Torah study
Although the word Torah refers specifically to the Five Books of Moses, Jews also use the word to refer to Jewish Scripture in general; this includes the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.
Prior to The Enlightenment most Jews believed that the first five books of the Bible was authored God, and that it directly reflected God's intentions in human language. Since both Divine intentions and human language are complex, Scripture required interpretation. Such interpretations were generally guided by the belief that Scripture as a whole provided all the elements necessary for the interpretation of any particular text. Such interpretations generally took any of four forms: an elucidation of the literal or plain meaning of the text; a homily applying the text to practical problems; a reading of the text as allegorical, and a mystical reading of the text.
After the Enlightenment many Jews began to participate in thw wider European society, where they learned critical methods of textual study, the modern historical method, hermeneutics, and fields relevant to Bible study such an near-Eastern archaoelogy and linguistics. Many Jews found the findings of these disciplines both compelling and relevant. While some religious Jews held that such study was incompatible with Judaism, many others decided that such fields of scholarship were compatible with the religiouys study of Torah.
These findings showed that that the Bible was written by different people (who may have been divinely inspired) living at different times and in different societies. Consequently, one way to add more to Torah study would be to learn more about the intentions of these people, and the circumstances under which they lived. This type of study depended on evidence external to the text, especially archeological evidence and comparative literature. See the entries on Biblical Higher criticism and the Documentary hypothesis.
Today, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and some Modern Orthodox Rabbis draw on the lessons of critical scholarship as well as the traditional forms of Biblical exegesis. Many Orthodox Rabbis, however, reject most or all critical scholarship.
Religious Jews of all denominations hold as a belief that one must constanly strive to engage in Torah study. Orthodox Jews still hold to this requirement more rigorously than most Jews in other denominations, although committed Jews of all denominations engage in regular study as well. In the Orthodox community, when two men meet, one often one will say, "Teach me some Torah." This tradition is based on a verse in the Talmud "And you shall teach it to your children", which says that a Jew is expected to know the Torah so well that it is on the tip of his tongue, so to speak.
In Yeshivas (schools of higher Jewish education), rabbinical schools and Kollels (adult-ed schools of higher Jewish education) the primary ways of studying Torah include study of (a) the weekly Torah portion, (b) works of the classic and modern day Meforshim (Biblical commentators), and (c) Talmud.
Links
Conservative Rabbi Joel Roth on non-fundamentalist ways to study Torah and Talmud
Meeting God Face to Face: Conservative Judaism's historical form of Torah study
Book review of the Conservative movement's official Torah commentary
Articles on Torah and Historical Truth - Liberal Modern Orthodox views.