soon as it became dark, he says to them: “Has the sun set?” And they answer, “Yes.” “Has the sun set?” And they answer, “Yes.” “With this sickle?” And they answer, “Yes.” “With this sickle?” And they answer, “Yes.” “Into this basket?” And they answer, “Yes.” “Into this basket?” And they answer, “Yes.” On the Sabbath he says to them, “On this Sabbath?” And they answer, “Yes.” “On this Sabbath?” And they answer, “Yes.” “Shall I reap?” And they answer, “Reap.” “Shall I reap?” And they answer, “Reap.” He repeated every matter three times, and they answer, “yes, yes, yes.” And why all of this? Because of the Boethusians who held that the reaping of the Omer was not to take place at the conclusion of the [first day of the] festival”. (Mishnah Menachot 10:3)

Sages succeeded in bringing evidence from the scriptures to their own ways and then the controversy was decided: "They Rejected them by showing them they were wrong, and the Boethusians changed their minds and retracted" (Rashi on Taanit 17b). (Probably during Shlomzion the Queen’s period- Salome Alexandra or Alexandra of Jerusalem).

After the destruction of the Temple, the Sadducees disappeared, and had no continuity.

The late Rabbi Kook saw great and relevant importance in explaining the basis of the controversy over the validity of the Torah's authentic interpretation, precisely as the people of Israel began to return to their land: "We have a double duty to search our ancient treasures to know what these streams have been in our everyday lives. For it is only by knowing this that we can direct the weight, to know which stream is our own and original to us, and thereby also eternal in nature and gives us revival, etc.” ( Ma'amarei HaRe'iyah Part I 177).