452 Talmud the Yerushalmi It is more sophisticated and technical and formal for introducing source materials, considering objections and counterobjections The sevoraim took a much bigger role in the Bavli, composing entire sections, especially introductions and transitions In general, the Bavli is of a superior literary quality and logical clarity, and it is much longer The last period of the Talmud teachers, the geonim, consists of Bavli authorities The Bavli leaves out a lot of the first order (“Blessings”) because many of the issues concern obligations that not apply outside Israel Harder to explain is the Bavli’s fascination with the regulations concerning the Temple—not found in the Yerushalmi Otherwise, the two books of Talmud mostly cover the same ground The Bavli gradually grew in its influence over the Yerushalmi It is clear the Babylonian geonim of the latter part of the first millennium c.e were more prestigious than the Palestinian rabbis Diaspora Jews gradually adopted the Bavli as their primary book Palestinian Jewry declined, while the Diaspora communities spread throughout Spain, Portugal, and North Africa Another blow to the Jews of Palestine and their Talmud was the crusades At a certain point the Talmud always meant the Bavli, and that Yerushalmi only applied where the Bavli was silent or ambiguous And the momentum continued: It became the focus of more and better commentaries and larger numbers of scribes Modern scholarship therefore has more to work with in terms of Bavli materials, while Yerushalmi is less polished and extensive Early Mishnah study and commentaries were oral, so that the Gemara was in the beginning an approximation of the spoken tradition There is no reason, then, to speak of the “original Talmud,” and there are many parallel texts in various centers of Jewry Standardization of text has come largely because of the Diaspora Jews’ adaptation to the modern world and eventually their access to the printing press and formation of education institutions All these factors stood in favor of the Bavli It is traditional to believe that Moses presented the Torah as the written laws for Israel but that his rulings about various applications of the written laws were passed on orally at the same time As medieval Judaism developed more and more oral laws to interpret the Torah and to expand its application, the rabbis gave credit to various legendary nonbiblical figures (the “Great Synagogue” officials, Hillel and Shammai and Yohanan ben Zakkai) The only historical person to corroborate this process is Judah haNasi, who presided over the compilation of the Mishnah around the year 200 c.e The mode of composition is in dialogue form, a bit like the dialogue between Socrates and his followers Questions regarding the Mishnah are introduced and then the dialogue seeks after causes and origins The lengthy digressions are the Haggadah, while the conclusions are the Halakhah While this method may strike the modern reader as drawn out and boring, it actually is a novel way of dealing with the complexity and monotony of legal rulings The Talmud contains the rejected as well as the accepted opinions of the rabbis The Talmud is a book of laws and opinions on the laws Rarely does it appeal to the reader’s sense of inspiration and elevated speech To the casual reader the rabbis appear as judges, teachers, and public administrators, and that was their role within the medieval Jewish community The personalities of the thinkers—the rabbis— were not important in the Talmud, but the legal chains of thought were Their genre was the text commentary, and even today the Talmud text page contains the text surrounded by several later celebrated commentaries The religious current of the text is deeper and more satisfying The law is a source of God’s creativity and thus a gift to Jews and a joy to fulfill The task of the rabbi is to apply this law to every aspect of life, an opportunity and not a burden In fact, by expanding the oral Torah, the rabbis were imitating what previously God accomplished through the written Torah Thus, study and application of Torah were engaging in a form of divine creativity Everyone was expected to join in the creative process, whether it was the ascetic holy man who studied 20 hours per day, or the common Jew who studied Torah only at the Sabbath service Rabbinic skill was expressed in finely honed argumentation, and the argumentation became a sign of holiness The rabbis taught that they became a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” when they sufficiently studied and understood the Torah Rabbis were elected and rated according to their command of the Talmud As medieval rabbis devoted themselves to Talmudic studies, they enhanced their stature as community leaders As a result they had to work out their relationships with the political rulers of the lands where their Jewish followers were The Roman authorities, the Byzantine governors, and even the designated Jewish officials (the Jewish patriarchs and the exiliarchs) eventually had to accommodate the rabbis Nonetheless, the rabbis kept a low political profile The rabbis found their niche in the internal religious life of the Jews (marriages, divorces, religious rituals, calendar, and the education of the youth) Their opinions were treasured much like medieval Christians valued the fathers of the church