"Mechon Mamre" is Hebrew for "the Mamre Institute".  Mamre is the name of the place where Abraham our patriarch lived (see Genesis 13,18).  Abraham is the forefather of both Jews and Gentiles who live by the instructions of God, and our site is intended for Jew and Gentile alike.

Mechon Mamre is a small group of observant Jewish Torah scholars in Israel who live by the plain and simple meaning of the RaMBaM's Mishneh Torah and actively encourage others to do so.  Most of us belong to the mainstream "Baladi" Yemenite Jewish community, continuing the tradition of living by the Mishneh Torah since the very days when the RaMBaM lived, and are students of the Rav Yosef ben-Dawid QaafiH zS"l (the leading rabbinical expert in recent generations on the teachings of the RaMBaM in general and on his Mishneh Torah in particular).

But we have been helped in developing our Written and Oral Torah texts and freeware programs since 1990 by dozens of others from all well-known parts of observant Judaism, including Chasidim and Mitnagdim, Ashkenazim and Sepharadim, Europeans and Orientals, both from inside Israel and from all over the diaspora.

We are currently particularly looking for proofreaders to help us polish the Yerushalmi.  If you want to   You may also help us by providing financial support for our work.

Mishneh Torah was the first, and is still the only, full codification of all of the divine laws of the special covenant between the LORD God and Israel as well as the general Noachide covenant between the LORD God and the Gentiles (no, we do not mean the so-called "New Testament"), with all of the rabbinic legislation developed in accordance with those laws:  for all people, for all places, and for all times (until the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin in Israel--may we be blessed to reestablish it, in our time!).

Our original main purpose in this site was to put before you (whether Jew or Gentile) the most accurate currently available version of the Mishneh Torah Code in its entirety, to provide you with guidance for its proper study and understanding, and to encourage you to actually observe its clear and brief formulation of the divine laws.  But we soon realized that since the Oral Law and the Written Law are ultimately one and they should be learned and observed together, we needed to complete our online Torah-learning resources by adding the Hebrew Bible in various versions tailored to the needs of learners at differing stages in their learning.

The full explanation of our path may be found in the Hebrew version of this page. Here we'll give a synopsis.

We follow the Law (e.g. halakha) as summarized by Rambam, to the best of our abilities. To understand why we do, our guiding principles are:

• The high court in Jerusalem (the Sanhedrin), is the pillar of the Oral Law, and they establish the Law for all Israel (whether then or now, in the Land or in the Exile).
• Therefore whatever they permitted in their era remains permitted to us, and what they forbade remains forbidden, and likewise anything relating to "exempt" and "guilty", or "pure" and "impure", along with all other Torah laws.
• Until the Sanhedrin is reestablished, the rulings of the last one stands.
• Nobody summarized the Law as they established it, in full, except Rambam.
• Therefore, until the Sanhedrin is reestablished, we follow the Law as Rambam summarized it.

It is our firm belief, based upon what Rambam himself wrote in the introduction to Mishneh Torah, that every Jew, of whatever background in Torah study, can learn all the practical Law by diligently studying the Tana"kh as well as the Mishneh Torah.

There is no need to refer to other halakhic works, in order to understand what the practical Law is.

The only customs, enactments, etc. which are applicable to us are those which the Sanhedrin established in their day. Nobody subsequent to them has the halakhic authority to establish their own and force anyone to abide by them.

We learn Law according to the simple meaning of the text, as Rambam was very precise in his wording. We learn "aggadic" material according to hermeneutic methods, rather than literal understanding.

One who learns Talmud Bavli (e.g. "daf yomi" etc) without having a complete knowledge of the Tana"kh, Mishnah, Yerushalmi, and other pre-Bavli halakhic works is like one who builds a house without first building a foundation. Therefore, it is our opinion that the most accessible and correct learning method for those who don't have the ability or the time to very thoroughly learn the foundational texts, is to learn Tana"kh (Torah as well as Nevi'im and Ketuvim!) and Mishne Torah, as thoroughly as possible.

The audio (MP3) recordings presented on this site are used with permission from Talking Bibles International ℗ 1992 (to request permission to use recordings write [email protected]); they are not chanted with a melody, but are clearly pronounced in Sephardic-style Hebrew.

The person reading is apparently one "Abraham Shmuelof", a Jew born in 1913 who converted to Catholicism. In our opinion, that does not render the recordings invalid, as only scrolls written by a heretic are invalid. Use your own judgement, as always.