In the book of Shmot (Exodus 24:12), it is written: “God says to Moses: Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments that I have written to instruct them.” Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. Much of what God told Moses was written in the Torah, but other commandments, our sages say, remained in Moses’ memory.

For example, in Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:21, it says: “…you may slaughter any of your cattle or sheep…as I have instructed you….” But nowhere in the written Torah does it explain how to slaughter animals according to divine laws. Our sages interpret that these commandments are part of the Oral Torah that God gave to Moses.

The entire oral part of the Torah was eventually written down in the Talmud. The Talmud is the Oral Torah, an extraordinary work compiled by our sages over several centuries and continued by generations of scholars. One could even say that to this day, commentary is still being added to the original texts.

Now imagine that, before the invention of printing presses, the more than 2.5 million words that make up the Mishnah and Gemara (Mishnah + Gemara = Talmud) had to be transcribed by hand. It was the family of Daniel Bomberg, who were not Jewish, that produced the first large-scale editions of the Talmud in 1520 and 1523 CE.

Many editions followed this first one, and one of the most famous is the Vilna edition, published by the widow and the Romm brothers between 1927 and 1932. A page from that edition of the Talmud includes:

• In the center, the Mishnah text that introduced the topic, dating back to the year 200 CE.
• Below, the corresponding part of the Gemara from the year 500 CE.
• On the side, the commentary of Rashi, who lived in France between 1040 and 1105.
• On the other side of Rashi’s commentary are the Tosafot commentaries, written by sages who lived in France and Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries.
• Next to that are the commentaries of Rabbi Nissim Ben Jacob, a sage who lived in Tunisia in the 11th century.
• Nearly at the bottom of the page are notes from Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1761 to 1837.
• Below that note is an anonymous one, probably made by the editor.
• There are also margin marks, references to medieval codes, other Talmudic passages, and corrections from the edition by Joel Sirkes, Poland, 1561-1640.

How amazing! On the same page, we have texts spanning from the year 200 to 1930. And since there wasn’t enough room for more commentary, at the end of each tractate, the comments of great sages such as the Maharsha and others were included. Thanks to all of them, Judaism remains vibrant and up to date. This is why every tractate always starts on page 2. It’s missing page 1, as a symbol that the work of commenting on the divine commandments is not yet complete.

By Marcos Gojman
Bibliography: The Talmud by Rabbi Aaron Parry.