Chapters 8-10 Reading Response

    These three chapters revealed (even more so than previous chapters) a big theme in religion that prevails to this day: the role that politics play in the religious world. There are many underlying political undertones that frame the disputes surrounding different groups of people that can be linked back to religion. Interesting to read how much of a role religion played in politics in times much different than our own.
    For me, the most interesting part of this reading was in the beginning of chapter 8, where  the actions of Pharisee Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai are discussed. When Jerusalem was taken over by the Romans, he was smuggled out of the city in a coffin. He was one of the few jewish leaders to keep his credibility after the city was sieged. He built a "new" Judaism on the coast, where he and fellow Rabbis started the academy of Yavneh.
    Yes, they lost their temple in 586, but by establishing this academy, they were able to modernize Judaism and allowed for the study of the Torah in a different manner, away from the temple. This was important, because it separated the people from the temple, and got rid of that physical attachment to religion that people of the time craved. Now instead of craving to be present and in physical contact with god via a temple, people were studying the Torah together, and by doing so, God's presence on earth would sit among them. They started shifting from animal sacrifice and focused more on compassion and charity as ways of giving back and showing good to their god. These events are important because they represent an important, more modern shift that is more recognizable to religion today. It established the Mishnah, and Jews could experience God where ever they were. It made religion more mobile and accessible. No longer did one have to be in Temple. You could passionately engaged in a dialogue over the Torah, far away from the holy land, while praying and recovering a  "divine heart" away from the Temple.