The Name

The Name.

"Talmud" is an old scholastic term of the Tannaim, and is a noun formed from the verb "limmed" = "to teach." It therefore means primarily "teaching," although it denotes also "learning"; it is employed in this latter sense with special reference to the Torah, the terms "talmud" and "Torah" being usually combined to indicate the study of the Law both in its wider and in its more restricted sense, as in Pe'ah i. 1, where the term "talmud Torah" is applied to study as a religious duty. On the other hand, the learning acquired by study is also called "talmud," so that Akiba's pupil Judah ben Ilai could say: "He from whom one derives the greater part of his knowledge ["talmudo"] must be regarded as the teacher" (Tosef., B. M. ii., end; Yer. B. M. 8d; B. M. 33a has "hokmah" instead of "talmud"). To designate the study of religion, the word "talmud" is used in contrast with "ma'aseh," which connotes the practise of religion. Akiba's view that on this account the "talmud" ranked above the "ma'aseh" was adopted as a resolution by a famous conference at Lydda during the Hadrianic persecution (see Sifre, Deut. 41; Kid. 40b; Yer. Pes. 30b; Cant. R. ii. 14). The two terms are contrasted differently, however, in the tannaitic saying (B. B. 130b), "The Halakah [the principles guiding decisions in religious law] may not be drawn from a teaching of the master ["talmud"] nor be based upon an act of his ["ma'aseh"], unless the master expressly declare that the teaching or act under consideration is the one which is applicable to the practice."

In the second place, the word "talmud"—generally in the phrase "talmud lomar"—is frequently used in tannaitic terminology in order to denote instruction by means of the text of the Bible and of the exegetic deductions therefrom. In the third place, the noun "talmud" has the meaning which alone can be genetically connected with the name "Talmud"; in tannaitic phraseology the verb "limmed" denotes the exegetic deduction of a halakic principle from the Biblical text (for examples see R. H. ii. 9; Sifre, Num. 118); and in harmony with this meaning of the word "talmud" denotes that exposition of a halakic saying which receives an exegetic confirmation from the Biblical text. Of the terms, therefore, denoting the three branches into which the study of the traditional exegesis of the Bible was from earliest times divided by the Tannaim (see Jew. Encyc. iii. 163, s.v. Bible Exegesis), "midrash" was the one identical in content with "talmud" in its original sense, except that the Midrash, which includes any kind of Biblical hermeneutics, but more especially the halakic, deals with the Bible text itself, while the Talmud is based on the Halakah. The Midrash is devoted to Biblical exposition, the result being the Halakah (comp. the phrase "mi-kan ameru" [= "beginning here the sages have said"], which occurs frequently in the tannaitic Midrash and which serves to introduce halakic deductions from the exegesis). In the Talmud, on the other hand, the halakic passage is the subject of an exegesis based on the Biblical text.