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G-d taught Moses the Written and the Oral Torah, how to interpret it. Moses taught Aaron, and his sons, and the leaders and so it has gone.
Here is what someone else has written. And it is good stuff:
Judaism is the way of life that Hashem gave us at Mount Sinai, and taught to us in the Sinai Desert.
It includes a Written Torah and an Oral Torah.
It has always included an Oral Torah, and in fact, some of the Commandments were first taught to us orally before we had them in writing. But by and the large, we were taught both at the same time. Hashem would recite a paragraph of the Written Torah to Moses, telling him what to write, letter by letter. Hashem would then teach Moses the details of that Law, along with the deeper meanings, the applications of that Law, and all concepts related to it...
The Written Torah is similar to a series of very brief notes a student writes at a lecture. I attended a class once in which I wrote in my notebook: "DY = 2; SY = 1." Do you have any idea what that means? How could you? It means: "A double yellow line in the middle of the road means it is a two-way road, a single yellow line means it is a one-way road." When you know what was said in the class, the notes make perfect sense to you. If you do not know what was said at the lecture, you cannot understand the notes.
...The Talmud is not the entire Oral Torah. The Talmud is the basic skeleton of the Oral Torah, as much as was absolutely necessary for the preservation of the Torah. But it is by far not the entire Oral Torah. That wouldn't be possible.
Without those details, we could never fulfill the Laws. For example, the Torah commands the Jewish Supreme Court to declare when a new month has begun, and the Oral Torah gives us all the necessary details. We find, therefore, that the Talmud (Rosh Hashonoh 25b) tells us that the time between each appearance of a new moon can be no less than 29.53059 days. This information, reported Rabbi Gamliel in the Talmud, is part of the Oral Torah.
Only this century did anyone else in the world have a calculation of that nature. Carl Sagan has stated that the period of time from new moon to new moon is 29.53058 days, only 100 thousandth of a day less! That's within 0.864 of a second of what the Talmud says! Scientists in Berlin later revised it to 29.530588 days, which is 0.6912 thousandths of a second closer to what the Talmud says (and the scientists are still not absolutely positive). That is how close they are to the number given by our Oral Torah. We needed this information, in order to properly observe a Mitzvah in the Torah, so Hashem taught that to Moses.
Deut 17:8-13 also says: You must approach the Levites and Priests and the Supreme Court that exists at that time. You must make an inquiry, and they will declare to you a legal decision.You must do as the court that Hashem has chosen tells you, carefully following their every decision. You must keep the Torah as they interpret it for you, and follow the Laws that they legislate for you. Do not stray to the right or left from the word that they declare to you.
Hashem would recite a passage of the Written Torah to Moses, telling him what to write, letter by letter. Hashem would then teach Moses the Oral Torah associated with that passage: the details of that Law, along with the deeper meanings, the applications of that Law, and all concepts related to it.
Hashem would then give Moses time to think it through and review it. Moses would return with any questions that he might have, and Hashem would answer him.
Moses would then go to the tent in which he taught Torah, call in his brother, Aharon the High Priest, and teach him all that he had just learned from Hashem. They would then call in Aharon's two sons, Elazar and Isamar, and Moses would teach it to them in the presence of Aharon. They would then call in the Seventy Elders, and Moses would teach it to them, while Aharon and his two sons listened. Then they would call in all of the people, and Moses would teach it to them. As Moses taught it to them, they would each write down the part that was to be written, and they would carefully study and memorize the parts that were to be oral. Aharon would then teach the Torah to everyone present. After that, Aharon's two sons would teach it to everyone present. After Aharon's two sons had finished, the Elders would teach the Torah to everyone present. Afterwards, the leaders of the people, the Elders and the other leaders would travel around the camp and make sure that all questions were answered and that all the Law was understood. Then Hashem would teach Moses the next passage of the Torah, and the process would be repeated. By this method, each person was taught the Torah at least four times, and each person got to hear it from Moses at least once.
PS: Hi. I think it may be Rosh Hashanah 25a and not b. I am sorry about that. You are looking for the part that mentions "Chalakim." Instead of dividing up the "day" into 24 "hours" comprised of "60 minutes" each, they divided each hour into something like 1080 "chalakim" which ends up calculating days into tiny fractions.
On page 25a of the Talmud Bavli tractate Rosh HaShanah, Rabban Gamliel is quoted as saying "Thus have I received a tradition from the house of my father's father: the rebirth of the Moon is not less than twenty-nine and half days, two-thirds of an hour, and seventy-three parts from the previous one." That is, 29 days, 12 hours, 40 minutes, and 73 parts. Expressed in terms of days with an exact fractional remainder that equals:
29 + 1/2 + 40/(24 ? 60) + 73/(1080 ? 24) days
= 29 + 1/2 + 40/1440 + 73/25920 days
= 29 + 13753/25920 days
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As a Jew, do you take the Torah literally?
