Rabbinical literature

The ic literature Rabbin , in the broad sense, all that includes/understands was written by Rabbanim during the history.

The Juif S distinguish traditionally the Sifrout 'Hazal (ספרותחז " ל) " Literature of our Wise, blessed memory " , covering the period of development of the Mishna to the fence of the Talmud, of the later rabbinical writings, the Middle Ages at our days, which they indicate by " rabbinical literature ".

The academic definition of the term includes contrary only the satellite Talmud, Midrash and works, and excludes works from later composition.

Compilations of the oral Law

The Mishna and the Tosefta, two texts compiled starting from sources former to, are the oldest known works of the rabbinical literature. They treat oral law of the Judaïsme.

From them both are elaborate Talmud S:

as well as the treated " mineurs" contiguous to Babylonian Talmud

Midrash

Midrash means in Hebrew to explore a text (biblical), to request it, so, to generally establish starting from which text such law was deduced.
Les works contiguous to what is called the midrashic literature do not gather however all interpretations of the Bible, but only those of which the goal is not normative, the '' aggadot '', the majority not having been integrated in the Talmud.
Diverses compilations of midrashim is also called Midrash (Midrash Rabba, Midrash Tanhouma, etc), and takes the aspect of homiletic, allegorical or legal essays of the Bible.

Later works

Period of Gueonim

The Gueonim are the directors of the talmudic academies of Sura and Pumbedita, with Babylon (650 - 1250). Their great authority enables them to publish taqanot , amendments with the Halakha such as it arises from Talmud.

The large one of their activity consists in commenting on Talmud and discussing Halakha. One owes them much of Responsa, but also of the works organizing the ritual ( Siddour , of lèssadèr, to organize), in particular that of Amram Gaon

Saadia Gaon, undoubtedly largest of Gueonim, influenced by the theologists of Kalam, particularly the Mutazilite S, does not scorn the study of philosophy, nor of the/>Cependant mystic juive.Torah. Written with a polemical aim, the context of a fight tightened with the Karaïtes, hétérodoxes of the Judaism recommending the free interpretation of the Text (Miqra) and rejecting the authority of Talmud, which collected, before its intervention, an undeniable success in all the Jewish communities.
On can say that the Comment on the Torah of Saadia Gaon would influence all the later generations.

Period of the Rishonim

The Rishonim are the wise medieval ones (1250 - 1550), for the majority of the rabbis. Living out of ground of exile, whereas the Babylonian center declines, it falls to them to maintain the Judaism long-lived.

The Judaism being articulated around Talmud, their task will be to emphasize some the rules of all the accounts extranormatifs which appear in it.
Il will follow two divergent ways which will model the rites of what will become the Judaism Sépharade and the Judaism Ashkénaze.

  • On the side sépharade, there really does not exist of solution of continuity between the period of Gueonim and that of Rishonim: Isaac Alfasi is regarded as carrying out the transition between the two eras. Its major work, Hilkhot HaRif translates its vision of the thing correctly: it extracts, with the clean direction, the rules of Talmud to make a code of it. It is this way which will follow Maïmonide (Yad Hahazaka), Yaakov Ben Asher (Arbaa Tourim), and Yossef Karo, whose masterly Choulhan Aroukh will fix the term of the period of Rishonim.
In parallel, of the intense philological and grammatical studies is done day following Dunash ibn Labrat, raises of Saadia Gaon, under the influence of the Moslem environment. Under this same influence will flower the Poésie and the philosphie, with Moïse ibn Ezra, Juda Halevi,… In Provence, Moshe haDarshan composes its Yessod , compilation of Midrash im on the Torah.
Very often, control of the Jewish tradition, of its laws, poetry, philosophy will be found in the same person: it is the time of Solomon ibn Gabirol, of Juda ibn Hayyuj, and from these great figures of the Judaism which were Maïmonide, Nahmanide, Gersonide, Abravanel,…
One could not conclude this review without mentioning the study of the Kabbale, Jewish mystic propagated seems-til since the communities of Provence. They knew a manifest renewal after the expulsion of the Jews of the ground of Spain, on which some were established since the destruction of the second Temple, in 1492
  • On the side ashkénaze, under the impulse of Italian scholars, one attends a revivescence of the Judaism. Optics is different: in concern of to establish text correct (concern shared with the Christian scientists of the Early middle ages which wanted to establish an indisputable text of the Vulgate), one wishes to be able to explain it in a coherent way, as well in the structure as in the place as it takes as a whole. Thus are born the first comments of Talmud , under the impulse of Guershom of Mainz followed Solomon, wire of Isaac the French, more known under the acronym of Rachi , and its disciples the Tossafistes.
Rachi, probably the largest scientist of the post-talmudic era, and most known, undertakes the encyclopedic task to comment on not only the near total of Talmud (some of the sections being allotted him are the fact of its disciples, under its probable supervision), but also the Tanakh by privileging the simple direction verses, being addressed to the beginner as with the scholar. Its repercussion on the Judaism is enormous: any comment on the Torah or posterior Talmud with his in is a super-comment with a degree or the other. It will fix many laws, whose most known the controversy concerns on the fitting of the texts in the Téfiline.
It is also in the world ashkénaze in France that will be born, unfortunately, the literature of Nizza' hon, arguments to be used at the time of a disputation following the argument of Paris gained by Rabbenou Yehiel, which was completed all the same by the cremation of Talmud in 1242. This event was the cause of an interesting codex written by Moïse of Coucy, Sefer Mitsvot haGadol, or SMAG in order to safeguard the teaching halakhic of Talmud. This codex was a great success in the Juif world, before being eclipsed by Mishné Torah of Maïmonide

In short,

works of this period cover practically all the fields of the Judaism:
  • biblical comments of Rachi, Ibn Ezra, Nahmanide, Isaac Abravanel, and well of others.
  • Comments on the Talmud, mainly that of Rachi, of its disciples, the Tossafistes (mainly Samuel Ben Meïr, the Rashbam ) and of Nissim Gerondi, as well as the " renewals " talmudic ( Hidoushim ), which tries to reactualize the message of it all while maintaining it in the lines of the tradition. The most snuffed hidoushim are those of the Tossafistes, of Nahmanide, Nissim Gerondi, Solomon Ben Adret (the Rashba ), and Yom Tov Asevilli (the Ritva )
  • Ouvrages of Halakha , of which monographs of Nahmanide, Asher Ben Yehiel (the Rosh ), Mordechai Ben Hillel and the codex of Moïse of Coucy, Maïmonide, Yaakov Ben Asher, and Yossef Karo
  • Responsa, of which those of Solomon Ben Adret, prohibiting the study of philosophy before the 30 years age, under penalty of anathema.
  • Works Kabbalistiques of which the Zohar
  • philosophical Works, landscape dominated by Maïmonide , report/ratio in which any later philosophical work is defined, namely partisane or opposite with its ideas. Other major figures were Nahmanide, Gersonide, Moïse Narboni, Hasdaï Crescas, Abravanel
  • Œuvres of ethics of Bahya ibn Paquda (Duties of the Heart), of Rabbenou Yona
  • polemical Œuvres, in particular Disputation of Barcelona of Nahmanide and " Would not be like your pères" of Profiat Duran

Period of the Aharonim

The Aharonim are the rabbis of 1550 until our days. Great work to translate Talmud in legal terms having been realized, it remained to them nothing to make, could one think.
Error! In Europe, this period saw the most important upheavals which the Judaism had known: the Haskala, which accompanied the scientific revolution, where, for the first time, the Juif S were dissociated openly from their religion and their practices; the Ghetto S and the Pogrom S; blossoming of the socialist ideologies, Zionists, as well as great religious movements, like the Hassidisme and the Moussar.
L' Orient was not in remainder: this time was, more than very other, that of the kabbalistic studies (of which Hassidisme is only one prolongation), of the Messianic hopes, but also of the Forgeries Messie S, of which most famous is Sabbataï Tzvi

The spheres of activity remained for the majority unchanged. Thus, one finds:

  • Of important comments of the Torah, of which the Keli Yakar of Solomon ephraïm of Luntchitz, the Gold haHayim of Hayim Ben-Attar, the comment of Samson Raphaël Hirsch, that of Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, like more recently of various organizations (building sites of the Rabbinate of France,…)
  • Of the hidoushim: Pnei Yehoshua , Hafla' ah , Sha' agath Arye
  • Of the Responsa, of which those of Brace Sofer and Moshe Feinstein
  • Of the comments on Choulhan Aroukh, of which Mishna Beroura of Israel Meir Kagan and the Aroukh haChoulhan of Yehiel Michel Epstein
  • Of works of philosophy concerning so much to ethics (Hafetz Haim of Israel Meir Kagan, those of Israel Salanter, at the origin of the Moussar, the Messilat Yecharim of the Ramhal…) that with metaphysics (writings of Moché Haïm Luzzatto of which the Derekh Hachem, of the Maharal of Prague, and the Nefesh haHayim of Rav Haïm de Volodzine)
  • Of mystical works, of which those of Brace Cordovero, lesson of Isaac Louria propagated by Vital Haïm, etc

In order to perpetuate the memory, the field of Jewish historiography develops. One distinguishes among those discussed the Azzaria dei Rossi, Abraham Zaccuto, David Ganz (disciple of Maharal and assistant of Tycho Brahé) and Haïm Joseph David Azulai (the 'Hida).

Later works by categories

Jewish law

The Halakha (literally, way of going ) rule all degrees of existence of the Jew (practitioner) The principal works consist of
  • halakhic monographs
  • codes (Halakha)
  • the Responsa of the rabbinical authorities to the wire of the ages. Some marked their time so much that they took the shape of epistles.

Jewish thought

One could say, in a a little reducing way, that all the Jewish tradition was a long thought since the Jews received the Torah Moïse on the the Sinai. The works of Jewish thought are to some extent those of which the goal is not to fix or include/understand the halakha, but the world in general or the reports/ratios with others.

Liturgy

Mefarshim

The term Mefarshim means in Hebrew " commentateurs" or " exégètes ", given that this word appoints only the rabbinical commentators, and is employed in an interchangeable way with peroushim , " commentaires" (not to be confused with " Proushim" Them Pharisees. In Hebrew, the word is differently punctuated).
Another short cut reducing to describe the rabbinical literature is to say that it is about the comment of X which comments on the comment of Y etc

Are called Mefarshim all the commentators, whom they comment on the Torah, the Tanakh, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Responsa, the Siddour,…

Large commentators of the Torah and/or the Talmud:

The traditional comments on Talmud were written by Rachi, on the model of Rabbenou Hananel and Rabbenou Guershom. After him came Tosafot (not to confuse with Tosefta), comment on Talmud written collectively by the pupils of Rachi and its descendants during the three centuries which followed it. These comments, whose traditional editions of Talmud contain only one piece, resulted from the discussions held in the rabbinical academies of Germany and France.

  • Aharonim orthodoxe contemporaries :

    • ha-Ktav vehaKabbalah of Rav Yaakov Zvi Meckelenburg
    • Haemek Davar of Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin
    • Torah Temimah of Rav Baruch ha-Levi Epstein
    • Commentaire of Rav Samson Raphaël Hirsch
    • Sfat Emits (Lips of Truth), by Yehouda Arye Leib, the Gerre Rebbe
    • the edition Soncino on the Bible
    • Nehama Leibowitz (Guilyonot)
    • Commentaire of the Hafets Haïm

  • Aharonim of the Preserving Judaism:

    • Comment on the Torah of Nahum Mr. Sarna, Baruch A. Levine, Milgrom Jacob and Jeffrey H. Tigay
    • Etz Hayim , comment of David L. Lieber, Harold Kushner and Haïm Potok

Modern comments on Siddour:

  • Siddour of the Hafets Haïm
  • Siddour of Hirsch
  • Olat Reyia" of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook
  • the world of the prayers of Elie Munk; Translated Henri Schilli
  • Nosson Scherman, Siddour Artscroll , Edition Mesorah *Reuven Hammer, Gold Hadash , (Siddour of the Massortite congregation of the United States)

Related articles

  • the traditional Jewish library
  • Databases on the Torah (data-processing versions of the traditional Jewish texts)
  • List of Wise of Israel
  • List of the prayers and Jewish blessings

External bonds

  • general Bonds
    • a review of the rabbinical literature ( English )
    • Chronology of the texts of Judaism ( English )
  • Bonds towards the full texts
    • Mechon Mamre
    • hebrewbooks.org

Religious Jewish literature

  • Pentateuque on Wikisource (in Hebrew).
  • All Tanakh (in Hebrew, vocalized).
  • English Tanakh version 1917 of Jewish Society Publication.
  • complete Tanakh + English Rachi, Judaïca edition Close
  • Talmud online. Course on Talmud, in English, Yiddish, Hebrew and French. The developed point of view is that of the orthodoxe Judaism.

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