JEWSElul (September), preceding the festivals of Passover and Rosh Ha-
shanah. At these sessions a particular tractate was reviewed and dis-
cussed and the students were examined in Nisan (April) and Tishri
(October). Students were also expected to attend the public lectures
(A. pirqa) in the synagogue on Sabbaths and holidays which were
another means of communicating the Rabbinic concept of a life or-
dered by religious law among common people. The schools were holy
communities of scholars engaged in the interpretation of the written
and oral revelation. The rules and regulations for daily life contained
in the Talmud were first applied in the life of the schools by the rabbis
and their students.^94 Through the schools the rabbis sought to trans-
form Jewish society by their teaching and example. By the fifth century
the rabbis had institutionalized their authority in the schools, where
they elaborated the content of the Oral Law and trained the students
who applied it as judges.
The persecution and disorders in the late fifth and early sixth cen-
turies mark the end of Amoraic scholarship. There was less point to
discovering the Oral Law when Jews were subject to Persian law. In
this period, when the Rabbinic community dosed in on itself in order
to survive, the preservation of the law was more important than its
derivation. The Amoraim were followed by a generation of scholars
called Saboraim ("those expressing opinions") who were responsible
for the final red action of the Talmud. They corrected mistakes in the
text, arranged it by tractate, and added explanations for questions
that were still undecided. Even this activity seems to have concluded
by about 540, and according to Ibn Da'iid the schools were closed
for about fifty years from 540 until 589.^95 Nevertheless, the scholarly
tradition survived, carried by fugitive scholars to Anbar.
The authority of the scholars to apply the religious law to the life
of the Rabbinic community al:o survived and became institutionalized
in the gaonate. Later tradition regarded Mar l:Ianan of Iskiya as the
first gaon at Pumbaditha in 589 and Mar ben Huna as the first gaon
at Sura in 591, which coincides with the end of exilarchic rule after
the restoration of Khusraw Parviz. The interregnum in the exilarchate
lasted for fifty years, from 590 until about 640, and it was during this
.4 Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction, pp. 159-62, 167-68, 176--77, 181, 184, 192-
93, 271-72, 280, 282; Neusner, History, p. 147; Rodkinson, Talmud, XI, "Baba
Kama," 256.
'5 Ibn Daud, Book of Tradition, p. 44; Neusner, History, p. 143.