The Geonim: Series Introduction
🕍 Today we kick off a five-part series on the Geonim, exploring these crucial, yet yet at times obscure, years from c. 500-c. 1000, an era that laid the foundations for Rishonim's cultural worlds.
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For the next month or so, we’re going to be exploring the rich and at times mysterious (for lack of sources) world of the Geonim, which spans the early Middle Ages. The Geonic period forms a critical cultural bridge between late antiquity and the medieval experience in Jewish history. For those with a background in Jewish learning, the period may be familiar through such texts as the frequently cited Behag (Baal Halachot Gedolot), an impactful Geonic code; Seder Rav Amram Gaon, the earliest complete siddur/machzor (prayerbook) we have; and the multifaceted works of the late gaon Rasag (Rav Saadia Gaon). However, the period is lesser known than that of the Rishonim which follows it, in large part due to its earlier place in history and concomitantly lesser number of documentary sources. The finds of the Cairo geniza have helped tremendously in illumining the Geonic period, but require often painstaking reconstruction and identification work in multiple languages on the parts of scholars.
In the conceptualization of traditional Jewish chronology, the Tannaim (“teachers” or “reciters”), sages of the Mishna and Amoraim (“sayers”), sages of the Talmud, are followed by the Geonim (“eminences”), then the Rishonim (“former authorities”) and finally the Acharonim (“latter authorities”), a period we are presumably still in. The era of the Tannaim ends around 200 CE; of the Amoraim, about 500 CE. Then we have a liminal period of consolidation that lasts a bit less than a century (we’ll get into that below), followed by the Geonic era, which stretches from 589 to 1038. These two dates derive from later sources (10th century and 12th century, respectively) but seem to be eminently reasonable general boundary markers, though they should be understood less precisely than they seem. Both the inception of the gaonate and its demise were processes, and by around 1000, even 950, the earliest Rishonim were already active.
Period Overview
There are both continuities and significant discontinuities between the institutional culture of the late Amoraim and that of the Geonim. The yeshivot (academies) of the region termed Bavel (Babylonia) by Jews, part of the Persian empire at the beginning of the Geonic period, continued on from those traditionally founded by the first-generation Babylonian Amoraim Rav and Shmuel. The two leading academies were known by the names of their locations, Pumbedita (associated with its original location of Nahardea) and Sura (associated also with the nearby suburb of Mata Mechasia). There was at least one other functioning academy in Geonic times, but the Sura and Pumbedita were the major yeshivot, often tacitly vying for primacy, with each succeeding in different periods.
As well, the office of the reish galuta (exilarch), a political representative of the Jewish community to the local government, continued into Geonic times, even as the somewhat-equivalent office of the nasi (patriarch) in the Land of Israel had been discontinued in the 5th century.
However, these offices and institutions underwent significant developments, one of which was the nature of the titular head of the two great academies, the gaon, which gives its name to the period. The geonim (the plural of gaon) presided over an increasingly organized and hierarchical body of scholars. Candidates for both the gaonate and the exilarchate were drawn from an elite subset of local Jewish society, with the offices, including those beneath the gaon, becoming quasi- or fully hereditary. At least one class of scholars seems to have received a stipend, an indicator of the good financial status of the institutions, which were nourished by taxes from regions under their jurisdiction, known as reshuyot, along with donations that came tucked into the letters in inquiry addressed to the geonim. However, most of our information about the functioning of the academies comes from the Abbasid period onwards (beginning c. 750) and it is unclear how formalized or rigid these offices were in the earlier part of the period.
At the beginning of the Geonic period, Babylonia was under Sasanian Persian rule, where the lingua franca was Aramaic. Interestingly, there is robust evidence that Aramaic remained a living language for Jews throughout the Geonic era, alongside, later, Judeo-Arabic (Middle Arabic written in Hebrew characters). Characteristically, geonic expression occurs in Aramaic, though Arabic was established as the language of theological discussion and Bible commentary. The Muslim conquests of the 7th century brought manifold Jewish communities under the united rule of the early caliphates, including Bavel and Eretz Yisrael. In the Abbasid period, the academies moved from their erstwhile locations to the new Abbasid capital of Baghdad, still known by the names Sura and Pumbedita.
Both academies seem to have closed due to political or financial exigencies at various times throughout the period, but managed to reopen their doors. This they also did after the conclusion of what we term the Geonic era: in the 11th and 12th centuries, geonim could still be found in Iraq. However, the characteristic features of the Geonic period—including overarching authority to render halachic judgements, a close relationship with a representative to the government, and the compilation of halacha—had by then given way to new currents that arose in the communities of the Maghrib, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and elsewhere.
The Sources
We have three major sources attesting to the Geonic period: the aforementioned geniza materials, which are still being worked on, as well as two historical accounts from the 900s. To these we may add, for the very beginning of the period, the 9th-century chronology Seder Tannaim ve-Amoraim, and for its end, R. Avraham Ibn Daud’s Sefer ha-Kabbala, written in Toledo, Spain, in 1160/1. (We’ve had occasion to dip into the extremely valuable, if in places tendentious, Sefer ha-Kabbala several times before in Stories from Jewish History.) It is Ibn Daud, sometimes known as Raavad I, who gives us the date of “the last gaon,” Rav Hai ben Sherira,1 who died, by his account, in 1038.
The account of the otherwise unknown Natan ha-Bavli (Nathan of Babylonia) is relatively short, but rich, and seems to be the work of a visitor, rather than an insider to the system. As such there are elements that Natan probably mistook to be regular or conversely, irregular. The letter seems to have been impelled by the coming of the exilarch Ukva (or Uqba) to Ifriqiya, roughly present-day Tunisia, and the first part deals with the whereabouts of this Ukva. The second part, of great interest to understanding the inner workings of the Geonic yeshivot, describes the functioning of the academies. In particular, Natan describes the kallah month, when scholars would gather from their hometowns at the academies for intensive study, including, according to his account, examinations that determined their stipends.
The much longer account of Rav Sherira Gaon—it’s really a short book—is a comprehensive history of the compilation of the Oral Torah, including the activities of the Tannaim right up through Rav Sherira’s tenure as gaon of Pumbedita. The igeret (letter, or epistle, as it’s sometimes more formally known) was written in response to a query from Ifriqiya, which asked questions of transmission, redaction, authority, and method with regard to the Mishnah and Talmud. Some scholars believe that this was at least in part a response to Karaite claims about the inauthenticity of rabbinite Oral Law. In reply, the gaon composed a detailed and exacting account, almost certainly incorporating earlier written or oral institutional histories. Because Rav Sherira was based at Pumbedita, he had greater familiarity and likely access to Pumbeditan records and possibly a commitment to Pumbeditan supremacy. Nevertheless, he included rich detail about the academy of Sura as well.
The Igreret Rav Sherira Gaon is extant in two recensions, which are similar but display substantive differences. While the query speaks, in both recensions, of the “writing” of the Mishnah and Gemara, there is an important difference in how the responsum addresses this question. One recension assumes the position of the query and uses the language of writing, while the other assumes the position that the Oral Law was compiled orally and speaks of composition or redaction. Earlier scholarship decided that the primacy of orality in the latter version indicated that it emanated from an oral-centered culture, as well as one more open to emendation and reworking, and labelled it the “French version.” The recension that emphasized textuality and writing was termed the “Spanish version.” Subsequent research has shown definitively that these terms are misleading, and that the “French” version circulated in Spain. All of the geniza fragments of Sherira’s letter are of the “French” recension. While earlier scholars preferred the Spanish version, it has been convincingly argued that the French is often to be preferred. Most of the texts you’ll find will still follow the Spanish recension, but you can see a side-by-side substantial critical edition by B. M. Lewin (Haifa, 1921) here. (Lewin favored the Spanish version.)
The Savoraim
Rav Sherira terms the rabbis that followed the last of the Amoraim to be Rabbanan Savorai, the Savoraim (“reasoners” or “opiners”). A number of them are named, and even appear in our text of the Gemara, while others are anonymous. The question of what role the Savoraim had in compiling and transmitting the Talmud is a huge and immensely intriguing one, which, unfortunately, is beyond our scope today. The position taken by Rav Sherira is that they played a minor role, almost as epigones—that is, that the Savoraim were not the creative stam (anonymous voice) of the Bavli but minor editors. What is notable is that the Savoraim are closer, in Rav Sherira’s view, to the Amoraim; though they remain distinct from their predecessors, specifically in having lesser creative authority to interpret Mishnaic law. The period of the Savoraim, according to Rav Sherira, extends from 499/500 to 589/90,2 a time of relative difficulty and adversity for the Jewish community.
The Early Geonim
From the years 589 until the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate c. 750, we have very little evidence attesting to the lives and societies of the geonim. From later sources, what we can say definitively is that there was, at some point in the Geonic period, a core shift in self-perception between the geonim and the Savoraim. While it is likely that the Gemara continued to circulate in oral form with continued redactional work, the geonim saw themselves as working on a closed text. That is, rather than seeing themselves, like the Amoraim and even the Savoraim, as interpreters of the Mishnah, the Geonim were now interpreters of the Gemara. They were no longer possessed of the authority to independently respond to the Tannaitic layer of rabbinic thought. As a result, they became transmitters of the Talmud and innovated new genres of halachic writing. In time, these emerged as responsa literature, early legal codes, works on discrete legal subjects (halachic monographs), and later, theological treatises and Bible commentaries and grammars. Each of these genres was built upon and developed in new directions by the Rishonim, who were intensively influenced by them.
Reads & Resources
A version (not a great one) of Igeret Rav Sherira Gaon is available on Sefaria. It is also included, based on the Spanish recension but with notations about the French, in Artscroll’s Introduction to the Talmud (with either English translation or Hebrew translation).
My absolute favorite book (it’s a scholarly masterpiece) about the Geonic period, by Robert Brody, is unfortunately out of print and difficult to get. You can get a taste (written with R. Daniel Sperber) here.
To dig a bit deeper into how the extraordinary Igeret Rav Sherira Gaon came to be, I recommend Simcha Gross’s article, “When the Jews Greeted Ali: Sherira Gaon's Epistle in Light of Arabic and Syriac Historiography.”
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Shlomo Morag and Robert Brody maintain that “Hai” is a corruption of a likely disyllabic name, either Haya or Hayei.
Rav Sherira, like most medieval Jews, uses minyan shetarot, or Seleucid (Greek) dating, which for most Jewish communities was considered to have begun in the summer of 311 BCE. This means the Seleucid year runs, similarly to the Hebrew year, from late summer through the next summer. I’ve converted the years to the common era; the slash indicates the summer-to-summer nature of the Seleucid year.
Thanks for the great intro to an important yet obscure period, as you described. I've always marveled how the obscurity of Jewish history from that period (c. 500-1000 CE) runs parallel to general history. Early medieval history is always so opaque, unreliable, and patchy - even more than late antiquity before it. Do we have anything from that era that can compare in breadth and profundity with the Greek and Roman classics - or the Mishna, Talmud, and Midrash?
The moral of the story, if my assessment is correct, is that history doesn't always go in straight lines. There can be hundreds of years where we go backward. And that can happen again.
(This is all, of course, besides the geographical disconnection to Europe - as you showed, the Geonim lived deep inside the Middle East, far from the late-medieval Spanish and French scholars from whom survive exponentially more manuscripts.)
What do you think?