Okay, don’t beat me over the head with the “do your own homework” stick just yet. I’m taking a sociology class, and for my group’s assignment, we have to read the holy book for certain religions and find instances of the oppression of women. I got the topic of Judaism. I picked it because I know relatively little about it, and I thought that it would be interesting to learn about. But, I don’t really know where to begin. Which book is considered the “official” one for Judaism? Is it the Kaballah, the Torah, the Talmud? Something else? And what do these books encompass? I’m probably correct in assuming that the Torah (the old testament) is the answer, but I also need to know how the others fit into all of this. Essentially I need a crash course in Judaism 101. If anyone can help at all, that would be really appreciated. I tried doing a search on the SD boards, but they’re rrrrreeeeaaallllyyy slow tonight. The internet isn’t much help, either.
The internet isn’t much help?! I suggest you brush up on your search skills.
Today is Yom Kippur, and all observant Jews will be offline.
You might try the following links:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/judaism.htm
http://www.torah.org/
Just do a search on Judaism and Overview and you’ll get lots of good hits.
OK, Judaism 101 it is… (at least from the Orthodox perspective)
There are two parts to the Torah, the written Torah, and the oral Torah.
The written Torah
The written Torah consists of the Pentatuch, the Prophets and the Writings. The Pentatuch is the first five books of what is commonly referred to in the Christian world as the Old Testament. The Prophets consist of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. The Writings consist of Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Song of Songs, Ruth, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles.
The oral Torah
The oral Torah was an oral tradition that was handed down from generation to generation. A cursory reading of the written Torah shows that the details given therein for the commandments are too sparse to actually make use of them. As a result, an oral tradition was provided to explain the commandments in the Pentatuch and lay down the rules for dealing with future situations that would arise.
Around 1800 years ago, it became feared that the oral tradition would become lost. As a result, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi began compliing the tradition. This compilation is called the Mishnah and is divided up into six sections, dealing with agricultural matter, Sabbath & holidays, marital law, damages and court proceedings, consecrated items and ritual impurities. However, the Mishna is only composed of short, brief notes on the law. It was meant only to serve as an aid to memory for students studying the greater details.
Around 500-600 CE, Rav Ashi began compiling the Talmud, fearing that the discussions that centered around the Mishna in the Talmudical academies in Babylon were going to be lost. This is the Babylonian Talmud. (Note: A similar project took place among the academies in Israel about a century earlier. This resulted in the Jerusalem Talmud).
Since the Talmud reads like a debate, very often it will go off on tangents to other areas of Jewish law that have little to do with the subject being discussed at hand. As a result, in order to find an answer, sometimes one would have to know a vast portion of the Talmud. About 1000 years ago, Maimonides composed his famous work, the Mishneh Torah. This is a fourteen volume work covering Jewish law as it existed in his time. The arguments of the Talmud are stripped away and the law codified.
Rabbi Joseph Cairo, about 500 years ago (I may be a bit off on this date) composed the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch is a compilation of Jewish law that applies to modern day situations (i.e., sacrificial law, and other such subjects, which were included in Maimonides’ work, was left out of the Shulchan Aruch). The Shulchan Aruch is still used today in determining Jewish law. Rabbi Joseph Cairo primarily wrote his work for Sephardic Jews. Rabbi Moshe Issrelis later added a gloss that gave the Ashkenazic customs.
Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism. Definitely not the “official” book. One can be a good Jew his entire life and never pick up a book of Kabbalah.
So, what’s the “official” book? There isn’t one. It’s a combination of all the ones I’ve mentioned, plus many others.
I hope this provides some answers for you. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.
Zev Steinhardt
To Orthodox Jews, they’re all “official.” The Torah is the basis for it all, The Talmud and Midrash put into writing - but unfortunately not in a manner easily accessible by those who haven’t studied it for a while - oral traditions which offer additional insight not gleaned from a surface-level reading of the Torah text. There are many commentaries on the Torah text (foremost amongst them the 11th-century sage Rashi) which apply the appropriate Talmudic and Midrashic pieces to the appropriate verses in the Torah text. Artscroll Publications has a five-volume set of English-translated Torah with Rashi’s commentary (also English-translated) and extensive footnotes. (Click on the link that says “Saperstein Rashi” at the top of their home page.) Three codes of Jewish law - the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides, the Arba Turim and the Shulchan Aruch offer a more organized and more specific guide to various aspects of Jewish law, but I’m not certain that anyone’s ever published an English translation of any of those three in their entirety.
An On-line source which might help you is Ask the Rabbi. In addition to being able to ask specific questions, you can browse the rather extensive and interesting archive of previous questions.
NP: Sentenced - The Cold White Light
Just wanted to thank all of you for your help. This really helped clear up a lot of questions. I was eager to pick Judaism because I knew very little about the subject, and I thought that it would be very interesting to learn about. And so far, it has. But, in regards to Telemark’s comments, all of the websites that I looked up (and there were many) were geared towards people who already practiced the religion, so they assumed that the reader knew all of these things already. After all, which book to read for a religion is one of the first things you should learn about (obviously). I didn’t know which one, so I needed to have that cleared up. All of you have helped with that, and I thank you.