Sephardic law and customs Sephardic law and customs Sephardic law and customs means the practice of Judaism by the Sephardim, the descendants of the historic Jewish community of the Iberian Peninsula. Some definitions of "Sephardic" also include Mizrahi Jews, many of whom follow the same traditions of worship but have different ethno-cultural traditions. Sephardi Rite is not a denomination or movement like Orthodox, Reform, and other Ashkenazi Rite worship traditions. Sephardim thus comprise a community with distinct cultural, juridical and philosophical traditions. Sephardim are, primarily, the descendants of Jews from the Iberian peninsula. They may be divided into the families that left in the
Origins of Rabbinic Judaism Sherira Gaon and often repeated. The oral law was subsequently codified in the Mishnah and Gemarah, and is interpreted in Rabbinic literature detailing subsequent rabbinic decisions and writings. Rabbinic Jewish literature is predicated on the belief that the Written Law cannot be properly understood without recourse to the Oral Law (the Mishnah). Much Rabbinic Jewish literature concerns specifying what behavior is sanctioned by the law; this body of interpretations is called "halakha" ("the way"). Originally, Jewish scholarship was oral. Rabbis expounded and debated the law (the written law expressed in the Hebrew Bible) and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit