The Authority of the Divine Law
A Study in Tannaitic Midrash
Many Jewish groups of late antiquity assumed that they were obligated to observe the Divine Law. This book attempts to study the various rationales offered by these groups to explain the authority that the Divine Law had over them. Second Temple groups tended to look towards philosophy or metaphysics to justify the Divine Law’s authority. The tannaim, though, formulated legal arguments that obligate Israel to observe the Divine Law. While this turn towards legalism is pan-tannaitic, two distinct legal arguments can be identified in tannaitic literature. These specific arguments about the Divine Law’s authority, link to a set of issues regarding the tannaim’s conception of Divine Law and of Israel’s election.
Yosef Bronstein received rabbinic ordination and a PhD in Talmudic Studies from Yeshiva University. He is the Rosh Bet Midrash of Machon Zimrat Ha’aretz, a community learning center and rabbinical training program in Efrat, Israel, and also teaches Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University’s Isaac Breuer College. He is the coauthor of Reshimot Shiurim al Masekhet Kiddushin (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Talmud lectures on tractate Kiddushin) and the author of Engaging the Essence: The Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (forthcoming from Maggid Books).
