THE TALMUD (I-?)
– The Man-Made Treasure
I am fascinated by the Talmud, how and why the book was created, and its status, teachers, and students. The timeline of this series spans 1800 years – from the redaction of the Mishnah around 200 CE to our new millennium with study groups connected by the Internet.
Although the Jewish religion is based on Biblical laws, we don’t live Biblical Judaism. Since the closing of the Talmud and the establishment of normative Rabbinic Judaism, the Jews could and still can point to the Talmud and say, “This is who we are.” The many-volume book is the people’s complex response to the God-made gift of the Torah and the Law, with opinions edited and preserved to ensure the survival of Judaism.
