THE LETTERS OF THE GAONIM
Representative Gaonim:
Achai, Amram, Zemach, Saadiah, Sherira, Samuel, Hai.
For several centuries after the completion of the Talmud, Babylonia or
Persia continued to hold the supremacy in Jewish learning. The great
teachers in the Persian schools followed the same lines as their
predecessors in the Mishnah and the Talmud. Their name was changed more
than their character. The title _Gaon_ ("Excellence") was applied to the
head of the school, the members of which devoted themselves mainly to
the study and interpretation of the older literature. They also made
original contributions to the store. Of their extensive works but little
has been preserved. What has survived proves that they were gifted with
the faculty of applying old precept to modern instance. They regulated
the social and religious affairs of all the Jews in the diaspora. They
improved educational methods, and were pioneers in the popularization of
learning. By a large collection of Case Law, that is, decisions in
particular cases, they brought the newer Jewish life into moral harmony
with the principles formulated by the earlier Rabbis. The Gaonim were
the originators or, at least, the arrangers of parts of the liturgy.
They composed new hymns and invocations, fixed the order of service, and
established in full vigor a system of _Minhag_, or Custom, whose power
became more and more predominant, not only in religious, but also in
social and commercial affairs.
The literary productions of the Gaonic age open with the _Sheeltoth_
written by Achai in the year 760. This, the first independent book
composed after the close of the Talmud, was curiously enough compiled
in Palestine, whither Achai had migrated from Persia. The Sheeltoth
("Inquiries") contain nearly two hundred homilies on the Pentateuch. In
the year 880 another Gaon, Amram by name, prepared a _Siddur_, or
Prayer-Book, which includes many remarks on the history of the liturgy
and the customs connected with it. A contemporary of Amram, Zemach, the
son of Paltoi, found a different channel for his literary energies. He
compiled an _Aruch_, or Talmudical Lexicon. Of the most active of the
Gaonim, Saadiah, more will be said in a subsequent chapter. We will now
pass on to Sherira, who in 987 wrote his famous "Letter," containing a
history of the Jewish Tradition, a work which stamps the author as at
once learned and critical. It shows that the Gaonim were not afraid nor
incapable of facing such problems as this: Was the Mishnah _orally_
transmitted to the Amoraim (or Rabbis of the Talmud), or was it
_written down_ by the compiler? Sherira accepted the former alternative.
The latest Gaonim were far more productive than the earlier. Samuel, the
son of Chofni, who died in 1034, and the last of the Gaonim, Hai, who
flourished from 998 to 1038, were the authors of many works on the
Talmud, the Bible, and other branches of Jewish literature. Hai Gaon was
also a poet.
The language used by the Gaonim was at first Hebrew and Aramaic, and the
latter remained the official speech of the Gaonate. In course of time,
Arabic replaced the Aramean dialect, and became the _lingua franca_ of
the Jews.
The formal works of the Gaonim, with certain obvious exceptions, were
not, however, the writings by which they left their mark on their age.
The most original and important of the Gaonic writings were their
"Letters," or "Answers" (_Teshuboth_). The Gaonim, as heads of the
school in the Babylonian cities Sura and Pumbeditha, enjoyed far more
than local authority. The Jews of Persia were practically independent of
external control. Their official heads were the Exilarchs, who reigned
over the Jews as viceroys of the caliphs. The Gaonim were the religious
heads of an emancipated community. The Exilarchs possessed a princely
revenue, which they devoted in part to the schools over which the Gaonim
presided. This position of authority, added to the world-wide repute of
the two schools, gave the Gaonim an influence which extended beyond
their own neighborhood. From all parts of the Jewish world their
guidance was sought and their opinions solicited on a vast variety of
subjects, mainly, but not exclusively, religious and literary. Amid the
growing complications of ritual law, a desire was felt for terse
prescriptions, clear-cut decisions, and rules of conduct. The
imperfections of study outside of Persia, again, made it essential to
apply to the Gaonim for authoritative expositions of difficult passages
in the Bible and the Talmud. To all such enquiries the Gaonim sent
responses in the form of letters, sometimes addressed to individual
correspondents, sometimes to communities or groups of communities. These
Letters and other compilations containing Halachic (or practical)
decisions were afterwards collected into treatises, such as the "Great
Rules" (_Halachoth Gedoloth_), originally compiled in the eighth
century, but subsequently reedited. Mostly, however, the Letters were
left in loose form, and were collected in much later times.
The Letters of the Gaonim have little pretence to literary form. They
are the earliest specimens of what became a very characteristic branch
of Jewish literature. "Questions and Answers" (_Shaaloth u-Teshuboth_)
abound in later times in all Jewish circles, and there is no real
parallel to them in any other literature. More will be said later on as
to these curious works. So far as the Gaonic period is concerned, the
characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought
and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are
rarely over-bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive
rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense,
therefore, princes of letter-writing. Moreover, though their Letters
deal almost entirely with contemporary affairs, they now constitute as
fresh and vivid reading as when first penned. Subjected to the severe
test of time, the Letters of the Gaonim emerge triumphant.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GAONIM.
Graetz.--III, 4-8.
Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 25.