Torah

Torah (Heb., ‘teaching’). The teachings of the Jewish religion. In the Pentateuch, the term ‘Torah’ can mean all the laws on a particular subject (e.g. Leviticus 7. 2) or the summation of all laws (e.g. Deuteronomy 4. 44). It is also used to refer to the Pentateuch in contrast to the Prophets and Hagiography (as in Tanach), and later a distinction was made between the written and the oral law. The purpose of Torah is to make Israel ‘a kingdom of priests, a holy nation’ (Deuteronomy 33. 4). In a famous exchange Hillel summarized Torah in the maxim, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow’ (B. Shab. 31a), and Akiva maintained that its overriding principle was ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19. 18). Maimonides laid down in his thirteen principles of the Jewish faith that Torah is immutable and that it was given in its entirety to Moses. The belief in the divine origin of both the written and oral Torah remains the touchstone of Orthodox Judaism. The Karaites accepted the written, but not the oral law, while the Progressive movements tend to distinguish between the moral and ritual law.