Third Heir: Rabbinic Judaism

The purpose of this section of the course is to look at covenants with God as realized in four religions: the religion of Ancient Israel, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Today we turn towards covenant in Judaism in particular.

What is particular about the covenant in Rabbinic Judaism?  It is a continuation of the Mosaic covenant.  Remember that the Mosaic covenant was the first nationalistic covenant.  As a prophet, warlord   Moses, as the paradigmatic Jew, is hailed as a lawgiver and as the bearer of the Ten Commandments.  Moses became important in world Jewry after the destruction of the Temple.  Without a land or a temple, Moses represented a way for Jews to remain united as a kind of nation.  Moses offers a way to unify a group of people who share a covenant with God.  The opportunity for this unification came about specifically through the practice of the "Oral Torah".  The Oral Torah was a practice of passing along traditions orally in addition to studying the written Torah.  This oral tradition was a second track for studying Judaism.  In particular, this oral tradition of studying text thrived among Jews who remained in Babylon and did not return to Jerusalem.  By separating itself from the Temple, Rabbinic Judaism was able to live on after its destruction.

The idea is this: Jewish scholars postulated that because they have teachers, their teachers must also have had teachers in the past.  It makes sense that each teacher had some prior teacher.  In fact, Jews postulate that this oral tradition can be traced all the way back to Moses himself.  It is questionable whether such an oral tradition has existed all the way back to Moses.  Miles notes that this belief is the central commitment to faith in Rabbinical Judaism.

The emergence of this tradition can be explained by two factors: close reading of religious texts and midrash.  In the former case, there are written records of close readings and analyses of religious stories.  At this stage of analysis, there could be endless arguments about the meaning of a single word or about a minor inconsistency.  In the latter case, different kinds of speculation and expansion of the original text provide an academic commentary on the original text.  Aggadic midrash, or story-telling midrash, is an expansion of an original account of a story by including details that the interpreter supposes happened but that are not explicitly included by the original author.  Halakhic midrash, or observance midrash, is the addition of some reason for the original inclusion of a certain detail.  This detail is usually tied  to a specific belief or ritual.