For most of the Jewish people today, the vast Talmud is a closed book, says Gedaliah Gurfein, founder of The People’s Talmud, a massive online project broken down into thousands of very small bites.
“Many people lack the skill set needed to crack the code and even more have no interest, assuming the content isn’t relevant to their lives.”
After 33 years of development, Gurfein says that the People’s Talmud is changing the playing field by opening the doors of the Talmud to everyone regardless of their Talmudic capacity or religious affiliation.
“The People’s Talmud fills the gap between the novice and the wonderful Talmud translations such as those from the Steinsaltz Center or Artscroll,” says Gurfein.
“When I worked with Rabbi Steinsaltz or met with the late Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, they both confessed to me that because a translation ensures accuracy it can leave the true beginner lost.
“Even with brilliant and well-composed English the flow of the Talmudic mind is too far a stretch for the modern mind.”
The People’s Talmud, instead of being a translation, is a new narration.
It takes Talmudic concepts and breaks them down into bite-size, ADHD sensitive narratives, giving the reader an instant grasp of the subject.
From there, users can choose to open Sefaria to the exact page in the Talmud (also in English), or to write their own notes, or to find an online tutor, or email questions.
Content providers, which include the Steinsaltz Center, Hadar, and others, offer over 1,000 videos, podcasts and PDFs that further complement the user’s search.
The site has more than 3,500 links enabling users to follow their own paths of interest through the entire span of the Babylonian Talmud and most of the Jerusalem Talmud.
For example, a person can click, under search/categories, “Animal Kingdom” to open a sub-menu of numerous choices, including “animal rights,” where they will discover stories of animals being represented by their lawyers in a court of law.
Or they can jump down to Philosophy and find 57 results as to “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.”
The site is free at www.thepeoplestalmud.com
Rabbi David Aaron, head of Orayta and Isralight, says, “The fact that the program is written in today’s language with today’s technology will make this a sought after tool that will be used, probably, over and over.”
The site offers a second portal called Scroll which allows users to move through the order of the Talmud itself.
Included in this section are over 3,000 one-line teasers designed to provoke the user’s curiosity, such as, “Rabbinic Food Fight”, (tractate Demai), “Life on Other Planets”, (tractate Avodah Zarah), or “Don’t Mess with a City of Only Women” (tractate Tamid).
“We wanted to extract golden nuggets of wisdom and transmit them to the Jewish people who didn’t think Talmud was relevant,” said Rabbi Ely Allen, Advisor to the People’s Talmud.
“What you have done in creating a Talmudic Primer is exactly what the Jewish world sorely needs to begin the path back to wisdom, especially Talmudic Wisdom,” said Rabbi Meni Even-Israel, CEO Steinsaltz Center.
Besides the Prime Minister’s office of Israel, many organizations coming on board to help with the distribution of the People’s Talmud, including the Jewish Agency and Chabad.
“Wisdom is only a good thing; it dispels a lot of darkness. When there is darkness in the mind you see the other as hostile, whether on a personal, communal, national, or religious level.
“Understanding the one G-d by being rooted in wisdom, is the doorway to fixing the world and Tikkun Olam.”