Talmud

I've been studying Talmud in the original language(s) lately. I've got the Artscroll editions with the English translation which I really like. But language has always been an issue for me. Reading the Tanakh and prayers in translation was not good enough for me from the start. I've always been what I like to call a connoisseur of languages. I love grammar and the how languages express certain things in ways that simply are not translatable. So, studying Talmud in translation was good for a while but it would not fully appease me for long.

I can read Hebrew with a dictionary. For some reason, vocabulary just does not stick with me. My first real challenge with Talmud was the Rashi script. If I didn't know better I would swear Rashi script was developed just to discourage students. I learned a new alphabet 6 years ago (Hebrew), why should I have to learn another alphabet in order to read the same language?! In the past I would have made some flashcards and sat down and made a concentrated effort just to learn Rashi script, but this time I didn't. I just jumped in with both feet. I kept a chart nearby to consult when I got confused, and eventually it stuck with me. I did spend an hour consulting Yitzhak Frank and Jastrow trying to look up a word only to finally realize that the Rashi tzade and the Rashi lamed look almost exactly alike. Looking up words is much easier when you're spelling them right! But I bet you I'll never forget what a Rashi tzade looks like!

I finally made it through the Mishnah of Kiddushin 2a, and the Gemara, then the Rashi to the Mishnah, then the Rashi to the Gemara. I was just beginning Tosafot when a rabbi friend told me not to torture myself with it at this point.

In much the same way Torah is better in the original language, so is Talmud. The Artscroll translation doesn't give you the sense of one thing building upon another the way the original Hebrew and Aramaic do. When you look at the page of Talmud in Hebrew/Aramaic, you can see that the Mishnah is central, the Gemara just below it but clearly very closely connected to the Mishnah. Then Rashi is on one side and Tosafot on the other. What I didn't quite get, though, was how the Mishnah says one thing, then the Gemara comments on that, then Rashi comments on that. I knew it intellectually, but I didn't get it. It's almost like a family tree... at least that's the picture that comes to my mind. It's like an old textbook you buy used only to find that previous students have added their comments in the margins, and the occasional answer to the review questions. The difference being that Talmud is much more precious than anything we studied in college, and that the comments in the margins are by the teachers, not the students! I can't express the excitement I feel just thinking about it. This Talmud is truly a precious gift.

The Artscroll translation doesn't do a good job of communicating the structure that exists in the original texts of the Talmud. I don't think that is really the point of Artscroll, though. It does, in my uneducated opinion, a good job of making the arguments understandable. I just hope that anyone who is reading this and relying on the Artscroll will read at least one page of Talmud in the original languages in the hopes of having the same experiential lesson I had.