The main body of halakhak (law/practice) in the oral Torah was, by its name, allegedly passed down by word of mouth for 34 generations, until the early 3rd century, when it was put to writing in the Mishnah by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi, who allegedly enjoyed close friendship with the emperor Marcus Aurelius (Sanhedrin 91a, Avodah Zarah, 10b). The title of the Mishnah finds it derivative root in the verb שָׁנָה, which means “to repeat.” This body of rabbinic tradition includes the halakhah, the aggadah, and the teachings of the Tannaim. “The Gemara raises an objection to Rabbi Yoḥanan from a baraita: What is the meaning of: Mishna? Rabbi Meir says halakhot, Rabbi Yehuda says homiletics. Neither of them, however, says that it refers to the written Torah.” (Kiddushin 49a)
The head of the Sanhedrin (נָשִׂיא, nasi) before Judah Ha-Nasi was his father, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel. Rabbi Nassan traveled to Israel from Babylon to serve as the Av Beit Din. The full list of students taught under Gamliel is recorded in the Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ch. 2. Rabbi Meir is said to have been the “wisest” sage of this era. The same writer describes how the oral Torah was transmitted during this generation: “Each of the sages taught as his master taught him. One would place a certain topic at the beginning [of the exposition] while another would place it later. One would treat [the topic] succinctly, while another would expand at length. Sometimes a sage even taught his teacher’s dictum without mentioning opposing views, although he knew that the majority ruled differently. Indeed, we say: ‘A man is obliged to use the same wording as his teacher.’ (Mishnah Eduyot 1:3)” (Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ch. 2)
And the chief causes of the writing down of the oral traditions contained in the Mishnah appear to me to be two: (1) The various persecutions which the Jews endured after the destruction of the temple in AD 70, which was God’s just punishment on them for the rejection of their Messiah. It was understood that the Torah might be forgotten amongst the Jews; Maimonides writes: וְכֵן הָיָה הַדָּבָר תָּמִיד עַד רַבֵּנוּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ. וְהוּא קִבֵּץ כָּל הַשְּׁמוּעוֹת וְכָל הַדִּינִים וְכָל הַבֵּאוּרִים וְהַפֵּרוּשִׁים שֶׁשָּׁמְעוּ מִמּשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, וְשֶׁלִּמְּדוּ בֵּית דִּין שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר בְּכָל הַתּוֹרָה כֻּלָּהּ, וְחִבֵּר מֵהַכֹּל - סֵפֶר הַמִּשְׁנָה. וְשִׁנְּנוֹ לַחֲכָמִים בָּרַבִּים וְנִגְלָה לְכָל יִשְׂרָאֵל וּכְתָבוּהוּ כֻלָּם, וְרִבְּצוֹ בְּכָל מָקוֹם כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא תִשְׁתַּכַּח תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל. וְלָמָה עָשָׂה רַבֵּנוּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ כָּךְ וְלֹא הִנִּיחַ הַדָּבָר כְּמוֹת שֶׁהָיָה? - לְפִי שֶׁרָאָה שֶׁתַּלְמִידִים מִתְמַעֲטִין וְהוֹלְכִין, וְהַצָּרוֹת מִתְחַדְּשׁוֹת וּבָאוֹת, וּמַלְכוּת רוֹמִי פּוֹשֶׁטֶת בָּעוֹלָם וּמִתְגַּבֶּרֶת, וְיִשְׂרָאֵל מִתְגַּלְגְּלִין וְהֹולְכִין לַקְּצָווֹת - חִבֵּר חִבּוּר אֶחָד לִהְיוֹת בְּיָד כֻּלָּם, כְּדֵי שֶׁיִּלְמְדוּהוּ בִּמְהֵרָה וְלֹא יִשָּׁכַח; וְיָשַׁב כָּל יָמָיו הוּא וּבֵית דִּינוֹ וְלִמְּדוּ הַמִּשְׁנָה בָּרַבִּים. “This situation continued until the age of Rabbenu Hakadosh. He collected all the teachings, all the laws, and all the explanations and commentaries that were heard from Moses, our teacher, and which were taught by the courts in each generation concerning the entire Torah. From all these, he composed the text of the Mishnah. He taught it to the Sages in public and revealed it to the Jewish people, who all wrote it down. They spread it in all places so that the oral law would not be forgotten by the Jewish people. Why did Rabbenu Hakadosh make such an innovation instead of perpetuating the status quo? Because he saw the students becoming fewer, new difficulties constantly arising, the Roman Empire spreading itself throughout the world and becoming more powerful, and the Jewish people wandering and becoming dispersed to the far ends of the world. Therefore, he composed a single text that would be available to everyone, so that it could be studied quickly and would not be forgotten. Throughout his entire life, he and his court taught the Mishnah to the masses.” (Maimonides, Introduction to Mishneh Torah) ; (2) the ever-increasing disputes over Jewish law amongst the rabbis, especially between the disciples of Hillel and Shammai. For, the Talmudists describe the state of the Jewish oral law prior to the time of Hillel and Shammai: “It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yosei said: Initially, discord would not proliferate among Israel. Rather, the court of seventy-one judges would sit in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. And there were two additional courts each consisting of twenty-three judges; one would convene at the entrance to the Temple Mount, and one would convene at the entrance to the Temple courtyard. And all the other courts consisting of twenty-three judges would convene in all cities inhabited by the Jewish people. If the matter was unclear and it was necessary to ask and clarify it, those uncertain of the halakha would ask the court that is in their city. If the members of the court heard a clear halakhic ruling with regard to that matter, they said it to them, and if not, they would come to a court that is adjacent to their city. If the members of the court heard a clear halakhic ruling with regard to that matter, they said it to them, and if not, they would come to the court at the entrance to the Temple Mount. If the members of the court heard a clear halakhic ruling with regard to that matter, they said it to them, and if not, they would come to the court at the entrance to the Temple courtyard. And the elder whose ruling deviated from the ruling of his colleagues says: This is what I interpreted and that is what my colleagues interpreted; this is what I taught and that is what my colleagues taught. If the members of the court heard a clear halakhic ruling with regard to that matter, they said it to them, and if not, these judges and those judges would come to the Chamber of Hewn Stone, where the Sanhedrin would be convened from the time that the daily morning offering is sacrificed until the time that the daily afternoon offering is sacrificed.” (Sanhedrin 88b). But later on the same page, the Talmud says “מִשֶּׁרַבּוּ תַּלְמִידֵי שַׁמַּאי וְהִלֵּל שֶׁלֹּא שִׁמְּשׁוּ כׇּל צָרְכָּן, רַבּוּ מַחְלוֹקוֹת בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל וְנַעֲשֵׂית תּוֹרָה כִּשְׁתֵּי תוֹרוֹת; “From the time that the disciples of Shammai and Hillel grew in number, and they were disciples who did not attend to their masters to the requisite degree, dispute proliferated among the Jewish people and the Torah became like two Torahs. Two disparate systems of halakha developed, and there was no longer a halakhic consensus with regard to every matter.”. And also Maimonides: “After the Supreme Sanhedrin was nullified, differences of opinion multiplied among the Jewish people. One would rule an article is impure and support his ruling with a rationale and another would rule that it is pure and support his ruling with a rationale. This one would rule an article is forbidden and this would rule that it is permitted.” (Mishneh Torah: Sefer Shoftim, 1:4) (3) The Jews openly confess that the oral Torah could not have been remembered for centuries after the destruction of the Temple without it being written down. “And a proof for this is that Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish used to read from a scroll of aggadah containing the words of the Sages on Shabbat. But such a scroll may not be written, for in principle, the statements of the Oral Law may not be committed to writing. Rather, since it is not possible to remember the Oral Law without writing it down, it is permitted to violate the halakha, as indicated by the verse: ‘It is time to act for the Lord; they have nullified your Torah’ (Psalms 119:126).” (Gittin 60a)
Prior to the Mishnah, scholars have debated to what extent the notion of an exclusively oral tradition is actually existent before AD 70 and the beginning of the academy at Yavneh during the life of Yohanan ben Zakkai. I looked earlier at Neusner’s thesis, and I wish now to enumerate some of the claims of Dr. Martin Jaffee, who contends that “in recoverable rabbinic tradition, written texts serve as the foundation for rather than the crystallization of oral tradition. Oral tradition, in other words, must be understood as the oral performance of and discourse upon written texts rather than the oral transmission of unwritten traditional lore.” (Martin Jaffee, “How Much ‘Orality’ in Oral Torah? New Perspectives on the Composition and Transmission of Early Rabbinic Tradition,” in Shofar, Vol. 10, No. 2, Special Issue: Rabbinics and Talmud [Winter 1992], pg. 56)
So then, whether there was a rabbinic tradition during the time of Christ and afterwards is not questioned by these studies. Rather, it is shown that whether it was written or oral was not of much importance to the pre-Mishnaic rabbis. Perhaps this is why the phrase Torah shebaal-peh first appears in the late 3rd century midrash halakhah (Sifre Devarim, 351). Prior to the Mishnah, was the oral tradition (which did indeed exist at that time) seen as an end-in-itself or was it grounded in written texts? While the concept of the Oral Torah is taken for granted throughout the Talmud, in the Mishnah we find the simple distinction between halakhah which are derived from the Torah (d’oraita) and those that originate from the Sanhedrin (d’rabbanan). The d’oraita includes those laws which are derived from the written Torah by means of exegesis and certain principles of interpretation, especially the 13 rules of Rabbi Ishmael. The categorical distinction between written and oral Torah is not yet seen to be of Mosaic origin! Perhaps this is why torah is used broadly in the Mishnah without the definite article? (Pirkei Avot, 1:1; Mishnah Chagigah, 1:8).
The epistle of Sherira Gaon (AD 906-1006) describes the transitional and innovative nature of the Mishnah by noting that the rabbis prior to Judah Ha-Nasi each passed down the oral Torah in each of their peculiar styles and terminology, but with the same message (thus, not much emphasis was placed by the pre-Mishnaic rabbis upon oral transmission verbatim). The Mishnah changed this by providing a set form of rabbinic teachings to be studied and commented upon. While those who would defend the Oral Torah would insist that its inscription into the Mishnah and Talmud only changed the medium of transformation, Jaffee is correct to point out that the transition from oral to written does have a profound impact upon the content of the message itself. Even if we do support the notion of pre-literary fixed oral rabbinic tradition, how do we know if the Mishnah and Talmud accurately reflect it—especially considering that the rabbinic texts which describe the methods of transmission were once oral themselves (Martin Jaffee, How Much ‘Orality’ in Oral Torah? New Perspectives on the Composition and Transmission of Early Rabbinic Tradition,” pg. 67)
The Mishnah is divided into Six Orders (Sedarim), which individually enumerate and discuss one particular area of the Jewish law. The orders are in turn divided into a total of 63 tractates (masechtot).
(1). Seder Zeraim - Agricultural laws
(2). Seder Moed - The laws of Shabbat, festivals, fasts, holy days, etc.
(3). Seder Nashim (Women) - The laws of marriage, divorce, widowhood, vows, Nazarite laws
(4). Seder Nezikin (Damages) - Dealing with civil damages, monetary law, property rights, and Rabbinical courts.
(5). Seder Kodashim (Sanctities) - The Temple offerings, kosher dietary laws.
(6). Seder Tohoros (Purities) - The laws of ritual purity and uncleanness (tumah & tzaraas), and the immersion (mikveh).
There is some possible indication that there was a division of tractates even prior to Judah ha-Nasi, as the Talmud records the following story about Gamliel II: “Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said to himself: What is this that is transpiring before us? Perhaps, Heaven forfend, there is something transpiring in the study hall. He suspected that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Natan were planning something. He concentrated and studied tractate Okatzin. The following day Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Natan said to him: Let the Master come and teach a lesson in tractate Okatzin. He began and stated the lesson he had prepared. After he completed teaching the tractate, he said to them: If I had not studied the tractate, you would have humiliated me.” (Horayot 13b)
Throughout various manuscripts and recensions, the orders and 63 tractates of the Mishnah have been arranged in different ways. This leads Hermann Strack to conclude “The inconsistent arrangement of the tractates within their orders shows that this subdivision [of the Mishnah] does not follow a normative original structure of the text, but was subject to the changing interests in the scholarly activity of the Rabbis and their successors. It was only the MS tradition and above all the effort of Maimonides which standardized the arrangement of the blocks of traditions within the Mishnah, but without ever producing complete uniformity.” (Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, pg. 121). The Talmud itself seems to acknowledge this explicitly with its bizarra contention that there were originally 600 orders of the Mishnah: “The eighteen items listed in these verses shall be removed from Israel. The Gemara proceeds to clarify the homiletical meaning of these terms: “Support”; these are masters of the Bible. “Staff”; these are masters of Mishna, such as Rabbi Yehuda ben Teima and his colleagues. The Gemara interjects: Rav Pappa and the Rabbis disagreed with regard to this. One of them said: They were proficient in six hundred orders of Mishnah, and the other one said: In seven hundred orders of Mishnah, only six of which remain today.” (Chagigah 14a)
Maimonides relates that one of the reasons why the Mishnah records divergent opinions in matters relating to the Jewish halakhah is that if a later Sage came and taught an opinion contrary to the accepted majority-view, it would not cause too much confusion, since he is merely passing down a view of a particular rabbi which differed from the majority opinion of the Tannaim (Maimonides, Introduction to the Talmud, trans. Zvi Lampel [New York: Judaica Press, 1975], pg. 101)
According to Sherira Gaon, much of the anonymous portions of the Mishnah can be ascribed to Rabbi Meir, and the efforts of Judah Ha-Nasi were done out of a deep concern that the oral Torah might be lost amongst the scattered Jewish diaspora. Another reason for writing down the oral tradition was the copious amounts of disagreement over halakhah that had arisen between the schools of Hillel and Shammai. “The following, then, are the points of reference of a traditional common opinion: Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi edited the Mishnah; his main source was the Mishnah of R. Meir, who in turn is based on the Mishnah of his teacher Akiva [cf. Mishnah Sanhedrin, 3:4]. Yet even Akiva was not the Mishnah’s first redactor, but resorted to a ‘first Mishnah’ whose roots go back to biblical times.” (Hermann Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, pg. 125)
Some scholars have suggested that the Second-Temple practice of midrash is prior to that of halakhah, and constitutes a probable origin of the Mishnaic tradition. J.Z. Lauterbach, for example, believed that during the Maccabean period, there arose a new method of teaching the halakhah without direct reference to Scripture. (“Midrash and Mishnah: A Study in the Early History of the Halakhah,” in Rabbinic Essays, 163ff). On the other hand, D. Halvini argues that it was the unique circumstances of the post-AD 70 period which give more probable reason for putting the Mishnah to a standardized form (Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law [Cambridge, MA: 1985], pgs. 18ff).
Though Judah ha-Nasi’s role in the composition of the Mishnah is undeniable, there were probably additions to it made after his time. For example, the mention of rabbis who lived after him, such as his son Gameliel (Pirkei Avot, 2.2) and Rabbi Joshua ben Levi (Pirkei Avot, 6.2). Obviously, passages which mention the death of Judah ha-Nasi were not authored by him (Mishnah Sotah, 9.15).
It is freely admitted by some of the Jews that Judah ha-Nasi did not record every single one of the mishnayot in the exact form it was passed down to him from earlier sages, but arranged some of them as he believed to be most prudential: “However, with other tractates, even though their basic principles had already been taught by the early sages, Rebbe arranged their halakhot—some of them he taught in the original wording, and others he worded as he saw fit.” (Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ch. 3)
The general rule established in the rabbinic tradition is that any anonymous passages of the Mishnah are to be attributed unto Rabbi Meir. אָמַר רַבִּי יְהוּדָה, אִם כֵּן לָמָּה מַזְכִּירִין דִּבְרֵי הַיָּחִיד בֵּין הַמְרֻבִּין לְבַטָּלָה. שֶׁאִם יֹאמַר הָאָדָם כָּךְ אֲנִי מְקֻבָּל, יֵאָמֵר לוֹ, כְּדִבְרֵי אִישׁ פְּלוֹנִי שָׁמָעְתָּ; “R. Yochanan said ‘An anonymous Mishnah is R. Meir. An anonymous Tosefta is R. Nechemiah. An anonymous Sifra is R. Yehudah. An anonymous Sifrei is R. Shimon. And all of them taught in the way of Rabbi Akiva.” (Sanhedrin 86a). Hence, it is said by the Jews that Rabbi Meir and R. Akiva were “preferable to all the other Tannaim.” (Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ch. 3).
The Mishnah will often record the opinions of the minority, even when it is not accepted amongst the Jews as a binding halakhah; and this is so that there may not be confusion amongst those who pass down the minority opinion from the sages which taught them: “Rabbi Yehudah said: ‘Why is the opinion of the minority recorded along with the majority? In order to nullify it, so that if a man says this, [one can] say to him: ‘Where did you hear this?’ If he replies: ‘I received it [as a tradition from my teachers],’ one can say to him: ‘Perhaps what you heard was the opinion of so-and-so.’” (Mishnah Eduyot, 1:6)
The following section is a listing and brief description of the most important rabbis of the Tannaim, who are mentioned often throughout the Mishnah:
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai: Allegedly the founder of the rabbinic academy at Yavneh and also known for his escape from Jerusalem during the destruction of the Temple (AD 70). It was Rabbi Yohanan who announced to Vespasian that he had become the Roman emperor, who proceeded to allow R. Yohanan to start the academy at Yavneh, to protect the family of R. Shimon ben Gamliel, and provide a physician for the Rabbis. Apparently these 3 requests of Yohanan were what preserved the study of the Torah for the Jews. Some of Yohanan ben Zakkai’s most famous rabbinical rulings included: (1) the law that priests should take off their shoes when reciting the Birchas Kohanim; (2) the law of drinking bitter water to determine if a woman was an adulterer was ended (Sotah 47a). If any wish to know of his other decrees, they may consult Rosh Hashanah, 29b-31b.
Rabbi Judah ben Bava: One of the “Ten Martyrs” killed by the soldiers of the emperor Hadrian. He died shortly after giving semichah to Rabbi Meir, R. Judah bar Ilai, R. Elazar ben Shamua, and R. Simon bar Yochai. The full story is recorded in the Talmud: “But doesn’t Rav Yehuda say that Rav says: Indeed [beram], that man will be remembered favorably, and Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava is his name, as had it not been for him the laws of fines would have been forgotten from among the Jewish people. The Gemara challenges that assertion: Would the laws of fines actually have been forgotten? Let the scholars study them, so they will not be forgotten….What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava do? He went and sat between two large mountains, and between two large cities, and between two Shabbat boundaries: Between Usha and Shefaram, i.e., in a desolate place that was not associated with any particular city so that he would not endanger anyone not directly involved, and there he ordained five Elders, namely: Rabbi Meir, and Rabbi Yehuda, and Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua. And Rav Avya adds that Rabbi Neḥemya was also among those ordained.” (Avodah Zarah 8b)
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa: An example in rabbinic literature of a charismatic figure and faith-healer.
Rabban Gamaliel II: Gamaliel was the first Nasi of the Sanhedrin at Yavneh after the death of Yohanan ben Zakkai. He was known for his strict criteria for admitting scholars into the yeshiva. Gamaliel was famously deposed from leadership by Eliezer ben Azariah. He was said to be overly harsh in his disagreements with Rabbi Yehoshua (Berakhot 27b-28a), the latter of whom ruled that the evening Shemonei Esrei prayer was not obligatory. They also disagreed over things such as laws concerning the bechor (firstborn livestock). Gamaliel forced R. Yehoshua to stand on his feet as he continued his lecture (Bechoros 36a).
Rabbi Chiyya: Chiyya is the most well-renowned rabbi after Judah Ha-Nasi. He was a member of the yeshiva in Tzippori. Chiyya was one of the first amoraim to go back to Israel, and being a student of Judah Ha-Nasi—Chiyya was appointed to adjudicate matters of halakhah on his own! (Sanhedrin 5a), and apparently had an early version of the Mishnah (Nedarim 41a). One example of how the Jews idolize their rabbis is the myths and fables they tell about Rabbi Chiyya, such that R. Yose and Reish Lakish would fast for lengthy periods of time in order to see him in a dream (Jerusalem Talmud, Kilayim 9:3), and that he has a high place in the “heavenly academy” (Bava Metzia 85b).
Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakanah: According to the Kabbalah, he is the author of the Sefer Ha-Bahir. He is also said to have been the teacher of Rabbi Ishmael.
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah: Rabbi Yehoshua was often engaged in debate against R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. He was trained at the academy of Yohanan ben Zakkai. The Talmud records (Chagigah 14b) a story that Rabbi Yehoshua was walking with R. Yose the Priest, discussing the prophet Ezekiel’s famous vision of the Chariot. Suddenly, a rainbow appeared in the sky (Shekhinah) and angels gathered to hear the words of R. Yehoshua.
Rabbi Meir: Meir is mentioned quite often in the Gemara. Allegedly, his teaching was one-third aggadah, one-third halakhah, and one-third parables (Sanhedrin 38b). Meir studied under Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva (Sanhedrin 14a). Rabbi Meir was praised as being so in-depth in his study and knowledge that it seemed as though he were grinding mountains against each other (Sanhedrin 24a). Meir was the teacher of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi.
Hillel: Tradition tells us that Hillel studied under the zugot Shemaya and Abtaylon. He was appointed leader and Nasi of the Sanhedrin after showing the sons of Beseirah that it was lawful to offer the Pesach offering on the Sabbath (Pesachim 66b). The academy of Hillel drew in many famous students, such as R. Yohanan ben Zakkai and R. Jonathan ben Uzziel. A story is told that Hillel was at one time unable to enter the Torah study hall, so he sat on the roof to listen in. It was snowing, and he became unconscious due to the weather. The next morning, Shemyah and Abtaylon found him and carried him down, even though it meant desecrating the Sabbath (Yoma 35b).
Rabbi Akiva: Akiva is perhaps the most famous of all the tanaaim. Allegedly, he considered the rebel Bar Kokhba to be the “star of Jacob” (a Messianic figure). As a Torah student, he studied under Rabbi Yehoshua (Avot deRabbi Natan, 4:29). Akiva was allegedly ordained with semichah, according to the Jerusalem Talmud. Historians have long debated Akiva’s role in the Bar Kokhba revolt, and whether he ought to be considered a supporter of it. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about Akiva was that he believed that Bark Kokhba was the Messiah! (Jerusalem Talmud, Ta’anit 4:68d).
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