Friday, April 28, 2023
History of the Torah
Nadene Goldfoot
An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment-cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications-and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete .Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was already being used by then by the Educated Egyptians, probably as a 2nd language. Like today, people learned many languages.
"1450-516 B.C.
 |
| I like the letter A of the Paleo-Hebrew as it really looks like today's capital A only laying on its side. All Hebrew is read from right to left, the opposite of English. The first surprise is that Hebrew was spoken in Canaan before the Israelite conquest. 400 years before, Abraham had lived there, and now his descendants and others who had joined them were returning. The Hebrew language was still being used, proven by the Tel el Amarna Letters. This was pre-exile biblical Hebrew with a rich vocabulary that had borrowed many words from surrounding languages. The Northern Kingdom used a slightly different standard language. After the exile, the language continued for over 500 years, but had started to decay because of the influence of Aramaic from 539 to 331 BCE. Aramaic had become the language of officialdom and was spoken by many Jews. At the same time, Mishnaic Hebrew was emerging and was the new colloquial language from 200 BCE on. It's from some pre-exilic colloquial dialect and became a literary language through the tannaim in the 1st century CE. They didn't use it as much when speaking after the wars of 66 to 70 CE or after the final wars from 132 to 135 CE with Bar Kokhba. |
From the time of the Exodus in 1579 to 1578 BCE, Moses in all likelihood recorded the Torah over the next 40 years of traveling, in the Paleo-Hebrew script. This script was nearly identical with the Early Phoenician script. This same script was used throughout the land of Canaan as recorded by Isaiah in 19:18. It was the main script used until the time of the exile to Babylon in 597 BCE. There were only 22 letters. I don't recognize any of them as Hebrew.
The Assyrians had conquered and taken the 10 Tribes of northern Israel, leaving Judah in the south in 722 BCE. This was after the time of King David who ruled from 1010 BCE to 970 BCE and his son, King Solomon ruler from 961 BCE to 921 BCE. The kingdom of Judah had to carry on alone against all the surrounding enemies of which Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was the next.
The Paleo-Hebrew script (Hebrew: הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in inscriptions of Canaanite languages (incl. pre-biblical and biblical Ancient Hebrew) from the region of Southern Canaan, also known as biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the Hebrew Bible due to its similarity to the Samaritan script, as the Talmud stated that the Hebrew ancient script was still used by the Samaritans. The Talmud described it as the "Libona'a script" (Aramaic לִיבּוֹנָאָה Lībōnāʾā), translated by some as "Lebanon script".[1][2] Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by Solomon Birnbaum, Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeographer, who argued that "[t]o apply the term Phoenician [ancient Phoenicia or modern Lebanon being Northern Canaan] to the script of the Hebrews [ancient Israel-Judah or modern Israel/Palestine being Southern Canaan] is hardly suitable". The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script.
 |
| Proto-Hebrew I like the ayin which is a small zero. Ayin is silent anyway. |
It is at this point the armies of Babylon (586 B.CE.), destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, taking the survivors into Babylon for seventy-years. The hostages during this period would include the Daniel and Ezekiel. (Daniel 1, Ezekiel 1:1).
539 B.C. to A.D. 500
Producing a sefer Torah fulfills one of the 613 commandments.
“The k'laf/parchment on which the Torah scroll is written, the hair or sinew with which the panels of parchment are sewn together, and the quill pen with which the text is written all must come from ritually clean —that is, kosher— animals.”
"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment-cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications-and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete." No letter errors are allowed.
In 539 B.C., the armies of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, defeat Babylon, he allows the Jews to return and rebuild of the Temple to begin. This is the beginning of the Second Temple Period. After Seventy-years of captivity, many of the descendants of the Jewish captives had forgotten the Hebrew tongue and alphabet. The Aramaic alphabet was adopted for the Hebrew language by some Jews. This helped the Jews make the transition, to still be a distinct people and yet being able to communicate with the society around them. Manuscripts of the Torah and Prophets were written in the Aramaic square
script (Current Hebrew) rather then the earlier Paleo-Hebrew script (Ancient Hebrew).
Nehemiah records the problems facing the restored Hebrew nation in 440 B.C. "In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people. Nehemiah 13:23-24
(page 1871 in The Stone Edition of Tanakh.) Nehemiah was the governor of Judah by asking the Persian king permission to return to Judah so he was appointed this by Artaxerxes I. It was he who organized the repair of Jerusalem's walls when he arrived. They completed the job in 52 days, even with the neighboring people's attacks. It sounds like the 1880's with our Jewish pioneers having returned from living in eastern Europe, doesn't it? They had many mixed marriages and not everyone spoke Hebrew. This was also the problem of our recent return almost 70 years ago in 1948. It wasn't until 1880 that the Hebrew language was again used for communication in oral language with each other with our return with Russian -Jewish pioneers. It could be that those native Jews still living in Palestine had reverted to speaking Arabic.
Nehemiah brought back all the customs they had missed in the past 70 years; the Sabbath observance, cancellation of debts owed by the poor, maintaining Temple regulations and paying their tithes were brought back. There would be all those born during that 70 year period who knew of none of these practices; only the older men like Nehemiah and Ezra would have known and they must have been youngsters then.
He helped to secure the city by arranging for 1/10 of the people to live in the city. Then after living there as well for the next 12 years, he returned to Susa, Persia, and probably reported what he had accomplished, then returned again to Jerusalem. In 433 to 432 BCE, he took steps against mixed marriages along with Ezra, who was a member of the priestly family of Zadok. This means he was a Cohen. He was also a scribe but had worked for the Persian government. He had received permission to go to Jerusalem in 458 BCE and lead a party of settlers and would establish the Mosaic Law once again in Judah. My records show that the return to Jerusalem had started in 538 BC but that a return had started 60 years earlier of a group under the direction of Zerubbabel. and were undergoing a spiritual deterioration of their Jewish community and needed help. Ezra had followed Nehemiah's return.
Zerubbabel, born about 480 BCE, was the grandson of Jehoiachin, former king of Judah during the years of 598 to 597 BCE. Zedekiah had followed him from 597 to 586 BCE. He was the last as the Babylonians had attacked in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE. Zerubbabel was the last satrap of Davidic descent in Jerusalem. After his time, the high priest increased in influence.
 |
| Notice the absence of vowels except for the vov which is a consonant and a vowel. Beginners today get to use something like a code of dots and dashes under the letters giving the word the sounds needed that vowels create. One does sight reading quite a lot in reading Hebrew more than phonics with adult literature. |
I see an error below. #6 is a vuv, not a W. There is no W in Hebrew.
I taught English in the junior high of Safed to kittah zion, khet and tet.
The alphabet song: Aleph Bet Vet, Gimel Daled hay vov, Zion khet tet, yud kuf chuf,
lamed mem and nun, samekh ayin pay, fay, Tzadee koof, raish, shin, sin, tauf.
There is no ch sound like in choo choo train. it's a deep throat clearing sound-kh. a gargle sound. Some still use the ch to stand for that sound. They should use kh.
"The use of Babylonian (Aramaic) square script would become the dominate form of Hebrew in the Biblical manuscript for the future. Although, there were Paleo-Hebrew manuscripts found at the Dead Sea and Bar Kochba introduced them on the coins, the square script remains until this day the current letters used for Hebrew." . The letters of the alphabet were also used for the number system.
 |
| Shrine of the Book Museum housing Dead Sea Scrolls, Jerusalem "The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum: from ancient scripts to nanotechnologies A comment overheard there: The white dome is supposed to, in some way, remind us of the covers on the stone jars in which the scrolls were found. It is unbelievable to enter this circular room and look at the scrolls that are over 2000 years and ponder all that they represent. It makes me ask the question: what else could be hiding out there in the caves in the desert??" |
I see that the Torah writing has gone through several transitions. We still read the Torah in Hebrew but it's the square letter Hebrew, not in the handwriting of Moses. I still feel confident that scribes were most careful in keeping to the original letters, even though the styles had changed.
Even at that, Dr. Eliyahu Rips felt confident enough about today's Hebrew to use his computer program in finding codes in our Hebrew writing of that has lasted this long. It is depending on every word and every original letter being there as they all are needed in order to make sense.
One can go into the museum in Jerusalem that looks like an upside down funnel where ancient Hebrew writings are on display and see for yourself how beautiful the letters have remained.
My Ulpan Hebrew 6 day a week classes with homework in Haifa for 10 months with Morah Sarah, most understanding teacher I've had. I can now confess after 38 years that I could never do the homework. It was beyond me. We had to hire a tutor who didn't know how to teach but just did it for us. So we missed our Spring Break of taking a trip to Egypt and went over our text again by ourselves; 2 American teachers determined to pass our final test of 3 hours. We did it, but that's another story. The night before the test I passed out and fell, crushing my left elbow and arm bone, and I'm left-handed. I wound up taking the test later alone with the Israeli principal who didn't speak English while running a fever and wearing a cast on my arm. I passed with 70 %. 
Resource: http://www.truthnet.org/Bible-Origins/4_How_was_Bible_written/index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Pictograms/pictograms.html
5/3/18: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia p. 3839, Alphabet, additional information
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/Unit_One/Pictograms/pictograms.html
5/3/18: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia p. 3839, Alphabet, additional information
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Birnbaum
4/14/2023: This article I wrote just received a red flag---bad, after 274 readers read it. it's from 2018. I just wrote one saying when Mohammad died, and immediately got a red flag warning. I've also copied that.
Labels: Cyrus the Great, Moses, Nehemiah, Paleo-Hebrew Script, Phoenician script, Solomon Birnbaum, Torah, Ulpan Hebrew, writing
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Part I of III: Our Ancestor, Abraham and His Genealogy, Where Did Our Ancestors Come From Before Ur?
Nadene Goldfoot
Terah, Abram's father, along with Abram and Sarai, were part of their clan traveling westward from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia in Ur when they arrived in Canaan. (The longest river in Western Asia, the Euphrates flows for a distance of 2,800 kilometers, arising in Turkey and flowing through Syria and Iraq to drain into the Persian Gulf. ) Abram had been born in the 2nd millennium BCE. He was one of 3 sons of Terah. Sarah was the daughter of Haran, Abram's brother. He was married to his niece. Abraham and Sarah will have a son, Isaac, and he in turn will be the father of Jacob. Abram was ready to sacrifice Isaac at the direction of G-d, who he heard tell him, but was stopped in time, with the lesson that was to be no more human sacrifices. His loyalty to G-d had been tested as well. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are our 3 patriarchs. The clan is referred to as the Israelites or Ivreem. Sarai's name was changed, along with Abram's in Genesis (17:15- 22) before she became a mother.
 |
| Sarah and Abraham |
 |
| Terah |
Terah, Abram's father, along with Abram and Sarai, were part of their clan traveling westward from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia in Ur when they arrived in Canaan. (The longest river in Western Asia, the Euphrates flows for a distance of 2,800 kilometers, arising in Turkey and flowing through Syria and Iraq to drain into the Persian Gulf. ) Abram had been born in the 2nd millennium BCE. He was one of 3 sons of Terah. Sarah was the daughter of Haran, Abram's brother. He was married to his niece. Abraham and Sarah will have a son, Isaac, and he in turn will be the father of Jacob. Abram was ready to sacrifice Isaac at the direction of G-d, who he heard tell him, but was stopped in time, with the lesson that was to be no more human sacrifices. His loyalty to G-d had been tested as well. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are our 3 patriarchs. The clan is referred to as the Israelites or Ivreem. Sarai's name was changed, along with Abram's in Genesis (17:15- 22) before she became a mother.
Muslims of Turkey say that Abraham was born in Turkey and at the age of 7 days, he was like a 7 year old. Abraham's father, Terah or his grandfather may have been from Turkey, but the Torah says that Terah and his son, Abraham came from Ur, a very famous city, so there is the connection of Ur and the Euphrates River that started in Turkey. Our testimony to this is from Moses, said to have been the author of the Torah. Ur has been excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. Moses lived from 1391-1271 BCE. Mohammed's (570-632) Islam started in 632 CE when he died. Moses was born 1961 years (almost 2,000 years) before Mohammad.
Our biblical history recorded in the Torah takes Abraham's genealogy back to Shem, a son of Noah. Our DNA traces with names, from Shem to Abraham and from him to Moses. Mosses and Aaron were brothers. From Aaron we have the line of J1 (a Y haplotype), a DNA proof of the Cohen line of Jews. Science is backing our very long history.
Abraham took a 2nd wife after Sarah had died, Keturah. He had more children by her He died at age 175 and was buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which he had bought, and laid along Sarah.
 |
| Abram and Lot |
Attempts were made at first, under Merodach-Baladan, to overthrow Assyria, and they finally succeeded in the 7th century BCE under Nabopolassar and his son, Nebuchadnezzar, who established an empire from Assyria to the Egyptian border. It was the Assyrians who later attacked our northern Israel's 10 tribes of Jacob and took them away, where we have found remnants now called Pashtuns, and of course, now Muslims. Then, when the Babylonians attacked in 597 and 586 BCE, they were under Nebuchadnezzar and took away most all of Judah to Babylonia.
Chaldea was a country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.
As for the Cassites, The Kassites were people of the ancient Near East who spoke Kassite, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BCE and until c. 1155 BCE. The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi.
Our ancestors came to Haran first, and settled there. Haran was a trading town of NW Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the center of a moon cult. They were polytheistic people worshipping many gods, but especially,"Sin, (Akkadian), and the Sumerian Nanna,
in the Mesopotamian religion, the god of the moon. ... At any rate, Nanna was intimately connected with the cattle herds that were the livelihood of the people in the marshes of the lower Euphrates River, where the cult developed. They were here long enough for Abram's grandson, Jacob, to marry his uncle Laban's 2 daughters, Leah and Rachel.
When God changed a person's name and gave him a new name, it was usually to establish a new identity. God changed Abram's "high father" name to “Abraham,” "father of a multitude" (Genesis 17:5) and his wife's name from “Sarai,” “my princess,” to “Sarah,” “mother of nations” (Genesis 17:15–16).
Abraham had the experience of being visited by G-d in a vision and telling him that his descendants would inherit land from the Nile River of Egypt to the Euphrates River. That must be how he came to believe in only one G-d; becoming monotheistic.
The crescent, Nanna’s emblem, was sometimes represented by the horns of a great bull. Nanna bestowed fertility and prosperity on the cowherds, governing the rise of the waters, the growth of reeds, the increase of the herd, and therefore the quantity of dairy products produced. His consort, Ningal, was a reed goddess. Each spring, Nanna’s worshipers reenacted his mythological visit to his father, Enlil, at Nippur with a ritual journey, carrying with them the first dairy products of the year. Gradually Nanna became more human: from being depicted as a bull or boat, because of his crescent emblem, he came to be represented as a cowherd or boatman.
Babylonia is also located in Mesopotamia. For centuries this was the center of Jewish life. It is mentioned several times in Genesis with reference to our patriarchs. Assyrian inscriptions from this time mention a Habiru (Hebrew?) settlement in the area which some scholars link with Terah's residence there. A small Jewish community still existed here in the 12th century.
 |
| Jacob started by being in love with Rachel. He wound up with 2 wives, Leah and her sister, Rachel, daughters of Laban, his uncle. Then he took each of his wives' handmaidens also. Zilpah and Bilhah. Rachel, in the middle, will have Jacob's 11th son, Benjamin later and then die in childbirth. It is her sister, Leah, who gave Jacob 6 sons; Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, and a daughter (Dinah). Jacob was forced to marry Leah first as she was the oldest daughter. This was custom. |
 |
| Iraqi Jewish family |
 |
| At Cave of Machpelah |
1 Serug d: in age 230 Abram's ggrandfather
.. +Milcah
. 2 Nahor I b: in East d: in 148 years old Abram's grandfather
..... +Iyoska
..... 3 Terah b: in 1883 BCE-Ur of Chaldees, Sumeria, Mesopotamia Iraq d: 2083 in Haran in the year 2083 BCE Age at death: ? Abram's father
......... 4 [1] Abram-Abraham b: 1948 in Ur of the Chalees in 2nd millennium d: in Hebron
............. +[2] Sarai-Sarah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Kiriath-arba Hebron, Canaan m: in Haran m: in Haran ,Abram's niece and wife
............. 5 Isaac ben Abraham b: 2048 in Negev
.............. +Rebekah bat Bethuel b: in Aram
6. Esau
6. Jacob
......... *2nd Wife of [1] Abram-Abraham:
............. +Hagar
............. 5 Ishmael d: in Near Egypt towards Assyria
................. +1st wife
......... *3rd Wife of [1] Abram-Abraham:
............. +Keturah
............. 5 Zimran ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5 Jokshan ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5 Medan ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5 Midian ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5 Ishbak ben Abram-Abraham
............. 5 Shuah ben Abram-Abraham
.........4 Haran b: in Ur of Chaldees d: Bef. 2083 in Ur of Chaldees Age at death: ?
............. 5 Lot
............. 5 Iskah
............. 5 [4] Milcah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
................. +[3] NAHOR II b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. 5 [2] Sarai-Sarah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Kiriath-arba Hebron, Canaan
................. +[1] Abram-Abraham b: 1948 in Ur of the Chaldees in 2nd millennium d: in Hebron m: in Haran m: in Haran
......... 4 [3] Nahor II b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. +[4] Milcah b: in Ur of Chaldees d: in Haran
............. 5 Uz
............. 5 Buz
............. 5 Kemuel
............. 5 Chesed
............. 5 Hazo
............. 5 Pildash
............. 5 Jidlaph
............. 5 Bethuel Citizenship: Syrian
......... *Friend of [3] NAHOR II:
............. +Reumah
............. 5 Tebah ben NAHOR
............. 5 Gaham ben NAHOR
............. 5 Tahash ben NAHOR
............. 5 Maacah ben NAHOR
Resource: Tanakh, Stone Edition
Labels: Abraham, Assyrians, Babylonian Empire, Haran, Iraq, Isaac, Jacob, Mesopotamia, moon cult Chaldeans, Sarah, Terah, Torah, Ur
Monday, January 15, 2018
Our 12th to 14th Century Higher Level Scholars in Troyes, France and Worms, Germany
Nadene Goldfoot
Moses gave us our Torah, and the Prophets gave us the rest, so that we have our Tanach (Old Testament). That wasn't the end, however. That was just the beginning for our Jewish religion.
The first century saw the creation of rabbis since the 2nd Temple was destroyed in 70 CE causing all Jerusalemites to be taken as slaves or slaughtered unless they managed somehow to escape or leave before the event happened.
How to understand and interpret and carry out our laws was another thing involving much study. Rabbis in Palestine and rabbis in Babylon worked on such a project, each finally coming up with the Palestinian Talmud and a Babylonian Talmud about sometime between 200 and 400 CE. Talmud means Teaching. They were the records of academic discussions of Jewish Law by generations of well known scholars and jurists in the many academies and in more than one country during those several centuries.
Each one consists of the Mishnah with a gemara, which is both a commentary on and a supplement to the Mishnah. The Mishnah has the core of our Oral Law, compiled by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi from previous collections and arranged in a logical order. These dealt mainly with religious laws about agriculture, another dealing with the laws of the Sabbath and festivals. Another topic was Women which dealt with the laws of marriage, divorce and vows people take. Damages was a topic dealing with the treatment of civil and criminal laws. Holy things was another which covered slaughtering animals for food (kosher laws). All this was carefully organized to make it easier to find and deal with.
The Oral Law, handed down by Moses, to each generation orally. It was given by Moses along with his written law. He had been an Egyptian prince and was an educated man, skilled in writing. During the days of the 2nd Temple, the Pharisees and general population upheld this Oral Law. The Sadducees and Essenes didn't and had their own traditions regarding the interpretation of the Written Law. These sects disappeared after the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the Oral Law was studied in the many academies, for the people were hungry to learn. Each place had their own way of teaching. Their discussions remained orally only without being written down.
When the Torah is written, it is done by a trained scribe (Sopher) according to careful regulations. If one mistake is made, the whole scroll is discarded, usually buried.
That wasn't enough for these scholars. The Tosaphot came into being. These were important explanations on the Talmud by French and German scholars from the 12 through the 14th centuries. In the beginning, they were supplements to the French Rabbi, Rashi and his Talmud Commentary. These rabbis would frequently criticize and modify Rashi's decisions.
Supposedly, Rashi is my ancestor and that of others as well. He was a French rabbinical scholar who studied in the Rhineland and then returned to Troyes, France where he had a school. While he earned his living from his vineyard, he taught his students and gained a wide reputation for his brilliance. He was famous for his rational commentary on the Tanakh and the Babylonian Talmud. He was known for presenting the direct rational meaning of the text. He brought in the Midrash to his students as well.
The Midrash was a book with emphasis on finding new meanings besides the literal meanings. There was the tradition dealing with the scriptures that certain rules were followed to deduce such hidden and new meanings. Sometimes the Midrash established the law. In others, it found needed support for laws already accepted. The whole book is full of midrashic verses. Midrash is now used mainly with the legend and ethics of the Bible. "It goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal, or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at. It contains both halakah and haggadah, revealing the divine presence of the eternal Torah in the text."
These were scholars of higher learning. They dedicated their lives to understanding our laws which were given to benefit us in our lives.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
 |
| RASHI Rabbi Solomon Yitzhak born in France 1040, died 1105. Most well known commentator on the Bible Later rabbis used his comments such s Nahmanides (1194-1270) and Abraham Ben Ezra in their interpretation of the Torah (Pentateuch). Prayer books in synagoges still contain his name with commentary
At the time of the Dark Ages, Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164) was a scholar and poet who came from Spain, a Sephardi rabbi. By 1140 he started journeying and visited Italy, France, England, and perhaps even got to Palestine. He wrote in Hebrew and wrote secular and sacred poems, riddles and epigrams that were collected and published. He was another Bible commentarian. He happened to also be a Hebrew grammarian of importance and translated works from the Arabic and wrote several original grammatical compositions. As if this wasn't enough, he was a scientist and author of several studies on astrology in which he firmly believed. His son Isaac also followed his father's lead and was a poet who lived in the Middle East for a period, he even professed Islam. Records say "for a period," so I take it that he returned to Judaism. In those days it was a new religion, having started in about 632 with the death of Mohammad. Muslims were concentrating on gaining believers.
 |
Each one consists of the Mishnah with a gemara, which is both a commentary on and a supplement to the Mishnah. The Mishnah has the core of our Oral Law, compiled by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi from previous collections and arranged in a logical order. These dealt mainly with religious laws about agriculture, another dealing with the laws of the Sabbath and festivals. Another topic was Women which dealt with the laws of marriage, divorce and vows people take. Damages was a topic dealing with the treatment of civil and criminal laws. Holy things was another which covered slaughtering animals for food (kosher laws). All this was carefully organized to make it easier to find and deal with.
When the Torah is written, it is done by a trained scribe (Sopher) according to careful regulations. If one mistake is made, the whole scroll is discarded, usually buried.
Supposedly, Rashi is my ancestor and that of others as well. He was a French rabbinical scholar who studied in the Rhineland and then returned to Troyes, France where he had a school. While he earned his living from his vineyard, he taught his students and gained a wide reputation for his brilliance. He was famous for his rational commentary on the Tanakh and the Babylonian Talmud. He was known for presenting the direct rational meaning of the text. He brought in the Midrash to his students as well.
 |
| Lilith and Eve |
These were scholars of higher learning. They dedicated their lives to understanding our laws which were given to benefit us in our lives.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Labels: Abraham ibn Ezra, academies, gemara, Mishnah, oral law, Pharisees, Rashi, Sadducees, sopher, Talmud, Tanach, Torah
