Religious Research

Religious Research

Genealogy of the Rabbinic Institution: Transformation and Transition to the Modern State

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
جواد شعرباف
Assistant Professor, Department of West Asian and African Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/jrr.2026.537508.2289
Abstract
Religious institutions, like political institutions, have structure, organization, leadership, surveillance, and boundary protection. The defense of religious teachings and the dissemination and propagation of religious ideas require a class of religious clerics who, by abandoning worldly attachments, attend to their own religious affairs and those of their followers. The particular language of religion, the understanding of the layers and inner meanings of religious texts, the extraction of religious obligations and religious dos and don’ts, the administration of the affairs of believers, and responding to their everyday needs grant this group a special status and standing within society. Almost all religions and ideologies have experienced such a mechanism and, in order to achieve their objectives, have produced an organization, leadership, and a particular class as the exclusive interpreters of religion/ideology. In Judaism, almost all of the above have been entrusted to Jewish religious clerics (rabbis).
The issue addressed in this article is the examination of the causes of the persistence and consolidation of the rabbinic system and the mechanisms governing it throughout the past centuries up to the present. The aim is to understand this mechanism and how religious responsibilities (the preservation of the Torah and efforts to act according to it in different communities) have been fulfilled among the Jewish minority. The main question of the article is how, given that religious leaders and clerics are responsible for protecting religion and guarding its boundaries, this responsibility has been fulfilled in the case of the Jewish minority throughout the course of history, and how this intra-religious cohesion, which has approached rigidity, has been able to preserve the identity of the Jewish community. Although the fulfillment and implementation of this responsibility in the years prior to the establishment of Israel did not require much structure and was shaped largely by the mutual acceptance and approval of both sides (the community and the rabbi), following the establishment of the Jewish state, this responsibility also assumed a different form and acquired a structured function. The examination of this transformation and change, and of the mechanism by which it became a structure, is analyzed in this study. The hypothesis of the present article is that this rabbinic structure and mechanism has preserved Jewish identity throughout the past centuries and, with the establishment of the Jewish state, while reconstructing and attending to new structures and institutions, has been able, by relying on its own instruments, to preserve and develop the Jewish character of the state. The method used in this research is descriptive analysis based on longitudinal historical studies. The findings of the research indicate that, despite enduring considerable hardships and adversities in different communities, the rabbinic system has been able to fulfill its responsibility for controlling the Jewish religious community throughout the past centuries. Furthermore, following the emergence of the Jewish state, while strengthening religious identity and consolidating the cohesion of its adherents, it has strengthened and developed rabbinic mechanisms and established new institutions with the aim of controlling Judaism.


Keywords
Rabbi
rabbinate
genealogy
Judaism
Israel
Subjects
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