Revelation in the Torah and the Talmud

Overview

Recall questions on chosenness, the Written and Oral Torah, the Talmud, revelation and Jewish identity, Moses and the Ten Commandments, the covenants, Cohen on rabbinic teaching, and Orthodox, Conservative and Reform views of Sinai.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Why do Jews speak of themselves as chosen, and chosen for what?

   Model answer

   Election is generally understood as being singled out for responsibility rather than privilege. Israel is described as taken into covenant in order to keep God's commandments and to live in a way that makes God known, holding up an example the nations can see. In practice that means sanctifying God's name by how one behaves in public and building a common life ordered by justice, and many Jewish thinkers stress that it has brought obligation and danger far more often than advantage.

2. 2

   How have Jewish thinkers answered the charge that chosenness is arrogant?

   Model answer

   In several ways. Some insist it is a claim about duty, not superiority. D Cohn-Sherbok has argued that Jews should give up any exclusive reading of election in favour of a pluralist one. Reconstructionist Judaism, following Mordecai Kaplan, removed chosenness from its liturgy altogether, while Orthodox Judaism retains it as given.

3. 3

   What is the difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah?

   Model answer

   The Written Torah is the Five Books of Moses. The Oral Torah is the accompanying body of interpretation and application which, on the traditional account, was given alongside it at Sinai and handed down by teaching before eventually being written into the Mishnah and then the Talmud.

4. 4

   Why does the Talmud matter so much for Jewish belief about revelation?

   Model answer

   Because on the traditional view revelation does not stop at a fixed text; it continues in the rabbis' work of interpreting it. The Talmud preserves generations of argument, often keeping the rejected opinion on the page beside the accepted one, which builds in the idea that revealed meaning is reached through disciplined disagreement.

5. 5

   What has revelation done for Jewish identity across the centuries?

   Model answer

   It has given the Jewish people a shared text, a shared calendar and a shared body of law that travelled with them through dispersion. Communities separated by continents and centuries stayed recognisably one people largely because they were reading, arguing over and living by the same material.

6. 6

   How far into ordinary life does revealed law reach?

   Model answer

   On the traditional understanding, all the way. Halakhah drawn from revelation governs food, dress, business dealings, sexual conduct, speech, and the rhythm of the week and the year. No area of life is marked off as religiously neutral, which is why revelation shapes a whole community and not only its worship.

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