“In Rabbinic Judaism, the synagogue is the Jewish house of prayer. The buildings are not necessarily used for communal worship since Jewish worship can be carried out wherever ten Jews (a minyan) assemble. All synagogues contain a bimah, a table from which the Torah is read, and a desk for the prayer leader. The Torah ark — modeled on the Ark of the Covenant — is a cabinet in which the Torah scrolls are kept.”

Aside from knowing that we share some of the same religious texts, most Christians today are completely unfamiliar with the “modern” forms of Judaism (forms that go back almost 2,000 years). To close a small portion of the knowledge gap about our religious Jewish neighbors, here are nine things you should know Rabbinic Judaism.

1. In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of the Torah. Rabbinic Judaism, which is based on the “dual Torah,” was formulated in the 2^nd century, making the religion, in terms of defining texts, younger than Christianity. By the 6^th century it had become the dominant type of Judaism and is the foundation of all forms of Judaism practiced today. The three main branches of Rabbinic Judaism in North America are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.

2. The “dual Torah” is the Jewish concept that the Torah was revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai in two ways, one written (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and the other transmitted by oral tradition through the prophets and the sages. The Oral Torah did not come to full expression in Jewish life until after the period following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in AD 70. As Jacob Neusner explains, “the Judaism of the dual Torah set forth a twin ideal: sanctification of the everyday life in the here and now, which when fully realized would lead to the salvation of all Israel in the age to come. But what remained to be sanctified, as the Temple had been sanctified through its cult, now that the Temple was gone? One locus of sanctification endured beyond 70: the holy people itself.”

3. The Oral Torah is the tradition collected in a number of rabbinic writings known as the Mishnah (halachic or legal tradition which form the core of Rabbinic Judaism). Upon being recorded the Mishnah became the object of further study, commentary and amplification known as the Gemara. The term Talmud can be used to mean either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara as printed together. There are two Talmuds: The Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud is the heart of Rabbinic Judaism; after the Bible, the Talmud is the book most studied by religious Jews and the Hebrew Bible is read and interpreted in light of the Talmud.

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