CLASSIC TEXTS OF JUDAISM

The Hebrew Bible
IN HEBREW, THE HOLY SCRIPTURES are called the Torah, which literally means teaching or revelation. The Torah generally refers to the Pentateuch – the five books of Moses – the scroll containing the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.^* It is generally accepted by scholars that the Torah as we know it today was actually written by at least four authors between the ninth and sixth centuries BCE, drawing on still older documents and even older oral traditions. It was probably edited and combined into one scroll in the fifth or fourth century BCE, at a time when the Israelites had experienced exile and faced potential fragmentation as a people and were in need of a sense of identity with a strong religious and national focus.^* The Greek names for each book are commonly used in all English translations of the Bible, and so they are used herein. In Christianity, the Hebrew Bible is often referred to as the Old Testament, but Jews do not use this term as it implies that the Israelites’ covenant or testament from God has been superseded by a newer testament or covenant. Understandably, this is a sensitive issue.

Genesis tells the story of the beginnings of the creation and humanity: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Noah and the great Flood, the tower of Babel, an account of the lives of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), and the origins of the tribal clan of Israel. Genesis ends with Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son, being sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. Abraham is often dated to about 2500 BCE.

Exodus, the second book, concerns the sufferings of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt and the appearance of Moses as their savior. The mass exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the early years of their wanderings in the desert, and the divine revelation of God’s will and teaching on Sinai, perhaps in 1400 BCE, are the main events of the book. The prose and poetry are powerful. The laws of the covenant between God and man, and the details of the building of the Tabernacle and evolution of the worship of YHWH make up the last third of the book.

It might strike some readers as odd that the name of God, often spelled as Jehovah or Yahweh, has been spelled as YHWH, without any vowels between the consonants. This is in deference to those Jews who believe that it is forbidden to pronounce the name of God because of its awe-inspiring power. They use only the consonants of the name as a way of referring to him and giving the sense that the name is unpronounceable.

Leviticus is a record of the priestly forms of worship. The renowned translator Everett Fox separates it into three sections: 1) the sacrificial, consisting of laws governing the various types of sacrifices required, 2) ritual pollution and purification, affecting the general population and the priests, and 3) the concepts and rules of holiness – sacred behavior, sacred time (the calendar), and sacred space. It is generally assumed that this section of the Bible was written by a priestly author or authors of the lineage of Aaron, Moses’ brother, who was the first high priest.

Numbers, the fourth book, continues with the narrative of the Israelites’ journey in the wilderness before reaching the “promised land” that God promised to them in the covenant as recounted in Exodus. There are various events demonstrating the rebellious nature of the Israelites. The book contains beautiful biblical poetry. Other sections explain the duties of the Levites, who assist the priests in the shrines, and give laws governing ritual purity and the priestly worship of YHWH. The last section gives instruction on the forthcoming invasion and conquest of Canaan.

The name Deuteronomy, of the fifth and final book, refers to the fact that it is a duplication of much of the earlier books. It is couched as a long narrative given by Moses to the Israelites before his death, impressing on them the importance of adherence to the covenant. It ends with Moses’ poignant farewell, as he died before entering the promised land, after naming Joshua as his successor.

It is generally accepted that Deuteronomy was written sometime in the seventh century bce and found in the Temple during the reign of King Josiah, who used it to justify a purge of the many syncretistic and pagan practices that had persisted in the Israelite worship of YHWH. Josiah had seen the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria and wanted to avoid a similar conquest and exile.^* Probably under the influence of the priests, and perhaps also influenced by prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, he attributed the conquest of Israel to its failure to adhere to the covenant. God’s love and compassion for his “chosen people” is expressed in the form of warnings that nonadherence to the covenant would bring suffering and doom.

The biblical books that follow Deuteronomy – Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings – are all written in the same style as Deuteronomy, and it is generally accepted that they were written by the same person. Together they constitute a complete history, a seamless account, starting with the death of Moses, through the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, the period of the judges, the early united monarchy, the division into two kingdoms, and the conquest of the northern kingdom by Assyria. The history ends with the glorious reign of Josiah, followed by the exile of the southern kingdom to Babylon.

The final editing of all the strains of the Torah into one text was probably done in the fifth or fourth century BCE, at least 500 years after many of the events recounted would have taken place.⁸

The term Torah, although strictly speaking referring only to the five books discussed above, is often used for the entire Tanakh – which also includes the collections of the Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). Together, these three collections make up the Jewish holy scriptures. The Prophets includes the books of Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel and Kings, and the life stories and writings of individual prophets like Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many others, who lived between the eleventh and fifth centuries BCE. In these books we find some of the most eloquent biblical poetry.

Since the nineteenth century, numerous scholars have painstakingly studied the prophets’ writings and have demonstrated that most of the sayings and proverbs, which are written in a poetic style, are authentic, while the narratives about their lives and historic events, written mostly in prose, are heavily mixed with the additions, commentaries, and interpolations of later editors. Joseph Blenkinsopp, a respected biblical scholar, lays out the current thinking on this subject: “The poetry in the prophetic books arose as a spontaneous expression of the prophet’s transformed consciousness, and could therefore serve as a reliable criterion for distinguishing genuine prophetic sayings from editorial additions and embellishments.”⁹ By focusing on the most authentic parts of the prophets’ teachings, we can get a fairly accurate picture of the nature of their spiritual leadership.

The Writings includes works commonly considered part of the Wisdom literature of the ancient Hebrews, such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. It presents the spiritually inspiring stories of Ruth, Daniel, and Job, the poetry of the Song of Songs and Lamentations, the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the two books of Chronicles. The Psalms, greatly valued by Jews, Christians, and Muslims equally, is one of the most important of these scrolls.

With the canonization of the Bible, many inspiring books written in the centuries after the Jews returned from exile and rebuilt their Temple became considered as “external” works, or “apocrypha.” Their study was initially forbidden to Jews, though nowadays they are available for all to appreciate.

Talmud and Midrash
After the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in the year 70 CE, the court and academy retreated to a town called Yavneh under the leadership of Yohanan ben Zakkai. The title rabbi, which literally means “my master” or “my teacher,” was first given by Yohanan to his disciples in the year 75 CE, to confer upon them the status of authority. From the second to sixth centuries the title was used for the group of sages who acted as advisors, guides, and teachers to the ordinary people living in Palestine and Babylonia who struggled to please God while coping with everyday worries and problems.^* These rabbis were the authors and editors of the Mishnah, Gemara, and Midrash, the texts which became the cornerstone of “rabbinic Judaism,” the mainstream religious orientation of the Jews for the next twenty centuries.

The Mishnah (from the word shanah, meaning to repeat or study), is an orderly arrangement of the laws derived from the Bible; it is organized in sixty-three tractates according to six broad subjects covering agriculture, civil and criminal law, marriage, the Temple rites of worship, issues of purity, and so forth. Written mostly at Yavneh by the rabbis called the tanna’im (repeaters, teachers), it was completed in the year 215 CE. In the academies, the Mishnah was memorized by students who heard it from the tanna’im. A supplement with some items not included was called the Baraita, and was published shortly afterwards.

The Gemara (from the Aramaic gemar, meaning study or teaching), produced by subsequent generations of rabbis called the amora’im (interpreters), is the most comprehensive supplement to the Mishnah and is organized accordingly. Produced in two versions – the Jerusalem or Palestinian (completed in the early fifth century) and the more-lengthy Babylonian (completed about a century later), it presents detailed discussions concerning all the legal issues which were of interest to the two sister academies of rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia. Together, the Mishnah and Gemara are referred to as the Talmud. In addition to the legal orientation of the Talmud, there are anecdotes about the rabbis which give hints to their spiritual and mystical activities and teachings.

A highly unusual and atypical chapter of the Mishnah is called Pirkei Avot, “Ethics of the Fathers.” It presents anecdotes about the sages and spiritual masters from the Maccabean period (second century BCE) through the mishnaic time. The authors of the Pirkei Avot present themselves as the heirs to a sacred chain of spirituality they believed began with God’s self-revelation to Moses. They see the entire prophetic period through the lens of their own rabbinic form of leadership, and even refer to Moses as “Moses our rabbi.” Although this is recognized as myth, it still points to the wide acceptance of the concept of a divinely appointed or mandated spiritual leadership being active in every generation.

The Midrash is the earliest literary form of supplementary Torah and uses the method of deductive reasoning to interpret the Bible. Written by anonymous rabbis and collected in the early second century, it follows the order of the chapters of the Bible, and includes both halakhah (the legal parts of the text) and aggadah or haggadah (the nonlegal parts – legends and anecdotes which reveal moral or spiritual principles). It became a model for many works of Jewish mysticism in later centuries. Mystical texts of later periods, such as those of the merkavah (chariot) mystics and the Kabbalah, are introduced in the appropriate chapters.

Editions used
Unless otherwise mentioned, Bible citations are taken from the Tanach: The Holy Scriptures in The CD-ROM Judaic Classics Library, published by the Institute for Computers in Jewish Life and Davka Corporation, Chicago, IL, 1991–96. Bible translation is also partially based on The Jerusalem Bible, Koren Publishers. Koren Bible citations are indicated as KB following the citation. In a few instances, I have retranslated a term when necessary to bring out its meaning more clearly. The Tanach CD-ROM mentioned above also includes: The Soncino Talmud, The Soncino Midrash Rabbah, The Soncino Zohar. Most citations from Talmud, Midrash, and Zohar are drawn from this translation.