The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 AD ushered in the period of Rabbinic Judaism, whose essential features are discipline and ritual in daily life, the synagogue as the center of worship, prayer in place of sacrifice.

The destruction of the Temple caused the dispersion of the Jews (Jewish Diaspora - Galut). Rabbis (who replaced the priests, the former "scribes"), experts and teachers of the Torah, established the canon of the Hebrew Bible and the rules of Judaism without the Temple.