The Value of Learning Mishna

As previously mentioned I am currently doing a perek of Mishna daily. So far I have completed Brachot and have done about 9 perekim of Shabbos There are many advantages to doing a perek a day and they are as follows:

1. Time frame

Daf Yomi for Gemera takes 7+ years. It takes an extreme amount of commitment to stand out those seven years, including every shabbat and yom tov.  To go through daf yomi will take at least an hour every day, sometimes more if the content is more technical. I have heard some shiurim where they literally just fly through a whole daf in half and hour. Lets be realistic people, honestly, how much can you possibly take in that half an hour? Also if you are a novice learner like myself where the langauge and punctuation of the gemera is a stumbling block, you wont be even able to review the page afterwards without audio tapes or an Arstscoll.

In contrast the Perek a day cycle for Mishna is much shorter, it is a year and a half. There are 525 perekim of Mishna, that amounts to 525 days. If one does 12 mishnas a day you will finish in a year. By the time your daf yomi pals have finished one cycle you could have finished the entire of mishna 4 or 5 times.  Secondly one must remember that their is no Gemera on Taharot, so that entire section of Torah (126 / 525 perekim) is something they will have never learn’t, and that is a great shame.

To learn a perek of Mishna a day with a chevrusa can take anywhere between 30 minutes and a hour (depending on the subject matter, the amount of shmoozing in between and your concentration span). During that time I work on learning all the vocab and know pshat in each mishna, something for me which is feasabile. Of course it requires review, but I’ll eleborate on that later.

2. Level of Depth

Now the argument can be that learning Mishna is very superficial, to that I counter “it depends”. If one would learn just simply with Bartenura / Kehati one will get a very thorough understanding of the pshat in each mishna, the use of illustration books, eg the beautiful set by Feldheim for Shabbos defintely helps with conceptulising the more abstract cases. To be able to know pshat in each mishna, go through all the opinions and know all the vocab so one can review, is a pretty fine achievment in my book. How many people doing daf-yomi can say that after each daf?

However there is much more bi’iyun that one could learn if one wanted to. If one had to learn as well the parush of Rashi, Rambam, Melechet Shlomo and Tiferet Yisrael, the GR”A, Tosfos Yom Tov, etc there is no end to how deep one can get. Even just learning the Mishna the with Yad Avraham parush from Artscroll will give you a very deep insight into each mishna (each one of their volumes is like 300 plus pages!).

3. Review

To review a perek of mishna once you know it will literally take about 5 minutes. Once one has all the vocab and pshat one can just review many times during the day. If one has a very sharp brain one can even remember it off by heart. Each day one can review over what one did the day before (thats what I do with my chevrusa). Also every shabbat one chazer over what he did the whole week (7 perekim). To chazer a whole week of daf-yomi is basically impossible (7 daf) unless one has a Vilna Gaon type brain and an immense amount of time in ones hands. Also as I mentioned before, how much of it will you know?

Do not get me wrong, I am not here to “diss” Daf – Yomi, I just feel (and I am not the first to say it) that people learn Daf – Yomi because that is the current fad, the material goes in one ear and out the other and that is no time to review. I also feel that many novice learners like myself are put into learning daf-yomi because that is the only option – well my friends, there is a better way!

Getting started:

First of one needs a plain set of Mishna for Chazera. The only way to see if you really know something is just to have the plain mishna text in front of you with no commentaries. I recommend for that the following: Mishna Sedura by R’ Eliyahu Chaim Dordak. It has the text of the mishna arranged into columns with nekudot with a beautful typeset and nice a font size and layout. It costs 43.95 USD (see here for a place to buy and also for images of the actual pages). For three volumes for the whole of Mishna I feel it is pretty good value for money.  Mishna Sedura also has good summary charts at the back and a calender to help you monitor your progress. It is lightweight with a nice clean cover and I have been very happy with my investment.

Second one needs a Mishna set to explain to you pshat. For that one has many choices from Kehati (English / Hebrew), Artscroll (Yad Avraham), plain Bartenura set and many other volumes that are available in Hebrew. Just go down to your local seforim store or Eichlers.com to see what is available. This is a personal choice. I personally love the Kehati English (Large edition) because it gives you a nice pshat without much complication and many Mishnayot can be found in a single volume. If one wants the small pocketsize english version is also available for travel on the road.

Third one must set a daily set time to learn and set time to review. That is left up to the individual. I personally am on vaction at the moment so I learn an hour after davening every morning. I do my review on Shabbat, and during the day I practice what I learn’t each day to remember the vocab and pshat. I enjoy learning with a chevrusa, because one can go through it together, test each other and also it is good company. However for those who wish to learn in the privacy of their own home, there are plenty of options out there

a) Audio Shiurim

In case you are not aware there are some great audio shiurim out there for Mishna Study

Rabbi Chaim Brown (http://www.shemayisrael.com/mishna/)

A very short simple shiur, each shiur goes according to the 2 mishna a day cycle (If one does that one will finish in 6 years). Explains pshat in each mishna is good for review. Just about all of Mishna is available online

Rabbi Meir Pogrow (http://613.org/mishnah.html)

Very indepth bi’inyun shiur that goes for an hour a perek. Goes through many meforshim and gives great insight into all the mishnayot. Not all of his shiurim are up at the momenet but more are said to be added.

Rabbi Grossman (http://www.dafyomi.org/mishnayos.php)

Of Dafyomi.org fame. A more bekiut type shiur, similiar to R’ Chaim Brown

b) Other online resources

Kehati Mishna Archives

(http://web.archive.org/web/20100704094401/http://www.moreshet.net/oldsite/mishna/index.htm)

Contains all of the Kehati Mishnayot (in English!) for many Sederim of Mishna (By the looks of things has the whole of Moed, Nashim, Nezikin and some of Kodshim). To the best of my knowledge there is no copyright infringement as this is the actuall company / organisation who publishes the English version of Kehati

Mishna (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/h/h0.htm)

All of Mishna available online for easy printouts and also for review online

If one has any other resources please leave a comment to notify me and others.

I really feel that a perek a day is a worthwhile endevour and for those who wish to start it I wish hatzlacha and look forward to the siyum in a year and a half

Update: Other Sites (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Wikisource’s Open Mishna Project is developing Mishnah texts, commentaries, and translations. The project is currently available in four languages: Hebrew (the largest collection), English, French and Portuguese.

Other electronic texts

• Learn Mishna in Someone’s Memory – Create a Shloshim Mishnah list online
• Mechon Mamre – Hebrew text of the Mishnah according to Maimonides’ version (based on the manuscript of his Mishnah commentary in his own handwriting).
• The Structured Mishnah – Hebrew text according to the Albeck edition (without vowels) with special formatting.
• Online Treasury of Talmudic Manuscripts, Jewish National and University Library in Hebrew.
• Codex Kaufmann of the Mishnah High resolution images of this important textual witness.
• emishnah English Translation & Commentary.

Mishnah study and the daily Mishnah

• Aaron Ahrend, “Mishna Study and Study Groups in Modern Times” in JSIJ 3: 2004 (Hebrew). Available online here (Word & PDF).
• Mishna Yomit – One Mishnah per day. (Note: this study-cycle follows a different schedule than the regular one; contains extensive archives in English).
• Mishnah Yomit – MishnahYomit.com hosts a weekly publication complementing the learning of people studying the regular program. It include articles, review questions and learning aids.
• Mishna of the Daf – a new Mishnah study cycle that parallels the progress of the Daf Yomi.
• Kehati Mishna a program of two Mishnayot per day. Currently inactive, but archives contain the complete text of Kehati in English for Moed, Nashim, Nezikin, and about half of Kodashim.
• Dafyomireview – custom learning and review programs for Mishnah.
• MishnaSdura – layout especially designed for review and memorization, review charts, Mishna songs and recordings.
• Perek HaYomi – in Hebrew. Host to Shiurim, and learning and review according to the Perek HaYomi in Mishna instituted by the Maharal.

Audio lectures

• The “Master Torah” Mishnah Ba’al Peh Program by Rabbi Meir Pogrow.
• Rav Avraham Kosman – Slabodka on the Mishnah and Talmud in English – Produced in Israel
• Mishna Audio – given by Rabbi Chaim Brown in English
• Rav Grossman on the Mishna in English produced in Los Angeles

Oral traditions and pronunciation

• Jewish Oral Traditions Research Center (Hebrew University)
• The National Sound Archives at the Hebrew University (catalogue not currently online).
• Treasury of Talmudic Manuscripts, Jewish National and University Library