Talmud

     In the previous post I discussed the development of the Torah She'be'al Peh (Oral Torah), mentioned a few of its main contributors (Hillel, ben Zakai and Akiva) and explained how it was finally written down around 200 CE by Yehuda HaNasi and named the Mishna. Of course, the second it was written down it began to face the same problems the Oral Torah was originally meant to solve: a lack of flexibility and an inability to address changing circumstances. Given that these are problems Am Yisrael had already dealt with once before we had a solution ready. In the same way that the Mishna developed as a series of discussions between Rabbis about the text of the Tanakh that were eventually written down, the Gemara developed as a series of discussions about and interpretations of the Mishna, which were eventually written down. The Mishna and the Gemara together are called the Talmud (from the Hebrew root meaning "to learn"), which is written predominantly in Aramaic, the vernacular of 4th and 5th century Mesopotamia.
     Up until now, aside from a few years in exile in Babylon and a quick jaunt down to Egypt for some slavery, the center of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) has been in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel). But the complete decimation of the land and its people due to the Great Revolt (66-70) and the Bar Kochva revolt (132-135) and the subsequent rise of Christianity slowly pushed more and more of Am Yisrael into the Galut (exile/diaspora). So while there was a Talmud published in Eretz Yisrael, it seems to have been done hurriedly and not at the highest possible level. Also, as you might expect, the Talmud that was published in Israel, called the Jerusalem Talmud (though it was definitely not written in Jerusalem, where Jews were nearly non-existent at this point), deals quite a bit with laws that are specific to the land of Israel. This meant that part of it was irrelevant to Galut Jews, who would make up the majority of Am Yisrael from this point all the way to the modern day (today probably a bit more than half of Am Yisrael live in Eretz Yisrael). For both of these reasons--its less-than-optimal quality and its focus on Eretz Yisrael--the Jerusalem Talmud is secondary in Jewish tradition.
     The main Talmud from which Jews study even today was written several hundred miles away in Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and Euphrates River, modern day Iraq) and known as the Babylonian Talmud. It's this series of books you'll find in virtually any observant Jewish home. This process was begun by a man named Abba Arikha (known simply as "Rav", which means Rabbi, in the Talmud), a Mesopotamia-born student of Yehuda HaNasi (codifier of the Mishna). Rav, after studying in Israel, returned to Mesopotamia and opened a famous academy at Sura (there was another at Pumbedita), which cultivated the creation of the Gemara (Rav is also known for codifying the Jewish prayer the Aleinu, which is first written down in Rav's Rosh Hashanah service).
     The Jews of Mesopotamia, under the control of a Persian Empire, were prosperous and generally allowed a good amount of autonomy. This allowed scholarship on the Gemara to flourish, and by around 400 Rav Ashi, a famous head of the Sura Academy, had begun to organize it and write it down, similar to what Yehuda HaNasi did with the Mishna. This process of culling and organizing was eventually completed by his students, and by the year 500 the Babylonian Talmud was more or less complete.
     To try and understand the Talmud (and Jewish law in general) we can compare it to American law. In the US all law is based on the Constitution. But of course the Constitution doesn't comment on things such as the legality of downloading music without paying for it. So why is downloading music illegal? At some point a judge decided that, based on his understanding of the Constitution, downloading music should be illegal (perhaps it's similar to something that is explicitly illegal in the Constitution?). This ruling then became a part of the law, so that the next judge doesn't necessarily have to go back at the Constitution, he can simply site the original case, which decided that downloading music without paying is illegal.
     In Judaism, all law is based upon the Tanakh. But, just as with the Constitution, the Tanakh doesn't explicitly cover each issue. Therefore as new issues arise the Rabbis make their best interpretation and those interpretations/decisions get written down, and that's what became first the Mishna and then the Gemara (and together the Talmud). This process continues today as various commentaries on the Talmud. Here's a link to a famous Talmudic passage in which the Rabbis are discussing the phrase "an eye for an eye". This particular tractate is dealing with how to assess damages (ie should you actually poke out their eye or does the phrase actually mean compensation) Be warned it's very difficult to understand without a background or proper teacher, but definitely give it a try! The part at the beginning in all caps is the Mishna; the part after that is the Gemara.