The Influence of Jewish Religious Law on the Everyday Life of the Nineteenth Century Jewish Community in Częstochowa - Selected Issues - 1
Jerzy Mizgalski The Influence of Jewish Religious Law on the Everyday Life of the Nineteenth Century Jewish Community in Częstochowa - Selected Issues - 1. Sources of Jewish Religious Law The books of the Old Testament constitute the basic pillar of Jewish religious tradition. As well as their historical and literary content, they contain a legal code of provisions and commandments – moral, health-related and others - which, over the centuries, have regulated the community’s everyday life. As Alan Unterman states, Jewish tradition not only teaches certain fundamental truths about God, the revelation and man, but also expresses them through ceremonies, rituals and laws which determine behaviour in various life situations1. From childhood through to old age, there is a religious duty to learn and to study the holy books whose contents support certain behaviour and contain the development of lines of thought. The Torah, with its written laws and provisions describing the fundamentals of the faith, demands the need for commenting upon and adapting the Torah to new socio-economic and political conditions, as well as to the practicalities of life2. The second pillar which supports the preservation of traditions is the Talmud. The word “Talmud” is derived from the Hebrew “lamad” which means to learn, to teach or to explain the meaning. Admittedly, the Talmud affects only the Orthodox Jews. As Eugen Werber states, it contains the cultural pearls of the Jewish people, values which, despite divisions and religious restrictions, are common to a much broader section of people and, in any case, deserve to be recognised by the world3.
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