The BiG Story'
arly academies there and contin-
First, there is a continuous narrative
effects of time, it was decided to com-
of the history of the Jewish people,
mit the oral Torah to writing. This was
ued the teaching and interpreta-
:showing their formation from the very
accomplished in stages.
tion of Halacha.
beginnings of the world itself, to their
The first great codification of the
Around .500-550 C.E., the interpre-
I evolution from a single family into an
oral Torah was compiled by Rabbi
tation and elaboration of the Mish-
I entire nation.
Yehuda haNasi around the year
nah, as carried on in the Babylonian
academies, was committed to writing.
Along with this history is a series of
2000 C.E. It is known as the Mish-
divine commandments and laws,
nah. The word derived from the
It became known as the Gemara, or
I which, by tradition, number 613.
1 Hebrew root, shana, meaning "to
more commonly, the Talmud. It is far
There also is poetry, prophecy and
repeat," alluding to the method of
larger than the Mishnah, for it records
mystical episodes.
memorization and recapitulation
1 scholars' discussions, debates and
Above all, the basic purpose of
that characterized the oral Torah.
opinions, by the thousands. Much of
the Torah is to show the relationship
Every area of Jewish law is treated,
the material it includes is not legal;
1 of God to the Jewish people. From
but concisely.
that is, it does not pertain directly to
1 this interplay of man and God, the
Yet the Mishnah is not merely a long
Halacha. Some of the non-legal mat-
scholars of Torah — the rabbis —
derived a formula for living which
came to be called Halacha,
Hebrew for "the way."
The formation of Halacha is the Jew-
! ish people's attempts to discern the
will of God. This process comes from
study of the words of the Torah. We
I know from the Torah narrative itself
that trying to understand what God
expects of us began as soon as the
Torah- was given. While the Jews yet-
i wandered through the wilderness they
came to Moses with constant ques-
tions about the way of life he was try-
' ing to teach them,
Shiro Lorkis, 6, Rochel Ruth Buxbaum, 7, and Rena Lorkis, 7, get help
I Immediately, it was recognized that
from Sarah Bernstein at "From Pesach to Shavuot: Countdown to Receiving
the interpretations and applications of
the Torah" on May 25 at the Jewish Community Center in Oak Park. The
the laws written in the Torah were
program, for 5- to 10-year-olds, repeats at 2 p. m. on June 4 at the JCC in
West Bloomfield.
•
important for their own sake, for with-
out them the Jewish people could not
live the Torah-based way of life. Thus,
list of laws. It also records the argu-
ter, called Aggada, concerns stories,
the interpretations and applications
ments of the rabbis in applying the
traditions and history.
also were a form of the "teaching,"
law, though rarely are the implications
The scholars quoted in theTalmud
and it, too, was called Torah.
of these arguments made clear.
are the earlier Tannaim, along with
At the same time, each application
The scholars quoted in the Mishnah
the rabbis of Babylonia, called
of a law was .referred to as a
are called Tannaim from the Aramaic
Amoraim ("speakers" or "interpreters").
halacha. Yet for many generations, as
word, tanna, meaning "to hand
The language of the Talmud, when
the Torah was copied . again and
down orally," "study" and "teach."
not quoting the Mishnah, is Aramaic,
again into parchment scrolls, its inter-
The Mishnah, which is written%)
the everyday language of Babylonia.
pretations and applications were
Hebrew, is separated into six major
The Talmud, with the six mishnaic
transmitted strictly by word of mouth
divisions, usually referred to as orders:
orders divided into tractates, is the
from scholar to student.
Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Nezikin,
great body of law in Judaism, and its
Eventually, the scholarly world of
<odashim and Tohorot. Each order is
interpretations and applications of the
Judaism devised two terms — Torah.
further separated into about 10 trac-
written Torah are authoritative. To this
sh'bichtav ("written Torah") and Torah
tates. Each order covers a general
day, rabbis in search of an answer to
Shibaal peh ("oral Torah") — to
topic, such as Sabbath and holidays,
a question in Jewish law first consult
des&ibe the Torah found in scrolls
sacrifices and Temple ritual, marriage,
the Talmud. Much of the way we live
and its interpretive and applied under-
torts, civil law and court procedure.
1 as Jews — from antiquity to the pre-
! standings conveyed in the Temple,
The major Jewish communities in the sent — is derived from what has been
synagogues and schools.
early Common Era were found in
I learned in the Talmud.
Because of war, upheaval and the
Babylonia. Jews built great schol-
Although the bulk of Jewry resided
6/2
2000
110
in Babylonia, a significant number of
remained in the Land of Israel.
There, the Mishnah was studied as
well, and in the Land of Israel the
great scholars produced their own.
Talmud. This has come to be known
as theJerusalem Talmud (the
Yerushalmi in Hebrew), as distinct
from the Babylonian Talmud (the
Bavli in Hebrew).
Sometimes in English, the Jerusalem
1 Talmud is referred to as the Palestinian
Talmud — which in light of modern
political Osage can lead to great con-
fusion. By and large, however, when
the Talmud is cited, it is the much larg-
er Babylonian Talmud that is meant.
Through the generations, commen-
t taries on the Talmud have been writ
ten. The legal opinions, known as
responsa, of the rabbis have been
collected and published, and the laws
of the Talmud have been distilled,
complied and codified. These, in turn,
I also have their own commentaries.
Together, this great body of legal
1 thought, opinion and application is
1 also referred to as Torah Sh'Baal Peh.
Imagine this: a sentence, phrase or
word in the written Torah can give rise
in the Talmud to pages and pages of
discussion and legal application.
A person who aspires to become a
rabbi must learn to master the highly
complex world of Torah, both oral
and written. Although attempts have
been made to interpret the Torah into
I every major and many minor Ian-
guages on earth, experts agree that
I there is no substitute for studying the
Torah in its original form. Sometimes
an entire application of law is built on
the nuances of Hebrew in a phrase of
the written Torah. However, no for-
1 eign-language interpretation, no mat-
ter how skillful, can capture the intu-
itive knowledge that arises from study-
: ing a text in its original.
There is a tradition that Moses
spent 40 days on Mt. Sinai learning
from God not only the written Torah,
but all its applications later found in
the oral Torah. Jewish scholars of
great repute have spent lifetimes
studying the Torah with the hope that
1 they could achieve the understanding
of Moses in his mere 40 days. El
Jews
I