SmallTalk: The Meir Panim edition of Zohar (with Rabbi Yehoshua Lifschitz)
May 5, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readSmallTalk: The Meir Panim Edition of Zohar (with Rabbi Yehoshua Lifschitz)
When Rabbi Yehoshua Lifschitz's son watched him compile the new Meir Panim edition of the Zohar, he told his father: "Dad, I gotta tell you, you're really not doing anything. I see you, you're just doing control C control V. You're just doing copy and paste." The son was right in one sense — but the project required years of editorial decisions about what to copy, what to omit, and how to present six volumes of one of Judaism's most difficult texts.
What Makes This Edition Different
The Zohar was written in Aramaic, and Lifschitz's translation is deliberately what he calls a "dummy translation" — it explains nothing. If a reader gets stuck on a word, they can look at the translation, but the translation does not interpret or elaborate. This is intentional: Lifschitz wanted people to read the Aramaic side, so he kept his own explanations out of the translation itself, unlike other editions that "use some freedom to explain it the way they want to explain it."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:13) **Introduction and Guest** - Host Naki Weinstein introduces Rabbi Yehoshua Lifschitz, editor and publisher of Sifrei Meir Panim, to discuss the new complete six-volume edition of the Zohar.
- 2 (00:45) **Core Design Principle: A "Dummy" Translation** - Rabbi Lifschitz explains the first key feature: a literal, non-explanatory translation of the Aramaic.
- 3 (01:12) **Solving the Girsology Problem** - The second major innovation: a systematic, color-coded breakdown of the different textual versions (Girsaot) of the Zohar.
- 4 (02:35) **Curating the Mefarshim (Commentaries)** - The third key feature is the selection and inclusion of the most authoritative commentaries on each page.
- 5 (03:39) **The Ramak's Commentary: A Highlight** - Rabbi Lifschitz emphasizes the value of including the Ramak's commentary, which is both readable and not typically printed alongside the Zohar.
- 6 (04:24) **Page Layout and Accessibility** - The physical layout is designed for ease of use, mimicking the structure of a standard Gemara page.
- 7 (05:18) **The Philosophy of "Control C, Control V"** - Rabbi Lifschitz describes his editorial role as a curator rather than an original creator, which he sees as a strength.
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Show Notes
#471
> To download and purchase all of Rabbi Lifschitz's Seforim: http://sifrei-meir-panim.com/
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