ABSTRACT
Jewish Humor tradition organizes the Hebrew Bible or Tanach—an acronym of Torah, Neveim, and Ketubim—into three categories of the canon. The Five Books of Moses, also called the Pentateuch or the Torah, are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The pre-Tannaitic period known as zugot—literally, pairs, the most famous pair being Hillel and Shammai—started about 200 BCE. The Tannaitic period started with Rabbi Yochanan b. Zakkai and his colleagues, and lasted from about the year 40 to 200 CE., five generations of Tannaim. The Talmud is mainly concerned with halacha but also provides a detailed record of the beliefs of the Jewish people, their philosophy, traditions, culture, and folklore, that is, the aggada. The aggada is basically moralistic and this chapter attempts to explain such concepts as the afterlife, God, Satan, the Messiah, why good people suffer, penitence, and how to lead the ideal life.
