What Place Should Talmud Have in Messianic Judaism?
In his book The Essential Talmud, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz details the world of the Talmud and the areas of Torah living that are covered in its pages. Prior to taking this class and reading such books as that of Steinsaltz, I confess that I had many wrong notions about Talmud. It is without a doubt that Messianic Judaism up until the present time has not been a movement that encourages knowledge of the Talmud. Rather, various segments of Messianic Judaism have emphasized more engagement with Christian sources or a sort of Karaite* approach to Torah. If we seriously believe that Messianic Judaism is a Judaism, and if Torah living is important to us, then there are a number of reasons why we must take on the difficult task of learning Talmud. In the first place, Talmud is a historical document without compare. In Talmud we find historical details about the life of Israel, the origins of customs, procedures from the Second Temple*, and so on. More than that, Talmud is a Jewish way of though
