A Reprint of the Vilna Shas of 1880-1886 Produced on Fine Vellum, Jerusalem, 2002

A milestone in the modern history of the printing of the Talmud.

When Daniel Bomberg set about issuing the first complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud in Venice in 1519/1520-1523, he made sure to print a limited number of deluxe copies of tractates on parchment. Two centuries would pass before a twenty-four-volume set of all the tractates of the Babylonian Talmud would be printed on parchment, this time in Berlin and Frankfurt an der Oder in 1715-1722 and commissioned, at a cost of one thousand gulden, by the great bibliophile and Chief Rabbi of Prague and Bohemia David Oppenheim (1664-1736).

The present lot represents a further milestone in the publication of the Talmud: the reprinting in modern-day Jerusalem of a set of the celebrated Vilna edition of the Talmud (better known as the Vilna Shas) on fine fetal vellum. Production of the original Vilna Shas, on high-quality paper, was undertaken from 18 Iyyar 5640 until 13 Nisan 5646 (April 29, 1880-April 18, 1886) by a team of more than one hundred workers and fourteen proofreaders at the famous Romm Press. Its first volume sold some 22,000 copies, and the edition was quickly met with widespread approval and praise, attaining almost canonical status among Torah scholars. 

While the Vilna Shas has been reissued, sometimes with updates, numerous times in the century-plus since its appearance, the present edition is the only one known to have been printed on parchment. Included here are the Talmudic tractates themselves (without the additional commentaries usually found at the rear), as well as the Mishnaic tractates from Seder Zera‘im and Seder Tohorot and the so-called short tractates. To paraphrase the words of their publishers, these volumes constitute a true fulfillment of the principle of hiddur mitsvah, enhancing one’s observance of the commandments with elegance and beauty (Shabbat 133b).

Physical Description

25 volumes (12 5/8 x 8 1/2 in.; 320 x 215 mm) on vellum. Slight scattered staining; pencil marks on some title pages noting pages that had been missing at some point but were subsequently supplied. Red leather bindings embossed with design after architectural title page of Vilna edition, occasionally slightly scuffed; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, volume number, and printing material lettered in gilt on spine; silk bookmark; marbled paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Literature

Samuel Shraga Feigensohn, “Le-toledot defus romm,” in Natan Goren et al. (eds.), Yahadut lita, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Am-Hasefer, 1959), 270-296, at pp. 284-288.

Edward Fram, “The Vilna Talmud as a Reflection of Changing Patterns of Study,” Polin 33 (2021): 173-183.

Aron Freimann, “Die hebräischen Pergamentdrucke,” Zeitschrift für hebræische Bibliographie 15,2 (March-April 1911): 46-57, at p. 53 (no. 47).

Alexander Marx, “Some Jewish Book Collectors,” in Studies in Jewish History and Booklore (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1944), 198-237, at pp. 217-218.

Michael Stanislawski, “The ‘Vilna Shas’ and East European Jewry,” in Sharon Liberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein (eds.), Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein (New York: Yeshiva University Museum, 2005), 97-102.