2. “The Middle Gate” treats of laws of usury and trusts, of letting out on hire, of landlord and tenant, etc.
3. “Last Gate” treats of the laws of commerce and co-partnership, of buying and selling, of the laws of inheritance and the right of succession.
4. “Sanhedrin” treats of the great national senate.
5. “Stripes” treats of false witnesses, of the law of the forty stripes save one, of those who were bound to fly to the cities of refuge.
6. “Oaths” explains the laws for administering oaths; when an oath is to be admitted between contending parties who are qualified to take them. In Hilchoth Eduth. ix. 1 it is taught that ten sorts of persons are disqualified—women, slaves, children, idiots, deaf persons, the blind, the wicked, the despised, relations, and those interested in their evidence.
7. “Evidences” are a collection of many important decisions gathered from the testimonies of distinguished Rabbis. It is observable that the decisions of the School of Shammai are more rigorous than those of the School of Hillel, from whence it is inferred that the former adhered more closely to Scripture, the latter to tradition. The former were the Scribes, and are now represented by the Karaites, who reject the Talmud.
8. “Idolatry,” or the worship of stars and meteors, treats of the way to avoid this grievous sin.
9. “The Fathers” contains a history of those who handed down the Oral Law, also many maxims and proverbs.
10. “Punishment” treats of the punishment of those disobedient to the Sanhedrin (Deut. xvii. 8-11).
1. “Sacrifices” treats of the nature and quality of the offerings; the time, the place, and the persons, by whom they ought to be killed, prepared, and offered.
2. “Meat Offerings” treats of the flour, oil, and wine, and the wave loaves.
3. “Unconsecrated Things” treats of what is clean and unclean, of not eating the sinew that shrank, and not killing the dam and her young in one day (Deut. xxii. 6).
4. “First Born” treats of their redemption by money, and their being offered in sacrifice; also of the tithes of all manner of cattle.
5. “Estimations” (Lev. xxvii. 2) treats of the way in which things devoted to the Lord are to be valued in order to be redeemed for ordinary use; also, how a priest is to value a field which a person has sanctified.