The Holy Books of Judaism:  The Mishnah
Sermon, July 8, 2005
Rabbi Bruce Kadden

Pirkei Avot begins with an intriguing passage, which chronicles the transmission of Jewish Law from one generation to the next.  It reads:  “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua; and Joshua delivered it to the elders, and the elders to the prophets and the prophets delivered it to the men of the Great Assembly….”

The “Torah” that this text refers to is not the written Torah, the Five Books of Moses; rather, it is what is called the “Torah sheb’al peh, the oral Torah.”  According to traditional Jewish thought, God not only gave Moses the written Torah at Sinai, but an oral commentary on this Torah as well, which was passed on orally from generation to generation.  However, because of the vast amount of material and the precarious state of the Jewish community, a portion of the oral Torah was put into writing in the land of Israel at the end of the second century of the common era by Rabbi Judah HaNasi, the leading scholar of his generation.

This work is known as the Mishnah, a word which comes from the Hebrew root shin-nun-hei, which means to teach by oral repetition, which was the common method of learning in that time. 

Modern scholars do not believe that the teachings contained in the Mishnah were given to Moses at Sinai.  Rather, they understand that these teachings developed over many generations, as the Jewish community faced new challenges and attempted to adapt the teachings of the Torah to these situations. 

The group of Jewish leaders known as the Pharisees was most interested in extending religious practice beyond the bounds of the Temple in Jerusalem to apply to every Jew in daily life.  For example, traditionally priests could eat sacrificial foods only in a state of ritual purity. 

The Pharisees extended these traditions to all Jews:  they instituted the ritual hand washing and reciting the hamotzee before eating and birkat hamazon after a meal.  The Pharisees wanted to make the table into the symbolic equivalent of the sacrificial altar.  This approach “turned life into an inexhaustible supply of opportunities to fulfill divine law and thus to sanctify it,” according to one scholar.

With the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 C.E., the teachings of the Pharisees became increasingly significant.  Without the Temple as a unifying force, Judaism was in danger of becoming irrelevant and disappearing.  Only a concerted effort to bring Jewish observance to everyday life could assure that Judaism would survive.

The rabbis, who are sometimes called the “heirs of the Pharisees,” took up this challenge and expanded Jewish observance to virtually every area of life.  Holiday rituals which had once been limited to the Temple were brought into the home and to the synagogue, which was now emerging as an important institution.  The rabbis discussed and debated the details of Jewish observance, always making sure that their conclusions could be supported by the teachings of the Torah.

In the second century, the need to organize and write down these teachings became apparent; thus, a process began that would lead to the creation of the Mishnah.  This work is divided into six sections, called orders:  Z’ra’im/Seeds; Mo’ed/Festivals; Nashim/Women; N’zeekeen/Damages; Kodashim/ Holy Things; and Tohorot/Purities.  Each Order, in turn, is divided into books or tractates, totaling 63.  The first tractate, for example is B’rachot/Blessings.  Pirkei Avot/Chapters of the Fathers is also a tractate of the Mishnah.  Each tractate is further divided into chapters and each chapter into sections, each of which is called a mishnah or teaching.

The Mishnah is written in concise Hebrew, even though when it was compiled the Jews spoke Aramaic.  Many of the older traditions had been passed down in Hebrew, and it was still used in the academies, so it seemed appropriate to use Hebrew.  Furthermore, it gave the text a sense of sacredness and authority that it may not have had if had been written in Aramaic. 

The Mishnah is often described as a law code, but that is not accurate.  While it does contain many laws and teachings, it also contains legal discussions and opinions which were not always accepted as definitive, scriptural interpretations, and stories.

Let us examine a mishnah to get the flavor of the text.  The Mishnah begins with the question:  “From what time may one recite the Sh’ma in the evening?”  This question makes two important assumptions:  first, that one is required to recite the Sh’ma in the evening and second, that one knows what the Sh’ma is.  A reader unfamiliar with Jewish life would have a difficult time understanding the Mishnah.

The mishnah then offers not one, but three answers to this question:  “From the time that the priests enter to eat their offering until the end of the first watch, according to Rabbi Eliezer.  But the sages say:  until midnight.  Rabban Gamliel says:  until the rise of dawn.”  There does not seem to be any disagreement about the earliest time one may say the Sh’ma, but there is a dispute about the latest time.  Now, the phrase “the sages say” indicates the majority of rabbis have so ruled and it is therefore the accepted opinion.  Nevertheless, the text includes other opinions indicating that the ruling was far from unanimous.

Next, the mishnah includes this story:  Rabban Gamliel’s “sons once returned from a wedding feast.  They said to him, ‘We have not recited the Shema.’ He said to them, ‘If the dawn has not risen, you are bound to recite it.’”  Thus, the practical import of the teaching is illustrated.  The kids were out partying and forgot to say the Shema.  When they realized their omission it was after midnight; nevertheless, their father tells them they are still required to say it. 

Finally, after giving other examples of acts that although the sages say one must do them before midnight, the obligation extends to dawn, the text asks:  “Why then do the sages say:  ‘until midnight?’”  The answer:  “In order to keep a person far from sin.”

In other words, though we are technically permitted to recite the Shema until dawn, the sages insist that we do it before midnight, so we won’t forget or leave it until the last moment.  This principle applies to many other practices, such as lighting Shabbat candles 19 minutes before sunset.

This text demonstrates that the Mishnah is much more than a law code; it is a collection of stories and teachings that developed as Judaism progressed from a biblically-based religion with the Temple as its center, to a rabbinic-based religion that could flourish in any part of the world.  It does not represent all of the teachings from the first and second centuries; there is another collection called the Tosephta, meaning addition, which follows the structure of the Mishnah, and offers other rabbinic opinions.  The Talmud also contains teachings from this time period which are not found in either the Mishnah or Tosephta, but must have been passed on orally, until they were included in the Talmud. 

While the Mishnah provided the Jewish community with a guide to Jewish practice, it leaves many questions unanswered.  It, thus, immediately became the focus of study in academies both in Palestine and in Babylonia, as rabbis debated virtually every word it contained.  The Mishnah, therefore, became the cornerstone of rabbinic literature, and the catalyst for the creation of a vast body of commentary that would eventually be added to the Mishnah to create the Talmud.

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