tractates

Tractate (plural tractates) is a term for a formal treatise or a major division within a larger body of work. In Jewish literature, a tractate designates a Masechet, a unit of the Mishnah and the Talmud. The Mishnah, compiled around 200 CE by Rabbi Judah the Prince, organizes oral law into six orders (Sedarim) and about 63 tractates (Masechtot). Each tractate is divided into chapters and traditionally discusses a specific topic, such as prayer, the Sabbath, marriage, civil and criminal law, or ritual purity. The Mishnah provides the foundational text, while the Gemara in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds supplies rabbinic analysis and discussion of the Mishnah, yielding the two-tier corpus known as the Talmud.

Notable tractates include Berakhot (blessings), Shabbat (Sabbath), Eruvin, Pesachim (Passover), Yevamot, Ketubot (marriage contracts), Gittin (divorce documents), Bava Metzia and Bava Batra (civil law), Sanhedrin (the rabbinic court), Niddah (family purity). The six orders are Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Nezikin, Kodashim, and Tohorot, and each tractate within the Mishnah and Talmud treats a discrete scholarly or legal topic.

Outside Jewish contexts, tractate can refer to any formal treatise or a subdivision within a larger collection of writings. The term derives from Latin tractatus and French tractate, and is used in historical, religious, and scholarly contexts to denote a detailed written discussion on a particular subject.