What does the word "Torah" mean?

Dear R.Abbi,

Would you please tell me what people mean when they use the word "Torah"? I've heard it explained differently by different people.

-- Curious about Torah

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Dear Curious about Torah,

You've got reason to be a bit confused — Torah can means a lot of different things . . . and not just because every Jew has a different opinion on the subject.

I'm going to give a full answer.

Torah is kind of like earth. You know how “earth” refers to the planet we are on as well as the stuff that the whole planet is made of? Well, similarly, Torah refers to a whole and the many parts of that whole.

Let's start small and get bigger.

There's the scroll with the five books of Moses, that's the Torah. (And, whether Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are in one book or in their easily recognizable scroll formats, these books in this order is still referred to as the Torah.)

Where it gets tricky is when the Torah-scroll Torah is contained in the larger work. All the stuff in the Bible — the first five books just mentioned and all the rest of the books of the Hebrew Bible — comprise what is sometimes referred to as 'the written Torah.'

And then, there is what is referred to as the 'oral Torah' which contains all the canonical Jewish texts written down after 'the written Torah' was recorded. (So, why is it called "oral" if it was written down? Because — and go with me on this one — it is taught that Moses received this stuff too, but it was not written down until later. God told all of it — written Torah and oral Torah — to Moses, Moses told it to Joshua and it got relayed to the elders from generation to generation. The written Torah was written down and the oral Torah was just told from elder to elder until people were afraid that this "oral" Torah would be lost or corrupted, so they wrote it down too.) The "Oral Torah" contains the Talmud, which was recorded between 200 and 500 CE.

But the Oral Torah contains more that that, too! Oral Torah also includes the law codes of the 1100's, the 1400's, and today's laws (like whether or not it's kosher to have an internet server work on the Sabbath).

And finally, let's widen the lens one more time: Torah means learning.

So, whether you believe that the entirety of the Torah was given to Moses, whether there was a Moses, whether there was a God, whether there is a God, whether your head is spinning with how much there is to know, whether or not you know anything . . . TORAH is about learning.

Keep on learning,

-R.Abbi