The more the archaeologists dig around Palestine and its environs, the more evidence they discover of the variety and versatility of the activities of the Jewish people. Singularly interested in moral and religious questions they[…]
What I do suggest is that religion, and such secular or anthropomorphic disciplines as philosophy, psychology, or sociology, have something in common, and that is an awareness of the abiding fact of man’s unhappiness. And[…]
Far too many Jews are too lazy mentally to take the trouble to inform themselves about the trends and currents of contemporary life, and of how they and their lives fit into the pattern of[…]
In light of the creative dimension of the Mishnah’s redaction and a critical refusal to accept on faith the reliability of attributions to Sages in the Mishnah, the Mishnah is sometimes excluded from historical studies[…]
At times, the redactor preserved his sources as he inherited them, at times, he mildly altered them, and, at times, he significantly shaped them. How to find the precise balance between the conservative and creative[…]
Granting the importance of the analysis of the explicit and implicit rationales for halakhot, let us describe the refined historical approach mentioned above. History, in his new approach, is not narrowly conceived along political or[…]
Mishnaic halakhah is presented in various forms such as precedents, enactments, edicts, customs, and, most commonly, casuistic formulations (i.e. case law). General rules also appear in the Mishnah, but they are the exception as mishnaic[…]
The analysis of the halakhah in the Mishnah commenced already in tannaitic times (see Henshke 1997) and has continued unabated until today. The Talmuds and their medieval commentators are well known for their attempts to[…]
The Mishnah is primarily an edited anthology of brief and often elliptical pronouncements on matters of Jewish law and practice, frequently providing conflicting views on the individual matters discussed. Some of these pronouncements are attributed[…]
In those Tosefta layers which parallel the Mishna, the same names of Tannaim appear as in the Mishna and approximately in the same frequency. Abraham Goldberg, “The Tosefta – Companion to the Mishna,” in The[…]