Pirkei Avot — the Chapters of the Fathersפרקי אבות

The one tractate of the Mishnah that contains almost no law at all. Five chapters (six with the later addition) of maxims, attributed by name, opening with the chain of transmission from Sinai and closing with a description of the qualities by which Torah is acquired.

⭐⭐ Its placement is the argument. It sits in Nezikin, the order of damages — among the laws of torts, courts and testimony — and what it supplies is the character of the people who will apply them. A judiciary is described, and then the tractate says what a judge has to be like.

Famous lines that this app leans on elsewhere: make a fence around the Torah (1:1) · if I am not for myself, who is for me? (1:14) · know from where you came, and where you are going (3:1) · it is not upon you to finish the work, nor are you free to desist from it (2:16).

⚠ It is Mishnah, second century, and it is not a mystical text. When a later kabbalistic reading is laid over one of its lines this app says so and dates it — see chain-transmission.