Gemara

The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) comprises a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aramaic word גמרא and rooted in the Semitic word ג-מ-ר (gamar), which means "to finish" or "complete". Initially, the Gemara was transmitted orally and not permitted to be written down. However, after Judah the Prince compiled the Mishnah around 200 CE, rabbis from Babylonia and the Land of Israel extensively studied the work. Their discussions were eventually documented in a series of books, which would come to be known as the Gemara. There are two versions of the Talmud: the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) and the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi). The Mishnah is virtually the same in two Talmuds; the Gemara is what differentiates the Babylonian Talmud from its Jerusalem counterpart. The Babylonian Talmud, compiled by scholars in Babylonia around 500 CE and primarily from the academies of Sura, Pumbedita, and Nehardea, is the more commonly cited version when referring to the "Gemara" or "Talmud"; redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud was interrupted in the mid-fourth century when the Romans suppressed Jewish scholarship in the Palestinian provinces and most Talmudists fled to Babylon. As a result, the Bavli was more intensively edited, studied, and commented on. The main compilers of the Babylonian Talmud were Ravina and Rav Ashi. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by Jewish scholars in the Land of Israel, primarily from the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea, around 350–400 CE. The Talmud is organized into six sedarim, or "orders:" Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Nezikin, Kodshim, and Taharot. In 1923, Polish Rabbi Meir Shapiro introduced a contemporary practice called "Daf Yomi," or "daily page," wherein participants study one page of the Talmud daily in cycles lasting seven and a half years...