Great Gaonica!

Otzar ha-Geonim to be completed

As a high-school yeshiva bocher, I once found myself in the erudite living room of Dr. Shnayer Leiman on a summer Friday afternoon. I had free reign on the shelves, and chanced upon a set of Otzar Hageonim - B. M. Lewin's masterful, though incomplete collection of Gaonic commentaries, responsa and more, arranged according to talmudic tractate. Leiman suggested I "take it for a ride" on the tractate that I was learning, and I did. It revolutionized the way that my immature brain thought about the history of talmudic commentary. No longer did everything begin with Rashi and end with the Ramban's beit midrash. There was a history of exegesis that stretched back in time, and was tantalizingly close to the very text itself, with which it shared a geography. Lewin's volumes accompanied me from then on. That is except when I studied tractates not included in his set. Sure, a bit of Bar Ilan searching revealed some of the Gaonic material, but only the tip of the iceberg. Collections of the material on the remaining tractates has remained a desiradum.

I recently learned that the world's leading Gaonist (?!), Robert Brody of the Hebrew University, has embarked on a mission to do just that. With a number of assistants, he is collecting the material and editing it. Bava Metzia is more or less done, others are on the way. Maybe he and his team can make my youthful dream come true.