Moreover, Judah the Patriarch recognized the authority of the exilarch as
higher even than his own, because of the exilarch’s Davidic lineage. By the
third century, rabbinic leadership emerged in Babylonia alongside that of
the exilarch, punctuated by the arrival in Babylonia of two of Judah the
Patriarch’s leading disciples, Rav and Samuel. Rav was born in Babylonia,
studied under Judah in the Land of Israel, and then returned home in 219,
where he founded a rabbinic academy in Sura. According to one of Rav’s stu-
dents, Rav put Babylonian Jewry on a par with Jews in the Land of Israel by
claiming that “studying Torah is more important than sacrifices or even
rebuilding the Temple.” Samuel’s concurrent arrival in Babylonia further
enhanced the prestige of the Babylonian rabbinate. Contemporary observers
assigned to each an area of legal expertise: Halacha ke-rav be dinai u-che-shmuel
be-isurai“The law is according to Rav in civil matters, and according to
Samuel in ritual matters.” As rival rabbinic figures, Rav and Samuel assured
that the dynamism of Rabbinic Judaism that had existed since the time of
Hillel and Shammai would continue.
Until the mid-third century, the rabbis in Babylonia were subordinate to
the exilarch. The two forms of leadership complemented one another. The
support of the exilarch empowered the rabbis to enforce Jewish law. In turn,
the rabbis gave the exilarch legitimacy by affirming his Davidic lineage.
Eventually, though, the rabbinate and the exilarchate began to clash. At the
heart of this clash were competing views of biblical tradition. The rabbis
emphasized law, the exilarchate emphasized kingship. In 241, King Shapir I
placed the rabbis on equal footing with the exilarch. In response, the exilarch
regained influence by taking over the rabbinic academy at Pumbedita. By
500 C.E., the rabbinate and the exilarchate had forged a working relationship.
At this point, three centuries of discussions of the Mishneh were compiled
and written down as the Gemara, which comprises the bulk of the Talmud.
At its heart, the Talmud is a legal code surrounded by a philosophical and
ethical code, which expands the ideas of the Mishneh and the Midrash. The
Amoraim, or scholars of the Talmud, laid down a series of systemic legal and
interpretive principles. First and foremost, they codified the distinctions
between the two categories of law, biblical and rabbinic. For example, one
systemic legal principle holds that an uncertainty regarding a biblical law
mandates a stringent interpretation, while an uncertainty regarding a rab-
binic law allows for a lenient interpretation. Other principles defined the
authority of the rabbis vis-à-vis their own legal forebears. The principle
hitkatnut ha-dorot (literally diminishing of the generations) held that an
Amoraic scholar may not contradict a Tannaitic teaching, a rabbinic analog to
the American legal principle stare decisis et non quieta movere(“maintain what
has been decided”; do not altar precedent). Most of the discourse found in the
Gemara consists of Amoraic scholars attempting to harmonize ostensibly con-
tradictory Tannaitic statements, since Amoraic scholars had to agree with
56 The rise of Rabbinic Judaism