HISTORY · SAGES · 1 OF 6
After the Temple
The Temple’s destruction changed Jewish life. Read one enactment closely to see how our sages carried its memory into the years that followed.
In this lesson
A loss within a continuing story
The Second Temple stood in Jerusalem. It was the center of sacrificial worship and a destination for our festival gatherings. Rome destroyed it in 70 CE. CE means Common Era, the year numbering used in the civil calendar. That date marks a devastating loss, not the end of our people's story.
The Mishnah, the collection of our sages' teachings gathered around 200 CE, helps us study how Jewish life continued. Its passages sometimes describe a practice while the Temple stood, then an enactment after its destruction. Reading those layers carefully lets us recognize both what changed and what our teachers carried forward.
This unit follows teachers, communities and books from the Temple's world into the worlds of the Mishnah and the two Talmuds. Begin with one small passage. Read its English even if Hebrew is new to you. For the wider outline, return to Our story.
Hear the before and after
בראשונה, היה לולב ניטל במקדש שבעה, ובמדינה יום אחד; משחרב בית המקדש, התקין רבן יוחנן בן זכאי שיהא לולב ניטל במדינה שבעה זכר למקדש
At first, the lulav was taken in the Temple for seven days, and outside the Temple for one day. After the Temple was destroyed, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai enacted that the lulav be taken outside the Temple for seven days, in remembrance of the Temple.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Rosh Hashanah is the name of this Mishnah tractate, or book. The reference means chapter 4, mishnah 3. Although the tractate is named for the new year, this passage records an enactment concerning Sukkot, the festival of booths.
A lulav is a palm branch. Its name also identifies the festival practice of taking it together with the other prescribed plants. Here the Mishnah concentrates on where and for how many days it was taken. We will study that historical comparison rather than turn this short passage into a complete guide to observing Sukkot.
1. Which festival does this passage discuss, and which words tell you what is being compared?
It discusses the lulav practice of Sukkot, even though it appears in the tractate Rosh Hashanah. “In the Temple” and “outside the Temple” name the settings; “seven days” and “one day” give the duration. A tractate title helps us locate a passage, but the passage itself tells us its subject.
Build the comparison before explaining it
On paper, make three short entries. Fill in the duration for each: Temple, before the destruction; outside the Temple, before the destruction; outside the Temple, after the enactment. Then circle the entry whose duration changed.
2. Check your three entries
Before the destruction: in the Temple, seven days; outside it, one day. After the enactment: outside the Temple, seven days. The changed duration is outside the Temple. The passage does not describe a functioning Temple service after its destruction.
The Hebrew במדינה, ba-medinah, stands here opposite “in the Temple.” We render it “outside the Temple.” Do not read the modern expression “the State of Israel” into this contrast. The distinction in the source is about the Temple setting and the practice beyond it.
3. Why would “only Jews outside the land of Israel took the lulav for one day” misread this passage?
The source contrasts the Temple with places outside the Temple, not the land of Israel with other countries. A place can be outside the Temple while still being in the land. The mistaken sentence replaces the text’s actual boundary with a different one.
Name the teacher and the purpose
The passage does not leave the change anonymous. It names Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, one of our sages, and says that he enacted the practice. The Hebrew verb התקין, hitkin, signals an enactment. The source also gives its purpose: זכר למקדש, zekher la-Mikdash, “in remembrance of the Temple.”
Notice what the remembrance does. A practice beyond the Temple now carries the seven-day pattern associated with the Temple. The place of worship has been lost, yet it remains present in the way our people mark the festival. The source lets us speak of continuity through change: the enactment changes the outside practice in order to sustain remembrance.
4. Explain the enactment in one sentence, naming both its actor and its stated purpose
Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai enacted seven-day lulav-taking outside the Temple after its destruction, in remembrance of the Temple. Naming the teacher and the purpose tells us more than “people changed the festival.” Both details come directly from the Mishnah.
Keep the event and the collection distinct
We are holding two historical landmarks together:
- 70 CE: Rome destroys the Second Temple.
- Around 200 CE: Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi gathers the Mishnah, which preserves this account of earlier practice and enactment.
The first date belongs to the event. The second is a broad landmark for the collection in which we read about it. “Around” matters: it is an orientation, not a claim that the whole work appeared on one precisely known day. The words “at first” and “after the Temple was destroyed” show the passage looking across a change; they do not supply the civil-calendar date themselves.
5. A label says, “This enactment began around 200 CE because that is when the Mishnah was compiled.” What has the label confused?
It has confused the collection’s compilation with the earlier enactment it records. The Mishnah attributes the enactment to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai after the Temple’s destruction. The collection’s approximate date does not date every teaching or event inside it.
Work from words to a historical claim
Try this claim: “After the destruction, our sages helped carry the Temple's memory into festival life.” We can support it in three steps:
- “After the Temple was destroyed” identifies the changed setting.
- “Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai enacted” identifies a named teacher's action.
- “In remembrance of the Temple” identifies the purpose.
The claim fits the evidence because it keeps all three parts. It neither treats the destruction as a minor inconvenience nor treats the continuing practice as forgetting what had been lost.
6. Which part of the source most directly challenges “The new practice made the Temple irrelevant”?
“In remembrance of the Temple.” The enactment explicitly directs attention back to the Temple. We can describe changed practice without claiming that the Temple ceased to matter.
Write a small historical account
Write three or four sentences for someone who has never opened the Mishnah. Include the loss, the earlier difference in practice, the named enactment and its purpose. Name the source. Then add one question the excerpt leaves you wanting to investigate, rather than inventing its answer.
For example, you might ask how the enactment was discussed by later teachers, or what other details shape the festival practice. Keep the account you can already support separate from the question you still need to research.
7. Review your account before sharing it
Your account should distinguish the Temple’s destruction from the Mishnah’s later compilation, and identify the change outside the Temple from one day to seven. It should name Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and the stated purpose of remembrance. “Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4:3 records…” is a useful way to introduce the evidence.
A good final question asks for more evidence. It does not quietly turn a guess, such as every community immediately adopting an identical practice, into a fact supplied by this excerpt.
Carry the distinction into the next lesson
Later, close the page. Recall the two phrases that divide the passage into periods, the teacher who acts, and the purpose he names. Explain how a later collection can preserve an earlier event.
8. Check your recall
The period markers are “at first” and “after the Temple was destroyed.” Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai enacts the practice “in remembrance of the Temple.” The Mishnah’s compilation gathers teachings and accounts that reach back before the collection itself. Next we will meet this teacher through his teachers, pupils and a named court.
Return to the sources
- Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 4:3: the lulav enactment; the complete mishnah continues with a separate enactment.
- The Second Temple: the Roman destruction in 70 CE.
- The Mishnah library: the collection's historical setting around 200 CE.