C.E. and 500 C.E. The Jewish people believe that when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and He also gave him more detailed instructions on how to follow the law. Those oral instructions were verbally handed down from generation to generation until there came a time of crisis where it was finally written down. The Talmud contains a rich history of the Jewish people. The Talmud is a very extensive work that is written on approximately 5,894 folio pages using around 2.5 million words. The Talmud is broken down into six sections called orders. The orders are then broken down into multiple subsections called tractates. For the most part, the information in each tractate is organized by theme. The tractates are broken down further into chapters and the chapters are broken down into mishnahs that are similar to verses in the Bible. Berakhot is the first tractate in the Talmud and is located in the first of six orders called Zeraim meaning "seeds". .
Interestingly enough, the Berakhot tractate's theme is "blessings" but it is located in an order with content regarding the laws of agriculture. Why is this? There are many theories as to why Berakhot was placed in the Zeraim order. The theory that seems to make the most sense is that prayer was so essential to Jewish life that the sages wanted to emphasize its importance by placing the Berakhot tractate first in the Talmud. According to Solomon, the theme of prayer "establishes the continuity of Oral with Written Torah and suggests that relationship with God is key to the Sages' understanding of the world." In order to better understand the Berakhot tractate as a whole, let's take a look at a brief outline of the nine subchapters of the Berakhot tractate as given by Steinsaltz in his version of the Talmud called Koren Talmud Bavli. .
The first three chapters of the Berakhot discuss the famous prayer the Shema:.
• Chapter One - the obligation to recite Shema is discussed, along with the times when it may be recited and the details of this obligation.