Vilna Edition Shas

{{Short description|Printed edition of the Talmud}} thumb|upright|The first page of the Vilna Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot, folio 2a. [[File:Талмуд Вавілонскі. Трактат Сангедрын 01.JPG|thumb|Early printing of Tractate Sanhedrin, originally belonging to a synagogue in Bobruisk]] The '''Vilna Edition''' of the Talmud, printed in Vilna (now Vilnius), Lithuania, is by far the most common printed edition of the Talmud still in use today as the basic text for Torah study in yeshivas and by all scholars of Judaism.

It was typeset by the Widow Romm and Brothers of Vilna.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://nyblueprint.com/floating-letters-widow-romm-and-printing-press-vilna |title=Floating Letters: The Widow Romm and the Printing Press of Vilna}}</ref> This edition comprises 25 volumes (small tractates are combined) and contains the entire Babylonian Talmud. In its entirety, there are 2,711 double-sided folio pages.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Italians, Helped by an App, Translate the Talmud |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/world/europe/italian-talmud-translation.html |date=April 6, 2016 |quote=Consisting of 2,711 double-sided pages ...}}</ref> It follows the typical pagination of Bomberg printing with the Gemara and/or Mishnah centered with Rashi's commentary on the inner margin and Tosafot on the outer margin.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tosafot |website=Britannica.com |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/tosafot |quote=Rashi's ... on the inside margin ... tosafot ... outside margin.}}</ref> It is also flanked by other various marginal notations from various prominent Talmudists. This edition was first printed in the 1870s and 1880s, but it continues to be reproduced photomechanically worldwide.

==History== Plans for publication of the ''Vilna Shas'' were announced in 1834 by the owners of the ''Vilna-Horadna Press'', Menachem Man Ream and Simcha Zimmel.<ref name=Tell.185>{{cite book |title=Soul Survivors |author=Hanoch Teller |year=1985 |author-link=Hanoch Teller |pages=[https://archive.org/details/soulsurvivorstru00tell/page/185 185-203] |isbn=0-961-4772-0-2 |publisher=New York City Publishing Company |url=https://archive.org/details/soulsurvivorstru00tell/page/185 |url-access=registration }}</ref> Along with a copyright, a restriction was placed on publishing another ''Shas'' for twenty years.<ref name="Tell.185" /><ref>by Rabbi Akiva Eiger</ref>

A rival edition of the Talmud, the Slavuta Shas, had been published almost three decades earlier, in 1807.<ref name="Mizrahi">{{Cite web|last=Mizrahi|first=Israel|date=August 15, 2019|title=The Legendary Shapiro Shas|url=https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/the-legendary-shapiro-shas/2019/08/15/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-09-30|website=|language=en-US}}</ref> The publishers of the Slavuta Talmud argued that the Vilna Edition infringed on their rabbinical court-ordered 25-year license to be the sole publishers of the text.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hoffman|first=Yair|date=December 21, 2016|title=The Slavuta Shas|url=https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/501896/the-slavuta-shas.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=September 30, 2020|website=The Yeshiva World|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Netanel|first1=Neil Weinstock|url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371994.001.0001/acprof-9780195371994|title=From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print|last2=Nimmer|first2=David|date=2016-03-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-537199-4|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371994.003.0007}}</ref> Although more than 25 years had passed since the date of the first edition of the Slavuta Shas, only 21 years had passed after its latest edition.<ref name="Mizrahi"/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/vilna/before/publishing_houses.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki Publishing Houses in Vilna in the Interwar Period] on the Yad Vashem website * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060727003909/http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5763/EMR63features2.htm The Story of the Romm Publishing House and the Vilna Shas]

Category:Jews and Judaism in Vilnius Category:Talmud versions and translations Category:Judaism in Lithuania Category:History of Vilnius Category:Jewish printing and publishing