History 282/Jewish Studies 234 Emergence of Rabbinic Judaism

Torah Centered

• trend to book is now solidified • commentary already in the text • prophecy is replaced by pseudipigrapha, wisdom literature, apocalyptic • notion of Oral Law

Institutions in Israel

• centrality of community in Land of Israel continues?

• Patriarchate (nasi) -- head of Sanhedrin – rabbinic leadership backed up by a claim to Davidic lineage • period of great religious creativity

Types of Study

• halakha (law) • hagada (agada) (mystical; legendary; non legal) • midrash (intensive interpretation of text) – task is to tie practice to available texts

Halakha

• repeated, ritualized action as method of approach to spirituality • avoid rigidity by legitimizing the contemporary judge • “et la-asot” • takanot

Haggada

• attach meaning and color to text • speculate on God and man • link folk literature to texts • non-exegetical (Avot; Chapters of the Fathers) • Kadushin: “organic thinking”

Midrash

• both a method and a text • as a text, may be halakhic or non-halakhic

Talmud

• Mishna and Gemara • Tana’im and Amora’im • Eastern (Babylonian) and Western (Jerusalem/Palestinian)

Mishna

• definition • institutionalization • Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (the Prince), d. 217 • is this a code?

• sources of authority • other collections: Tosefta, Braitot (Braita), Midrashim on last 4 books of bible

Akiva

• central figure in establishing tradition – contemporary of Bar Kokhba – his school dominates • Louis Finkelstein: emphasis on Akiva’s role in making the tradition more “humane”

Ethics of the Fathers

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"Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it Joshua. Joshua transmitted it to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They [the Men of the Great Assembly] said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise many students, and make a protective fence for the Torah.”

Claim to Tradition

• vast project of recreating the Jewish past as an unbroken chain of authority and transmission • read the rabbinical figure and debate into the past • centralization and uniformity but with flexible mechanisms

Gemara

• period of the Amora’im • role of Rav (Abba Areikha) in transporting the text • Resh Galuta’s authority • academies in Sura and Neharde’a [later Pumbeditha] with different areas of expertise • Rav Ashi (375-427)

Babylonian & Palestinian

• 2 Gemara texts • Babylonian – Eastern Aramaic has more Hebrew – texts are more voluminous – more popular elements • Palestinian (Yerushalmi) – in recent years it is being studied again • reflect a split in chains of authority that will be relevant later