Jewish Legal Theory

A companion volume to Pirkei Avot.

Laws regarding purity and impurity may seem obscure to modern Jews, but the concepts give us a glimpse into a world where manifestations of death within life are not sanitized away.

The order of the Mishnah that describes the customs, laws, and rituals of Judaism's holy days

The rabbis restored the religious meaning of the sacrificial cult even though the Temple itself had been destroyed.

Seder Nashim's primary concern is the protection of society's "exceptional" members.

Some of the mishnaic laws related to agriculture remain directly relevant for contemporary urban and suburban lives.

Universal interpersonal and societal issues, rather than Jewish ritual law, are the main subject of Seder Nezikin.

The sequence of the six orders follows the precedent of Scripture

A description of Judaism's primary book of Jewish legal theory.

The Oral Torah reflects an attempt to create an eternal Judaism, unaffected by the setbacks that had afflicted the Jewish people in the preceding two centuries.