The Ultimate Mishnah

Koren knocks it out of the park.

A while ago, in a post entitled The Publishing Renaissance, I wrote about how when Religious Zionist/ Centrist/ Modern Orthodox Jews in North America and the UK complain about the "slide to the right" in Orthodoxy, or about how their children have become charedi and expect to be financially supported for the rest of their lives, it irks me. After all, it's their own fault! They have failed to make a basic effort to perpetuate themselves, whether with regard to producing educators, or with regard to literature.

We are the People of the Book, and books form a major part of our lives. They influence us in all kinds of ways, from the role models that they choose to present, to the sources that they choose to quote, to the hashkafic outlook that they reflect - often very subtly. And yet, for many years, Religious Zionist, Centrist and Modern Orthodoxy ceded this important field almost entirely to the Charedi community.

Sure, there were always non-Charedi publishers. But they were small operations that did not present a comprehensive range of publications, and just published whatever came their way. It's ArtScroll that has been overwhelmingly dominant. Every shul in North America has ArtScroll Siddurim, Chumashim, and Gemaras. Many people like to mock or protest ArtScroll for their approach, which includes such things as censoring the non-charedi opinions of Torah scholars and altering texts. But I don't think that such criticism is entirely fair. ArtScroll had a comprehensive vision. They went ahead and exerted enormous effort to fill a huge gap, for which they deserve much credit; of course they are going to reflect the approach of their own community. Where on earth was everyone else?

The donor pages of ArtScroll publications are astonishing. Few donors are charedi - they are mostly modern Orthodox (or even non-Orthodox) Jews. Why are these people sponsoring publications which are from a different community and do not reflect their worldview? The answer is that there was no alternative. There was no YU Talmud or OU chumash to compete. Only ArtScroll was serious about publishing a full range of Jewish literature.

Well, finally, things have been changing. There is a serious alternative to ArtScroll, which finally marks a publishing renaissance for Religious Zionist, Centrist and Modern Orthodoxy: Koren. Koren is the only Jewish publisher aside from ArtScroll to have a comprehensive publishing vision. They are putting out siddurim, machzorim, chumashim, and a series of works on Tenach. And the flagship project is, of course, the Talmud.

But recently Koren published something new: An edition of the Mishnah, based around the commentary of Rav Steinsaltz. And it's not just any old edition, but the ultimate edition.

First, the basics. The Koren designers have an excellent understanding of how to use layout and white space successfully in order to enhance understanding of the structure of a text. The text of the Mishnah is visually separated into its components. Alongside is an explanation of the text. Footnotes elaborate upon topics in more detail. A brief halachic section notes how the Mishnah's rulings translate into halacha.

But then there is so much more. The difficulty in learning Mishnah is that very often one is suddenly plunged into a world of ancient and unfamiliar concepts regarding agriculture and suchlike. The Koren Mishnah features a wealth of background information on all these. Best of all, it includes photos - in full color. These photos are not only invaluable in terms of understanding what's going on, they also bring the world of the Mishnah to life.

There's simply nothing else like it. The Kehati mishnah was wonderful for its time but it has now been rendered obsolete. Koren has published a Mishnah which has everything one could possibly want, more than one would expect, and lacks nothing.

There is just one potential problem for some. It's entirely in Hebrew and there is no English edition (and I am told that there are no plans to produce one unless a generous megadonor suddenly appears). However, the Hebrew is fairly straightforward, and together with the pictures, it should still be very accessible for most English-speaking students of the Mishnah.

I'm currently working through the agricultural parts of the Mishnah with my youngest son, and the Koren edition makes it so much easier for the both of us. Kol hakavod to Koren, for their grand vision of publishing in general, and for this Mishnah in particular. You can order it online here.