The Talmud comes from Palestine, the homeland of the Bible, and Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. It began during the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC and ended during the Roman War. The Babylonian Talmud was codified in 500 AD, by which time the Western Roman Empire had collapsed. The Millennium began with the fall of Babylon as a world power. It spans the rise, decline, and destruction of Persia, Greece, and Rome. It witnesses the spread of Christianity and the disappearance of other religions in the West and the Near East. 1. The Early Period

The Babylonian Exile was a significant period in human history, especially for Israel. During this time, the Israelites discovered themselves. Not only was the Torah rediscovered as a rule of life, but it also influenced new religious institutions, such as the synagogue, the emergence of church-style worship without priests or ceremonies - the most profound in the history of any religion. one of the spiritual achievements.

2. Oral Law

In 444 BC, during the period of the reconstruction of the Jewish Republic, Sofer Ezra, a Jewish jurist, first proposed the New Kingdom. domestic and religious laws. He incorporated into it all the oral laws of the Exilic period, and dealt with the antagonisms of synagogues and societies of the same spirit. His work was continued by his successors, who were called Soferim, also known as "the Great Assemblers." Their teachings and rules have been tested by popular practice and are regarded as halachah, which literally means: the trodden path, which clearly guides the Israelites how to live. After the death of Ezra and his successors, the Sanhedrin, the ancient Jewish high council and supreme court in Jerusalem, took their place. These generations love God's law. They meditate on God's law day and night. The interpretation of the sentences of the Bible is called Midrash, and the interpretation of various commandments is called Mishnah. Academies emerged to systematically cultivate this new knowledge, while at the same time diligently collecting the age-old oral Torah traditions. This intensive study of Torah does not come lightly. Later, the Sadducee sect, composed of nobles and officials, insisted that any law not specifically written in the Torah was dangerous and subject to reprehensible tampering. The opposite Pharisaic sect that emerged later worked hard to promote the spread of oral law. What they pursue is the complete and infinite revelation of God’s creation. They firmly believed that revealed knowledge could be found in the original manuscripts of the Torah. The true revelation of the Torah is the meaning of the Pentateuch, which reveals the mind of God and, as the teachers and their successors continually enriched and refined it, is far richer than the words themselves. In addition to direct prayer communication, studying Torah is a way to get closer to God, Herford said. It might be called Pharisaic Beatific Vision. As Kepler says: To study Torah is to imitate the thoughts of God.

3. Mishnah

The positive results of Pharisaic Academy run the risk of being too clumsy to be remembered. Because all these teachings were oral and not written down. In the 1st century BC, Hillel organized the oral laws into a system for the first time. He was the most famous of all rabbis. He once said a famous saying: If you hate doing something yourself, please don't let your companions do it. This is the Torah, and the rest are commentaries on this statement. He is the embodiment of gentleness and kindness. "Love peace, strive for peace, love your fellow men and keep them close to the Torah" was also his famous saying. He popularized seven principles of Torah interpretation—such as the principles of inference and analogy—the inherent meaning of the Bible is better than the derived meaning; and during his lifetime he divided the oral law into six books. This division Used by its successors.

4. Life of the author

Tannaim, the master’s life, they are called the architects of the spiritual building, and the complete work they completed is called Mishnah, except It is necessary to mention three persons besides Hillelp. They are Johanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Judah the Prince. Johanan ben Zakkai, the youngest of Hillel's disciples, was at Jabneh College in AD 70, where he saved Judaism from the destruction of the Jewish state by Rome. Jabneh College became the battlefield of Jewish learning and the center of spiritual life. Like almost other rabbis, he supported himself. He believed that Judaism was more vital than its political system. Replace sacrificial rituals with charity. He declared that the most important thing in life is to be kind-hearted.

Among the next generation, Akiba was the actual author of the Mishnah, who separated it from the oral law and compiled it. He was the greatest rabbi of our time and of all time. As the legend goes: Moses would have been jealous for a while if he had seen his achievements. His keen insight enabled him to find a biblical basis for every oral law. His early life is legendary and mysterious. In 132 AD he was martyred for God and the people of Israel.

On the day Akib died, Rabbi Judah the Prince was born, simply called Rabbi---he was the seventh generation grandson of Hillel. He has extraordinary abilities, profound knowledge and high moral standards. As the spiritual leader of his generation. -----It became his goal to unify religious rituals with his authoritative edicts. He therefore reinvestigated all the collections of decrees that had accumulated over the centuries, deleting and adding to them, and organizing their contents. Often gathering input from his earlier teachers, the Mishnah was not placed in a single mould; it was a composite work. Probably for this reason it superseded all other collective works of oral law and soon became the authoritative work.

5. Division

We do not know the specific year in which the rabbi completed his work. Later, around 220 AD, he adopted a complete version of the Mishnah, which after its completion contained 6 volumes:

1. Agricultural Laws, with 11 chapters, the first of which is about prayer.

2. Festivals and fasts, 12 articles.

3. Women and family life, 7 articles.

4. Civil and criminal law.

5. Sanctuary and Food Laws, Chapter 11.

6. Clean and unclean, 12 articles.

There are 63 chapters, each massechta is divided into chapters (perakim), and there are 523 chapters.

6. Time of writing the book.

As to the precise time when the Mishnah was written, many different opinions have prevailed among prominent Jewish authorities during the past nine centuries. Sherira Gaon, Rashi, Luzzatto, Rapoport and Graetz insist that the Rabbi compiled it according to his own ideas without the use of pen and parchment, and then taught it in his academy, and its form and content are the same as today. and thus by dictation to his disciples, who in turn passed it on to the next generation. The Mishnah was therefore preserved by accurate dictation until the importance of the Academy declined and the teachers of the period found it necessary to write it down for preservation, this time between the 8th and 9th centuries AD. Several equally well-known authorities, Yehudah Hallevi, Maimonides and Abarbanel; Weiss, Geiger and Fraenkel, hold the opposite opinion, believing that the Rabbi himself wrote the complete Mishna.

7. Language

The language of the Mishnah is New Hebrew, which is a natural development from the Hebrew Bible. Daily conversations and informal languages ??(such as Latin in the Middle Ages) are still used by some people. Its vocabulary and idioms have a popular stamp. It is a record of oral discussions or expositions on various life activities. There's a lot of Aramaic, Greek and Latin mixed in.

8. Version

The oldest Mishna manuscript is from the 13th century Parma in the northern Italian city of Cambridge, New York. The first printed version appeared in Naples (a port city in southwestern Italy) in 1492, with Maimonides' annotations. The current edition is accompanied by notes by Obadiah di Bertinoro from the 15th century. There are many translations of the Mishnah, and the most recent version is the English version translated by Canon Danby. But the review of the Mishnah version is a task for the future. 1. Gemara

The commentary on the Mishnah resulted in a second and further part, called the Gemara, which means teaching, explaining the terms and main points of the Mishnah content. Difficulties in elucidation are sought, and differences in reconciliation of statements are sought; decisions made with reference to unknown authors in the Mishna; compilations of the tanna contemporary with the Mishna on the same subject are listed, and the extent to which they agree. Finally, it states the complete course of debates that took place in the Palestinian or Babylonian schools on these subjects.

But the Gemara is more than just commentary. It was collected assiduously, without mentioning any connection with the Mishnah, and whatever opinions came from the mouths of the Masters were recorded over the centuries. No matter what traditions are related to them, they have been preserved. As long as it has themes related to religion, life, and behavior, everything is included directly or even indirectly. Furthermore, therefore the legal discussion and formulation of every aspect of Jewish obligation, whether it be ritual, civil, or moral, involves biblical moral teaching. Moral maxims, popular maxims, prayers, fables, myths, stories, customs, Jew and Gentile; fact and scientific imagination, Jewish and pagan folklore, wisdom and the folly of ignorance. A wealth of complex information permeates the Gemara, such as an author's name, an occasional biblical quotation, and other accidents derived from associations of ideas or styles.

2.HALACHAH and HAGGADAH

The Talmud is divided into HALACHAH and HAGGADAH according to the content. Emanuel Deutsch describes one as coming from the brain and the other from the heart; one as prose and the other as verse.

One carries the mental ability to argue, research, compare, and develop, and the other carries the ability to imagine, feel, and humor:

Beautiful ancient stories,

Myths of angels, legends of elves,

The history of mysterious silences,

Holiday songs and wise sayings;

It is exaggerated and interesting,

More filled with power and fire

Faith—how they flash, shine, sparkle.

As Heine described.

Halachah, as we have learned, means a trodden path, a rule of life, a religious guide. It belongs to all the laws and rules that carry the Jewish trade. Contains ritual, civil, criminal, and ethical laws. Everything else is included in the Haggadah; literally discussion, storytelling, narration in a sermon. He could also divide these again into groups, and we have the doctrinal Haggadah, which looks at the character and will of God, creation, revelation, salvation, time and hereafter. Historical Haggadah brings traditions and legends related to heroes and significant events into national or world history. From Adam to King Alexander of Macedon, Emperor Titus, and Hadrian. This is the legend, pure and simple, whose purpose is to narrate historical facts related to the makers of justice and injustice. Morals are decorated with honor and infamy in legends. There are also pagan folklore in Haggadah, and the folklore part describes or comes with authoritative assertions, which is different from the Western style of distinguishing right from wrong. Schechter said: To find fault with the following sentence is that they fail to understand the wise rule that Dr Johnson said to Boswell on the specific occasion. "Let's take it seriously because those people are fools". Unfortunately these fools are either Jewish commentators or Christian commentators who think that a translation that is just a spur of the moment, or a personal opinion describing a sonic point of view, or treating it as a humorous piece that has nothing to do with the topic in order to arouse the audience's interest is serious. things. Although the Haggadah contains infinite beauty and sayings of eternal value, do not forget that it only represents a personal opinion, but it cannot be biased to cover up the whole, nor can it kidnap authority. 1. Palestinian Gemara

There are two kinds of Gemara, one was completed in the Babylonian Academy and the other was completed in Palestine. Strictly speaking, I am now incorrect in calling the latter the Jerusalem Talmud, since there were no academies in Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, and Tiberias remained the most important place for the study of Judaism, only as far as Palestine The college is closed. Rabbis Johanan and Abbahu were the chief teachers of the Palestinian Talmud now called Amoraim.

Johanan became a disciple of Rabbi Judah the Prince at an early age. He made his College of Tiberias the most important holy place for the study of Judaism. For a long time, he was mistakenly thought to be the compiler of Gemara in Palestine. The following sentence is the most classic sentence of this teacher: When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels planned to sing praises and celebrate, and God calmed them with these words: My works are being destroyed, but you are preparing to sing praises !

Abbahu, the dean of Caesarean College, was a wealthy man, educated in the college system and influenced by the Roman authorities. He was good at guarding against Christian attacks. "Better to be a victim than a persecutor" was his motto. He put forward the bold idea of ??continuous innovation---this concept was absorbed by Jewish mysticism that transcended real existence in the future. They believed that there was an invisible world derived from real existence, which disappeared just like the flickering cremation when forging iron.

In AD 425, under the suppression of the first Christian emperor, the episcopate and the academy were outlawed, and discussions in the academy were no longer officially edited. Originally the Palestinian Gemara spread throughout all parts of the Mishnah, but the hostile environment of this period resulted in much of its content being irretrievably lost.

The halachic part does not have the dialectical and shrewd characteristics of the Babylonian Talmud, but is a peaceful discussion; the Haggadah part is also simpler and more rational, but compared with the Babylonian Talmud, it is less attractive It is not powerful, and it does not have the characteristics of poetry. The Palestinian Talmud was written in the ancient Syrian dialect of Syriac, a language unfamiliar to later generations and almost forgotten by the Jews over the centuries. From the perspective of the Babylonian Talmud, the legal decisions of the Palestinian Talmud are not considered legitimate. It was first printed in 1523 AD. In 1859 AD J.Fraenkel's classic introduction to the Jerusalem Talmud appeared. There is a French version of the Palestinian Talmud translated by M.Schwab. 1. Babylonian Talmud

When we mention the Babylonian Gemara, we will want to ask when it was said and written. Babylon, where it was produced, is a Jewish autonomous region. This area lasts longer than elsewhere, from after 586 BC to 1040 AD - about 1626; from the fall of Cyrus to the Mongol conquests.

2. Language

The language of the Babel Talmud has long been considered to have no grammatical format. This view now appears to be biased. Excellent grammarians have discovered its patterns and determined its placement in Semitic languages. Its linguistics is considered to be close to 10,000 years ago in Asher ben Jehiel's Talmudic Lexicon (Aruch), completed by Levy, Kohut and Jastrow last century. The style of the Babel Talmud is mostly reserved and concise, making it difficult to read. An elliptical expression often occurs repeatedly, and a sentence is represented by a single word. Discussions, questions, and answers are closely intertwined and lack clear divisions.

3. Style

To understand these discussions and context requires hard thinking and close attention to the detailed elaboration of guidance and argumentation instructions from experienced scholars. True understanding cannot rely on grammar and vocabulary alone. Even a student who was proficient in Hebrew and Aramaic but began to read the Talmud without traditional Jewish instruction would find that not a single page could be translated! A great linguist and Talmudic compiler once declared that if the study of Talmud were suddenly suspended within a generation, the tradition would be lost and it would be almost impossible to restore it.

4. Authority

The names of more than a thousand Amoraim were mentioned, and we chose Rab and Samuel, Rabbis Ashi and Rabina, who were born in Babylon. Rab and Samuel, they arrived The Holy Land sat beside the life of Judah the Prince, who brought the Mishnah, the codex of the authoritative oral law, back to the motherland. In 216 AD Rab founded a college in Sura which flourished for 8 centuries. “The commandments of the Torah purify one’s life.” This is one of his famous quotes. He taught that life in the future would be more than passive, for the forces of righteousness would not cease. Justice will grow stronger and continue forever in this world and in the world to come, and in the future righteous people will rejoice in the light of God. He claimed: Because of the exile, God Shechinah mourns, God prays: In dealing with my children, may my mercy be greater than my justice. The most solemn part of the New Year's ceremony is also attributed to Rab.

Samuel in Nehardea was a doctor and astronomer, an epoch-making person in Judaism. He abandoned the principles taught by the prophet Jeremiah that enabled Jews to exist and serve in non-Jewish nations. Dina d’malchutha dina is his rule, which means that all criminal laws in Babylon are God’s laws, which means that the Jewish people must abide by the criminal laws of non-Jewish countries.

For the other two names, Ashi, who died in AD 427 and was head of Sura Academy for 42 years, combines the memories of a large number of scholars whose mental order was extraordinary , which allowed him to systematize the confusing parts of the Talmud and prepare it for codification. Rabina completed the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud. He died in AD 499. It was He who made the following words a rite of passage in Judaism: Let my tongue not sin, and my lips not be cunning; otherwise my soul will become dust and become silent. It seems that many of the chapters were composed by many Amoraim before the time of Ashi and Rabina. As is the case with the Mishnah, it is not conclusive whether the Babylonian Gemara was written in book form by Ashi and Rabina or was just an oral order. a moot point. The latter is the view of Rashi and the modern Luzzatto; both place the writing of the Gemara two centuries later. However, some scholars believe that it is absolutely impossible for such a huge document to be written in such a short period of time. Another point is that it is full of intricate debates and should require two centuries of oral sorting, confirmation and accuracy. spread.

5. Breadth

The Babylonian Talmud is about the size of 4 Palestine. It has 5894 pages and is usually divided into 12 volumes. The number of pages is the same in all editions. Only 36 of the 63 Mishnahs in the Talmud have commentary. But much of the subject of the neglected chapter is dealt with in other chapters of the Gemara.

6. Version

A work as lengthy as the Talmud Gemara has gone through the hands of many copyists, and it is inevitable that there will be errors that are different from the original work. 50 years ago, Rabbinowicz collected a handful of editions from the time. The manuscripts were examined against each other, especially the Munich manuscript, which was produced in 1334 AD and contains the complete contents of the Talmud. Alas, it is the only complete Talmud manuscript in existence due to the stubbornness of the medieval papacy. Carloads of Talmudic manuscripts were often thrown into the fire. After the invention of printing, ignorant and overzealous censors not only deleted a handful of passages relating to the founder of Christ, but they also ignorantly deleted large amounts of other content they considered implicit attacks on their religion. The only version of the Talmud that escaped the censors was printed in book form in the Netherlands. 1. History of Talmud

Now let’s talk about the history of Talmud.

From the Torah to the Mishnah compiled by Tannah, from the Mishnah compiled by Amoraim to the Gemara, to the arrival of the completion of the Talmud. Sixth-century Sahurean commentators and abbots of the Geonim Sura and Pumbedita academies, as well as spiritual leaders of the medieval Jewish community, added some content. Because of its increasing content, it is natural to think of the need to simplify and explain the Talmud. The most important thing is to classify the Talmud according to 613 laws, and to print halachic and Haggadah separately. Later, the explanation part was written into a lengthy text.

2. Among the Jews

The greatest of all these attempts and absolutely indispensable for understanding the Talmud today is Rabbi Solomon Yitzchaki surnamed Rashi, 1040 AD ( This year) was born in the town of Troyes, France. His annotations are famous for their simplicity, clarity and accuracy. "He gave the interpreter of Talmud the greatest and most precious gift; the ability to grasp the key points required for interpretation and express the author's meaning in the fewest words." (G. F. Moore said)

French rabbis in the 12th and 13th centuries continued to classify the Talmud through their commentaries (known as Tosafoth), which, along with Rashi's commentaries, are compiled into all authentic Talmuds. At the same time, the genius Maimonides wrote a commentary on the Mishnah in Arabic, known as the Mishneh Torah Copy or Yad Hachazakah, and he also wrote the Talmud's Guide to the Explanation of Mysteries. In 1567, Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote the Shulchan Aruch, which is a thematically organized collection of religious and civil laws in Jewish life to this day. Commentated on this work by the rabbis of Cracow in 1571, it is the most authoritative compilation of Halachah in recent times, and continues to invite calls forth for many better commentaries.

3. Outside the Jews

Throughout all these centuries, the attitude of non-Jews towards the Talmud was irreconcilable. Emanuel Deutsch said: As long as the Talmud has existed, almost before it has existed in an obvious form, it has been treated as a person. It was banned, imprisoned, and burned more than 100 times. Kings, emperors, hundreds of faiths, and opponents cursed each other and issued edicts for the mass confiscation and destruction of this unfortunate work. But there is one notable exception in the Declaration of Babel, just before anyone had bequeathed the work, Clement V, in 1307, wished to know about it, but no one told him. Therefore, he suggested that lectures in Hebrew, Chaldean, and Arabic, which were closest to the Talmudic language style, be found in several universities in Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, and Oxford. Eventually one of these universities was able to translate the mysterious work. Needless to say this was just a fantasy, as more rapid destruction occurred not only in individual cities in Italy and France, but in the entire Holy Roman Empire.

The greatest humanist, John Reuchlin, was the first to defend him. Even if the Talmud contains content that attacks Christianity, it should be responded to in the best possible way. He said: Burning is the cruelest explanation. Saving Jewish books from destruction by hysterical adherents became a battle-cry for religious liberals. It was no accident that the general printed version of the Babylonian Talmud appeared in the same year (1520) that Luther at Wittenberg burned the papal bulls. Then there was the fervent activity over the next two centuries in Christian priests who became masters of Talmudic knowledge, not necessarily a pure love of learning. Only in our time have non-Jewish scholars such as George Foot Moore in the United States, Travers Herford in England, Wuensche and Strack in pre-Nazi Germany fallen under their love of Talmud study and their awareness of fundamental issues in the religious world. Education is an integral part of them. The complete Babylonian Talmud translation edited by L. Goldschmidt in 1897 and the Venetian version in 1520 are now basically completed.

3. Religion in the Talmud.

The unique theory of religious life is described in detail in the Talmud summary. Talmud religion attempts to penetrate the whole of human life with the rationality of law and justice. In their eyes, nothing human is insignificant, and everything is controlled and sanctified by religion. Religious rules and obligations follow a person from childhood to death and beyond. They guide one's desires and every action. Eating and sleeping, civic duties, family life—all are under the order of the Torah, an order that people freely and joyfully accept.

Although (while) every religion attempts such rules, the Talmud system is representative of Judaism's efforts to perfection. Arstne Darmsteter said: “In our eyes, this is the greatest title given out of respect and reward for these thinkers.

In Judaism we have the most complete and perfect explanation of religious thought. ” Later I. Zangwill (Israel Zangwill) described rabbinic Judaism as a code that allows the intellect and emotions to think and doubt without restraint, producing philosophy and poetry, but also restrains the spirit and prevents it from leading unrestrainedly. On top of love and devotion. So that even the Philistines, who have no sense of religion, can at least maintain a sound, strong and mechanical morality, which is the source of happiness and education for their descendants, if they cannot give it to us. Their own sonatas and symphonies should also not play wrong notes and harsh harmonies

4. Conclusion

Needless to say, the Talmud is not an ordinary piece of literature. It does not resemble any single literary work, but conceives of a world judged by its laws. It helps that the ancient Hebrews compared it to the sea of ??Talmud. Understand its origins. The Talmud is indeed like a sea, vast and unfathomable, with a sense of vastness and movement like the ocean. Its vast surface is sometimes calm and sometimes noisy with the waves of argument. It is swarm with all kinds of life forms, and it is difficult to tell what is right and wrong in it if one wants to sail safely on the sea of ??Talmud to gain this valuable knowledge and remember it. Inspiration from its indestructible pages) requires familiarity with the compass and rudder (that is, the language and thought patterns of the Talmud), coupled with the guidance of experienced masters

This is not the case. My purpose in speaking of the influence of the Talmud, which saved the Israelites from intellectual and moral degradation throughout the centuries of persecution and darkness, is to give a brief account of the book. Let me conclude with the words of I. AbrahamsIsrael. Abrahams. He said: "The Talmud is one of the world's masterpieces, and rabbinic education is the successor to the Bible. Like all successors, the Talmud and the Bible are not equivalent. But the Talmud inherits the greatness of the Bible. All Jewish writings are the sequel to this subsequent Talmud. Without exception, they have a unified principle: the most realistic literary works contain life, intelligence is the maid of morality, and the best books teach people how to live. Righteousness saves people from death. The theme of immortal literary works is the same, that is, justice.

5.SONCINO Edition: NEZIKIN DAMAGES

Many scholars have long hoped for a reliable and complete English translation of the Babylonian Talmud. This expectation began with the Soncino Edition DAMAGES of publication.

This translation is based on the original text of Wilna's Talmud, with necessary corrections based on multiple manuscripts and other printed versions. All passages examined are reproduced in the original text or annotated. These notes elicit the essence of classical interpretation, clarify arguments, explain technical expressions, and indicate the meaning of quoted biblical verses. Wherever place names, historical and archaeological references are mentioned, their counterparts in modern countries are confirmed.

This remarkable achievement is due to the erudition of the editor, Mr. Rabbi I. Epstein, and the scholarly manner of the translators who assisted him. It can be seen from the editor's preface that his work is arduous. In addition to planning the scope and characteristics of the work, determining the original manuscript, and controlling the scale of translation and interpretation, the editor also has multiple parts of the introduction and glossary, as well as the more important "cultural" annotation section.

The publisher also provides help based on conscience and efficiency. This English version of the Soncino Babylonian Talmud is now available, and it has never been more helpful to learners than before the Damage Chapter.