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Session Four
Jewish Chess: Talmud
What is it? Talmud means "study". It is also called the Gemara (in Yiddish,
"Ge-MO-reh"), which means the same in Aramaic. Today traditional
Jews prefer the word "Gemara", although it was first used instead
of "Talmud" to fool Christian censors during the Middle Ages.
Then, and still today to some extent, the Talmud was a major target
of anti-Semitic attacks. There was a sense among Jew-haters as
well as Jews that the Talmud is essential to Judaism. The Talmud was written by Rabbis in Babylonia (now Iraq), and
was probably finished around the year 600 C.E. -- as usual with
great Jewish books, nobody knows for sure when it was written.
The main subject of study for Rabbis was the Mishnah, a compilation
of halakhic traditions ("Jewish laws") which was published in
Israel around the year 220 C.E. The Rabbis would study the Mishnah
in Hebrew and discuss it mostly in Aramaic, their spoken language.
Sometimes they would be trying to figure out what the Mishnah
meant, sometimes they would figure out where in the Bible the
Mishnah got its ideas, and sometimes they would discuss all kinds
of questions that were related in some way to the part of the
Mishnah that they were studying. The Talmud is like a written
version of this kind of far-ranging discussion. It is written
in a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew, and it is filled with ideas
and arguments in the name of many different Rabbis from hundreds
of years of study. The Talmud is written in a very concise way, almost in point form.
Therefore it can be very hard to understand. Fortunately, besides
writing his great commentary on the Bible, RASHI wrote a great
commentary on the Talmud. With Rashi's commentary and a good teacher,
it is possible to understand most of the Talmud. Because it is so concise and because its arguments are often complicated,
studying Talmud is a real intellectual exercise. It is a kind
of game, a lot like chess. Traditional Jewish culture in many
ways revolves around the game of Talmud; everyone who had any
opportunity would "play" when they could, and the greatest Talmudic
"athletes" would be great heroes. A traditional yeshivah is a
kind of gym or stadium for playing the game of Talmud study. Everyone
learns some of the time with a chavruta (Yiddish pronunciation:
"chevrusa")-- a study partner-- and some of the time in a large
group with the rebbe (teacher). The game of Talmud study begins
with figuring out what is going on. A page of Talmud has very
little punctuation, and the first step is to try to punctuate
it (adding commas, question marks, etc.) The next step is to try
to make sense of what's going on and follow the lines of argument.
In this module, you will have the opportunity to engage in this
game of figuring out a page of Talmud, through a series of exercises.
It is hard work, but can be quite exhilirating. Try not to go
on from one exercise to the next until you've given the first
one a good try. PRIVATE -- and goes away. PRIVATE? --and goes in for a swim. Important Terms Talmud Gemara Mishnah Chevruta
The Talmud is probably the most important Jewish book, even more
important than the Bible, even though the Bible is older and holier.
The Jewish way of doing things (halakhah) is based on the Talmud
much more than on the Bible. Many of the ideas and stories of
Jewish life come to us from the Talmud.
Punctuation is extremely important in Talmud study -- because
there is so little punctuation on the page (most ancient texts
had very little punctuation) it has to be filled in by intonation.
The yeshivah joke is that the average person comes to a beach
in the summertime, sees a sign:
NO SWIMMING ALLOWED
But the Talmud scholar who sees the same sign reads it differently:
NO! SWIMMING ALLOWED
