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This chapter comments on the epistle of Sherira Gaon, which is considered an extraordinary instance of the genre of Geonic responsa written in 986 or 987. Sherira's Epistle is exceptional both in terms of its length and subject matter and it addresses a number of questions formulated by Rabbi Nissim b. Jacob ibn Shahin on behalf of the scholars of Qayrawan. This chapter questions Sherira's use of talmudic sources and oral traditions in the responsa and suggests that Sherira's statements are almost inversely proportional to the extent to which they are supported by the Talmud itself.

This chapter discusses the character and achievement of Rabbi Sa'adyah ben Joseph or Sa'adyah Gaon. It looks at Sa'adyah's day, in which the vast majority of Jews viewed themselves as subject to the authority of two ancient Jewish centres: Palestine and Babylonia. It also mentions spiritual leaders known as geonim that headed the prestigious and internationally renowned academies of Sura and Pumbedita in Babylonia and the central academy in Palestine. The chapter recounts the age of the geonim that was preceded by an even more obscure era, the savora'im. It analyses the famous Epistle of Sherira Gaon that was written in 986, which consists of questions on talmudic and halakhic issues that were sent by Jews from communities around the world to the senior members of the academies headed by the geonim.

This chapter concerns Nahman Krochmal (1785–1840), a key figure in the development of Jewish spirituality in central and eastern Europe. It examines the extent to which Krochmal’s writings were influenced by the gaon of Pumbedita in Babylonia, Sherira (c.906–1006). Krochmal summed up his spiritual life and work in his incomplete study, Moreh nevukhei hazeman (‘guide of the perplexed of the time’). Its central theme is the Oral Torah, one of the pillars of rabbinic Judaism. In Krochmal’s time the Oral Torah was subjected to heavy criticism. But almost 850 years before Krochmal’s Moreh nevukhei hazeman, Sherira wrote a letter as a response to a series of questions concerning the formation of the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Talmuds, etc., posed to him by Jacob ben Nissim on behalf of the holy community of Kairouan in North Africa.

This chapter discusses the nature of the editing of the Talmud. Halivni claims the Talmud never went through a comprehensive and general editing process. Contradictions and inconsistencies are found throughout the Talmud, sometimes even on the same folio, and these would have been removed by a general editor. Halivni explains why the traditional view, that the Talmud was edited by Rav Ashi and Ravina, two of the latter Amoraim, who lived c. 450 CE, must be rejected, and reviews in detail the evidence that many passages postdate these two sages. He also explains the meaning of the famous tradition “Ravina and Rav Ashi, the end of hora’ah” (Bava Metsiah 86a), which has been mistakenly understood to refer to the editing of the Talmud. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the editing of the Mishnah, comparing and contrasting it with the editing of the Talmud.