The Talmud, The Steinsaltz Edition : A Reference Guide

Rating:
Summary: An Introduction to "Wisdom Literature" for All Faiths.
Review: It is said that there is a Talmud for every generation, and the one for now and the next fifty years or so is the Steinsaltz edition, first in Hebrew, and now appearing in English at the rate of a couple of volumes a year from Random House. The "Reference Guide" is a "how to use this tool" sort of book, but in Steinsaltz's unusual case such a specialised book turns out to have general application. For the Christian who wonders about the relevance of Scripture to life -- and what exegesis can mean for lay people of faith -- this Reference Guide can serve as an introduction to their own faith reading. For the youngster attracted to the classics of the East, as Rabbi Steinsaltz was for many years, the book can serve to teach just what books _are_, how to use them, how to be captivated and even captured without being enslaved. For the Jew whose Hebrew -- and Aramaic, and Greek, and history, and.. -- are not up to full-time Talmudic study, this guide can be just that, a guide, and one which will very likely lead to buying the rest of the English language volumes as they appear. A natural bar and bat mitzvah present for all, except those so frum the boys will already have read it in Hebrew. :-) -dlj

Rating:
Summary: Very comprehensive. Maybe a little too academic for some.
Review: Note: this review is not just for this one volume but for the entire series. This volume is a reference guide and is a good basis, but the meat of Talmud study takes place in the rest of the series.

The main problem with studying Talmud is that at any point in the Talmud, you are expected to know the rest of the Talmud. The way to circumvent this problem is to study Talmud with a group and make sure there is at least one rabbi presence (two or more is optimal since much of the learning comes from the divergent viewpoints and the tension in between.)

What Steinsaltz seems to be trying to do is to place almost every commentary into the his series. This is great for the commentaries, however if you are not familiar with the particular tractate (Ketubos and Bava Metziah are the tractates currently published but there are other ones.) or the argument you will lose the thread of the argument and something that relies on you remembering a statement made a page back is going to be difficult since most Talmud "pages" (long story but there is a popular class in which you study a Talmud page a day) are taking about 4-7 pages to play out.

This is an invaluable book in conjunction with a class. It is also a great series if you have already studied these tractates and would like to come back and see what you've missed (and in Talmud study you do tend to miss a few things, especially if you are starting out and you don't know all the context.)

However, I would recommend the Artscroll Talmud if you are a beginner.

Rating:
Summary: A great aid in understanding what the Talmud is
Review: This reference work is a wonderful introduction to the Talmud. It explains what the Talmud is, outlines and describes the various tractates, provides a definition of key terms, has a dictionary which translates key Aramaic concepts. I used it the way I sometimes in the past have used encyclopedias or dictionaries to help me fill gaps in my own knowledge, and to understand more clearly vague terms that I had a rough but not certain idea of.
This reference work is an introduction to the Talmud as a whole. But the reader should understand that the Talmud is not a book to be read by oneself and understood by oneself. I believe that that is impossible. The Talmud must be studied with others, and this is the way traditional Jews ' learn' it. Thus however valuable this reference work is it cannot be a substitute for ' learning ' the Talmud. For this one must connect with some kind of Jewish communal framework, and connect too with those who have wider knowledge and experience. The study of Talmud is intense, difficult but it is the basic form of study religious Jews have engaged in for generations. And anyone who wishes to understand the Jewish religious world should try.