Giving an accurate definition of what the Talmud is perplexes many. It is hard to pin down exactly what it is, and to state precisely what it does. Below is a video of Rav Adin Steinsaltz זצ”ל where he addresses the question, and giving us insight into how to understand the Talmud. I have written out some of the more pertinent passages, editing it for clarity and readability. In some places I have altered the transcript to reflect what I thought were the intentions of the Rav. You can judge for yourself by watching the entire video (15 min) which appears at the end of the post.
Rav Steinsaltz starts by saying that he will dive right in to the “Sea of the Talmud” to explain it. Here are some of the highlights.
“The Talmud is a book that’s very hard to explain because there is
not a book that is exactly like it. Not just in contents but in the way it is built…
Generally speaking, it’s a book of discussions, dealing with ideas, problems.
It is not so much a book that that has conclusions or results but rather discussions about subjects in its own very particular way.…”
He then goes on to describe it as interactive learning:
“The Talmud is perhaps the first book which is which is made for interactive learning.
You cannot really read it passively. You will understand very little of it and surely not enjoy any of it. To deal with it in any level from the simplest to more and more advanced levels, you have to interact. You are not just a passive listener, reader, viewer. You have somehow to ask, to figure out, to try to understand things. Otherwise it remains not only a closed book but a text without any meaning whatever.”
The Rav then goes on to explain that the Talmud is the Oral Law, which is based on the Written Law, which is the Bible. The Law was given by Moses as a written text, but in order to understand the text, it needs explanations. These explanations are the Oral Law. He compares it to a manual on how to use a complicated machine. It’s not enough just to read the manual, but it needs to be accompanied by someone explaining how to understand the manual and how to use the machine. With the passage of time, circumstances change and language changes, so the Oral explanation can adjust for these changes
“One of the of the main reasons why the oral law was kept intentionally and
even religiously as an oral law and not as a written law – up to the to the
end of the of the of the second, in fact almost the beginning of the third century
in in the common era. Why? Because as long as it is not written it remains something that is transmitted from one generation to another, it means that you can always adjust it to the language, to the usage, and to the problems of any particular age. When it is written down it gets involved into the same problematic as any kind of a written text. Which means it needs its own commentaries and explanations.”
“Talmud is all about taking the text of the written law and somehow trying to
deal with it to make it to make it alive. One of the keys to understand the Talmud as a book because [once it has been written down] it is a stable text [about a Law that has been in movement]. When it was written down it’s a kind of freezing of a movement, taking a picture of a dance, freezing a river in the middle of its flow so you have all the ripples out there. All the half tones still remain there and that is what makes the book in one way far more fascinating, and in the other way it becomes far more hard to get the…”
Here the video ends in mid-sentence, mid-thought. I hope we can gain access to the rest of this pearl of a video.