The Real Truth About The Talmud

The Real Truth About The Talmud

There are many lies circulating the internet about the Jewish Talmud. These allegations are supported by "direct quotations" from the Talmud that are frequently wrong or taken out of context. However, most people lack the scholarly background to verify these claims. Most people have no way of knowing that these accusation are false and malicious. What we are attempting is to demonstrate in detail how these accusations are both wrong and intentionally misleading. We are trying to show to the world the real truth about the Talmud.

"Our philosophy asserts that every human being is created in the image of the Lord and the primacy of integrity and honesty in all dealings without exception. I strongly repudiate any assertions in the name of Judaism that do not represent and reflect this philosophy."

- Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, dean of the world-renowned Lakewood Yeshiva, Dec. 16, 2003

The telling summary of chapter 20, The Talmud Does Not Permit Sex With A Three Year Old:

We leave it to others to deduce why some people would make baseless accusations against the Talmud and, by implication, Judaism and Jews.

Contents

About The Talmud
1. The Real Truth About The Talmud: Why does this book exist?
2. What Is The Talmud?: An explanation of the history and content of the Talmud
3. Talmud and Bible: Is the Talmud holier than the Bible?
4. Jewish People: Is Judaism a religion or a race?
5. To Tell The Truth: Are Jews commanded to lie about the Talmud?
6. Gentiles In Judaism: Where do gentiles fit into the Jewish world view?

Alleged Racism In The Talmud
7. Gentiles Are Human: The Talmud does not consider gentiles to be sub-human
8. Gentiles Are Human 2: The Talmud does not consider gentiles to be animals
9. Stealing From Gentiles: The Talmud forbids stealing from gentiles
10. Paying A Gentile's Wages: The Talmud prohibits Jews from withholding a gentile's wages
11. Tricking Gentiles: The Talmud forbids lying to gentiles
12. Killing Gentiles: The Talmud prohibits killing gentiles
13. Various Accusations: Refuting various accusations against the Talmud

Christianity In The Talmud
14. Introduction
15. Jesus In The Talmud: What, if anything, does the Talmud say about Jesus?
16. The Jesus Narrative: Does the Talmud's narrative of events correspond or differ from the Gospels'?

Jewish Holidays
17. Blood Libel: Jews never eat blood
18. Passover: The Passover Haggadah is not racist
19. Kol Nidrei: Permission to deceive?

Immorality In The Talmud
20. The Talmud Does Not Permit Sex With A Three Year Old
21. Rabbi Eleazar and the Prostitutes: The Full Story

Miscellaneous
22. Schindler's List: The source of the disputed quotation
23. "In The Image Of G-d": Gentiles are created in the image of G-d
24. "Goy": Is it a derogatory term used by Jews about gentiles?
25. Rabbi Soloveitchik: Refuting the slander against him
26. Ethics Of The Fathers: The section of the Mishnah dedicated to the favorite ethical sayings of the sages
27. Related Links
28. Recommended Reading

Bonus PDF:
The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics

Recently there has been a renewal of attacks on Judaism and Jews through recycling of old accusations and distortions about the Talmud. Anti-Talmud tracts were originally developed in the Middle Ages as Christian polemics against Judaism, but today they emanate from a variety of Christian, Moslem and secular sources. Sometimes such “studies” have blatantly anti-Semitic tones; sometimes they are more subtle. Yet all of them remain as false and pernicious today as they did in the Middle Ages.

Because of their unfortunate frequent reappearance, there is a need to formally rebut these accusations and canards. The Anti-Defamation League developed the following essay that explains in an honest and scholarly way the Talmudic teachings as understood by Jewish religious authorities.

Excerpts:

Now and then a polemicist of this type may himself have been born Jewish, but their systematic distortions of the ancient texts, always in the direction of portraying Judaism negatively, their lack of interest in good-faith efforts to understand contemporary Judaism from contemporary Jews, and their dismissal of any voices opposing their own, suggests that their goal in reading ancient rabbinic literature is to produce the Frankenstein version of Judaism that they invariably claim to have uncovered.

[…]

Probably the most far-reaching claim made by anti-Talmud polemicists is that Judaism views non-Jews as a subhuman species deserving only hatred and contempt from its Jewish superiors. The visceral hatred that Jews are alleged to bear for non-Jews is proven, they claim, by a variety of statements in the Talmud and by Jewish law itself, which purportedly encourages Jews to exploit their non-Jewish neighbors and engage in criminal activities against them. Many go so far as to claim that Jews are intent on subjugating non-Jews around the world and even on committing genocide against them.

In its long history, Judaism has had its share of bigots, racists and xenophobes, some of whom expressed their prejudices in religious terms. In certain historical periods there have even been Jewish sects whose worldview placed Jews higher than non-Jews in inherent value. But normative Judaism has never diminished the essential humanity — and the concomitant holiness, derived from the doctrine of creation in imago Dei — shared by Jews and non-Jews alike. Based on verses in the biblical verses in Genesis 1:26-28, the principle that all men and women are created in the image of God is codified in the Mishnah (Avoth 3:14) and Talmud (Avoth 9b):

[Rabbi Akiva] used to say, “Beloved is man, for he was created in God’s image; and the fact that God made it known that man was created in His image is indicative of an even greater love. As the verse states (Genesis 9:6), ‘In the image of God, man was created.’)”

This doctrine is echoed by one of the great rabbis of the twentieth century, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Man of Faith in the Modern World, p. 74):

Even as the Jew is moved by his private Sinaitic Covenant with God to embody and preserve the teachings of the Torah, he is committed to the belief that all mankind, of whatever color or creed, is “in His image” and is possessed of an inherent human dignity and worthiness. Man’s singularity is derived from the breath “He [God] breathed into his nostrils at the moment of creation” (Genesis 2:7). Thus, we do share in the universal historical experience, and God’s providential concern does embrace all of humanity.

In the face of these Jewish doctrines expressing concern for men and women of all religions, the attempts of anti-Semites to portray normative Judaism as bigoted and hateful are revealed as thorough distortions of Jewish ethics. They claim, for example, that the Hebrew term goy (pl. goyim), which refers to non-Jews, means “cow” or “animal.” In fact, however, the term means “a member of a nation” (see e.g. Genesis 35:11, Isaiah 2:4) and has no derogatory connotation. The Bible even refers to the Jewish people as ‘goy’ (Exodus 19:6) but through the millennia has become a generic term for “gentile.” Of course, like terms used for any other ethnic group, the context and tone in which it is spoken or written can render it pejorative (think of the history of the word “Jew”), but that should hardly prejudice someone to the appearance of the term in classical Jewish literature.