June 27, 2005

The Triumph of the Jews

The Herodian street lay in ruins. It had run along the base of the Western Wall. Parts of the pavement had collapsed from the impact of the giant stone masonry that had been thrown down from the top of the Temple Mount by the Roman invaders. The violent destruction Jerusalem and the Temple was palpable. For close to two thousand years the Jews were without a land and now, thanks to recent Israeli excavations, we could stand and witness the genesis of exile.

The Diaspora had been harsh and cruel. Without the certainty of the written Torah the Jewish people would have been lost. But even that was not enough. After the loss of the Temple the Jews began to write down the equally important Oral Law for fear of losing that legacy as well. This unique body of law originated at Sinai, expanded with commentary and elaboration and bore the imprint of Jewish thought generated over a thousand years. The Talmud and its commentaries became the mainstay of Jewish survival in an alien world.

Gabriel Goldstein and Sharon Mintz, curators of "Printing the Talmud," currently at the Yeshiva University Museum until August 28, 2005, have detailed the course of the Talmud's history as it entered the age of printing in the late 15th century. The brilliantly engaging exhibition traces the Talmud through the centuries up to the complex form it has taken in the contemporary world. The mode of transmission of the Oral Law as it changed over the centuries is the underlying narrative of the exhibition. Not surprisingly, the story is riveting.   

The first, and perhaps most radical change, was from an exclusively oral transmission, father to son, rabbi to student, to the creation of a written text, first the Mishnah and then its elaboration, the Gemara, edited by Rav Ashi and Ravina (ca. 550) and reaching its final form around 700. Sixty-three tractates, containing the very essence of Jewish thought are captured in the Babylonian Talmud. It is a ruthless examination of every conceivable subject featuring a complexity of argument and counter arguments that are buttressed by opinions ranging across hundreds of years and thousands of miles. This methodology of thinking, embracing diverse opinion and tradition hammered into an intelligible text, authoritative if only in its methodology, was founded on the textual primacy of the Tanach. This legacy quickly became the mainstay of Jewish life and belief.

Further transmission was facilitated through painstakingly copied manuscripts. Separate texts were created for the Mishnah, the Gemara and soon the commentaries of Rashi (1040-1105) and the Tosafot (French and German rabbis, 12-13th centuries). There was no agreed upon form of these texts, each copyist arranging the material as best as they could. Learning a basic text of Gemara entailed the use of separate manuscripts of Mishnah, Gemara and various commentaries. The rare 1290 volume of Avoda Zarah from Spain (one of the most commonly suppressed volumes) is paradoxically one of the earliest complete folios that has survived. The rarity of these handwritten texts is underscored by the attrition caused by medieval anti-Semitic attacks and burnings of the Talmud, such as the twenty-four wagonloads publicly burned in Paris in 1242. Consequently the rarity and cost of these manuscripts limited the number of Jews who could study.

At the dawn of the age of printing, pioneered by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1450's, it was a foregone conclusion that this growing textual legacy would be printed. The first Hebrew book was printed in 1470 in Rome. The Aruch, a talmudic lexicon designed to facilitate study, was a prescient choice to inaugurate the age of Hebrew printing. The primacy of Talmudic study was soon evidenced in the welcoming climate of the Italian Renaissance. The emerging culture of innovation combined with a deep respect for antiquity encouraged a devotion to study and intellectual inquiry. Although Spain initially was a center for Hebrew printing; as shown by the Tractate Kiddushin printed in Guadalajara in 1485 that included the commentary of Rashi, after the brutal Iberian expulsion Italy became the locus of Hebrew printing.

The Soncino family pioneered printing individual volumes of the Talmud, introducing a textual unification and new formatting that included the Mishnah, Gemara, Rashi and Tosafot on each page. Additionally they established the placement of Rashi on the inside margin, Tosafot on the outside and division of the Mishnaic text into sections that corresponded to the Gemara's commentary. All of these innovations became standard and seemed to truly transform the textual reality of Talmudic study. Unfortunately, Soncino followed the predominant practice of only printing selected and most popular volumes, never producing a complete edition.

Paradoxically it was a non-Jewish printer from Antwerp, Daniel Bomberg, who completed the revolution in the printed Talmud. Between 1520 and 1548 he printed at least .three complete editions of the Babylonian Talmud (along with over 200 other Hebrew books), investing enormous financial resources and utilizing a staff of Jewish scholars that built upon the achievements of Soncino with the crucial addition of pagination. Each daf was identified by number and side, thus expanding Jewish study between diverse communities, allowing standardized reference of the entire Shas. The layout of each page, identified by number, became codified for all Talmud study, a fixed visual reference that was the same no matter where the student was located. The pride and joy of the exhibition is a complete Bomberg Talmud in its original binding.

The importance of Soncino's and Bomberg's achievement (along with a handful of other early printers in Italy who introduced crucial cross referencing tools of Ein Mispat, Ner Mitzvah, Torah Or and Masoret ha-Shas) cannot be overstated. To create a format that emphasized (and indeed codified) the multiple voices of Jewish study was momentous enough. The fact that it was done in less than seventy years before the gates of tolerance slammed shut introduces an urgent poignancy to their efforts. Tragically, as a result of a dispute between two rival printers, the Talmud was examined by Church authorities, found to be blasphemous and anti-Christian and finally a papal bull prohibiting the printing of the Talmud was issued in August 1553. It was never printed in Italy again.

The exhibition chronicles the suppression, burnings and censorship in the following centuries as well as the shifts in size (introduction of small format editions to facilitate travel) and changes in printing locations from Poland in the 16th century to Amsterdam and Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries. Finally in 1886 the "Vilna Shas," printed by the Romm family establishes the contemporary critical edition (based on Bomberg of course) for the next one hundred years.

The narrative is, of course, not over. Urgency of talmudic study is brilliantly illustrated next, first by what may be the rarest of and certainly earliest of Talmudic texts, the mosaic floor from the 7th century Rehov synagogue in Israel. This ancient synagogue, located near Beit Shean, is very close to the eastern border of Biblical Israel. On loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the mosaic text parallels verses from the Palestinian Talmud that stipulate the applicable locations and requirements of tithing local produce. The specific division between that which is considered the Land of Israel (and subject to the Sabbatical prohibitions and the laws of tithing) and the land beyond is graphically marked out, literally set in stone close to when it was first redacted. For this community the Talmud was a living reality of agricultural practice.

Other gems in this section include a 1710 Jerusalem Talmud with the autograph notes of the Vilna Gaon including textual corrections, cross references and original interpretations. The audacity of the Gaon's changes coexist perfectly with the inviolate text, subtly elucidating the ongoing legacy of Talmudic interaction, the autonomy of the Jewish mind in the face of Jewish text. The tenacity of the Gemara is illustrated by a 1941 Budapest Talmud bravely printed under anti-Semitic laws, a Shanghai Shas from 1942 for the refugee community there and finally the 1946 Survivors' Talmud, printed under the auspices of the US Occupation Army in liberated Germany for use in the DP camps.

The last section of the exhibition explores the contemporary revolution in transmission of the Oral Law with ten websites that feature Talmud study, the ShasPod (an IPod containing a series of recordings of the entire Gemara in either English or Yiddish) and finally the two groundbreaking modern versions created by Adin Steinsaltz (a punctuated and voweled text, translated into modern Hebrew with extensive commentary and notes), and the now completed Schottenstein Edition (a scholarly English translation and elucidation, with a voweled Aramaic text and facing traditional Talmudic page).

The five hundred years of attempts to suppress and/or annihilate the Jews through attacks on the Talmud are shown to have failed in the final room of the exhibition. Five video screens cycle through over twenty centers of contemporary Talmud study, many participating in the seven and a half year Daf Yomi program, originated by Rabbi Meir Shapira of Lublin and now in its 12th cycle. From Israel, America, Great Britain, Poland, Russia to Australia more Jews are learning Talmud than ever before in history. Opposite these screens is a single monitor that shows the Ponevitz and Novogredek yeshivas in 1932. These flickering images seem to cry out across the years of 20th century tragedy. The vast scope of this exhibition that ends with so many Jews learning Talmud in so many ways across the globe proclaims nothing less than the triumph of the Jews.

Richard McBee

June 27, 2005

Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein

(Extensive scholarly catalogue available)

Yeshiva University Museum - Center for Jewish History

15 West 16th Street, New York, N.Y.; (212) 294 8330

www.yumuseum.org

Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 11am-5pm;

Monday, 11am-7pm; Friday, 11am-3pm

Admission Free

Until August 28, 2005