https://traditiononline.org/learning-gemara-in-english-the-steinsaltz-talmud-translation/
A careful examination of many sections of the volume leads this reviewer to the unavoidable conclusion that the beauty of the Steinsaltz Talmud is skin-deep. Where a straightforward translation is required, an excellent job is done. However, once it ventures into the deeper waters of clarifying the subtleties of Talmudic discourse and of its commentators, it runs out of strength and begins to flounder.
Specifically, the work is marred by an extraordinary number of inaccuracies stemming primarily from misreadings of the sources; it fails to explain those diffcult passages which the reader would expect it to explain; and it confuses him with notes which are often irrelevant, incomprehensible and contradictory. The major criticism so far registered against the Steinsaltz English Talmud has been that of Leon Wieseltier in The New York Times Book Review: it fails to transmit the true flavor of "learning" Gemara. This can be explained only by the fact that few if any of the reviewers to date have attempted to probe beneath the external aspects of the translation-the merit of translating the Talmud, the format and the graphics. They have not dealt with the actual "learning" of the Talmudic text, and it is in this cardinal aspect that this work is deficient. Furthermore, since two-thirds of the deficiencies cited in this article are to be found in the original Steinsaltz Talmud, i those dedicated to the integrity of the Talmudic process might well want to reexamine the Hebrew Steinsaltz with an eye towards its scholarly usefulness for the serious student.
Response of Steinsaltz
In "a careful examination of many sections" of "The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition," Rabbi Aharon Feldman (Tradition, 25:4, Summer 1991) calls the work "bold in its conception and ambitious in its scope"; "it meets well the formidable challenge" of translating and explaining theTalmud in a manner that is "highly readable, clear and most important, patient with the beginning student"; it is, moreover, a work in which "a great amount of resources, effort and publicity, as well as good writing," have been invested.However, having said this, Rabbi Feldman spends the rest of his reviewdetailing a total of fourteen passages to which he objects. Of these objections, two are well taken, one can charitably be explained as a lack of clarity on our part, one is an accreditation error, one is an instance where reasonable people may disagree, and nine are totally unfounded.
It is important to note that this review was about the Random House version, not the Koren version, which was prepared by a completely different set of people.
ReplyDeleteFirst thing I did when I saw this post was click on the link and confirm my suspicion. Yes, it's the Random House version from the late 80's and even the Steinsaltz people quietly admit that it was a disaster.
DeleteForget the quality of commentary. Forget that it opened left to right like any ol' English book and that the only Hebrew in it was the gemara text. The worst was the length of the text. Bava Metzia was 7 volumes and, at least where I lived, each volume was $50. Who's going to spend $350 for Bava Metzia? I remember running across the Artscroll edition and immediately switching sides. Only 3 volumes and it looks and feels like a sefer, not a book.
However, the "two-thirds of the deficiencies" is completely wrong. I've been through his gemara twice. My only criticism is that the earlier volumes don't have enough commentary because the original idea was just to present the basic text with as little add-on as possible in the hopes that someone wanting more would then sign on to a learning program somewhere.
At the time of the controversy, both Rav shach and Rav Shlomo goren were highly critical of the steinsaltz Talmud. They were both talmidim of Rav isser zalman meltzer. Hence it's difficult to suppose this had anything to do with politics or the lubavitch controversy which was brewing around the same time.
ReplyDeleteRav Steinsaltz, zt"l, was a Chabad'nik, not a Lubavitcher
DeleteA few questions
ReplyDeleteCan we have some examples of specific claims of errors in either the English translation or the Hebrew by R Goren and R Shach?
Sefaria has the William Davidson english version of R Steinsaltz, is that considered better? Are there disagreements with that, too?
Is it possible that they aren't wrong, but disagrements about the meaning of the text? I always wondered about whether what my rebbeim taught me was precisely what their rebbeim taught them, and so on back to Ravina and Rav Ashi and if in the next room over they might be hearing some variations in pshat.
This is only anecdotal, but every year in yeshiva high school, I would join the school chidon (quiz) on Gemara. Not because I liked answering questions on the fly, or that I wanted the prizes or the prestige that would come with winning (if that's even a thing, although I did enjoy leading the freshman boys to win the school's High School Bowl competition, beating the tenth grade boys, eleventh grade boys, and eleventh grade girls, but I tried not to get a swelled head about it, not out of middot, just out of having learned previously that convincingly seeming to be modest was itself admired), But back to the chidon. Each year, the panel of rebbeim, not all from the school, would eliminate me in one of the middle rounds, and then after it concluded, I would be moved up a tier. I never found out what they thought was wrong with what I said, or how it was decided that I didn't deserve to be eliminated, they never told me.
But I really only entered because there were two benefits beyond the seforim handed out as prizes. One was that by entering, you and the other entrants would get excused from some lessons to sit in the library or the lunchroom while it was unoccupied to prepare for the chidon, and then, no matter how you did, even if you were eliminated in the first round, you didn't have to take a final exam in Gemara.
Oh, wait, there's a point, it does seem like the assembled rebeiim of my and other yeshivas did in fact have differing pshats in whatever it was that got me disqualified and then promoted after the fact.
When I was at YU, back when the Isaac Breuer College was still Erna Michael College, they introduced a course called independent Talmud study. Basically, you studied a number of blatt on your own, took an exam, no classes. I really like learning, both kodesh and chol, but I had nothing against an easy A, particularly since I had to keep up a B average to get into engineering school (did I mention my modesty? I'm pretending that was an effort, here. I also enjoyed outperforming the pre-meds.)
It wasn't *so* long ago, the Steinsaltz Shabbat in Hebrew was out, but I don't know if we'd heard about it. I seem to remember that I was already in engineering school when I started buying them. But in English, we had Soncino. Now it's possible to follow Soncino if you sort of reconstruct the Aramaic in you mind while reading it, but mainly it's not wrong, it's unreadable. I don't know if I ever saw a Random House translation, but I do skim the Davidson if I'm looking at something online.
One of my hobbies is arguing with flat-earthers, many of whom base their beliefs on the way they read Tanach (and a somewhat related work, which they think is the sequel to Tanach). They're nearly as uninformed about what their version of the Bible says as they are about science, and when they argue Bible interpretation I tell them that I not only have engineering degrees, I was three-quarters of my way to a BA in religious studies when I left YU for engineering school.
It never occured to me to try to finish that BA, it would have been physically possible to travel between Morningside and Washington Heights (actually I know it was, my first year, I'd go there two evenings a week as chief engineer of the YU radio station, a theater major having wrecked it the year before) but all the EMC courses were in the morning and many required engineering courses were, too.
The Random House, Koren, and original Hebrew Steinsaltz are completely different works, united only in their concept and the branding. The Steinsaltz Hebrew original was largely written by Rav Steinsaltz himself. The Koren and Random House are essentially original works that did not even use the original as their basis, let alone as the text they were translating from. All three are completely different.
ReplyDeleteThe Random House editor who replied in Tradition Magazine was Rabbi Moshe Sober zt"l, who was haredi, worked independently, and had no connection at all to Rabbi Steinsaltz, other than as an employee of this project. The Koren staff similarly worked independently and from the Gemara itself, not from the Rav Steinsaltz commentary.
Regarding the Rav Shach and Rav Elyashiv bans of the Steinsaltz Gemara, note the arguments they made in their ban of Chumash haMevuar, which they banned around the same time as they banned Steinsaltz.
ReplyDeleteI would note that their reasoning for banning this Chumash abd the Steinsaltz Gemara would apply just as well to Artscroll and the conceptually editions of annotated gemara, Shulchan Arukh, Chumash, and Mishneh Torah that are ubiquitous today.
BTW, the Chumash haMevuar author, unlike Rav Steinsaltz, fought back.
And he got new haskomas AFTER Rav SHach had banned it.
(The maskimim gave theor haskomos despite Rav Shach's ban. See Rav Zalman Nechemiah's, as he directly addresses Rav Shach's rationale, while not mentioning him by name.)
And AFTER Yated had published a front page article, חומש המבואר אסור מן התורה
I would also note that NOTHING objectionable was found in the Talmud itself, but in his D'muyot b'Mikra.
This was despite there having been two groups that were combing through the gemaras, in search of apikorsus.
The other banners banned the Talmud because of Dmuyot b'Mikra, not because they objected to the Talmud itself.
Rather, it was guilt by association.
Rav Feldman's attack was on the English, Random House edition, not anything that Rav Steinsaltz had himself written.
And Rav Feldman thought it did not do a good job, not that it was heretical.
Others might disagree and think Rav Feldman was nitpicking, as the letters to the editor in the following issue of Tradition point out.
The Steinsaltz editor who replied and who was responsible for getting the explanations right, Rav Moshe Sober zt"l, was haredi and an outstanding talmid chacham.