How to Use a Mishnah Page

When Hashem gave the Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai, it came in two distinct parts: the written Torah, the תורה שבכתב, which is, as we know, the Torah, the חמישה חומשי תורה, the five books of the Torah, and the oral Torah, the תורה שבעל פה, the explanation that's passed from teacher to student. In the later years of the second Beis HaMikdash, and for generations after it, the Chachamim, we call the Tannaim, taught that תורה שבעל פה, the oral Torah, they explained it, debated it, and applied it to new questions. Hillel and Shammai, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yosei, Rabbi Akiva, these are some of the names that you'll meet on these pages. After the Churban of the Beis HaMikdash, with the Bnei Yisrael scattered and the troubles growing, there was a real fear that the oral Torah, the תורה שבעל פה would be forgotten. So around 1,800 years ago, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, one of the last of the great Tannaim, gathered those teachings and set them in order. That collection is the Mishnah.

Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi divided the teachings into six sedarim, six orders. The first is Zeraim, which is about the land and what grows from it. The second is Moed, the special times of the year. The third is Nashim, which is about marriage and family. The fourth, Nezikin, which is about damages and the courts. The fifth, Kodashim, is about the Beis HaMikdash and the various korbanos. And finally the sixth seder is Taharos, about purity and tumah. Put the first letters of each of the sedarim together, and you get Zeman Nakat, and that's where this website gets its name. The six sedarim are divided into 63 Masechtos, each masechta covering broadly one topic. The Masechtos themselves are broken into perakim, chapters, and the perakim are broken into the Mishnayos. There are about 4,200 Mishnayos throughout the Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, and each Mishnah typically will have one or two rules or cases that it discusses. Typically, Mishnayos are short, often just a few lines, and each one has a page here on our website. Let's open one.

When you click on a Mishnah page, the page will tell you exactly where you are: what Seder, so in this case Seder Moed, what Masechta, in this case Masechta Taanis, what Perek you're in, which this time Perek four, the fourth chapter, and which Mishnah you are in, this one Mishnah ו, Mishnah six. And this is particularly useful because before you learn what a Mishnah says, it's helpful to know where it sits within the ששה סדרי משנה.

Every Mishnah on this website has an audio recording. To listen, press play. As the Mishnah is read, each word of the Mishnah will light up accordingly, so your eyes stay with your ears. Lose your place? Tap any word in the Mishnah and the audio will jump right there. Many of the Mishnayos recordings will have an introduction to the Mishnah. And if all you want is to hear the Mishnah itself, you can simply press skip to the Mishnah. If you are listening on your phone, the text of the Mishnah will move one section at a time. Simply swipe to the next.

As you can see, the text of the Mishnah is color-coded: red, green, blue, purple, gold. These colors are not just decorations. Rather, each color marks a job that the words that you are seeing are doing in the Mishnah. If our Mishnah names a Tanna who is speaking, that name will be in gold. The rulings of the Mishnah will either be in green or red, depending on the type of ruling the Mishnah is teaching. If the Mishnah tells us a reason, it will be in blue. General rules will be in fuchsia, conditions to a ruling will be in purple. The cases themselves that the Mishnah is discussing will be in black, regular text. The idea is that each color marks a job, and therefore, when you see the Mishnah and the colors, it will be easy to discern what exactly the words you are reading are trying to do. This will help you understand how a Mishnah is built, because by understanding the structure of a Mishnah, it will help you understand what the Mishnah is trying to teach and how it's going to teach.

Under the original Hebrew text of the Mishnah is a translation, phrase by phrase. It is not an exact translation. It's meant to act as a reading aid, to support the Hebrew, not to replace it. Always read the Hebrew first, and glance down when you need to. Like the text of the Mishnah itself, it will highlight as the audio plays.

Just above the Hebrew text of the Mishnah will be a small title of the Mishnah or the topic of the Mishnah. It helps you remember what the Mishnah is about to teach. There is also a little box that tells you what type of Mishnah you are looking at. In this particular one, it says it's a list. A list type of Mishnah is one where the Mishnah counts out a set of characteristics or a set of rules that apply to the case. Very often a Mishnah will have, start with a number, just like our Mishnah, where there were five things that happened on Tisha B'Av and five things that occurred on Shivah Asar b'Tammuz, because using numbers is a good way to remember the teaching of the Mishnah. Throughout the site, we have broken down the Mishnayos into six different types of Mishnayos. It could be a rule, a case, a Mishnah that draws a boundary, a list like our Mishnah, a Mishnah that teaches you how something is done, and a Mishnah that has a story, a ma'aseh. Again, knowing the type of Mishnah you are about to learn helps frame the Mishnah for you, so you can anticipate the way the Mishnah would like to teach you the topic. You can read more about these kinds of Mishnayos on the website.

Below the text of the Mishnah and its translation are a number of additional features that help you dive deeper into the Mishnah itself. The first of these is what we call the Mishnah's structure. It is a graphic that is meant to help teach the structure of the Mishnah itself. So for example, in our Mishnah, it's two sets of five, so you will see two columns each having five events that belong on each of the days, one, you know, five on Shiva Asar B'Tammuz and five on Tisha B'Av. For other Mishnayos, the structure will try to show you the borders where, let's say, the Tannaim have a machlokes. Not every Mishnah will have a structure chart. Below that is the summary chart, which acts as a review for the Mishnah. It will lay out the cases of the Mishnah and the rulings, and if somebody is who if there's a Tanna, who is speaking, and if there's a reason for the Mishnah, will tell you the reason given in the Mishnah for the ruling itself. These are both meant to provide memory aids and review functions for each of the Mishnayos.

Once you understand the basic Mishnah and its structure, and you're ready for more, you can open the additional features below, including the entire transcript of the audio shiur. You can tap any word and the audio will jump there. We also have all the meforshim that we gathered from the Sefaria website, giving you access to all of the classical meforshim commentaries of the Mishnah itself. We also have a section called Mishnah Insights, where a few of the ideas surrounding the Mishnah come alive. These are taken from the traditional commentaries, more modern commentaries, and yours truly, myself. None of these are needed to understand the Mishnah itself. You do not have to open any of them, but they are there when you want them.

When you finish a Mishnah, press Mark Learned, then Next. Each one leads to the next, through the whole masechta or through the whole series or the whole chabura. And when you reach the end, we celebrate. Every siyum deserves one. I hope you enjoyed this guided tour of our website, and I look forward to your success in learning.