THE MEANING OF TORAH IN JUDAISM

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

Torah is one of the pillars of Judaism. In essence, it means, “religious instruction.” However, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (3^rd cent, BCE)  rendered it as nomos, meaning “law,” thus restricting its scope. The New Testament, using the Septuagint as its source, also translated Torah as law.

In reality, Torah in Judaism is more than law. The  term comes from the Hebrew root Yarah, meaning “to throw.” It has had an interesting development.

In the Hebrew Bible:
The kings of Israel and the priests at the Temple of Jerusalem used various methods to find out the will of God. According to I Sam. 28: 6, “And (king) Saul inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him either by dreams, or by URIM or by prophets.” Here the noun URIM, is short for urim ve thummim. Most likely, these were small stones or sacred lots, each in the shape of  a dice which was cast to the ground. They were placed inside  the “breastpiece of decision” worn by the priests (See, Ex. 28:30,  Lev. 8:8).  They seemed to have disappeared after the reign of King David (c.10^th cent. BCE). According to Ezra 2:63, they were not used during the second temple. Finally, according to the Mishnah (early 3^rd cent. CE, Sot.9:12), “When the first prophets died, the urim ve-thummim ceased to exist.”

In time, the word Torah assumed a  wider meaning, namely “instruction,” such as “The Torah of the  Meal Offering” (Lev. 6:7) or “The Torah of the Nazirite” (Num. 6:21). In the Wisdom literature, Torah is equated with human wisdom (Prov.1:8). And in the post exilic period (6^th cent. BCE),  Torah referred to the substance  of the Pentateuch (Neh. 8:8) .

In the Rabbinic literature, Torah  refers not only to the “written Torah,” but also to “the Oral Torah,” transmitted from one generation of sages to another. The First was accepted by the Sadducees, and the second by the Pharisees. The Mishnah (3^rd cet. CE) and then the Talmud represent a collection of the oral Torah finally redacted in the 6^th cent. CE.

In the present time, the term Torah can refer to the Five Books attributed to Moses, to the entire Hebrew Bible, or even to the entire corpus of Jewish teachings.

SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com