She'iltot שאילתות
The first book written after the Talmud. Neither a code nor a commentary, but some hundred and ninety discourses following the weekly portions: a commandment, a question upon it, aggadah, and an answer.
It is built unlike anything that came after. The book follows neither the tractates of the Talmud nor the divisions of the law, but the weekly portions of the Torah. Each she'ilta is a discourse in four parts: a commandment from that portion; a halakhic question arising from it; aggadah around the subject; and finally an answer.
From this one sees for whom it was written: not for experts alone but for a thinking listener—it appears to be recorded sermons, in which law and aggadah go together. There will be almost no more books of the kind: afterwards law and aggadah part onto different shelves.
Some hundred and ninety she'iltot survive; later copyists added, and the Cairo Genizah copies differ markedly from the printed editions. The language is Aramaic. Where it was written, in Babylonia or in the Land of Israel, is still disputed: Rav Achai left for the Land of Israel after being passed over for the gaonate of Pumbedita, and the book may have taken shape there.
But the chief thing about it is the bare fact: after the Talmud was completed, for two hundred years nobody wrote books. This is the first.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- She'iltot de-Rav Achai — the structure: by the weekly portions, four parts to each she'ilta
Scholarship
- Cairo Genizah copies — the divergences from the printed editions and the later additions
Basis: documents and evidence.