What Is the Mishnah?

Mishnah refers to a collection of decisions and traditional laws embracing all aspects of civil and religious legislation. This code, which several generations of masters called Tannaim worked on, was given its final form by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, around the second century CE It is divided into six parts (or orders), which are in turn subdivided into tractates, chapters, and paragraphs. The part is called Seder, the tractate Masekhet, the chapter Perek; the smallest paragraph of the collection bears, like the collection itself, the name Mishnah.