Yadayim, Chapter 4, Mishnah 6. Among the rabbinic decrees discussed in this chapter is the ruling that sacred writings convey tumah to the hands that touch them. Our Mishnah records a challenge brought against that very decree, and the exchange that followed.
The Mishnah opens: "Omrim Tzedokim: Kovlim anu aleichem Perushim." The Tzedokim declared that they had a grievance, a bone to pick, with the Perushim.
Who were the Tzedokim and who were the Perushim?
The Bartenura supplies the historical background. Anyone who rejects the Oral Law falls under this label: "Hakofrim beTorah shebe'al peh nikra'im Tzedokim". The name traces back to two individuals, Tzadok and Baisus, who had sat in the study hall of Antignos Ish Socho, and the sect was called after them because they were the ones who first opened up this destructive road.
What pushed them off course was a line they had heard from their own teacher. Antignos taught: "al tiheyu ka'avadim", do not resemble the sort of servant who waits on his employer "al menas lekabel pras", with an eye on the wages. Tzadok and Baisus objected: "Efshar po'el tore'ach ve'oseh melacha", can it really be that a worker exerts himself at his labor from morning until evening and then goes home at dusk with nothing in his hand? From that piece of reasoning they drew the conclusion that there is no reward whatsoever, they walked away from the teachings of the Chachomim, and groups of Jews rallied to their side.
Of course, Antignos never intended to deny that there is reward. His point was that reward should not be our motive for serving Hashem. It was their misreading of his words that produced the whole breakaway.
As for the other name, the Bartenura explains that "chachmei Yisroel hayu korin Perushim", the Sages of Israel were called Perushim, the separated ones, because they ate even their ordinary food, food that is not terumah or maaser, in a state of taharah, and they kept themselves separate from whatever had been handled by an am ha'aretz.
The complaint
Now to the substance of the grievance: "she'atem omrim: Kisvei hakodesh metam'in es hayadayim, vesifrei Hameiras einam metam'in es hayadayim." The Tzedokim protested that the Perushim rule that sacred writings render the hands impure, while the books of Hameiras, the writings of Homer, that is, secular Greek literature, do not. Your priorities, they were saying, are upside down: you treat what is holy more severely than what is worthless.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's response
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai answered them with a question of his own: "Vechi ein lanu", is this grievance "ella zo bilvad", the single item on your list? Have you nothing further to raise against us?
He then put another of the Perushim's rulings on the table: "atzmos chamor tehorim", donkey bones remain tahor, whereas "atzmos Yochanan Kohen Gadol" are tamei. That ruling, he suggested, ought to bother you no less than the first.
The Tzedokim had a ready explanation: "Lefi chibason hi tum'ason", the tumah attached to those bones flows directly from their preciousness. The Chachomim declared human remains tamei so that nobody would carve his father's or mother's bones into "tarvados", spoons for the table. In saying this they had in effect granted the principle: a beast's bone may legitimately become a household utensil, while a parent's bones need to be shielded from that fate, and the status of tumah is what shields them.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai now closed the circle: "Af kisvei hakodesh", the identical reasoning applies to sacred writings. Their tumah is nothing other than a statement of how dear they are to us. The volumes of Homer, on the other hand, are "she'einan chavivin", they hold no affection for us at all, and so there was never any cause to give them such a status.
A note from the Bartenura
The Bartenura appends a remark to this exchange. Sacred writings were assigned tumah because of the love we bear them, so that nobody would treat them as "shtichin al gabei beheima", matting laid across an animal's back. Yet he immediately qualifies this: "ulefi divreihem haya meishiv lahem, velo lefi ha'emes". Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was answering the Tzedokim from inside their own position, turning against them the very argument they had just conceded, and he was not presenting the genuine basis of the decree.
The genuine basis, the Bartenura continues, was that the scrolls "lidei pseida" should not come to harm. It was common practice to keep sacred books in the same place as one's terumah, and the mice that come after the food would arrive and chew the books to pieces. This was set out in the closing mishnah of Zavim, and it surfaced earlier in our chapter as well. Once the Chachomim ruled that sacred writings pass tumah to the hands, nobody stores them beside terumah any longer, and the scrolls stay safe.
So the Mishnah leaves us with two layers: the answer Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai gave the Tzedokim on their own terms, and the practical concern for the safety of the scrolls that actually lies behind the decree.