The following also caught my eye:

Along with computerizing the Cairo Geniza, Choueka is now beginning to work on a project that he says is bigger, more comprehensive and more important. The project, to be called “Hakhi Garsinan” – meaning “this is how the text should be read,” the Aramaic phrase Rashi used to denote changes in versions of the Babylonian Talmud – will present every change that appears in any version of the Talmud based on all the manuscripts and printed editions in the world.

“It will be a modern website constructed in an unprecedented manner,” said Choueka. “Anyone who studies a page of Gemara – a yeshiva boy, a student at home or a university researcher – would be able to see all the versions for every line based on all the existing manuscripts.”

For about 150 years, Talmud scholars have been trying to launch a similar project. Now, thanks to Choueka’s computers and technology, he promises that this project will take off within a few years.

Cohen wrote at length about two articles that appeared in this issue. The first is by Mordechai Akiva Friedman and is about the possibility that other shofar blowings for Rosh ha-Shannah existed in the Rabbinic Period, and these eventually ceased to be observed. The second is by Robert Brody and relates to the dating of the Stammaitic (anonymous) strata of Talmudic literature.

In the meantime, even as we mourn JPS’s disappearance as an independent Jewish publisher, lovers of Jewish books should wish the new couple well.

Sarna is also the author of JPS: The Americanization of Jewish Culture, 1888-1988, a full-length study about JPS.

I thought that the following paragraph from Sarna’s book was interesting (p. 191):

The Society also projected an imposing list of other plans. The ever-ambitious Maurice Jacobs called for “the publication of a Philadelphia Schass…edited by a scholar like Louis Ginzberg.” He believed that such a new edition of the Talmud was essential after the destruction of Vilna’s great Romm Press, and he promised that such an undertaking “would bring the Society more fame than it has ever had in its history.” Somewhat more modestly, Solomon Grayzel urged publication of a new edition of the Shulchan Aruch, the basic code of Jewish law, with an English translation. In this case, the idea became mired in controversy, for, as Jacob Marcus explained: “The Reform Jews wanted the entire Shulchan Aruch published in a scholarly edition in toto, because the average American Jew would find it ridiculous and burdensome, and the Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, insisted on its publication in part; they wanted to choose only those items which would leave a good impression upon the American public.” Needless to say, that idea was dropped.

The only tractate of the Talmud that was ever published by JPS was Henry Malter’s translation of Tractate Taanit which should not be confused with his critical edition of the tractate without any translation.

The vocalization of rabbinic texts can also be found in the well-known MS Kaufmann of the Mishnah and the MS of Sifra, Codex Assemani 66. Who vocalized these texts, while important, is less important for this post than the very act of vocalization itself.

Scholars have discussed the linguistic importance and characteristics of these different traditions of vocalization, but I am interested in their cultural context. Who needed this vocalization? What was the level of Hebrew knowledge of these MSS’s readership that they required a vocalized text? In some cases it is clear that the vocalization was added later. What were the factors that brought about this later addition?

I have been thinking about these questions after realizing that almost every single rabbinic text is available today in a vocalized version. Not only are they vocalized, but the more recent the edition, the greater chance that it is vocalized.

As I mentioned above, the text of the Mishnah has been vocalized for centuries. Individual tractates of the Talmud were vocalized before the complete vocalization of the Talmud found in Steinsaltz, Artscroll, or Tuvia’s (not yet complete). Probably every single midrash is available in a vocalized edition. For Midrash Rabbah, Merkin vocalized the text years ago, and this has continued with the Midrash ha-Mevoar series. Here are two other examples of midrashim that I recently bought. The first is a newly typeset edition of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer with David Luria’s commentary. In this edition, the text of the midrash is vocalized. The other example is a recent edition of the Tanḥuma that includes both the traditional text and Shlomo Buber’s edition. In both versions, the text of the midrash is vocalized. A vocalized edition of Mikra’ot Gedolot is also available.

This vocalization is also found in halakhic texts. I just bought a vocalized edition of the Shulḥan Arukh that is only the text itself and doesn’t include any commentaries (excluding Isserles). The most popular editions of the Mishneh Berurah are vocalized, and another point is that they often don’t have any Rashi script. I could go on and on with examples.

I personally think that vocalized texts are extremely important and aid in learning correct Hebrew and Aramaic. Has modern technology brought us into a new era in the publication of rabbinic works?

What some may not know is that its original meaning in Talmudic literature is quite different. Eliav Schochetman wrote the following:

The dictum, “koaḥ dehetera adif“, appears six times in the Talmud, always bearing the same meaning. The redactors of the Mishnah and the Baraita preferred to record a case that illustrates the entire logical scope of the application of a permitting principle of a particlar tanna on the assumption that the tanna would have used this principle to permit in the case under discussion. This was as opposed to recording a case that illustrated the consequences of the adoption of the prohibiting principle of a particular tanna on the assumption that the same tanna, upon applying the prohibiting principle, would also have prohibited in that case.

In other words, in the Talmud the phrase is not use in order to choose the more lenient opinion instead of a stricter opinion, rather, it is used as a literary device to emphasize the difference of opinions between two sages in a particular case. One can easily prohibit something, but if one wants to permit something, there is a reason for his reasoning to be brought. Again Schochetman:

The Talmudic context of the principle does not relate to the authority of the posek to rely upon halakhic considerations as a source for permitting, but rather, relates to a principle governing the redacting of the Mishnah and the Baraita.

For more about this phrase see here, here, and here (Hebrew).

Source: Eliav Schochetman, “The Power to Render a Lenient Ruling: “Koah Dehetera Adif”,” in Jewish Law Association Studies VI The Jerusalem 1990 Conference Volume (1992): 125-55. A Hebrew version is found in Maḥnayyim, vol. 5, 1993, 72-89.