The story
After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, and amid persecution in the following centuries, Jewish teachers feared that the oral traditions handed down for generations might be forgotten. In the late second or early third century, Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi compiled the Mishnah, a written collection of this oral law, in the Galilee. For the next three centuries scholars in the academies of the land of Israel and of Babylonia studied, questioned and debated it.
Their discussions became the Gemara, and together the Mishnah and Gemara form the Talmud, the central text of rabbinic Judaism. Written in Aramaic and Hebrew, it follows the Mishnah's six orders and is made up of 63 tractates, each on one subject area, from blessings and the Sabbath to civil damages and the Temple service. Alongside law, it covers ethics, philosophy, customs, history and folklore; about a third of the Babylonian Talmud is narrative and legend. The earlier Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the Galilee around the late fourth or early fifth century. The Babylonian Talmud, the more extensive and authoritative version at about 2.5 million words, is traditionally credited to Rav Ashi and Ravina around 500 CE, though it was probably completed in the sixth century.
What makes the Talmud distinctive is that it records not just conclusions but the teachings, opinions and disagreements of thousands of scholars. A typical passage, or sugya, begins with a statement from the Mishnah and then tests it through an exchange between a questioner and an answerer, comparing sources, raising objections and seeking the biblical basis for each law. Its discussions rely on careful argument by syllogism and inductive reasoning. Readers learn to follow, test and weigh competing positions.
Study of the Talmud has continued for well over a thousand years. Medieval scholars such as Rashi and the Tosafists wrote commentaries that are still printed around the text, and in modern times Adin Steinsaltz and others have translated it into Hebrew and English. Since 1923 the Daf Yomi programme, proposed by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, has had Jews around the world read the same page each day, completing all 2,711 pages in about seven and a half years. More than 300,000 people take part in the Siyum HaShas celebrations at the end of each cycle; the 2012 and 2020 events filled MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Until the modern era the Talmud was the centrepiece of Jewish culture in nearly every community, and it remains the foundation of Jewish law and learning today.
Why it matters
The Talmud's culture of questioning, debate and respect for dissenting views has trained generations of minds in disciplined reasoning, a habit that has carried into law, science and scholarship.
Sources
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.