ONE

The Literature and History of the Rabbinic Movement

The religion of the Hebrew Bible is one of sacrifice. Priests offer animals, grain, and wine on physical altars to a deity (see, e.g., Numbers 28:1–8). So when the Romans destroyed the central cultic location—the Temple in Jerusalem—in 70 C.E., it created a dire, chaotic situation with far-reaching religious, economic, social, and political consequences. At first, there was an expectation of return, since the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed before, six centuries earlier in 586 B.C.E., but rebuilt about seventy years afterward, in 515 B.C.E. Once it became clear, however, that the expectation of rebuilding the Temple would remain unfulfilled, many Jewish communities struggled. One such community is the subject of this entire book: the early rabbinic movement.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT JUDAISM

Before we turn to the Rabbis, we need to understand what came before them. For that, we begin with the Hebrew Bible. There is no room here to unpack the entirety of this collection of various mythic and historical texts edited over a span of about a thousand years, but there are a few structural and thematic elements of the biblical corpus that are necessary background knowledge (especially in regard to beverage-related matters).

First, a word on nomenclature. Throughout this book, I use the term “Hebrew Bible.” There is actually no one “the Bible” for everyone. Some bibles are based on a mainly Hebrew text and some are based on Greek texts. Still others are based on Latin texts. These texts are ordered differently, both in terms of the overall structure (e.g., does 2 Chronicles appear as the final book or more towards the middle of the canon?) and the division of individual verses. Some bibles “count” the Ten Commandments differently (cf. Exodus 21:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:4–21 in various bibles). Further, the different underlying languages sometimes lead to major theological differences. To offer a famous example: read the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, the young woman [Hebrew ha-‘almah] is pregnant and about to give birth to a son,” and you see nothing worthy of note. But read the Greek of Isaiah 7:14, which refers to a pregnant parthenos – a Greek word that can mean “young woman,” but also can mean “virgin”—and you might puzzle over this birth. Thus, when Christians turn to Isaiah 7:14 and offer it as proof for the virgin birth, they can certainly claim that those words are found in their Bible. And when Jews look at the Hebrew text and see nothing that serves as proof for the virgin birth, they can certainly claim that those words are not found in their Bible. These words are neither present nor absent from the Bible; but they are present or absent from certain bibles.

Since the Rabbis rely on the Hebrew text, I refer to the Hebrew Bible throughout this book. But even this term is not perfect. Though the Hebrew Bible is almost completely written in Hebrew, there are sections that are written in Aramaic, a related Semitic language. To get a sense of the overlap between these two languages, compare Italian to Spanish. For our purposes, though, “Hebrew Bible” is a better term than “Old Testament,” which presupposes the New Testament, with its Christian perspective. Finally, the Rabbis do not, of course, refer to the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament. A common designation employed by many modern Jews (but, in fact, dating from the post-rabbinic period) is Tanakh, an acronym for the Hebrew words of the three major sections into which they divided the entire corpus: Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, often called “the Five Books of Moses”); Nevi’im (or “Prophets,” which refers mainly to the three major and twelve minor prophets, but also to certain historical books such as 1 and 2 Kings); and Ketuvim (or “Writings,” which encompasses a variety of works, including Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and 1 and 2 Chronicles). “Hebrew Bible” is a scholarly designation, intended to combine specificity (it refers to a particular text in a particular order) and avoid the potentially polemical language of either Old Testament or Tanakh.

Furthermore, since the Rabbis consider the Hebrew Bible to be an accurate recounting of actual events, I do not devote significant attention to various historical problems represented in many biblical accounts. The purpose of this brief survey is not to introduce scholarly criticism of biblical literature and history, but rather to orient the reader to the biblical text as perceived by rabbinic authors. Mythic and fictive accounts are therefore summarized, rather than problematized.

The Hebrew Bible begins at the very beginning, with the Creation story. Actually, there are two different Creation stories (cf. Genesis 1:1–2:4a and Genesis 2:4b–25). For a text that portrays itself as authoritatively recounting the very beginning of the world, it seems to display no awareness of the repetition of this narrative and no concern for the fact that certain details contradict one another (e.g., animals are created on different days, and the creation of humans occurs in dramatically different manners). Communities that inherit these biblical texts will have to grapple with these, and other, textual “problems”—or as “opportunities” for additional interpretation, which is how the Rabbis view them.

Following the Creation narrative, the mythic history of the Hebrew Bible unfolds at first as a dysfunctional family drama: from Adam and Eve’s family post-exile from the Garden of Eden; to Noah surviving a flood while aboard an ark full of animals, and then becoming the first person to plant a vineyard, become intoxicated on wine, and drunkenly disrobe (Genesis 9:20–22); to God promising Abraham that he will father a great nation (Genesis 12:1–3; 17:1–22), which begins in earnest when Abraham and his wife Sarah finally, in their nineties, conceive a son, Isaac; to the many adventures of Isaac and his family, including his twin sons Esau and Jacob, the latter of whom wrestles an angelic being and, in doing so, is renamed Israel, after which the Israelites are named (Genesis 32:23–33); to one of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, being sold by his jealous brothers into slavery and ending up in Egypt (Genesis 37), where he interprets the dreams of the Pharaoh’s cupbearer (Genesis 40), becomes successful, and eventually reunites with his brothers (whom he forgives, but not without teaching them a lesson, which involves his silver drinking goblet; see Genesis 44:1–17). And all of that is only in Genesis.

Exodus introduces us to Moses. We first learn that Moses was born at a bad time to be an Israelite boy: the Egyptian Pharaoh has decreed that all Israelite boys must be killed (Exodus 1:15–16). This is an important element of the plot, since it explains why Moses is placed in a basket and floated down the Nile, where he is discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted into the royal family (Exodus 1:22–2:10). Despite this upbringing, Moses kills a man whom he saw attacking “an Israelite man, one of his brethren” (Exodus 2:11–12). He flees, rightfully fearing retaliation. This all sets the biblical chain of events in motion: God speaking to Moses from a burning bush (Exodus 3–4); Moses petitioning Pharaoh, on behalf of God, to “Let My people go!” (e.g., Exodus 5:1); to the ten plagues with which God afflicts the Egyptians (Exodus 7–12); to the Exodus from Egypt, including the drowning of the Pharaoh (Exodus 14:26–29); to the Revelation at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19–31); to the forty years spent wandering in the desert.

The Revelation at Mount Sinai will play a vital role in the development of subsequent rabbinic theology, but the biblical narrative proceeds to detail various other laws related to priestly practice and Festival celebration. All of this presumes a religion based on cultic offering of animals, grain, and wine by a professional, hereditary, male priesthood. It also presumes a continued connection to a promised land, which Moses is not allowed to enter, due to a water-related dispute (Exodus 20:1–13), though he sets up a succession plan and a successor, named Joshua (Deuteronomy 31–34).

With the death of Moses, we enter the second section of the Hebrew Bible: Nevi’im, or “Prophets.” As Moses’ successor, we should not be surprised that the first book is named after Joshua and that it details the military conquest and division of the Promised Land. This theme continues in Judges, a book that includes several fascinating stories. For example, we learn of Yael, a woman who tricks a rival general named Sisera by welcoming him into her tent, serving him milk, giving him a blanket and telling him to sleep while she stands guard, whereafter taking a tent pin and mallet, she “drove the pin through his temple until it went down into the ground. Thus, he fell into the sleep of death and died” (Judges 4:18–21; cf. 5:24–27). In subsequent books, we learn of the transition of the government from rule by judges to the rise of the united monarchy. Kings Saul, David, and Solomon rule over a kingdom uniting the northern part of the country, named Israel, and the southern part, named Judah. The years of the united monarchy are filled with fascinating stories of intrigue (and often questionable morals), but things come apart after the death of Solomon. A civil war ensues, and the northern and southern parts of the country split up. The northern kingdom of Israel lasts until 722 B.C.E., when it falls to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah lasts longer, but when it is conquered by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., a major theological crisis ensues, because it includes Jerusalem, where the Temple, the central cultic shrine built by Solomon, is located. We learn about much of this from both the historical books in this section and the various prophetic books, which spell out the numerous moral and ritual failings of the Israelites blamed for these disastrous events.

The third, and final, section of the Hebrew Bible is called Ketuvim, or “Writings,” and contains a variety of different genres. It opens with Psalms, a collection of 150 liturgical poems. Psalm 137, a lament for the loss of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., for example, processes the raw, vivid emotion aroused by this enormous calamity. Psalm 137 begins with a group of refugee Israelites weeping “by the rivers of Babylon” (137:1), as they ponder, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil?” (137:4). Mourning turns to rage, with a call for the destruction of Babylon and the chilling final line: “Happy shall be the one who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks!” (137:9). On a happier note, it also features a line that will appear multiple times in this book: “wine gladdens the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15).

Next is Proverbs, which, as the name suggests, is a collection of various proverbs. As we shall learn in subsequent chapters of this book, many of these proverbs address the folly of intoxication. Afterwards, we encounter the complex theology of Job, which is followed by the subsection often called “The Five Scrolls.” According to rabbinic practice, these scrolls (Hebrew megillot) are each read as part of the liturgy of a particular Jewish holiday: Song of Songs is read on Passover; Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on the Ninth of Av; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot; and Esther on Purim (see chapter 6). Finally, there are a few books that represent themselves as historical narratives of various kinds. For example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe King Cyrus—the Persian ruler who conquered the Babylonians in 539 B.C.E.—allowing the Israelites to return to the Promised Land and rebuild the Temple. And last, but not least, 1 and 2 Chronicles are a sort-of CliffsNotes version of Israelite history from Saul to Cyrus.

While that summary of the Hebrew Bible is by no means sufficient to understand fully the richness of the literature and history contained therein, it will suffice to set up the Second Temple period, an era bookended by two defining events: the dedication of the Second Temple in 515 B.C.E. and its destruction in 70 C.E. I devote less attention to the events in this time period, since only a few basic facts are necessary to contextualize the Rabbis. However, this is a fascinating era, deserving of much more attention than space constraints allow.

First, it is important to know that debates about the Temple play a central role throughout this time period. Groups argue about whether those in charge of the Temple were the legitimate priests and/or were following proper ritual procedure. The authors of the books of the Maccabees and the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, raise both of these concerns. Another prominent Jewish critic of the goings-on in the Second Temple was Jesus. Since the Temple was the sole means of assuring proper cultic practice, it really mattered who did what, and how, in that particular sacred space.

Second, when Alexander the Great arrived on the scene after conquering the Persians in 332 B.C.E., he brought along Hellenism—that is, Greek language, culture, and institutions—which proved transformative. Hellenism impacted various communities in different ways, and it eventually divided Jewish communities along a spectrum of those who were more or less willing to embrace and incorporate Hellenism. Even those who claimed to completely reject Hellenism internalized and deployed elements of it. For example, when the Maccabees led a revolt from 168–162 B.C.E. (later commemorated in the holiday of Hanukkah), they claimed to be fighting back against Hellenized Jews and the Seleucid rulers (descendants of one of Alexander’s generals) who enabled them. Ironically (or, for those who have studied postcolonial theory, perhaps not ironically), after winning a brutal guerilla war, the Maccabees established the Hasmonean dynasty, which among other things based itself on a Greek style of government.

Third, the Hasmonean dynasty never lived up to its self-proclaimed promises. In 63 B.C.E., two Hasmonean brothers got into an argument about who was in charge and did what no one in antiquity should ever have done: appeal to Rome to settle the debate. The Romans came in and resolved the dispute, took charge, and did not leave. Jewish rulers now served at the whim of Rome, which imposed new taxes and policies, many of which angered local Jews. In 66 C.E., this anger boiled over into outright revolt. Though they put up a good fight, the Jewish community of Jerusalem was no match for the rightfully renowned Roman army, which brought the revolt to a fiery conclusion at the mountain retreat/fortress of Masada in 73 C.E. In the middle of the revolt, the unthinkable happened: the Romans destroyed the Second Temple.

While there was a precedent both for how to handle the destruction of the Temple and for the expectation that it would be rebuilt, this act burned a hole in the center of both the literal and figurative map of Jewish identity. What would happen now?

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE RABBINIC MOVEMENT

If this historical moment were a movie trailer, the screen would depict the Temple in smoldering ruins and, over dramatic music, a somber voice would intone: “In a world without the Temple, where many ancient Jews struggle to make sense, one small group rises from the ashes: the Rabbis.”

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (a myth known to the Rabbis, since it is found in a rabbinic commentary on the book of Genesis; see Genesis Rabbah 19:5), the Rabbis consider themselves to be reconstituting the body of Israel, in order to lead the Jewish people into the future. This notion is present in the founding myth of the rabbinic movement (see b. Gittin 56a–b; cf. Avot d’Rabbi Natan A4:40–77). According to this legend, Jerusalem is under siege. Realizing what is about to happen and desiring to turn theological lemons into rabbinic lemonade, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai sneaks out of Jerusalem disguised as a corpse, approaches the commander of the besieging Roman army, Vespasian, and predicts that he is about to be proclaimed Roman emperor. When this indeed happens, Vespasian offers: “Ask something of me and I shall give it to you.” Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai replies:

Give me Yavneh and its sages and the line of Rabban Gamaliel and doctors to heal Rabbi Zadoq. (b. Gittin 56b)

Allowed to ask anything, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai limits his request to a small group of Jews: rabbinic sages. Now, it might be that, as the text goes on to note, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai “thought that perhaps [Vespasian] would not do so much, and he would not [even] save a little” (b. Gittin 56b). Therefore, rather than make an unreasonable request that he knew would be denied, he made the utilitarian decision to save as many as he could. But this narrative also serves to highlight the role that the Rabbis imagine for themselves: as the remnant that allows the body of Israel to rise phoenix-like from the Temple ashes.

Note what four things Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai includes in his request. First, he asks for Yavneh, a town located in central Israel, near the west coast of Israel and the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea (according to Google Maps, the fastest route from the Temple Mount to Yavneh takes an hour and six minutes by car and a little over twelve hours on foot). Second, he asks for sages, so that there will be rabbinic scholars to populate this new study center. Third, he asks for “the line of Rabban Gamaliel.” According to rabbinic tradition, Rabban Gamaliel was the Patriarch (Hebrew Nasi), meaning that he was the official representative of the Jewish community to the Roman government. The office of the Patriarch came with cultural, political, and financial privileges. It was also a hereditary position, so asking for the genealogical line of Rabban Gamaliel was asking for on-going control over this important governmental position. Fourth, he asks for physicians to heal Rabbi Zadoq. Earlier on in this text, we learn that Rabbi Zadoq had observed a forty-year fast in an attempt to prevent the destruction of Jerusalem, surviving only on the occasional swig of fig juice (b. Gittin 56a). We subsequently learn that his medical treatment consists of slowly expanding his shriveled stomach by, over the course of three days, offering him three increasingly more substantive water-based beverages (b. Gittin 56a). In sum, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai asks for a town in which to (re)build a community; students and colleagues to help grow this community; the political, cultural, and financial capital that accompanies the office of the Patriarch; and medical attention for his friend.

Summarizing scholarly views on how this origin myth is best read, Michael Satlow writes:

The true value of this story is as myth rather than history. It reflects a later rabbinic self-perception as peaceful inhabitants of a non-Jewish empire, perpetuators of a hoary tradition, experts in interpretation of Torah and, implicitly, as Israel’s new spiritual leaders. . . . Historically, though, this picture does not add up. . . . Rather than continuing a grand tradition, complete with its own source of temporal authority in the person of the patriarch (Rabban Gamaliel), these few early scholars—with few followers—would have been cautiously feeling their way toward a new conception of their tradition. (2006, 118)

The Yavneh Legend, as it is often called, is therefore a later recollection of an earlier time. However, at the time in which the story is set, the nascent rabbinic movement was structured around small disciple circles, in which students would sit at the feet of their rabbinic sages and “drink their words with thirst” (m. Avot 1:4). In fact, there likely were no “Rabbis” when the Second Temple stood. Though some Jews used the term “rabbi,” meaning “my teacher” in Hebrew, as an honorific (e.g., in Mark 9:5, 11:21, and 14:45, Jesus is referred to by this title), “it did not become a formal title until after the Temple’s destruction” (Satlow 2006, 118). The Rabbis themselves reflect an awareness of this, since “Rabbinic literature itself never applies the title ‘rabbi’ even to pre-70 figures who clearly played an important role in rabbinic prehistory, such as Hillel” (Schwartz 2014, 107).

To assign this text to a later period is not to dismiss it. Rather, it teaches us how the rabbinic movement came to view itself (see Boyarin 2004, 151–201). There is also another element to this story: the Yavneh Legend imagines the rabbinic movement as active and robust already at the time of the Temple’s destruction. Rather than as a response to catastrophe, the Rabbis envision themselves as already in place—as anticipatory, not reactive. There is evidence that can support this assertion. Though not clear and linear, it seems likely that there is some connection between the rabbinic movement and the pre-70 C.E. Jewish sect called the Pharisees (see Schwartz 2014, 107–11). “The Rabbis may not have been the carriers of a continuous historical tradition, but neither did they rise out of a vacuum” (Satlow 2006, 119). Therefore, despite the well-acknowledged catastrophe of the Temple’s destruction, the Rabbis imagine their prehistory to position their movement as one of continuity, not disruption. Like a street vendor who sells sunglasses until a downpour begins, and then switches to selling umbrellas, the rabbinic movement envisions itself as uniquely prepared to cope with, and ultimately transcend, this historical moment.

In the next two centuries, two events unfold that profoundly affected the rabbinic movement in two very different ways. The first event was the Bar Kohkba revolt (132–35 C.E.). At the center of this revolt is a messianic figure named Shimon ben Kosiba, whom his fans called Bar Kokhba (Aramaic for “Son of a Star”) and his enemies called Bar Koziba (Aramaic for “Son of a Lie”). Though our evidence is sketchy, this revolt proved disastrous. Rome responded with its full military might and, if rabbinic martyr accounts contain even the slightest kernel of fact, gruesome violence and persecution accompanied both the war and its aftermath (see Satlow 2006, 119–20; Schwartz 2014, 92–97), dashing rabbinic hopes of a speedy rebuilding of the Temple and encouraging abstract eschatological discourse. Instead of specifics, the Rabbis envisioned divine justice being meted out, not in present, lived reality, which they call “This World” (Hebrew ‘olam ha-zeh), but in a future time, which they refer to as “The World to Come” (Hebrew ‘olam ha-ba’). They thus await The World to Come, in which the scales of justice will be rebalanced, the righteous will receive their reward, and the wicked will reap what they have sown.

The second event was the rise of the patriarchate (see Satlow 2006, 120), in respect to which the Yavneh Legend retrojects later events. Though scholars debate when precisely the patriarchate began, there is general agreement that it was after the destruction of the Second Temple (see Schwartz 2014, 118–23). Whereas the Yavneh Legend backdates this institution to “the line of Rabban Gamaliel,” the first definitive Patriarch was Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi [ = Rabbi Judah the Patriarch], who lived from the latter half of the second century until the early third century C.E. All of the statements made above apply here, since having a rabbinic figure in this official governmental position ensured that the rabbinic movement benefited from this patronage. The beginning of the third century was also the time when the first complete rabbinic documents were officially compiled; the Mishnah is dated to this time period and, according to tradition, was edited by none other than Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi himself. The importance of his governmental and editorial roles were so highly esteemed that when subsequent rabbinic literature refers to “Rabbi,” it is understood to mean Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi.

As the rabbinic movement developed, two distinct centers of learning emerged: one in Roman Palestine (Syria Palaestina being the name of the Roman province), and another in Sasanian Babylonia (roughly modern-day Iraq). These communities interacted but developed their own, sometimes quite disparate, viewpoints, shaped by a variety of influences. In addition to different personalities and different geography, the different dominant cultures were an important factor: Roman/Christian in Palestine and Sasanian/Zoroastrian in Babylonia. Surrounding cultures influence the production of texts in matters large and small. For example, why should the Babylonian community concern itself with rabbinic traditions governing agricultural policy for the Land of Israel? Or, in an example more to the point for this book (and to which we shall return in future chapters), Palestinian texts discuss the beverage most commonly consumed in their larger culture (wine), while Babylonian texts ask questions about their own broader culture’s preferred beverage (beer).

Within these two centers, two rabbinic groups emerge. The first group encompasses those rabbinic figures who put the pieces back together after the destruction of the Temple until around the middle of the third century C.E. Referred to as the Tannaim (“Repeaters” or “Teachers” in Aramaic; the singular is tanna), this group coalesces around the time of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi. The opinions and debates of the Tannaim form the core of the first rabbinic documents and are treated with great respect and authority. Indeed, this is one area in which we see the division between the Tannaim and the next group of Rabbis. Whereas the Tannaim argued with one another, we begin to see rabbinic figures treat their predecessors with a slightly higher level of deference around the middle of the third century, signaling the start of the next generation. Referred to as the Amoraim (“Speakers” or “Explainers” in Aramaic; the singular is amora), the second group encompasses rabbinic figures active from the mid-third until roughly the early sixth centuries C.E. The Amoraim sought to expand, clarify, and interpret the opinions and arguments of the Tannaim. In doing so, they create a rich body of literature including, most famously, the Talmud (or, more accurately, the Talmuds).

From the ashes of the Temple, to the office of the Patriarch, to the halls of the Babylonian rabbinic study academies (on which see Rubenstein 2003), the rabbinic movement grew over time. To better understand this group, we need to understand a few of their major concepts.

MAJOR RABBINIC CONCEPTS

As an undergraduate in the late 1990s, when I first began writing about the rabbinic movement, I would save my papers on my computer’s internal one-gigabyte hard drive. Just to be safe, I would also save each paper on a colorful 3.5-inch floppy disk. Nowadays, my computer’s hard drive is massively bigger, and, like most people, I back up everything to the cloud. But what does this have to do with the Rabbis?

The Rabbis too had a system by which they backed everything up to The Cloud. How did this work? A foundational rabbinic principle is that God revealed two Torahs to Moses on Mount Sinai: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah (e.g., b. Shabbat 31a). For the Rabbis, the Written Torah (Hebrew torah sh-bikhtav) is an established canonical text: the Hebrew Bible. It is a bound text. It is the Torah. Oral Torah (Hebrew torah sh-be‘al peh) is a much more wide-ranging text. It is Torah, without the definite article. It is not a bound text, but a continuous unfolding of Revelation. This dual conception allows for tradition and innovation to exist side by side. For example, whereas the Written Torah might command in Exodus 35:3 that one cannot kindle a fire on the Sabbath, it does not say whether one can fire up an Amazon Kindle in order to read a book on the Sabbath. Oral Torah allows for a process of updating.

In revealing Oral Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai, God backed up the entirety of Revelation to The Cloud. It is now available for download by authorized users—that is, the Rabbis—in order to (re-)reveal and retrieve stored divine knowledge and law. Moses downloaded the file first, and then backed it up. And this metaphor is not even anachronistic: since everything was revealed at Mount Sinai, cloud computing was revealed then as well! One can therefore think of “Oral Torah” as the official name of the rabbinic cloud server.

Oral Torah expands the boundaries of rabbinic law, to become an all-encompassing legal system. This is implied in the Hebrew term for rabbinic law, halakhah, meaning “path,” or “way.” Like the similar term in Arabic, shari‘a, this implies walking on the proper, divinely ordained path. And everything is found on that path. Rabbinic texts investigate the halakhah of a variety of activities, both the elevated, like liturgy (e.g., tractate Berakhot, whose title means “Blessings” in Hebrew), and the mundane, like how to put on your shoes (b. Shabbat 61a). Often, the high and the low combine, as in discussions about what prayers to recite when using the bathroom (y. Berakhot 9:4, 14b; b. Berakhot 60a–b) or what ritual objects may be brought into the bathroom (b. Berakhot 23a–b).

Another manner in which Oral Torah expands the boundaries of rabbinic law is encountered in the interplay between halakhah and aggadah:

While halakhah refers to the normative actions or rules by which Jews should conduct their lives and is often translated “law,” aggadah (from the verb “to tell”) refers to material of widely varying genre: sage stories, parables and legends, folktales, ethical teachings, and more. Some rabbinic works are primarily, but not wholly, halakhic, and others are largely aggadic in character; yet many halakhic works also contain aggadic elements and much aggadah is implicitly normative. Halakhah and aggadah are thus the warp and woof of the fabric of rabbinic learning and normativity. (Hayes 2017, 95)

Stories are not just stories; they are often literary vehicles through which to deliver a legal lesson. And legal narratives are often just that: narratives (see Simon-Shoshan 2012). As we shall see throughout this book, the interplay between halakhic and aggadic elements serves to shape rabbinic texts. For example, a story about children coming home late from a drinking party can quickly turn into a conversation about liturgical law (see the discussion of m. Berakhot 1:1 in chapter 7). Like the fable of “the boy who cried wolf,” rabbinic stories can teach moral and legal lessons. But unlike a modern tax code, rabbinic legal narratives can almost seamlessly switch between complex legal detail and analysis and an interesting (even humorous) story.

In establishing the principle of dual Revelation—the Written and Oral Torah—the Rabbis transform the biblical figure of Moses into the rabbinic figure that they refer to as “Moses our Rabbi” (Hebrew Moshe Rabbeinu). He becomes the first Rabbi, ordained by none other than God. The Rabbis now understand themselves not only to have existed while the Temple still stood, but to have existed even before the Temple stood! In doing so, they create memories of controlling the Temple, which they use to stake claim on the legitimate rabbinic authority to reimagine the post-Temple world (see Cohn 2013). For example, a main tenet of the rabbinic movement is that, in addition to rabbinic prayer, textual study replaces Temple sacrifice as a primary ritual practice. Therefore, instead of killing animals or pouring wine on an altar, one reads rabbinic texts about killing animals or pouring wine on an altar. Of course, reading and writing about sacrifice are very different practices than actually performing physical sacrifice (see Ullucci 2012, 33), but not in the rabbinic conception in which the Temple (Hebrew beyt ha-miqdash) is seamlessly replaced by the rabbinic study-house (beyt ha-midrash).

This divinely preordained transition from the biblical Temple to the rabbinic study-house is exemplified in the rabbinic enterprise known as midrash. From a Hebrew root meaning “to investigate,” midrash is an interpretative practice based on rabbinic assumptions about the biblical text and governed by rules of how this investigation can occur. The process of midrash allows for biblical texts and practices to morph into rabbinic texts and practices in a manner that, viewed through the retrospective rabbinic lens, is both natural and inevitable. Midrash is the bridge across which the Rabbis proceed from Moses to Moses our Rabbi. This is why the rabbinic study-house is called a beyt ha-midrash, literally, “The House of Midrash.”

MOVING FROM “YES”/“NO” TO “IT DEPENDS”: RABBINIC CATEGORIES AND CATEGORIZATION

Since everything is encompassed within Torah, the Rabbis devote a tremendous amount of time and energy to detailing how this all works. Following the complicated twists and turns of these narratives is quite the task, because rabbinic texts move quickly between a series of sometimes only vaguely connected topics. Hypothetical scenarios are often preferred to practical ones, making the Rabbis more theoretical physicists than experimental ones (see Cohen 2007, 134–38). Conversations often begin with the hypothetical question of “What if . . . ?” and slowly develop, branching in myriad directions, with answers that often begin, “It depends. . . .” Tangents are discussed in great detail while the supposed main topic of a text is rarely addressed. Therefore, though many texts claim to be arranged topically, you often cannot find the laws relevant to a topic only—or even mostly—within the section that supposedly addresses that topic. For example, to find the halakhic discussion relevant to Hanukkah, a holiday whose celebration usually occurs in December, you need to open the Talmudic tractate Shabbat, which, as its name implies, focuses on the Sabbath (e.g., b. Shabbat 21a–24b).

All legal systems have their versions of “it depends.” From filing taxes to deciding whether to charge someone with murder or homicide, legal systems require the classification of actions into categories; this, in turn necessitates the weighing of various factors before reaching a decision. Binary yes/no answers are rare. One person walks up to another and punches them in the face—is that assault? It depends. Were they in a boxing ring? And even if they were, I would need to ask a few more questions before reaching a conclusion. Or, to use an illustration from rabbinic tort law: what if a thief steals something and then the value of that product changes? The answer is that it depends on the product and why its value changed. Further questions are required before an answer can be provided. For example, what if a thief steals wine and then the wine turns into vinegar? In the ancient world, wine was a prized commodity that easily turned sour into vinegar, a much less valuable commodity. Does the thief compensate the owner for the higher cost of the original product or the lower cost of the product in its present condition? (See m. Bava Qamma 9:2, where we learn that the thief must repay the original value for the wine.)

Along the way, the Rabbis explore, expand, and erect categories in which to slot data. Is action x allowable? It depends. Did it occur on the Sabbath? If so, we need to discuss all of the variables that Sabbath introduces. The category of Sabbath, for example, has numerous subcategories, all of which must play into our analysis. And what about Festival Days, which share some—but not all—of the Sabbath rules? We return to these issues in chapter 6, where among other topics we consider whether one can strain wine and beer on Sabbath and Festival Days. As we shall see, in order to answer that question, a variety of categories need to be explored and defined.

Although the same can be said of any legal system, because of the expansive nature of halakhah, rabbinic literature is especially given to responding to any question with “It depends. . . .” If everything is governed by halakhah, and all of this was divinely revealed on Mount Sinai to Moses our Rabbi, then parsing every variable takes on an added importance. Furthermore, the very act of puzzling over these details is the rabbinic practice par excellence. Indeed, according to one text, if you add up all of the eternal good that comes from honoring one’s mother and father (one of the Ten Commandments), engaging in acts of kindness, and making peace between friends, “the study of Torah is equal to them all” (m. Pe’ah 1:1). Finally, in a point that should not be underestimated, members of the rabbinic movement clearly enjoy this process. This is fun for them. Thus, even when a yes or no answer is easily achievable, they often prefer to ponder all of the variables before turning to the ready solution. For the Rabbis, it is about the journey as much as it is about the destination, so they often detour from the direct path in order to take the scenic route.

MAJOR RABBINIC DOCUMENTS

In this book, we look through the lens of the rabbinic drinking glass. Focusing on particular passages across various rabbinic documents, we learn how to read rabbinic texts and how specific smaller textual units (Aramaic sugyot; singular sugya’) work together in order to sketch out a map allowing us to explore key themes in rabbinic literature. We are almost ready to turn to the texts, but before we do, we need to ask a very important question: What texts?

The first major rabbinic document is the Mishnah, which, according to tradition, was redacted (the fancy scholarly word for edited) at the beginning of the third century C.E. by Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi. The Mishnah is divided into six large sections, referred to as Orders (Hebrew Sedarim; singular Seder), which roughly correspond to their general content:

Zera’im	“Seeds”	Agriculture, etc.
Mo‘ed	“Appointed Times”	Festivals, etc.
Nashim	“Women”	Marriage Law, etc.
Neziqin	“Damages”	Torts, Civil Procedure, etc.
Qodashim	“Holy Things”	Temple Policies, Animal Slaughter, etc.
Tohorot	“Purity”	Purity Law, etc.

Each Order consists of between seven and twelve individual tractates, for a total of sixty-three tractates. Tellingly, the Hebrew word for “tractate” is masekhet (plural masekhtot), a word that literally means “web,” because they capture your attention and are spun from a rich, complex silk.

Though the name of each Order roughly corresponds to its general content, each Order has both individual tractates and sections of tractates that depart from this topical arrangement. For example, Zera’im focuses on agriculture, but its first tractate is Berakhot, which, as its name implies, is about “Blessings.” For this reason, I added “etc.” to the list above—because there is always material beyond the main topic. Furthermore, the names of the Orders tell us something about both rabbinic priorities and their perspective. The fact that “Women” is the subject of an entire Order, for example, suggests that the Rabbis presume “Men” to be normative, and thus wish to interrogate the variables introduced in their construction of Other gendered bodies and practices (see chapter 4).

To clarify a potential confusion, Mishnah—with a capital M—refers to the entire corpus or to an individual tractate (e.g., “The Mishnah . . .,” or “In Mishnah Berakhot . . .”), but mishnah—with a lowercase m—refers to an individual unit within the Mishnah (e.g., “In the second mishnah of the first chapter of Mishnah Berakhot . . .”). In citation, the title of a tractate of the Mishnah is preceded by an italicized lowercase m, punctuated by a period (m.), and followed by chapter and verse numbers, separated by a colon (e.g., m. Berakhot 1:2).

The next major rabbinic document is Tosefta. According to tradition, Tosefta was redacted shortly after the Mishnah and provides a commentary on it. This relationship is signaled in its name, since Tosefta literally means “The Addition” or “The Supplement” in Aramaic. Recent scholarship has troubled this model, because there is strong evidence that some passages in the Mishnah in fact respond to Toseftan passages, and if Mishnah predates Tosefta, how could that be? It therefore seems likely that earlier drafts of each document were in circulation, and certain passages in each were reworked in light of the other. The precise details of this process need not trouble us here. However, it is important to understand that just because Tosefta has been viewed as a supplement to Mishnah, does not mean that all Mishnaic traditions are prior to their Toseftan cousins.

On the macro level, Tosefta is structured like the Mishnah. It uses the same six Orders in the same sequence. On the micro level, however, variance is often significant. While, for the most part, the topics of each tractate unfold in a somewhat similar fashion, and sometimes even in the same phrasing, it is more common that passages in Tosefta introduce varied wording, different rulings, and entirely new content and concepts. For example, the story about Rabban Gamaliel’s sons coming home late from drinking found in m. Berakhot 1:1 (discussed in chapter 7) is completely absent from t. Berakhot 1:1 (texts from Tosefta are prefaced with t.).

The final major grouping of rabbinic documents by the Tannaim is a collection of texts known as the Tannaitic Midrashim. As their title implies, these documents are collections of midrash attributed to the Tannaim. Like Mishnah and Tosefta, they also seem to have been edited in Palestine in the third century, though probably in the mid to late 200s. The Tannaitic Midrashim are exegetical commentaries on the books of Exodus (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael and Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai), Leviticus (Sifra), Numbers (Sifre Numbers), and Deuteronomy (Sifre Deuteronomy). A rabbinic bias is present here, because there is no commentary on Genesis, a biblical book viewed by them as more about stories than about law. This bias also explains the Aramaic title for the Midrash on Leviticus—Sifra, meaning “The Book.” This title refers to the fact that Leviticus is chock full of laws and, as such, “in the old Jewish school system this was the first book, with which instruction began” (Strack and Stemberger 1996, 260). Yet, though the Tannaitic Midrashim focus on law (which is why they are often referred to as “The Halakhic Midrashim”), they too contain a mixture of halakhah and aggada.

The Tannaim, however, were not the only ancient Rabbis who wrote and redacted Midrash collections. Throughout the Amoraic period (and, in some cases, continuing on well into the medieval period—at least in terms of editing and perhaps in terms of more significant additions), a series of Homiletic Midrashim appear. Some of these documents bear the title “Rabbah,” meaning “Great.” For example, there is a Rabbah for each of the five books of the Torah (with Genesis Rabbah, the book of Genesis finally gets its due). There is also a Rabbah for each of the “Five Scrolls.” The five books of the Torah are read weekly in the rabbinic synagogue and the Five Scrolls, as discussed above, each serve a liturgical role on a particular Jewish holiday. Though they likely do not contain an accurate transcript of synagogue homiletic preaching, commentaries on the biblical books that form the basis of many Sabbath and holiday prayer services offer us windows into the kinds of ideas that might have circulated in these settings. This window expands when we include other Homiletic Midrash collections, such as Pesiqta d’Rav Kahana and Pesiqta Rabbati, which are collections of midrashic sermons for holidays and special Sabbaths; and Tanhuma, a Homiletic Midrash collection that focuses on all five books of the Torah.

The document that has come to define the literary production of the Amoraim is the Talmud. The Talmud, however, is a misnomer, as there are actually two Talmuds (Hebrew plural Talmudim; meaning “study” or “curriculum”). The first Talmud is the Yerushalmi, otherwise known as either the Jerusalem Talmud or the Palestinian Talmud. All of these names indicate the general location of its redaction: the Land of Israel. Like Tosefta, the Yerushalmi follows the general structure and organization of the Mishnah. It comments on Mishnah. But it does much more than that. First, it expands beyond the Mishnah, answering questions asked therein and posing new ones. It also addresses how halakhah applies to new scenarios. Second, this interest is selective on both the macro and the micro level. On the macro level, not all tractates receive a gemara’. From an Aramaic root meaning both “to complete” and “to learn,” gemara’ is the amoraic commentary on Mishnah. The term “Talmud” actually refers to the combination of Mishnah and its relevant gemara’. The bias towards some tractates makes sense: of course the Yerushalmi includes gemara’ on tractates associated with agricultural policies and procedures relevant to the Land of Israel. But the absence of commentary on other tractates seems curious (e.g., there is no commentary on tractate Hullin, which focuses on non-Temple animal slaughter and includes important discussion of the prohibition against cooking meat with milk; see chapter 3). On the micro level, the Yerushalmi reflects its broader cultural environment. For example, tractate Avodah Zarah (“Idolatry”) can be read in ways to suggest the influence of the time and place of its composition and redaction (see Hayes 1997).

A product of its place and time, the Yerushalmi seems to have been edited in the late fourth century C.E., about a hundred years prior to the other Talmud, the Bavli. As a result, the Yerushalmi sometimes reads as less polished, as more of a rough draft than a final version. Of course, this view does not do justice to the rich and complex text of the Yerushalmi. However, because of this bias, and some later historical factors that led to the rise in prominence of the Babylonian rabbinic community—who preferred their Talmud, the Bavli—the Yerushalmi is often relatively neglected. When people refer to The Talmud, they usually mean the Bavli. In the past few decades, scholarship on the Yerushalmi has grown voluminously, especially in regard to how comparison between the Yerushalmi and the Bavli informs different experiences and perspectives of the Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic communities respectively.

Citations of the Yerushalmi, based on the 1991–2001 edition of Peter Schäfer and Hans-Jürgen Becker, are prefaced with an italicized lowercase y, punctuated by a period (y.); the title is followed by both the chapter and verse numbers, separated by a colon, and the MS page number and column letter (e.g., y. Avodah Zarah 2:3, 41a, a text discussed in chapter 5).

The second Talmud, as we have already learned, is the Bavli. Edited in approximately 500 C.E., the Bavli has become the central text of rabbinic study. Commentaries on it abound: from the famous medieval Rabbi and reputed wine-maker Rashi to modern-day blogs, a tremendous amount of both literal and electronic ink has been spilled in an effort to make sense of this fascinating corpus of rabbinic literary productivity. Julia Watts Belser excellently summarizes what one encounters in approaching the Bavli:

The text is structured around the exposition of short units of Mishnah, and each of these units leads the Bavli into complex, open-ended legal argumentation. The discussion that follows rarely includes a definitive statement of the law itself; the Bavli often assumes its reader already knows the actual legal ruling. A student approaching a topic for the first time often looks in vain for an entry-point into the subject at hand. The text provides few handholds for the beginner and never offers an explicit description of its foundational terms or working assumptions. It eschews an explanation of basic concepts and introductory material. Instead, conversations pick up in the middle of the subject and proceed through a rigorous, detail-oriented dissection of the particulars. The Bavli’s voice assumes the reader’s familiarity with the entire text, moving back and forth between complex topics, trusting the reader to search out its references and unfold its meanings. (2015, 31)

One might say the same of the Yerushalmi, but the Bavli takes this process to another level. In doing so, it reflects a similar selectivity on both the macro and the micro levels. On the macro level, the Bavli is not interested, for example, in the agricultural policies and procedures of the Land of Israel. It is, after all, a product of Babylonia, where such matters are largely irrelevant. On the micro level, the Bavli reflects its broader cultural environment. Much work has been done on the interaction between the authorities cited in the Bavli and the broader Iranian context in recent years (e.g., Mokhtarian 2015; Secunda 2013). This is a growing area in scholarship, with all of the attendant growing pains.

Though examples from all genres of the rabbinic literary production noted above appear in this book, there is a disproportionate representation of sugyot from the Bavli. Although I introduce readers to every major rabbinic genre, the Bavli often contains the most extended and rich conversation from which to mine information about rabbinic themes. This does not mean that we shall only learn about the Babylonian rabbinic community. We shall also, for example, discuss how concepts are presented in earlier texts, such as the Mishnah and Tosefta, and how biblical texts are interpreted in Numbers Rabbah (see chapter 2). This decision also reflects my own bias, as while writing this book I regularly found myself drawn to the Bavli, which often offers more “stuff” with which to work. That being said, I include references to other rabbinic texts in each chapter and to other secondary sources in the Suggested Readings section that offer insight into how other rabbinic documents handle similar thematic concerns. After all, though the Bavli is often the most developed exposition of a topic, it is not the only text that sheds light on the width and depth of various rabbinic themes.

One final note on the citation of the Bavli: references to this text are prefaced with an italicized lowercase b, punctuated by a period (b.), and the relevant page number and letter (indicating the side of the folio on which the passage appears, “a” for front and “b” for back) follow the title (e.g., b. Pesahim 107a, a text discussed in chapter 6).

CONCLUSION

The goal of this chapter has been to provide a brief—but hopefully sufficient—introduction to the history and literature of the rabbinic movement. Additional information can be gathered from the sources cited below. But for now, please turn to chapter 2 and enter the world of the ancient Rabbis.

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