In the October 9 print edition of The Economist (the publication is a great way to get the news while you ride the train to work), the Middle East/Africa section included a short story on the Talmud. The Talmud is a record of Jewish customs, law, history and ethics. It was originally compiled in Babylon, in the 5th century. Traditionally, orthodox Jews and Jewish scholars have found the text unwieldy. Physically, it weighs in around 72 volumes. Intellectually, it has challenged its readers for centuries. Originally written in Aramaic, people that study that Talmud often spend hours (and years) deciphering the meaning and interpretation of the Talmud. Add to all that intellectual struggle the many centuries of commentary and interpretation in any number of languages, reading and understanding the Talmud is a lifelong endeavor for many. Even the 11th century commentary, designed to make the text more accessible, and written by Rashi, a French Rabbi, do not elucidate the text easily for most readers.
The Economist's article focuses on "The Art Scroll Talmud," and its electronic approach to making the Talmud more accessible to readers around the world. Art Scroll, under Mesorah Publications, publishes books and translations and their associated commentary. According to The Economist:
Fifty-odd scholars in the United States and Israel, working alone but linked electronically, provide a colloquial translation of the text grounded in Rashi’s commentary, plus a digest of other, often conflicting commentaries. They use electronic archives of Talmudic literature that can be reached by key words and concepts but cannot produce the creative analogies and fine distinctions that are the stuff of Talmud study.
The Art Scroll Talmud is available in English, and Hebrew, and should eventually be available in French and Russian. The Economist goes on to say that many people around the world now study the Talmud- even on commuter trains (amusing for me, since I read about it on a commuter train). There is a page-a-day program, so thanks to the electronic collaboration amongst scholars, people can read one page a day, the same day that thousands of others are reading the same page.
This is an interesting approach to blended learning that exhibits what electronic collaboration is really capable of. Often, we think of blended learning situations as they apply to the course, the learning unit, or the curriculum. In this case, the blended learning approach took over 20 years to compile the Art Scroll Talmud, and it is still ongoing, in a universal manner that links diverse people all over the globe.
The full text of The Economist article is available online, and in keeping with the many conflicting commentaries on the Talmud, the comments associated with the article are far reaching in their topics and offer up the conflicting views of the article's readers.
Note that if you're reading this on a Saturday, the Art Scroll website won't be available- it observes the Sabbath, and the full breadth of the site is not available until sundown.
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