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RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
Daily Mishnah Study
in the climate of Masorti (Conservative) Judaism

Rabbi Simchah Roth
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel.
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THE MISHNAH
A very brief Introduction

This introduction has been written at the request of several new
subscribers. It does not claim to be all-embracing or to reflect
academic scholarship. It is only to give people learning mishnah
for the first time a basic idea of "what it's all about".

The Jewish religious tradition recognizes the the Written Torah
[Torah she-bikhtav] is accompanied by the Oral Torah {Torah
she-b'al-Peh]. The Written Torah consists of the Five Books of
Moses [Pentateuch, in Greek; Chamishah Chumshei Torah, in
Hebrew}, which are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible
[Tanakh].

Jewish tradition has found within these books six hundred and
thirteen commandments [Taryag mitzvot], which are the foundations
upon which the whole structure of Jewish religious and ethical
behaviour is built and developed. The whole gamut of traditional
religious and ethical behaviour-patterns that are deemed binding
are termed Halakhah, which now has the equivalence of the word
'law', but whose etymology comes from the idea of "the way we
go", the way we do things in accordance with Torah. Also any
individual item in this massive programme is termed "a halakhah".

While the written Torah is the ultimate basis of Jewish
tradition, for halakhic purposes it must be interpreted and
understood in the light of the Oral Torah. Any halakhah that
comes more or less directly from the Written Torah is termed
"de-Oraita" ["from the Torah" in Aramaic], whereas any halakhah
that comes from rabbinic innovation or expansion is termed
"mi-de-rabbanan" ["from the rabbis" in Aramaic].

The process by which the sages [rabbis] extrapolated these
expansions of the written Torah that constitute the main corpus
of Oral Torah is called "Midrash ha-Torah" or "Midrash". This
term comes from an original concept of 'delving into' or
'investigating' the Written Torah in order to extract from it its
wider and deeper meaning and application. There are two forms of
midrash: Midrash Halakhah and Midrash Aggadah. The latter is a
form of midrash whose purpose is to extrapolate from the text of
the Torah its ethical, social, historical and philosophical
implications - and almost any other implications that do not fall
into the former category. The former is a form of midrash whose
purpose is to extrapolate from the text of the Torah its halakhic
implications, binding religious behaviour-patterns. These
Midreshei-Halakhah began to form the basis of the halakhic
structure. To begin with they were created, studied and passed
on from teacher to student and from generation to generation
entirely orally - hence "Torah she-b'al-Peh" - the Torah that is
not written down, the Torah that cannot be read but only heard.

The origins of this process are lost in the mists of antiquity.
The process first emerges into a clearer light in the centuries
after the establishment of the Second Commonwealth in
Eretz-Israel after the Return from the Babylonian Exile. The
first returnees arrived back in Judah in the year 536 BCE; by the
year 516 BCE the Second Bet Mikdash had been completed; around
the year 444 BCE massive religious and social reforms were
undertaken under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, and these
reforms are probably the seeds from which rabbinic Judaism was to
develop over the next few centuries. By the beginning of the
second century BCE the whole system had the loyalty and affection
of a plurality of the people - so much so that when the
hellenising colonial pretensions of the Syrian mini-empire
centered on Antioch threatened to overtake Judaism and Judah, the
people rose up in revolt. This story is celebrated annually at
Chanukah time. A century and a quarter of independence under the
Hasmonean dynasty and Herod came to and end with the Roman
occupation of Eretz-Israel. This time, when the people finally
broke into open revolt they were completely defeated by the Roman
military machine and the Bet Mikdash was destroyed - in the year
70 CE.

During all this time the Oral Torah had been growing steadily.
The complete eclipse of the Bet Mikdash and its ritual after 70
CE gave a new impetus to the growth and development of the Oral
tradition. The ancient Sanhedrin was reestablished in Yavneh,
where rabbis from all over the country met to discuss the details
of the Oral Tradition and to decide what was binding by a
majority vote. It was probably Rabbi Akiva, at the end of the
first century CE and at the beginning of the second century, who
was the first to reassemble all the midrashim in a more orderly
form. Until his time the midrashim were ordered around the
verses of the Written Torah that had been their origin. As the
system burgeoned this became more and more unwieldy, and Rabbi
Akiva began to reorder these Midreshei-Halakhah according to
their content, rather than according to their precedence in the
Written Torah. This new system he called Mishnah, a term which
comes from the Hebrew verb to learn by rote. We recall that all
this material was still passed on by word of mouth!

Rabbi Akiva's system of Mishnah (as opposed to Midrash) was
developed and honed by his students and successors during the
tumultuous second century. By the time we reach the end of the
second century and the start of the third century the time was
ripe for a new and decisive development. Rabbi Yehudah, the son
of Rabban Shimon ben-Gamliel, was now the President of the
Sanhedrin. His personality and status guaranteed his ascendancy.
In modern terms he was a multi-millionaire, on excellent
personal terms with the Imperial house in Rome, a man of
international culture who would only permit Hebrew or Greek to be
spoken in his 'residence'. He had the necessary sway and
halakhic expertise to make the much-needed change. He set down
in writing his own personal Mishnah and published it. Rabbi
Akiva's mishnah had developed into Rabbi Meir's mishnah, which
had become Rabbi Yehudah's mishnah, which now became 'The
Mishnah' [around 200 CE].

The Mishnah is divided into six Sedarim [Orders, or volumes],
each Seder dealing with a different aspect of the Oral Torah -
Eretz-Israel, Holy Days, Family Law, Civil Law, Bet-Mikdash and
Ritual Purity. Each Seder is divided into Massekhtot
[Tractates}, each tractate dealing with a more particularized
issue within the general compass of the seder: for instance the
Seder that deals with Family Law has Massekhtot [tractates] on
Marriage, Marriage Contracts, Divorce, Levirate Marriage and so
forth. The tractates are divided into chapters and the chapters
into small manageable units each one of which is called a mishnah
or a halakhah.

The sages whose discussions and views are enshrined in the
Mishnah as given the generic description of Tannaim, and,
usually, the individual title of Rabbi. The age of the Tannaim
also produced other works - in particular we should mention the
Tosefta and the Halakhic Midrashim called Mekhilta, Sifra and
Sifrei. The Tosefta is a work that mirror-images the Mishnah but
contains halakhot that Rabbi Yehudah excluded from his Mishnah:
these are called 'baraitot', which comes from the Aramaic for 'an
excluded mishnah'. The Mekhilta contains halakhic midrashim on
the book of Exodus, the Sifra on the book of Leviticus, and the
Sifrei on the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. The age of the
Tannaim is deemed to come to an end with the death of Rabbi
[Yehudah] in the year 217 CE.

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To dedicate a shiur (lesson) send an amount of your choice,
marked "For RMSG," to: The Foundation for Masorti Judaism in
Israel, 6525 Belcrest Rd., Suite 305, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
Attn: Mr. James Demb. (Contributions are tax-deductible in the
U.S.) YOU MUST ALSO send a private e-mail, stating the requested
date and the occasion for the dedication, to Rabbi Simchah Roth
<siroth@inter.net.il>. This is also the address for discussion,
queries, comments and requests.

The RMSG archive may be accessed at the following site:
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