This analysis is often described as " mathematical " in approach ; Adin Steinsaltz makes the analogy of the Amoraim as scientists investigating the Halakha, where the Tanakh, Mishnah, Tosefta and midrash are the phenomena studied.

The most important early account of its composition, the Epistle of Sherira Gaon, is ambiguous on the point, though the " Spanish " recension leans to the theory that the Mishnah was written.

The starting point for the analysis is usually a legal statement found in a Mishnah.

The Priestly Code states that no harm was allowed to come to the perpetrator once the Jewish high priest had died, at which point the perpetrator was free to leave the city without fear ; the Mishnah states that the high priest's mother would traditionally supply clothing and food to those claiming asylum in the cities of refuge, so that these individuals would not wish for the death of her son.

That method takes the Mishnah of Judah ha-Nasi as a text or foundation, adding to it the other tannaitic traditions, and deriving from all of them the theoretical explanations and practical applications of the religious Law.

The Mishnah Berurah of Rabbi Yisroel Meir ha-Kohen, ( the " Chofetz Chaim ", Poland, 1838 – 1933 ) is a commentary on the " Orach Chayim " section of the Shulchan Aruch, discussing the application of each Halakha in light of all subsequent Acharonic decisions.

The Torah's commandment to love God " with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might " ( Deuteronomy 6: 5 ) is taken by the Mishnah ( a central text of the Jewish oral law ) to refer to good deeds, willingness to sacrifice one's life rather than commit certain serious transgressions, willingness to sacrifice all of one's possessions, and being grateful to the Lord despite adversity ( tractate Berachoth 9: 5 ).

In general, all opinions, even the non-normative ones, were recorded in the Mishnah and subsequently the Talmud.

As well as being printed on its own, the Mishnah is included in all editions of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds.

The Albeck edition of the Mishnah was vowelized by Hanokh Yellin, who made careful eclectic use of both medieval manuscripts and current oral traditions of pronunciation from Jewish communities all over the world.

The commentary is designed to make the Mishnah widely accessible to a wide spectrum of learners of all ages and all levels of experience in Torah study.

Since the Mishnah and all of the Baraitas and verses of Tanakh quoted and embedded in the Gemara are in Hebrew, Hebrew constitutes somewhat less than half of the text of the Talmud.

The latter compiled and edited the Mishnah ; Rav Ashi made it the labor of his life to collect after critical scrutiny, under the name of Gemara, those explanations of the Mishnah that had been handed down in the Babylonian academies since the days of Rab, together with all the discussions connected with them, and all the halakhic and haggadic material treated in the schools.

* The Seder ha-Mishmarah, used by some Jews of Near and Middle Eastern origin, in which each weekly Torah portion is studied together with sections from Neviim and Ketuvim and the Mishnah so that all these works are read in full in the course of the year: this too has been published in book form under the title Ḥoq le-Ya ' akob.

Johanan bar Nappaḥa ( 199 – 279 ) has left the following important note relative to the composition and editing of the Mishnah and other halakic works: " Our Mishnah comes directly from Rabbi Meir, the Tosefta from R. Nehemiah, the Sifra from R. Judah, and the Sifre from R. Simon ; but they all took Akiva for a model in their works and followed him " ( Sanh.

In the Oral Torah, the Mishnah comments that the biblical commandment to take the lulav, along with the other four species, is for all seven days of Sukkot only in and around the Temple Mount when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem is extant, as indicated by the verse as " in the presence of Hashem, your God, for seven days.

In response to the position taken by the Karaites in regards to the authority of the Talmud, Orthodox Judaism counters first that the majority of the Oral Law codified in the Mishnah and Talmud are the legal rulings of the last Sanhedrin, a body of 71 elders that made up the highest court of jurisprudence in ancient Israel, and that not all of the Oral Law are literally " Laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai ".

Examples of his contributions include his encyclopedic commentary to the entire Mishneh Torah set to the renowned Yemenite text of the Mishneh Torah, his translation of all of Maimonides ' Commentary on the Mishnah from Arabic into modern Hebrew, as well as translations of the Guide for the Perplexed, Duties of the Heart, Sefer Kuzari, and a number of other works.

* Mechon-Mamre. org has produced software for learning the Ḥumash, Tanakh, Mishnah, the Talmudic texts, as well as the Mishneh Torah according to Rabbi Qafiḥ and its own accurate and scholarly text, intended to be beneficial to all.

* Mechon-Mamre. org The Mamre Institute, by one particular group of students of the Rambam ; includes an especially accurate text of the Mishneh Torah, as well as all of the Tanakh, Mishnah, and other Talmudic texts.

According to the Mishnah and Tosefta, in the Maccabean, Herodian, and Mishnaic periods, new months were determined by the sighting of a new crescent, with two eye witnesses required to testify to the Sanhedrin to having seen the new lunar crescent at sunset.

The Mishnah commences with an account of the four beginnings of the religious and the civil year ( 1: 1 ); it speaks of the four judgement-days of the pilgrim festivals and Rosh ha-Shanah ( 1: 2 ); of the six months in which the messengers of the Sanhedrin announce the month ( 1: 3 ); of the two months, the beginnings of which witnesses announce to the Sanhedrin even on the Sabbath ( 1: 4 ), and even if the moon is visible to every one ( 1: 5 ); Gamliel even sent on the Sabbath for forty pairs of witnesses from a distance ( 1: 6 ); when father and son ( who as relatives may otherwise not witness together ) behold the new moon they must set out for the beth din ( 1: 7 ), since they do not absolutely belong to those that are legally unfit for this purpose ( 1: 8 ).

For example, the Mishnah mentions that the Shema need not be said in Hebrew A list of prayers that must be said in Hebrew is given in the Mishna, and among these only the Priestly Blessing is in use today, as the others are prayers that are to be said only in a Temple in Jerusalem, by a priest, or by a reigning King.

One must also note that in addition to redacting the Mishnah, Rabbi and his court also ruled on which opinions should be followed, though the rulings do not always appear in the text.

More recent scholarship, such as that of Yaakov Elman, concludes that since the Tosefta, as we know it, must be dated linguistically as an example of Middle Hebrew 1, it was most likely compiled in early Amoraic times from oral transmission of baraitot., Professor Shamma Friedman, has found that the Tosefta draws on relatively early Tannaitic source material and that parts of the Tosefta predate the Mishnah.

It must, however, be remarked that the Mishnah ( Pirkei Avoth v. 9 ) as yet knew nothing of the miraculous creation of Aaron's Rod, which is first mentioned by the Mekilta ( l. c.

Based on a line in the Mishnah declaring that Purim must be celebrated in Adar II in a leap year ( Megillah 1: 4 ), Adar I is considered the " extra " month.

The Mishnah ( Kiddushin 3: 12 ) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism.

Even the Mishnah contains some additions from the time of the Amoraim ( see, for example, iv. 2, where a gap must be filled from the Tosefta ).

The Mishnah Berurah writes that one who is sitting at home must travel up to one mil.

The Mishnah, as well as the Baraita, mentions the Boethusians as opposing the Pharisees in saying that the sheaf due at the Passover ( compare Omer ) must be offered not on the second feast-day, but on the day after the actual Shabbat of the festival week, and, accordingly, that Pentecost, which comes seven weeks and one day later, should always be celebrated on Sunday.

All Orthodox authorities, however, agree that only later Rabbinical interpretations are subject to reconsideration, and hold that core sources of Divine written and oral law, such as the Torah the Mishnah and the Talmud, cannot be overridden.

Over the next four centuries this law underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities ( in Israel and Babylonia ), and the commentaries on the Mishnah from each of these communities eventually came to be edited together into compilations known as the two Talmuds.

The Mishnah does not claim to be the development of new laws, but rather the collection of existing traditions.

The Mishnah does not claim to be the development of new laws, but merely the collection of existing oral laws, traditions and traditional wisdom.

From certain contexts of the Mishnah and Talmud it can be derived that women should not study Mishnah.

In the Mishnah there is also a reference to certain women teaching men the Torah from behind a curtain, so that no man would be offended.

* After the Maharal of Prague had initiated organised Mishnah study ( Chevrat ha-Mishnayoth ), Yomtov Lipman Heller ( who is often believed to be his pupil but came to Prague already as a mature scholar ) wrote a commentary called Tosafot Yom Tov.

* Some scholars hold that many or most of the statements and events described in the Mishnah and Talmud usually occurred more or less as described, and that they can be used as serious sources of historical study.

The exact forms of what later came to be called Judaism during the times of Moses or during the eras of the Mishnah and Talmud cannot be known today, but Orthodox Jews believe that contemporary Orthodox Judaism maintains the same basic philosophy and legal framework that existed throughout Jewish history, whereas the other denominations depart from it.

The term " Torah " is therefore also used in the general sense to include both Judaism's written law and oral law, serving to encompass the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash and more, and the inaccurate rendering of " Torah " as " Law " may be an obstacle to " understanding the ideal that is summed up in the term talmud torah ( תלמוד תורה, " study of Torah ").

This belief is based on a tradition, first recorded in the Mishnah ( 100BCE-100CE ), the Mishnah being the first time that traditions that were transmitted orally from what is claimed to be the time of Moses were put in writing.

The traditional view is that the Tosefta should be dated to a period concurrent with or shortly after the redaction of the Mishnah.

The original intention was that the two texts would be viewed on equal standing, but the succinctness of the Mishnah and the power and influence of Yehuda Ha-Nassi made it more popular among most students of tradition.

Later texts like the Mishnah and the Talmud record a host of rulings by Rabbis, some of whom are believed to be from among the Pharisees, concerning sacrifices and other ritual practices in the Temple, torts, criminal law, and governance.

During this period rabbis finalized the canonization of the Tanakh, and in 200 Judah haNasi edited together Tannaitic judgements and traditions into the Mishna, considered by the rabbis to be the definitive expression of the Oral Torah ( although some of the sages mentioned in the Mishnah are Pharisees who lived prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, or prior to the Bar Kozeba Revolt, most of the sages mentioned lived after the revolt ).