THE TALMUD: The Repository of the Oral Law. This introduction answers: What is the Talmud and what is its role in Judaism? The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah, a written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism's Oral Torah, and the Gemara, an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible.