Community Magazine March 2014

32 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE t hese are the two questions that come to mind when we hear of the revolutionary new edition of the Talmud, the “Shas Kedem.” the missing treasures For centuries, ever since the invention of the printing press, the Talmud Bavli was printed only by Jews of European countries. This was true even in the aftermath of World War II, when the roaring of the cannons died down and Europe was licking its wounds, as enterprising and dedicated Jews began to quickly print entire tractates on the accursed soil of Poland. Remarkably, Jews in displaced persons camps in liberated Germany began studying those gemarot , hot off the presses. And when the students and faculty of Yeshivat Mir fled Europe to Shanghai, where they lived under Japanese rule, they somehow managed to produce copies of entire volumes from the Talmud Bavli, which they used as they continued their studies in this remote and foreign land. In Sephardic communities, by contrast, both in Asia and Africa, complete editions of the Talmud were never printed, with the exception of the communities in Turkey and Greece, where numerous prominent Jews operated printing houses. This reality explains why Sephardic Talmud commentators are grossly under-represented in all standard editions of the Shas (Talmud). All the editions produced in Russia and Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania, Slavita and Zhitomir, were printed with the novella, redaction and revisions of numerous Ashkenazic scholars, but with scant few Sephardic commentators. In the famous Vilna edition of the Talmud, the forerunner of all subsequent publications of Shas, which have adopted its format, 124 commentaries, annotations and novella are printed either alongside the text or at the end of the volume, only five of which were written by Sephardic sages. Due mainly to the geographic distance separating theAshkenazic and Sephardic worlds, printers simply did not have access to a large corpus of Sephardic works as they did to Ashkenazic commentaries, which were thus naturally included in the publications. And even the small handful of Sephardic commentaries which were included – such as those of the Rif (Rabbi Yitzhak of Fez) and the Ran (Rabbenu Nissim of Gerona) – appear in the back of the volumes, after the text of the Gemara. Alongside the text one finds only the commentaries of Rashi and the Tosafists, who represent the Ashkenazic scholarly tradition. As a result, many treasures of Sephardic Talmudic scholarship received little or no exposure beyond their own countries or circles of followers. Their incisive questions, creative answers, and illuminating comments were mainly transmitted through oral tradition from teacher to student, and thus only a small fraction of their wisdom was preserved. oz v’hadar and kedem – a match made in heaven The history of Sephardic Talmudic scholarship will soon be changing, however, thanks to a new publication by the renowned Oz V’Hadar publishing group. Oz V’Hadar is famous for, among other projects, its deluxe edition of the Talmud which has found its way into virtually every bet midrash in the world, and which presents the text in a beautiful format and with comprehensive annotation. The “Metivta” series of Oz V’Hadar is received by tens of thousands of subscribers, and graces untold numbers of bookcases throughout the Jewish world. Volumes of the Oz V’Hadar edition of the Mishnah Berurah , which features scholarly notes and references, is being constantly reprinted, as are its deluxe editions of the Humash which present a wide range of commentaries alongside the text. Now, Oz V’Hadar Publications has teamed up with the Kedem Institute, under the aegis and guidance of its president, Hagaon Rav David Avraham shlita , Rosh Yeshivat Binyan Av in Jerusalem, to embark on its newest venture – the Otzar Geonei Sepharad project. The goal is to collect the scattered treasures of Sephardic Talmud commentary from throughout the ages and present them to the modern-day student and scholar. To achieve this goal, members of the team are plumbing the depths of Sephardic scholarship, poring over many hundreds of manuscripts composed by the sages and Torah leaders of Sephardic Jewry, the great scholars of Eretz Yisrael , Persia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Spain, Greece, Italy and Turkey. The ambitious undertaking also includes works by the accomplished rabbis who served in the rabbinates of the Far East – India andChina. The texts andmanuscripts are being compiled from various libraries and private collections from all over the world, as well as from Torah publications of all kinds, including memorial books, scholarly periodicals and journals. Recently, the long, grueling processing of collecting, cataloguing sorting and arranging the material was finally completed. In THERE HAVE BEEN MANY REVOLUTIONARY INVENTIONS THAT FUNDAMENTALLYCHANGEDHUMANLIFEORTHECOURSEOFHISTORY, AND GENERALLY SPEAKING, THEY HAVE EVOKED TWO REACTIONS AMONG PEOPLE: “HOW COME WE DIDN’T THINK OF THIS BEFORE?” AND, “HOWWERE WE EVERABLE TO MANAGE WITHOUT THIS?” a treasury of Sephardic Geonim Shas Kedem: PNINA SOUID