רבן שמעון בן גמליאל הזקן

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the Elder (c. 10 BCE–70 CE), known in Torah literature as Rashbag the first to set him apart from his grandson of the same name, was a tanna and the Nasi of the Sanhedrin in the final years of the Beit HaMikdash — the last Nasi of the Temple era. A great-grandson of Hillel the Elder, he was the son of Rabban Gamliel the Elder, filling his father’s place as Nasi; his son was Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh, and his daughter Imma Shalom became the wife of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurcanus. Josephus, who knew him, described a man of noble Pharisee lineage, wise and discerning, able to find a way through tangled matters.

He led in Yerushalayim during the Great Revolt against Rome, siding, as Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai did, with the moderates. He was killed in the course of the revolt, and tradition counts him among the Ten Martyrs, executed by the Romans together with Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha the Kohen Gadol on the 25th of Sivan. The minor tractate Semachot records their last words, each pleading to be slain first so as not to see the death of his companion.

Few teachings are preserved in his name. His saying in Pirkei Avot is one of the few. Having spent all his days among the wise, he found that silence is the best thing for the body; the essential thing, he taught, is not study but deed. He was known too for his joy at the Simchat Beit HaShoeivah, juggling eight lit torches at once. When the price of the kinim — the bird-offerings a woman brings after childbirth — rose to a gold dinar, he vowed not to rest that night until they fell, and entered the beit din and ruled leniently so that the poor would not be shut out; that very day their price dropped a hundredfold.

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