* This post was taken from a review I did for the YU Commentator's January edition
On November 27, I flocked towards Rubin lobby along with many fellow undergraduates for a free book that was being given out by the YU Museum. Each person must have been thinking, "Free book! What do I have to lose?" I had thought the same thing, but it turned out that there was indeed one thing I would lose: my naiveté about the interaction between the Jewish people and the age old Talmud.
Since the Talmud was standardized well before my lifetime, it appears to have become not altogether different than the Bible. Although it is still Torah She'beal Peh, and is empirically different than its Torah She'Bichtav counterpart, it seems to carry the same sense of invariability and lack of interactivity that the Written Law does. Printing the Talmud does much to dispel such notions. True, the Talmud has been standardized in recent times, but Printing the Talmud goes through the long and continuing history of the Jewish people's interaction with the pages of text we call the Talmud.
Printing the Talmudis separated into two complimentary parts: historical essays and the catalog for the YU museum's new exhibition, the latter displaying the progression of the Talmud's layout that the former suggests. The essays go period by period through the history of the Talmud, from its oral beginnings to its most modern advances. The essays are by world-renowned scholars from all over the globe, including professors of Jewish History from YU, Columbia, NYU, Bar Ilan, Hebrew University and many others. This eclectic method of creating a fluid history of the Talmud is not unlike how the Talmud itself was compiled. Amoraic analysis "continued over generations, even centuries, developing sugyot (Talmudic discussions or essays), on specific topics" (13). This occurred in many different academies, most notably Pumbedita and Nehardea. The pages of the book even appear like those of the Talmud, with the footnotes on the side of the page mimicking the position of Rashi's commentary. Much like sugyot in the Talmud, each essay is self contained and is interesting in its own right, while still discussing topics that are involved in other essays.
Most importantly, the essays give the reader an authentic sense of how and why each step of the process occurred, giving a real feel for what was going on at the time for both the Jewish and gentile communities. By doing so, the reader is left with a genuine picture of how Jews have interacted with the text of the Talmud throughout the centuries. The Oral Law, with its constantly-evolving format, is shown to be empirically different than the Written Law. Indeed, the Oral Law is changing form to this very day, with new advances in traditional learning and technology. This picture would not be complete without the catalogue in the second half of the book. After reading much about the development of the page of the Talmud, the reader can then peruse through the pictures and see for himself the development of the Talmud by way of manuscripts.
Printing the Talmudoffers a few heated views of the Artscroll Schottenstein edition of the Talmud. An essay is devoted to translations of the Talmud, which portray the history of translations to German, Hebrew, and then English. In the essay, Rabbi Adam Mintz presents criticism of translations, including concerns that "translation cannot capture the full essence of the original" and that "translated volumes [give] non-Jews access to the Talmud, leaving out the possibility, if not probability, of misunderstanding and even misuse of the Talmudic texts" (132). Another difficulty that came up with the Shteinzaltz edition was that many "felt that it would be ‘cheating' to make Talmud study so easy" (138). For some reason, these fears were instantly thrown away for the Schottenstein Edition. While many would still view the volume as a great achievement and an increasingly valuable and necessary resource in the modern world, the concerns stated previously may apply even more so to the Schottenstein Edition.
This book is worth reading even just for the clear presentation of the progression of the Talmud's printing, with examples found in the manuscripts in the back of the book. Printing the Talmud is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about the creation of the texts that make up the very backbone of Orthodox Judaism.
***The entire catalog and set of articles can be found at http://www.printingthetalmud.org/home.html
