FAQ: Talmud

Q. What is the Talmud and what does it mean when certain individuals and groups claim the "Zionist Jews control the media, the government, intelligence agencies, etc"?

A.The Talmud is the Hebrew word for "study". It contains the thoughts,teachings and oral traditions of the Jewish community over several thousand years. There are two versions of the Talmud, the Babylonian and the Jerusalem. These were the two main centers of Jewish learning and major academies were located there. The effort to write down these down took place between the 3rd and the 6th century C.E. They are not the same size in page length and the Babylonian Talmud eventually took on the role as authoritative. The Talmud consists of two part, the Mishnah which is a collection of Halakah, or how to walk in the commandments and Temple services. These were codified around 200 C.E. The traditions continued and were collected in another book called the Gemara, the other part of the Talmud.

Together they form the contents of the Talmud. The books are divided into two sections, Halakah or legal questions on the Torah and Aggadah that illustrate the thought behind the questions through parables and stories. Here is the problem. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Pharisees were the only sect to survive besides the Messianic believers. These surviving Rabbis took their teachings and reformed Judaism into Rabbinic Judaism and people think that is what all Jews did during Temple times, which is not true. The Judaism we see today is not the Judaism of the 1st century. The Judaism today is based on these surviving Pharisees and their teachings. Another problem is the Talmud collected all viewpoints on a particular subject and some of them are wrong.

One Rabbi may say one thing, and then another Rabbi says something different, but there may be a thousand years between the two. People who don't know what they are doing will quote some off the wall Rabbinic comment from the Talmud and then say thay this is what the Jews believe and it isn't. The Talmud collected the thoughts and comments of many diverse opinions and included them. Christian commentaries do not do this. They only include the things that agree with the authors for the most part. You can't pick some strange comment from the Talmud and say this is how all Jews think no more than Jerry Falwell's commentaries speak for all Christians. There are some very interesting things to learn from the Talmud and sometimes it contains the best way to do things, but it is not the "Jewish Bible", we already have one and it is not considered on the same level.

There is alot of wisdom contained in it and much insight into terms, eschatology, medicine, the Temple and much more. The second question is complicated but I'll try to boil it down. G-d told Abraham that his descendants would be blessed and given abilities in order to accomplish the goal of reaching the world and telling them about G-d, the redemption and the Messiah. We see that G-d blessed Jacob and Laban's sons got jealous and accused him of stealing their inheritance(Gen 31.1-3). This drove Jacob away, back to the land. Later, G-d told Israel the the Torah commands would be their wisdom and understanding before the world, and the people would recognize that Israel was a wise and understanding people because of it (Deut 4.1-8).

However, this recognition has not always been positive. As in the case of Jacob, Haman was very jealous of the Jews and in particular Mordechai. He went so far as to accuse them of being different and not having the right to live and asked the King for permission to kill them(Esther 3.1-9). These attitudes have been around for a long time and are still seen today. The Jewish people have been blessed by G-d and their contribution to medicine, the arts, business, literature, music are way out of proportion to the rest of the world. Along with that blessing comes the mercy of G-d because we have not lived up to our calling for the most part.There has been alot bad things done by Jews also. That is the paradox. The blessing of G-d makes way for His purposes and the talent He has given .

This is seen by others, recognizing the contribution of the Jewish people around him and thinking like a fallen human, he thinks there must be some conspiracy for all these "Jews" to be in so many key positions. The fact is, the Jewish contribution to mankind has been downplayed. Christopher Columbus, Chaim Solomon ,who financed the American Revolution, the true inventor of the telephone and the automobile were all Jews. The basic thrust "behind the scenes" for the hatred is spiritual and comes from the desire to get rid of Israel. If Satan can do that, and he can't, then the promises of G-d are false. Mark Twain in 1899 wrote an interesting essay entitled"Concerning the Jews" and I will include it next week as the conclusion to this question.