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Talmud - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre Pgina 1 de 3 Talmud De Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre El Talmud es una obra que recoge principalmente las discusiones rabnicas sobre leyes judas, tradiciones, costumbres, leyendas e historias. Existen dos ediciones de la guemar: la de Jerusaln que se termin de redactar de forma escrita alrededor del ao de nuestra era, y la de Babilonia, cuya recopilacin final se llev a cabo por Ravina y Rav Ashi, dos sabios del siglo V de nuestra era Comentarios A partir de la redaccin del Talmud se han escrito literalmente cientos de comentarios que explican los textos y tambin continan las discusiones que se encuentran en ellos.

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Popular in Judaism. Smarlin Moreta. Carlos Castano. Aharon N Morales. Pedro Antonio Vera. Diego Jose Renteria Lascano. Aleja Neiva. Victor Eduardo. Paco JRA. James Finch. Eric Manuel. But if he had said, 'It and all that is in it', all these are sold also.

If a man sold a wagon he has not sold the mules; if he sold the mules he has not sold the wagon. If he sold the yoke he has not sold the oxen, and if he sold the oxen he has not sold the yoke. Rabbi Judah says: The price makes it manifest: thus if one said to him, 'Sell me thy yoke for zuz', it is manifest that no yoke costs zuz. But the sages say: The price is no proof. And p. The wise man does not speak before one that is greater than he is in wisdom; and he does not break in upon the words of his fellow; and he is not hasty in making answer; he asks what is relevant and makes answer according to the halakah, and he speaks on the first point first and on the last point last, and of what he has heard no tradition he says, 'I have not heard'; and he admits the truth, and the opposite of these are the marks of the clod.

It was the summation, the climax of centuries of intellectual labors. It was welcomed particularly by the Jewish community in Babylonia since it offered them religious guidance without necessary recourse to the academies of Palestine.

But the process of judicial creativity did not cease with the creation of the Mishnah. Because of its very brevity, the statements in the Mishnah required constant amplification and interpretation. Moreover a great deal of material was omitted altogether, whether because the editors of the Mishnah did not consider it important or because they felt they had already covered it in another form.

Such material was technically known as "Baraita", outside, that is, relevant data left outside the Mishnah text. The shortcomings of the Mishnah must have been recognized in the very generation that produced it; the Tosefta, meaning supplement, compiled apparently during the same period that saw the reaction of the Mishnah, frequently offers essential amplifications to the Mishnaic text, as well as, of course, certain independent material.

The Tosefta's function as a supplement to the Mishnah is well illustrated by a comparison of Mishnah Shekalim , and Tosefta Shekalim It is only by drawing on the information of the Mishnah that we may identify on the 15th day of that month as referring to the month of Adar.

Derived from the Aramaic gemar and meaning study or teaching, the Gemara exists in two versions, both in the Aramaic vernaculars current respectively among the Jews of Palestine and Babylonia. For in post-Mishnaic times, the Jewish community in Babylonia had overtaken Palestine as a center of Jewish learning, and the Babylonian schools developed a parallel supplement to the Mishnah, p. Frequently the same teachers are represented in both Gemaras, for there was a constant interchange of visits among the Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis and the academies in each country were fully informed on the work being done by their sister academies in the other country.

The Palestinian Gemara, frequently called Yerushalmi or Jerusalem Gemara, supplements thirty-nine tractates; the Babylonian only thirty-six and a half. In scope, however, the latter is three times as large as the former, the Babylonian Gemara being more elaborate and more copious in its expositions.

In its discussions the Gemara introduces citations from the Tosefta, the various Midrashim, the records of old customs, legislative enactments and ordinances, haggadic discourses and ethical observations. The Gemara is thus the most comprehensive of all the texts in the supplementary Torah.

The Mishnah and Gemara, as an integrated text, taken together comprise the Talmud. The following Talmudic selections illustrate the style and method of the Gemara and its supplementary relations to the Mishnah. Has it not been taught: The Torah describes the High Priest as the priest that is highest among his brethren Lev. The other refers to the corrupt High Priests who held office in the Second Temple.

As is illustrated in the report of Rab Assi: A tarkubful of dinars did Martha, the daughter of Boethus give as a bribe to King Jannai a general designation in the Talmud for Hasmonean or Herodian rulers to nominate Joshua b.

Gamala as one of the High Priests. And there follows immediately the vital supplement of the Gemara: "Rabbi Jannai explained: If the patient says, I need food and the physician says that he does not, we hearken to the patient. What is the reason? The heart knoweth its own bitterness Prov. But isn't it self-evident? We might have assumed that the physician's knowledge, being more authentic, ought to carry greater weight. If the physician says that he needs food, while the patient says that he does not, we heed the physician.

There is always the fear that the patient may be in stupor. This question was asked of them: 'Whence do we know that in the event of danger to human life all laws of the Sabbath are superseded?

The Torah obviously implied: 'Suspend for his sake one Sabbath, so that he may keep many Sabbaths. The Torah appraises its rules of life with He shall live by them Lev.

The Mishnah provides: "If a person found something in a shop, it belongs to him; should it have been between the counter and the shopkeeper, it belongs to the latter.

If he found it in front of a money-changer, it belongs to him; should it have been between the form on which the coins p. If a person purchased fruits from his fellow or the latter sent him fruits, and he found coins among them, they belong to him; but should they have been tied in a bundle, he must advertise. Alexander said to him, 'I have no need of your gold and silver. My only purpose is to see your customs, how you act and administer justice. The purchaser contended, 'I bought the heap but not the treasure hidden in it' and the vendor asserted, 'I sold the heap and all it contained.

He asked the other, 'Have you a daughter? Alexander began to laugh, and Katzya inquired, 'Why do you laugh? Did I not judge well? Suppose such a case happened with you, how would you have dealt with it?

He made a feast for him at which he was served with golden cutlets and golden poultry. If you do not eat gold, why do you love it so intensely? This includes the various midrashim; the Tosefta; the Mishnah and the Gemara, or, taken together, the Talmud. It has generally been called the Oral Torah because for centuries it was expounded and transmitted orally.

Individual students probably employed notes to aid their memories, but none of these compilations were officially edited until a considerably later date.

The Palestinian Talmud came to an end some time in the 5th century as a result of the general decline of the Jewish community in Palestine, marked by the abolition of the office of patriarch, as the head of the Jewish community was called, in C.

The final edition of the supplementary Torah in the volumes of the Talmud as we have them today, brought to a close one of the most creative epochs in the history of Jewish tradition.

When the second Jewish commonwealth was founded by the returned Babylonian exiles, that function was taken over by the sopherim. The term sopherim has generally been translated as scribes. As a leader of culture, the sopher was usually the one who possessed the then rare skill of writing, and his derivative function was therefore that of scribe.

In its original meaning, however, sopher was primarily a narrator or teacher, an expounder of a body of tradition; and his work was essentially oral.

Thus the verb saper which describes the sopher's work designates, in modern as in Biblical Hebrew, the oral activity of narration and instruction. The leaders of the new settlement, struggling with the problems of reconstruction, had done little to safeguard the religious interests of the community. They had rebuilt the Temple, but the study and practice of the Torah was widely ignored. And the Temple itself was in a state of moral and material decline.

It was this condition that Ezra sought to remedy. The great task to which the sopherim gave themselves was the popularization of the knowledge and appreciation of the Torah. They instituted the public reading of the Torah not only on Sabbaths and festivals but on those weekdays, Mondays and Thursdays, when villagers gathered in the town markets. They reformed the Hebrew script, introducing the present square type alphabet in place of the old Hebrew alphabet, which is still used by the Samaritans.

They re-edited the Biblical text bringing it into greater conformity with their developed religious and literary sensibilities.

The teachers who supplemented the Torah did not reach their decisions on individual impulse; in every generation there were corporate bodies that deliberated and acted in concert. Such a corporate body functioned during the time of the sopherim, and was known as the Great Assembly. There are no records extant of the sessions of the Great Assembly and we have no significant information about any of its members, except fragmentary echoes in the writing of a later age, principally in the ethical treatise Abot.

One of the Assembly's guiding principles is quoted as: "Be deliberate in the interpretation of the law; raise up many disciples; and p. He advocated serving God without the thought of reward. Serve without expecting a gratuity and let reverence for God ever be upon you.

For apart from the exaction of the tribute, Persia left her colonial provinces complete freedom in determining their inner destiny. Persia crumbled in B. Alexander did not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of his military exploits.

He died in B. After some bitter fighting, Alexander's leading generals divided the spoils among themselves. Seleucus took Syria, while Ptolemy became King of Egypt. Palestine was claimed both by Seleucus and Ptolemy. Several bitter wars were fought over the issue and the country changed hands a number of times, until B. The political uncertainties and the actual dislocations of war must have reacted disastrously upon the social and economic life of the country.

But the cultural life remained free and the Torah loyalists continued to practice and propagate the knowledge of the Torah throughout the land. The free development of the Torah was interrupted during the reign of Antiochus IV who ascended the Seleucid throne in B. Antiochus had spent his youth as a hostage in p.

His knowledge of Roman imperial ambitions convinced him that Rome would continue encroaching upon his domains and that war was bound to come between the two empires, Syria and Rome. After successfully invading Egypt, Antiochus was forced to leave his rich spoils by a Roman envoy who threatened an immediate declaration of hostilities.

To prepare for the challenge, Antiochus sought to consolidate his far-flung territories by fostering everywhere a common Hellenistic culture. The Greek "culture" which Antiochus sought to foster was not the Hellenic achievements in philosophy, science and the arts, but the uncritical manners, customs, and superstitions of the Greek populace.

He built gymnasia for Greek sports and lavish shrines for the various popular deities. The emperor himself, as the embodiment of the state, was proclaimed as divine, taking on a new title Epiphanes, a god made manifest, to be adored everywhere as a symbol of civic loyalty and imperial unity.

In B. Antiochus had little difficulty in enacting this policy throughout his empire, but in Palestine he met with resistance. Sopheric activity had popularized the love of Torah throughout the land; and when Antiochus sought forcibly to uproot Judaism, everywhere there were people who preferred martyrdom to a betrayal of their religious traditions.

The opposition of the Jewish masses was finally articulated by a priestly family in Modin, headed by a certain Mattathias, who proclaimed active resistance. Mattathias soon died, but the struggle was continued by his five sons, around whom rallied bands of Torah loyalists, waging an active campaign of open as well as guerilla warfare against the successive armies sent by the Syrians.

The war was prolonged and bitter, p. Complete independence was not achieved, however, till B. A variety of factors cooperated to make for the success of this rebellion.

There was the brilliant leadership of the Maccabees, as the sons of Mattathias were called, after their oldest brother, Judas Maccabeus. Dynastic rivalries in Syria kept the empire in a state of turmoil and did not permit the king uninterruptedly to pursue the suppression of the Jewish revolt. And, moreover, the Jews had the assistance of Rome, ever anxious to break rival empires so as to be able more easily to swallow the smaller fragments.

The interlude of Jewish independence lasted from B. In 63 B. The primary meaning of the root parosh from which Pharisees is a derivative is "separate," and some historians have rendered Pharisees as "separatists", men who, because of their excessive piety, tended to separate themselves from the common people. But historically, the Pharisees were the popular spokesmen of the people, and therefore could not have kept themselves aloof from them. Perushim may also be related to a secondary meaning of parosh, interpret, as it is used in Leviticus Like the sopherim, they derived p.

The Pharisees supplemented the written Torah with new clarifications, with new religious and ethical concepts and new legal formulations. They taught the beliefs in retribution in a life hereafter, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, and an extensive angelology.

They elaborated the Temple ritual with new ceremonials, like the impressive water libation before the altar on the Succot festival. They ordained that the daily Tamid sacrifice in the Temple be purchased not from the funds donated by the wealthy few, but from the shekel collections which were contributed by all Israelites.

To counteract a popular superstition that God's physical presence resided in the inner shrine of the Temple, they insisted that the High Priest, in his annual entrance to enact the solemn Day of Atonement ritual, omit the incense whose smoke was to screen him from gazing upon God; he was to prepare that incense after his entry into the shrine.

Their conception of God was so exalted that they proscribed the pronunciation of His proper name. They moderated the code of Jewish criminal law. All these and various other measures adopted by them were grounded in the recognition that the written Torah must be supplemented by a continuing new tradition which can apply the written Torah's ultimate purposes to the changing facts of life. The Great Assembly, as a corporate body, perished with the decline of the sopheric movement, but it was reincarnated during Pharisaic times, in the Sanhedrin, a Greek term meaning a court, council or senate.

There were various Sanhedrins throughout the country, charged with different aspects of the interpretation and administration of law. The supreme Sanhedrin, consisting of 71 members and originally holding its sessions in the Hall of Hewn Stone in Jerusalem, exercised judicial, legislative and executive functions.

Records have been preserved describing some of the procedure in this august tribunal. The members of the court were seated in a semicircle so that they could see each other and follow the deliberations more closely, with the president in the center and the others to his right and left in the order of seniority. Secretaries recorded the divergent views that developed in these discussions. All court deliberations were public.

To enable them to profit by the proceedings, admittance was granted to advanced students who were seated in three rows, also in the order of seniority, and to general students of the law who were placed behind them. The first students in the order of seniority in the first row generally filled each vacancy as it occurred on the bench, with a general promotion following all along the line. A quorum for the transaction of any business was twenty-three judges; and decisions were reached by a majority vote.

The same Mishnah cites a number of ethical maxims in the names of each of these teachers but otherwise little is known about them.

Jose ben Joezer of Zereda taught: "Make your home a gathering place for the wise. Cling to them steadfastly, and avidly imbibe their words of wisdom. The Sadducees fought Pharisaism because of an inherent dislike for Pharisaic ideas. As aristocrats to whom the world had not been unkind, they could not appreciate the drive behind Pharisaic insistence on a future retribution in a world to come.

They ascribed to the slave status of an animal because they were no doubt the class of slaveholders. They advocated severity in civil and criminal law, because, unreservedly identified with the status quo, they could not treat any one who challenged it, with sympathetic consideration. Their formal rationale was, however, grounded in a strict adherence to the written Torah.

While the Pharisees, sensitive to mass needs and mass problems, advocated a flexible interpretation of tradition, whether of the written Torah or the oral traditions promulgated by past authorities, the Sadducees advocated a strict construction of tradition. In their own way, they too had supplemented the written Torah, as is indicated by their reported possession of a special code of criminal law. The Pharisees, of course, rationalized their departure by integrating them, through midrashic links, with Scriptural precedents or by otherwise finding for them Scriptural sanctions.

For the Sadducees, however, the midrash was a spurious invention, unauthorized by precedent and a device for undermining the Torah. As the contemporary historian Josephus relates it, "The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances p. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them; the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have no following among the populace, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.

The widely held theory that the name Sadducee goes back to the high priest Zadok mentioned in the Bible I Kings does not seem plausible. Zadok was High Priest in the reign of King Solomon, and why would a party go that far back for a name by which to identify itself?

Why, moreover, would a party dominated by members of the Maccabean dynasty choose the name of the traditional High Priestly family, thereby reflecting on their own legitimacy? Sadducee, the Hebrew Zduki, may be taken as a derivative of the Hebrew Zaddic which means righteous, a construction following the parallel form Shmuti, which means a follower of the principles of the Teacher Shammai. The Sadducees called themselves by that name because of their conviction that their platform alone represented loyalty to the Torah, that Pharisaism was unconstitutional, a wicked distortion of the true ideals of Jewish religious and social life.

The name Sadducees is used in the Talmud interchangeably with the name Boethusians because the contemporary leaders of the Sadducees were the priests of the famous Boethus family. The early Maccabees who came to power on the wave of a popular uprising against the Syrian- Greek challenge to the Torah were naturally sensitive to Pharisaic principles. In the course of time, however, the Maccabean state gradually p.

Then an ever widening rift ensued between the government and the Pharisees. This rift is the theme of a number of stories in Josephus and in the Talmud. One of the Pharisees told him that he ought to content himself with civil power and resign the office of High Priest.

Challenged, this Pharisee produced a technicality because of which he regarded John as disqualified from the high priestly office; his mother, according to rumor, had been a captive of war before his birth which made his legitimacy doubtful.

The rumor was proven false and the king demanded that the Pharisees avenge his insult, but they pronounced upon their bold colleague a light sentence. Infuriated, the king broke with the Pharisees and joined their Sadducean rivals. According to another story a slave of King Alexander Jannai had committed murder. The Pharisaic Chief Justice, Simeon ben Shetah, ordered the King to appear for a trial, at the same time warning his colleagues on the bench to interpret the law with impartiality and not to be intimidated by the royal defendant.

The King appeared, but he defied the usual courtesy due to the court and remained seated during the proceedings. As the witnesses prepared to testify, Simeon ordered the King to stand, in accordance with the prevailing court procedure. But the King replied that he would stand only if the other judges concurred in the request.

The other p. Those most conspicuous among them were hunted down and persecuted. Many were forced to flee the country. With the collaboration of the Sadducean nobility, the government pursued the expediencies of state without being hampered by too meticulous a consideration for the idealistic principles of Pharisaism. The Pharisaic Sanhedrin carried little official authority except insofar as the people, recognizing the Pharisees as their spokesmen, voluntarily abided by their interpretations of the law, and frequently forced those interpretations upon the reluctant government officialdom.

Thus when Alexander Jannai, in exercising his high priestly functions, once performed the Succot ritual in defiance of Pharisaic teachings, the populace demonstrated, pelting him with the citrons which they had brought with them in celebration of the holiday.

At the end of his reign, Jannai realized the overwhelming popularity of the Pharisees among the masses of the people. Before his death he counselled his queen Salome Alexandra, who was to succeed him, to seek a reconciliation with them. And upon her ascent to the throne, she recalled the Pharisees to power.

The Pharisaic leader Simeon ben Shetah, who was also her own brother, became the principal minister of state, and Pharisaic ideals, including a quiescent and peaceful foreign policy, dominated the government. Upon the death of Alexandra 67 B. The Pharisees did not want to hold power at the cost of civil war and were prepared to accept Aristobulus.

Indeed, some p. The struggle was finally resolved through the intervention of the Roman general Pompey who added Palestine to the Roman Empire. Roman coins used in Palestine were minted locally so as to eliminate the emperor's image which was offensive to Jewish religious sensibilities. Roman law guarded the sanctity of the Temple, and pagans, including Roman citizens and soldiers, were barred from its precincts on the pain of death. Even the garrison that was stationed in Jerusalem left its standard in Caesaria in order not to offend the Jewish community with their pagan and idolatrous emblems.

Jewish courts retained their autonomy and administered the law in accordance with Jewish procedure. Outside of Palestine, too, the Roman empire treated the Jewish community with sympathetic understanding and respect. Jews were exempted from the civic duty of emperor worship; the sacrifice offered in the emperor's name at the Temple in Jerusalem was accepted by the Romans as a satisfactory equivalent.

Jewish synagogues were protected by Roman law against sacrilege. Augustus Caesar even went so far as to direct Roman courts not to cite Jews to its sessions on the Sabbath; and poor Jews were given the option of taking a cash grant of money instead of the normal free grant of oil, so that they might not violate the prevailing Jewish dietary laws.

The Roman respect for Jewish cultural and religious autonomy produced a revival in the study of Torah. After the stabilization of the new regime, Pharisaic activity was resumed. Among the most important teachers who functioned p. Hillel was the most influential of the titular heads of the Sanhedrin. A Babylonian by birth, he was attracted to the schools of Shemaya and Abtalyon and made his way to Palestine. He remained to become the recognized Pharisaic leader of his day.

His own school drew students from far and wide; among them was Johanan ben Zaccai who was destined to play a crucial role in Jewish reconstruction after the war with Rome. Tradition loves to contrast his humility and broadmindedness with the severity and narrowness of his colleague Shammai.

This is perhaps best illustrated in the story of the pagan who sought to embrace Judaism but insisted on learning its contents while standing on one foot.

Shammai dismissed him angrily, but Hillel made him a convert to Judaism. His summary was the formula, "That which is hateful unto you, do not impose on others. It is a technique for implementing the Golden Rule, by suggesting a more concrete application of it to the problems of human relations.

But if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now when? The presidency of the Sanhedrin became hereditary in Hillel's family until the final abolition of the office in C. A variety of factors converged to produce that tragic episode in Jewish history. There was the enormously heavy taxation, imposed by the Romans, particularly upon the people least able to pay it. Specifically the levies included the annona, a tax from crops and other farm produce, delivered in kind; a poll tax on males from 14 years and females from 12 years to 65 years; a market tax on necessities of life like meat and salt; various tolls such as on crossing a bridge or entering a city; forced labor and compulsory requisitions of the farmer's animals.

The greatest burden of this taxation clearly fell upon lower classes, particularly the rural population. Some of these taxes were collected directly, under the general supervision of native officials from nearby cities. Other levies were farmed out to the publican whose rapaciousness made him a byword for sin in Jewish society. The Pharisees called upon their people to keep aloof from their imperialist masters and to spurn their offers of collaboration. Deceiving the Roman tax collector, they put on a par with deceiving a pirate, for Rome had no moral right to the country which she had occupied by force.

But the masses of people suffered want. Discriminatory taxation forced many farmers to abandon the land. Some became laborers on the big estates or moved to the cities where they joined the urban proletariat. Many others turned to cattle raising. This movement must have been large since Jewish authorities, probably fearful of a collapse in the economy of Palestine, a thickly populated country requiring an intensive cultivation of the soil, legislated against the raising of cattle, a move not unlike that taken by the Roman emperors beginning with Vespasian when they were confronted with a similar phenomenon in Rome.

The fate of the urban working people was equally tragic. Slave labor never flourished in Palestine as it did in other parts of the Empire; and the humanitarian legislation of the Bible tended to raise the living standard of the slave and the laborer alike. But the absence of a united labor front made for extremely low wages throughout the ancient world, and Palestine was no exception.

The skilled worker was not entirely helpless. Thus the Garmu and Abtimas families, Temple bakers and chemists respectively, were able to win substantial wage increases by striking. Their highly specialized work could not be duplicated by strike-breakers who had been imported from Alexandria; and the Temple authorities were forced to accede to their demands. The laborer, in addition, suffered from the constant threat of unemployment. But both the Jewish puppet kings as well as the Roman procurators manipulated the selection of the High Priest so as to have in that influential position a friend and willing collaborator of government policy.

Herod made and unmade seven High Priests in the course of his reign. To emphasize their control over the office of the High Priesthood, the Romans kept the High Priest's vestments in their custody and released them only on important Temple celebrations. The greatest dignitary of Jewish ecclesiastical life was thus reduced to a tool of a foreign imperialism. Many of them did not even know how to perform the Temple ritual and it became customary for a committee of the Sanhedrin to coach the High Priest in the performance of the Day of Atonement service for a full week before each holiday.

The Mishnah records that this committee would always depart from its mission in tears. One popular tale reports that the Temple Court used to cry out at one High Priest, "Depart hence, Issachar of Kefar Barkai, who glorifies himself while desecrating the sacred ritual of divine sacrifices; for he used to wrap his hands with silks and thus perform his sacrificial service. Woe is me because of the House of Ishmael ben Phabi; woe is me because of their fists.

For they are the High Priests, their sons the tax collectors, their sons-in-law the Temple officers, and their servants beat the people with their staves. The pioneer of the revolutionary movement was the Galilean peasant leader Judas, who "prevailed with his countrymen to revolt and said they were cowards if they would endure to pay taxes to Rome and after God submit to mortal men as their lords.

It was the behavior of the procurator Florus that started the flames of revolt. He had seized 17 talents from the Temple treasury and when, in derision, people made an alms collection for him, he ordered the armed forces to attack the citizenry. Matters were patched up and the people even agreed to extend the customary greetings to an incoming troop of Roman soldiers. But when at the direction of Florus the greetings were not returned, rebellion broke loose.

The actual precipitation of the struggle was the work of the lower order of priests. They deposed the reigning High Priest and by lots designated his successor, the rural priest Phanias ben Samuel of the village Aphta.

With the Temple in their control, the insurgent priests proclaimed the defiance of Rome by rejecting the special Temple sacrifice which had always been offered in the name of the emperor. But no sooner did the revolution break when it began degenerating into a civil war. Practically the first act of the revolutionary mob was to sack the palace where the archives were deposited and "burn the contracts belonging to their creditors and thereby dissolve the obligations for paying their debts.

This is perhaps best illustrated by the conduct of the commander of the revolutionary armies, Joseph ben Mattathias, aristocratic priest of Maccabean lineage. Chosen to be the sword of the revolution, he described the revolutionists as "bandits," "the slaves, the scum and the spurious and the abortive offspring of our nation," and he frankly confesses that he never expected them to win in the struggle. His assignment was to organize the defenses of Galilee, but in his autobiography, he admits that the real purpose of his command was to sabotage the revolution.

When he discovered that the principal men in Tiberias opposed the war, he slipped to them the telling hint that he agreed with them but that they should be cautious. I advised them to do the same, to bide their time and not to be intolerant of my command.

And at the first opportunity he abandoned all pretense and surrendered to the Romans. For his treason he was rewarded with high honors: Roman p. The revolutionaries were not without their calculations when they challenged Rome. When the revolt broke, the Roman empire was shaking with inner unrest. The revolution failed largely because of an old truism in revolutionary history, that no colonial people can hope successfully to wage two revolutions at the same time, a national revolution against its imperialist masters, and a social revolution against its own ruling class.

Caught between the cross-fire of the Roman legions without, and the pro-Roman forces of betrayal and counter-revolution within, the doom of the revolution was of course sealed. After a valiant and costly struggle, Palestine was once again a Roman province, with the claws of the imperialist masters more tightly drawn; and the Jewish people resigned themselves to suffer the oppression of an old tyranny and the new ignominy of defeat.

The central fact in the tragic legacy of war and revolution was that the Temple at Jerusalem had been burnt to the ground.

The Jews faced a difficult task to reorganize their lives without the resources of the Temple and the hierarchy of institutions that had developed around it. Jews had once before been called upon to reorganize p.

The sobering realizations that followed this national disaster placed the leadership of the Babylonian exiles in the hands of prophetic teachers rather than the princes or the priests. And under their inspiration, the reorganized religious life of the community moved in new directions. The study of Torah and the practices of a personal religious life became central.

The synagogue with a ritual synthesizing study and worship, began its long and eventful development. The reorganization after the war against Rome followed a similar course. The policy of rebellion against Rome had failed miserably. The lay and priestly aristocracy were scattered and discredited. They had been the main targets of the revolutionary terror and their most influential members perished in the civil war that accompanied the revolution. And even when the flames of war and revolution ebbed, the bitterness lingered on, sustained by a vivid record of upper class betrayal perpetrated in the darkest hour of the nation.

The Torah alone was left as a rallying point of Judaism and as a possible instrument of post-war reconstruction. The leader in this movement of reconstruction was Johanan ben Zaccai. He was ideally suited for his task. He had studied under Hillel and the venerable master had proclaimed him "the father of wisdom" and "the father of coming generations". He was chief justice of the Sanhedrin before the fall of the Temple and independently conducted a school in Jerusalem.

The popularity of his lectures forced him frequently to speak outdoors where larger gatherings could be accommodated. His profound scholarship was complemented by an equally profound love for human beings. He was ever the first to offer greetings to any passerby in street and market place, and his interest extended to Jew and pagan alike.

The greatest of all virtues, he taught his students, was a kind p. The study of Torah was the summum bonum in life, but the student of Torah was not to keep himself aloof from the common people. At the same time, he was endowed with a shrewd practicability, acquired no doubt in the first forty years of his life when he pursued a career in commerce.

In the synagogue and the ritual of personal observance, he found adequate resources for the cultivation of the religious life. For, quoting Hosea , he explained, the Lord "desired loving-kindness and not sacrifices. They realized that rebellion against Rome would lead to a sanguinary war with untold devastation and tragedy. They believed, moreover, that they could achieve an even more fundamental liberation through other methods.

For in the ethical implications of their monotheism, they saw the organic wholeness of the human race. They consequently hoped not for a national revolution purposing to liberate their people from a foreign government but for a moral revolution to liberate all mankind from superstition, idolatry and falsehood. The ideals of this moral revolution were for them embodied in the Torah and they p. Many pagans, from the highest as well as the lowest strata of Roman society, responded to the propaganda on behalf of Judaism and joined the synagogue.

Many more, while not officially embracing Judaism, renounced idolatry and became the fellow-travellers of the synagogue, ordering their lives by the Torah's ideals of personal and social morality. A traditional learning interaction is filled with energy and dialogue, debate and discussion and the page comes alive as the commentators become active participants in the discussion and the learning partners actually speak to the text as This volume concludes the edition, translation, and commentary of the third order of the Jerusalem Talmud.

In contrast to the Babylonian Talmud, the treatment in the Jerusalem Talmud is fragmentary. The reason for this is a matter of controversy, discussed in the Introduction to the Tractate. The text is fully vocalized.