The Torah is the cornerstone. The Talmud is the foundation. The Jewish people have been called the People of the Book for thousands of years and no other name fits them better. Some say that the survival of the Jews over all other nations in the world is due to that fact that they cherish their books so dearly. The Torah, or the five books of Moses, is the basis for everything, handed down to the Jewish People on Mount Sinai. But more importantly, in addition to this highly cryptic book, was given the Oral Tradition, or Oral Law. It is what gives the written law life and meaning. Our Sages say that if the Torah is the body, the Oral Law is the soul. It is the fire and excitement that fit everything together. 
The Oral Law was passed on from generation to generation, from father to son, from teacher to student. The Oral Law contains the explanations and deep understandings of the Torah and serves as the instruction manual for the Jewish people. This information was vital to the Jewish people because Jewish law was never applied by reading a sentence in the Torah and executing it to the letter. Take for example, "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth." It was never Jewish law that if someone blinded you, that you should go and blind him. Never in the history of the Jews, in fact, was it ever carried out. What is the good of having two blind people? It has always been understood as Divine justice works measure for measure, and must be proportional (it's not a life for an eye).

After the destruction of the Holy Temple and because of the Diaspora of the Jews, it was decided by our sages, for the tradition that was forbidden to be written, to finally be put down into writing. "During the reign of the Sasanians-a time when Jewish freedoms were sometimes severely limited in a province which throughout this entire period belonged to Iran-the most timeless of religious works was composed, perfected, and presented as a legacy to the Jewish World. This work was the Talmud."[1]

The Talmud is unlike any other religious book ever complied. At first glance, the Talmud appears to be a chaotic mixture of legal rulings, folktales, instructions for observance, dialogues between contrasting religious figures, and even medical advice. Only after studying intensely the underlying structure does the Talmud begin to make a little sense. One could spend a lifetime studying it and still need to understand its complexity. In addition, no other book has had so much effect on the structure of the world, even till modern day. In fact, much of the structure of the United States government is based upon Talmudic Law (still much of secular system is still man made). The courts and justice system is what makes up the Judicial system of this country. Interestingly, in the Senate house, there is a large stone carving of Moses himself in the middle of the Senate Floor, with the words: "Moses the Lawgiver," inscribed underneath it.

Components of the Talmud
Reduced to its simplest form, the Talmud consists of two parts. The first, the Mishnah, is an analysis, in Hebrew of biblical law, of the mitzvoth, the commandments of the Torah. It is written in Hebrew, but is concise to the point and sometimes very hard to understand. The second part of the Talmud is Gemara, rabbinic commentaries, mostly in Aramaic, on that attempt to elucidate that earlier work, the Mishnah.
The Mishnah is the legal code composed by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, around 200 C.E., known simply as Rebbe. He is one personality who is absolutely fundamental to understanding this period of time, one of the greatest personalities of Jewish history. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi had to go to as many rabbis as possible in order to extract from them their entire memories. He tried to grasp as much as he could from them in the tradition that could be traced back all the way down to Moses at Mount Sinai. He put all those recollections together, edited them, and the end result was the Mishna.

A new group of rabbis came to power during the third century, who were called the amoraim, meaning "interpreter," in Aramaic. These would help in creating the commentary on the Mishnah, called the Gemara. Together they form the Talmud. Due to the location of the writings, there are actually two Talmuds-the Palestinian Talmud (sometimes referred to as the Jerusalem Talmud, even though it was never written in Jerusalem), compiled around 388 C.E. in Tiberius, and the Babylonian Talmud compiled around 499 C.E. But, interestingly, the name of the second version is also incorrect. According the Habib Levy, "the Babylonian Talmud was composed on Iranian soil and the religious scholars involved in it had relations with the government of Iran . . . the Babylonian Talmud might be considered the "Iranian Talmud."[2] This Talmud became the authoritative and comprehensive through out history even till modern day.

Mishnah
The first component of the Talmud, the Mishnah, is composed of six parts also known as sedarim/orders, a structure in which both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds follow. Each of the Orders, in turn, has between seven and twelve subdivisions called masekhtot/tractates of which the Mishnah contains sixty-three.

Each of the six orders is named in a way that suggests one of its primary topics. The first order, Zeraim/Seeds, deals particularly with laws of agriculture. The second order,  Mo'ed/Appointed Seasons, covers the laws  governing the festivals, fast days, and the Sabbath. The third order, Nashim/Women, primarily is concerned with laws governing marriage, divorce, betrothal, and adultery. The fourth order is Nezikin/Damages, covering civil and criminal law. Many law schools have a deep respect for this section in their studies. It also includes a tractate called Pirke Avot/Ethics of the Fathers, a collection of ethical proverbs. The fifth order, Kedoshim/Holy Things, concerns the laws of the Temple. And the sixth order is Tohorot/Purities, the majority deals with issues of spiritual purity and impurity.[3]

One famous story is that of Yokhanan ben Zakkai. He was snuck out of a city in a casket after spreading the rumor that the great sage had died. They brought him before Vespesian, the roman commander. Yokhanan greeted and called the commander "the emperor and king" of Rome. Vespesian rebuked him for uttering a title that he did not hold, but Yokhanan replied that the bible said that Jerusalem would fall only under the hands of a king. At that moment a messenger rode up to tell Vespesian that Nero had died and he was now the emperor of Rome. Vespesian offered to grant Yokhanan one request and the rabbi replied, "give me [the town of] Yavneh."[4]

Gemara
During the 3rd century, the amoraim came and helped in creating the Gemara. What the rabbis and their disciples did in the academies in Palestine and Babylonia was both study and a kind of legislation, Yavneh being the first great academy. Yokhanan made Yavneh flourish until Roman rule made them move their studies to Usha then once again moved to Tiberias, where the Palestinian Talmud would be written and edited.

Babylonia has its own schools of Torah study, probably dating back to the last days of the Second Temple. Rav Shila and Abba bar Abba built the academy at Nehardea into a major center for Jewish thought about the same time that Judah Ha-Nasi was finishing the Mishnah, and they were in close contact with him. However, it would not be until Abba Arikha, known as Rav, founded the academy at Sura in approximately 220 C.E. that Babylonian Jewish study came into its own.

With Rav's presence in Sura who had a good reputation for scholarship and teaching ability, attracted more than 1,000 full-time students and revitalizing Jewish learning in Babylonia. The school at Sura was a very interesting school, located in Iran's capital city. It remained an important center of Jewish scholarship until the 10th century. The students and teachers spent hours of study each day at the school. This school later becomes known as one of the biggest influences in creating the Babylonian Talmud.[6]

The Talmud was written in yeshivas mostly in western Iran, in the cities of "Nehardea, Sura, Pumbedita, Mahoza, Narsi, and Mata Mehasya."[7] Ashi was the last of the amoraim, and he played the most important part in "completing, codifying, editing, and compiling the  Talmud."[8] Rabbina was the last director of the religious academy at Sura. He held office until 499 C.E. when it was said that the Babylonian Talmud was finished, a hundred years after the Palestinian Talmud was done. Rabbina and Yose the last director of the  Pumbedita academy "declared that the collected discourses, decrees, and edicts were final and that nothing was to be added to them." These two wise men were the last of the amoraim.

The Babylonian Talmud is so "precise with intellectual sharpness,"[9] that each word of the book is thought about before being put down. To read the Talmud is to read a lot of arguments. On every page it seems that the rabbis are arguing. This kind of argument seems to the uneducated eye that the rabbis are merely splitting hairs, and that some of the arguments have absolutely no basis in everyday life. But this is not so. The reason why the rabbis argued  endlessly was to try to get to a truth by dissecting a difficulty to its core -- to extract the principle. These rabbis were interested in knowing what the Truth of reality -- the ultimate reality being God.

      Another important point about these arguments is that there was never an argument about the big things. There is not a single argument on whether pork is permitted or if one is allowed to light a fire on the Shabbat. These things were a given, they were totally agreed upon. Only small points were subject to discussion. Our Hachamim were wise enough to know that a day would come when the principles established by getting to the core of truth would have far reaching implications. Each word and sentence, our sages say, has an infinite amount of spirituality and lessons to our every day lives, even though it might not be so apparent at first. One must only be willing to give it a chance.

The Babylonian Talmud also has many references to more mystical and supernatural ideas. There is much talk of non-Jews, predications of the Messianic age . . . etc. the Later Hachamim and Mekubalim (Kabbalists) came to decipher the words of the Talmud. And there has been much criticism of the text by non-Jews and even Jews. But most of the critique stems out of ignorance and lack of understanding of the text. Since it was never meant to be written down, there is still an aspect of secrecy to it, in order to always preserve the teacher-to-student aspect of learning. Once I heard that a leading secular Aramaic scholar who by far knows more than anyone in the field of languages of the Middle East during the 4th century, said, "I have not the slightest clue on what a page of Talmud is talking about." It is a skill that only our tradition, received from Mount Sinai, that teaches us how to learn this book.

The Talmud is the key to unlock the code of the Torah. When you look at a page of Talmud, the Mishnah and Gemara are surrounded by at least three other commentaries such as Rashi and Tosefot. It has lead to great books such as the Tur and later to Rabbi Joseph Caro's Shulkhan Arukh, which is the codification of Jewish Law. One of its authors, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a tanna, also wrote the book of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, a fundamental book, that goes further into the nature of the G-d and his interactions with the world. A book so cherished by Middle Eastern and Chassidic Jews. Learning Talmud, as any student of it knows, is a challenge and mind stimulating, and as Middle Eastern Jews, we should be the first to engage in this aspect of Torah and learn from it, for our very dear ancestors were the ones to compile it.

Meir Melamed and his wife Tziporah reside in Los Angeles. His website, www.desiretoshare.com wishes to promote events for young Jewish singles and to disseminate our beautiful and rich Sephadric Tradition with a touch of Chassidic tought to the community.

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References: 

      [1] Levy, Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran,  p. 132
      [2] ibid p. 133
      [3] Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, p. 85
      [4] Cohen A., Everyman's Talmud, p. 54
      [5] Scheindlin, A Short History of the Jewish People
      [6] Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, p. 126
      [7] Levy, Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran,  p. 133
      [8] Levy, Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran,  p. 136
      [9] Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, p. 92