Sabbath as day of Rest and Reading The Torah: The Mishnah

There are various theories about, and explanations of, the origin of the Mishnah. They are usually coloured by legend and tradition and attribute only the highest of motives to those untraceable authors who compiled the volume. One explanation of the origin of the Mishnah claims that in the last centuries before the tum of the era, midrashim were prepared to explain the unclear sections of the teachings in the Torah.1 In time, the quantity of such midrashim was such that a method of organising the material was required, and so, during the first two centuries CE, the code of oral law, the Mishnah, was prepared. And in order to make clear that the oral law was not monolithic, the disputes and disagreements that were included in the formation of the final opinion were gathered together in the Mishnah. Tradition states that the bulk of the organisation of the laws and their sub-divisions was carried out by R. Akiba,2 and that the compilation was completed near the beginning of the third century CEo Neusner sees the organising principle of the compilers as being neither abstract nor theological, but grounded in the needs of everyday life. These needs, he believes, have been organised in six sections: agriculture (including blessings and prayers), festivals,