Local rabbis greet it with praise, mixed reactions
New York (JTA) — You don’t have to know Hebrew or Aramaic to become a talmudic scholar.
Indeed, say those behind the Schottenstein ArtScroll English translation of the Talmud, whose 73rd and final volume was published this month, some Jews have completed study of nearly the whole without speaking either language.
“Many of them attribute the fact that they’ve been able to get through this to the Schottenstein text, to the fact that we’ve been able to remove the language barrier for them and elucidate the text in a way that is comprehensible and relevant,” said Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, chairman of the Mesorah Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit group that funded the project.
The publication of the final volume marks the culmination of a 15-year, $20 million effort that has seen as many as 80 scholars at a time working on the more than 35,000 pages in the series, in locations from New York to Jerusalem.
The project “introduces the Talmud to people who have never studied it,” said Rabbi Nosson Scherman, general editor of Mesorah, the series’ publisher. “It has never been done before in English with this depth and accuracy.”
On Feb. 9, the complete set was scheduled to be presented to the Library of Congress in Washington in a dedication ceremony to be chaired by leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
‘Tremendous help’
Even before completion, the project proved valuable to many students and teachers, including some in Milwaukee.
“I’ve been using the ArtScroll Talmud since it started coming out,” said Rabbi Gil-Ezer Lerer of Temple Menorah. “It’s an excellent tool to help anybody study Talmud.”
“I think it is wonderful, just a tremendous help in learning Talmud,” said Rabbi Shlomo Levin of Lake Park Synagogue. “The notes are a product of first rate scholarship, and I highly recommend it.”
“The completion of the ArtScroll translation of the Babylonian Talmud is a milestone for sure,” said Rabbi David Brusin of Congregation Shir Hadash. “It will make the Talmud that much more accessible to the general public, and it will be invaluable as a teaching tool in adult education classes and even at the university level.”
Others here and elsewhere have reservations about it. Rabbi Avner Zarmi, vice president of the Wisconsin chapter of Agudath Israel of America, praised the edition as “a brilliant and masterful achievement,” but cautioned that “The Talmud is still intended as ‘Oral’ Torah; that is, Torah in the form of a dialectic between teacher and student. No translation can take the place of the interplay and insight to be gleaned from study with experienced teachers and study partners.”
Rabbi Yoseph Samuels, director of Chabad of Downtown, said he does not use the ArtScroll for teaching adult education. “I have found the Steinsaltz Talmud [the translation under the direction of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz] more accessible and a lot easier to use. The Steinsaltz is like sitting in a class listening to him give a lecture in clear diction” and is therefore “an easy read” compared to the ArtScroll.
Some non-Orthodox scholars note that ArtScroll does not use archaeology or ancient languages to elucidate the text, nor does it consider the Greco-Roman culture that was influential at the time of the Talmud’s composition.
Rabbi Judith Hauptman, a professor of Talmud at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, said the ArtScroll translators “have a certain point of view — that the Talmud is the greatest book of the Jewish people and the Talmud is always right — and they translate accordingly, which can sometimes be frustrating.”
Nevertheless, while admitting to such reservations, Rabbi David Cohen of Congregation Sinai said, “I have used the series for teaching since its inception. It provides a good introduction to the intricacies of talmudic debate and logic, and their relationship to the Bible and later legal codes (albeit from an unwavering Orthodox viewpoint).”
The Talmud comprises 36 tractates of rabbinic discussion and commentary on Jewish civil and religious law. It likely was assembled between the first half of the third century C.E. and the year 499 C.E.
It often expresses itself in a shorthand confusing to the uninitiated. The ArtScroll translation offers a literal translation in bold type, interspersed with “connecting words” making the text’s intent clear to less experienced readers. The edition also offers extensive notes and suggestions on further research.
Since the project’s second year, ArtScroll writers and editors have turned out one volume every nine weeks. An average of 20,000 copies of each volume have been printed, with more popular tractates getting runs of 50,000 to 60,000 copies.
Each volume, which includes the original Hebrew text facing English-language pages, cost Mesorah roughly $250,000. On average, it takes four English pages to explain one Hebrew page.
Leon Cohen of The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle contributed to this article.
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