 Hello, this is Ruth Guggenheim with GPS for the Jewish Soul, and we're here today with Rabbi Chaim Landau from Jews for Judaism East. Chaim, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, it's my pleasure to be here with you today. You know, I have been wanting to talk to you about the distinction in Judaism of the oral Jewish law and the written Jewish law. We know that there's a Torah, but where does the idea of a written and an oral law come in, and the idea and the evolution behind the rabbinic laws? Okay, there's a few interesting questions you're asking there. I'm going to start off by drawing an example with the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution doesn't really lay down laws per se. It really lays down the principles of how the government should be run. And then beyond that, we have a whole body of law implementing the principles of the Constitution and applying them to real life. That's a good way to understand what's going on with the Torah between the written law and the oral law. The Torah itself, it does have laws. It has principles, but it doesn't really give you the, let's say, the nitty-gritty details of how each one of the laws should manifest itself practically speaking. So at the same time as the Torah was given in its written form, just giving us the core body of the major principles of the law, at the same time also an oral tradition was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, giving a more clear delineation of the practical application of each one of the laws. It's kind of like somebody wants to bake a cake for the very first time, and they may look at the cake and they may actually see the ingredients, but without the direction, without following the recipe, you really would know that cake would never come out. You wouldn't know how to do it. Is that a similar example? I've had some cakes like that, and they usually don't turn out very well whatsoever, so there's definitely some strict instructions to be followed laying out exactly how things should be done. So, you know, I always heard, for instance, I know that there's the law in the Torah about sitzit, about the ritual fringes, so, but nowhere does it actually say how you tie it, so how did that process of how to tie in sitzit or talit, how did that come about? Well, it actually comes about from a number of different sources. You're correct that if you look at the Torah itself, it doesn't give you an exact description of what it should look like, and actually that's a perfect example of why we need an oral tradition to help us know what needs to be done. In the original oral tradition, it lays out about taking four strings, folding them into two, and therefore when it comes out being eight strings, and as far as the fact that they should be knotted. Beyond that, most of what we do today is really more custom rather than actual law. That's why in different communities, there are different customs as to how many knots and how many times that sitzit are wrapped around, so it actually ends up being a combination of the Torah law with the oral law and custom on top of that. Is there anywhere in the Torah that it actually emphasizes that the rabbis of each generation has the authority to evolve the laws accordingly? Well, the Torah does say that when you have a question, you should approach the sages of your time, so that's a clear direction that we're supposed to go to our leaders of that generation and to receive for them clarity as to the application of the law. So, you know, what is the Gamara and the Talmud? How did that actually evolve and what's the difference between the Gamara, the Mishnah, and the application of each? Okay, again, the Torah is giving us the basic principles of the law. The Torah itself doesn't give us the direction like you were comparing it to the ingredients of the cake. The Mishnah, I would describe as being sort of like the ingredients of the cake because the Mishnah is very basic, just stepping out the steps of what you should be doing with each one of the mitzvot, each one of the commandments of the Torah. But the Mishnah, as any law book would be, is quite dry because it's just saying, do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that. What the Talmud does is the Talmud then expounds on the Mishnah to give you an understanding of the logic behind the law. What is the source of the law? Is it something which we find directly in the Torah? Is it part of the oral tradition? Is it something that maybe the rabbis derived from a close reading of the verse that might not be obvious to the naked eye? Or is it perhaps a rabbinic injunction? So clarification of all those details, that's what you would find in the Talmud as an elaboration of the instructions that are laid out in the Mishnah. There's like just so much to learn about Judaism and to figure out and to really become an expert and to feel confident in what our Judaism has to teach us. So, Chaim, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really a pleasure having you. And thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.