The Rabbinic Legacy

The Emergence of Rabbinic Judaism and the Meanings of Torah

The period from 70 to 640 CE—commonly referred to as the rabbinic period—saw the eventual emergence of classical rabbinic Judaism, which would inform all subsequent forms of Judaism in some way—even those that resisted or attempted to reform it. Rabbinic Judaism did not spring up overnight, and even once its main contours were set, it did not quickly gain ascendancy. The rabbinic movement of the first century CE was a small, peripheral phenomenon, and centuries would pass before rabbis exercised a significant degree of influence and authority over a large portion of the Jewish population.

The meaning of the term torah expanded dramatically during the rabbinic period. In its most restricted sense, it continued to refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible containing early human and Israelite history, the record of God’s covenant with Israel, and the divinely revealed moral, legal, civil, and religious rules of life for the community of Israel. In a second, expanded sense, it came to mean the Hebrew Bible as a whole—all of God’s teachings as found not only in the Pentateuch but also in the words of the canonical Prophets and Writings. A third and still more expanded meaning arose in the first centuries CE, when Torah was used to refer to the entire body of interpretation and learning arising from study of the revealed word of God, transmitted over generations and continuing in the present. 

The Written Torah and the Oral Torah

To distinguish the latter two usages, the designations Written Torah and Oral Torah were created. This idea of a dual Torah—one written and one oral—is first seen in rabbinic texts from the end of the third century CE. In these texts, the term Written Torah designates the Hebrew Bible—the revelation of God preserved in writing, to which nothing may be added or taken away. The Oral Torah refers to the massive body of interpretation and explication of the Written Torah that, according to the rabbis, had been generated and transmitted, teacher to student, over the centuries and continued in their own day. Unlike the Written Torah, the Oral Torah is understood to be a living, ever-growing body of tradition to which new interpretations and teachings were continually added. Its development and transmission in face-to-face oral exchanges between master (rav or rabbi) and disciple were understood to be essential features of the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah was eventually written down. The major literary works of Oral Torah produced by rabbinic sages in classical antiquity are the Mishnah, Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud, and various midrashic (interpretative) texts—all produced in the land of Israel—and the Babylonian Talmud, produced in Sasanian Persia.

The Babylonian Talmud

In many respects, the Babylonian Talmud is arguably the greatest literary production of ancient Jews. To this day, Jews read the Talmud for a host of reasons: to derive Jewish law, to participate in Jewish tradition through the act of study, or as an act of piety. Throughout the world, on any given day, in religious and secular settings, men and women participate in daf yomi (page-a-day) programs or meet with study partners (ḥavruta) to engage in talmudic learning. It is, perhaps, impossible to convey here the content and significance of the Babylonian Talmud. Still, while the intricacies of rabbinic argumentation are best understood through rigorous study, we attempt to give readers a substantive introduction to the Talmud.

It would be misguided to think of the Talmud only or predominantly vis-à-vis halakhah (Jewish law), for while halakhah was its raison d’être, the Talmud is filled with sage advice (even a few medical cures), as well as narratives, scriptural exegesis, and accounts of the miraculous. 

Rabbinic texts are thus of fundamental importance. They are also highly distinctive cultural products. The Palestinian rabbis were a tiny group, probably numbering no more than one hundred at their demographic peak, in around 300 CE. Yet they succeeded over the course of a few generations in producing an utterly distinctive set of texts, both unparalleled in their own environment and unprecedented in Jewish tradition.

Although there is indeed evidence in these Palestinian rabbinic texts of some level of “Hellenization,” the texts themselves are utterly unclassical. Unlike their Christian contemporaries, the rabbis eschewed the Greek language and the familiar Greco-Roman categories of thought that came with it. Much of the Mishnah seems barely cognizant of the presence of Rome in its world, and those tractates that do engage with the implications of Roman rule do so with marked hostility. Later texts, especially the Palestinian Talmud, reflect greater rabbinic engagement with the political and cultural environment and are therefore more informative about the realities of late Roman provincial life. Only slightly more reconciled to the fact of Rome’s presence, they have not abandoned their fundamentally anti-Roman stance, nor have they softened their rejection of Greco-Roman literary and intellectual norms.