A modest doorway on a tree-lined Jerusalem street, the side entrance to the elegant 90-year-old Yeshurun Synagogue, leads to Yad HaRav Herzog, which hosts, among other projects, a venture that is a momentous historical milestone in Torah scholarship.
This is the home of the Talmudic Encyclopedia (Encyclopedia Talmudit).
The importance and popularity of the Talmudic Encyclopedia is in its accessibility to both scholars and lay people who want to understand concepts within the world of Torah knowledge. Its reliability, accuracy and condensed style, is unparalleled in halachic literature.
In1942, Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan), the son of the Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin), envisioned assembling all of the Torah texts written and transmitted from the time of revelation at Sinai to the present day, primarily out of fear of losing the Torah together with the Jews in the Holocaust.
Rabbi Berlin engaged Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, one of the greatest scholars of that generation, who had the phenomenal ability to summarize and organize complicated material into a form that would be easily understood. It was Rabbi Zevin who determined the over 2,000 entries that would comprise the Talmudic Encyclopedia, and who decided on the writing style and the extent of comprehensiveness. He was joined by some of the most erudite scholars alive. The first volume of the Talmudic Encyclopedia was published in 1947. To date, 33 volumes have been published, and the number will reach about 70 when the project is completed.
The Talmudic Encyclopedia has garnered the praise of rabbinic scholars from across the spectrum, including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky, the Novominsker, Belzer and Lubavitcher Rebbes and others.
Rabbi Zevin died in 1978. He was replaced as editor-in-chief by Rav Avraham Farbstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Chevron in Jerusalem. In 2006, Rabbi Prof. Avraham Steinberg accepted the position of head of the editorial board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia and director of Yad Harav Herzog. He is spearheading the development and completion of the Talmudic Encyclopedia.
Born in a displaced persons camp after World War II, Rabbi Steinberg immigrated with his parents as an infant to Israel in 1949, studied at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav and Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School and served as a medical officer in the Israeli Air Force. He also trained in pediatric neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine & Montefiore Hospital Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y.
Today he is a senior pediatric neurologist and director of the medical ethics unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center and a world recognized expert in medical-halachic research. His major, groundbreaking work is the seven-volume Encyclopedia Hilchatit Refuit (in Hebrew) for which he received the Israel Prize in 1999. He has served as an adviser on medical ethics to the Knesset and to the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and has been involved in halachic aspects of modern medical issues with the most prominent rabbinic authorities, particularly with the late rabbis S.Z. Auerbach, Y.S. Eliashiv and E.Y. Waldenberg.
The speed with which the project is moving forward is partly stimulated by the recent substantial contribution by Dov Friedberg of Toronto. The project directors say they hope that others like Friedberg, will recognize the significance of having their family names, or those of their loved ones, connected with this momentous project.
Since Rabbi Steinberg took over the leadership, they began to publish one volume a year, and last year they published two volumes. In the coming years the objective is to publish three to four volumes annually in order to complete the entire project by the year 2024.
“I think the Talmudic Encyclopedia is one of the most important works in our generation, and perhaps beyond. It has no competitor. Its uniqueness is in its breadth, its clarity of style, and especially its credibility, thanks to the meticulous methodology with which it is created, with ongoing internal critique, and a team of outstanding scholars,” Rabbi Steinberg says.
The chief editor is Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, and the others are Rabbi Meir Shmuelevitz and Rabbi Saar Meisel.
“We want the encyclopedia to be more interactive than it is now, and that is only possible through the Internet. The ideal is to have the Talmudic Encyclopedia on four levels,” Rabbi Steinberg said.
“Level I of the online version will include entries that have not yet been written, that will be [in the] format of Wikipedia; everyone can contribute freely and our editors will moderate it. Level II will be the final versions of the entries which will be closed to editing by the public. They will, however, be able to add comments and quotes.
“Level III will be the Talmudic Micropedia, which will consist of condensed entries from the original, in a user-friendly style and format that will be targeted at the general population. The Micropedia [of which Rabbi Steinberg is the editor-in-chief ] is being developed and written by different people, and it comes from a different budget. It will be extensive enough for readers who are seeking a first resource. It also includes added information, which had been previously omitted for some reason. Rav Goldberg reviews it all to be sure everything is accurate.
“At Level IV, hopefully, we’ll be able to translate the Micropedia into different languages so it will be accessible to everyone.”
“It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it,”Rabbi Tarfon said (Avot 2:21) It is deeply inspiring to witness how a 72-year-old project, so greatly admired throughout the world of Jewish scholarship, is progressing rapidly so that current and future generations will be able to more easily immerse themselves in the treasures of the Torah.