The summary of all the generations of commentators can be seen here:
0.5.2.5. Sequence of generations of Torah scholars
Knesset Hagedola -> Tannaim -> | Mishnah | -> Amoraim -> Savoraim -> | Talmud |
Gaonim -> | Closure of Torah academies | -> Rishonim -> | Shulkhan Arukh | -> Acharonim
0.5.2.6. Collected writings from Rishonim
Tosafot (“additions’)
They are Post-Rashi collections, written in Hebrew, of medieval commentaries on the Talmud, mostly by Rashi disciples. Not to be confused with previously discussed Tosefta, written in mostly Aramaic by the Amoraim.
0.6 Mystic Judaism and Kabbalah
A current of mysticism must have always existed in Judaism. There is evidence in the Mishnah and the tannaitic Midrashim of esoteric material reserved to few special students, and supposed to remain confidential. Mysticism was underground, actually forbidden to be taught to more
than one student at a time by the Mishnah. Ben Sira (born c. 170 BCE) writes: “You shall have no business with secret things”, referring to mysticism.
Up to the 9th-10th century, a primary direction of Torah thought was rationalism, largely inspired from Platonist and Aristotelian philosophy. Around the 10th century, we see a rebirth of mysticism, a push to try and understand a mysterious, hidden meaning to the scriptures, based on revelations, visions, numbers theory etc. The push becomes strong around the 12th and 13th century in France, then several centuries later in the Ottoman empire.
As an example, while Maimonides and Ibn Ezra are neoplatonist or aristotelian rationalists, Nahmanides and and Yosef Karo are mystics influenced by Kabbalah – which proves you can be a good Torah scholar and a mystic.
There are different schools among the Kabbalists:
- Some pursue esoteric knowledge within the Tanakh, in different ways, particularly within Genesis (Bereshit) and Ezekiel (the “Chariot,” Merkavah). Some of that may be encoded through properties of numbers in the text, where letters are given numerical values (“Gematria” < geometry)
- Some want to discover God from within through meditation, sometimes physical suffering
Kabbalists attribute all their primary texts to older sources, typically around 100 ACE. They believe that there is hidden knowledge, that can be only transmitted from master to disciple, and that this hidden knowledge has been passed on in parallel to the Halakha.
The 18th-21st century Hassidic movement inherits much from Kabbalah.
Born left-handed 