The studies at the Department of Talmud aim at providing students with profound knowledge and comprehension of the Talmudic literature and culture, as well as an intimate acquaintance with the main sources and their critical study. The advance studies at the department’s graduate program are also geared at training junior scholars of the various branches of Talmudic literature. All courses are based on meticulous and thorough reading and examining of the texts, which brings about an understanding of the texts and their contents that is profound as well as original and innovative. The abundant nature of the Rabbinic literature, together with the implementation of up-to-date methods of research make these studies uniquely interesting and fruitful.

The studies at the department are geared toward providing students with critical knowledge and thought in the following areas: the history of the compositions, their creation, redaction and transmission; the history of the Talmudic Halakha; the spiritual and cultural world of the Sages and its links to earlier Jewish conceptions (in the Bible, in apocryphal and Hellenistic literature, and in the Halakhic and exegetical literature from the Dead Sea Scrolls and contemporary culture; and the main threads of medieval Geonic and Rabbinic literature.