Designing ChavrutAI: Building a Customized Talmud Interface for the Digital Age
From Bomberg to Browser, Blatt to Breadcrumbs
An interlude in the middle of a series for a special post, in a somewhat more festive spirit, for Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day).
See my recent two-part series on this; this piece is a continuation: “ChavrutAI Web App in Progress: Advancing the Vision of a More Accessible Talmud”, final part here.
The digitization of classical texts presents interesting challenges that extend beyond mere preservation. How do we transform millennia-old documents into interactive, searchable, and accessible resources while honoring their original structure and content? This question guided our development of ChavrutAI, a digital platform for studying Jewish texts with particular emphasis on the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli).
This article examines the key interface design decisions we made in creating the mock-ups for the planned ChavrutAI UX/UI/ interface, focusing on how traditional methods of Jewish text study informed our approach to creating an intuitive digital learning environment.
Link to the mock-up:
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/f3642b54-3de9-4e44-89bf-5e441eb3390e
Screenshot of ChavrutAI interface, default view (tablet view):
Outline
Honoring Tradition Through Design
The Visual Foundation: Color and Typography
Navigation Architecture
Breadcrumb Navigation with Hierarchical Dropdowns
Work dropdown: Bible, Mishnah, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli
Tracate / Book dropdown
Chapter dropdown
Page dropdown (Folio / Daf ; Page / Amud ; Verse ; Mishnah Section)
Content Presentation
Side-by-Side Bilingual Display
Attribution and Scholarly Context
Mobile Accessibility
Future Directions
Conclusion
Appendix - New Mini-tool / web app: ‘Jastrow Dictionary Abbreviation Modernizer’
Honoring Tradition Through Design
The Talmud has a well-established physical format that has remained relatively consistent since the Bomberg edition was printed in Venice in the 16th century. Before making any design decisions, we asked ourselves: which elements of the traditional page layout are essential to the learning experience, and which could be reimagined for a digital context?
The Visual Foundation: Color and Typography
Our first design choice was the background color—a light sepia tone that evokes the warmth of parchment and many traditional printed volumes. This subtle coloration reduces eye strain during extended study sessions while creating an atmosphere of scholarly gravitas. Unlike stark white backgrounds common in many digital reading platforms, the sepia tone is significantly easier on the eyes.1
For typography, we placed Hebrew text in bold, as that generally works well. The right-to-left Hebrew text appears on the right side of the screen, with corresponding English translations on the left—reflecting the natural reading pattern of bilingual learners while allowing easy comparison between the original text and its translation.
Navigation Architecture
Perhaps the most significant interface challenge was creating a navigation system that accommodates the organization of the Talmud.
Traditional Talmud study involves reference to specific tractates, chapters, and folios (pages), often requiring scholars to move between sections to follow an argument or cross-reference related discussions.
Breadcrumb Navigation with Hierarchical Dropdowns
We implemented a breadcrumb-style navigation bar displaying the reader's current location within the text: Tractate > Section > Chapter > Page.
Each element is interactive, featuring dropdown menus that allow quick movement between different sections of text.
Work dropdown: Bible, Mishnah, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli
The work dropdown arranges Jewish texts in chronological order—Bible, Mishnah, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Talmud Bavli—reflecting the chronology of these works.
This ordering serves both navigational and pedagogical purposes, subtly reinforcing the relationship between these texts.
Screenshot of work dropdown:
Tracate / Book dropdown
The tracate dropdown presents all tractates within the selected text collection, sorted in the traditional order.
For the Mishnah and Talmud, this is the relevant tractates from Berachot through Niddah. (For Bible, it’s the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible / Tanakh, from Genesis to Chronicles.)
Screenshot of tractate dropdown opened:
Chapter dropdown
Screenshot of chapter dropdown:
Perhaps most innovative is our chapter dropdown, which not only lists chapters numerically (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.) but also includes the folio range for each chapter in parentheses.2
The ranges follow the traditional overlapping pattern of Talmudic pagination—Chapter 1 (2-10), Chapter 2 (10-20), and so on.3
This gives scholars immediate context about the extent of each chapter and allows those familiar with specific folio references to quickly locate content.
Page dropdown (Folio / Daf ; Page / Amud ; Verse ; Mishnah Section)
Screenshot of page dropdown:
The page dropdown reflects the distinct pagination system of the Talmud, with each physical folio (=daf; “blatt” in Yiddish) divided into "a" (front) and "b" (back) sides (=page / amud).4
Our interface provides easy navigation between these divisions.5
One can also navigate to the next or previous page via button at the bottom of the page, screenshot (arrows added to the screenshot to highlight the relevant visual elements):
Content Presentation
Side-by-Side Bilingual Display
The heart of ChavrutAI's interface is the side-by-side presentation of Hebrew and English text. We present both languages simultaneously, with each logical segment/verse paired with its translation.
This layout accommodates different reading strategies:
For native Hebrew readers who occasionally need translation assistance
For English readers learning Hebrew who want to compare texts
For bilingual readers who may prefer reading one language but reference the other
Attribution and Scholarly Context
Screenshot of footer:
The footer contains important contextual information: "ChavrutAI - Making the Talmud more accessible for contemporary study | Data provided by Sefaria (not affiliated) | Open-source project."
This transparency serves several purposes:
It acknowledges the source of our textual data (Sefaria, a digital library of Jewish texts)
It clarifies our independent status to prevent confusion
It emphasizes our commitment to open-source principles and collaborative scholarship
This attribution is especially important in the context of Jewish textual study, where proper citation and intellectual honesty have always been core values.
Mobile Accessibility
Screenshot of mobile view:
While traditional Talmud study often involves large volumes spread across a table, modern scholars increasingly need access to texts in varied contexts.
Our responsive design includes a carefully considered mobile experience with a slide-out menu that preserves all navigation options while optimizing the reading experience for smaller screens.
Future Directions
The current interface represents our initial approach to digital Talmud study, but several enhancements are already planned:
Integrated Commentary Display: Adding the ability to view enhancements like Jastrow’s Dictionary (modernized) alongside the main text
Thematic Navigation: Creating alternative navigation paths based on concepts and themes rather than just traditional pagination6
Advanced Search Capabilities: Implementing sophisticated search tools that understand the complex relationships between Talmudic passages
An AI / LLM-powered “chavruta”
Conclusion
Digital interfaces for ancient texts must balance innovation with respect for tradition. With ChavrutAI, we've attempted to create an environment that feels welcoming to those experienced in traditional Talmud study while making the text more accessible to all.
The challenges of digital text presentation—navigation, context, bilingual display, and attribution—each presented opportunities to reflect on how scholars have interacted with these texts for centuries. By approaching interface design as a form of textual interpretation itself, we hope ChavrutAI contributes meaningfully to the evolving landscape of Jewish text study.
Our design philosophy throughout has been guided by the principle that technology should enhance the depth of engagement that characterizes traditional learning. In the spirit of chavruta (partnership study)—the traditional method of learning Talmud with a study partner—we view this interface as a partner in the learning process: supportive, clear, and designed to elevate rather than simplify the rich complexity of the text.
We welcome feedback from scholars and students as we continue to refine this tool for contemporary Talmud study.
Appendix - New Mini-tool / web app: ‘Jastrow Dictionary Abbreviation Modernizer’
Not directly related to the above, I just published at my Academia page: “Mapping table of Jastrow abbreviations”, with 400+ mappings.
As part of my ongoing work on a Jastrow Dictionary Abbreviation Modernizer.
Compare Jastrow's own mapping, at Sefaria:
https://www.sefaria.org.il/Jastrow%2C_List_of_Abbreviations
And see my current web app mapping tool (work-in-progress, but already very helpful, for me personally):
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/2dde7f34-1f05-4f28-8c3c-7ce861913b47
Screenshot of example, using an entry from yesterday’s piece, which I initially modernized using this tool:
Jastrow פָּאגֵי, פַּגֵּי, בֵּית פ׳:
And another example, also from yesterday’s piece, Jastrow , פַּגָּה:
We plan to play around with the color more, for a more subtle range of light sepia / light grays.
Using sepia as the background was partially inspired by these models:
Hacker News (tech forum)
Screenshot, from today’s top post:
Kindle app (Amazon’s e-reader), one of the four “Page Color” options:
Screenshots (web app):
Of options, with arrow added to highlight:
I’ve also set this blog’s own theme to have a sepia background; Substack provides it as an option (in ‘/publish/settings/website-theme’).
Screenshot:
Compare Wikisource, which has breakdown by chapter, in a special category (automatically sorted in alphabetical order, as with all Wikipedia categories):
Screenshot:
For an table of the traditional chapter names (=incipets) of Talmud chapters, see the website אוצר הספרים היהודי השיתופי, at page: "רשימת פרקי הש"ס".
Screenshot (not including the final column - “Notes” - הערות):
And see the intro to my piece at Academia on Talmud chapter word counts, for a a discussion of all this: “Bavli By the Numbers: Word Counts of All Chapters in Talmud Bavli“.
Tthe folio numbers are placeholders, and will be customized; traditional chapter names (=incipets) will also be added.
See my elaboration on this traditional pagination and formatting system at my piece “Scripting the Talmud Part#2: Automated Rashi Text Extraction and digital layout of tzurat daf“.
And see also my recent discussion of the traditional tzurat hadaf format, from a historical perspective.
The current range is a placeholder range, from 2a through 100b. For Bible and Mishnah, this dropdown will update to be verses and Mishnah sections, respectively.
See, for example, my previous piece on aggadic islands / hotspots; I’m working on indexing / labeling the Talmud Bavli by topic and other vectors.