Approximately 2100 years ago, one of Judaism's greatest sages summed the Torah with the following:
"That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. The rest is commentary, now go read the commentary."
The Torah
Yes, the Torah is the basic text of Judaism, containing its beliefs and laws.
Unusable Torah-scrolls are buried in a separate plot in a Jewish cemetery. This must be done with Rabbinic supervision.
If it's in the Torah, it's basic to Judaism.
The entire content of the Torah.
All of the commands in the Torah.
That God exists and gave the Torah.
A basic situation is at the beginning of a story, and explains the plot, the characters, and setting, etc.
It is a diagram of a plot showing beginning, middle, and end of the story's plot.
MacGuffin
Was and still is. The answer is: The laws of the Torah, which contains the several hundred basic commands of Judaism.See also:More about the Torah's laws
Here is a link to some of them.