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Judaism: Texts, Authority and Key Figures

Debates about the Talmud, midrash and the commentators

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

Case against treating the Mishnah as the most important element, argument that halakhah matters more than aggadah for Judaism and argument that aggadah matters as much as halakhah.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why might midrash be criticised as an imprecise science?

Key term

Why is the Gemara sometimes judged the more important half of the Talmud?

Key term

What limits the claim that the Gemara matters more than the Mishnah?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is the case for the Mishnah as the most important element of the Talmud?

    Model answer

    It is the foundation on which everything else is built, it alone is shared by both recensions, it is the first written form of the oral Torah, and its rulings are what the later discussion exists to explain.

  2. 2

    What is the case against treating the Mishnah as the most important element?

    Model answer

    Its terseness makes it almost unusable alone, it gives no reasons and cites no scripture, and Jewish practice is decided through the discussion that follows it rather than from its bare text.

  3. 3

    Why is the Gemara sometimes judged the more important half of the Talmud?

    Model answer

    It supplies the reasoning, links rulings to scripture, resolves the conflicts the Mishnah leaves standing, and teaches the method of argument by which every later question is settled.

  4. 4

    What limits the claim that the Gemara matters more than the Mishnah?

    Model answer

    The Gemara has no subject of its own; it is commentary, it often reaches no conclusion, and later codes had to be written precisely because its debates do not yield usable law.

  5. 5

    What is the argument that halakhah matters more than aggadah for Judaism?

    Model answer

    Judaism is a religion of practice in which the covenant is kept by doing, halakhah governs every hour of the day, and it is the legal tradition that has preserved Jewish distinctiveness in exile.

  6. 6

    What is the argument that aggadah matters as much as halakhah?

    Model answer

    Aggadah supplies the beliefs and values that give the law its point, it is the part of the tradition that consoles and inspires, and without it observance becomes mechanical.

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