Hi friends. Today I want to talk about how to actually purchase and what type of Talmud to actually purchase if you intend to do so. Now obviously you don’t need a Talmud to follow along with us at Talmud Daily, but I’m trying to really give a full and robust introduction for somebody who has never really engaged in a serious way in Talmud study to slowly step-by-step… I kind of think of this in a little way, little bit almost like the beginning of Karate Kid where you learn how to wax on, wax off, and before you know it, we’re going to be karate champions or at least be able to understand what’s going on when you watch a karate tournament to continue the analogy.
But today I want to talk about the different editions of the Talmud that you may find helpful or practical for your own study.
The first thing I want to talk about is your typical most standard Talmud. This is my actual Talmud tractate Brachos. It’s like a little beat up. I’m actually quite proud of it.
You can open up the Talmud in Brachos. I would definitely urge if you’re going to buy any tractate I would start from the very beginning. Start with tractate Brachos. I think every home should own a complete set of the Mishnah. You should also at one point maybe own a complete set of the Talmud, but you don’t have to start with that. Start with tractate Brachos. It’s the first tractate.
Now this [edition] does not include any translation. And not only does it not include translation, it’s kind of heavy. But when you open it up, there’s no vowelizationin the Talmud. Not for the Talmud, not for the Mishnah, not for any of the commentaries that surround it. I really just wanted to bring it here because I love my original tractate Brachos. It’s really beat up.I have a lot of great memories here. It’s one of my favorite tractates, not my absolute.
I think there are two primary translated Talmuds that I want to introduce that you’re probably familiar with, but you may not really understand the differences and the nuance. I think both of them are great. I use both of them all the time. But we can talk just kind of practically to our listeners about the differences. The first I want to talk about is ArtScroll. This is called the Schottenstein Edition, named after the Schottenstein family I believe from Columbus, Ohio; really incredible individuals, and they sponsored, probably it’ll go down in the history of philanthropic gifts as the best payoff ever. But they sponsored the ArtScroll Talmud. Now the ArtScroll Talmud is very beautiful. I think this is called the Daf Yomi size, yeah, Daf Yomi Edition Talmud is a little bit smaller. They have the bigger version.
This looks like a huge volume. This is half of the first tractate. This is half of tractate Brachos. How could this only be half and this is the whole thing? This looks huge, they can’t fit everything inside? So this is important to understand. The way that ArtScroll is generally structured is on each page they have the traditional Talmud page and then over here on top they have translation. And then on the bottom they have all of these what’s called notes, which really bring in, in English, all of the commentaries and discrepancies and issues:the major issues that people are dealing with.
I love this Talmud. I think the way that their translation works, that it’s Hebrew vowelizedand right after it’s in English, is for me at least the easiest way to really learn the language of the Talmud. To read each word in Hebrew, they’re vowelized, what’s known as nikudot. It has the vocalization, and then it has the words right next to it translated in English. So it’s a little bit of Hebrew-Aramaic, and then the translation.
When I was in yeshiva, what I would do is anytime that we would approach a new tractate, I would take about a month or a couple weeks and I would just learn the entire tractate right with the ArtScroll. I was very familiar with it. It was absolutely wonderful.
This is not the only translation. There is another translation that is also wonderful in its own way and that is the Koren Edition of the Talmud that was originally the translation, I believe, based upon the translation of Rav Adin Steinsaltz.
Now this is the entire tractate Brachos
. They’re able to include much more. Why? Because the pages are structured differently. If you open it, on one side they just have the Talmud, and what’s interesting is their Talmud is fully vowelized. Just the Talmud part, not the commentaries on the side. But it is fully vocalized. Now something to keep in mind is the translation is like a chunk, there’s a chunk of Hebrew over here, and then there’s a lot of translation. So you’re able to kind of get the flow a little bit easier without the Hebrew-Aramaic words of the Talmud kind of interrupting the translation. And there are all these beautiful summaries.
I just want to note, ArtScroll also, both of them have great introductions to each tractate giving you the basic concepts and words. A lot of the stuff that we’re going to be covering. The introductions are absolutely fantastic. Over here, the way that the Koren works is that it’s not just notes, like footnotes, and they are all part of the general notes. Over here, some of them have halacha. These would be notes that tell you the practical law that emerges. Some of them are called background, which might give you some of the history or some of the realia of what’s discussed inside. Koren also has a lot more pictures.
If I were to break down who’s for what, I think the ArtScroll is a better aid for those who want to get exposure to really a little bit more of the yeshiva tradition: what is being discussed on this page in the yeshiva world; the classical commentaries I think if you’re trying to get a handle on the plain meaning of the Talmud, I would probably recommend Koren.
But I just want to emphasize.I have dear friends both at ArtScroll and at Koren.I love them both to the bottom of my heart. I’m not asking you to choose, but I do realize that telling an audience to buy an entire set of ArtScroll Talmud and an entire set of Koren Talmud;that’s not fair. There are differences between the two. ArtScroll’s notes are a little bit more advanced, sometimes their footnotes get a little bit more into the weeds. I love that.I find them helpful. In my notes, in fact, when I study Talmud, I’ll take a picture of some of the ArtScroll notes and be like, “That’s a keeper.” I’m saving this, categorizing it in my own notes. As opposed to Koren.Koren kind of gives you the plain easy way of going through. Each one is a chunk at a time, and of course there’s vowelization.
Now there is a third place where people study Talmud, and this is actually exploded, and I want to make sure that you’re familiar with it. And that is our friends at Sefaria. I believe Sefaria uses the translation first developed by Rav Adin Steinsaltz, and it is fully available online. I use Sefaria day in day out. It is fully searchable, very easy to find, organized in a very, very easy way.
It should also be noted that ArtScroll has an app for their entire Talmud that you could download and you could just be reading it on your iPad. It sometimes could be a little tricky to navigate, but I think it’s fantastic. I have it myself on my phone.I always like ArtScroll. [They] did such a fantastic job, as does Koren.
But you should absolutely be familiar with Sefaria. Sefaria really is just chunks of text. You can have just the English translation without the Hebrew words. But I recommend not to do that. I just want to emphasize that I think we have to learn how to not be afraid of Hebrew letters. I believe in my heart of hearts, even though we all have different educational backgrounds, I think every Jew should aspire to be fluent in reading Hebrew. Being able to pronounce the words. You may not be able to translate every word, but we shouldn’t be afraid of Hebrew. That’s why I like that both Koren and ArtScroll always have the Hebrew words on the page. Sefaria allows you if you find, you know like it’s too distracting, it’s too overwhelming. There is a feature on Sefaria where you can just do English.
Translating the Talmud is a monumental and very often a very controversial endeavor. Why is it controversial? When Steinsaltz first came out with his translation, it garnered a tremendous amount of controversy. Some of it involved things that I deem, I don’t want to call it silly, but not as significant, which is that he initially changed the layout of the page. People were very wedded to the layout of the page.
But it’s really controversial for a different reason. Because all Jewish life, thought, and practice emerges from the Talmud, when you have imprecise translations, there is a sense of like you are minimizing the grandeur of this bedrock of the Jewish people, which I fully understand. And in many ways the Talmud is almost impossible to actually translate. A literal translation word for word of the Talmud would be almost nonsensical.
The Talmud has an incredible flow and a back and forth that we need to familiarize ourselves with. I want to share with you the word of that back and forth because it’s an important word that is used very often in the traditional halls of Talmud study, and that is the term shakla vetarya. Shakla vetarya, that is an Aramaic term meaning the back and forth of the Talmud.
This is one of the great distinctions that you will find in the difference between legal passages versus the narrative passages. As we mentioned earlier, we have the concept called halachicapproach: “I’m reading the Talmud to find out what the halakha is.” And we also have the aggadic approach.
Something that’s very interesting is that when it comes to the more theological passages of the Talmud, you almost never find shakla vetarya, that penetrating analysis. “What’s the source for this? How do we know it?” As opposed to halachicpassages in the Talmud are always followed by that shakla vetarya, the give and take, the back and forth. “What’s the source for this? When does it apply? Does it apply here? Why doesn’t it apply there?” That is the back-and-forth flow of the Talmud. It’s very hard to capture in translation.
The reason why I think it is so important to learn how to at least read the words is you will be able to familiarize yourself with a lot of the classical phrases that introduce questions, that introduce an answer, that bring a proof text, that bring a question from a contradictory mishnah or whatever it is; to learn to be familiar with all of those phrases. And that is why I want to recommend one more thing.
There are some really good introductory works that can kind of tell you the entirety of like the key words of the Talmud, and one of the best of them: it’s a one-page or laminated page that has all of the key words and key terms that appear in the Talmud. It’s really just a bank of like 100 to 150 words. If you know them, you really can learn how to navigate the flow of the Talmud. You know when it’s asking a question. You know when it’s giving an answer.
But if you don’t have that, definitely these translations are a great introduction to feeling the rhythm and flow. There’s something very musical about the Talmud, and it is with any of these wonderful translations that you, whether it’s Koren, whether it’s Artscroll, whether it’s Sefaria, or one of the many, many others that exist.I think those are the three best ways to kind of approach the Talmud. But regardless, there is no question that with whatever you’re approaching it, there is a rhythm and a music to the Talmud that if you stick with it, and you’re not afraid of the Hebrew, you will begin to decode all of the different terms that introduce questions, answers, and you’ll begin to know the flow of the Talmud. Because even though there’s no grammar, there are no commas, question marks, exclamation points in the Talmud, there are these key words that once you know them, it becomes so much easier to decode the Talmud, and you don’t have to break your teeth. And in fact, as we try to do every single day, you’ll be able to make Torah that much sweeter.