JUDAIC 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Oral Torah, Hakham, Mishnah
Document Summary
Not an easy topic to study: rabbis are the only real entity from that ancient world that still exists today. Modern and ancient rabbis have nothing to do with each other. Must dispel notion that you know what a rabbi is. Problem comes because modern rabbis want you to think they are continuation. Rabbis were really appreciated in the ancient world: great winners . Many denominations of judaism, all with rabbis. Back then they were not religious leaders!! Back then there were archisynagogous, gerusiarch, elder in the synagogues. Just individuals who were unrelated other than the fact that they were developing systems of laws by which no one at the time lived by: what, yochanan story never happened. This was part of their image: we destroyed the temple! Judaism over: some jews just stopped being jews, started believing in something else, reduction seen in documentations and cemeteries.
