In the aftermath of the conquest of the Holy Land by the Romans and their destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, Jews were faced with a world in existential chaos-both they and their God were rendered homeless. In a religious tradition that had equated Divine approval with peaceful dwelling on the Land, this situation was intolerable. So the rabbis, aspirants for leadership of the post-destruction Jewish community, appropriated inherited traditions and used them as building blocks for a new religious structure. Not unexpectedly, given the circumstances, this new rabbinic formation...