The Primacy of the Page (full article)
The tzurat hadaf, or form of the Talmudic page, is a fairly recent innovation, but carries with it a great deal of historical, cultural, and perhaps religious weight. For a publisher to deviate from the precise layout of the page is difficult, because the frum consumer will often not follow. This might be compared to the courtyard of the Beit HaMikdash which, according to Zevachim 56a, only has legitimacy in terms of liability for entering while tamei within the precise dimensions of 187 x 135 amot. Let’s examine a bit of the history of the tzurah’s development, the current digital space, and my own recent innovation in this space.
Handwritten Talmudic manuscripts do not conform to the tzurat hadaf. They don’t have Rashi and Tosafot. The Mishnah often appeared only at the very start of a perek, with the Gemara following. Piskaot (short excerpts) informed the reader what Mishnah was under discussion. The Munich 95 manuscript is interesting, in that the Mishna is written in a large font at the edge, the smaller gemara text flows around it, and slightly smaller marginal notes record emendations.
One of the earliest printed Talmuds was by the Soncino family, with tractate Berachot printed in 1484. Its format consists of a central column of Talmud in square Hebrew font, and Rashi and Tosafot columns surrounding it in a smaller “Rashi” script font. Even so, the specific words on each page do not accord with our modern tzurat hadaf.
The Bomberg printing, between 1519 and 1523 in Venice, followed this general format. Our present standard pagination conforms to the Bomberg Talmud. That is, the first and last word on daf Zevachim 56a in a Bomberg Talmud would be the same as in our current Talmud, for both the central Talmudic text, Rashi, and Tosafot. However, the shapes of each column, and the first and last word of each line (of Gemara, Rashi, Tosafot) will not match our present gemaras.
Finally, the Vilna printing, by the widow and brothers Romm, in the 1870’s - 1880s, established the standard layout. That is, in addition to the aforementioned format and pagination, the specific shapes of each column and the first and last word of each line (of Gemara, Rashi, Tosafot) has not shifted since. There are additional commentaries of glosses wrapped around the Rashi and Tosafot, but those don’t really form the core tzurat hadaf.
Maintaining the Standard Layout
Later printings introduced innovations, such as a bolded dibbur hamatchil (initial quoted Talmudic excerpt in Rashi and Tosafot) or additional commentaries on the margins like Torah Ohr HaShalem with the full text of cited Biblical passages, but the column shapes and line-initial and line-final words remain fixed to the Vilna standard. Some popular printed English Talmudic translations also reproduce and retain the essential Vilna page. Thus, there’s a Soncino Talmud printing in which a folio of purely English text faces the corresponding reproduction of the Vilna page. Artscroll printings do the same, but since the translation page contains both vocalized Hebrew / Aramaic and the translation, the translation page spans multiple folios. Each faces the same corresponding Vilna page, with a visual indication of which span is being translated. In the modern Koren English translation of the Talmud, presenting Rav Adin Steinsaltz’s work, opening the sefer from the left side gives you the vocalized Aramaic / Hebrew and English text, without the tzurat hadaf. Opening from the right side gives you the standard tzurat hadaf, but with the Gemara, Rashi and Tosafot fully vocalized and punctuated.
Rav Steinsaltz zatza”l original Modern Hebrew translation gemaras were criticized for not utilizing the standard Vilna tzurat hadaf. This included claims that, by putting his interpolated Modern Hebrew translation / commentary on the side and Tosafot at the bottom of the page, he was asserting himself to be more important than Tosafot. This criticism always seemed a bit disingenuous, and a pretext rather than a true reason for rejecting his gemara.
Meanwhile, he had good, practical reasons for deviating from the Vilna Shas’ layout, as he explained in an interview (via JTA):
Q. In the original editions of the Steinsaltz Talmud, you changed the traditional look – the tzuras hadaf – of the pages, for which you were heavily criticized. For the new edition of the Hebrew and English Steinsaltz Talmud, however, you restored the old look. Why did you originally change it and why did you restore it?
A. Look, in the beginning, it just couldn’t be done. All the additional material couldn’t be put on the old pages. I tried twenty-odd formats, and found out that if I used the traditional page, it would be at least two and a half times as big, which wouldn’t be usable. So the question is: What do you do – duplicate the page as ArtScroll did or cut it?
What I originally did in my Hebrew Gemaras was cut it.
Aside from his interpolated commentary, this additional material included discussions of halacha, Rishonic approaches to the core concepts, brief biographies of Talmudic Sages, zoological, botanical and archaeological background, and alternative girsaot. That would be hard to fit on a page. Having grappled with layout issues on my own Gemara website, I can really appreciate how difficult it would be to force all this into a standard Vilna layout.
Importance of Vilna Standard
The Talmud is perhaps the world’s first hypertext. The Gemara comments directly on the Mishnah, and contains discussions from Sages across countries centuries. Rashi comments on the Gemara, and Tosafot comment on the Mishna, Gemara and Rashi. The Ein Mishpat points to later halachic authorities that rule based on the Talmud, while the Torah Ohr points to earlier Biblical passages utilized by the Talmud. The Masoret HaShas points to parallel passages elsewhere in the Talmudic corpus. Therefore, the page format of a central text and surrounding texts around texts, in the increasing margins, is appropriate. Still, that doesn’t compel the Vilna standard layout.
Pragmatically, a standard layout is useful because Talmud is often not studied in solitude. If Reuven studies with his chavruta Shimon, it is useful to be able to immediately point to the proper location (in Gemara, Rashi, Tosafot) on the page. The same is true for Talmud taught in a shiur, either in person or now by recorded lecture. Often, you’ll hear someone say “we are on the third wide line, where the line begins with amar Rav Pappa.”
Digital Editions of Talmud
Many digital editions of the Talmud have appeared on the Web in recent years. I’ll highlight a few popular ones. Sefaria.org has the William Davidson Talmud, which is a parallel Aramaic / English text, based on the edition and work of Rav Adin Steinsaltz. It has vocalized and punctuated textfor most of the Talmud, and linked commentary which will show on the sidebar. It lacks the tzurat hadaf, but if you click on the sidebar, under manuscripts, you can access the Vilna and Venice printings, thus seeing the tzurat hadaf.
alhatorah.org has vocalized text, the same English text as above, a way of selecting which multiple commentaries to appear for each unit, additional commentaries not on Sefaria (e.g. Ein Mishpat Neir Mitzvah) and, most recently, manuscript variants donated by the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society. Meanwhile, the Friedberg Archive (Hachi Garsinan, fjms.genizah.org) provides printings and manuscripts side by side, highlighting differences in red, and with the ability to see the actual images of the manuscripts / printings. They also provide an image of the Vilna page, with markings of where differences exist. The Steinsaltz Center Portal (steinsaltz-center.org/portal/library/Talmud) provides Rav Steinsaltz’s vocalized and punctuated Talmud text, his English translation, interpolated Hebrew commentary, some of his other analytical commentaries, plus Rashi and Tosafot. They do not provide a tzurat hadaf.
Finally, The Mercava (themercava.com) provides an actual tzurat hadaf, with the standard Vilna text of gemara, Rashi and Tosafot in Rashi script; color highlighting for questions, answers, and other discourse types (similar to those in the excellent ArtScroll app); and selected translations of many individual statements. However, it lacks the other commentaries, punctuated and vocalized text, and girsological variants.
Recently, I published my own Talmud website, girsology.com/dafyomi. Through the magic of Torah U’Madda, combines some of the best features available on these other websites, with more to come. Most importantly, it takes the vocalized and punctuated Sefaria Talmudic text and fits it into the standard Vilna layout. This is no mean feat, as punctuation adds characters to each line, and the abbreviations are expanded. For instance, הָכִי קָאָמַר in line four in the image is ה”ק in the Vilna text. (Hopefully, I’ll soon provide this functionality to some of the other Talmud websites.) Clicking on a star at the start of a paragraph opens up a yellow tooltip with Rav Steinsaltz’s English translation. This allows you to access Sefaria’s resources while enjoying the tzurat hadaf. I hope to eventually bring in other variant texts from printings and manuscripts.
On Girsology, Sefaria’s text of Rashi and Tosafot decorate the sides of the central column in the precise Vilna layout, and you can toggle between Rashi and standard Hebrew font. Other icons bring up an audio of Rabbi Aryeh Leibowitz’s coverage of the daf (from YUTorah.org) and an AI-generated explainer video of major themes of the daf. On my list of features to come include swapping out Rashi and Tosafot for other commentaries; including all cited verses like Torah Ohr on the margin; a punctuated Tosafot; color coded discourse highlighting, and more. Check it out, and let me know of any feature requests or bug / spider reports.