Recently, I came across a great program that will definitely come in handy whether you are a student, scholar or anyone who learns Gemara. In addition to Gemara, this program comes with many useful Hebrew texts. The name of this program is Judaic Classics Torah Treasures.
Upon opening the box, I found three discs. The installation process began with choosing which type of installation to run. After starting the set up program, I opted for the full installation. I must warn you that the installation took me quite a long time to install on a Windows XP machine. The installation took approximately a half-hour. You are prompted to change discs about every 10 minutes, so don’t run away from your computer for too long. Yet, still and all, the wait is definitely worth it.
Another thing that was necessary for the full installation is 1.7 GB of free space on your hard drive. If you have a newer computer with a large hard drive, space should not even be an issue.
After finishing the installation, I was about to start the program, and I noticed that I already happened to have Judaic Classics Library installed on my computer and was a bit worried as to whether I would have some serious conflict. But that worry was soon to disappear, because when running the Library I was pleasantly surprised as to how well the program was integrated into the Classics Library.
The Judaic Classics Torah Treasures comes packed with Hebrew Texts, Tanach with full nikud and ta’amim, Rashi on Chumash, Talmud with tzuras hadaf, Rashi on the Talmud, Tosfos, Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Ramban on Chumash, Ohr Hachaim on Chumash, Ba’al Haturim on Chumash, and Targum Onkelos on Chumash.
The tzuras hadaf enables you to see the Gemara the way you actually see it in your paper Gemara. You can shrink and enlarge the daf to a setting that is easier for you to view.
Looking for something particular but can’t find it? The program comes with a super fast search program that will find what you are looking for in no time.The printing feature is quite flexible where you can print out actual pages of the Gemara the way you have it in your regular Gemara.
Another useful feature is the cut copy and paste feature along with the cut copy and paste aspect. The program allows you to paste information into other applications.
The interface is pretty easy to maneuver. One of the things that I really liked is the unique linking feature. This feature lets the user display text in simultaneously scrolling windows. This makes life much easier (i.e. when looking at one window the Gemara and the next window Rashi).
This is a great program to have. In fact, I recently needed to look something up but did not have a Gemara nearby. Luckily, I had my laptop which had the Judaic Classics Torah Treasures installed on it. With the click of a button, I had an actual daf displayed before me and was able to find what I was looking for.
The system requirements for this program are as follows: PC with Windows 98/Me/Xp/2000. A CD-rom Drive and 1.7 GB free on the hard drive, if you are running a full installation including tzuras hadaf. If you install the program without tzuras hadaf feature, it only requires 80 MB of space.
This program is made by the Davka Corporation and can be purchased online at www.davka.com and/or at your better local Jewish bookstore.