Uktzim (; ''ʿUqṣim'', "Stems") is the last

masekhet A (, Sephardic: , Ashkenazic: ; plural ) is an organizational element of Talmudic literature that systematically examines a subject, referred to as a tractate in English. A tractate/ consists of chapters (; singular: or ). Etymology The w ...

of the order of Tohorot in the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

. It is the last tractate in the Mishnah. It consists of three chapters. Uktzim describes the various forms of

tumah In Jewish religious law, there is a category of specific Jewish purity laws, defining what is ritually impure or pure: ''ṭum'ah'' (, ) and ''ṭaharah'' (, ) are the state of being ritually "impure" and "pure", respectively. The Hebrew noun ...

having to do with the stalks of fruits and vegetables. There is no

Gemara The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...

for Uktzim in either the Babylonian or

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

. There is, however, a

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

for this tractate. This tractate features the teaching of the Amora rabbi

Joshua ben Levi Joshua ben Levi or Yehoshua ben Levi (220 – 250 CE) was an amora—a scholar of Jewish law during the period in which the Gemara was codified—who lived in the Land of Israel in the first half of the third century. He lived and taught in the ...

, which is peculiar since Mishnayot are typically authored by

Tannaim ''Tannaim'' ( Amoraic Hebrew: תנאים "repeaters", "teachers", singular ''tanna'' , borrowed from Aramaic) were the rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 10–220 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also refe ...

References

External links

Link to the Jewish Encyclopedia
on the tractate Uktzim {{Judaism-book-stub Jewish ritual purity law Tractates of the Talmud