DIGITAL SHAS
How can modern technology assist us in studying the Talmud?
That's why Orchos Chaim has developed a system which can do all of the aforementioned and more. Rabbi Schwartz has already designed a system, found a programmer as well as the Avreichim, set up a prototype, and got everything ready to go to get the first edition out, Arvei Pesachim. With just $15,000 we can get the first edition out, which will be distributed freely, and show just how simple and powerful this tool is.
- Ever need assistance with a basic understanding of the sugya your studying, and just don't have the Talmud with the basic explanation. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just shlep all those sefarim with you on a tiny flash drive, or have it stored on your tablet or smartphone.
- Talmudic study demands constant research outside the text that is actually being studied, so what happens when you've got a kashya? We get out of our seat, start searching through the commentaries, until we finally find something relevant, great, now we can progress until, yep, we've got a kashya on the previous explanation, and here we go again. Well that's an entire morning spent searching for relevant information understanding the sugya we're presently learning. Wouldn't it be better if we could just find that information instantaneously, and spend our valuable time doing the actual learning, instead of the librarian work. Well, here's the solution, got a computer, laptop or desktop, or maybe a tablet or smartphone, any of them will do, now you open your application, and click to the sugya you're studying, next you'll get all of the main topics discussed from there with hyperlinks. Clicking on a hyperlink will get you to the commentaries who discuss that, and a click on the actual commentary will get us to the actual text, and again there will be hyperlinks on the issues discussed in the commentary. Now wasn't that easy!
- Ever gone to a Shul or Beis Midrash, started learning, until you needed some important text to enlighten the sugya, got up and looked around until you realized that the text you need urgently isn't there, uh oh. Well here's the solution, just put it all in your pocket, a tiny flash drive will do, and you're there, all the texts you need and even more.
- Now you're in the Beis Midrash, and you're fortunate enough to have all the sefarim you need to study the text you're learning in depth. Only about 15 large volumes of text, lying within visible sight of where you're sitting, neatly sorted out. Now you open and close them, find the place again and again, moving them around constantly. You've got the point, far to tedious. Wouldn't it be nice to have all those texts in a small area, like a tablet, with the ability to move back and forth immediately.
- Finally, you want to print, copy, cut, and or edit all this information; well we could open up our word processing program and start typing everything from scratch, then edit, etc, but if we have all of that in front of us, we can do that with a few scrolls and clicks of a mouse.
That's why Orchos Chaim has developed a system which can do all of the aforementioned and more. Rabbi Schwartz has already designed a system, found a programmer as well as the Avreichim, set up a prototype, and got everything ready to go to get the first edition out, Arvei Pesachim. With just $15,000 we can get the first edition out, which will be distributed freely, and show just how simple and powerful this tool is.