Rav Avigdor Miller on Yoshkeh’s Frumkeit
Q: The Rav said tonight that Yoshkeh was basically an observant Jew and that it was only the later Christians who created a new religion. But then why is Yoshkeh called a מסית in the Gemara?
A: Yoshkeh was considered a מסית because he ridiculed the חכמים and encouraged the ridicule of the חכמים. And anyone who ridicules the Torah leaders is חייב מיתה. We know that כל העובר על דברי חכמים חייב מיתה – “If someone is going to disregard the words of the chachomim, then he is deserving of death” (Brachos 4b).The חכמי התורה are the light of our eyes. They are the עיני העדה, the eyes of our people. A loyal Jew views the world through the eyes of the חכמים. And if a fellow in the street is walking around with a few bums following him, and he’s making jokes against the חכמים and ridiculing them and encouraging others to ridicule them, then he has lost his right to exist. That’s a מסית.
But did Yoshkeh himself worship avodah zarah? No, no. He wouldn’t even think of avodah zarah. You have to know that he was a Jew. And if sometimes you find statements that are attributed to him that seem to imply differently, those may be due to the later writers who put things into his mouth as if he said it. But it’s not מסתבר that he said it. No, it’s not logical that those are his words. Because we know that he was a Jew. He said the following – and I’m telling you what it says in the New Testament – “If anyone were to oppose even a jot or a tittle of what’s in the Torah” – that means even a yud or a tag – “then that man has no place in this world.”
All Jews were like that in ancient times. Only that he opposed the חכמים. And that we know. We know that he opposed the חכמי התורה and tried to rally people to this cause. And that is a tremendous עבירה, a terrible sin. That’s why we call him a מסית.
TAPE # E-186 (April 1999)