The Rabbinic Tradition
Introduction to Judaism:
Lecture 6
January 28, 2008
Goals for Today’s Class
• What is the relationship between
Written and Oral Torah?
• What are the various modes and forms
that Oral Torah takes within Rabbinic
Judaism?
• What other models of scripture and
interpretation exist within expressions of
Judaism?
Written and Oral Torah
• New Expansive Definition of Torah
• Import:What is the relationship between two
interconnected traditions?
– Torah = Scripture (written Torah) + Rabbinic
Interpretation (oral Torah)
– Tension: Oral Torah roots legitimacy in Written
Torah and transforms meaning of the Written
Torah
Types of Rabbinic Tradition
• Halakhah- legal or ritual practice
• Aggadah- historical recollection or
theological speculation
Forms of Rabbinic TraditionThe Mishnah
• Mishnah (“repeated teachings”)
– Halakhic or aggadic material without
reference to a biblical verse
– Organized into six legal categories
• Agricultural Laws, Festivals, Women, Holy
Things (Sacrifice and Temple), Ritual Purity
• Redacted around 200 CE
Forms of Rabbinic TraditionThe Talmud
• Halakhic and aggadic commentary on
the Mishnah
– Follows order of the Mishnah
– Babylonian and Palestinian (mostly
halakhic
• Compiled c. 400 CE and c. 500
Forms of Rabbinic TraditionThe Midrash
• Halakhic or aggadic traditions
transmitted as an explanation of Biblical
verse
• Organized by book of the Bible
• Multiple compilations
Mishnah Avot (p. 13-14)
• Why start with Moses and Sinai?
• What does “make a hedge around the
Torah” mean?
• What do you notice about the style of
writing?
Palestinian Talmud (p. 19)
• How do the rabbis understand the
relationship between Written and Oral
Torah?
• Which is more authoritative and why?
Hermeneutic Toolbox
• What are goals for Rabbinic Interpreters?
• Read with or against the plain meaning
• Based on Interpretive principles
– Inferences based on similar content and analogy
– Superfluous words have meaning
• Bound to a text with wide room for
interpreting its meaning
Bible on Compensation
– “When people who are fighting injure a
pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage,
and yet no further harm follows, the one
responsible shall be fined what the woman’s
husband demands, paying as much as the
judges determine. If any harm follows, then
you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for
burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
(Exodus 21:22)
– Financial or physical Compensation?
Mishnah on Compensation
• How does Mishnah Bava Kamma (p.
15) read Exodus verse?
• Does it change the meaning? If so,how?
• Why read against the grain?
• Does the Mishnah justify its
interpretation?
Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael
(p.16)
• Midrashic compilation on Book of
Exodus
• How does Midrash justify reading
financial and not physical
compensation?
• Note the argumentative style
Leviticus Proof Text
• “If anyone maims his fellow, as he has
done so shall it be done to him: fracture
for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
The injury he inflicted on another shall
be inflicted on him. One who kills a
beast shall make restitution for it; but
one who kills a human being shall be
put to death.” (Leviticus 24:19-21)
Rereading Creation
• Bereshit Rabbah-Midrashic commentary
on Genesis (p.18)
• How does this story relate to Genesis
narrative?
• What does it add to the event?
• How do the Rabbis “prove” their
reading?
Rabbinic Domination and
Antirabbinic Forms of Judaism
• Rabbinic Judaism Slow to Dominance
– 10th Century
– Continuously Evolving-Transformations
• Antirabbinic Forms of Judaism
– Medieval and Modern
– Still Rooted in Written and Oral Torah
Karaites
• Karaism- “Scripturalism”
• Baghdad, 8th Century
• Anan b. David, Talmudic Scholar
– What do you think bothered him?
– How did he perceive the “Oral Torah”?
• What did they practice?
• Rejection of “Oral Torah” or Rabbis?
Kabbalah
• Rabbinic movement (12th Cent onward)
• Hidden tradition of scriptural
interpretation
Kabbalah and Scripture
• Scripture is like a Walnut
– Literal Content is Outer Shell
– Secret truth hidden within
• Goal: Go through layers of meaning to
find kernal
– Example: Divine Emanations
– Dangerous Work (Four who enter Garden)
Kabbalah and Interpretation
• Written and Oral Torah and later readers part of ongoing process of revelation
– Trumpeter analogy in “Sacred Service”
– Interpreter has access to divine truth
• Diminishes Authority of Written Torah
– Interpretation has as authority of revelation
– Infinite possibilities for tradition
• Why Madonna/Esther has it wrong!
– Confined by Jewish law, but still dangerous!
Modern Challenges to
Scripture and Tradition
• Biblical Criticism
• Critique of Rabbinic Tradition
• Loss of Interpretive Community
– “I” as authority
– Secular Knowledge as authority
• Stagnation of Oral Law among
traditional communities
– Literal reading vs. fluid interpretation