Category: Talmud
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Amoraic
Belonging to the era of the Amoraim (sing. Amora – אמורא). The Amoraim are the rabbis who formulated and transmitted the Gemara, or commentary on the Mishnah known collectively as Talmud, in the 3rd through 5th centuries CE. Amoraim lived in both Eretz Yisrael and Bavel (Babylonia, which is how Jews referred to Sassanian Persia…
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Bavli
The Babylonian Talmud, referring to the Gemara as redacted in Bavel, the major Jewish community of antiquity outside of Eretz Yisrael. Also refered to as Shas.
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Chazal
חז”ל – “our Sages, of blessed memory,” the abbreviation for חכמנו זכרונם לברכה – Chakhmenu zikhronam li-verakhah, meaning the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, the Tannaim and Amoraim, respectively. Variations are also used, such as רז”ל – Rabbotenu zichronam li-verakhah, “our Rabbis, of blessed memory.”
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Shas
ש”ס – An acronym for the Talmud, from shishah sedarim (שישה סדרים), the six orders into which both Mishnah and the Gemara on it are divided. Each order of the Mishnah contains multiple massekhtot (tractates, sing. massekhet), not all of which have commentary (Gemara) on them.
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Talmud
Commonly refers to the Talmud Bavli, meaning the Mishnah (redacted Oral Law) with the Gemara (commentary) as redacted in Bavel (Babylon). It is also called by the acronym Shas, referring to the six orders (sedarim, sing. seder) into which the tractates (massekhtot, sing. massekhet) of the Mishnah and Gemara on it are divided. Today, there…
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Tannaitic
Belonging to the era of the Tannaim (sing. Tanna – תנא), the rabbis who formulated and transmitted the Oral Law that became the Mishnah in the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. There are seven generations of Tannaim.