History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

Perushim, or commentaries, on both the Talmuds, of which the outstanding example was Rashi’s on the Babylonian Talmud in the eleventh century; and Hiddushim or novellae, which compare and reconcile different sources, so producing new rulings or halakhot, the classic novellae being composed on the Babylonian Talmud in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries. There was another layer of responsa prudentium (She’elot u-Teshuvot) or written answers by leading scholars to questions put to them. The last of the layers consisted of attempts to simplify and codify this enormous mass of material, by such outstanding scholars as Isaac Alfasi, Maimonides, Jacob ben Asher and Joseph Caro, from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. From the fifth to the eleventh centuries, which is known as the age of the gaons or geonim, scholars worked to produce collective rulings and compilations bearing the authority of academies. Later, in what is known as the rabbinic age, rulings were decentralized and individual scholars dominated the evolution of the Law. As an