I’m wanting to read the Torah and Talmud, but I don’t know where to start. Is there like a… Jewish workbook? I’m ethnically Jewish but my family “threw away” Judaism and I’m starting from nothing.

jewish-education:

(Note: folks who aren’t Jewish-by-birth, but rather considering conversion, I don’t recommend the order below for you. Start by studying then reaching out to a community or vice versa, please don’t start with observance without talking to a rabbi or similar.)

I’m sorry that your family wasn’t able to find a way for Judaism to work for them, but it’s fantastic that you want to explore your Jewish roots! Unfortunately, there isn’t really one single workbook out there. Torah and Talmud are really big and when you include interpretations and midrash there’s no one path to learning everything (nor is it possible for anyone to learn all of it).

Shabbat & Holidays

If you want to start bringing Judaism into your life right now, I’d recommend looking into starting your own traditions for holidays and/or Shabbat. I’m suggesting holidays as a place to start in part because there are lots of beginner friendly resources. BimBam, MyJewishLearning, ReformJudaism.org, and Chabad.org are just a few places to start online. There are tons of printed books specifically about holidays, and many basic/beginner Judaism texts will include something about holidays. (In addition, any remaining connections to Jewish religion your family has are likely to be to holidays. They may have old candlesticks or a Passover cookbook for example, or remember a Hanukkah song.) 

In addition to learning about the holiday’s observance itself, many holidays have a connected text you can learn about.

If you stick around this blog, anyone on jumblr (especially @istodayajewishholiday), or myjewishlearning.com you’ll hear about each holiday as it comes up. Sadly, the next Jewish holiday isn’t for months (and Tisha B’Av even one I’d recommend for starting out). With that in mind, I’m going to direct you to some stuff about Shabbat observance and learning opportunities.

Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest, and the holiest day of the week. MyJewishLearning has some pretty good basics on it in their Shabbat 101 article, but there are as many ways to observe Shabbat as there are Jews. While there’s a (somewhat) set way to traditionally observe Shabbat, jumblr has actually been talking about other approaches. Speaking of lots of approaches, I recommend reading about different branches of Judaism and their different approaches.  Even if you don’t feel comfortable joining a synagogue right now, Judaism is a communal religion and so lots of things won’t be possible (or as much fun) alone. 

One way many Jews observe Shabbat is lighting Shabbat candles saying a blessing (BimBam has a video with the blessing here). If getting candles isn’t possible, lots of folks consider it okay (but not preferred!) to use electric lights. You can get specialized ones like this, but if you’re in a pinch, regular electric tea lights from a drug store (or I suppose a flashlight or closet light) could fulfill the obligation (although a closet/flashlight might not be as fun). It might sound like a bummer to use electric candles, you’ve still got a chance to beautify the mitzvah. Hiddur mitzvah, or beautification of a mitzvah, is a big part of Jewish tradition. As I just said, you could use a flashlight to fulfill bringing light into your home for Shabbat, but using beautiful candlesticks (or my next idea) shows how much the mitzvah matters to you and makes the mitzvah special. How are electric tea lights beautiful? You can make them beautiful! Electric tea lights could be decorated with sharpie, or enclosed in paper lanterns/cut-outs like these. 

If you do want to start bringing Jewish observance and ritual into your life, but Shabbat sounds like it isn’t your thing, @adamavshamayim had some great suggestions earlier here.

Torah Study

Maybe you feel like starting with just study is what’s best for you. If so, I’d recommend that you join a local Torah study group. Most synagogues have one (they might have a Talmud study group too, but I recommend starting with Torah). If you’re in college, you can check out your local Hillel (if they don’t have a study group, they’ll likely know of a student, rabbi, Jewish educator or professor who would be happy to study with you). If you don’t think there’s anything Jewish in your area, see if you have a local Chabad house (you probably have a Chabad resource!) that can match you with chavrutas (and know that Chabad, like all Jewish institutions, has non-universal perspectives on texts and on their significance/interpretations). If you’re really raring to go and can’t find anything, I’d recommend checking out some podcasts. Torah really needs to be studied with commentary, and preferably with a teacher. Sefaria (they have Rashi, a major commentator in English) or a Tanakh (JPS is good, or anyone that you can confirm isn’t Christian/Messianic) plus a good podcast would be the text best thing.

What to do when you can’t study Talmud

While I don’t want to brush off Talmud as inaccessible, it’ll be really overwhelming without a background and no one should study it alone. In the mean time, you can learn about different perspectives on Jewish law (that’s what concerns the Talmud) and read about interpretations in areas that you find interesting or relevant. The most important thing to get out of this is how many different perspectives there will be around any law or line. Judaism has perspectives on everything from criminal justice to animal care to talking.

A final note for anyone who doesn’t have a shul right now(!)

I’d highly recommend checking some synagogues out in the next few months. This might sound premature, but if you decide late summer/early autumn that you want to get involved, you’ll be in the middle of High Holidays (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur with Sukkot and Simcha Torah coming after…yes, that’s a lot of holidays). High Holidays will be a busy time for any community you want to join so they might not have as many resources available to help you get situated. If August rolls around and you haven’t found a synagogue but realize you want to do something for the high holidays, feel free to reach out again but there might not be much anyone can do until after. I didn’t want to make this post twice as long as it already is and fill it with even more maybes and ifs.