Editing Talmud (section)

===Pilpul===
During the 15th and 16th centuries, a new intensive form of Talmud study arose. Complicated logical arguments were used to explain minor points of contradiction within the Talmud. The term ''[[pilpul]]'' was applied to this type of study. Usage of ''pilpul'' in this sense (that of "sharp analysis") harks back to the Talmudic era and refers to the intellectual sharpness this method demanded.

Pilpul practitioners posited that the Talmud could contain no redundancy or contradiction whatsoever. New categories and distinctions (''hillukim'') were therefore created, resolving seeming contradictions within the Talmud by novel logical means.

In the [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]] world the founders of ''pilpul'' are generally considered to be [[Jacob Pollak]] (1460–1541) and [[Shalom Shachna]]. This kind of study reached its height in the 16th and 17th centuries when expertise in pilpulistic analysis was considered an art form and became a goal in and of itself within the yeshivot of Poland and Lithuania. But the popular new method of Talmud study was not without critics; already in the 15th century, the ethical tract ''Orhot Zaddikim'' ("Paths of the Righteous" in Hebrew) criticized pilpul for an overemphasis on intellectual acuity. Many 16th- and 17th-century rabbis were also critical of pilpul. Among them are [[Judah Loew ben Bezalel]] (the ''Maharal'' of Prague), [[Isaiah Horowitz]], and [[Yair Bacharach]].

By the 18th century, pilpul study waned. Other styles of learning such as that of the school of Elijah b. Solomon, the [[Vilna Gaon]], became popular. The term "pilpul" was increasingly applied derogatorily to novellae deemed casuistic and hairsplitting. Authors referred to their own commentaries as "al derekh ha-peshat" (by the simple method)<ref>''Al'' means on. ''Derekh'' mean path. PaShoot, the Hebrew root in ''ha-peshat'', means ''simple''. The prefix "ha-" means ''the''. {{cite web
   |url=https://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/mishpat/kap.html
   |title=691 Kapah
   |quote=According to the plain sense (ve-al derekh ha-peshat)
   |access-date=2019-10-03
   |archive-date=2019-10-03
   |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191003071413/https://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/mishpat/kap.html
   |url-status=dead
   }}</ref> to contrast them with pilpul.<ref>See ''Pilpul'', [[Mordechai Breuer]], in ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'', Vol. 16, 2nd Ed (2007), Macmillan Reference and H.H. Ben Sasson, ''A History of the Jewish People'', pp. 627, 717.</ref>