Traditional Jewish Education: The Torah and The Talmud

The traditional Jewish education is centered around the Torah, which consists of the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah, which is means teaching, instruction or law in Hebrew, is traditionally studied only by Jewish males at a young age. The Torah is copied by the scribe which usually takes about a year for it to be completed.

The Talmud is known as the “Oral Torah”. Traditionally, the Talmud was discuss and taught to aspiring Jewish scholars orally. However, Jewish scholars were forced to have the Talmud written down to preserve the Talmud due to the the severe persecutions that Jews faced throughout the course of history. The Talmud is essentially a collection of interpretations of different texts within the Torah. Traditional Jewish scholars would be paired in twos and/or be grouped together to read the Talmud and to dispute the meanings behind different passages.