ABSTRACT
A scholar's journey moved in ever-widening circles, down familiar paths toward frontiers of knowledge and across. For the study of religion in general, and Judaism as an example of the general, Max Weber laid out one road from the known even to the outer bounds of understanding. Weber's interest in the relation between social stratification and religious ideas presents an enduring perspective for the analysis of the place of religion in society and of the relationship between religion and society. The building block of Mishnaic discourse, the circumstance addressed whenever the issues of concrete society and material transactions are taken up, is the householder and his context. The Mishnah presents a "Judaism, that is, a coherent world-view which speaks of transcendent things, a way of life expressive of the supernatural meaning of what is done, a heightened and deepened perception of the sanctification of Israel in deed and in deliberation.
