Kodashim קדשים
The order of the Temple and its offerings—laws that ceased to apply almost two thousand years ago, and have been studied all the more diligently since.
Zevachim and Menachot deal with animal offerings and meal offerings; Chullin with what is precisely not an offering: slaughter for food, the removal of blood, the ban on meat with milk—and so this tractate alone in the order remains living law. Bechorot, Arachin, Temurah, Keritot and Meilah treat firstborns, valuations, the exchange of consecrated things, excision and sacrilege.
The last three tractates are of a different kind. Tamid describes an ordinary morning in the Temple: how the priests rise, how the ashes are cleared, how the lamb is led. Middot gives the measurements and plan of the Temple, written down from memory by those who had seen it. Kinnim, on birds' nests, is the shortest and, for its calculations, the hardest.
The Temple is destroyed—these nearly two thousand years—and the order is studied, because, in the midrash's words, "whoever occupies himself with the laws of an offering, it is as though he had brought it."
The order has 11 tractates: Zevachim, Menachot, Chullin, Bechorot, Arachin, Temurah, Keritot, Meilah, Tamid, Middot, Kinnim.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Shabbat 31a — «chochmat» — this is the order of Kodashim
- Menachot 110a — «whoever occupies himself with the laws of an offering, it is as though he had brought it»
- Mishnah Tamid 1:1 — morning in the Temple
- Mishnah Middot 1:1 — the plan of the Temple from memory
Basis: Talmud and midrash.