Characteristic Features of Ancient Rabbinic Halakhah

Another singular feature of rabbinic halakhah is the extent to which it includes material that is inoperative or simply nonregulatory. The study of the Torah’s commandments and the elaboration of halakhah are spiritual acts of intrinsic value, as illustrated in Sifre Deuteronomy 41, even when the results have no practical application, as with the considerable time spent on matters related to the Temple cult, which no longer existed in the rabbis’ time. Taking up legal topics rendered inoperable by the events of history or the rabbis’ own interpretive maneuvering, the rabbis are able to test legal principles and explore ethical issues. Thus, although the rabbis were not empowered to inflict the death penalty, their detailed discussion of capital-punishment procedure in m. Sanhedrin 6:4–6 highlights rabbinic concepts of human dignity, mercy, justice, and rabbinic authority. The Talmud also contains thousands of highly scholastic discussions of impossible or remote cases, such as the unanswered and fantastical query in b. Pesaḥim 10b about checking for forbidden leaven based on the possibility that a mouse or marten has carried some into the home. These hypothetical questions are a natural consequence of the ideal of talmud torah—the study of Torah and especially of Talmud as a supreme religious virtue.

Finally, as central as halakhah was to the rabbis’ religious project, it did not exhaust the rabbis’ literary or spiritual creativity, and although the study of halakhah was strongly encouraged, the ideal curriculum included midrash (scriptural interpretation) and aggadah (scriptural interpretation, narrative, and homiletical material) as well, as may be seen in Sifre Deuteronomy 48, commenting on Deuteronomy 11:22, “If, then, you carefully keep all this commandment.”