October 11th: Yom Kippur
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
We often mention the Mishnah, the Gemara, and the Talmud, classic Jewish texts which are central to the development of our religion. As a refresher, let us review the basics of these important sources.
First, though, let us look at our first and most sacred text, the Torah (The Five Books of Moses). According to Tradition, it was given by God to Moses and the Israelites around 1200 BCE during their years in the Sinai. After the Five Books of Moses, God’s revelation continued with the many books of the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the various Writings (Ketuvim). Together, the three—the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings—are called the Bible or the Hebrew Scriptures or Tanach—TaNaCH being an acronym for Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim. Though some call the Tanach the “Old Testament,” that name suggests that it is old, outmoded, and was replaced by the New Testament. This is not our Jewish understanding, so we try not to use that term.
After the events recorded in the Tanach, Judaism continued to develop. Around 200 BCE, a group of scholars began enhancing the Bible’s Temple Sacrifice-oriented Judaism with personal spiritual practices that sought to bring forth the Biblical metaphor, “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy people.” (Exodus 19.6) Though not priests, these scholars sought to develop a priest-like holiness in which ordinary Jews could participate and feel close to God. These scholars were called Rabbis, and the enhanced Judaism they crafted is called Rabbinic or Talmudic Judaism. Theirs was a slow and deliberate process—one mixed with applying Biblical principles and practices and dealing with the post-Biblical world in which Jews lived under the hegemony of the Greeks and later the Romans. For some four hundred years (200 BCE to 200 CE), this Rabbinic Judaism slowly developed and was transmitted orally. Only the Holy Scriptures—the TaNaCH—were to be written. But around 200 CE, the leader of the Rabbis, Judah Hanasi (the Prince/President) decided that the Oral Tradition needed to be written down. He organized it as a Law Code, and he called this work the Mishnah / The Teaching. It was finalized around 225 CE.
Of course, being Jews and being very conscious of living in God’s Presence, the conversations did not stop. Generations of Rabbis and scholars studied the Mishnah and applied it to their lives and situations, and some of their most famous conversations were preserved. Eventually, many of these discussions were collected in a text called Gemara, Aramaic for Continuing. There were two collections of Gemara, one compiled in Babylonia (Mesopotamia) and the other compiled in the Land of Israel. Thus do we have one Mishnah and two continuations, the Babylonian Gemara and the “Jerusalem” or Palestinian Gemara. (Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, but in honor of its special place in Judaism, the Gemara compiled in the north of Israel, primarily Tiberias, was called Yerushalmi/Jerusalem.)
The combination of Mishnah and Gemara is called Talmud, and there are thus two Talmuds. The Babylonian Talmud is the combination of the Mishnah and the Babylonian Gemara discussions, and the Yerushalmi/Jerusalem/Palestinian Talmud is the combination of the Mishnah and the Gemara discussions compiled by the Sages in Tiberias. The Babylonian Talmud is more popular, but both are considered authoritative.
The Talmud’s format has a paragraph of the Mishnah followed by a Gemara discussion. Some of these discussions are quite long—many pages, and they often employ a stream-of-consciousness series of subjects. Thus do our modern Jewish discussions—aided and abetted by modern rabbis—bear a delightfully traditional resemblance to the ancient Rabbinic discussions. Lots of digressions. Lots of analogies. Lots of ways that principles on one subject are applied to another.
To get specific, my D’var Torah (sermon) on Rosh Hashanah began with a passage from the Torah (Deuteronomy 21) about a corpse being found out in the countryside. The ancient Rabbis discussed and analyzed this Torah mitzvah, and their opinions are recorded in the Mishnah—in Chapter 9 of the section called Sotah. The Gemara quotes the Mishnah’s findings and records further discussions by later generations of Rabbis. In the Babylonian Talmud, these further discussions are in a section also called Sotah (page 38b). Our sacred tradition is made up of layers upon layers upon layers as we Jews have sought—throughout our generations—to understand what God wants of us and how we can respond to God with holiness and goodness and love.
ALSO:
Our candle lighting on Kol Nidre Eve will honor all of our young people. When Majorie Miller, our Director of Religious School and Youth Engagement, lights the candles, we shall invite all of our children and teens to come up to the bimah and be with her. Kol Nidre is probably the holiest moment of the whole year, and we want our young people to know that they are at the center of our holiness. We are all precious to God—from the youngest of us to the oldest of us. We all have a role to play in the closeness to God we hope will come that night.