For the first time in 1,800 years, the sounds of Mishnah [Talmudic Tannaitic texts] being studied were again heard in the Galilee town of Beit She\'arim, when a Mishnah contest was held there last night. Thousands of religious and non-religious students participated in the various rounds of the contest, which was jointly sponsored by the Nature and Parks Authority, the Tivon Local Council, and the Torah Culture Department of the Education Ministry.
Noted linguist Avshalom Kor MC\'ed the event, and told Arutz-7 yesterday, \"Waging a Mishnah contest in Beit She\'arim is like having a Bible contest at the gravesite of Moshe Rabbeinu; the only problem is that we don\'t know where Moshe was buried. But we do know that Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, was buried in Beit She\'arim. We never knew where Beit She\'arim was; throughout all the generations we only knew that such a place existed, and that it was the place where Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi lived and edited the Mishnah. Then, in the 1920\'s, a man named Alexander chose a hilltop to settle and build, and one day his son came running to him to show him a piece of pottery he had found with a picture of a seven-branched menorah. The father said he must show it to his friend Yitzchak Ben-Tzvi, who later became the first President of Israel, and who in turn said that it must be shown to the archaeologist Prof. Binyamin Mazar of Hebrew University. Mazar decided to excavate, and a beautiful town was found there, and fancy burial caves, including that of Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi with its three arcs and a large plaza in front. In addition, another cave of 200 burial compartments was found for Jews who wished to be buried in this important site, and a place where students would come to study Torah above his gravesite...\" Kor thanked Rabbi Yochanan Fried of the Torah Culture Department, \"who decided that the contest would be not only for religious students, but for everyone…\"
Noted linguist Avshalom Kor MC\'ed the event, and told Arutz-7 yesterday, \"Waging a Mishnah contest in Beit She\'arim is like having a Bible contest at the gravesite of Moshe Rabbeinu; the only problem is that we don\'t know where Moshe was buried. But we do know that Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, was buried in Beit She\'arim. We never knew where Beit She\'arim was; throughout all the generations we only knew that such a place existed, and that it was the place where Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi lived and edited the Mishnah. Then, in the 1920\'s, a man named Alexander chose a hilltop to settle and build, and one day his son came running to him to show him a piece of pottery he had found with a picture of a seven-branched menorah. The father said he must show it to his friend Yitzchak Ben-Tzvi, who later became the first President of Israel, and who in turn said that it must be shown to the archaeologist Prof. Binyamin Mazar of Hebrew University. Mazar decided to excavate, and a beautiful town was found there, and fancy burial caves, including that of Rabbe Yehuda HaNasi with its three arcs and a large plaza in front. In addition, another cave of 200 burial compartments was found for Jews who wished to be buried in this important site, and a place where students would come to study Torah above his gravesite...\" Kor thanked Rabbi Yochanan Fried of the Torah Culture Department, \"who decided that the contest would be not only for religious students, but for everyone…\"