Biography
Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkulos was a tanna who appears in connection with one of the most painful episodes recounted by Chazal. In the account brought in Gittin (56a) and in Eichah Rabbah, after Bar Kamtza was shamed and brought to the authorities an offering with a blemish, the Sages considered bringing it on the altar for the sake of peace with the ruling power. Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkulos objected, saying that people would conclude that blemished animals may be offered; and when they thought to kill Bar Kamtza so he would not go and inform, he again objected that people would say one who blemishes consecrated animals is put to death.
Rabbi Yochanan comments sharply that the excessive scrupulousness (ענוותנותו) of Rabbi Zecharia ben Avkulos destroyed our House, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land. The Mesillat Yesharim (chapter 20) cites this episode as the model case of a piety not weighed on the scales of true judgment, teaching that even devout caution must be measured against its consequences.
He is also named in Shabbat (143a) in a matter of practical halachah concerning the proper way to dispose of bones and scraps at a meal, where it is said of him that he would turn his face to the back of the bed and cast them there.
רבי זכריה בן אבקולס, היה מחכמי ישראל בתקופת חורבן בית שני.
Zechariah ben Abkilus was a Jewish scholar at the end of the Second Temple period. He lived in Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. According to the Talmud, the authority which he enjoyed among the rabbis of Jerusalem was the cause of the downfall of the city. According to Lamentations Rabbah, Zechariah was present at the banquet famous for the affair of Kamsa and Bar Kamsa; and though his influence might have prevented the disgrace of Bar Ḳamtza, he did not exercise it. According to the Talmudic account of the episode, when a calf sent by the emperor was blemished by Bar Ḳamtza prior to being received as an offering to the Temple, the Rabbis would have accepted it to frustrate Bar Ḳamtza, had not Zechariah, ruled against this out of concern of setting an erroneous precedent for later generations.
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