Tractate Kiddushin According to the Meiri (review)

102 SHOFAR not offer as much historical information as do the volumes of the EI Am Talmud or Steinsaltz's English translation. However, tractate Makkot is not included in either of these series. Therefore, we must compare this volume to the Soncino translation. The Artscroll translation is so much more accessible to the beginning student than the Sondno translation that it should be greeted with praise and gratitude. For example, compare the opening lines of the Sondno translation with this new one. (Note that the pointed Hebrew phrases are included in the Artscroll edition but not presented here.) Soncino: How do witnesses become liable [to punishment] as zomemim? [If they say:] "We testify that N.N. [a priest] is a son of a woman who had [formerly] been divorced or a haluzah," it is not said [in this case] that each [mendacious] witness be himself stigmatized as born of a divorcee or haluzah; he only receives forty [lashes]. Artscrol\: In what manner do witnesses become zomemim? If they said, "We testify about this man who is a Kohen that he is the son of a divorced woman or the son of a chalutzah, women whom a Kohen is forbidden to marry and whose child by them is a disqualified Kohen:" if they are found to be zomemim, we do not say that this false witness is relegated to the status of the son of a divorced woman or the son of a chalutzah in his place, i.e., in case the false witness is himself a Kohen, we do not penalize him by disqualifying him from the Kehunah as he intended to do to his victim, rather, he suffers the penalty of forty lashes known as malkus. In summary, we may state that this volume provides significant new material in English to Talmud students. It could be used quite effectively in community and college courses for beginning students. This volume will hopefully further our ability to bring Talmud to English-speaking learners. Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams Congregation Ner Shalom, Woodbridge Virginia Ph.D. Candidate in Rabbinic Literature, Baltimore Hebrew University Tractate Kiddushin According to the Meid, translated by Yecheskel D. Folger . Spring Valley, NY: Feldheim, 1989. 414 pp. $19.95. "The Talmud is a closed book." This means that a student cannot hope to properly understand it without the help of a teacher. This is no less true Volume 9, No.2 Winter 1991 103 now than it ever was. But for the English-speaking public, they can at least hope to obtain some grasp of the material even without learning Hebrew and Aramaic and without the aid of a skilled rebbe to guide them. Some will decry this situation, for "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," especially when the recipient is unaware of how little his knowledge actually is. For many aspects of Jewish learning I think this is true. But not the Talmud, for once one is exposed to it at this level, the reader is neither confused nor fulfilled, but left with a thirst and yearning for more. There is also the problem that there is a shortage of qualified rebbes for students who are just starting to learn Talmud as adults. And if this is true in New York and Chicago, how much more so for people living in less intensely Jewish areas. But with this book and those that complement it, such as the Soncino Talmud, the El Am Talmud, and of course the Steinsalz Talmud, anyone can establish his own study group and start to swim in the "Sea of the Talmud." Even as we do in Lafayette, Indiana. Each of the new Talmud translations has its own style and advantages. This book is not self-contained and should be used in conjunction with the Soncino edition, which provides a literal translation of the complete text but only the sparsest of notes. Our volume, in contrast, lacks the Talmud text but contains the complete commentary of R. Manahem b. Solomon Meiri (1249-1316). He lived in France just after the era of the Tosefists, at a time when Jewish life there was particularly difficult. His response was an attempt to provide a synthesis...