Inside ArtScroll Episode 10: Rabbi Avrohom Biderman

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Art Scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today we're joined by Rabbi Avan Beerman, longtime editor here at Arts Scroll Misora. It's a pleasure to have you here in the studio. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for bringing me to life. Pleasure is ours. We're very excited to be discussing today a particular project that I know is very close to your heart. The Kumsh with teachings of the Talmud. For those out there who are not familiar with this at all, give us a little insight into what is unique about the Kish and also the amount of work that went into it. Okay, let's start with what's unique about it. When Moshe went up to to Hari, Hashem gave him not only the five books of the Kish, but there's a there was a lot of interpretation. There was a lot of explanation that went into that. The is shorthand for the entire Torah. And that entire Torah is our all our all our Torah works are based on what Moshe was taught at Sinai. This volume presents the teachings that are in the tal and yushmi on each p. So it's basically that you're bringing as a commentary to would that be a synopsis of what you did? That's correct. But it's not just a commentary. It is actually the commentary that Mosherenu got at Hari for what the Torah says. Now, isn't Rashi's commentary really a compilation besides for Rashi's own comments on Sukim? But he's constantly quoting Gummorus Mafarim. He does Medrashim and things like that. Isn't that in essence? He does to a certain extent, but this brings all the teachings in Babylon. Is there an overlap between what you're bringing in the uh teachings of the Talmud commentary and Rashi? Sometimes. Okay. that there's also a work called Toretsima. The reason that it's called Toretima is because it's the entire Torah and the point is that it's also combining the Torah and al what he did though is he took many maj but he does not bring down the agade the Agadic teachings of the Talmud. We do that. We don't bring down anything that's not in the Talmud. That would be too much. Our medish itself is 17 volumes, right? So that would be too much to So this is like an English but an expanded expanded version in and I also noticed that you have uh excerpts or selections from the safer, right? Tell us about that as well. We will we'll get to that in a moment. But what we did was though we didn't cite the gamarra. What we did was we adapted the Gammorra so that somebody could pick this up. 12-year-old could pick this up or somebody who has had no exposure to gamarra study in their life and see what the Gamarra teaches about something or Shalomi teaches and and the language of the US Shalomi is particularly difficult even for people that learn Gamarrai Talmedi the language of the US Shalomi and the structure of the US Shalomi is very difficult and the syntax of the USI is difficult and what we do is we explain it in simple words we don't use techn technical language. We don't use we don't use the language that's in our gamarra the back and forth very often the gammorra has a discussion back and forth how to interpret a pik one person will say this letter means this one person will say this letter means that and they learn different parts of they learn different laws so the of the gar that you leave out that's correct we get to the essence and the core of it to give you the teaching of the talmud rather than the structure of the is not to take the place of studying Gomorrah. But somebody that has no exposure to Gomorrah or somebody that's looking up for Torah at their Shabas table can pick this up and they have it in a language that they could they could actually share it with their children and the others at the table. A teacher who's um in in most communities, mosti communities, women don't study Talmud. A woman could pick this up and when she's teaching the kish, she could teach a student what the gumar says on the PK. Uh I have a son-in-law who's a first grade rabbi and sometimes he'll grab it just for something a thought to share with the children that's on the pekk that they're studying. So this has it's a very it's a very broad-based work in terms of who it speaks to. It speaks to a broad audience and I guess one of the challenges is conveying the garumar's message, conclusion, essence, however you want to describe it without the reader needing to understand the context. Well, we give the context we actually context we give we we when we discuss the laws of Bikuram, we'll explain to you before as an introduction what is at every step of the way. And as you mentioned, we bring down the every time there's a mitzvah that the Torah has. We have 613 mitzvah. There are different ways to count those mitzvah, but the is one of the fundamental books that lists the mitzvah. One final works that lists the mitzvah. This work tells you this is the law. This is the mitzvah that we get from this p or these are the mitzvah that we get from this p. when the title of the mitzvah is not sufficient, we give you a little capsule of what the mitzvah is so that everybody could learn the PK and they said, "Oh, this is where it came from. I never realized." And um again, that's something that takes what Mosher was taught at Sai and brings it down to us as one whole as one whole unit. One whole unit. Right now you you've done now Dvarim. So it's a complete set. We've actually did varum earlier. We just finished by midbirth. Finished by mid set. So now the set is complete. Did you find that any particular seder was more tedious or more difficult? Was there more commentary on one than the other? Certainly more vayra than any than any other safer. Um fortunately safer vayra is shorter in text, right? So it's the volume won't be the volume wasn't overwhelming. We and there was a lot more technical material in safer vayikra. Safer boratious obviously had much more had many more acadeic teachings. There were only and there were only three mitzvah in all of Boratas. And um but even but even in we got to the first mitzvah. So we give a little background. First mitzvah is we give a background of how the Jewish calendar is structured in s again in simple language that a teenager it speaks to adults as well. This isn't a book for teenagers for teenagers but it it can speak to a teenager. Sounds like it would be a tremendous resource for Rabonimum teachers. Uh if you need to prepare a vart, a speech of some sort, you have really all of the tishabal on a particular topic right there at your fingertips. That's correct. And uh in a very very beautiful format. Was that something that you designed? Tell walk us through that. Rashia Brander is our graphics genius and a layout genius. This did go through several iterations before he came up with this layout um that is user friendly um that's not overwhelming, very easy on the eye. Yes, very not overwhelming even though there's a lot of information there and it's broken down also into small segments. So that's also very very very digestible. Every segment of subhead has a little title to it and the little catchy title really beautifully done. It's a it's a it's a it's already a classic and I'm sure over the years um people will use it more and more they'll start appreciating just how much work and time went into it which leads me to my next question. How long did this take? This was actually done over the course of about two and a half years. Uh and um the original plan was for it to be written by one person but uh that would have been a bit overwhelming. Right. Each kish had it had uh we had listed on the title pages are all the people that contributed to those to each volume and then it went through an editing process to make sure that it was accurate to make sure that it was easy to read and easy to understand and uh you know some editors who worked on this needed to switch from their technical mode technical academic mode almost to a more userfriendly folksy mode. um that doesn't take away from the sanctity of the work. It but just makes the book more the work more accessible to a broader audience and I think you see that in the final product. It's an easy read, very easy flow and um we already see how people have embraced it. The feedback is phenomenal. We're that's what we're hearing. It's wonderful and people are using it and we're very happy about that. Let's turn back the clock a little. give our readers an insight into your process of growth here at Arts School. You've been here a long time. Tell me how it started and tell me how it evolved. Okay. I know I'm putting you on the spot here, you know, right? I know you weren't ready for that question, but uh we'll have to take them they come as they come. Yeah. Exactly. For as every as most people know Rabbi mayor's laditz was the founder of art scroll and he was very involved in sifted ferris big of ma as we know close to very close to feinstein and in the early 1980s began doing an annual dinner for the first time in decades. I was learning the yeshiva of fatal which is a division of of MTJ and I was conscripted to help help run the dinner. Um and I got to know Ra Laditz that way or mayor and um he had mentioned to me if I was ever looking for a job I should uh drop him a line. What were you doing at the time? At the time I was still single. Okay. Um so I went through got married se I got married a few years later and we worked annually on the dinner and you were still learning in the katan I was in the katnon for several years then I began working for the agura for a few years and then came time that I uh was we were going through a career change and um what were you doing at a then I was director of t I was doing fundraising for Iranian rescue and um I ran we began at that time. I was involved in that. There were several things I was doing there and I gave a call and I said, "Well, what year are we talking about?" 80 We're dealing 1990. 1990. That's when it ended. It was there from 88 to 90 and 30 years ago. 30 years ago. And I began at art school. I believe it was the end of January of 1990. I began in sales and uh I was doing some editing on the side. Over the course of the next four years, I continued to do editing on the side and did sales. In 1994, there were some staff changes and I was given the current position of being essentially managing editor or we don't really have titles here. There's no middle management. Everybody does what they do. Work as a team here. We work as a team. It's a very everything is a collaborative effort and we're all in it together. We want to we want to produce the best thing that we can, the best product, most accurate product, most helpful product that we can. Now, Artsko at the time was already a well-known name. We know Rabbi Zlawit started with Malcolster in the 70s. By then, uh the Sida was already out. Um many other volumes when you came up was underway. Mhm. Um the Gomorrah had not yet started. Got it. What projects the stoneish was not yet when I came in as sales. The Gomorrah had not yet started and the Kish was not yet the stone kish was not yet out. Um a lot of the classics that people know us for have been published over the last 30 years. So as time went on, you moved into the position of managing editor. Your job responsibility, it sounds like shifted. My job responsibility shifted. I was out of sales and I was really dealing very hands-on with many aspects of production of the books, not just with the not just with the editing. I was also dealing with cataloges. I was dealing with a lot of the promotions at the time. We were a lot smaller then and a lot of people wore a lot of different hats. As as our pro project load increased, we new staff joined us. Andy Herzburg joined he took off most of the most of the day-to-day moving shephering the projects became his his domain I dealt more with the writers as you know you were you're one of our authors so uh you dealt with different people at different stages of the the production production of writing editing right right we have a wonderful team of editors and um now I currently work basically on projects but I still deal with a lot of the questions that the editors have on their books. I have to make it clear that we have most of our projects really are their own self-encclosed project. So the Gammorra or the Mishnayas or the Mishna elucidated or our Hebrew mission or Hebrew Talm or the USA Shalia or Unkus or Inyakov, we have all these major projects. They have an entire team with its own editor with it with its own editorial structure and hierarchy. I don't deal with those fararm generally right but um but over the past several years we've we were we dealt with the teachings of the Talmud we did a sitter I assisted Danzinger in in coordinating um the introductory volume to the Talmud very popular volume over the past year or two sure that's uh that's that's where that's what I've been doing now you got to work with the legendary Rabbi Mayor Zadawitz yes really you know what could you say about one of the greatest pioneers perhaps the greatest disseminator of Tyra in in history really when you break it down just how farreaching his his works are um and arts has reached every corner of the globe what do you remember learning from Rabbi Ladawitz early on and what lessons did he teach you that you've taken with you over the subsequent two and a two decades There are a lot of lessons. We have to get it right. We have responsibility to people to get it right. And we're here really our main mission is to disseminate Torah. We do a lot of other works and we publish a lot of light lighter reading that non what appears to be non- Torah works. But when we publish a novel, that novel has to reflect Torah values. Sure. And it has to reflect positively on Torah values. We have a responsibility not only to teach Tyra but that we have to make the Torah life and Torah lifestyle beloved to people because it is a very fulfilling life and it's a wonderful life and we have an opportunity to reach out to people on so many levels. Rabowitz's vision was incredible. Um although I would I would dare to say that even with his vision he didn't envision how great an impact he would have upon Israel but to undertake a project like the Jewish Shami for instance which was a closed book to all but closed safer to all but the greatest for centuries and centuries and centuries and to say we're going to undertake to open that up the quality of soul. No, it's not going to be popular. No, it won't have the sales that of the Bobby of the Bavi or of most other works that we do, right? But we're opening up as he said many times that that might he feels that that was our greatest contribution is because people were studying Gomorrah. Not as many people, not nearly as many people were studying, but to take Yushami which was closed and to have to have a go like use our gum, use our Hebrew Yalami with his limonal to use our Hebrewi with that he was ling with because whenever they had a question they encountered something his kusa with the schneider sure um would say oh it says here in the notes this and that really ran le on his own wrote a thank you letter that's published in the US and subsequent issu volumes he wrote a thank you letter to the editors for producing it so when you're taking that that's vision and that's not that's very uncommon that's a commitment and it's a commitment when you when you invest in a book and you invest in a novel and you invest serious money in and then there's a there's there's a hashkafic issue and you have to drop it that that takes courage too and reair operated lash shamayim and he didn't take sales as the single barometer as to whether to undertake a project wasn't the bottom line right exactly because your shami would not be on the top of the list for that reason that's correct but he did open it to the wider world beyond the you know elite scholars who may have been studying it right and Gdal has taken it to the next level with opening up uncle there's so much more that's going on no question but Gdali's lads has has has shephered art scroll from his father's vision and continued it to bring a lot of these new projects to fruition but I want to jump in we know re rib mayor's lawitz was he stroke for perfection and when art school readers go to the store, if they buy books online, they get that final product, it shines. It's beautiful. But we know that sometimes behind the scenes, things aren't always so neat. And I want to ask you, give us some insight into crisis. Take us through some of the days and nights when maybe things weren't so neat and uh you know, you had to muster up some uh strength and uh fortitude that maybe you didn't have to get a project from inception, from idea to fruition. I'll I'll address that on two levels. Um before my times, uh mayor had been working they had hired somebody to work on say for Yona and uh this is a well-known anecdote. It was close to Yum Kipper. I'm not sure exactly when it was, but it was close to the deadline when Mayor who was editing the commentary or Sherman who was editing the commentary noticed that the author had written that Rashi had made a mistake and they felt that was totally not acceptable but was more than not acceptable. They felt that an author who's coming with that philosophy is not somebody whose work we can really trust or who should be one of our authors. And her mayor sat down and wrote and wrote those uh and a brand new a brand new commentary a brand new commentary on Yona. Wow. In a very short period of time when we were working on the Gammoras, we had a very tight deadlines. I was not working on the Gammoras per se, but they were working on tight deadlines because of Dafomi and it came out over the course of two Dapomi cycles. Mh. And very often somebody would be looking at the proofs. The proofs would be in Manhattan. We didn't printing wasn't digital then things were much the printing process was much different than it is today. It's more archaic. Yeah. Right. And um some very often we'd work through the night looking at proofs and sometimes at the guys looking through the proofs would notice that he had a question about something that was written and he'd be calling the editors at 3 in the morning saying what's going on and then they'd scramble and re-edit revisit the issue. Would you receive the phone call tonight? No. No. um the person checking the blueprints would be making the phone call to the Gamarra editors. Okay. And uh I very often I was the guy checking the blueprints, right? And um sometimes it'd be a scramble and all of a sudden you get a car service to run film back into the city so the volume could get out on time. How would that change nowadays that things are digital? Would it be easier to correct something last minute about to go on the press? Yes, certainly. We have the ability today with this the materials that we do print on demand for sure. Um now print on demand to explain to readers means that we print actually on site scroll has a uh has a boundary on site safer craft right we've had seven we have had a boundary on on the site for years okay because to be able to keep our deadlines with both the gamora and before that to be able to keep those deadlines was boundaries would take a long time to turn around projects so we had our own boundaries so that as soon as it comes in from the printer, we could bind over the past nine years or so. We've uh been doing print on demand where we've had actual printing on site. Now, in our new facility here in Raleigh, we've expanded that even further. We have uh we have series of presses that are running 24 hours a day. Really? 24 hours a day? They run 24 hours a day. 246. No, they run 24, I believe. Uhhuh. But uh Uhhuh. But I guess the people who man the presses also need a break. Yes, they need a breakthrough too and but now you make the change on you make a change in the file, you replace the PDF file and the new file goes on press. You don't need films, you don't need somebody to strip it all together and lay it out, right? Impose it. What would you say has been the most challenging project you've worked on since you joined art school? Most challenging project I've worked on personally. Yeah, you personally. Yeah. I'd have to say the sparity sitter. Really? Why is that? It brought me to a whole new world of it brought me to an entire new new framework of host because the post that they follow or very often what we take as givens what we learned inituram that guide us and our help to feel saying us as Ashkenaz I may right that this me the the framework grown born and bashkarazzi grown born and bred the what what guides me in are the follow that you're familiar with that I'm familiar with brought me to a whole new levels of and each the different communities have [Music] different Right. Right. And there's the there are Moroccans, right? Persians. This brought us into contact with with authorities and authorities on Minhagim of the various communities. and working with a team of of of them from various communities, we were able to produce a sitter that is unique in that it addresses the various menag of most of those communities and um I've heard from many I'm use the term I'm using the term sparardum but doesn't really include Moroccans and doesn't really include Persians or Bkharins But all those that davin that's the that are similar and that are different from the ashkanas ashkanasar that we're used to are are I've spoken to people from all those backgrounds and they are they love the sitter not only because they it opened up to them just like the art school sitter opened to everyone to everyone ashkanazi the Ashkenazi communities 30 years ago, 35 years ago. The this sitter opened fela to them. It gave them the inspiration and the and the translation and the meaning and the depth that they that they so sought. But not only that, but it reflected and gave them instructions for what they should be doing based on their and it reflected their NOS. It is a beautiful sidd and the feedback from communities of all types and what we call obviously a very very broad connotation broader than the real definition but the feedback has been phenomenal as it has been received we said you're an editor here in art school now forgive me for asking but what is an editor what does an editor do wherever an editor works they're dealing with language correcting language making sure the writing is clear a reader understandable to a reader and that's across the board any place an editor works. Here at Art School there's there were there were additional layers in terms of trying to ensure that the material is accurate in terms of content when they site when they site a commentary commentary when they site a time ludic citation. It's the editor's role to keep his antenna attuned to errors. Now, no no no editor can check every source in every book. But if they see something that might be a miss, they're they're looking it up. They're checking it out. Another thing is hashkafa. We're coming from a hashkafa that's been formed by the Israel, the leadership, the leaders of Kali Israel who have led us, who have guided us going back to the early days of our scroll from Mosha Finstein Gifter to David Feinstein, David Con as these are these are people that we can we have consulted. I just got a call last week from Rafellow David that uh he was reading one of our books and uh he found uh something that was obviously an editor had made a change there and it turned into a it was a gaff. We actually went ahead and had and corrected it immediately. Wow. in all the books that we had in stock even. So, um we the we we have to reflect the Tyra hashkafa that has been passed down to us by our Torah luminaries and um sometimes we've dropped books as as I mentioned we've we dropped the book well into the editing process because uh we wasn't up to par because we have a responsibility to to do what's right. M now an editor obviously you you referenced it before there's the literary part of it besides the dashkoff part um dealing with a lot of transliterations in fact I would say that art scroll has kind of set the template for the tyra world in transliterating in a lot of people have replicated it since then walk us through that how you're here from the early days how is that stylesheet so to speak compiled child and has it evolved at all or has it basically stayed the same over the last 30 years? There are two the the template was made far before I came here. I came here 15 years into the company. Um we use an Ashkanaz. It's a hybrid as we explained in our early works. It's a hybrid of Ashkanazi spelling and spartic vowelization which I always found interesting. What's the background of that? I don't I walked into it. preceded you, preceded me. But you carry it on faithfully. Yes, we carry it on faithfully. What did evolve over the years is that our readership has become more used to certain our readership has become more used to certain terms. When art scroll began, there was a vast readership that wouldn't know how to deal with Yakov or Yahushua or Boratious. They knew Genesis, right? They knew Joshua. I did notice in the stone edition of the kamish so the in the commentary it is what we would call anglicized. It's Moses and Jacob as opposed to Moshe and Yakov. Whereas in story books or other things like that it would be um it would be Moshe and Yakov the terms that people have gone to yeshiva are more familiar with. even our gammorra I believe it's I believe in even our gammorra it's mosha and uh that's that's become more standard today than it was um as the public became more familiar with these terms at the beginning again um when when our sitter hit 25 years old a friend of mine who was not a friend of mine at the time I didn't know him named a fellow named Ron Coleman wrote a beautiful essay a tribute to the art school sitter at age 25. He he asabalta he's our lawyer. He's one of our lawyers now. We use him he's our intellectual property lawyer but he wasn't then. He wrote a beautiful piece about how meaningful this sitter was to him in helping him adapt culturally to shul. It told you where to stand. It told you where to sit. told you where to bail. It told you where to step back. It told you where to step forward. It gave you those tools that you were too embarrassed to ask. Stand out like a sore thumb or uncomfortable asking. Many years ago, probably several months after I took on this role, I got a phone call from somebody in Pennsylvania. I will the county will remain nameless. um who told me that he just wanted to let me know that they had been part of a conservative temple and an arts school called sitter made its way there and the people started getting very a number of the people there number of the congregants became very offended that their that the service was not following the text and the instructions of the sitter and they ended up making a minion based on the article citate. Wow. Um they made the first Orthodox what they said that what that fellow aver was the first Orthodox shul in that county. Phenomenal. Who would have for the school I went to Sherman. I said, you know, imagine the right it's unbelievable. I actually recently saw an article that said that there's been an increase in the use of art scroll sedurum in nonorthodox congregations, which is a fascinating thing. You would think that they would have an aversion to it because all the customs are orthodox strict adherence to but the sidd is so flawless and har such a beautiful presentation and like you said before it gives newcomers to prayer newcomers to shul a certain comfort level that I guess it just can't be replicated and even non-orthodox congregations are using it and now I see who knows what kind of positive impact it could have that really bring people to hahikic observance which is remarkable right which leads me actually the sitter and the kish lead us to the unheralded so far gem here at art school which is Rabbi Nelson Sherman who is a partner with Rodawitz um and was was the author of our translation of the sitter and and the insights and as well as the stoish which has literally transformed people's these works have transformed for people's lives. Um in the early works he edited Jabar Ladawitz's writings. He he um wrote the overviews which opened entire world entire world of Makshava to to generations of people. I grew up before art scroll right really um there was nothing like those overviews before and I would say there's been nothing like it since. That's correct. So it's a really uh there's a reason why Rabbi Sherman is what we maybe the father of Tyra literature right um in contemporary times and you've been I'll I'll segue a bit here. You've merited to work with quite a few legends in the world of Torah literature was Rabbi Mayor Ladawitz now carried on by Rip Gdalia as well as Rabbi Sherman you mentioned Rabbi Shia Brander a legend in his own right and the likes of Rabbi Ellie Cron also who's a graphics genius. So you've been surrounded by so many of these people. Humb it's humbling to be among geniuses. Let me tell you um you know the the when the Moraglin came they said they were like grasshoppers right. So that's sort of what you feel that's what I feel like when I walk down the hall here. So, as I hop down the hall, um, Rashia Brander brought again to hark back to the fact that I grew up before I grew up, I was entering high school when the first art school work came out, right? Um, so I really grew up without art scroll and there was a certain template for Jewish books, boring covers, boring insides. um graphically dry, shall we say? Even the story books were just dry. This transformed Jewish literature in terms of graphics, in terms of an exciting color cover on a Jewish book was almost unheard of before Miguel. the the fonts, contemporary fonts, contemporary layouts were something completely new to Jewish literature. So it made these it made Jewish literature not only accessible on a literary level because again art school did away with the thighs and the thous and the that we that that most that that Bible translations had had until then. It's it speaks to the it speaks to the contemporary public. It speaks in a language and it presents it. Ria and again just remember Raer and Rupia Raer had a had a graphics background right and and Rupia was working with him at art school studio at art school studios so they had an eye for the graphics and the aesthetic and the arts school aesthetic look at the binding of Aragamura how much work and design went into that right and that's something that that continues to do and Ellie and Ellie continues with really that we transformed Jewish literature in that way too and made it exciting and appealing to a much broader audience than Jewish literature had been until then. Well, listen, the the excitement has not waned. Barashem keeps turnurning out quality volumes. The public eats them up. Um readers eagerly await, you know, to see what new book is coming out. They wait for the ads. And uh you've been a tremendous part of it till now. And uh our is you should continue to enrich the Torah public with many more volumes and to continued. Amen. Thank you very much for having me.