What are the Mishnah the Talmud and the Oral Torah?

Around 3,300 years ago the Jewish People stood at Mount Sinai and heard the Ten Commandments. Then the Torah (the Pentateuch) was given to them through Moses. From then on, the Jews were held responsible to keep all the commandments of the Torah. There are 613 commandments; 248 dos and 365 don’ts. It is technically impossible to elaborate on every detail of each mitzvah (commandment) in a book that’s meant for everyone – even young children and uneducated people – to read, since it would be way too long and complicated. Therefore, in the Torah, most mitzvot (pl. of mitzvah) are not elaborated on at all, and they are stated very simply and ambiguously. For example, the Torah says (Deuteronomy 6:8) “Bind them as a sign on your arm, and let them be ornaments between your eyes”. What on earth does that mean? Well, every morning when I pray I wear something called tefillin (phylacteries) which are basically leather straps attached to a small black box, one on my head and one on my left arm. Each box contains certain specific passages from the Torah, written on parchment with a special ink. This is how we fulfill the verse. But where do the numerous laws involved in the making of tefillin, and where does this interpretation of the verse – which incidentally nearly all Jews of all time agreed on – come from?

There are two parts to the answer:

1.God explained to Moses each mitzvah, so that even though there would only be a small note of it in the Torah, he’d be able to explain to the rabbis exactly what it entailed, and they’d carry on the tradition. This way, the Torah remains easy for everyone to read and not a long and complicated textbook; and the commandments are explained to the people through the rabbis’ tradition from Moses.

2.Besides for that which God explicitly explained to Moses, he also gave him a list of “decoders”. God gave over to Moses thirteen methods how to extrapolate laws from the Torah. For example, one of them goes as follows: “A rule followed by a detail, which is in turn followed by a rule, you may infer only what is similar to the detail.” Here’s one instance where this is applied: One of the mitzvot is that if a person has a field, he should bring a tenth of his produce every year to Jerusalem to eat there with his family and friends, to show his gratitude to God. If it’s too much too carry, he’s allowed to bring its value in money instead, and spend that money on food in Jerusalem. Here is what the Torah says: (Deuteronomy 14:24) “You may spend the money for whatever your soul desires – for cattle, for flocks, for wine, or for alcoholic beverage, or anything that your soul wishes…” From a passing glance the verse seems to just be speaking very casually, and doesn’t mean anything specific. But if we look closely, we notice that there’s a rule – “whatever your heart desires”, a detail, or rather, a few details – “cattle, flocks, wine, or alcohol”, and then the general rule again – “anything your soul wishes”. In that case we should expound on the passage and say that we may only infer what is similar to the detail. Indeed, one detail the rabbis deduced from here that the mitzvah is to spend the money on something that grows – either from the ground or on the ground – which would exclude, say, fish, which grow in the water. This is an example of one of the methods of which Moses was told that the rabbis may use to extract many details out of the Torah.

These two ideas are incorporated in what is called the “Oral Torah”, because it was not written down, rather each generation passed it down orally to the next. Each generation had its own major Torah sages and prophets who extrapolated new laws using the 13 methods, and more and more details were added to the law besides the original tradition Moses had received from God. This was all part of the Oral Torah, since it adhered to the rules of extrapolation God had given Moses.

All this was going just fine, until the second Temple was destroyed. This exile was not like the exile after the destruction of the first Temple that Jeremiah told them would only last 70 years. The Jews had no guarantee that they’d be back together anytime soon, and as we know, it took 2000 years before there’d ever be a major Jewish presence there again. The great rabbis of the time were extremely worried that much of the Oral Law would be forgotten, since it’s difficult to study and remember so many ideas when you’re constantly searching for food and shelter, and many times on the run for your life. At this time, the leading sage of the era, Rabbi Judah the Prince, took a drastic step. He decided to write it all down. Not only did he record all of the traditions and all of the extrapolations from the time of Moses’ until his, but he also recorded the many decrees the rabbis enacted over the ages. These decrees are more lenient to us than biblical commandments or extrapolations, but they are part of Halakhah (Jewish law). This compilation is called the Mishnah. It is comprised of 61 books, called tractates, and 523 chapters altogether. It was finished around year 200 C.E.

It was not over though. Although this compilation was a tremendous contribution, there developed a problem. Since there was so much to remember, there are countless instances where the Mishnah says a Halakhah without fully explaining the reasoning behind it, or its source. Also, the Mishnah records many arguments about different details and laws, and many times it is unclear who the practical law should accord with. There were two major schools in Babylonia at the time, and a few smaller ones, and there was also a small group of sages left in Israel. They debated each issue of the Mishnah, until they came to a clear conclusion as to the proper reasoning and application of everything found in it. These arguments became known as Talmud, which literally means “study”. But the rabbis began to worry that this too would be forgotten, so they undertook the task of putting all of it down to paper. This was an enormously difficult task to complete, as there were pages of arguments and explanations to be written for every few lines of Mishnah.

There ended up being more than one such compilation. The rabbis in Israel, headed by Rabbi Johanan, compiled what was to be known as the Jerusalem [also known as the Palestinian] Talmud about 2 hundred years after the publication of the Mishnah. A century later, R. Ashi and Ravina of Babylonia published the more extensive, Babylonian Talmud. Besides for the explanation of the Mishnah, both Talmuds contain what is known as Aggadah. Aggadah refers to the many times the Talmud digresses from the subject matter, and tells stories, or discusses various words of the prophets. There is a wealth of insight hidden away in the many stories of the Aggadah, which are often metaphors for deep concepts.

The Talmud, therefore, to answer your question, is the complete written version of the Oral Torah and a compilation of many Aggadic teachings as well, and to observant Jews its importance may be considered equal to that of the “Written Torah”, the Old Testament, since Judaism maintains that one cannot be fulfilled without the other. Generally, when people say the Talmud, they mean the Babylonian Talmud, because that was the more extensive and the more widely studied one.