The time I finished my first chapter of Mishna

Dear family and friends, 

I am back after a short hiatus from writing. Turns out studying Torah all day eats up a lot of my time! 

What have I been up to since I last posted, you ask? Well, I ate many a meal under the stars in the sukkah, travelled to a hippie moshav for a music festival, visited a childhood friend in Haifa, spent Shabbat on the beach in Tel Aviv, hiked in the northern Jezreel Valley with my friends and teachers from Pardes, read Torah for the first time since my Bat Mitzvah (!), learned how to perform Birkat Hakohanim (spock hands are key here), found a cool new late minyan for young adults on Shabbat morning, studied the stories of Cain and Abel in Torah class, theologized about God in my Spiritual and Reflective Education course, and finished studying my first chapter of Mishna, ever! 

Now that you’re caught up on my life, I’d love to share with you a little bit about the Mishna I studied. The Mishna is essentially the first commentary and code of law derived from the written Torah by the rabbinic sages of Judaism, and was codified between 70- 220 AD (CE). Also known as the Oral Law, the Mishna was originally memorized and taught orally, before eventually being written down (in my case, in a slim picture book that ultra-orthodox second grade yeshiva students learn from). The Mishna is organized topically by Orders, known as “Seder” in Hebrew. The first Seder from which we studied is Zarim, or seeds, and has to do mostly with agriculture and every-day life. Within each Seder, there are Tractates, or “Masechet” in Hebrew. We studied from the first Masechet, Masechet Brachot (blessings). This tractate has to do with all of the blessings we are supposed to say (and there are a lot!) throughout the day. Blessings range from what we say when we wake up in the morning, to when we use the bathroom, to when we smell something beautiful, to when we go to sleep at night! Basically, this tractate accounts for the structure and order of our day to day lives. 

The very first Mishna from Seder Zarim, Masechet Brachot (Blessings), Chapter 1 starts out with a discussion about when and how we should say the Shema. The Shema is a six word prayer (preceded and followed by blessings, of course) that focus on the Jewish people’s relationship with community, and acknowledge the oneness of Hashem. The Shema is the centrepiece of our modern daily prayer. It is read every morning upon waking and every night before bed, and is incredibly significant as the Jewish people’s unifying statement. 

In considering the best time, place, position, and method of saying the Shema, the rabbis deliberate about how and when people sleep, study, walk, drink, eat, work, and pray, as it is commanded in the Torah to say the Shema “When you retire and when you get up”/“ובשכבך ובקומך”, “At home and on your way”/“בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך”. The stories that make up this Mishna are a description of human life and reality. Even more so, the rabbis who make up the discussion in this Mishna go out of their way to consider the outliers, attempting to make halakha (Jewish law) the most accessible that it can possibly be. Throughout the deliberations about the ritual of reading the Shema, the rabbinic enterprise proves itself as the attempt to find a balance between the considerations of human reality and behaviour, and the importance of structure and ritual in unifying a broken community. 

What we have to understand about the Mishna is that it was essentially a response to the destruction of the second temple. The rabbinic sages at the time of the destruction were left to pick up the pieces of a broken Judaism. A Judaism focused on temple service and sacrifice could no longer survive without an existing place for worship. As such, the rabbis engaged in the process of creating a Judaism of law and prayer, one which mirrored the familiar Judaism of the temple, but was innovative enough to cater to the new human realities of the Jewish people. 

Imagine a feeling of loss, darkness, and uncertainty that surrounded the destruction of the second temple. The Jewish people had lost the structure and routine that guided their lives. The rabbis of the time wrote the Mishna to give the Jewish people structure for ritual practice in order to help them adjust to a new reality, and remain connected to their community. The rabbis wrote the Mishna with the temple in mind, but their considerations of human reality encouraged the Jewish people to move on from the temple, and construct a new Judaism that would be able to survive and thrive in accordance with the reality of the world around them. The essence of the rabbinic enterprise, exemplified beautifully in this opening chapter of the Mishna, was to emphasize that even in the darkness of the night, amid destruction and displacement, we can still find a way to connect to each other and to the divine.  

Friends, does this sound familiar? Many of us have lost touch with a Judaism that feels distant, irrelevant, and inaccessible to us. It’s up to us to engage in the same process that our rabbis and sages did. If we want to see a Judaism that feels relevant and exciting, one that we can engage in on a meaningful ritual, spiritual, and communal level, it is up to us to look to our tradition and mold it to our modern lives and realities. It is my hope that I may have a partner in you in this process of modern Mishna-making.  

Before I sign off, I’d like to mention that I am writing this post in memory of my Baba Elaine, who encouraged me to “have in my heart what I want to do, and do it 100%, in good health and happiness always”. I am grateful that I get to live this mantra every day. 

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom, a good and peaceful week ahead! 

With love,
Lara