Читать книгу Judaism I - Группа авторов - Страница 30

Dr. Carol Bakhos of UCLA surveys the period of the Amoraim (»expositors of tannaitic tradition,« »those who say«). These rabbis lived in Palestine (The Land of Israel) and Babylonia (Iraq), and their teachings serve as the basis of both the Palestinian Talmud (also known as the Talmud Yerushalmi or the Jerusalem Talmud), and the Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli). The explanation, qualification, and amplification of the Mishnah is at the heart of the Talmuds. The Palestinian Talmud is a shorter work redacted about two to three centuries before the Bavli. It came together within a Byzantine Roman milieu that included pagans and Christians. The Bavli developed within a Sasanid context, primarily among Zoroastrians. Scholars today pay a great deal of attention to the ambient religions and cultures, as well as social and political forces, to explain halakhic discrepancies between the two Talmuds.

There are five generations of Palestinian Amoraim and six generations of Babylonian Amoraim. Travel between the two centers of learning took place. In both Palestine and Babylonia, rabbinic schools were small and loosely structured groups of students who studied with individual sages. Disciples were free to move from one teacher to another. By the sixth century, these master-disciple circles gave way to more organized rabbinic academies. The Talmuds recount didactic stories about the lives of amoraim and convey snippets of biographical detail. The Babylonian Talmud paints a picture of their insular world and what was required of them to pursue the study of Torah.

The rabbis produced works of biblical exegesis: Midrash, (Hebrew root drš, »to investigate, seek out«) which is a process of scriptural interpretation. The Amoraim also produced several compilations of aggadic scriptural interpretation: Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, Pesikta de Rav Kahana (organized around the synagogue Torah-reading cycle), and Lamentations Rabbah. These rabbis are also mentioned in later collections of midrash, such as Song of Songs Rabbah. The aggadic midrashim of the amoraic period deal primarily with the narrative portions of the Hebrew Bible.