jonny said:
I can't say that I know what the Mishnah or Germora are, so I'm not ignoring them. I'm just ignorant. Fair enough, here's a basic explanation of what they are...
Also, I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by Oral law. I'll have to look into that. I've only known one or two Jews in my entire life (they were not that common in Washington), so forgive me if the lingo is new to me. I'm learning.
From
www.jewfaq.org
In addition to the written scriptures we have an "Oral Torah," a tradition explaining what the above scriptures mean and how to interpret them and apply the Laws. Orthodox Jews believe
G-d taught the Oral Torah to
Moses, and he taught it to others, down to the present day. This tradition was maintained in oral form only until about the 2d century
C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah.
Over the next few centuries, additional commentaries elaborating on the Mishnah were written down in Jerusalem and Babylon. These additional commentaries are known as the Gemara. The Gemara and the Mishnah together are known as the Talmud. This was completed in the 5th century
C.E.
There are actually two Talmuds: the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian one is more comprehensive, and is the one most people mean when they refer to The Talmud. There have been additional commentaries on the Talmud by such noted Jewish scholars as
Rashi and
Rambam. Adin Steinsalz is currently preparing a new edition of the Talmud, with his own commentary supplementing the Mishnah, Gemara, and Rashi commentaries.
The Mishnah is divided into six sections called sedarim (in English, orders). Each seder contains one or more divisions called masekhtot (in English, tractates). There are 63 masekhtot in the Mishnah. Approximately half of these masekhtot have been addressed in the Talmud. Although these divisions seem to indicate subject matter, it is important to note that the Mishnah and the Talmud tend to be engage in quite a bit of free-association, thus widely diverse subjects may be discussed in a seder or masekhtah. Below is the division of the Mishnah into sedarim and masekhtot:
- Zera'im (Seeds), dealing with agricultural laws
- Berakhot
- Peah
- Demai
- Kilayim
- Shebiit
- Terumot
- Maaserot
- Maaser Sheni
- Challah
- Orlah
- Bikkurim
- Mo'ed (Festival), dealing with shabbat and festivals
- Shabbat
- Erubin
- Pesachim
- Sheqalim
- Yoma
- Sukkah
- Besah
- Rosh Hashanah
- Taanit
- Megillah
- Moed Qatan
- Hagigah
- Nashim (Women), dealing with marriage, divorce and contracts
- Yebamot
- Ketubot
- Nedarim
- Nazir
- Sotah
- Gittin
- Qiddushin
- Nezikin (Damages), dealing with tort laws and other financial laws
- Baba Qamma
- Baba Mesia
- Baba Batra
- Sanhedrin
- Makkot
- Shabuot
- Eduyyot
- Avodah Zarah
- Avot (also known as Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers)
- Horayot
- Kodashim (Holy Things), dealing with sacrifices and the Temple
- Zevachim
- Menachot
- Chullin
- Bekhorot
- Arakhin
- Temurah
- Keritot
- Meilah
- Tamid
- Middot
- Qinnim
- Toharot (Purities), dealing with laws of ritual purity and impurity
- Kelim
- Ohalot
- Negaim
- Parah
- Tohorot
- Miqvaot
- Niddah
- Makhshirin
- Zabim
- Tebul-Yom
- Yadayim
- Uqsin
In recent times, many observant Jews have taken up the practice of studying a page of Talmud every day. This practice, referred to as daf yomi, was started at the First International Congress of the Agudath Yisrael World Movement in August, 1923. Rav Meir Shapiro, the rav of Lublin, Poland, proposed uniting people worldwide through the daily study of a page of Talmud. Daf Yomi is currently in its 11th cycle. A calendar of the cycle can be found at
Daf Yomi Calendar.
Other Writings
In addition to these works, we have midrashim, which are basically stories expanding on incidents in the Bible to derive principles or Jewish law or to teach moral lessons. For example, there is a midrash about why
Moses wasn't a good speaker (he put coals in his mouth as a child basically as a way of proving that he wasn't greedy), and another one about Abram discovering monotheism and rejecting his father's idolatry (that's a nifty one: basically, he smashes up all his father's idols except the big one, then blames the mess on the big one, as a way of showing his father that the idols don't really have any power). Some of them fill in gaps in the narrative. For example, in Gen. 22:2, why does
G-d say, "thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even
Isaac." Wouldn't the name alone be enough? One story says that the narrative is skipping out
Abraham's responses. "Take thy son." "Which one?" "Thine only son." "But I have two!" "Whom thou lovest." "I love them both!" "Even Isaac." (I'm not sure this is a traditional one -- I got it from a questionable source -- but I like it).
There is also a vast body of responsa, answers to specific questions of
Jewish law. Beginning in the middle ages, when local
rabbis were faced with difficult issues of Jewish law, they often wrote to the most respected rabbis in the world to get answers to these questions. The local rabbi would present the situation, often including detailed references to the
Talmudic passages he had reviewed and his own interpretations of these authorities, and the world-renowned rabbi would provide a reasoned argument in favor of his answer. Over time, these responsa were collected into printed volumes. This tradition continues to the present day, and there are several rabbis in this century who have developed responsa on issues relating to modern technologies. For example, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who died in the 1980s, wrote responsa on such diverse topics as the permissibility of cosmetic surgery, the
kashering of dishwashers, and artificial insemination. There are literally thousands of volumes of responsa. A project at Bar-Ilan University is compiling these responsa into a computer database. See their website at
The Responsa Project for more information.
As you can see, the body of Jewish tradition is very vast. Is there any place to get quick answers? In the middle ages, there were several attempts to create definitive codes of
Jewish law. The best-known of these codes are
Rambam's Mishneh Torah and Joseph Caro's Shulchan Arukh. In their own time, these works were very controversial, because they did not identify the Torah or Talmudic basis for their opinions and generally ignored conflicting opinions. There was concern that such works would discourage Jews from studying the primary sources: Torah and Talmud. Today, however, these sources are well-respected. In fact, the Shulchan Arukh is often treated as a primary source. We also have a mystical tradition, known as
Kabbalah. The primary written work in the Kabbalistic tradition is the Zohar. Traditionally, rabbis discouraged teaching this material to anyone under the age of 40, because it is too likely to be misinterpreted by anyone without sufficient grounding in the basics.
