What Exactly is Gemara?

Yakov asks: "Shalom and blessings, I have long wondered whether all of the Torah, that is, the Mishnah and the Gemara, were given to Moses at Sinai, or were they added later? Were the disagreements also given, and what exactly are the Mishnah and Gemara?"

* * *

Shalom and blessings Yakov, and thank you for your important questions. It's worth organizing the concepts to understand the Jewish bookshelf.

Our sages taught us that "Everything that a seasoned student will innovate, has already been stated to Moses at Sinai" (Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus, 22). This means that Moses our teacher saw in prophecy all generations from beginning to end and witnessed the innovations that would emerge from the Torah over the ages. However, these innovations were not yet given to the Israelites in the desert. The people of Israel received from Moses the Written Torah (the Five Books of Moses), the Oral Torah (which are oral traditions that were handed down for every commandment from the 613 commandments in the Torah), and the thirteen principles by which the Torah is expounded. Through these principles, authorized rabbis (the Tannaim and Amoraim) could expound the verses of the Torah according to tradition and detail for us the law and its sources. The teachings of our sages are meant to clarify the sources for commandments in the Torah or to decide on matters where the Torah initially provided two ways to implement the law. Hashem sees all generations in advance, and thus His Torah concealed within it laws and sources that could be extracted using the teachings handed down to the sages. Regarding the disputes between the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai, our sages said: "These and those are both the words of the living God" (Eruvin 13b), meaning both perspectives are truly correct according to the Torah, and the decision will be according to the majority ruling. In any case, we must remember that all disputes in the Gemara concern only the small details, like branches and leaves splitting off from the tree, while they all share one wide and strong trunk.

The holy Torah requires us to believe in the sages of every generation and to rely on their decisions (Deuteronomy 17:11): "According to the law they teach you and the decisions they render to you, you shall act; do not stray from the word they tell you, to the right or to the left."

(Photo: Nati Shohat / Flash 90)

Remember, the teachings and discussions of our sages in Halacha are not intended to create "new commandments" God forbid, but rather to clarify for us the detailed laws and sources from the Torah. The explanation of the commandments was indeed given to Moses at Sinai and transmitted from generation to generation by the sages of Israel in the Oral Torah without change.

So where did the Mishnah and Gemara come from?

After the destruction of the Temple, there was a flourishing period of scholarship among the sages of Israel. The sages were called "Tannaim," and their students "Amoraim." The sages engaged in explaining the Oral Torah, which was transmitted through generations from Mount Sinai. The Oral Torah (which is essentially detailed laws and principles given orally for all the commandments in the Torah) was written in the Mishnah, which was put into writing by Rabbi Judah the Prince about 2000 years ago, and they are called the "Six Orders of the Mishnah."

The Gemara was written almost five hundred years after the Mishnah, and it documents the thousands of discussions conducted by Tannaim and Amoraim in the study of the laws and disputes written in the Six Orders of the Mishnah. The Gemara elaborates on the Mishnah and adjudicates the Halacha. The Gemara presents to us a whole world of scholarship in the Torah and its sages: it documents discussions between the sages of Israel on laws and Halachot, as well as moral and philosophical matters, explains verses in the Torah, resolves disagreements, and recounts stories and practices. The Babylonian Talmud (referred to as "Gemara") was set into writing by "Ravina" and "Rav Ashi," and was sealed around 1500 years ago. By the Gemara, Halacha was decided in Mishneh Torah of the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch.

We continue to study the Gemara from generation to generation to this day, and it is the main study in yeshivas, not only because Gemara study enriches us with knowledge of Halacha and its foundations but because such a high level of study teaches us how to think in a Torah-like manner independently. The Gemara not only offers you to study it; it offers you to live it: to raise questions and answers, and to test them while learning the page. How joyful is the student who sees that his question is so good that it was asked by sages in the Gemara. In this way, the students bring their intellects closer to those of the nation's greats and merit to emulate them. The Gemara is not just external legal study; it shapes the intellect and sanctifies the person from within. You are also encouraged to join one of the "Daily Page" classes in Gemara and enjoy for the first time the tremendous treasure handed down to us by our sages.

Studying Gemara? Participating in "Daf Yomi" classes? Tell us about it in the comments.