Oral Torah

Uncommon card · No. 169368

The Five Books of Moses, what most people call the Torah, are considered the most ancient and sacred possessions of the Jews and Judaism. The teachings written there form the original core of the Jewish understanding of the world, and especially their understanding of themselves and their relationship with God and with the world. Jews all over the world continue to study these teachings, formally and informally, directly from the written texts of these books, which are thousands of years old. But the traditional view, which has been passed down over the generations, holds that this series of five most ancient and sacred books are only part (the central part) of God's instruction to the Israelites and their descendants, the Jewish people. According to the rabbis, the teachers who have been passing down the Jewish traditions for over two thousand years, this "Written Torah" (תּוֹרָה שֶׁבִּכְתָב, Tōrā šebbīḵṯāv) forms the core of God's teaching ("torah", lit. "instruction") to Israel, and...

Read on Wikipedia