"Am haSefer" - "The People of the Book" is a well-earned designation for the Jewish people.  The Book referenced by this is the Torah in all its nuances and layers.  According to tradition, when Moshe (Moses) received the Torah on Mt. Sinai, he received a written Torah and an Oral Torah.  The core of the written Torah, the five books of Moses, was supplemented by two additional collections: Neviim, the books of the prophets, and Ketuvim, the writings.  These three elements: Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim, are known by their Hebrew acronym, Tanach.  This is the Hebrew Bible- but not the whole Torah and not nearly all of the Book in the designation, "the People of the Book."

The Oral Torah was committed to writing about 1400-1900 years ago.  The sages taught the law in pithy purposeful chunks called the Mishnah and later generations expounded on them at some length in an expansive associative outpouring called the Gemara.  Taken together, the Mishnah and the Gemara are called the Talmud.  The Talmud forms the backbone of the curriculum in the yeshivot of previous generations- and still to this day.  This more than anything else is the Book the Jewish people have been engrossed in for our many centuries of dispersion.

The Talmud has been called a "sea."  In our Middle School we teach our students rudimentary strokes so they can swim a bit out at sea and explore a bit of the shoreline.  This is not to put down our program- the opposite- it's to underline the enormity of the task!  There are a number of efforts which have been made in the past few decades to open up the Talmud and make it more accessible to us.  Among the most recent of these are many which have taken advantage of the digital revolution.  You can open up any page of the Gemara on-line, get a pod-cast of a rabbi explicating the text, and click through commentaries on the text's deeper meaning.

Perhaps the greatest initiative to open up the Talmud to the common person in our generation has been Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz' project to recast the Talmud and its main commentaries simultaneously into modern everyday Hebrew and into modern everyday English (plus other European languages) for the international student.  Rabbi Steinsaltz' remarkable project has been going for 45 years and will be complete on November 7 with the conclusion of the last volume, Taanit.  A grand siyum, called, The Day of Global Jewish Learning, has been announced to mark the occasion.  Click here to learn more.  Study sessions/celebrations have been set up around the world- so we will do our bit at Gesher, as well.  Our program will be a "Brunch and Learn" for students and parents together from 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon.   We hope you can join us that morning to study texts that teach us how to respond to our environment- the inspiration for our Gesher Green!

Shabbat Shalom!