Rabbinical Eras: Brief Time Line

Here is a brief time line for the rabbinical eras:

Rabbinical Eras

The Man With Two WIVES

When R. Ammi and R. Assi were sitting before R. Isaac the Smith, one of them said to him: “Will the Master please tell us some legal points?” While the other said: “Will the Master please give us some homiletical instruction?” When he commenced a homiletical [haggadic] discourse he was prevented by the one, and when he commenced a legal discourse he was prevented by the other. He therefore said to them: I will tell you a parable: To what is this like? To a man who has had two wives, one young and the other old. The young one used to pluck out his white hair, whereas the old one used to pluck out his black hair. He thus finally remained bald on both sides.

The immediate predicament of R. Isaac is that he cannot teach Torah at all because one colleague plucks out his haggadic hairs while the other is plucking his halakic ones.

Morale: Learning halakah ["law"] without homiletical (haggadic) application will leave the scholar bald on both sides.

The ESSENCE of JUDAISM

Two thousand years ago, when a non-Jew asked Hillel, the leading Rabbi of his age, to define Judaism’s essence, the sage could have responded with a long oration on Jewish thought and law, and an insistence that it would be blasphemous to reduce so profound a system to a brief essence.  Indeed, his contemporary, Shammai, furiously drove away a questioner with a builder’s rod.  Hillel, however, responded to the man’s challenge: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: this is the whole Torah.  The rest is commentary; now go and study” – a model statement that has defined Judaism’s essence ever since. 

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin – Jewish Wisdom: Ethical, Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and Thinkers (1994), xix-xx.

Note Jesus’ response to the scribe in Mark 12:28-31:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which is the most important of all?”

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

FOCUS in Prayer – The Return

One day in the synagogue, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev seemed to be observing a group of his Hasidim as they prayed. When they were finished, he approached them with a hearty greeting, “Shalom aleichem!”

They looked startled to hear their rabbi pronounce the greeting traditionally given after returning from a long journey. “But Rabbi,” they said, “we have not been anywhere!”

The rabbi continued to shake hands with them, as though they were travellers arriving in Berditchev. He said, “From your faces it was obvious that your thoughts were in the grain market in Odessa or the woolen market in Lodz. None of you were actually here while you recited the prayers, so I was glad to welcome you back once you stopped.”

On Judging Others (He Depends on the Rich?)

 A complaint was lodged with the Chofetz Chaim [=Rabbi Israel Meir Ha-Kohen Kagan of Radin, Poland - his name is taken from the title of one of his books = One Who Desires Life = Psalm 34:12(13)] against the wealthy ones who do not give sufficient to charity, i.e. in accordance with their means.

“I once went to Vilna,” the Chofetz Chaim remarked. “I saw a man there, a drunkard, lying by the side of the street.  Children surrounded him, standing over and laughing.

“A gentlemen passed by, bent over and spoke to the drunkard.  He said, ‘Reb Yid, look at how you are lying here and so many children are standing around you.  If I became as drunk as you, I would be cautious and never lie down in the street, where everyone can stand around me.’”

A Rabbi Introduces Talmudic Argument to a Country-Fellow

One day a country-fellow came to his Rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, in the tongue-tied fashion of the unlettered in the presence of the learned, “for a long time I have been hearing of Talmud.  It puzzles me not to know what Talmud is.  Please teach me Talmud.”"Talmud?” the Rabbi smiled tolerantly, as one does to a child. “You’ll never understand Talmud; you’re a peasant.”

“Oh, Rabbi, you must teach me,” the fellow insisted. “I’ve never asked you for a favor.  This time I ask.  Please teach me, what is Talmud.”

“Very well,” said the Rabbi, “listen carefully.  If two burglars enter a house by way of the chimney, and find themselves in the living room, one with a dirty face and one with a clean face, which one will wash?”

The peasant thought for a while and said, “Naturally, the one with the dirty face.”

“You see,” said the Rabbi, “I told you a farmer couldn’t master Talmud.  The one with the clean face looked at the one with the dirty face and, assuming his own face was also dirty, of course, he washed it, while the one with the dirty face, observing the clean face of his colleague, naturally assumed his own was clean, and did not wash it.”

Again the peasant reflected.  Then, his face brightening, said, “Thank you, Rabbi, thank you.  Now I understand Talmud.”

“See,” said the Rabbi wearily.  “It is just as I said.  You are a peasant! And who but a peasant would think for a moment that when two burglars enter a house by way of the chimney, only one will have a dirty face?”

Nathan Ausubel, A Treasury of Jewish Folklore (New York: Crown Publisher, 1975), 3-4.

SHALOM

The intention of this site is to provide some basic information for students of Rabbinic Hebrew and Literature.  It is written by a Christian who loves Jewish culture and the Old Testament.  I also have a long lasting interest in Semitic Languages (though I am NOT an expert by any stretch of the imagination), and I will be using this site for my students and for anyone who is interested to learn more about rabbinic Hebrew, rabbinic literature, and to read fine rabbinic stories. SHALOM to all.