Mishna

Mishna (from Heb. shana, 'to learn;') erroneously held to designate Repetition) comprises the body of the 'Oral Law,' or the juridico-political, civil, and religious code of the Jews; and forms, as such, a kind of complement to the Mosaic or Written Law, which it explains, amplifies, and immutably fixes. It was not, however, on the authority of the schools and the masters alone that these explanations, and the new ordinances to which they gave rise, depended, but rather on certain distinct and well-authenticated traditions, traced to Mount Sinai itself. The Mishna (to which the Toseftas and Boraithas form supplements) was finally redacted, after some earlier incomplete collections, by Jehudah Hanassi, in 220 A.D., at Tiberias. It is mostly written in New Hebrew, and is divided into six portions (Sedarim): 1. Zeraim (Seeds), on Agriculture; 2. Moed (Feast), on the Sabbath, Festivals, and Fasts; 3. Nashim (Women), on Marriage, Divorce, &c. (embracing also the laws on the Nazirship and Vows); 4. Nezikim (Damages), chiefly civil and penal law (also containing the ethical treatise Aboth); 5. Kadashim (Sacred Things), Sacrifices, &c.; description of the Temple of Jerusalem, &c.; 6. Taharoth (Purifications), on pure and impure things and persons. See also EXEGESIS, Vol. IV. p. 497; TALMUD.