Rabban Gamliel's pride cost him his position — and the way it happened revealed how even the greatest leader can be brought low by arrogance. The Talmud (Berakhot 27b-28a) records the incident in full.
Rabban Gamliel was the Nasi, the president of the Sanhedrin, the most powerful figure in the Jewish world after the destruction of the Temple. But he exercised his authority harshly. When Rabbi Yehoshua disagreed with him on a legal point, Rabban Gamliel humiliated him publicly, forcing him to stand while all others sat — a degradation that no scholar should suffer.
The other sages had endured Rabban Gamliel's high-handedness for a long time, but this was too much. They voted to remove him from his position and replaced him with Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, a younger sage of distinguished lineage.
On the day Rabban Gamliel was deposed, a remarkable thing happened: the gates of the study house were thrown open to everyone. Under Rabban Gamliel's rule, a guard had stood at the door, admitting only students whose "inside matched their outside" — whose private conduct was as pious as their public appearance. Hundreds of benches had to be added to accommodate the flood of new students.
Rabban Gamliel saw the crowds and was stricken. "Perhaps I held back Torah from Israel," he whispered. His pride had not merely hurt his colleagues — it had kept Torah from the people. That realization, more than the deposition itself, was his true chastisement. He was eventually restored to a shared leadership, humbled and wiser.