Still confused after all these years…

by Patti Breitman

Close to 40 years after I became a bat mitzvah I was still confused about some very basic Jewish terminology. What exactly is the ‘Haftarah’? And what is the ‘Talmud’? Are they the same? How are they different from the ‘Torah’?

A little reading and a little research helped me understand these terms. I'll share what I learned here, and I hope it helps if you also are somewhat confused.

The הַפְטָרָה Haftarah is a reading from the Prophets, usually related to the weekly Torah portion and read after the reading from the Torah.

The תַּלְמוּד Talmud is a compilation of interpretations of the Torah, explaining what it means and how to apply its laws. Because it is based on an oral tradition, the Talmud is also referred to as the ‘Oral Torah’. It is said that G‑d taught the Oral Torah to Moses and that he in turn taught it to others who continued the oral tradition of passing it down through the generations until it was compiled and written down in the 2nd century CE.

This written compilation of these oral interpretations is a document known as the מִשְׁנָה Mishnah. Over the next few centuries additional commentaries were added to the Mishnah, and these are known as the גְּמָרָה Gemarah. While there have been and continue to be other commentaries on the Torah by scholars and rabbis, today the Mishnah and Gemarah together are what we commonly call the Talmud.

One more confession: Sometimes, I was even confused about what was meant by the תּוֹרָה Torah. The definition at the web site www.jewfaq.org showed me the source of my confusion. Like the word ‘Israel’, which can mean any of three things (the Jewish people, the land promised to Abraham by G‑d, or the country), the words ‘The Torah’ can be used in different ways. Here's their definition:

“In its narrowest sense, Torah [is] the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, sometimes called the Pentateuch. In its broadest sense, Torah is the entire body of Jewish teachings.

—from our January-February 2006 Newsletter

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