Introducing a High-Level Mapping of Jewish Law, by Major Topic: Bible, Mishnah, Mishneh Torah, and Shulchan Aruch

I built this project because I wanted a way to visualize at a high level how legal topics move across four core layers of Jewish texts:

1. Pentateuch (Torah law passages)

2. Mishnah

3. Mishneh Torah

4. Shulchan Aruch

I wanted a usable map: one place where I can take a topic (for example Shabbat, Niddah, damages, or Shemitah) and see where it sits in each corpus.

The final pages are here and here.¹

Outline

1. Intro

2. The core problem

3. What I built

   1. Citation-granular topic tree

   2. High-level relationship chart

4. Why I used both views

5. What this project is

6. Why this matters for learners

7. Screenshots

   1. Topic mapping

      1. Topics index

      2. First entries

   2. High-Level Relationship Chart

      1. Top

      2. Bottom

The core problem

Most people who learn these texts know the basic story: Torah (=Pentateuch) is foundational, Mishnah organizes Oral Law, Rambam codifies, and Shulchan Aruch becomes a practical code.²

But when you actually try to compare them directly, even at a high level, it gets messy:

• The Torah (=Pentateuch) is not arranged as a legal code in the same way later works are.

• Mishnah organizes by sedarim and masekhtot.

• Mishneh Torah organizes by 14 books and then halakhot.

• Shulchan Aruch organizes by 4 main sections and simanim.

So even simple questions are hard to visualize and answer quickly:

• “Where is this topic mainly located in each layer?”

• “Is this topic practical in Shulchan Aruch, or mostly theoretical at that stage?”

• “How do the major buckets line up between systems that were not written with identical structure?”

I wanted a visual way to answer those questions.

What I built

I built two complementary outputs from the same mapping data.

1) Citation-granular topic tree

This is the detailed view. Each subtopic has four columns:

• Bible citation ranges

• Mishnah tractate/chapter ranges

• Mishneh Torah units

• Shulchan Aruch simanim

Each citation is clickable to Sefaria.

Each subtopic label also links to English and Hebrew Wikipedia entries to make quick background lookup easier.

This page provides actual references and links.

2) High-level relationship chart

This is the “lines and flow” view. It is intentionally more abstract than the citation tree.

It maps:

• Pentateuch books

• Mishnah sedarim

• Mishneh Torah sefarim

• Shulchan Aruch sections

I built it as a weighted Sankey-style chart so I can see where flow is concentrated and where it thins out.

This chart includes descriptive hover content: sampled subtopics and citation snippets that explain why a given connection exists.

Why I used both views

I found that one format alone is not enough:

• The granular tree is precise but visually heavy.

• The high-level flow chart is intuitive but is too abstract without evidence.

Together, they solve that:

• The line chart gives structure and direction.

• The citation tree gives traceability and source-level detail.

Also includes Wikipedia links in both languages (English and Hebrew) for subtopics.³

What this project is

This is:

• a comparative map

• a study/navigation tool

• a transparent, inspectable data pipeline from CSV to visual output

Note that in several areas, especially Temple/purity domains, practical codification in Shulchan Aruch is limited compared to earlier corpora. The project makes those asymmetries especially visible.

Why this matters for learners

A big benefit is orientation.

One can now get a clear picture of:

• where I am in the legal system

• what kind of structure I’m reading (narrative law vs organized code)

• what is broad principle vs practical codification

In other words: this is a map for the history of halacha at the level of structure.

Screenshots

Topic mapping

https://ezrabrand.github.io/jewish-law-tree/index.html

Topics index:

First entries:

High-Level Relationship Chart

https://ezrabrand.github.io/jewish-law-tree/high_level_relationship_chart.html

Top:

Bottom:

1. Image, based on this data, also uploaded to my Academia page, as a PDF: Comparative Hierarchical Topic Tree of Jewish Law: Bible, Mishnah, Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Aruch

Full code and repo here: https://github.com/EzraBrand/jewish-law-tree. I built this whole project using OpenAI’s excellent Codex agentic coding tool (via the VS Code plug-in).

Compare Sefaria’s Sankey charts. Their charts are much more granular; while mine are high-level. And see also my previous discussion of them, in “Mapping the High-Level Hierarchical Structure of Classical Hebrew Texts: A Case Study of Graphing Talmudic Chapters and Word Counts“, especially section “Contextualizing Within Digital Humanities: Sefaria’s Visualization Efforts“.

And see also my “Biblical Citations in the Talmud: A New Digital Index and Concordance“, where I discuss Sefaria’s visualizations as well.

2. Note that the Talmud follows the same structure as the Mishnah; and the Shulchan Aruch follows the same structure as the Tur.

3. I also intend to develop a comparable general glossary of standard Talmudic technical terminology for ChavrutAI. See the Github issue here.