Before the Talmud, There Was a People

Hi friends, I am so excited to introduce Talmud Daily. We’re going to be going through the entirety of the Talmud, a tour if you will, that goes through and weaves its way through all of the topics, all of the ideas contained in the Talmud to really be an onboarding of the entirety of Jewish wisdom. And I was struggling, and really it’s a question you could almost ask yourself: where would you start to begin to introduce the Talmud? Obviously, you could start on page one of the Talmud, there is a first page, I have it in front of me right now, but the problem is the Talmud is written in a way that is very non-sequential. It doesn’t have an introduction, there’s no clear passages that tell you what this book is about or why it’s necessary.

It kind of throws you right in. Even on the first page of Talmud they have references to concepts that you’ll only get at the very end. It almost assumes a knowledge before you even start. I wanted to do something differently and I think the way to start to introduce the Talmud is by talking about the founding and formation of the Jewish people themselves.

There’s something very interesting about the formation of the Jewish people and I want to introduce two very important terms as a part of this. And that is the terms avot and imahot, which literally means mothers and fathers. What do I mean by this? You know when you look at other religions and their starting like kind of how do they start, who do they trace themselves back to, their foundational story, you know you would expect that a lot of religions begin with prophets, a lot of religions would begin with great miracle workers. You would even expect in Judaism that the founding fathers so to speak of Judaism should be rabbis. You know, “let’s talk about the rabbis, where do they come in.”

That is not how we refer to the founders so to speak of Judaism. Judaism is not founded by prophets, it is not founded by rabbis. The founders of Judaism are mothers and fathers. Avot which means fathers, imahot which means mothers.

And they’re introduced and really the focus of the entire first book of the Torah, the book of Genesis. And when you open up Genesis, you obviously go through the beginning is the creation of the world, we have stories that talk about the corruption of the world which is the story of the flood and then we’re introduced for the first time, we will for sure come back to this, the story of the tower of Babel, of Bavel. This is the first introduction that we will obviously come back to because Bavel features very prominently in the Babylonian Talmud. It is called the Babylonian Talmud.

The first mention we have of this place of Bavel is actually in the story of the tower of Babel as many people know. But it is in the twelfth chapter of Genesis that we are introduced to the figure known as Avraham. You may be familiar with the name Abraham. So Avraham is kind of the first figure who develops this familial relationship with Judaism.

It is his family that is going to be the focus of the entirety of the rest of the Torah. Avraham is married to Sarah and what is interesting is they have a child Yitzchak. There was an older child who the Torah does not continue focusing on, that is his brother Yishmael or Ishmael. Now Ishmael’s children are not the focus of the rest of the Torah, it is focused on the children of Yitzchak.

So not all of Avraham’s children continue as a part of the Jewish people. This happens again with Avraham’s son Yitzchak. It’s very interesting. Yitzchak has two children.

Yitzchak marries Rivkah and they have two children. They have Yaakov and they have Esav. And once again Yaakov and Esav, these two twin brothers, Esav is the older one and the Torah once again does not focus on Esav for the rest of the stories, right, there’s the story of the struggle between Esav and Yaakov, but then Esav is kind of goes away on his own and his descendants may come back, they attack the Jewish people, Esav is not really considered a part of the Jewish people. It is only with Yaakov again, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov and then Sarah, Rivkah—Yaakov marries two sisters, which is later on prohibited, we’ll get there, but the two sisters’ names are Rachel and Leah.

So it’s Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov and then Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, who serve as the avot and imahot. It is the children of Yaakov who descend to Egypt and eventually become the focus of the story of the redemption from Egypt. But before that happens, how do they get to Egypt? This is really crucial. They have the famous story, and I say famous, not because I assume everybody has read the entirety of the Torah, because a Broadway show was named after it: Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.

But there is a story where the children of Yaakov once again start to fight with each other. And they take one of Yaakov’s younger children, Yosef, the son of Rachel, and they sell him into slavery. And it is there that he eventually works his way up and becomes the viceroy of Egypt. Now this is a really formative story that basically ends the entirety of the book of Genesis.

And the question is: Why does Genesis end with this? And where’s the Torah in all of this? The giving of the Torah only happens in the second book, in Exodus, really after the Jewish people are redeemed from Egypt. And I think this is something absolutely fundamental. The story of Yosef being sold by his brothers, and the reason why this is so foundational in the formation of the Jewish people, is because Yaakov was worried that what happened to Esav and what happened to Yishmael. That they had children from his father and his grandfather who did not continue in the promise of the Jewish people. And he was worried, “This is happening all over again to me. Now I, too, am going to have children who are not going to be included in this promise.” And yet, we see the Torah ends off with a reconciliation. It is the children of Yaakov who are known as the twelve tribes, the shevatim, the twelve tribes that the immutable collective body of the Jewish people is now formed. They go to Egypt and when they are redeemed from Egypt, they are no longer individuals, they are no longer family, they are now an eternal people known as the Jewish people who are going to be the focus of the entirety of the rest of the Torah.

Before we get to the giving of the Torah. The reason why the Torah was not given to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, the reason why we wait to the second book, is before we give a Torah, the Torah is the eternal wisdom of God. The eternity of the Torah has to be given to an eternal people. And in order for us to be eternal, our identity needs to be immutable. It means that once I am born a Jew or you convert into Judaism, that you’re literally born into an immutable, unchosen identity.

I am Jewish no matter what. No matter what my educational level is, no matter what my background is, no matter how careful or how committed I am. That is the canvas on which all Jewish commitment is going to be written. Because it is the canvas of the eternal Jewish nation.

And the founding of this nation is the story of the avos and imahos. It is a familial identity. I can get into a fight with my parents, I can get into a fight with my mother, but I am always going to be their child. That is how Jewish identity is structured, and that is the opening really to the Talmud itself.

Before we give Torah, before we give the principles of how to preserve and sanctify our lives, we have to know the actual canvas. This needs to be given to an eternal people because the wisdom of the Torah is eternal and is going to be developed by the Jewish people for all generations. And that is really what the Talmud is. It is a celebration literally of the eternal Jewish people, the conversation that began with the giving of the Torah to this immutable eternal people, the Jewish people, and continues to this very day.

I am so excited to continue Talmud Daily. This is just the foundations and introductions. We’re going to be starting each week with concepts, then we’re going to be going to the deeper meaning, then we’re going to be giving daily actions and activities, then we’ll be talking about the history, and then of course we’ll be introducing you to the greatest Talmud educators in the entire world, so you don’t just have to listen to me. I am so excited to continue this journey with you.

And let’s keep together making Torah sweet.