So OpenGL works with matrix. Basically you can draw stuff and transform the matrix itself. You draw stuff using GL11.glVertex#f (where f can be either f (floats), i (ints) and d (doubles) and # can be 2, 3 or 4 (representing the number of dimensions you are working on) and other methods (GL11.glBegin and GL11.glEnd) and trasform matrix with GL11.glTranslate#f, GL11.glRotatef. You can also save your matrix to the stack in order to get back after a series of matrix transformation with GL11.glPushMatrix and GL11.glPopMatrix.
Example:
GL11.glPushMatrix(); //save the current matrix
// Your transformation here
// Your rendering here
GL11.glPopMatrix(); //revert everything
For each PushMatrix there must be a PopMatrix or the code will break and it'll start spamming a lot of openGL errors
About Tessellator, that's just a bridge beetwen OpenGL and your code. It has some useful code (transforming quads to triangles, for instance) and it uses VetrexBuffers instead of glVertex calls.
I suggest you to take a look on some openGL guides (they are universal, don't look for java specific) and at Tessellator.java itself.