רבי צדוק

Rabbi Tzadok was a tanna and kohen who lived at the close of the Second Temple period and into the early generation of Yavneh, in the days of Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Eliezer. He was among the leading sages of his generation, and his teachings appear in many places in the Talmud. For forty years before the Churban he fasted each day that the Beit HaMikdash might not be destroyed, eating only at night. When the Romans besieged Yerushalayim, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai made three requests of Vespasian, one of them for the means to heal Rabbi Tzadok, worn down by his long fasting; the Gemara in Gittin tells at length how he was restored.

His path in avodah stressed the honor of Hashem above the honor of men. At the wedding feast of Rabban Gamliel’s son, when the Nasi himself stood and poured wine for his guests, a discussion arose over whether it was fitting to be served by so great a man; Rabbi Tzadok answered that the Holy One Himself sends the winds, raises the clouds, brings down the rain, and sets a table before every creature, so how much more may a man let Rabban Gamliel pour for him. In like manner he taught that when a vow is annulled the beit din should open not with the honor of one’s father and mother but with the honor of the Omnipresent. His saying in Pirkei Avot warns that one must not make the words of Torah a crown to magnify himself nor a spade to dig with.

His son was the tanna Rabbi Elazar bar Tzadok, cited often in the Mishnah, who told how his father would bring difficult questions from their home to the sages at Yavneh rather than rule on his own, and how the sages in turn consulted physicians before fixing the halachah.