Talmud/Mishna/Gemara - the Oral Law
(Edited from the
Jewish Virtual Library)
The Jewish community of Palestine
suffered horrible losses during the revolts that took place during the
Roman occupation of the Holy Land. Well over a million Jews were killed
in two ill-fated uprisings, and the leading yeshivot (religious
schools called 'yeshiva' today), along with thousands of their
rabbinical scholars and students, were devastated.
This decline in the number of
knowledgeable Jews seems to have been a decisive factor in Rabbi Judah
the Prince's decision around the year 200 AD to record in writing the
Oral Law. For centuries, the leading rabbis had resisted writing down
the Oral Law - teaching the law orally, the rabbis knew, compelled
students to maintain close relationships with teachers, and they
considered teachers, not books, to be the best conveyors of the Jewish
tradition. But with the deaths of so many teachers, Rabbi Judah
apparently feared that the Oral Law would be forgotten unless it were
written down.
In the Mishna, the name for the
sixty-three tractates in which Rabbi Judah set down the Oral Law, Jewish
law is systematically codified (categorized), unlike in the Torah. For
example, if a person wanted to find every law in the Torah concerning
the Sabbath, he would have to locate scattered references in Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In order to know everything a given
subject, one either had to read through all of it or know its contents
by heart. (Today we have very good concordances , but such was not the
case 2,000 years ago!) Rabbi Judah avoided this problem by arranging the
Mishna topically. All laws pertaining to the Sabbath were put into one
tractate called Shabbat (Hebrew for "Sabbath"). The laws
contained in Shabbat's twenty-four chapters are far more
extensive than those contained in the Torah, for the Mishna summarizes
the Oral Law's extensive Sabbath legislation (what we Christians would
refer to as the rabbinical laws built up to define the scriptural
injunctions). The tractate Shabbat is part of a larger "order"
called Mo'ed (Hebrew for "holiday"), which is one of six orders
that comprise the Mishna. Some of the other tractates in Mo'ed specify
the Oral Laws concerning the various feasts and festivals.
The first of the six orders is called
Zera'im (Seeds), and deals with the agricultural rules of ancient
Palestine, particularly with the details of the produce that were to be
presented as offerings at the temple.
The most famous tractate in Zera'im, however, Brakhot (Blessings)
has little to do with agriculture. It records laws concerning different
blessings and when they are to be recited.
Another order, called Nezikin (Damages),
contains ten tractates summarizing Jewish civil and criminal law.
Another order, Nashim (Women),
deals with issues between the sexes, including both laws of marriage and
divorce.
A fifth order, Kodashim, outlines
the laws of sacrifices and ritual slaughter. The sixth order, Taharot,
contains the laws of purity and impurity.
Although parts of the Mishna read as dry
legal recitations, Rabbi Judah frequently enlivened the text by
presenting minority views, which it was also hoped might serve to guide
scholars in later generations.
One of the Mishna's sixtythree tractates
contains no laws at all. It is called Pirkei Avot (usually
translated as Ethics of the Fathers), and it is here that their most famous sayings and proverbs are
recorded.
During the centuries following Rabbi
Judah's editing of the Mishna, it was studied exhaustively by generation
after generation of rabbis. Eventually, some of these rabbis wrote down
their discussions and commentaries on the Mishna's laws in a series of
books known as the Talmud. The rabbis of Palestine edited their
discussions of the Mishna about the year 400: Their work became known as
the Palestinian Talmud (in Hebrew, Talmud Yerushalmi,
which literally means "Jerusalem Talmud").
More than a century later, some of the
leading Babylonian rabbis compiled another editing of the discussions on
the Mishna. By then, these deliberations had been going on some three
hundred years. The Babylon edition was far more extensive than its
Palestinian counterpart, so that the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli)
became the most authoritative compilation of the Oral Law. When people
speak of studying "the Talmud," they almost invariably mean the Bavli
rather than the Yerushalmi.
The Talmud's discussions are recorded in
a consistent format. A law from the Mishna is cited, which is followed
by rabbinic deliberations on its meaning. The Mishna and the rabbinic
discussions (known as the Gemara) comprise the Talmud, although
in Jewish life the terms Gemara and Talmud usually are used
interchangeably.
The rabbis whose views are cited in the
Mishna are known as Tanna'im (Aramaic for "teachers"), while the
rabbis quoted in the Gemara are known as Amora'im
("explainers" or "interpreters"). Because the Tanna'im lived
earlier than the Amora'im, and thus were in closer proximity to
Moses and the revelation at Sinai, their teachings are considered more
authoritative than those of the Amora'im. For the same reason,
Jewish tradition generally regards the teachings of the Amora'im,
insofar as they are expounding the Oral Law, as more authoritative than
contemporary rabbinic teachings.
In addition to extensive legal
discussions (in Hebrew, halakha), the rabbis incorporated into
the Talmud guidance on ethical matters, medical advice, historical
information, and folklore, which together are known as aggadata.
As a rule, the Gemara's text
starts with a close reading of the Mishna. For example, Mishna Bava
Mezia 7:1 teaches the following: "If a man hired laborers and
ordered them to work early in the morning and late at night, he cannot
compel them to work early and late if it is not the custom to do so in
that place." On this, the Gemara (Bava Mezia 83a)
comments: "Is it not obvious [that an employer cannot demand that they
change from the local custom]? The case in question is where the
employer gave them a higher wage than was normal. In that case, it might
be argued that he could then say to them, 'The reason I gave you a
higher wage than is normal is so that you will work early in the morning
and late at night.' So the law tells us that the laborers can reply:
'The reason that you gave us a higher wage than is normal is for better
work [not longer hours].'"
Among religious Jews, talmudic scholars
are regarded with the same awe and respect with which secular society
regards Nobel laureates. Yet throughout Jewish history, study of the
Mishna and Talmud was hardly restricted to an intellectual elite. An old
book saved from the millions burned by the Nazis, and now housed at the
YIVO library in New York, bears the stamp THE SOCIETY OF WOODCHOPPERS
FOR THE STUDY OF MISHNA IN BERDITCHEV. That the men who chopped wood in
Berditchev, an arduous job that required no literacy, met regularly to
study Jewish law demonstrates the ongoing pervasiveness of study of the
Oral Law in the Jewish community.