Rabbinic Judaism (2nd–18th century)

Question 1

The age of the tannaim (135–c. 200)

Answer 1

• After the defeat of Bar Kokhba and the ensuing collapse of active Jewish resistance to Roman rule (135–136), politically moderate and quietist rabbinic elements remained the only cohesive group in Jewish society.
• The strength of the rabbinate lay in its ability to represent simultaneously the interests of the Jews and the Romans, whose religious and political needs, respectively, now chanced to coincide
• Apart from the right to teach Scripture publicly, the most pressing need felt by the surviving rabbis was for the reorganization of a body that would revive the functions of the former Sanhedrin and pass judgment on disputed questions of law and dogma
• During the 1st and 2nd centuries ce, rabbinic schools had compiled for their own use collections of Midrashim
• this literature regulated every aspect of life; the six divisions of the Mishna—on agriculture, festivals, family life, civil law, sacrificial and dietary laws, and purity—encompass virtually every area of Jewish experience

Question 2

Palestine (c. 220–c. 400)

Answer 2

• The promulgation of the Mishna initiated the period of the (lecturers or interpreters), teachers who made the Mishna the basic text of legal exegesis
• The schools were the primary agencies through which the rabbinic way of life and literature was communicated to the masses
• An amoraic sermon conceded that, of every 1,000 beginners in primary school, only one would be expected to continue as far as Talmud
• Despite increasing tensions between some rabbinic circles and the patriarch, the Palestinian Talmud’s office was the agency that provided a basic unity to the Jews of the Roman Empire.
• The adoption of Christianity as the religion of the empire had no direct effect on the religious freedom of the Jews.

Question 3

Babylonia (200–650)

Answer 3

• Jews were consoled by the knowledge that in nearby Babylonia (then under Persian rule) a vast population of Jews lived under a network of effective and autonomous Jewish institutions and officials
• Babylonian rabbinism derived its theological and political strength from its fundamentally unoriginal character
• it asserted its historical legitimacy to the Sāsānian dynasty (224–651), who protected Jewish practices against interference from fanatical Magian priests, and to native Jewish officials, who argued for the validity of indigenous Babylonian deviations from Palestinian norms
• Babylonia’s serving as the proving ground for the adaptability of Palestinian Judaism to a Diaspora situation
• Babylonian teachers now rationalized governmental authority in this respect as legitimate de jure, thus enjoining upon the Jews political quietism and submissiveness as part of their religious doctrine.
• While the rabbis could impose their discipline more effectively in matters of public law than in private religious practice, the density of the Jewish population in many areas of Parthia (northeastern Iran) and Babylonia facilitated the application of moral and disciplinary pressures
• while rabbis constituted a distinct class within the community, their efforts were oriented toward making as much of the community as possible members of a learned and religious elite
• dissemination of the Palestinian Talmud probably stimulated the Babylonians to follow suit by collecting and arranging the records of study and decisions of their own academies and courts
• enduring vigour of Jewish faith during these centuries is graphically demonstrated by the missionary activity of Jews throughout the ancient Middle East, especially in the Arabian Peninsula

Question 4

The age of the geonim (c. 640–1038)

Answer 4

• The lightning conquests in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula by the armies of Islam (7th–8th century) created a political framework for the basically uniform (i.e., Babylonian) character of medieval Judaism.
• The firm—and occasionally oppressive—tactics of exilarchs and geonim generated anti-rabbinic reactions in the form of sectarian and messianic revolts, especially in outlying areas where enforcement was difficult
• In the face of sectarian challenges, the geonim intensified their efforts against any deviation from Rabbinite norms.
• The geonim, however, were powerless to halt several social developments in the 9th century that progressively undermined their hold even on Rabbinite communities.
• Gaonic difficulties were compounded by the rise in North Africa and Spain of populous and wealthy Jewish communities that, thanks to the development of their own local schools and talent, ignored the Babylonian academies or favoured one over the other with religious queries and, in consequence, with financial contributions.
• exilarch David ben Zakkai (916/917–940) bypassed the families from whom the geonim had traditionally been selected and in 928 appointed Saʿadia ben Joseph (882–942) to head the academy of Sura.
• Saʿadia’s works actually provided the wherewithal for ever-greater intellectual and religious self-sufficiency.

Question 5

Medieval European Judaism (950–1750)

Answer 5

• Two major branches of rabbinic civilization developed in Europe: the Ashkenazic, or Franco-German, and the Sephardic, or Andalusian-Spanish
• In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities and, therefore, not only took an active interest in political affairs but engaged in considerable social and intellectual intercourse with influential circles of the Muslim population.
• The period of feverish literary creativity in classical Jewish disciplines as well as in the sciences in Spain has been called the golden age of Hebrew literature (c. 1000–1148).
• The salient trends of Sephardic Judaism did not imply relegation of the rabbinic class to a secondary role. Rather, they shaped a fresh approach to rabbinic texts that paralleled in many respects those adopted in biblical exegesis.
• With Maimonides, however, the pure Sephardic tradition came to an end, for the Almohad (Amazigh [Berber] Muslim reformers) invasion of Spain in 1147–48 wiped out the Jewish communities of Andalusia and drove thousands to northern Spain and Provence
• The Ashkenazic Jewry, into whose communities the Sephardim had been thrust by political events, regarded their own heritage and the Christian world in which they lived from a perspective shaped exclusively by rabbinic categories.
• By 1150 Ashkenazic Jewry had established a culture of its own, with an indigenous literature that ranged from the popular homily to the esoteric tract on the nature of the divine glory.
• As living sources of law and values, the Bible and the Talmud had an impact on public and private, as well as secular and religious, affairs.
• A new religious trend began in Provence in the 13th century with the introduction into the Talmudic academies of a novel form of mystical study known as Kabbala (literally, “tradition”), which soon spread to northern Spain.
• Developments within the two major Jewish communities of medieval Europe were complicated by their uncertain relationship with the Christian community surrounding them.
• In the opening decade of the 11th century, Jews in various parts of Europe faced violent attacks and forced conversions that led some, according to one account, to commit suicide rather than accept baptism.
• Meanwhile, official legislation of the church confirmed the declining position of the Jews.
• Although there were Jewish merchants, artisans, and viticulturists throughout much of the Middle Ages, by the 12th and 13th centuries the Jews were limited to the occupation of money lending, which brought some of them great wealth but also great animosity from borrowers.
• The declining economic usefulness of the Jews and the related deterioration of their social and religious status led to their expulsion from England in 1290 and from France in 1306.
• The conflict between philosophers and anti-philosophers in Provence and northern Spain represented a clash between two mature Jewish subcultures of diverse geographic origins, the Sephardic and the Ashkenazic, each of which had in the course of centuries developed different esoteric doctrines to transcend the legalistic formalism and confining dogmas of normative Judaism.
• Most rabbinic circles of the 14th and 15th centuries displayed a progressive dogmatism and insistence on uniformity of practice.
• The anti-Jewish riots in Spain and their consequences stimulated the anti-intellectualism of the rabbinate.
• Inspired by the Jewish tradition that the coming of the messiah would be preceded by horrendous catastrophes, a group of rabbis established a community in Ẕefat (Safed), Palestine, where, in anticipation of the new dawn, every aspect of life was conducted on principles of saintliness and mystical contemplation.
• century (to c. 1750) was the darkest in the history of Rabbinic Judaism.