Torah in the Mouth

Martin S. Jaffee

"Oral Torah is the comprehensive body of exegetical, theological, ritual, and legal tradition preserved within rabbinic Judaism. Transmitted in small, face-to-face discipleship circles in rabbinic communities from the Galilee to Mesopotamia, this tradition came to be the principal trait that distinguished rabbinic Judaism from the other Judaisms that preceded and surrounded it in the world of Late Antiquity. As the very name Oral Torah (torah she-be'al peh) implies, the transmission of this crucial cultural patrimony was deeply beholden to oral forms of instruction and preservation. By the close of the classical period of rabbinic culture in the seventh century C.E., rabbinic disciples believed as well that their orally transmitted tradition had its origins in a primordial revelation delivered at Sinai to Moses and Israel along with the covenantal Torah." "In this new study of...