"Rabbinic hermeneutics in ancient Judaism reflects this multifaceted world of the text and of reality, seen as a world of reference worth commentary. As a mirror, it includes this world but perhaps also falsifies reality, adapting it to one's own aims and necessities. This book explores the rabbinic concern with texts as the main area of influence of the rabbinic academy in a space between the texts of the past and the real world of the present"--