Class 3: Foundations of Rabbinic Judaism from the Mishnah to the Talmud

From Command to Conversation: The Shift from Bible to Midrash

We have now seen how the rabbis claimed authority after the destruction of the Temple and how they negotiated with surrounding cultures. But the clearest insight into their project comes from their texts. Between 200 and 600 CE, in Roman Palestine and Babylonia, the rabbis produced a new body of literature—Mishnah, Talmud, and midrash. These works became the foundations of rabbinic Judaism and reveal the methods by which the rabbis reshaped Jewish tradition.

Where the Hebrew Bible often speaks with a commanding, unified voice, rabbinic texts do not. In Genesis 1:1, God calls light into being—“Let there be light”—and the cosmos obeys. Creation is framed as absolute command: divine speech calls the universe into existence. The Mishnah, the earliest rabbinic text (ca. 200 CE), opens in an entirely different mode. Its first words are a question: “From when may one recite the Shema‘ in the evening?” (m. Berakhot 1:1–2). Instead of one divine pronouncement, we find a discussion with multiple answers, each preserved without resolution. The shift is striking. Rather than narrate the creation of the universe, the Mishnah organizes different opinions about the ways in which humans structure daily prayer. Authority is not singular but rather is distributed among voices in dialogue.

Interpreting the Mishnah: The Talmud’s Expansion

The Babylonian Talmud, compiled around 600 CE, takes the Mishnah’s style of questioning even further. On the very first page (b. Berakhot 2a), the rabbis ask: Why begin here? What biblical verse supports this law about the Shema‘? The Mishnah’s discussion unfolds further into layers of reasoning that trace scriptural justifications and debate alternatives. The Talmud does not simply preserve the Mishnah; it interrogates it, multiplies perspectives, and makes the act of study itself into a sacred practice. Authority is no longer tied to a single text but to the ongoing process of interpretation.

The Art of Midrash: Rewriting Scripture through Story

Midrash introduces yet another rabbinic approach to the rabbis’ reshaping of Jewish tradition in the wake of the destruction of the Temple. Midrash refers both to a reading technique and to a body of compiled works that use that technique. From about the third century CE onward, rabbis began to assemble midrashic collections. What makes a text “midrashic” is its interpretive character. It does not merely cite scripture but reshapes it through elaboration, parable, and narrative and by weaving together verses from across the Bible into new intertextual patterns of meaning.

A passage in Leviticus Rabbah (27:6), one of these collections of midrash, retells the Mishnah’s opening question with a parable: God’s command is like a royal decree sent to a province. The people there respond with awe—standing, trembling, baring their heads. But, the midrash says, unlike earthly kings who demand ritual pomp, God allows the Shema‘—the required recitation of three biblical passages that amount to a Jewish creed—to be recited at home, on the road, lying down, or rising up (Deuteronomy 6:7). Law is reframed as a story, and ritual obligation is situated not in a Temple but in the rhythms of ordinary life. This is one example of how the rabbis use their creative methods of interpretation to transform divine commands into practice.

Rabbinic Literature as Living Tradition

Taken together, the four sources covered in this class throw into relief the distinctive character of rabbinic literature. The Bible speaks in one commanding voice; the Mishnah preserves many voices side by side; the Talmud expands those voices through questioning and analysis, and the midrash recasts law through story, imagination, and parable. Each genre offers a different lens, yet they all contribute to the same rabbinic project of translating scripture for everyday life after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.