Jewish Written and Oral Tradition
within the Covenant
This is a summary of the sources of Jewish tradition from a generally Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox perspective and then slightly critical assessments. The main sections are:
Hebrew Bible (containing Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim) and
Halachah (Oral Torah) (containing Mishnah, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud, Responsa, Codes, Bet Din and Halachah now) and
Aggadah (Teachings) (containing Kabbalah, Ethics and Character).
Hebrew Bible
- The first five books of the Bible are definitely the Torah
- Some people refer to the whole Bible as Torah
- The Bible can be referred to as the written Torah
The Bible breaks down into:
Torah
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5 books of Moses
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Nev'im
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Books of the Prophets
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Ketuvim
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Holy writings
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The three make up the whole Hebrew Bible or
Tanakh
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Torah
Containing Commandments, Ethics, Historical form
- Creating the world
- People become evil
- God decides to destroy humankind but spares Noah (and there will be descendants)
- The flood
- Jews' ancestors' life stories - Abraham (from whom the Covenant begins), Isaac, and Jacob
- Jacob's sons live in Egypt
- Egyptians enslave Jacob's descendants
- Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt
- They sin by worshipping a golden calf and God forgives
- The Torah is received at Mount Sinai
- The sanctuary is built (mobile desert Temple)
- Describes how sacrifices were made in the sanctuary
- Tells of the foods that Jews may and may not eat
- The times of special festivals and the commandments which apply
- Moses counts the Hebrews
- Moses faces a rebellion
- Hostile nations try to defeat the Hebrews
- Hebrews' conquests east of the River Jordan
- Route taken from Egypt to the Promised Land
Deuteronomy
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Devarim
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Repetition of the Torah
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Mishnet Torah
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- As Moses' speeches on boundaries to the Promised Land
- Contains many Laws
- Contains many teachings
- Moses dies
Nevi'im
Books of the Prophets
Joshua
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Judges
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Samuel
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Kings
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- Hebrews conquer and settle in new land
- Hebrews fight neighbours
- Tribes establish monarchy
- The Temple is built
- Division into Israel (north) and Judah (south)
- Israelis exiled to Assyria by Assyrians
- First destruction of the Temple
- Jews (Judah) exiled to Babylon by Babylonians (586 BCE)
- Morality developed
Isaiah
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Jeremiah
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Ezekiel
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12 shorter books
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- Faith
- Justice
- Compassion
- Little historical type material
Ketuvim
Holy Writings
Esther
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Daniel
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Ezra
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Nehemiah
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- Describing the Jews under the Persian Empire
Chronicles
- Review of the history of the Hebrews
Psalms
Proverbs
- Ethical advice briefly given
Ruth
- A Moabite woman loved God and so joined the Hebrews
Ecclesiastes
- Philosophical about the meaning of life
Job
- Philosophical about suffering
Song of Songs
- Love of God and love for each other in somewhat eroticised language
The Bible combines mythic history and more reliable history, given little or at best patchy evidence for Abraham and Moses. Although written in the order of Law and then Prophets, from a standpoint of revelation, scholarship suggests prophetic utterances leading then to Law, and much is from Babylonian exile. What matters is the story. The Covenant continues to this day.
Halachah
Going with God or Oral Torah (Law)
Orthodox Jews believe that when God gave Moses the 613 written mitzvot (commandments) he also gave Moses the interpretation given in the Oral Torah
Mishnah
Mishnah means learning by repetition.
- First transmitted by word of mouth
- Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Meir each produced collections
- Collections studied 000s to 200 CE by tannaim (teachers)
- Rabbi Judah the Prince (Hanasi) (135-217 CE) wrote them about 200 CE
- Much went back centuries but other material not in Mishnah went into Tosefta or "Addition"
- Sixty three tracates (volumes) of the Mishnah have 6 divisions
- Prayer
- Crops for the poor
- Tithes
- The year of no farm work called Shemitta
Appointed Festival Times
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Moed
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- Observing the sabbath and festivals
- Sacrifices in the temple
- Forbidden work
- Fasts
- Special days
- Mourning
- Bethrothal
- Marriage (and documents)
- Who cannot marry
- Divorce and settlements
- Vows
- Injury to compensation
- Ownership
- Inheritance
- Court work and witnesses and punishment
- Moral guidance in Ethics of the Fathers - Pirkei Avot
Sacred and Holy Matters
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Kedoshim
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- Sacrifices offered and how
- Sacrifices unfit to offer
- Temple design
- People becoming pure and impure
- Articles becoming pure and impure
- Immersion pool or Mikveh
- Food purity
Talmud
Babylonian Talmud
Being Gerema (completion) added to Mishnah.
- The Mishnah and how they came about led to much discussion noted down
- About 500 CE Rabbi Ina, and his follower Rabbi Ashi, put the archives into order
- Each paragraph of the Mishnah had its discussions put alongside
- This gets studied in yeshivot (academies)
- A page a day would take 14 years to study
Jerusalem Talmud
Similar earlier process at 400 CE in Jerusalem as in Babylon but less large and prestigious.
Responsa
- Talmud very large and needs assistance
- 650 to 1050 CE learned rabbis in Babylonia were sent queries called Gaonim (plural) and replied with responses - responsa
- Some of these were questions about new arising situations and applications of the Law
- The responsa were widely distributed themselves
- These assisted further questions
Codes
- Major decisions on Jewish law were set down
- These produced digests
- 1000s on many codes compiled
- Maimonides wrote Mishneh Torah 1167
- It is like a guidebook - Maimonides wrote that anyone who reads the written Torah and his Mishneh Torah knows the Law
- Shulchan Aruch - Prepared Table - written in 1500s by Rabbi Joseph Caro in Safed after exile from Spain
- Moses Isserles asdded notes to Shulchan Aruch and is accepted by Sephardi Jews
- The codes have responsa in a quick view system and this became the way for the future
Bet Din
- The Bet Din is a rabbinical court in towns of many Jews
- Each one is made up of three knowledgable rabbis
- They make judgements when disputants agree to avoid a secular court
- They make judgements mainly on religious and family issues
- The guide is Deuteronomy 16: 18-19
Halachah now
- Rabbis still need to apply these mitzvot to new eras
- Technology creates new situations
- Travel alters dates in motion
- Medical methods have advanced
- Sexual contraception needs directions
Reform and Liberal Jews do not accept that Moses received both the written and oral Torah at Sinai. This combination is an essential part of Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox thinking. Biblical criticism follows on from this basic assumption - Orthodoxy is not fundamentalist but has its basic revelatory assumption.
Aggadah
Teaching and Explanation of the Tanakh
- Aggadah passed on orally
- Aggadah examines words in Bible and compares contexts
- 0000s on some writing down
- These are Midrashim
- Midrashim uses parables and examples
- Aggadah in Talmud
- Kabbalah is revelation
- Kabbalah is mysticism
- It was once fairly secretive among the learned and pious
- In 1700s Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov published simplified explanations
- Kabbalah used to improve personal relationship to God
- Chassidism took from this
- God has no limits
- God created a world with limits
- Kabbalah studies this
- It looks at God's self revelation
- God's creating from nothing
- Good God yet an evil-containing world
- The soul
- Written in 1300s
- Many teachings stretching back centuries
The idea of Kabbalah or Qabala has also appealed to Pagans. This is the notion of secretive, special, intrinsic knowledge contained in the precise words and their arrangement of the Bible and other traditional worded elements. It brings forward the content of numbers and prediction. The secret of the future of the world is contained within. It also reflects in Christianity the notion of the Bible as magical, to be opened at random to reveal a special message (almost in the manner of Sikh readings). In Pagan terms the words are said in the precise order and the magic is released. Whilst Jewish faith certainly connects words and world, this is mainly knowledge (including direct and emotional) over magic, and that knowledge contains routes to God through his revelation.
Ethics and Character
- Bible's Proverbs, Mishnah's Ethics of the Fathers
- 1200s on many ethical works
- Musars took on ethical thrust and identity
Contents:
Hebrew Bible (containing Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim)
Halachah (Oral Torah) (containing Mishnah, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud, Responsa, Codes, Bet Din and Halachah now) and
Aggadah (Teachings) (containing Kabbalah, Ethics and Character)