What Is The Talmud?
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The Talmud is a collection of writings that covers the full gamut of Jewish law and tradition, compiled and edited between
the third and sixth centuries. Written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, it records the teachings and discussions
of the great academies of the Holy Land and Babylonia. With 2,711 densely packed pages and countless commentaries,
learning Talmud is the occupation of a lifetime.
Chabad.org
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Formally, the Talmud is a 2,711-page summary of oral law organized in 37 Tractates, or massekhtot.
But in fact, the Talmud is much more than that: it is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom.
It is an amalgam of law, legend, and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor.
The Talmud considers no subject to be too strange, too remote, or too bizarre to be studied.
The Aleph Society
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When people speak of “the Talmud ,” they are usually referring to the Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud),
composed in Babylonia (modern-day Iraq). However, there is also another version of the Talmud, the Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud),
compiled in what is now northern Israel. The Yerushalmi, also called the Palestinian Talmud or the Talmud Eretz Yisrael (Talmud of the Land of Israel),
is shorter than the Bavli, and has traditionally been considered the less authoritative of the two Talmuds.
MyJewishLearning.org
