Talk:Rabbinic Judaism

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This is material removed from Pharisees, and should be incorporated into this article as appropriate.

However, Neusner was only partially correct. All of the Patriarchs ("Av Beit Din" - Father of the Court) and some of the Exilarchs ("Reish Galuta" - lit. Head of the Exile) held the titles of Rabbi or Rav. In fact, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who compiled and redacted the Mishnah, was the first head of the Sanhedrin to be recognized by Rome with the title of "Patriarch", and was given authority as the hereditary leader of the Jewish people. Under the rule of the Patriarch, the Sanhedrin in the land of Israel was the supreme court of law for all the Jewish people. From the laws of shemitta and orlah regulating the activities of the plantation estates, orchards and vinyards in Israel and Babylonia, to the litigation of tort, property, and contract suits, to the administration of wills and estates, to the determination of the new moon, the Sanhedrin in Israel had the final word until the death of Rabbi Gamaliel IV in 425. Due to the pressure of Christian bishops, in 429, the Roman emperor abolished the office of Patriarch.

While constant Roman persecution caused the Jewish community in Roman Palestine to decline after the death of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, and Jewish scholarship in Israel to nearly end after the death of Rabbi Hillel HaNasi (circa 4th c. C.E.), the Jewish community in Babylonia continued to thrive and grow in scholarship and size. Unlike the situation in Roman Palestine, where the Patriarch was both the political leader and the head Rabbi of the Sanhedrin, Babylonia had dual political and religious/scholastic institutions, the Reish Galuta and the Rosh ha-Yeshiva. The Reish Galuta (commonly known as the "Exilarch"), a heriditary political office, claimed authority from being descendents of the House of David. According to the Bible, one of the last kings of Judah, Jehoiachin ("Yehoyachin"), was released by the king of babylonia and given a high seat in the Babylonian court. (2 Kings 25:27-29). This account bolstered the Exilarch family's claim that a descendent of David had sat on the throne in Babylon ever since the Exile from Judah. In turn, each of the highly influential academies ("yeshivas") of Babylonia was lead by its own Rosh ha-Yeshiva ("Head of the Academy") who was selected by the most prominent scholars and ratified by the Reish Galuta. Although the Reish Galuta had the power to appoint judges and was the final court of appeal, most of the judges were students of the academies of Nehardea, Pumpeditha, and Sura (i.e., Rabbis). The Babylonian Talumd records the details of many cases actually litigated in front of the Amoraim. Although the Academies as an institution did not have the governmental authority to compel the Jewish people to accept their rulings, in practice the law developed in the Academies became the law which governed the Jewish people, in Babylon and throughout the Diaspora.

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What does this have to do with reverting my edit? Hiergargo 18:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

What About Classical Rabbinic Judaism?

As a person who is not a Jew but wish to learn about Rabbinic Judaism, I find the article a little bit confusing. The very first two sentences can be misleading:

Rabbinic Judaism ... also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism has its roots in Pharisaic Judaism and is based on the belief that Moses at Mount Sinai received both the Written Torah (Torah she-be-Khetav) and the Oral Torah (Torah she-be-al Peh) from God.

From this, I would understand that Rabbinic Judaism started from the 6th century CE, not realizing, at the first glance, that the author speaks about the time it has been mainstream form of Judaism. The article is not so clear on the question when Rabbinic Judaism was formed. In which year or period did Rabbinic Judaism appear? The article mentions Pharisaic Judaism and speaks a lot about Hellenistic Judaism without explaining their relations to Rabbinic Judaism. Is Pharisaic or Hellenistic Judaism one of the earlier stages of Rabbinic Judaism or are they different forms of Judaism?

I find that the short article "Rabbinic Judaism" is much more illuminating. It is written by Rivka Ulmer, who is a professor of Jewish Studies at Bucknell University. According to her article, there is something called classical rabbinic Judaism, which is divided into three periods: tannaitic (until 200 CE), amoraic (200–500 CE), and saboraic (500 CE–7th century). Does classical rabbinic Judaism represent the formative period of rabbinic Judaism?

I think that the Wikipedia article should be clearer in explaining the origin of Rabbinic Judaism with regard to Classical Rabbinic Judaism. Theophilius (talk) 23:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Adelman's edits

This is getting a little tiresome: obviously, non-Conservative movements carry the conviction that their form of Judaism is more authentic than the others; to present one side as being "right" and others less so is clearly a biased presentation. --Leifern 18:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• [1] --Standforder (talk) 09:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference between Rabbinic Judaism and Orthodox Judaism

I think this page should be merged with Orthodox Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism seems to me just another way to describe Orthodox Judaism Proud Novice (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

All the major Jewish religious movements are descended from Rabbinic Judaism. There is no reason this article should be merged with Orthodox Judaism. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, Malik, you would care to explain to this proud novice that novices sometimes do not understand terms correctly. In this case he simply does not understand the difference. Debresser (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to be so brusque. Rabbinic Judaism is a broad term that refers to Judaism based on the Oral Law (Talmud) as well as the Written Law (Torah), and is generally used in contrast to those forms of Judaism that reject the Oral Law (such as Karaite Judaism). The modern Jewish religious movements, even those that don't observe traditional Jewish law, are all rooted in Rabbinic Judaism—that is, they recognize the significance of the Oral Law, even if they don't follow all its requirements. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 22:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining :) Proud Novice (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Kurdush

What's "kurdush law"??? I couldn't find it when googling and I suspect it's a mistake! Can someone more educated than I am please correct this if necessary? TYVM! Songflower (talk) 08:51, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

@Songflower: Are you referring to this edit to the Mezuzah article? That was vandalism, and I reverted it. Debresser (talk) 14:19, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Awesome thanks!Songflower (talk) 13:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Since Rabbinic Judaism is the parent of Origins of Rabbinic Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism is a very short page (only 7k), I propose merging Origins of Rabbinic Judaism (about 34k) into Rabbinic Judaism. ImTheIP (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• I see no objection. I do see a problem. It makes not much sense to have an article about Rabbinic Judaism which would be about 84% about the origins. Debresser (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

For now, yes. The article could perhaps be renamed History of Rabbinic Judaism to also include historical developments after 500 CE. Btw, I tried to find the article which covers the transition from Second Temple Judaism to Rabbinic Judaism. There's a lot of articles about Jewish history that cover the time period (0-500 BCE), but none seem to cover the time period's theological developments. ImTheIP (talk) 05:31, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• Merge Having read them both I think there is enough material for one well written article. There is maybe not a lot to say about modern Rabbinic Judaism because it is too broad of a topic. Whatever the reason, I support a merger even if it is 84% about the origins. DHHornfeldt (talk) 16:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support merge, as the article "Origins of Rabbinic Judaism" is clearly a fork (per WP:POVFORK) of this article.Davidbena (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• Merge My suggestion is that the merged article be called "Rabbinic Judaism," where the initial major section would be called "Origins..." and would include all the material from the Origins page. But it is really a lot of work, because as ImTheIP has suggested, it would need new sourced historical material on the transition from the Second Temple period to the Roman/Byzantine or the Talmud writing period of Jewish history after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. warshy ^(¥¥) 17:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
• I support the merger proposal, and note the difficulties. Is anyone willing to go ahead and take the plunge? BobKilcoyne (talk) 05:59, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support merge. As per above. –Ploni (talk) 15:29, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete.

Note that I have carried out the merge relatively simply as I do not have the subject knowledge for greater refinement; could I encourage those with subject knowledge to refine the current article in situ. Klbrain (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Needs history

This article needs to incorporate information about Rabbinic Judaism from Jewish history. Editor2020 (talk) 17:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)