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Our story
Meet the people, places, and shared life behind Jewish learning.
A story we belong to
Jewish learning helps us take part in the life of our people: to pray with understanding, keep Shabbat, our weekly day of rest, celebrate our festivals, and bring Torah into our relationships and decisions. Torah means “teaching.” It names the five books of Moses and, more broadly, the teaching we receive and study as Jews.
Our books grew within this shared life. First, meet the people and places behind them. Then we will open the books themselves.
The broad outline
Our ancestors
The Torah tells of our ancestors: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. Jacob also receives the name Israel; his family becomes the people of Israel. God makes a covenant with Abraham: a binding relationship that joins his descendants, the land of Israel, and their calling to walk with God.
From Egypt to Sinai
God brings the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt through Moses. At Mount Sinai, Israel enters a covenant with God and receives the Torah. The Exodus becomes a story we retell at Passover; its call to remember shapes our treatment of others.
Life in the land
Israel settles in the land of Israel, along the eastern Mediterranean. Kings rule, and Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem, the center of sacrificial worship. The prophets call the people to faithfulness to God, justice, and care for the vulnerable.
Exile and return
Babylonia destroys the First Temple and carries many Judeans into exile. Later, under Persian rule, some return and build the Second Temple. Jewish life continues both in the land and beyond it. Ezra and Nehemiah describe a renewed public commitment to Torah.
Yeshua in the Second Temple era
In the first century CE, while the Second Temple still stands, Yeshua of Nazareth lives and teaches among our people. The Gospels, the accounts of his life and teachings, place him in synagogues, in the Temple, and in conversations about Torah. His Jewish disciples carry his teaching forward. This movement takes shape within the Jewish world of its time.
Our sages preserve and teach
Rome destroys the Second Temple in 70 CE. Jewish communities continue in the land and the diaspora, the places where Jews live outside it. Our sages, the teachers of Torah whose learning these books preserve, teach and debate Torah. Around 200 CE, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi gathers their teachings in the Mishnah. Generations of study in the land of Israel and Babylonia, in what is now Iraq, develop into the two Talmuds.
Communities and their books
Over the following centuries, communities across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and beyond develop rich traditions of learning. Scholars write explanations of earlier texts, organize Jewish law, and answer questions sent from other communities. Families and teachers carry these traditions through flourishing times, migration, and persecution.
Jewish life today
The modern story includes the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered six million Jews, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and the renewal of communities in Israel and around the world. We inherit a living task: to learn Torah, practice it, and pass it on.
CE means Common Era, the year numbering used in today's civil calendar.
A thread through the story
The Torah places teaching in ordinary daily life:
ושננתם לבניך ודברת בם
Teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The verse continues with sitting at home, traveling, lying down, and rising. Learning belongs in the rhythm of life. Schools and books help carry out a responsibility that also lives in our homes.
Pause and recall
Which comes first: Sinai, the Mishnah, or the Talmuds?
Sinai comes first in the Torah’s account. The Mishnah gathers our sages’ teachings many generations later. The Talmuds preserve subsequent study and discussion of the Mishnah and other teachings.
Did Jewish life outside the land begin in 70 CE?
No. Jewish communities already lived outside the land before Rome destroyed the Second Temple. Communities also continued within the land afterward.
Explore the sources
Genesis 17 · Exodus 19 · 2 Kings 25 · Nehemiah 8 · Luke 4:16–21 · Mark 12:28–34 · John 18:20 · Acts 2:42–47 · The Mishnah’s historical setting