Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevy and the Development of the Talmud in Dorot ha-Rishonim

This talk will explore the perspective on the development of the Talmud of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevy (1847-1914), one of the twentieth century’s primary architects of contemporary Orthodoxy. In Halevy’s time, traditionally oriented scholars were beginning to debate the origins of the Talmud, a question that was inextricably bound with other issues of the day, including the extent of rabbinic power and the relevance of rabbinic law in the modern world. Halevy, who was both a talmid haham (traditional talmudic scholar) and a self-taught historian, explored the formation of the Talmud, in his sweeping work of Jewish history, Dorot ha-Rishonim. In it he claimed that any pivotal decisions or developments that occurred were promulgated by a central rabbinic council (although there is no direct evidence in the Talmud for such a council).

This lecture will also point out the context of Halevy’s claims: At the time he was writing Dorot ha-Rishonim, Halevy was also laying the groundwork for a central rabbinic organization in his own time: Agudath Israel, of which he was a co-founder. With the Agudah, Halevy and his colleagues sought to unify the various Orthodox Jewish communities to combat the modernizing efforts of Reform Judaism and Wissenschaft des Judentums. The Agudah came to be led by a Council of Torah Sages whose role echoed the one Halevy envisioned as having edited the Talmud almost 1500 years before. From his position on the development of the Talmud, then, we can see how Halevy’s historical work pressed historiography into the service of validating the new political and institutional structures he envisioned. The roles of rabbinic authority and institutional power in Jewish life and law, issues that come into relief when we examine Halevy’s viewpoint on the Talmud’s development, are still of concern to the Jewish community of today.