Yeridat ha-dorot
Yeridat ha-dorot (Hebrew: ירידת הדורות), meaning literally "the decline of the generations", or nitkatnu ha-dorot (נתקטנו הדורות), meaning "the diminution of the generations", is a concept in classical Rabbinic Judaism and contemporary Orthodox Judaism expressing a belief in the intellectual inferiority of subsequent, and contemporary Torah scholarship and spirituality in comparison to that of the past. It is held to apply to the transmission of the "Revealed" (nigleh) aspects of Torah study, embodied in the legal and homiletic Talmud, and other mainstream rabbinic literature scholarship.