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152-445: Eliezer ben Hurcanus ( Hebrew : אליעזר בן הורקנוס ), also known as Hyrcanus , was one of the most prominent Judean tannaitic Sages of 1st- and 2nd-century Judaism , a disciple of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai , and a colleague of Gamaliel II (whose sister, Ima Shalom , he married) and Joshua ben Hananiah . He is the sixth most frequently mentioned Sage in the Mishnah . Hyrcanus

304-674: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

456-583: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

608-562: A coherent whole, arranged it systematically, summarized discussions, and in some cases rendered his own rulings where alternative traditions existed. The Mishnah does far more than expound upon and organize the Biblical commandments. Rather, important topics covered by the Mishnah "rest on no scriptural foundations whatsoever," such as portions of the civil law tractates of Bava Kamma , Bava Metzia and Bava Batra . In other words, "To perfect

760-649: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

912-504: A different framework, discusses and analyses the written Torah—both from an aggadic and halakhic perspective—drawing from (and recording) the oral tradition; here the discussion is organized around the Mishnah, and the discussion does not proceed verse-wise as with the Midrash. Early Rabbinic literature builds on these works, where - reflecting this overlap - discussion of the Written Law

1064-562: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

1216-512: A dozen disputes regarding the application of halakha, also testifies to the evolutionary process of the Oral Law. The Oral Law is recorded in the Midrash and Talmud; at the same time, these source, "oral", documents, are intimately connected to the written. Thus, the midrash provides a verse by verse discussion of the entire (written) Tanakh, per the oral Torah. Similarly, the Talmud, although applying

1368-474: A fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day") as forbidding the use of any kind of fire on the Sabbath, including fires lit before the start of the Sabbath, which are permitted by the Oral Law. Karaites also do not adhere to widespread customs such as the donning of tefillin and the prohibition against eating milk and meat together on the grounds that such practices are grounded in the Oral Law. Influenced by

1520-481: A foot" Ex 21:22–27 is held in the oral tradition to imply monetary compensation – as opposed to a literal Lex talionis . Note also that the interpretation as "monetary compensation" is borne out by Num 35:30–31 , implying that only in the case of murder is Lex talionis applied (per logic of following paragraph). The Oral Torah is similarly needed to explain commandments - as well as actions of biblical actors - seemingly discordant with other verses. For example,

1672-454: A further detailed and explicit analysis here. The main of these: Contemporaneous with, and complementary to these commentaries, were specific, monograph -like works discussing the Oral Torah in concept and historically. These included: Other well known works here, if perhaps less modern in orientation, include Maimonides ' (Rambam's) Introduction to the Mishnah —dealing with the nature of

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1824-579: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

1976-463: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

2128-532: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of

2280-539: A monastic group of people, had a " monastic organization". Though they had non-biblical rules and customs, they differened significantly from the mainstream Rabbinic tradition. The Samaritans , an ancient sect that has survived in small numbers to the present day, have their own rich interpretative tradition, as reflected in the Medieval Samaritan legal collection called the Hilukh , which shares etymological roots with

2432-495: A monolith. The Jewish Encyclopedia divides the Oral Torah into eight categories, ranked according to the relative level of authoritativeness, which are found within the Talmud, the Tosefta and the halakhic Midrashim . The laws in the last three groups were not considered equal in validity to the written law ( " De'oraita " ), but were regarded merely as rabbinical regulations ( " de-rabbanan " ). According to modern scholarship,

2584-468: A pagan may have denounced him as a Christian in a deliberate attempt to sow discord in the Jewish community. According to Pliny, Christians who refused to recant their Christian belief were executed; Christians who recanted their beliefs and prayed to Roman gods had their charges dismissed. Eliezer was neither a Christian nor a pagan, and he had his charges dismissed apparently by making an ambiguous statement that

2736-571: A religious teaching proposed by a man named Yaakov who was a follower of Jesus of Nazareth . Scholars connect this arrest and subsequent trial with the persecution of Christians by Roman authorities as demonstrated in the letters between the Emperor Trajan and Pliny the Younger . That is, the Romans arrested Eliezer under the charge of being a Christian not understanding that he was a prominent Jewish scholar;

2888-583: A result of this controversy—a controversy which continued for two centuries—was a deliberate compilation and justification of the unwritten tradition by the Pharisean party, perhaps unsystematic and on a small scale in the earlier stages, but stimulated and fostered from time to time both by opposition from the Sadducees and by internal controversy (such as, e.g., the disputes between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai ) within

3040-569: A road of Sepphoris , he had met a follower of Jesus, Yaakov of Kfar Sikhnin , who communicated to him a singular Halakha in the name of Yeshu ha-Notzri that he had approved of. For this, he reflected, he was arrested for heresy for transgressing the teachings of the Torah or (in another variant in Midrash Haggadol on Deuteronomy 23:19) his fellows. He specified what injunction had been broken citing: "Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh

3192-581: A scorpion, their hissing is that of a snake, and all their words are fiery coals. When asked how one can determine the day before his death, he answered: "So much the more must one repent daily, lest he die tomorrow; and it follows that he must spend all his days in piety." When his former colleagues heard of his approaching death, the most prominent among them hastened to his bedside at Caesarea . He began to complain about his long isolation when they appeared before him. They tried to mollify him by professing great and unabated respect for him and averring that only

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3344-485: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

3496-603: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

3648-663: A template for the Gemara , a compendium of discussions and commentaries on the Mishnah's laws by generations of leading rabbis during the next four centuries in the two centers of Jewish life, Syria Palaestina or "Judea" and Asoristan or "Babylonia". The Gemara with the Mishnah came to be edited together into compilations known as the Talmud . Both the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud have been transmitted in written form to

3800-513: A traditional outlook with the findings of modern research and archeology, and implicitly addressing biblical criticism. See also Mordechai Breuer § Literary contribution , Umberto Cassuto § Origins of the Pentateuch , and the work Da'at Sofrim by Chaim Dov Rabinowitz . From the Second Temple era, there has always been some level of opposition to the concept of a "Dual Torah" within

3952-420: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

4104-549: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

4256-511: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

4408-620: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and

4560-563: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

4712-401: Is in fact borne out by Joshua 5:10–12 . Re the preceding paragraph, note that much Talmudic analysis demonstrates how the Mishnah's rulings, and / or disputes, in fact derive from — and are hence consistent with — the much earlier Biblical texts; see Gemara § Biblical exposition . Relatedly, the 1st century Targum Onkelos is largely consistent with the oral tradition as recorded in

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4864-504: Is in light of the Oral Law. The era of the Rishonim sees the Oral Law incorporated into the first formal Torah commentaries , where the biblical text is discussed and / or analysed based on the various Midrashic and Talmudic traditions. The chief of these is perhaps Rashi 's commentary on Tanakh . This work clarifies the "simple" meaning of the text, by addressing questions implied by the wording or verse or paragraph structure, by drawing on

5016-622: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Oral Torah According to Rabbinic Jewish tradition, the Oral Torah was passed down orally in an unbroken chain from generation to generation until its contents were finally committed to writing following

5168-407: Is probably from this melancholy period that his aphorism dates: Let the honor of thy colleague (variant, "pupils") be as dear to thee as thine own, and be not easily moved to anger. Repent one day before thy death. Warm thyself by the fire of the wise men, but be cautious of their burning coals ("slight them not"), that thou be not burned; for their bite is the bite of a jackal, their sting is that of

5320-560: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around

5472-453: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

5624-466: Is tied to "sensing divinity both in the Torah and in the Oral Law," but not in a literalist manner. Rabbi Zecharias Frankel , considered intellectual founder of Conservative Judaism, was respected by many Orthodox until writing in 1859 that the Talmudic term " Law given to Moses at Sinai " always meant ancient customs accepted as such. His opponents demanded that he issue an unequivocal statement of belief in

5776-536: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

5928-630: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

6080-705: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of

6232-954: The Ark of the Covenant ." R. Akiva applied to Eliezer the terms which Elisha had used for Elijah and which Joash subsequently applied to Elisha himself: "O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Eliezer is buried in the HaRambam compound in Tiberias . Though excommunicated, Rabbi Eliezer is quoted in the Mishnah , the Baraita , and the Talmud more frequently than any one of his colleagues. The 8th or 9th century pseudographical work known as The Ethics of Rabbi Eliezer also claims to include his teaching. Anyone who has bread in his basket and asks, 'what shall I eat to-morrow,' belongs to those of little faith. Be particularly careful about

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6384-534: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,

6536-509: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

6688-477: The Haskalah , and under sociological pressure to assimilate to the Protestant and secular culture of European and North American urban elites, Reform Judaism came to reject the binding authority of the Oral Torah and systematically stripped its liturgy and practices of Rabbinic tradition. According to Torat Eretz Yisrael and Minhagei Eretz Yisrael , it is important to notice that Torah sages can err, just as

6840-491: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though

6992-655: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

7144-694: The Midrash or the paraphrastic interpretation to pass as authority for religious practice. In this respect, he sympathized with the conservative school of Shammai , which opposed giving too much scope to the interpretation—hence the assertion that he was a disciple of the School of Shammai . Still, he was a disciple of Yohanan ben Zakkai, who was one of Hillel the Elder 's most prominent pupils. Eliezer's conservatism brought him into conflict with his colleagues and contemporaries, who realized that such conservatism might be fatal to

7296-558: The Pharisees , a sect of largely lower- and middle-class Jews who stood in opposition to the Sadducees , the priestly caste who dominated the Temple cult. The Sadducees rejected the legitimacy of any extra-biblical law or tradition, as well as increasingly popular notions such as the immortality of the soul and divine intervention . Danby notes the following: It is a reasonable hypothesis that

7448-623: The Sanhedrin could (Leviticus 4:13). Conservative Judaism (also known as "Masorti" outside North America) takes an intermediate approach between the Reform Movement and Orthodoxy, claiming that the Oral tradition is entitled to authority, but regarding its rulings as flexible guidelines rather than immutable precepts, that may be viewed through the lens of modernity. Jewish scholar and philosopher Ismar Schorsch has postulated that Conservative Judaism

7600-525: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

7752-455: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

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7904-435: The midrash , redacted into writing only in the 3rd or 4th century. Complementary to the above textual and internal evidence , archaeologists have uncovered also physical evidence relating to religious rituals and practices which were current prior to the codification of the Mishnah; from which, it can be inferred that Judah HaNasi and his contemporaries recorded, rather than innovated, normative Judaism as practiced during

8056-609: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around

8208-537: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

8360-677: The raven . Rather, it goes to show that it is one of their kind! (i.e. a person is known by whom he associates with) [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Mendelsohn, S.; Schechter, Solomon (1903). "Eliezer (Liezer) Ben Hyrcanus" . In Singer, Isidore ; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . Vol. 5. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 113–115. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

8512-592: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became

8664-454: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

8816-535: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

8968-409: The 1st century CE and prior. For example, excavations at Qumran ( Cave 4 ) have yielded specimens of tefillin and parchment scrolls which reflect later Talmudic discussion. Likewise, the structure and placement of ritual baths at Masada appears to be consistent with the rabbinic requirements per the Mishnaic tractate Mikvaot , although they were constructed approximately 120 years before

9120-495: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to

9272-579: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

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9424-503: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

9576-551: The Exodus from Egypt is a fundamental tenet of faith of Orthodox Judaism , and was recognized as one of the Thirteen Principles of Faith by Maimonides . There have also been historical dissenters to the Oral Torah, most notably the Sadducees and Karaites , who claimed to derive their religious practice only from the Written Torah. The Beta Israel , isolated from the rest of world Jewry for many centuries, also lacked Rabbinic texts until they made Aliyah in mass in recent years. The term "Oral Torah" should not be understood as

9728-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

9880-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be

10032-437: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

10184-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

10336-428: The Law is like teaching her blasphemy," "Let the Law be burned rather than entrusted to a woman," and "A woman's wisdom is limited to the handling of the distaff," also dated from that time, he has noticed that women were easily swayed in matters of faith. Separated from his colleagues and excluded from the deliberations of the Sanhedrin , Eliezer passed his last years of life unnoticed and in comparative solitude. It

10488-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

10640-417: The Midrashic, Talmudic and Aggadic literature. It has given rise to numerous counter- (e.g., Ramban ) and super-commentaries (e.g., Mizrachi ), all similarly drawing on the Oral Torah, and widely studied to this day (see Mikraot Gedolot , Yeshiva § Torah and Bible study ). In more recent times, Acharonic times, several ( Orthodox ) commentaries have been produced, which, in some sense, reverse

10792-402: The Mishnah was compiled. A clay seal discovered in Jerusalem in 2011 is consistent with the tradition recorded in tractate Shekalim chapter 5 . The Elephantine papyri include a "Passover letter" (419 BCE) which already included many of the Pesach observances of today, and the first known text of a Ketubah (about 440 BCE). The Qumran Halachic Letter , which records approximately

10944-476: The Oral Law is likewise required. Rabbis of the Talmudic era conceived of the Oral Torah in two distinct ways. First, Rabbinic tradition saw the Oral Torah as an unbroken chain of transmission. The distinctive feature of this view was that Oral Torah was "conveyed by word of mouth and memorized." Second, the Rabbis also viewed the Oral Torah as an interpretive tradition, and not merely as memorized traditions. They saw

11096-424: The Oral Law to be of divine origin. The divinity and authoritativeness of the Oral Law as transmitted from God to Moses on Mount Sinai, continues to be accepted by Orthodox and Haredi Judaism as a fundamental precept of Judaism. The Oral Law was the basis for nearly all subsequent rabbinic literature. It is therefore intricately related to the development of Halacha . As such, despite codification, interpretation of

11248-506: The Oral Law, the distinction between the prophet and the sage, and the organizational structure of the Mishnah—as well as Isaiah Horowitz 's ("The Shelah") Introduction to the Oral Torah in part 2 of his Shenei Luchot HaBerit Finally, other major works discussing the Bible as based on the Oral Torah include the following. The recent Da'at Miqra is a voluminous Bible commentary combining

11400-498: The Oral Torah are the various requirements of ritual slaughter explicated. Similarly, Deuteronomy 24 discusses the laws of divorce in passing; these laws are set forth with great specificity in the Mishnah and Gemara. Another example: the blue string of tekhelet on the tzitzit is to be dyed with an extraction from what scholars believe to be a snail; a detail only spoken of in the oral Torah. For other examples and further discussion here see Kuzari 3:35 . Moreover, according to

11552-609: The Roman governor, "How can a great man like you engage in such idle things?" he replied, "Blessed is the True Judge." The judge, thinking that Rabbi Eliezer was speaking about him, released him, while Rabbi Eliezer understood by "judge" God, justifying the judgment of God which had brought this trial upon him. That he should be suspected of apostasy grieved him sorely, and though some of his pupils tried to comfort him, he remained for some time inconsolable. At last he remembered that once, while on

11704-466: The Roman judge understood as acknowledging Roman authority but which Eliezer understood as recognizing the authority of the Jewish God . The rabbinic accounts do not reference the broader context of Roman persecution of Christians and instead focus on specific points of Jewish Halakha. The accounts state that Eliezer was charged with being a heretic and was summoned before the penal tribunal. Being asked by

11856-557: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

12008-455: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

12160-619: The Torah, in which, for example, laws of the Sabbath are scattered throughout the books of Exodus , Leviticus , and Numbers , all the Mishnaic laws of the Sabbath are located in a single tractate called Shabbat . Moreover, the laws contained in the 24 chapters that make up that tractate are far more extensive than those contained in the Torah, reflecting the extensiveness of the Oral Law. Some authority suggests HaNasi made use of as many as 13 separate collections of Halakhot from different schools and time periods, and reassembled that material into

12312-467: The Written Law, suggesting the existence of a parallel Oral tradition. Here, the Oral Law must have been disseminated at the same time as the Written Torah because certain Torah commandments would be indecipherable without a separate explanatory codex (and, presumably, God would not demand adherence to commandments that could not be understood). Many terms used in the Torah are left undefined, such as

12464-616: The [Written] Torah, the Oral tradition had to provide for a variety of transactions left without any law at all in Scripture." Just as portions of the Torah reflect (according to the documentary hypothesis ) the agenda of the Levite priesthood in centralizing worship in the Temple in Jerusalem and legitimizing their exclusive authority over the sacrificial cult, so too can the Mishnah be seen as reflecting

12616-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

12768-470: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

12920-552: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

13072-535: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

13224-596: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

13376-462: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as

13528-487: The decision of the majority (though, according to the Talmud, a heavenly voice, a tree, a nearby stream, and the walls of the house of study all agreed with Eliezer's interpretation), it was deemed necessary to make an example of him, and he was excommunicated . Rabbi Akiva , dressed in mourning, appeared before him and, seated at some distance from him, respectfully addressed him with "My master, it appears to me that thy colleagues keep aloof from thee." Eliezer readily took in

13680-541: The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, when Jewish civilization was faced with an existential threat, by virtue of the dispersion of the Jewish people. The major repositories of the Oral Torah are the Mishnah , compiled between 200–220 CE by Judah ha-Nasi , and the Gemara , a series of running commentaries and debates concerning the Mishnah, which together form the Talmud ,

13832-514: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

13984-477: The direct line that transmitted this tradition, beginning with Moses up until Ravina and Rav Ashi , the rabbis who compiled the Babylonian Talmud. The pivotal role of Akiva ben Yosef is discussed in a Talmudic story, when Moses sees Rabbi Akiva (Menachot 29b) , which portrays God as preparing the Torah for Akiva's interpretive skills in midrash . Rabbinic tradition identifies several characteristics of

14136-408: The direction of the analysis. These originated in response to the (erstwhile) challenges of haskalah and Biblical criticism , and were intended "to demonstrate the indivisibility of the written Torah and its counterpart, the oral Torah", and in so doing, "showing the organic relationship between the Written Law and the Oral Law", often in the light of the above . Given this purpose, these provide

14288-403: The door of her house," which the sages applied to broad sectarianism as well as to heresy . The suspicion of apostasy and the summons before the dreaded tribunal came, therefore, as just punishment. This event in his life may have suggested to him the ethical rule, "Keep away from what is indecent and from that which appears to be indecent". It is suggested that his sayings, "Instructing a woman in

14440-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to

14592-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

14744-518: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

14896-476: The end of the siege of Jerusalem , when he and Joshua assisted in smuggling their Ben Zakkai out of the city and into the Roman camp. Subsequently, Eliezer proceeded to Yavne , where he later became a member of the Sanhedrin under the presidency of Gamaliel II , though he had established, and for many years afterward conducted, his academy at Lydda . His fame as a great scholar had in the meantime spread; Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai himself declared that Eliezer

15048-703: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

15200-412: The first and early second centuries CE devastated the Jewish community. The First Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt cost hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives, the destruction of leading yeshivot , and thousands of scholars and students. At that point, it became apparent that the Hebrew community and its learning were threatened, and that publication was the only way to ensure that

15352-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

15504-467: The honour due to your fellow man, and prevent your children from [relying on] logic [when studying verses that tend toward heresy], and have them seated between the knees of the disciples of the Sages, and whenever you [stand up to] pray, be apprised of whom it is you are standing before, on which account you shall be merited to obtain life in the world to come. It was not in vain that the starling went off with

15656-502: The lack of opportunity had kept them away. He felt that they might have profited from his teaching. They besought him to communicate laws concerning specific points, particularly touching Levitical purity and impurity. He consented and answered question after question until his breath left him. The last word he uttered was "tahor" ("pure"), and this the sages considered as an auspicious omen of his purity after they all tore their garments in token of mourning, and Joshua ben Hananiah revoked

15808-456: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which

15960-458: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

16112-464: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

16264-430: The law could be preserved. Thus, around 200 CE, a redaction of the Oral Law in writing was completed. Both Rabbinic tradition and scholarship ascribe this effort to Judah HaNasi. The product of this effort, the Mishnah , is generally considered the first work of rabbinic literature . "Mishnah" is the name given to the 63 tractates that HaNasi systematically codified, which in turn are divided into six "orders." Unlike

16416-586: The marriage of Boaz to Ruth ( Ruth 4:8–9 ) appears on its face to contradict the prohibition of against marrying Moabites ( Deuteronomy 23:3–4 ); however, the Oral Torah explains that this prohibition is limited to Moabite men . Similarly, the rabbinic practice for the Counting of the Omer ( Leviticus 23:15–16 ) is at odds with the Karaite practice , which appears to accord with a more literal reading of these verses, but

16568-472: The master and encouraged by his friends, delivered a discourse, gradually displaying great knowledge. Having recognized his truant son in the lecturer and hearing the praises that Ben Zakkai showered on him, Hyrcanus now desired to transfer all his earthly possessions to Eliezer. Overjoyed at the reconciliation, Eliezer declined to take advantage of his brothers and requested only his proportionate share. He continued his attendance at Ben Zakkai's academy until near

16720-446: The meantime, his father determined to disinherit him, and with that purpose in view, he went to Jerusalem to read his will before Yochanan ben Zakkai. Ben Zakkai, having heard of Hyrcanus's arrival and the purpose of his visit, instructed the usher to reserve a seat among those to be occupied by the elite of the city and appointed Eliezer lecturer for that day. At first, the latter hesitated to venture into Ben Zakkai's place but, pressed by

16872-720: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

17024-453: The past dependence of numerous observances on the existence of the Temple and priesthood. Thus, from 70 to 130 CE, when the Bar Kochba revolt further decimated the Jewish community, the Oral Law experienced a significant period of development and an unprecedented level of legal and religious authority among the populace. The destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem in

17176-525: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include

17328-456: The preeminent text of Rabbinic Judaism. In fact, two "versions" of the Talmud exist: one produced in the Galilee c. 300–350 CE (the Jerusalem Talmud ), and a second, more extensive Talmud compiled in Jewish Babylonia c. 450–500 CE (the Babylonian Talmud ). Belief that at least portions of the Oral Torah were transmitted orally from God to Moses on Biblical Mount Sinai during

17480-543: The present day, although the more extensive Babylonian Talmud is widely considered to be more authoritative. The Talmud's discussions follow the order of the Mishnah, although not all tractates are discussed. Generally, a law from the Mishnah is cited, which is followed by a rabbinic deliberation on its meaning. The discussion often, but not always, results in a decision regarding the more persuasive or authoritative position based on available sources or anecdotal evidence. (See Aliba dehilchasa .) Rabbinic tradition considers

17632-582: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

17784-620: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

17936-577: The proper development of the Oral Torah . It was also felt that the circumstances brought on by the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem and the disappearance of national independence required a strong religious central authority to which individual opinion must yield. At last, the rupture came. The Sanhedrin deliberated about the susceptibility to Levitical uncleanness of an akhnai oven . The majority decided such an oven could become unclean, but Eliezer dissented. As he thus acted in direct opposition to

18088-409: The rabbinic view, without an Oral Law, blind adherence to the plain text of certain Torah commandments would cause the practitioner to violate a commandment elsewhere in the Torah or could lead to unethical acts, and thus, a priori , a set of supplementary "instructions" must have been provided. A classic example involves the phrase " An eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for

18240-462: The ranks of the Pharisees, culminating in the collections of traditional laws ( Halakoth ) from which the present Mishnah draws its material. With the destruction of the Second Temple around 70 CE, the Sadducees were divested of their main source of authority, without which their theology could not survive. On the other hand, the Pharisees became the progenitor of the rabbinic class, who formalized

18392-711: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

18544-414: The routine of observance of the code, and, in the course of time, shared the sanctity and authority which were inherent in the divinely inspired code itself." Such practices experienced exponential growth from the time of Ezra to the Romans' destruction of the Second Temple due to the changing social and religious conditions experienced by inhabitants of Judea. Many of these practices were advocated by

18696-463: The sentence of excommunication. Eliezer died on a Friday, and after the following Sabbath , his remains were solemnly conveyed to Lydda , where he had formerly conducted his academy, and there he was buried. Many and earnest were the eulogies pronounced over his bier. R. Joshua is said to have kissed the stone on which Eliezer used to sit while instructing his pupils and to have remarked, "This stone represents Sinai , and he who sat on it represented

18848-499: The situation and submitted to the sentence. According to the Talmud, because Akiva broke the news gently, Eliezer (who had the power to destroy the world) annihilated no more than one-third of crops worldwide and burned only those things that were within his field of view; Gamaliel quickly calmed the tsunami that Eliezer raised that day. Thenceforth Eliezer lived in retirement, removed from the center of Jewish learning, though occasionally some of his disciples visited him and informed him of

19000-485: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

19152-468: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

19304-485: The term Halakhah . However, the concept of a divinely ordained Oral Law having equal value with the written one is foreign to Samaritan theology. Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish denomination that began in eighth century Baghdad to form a separate sect that rejected of the Oral Torah and Talmud , and placed sole reliance on the Tanakh as scripture . Thus, for example, Karaites understood Exodus 35:3 ("Do not light

19456-465: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare

19608-560: The traditions embodied in what later became known as the "Oral Torah" developed over generations among the inhabitants of Judea and Israel and were passed down through various modes of cultural transmission , including but not restricted to oral transmission. It is hypothesized that, sometime prior to the Babylonian exile of 586–530 BCE, in applying the Mosaic code to daily life and Temple worship, "a multitude of usages arising out of practical necessity or convenience or experience became part of

19760-592: The traditions of their predecessors. Following the fall of the Temple, it appears that the Pharisaic leader Johanan ben Zakkai (30–90 CE) settled in Yavneh , where he established a school that came to be regarded by fellow Jews as the successors of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin . Upon this Council of Jabneh fell the duty of administering and interpreting religious law, conserving tradition, and solving problems that arose by

19912-524: The transactions of the Sanhedrin. Judah haNasi , the primary redactor and editor of the Mishnah , ruled that Halacha is by Rabbi Eliezer but felt that, due to his unpopularity, he could only relay over Rabbi Eliezer's rulings in the name of the sages. Rabbinic accounts in the Tosefta , the Babylonian Talmud , and the Kohelet Rabba all relate that Eliezer was arrested for "heresy" after agreeing with

20064-598: The umbrella of Judaism, although today only the small Karaite sect formally opposes the incorporation of any extra-biblical law into their practice. Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic oral traditions. They based their interpretations on their own traditions emphasizing a more literal understanding of the verses. In many respects, this led to a more severe observance than that of the Pharisees especially as regards purity laws and temple practice. Most aspects of Sadduceean law and methods of interpretation are not known. Essenes ,

20216-513: The unbroken historical chain of individuals who were entrusted with passing down the Oral Law from Moses to the early rabbinic period: "Moses received the Torah and handed it down to Joshua; Joshua to the Elders; the Elders to the prophets; and the prophets handed it down to the men of the Great Assembly." Similarly, Maimonides provides a generation by generation account of the names of all those in

20368-604: The unique "program" of the Tannaim and their successors to develop an egalitarian form of Judaism with an emphasis on social justice and an applicability throughout the Jewish diaspora . As a result, the Talmud often finds the rabbis combing scripture for textual support to justify existing religious practice, rather than deriving the practice organically from the language of scripture. HaNasi's method of codification, in which he often included minority viewpoints and citation by name to rabbis who championed different viewpoints, became

20520-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

20672-501: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to

20824-718: The word totafot , usually translated as "frontlets," which is used three times in the Pentateuch (in Exodus 13:9 and Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18) but only identified with tefillin in the Mishnah (see Menachot 3:7). Similarly, many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions, or assume familiarity on the part of the reader. For example, the discussion of shechita ( kosher slaughter) in Deuteronomy 12 states "you shall kill of your herd and of your flock which God Lord has given you, as I have commanded you ," without any clear indication of what had been "commanded"; only in

20976-579: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from

21128-512: The written Torah as containing many levels of interpretation. It was left to later generations, who were steeped in the oral tradition of interpretation, to discover those ("hidden") interpretations not revealed by Moses. Instead, Moses was obligated to impart the explanations orally to students, children, and fellow adults. It was thus forbidden to write and publish the Oral Torah; some rabbis kept private notes of their teaching, but only for their personal convenience. Jewish tradition identifies

21280-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

21432-486: Was a member of the Jewish priestly class, the kohanim . His earlier years are known only through legend; it may be inferred that he was somewhat older when a desire to study Torah first compelled him—contrary to the wishes of his father—to desert his regular occupation and depart for Jerusalem to devote himself his studies. In Jerusalem, he entered the academy of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and for years studied diligently despite having to cope with great privations . It

21584-453: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew

21736-487: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

21888-553: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently

22040-618: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

22192-400: Was said that sometimes, days elapsed during which he went without eating. Ben Zakkai, recognizing Eliezer's receptive and retentive mind, styled him "a plastered cistern that loses not a drop, even a cask coated with pitch that preserves its wine." His intellect was so pronounced that in later years he could declare, "I have never taught anything which I had not learned from my masters." In

22344-527: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

22496-540: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

22648-439: Was thus explained: "Seek a reliable court: go after R. Eliezer to Lod , or after Yohanan ben Zakkai to Beror Ḥayil ." Once, he accompanied Gamaliel and Joshua on an embassy trip to Rome. Rabbi Eliezer was very severe and somewhat domineering with his pupils and colleagues, a characteristic which occasionally led to unpleasant encounters. The main feature of his teaching was a strict devotion to tradition : he objected to allowing

22800-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

22952-464: Was unequaled as an expositor of traditional law . Many promising students, among them Akiva , attached themselves to his school. Eliezer became known as " Eliezer ha-Gadol " ("the Great". Generally, however, he is styled simply "R. Eliezer"), and with reference to his legal acumen and judicial impartiality, the scriptural saying "That which is altogether just [literally "Justice, justice"] shalt thou follow"

23104-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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