Shabbat (Talmud)

Shabbat (Hebrew: שַׁבָּת, lit. 'Sabbath') is the first tractate of Seder Moed ('Order [of] Appointed Times') of the Mishnah and of the Talmud. The tractate deals with the laws of observance of and practices regarding Shabbat, the biblical Sabbath in Judaism. The tractate focuses primarily on the categories and types of activities prohibited on the Sabbath according to interpretations of many verses in the Torah, notably Exodus 20:9–10 and Deuteronomy 5:13–14.

The Mishnah and Talmud go to great lengths to carefully define and precisely determine the observance of the Sabbath. The tractate is thus one of the longest in terms of chapters in the Mishnah and folio pages in the Talmud. It comprises 24 chapters and has a Gemara—rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah—in both the Babylonian Talmud and all but the last four chapters of the Jerusalem Talmud. There is also a Tosefta of 18 chapters on this tractate.

As its name suggests, the tractate primarily addresses the laws and regulations governing the observance of the Jewish Sabbath. It is enumerated as the fourth commandment among the Ten Commandments and constitutes a central element of Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish law (הֲלָכָה, Halakha; pl. הֲלָכוֹת, halakhot). Consequently, this subject is extensively discussed in the Mishnah and the Gemara, and numerous subsequent commentaries have been authored on this tractate from the early Middle Ages to the present. In the Babylonian Talmud, the Gemara also contains a discussion of the laws of Hanukkah. The halakhot detailed in tractate Shabbat, and the subsequent legal codes based on it, continue to be followed by observant Jewish communities in modern Israel and the Jewish diaspora.