What Did the Jews Learn When the Talmud Was Outlawed?

00:58 We have discussed in previous short lectures the fact that there was a Sefas Ha-Tosafot that in the whole Italy, they burned all the Talmud, Sefas, Sefas Ha-Talmud. So in those years, that wasn't easy to find a Gemara to learn with. The main print shop was then in the ci- cities of Italy. All the Talmuds burned, and all the print house couldn't print Talmud anymore. In Spain that they printed the Talmud, there was the expulsion of Jews, burning all their seforim. There is not any more ability to print there the Talmud. In other countries around, they didn't have yet then so many print houses to be able to print a whole Talmud. For next 25 years since Shin Yud Gimmel till Shin Lamed Ches, for since 1553 till 1578, there was not even one Talmud printed. So what did the Yidden learn then those years? They couldn't learn Talmud. They wanted to learn the Gemara. So it's a i- interesting episode that in Savionetta, in the new print house, he started printing the Shas, the Talmud, and they took it away from there. All the pages that was there, they burned. Next year, in Shin Yud Daled, in 1554, he started printing a Rif. Why is the Rif supposed to fulfill the missing of the Pa- Talmud by the Sefas Ha-Talmud? What is the Rif? The Rif took the whole Shas and he qu- he copied all the parts that are related to Halakha, and whenever there is a machloket, he added how the Halakha part

03:21 goes. And whenever there is something not clear, he added a few words or a few lines to explain it. So it comes out that in the Rif, you have a large part of the, the Shas, all those pieces, all those parts that are related to Halakha. Therefore, the Ta- the, the Rif was always a unique sefer. They would also copy it on parchment. We have in the library one page of the Rif written on parchment, also taken out from the hardcover bindings of seforim that was published many years ago, and they used this Rif as scrap paper to paste pages together and form from it the hardcover binding. The first time that the whole Rif was published was in Reish Samech Tes, 1509, in the city of Kushta, Constantinople in Turkey. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain, some of the Jews settled in Turkey, mainly in Kushta and Salonika. Some settled in cities in Italy. Some settled in North Africa, mainly in Morocco. But those Yidden that settled in Kushta had opened there a print house, and one of the earliest print, uh, mesorim they printed was the Rif and the whole Shas in several volumes with some of the meforshim on the, on the margin. So obviously, after the Sefas Ha-Talmud came in 1553, he decided to print the, the Rif, and people will be able to learn part of the Talmud from the Rif, and it was a very unique edition of the Rif. When he started printing the Talmud in Shin

05:56 Yud Gimmel in 1553, he hired the Baal Ha-Shulchan Ha-Gevirah, a big goy. He should be magiya while printing, shouldn't be no mistakes, and he should add some Likut on the margin of the page behind the page with Rashi. As we mentioned, there's nothing left from that Shas because they pu- published, they, they started printing only one volume and they stopped. But then he started right away printing the Tal- the Rif. And for the Rif, he also hired the Baal Ha-Shulchan Ha-Gevirah to be the magiya and adding notes on the margin, and these notes are called Shulchan Ha-Gevirah. They're a Likut of other poskim that are discussing this subject. In all the line, the li- the Rifs that is published till today, you always hel- have on the side, on the margin, the Shulchan Ha-Gevirah of that print, Shin Yud Daled Anan, after the Sefas Ha-Talmud in Italy when they have town, started learning the Rif instead of the Talmud for several years till they started printing the, the Shas in other countries in Europe, outside of Italy and outside of Spain.