Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the 'Pentateuch' (, "pentáteuchos", 'five scrolls'), a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria.
Alternative names
Torah
Torah | Alternative names
'Pentateuch' 'Pentateuch' (, "pentáteuchos", 'five scrolls') Pentateuch. Pentateuch
who is the prophet who was thrown into the sea and swallowed by the whale
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Jonah
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which sea was he swallowed in ?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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who is he ?
user
A prophet in the Hebrew Bible of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BCE.
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where was he born ?
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Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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the book you mentioned above what is it ?
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The canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, including the Torah.
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what is the second thing you have mentioned ?
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It can most specifically mean the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
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in which language was it written in ?
user
It can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture, and practice, whether derived from biblical texts or later rabbinic writings.
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was it translated into jewish ?
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. A number of Jewish English Bible translations have been published, for example by Artscroll publications
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this language is spoken in which country ?
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Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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what are its alternative names ?
user
Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the 'Pentateuch' (, "pentáteuchos", 'five scrolls'), a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria.
Torah | Alternative names
As the Jews spread throughout the lands bordering the Mediterranean, they drew upon other languages for their personal names while still retaining Biblical ones, and they were especially prone to adopt names ending in "-el". These new names became exceptionally popular in Italy. To this source must be traced the new name "Ḥushiel", composed on the same plan as the Biblical ones ending in "-el". The kings of the Khazars, so far as their names are known, wavered between pure Biblical names, like Obadiah, and local names, like "Bulan". The Karaites in the same neighborhood adopted Tatar names, one of them being known as Toktamish; but elsewhere Karaite names are mostly Arabic and Persian.
Jewish name | Post-Talmudic period
Among the names in the Talmud there is a considerable proportion of Greek ones. A large number also are Aramaic, ending in "-a" or "-ai": Abba, Huna, and Papa are instances of the former. Even Bible names were transformed in this direction——Ḥanina instead of Hananiah, Abuya instead of Abijah; while others were shortened, as Lazar (for Eleazar). Many Biblical names received renewed popularity owing to the distinction of their bearers, as those of Gamaliel, Hillel, and Ulla. The tendency toward double names existed here, as Sarah Miriam, Johanan Joseph, and Mahaliel Judah. Converts to Judaism, like Aquila, Monabaz, and Helena, retained their pagan names (as was the custom also in the early Christian Church).
Jewish name | Talmudic period
The Torah (תּוֹרָה, literally ""teaching""), also known as the Pentateuch, or as the ""Five Books of Moses"". Printed versions (rather than scrolls) of the Torah are often called ""Chamisha Chumshei Torah""" ( ""Five fifth-sections of the Torah"") and informally a ""Chumash"".
Hebrew Bible | Torah
Alternatives to the reading "Israel" have been put forward since the stele's discovery – the two primary candidates being: However, these remain minority interpretations.
Merneptah Stele | Alternative translations
It is used in synagogue and in documents in Jewish law such as the ketubah (marriage contract). Many Sephardic Jews used the Arabic ibn instead of bat or ben when it was the norm. The Spanish family Ibn Ezra is one example. Many recent immigrants to Israel have changed their names to Hebrew ones, in a process called hebraization, to erase remnants of Diaspora history still present in family names from other languages. This is especially common among Ashkenazi Jews, because most of their European names do not go back far in history; surnames were imposed by the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the 18th century (explaining why many Ashkenazi Jews have German or European-sounding names).
Jewish name | Surname
Other early titles were "The Book of Moses" (Ezra 6:18; Neh. 13:1; II Chron. 35:12; 25:4; cf. II Kings 14:6) and "The Book of the Torah" (Neh. 8:3), which seems to be a contraction of a fuller name, "The Book of the Torah of God" (Neh. 8:8, 18; 10:29–30; cf. 9:3).
Torah | Meaning and names
As a consequence certain names became characteristic of certain districts: "Japheth" and "Caleb" in Greece, and hence among the Karaites; "Kalonymus" in south Italy; "Sheshet" and "Joab" in Rome; "Sinai" and "Pesaḥ" in Germany. Some of the older names were revived—"Meïr", for example, of which only two previous instances before, had been known, the tanna Meïr and the Meïr mentioned by Josephus. "Samson" was never used by Jews before the 11th century.
Jewish name | Post-Talmudic period
In some cases, a false cognate could satisfy both options at once. Others chose completely newly chosen names, many times symbolic in nature. Others kept their name for several reasons. Sometimes, the reason it was kept was because of its religious nature. For examples, names connected with the kohen (priesthood) such as Cohen, Kohn, Kaplan, Sacerdoti, Katz, Azoulai, etc. Other times it indicated Levite descent such as Levi, Levy, Weil (anagram), and Segal (Hebrew acronym). Other times it was synagogue or Jewish community functions such as Gabbai, Chazan, or Rabin. Sometimes the surname was already Hebrew (Sarfati).
Hebraization of surnames | Choosing a name
The word "Torah" in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, which in the "hif'il" conjugation means 'to guide' or 'to teach' (cf. ). The meaning of the word is therefore "teaching", "doctrine", or "instruction"; the commonly accepted "law" gives a wrong impression. The Alexandrian Jews who translated the Septuagint used the Greek word "nomos", meaning norm, standard, doctrine, and later "law". Greek and Latin Bibles then began the custom of calling the Pentateuch (five books of Moses) The Law. Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance, or system. The term "Torah" is used in the general sense to include both Rabbinic Judaism's written law and Oral Law, serving to encompass the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash and more, and the inaccurate rendering of "Torah" as "Law" may be an obstacle to understanding the ideal that is summed up in the term "talmud torah" (תלמוד תורה, "study of Torah").
Torah | Meaning and names
Each "oleh", after being called to the Torah, approaches it, recites a benediction, a portion is read, and the "oleh" concludes with another benediction. Then the next "oleh" is called. The gabbai recites a Hebrew verse upon calling the first person to the Torah. After that, men are called with: ""Ya'amod" (Let him arise), [Hebrew Name] "ben" (son of) [Father's Hebrew name] ["Ha-Kohen" (the "Kohen") / "Ha-Levi" (the "Levite")] (the name of the Aliyah in Hebrew)." In synagogues where women may receive aliyot, women are called with ""Ta'amod" (Let her arise), [Hebrew Name] "bat" (daughter of) [Father's Hebrew name] ["Ha-Kohen" (the "Kohen") / "Ha-Levi" (the "Levite")] (the name of the Aliyah in Hebrew)."
Torah reading | The first Aliyah
The component words of the name are transliterated in a variety of ways. This is frequently done as Moetzet, and less frequently as Gedolai and ha-Torah or ha Torah. The phrase is regularly shortened to Moetzes or The Moetzah.
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah | Name
In Biblical times this occurs with regard to the names "Abigail", "Abijah", "Athaliah", "Chushan", "Ephah", "Micha", "Nahash", "Shelomith", "Zibiah"; in Talmudic times, with regard to "Ibu", "Johanan", "Nehorai", "Pasi", "Shalom"; the only later instances that may be cited are "Jeroham", "Mazal-Ṭob", "Neḥamah", "Menuḥah", "Simḥah", "Tamar", "Bongodas", and "Bien-li-Viengue". To wear a man's name seemed as objectionable as wearing men's clothes.
Jewish name | Talmudic period
The most notable feature of the Literal English Version is the transliteration of the names of people and places from the original languages. For example, the LEV gives "Avraham" rather than "Abraham", and "Yitsḥaq" rather than "Isaac". Along with transliterated names, it also includes many transliterated Hebrew words where no English equivalent is deemed sufficient. For example, the English word "trumpet" has been replaced by the Hebrew word ""shofar"" (שופר, literally, "ram's horn") in reference to the wind instrument used to announce the fiftieth year. Other words that are transliterated include "Torah" instead of "Law", "Shaliaḥ" instead of "apostle", and "Ruaḥ" instead of "spirit".
Literal English Version | Features
At the first sign of Seleucids approaching, their Torah scrolls would be concealed and be replaced by dreidels. The variant names ' (destiny) and ' (a little throw) were also current in Yiddish until the Holocaust. In the wake of Zionism, the dreidel was renamed ' in modern Hebrew, and the letters altered, with "shin" generally replaced by pe. This yields the reading ' (a great miracle happened "here".')
Dreidel | Origins
The recommended way to study the Torah is by reading the original text written in Hebrew. This allows the reader to understand language-specific information. For example, the Hebrew word for earth is 'adama' and the name of the first man is 'Adam' meaning 'of the earth'. Jewish denominations vary in the importance placed on the usage of the original Hebrew text. Most denominations strongly recommend it, but also allow studying the Torah in other languages, and using Rashi and other commentary to learn language-specific information. Like Orthodox Jews, other Jewish denominations may use any or all of the traditional areas and modes of Torah study.
Torah study | Torah study by various Jewish movements
The vehemence with which the utterance of the name is denounced in the Mishnah suggests that use of Yahweh was unacceptable in rabbinical Judaism. "He who pronounces the Name with its own letters has no part in the world to come!" Such is the prohibition of pronouncing the Name as written that it is sometimes called the "Ineffable", "Unutterable", or "Distinctive Name", or "Explicit Name" ("Shem HaMephorash" in Hebrew). Halakha prescribes that whereas the Name is written "yodh he waw he", it is only to be pronounced "Adonai"; and the latter name too is regarded as a holy name, and is only to be pronounced in prayer.
Tetragrammaton | Spoken prohibitions
Each "oleh", after being called to the Torah, approaches it, recites a benediction, a portion is read, and the 'oleh' concludes with another benediction. Then the next "oleh" is called. The gabbai recites a Hebrew verse upon calling the first person to the Torah. After that, men are called with: ""Ya'amod" (Let him arise), [Hebrew Name] "ben" (son of) [Father's Hebrew name] ["Ha-Kohen" (the "Kohen") / "Ha-Levi" (the "Levite")] (the name of the Aliyah in Hebrew)." In synagogues where women may receive aliyot, women are called with ""Ta'amod" (Let her arise), [Hebrew Name] "bat" (daughter of) [Father's Hebrew name] ["Ha-Kohen" (the "Kohen") / "Ha-Levi" (the "Levite")](the name of the Aliyah in Hebrew)."
Aliyah (Torah) | The first aliyah
The earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been "The Torah of Moses". This title, however, is found neither in the Torah itself, nor in the works of the pre-Exilic literary prophets. It appears in Joshua (8:31–32; 23:6) and Kings (I Kings 2:3; II Kings 14:6; 23:25), but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus (according to academic Bible criticism). In contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works (Mal. 3:22; Dan. 9:11, 13; Ezra 3:2; 7:6; Neh. 8:1; II Chron. 23:18; 30:16) was intended to be comprehensive.
Torah | Meaning and names
The use of surnames became common very early among the Arabic-speaking Jews, who carried the custom into the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Among Sephardi Jews are found such names as Abeldano, corresponding to "Ibn el-Danan"; Abencabre, corresponding to "Ibn Zabara"; Tongay -although remains somewhat rare- corresponds and is derived from the root word Torah (תּוֹרָה‎) in Hebrew, Avinbruch, corresponding to "Ibn Baruch"; and Beizaee, corresponding to "Iza" (Hebrew root for "God is perfection"). Hagen corresponds to Hassan or Hazan; and the like. Biblical names often take curious forms in the Iberian records, "Isaac" appearing as Acaz, "Cohen" as Coffen or , "Yom-Ṭob" as Bondia, "Ẓemaḥ" as Crescas or and Cresquez.
Jewish surname | Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry
The newly-assumed Hebrew names were sometimes based on phonetic similarity with their former European surname, for example, Golda Meyersohn became Golda Meir.
Jewish name | Surname
He has not made us like "some" nations of "other" countries ..." But this amendment was abandoned. The past tense formulation ("worshipped" and "bowed down") appears in the translation in the London Sephardic prayer books, though the Hebrew retains the present tense. More far-reaching changes have been made to the wording of this prayer in Conservative and Reform prayer books. For example, the British Reform version borrows words from the blessings over the Torah, and begins "It is our duty to praise the Ruler of all, to recognise the greatness of the Creator of first things, who has chosen us from all peoples by giving us Torah.
Aleinu | Other variations
Alternative Kosher (or Alternative Kosher Certificate or Alternative Kashrut or Private Kosher, Hebrew: כשרות אלטרנטיבית, "Kashrut Alternatvit", or תעודת כשרות אלטרנטיבית, "Teudat Kashrut Alternativit") refers in Israel to the phenomenon, especially among restaurants in Jerusalem, where restaurants abandon the procedure of obtaining kosher certification from the traditional establishment players in favor of extra-establishment entities in order to obtain a kosher certificate for their businesses.
Alternative Kosher | Introduction
Rabbah Jose is cited under many alternative names, so much so that it is unclear what was his original name. There are even dispute among the scholars, whether all the alternative names that are cited in different texts actually refer to the same person or not. The names include:
Rabbah Jose | Alternative names
221); see further under Joseph Breuer.)
Torah im Derech Eretz | Haredi Judaism
The Tetragrammaton or Tetragram (from Greek , meaning "[consisting of] four letters") is the four-letter Hebrew word , the name of the biblical God of Israel. The four letters, read from right to left, are yodh, he, waw and he. While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, "the form "Yahweh" is now accepted almost universally". The books of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible except Esther, Ecclesiastes, and (with a possible instance in verse 8:6) the Song of Songs contain this Hebrew name. Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as "Yahweh" or "Yehovah"; instead they replace it with a different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel.
Tetragrammaton | Introduction
Other variants are "rəvī" and, in Yiddish, "rebbə".
Rabbi | Etymology and pronunciation
This necessarily relates to different subjects – like the influence of the exile, language skills, lack of time, censorship, and alternate versions of the Talmud.
Mishneh Torah | Influence
Most Christian usage is of the shorter suffix preferred in translations of the Bible to European languages: Greek -ιας "-ias" and English -iah, producing names such as Τωβιας "Tōbias" (Tobias, Toby) instead of "Tobiyyahu" and Ιερεμίας "Ieremias" (Jeremiah, Jeremy) instead of "Yirmeyahu".
Hebrew name | Names of Hebrew origin
When several children have died in a family the next that is born has no name given to it, but is referred to as "Alter" (, literally "old"), or "Alterke", the view being that the Angel of Death, not knowing the name of the child, will not be able to seize it. When such a child attains the marriageable age, a new name, generally that of one of the Patriarchs, is given to it. For a somewhat similar reason it is considered unlucky in Lithuania to call an only child by its true name.
Jewish name | Superstitions
The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is (), (generally transcribed as YHWH) and is called the Tetragrammaton (Greek for "something written with four letters"). Hebrew script is an abjad, so that the letters Yōd, Hē, Vav, Hē in this name are normally consonants, usually expanded in English as "Yahweh". Modern Jewish culture judges it forbidden to pronounce this name. In prayers it is replaced by the word "Adonai" ("The Lord"), and in discussion by "HaShem" ("The Name"). Nothing in the Torah explicitly prohibits speaking the name and the Book of Ruth shows it was being pronounced as late as the 5th century .
Names of God in Judaism | YHWH
According to E. H. Palmer in 1881, the name "Torah" comes from "flowing water".
Toura, Lebanon | Name
The alternative term, "chozer b'teshuvah" (), plural "chozrim b’teshuvah", is more commonly used in Israel.
Baal teshuva | Introduction
Yemenite Jews and the Aramaic speaking Kurdish Jews are the only communities who maintain the tradition of reading the Torah in the synagogue in both Hebrew and the Aramaic Targum ("translation"). Some non-Yemenite synagogues have a specified person called a Baal Koreh, who reads from the Torah scroll when congregants are called to the Torah scroll for an aliyah, yet in Yemenite communities each person called to the Torah scroll for an aliyah reads for himself. In contrast, in Habban, children under the age of Bar Mitzvah were often given either the fifth or the sixth aliyah. Each verse of the Torah read in Hebrew is followed by the Aramaic, and sometimes an additional Arabic translation, usually chanted by a child.
Habbani Jews | Torah reading and Targum
In reference to levite descent. Used preceding surname. When calling a man to read the Levite (second) portion of the Torah service, he is called by his given name-in-Israel, followed by his patronymic, followed by "haLevi" ("the Levite"). (example: a person of Levite descent named Joshua Rosenberg (Hebrew given name "Yehoshua"), whose father's given name is/was Abraham (Hebrew given name "Avraham"), would be called to the Torah as "Yehoshua ben Avraham, haLevi").
Honorifics in Judaism | HaLevi
The yeshiva's name is derived from the verse in Proverbs: "Ki ner mitzvah vTorah ore" ("For the commandment is a lamp and the Torah is light"). (Proverbs 6:23).
Torah Ore | Name
The reason for the common use of the three-letter abbreviation, בס״ד (BS"D), is probably because it does not contain the letter Hei (ה), that is used to imply the name of God, and for this reason, a page which contains the letters בס״ד (BS"D) without any other Torah content does not require Genizah (a process for writings that contain the name of God), and thus can be thrown away without a fear of violation. Other languages, according to Judaism, are not considered the same as the sacred language ("lashon Hakodesh"), and therefore have no such restriction.
Besiyata Dishmaya | Abbreviation
There is also an alternate text, which appears to be attributable to Sephardic Jews of the Caribbean islands such as Jamaica and Barbados. While the pronunciation varies, which may affect the transliteration spelling, the text is the same.
Bendigamos | Alternate text
Rabbinic Judaism considers seven names of God in Judaism so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, El ("God"), Eloah ("God"), Elohim ("God"), Shaddai (“Almighty"), Ehyeh ("I Am"), and Tzevaot ("[of] Hosts"). Other names are considered mere epithets or titles reflecting different aspects of God, but "Khumra" sometimes dictates special care such as the writing of "G-d" instead of "God" in English or saying Ṭēt-Vav (, "9-6") instead of Yōd-Hē (, "10-5" but also "Jah") for the number fifteen in Hebrew. The documentary hypothesis proposes that the Torah was compiled from various original sources, two of which (the Jahwist and the Elohist) are named for their usual names for God (Yahweh and Elohim respectively).
Names of God in Judaism | Introduction
Among Orthodox Jews the word is used for books both of the Tanakh, the Oral Torah (Mishnah and Talmud) or any work of rabbinic literature. Works unrelated to Torah study are rarely called "sefer" by English-speaking Orthodox Jews. Among Hebrew-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, the differentiation between books related to Torah study and other books is made by referring to the former with traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation (SEY-fur) and to the latter with Modern Hebrew pronunciation (SEF-fer).
Sefer (Hebrew) | Common use
Yeshua (, with vowel pointing – "yēšūă‘" in Hebrew) was a common alternative form of the name ("Yehoshua" – Joshua) in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling "Iesous" (Ἰησοῦς), from which, through the Latin "Iesus", comes the English spelling Jesus. The Hebrew spelling "Yeshua" () appears in some later books of the Hebrew Bible. Once for Joshua the son of Nun, and 28 times for Joshua the High Priest and other priests called Jeshua – although these same priests are also given the spelling Joshua in 11 further instances in the books of Haggai and Zechariah.
Yeshua | Introduction
Common substitutions in Hebrew are Adonai ("My Lord"), "HaShem" ("The Name") and "hakadosh baruch hu" ("The Holy One, Blessed Be He").
Tetragrammaton | Introduction
To avoid coming under guilt by accidentally misusing God's name, Jewish scholars do not write or pronounce the proper name in most circumstances, but use substitutes such as "Adonai (the Lord)," or "HaShem (the Name)." In English translations of the Bible, the name Adonai is often translated "Lord," while the proper name Yahweh represented by the tetragrammaton is often indicated by the use of capital and small capital letters, Lᴏʀᴅ. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote that the commandment is much more than a prohibition against casual interjections using God's name. He pointed out that the more literal translation of Lo tissa is "you shall not carry" rather than "you shall not take", and that understanding this helps one understand why the commandment ranks with such as "You shall not murder" and "You shall not commit adultery".
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain | In practice
Many immigrants to modern Israel change their names to Hebrew names, to erase remnants of exiled life still surviving in family names from other languages. This phenomenon is especially common among Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants to Israel, because most of their surnames were taken recently, and many were imposed by authorities in Europe as a replacement for the traditional Hebrew patronymic form. A popular form to create a new family name using Jewish patronymics sometimes related to poetic Zionist themes, such as "ben Ami" ("son of my people"), or "ben Artzi" ("son of my country"), and sometimes related to the Israeli landscape, such as "bar Ilan" ("son of the trees").
Jewish surname | Israel
The most striking tendency of the post-Talmudic period is the general choice of local names by the Jews for their civic relations. This led to the adoption of two names, one for civic purposes, known as the "kinnuy" (probably from the Arabic "kunyah"), the other ("shem ha-ḳodesh") for use in the synagogue and in all Hebrew documents. The latter, the "sacred" name, was as far as possible associated with the former, and was often a translation of a civic one, e.g., "Asael" for "Diofatto", "Manoah" for "Tranquillo", "Ḥayyim" for "Vita"; at times the civic name was merely a contraction of the sacred one, e.g., "Leser" for "Eliezer", "Sender" for "Alexander".
Jewish name | "Kinnuyim"
In the "Tikkun Soferim" (the model text for copying Torah scrolls by scribes), the word "plene" is always used in relation to other words written in "defective scriptum", not because there is necessarily anything unusual or abnormal about the word being written in such a way, but to ensure a universal layout (conformity) in scribal practices, where one word in a text must be written as though it were lacking in "matres lectionis", and another word in a different text (sometimes even the same word) appearing as though it was not. Among Israel's diverse ethnic groups, variant readings have developed over certain words in the Torah, the Sephardic tradition calls for the word ויהיו ("wyhyw") in the verse ויהיו כל ימי נח () to be written in "defective scriptum" (i.e.
Plene scriptum | Variant readings
The Hebrew Bible comprises the Torah (the five books of Moses), the Neviim (the books of the Prophets), and the Ketuvim (the "Writings"). Judaism has traditionally held that, along with the Torah, referred to as the "Written Torah", God revealed a series of instructions on how to interpret and apply the Torah. The additional instructions were known as the Oral Torah. By the second century CE Jewish sages began writing down interpretations of the Bible; Orthodox Jews consider these writings to embody the "oral law." These writings take several forms:
Names for books of Judeo-Christian scripture | Judaism
Foreign names that are the same as their English equivalents are listed, to provide an answer to the question "What is that name in..."?. See also: List of alternative country names Please format entries as follows: for languages written in the Latin alphabet, write "Name (language)", for example, "Afeganistão (Portuguese)", and add it to the list according to English rules of alphabetical order. For languages written in other writing systems, write "Romanization - native script (language)", for example "Argentine - אַרגענטינע (Yiddish)", and alphabetize it in the list by the Romanized form.
List of country names in various languages | Introduction
Due to the Hellenisation of the Eastern Mediterranean and the movement of Jews around the area, many Hebrew names were adapted to Greek, reinforced by the translation of the Tanakh in the Septuagint with many Hellenized names. Many of the names in the New Testament are of Hebrew and Aramaic origin, but were adapted to the Greek by Hellenistic Christian writers such as Paul of Tarsus. Such Hebræo-Greek names include Ἰησοῦς "Iēsous" (originally from ישׁוע "Yēšûªʻ"), Νῶε "Nōē" (originally from נח "Nōªḥ"), Ἰσαΐας "Isaias" (originally from ישׁעיהו "Yəšaʻªyāhû"), Ἰσραήλ "Israēl" (originally from ישראל "Yiśrā’ēl").
Hebrew name | Hebrew-Greek names
71a); and the repetition of a term by a synonym, e.g., ודבר ואמר (Jerusalem Talmud Soṭah 8 22b). Ishmael, on the contrary, lays down the principle "the Torah speaks in the language of men", and thus may have employed superfluous words and sounds; and forced values should not be assigned to them for the purpose of deducing new rules therefrom. The same statement holds with regard to the repetition of an entire section. Ishmael is of the opinion that "the Torah at times repeats a whole section of the Law in order to give a new application to it". It is unnecessary, therefore, to draw a new inference from every repetition.
Talmudical hermeneutics | Superfluity in the text
It can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture, and practice, whether derived from biblical texts or later rabbinic writings. This is often known as the Oral Torah. Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the origin of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws (""). In rabbinic literature the word "Torah" denotes both the five books ( "Torah that is written") and the Oral Torah (, "Torah that is spoken").
Torah | Introduction
Torah (; , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") has a range of meanings. It can most specifically mean the first five books (Pentateuch or five books of Moses) of the Hebrew Bible. This is commonly known as the Written Torah. It can also mean the continued narrative from all the 24 books, from the Book of Genesis to the end of the Tanakh (Chronicles). If in bound book form, it is called "Chumash", and is usually printed with the rabbinic commentaries (""). If meant for liturgic purposes, it takes the form of a Torah scroll ("Sefer Torah"), which contains strictly the five books of Moses.
Torah | Introduction
Therefore, was the name of it called Babel; because the did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. "(No longer able to communicate and resolve conflicts, people scatter themselves after the failed Tower of Babel project.)"
Banishment in the Torah | Genesis Chapter 11
Torah refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the Pentateuch), and the law derived from them. Torah may also refer to:
Torah (disambiguation) | Introduction
In other cases mere similarity in sound was sufficient to determine the sacred name, as "Mann" for "Menahem", "Kalman" for "Kalonymus", and the like. Especially noteworthy was the use made of Jacob's blessing to transfer a personal name from the civic to the sacred sphere. Judah being compared to a lion's whelp in Jacob's blessing, "Judah" became "Leo", or "Löwe", in lay relationship, and "Ephraim" became "Fischlin". Later on these name-equations became so usual that they formed doublets, which were almost invariably found together, as "Dov Bär", "Naphtali Hirsch", "Solomon Zalman", "Judah" or "Aryeh Löb", "Binyamin Wolf", and these again gave currency to similar correlative names, as "Uri Phoebus".
Jewish name | "Kinnuyim"
Maimonides thought the Shem ha-Mephorash was used only for the four letter Tetragrammaton. A 12-letter variant appears in the Talmud, though it was unknown in later Kabbalah and completely absent from Jewish magic. A 22-letter variant is first written down in the "Sefer Raziel HaMalakh", without interpretation, as (likely transliterated as ""). Its origins are unknown, with no connection to Hebrew or Aramaic being found, and no agreement on any particular Greek or Zoroastrian origin. There are Geonic precedents for the name, indicating that the name is older than Sefer Raziel.
Shem HaMephorash | 12-, 22-, and 42-letter versions
He then changed his name again to Malik El-Shabazz when he converted to Islam. Likewise some Jews adopted Hebrew family names upon immigrating to Israel, dropping surnames that had been in their families for generations. The politician David Ben-Gurion, for example, was born David Grün in Poland. He adopted his Hebrew name in 1910, when he published his first article in a Zionist journal in Jerusalem.
Pseudonym | Name change
Although different Christian denominations have slightly different versions of the Old Testament in their Bibles, the Torah as the "Five Books of Moses" (or "the Mosaic Law") is common among them all.
Torah | Christianity
For example, Shlomo Carlebach performed his prayer "Shema Yisrael" with the words "Shema Yisrael Adoshem Elokeinu Adoshem Eḥad" instead of "Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad."
Names of God in Judaism | Adoshem
Because the Torah is read in a yearly cycle in the synagogue, there are many Jewish translations of the Torah only (without Nevi'im and Ketuvim). Such a translation is sometimes called a "chumash", particularly when it is published in a bilingual Hebrew–English edition.
Jewish English Bible translations | Torah translations
One of the most important names is that of the Ein Sof ( "Endless"), which first came into use after 1300. Another name is derived from the names . By spelling these four names out with the names of the Hebrew letters ( and ) this new forty-five letter long name is produced. Spelling the letters in (YHWH) by itself gives . Each letter in Hebrew is given a value, according to gematria, and the value of is also 45. The seventy-two-fold name is derived from three verses in Exodus 14:19–21. Each of the verses contains 72 letters. When the verses are read boustrophedonically 72 names, three letter each, are produced (the niqqud of the source verses is disregarded in respect to pronunciation).
Names of God in Judaism | Kabbalistic use
Some quotations are repeated from other books of the Hebrew Bible. An example of this is 48:29, This could be repeated from Psalms:
Torah in Islam | In the Quran
Because of the Torah's severity regarding the prohibition of "chametz", many communities have adopted stringencies not biblically required as safeguards from inadvertent transgression.
Chametz | Additional Ashkenazi restrictions
Its title is an appellation originally used for the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, and its subtitle, "Book of the Strong Hand", derives from its subdivision into fourteen books: the numerical value fourteen, when represented as the Hebrew letters Yod (10) Dalet (4), forms the word "yad" ("hand").
Mishneh Torah | Introduction
This is not an independent of God activity, rather it is all controlled by God's Will. Torah explains that before Creation there was only God and nothing else as is seen in the highest Name the letter "Yud". When it came time for Creation the want and will of God to Create a universe which meant expansion of the Holy Name the Holy Name Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey how this Creation came about by G-D's use of the 10 Sefirot would be too great a task to explain here but basically we find "And God said let there be..."
Secondary causation | Kabbalahistic Interpretation
Others have created Hebrew names based on phonetic similarity with their original family name: "Golda Meyersohn" became Golda Meir. Another famous person who used a false patronymic was the first Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, whose original family name was Grün ("green" in German) but adopted the name "Ben-Gurion" ("son of the lion cub"), not "Ben-Avigdor" (his father's name).
Jewish surname | Israel
The Torah has been translated by Jewish scholars into most of the major European languages, including English, German, Russian, French, Spanish and others. The most well-known German-language translation was produced by Samson Raphael Hirsch. A number of Jewish English Bible translations have been published, for example by Artscroll publications
Torah | Jewish translations
Among the Mizrahim (Arabic-speaking Jews living in the Middle-East) it was quite common to replace their Hebrew names with relevant Arabic ones, whenever they bore a religious note and were deemed sacred to both Jews and Muslims, so Abraham turned into Ibrahim, Aharon into Haroun, David into Daoud, Moshe into Moussa, and Shlomo into Soliman and Salman. The indication of a family's elevated religious status, which also gained its members the reverence of their non-Jewish neighbors, was expressed in Arabic through their name. One has to note that such names were often given by the surrounding non-Jewish communities, who confused the appropriate religious terms of the Halakhah.
Jewish name | Mizrahim
The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been written almost entirely by Moses himself. In the 19th century, Julius Wellhausen and other scholars proposed that the Torah had been compiled from earlier written documents dating from the 9th to the 5th century BCE, the "documentary hypothesis". Scholars Hermann Gunkel and Martin Noth, building on the form criticism of Gerhard von Rad, refined this hypothesis, while other scholars have proposed other ways that the Torah might have developed over the centuries. The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts.
Bible | Torah
One of the opponents of the Hebraization of surnames was Moses Calvary, a writer and teacher. Born in Germany 1883, he received a traditional, general, and rabbinical education. He was a member of Ahdut Ha'avodah, an educator in the Meir Shfeya youth village, principal of Gymnasia Rehavia in Jerusalem, and educator in the "Ahava" youth village in Kiryat Bialik. Some people were emotionally attached to their diaspora last name, for reasons such as it having noble "yichus" (origins), or for a desire to continue to identify with their ethnic group. There is story of an Israeli diplomat who told David Ben-Gurion, "I will change my name if you can find me one non-Jew named Lifshitz." Others had names that were entirely Hebrew to begin with.
Hebraization of surnames | Opponents
Taking the spellings at face value may have been as a result of not knowing about the Q're perpetuum, resulting in the transliteration "Yehowah" and derived variants. Emil G. Hirsch was among the modern scholars that recognized "Jehovah" to be "grammatically impossible". Scholars are not in total agreement as to why does not have precisely the same vowel points as "adonai". The use of the composite "hataf segol" in cases where the name is to be read, ""elohim"", has led to the opinion that the composite "hataf patah" ought to have been used to indicate the reading, ""adonai"". It has been argued conversely that the disuse of the "patah" is consistent with the Babylonian system, in which the composite is uncommon.
Jehovah | Development
"ḥūmashin").
Torah scroll (Yemenite) | Plene and defective scriptum
As a part of the Christian biblical canons, the Torah has been translated into hundreds of languages.
Torah | Christian translations
Adonai (, "My Lords") is the plural form of "adon" ("Lord") along with the first-person singular pronoun enclitic. As with Elohim, Adonai's grammatical form is usually explained as a plural of majesty. In the Hebrew Bible, it is nearly always used to refer to God (approximately 450 occurrences). As pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided in the Hellenistic period, Jews may have begun to drop the Tetragrammaton when presented alongside Adonai and subsequently expand it to cover for the Tetragrammaton in the forms of spoken prayer and written scripture. Owing to the expansion of "chumra" (the idea of "building a fence around the Torah"), the word 'Adonai' itself has come to be too holy to say for Orthodox Jews, leading to its replacement by HaShem ("The Name").
Names of God in Judaism | Adonai
Jehovist writers such as Nehemia Gordon, who helped make a translation of the "Dead Sea Scrolls", have acknowledged the general agreement among scholars that the original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was probably "Yahweh", and that the vowel points now attached to the Tetragrammaton were added to indicate that "Adonai" was to be read instead, as seen in the alteration of those points after prefixes. He wrote: "There is a virtual scholarly consensus concerning this name" and "this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name." Gordon, disputing this consensus, wrote, "However, this consensus is not based on decisive proof.
Jehovah | Hebrew vowel points
There is also ambiguity as to whether the Quran uses "Tawrat" only referring to the five books of Moses, the entire Tanakh, or both, as in Hebrew. This comes because the Quran often lists the holy books as the Tawrat, Zabur, Injil, and Quran. Zabur (the Psalms) is sometimes excluded, possibly because the Psalms are part of the Tanakh. This meaning is uncommon, as most Muslims think it only refers to the five books of Moses.
Torah in Islam | Semantics
His name "Löw" or "Loew", derived from the German "Löwe", "lion" (cf. the Yiddish "Leib" of the same origin), is a kinnui or substitute name for the Hebrew Judah or "Yehuda", as this name—originally of the tribe of Judah—is traditionally associated with a lion. In the Book of Genesis, the patriarch Jacob refers to his son Judah as a "Gur Aryeh", a "Young Lion" (Genesis 49:9) when blessing him. In Jewish naming tradition the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case. The "Maharal's" classic work on the Rashi commentary of the Torah is called the "Gur Aryeh al HaTorah" in Hebrew, meaning "Young Lion [commenting] upon the Torah".
Judah Loew ben Bezalel | His name
The yeshiva's commonly used name, "Rameiles", is based on the name of the Jew who donated it's building. His name was either Reb Mailes or Reb Maille, and slurred together, the yeshiva's name sounded like "Ramailes Yeshiva." The official name may have been Yeshiva Tomchai Torah.
Ramailes Yeshiva | Name
There are other (out of state) institutions using the name Darchei. The words "Darchei Torah" mean "Paths of Torah."
Yeshiva Darchei Torah (Far Rockaway) | Name
In ancient times some Jewish communities practiced a triennial cycle of readings. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many congregations in the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements implemented an alternative triennial cycle in which only one-third of each weekly parashah was read in a given year; and this pattern continues. The parashot read are still consistent with the annual cycle, but the entire Torah is completed over three years. Orthodox Judaism does not follow this practice.
Weekly Torah portion | Alternative triennial cycle
According to some scholars, use of the name "Torah" to designate the "Five Books of Moses" of the Hebrew Bible is clearly documented only from the 2nd century BCE. In modern usage, "Torah" can refer to the first five books of the Tanakh, as the Hebrew Bible is commonly called, to the instructions and commandments found in the 2nd to 5th books of the Hebrew Bible, and also to the entire Tanakh and even all of the Oral Law as well. Among English-speaking Christians the term "The Law" can refer to the whole Pentateuch including Genesis, but this is generally in relation to the New Testament where "nomos" "the Law" sometimes refers to all five books, including Genesis.
Law of Moses | Terminology
The word "ḥumash" generally only refers to "book" bound editions of the Pentateuch, whereas the "scroll" form is called a "sefer Torah" ("book [of the] Torah"). In modern Jewish practice:
Chumash (Judaism) | Usage
Several formal educational institutions operate in the village including a nursery, a kindergarten, the Ginzei-Shimon Talmud Torah, a midrasha for women, and the Elima college of alternative medicine combining Chinese acupuncture with Jewish spirituality and kabbalah.
Or HaGanuz | Education
This translation is a version of the Steinsaltz edition which was released under creative commons license.
Talmud | Others
Devoting a year to Torah study in the modern Land of Israel is a common practice among American, and, to a lesser extent, European, South African, South American, and Australian Modern Orthodox Jews. Young adults spend a year studying Torah in the Land of Israel. It is common both among males and females, with the boys normally going to a yeshiva and the girls to a midrasha (often called "seminary" or "seminaria"). Yeshivot with year-in-Israel programs include: Mir yeshiva (Jerusalem), Yeshivat Sha'alvim, Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh, Yeshivat Har Etzion, Yeshivat HaMivtar, Machon Meir, Dvar Yerushalayim, Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach. Seminaries or midrashot include: Midreshet HaRova, Midreshet Lindenbaum, Migdal Oz, Nishmat, B'not Chava, Michlalah, Neve Yerushalayim.
Torah study | Torah study abroad in Israel
Hebrew Wikisource contains thousands of free content Torah texts in a digital library that is continually being expanded and improved by volunteers. The ארון הספרים היהודי (Aron Ha-Sefarim Ha-Yehudi) project at Wikisource has hundreds of texts available online.
Torah database | Hebrew Wikisource
Some, such as the Karaites Jews in Khorasan (Persia) viewed it in Medieval times as a Mitzvah to do so because the name appears some 6800 times throughout the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible). Today, publicly uttering the Tetragrammaton (4 letter name) of God in Hebrew is a controversial issue among Karaites and indeed all Jews. Virtually all traditional Karaites view the pronunciation of God's name to be blasphemous, and adhere to the rabbinic tradition of substituting "Adonai", when coming across YHWH while reading. Other Karaites and some of those coming from a rabbinic background like Nehemia Gordon and Ḥakham Meir Rekhavi, as well as some joiners to the people of Israel through Karaite Judaism such as James Walker and Daniel ben Immanuel, do not consider the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton to be forbidden.
Karaite Judaism | Pronouncing the Tetragrammaton
There are several alternative names used for this city: , , , , , , , and .
Irshava | Names
He invented words such as "ḥatzil" (חציל) for an eggplant (aubergine) and "ḥashmal" (חשמל) for electricity. As no Hebrew equivalent could be found for the names of certain produce endemic to the New World, he devised new Hebrew words for maize and tomato, calling them "tiras" (תירס) and "ʿagbaniyyah" (עגבניה), respectively. The latter word is derived from the shape of the vegetable, which resembled buttocks (ʿagaḇīm), and which was originally thought by the new immigrants to enhance one's love-life. The new name, suggested by , was rejected by Ben-Yehudah, who thought it too vulgar, suggesting instead that it be called "badūrah".
Revival of the Hebrew language | Revival of spoken Hebrew
Each weekly Torah portion takes its name from the first distinctive word in the Hebrew text of the portion in question, often from the first verse.
Weekly Torah portion | Name
A synagogue official, called a "gabbai", then calls up several people (men in Orthodox and some Conservative congregations, men and women in others), in turn, to be honored with an "aliyah" (; pl. עליות, "aliyot"; "ascent" or "going up"), wherein the honoree (or, more usually, a designated reader) recites a blessing over the Torah, between each verse. Each reads a section of the day's Torah portion. There are always at least three "olim" (people called to read the Torah) unless a Kohen is present and no Levite is present, in which case the Kohen is called for the first "and" second reading: Initially, the Torah was read on the Sabbath or special occasions by the king, a prophet, or a kohen.
Aliyah (Torah) | Process
In Hebrew, the word זה ("zeh", meaning 'this') is a placeholder for any noun. The most popular personal name placeholders are מה-שמו ("mah-shmo", 'whatsisname'), משה ("Moshe" = Moses) and יוֹסִי ("Yossi", common diminutive form of "Yosef") for first name, and כהן ("Cohen", the most common surname in Israel) for last name. However, in ID and credit card samples, the usual name is ישראל ישראלי ("Yisrael Yisraeli") for a man and ישראלה ישראלי ("Yisraela Yisraeli") for a woman (these are actual first and last names) – similar to John and Jane Doe. The traditional terms are פלוני ("ploni") and its counterpart אלמוני ("almoni") (originally mentioned in Ruth 4:1).
List of placeholder names by language | Hebrew
Similarly, a little later, in the family of the Hillelites, the names Gamaliel and Judah succeed each other with only an occasional occurrence of Simon and Hillel. Toward the end of the period, owing to the intermixture of foreign languages, the use of double names for the same person began to be adopted, as in the instances of Simon Peter, John Mark, Thomas Didymus, Herodes Agrippa, and Salome Alexandra.
Jewish name | Post-Exilic names
Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed the ruling; in the past he had expressed the view that only 2,000 to 3,000 Torah experts should be granted exemption. Shas and United Torah Judaism, two Haredi political parties, issued a joint statement rejecting any discussion of changes to the status of the tens of thousands of Haredi yeshiva students who do not serve in the army or perform civilian national service. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the government would formulate a new bill that would guarantee a more equal sharing of the burden by all parts of Israeli society. The system in place since 2002 was regarded as unfair by secular Jews, but there was no obvious alternative.
Tal Committee | 2012 extension debate
Until the early 19th century, the names of most Central European Jews consisted of a Hebrew first name, a German second name, the patronymic "ben ... " (son of ...) and, if an upper one, the class - HaCohen (or "Katz") or HaLevy. The German name was chosen to fit the Hebrew one: thus "Zvi" or "Naftali" went with "Hirsch", and "Zev" or "Binjamin" with "Wolf". Those whose given name was Yehoshua, Josua, or Joshua had the second name of Falk, Valk, Walk, Wallik or Wallich. (One theory is that "Falk", here, derives from the German for falcon: just as a falcon circles its prey, so Joshua circled and explored the Holy Land before swooping down on it.
Joshua Falk | Note on the name "Joshua Falk"
There is also a difference in the pronunciation of "taw raphe" (, "taw" without "dagesh"):
Sephardi Hebrew | Variants
According to the Rabbis, "Israel is of all nations the most willful or headstrong one, and the Torah was to give it the right scope and power of resistance, or else the world could not have withstood its fierceness." "The Lord offered the Law to all nations; but all refused to accept it except Israel." How do we understand "A Gentile who consecrates his life to the study and observance of the Law ranks as high as the high priest", says R. Meïr, by deduction from Lev. xviii. 5; II Sam. vii. 19; Isa. xxvi. 2; Ps. xxxiii. 1, cxviii.
Jews as the chosen people | Further interpretations
This is repeated several times until the students are able to read the text independently. Then the teacher introduces the translation/explanation of the text and invites students to participate in the process. New words typically need to be translated only once; subsequently, students are encouraged to call out the translation on their own. All translations are strictly literal. If the translation does not automatically yield a comprehensible meaning, the students are invited to try to find one. The class spends the rest of the week reviewing the material. Each pasuk is reviewed with the tropp at least twenty-four times.
Torah study | The Zilberman method
"Ktav Ashuri" is the term used in the Talmud; the modern Hebrew term for the Hebrew alphabet is simply "Hebrew alphabet". Consequently, the term "Ktav Ashuri" refers primarily to a traditional calligraphic form of the alphabet used in writing the Torah. The name reflects the fact that the Hebrew alphabet is was derived from the Aramaic alphabet (), it thus refers to "the Aramaic alphabet as used in Judaism", and is sometimes referred to as the "Assyrian script." The name contrasts with the name "Libonaa" (or "Liboni") given to the Samaritan alphabet, and by extension the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. This name is most likely derived from "Lubban", i.e.
Ktav Ashuri | History
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Torah database | Wikimedia Torah study projects