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Tough Topics - Torah
The Meaning of 'Torah'
What does ‘Torah’ mean? The word ‘Torah’ can be used in about five different ways:
- ‘Torah’ is the name for the text of the most important part of the Jewish tradition. This is the Written Torah.
- ‘Torah’ can refer to the scroll on which the text is written.
- From at least the time that there was a written text, Jews have discussed the meaning and relevant of the Torah for their lives. These very intense discussions in ancient times comprise the Oral Torah. That they were eventually written down does not change the fact that they were originally oral.
- Torah can also refer to the content of either the Written Torah or the Oral Torah, especially its moral content. Jews might speak about ‘a life of Torah’—meaning a life well lived—or being ‘Torah-true’. Sometimes ‘Torah’ is used to mean the 613 mitzvot (commandments).
- More broadly, ‘Torah’ can refer to the wisdom of the Jewish tradition that is based on God’s will. It can even refer to the whole Jewish tradition. For example, we might say that a parent, grandparent, teacher or fellow student gave us ‘a beautiful Torah’. This is Torah as the heart of Judaism.
The Story of the Torah
The traditional belief is that—apart from the reference to his death—Moses wrote the words down exactly as he received them from God. This belief is called ‘ Torah from heaven’. The Torah itself describes the event of Moses receiving revelation on Mount Sinai.
Scholars think that the substance of the Torah was oral tradition but that it was not actually written down until the period of the Babylonian exile (beginning 586 BCE) or the return to the Land of Israel. The Bible describes how Ezra the Scribe read ‘The Book’ aloud to the people, who had assembled to hear it. They stood together and he stood on a platform so that he could be heard clearly.
There are at least three possible explanations as to how this came about:
- The Torah had been read aloud to an assembly of people before and this is merely the first time that it was read to them on return from exile in Babylon. This is unlikely because there was no earlier mention of a public reading of the Torah.
- Ezra ‘invented’ the idea of reading the Torah aloud in a public place. Most of the Jewish people had been exiled from their homeland, the Land of Israel, and the Temple in Yerushalayim had been destroyed. The exiles in Babylonia needed to feel connected to their tradition and to God. Ezra was inspired to see that regular public readings of the Torah would strengthen the community.
- It is clear that Ezra the Scribe—and other scribes—made copies of the Written Torah. He saw that this was very necessary for community life and for the survival of Judaism. What we’re not clear about is whether the scribes only made copies or whether they wrote it down for the first time.
Many biblical scholars think this is the first time the Written Torah was written down and that it was compiled from the oral tradition. Almost all the Bible is written in Hebrew, with some parts in Aramaic, which was the vernacular in Babylonia.
Interpreting and applying the Torah: the rabbinic process
By the 1st century BCE, the Written Torah was in constant use and there was the tradition of meeting to discuss what the text meant. Most of these discussions took place in Aramaic.
Sometimes the (Written) Torah was a resource for answers to practical ‘what to do?’ questions of an ethical or ritual kind. Jews would go to the (Written) Torah and examine it closely to see what responses it would offer. They believed that life was crystallised in the Torah, that it had all the answers to their questions. It actually was The Answer. It was just a matter of looking hard, with open eyes and an open mind. Of the Written Torah, they said, “Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it.”
Sometimes the (Written) Torah did not give a straight answer: it did not deal with the same question directly. Then most—but not all—Jews would search the (Written) Torah hard, to find something similar—to see if it could apply to their situation and answer the question they were asking.
It is ‘most but not all’ Jews because there were some Jews who felt that the Written Torah should be taken at face value: the Torah says what it says, no more and no less. Jews should not go rooting around in it, looking for things that aren’t really there. If God had wanted the Torah to say ‘X’, God would have put ‘X’ in the Torah and not something that only seems like ‘X’. The Sadducees were one such a group. There were others, later, but they were always in the minority.
The vast majority of Jews saw the Written Torah as a source of ideas and insights that could be teased out for social and spiritual purposes. Jews who met to discuss the (Written) Torah and to find answers in it were almost all men. They called each other ‘Rabbi’, meaning ‘My Great One’: they were addressing each other as ‘My Teacher’; that is, they were learning from each other. They were also referred to as the ‘wise ones’ or the ‘sages’. There were famous rabbis whose names and teachings have survived until today but all those who took part were, in a sense, teachers. We have come to call this whole process rabbinic Judaism.
The ancient rabbis did not always agree with each other. Sometimes there were very lively debates about what a single word of the (Written) Torah would mean or how a particular verse could be applied. These debates have been recorded, too. They were thought to be very valuable if the opponents engaged in them in a mutually respectful way, not to score points or humiliate the other party but simply as a way of exploring ideas and values, and unearthing the truth—in other words, if they were “for the sake of heaven”.
Once there was a very heated debate and it was said of BOTH points of view: “These and these are words of the living God.”
The ancient rabbis always tried to reach consensus but sometimes just couldn’t agree. When that happened and they came to tell it, they would say what the majority decision was but also note minority views by saying something like: the Rabbis said ‘X’ but so-and-so said ‘Y’.
Very occasionally the ancient rabbis were totally undecided on the meaning of a word or a practical course of action. Sometimes—no matter how hard they thrashed the ideas out—they could just not reach an answer. In such a situation, they would call it a ‘draw’ or ‘tie’.
This whole rabbinic process generated a lot of ideas especially about how Judaism should be lived. What it generated came to be known as the Oral Torah. The ancient rabbis were not trying to create another Torah: through the Oral Torah, they were trying to draw out the meaning and the relevance of the Written Torah—a meaning and relevance that was already in the Written Torah. They believed that the Written Torah and the Oral Torah were both revealed by God to Moses and both were equally valid.
For references to Torah commentaries see the Links for Torah.