Talmudic Academies in the Land of Israel
Encyclopedia
The Talmudic Academies in the Land of Israel
were yeshivot
that served as centers for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in the Levant
and had a great and lasting impact on the development of world Jewry.
According to an oft-quoted tradition of Hoshayah, (a collector of traditions of the tannaim
, who lived in Caesarea in the first half of the third century), there existed in Jerusalem 480 synagogue
s, all of which were destroyed with the Temple. Each of these synagogues was provided with a school for Biblical
instruction, as well as one for instruction in the oral law
. Besides these schools of the lower and middle grades mentioned by the tradition (which is not to be too readily discredited, though it may have exaggerated their number for the sake of a good round figure), there existed in Jerusalem a sort of university or academy—an institution composed of the scribes
(sages and teachers), whose pupils, having out-grown the schools, gathered around them for further instruction and were called, therefore, talmidei hakhamim ("disciples of the wise"). There is, however, no certain information as to the organization of this institute, or of the relation in which it stood to the Great Sanhedrin
, whose Pharisee members certainly belonged to it. The most important details of its activity are afforded by the accounts concerning the schools ("houses") of Hillel
and Shammai
, whose controversies and debates belong to the last century of the period of the Second Temple
, and relate not only to the Halakhah, but also to questions of Biblical exegesis
and religious philosophy
. For example, it is said that the schools of Shammai and Hillel occupied two and a half years in discussing the question whether it had been better for man not to have been created.
(Jamnia), and thus evoked a new intellectual life from the ruins of a fallen political existence. The seat of the Patriarchate
at Yavne, which at once constituted itself the successor of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem by putting into practise the ordinances of that body as far as was necessary and practicable, attracted all those who had escaped the national catastrophe and who had become prominent by their character and their learning. Moreover, it reared a new generation of similarly gifted men, whose task it became to overcome the evil results of still another dire catastrophe—the unfortunate Bar Kokhba
war with its melancholy ending. During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the "War of Quietus" under Trajan
, the school at Yavne was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development. Next to its founder, it owed its splendor and its undisputed supremacy especially to the energetic Gamaliel II
, a great-grandson of Hillel. To him flocked the pupils of Johanan ben Zakkai and other masters and students of the Law and of Biblical interpretation. Though some of them taught and labored in other places — Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in Lydda
; Joshua ben Hananiah
in Peki'in
; Ishmael ben Elisha
in Kefar Aziz, Akiva in Bene Barak; Hananiah ben Teradyon in Siknin — Yavne remained the center; and in "the vineyard" of Yavne, as they called their place of meeting, they used to assemble for joint action.
and Mishnah
, Talmud
and Aggadah
— were nourished and strengthened. There, too, the way was paved for a systematic treatment of Halakhah and exegesis. In Yavne were held the decisive debates upon the canon
icity of certain Biblical books; there the Jewish liturgy
received its permanent form; and there, probably, was edited the Targum
on the Pentateuch, which became the foundation for the later Targum named after Onkelos
. It was Yavne that inspired and sanctioned the new Greek language
version of the Bible — that of Akylas (Aquila of Sinope
). The events that preceded and followed the great civil revolution under Bar Kokhba (from the year 117 to about 140) resulted in the decay and death of the school at Yavne. According to tradition, the Sanhedrin was removed from Yavne to Usha, from Usha back to Yavne, and a second time from Yavne to Usha. This final settlement in Usha indicates the ultimate spiritual supremacy of Galilee
over Judea
, the latter having become depopulated by the war of Hadrian
. Usha remained for a long time the seat of the academy; its importance being due to the pupils of Akiba, one of whom, Judah ben Ilai
, had his home in Usha. Here was undertaken the great work of the restoration of Levantine Judaism after its disintegration under Hadrian. The study of the Law flourished anew; and Shimon ben Gamliel II
, was invested with the rank that had been his father's in Jabneh. With him the rank of nasi
or patriarch
became hereditary in the house of Hillel
, and the seat of the academy was made identical with that of the patriarch.
; and finally to Sepphoris (Tzippori), where a celebrated disciple of Akiba, Jose ben Halafta
, had been teaching. Only with great difficulty could Shimon ben Gamaliel establish his authority over this pupil of Akiba, who far outshone him in learning. Shimon's son, Judah I, however, was fortunate enough to unite with his inherited rank the indisputable reputation of a distinguished scholar, a combination of great importance under the circumstances. Judah, in whom "Torah and dignity" were combined, was the man appointed to close an important epoch and to lay the foundation of a new one. The academy at Sepphoris, to which eminent students from Babylonia
also flocked, erected an indestructible monument to itself through Judah's activity in editing the Mishnah
, which attained to canonical standing as the authentic collection of the legal traditions of religious practise. In the Mishnah, the completion of which was accomplished soon after the death of its author or editor (about 219), the schools both of the Land of Israel and of Babylonia received a recognized text-book, upon which the lectures and the debates of the students were thence-forward founded. The recognition of Rabbi Judah's Mishnah marks a strong dividing line in the history of the Academies and their teachers: it indicates the transition from the age of the Tannaim
to that of the Amoraim.
, the unpretentious son of a distinguished father, became patriarch; but Hanina ben Hama succeeded him as head of the school, and introduced the new order of things that commenced with the completion of the Mishnah. In Hanina's lifetime the last migration of the Sanhedrin occurred. His pupil, Johanan b. Nappaha, settled in Tiberias, and the patriarch Judah II
(grandson of Judah I) soon found himself compelled to remove to that city. The imposing personality and unexampled learning of Johanan rendered Tiberias for a long period the undisputed center of Levantine Judaism, the magnet which attracted Babylonian students.
When Johanan died in 279—this is the only settled date in the whole chronology of the Palestinian amoraim—the renown of the Tiberias Academy was so firmly established that it suffered no deterioration under his successors, although none of them equaled him in learning. For a time, indeed, Caesarea came into prominence, owing solely to the influence of Hoshaya, who lived there in the first half of the third century, and exercised the duties of a teacher contemporaneously with the Church father, Origen
, with whom he had personal intercourse. After Johanan's death the school at Cæsarea attained a new standing under his pupil Abbahu
; and throughout the whole of the fourth century the opinions of the "sages of Caesarea" were taken into respectful account, even in Tiberias. Sepphoris also resumed its former importance as a seat of learning; and eminent men worked there in the fourth century, long after the disaster to the city wrought by the forces of the emperor Gallus
. From the beginning of the third century there had been an academy at Lydda in Judea, or "the South," as Judea was then called. This academy now gained a new reputation as a school of traditional learning. From it came the teacher to whom Jerome
owed his knowledge of Hebrew and his insight into the Hebræa Veritas. But neither Caesarea, Sepphoris, nor Lydda could detract from the renown of Tiberias.
Tiberias accordingly remained the abode of the official head of Judaism in the Land of Israel and, in a certain sense, of the Judaism
of the whole Roman Empire
, as well as the seat of the Academy, which considered itself the successor of the ancient Sanhedrin. The right of ordination which, since Shimon ben Gamaliel II, the patriarch alone had exercised (either with or without the consent of the Council of Sages), was later on so regulated that the degree could only be conferred by the patriarch and council conjointly. The patriarchal dignity had meanwhile become worldly, as it were; for exceptional learning was by no means held to be an essential attribute of its possessor. The Academy of Tiberias, whose unordained members were called ḥaberim (associates), never lacked men, of more or less ability, who labored and taught in the manner of Johanan. Among these may be mentioned Eleazar ben Pedat
, Ami
and Assi
, Hiyya bar Abba
, Zeira, Samuel ben Isaac, Jonah, Jose, Jeremiah, Mani, the son of Jonah, and Jose ben Abin
, who constitute a series of brilliant names in the field of the Halakah. In the department of the Aggadah — always highly prized and popular in Eretz Yisrael - the renown of Tiberias was also greatly augmented by many prominent and productive workers, from the contemporaries and pupils of Johanan down to Tanhuma ben Abba, who was illustrious as a collector and an editor of aggadic literature.
, of which Johanan ben Nappaha laid the foundation; for which reason he is generally styled, although erroneously, its redactor or author. In point of fact, however, this work was not completed until nearly a century and a half after Johanan's death; and its close is undoubtedly connected with the extinction of the patriarchal office (about 425). But Tiberias did not therefore cease to be a seat of learning, although very little of its subsequent activity is known. According to a Babylonian legend, a scion of the Babylonian exilarch's house fled to Tiberias in the first third of the sixth century, and there became a resh pirqa (ἀρχιφερεχίτης = head of the school); a hundred years later a Syrian bishop made an appeal to the sages of Tiberias for the purpose of inducing Dhu Nuwas
, the Jewish king of Himyar
, to cease his persecution of the Christians there.
("Head of the Academy"), and Asher the Great, forefather of five generations of Masorites (Nehemiah ben Asher, Moses ben Nehemiah, Asher ben Moses, Moses ben Asher, and Aaron ben Moses), was to a certain extent his contemporary. The last-named Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (briefly called Ben Asher), a contemporary of Saadia Gaon
, brought the Tiberian school of Masorites to a distinguished end. Tiberias thereafter ceased to play any part in Jewish learning, until, in the twelfth century, it emerged for a brief period, and again in the sixteenth century, when it became the object of the pious ambition of Don Joseph Nasi
of Naxos.
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
were yeshivot
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
that served as centers for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
and had a great and lasting impact on the development of world Jewry.
According to an oft-quoted tradition of Hoshayah, (a collector of traditions of the tannaim
Tannaim
The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years...
, who lived in Caesarea in the first half of the third century), there existed in Jerusalem 480 synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
s, all of which were destroyed with the Temple. Each of these synagogues was provided with a school for Biblical
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
instruction, as well as one for instruction in the oral law
Oral Torah
The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah...
. Besides these schools of the lower and middle grades mentioned by the tradition (which is not to be too readily discredited, though it may have exaggerated their number for the sake of a good round figure), there existed in Jerusalem a sort of university or academy—an institution composed of the scribes
Scribes
Scribes is a minimalist and extensible text editor for GNOME that combines simplicity with power. Scribes focuses on ways workflow and productivity can be intelligently automated and radically improved...
(sages and teachers), whose pupils, having out-grown the schools, gathered around them for further instruction and were called, therefore, talmidei hakhamim ("disciples of the wise"). There is, however, no certain information as to the organization of this institute, or of the relation in which it stood to the Great Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...
, whose Pharisee members certainly belonged to it. The most important details of its activity are afforded by the accounts concerning the schools ("houses") of Hillel
Hillel the Elder
Hillel was a famous Jewish religious leader, one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud...
and Shammai
Shammai
Shammai was a Jewish scholar of the 1st century, and an important figure in Judaism's core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah....
, whose controversies and debates belong to the last century of the period of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
, and relate not only to the Halakhah, but also to questions of Biblical exegesis
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
and religious philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. For example, it is said that the schools of Shammai and Hillel occupied two and a half years in discussing the question whether it had been better for man not to have been created.
Council of Jamnia
The Roman destruction of Jerusalem put as abrupt an end to the disputes of the schools as it did to the contests between political parties. It was then that a disciple of Hillel, the venerable Johanan ben Zakkai, founded a new home for Jewish Law in YavneYavne
Yavne is a city in the Central District of Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a population of 33,000.-History:...
(Jamnia), and thus evoked a new intellectual life from the ruins of a fallen political existence. The seat of the Patriarchate
Palestinian Patriarchate
The Palestinian Patriarchate was the governing legalistic body of Palestinian Jewry after the destruction of the Second Temple until about 425CE....
at Yavne, which at once constituted itself the successor of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem by putting into practise the ordinances of that body as far as was necessary and practicable, attracted all those who had escaped the national catastrophe and who had become prominent by their character and their learning. Moreover, it reared a new generation of similarly gifted men, whose task it became to overcome the evil results of still another dire catastrophe—the unfortunate Bar Kokhba
Bar Kokhba
Bar Kokhba is a name of Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the Bar Kokhba's revolt, the second of the Jewish-Roman Wars.Bar Kokhba may also refer to:...
war with its melancholy ending. During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the "War of Quietus" under Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
, the school at Yavne was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development. Next to its founder, it owed its splendor and its undisputed supremacy especially to the energetic Gamaliel II
Gamaliel II
Rabban Gamaliel II was the first person to lead the Sanhedrin as Nasi after the fall of the second temple, which occurred in 70 CE. Gamliel was appointed nasi approximately 10 years later. Gamaliel II was the son of Shimon ben Gamaliel, one of Jerusalem's foremost men in the war against the...
, a great-grandson of Hillel. To him flocked the pupils of Johanan ben Zakkai and other masters and students of the Law and of Biblical interpretation. Though some of them taught and labored in other places — Eliezer ben Hyrcanus in Lydda
Lod
Lod is a city located on the Sharon Plain southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2010, it had a population of 70,000, roughly 75 percent Jewish and 25 percent Arab.The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod...
; Joshua ben Hananiah
Joshua ben Hananiah
Joshua ben Hananiah was a leading tanna of the first half-century following the destruction of the Temple. He was of Levitical descent , and served in the sanctuary as a member of the class of singers . His mother intended him for a life of study, and, as an older contemporary, Dosa b. Harkinas,...
in Peki'in
Peki'in
Peki'in or Buqei'a , is a locality, local council in the Northern District of Israel located eight kilometres east of Ma'alot-Tarshiha in the Upper Galilee...
; Ishmael ben Elisha
Ishmael ben Elisha
Rabbi Ishmael or Ishmael ben Elisha was a Tanna of the 1st and 2nd centuries . A Tanna is a rabbinic sage whose views are recorded in the Mishnah.-Disposition:...
in Kefar Aziz, Akiva in Bene Barak; Hananiah ben Teradyon in Siknin — Yavne remained the center; and in "the vineyard" of Yavne, as they called their place of meeting, they used to assemble for joint action.
Levantine Judaism Restored
In the fertile ground of the Yavne Academy the roots of the literature of tradition — MidrashMidrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
and Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
, Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and Aggadah
Aggadah
Aggadah refers to the homiletic and non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash...
— were nourished and strengthened. There, too, the way was paved for a systematic treatment of Halakhah and exegesis. In Yavne were held the decisive debates upon the canon
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
icity of certain Biblical books; there the Jewish liturgy
Jewish liturgy
Jewish liturgy refers specifically to following the Torah in all of its rites and ceremonies, whether in the home or in the Synagogue. The main purposes of following the carefully laid out observances is to maintain uniformity, and to avoid improper and unacceptable practices at variance with those...
received its permanent form; and there, probably, was edited the Targum
Targum
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...
on the Pentateuch, which became the foundation for the later Targum named after Onkelos
Onkelos
Onkelos is the name of a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times . He is considered to be the author of the famous Targum Onkelos .-Onkelos in the Talmud:...
. It was Yavne that inspired and sanctioned the new Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
version of the Bible — that of Akylas (Aquila of Sinope
Aquila of Sinope
Aquila of Sinope was a 2nd Century CE native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around 130 CE. He was a proselyte to Judaism and a disciple of Rabbi Akiba...
). The events that preceded and followed the great civil revolution under Bar Kokhba (from the year 117 to about 140) resulted in the decay and death of the school at Yavne. According to tradition, the Sanhedrin was removed from Yavne to Usha, from Usha back to Yavne, and a second time from Yavne to Usha. This final settlement in Usha indicates the ultimate spiritual supremacy of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
over Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
, the latter having become depopulated by the war of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
. Usha remained for a long time the seat of the academy; its importance being due to the pupils of Akiba, one of whom, Judah ben Ilai
Judah ben Ilai
Judah bar Ilai, also known as Judah ben Ilai, Rabbi Judah or Judah the Palestinian , was a tanna of the 2nd Century and son of Rabbi Ilai I. Of the many Judahs in the Talmud, he is the one referred to simply as "Rabbi Judah" and is the most frequently mentioned sage in the Mishnah.Judah bar Ilai...
, had his home in Usha. Here was undertaken the great work of the restoration of Levantine Judaism after its disintegration under Hadrian. The study of the Law flourished anew; and Shimon ben Gamliel II
Shimon ben Gamliel II
Simeon ben Gamliel II was a Tanna of the third generation and president of the Great Sanhedrin. Shimon was a youth in Betar when the Bar Kokhba revolt broke out, but when that fortress was taken by the Romans he managed to escape the massacre...
, was invested with the rank that had been his father's in Jabneh. With him the rank of nasi
Nasi
Nāśī’ is a Hebrew title meaning prince in Biblical Hebrew, Prince in Mishnaic Hebrew, or president in Modern Hebrew.-Genesis and Ancient Israel:...
or patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...
became hereditary in the house of Hillel
House of Hillel
The House of Hillel , also known as the Academy of Hillel, founded by the famed Hillel the Elder, is a school of Jewish law and thought that thrived in 1st century B.C.E.Jerusalem. The House of Hillel is most widely known for its hundreds of disputes with the Beit Shammai, founded by Shammai, a...
, and the seat of the academy was made identical with that of the patriarch.
Location of the Patriarchate
In the time of Shimon ben Gamaliel II, the seat of the Patriarchate frequently shifted location; its first move being from Usha to Shefar'am; thence, under Shimon's son and successor, Judah ha-Nasi or Judah I, to Beit She'arimBeit She'arim National Park
Beit She'arim , also known as Beth She'arim or Besara , literally The Strangers House, is the archeological site of a Jewish town and a large number of ancient rock-cut Jewish tombs...
; and finally to Sepphoris (Tzippori), where a celebrated disciple of Akiba, Jose ben Halafta
Jose ben Halafta
Rabbi Jose ben Halafta or Yose ben Halafta was a Tanna of the fourth generation . Jose was a student of Rabbi Akiba and was regarded as one of the foremost scholars of halakha and aggadah of his day...
, had been teaching. Only with great difficulty could Shimon ben Gamaliel establish his authority over this pupil of Akiba, who far outshone him in learning. Shimon's son, Judah I, however, was fortunate enough to unite with his inherited rank the indisputable reputation of a distinguished scholar, a combination of great importance under the circumstances. Judah, in whom "Torah and dignity" were combined, was the man appointed to close an important epoch and to lay the foundation of a new one. The academy at Sepphoris, to which eminent students from Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
also flocked, erected an indestructible monument to itself through Judah's activity in editing the Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
, which attained to canonical standing as the authentic collection of the legal traditions of religious practise. In the Mishnah, the completion of which was accomplished soon after the death of its author or editor (about 219), the schools both of the Land of Israel and of Babylonia received a recognized text-book, upon which the lectures and the debates of the students were thence-forward founded. The recognition of Rabbi Judah's Mishnah marks a strong dividing line in the history of the Academies and their teachers: it indicates the transition from the age of the Tannaim
Tannaim
The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years...
to that of the Amoraim.
Centers of Learning
After Judah's death Sepphoris did not long remain the seat of the patriarch and the Academy. Gamaliel IIIGamaliel III
Gamaliel III was the son of Rabbi Judah haNasi , who appointed him his successor as nasi. Little certain is known about his activities, but it is likely that the revision of the Mishnah was completed during his era....
, the unpretentious son of a distinguished father, became patriarch; but Hanina ben Hama succeeded him as head of the school, and introduced the new order of things that commenced with the completion of the Mishnah. In Hanina's lifetime the last migration of the Sanhedrin occurred. His pupil, Johanan b. Nappaha, settled in Tiberias, and the patriarch Judah II
Judah II
Judah II or Nesi'ah I was a famous Jewish sage who lived in Tiberias in the Land of Israel, in the middle of the third century CE. He is mentioned in the classical works of Judaism's oral law, the Mishnah and Talmud....
(grandson of Judah I) soon found himself compelled to remove to that city. The imposing personality and unexampled learning of Johanan rendered Tiberias for a long period the undisputed center of Levantine Judaism, the magnet which attracted Babylonian students.
When Johanan died in 279—this is the only settled date in the whole chronology of the Palestinian amoraim—the renown of the Tiberias Academy was so firmly established that it suffered no deterioration under his successors, although none of them equaled him in learning. For a time, indeed, Caesarea came into prominence, owing solely to the influence of Hoshaya, who lived there in the first half of the third century, and exercised the duties of a teacher contemporaneously with the Church father, Origen
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...
, with whom he had personal intercourse. After Johanan's death the school at Cæsarea attained a new standing under his pupil Abbahu
Abbahu
Abbahu was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora, who lived in the Land of Israel, of the 3rd amoraic generation , sometimes cited as R. Abbahu of Caesarea . His rabbinic education was acquired mainly at Tiberias, in the academy presided over by R. Johanan, with whom his relations were almost...
; and throughout the whole of the fourth century the opinions of the "sages of Caesarea" were taken into respectful account, even in Tiberias. Sepphoris also resumed its former importance as a seat of learning; and eminent men worked there in the fourth century, long after the disaster to the city wrought by the forces of the emperor Gallus
Gallus
Gallus may refer to:People* several ancient Romans; see Gallus * Gaius Cornelius Gallus , Roman poet, orator and politician *Saint Gall , 7th century...
. From the beginning of the third century there had been an academy at Lydda in Judea, or "the South," as Judea was then called. This academy now gained a new reputation as a school of traditional learning. From it came the teacher to whom Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
owed his knowledge of Hebrew and his insight into the Hebræa Veritas. But neither Caesarea, Sepphoris, nor Lydda could detract from the renown of Tiberias.
Tiberias accordingly remained the abode of the official head of Judaism in the Land of Israel and, in a certain sense, of the Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
of the whole Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, as well as the seat of the Academy, which considered itself the successor of the ancient Sanhedrin. The right of ordination which, since Shimon ben Gamaliel II, the patriarch alone had exercised (either with or without the consent of the Council of Sages), was later on so regulated that the degree could only be conferred by the patriarch and council conjointly. The patriarchal dignity had meanwhile become worldly, as it were; for exceptional learning was by no means held to be an essential attribute of its possessor. The Academy of Tiberias, whose unordained members were called ḥaberim (associates), never lacked men, of more or less ability, who labored and taught in the manner of Johanan. Among these may be mentioned Eleazar ben Pedat
Eleazar ben Pedat
Eleazar ben Pedat was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora, in the Land of Israel, of the 4th generation . He was his father's pupil and the assistant lecturer of R. Assi...
, Ami
Rabbi Ammi
Ammi, Aimi, Immi is the name of several Jewish Talmudists, known as amoraim, who lived in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. In the Babylonian Talmud the first form only is used; in the Jerusalem Talmud all three forms appear, Immi predominating, and sometimes R. Ammi is contracted into "Rabmi" or...
and Assi
Rabbi Assi
Assi II was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora, who lived in the Land of Israel, of the third generation, 3rd and 4th centuries, one of the two Palestinian scholars known among their contemporary Jewish Talmudical scholars of Babylonian as "the judges of the Land of Israel" and as "the...
, Hiyya bar Abba
Hiyya bar Abba
Hiyya bar Abba or Rabbi Hiyya was an amoraic sage of priestly descent of the latter Mishnaic period. Active in Tiberias, Hiyya was the primary compiler of the tosefta. He was the uncle of Abba Arika....
, Zeira, Samuel ben Isaac, Jonah, Jose, Jeremiah, Mani, the son of Jonah, and Jose ben Abin
Jose ben Abin
Jose b. Abin ; or alternative name recorded in the B. Talmud: Jose, the son of R. Boon [Bun], in Hebrew: יוסי ברבי בון, read as Yossi BeRabbi[Son of Rabbi] Bon) was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora of the fifth generation who lived in the Galilee in the Land of Israel. He was the son of...
, who constitute a series of brilliant names in the field of the Halakah. In the department of the Aggadah — always highly prized and popular in Eretz Yisrael - the renown of Tiberias was also greatly augmented by many prominent and productive workers, from the contemporaries and pupils of Johanan down to Tanhuma ben Abba, who was illustrious as a collector and an editor of aggadic literature.
The Jerusalem Talmud
The imperishable monument to the school of Tiberias is the Palestinian or, as it is commonly called, the Jerusalem TalmudJerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...
, of which Johanan ben Nappaha laid the foundation; for which reason he is generally styled, although erroneously, its redactor or author. In point of fact, however, this work was not completed until nearly a century and a half after Johanan's death; and its close is undoubtedly connected with the extinction of the patriarchal office (about 425). But Tiberias did not therefore cease to be a seat of learning, although very little of its subsequent activity is known. According to a Babylonian legend, a scion of the Babylonian exilarch's house fled to Tiberias in the first third of the sixth century, and there became a resh pirqa (ἀρχιφερεχίτης = head of the school); a hundred years later a Syrian bishop made an appeal to the sages of Tiberias for the purpose of inducing Dhu Nuwas
Dhu Nuwas
Yūsuf Dhū Nuwas, was the last king of the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen and a convert to Judaism....
, the Jewish king of Himyar
Himyar
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar , historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a kingdom in ancient Yemen. Established in 110 BC, it took as its capital the modern day city of Sana'a after the ancient city of Zafar...
, to cease his persecution of the Christians there.
The Tiberian Punctuation
Further importance was gained by Tiberias as the seat of the Masoretic traditions and innovations; for there in the seventh century was introduced that system of punctuation which was destined to aid so efficiently in the proper reading and understanding of the Biblical text. This system, which achieved universal recognition, is called the "Tiberian punctuation." At Tiberias flourished, about the middle of the eighth century, the Masorite Phinehas, called also Rosh YeshivaRosh yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the dean of a Talmudical academy . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh — meaning head, and yeshiva — a school of religious Jewish education...
("Head of the Academy"), and Asher the Great, forefather of five generations of Masorites (Nehemiah ben Asher, Moses ben Nehemiah, Asher ben Moses, Moses ben Asher, and Aaron ben Moses), was to a certain extent his contemporary. The last-named Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (briefly called Ben Asher), a contemporary of Saadia Gaon
Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon was a prominent rabbi, Jewish philosopher, and exegete of the Geonic period.The first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, he is considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature...
, brought the Tiberian school of Masorites to a distinguished end. Tiberias thereafter ceased to play any part in Jewish learning, until, in the twelfth century, it emerged for a brief period, and again in the sixteenth century, when it became the object of the pious ambition of Don Joseph Nasi
Joseph Nasi
Don Joseph Nasi was a Jewish diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes, and influential figure in the Ottoman Empire during the rules of both Sultan Suleiman I and his son Selim II...
of Naxos.
See also
- Jerusalem TalmudJerusalem TalmudThe Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...
- Palestinian PatriarchatePalestinian PatriarchateThe Palestinian Patriarchate was the governing legalistic body of Palestinian Jewry after the destruction of the Second Temple until about 425CE....
- Talmudic Academies in BabyloniaTalmudic Academies in BabyloniaThe Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, also known as the Geonic Academies, were the center for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Mesopotamia from roughly 589 CE to 1038 CE...