Treasures for the World to Come in Tosefta

The Tosefta is a rabbinic text often unfamiliar to people. There is a perfectly good explanation why. When the text of Mishna, the Jewish oral traditions, was being compiled into writing by Yehudah HaNassi (second century CE), some discussions were set aside and edited out. It's not that they were somehow deficient. Some were just deemed more peripheral, and to keep the Mishna text manageable only the most important discussions were kept, and others set aside. Later, these discussions came to be known as Tosefta “additions,” a sort of appendix to Mishna that survived to our day. Today, only those who seek the broader context of Mishna's sayings venture into these ancient notes. For antiquity researchers, these notes are contemporary parallels to Mishna and help with background in understanding ancient dialogues.