Emek ha-Netziv : The Manuscript

August 20, 2012, 7:49 am

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Emek ha-Netziv : The Manuscript

by Gil S. Perl

Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl is dean of the Margolin Hebrew Academy/Feinstone Yeshiva of the South in Memphis. The following selection comes from his new book, The Pillar of Volozhin: Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin and the World of Nineteenth-Century Lithuanian Torah Scholarship.

The manuscript of ‘Emek ha-Netziv remains in the possession of the Shapira family and there are no additional extant copies. The family are prominent members of a staunchly traditionalist Ḥaredi community in the Geulah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Members of this community generally oppose sustained contact with Western culture and its representative institutions, including universities of any type. The Shapira family seems to harbor additional skepticism toward those researching Netziv , due to the fact that his relative openness to certain aspects of non-traditional culture has made him a controversial figure in some ultra-Orthodox communities.[1]These facts, combined with the sheer value of their manuscript collection,[2] make the family understandably guarded about allowing access to thematerials they possess. However, with the assistance of Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, Dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York City and a cousin of the Shapira family,[3] I was able to secure brief and accompanied access to the manuscript from which ‘Emek ha-Netziv was taken.[4]

The manuscript is handwritten in three volumes, corresponding to the three volumes of the printed text. The first two volumes were bound, but the binding has completely deteriorated and sections of each volume easily separate from one another. The third volume seems never to have been bound. The pages of all three volumes are severely frayed at the edges.

As suspected, the manuscript contains a core text with countless interlinear and marginal additions as well as words and entire lines that have been crossed out:

.

It is important to note that the brackets and parenthesis which appear throughout the printed text do not correspond to these additions. Rather, they correspond to places in which Netziv placed parenthesis or brackets around his own words both in the core text and in the additions. The additions and the notes he appended to the end of the manuscript (referred to by the Netziv as hashmatot )[5] were incorporated without indication into the printed text.

The script of the core text through the first two volumes and half of the third is a fairly consistent narrowly-spaced brown cursive[6] written with a fairly wide-tipped pen. In the second half of the third volume the script of the core text changes to a blacker, wider-spaced cursive seemingly done with a thinner-tipped pen. The script of the later marginal additions varies.

The notes which appear scattered throughout the printed text (referred to by the Netziv as hagahot) were written at the same time as the core text,[7] as evidenced by the identical script used and the intentional indentations left in the text of the core commentary in order to create space for the hagahot. The hagahotalso contain marginal additions. A typical page in the manuscript containing hagahot, then, is represented in the following diagram:

The reference to the newly printed book ‛Emek Halakhah mentioned above appears as an interlinear addition to the core text, thus implying that for that particular section of the commentary on Naso, the core text was written prior to 1845 and the addition was included after 1845. The references to Reb ‘Iẓele are also found in the core text with the word “she-yiḥyeh,” which dates those passages of the core text to the years prior to 1849 as well.[8]

The orderly progression of chapters in the core text, which begin at varying places on the physical page of the manuscript, indicates that Netziv wrote down his comments in this manuscript in proper sequence, following the order of Sifre. [9]That is, one can safely assume that in this particular copy of the manuscript, the core text of Netziv’s comments on Parashat Bamidbar were committed to writing before those of Parashat Naso, and his comments on pesikta’ aleph were committed to writing prior to those of pesikta’ bet.[10] If the core text of the manuscript was written sequentially, and the core text of EH Naso 49 (I:181) was necessarily written prior to the publication of Zev Wolf ben Yehudah Ha-Levi’s 1845 publication of ‘Emek Halakhah, one can deduce that, at the very least, the entire core text until that point was also committed to writing prior to 1845. Likewise, from the appearance of the word “she-yiḥyeh” in the core text of Be-ha‛alotekha andShelaḥ[11] one can assume that the text up to that point was written prior to Reb ’Iẓele’s death in 1849. If we then add that the handwriting remains rather constant in the core text until the second half of the third volume, we have reason to believe that all of the core text until that shift in appearance was committed to writing prior to 1849.

Thus, one can safely conclude that a good portion of the printed edition of‘Emek ha-Netziv was indeed written while Netziv was a young man in his twenties and thirties. As such, the general character and main attributes of the work must be seen as a product of the cultural and intellectual atmosphere of Lithuanian Jewish society in the 1830s and 1840s. At the same time, given the large number of later additions and the lack of any demarcation in the printed text, one can not firmly ascribe a date to any specific passage found in it, with the exception of those which contain explicit or implicit references to the time of composition.

Censorship

The process of preparing ‘Emek ha-Netziv  for publication was painstakingly performed by the Shapira family over the course of many years, and thus the printed text seems to be relatively free of printing errors. However, there are two hints in the printed text which suggest the possibility of editorial censorship.

As noted above, Netziv’s relative openness to sources of information beyond the pale of the current traditionalist canon is a character trait which is at odds with the values of the contemporary ultra-Orthodox community. As we will describe at length in the pages that follow, ‘Emek ha-Netziv  is filled with citations and references to such sources of information. On two such occasions the reference found in the printed text appears to be intentionally altered so as to prevent proper identification of the source. In his comments on ‘Ekev, Netziv writes that for further study one should consult the book called “thirty-two Middot of [sic] in Vilna.”[12] In all probability Netziv is referring to the book published in 1822 called Netivot Olam: Beraita de-32 Middot with the commentary of Ẓvi Hirsch Katzenellenbogen. Katzenellenbogen is known to have been a member of Vilna’s more “enlightened” circles.[13] As such, the possibility exists that the publisher intentionally left out Katzenellenbogen’s name. This prospect is bolstered by the fact that the manuscript contains a name in the standard acronymic form where the printed edition has a blank space. When I asked to look at this reference in the manuscript, it was reviewed by two members of the Shapira family and I was denied permission to look at it. Nonetheless, I did manage to see what seemed like a legible acronym ending in the letter qof.[14] Although it is possible that the editor could not discern the letters of the acronym, if such had been the case one would expect a bracketed editorial note, such as those which appear on several occasions in the printed text where the manuscript is illegible due to stains or frayed edges.[15]

The second possible instance of editorial censorship concerns a passage in Netziv’s commentary on Shoftim which refers the reader to “hakdamat ḥumash besau[16] ve-‘tav’’alef’.”[17] The most common referent for the initials tav”alef in the context of Torah commentary is Targum Onkelos, the ancient Aramaic translation of the Bible. However, if the bet of the word “besau” is replaced with adaled so as to read “desau” we might suggest that the tav"alef stands for targum Ashkenaz, German translation, rather than Targum Onkelos. As such, the citation would be of the well-known introduction to Moses Mendelssohn’s Torah commentary, which was printed in Dessau and contains a German translation of the biblical text. The fact that the subject matter under discussion in this passage of Netziv’s commentary correlates to subject matter discussed by Mendelssohn in the introduction to his Bible commentary supports the latter suggestion.

We might raise the question, then, as to whether the printed text was intentionally manipulated so as to prevent easy identification of Mendelssohn’s work or whether the daled of Dessau was simply mistaken as a bet by the printsetter.[18]The fact that this particular citation was underlined in pink pencil in the manuscript bolsters the suspicion that the publishers of ‘Emek ha-Netziv were sensitive to the potential controversy the citation of Mendelssohn might have caused in the ultra-Orthodox community and that they therefore intentionally altered the printed text.[19]

Both of the above instances of possible censorship beg the question as to why the references were included altogether if the printers wished them to remain unidentified. Furthermore, as will be discussed below, the printed text of ‘Emek ha-Netziv contains references to numerous other works that lie well beyond the traditional contemporary ultra-Orthodox canon which were not censored. As such, the evidence for editorial censorship cannot be considered conclusive. Nonetheless, these two passages do raise the possibility that other parts of the text were more cleverly censored or that other citations were completely deleted.

The End of ‘Emek ha-Netziv

The end of Netziv’s commentary on Sifre, as it appears in the printed edition of ‘Emek ha-Netziv , is also an issue of concern to the critical reader. The commentary in both the printed edition and the manuscript comes to an abrupt halt halfway through the parashah of Ki Teẓeh[20] and well before the end of the text of Sifre itself. One is therefore led to question whether Netziv truly ended his commentary there, or whether there was more to the commentary that does not appear in the printed text.

Several factors indicate that Netziv’s commentary did, in fact, extend beyondpiska’ 27 of Parashat Ki Teẓeh.[21] To begin, Netziv starts his commentary at the beginning of Sifre with an introductory double couplet, and thus one would expect a similar poetic composition at the end of the work, but none appears in the printed text or in the manuscript. Furthermore, a statement of completion marks the close of each parashah throughout the text, but none appears at the end of Parashat Ki Teẓeh. Likewise, the completion of the Book of Numbers is marked by two rhyming stanzas of nine lines each,[22] while Deuteronomy, and the commentary as a whole, has no formal conclusion at all.

One must entertain the possibility that the abrupt ending of the work suggests not that the final portion of the commentary is missing from the printed text but that Netziv never completed the commentary. This theory might be supported by the fact that the statements of conclusion which follow everyparashah are in poetic form in the first two volumes, whereas in the third volume, which consists of the Book of Deuteronomy, the statements consist of nothing more than “Piska’ 8 is complete and [so too] the entire portion of ve-’Etḥ anan.”[23] One might interpret this phenomenon as suggesting that the final touches, such as the transformation of abrupt closing statements into clever couplets, were never applied to the third volume of the work.

Such a conclusion seems unlikely, however, when one considers the numerous revisions and recensions to which Netziv subjected the rest of the commentary. One generally does not spend the time editing, expanding, and re-copying a work that one has yet to complete. Furthermore, in his introduction toHa‘amek She’elah Netziv regrets that he has not yet brought his commentary onSifre to press, but he makes no mention of not having completed writing the text. Similarly, in a comment found in his Harḥev Davar, published along with his Ha‛amek Davar in 1878, Netziv writes that while he has not elaborated on a particular point in this work, he will do so at length when God grants him the merit of “publishing the commentary on Sifre.”[24] Here too, Netziv does not ask for God’s help in finishing the work, but in bringing it to press. Likewise, Avraham Yiẓḥak Kook, one of the outstanding students of Netziv , publically called upon his teacher to publish his Sifrecommentary in a footnote to a biographical article on Netziv published in 1888.[25]He too seems to suggest that the work was complete.

The physical form of the third volume of the manuscript makes the possibility of missing material rather plausible as well. The printed text contains commentary to every piska’ in Sifre up until piska’ 27 of Parashat Ki Teẓeh.[26] There is no commentary on piska’ot 27-54, but the text resumes with brief comments on piska’54[27] and then ends completely. In the manuscript, piska’ 27 ends at the bottom of a page, which raises the possibility that further commentary followed on subsequent pages which are now lost. The brief comments to piska’ 54 appear on the reverse side of comments labeled as hashmatot; therefore, they may well represent hashmatot to a core commentary, now lost, on the end of Deuteronomy.[28] When one considers the fact that, unlike the first two volumes, the third volume of the manuscript is not bound and does not appear to ever have been bound, the notion that pages from the end of the commentary were lost must be seriously considered.[29]

Conclusions

The conclusion one must draw from the above investigation of the text of‘Emek ha-Netziv is that a historical analysis of the content found in the printed text must be made with caution. The possibility of the text being incomplete must always be considered both in regard to possible editorial censorship and in regard to the possibility that the text originally contained additional chapters that are currently lost. Whereas the core text of the commentary prior to Shelaḥ [30] can be rather definitively dated prior to 1849, the printed text makes no distinction between the core text and later additions. As such, with the exception of a few passages which include embedded historical evidence, no single passage in the printed text can conclusively be dated to the 1830s or 1840s. Nonetheless, there is sufficient evidence, both in Netziv’s own testimony with which this chapter began and in the clues offered by the text and corroborated by the manuscript, to conclude that the bulk of the commentary does indeed reflect a project with which Netziv was engrossed in his early years. Thus, trends which can be identified throughout the printed text and which comprise its general character must indeed be seen as reflective of the intellectual currents of Lithuanian Jewish culture in the 1830s and 1840s.

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[1] In recent years, certain circles in the ultra-Orthodox community recommended that Moshe Dombey and N.T. Erline’s adaptation of Barukh Ha-Levi Epstein’s Mekor Barukh, entitled My Uncle the Neẓiv (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1988), not be read due to its portrayal of Neẓiv as one who did not share all of the values of the contemporary ultra-Orthodox community. See Jacob J. Schacter, “Haskalah, Secular Studies, and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892,” Torah u-Madda Journal 1 (1989): 76-133; Don Seeman, “The Silence of Rayna Batya: Torah, Suffering, and Rabbi Barukh Epstein’s Wisdom of Women’,” Torah u-Madda Journal 6 (1995-1996): 91-128; Don Seeman and Rebecca Kobrin, “'Like One of the Whole Men': Learning, Gender and Autobiography in R. Barukh Epstein's Mekor Barukh,”Nashim 2 (1999): 52-94; Brenda Bacon, “Reflections on the Suffering of Rayna Batya and the Success of the Daughters of Zelophehad,” Nashim 3 (2000): 249-256; Dan Rabinowitz, “Rayna Batya and Other Learned Women: A Reevaluation of Rabbi Barukh Halevi Epstein’s Sources,” Tradition 35: 1 (Summer 2001): 55-69. This position toward Neẓiv, however, was already espoused a century earlier when a series of articles appeared in the Galician newspaper Maḥzike Ha-Da’at (volumes 16, 17, and 18) warning traditionalist Jews to stay away from Netziv’s Bible commentary,Ha‛amek Davar, due to its modern stance toward the authority of the Talmudic Sages. A similar sentiment is reflected in the fact that many ultra-Orthodox houses of study have refused, and continue to refuse, to include Ha‛amek Davar in their libraries.

[2] A value which stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming poverty of most of Geulah’s inhabitants.

[3] See Neil Rosenstein, The Unbroken Chain. (New York: CIS Publishers, 1990) 433-440.

[4] My examination of the manuscript took place in July of 2004 with the assistance of a Summer Travel Grant awarded by the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University.

[5] The hashmatot probably represent additions to the text which Neẓiv could not fit in the margins of the page of the core text due to lack of space.

[6] The letters are in cursive form, but Neẓiv generally did not attach his letters to each other. The brown color was probably black when originally applied but has lost its vibrance with the passage of time.

[7] The hagahot seem to have been intended as tangential footnotes to the main commentary in a manner similar to the way in which Netziv’s Harḥev Davar was intended to supplement his Ha‛amek Davar on the Bible. This format was typical of Lithuanian Torah commentary, for reasons which will be explained in Chapter Three below.

[8] I had hoped to demarcate the beginning and end of each addition in my own printed text along with a description of the script used in each addition. The Shapira family, however, was not willing to grant me the sustained access to the manuscript required for such an endeavor.

[9] If it had not been written in order, one would expect to find empty spaces on the bottom of a page where a particular chapter or section ended and new sections beginning on the top of new pages. Instead the end of each section in the manuscript is followed immediately by the beginning of the next section, indicating that they were written sequentially.

[10] There is reason to believe that this manuscript itself is a later recension of an earlier edition. The family showed me what they said were the few extant leaves of an earlier version of the commentary written by Neẓiv which predates the manuscript used for the printed text, but I was not allowed to study them at length. As such, the above analysis does not suggest that Neẓiv actually composed his commentary according to the sequence of the Sifre text, but simply that the transcription of the core text of the commentary into the manuscript at hand was done in sequential order.

[11] See note 14 above.

[12] EH ‘Ekev 4 (III: 52).

[13] See Chapter Two below.

[14] My access to the manuscript was always limited to sitting next to a member of the Shapira family, who would turn to the page I wished to check and look at the specific textual anomaly before deciding whether to let me look as well. In this case I was able to peer over his shoulder and attempt to decipher the acronym. The exact answer this member of the Shapira family gave me was, “Suffice it to say, it is not a siman in Shulḥan Arukh.”

[15] E.g., EH Naso 42 (I: 162); EH Naso 44 (I: 173); EH Matot 1 (II: 279); EHMatot ‛Ekev (III: 45); EH Re’eh 9 (III: 92).

[16] Bet-ayyin-sameh-vav.

[17] EH Shoftim 16 (III: 189).

[18] In cursive Hebrew writing the bet and daled look quite similar.

[19] A glaring example of this type of censorship recently appeared in a photo-offset of the 1926 Frankfurt edition of David Ẓvi Hoffmann’s responsa, Melamed le-Ho‛il, published by the Lebovitz-Kest foundation. In Responsa #56 in the original printing (II: 50), Hoffmann gives his approval, in exigent cases, for an Orthodox Jew to swear before a civil court without a head covering. In the context of his piece, Hoffmann also attests to the fact that Samson Raphael Hirsch instructed the students in the Frankfurt Orthodox school which he founded to cover their heads only for Judaic studies and allowed them to remain bare-headed for their secular studies. The recent photo-offset contains an introduction by a grandson of Hoffmann, David Ẓvi ben Natan Naftali Hoffmann, which gives the reader the impression that the grandson belongs to the ultra-Orthodox community of Jerusalem. Responsa #56, however, permits a practice clearly anathema to that community. Hence, when one turns to page fifty in the off-set, in place of what was earlier Responsa #56, one finds a blank space. I thank Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, librarian at the Mendel Gottesman Library of Yeshiva University, for bringing this example to my attention.

[20] EH Teẓeh (III: 296).

[21] Note that the piska‘ot of Neẓiv do not correspond to those of the Sifre text with which the commentary is printed. In the text of Sifre the last piska’ for which there is continuous commentary is 43, and it then resumes in 54. See Chapter 5.

[22] EH Mas‛ai (II: 334).

[23] EH Ve-’Etḥanan (III: 43).

[24] HrD Num. 6: 19.

[25] Avraham Yizhak Kook, “Rosh Yeshivat Eẓ Ḥayyim,” Kenesset Yisrael, ed. S.J Finn (Warsaw, 1888), 138-147. Also in Ma'amarei HaRe'iyah (Jerusalem, 1984), 123-126.

[26] EH Teẓeh (III: 296). Piska’ot here are according to Netziv’s division. For more on Netziv’s method of dividing piska’ot see Chapter Three below.

[27] EH Teẓeh (III: 299). In the absence of Netziv’s commentary, piska’ot here refer to the division found in the standard Sulzbach edition.

[28] When I asked the Shapira family about the strange ending of work, they too suggested that there might have been more that was lost. When I asked them who had possession of the manuscript prior to them, they declined to give me any names and replied instead, “Suffice it say, it has been handed down, son after son.”

[29] The existence of commentary on the latter parts of Deuteronomy could have been conclusively proven had Neẓiv included a reference to it in his other writings. I have found no such reference, but no conclusions can be drawn from silence.

[30] EH Shelaḥ 1 (II: 10)

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Concerning the Zohar and Other Matters

August 29, 2012, 3:24 pm

≫ Next: The Book of Disputes between East and West

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Concerning the Zohar and Other Matters

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In the last issue of Milin Havivin I published an article dealing with the Zohar and the supposed obligation to accept that it was written by R. Shimon ben Yohai. You can see it here. In the article I mentioned authorities who pointed to passages that in their minds were certainly post-Rashbi interpolations.[1] At the end of the article I also published a letter from R. Isaac Herzog in which he briefly deals with the issue of non-literal interpretation of the Torah. We see that he was uncertain as to what the boundaries are in this matter, and thought that this was an issue that needed to be worked out. That is, he did not believe that the last word on this issue had been stated.

Subsequent to publication I found some more interesting material and I also received a number of emails making various points, so now is as good a time as ever to return to the topic.

First, let me mention what David Farkas wrote to me in an email. In the article I cited Bruriah Hutner-David who brings the following proof that R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes rejected the traditional authorship of the Zohar: In order to show that the Targum to Ecclesiastes should be dated to the geonic period, Chajes notes that while the angel Raziel is mentioned in this Targum, he is not mentioned in talmudic literature. Hutner-David notes that Raziel is mentioned in the Zohar, a fact that Chajes was presumably aware of, meaning that he was hinting that the Zohar is also a late work.

Chaim Landerer called my attention to the fact that in a talmudic era Aramaic incantation bowl the name Raziel does appear, and I cited this to show that Chajes was incorrect in his assumption that the name Raziel post-dates the rabbinic period. However, Farkas has correctly noted that the name Raziel in the bowl refers to God, while Chajes was specifically referring to Raziel as a name of an angel. In other words, there is no refutation of Chajes. Yet I still think that Chajes assumed that the name Raziel itself was post-talmudic. Once we see that the name existed in the rabbinic period, even if so far the only evidence of its use is for God, it is certainly possible that it was also used for angels as well. If that is the case, there is no evidence that the use of the word Raziel as an angel’s name points to a post-rabbinic date.

I also found that Saul Berlin notes, in the introduction to his Kasa de-Harsana (his commentary to Besamim Rosh), that unlike all other ancient Jewish books, the Zohar has an introduction. Because of this, he writes that when it comes to the authorship of the Zohar he inclines to the view of his great-uncle, R. Jacob Emden.

A few years ago the outstanding scholar, R. Yaakov Yisrael Stoll, published the anonymous Sefer Kushyot. Here are pages 123-124.

I ask readers to look at note 887. He discusses a mistake made by many in assuming that an expression is a biblical verse. He then notes that the Zohar also makes the same mistake, and refers to other such mistakes made by בעל הזוהר. He doesn’t say so explicitly, but I think the way he formulates the note lets the reader, who is attuned to these things, know that in his mind בעל הזוהר is not R. Shimon ben Yohai.

Someone called my attention to this video. 

I have no idea who the speaker is, and if he has ever even read a page of the Zohar, but he does seem very sure of himself. I have no objection to discussing the authorship of the Zohar and the ideas found there, or Kabbalah as a whole. However, I would think that a little humility is called for when discussing a discipline that was a basic part of the religious worldview of so many central figures. Do the names Nahmanides, R. Joseph Karo, or the Vilna Gaon mean anything to this speaker?

In my article, I cited all sorts of texts by Orthodox figures dealing with the authorship of the Zohar. Yet I overlooked the following by R. Joseph Hertz.

The question of the authorship of the Zohar, like that of Sefer Yetzirah, is one of the cruces of Jewish literature. The authorship by Simeon ben Yochai, or by his immediate disciples, though this is still an article of faith with millions of Jews in Eastern Europe, has from internal evidence long proved to be untenable. The Zohar explains Spanish words, contains quotations from Gabirol, and mentions the Crusades.[2]

As noted, in my article cited a number of sources that point to additions to the Zohar. Rabbi Akiva Males commented to me that I neglected to mention R. Isaac Haver, Magen ve-Tzinah, ch. 21. This book was written in response to R. Leon Modena’s Ari Nohem, a work aimed at disproving the antiquity of the Zohar. Unless one’s head is totally in the sand, it is impossible to deny that there are passages in the Zohar that post-date the tannaitic era. For Modena, this was proof that the Zohar could not have been written by Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai. Haver, who wants to hold onto the ancient dating, adopts the only path open to him, arguing that there are indeed many post-tannaitic additions, but the core of the book is ancient.

ובאמת ספר הזוהר נכתב כמה דורות אחר רשב"י מה שנכתב ונתקבל משמו ומשאר חבריו ותלמידו שהיו בימיו, וגם זה נעשה בו הוספות רבות עד מאוד מן אחרוני האחרונים אחר שבאו בכתב וניתנו להעתיק ושלטו בו ידי רבים כל אחד מה שנראה בדעתו ומה שנתחדש לו וכתב בגליון על ספר הזוה"ק מן הצד ואח"ז בא ריעהו מעתיק מן המעתיק ומצא בגליון דברים רבים ובמעט התבוננות חשב שזה היה חסרון בגוף ספר והכניסם בפנים.

Haver points out that is how we can explain the obviously late passages, where we see that the Zohar includes material that comes from Rashi and R. Tam. Among kabbalists, it was not unheard of to say that Rashi actually knew the Zohar and was influenced by it.[3] But Haver will have none of this and recognizes that the influence is in the reverse direction, i.e., Rashi influencing the Zohar. He states that anyone who understands the Zohar will recognize these additions.

What does Haver mean when he mentions that there is material from R. Tam in the Zohar? I am aware of one obvious example. It says in Kiddushin 30b that “one should always divide his years into three: [devoting] a third to Mikra, a third to Mishnah, and a third to Talmud.” R. Tam explains why the practice in his day was not in accord with what the Talmud states, an explanation that became very influential and served as a justification for the widespread ignoring of the study of Tanakh in the Ashkenazic world[4]

בלולה במקרא ובמשנה וכו': פירש רבינו תם דבתלמוד שלנו אנו פוטרין עצמנו ממה שאמרו חכמים לעולם ישלש אדם שנותיו שליש במקרא שליש במשנה שליש בתלמוד.

What he says is that since the Talmud itself contains Bible and Mishnah, there is no need to divide one’s time among the three categories. Rather, by studying Talmud one combines all three areas. I always found this a difficult explanation, for if the Talmud agreed with this perspective, it would have said so, instead of stating that one is to divide one’s time. The intention of the talmudic instruction in Kiddushin was that people become well acquainted with all three subjects, and if they only devote themselves to Talmud, there is a great deal of Bible and Mishnah[5] they will never encounter. (According to Maimonides, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:12, once one is already a scholar, he does not need to divide his time between the three areas, but can focus almost entirely on Talmud.)

Despite what R. Tam says, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch claims that it was due to a misunderstanding of this opinion that people were led to stop studying Tanakh.[6] Not mentioned by Hirsch is that even before R. Tam some scholars ignored Tanakh. There were even talmudic Sages who were not expert in Bible. Bava Kamma 54b-55a states:

R. Hanina b. Agil asked R. Hiyya b. Abba: Why in the first Decalogue is there no mention of wellbeing [טוב], whereas in the second Decalogue there is a mention of wellbeing?[7] He replied: While you are asking me why wellbeing is mentioned there, ask me whether wellbeing is in fact mentioned or not, as I do not know whether wellbeing is mentioned there or not.

Tosafot, Bava Batra 113a, s.v. travayhu, cites this text to support its contention about the amoraim: .פעמים  היו שלא היו בקיאין בפסוקין After referring to this strange passage in Tosafot (concerning which there is an entire literature), R. Moses Salmon sarcastically declares[8]: ועל זה סומכים הלומדים עמי הארץ וד"ל

Unlike Salmon, R. Samuel Strashun, in his note to Bava Batra 8a, defended those talmudists who were deficient in knowledge of Bible.

משמע דאפשר שיהיו בעלי משנה או בעלי גמרא ולא בעלי מקרא . . . ודלא כאותן ששופכין בוז על מקצת גדולי זמנינו בש"ס ופוסקים ואין להם יד כ"כ במקרא.

So returning to my question, what does Haver mean when he says that there is material from R. Tam in the Zohar? Well it turns out that R. Tam’s explanation, which we have just been discussing, is also found in the Zohar Hadash (ed. Margaliyot), Tikunim p. 107b:

תקינו רבנן לשלש שנותינו במקרא בתלמוד . . . ואוקמוה דמאן דמתעסק (במשנה) [בתלמוד] כאלו התעסק בכלא בגין דאיהי בלילא במקרא במשנה בתלמוד.

There is no question that this passage is adopted from R. Tam, who lived a millennium after R. Shimon ben Yohai.

Incidentally, regarding R. Tam’s view, here is a page of an article by R. Yehudah Aryeh Schwartz that appeared in the Agudah journal Kol ha-Torah, Adar 5765 [2005], p. 102 (second pagination).

The following page comes from R. Yehiel Michel Stern’s Ha-Torah ha-Temimah on the Book of Joshua, p. 84 no. 3, which appeared in 2009.

As you can see, Stern’s comment is lifted word for word from Schwartz’s article. I am not sure what to make of this. That is, are dealing with a simple plagiarism? Perhaps one of the readers has some insight. (Stern may be the world's most prolific writer of Torah publications.)

In my article I referred to passages in the Zohar which traditional authorities had claimed were really later interpolations. There are examples of the opposite phenomenon as well, namely, attributing things to the Zohar that are not found there. The most famous instance of this that I know of is found in the Bah, Orah Hayyim 4 (and quoted from there in Be’er Heitev, Orah Hayyim 1:2) that upon waking up if you walk four amot without washing your hands you are subject to the death penalty![9]  This Zoharic text is quoted in the name of the work Tola’at Yaakov, authored by R. Meir Ibn Gabai (1480-ca. 1543). The passage is cited over and over again by aharonim in trying to show the importance of the morning washing. Yalkut Meam Loez, Deut. 4:9, doesn’t even mention the Zohar, stating simply:

ואמרו חז"ל כל המהלך ד' אמות בלי נטילת ידים חייב מיתה

A few scholars actually point out that this passage is not to be found in the Zohar.[10] One of those who realized this is R. Eleazar Fleckeles, Teshuvah me-Ahavah, vol. 1 no. 14, whom we will come back to later in this post. He writes that he looked in the Zohar and didn’t find the passage referred to. With reference to the Tola’at Yaakov, whom he (falsely) thinks cited the Zohar (since that is what it says in the Bah), Fleckeles writes:

ושארי לי' מארי' שעשה רוב ישראל לחייבי מיתות

Because very few of the aharonim actually had the sefer Tola’at Yaakov (which is itself a little strange as the book was printed a number of times), they were unable to see that the Tola’at Yaakov never quotes the Zohar!  Here is p. 9a from the Cracow 1581 edition.

If you look in the second paragraph you will see that Ibn Gabai does state that one who doesn’t wash his hands is חייב מיתה, but he doesn’t attribute this to the Zohar. How he derives this idea is worthy of investigation at a different time. For now, it is important to just note that what we have here is an independent idea of a sixteenth-century Kabbalist which for some reason was misquoted by the Bah as if Ibn Gabai was citing the Zohar. This misquotation was to be repeated again and again, down to the present day.

The supposed Zohar text has led to additional stringencies. For example, the hasidic master R. Meshulam Zusha of Anapole stated that that one should not even to put one’s legs on the ground before washing one’s hands.[11]

Here is an interesting story that relates to the false Zohar quotation: A very learned and rich student came to study with R. Simhah Bunim of Peshischa.[12] The problem was that this young man was a bit of an independent thinker, and the Kotzker, who was also there, didn’t think that the young man belonged with them. The story explains how the Kotzker was able to convince the young man to leave. What was it about this man that turned the Kotzker against him? We are told the following:

הוא הגיה בזוה"ק שכתב "ההולך ד' אמות בלי נטילת ידים חייב מיתה", והוא הגיה: "והוא שהרג את הנפש", וזה נגד חז"ל.

So here we have a story of an emendation of a non-existent Zoharic text. And even if we assume that the man was emending the text as it appears in the Bah, we see from the story that the Kotzker thought that the quote was authentic.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this passage. I therefore consulted a learned friend who said that the problem was that the young man who emended the text to read והוא שהרג את הנפש was making a joke at the expense of the (supposed) Zoharic passage. He was saying that you are only deserving of the death penalty if you kill someone while walking the four amot. I then sent him a page from R. Zvi Yavrov, Ma’aseh Ish, vol. 4, p. 113, where it appears that the Hazon Ish took the emendation-explanation just mentioned as an authentic understanding of the passage. The text in Yavrov reads as follows:

על מה שהביא ה"באר היטב" (או"ח סימן א' סק"ב) שההולך ד' אמות בלי נטילת ידים שחרית חייב מיתה, אמר רבינו להגאון ר' שמריהו גריינימן זצ"ל, שמישהו כתב בגליון הספר "והוא שהרג את הנפש" (מבנו הג"ר ברוך שליט"א).

My friend replied by referring me to a discussion on Hyde Park here where the text from Yavrov is also mentioned. One of the commenters there claims that the Hazon Ish was also joking in his remark, and the one who heard this (who was hardly a tyro), or the person who passed on the information to Yavrov, didn’t realize that it was a joke. The commenter also assumes that despite what appears in the Bah and Be’er Heitev, the Hazon Ish would have known that that it wasn’t an authentic quote from the Zohar. I find this very unlikely, as the Hazon Ish is not known to have been an expert in the Zohar, and what reason would there be for him to doubt that which is quoted in numerous earlier sources? 

The one point that the commenter has going for him is that he is correct that there are many examples in this book, and others like it, from which we see that the author does not know how to distinguish between what should and should not be included in a book. The commenter gives an example to illustrate this. In vol. 5, p. 141, Yavrov gives us the following important information about the Hazon Ish, recorded by one of his students: They never saw the Hazon Ish picking his nose! I kid you not.

העיד אחד מגדולי תלמידי רבינו: מעולם לא ראו את הרבי עם אצבע באף (מהרב מרדכי ויספיש)

Regarding this issue, R. Eliezer Melamed – who really is a great halakhic scholar – writes that picking one’s nose in public is forbidden.[13]

ויש מעשים שכשאדם עושה אותם בסתר, אין בכך פגם, אבל בפני אנשים אחרים הם נחשבים למגעילים ואסורים משום 'בל תשקצו' ומשום המצוות שבין אדם לחבירו. למשל, המחטט באף או מגרד פצעונים שבפניו, עובר באיסורים אלו. וכן אמרו חכמים (חגיגה ה, א): "כִּי אֶת כָּל מַעֲשֶׂה הָאֱלוֹהִים יָבִא בְמִשְׁפָּט עַל כָּל נֶעְלָם. אמר רב: זה ההורג כינה בפני חבירו ונמאס בה. ושמואל אמר: זה הרק (היורק) בפני חבירו ונמאס בה". ובמיוחד בעת שאוכלים, צריך להיזהר בכך יותר, כי מעשים מאוסים, וכן דיבורים מגעילים, מבטלים את התיאבון ומעוררים בחילה בקרב הסועדים.

Getting back to the supposed Zoharic passage, R. Yitzhak Abadi discusses this in Or Yitzhak, vol. 1, no. 1. He begins his responsum by pointing out that despite the fact that the Mishnah Berurah records how one is not to walk four amot before washing one’s hands, R. Aaron Kotler did not concern himself with this. Abadi then explains that the words of the Zohar are not intended for everyone,[14] and none of the rishonim write that it is forbidden to walk four amot before washing. He concludes by stating that he is inclined to rule – ולולי דמסתפינא הייתי אומר להלכה למעשה– that the entire practice of negel vasser is no longer relevant to us because ruah ra’ah is no longer a concern.[15] Here again we see that the author of a responsum assumes that the issue he is discussing, of not walking four amot before hand washing, is based on the Zohar, when in fact the Zohar doesn’t mention this at all.

Finally, I must mention that R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Birkei Yosef, Orah Hayyim 1:1, recognizes that there is nothing in the Zohar about being subject to the death penalty for walking four amot. However, he notes that both he and his forefather, R. Abraham Azulai, saw an alternate version which indeed states that one who walks four amotאתחייב מיתא לשמיא. Based on this alternate text, the Hida declares that the Tola’at Yaakov is correct in how he quoted the Zohar, and the criticism of him for the inaccurate quotation is therefore misplaced. Even the Hida didn’t have access to the Tola’at Yaakov, and based on the Bah assumed that the Tola’at Yaakov quoted the Zohar and must indeed have had the alternate text. Yet as we have already seen, the Tola’at Yaakov does not quote the Zohar, and there is no actual alternate version of the text such as quoted by the Hida.

What happened was that someone saw the Bah quoting the Tola’at Yaakov as quoting the Zohar that one who walks four amot is subject to the death penalty. Not finding this passage in the Zohar, this individual inserted it into his text of the Zohar in the section that deals with hand washing in the morning (Zohar, vol. 1 p. 10b). I don’t think this was intended as a forgery. Rather, whoever put it in assumed that it was an authentic Zoharic teaching, found in an alternate text, and he was inserting it where it should be. He thought that it was an authentic Zoharic teaching because the Tola’at Yaakov had testified to it. But as we have already seen, Tola’at Yaakov said nothing of the sort. This alternate girsa can therefore be traced back to the Bah’s misquotation of the Tola’at Yaakov.

How can we explain the Bah? I think the answer is simple. When the Bah cited the Tola’at Yaakov he did not have the book in front of him, and was relying on his memory, the sort of mistake that is found among all of our great sages. That is how this error crept in which has had a great influence on Jewish religious texts and practice for hundreds of years, and yet it all goes back to a simple mistaken quotation.

Returning to my article on the Zohar, Rabbi Akiva Males called my attention to the following paragraphs that appear in an essay by R. Aryeh Kaplan.[16] It would be great if a reader has examined the manuscript and can testify to the accuracy of what Kaplan reported.

Rabbi Yitzchok deMin Acco is known for a number of things. Most questions regarding the authenticity of the Zohar were raised by him, since he investigated its authorship. He was a personal friend of Rabbi Moshe de Leon, who published the Zohar. When questions came up regarding the Zohar’s authenticity, he was the one who investigated, going to the home town of Rabbi Moshe de Leon. The whole story is cited in Sefer HaYuchasin, who abruptly breaks off the story just before Rabbi Yitzchok reaches his final conclusion. Most historians maintain that we do not know Rabbi Yitzchok’s final opinion – but they are wrong.

Around three years ago, someone came to me and asked me to translate parts of a manuscript of Rabbi Yitzchok deMin Acco, known as Otzar HaChaim. There is only one complete copy of this manuscript in the world, and this is in the Guenzberg Collection in the Lenin Library in Moscow. This person got me a complete photocopy of the manuscript and asked me to translate certain sections. I stated that the only condition I would translate the manuscript is if I get to keep the copy. This is how I got my hands on this very rare and important manuscript.

Of course, like every other sefer in my house, it had to be read. It took a while to decipher the handwriting, since it is an ancient script. One of the first things I discovered was that it was written some 20 years after Rabbi Yitzchok investigated the Zohar. He openly, and clearly and unambiguously states that the Zohar was written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. This is something not known to historians, and this is the first time I am discussing it in a public forum. But the fact is that the one person who is historically known to have investigated the authenticity of the Zohar at the time it was first published, unambiguously came to the conclusion that it was an ancient work written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

Leaving aside for now the important information recorded by Kaplan, there is a good deal that can be said about R. Moses de Leon and the creation of the Zohar, and it is questionable if one can even speak of a single author. One essential point that must be recognized by all who investigate this matter is that De Leon himself was involved in other forgeries, in particular forgeries of geonic responsa.[17] As such, he obviously is not the most reliable source when he announces to the world that he is in possession of a text of mystical lore dating from the tannaitic period.

Regarding the Zohar and forgery, I think readers will also find the following interesting.  (Many already know some of the story, but it is worth repeating for those who don’t.) In the journal Or Torah, Tevet 5772, p. 362, a reader, whose knowledge of Jewish bibliography is not that great, had a question. He saw the following page in R. Yudel Rosenberg’s Hebrew translation of the Zohar to Va-Yikra.

This is important information, as Emden confesses that his attack against the Zohar was only designed to pull the wool out from under the Sabbatians, whose ideology was linked to the Zohar. The man who wrote to Or Torah, not knowing anything about Rosenberg, asked for help from the readers. He tried to locate the book Tzur Devash quoted by Rosenberg, but was unable.



In Or Torah, Adar 5772, pp. 555-557, two individuals let the first writer in on the “not-so-secret” that there is no book Tzur Devash, and that Rosenberg had a long history of making up texts; see here. This is so even though Rosenberg was a respected rabbi and posek. Here, incidentally, is the picture of Rosenberg that appears at the beginning of his Zohar translation.

With some of Rosenberg’s “forgeries”, it seems that what he was doing was creating a form of literature, and anyone who takes the story literally has only himself to blame (much like anyone who thinks that Animal Farm is really about animals has no one to complain to but himself). At times, Rosenberg would even hint to the reader what he was doing, as in Hoshen ha-Mishpat shel ha-Kohen ha-Gadol, where in the preface he mentions that part of the story also appeared in a work of Arthur Conan Doyle. If any reader would have taken the time to find out who this was, he would have realized that we are dealing with a fictional account. At other times, however, Rosenberg offers no such hint, at least none that I am aware of, and what we have appears to be a simple forgery. That would seem to be the case here, with the phony letter from Emden.

The second correspondent in Or Torah also calls attention to R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer’s discussion in Etz Hayyim 7 (5769), pp. 267-268. While for a long time everyone has known that the Emden letter was a forgery, Sofer identifies another forgery. Rosenberg’s translation (second edition) vol. 1, contains a letter of approbation from R. Hayyim Hezekiah Medini, the Sedei Hemed.[18] Sofer claims, and I think he is correct, that this approbation is a forgery. His prime proof is that in the approbation Medini refers to the Hida as האזולאי. There are many hundreds, if not thousands, of references to the Hida in Medini’s work, and not once does he refer to the Hida as האזולאי, which is a form only used by Ashkenazic rabbis. What Sofer didn’t realize, and further supports his point, is that Rosenberg himself, in his introduction, p. 5a, refers to Hida as האזולאי.

In Or Torah, Iyar 5772, p. 744, another writer called attention to Sedei Hemed, Peat ha-Sadeh, kelalim, mah’arekhet bet, no. 47, where Medini states that it is disrespectful to use this sort of language, referring specifically to the expression האלגאזי.[19] This is another proof, if any was needed, that Medini would never have referred to the Hida as האזולאי. Let me also add that the way Medini (=Rosenberg) concludes the forged haskamah is not like any of his other letters, which are included in Iggerot Sedei Hemed (Bnei Brak, 2006). In the authentic letters, before his name Medini always adds הצב"י or הצעיר , which he does not do in the forged haskamah.. In his authentic letters, he also never closes them by adding to his name רב ומו"ץ בעיר הקדש חברון. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the letter of approbation sent by Medini to Rosenberg is simply another one of the latter’s forgeries.

Now let us turn to the incredible recent publication of a derashah by R. Yehezkel Landau, the Noda bi-Yehudah.[20] But before doing so, it is necessary to say a few words about R. Eleazar Fleckeles, the outstanding student of the Noda bi-Yehudah. (Fleckeles’ grave, entirely ignored by tourists, stands right near that of his teacher.) Ever since the publication over two hundred years ago of the strong comments of Fleckeles downplaying the authority of the Zohar, people have wondered where this came from. It just seemed strange that an 18^th-19^th century traditional Torah scholar would express himself this way. We now have the answer. Fleckeles was following in his teacher’s footsteps. Thanks to the publication of the Noda bi-Yehudah’s derashah by Michael Silber and Maoz Kahana, a derashah that had previously only appeared in a censored form, we now know that that the Noda bi-Yehudah had a skeptical view of the Zohar, at least in the form that it has come down to us. The issue that the Noda bi-Yehudah was concerned with was the same thing that bothered Emden and Fleckeles, namely, distinguishing the authentic ancient Jewish mysticism from the many later additions that found their way into the Zohar.

What caused the Noda bi-Yehudah in his later years to adopt a skeptical position, one so much at odds with his earlier outlook, is of course worthy of investigation and something for the scholars to fight over (and they already have!).

Regarding Fleckeles, his negative comments about the Zohar that appear in Teshuvah me-Ahavah are well known and have often been cited. In my article I also referred to Fleckeles’ citation of Wessely who quoted R. Jonathan Eibschuetz as supposedly stating that one need not believe in Kabbalah. (Needless to say, it is very difficult to believe that Eibschuetz could have ever expressed himself this way.) In preparing for my Torah in Motion talks on R. Moses Kunitz,[21] I found another relevant text from Fleckeles that as far as I know has gone unnoticed among those who have discussed the matter. It appears in Kunitz’s responsa Ha-Metzaref,[22] which happens to be one of the strangest responsa works ever published. It is also noteworthy in that it contains something extremely rare, namely, a responsum from R. Nathan Adler, the Hatam Sofer’s teacher. Knowing that some people might doubt that the teshuvah could really have been authored by R. Nathan, he also included a letter from the Hatam Sofer testifying to the responsum’s authenticity. 

In Ha-Metzaref, vol. 1 no. 11, Fleckeles again focuses on additions to the Zohar that are not part of the authentic work, but here he adds a new point which is important for an accurate description of Fleckeles’ position. He says that if a Zoharic text is quoted by R. Isaac Luria, R. Moses Cordovero, or R. Menahem Azariah of Fano then you can assume that it is part of the original Zohar, authored by R. Shimon ben Yohai.

One final comment regarding the Noda bi-Yehudah’s derashah: Yehoshua Mondshine somehow got hold of it before it was published by Silber and Kahana. Here is the relevant page, from Or Yisrael, Nisan 5766, p. 202.

Notice how Mondshine doesn’t reveal where this text comes from, something not expected from a careful scholar. Since this is such an amazing passage, and Mondshine’s article was the first time it appeared in print, you can be sure that loads of people must have turned to Mondshine asking him for its source. Presumably, when he was given the text he gave his word not to reveal its source. He might not have even known the source, and was only given the small passage.

2. Due to correspondence with a couple of people, I realized that I forgot to include something about the word מחיה in my last post. So here it is now.

In the Amidah we say מחיה מתים אתה. There is a tzeirei under the yod meaning that this is not a verb. Artscroll correctly translates “Resuscitator of the dead.” Sacks,[23] on the other hand, gives the mistaken translation “You give life to the dead”. The next line reads

מכלכל חיים בחסד, מחיה מתים ברחמים רבים

Is מחיה in this verse a verb? Ifמכלכל  is translated as a verb, then מחיה will also have to be translated this way. The Tehilat ha-Shem siddur has a segol under the yod of מחיה, and with this vocalization it is correct to translate it as a verb. However, for siddurim with a tzeirei the only accurate translation is a noun. Metsudah, which we have seen is consistent in this matter, translates: “Sustainer of the living with Kindliness, Resurrector of the dead with great mercy.” Both Artscroll and Sacks, however, translate מחיה as a verb which is incorrect. But why is it incorrect? It is only incorrect because of the vocalization (tzeirei), but I think that in the sentence מחיה is indeed a verb. This means that it is the vocalization that is incorrect, and that instead of a tzeirei under the yod, there should be a segol, as in the Tehilat ha-Shem siddur[24]. So my recommendation to Artscroll and Sacks would not be to change the translation, but only to change the vocalization.

After reading my last post, Ben Katz sent me an example where of all the translations, only Artscroll gets it right. The last lines of Adon Olam read:

בידו אפקיד רוחי בעת אישן ואעירה

ועם רוחי גויתי ה' לי ולא אירא

Sacks translates as follows (and Metsudah is similar):

Into His hand my soul I place,

when I awake and when I sleep.

God[25] is with me, I shall not fear;

Body and soul from harm will He keep.

What this means is that God has my soul at all times, when I am awake and when I sleep, and  that that is why I have no fear.

Artscroll translates as follows:

            Into His hand I shall entrust my spirit

            When I go to sleep – and I shall awaken!

            With my spirit shall my body remain.

            Hashem is with me, I shall not fear.

Before getting to what I think is the significant  part of the translation, let us look at the last line: ועם רוחי גויתי, ה' לי ולא אירא. In his translation, Sacks has turned the order of the sentence around. That is OK as it was done so that the rhyme works (and Sacks deserves enormous credit for having most of the song rhyme in English). The real problem is Sacks’ rendering of the words  ועם רוחי גויתי. There is no way this can be translated as “Body and soul from harm will He keep.” The words imply nothing about keeping from harm. The typical translation sees ועם as referring to God, meaning that God is with my soul and body and therefore I will have no fear.

However, Artscroll gets it right, I think, by translating these words literally: “With my spirit shall my body remain.” To see how Artscroll gets to this translation, we have to look at the previous verse, and that is where we see Artscroll’s brilliance. בידו אפקיד רוחי בעת אישן ואעירה. The other translations understand this to mean that I place my spirit (or soul) in God’s hands when I sleep and when I am awake. The problem with this rendering is that if my spirit is always in God’s hands, then what sense does it make to say that I place it there? If it is always there, during the day and at night, there is nothing for me to place.

Artscroll translates: “Into His hand I shall entrust my spirit when I go to sleep – and I shall awaken!” This is an allusion to the famous Midrash that we are all taught in school, that when you go to sleep your spirit returns to God, and is given back to you in the morning.[26] This isn’t just some random Midrash, but is derived from Psalm 31:6, which states: בידך אפקיד רוחי.[27] In other words, the Midrash is commenting on the exact words used by Adon Olam. This shows that Artscroll’s translation has indeed beautifully captured the correct meaning.

We now can properly understand the next verse. Since my spirit has returned and joined with my body, I know that God is with me and I shall not fear.

3. There is a relatively new publication for all who are interested in Jewish intellectual life. I refer to the Jewish Review of Books, expertly edited by Abraham Socher. Modeled after the New York Review of Books, each issue is full of great material. In the latest issue I published a translation of part of an essay by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg on Berdyczewski. Only subscribers can access the essay, but everyone can see the artwork that went along with it. See here. (Due to copyright restrictions, I can't reproduce the artwork in the post.)

If you examine the picture of Weinberg produced by the artist, you will see that it was modeled after this picture that appears in my book on Weinberg, and also on the front cover of the soft-cover edition.



























The original photograph was part of a faculty picture taken when Weinberg taught at the University of Giessen. However, the artistic reproduction adds something that is not found in the original, something that the artist assumed no rabbi should be without; see here.

4. Those outside of the United States who want to post (or read) comments, please access the Seforim Blog site by going to http://seforim.blogspot.com/ncr.  Only by doing this will you be taken to the main site (and not have a country code in the URL). Readers outside the United States do not have access to the comments posted in the U.S. We don't know why this is, or how to fix it yet, but the above instruction fixes the matter.

* * * *
Quiz

I have an extra copy of one of the volumes of R. Hayyim Hirschensohn's commentary on Rashi. The person who answers the following question will receive it. Send answers to me at shapirom2 at scranton.edu

1. Tell me the only place in the Shulhan Arukh where R. Joseph Karo mentions a kabbalistic concept? I am referring to an actual concept e.g., Adam Kadmon, Ein Sof, etc.

2. If more than one person answers the above question correctly, the one who answers the following (not related to seforim) will win: Which is the only United States embassy that has a kosher kitchen?

If no one can answer question no. 2, I will do a lottery with the names of those who answer no. 1 correctly.

---

[1] R. Moshe Zuriel kindly sent me the following additional sources that should be added to my list.

[א] ספר "אור החמה", ביאור בשלשה כרכים על הזוהר, נלקט ע"י הרב אברהם אזולאי, מביא דברי ר' אברהם גלאנטי שםעל זהר ח"א קסח, והוא בנדפס דף קנט ע"א ראש טור שמאל, "הם דברי מחבר הספר בימי הגאונים או חכמים אחרים שחברו כל המימרות יחד שכתב ר' אבא, שהיה סופר של רשב"י והם חלקום לפרשיות כל פסוק בפרשה שלו, והם אמרו משלהם".

[ב] בפירוש ר' יוסף חיים מבבל (בן איש חי) בשם "בניהו" (דף ד ע"ב בנדפס) פירוש על תיקוני זהר, בתחילת ההקדמה לתקו"ז (ב ע"ב) מזכיר "ועל האי ציפור רמיזו רבנן בהגדה דבתרא דרבה בר בר חנה" כותב הרב: "נראה פשוט בספר בתקונים הראשון אשר הועתק מכתיבת יד חכמי הזוהר כך כתוב 'קא רמיזו רבנן' וכו' אך חכם אחרון שראה דבר זה כתוב בגמרא דבתרא במאמרי רבב"ח הוסיף על הגליון תיבות אלו בהגדה דבתרא דרבב"ח וכו' ואחר כמה שנים המדפיסים הכניסו בפנים מה שראו כתוב בגליון. ועל חינם הגאון יעב"ץ הרעיש העולם לערער בדבר זה וכיוצא בו".

[ג] אדמו"ר ר' יצחק אייזיק קומרנא בספרו "נתיב מצותיך" שביל התורה אלף, מהד' שנת תש"ל עמ' קא  כתב: "ור' אבא היה כותב כל מה ששמע, הן ממנו הן מהחברים וכו' בסוף ימי רבנן סבוראי תחילת הגאונים היה איש קדוש אאחד שהיה בו נשמת משה רבנו ממש וכו' וכו' והוא חיבר ספר רעיא מהימנא וקרא לזוהר חיבורא קדמאה".

[ד] ר' צבי אלימלך (מחבר בני יששכר) בספרו "הגהות מהרצ"א" (נמצא בתוכנת אוצר החכמה) על פרשת בא לח ע"א (בנדפס בספר שם דף קכו) כותב: "לפי גירסא הזו ע"כ [על כרחך] צ"ל דהזהר נתחבר בג"ע [בגן עדן] בזמן הגאונים, דהרי רב חסדא אמורא היה בזמן האמוראים" עכ"ל.

[ה] הרב אברהם יצחק קוק, מאמרי הראי"ה, עמ' 519: מתוך מכתב להרב קאפח: "אפילו אם נשתלשלו דורות רבים והיו בהם הוספות והערות מחכמים שונים, ואם אפילו נתערבו בהם איזה דברים שראויים לביקורת, כמו שעשה הגאון יעב"ץ במטפחתו, אין העיקר בטל בכך".

[2] Sermons, Addresses and Studies, vol. 3 p. 308. I learnt of this passage from Ben Elton, Britain’s Chief Rabbis and the Religious Character of Anglo-Jewry, 1880-1970, p. 176.

[3] See Studies in Maimonides and his Interpreters, p. 89 n. 376, where I mention that R. Abraham ben ha-Gra, who (for his time) had a critical sense, was among those who thought that Rashi knew the Zohar.

[4] Tosafot, Sanhedrin 24a s.v. belulah. The uncensored text, found in the Venice edition, reads בתלמוד, but the Vilna edition has בש"ס.

[5] Since the Daf Yomi siyum is just about upon us as I write these words, let me add the following: While I don’t think that R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik can be called an opponent of Daf Yomi, I was present at a shiur in the summer of 1985 where he expressed his dismay that due to the growing popularity of Daf Yomi, people were no longer studying all six orders of the Mishnah, much of which has no Talmud and is thus not included in the Daf Yomi cycle. (Due to how the Talmud was printed, Kinnim and Middot are the only tractates of Mishnah included in Daf Yomi. )

[6] Nineteen Letters, Letter Eighteen.

[7] See Deut. 5:15: כבד את אביך ואת אמך כאשר צוה ה' אלקיך למען יאריכן ימיך ולמען ייטב לך על האדמה אשר ה' אלקיך נתן לך

R. Samuel Schonblum offers an explanation of the talmudic passage that many will no doubt claim attributes a heretical assumption to one of the Sages. See his edition of R. Isaac Ibn Latif, Rav Pealim (Lemberg, 1885), p. 54:

כפי השקפה הראשונה נוכל לומר כי השנוים שבדברות האחרונות משה אמרן מדעת עצמו כמ"ש הראב"ע ז"ל כמוסיף וגורע ואפשר לומר כי לא נאמר טוב בסיני כלל ע"כ כאשר שאל לו מ"מ [מפני מה] בראשונות לא נאמר טוב ובאחרונות נאמר טוב השיב לו שאלני אם נאמר טוב אם לאו, שאפשר שגם באחרונות לא נאמר טוב כך משה הוסיף או גורעעד שבא לר' תנחום בר חנילאי ואמר לו כי באמת נאמרו כך בסיני ע"י משה וזה שלא נכתבו על הלוחות הראשונות יען כי היו עתידין להשתבר ע"כ לא נאמר ע"י הדיבור הנעלם רק ע"י משה, ה' יראני מתורתו נפלאות.

In Limits of Orthodox Theology, I did not discuss the commentary of Ibn Ezra (Ex 20:1) referred to by Schonblum. That is because I assumed that he agreed with the standard medieval view that even though Moses may have written things on his own accord, when these texts were later included as part of the Torah given to the Children of Israel, this was done at God’s direction and that is what sanctified the text. I am no longer convinced of this. All Ibn Ezra says in his commentary to Ex. 20:1 is that minor variations in wording are due to Moses changing God’s original words. Nowhere in his commentary does Ibn Ezra state that Moses’ changes were ever given divine sanction.

[8] Netiv Shalom (Budapest, 1898), p. 33.

[9] I wonder if this exaggeration is related to the seeming exaggerations found in Sotah 4b regarding those who are not careful with netilat yadayim:  כל האוכל לחם בלא נטילת ידים כאילו בא על אשה זונה . . . כל המזלזל בנטילת ידים נעקר מן העולם  See also Yalkut Shimoni, Ki Tisa, no. 386:  כל האוכל בלא נטילת ידים כבא על אשת איש (I say “seeming” exaggerations, because maybe these are not exaggerations. See the story with R. Akiva in Eruvin 21b.) Why were the Sages so strident in this matter? After citing the two rabbinic passages just mentioned, R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes points to an anti-Christian motivation. See Kol Sifrei Maharatz Chajes, p. 1003:

והטעם שהחמירו חז"ל בזה, דענין נטילת ידים הוא הענין הראשון אשר זלזל בו המחוקק לנוצרים, כמבואר בספריהם דשאלו אותו מדוע תלמידיו אוכלים בלי נטילת ידים והשיב מה שיצא מן הפה הוא טמא ומה שהולך לפה הוא טהור, ומפני זה למען לא יהיה לנו השתוות עמהם, החמירו בנטילת ידים, דהמזלזל בזה הוי כמודה להם.

See R. Mordechai Fogelman, Beit Mordechai, part 2, no. 15:2 (p. 224), who uses the Christian angle to explain another talmudic passage dealing with washing of hands. (Those who have read R. Israel Meir Lau’s wonderful autobiography will recognize Fogelman’s name.) See also Abraham Buechler, Am ha-Aretz ha-Gellili, ch. 4.

[10] See e.g., R. Pinchas of Koretz, Imrei Pinhas ha-Shalem (Bnei Brak, 2003), p. 209:

מה שכתב הבאר היטב (או"ח א, ס"ק ב) בשם תולעת יעקב בשם הזוהר, ההולך ארבע אמות בלי נטילת ידים חייב מיתה, הקפיד מאד הרב ז"ל על זה, שאינו בזוהר כלל, וגם במגן אברהם (או"ח ד, א) ובתולעת יעקב עצמו לא כתב בשם הזוהר רק דעת עצמו.

[11] See R. Zvi Elimelech of Dinov, Igra de-Firka, no. 9.

[12] See Menachem Yehudah Baum, Ha-Rabbi Rabbi Bunim mi-Peshischa (Bnei Brak, 1997), vol. 1, p. 212.

[13] See here.

See also R. Shmuel Eliyahu’s responsum on the topic here, R. Yaakov Peretz, Emet le-Yaakov (Jerusalem, 1979), p. 29, and R. Moshe Zuriel, Tziyon be-Mishpat Tipadeh (Bnei Brak, 2007), pp. 107-108. The section in Zuriel's book is entitled

                               

 בענין הנוהג הנפסד של חיטוט באף ובאוזן, בעת לימוד תורה והתפילה

There might even be enough material for a booklet dealing with the halakhot related to picking one’s nose. I know some of you are laughing right now, but I am entirely serious. See also R. Israel Pesah Feinhandler, Avnei Yoshpeh, vol. 5, Orah Hayyim no. 71, who discusses if it is permissible to pick one’s nose on Shabbat.

See also R. Ovadiah Yosef, Yabia Omer, vol. 5, Orah Hayyim no. 30:

ואתה תחזה שע"פ האמור יש להעיר עמ"ש הגאון מהר"ח פלאג'י בס' רוח חיים (סי' שכא סק"ב וסי' שמ סק"א), ובס' כף החיים (סי' ל אות קה), שיש להזהיר לאלה שמקנחים צואת החוטם (ובפרט כשהיא יבשה), שתולשים עי"ז כמה שערות, ואע"ג דדבר שאינו מתכוין מותר, היכא דפסיק רישיה יש להחמיר

There is also the issue of phlegm and hatzitzah that has been dealt with by many. It is interesting that halakhic sources regard putting one’s finger in one’s ear the same way as in one’s nose (e.g., in discussing if you have to wash your hands after this), while contemporary mores sees the latter as being in much poorer taste.

While on the topic of unusual halakhic subjects, let me call attention to a new book by the young scholar R. Yissachar Hoffman, from whom I have learnt a great deal. It focuses on sneezing. In his approbation, R. Gavriel Zinner writes: ראינו חשיבות התורה שיכולים מכל ענין לעשות ספר שלם

Here is the title page.

[14] I heard from a former student of the Lakewood yeshiva that someone once challenged one of R. Abadi’s pesakim by pointing out that the Mishnah Berurah stated that a “ba’al nefesh” should be stringent in the matter. Abadi replied that in the entire yeshiva, of which he was the official posek, maybe there were four people who would fall into the category of what the Mishnah Berurah designates a “ba’al nefesh”.

[15] I asked R. Yehudah Herzl Henkin the following question: Would you have any hesitation telling someone who didn't believe in demons that it's OK to only wash one time in the morning, in accordance with the Rambam's opinion?

He replied:

“I don't think ruach ra'ah has any operative role nowadays, either, but I hesitate to encourage the abandonment of accepted practices particularly when they are innocuous (as opposed, say, to doing kaparot with a live chicken). There is something to be said for doing what klal Yisrael does even if one doesn't believe in the activity. That being said, yes, certainly, if the person is bothered about it to that extent, tell him to follow the Rambam.”

Another posek wrote to me: "These are in my view simply matters of minhag yisrael, and not subject to psak in the classical sense of the word. There are questions of minhag ha'avot and the like – but in the end, I do not sense that one would be sinning if one washed only once."

[16] “The Age of the Universe:  A Torah True Perspective,” pp. 17-18, available here.

[17] See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Hai Gaon’s Letter and Commentary on Aleynu: Further Evidence of Moses de León’s Pseudepigraphic Activity,” JQR 81 (1991), pp. 365-409; and the sources cited by Shmuel Glick, Eshnav le-Sifrut ha-Teshuvot (New York, 2012), pp. 237-238. Meir Bar-Ilan sugests that the Zohar is the first example of what would later become a common practice: the creation of a forgery by attributing one's own work to an ancient manuscript. In earlier times, pseudepigraphical works made no such claims. See "Niflaot Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg," Alei Sefer 19 (2001), available here. 

[18] Sofer didn’t realize that the Medini approbation is also found in the first edition, published in 1906.

[19] Medini also says that he will not mention the name of the rabbi who used this expression. Regarding whom he had in mind, see R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer in Moriah, Av 5769, pp. 143-144. Despite Medini’s feeling, the expression האלגאזי does appear in numerous rabbinic texts.

[20] All bibliographical information for sources cited in this paragraph is found in my article.

[21] Torah in Motion how has a great deal. For only $10.99 you can get a silver membership (good for one month) that allows unlimited access to recorded lectures. See here.

[22] Some have mistakenly transliterated the title as Ha-Matzref. On the title page itself it is spelled in Latin letters Hamzaref; see here.

[23] Regarding the Sacks siddur, I recommend that all listen to the wonderful dialogue between Rabbi Sacks and Leon Wieseltier available here.

I have to say, however, that I was surprised to hear Sacks say at minute 49: “There is no doubt that the actual construction of the Temple was an extraordinarily disastrous moment for the Jewish people.” He then discusses how Solomon, in order to build the Temple, used force labor and thus “turned Israel into Egypt.” What surprises me is that I know of no other Orthodox thinker who sees the building of the Temple as a negative development in Jewish history. Nor, for that matter, have I ever seen an Orthodox thinker read the Bible as criticizing Solomon for this endeavor. If the construction of the Temple was such a negative event, then why on Tisha be-Av are we supposed to mourn its absence?

[24] On my recent trip to Italy, I learnt that the Italian nusah also always puts a segol under the yod of מחיה.

[25] Sacks does not consistently translate ה' as “Lord”. Metsudah actually translates it as “A-donay”, which I have never seen before.

[26] This is also the meaning of the blessing המחזיר נשמות לפגרים מתים . A similar concept is found among Christians. I am sure many are aware of the Christian prayer recited by children

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I shall die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.

[27] Midrash Tehillim (ed. Buber), 252::

זהו שאמר הכתוב: 'בידך אפקיד רוחי' . . . וכשהוא ישן הוא יגע, ומשלים [ומשליש?] נפשו ונפקדת ביד הקב"ה, ולשחרית היא חוזרת לגופו בריאה חדשה, שנאמר 'חדשים לבקרים רבה אמונתך'.

See also Devarim Rabbah 5:14

והן ישנים וכל הנפשות עולות אצלו, מנין, שנאמר 'אשר בידו נפש כל כי', ובבקר הוא מחזיר לכאו"א נשמתו, מנין, שנאמר 'נותן נשמה לעם עליה'.

Bereshit Rabbah 78:1 (parallel text in Eikhah Rabbah 3:21) states:

על שאתה מחדשנו בכל בקר ובקר אנו יודעין שאמונתך רבה להחיות לנו את המתים.

See also Tosafot, Berakhot 12a s.v. le-hagid.

The Book of Disputes between East and West

September 5, 2012, 1:38 pm

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The Book of Disputes between East and West 

or 

A Treasury of Alternate Customs from the Land of Israel and from Babylon 

Translated and Annotated by Leor Jacobi 

Based primarily on the Margulies Edition

with additions from the Appendices of the Miller and Lewin Editions

Menahem Av, 5772

Jerusalem

After the translation of the text itself, various additional items are added, some of them never before published. Also included is a translated summary of major sections of Margaliot's introduction, along with comments and updates.

Round brackets reflect text found in only certain Hebrew manuscripts as indicated by Margulies in his Hebrew edition.

Square brackets contain English insertions of this translator.

1.                    People of the East sit while reading the Sh'ma. The residents of the Land of Israel stand.

2.                    People of the East do not mourn for a baby [who has died] unless he has reached 30 days [of life]. The residents of the Land of Israel [mourn] even if he is only a day old. (He is like a fully-grown groom [=man]) 

3.                    People of the East will allow a nursing mother to marry within twenty-four months of the death of her baby. Residents of the Land of Israel require her to wait twenty-four months, lest she come to kill her son.

4.                    People of the East redeem the firstborn with twenty-eight (and a half) royal pieces of silver. Residents of the Land of Israel use five shekels, which are equivalent to seven (and a third) royal pieces of silver.

5.       People of the East exempt a mourner [from observing laws and customs of mourning, if the relation expired just] before a festival, even a moment [before]. Residents of the Land of Israel only exempt a mourner from the decree of seven days [of mourning] if at least three days have elapsed before the festival.

6.                    People of the East forbid a bride from [having relations with] her husband for the full seven [days] for she is considered to be a menstruating as a result of the relations. The residents of the Land of Israel (say) that since his removing of her hymen is painful [it is an external wound and] she is permitted immediately.

7.                    The marriage contract of the People of the East consists of twenty-five pieces of silver (and their dowry). The residents of the Land of Israel (say) that anyone who [obligates himself] to less than two hundred for a maiden or one hundred for a widow, is effecting a promiscuous relationship.

8.                    People of the East permit [the use of] an oven (during Passover), based on the source: “[We may] roll the Passover [lamb] in the oven at sundown.” (Mishnah Shabbat 1:11) Residents of the Land of Israel (say): “Disregard the Passover [lamb] since it is a sacrifice, and we [even] desecrate the Sabbath on account of it.”

9.                    People of the East do not wash [= ritual immersion] after experiencing a seminal emission or after relations (since they reason that “we are in an impure land”). Residents of the Land of Israel (do wash after a seminal emission or relations, and) even on the Day of Atonement (for they maintain that those who have seen emissions should wash in secret on the Sabbath and on the Day of Atonement) as a matter of course, [which they learn] from the example of Rabbi Yosi bar Halafta, who was seen immersing himself on the Day of Atonement.

10.                People of the East permit gentile butter [alternatively: cheese], (saying) that it cannot become impure. Residents of the Land of Israel forbid it on account of (three things: because of) milk which was expressed by a gentile (without a Jew observing him, because of gentile cooking) and because of impure fat (which it might be mixed with).

11.                People of the East say that a menstruating woman may perform all types of household duties except for three things: mixing drinks, making the bed, and washing his face, hands, and legs. According to the residents of the land of Israel, she may not touch anything moist or household utensils. Only reluctantly was she permitted to even nurse her child.

12.                People of the East do not say recite eulogies [alternatively: the prayer “tsidduk ha-din”]in the presence of the dead (during the in-between days of the festival). Residents of the Land of Israel do recite these before him.

13.                People of the East do not rip up a divorce contract. Residents of the Land of Israel rip it up. [Acc. to Lewin, this may have originally referred to whether a mourner rips his garment during the intermediate days of a festival.]

14.                People of the East have mourners come to the synagogue each day. Residents of the Land of Israel do not allow him to enter, with the sole exception of the Sabbath.

15.                People of the East do not clean their posteriors with water. Residents of the Land of Israel do cleanse themselves [with water], (based on the source:) A generation which considers itself pure ... [but has not cleaned itself from its excrement.] (Proverbs 30:12)

16.                People of the East [permit one to] weigh meat on intermediate days of the festival. Residents of the Land of Israel forbid hanging it on a scale, even just to keep it away from rodents, (based on the source: “One may not operate a scale at all.” – Mishna Beitza 6, 3) 

17.                People of the East circumcise [babies] over water and then dab [the water] onto their faces, (from here: “and I will wash you with water, [rinse your blood off of you, and anoint you with oil]” – Ezekiel 16:9)  Residents of the Land of Israel circumcise over dust, from here: “Also, due to the blood of your covenant have I sent your prisoners free from a pit with no water in it.” (Zechariah 9:11)

18.                People of the East (only) check the lungs. Residents of the Land of Israel (check) eighteen types of disqualifications.

19.                People of the East only recite a blessing [= grace after meals] over [a cup of] diluted wine. Residents of the Land of Israel (will recite a blessing) when it is fully potent.

20.                When thurmusin [beans] and tree-fruit are served to People of the East simultaneously, they recite the blessing for fruit of the tree and set aside the beans. Residents of the Land of Israel recite a blessing on the thurmusin, since everything is included in “[the fruits of] the earth.” 

21.                On the Sabbath, people of the East break bread on two loaves, for they expound: “a double portion of bread” (Exodous 16:21) [which fell on the Eve of the Sabbath]. Residents of the Land of Israel break bread exclusively on a single loaf, so that the [lesser] honor of the Eve of the Sabbath will not intrude upon [the honor of] the Sabbath. 

22.                People of the East spread their hands [= recite the priestly blessing] during fasts and on the on the ninth of Av as part of the evening benedictions. Residents of the Land of Israel only spread their hands during the morning services, with the sole exception of the Day of Atonement. 

23.                People of the East will not slaughter a newly-born animal until the eighth day. Residents of the Land of Israel will slaughter even a newborn, for [they maintain that] the prohibition of the eighth day applies only to sacrifices.

24.                People of the East do mention the word mazon [=nourishment] in the blessings of grace after dining. Residents of the Land of Israel consider mazon to be [the] central [component of the blessings] (for everything else is peripheral to mazon]. 

25.                A ring does not sanctify marriage according to people of the East. Residents of the Land of Israel consider it [sufficient to] fully sanctify a marriage. 

26.                People of the East individually redeem the second tithe and the planting of the fourth year. Residents of the Land of Israel only redeem them in [the presence of] three [men]. 

27.                The divorce contracts of people of the East contain two ten-letter words ['dytyhwyyyn' and 'ditiṣbyyyn']. Those of the residents of the Land of Israel contain three ten-letter words [the third is not known].

28.                People of the East bless the [bride and] groom with seven blessing. Residents of the Land of Israel recite three [blessings, which have been forgotten].

29.                According to people of the East, the prayer leader recites the priestly blessing (before the congregation) [in the absence of Kohanim]. Residents of the Land of Israel do not (allow the prayer leader to recite the priestly blessing, for they expound [from the verse]: “So they shall put my name” (Numbers 6:27) that it is strictly forbidden for anyone to “put” the holy name), unless they are Kohanim. 

30.                People of the East forbid bread baked by a gentile, but will consume gentile bread if a Jew threw a piece of wood into the fire. Residents of the Land of Israel forbid it (even with the wood, for the wood neither forbids nor permits. When are they lenient? In cases when there is nothing [else] to eat, and already a day or two have passed without consuming anything. It was thus permitted to revive his soul so that his soul should be maintained, but only from a [gentile] baker who has never brought meat into his bakery, even though it considered a [separate] cooked dish.) 

31.                People of the East carry coins from place to place on the Sabbath. Residents of the Land of Israel (say) that it is forbidden to even touch them. Why? Because all types of work are done with them.

32.                People of the East recite: “meqadesh ha-shabbat,” [who sanctifies the Sabbath]. Residents of the Land of Israel recite: “meqadesh Yisrael v’yom ha-shabbat” [who sanctifies Israel and the Sabbath day].

33.                Among people of the East, a disciple does not greet his master with: “shalom”. Among residents of the Land of Israel a disciple greets his master [by saying]: “shalomunto you, rabbi.” 

34.                According to People of the East, if a yevama [=a woman automatically betrothed to the brother of her deceased husband] should marry [another man] without halitza [=a legal procedure which frees her from this betrothal] and her yavam [=the brother] should return from overseas, he performs the halitza (to her) and she remains with her (second) husband. Residents of the Land of Israel remove [=forbid] her from both of them. 

35.                People of the East exempt a yevamafrom halitza [only] once the baby is thirty days old. According to residents of the Land of Israel, even if only the head and most of the body emerged alive, and even for only a moment (before the father died), she is fully exempt from halitza and from yivum [and may remarry freely], (for they expound: “If he has left seed, she is exempt.”) 

36.                People of the East turn their faces (towards the congregation) and their backs towards the aron[=closet containing the Torah scroll]. Residents of the Land of Israel [are positioned with] their faces towards the aron.

37.                According to people of the East, one [scribe] writes the divorce contract and another signs along with the writer. Among residents of the Land of Israel, one writes and two [others] sign.

38.                People of the East marry the [bride and] groom on Thursday. Residents of the Land of Israel [marry] on Wednesday, (according to the law: “a maiden marries on Wednesday.” – Mishnah Ketubot 1:1)

39.                People of the East perform labors on the intermediate days of the festivals. Residents of the Land of Israel do not do them at all. Rather, they eat and drink and exert their [energies in learning] Torah, (for the sages have taught that: “it is forbidden to perform labors on the intermediate days of the festivals.”) 

40.                People of the East begin [the initial act of] intercourse with genital insertion in the natural manner. Residents of the Land of Israel use a finger [to break the hymen and enable conception through the first act of intercourse. Alternatively, to verify virginity.] 

41.                People of the East observe two festival days. Residents of the Land of Israel observe one, (as per the commandment of the Torah.) 

42.                People of the East forbid the Kohanim from blessing the congregation if they have long, unkempt hair. [Alternatively: with their heads uncovered]. Among residents of the Land of Israel Kohanim do () [in fact bless the congregation with long, unkempt hair.] 

43.                People of the East whisper the eighteen benedictions while praying. Residents of the Land of Israel [pray] out loud, in order that people should become familiar with them. 

44.                People of the East count the Omeronly at night. Residents of the Land of Israel count during the day and at night. 

45.                People of the East circumcise with a razor. Residents of the Land of Israel use a knife. 

46.                (People of the East mix a remedy for circumcision from donkey dung and cumin. The residents of the Land of Israel do not do this.) 

47.                According to people of the East, the prayer leader and the congregation read the weekly [Torah] portion [of the annual cycle] together. Among residents of the Land of Israel, the congregation reads the weekly portion and the prayer leader [reads] the weekly [triennial] orders.

48.                People of the East celebrate Simhat Torah [the festival of the completion of the Pentateuch] every year. Residents of the Land of Israel celebrate it once every three-and-a-half years.

49.                People of the East bless the Torah while it is being [re-]inserted [into the Aron]. Residents of the Land of Israel bless both while it is being inserted and while being removed, (according to scripture and law, as per the verse: “and upon its opening the entire nation stood.” – Nehemia 8:5)

50.                (According to people of the East, a Kohen may not bless the congregation until he has married. Residents of the Land of Israel [allow him to] bless even before he has married a woman.)

51.                People of the East do not carry a palm branch [when the first day of the festival of Tabernacles falls] on the Sabbath. Rather they take a myrtle branch. Residents of the Land of Israel (carry both the palm and the myrtle on the first day of the festival which falls on the Sabbath, according to the verse:) “And you should take for yourselves” (Leviticus 23:40) [which is expounded to include:] “on the Sabbath.” (Bavli Sukkah 43a) 

52.                (Residents of the Land of Israel permit the consumption of daytra fats. Residents of Babylon forbid it.) 

53.                People of the East permit [the consumption of] broad beans which a gentile has boiled, and also locusts. Residents of the Land of Israel forbid it, (since they mix their boiled meat with their boiled fruits [= produce].)

54.                People of the East do not blow sirens before the onset of the Sabbath. Residents of the Land of Israel sound three sirens. 

55.                According to people of the East, Kohanim lift their hands [to bless the people] three times on the Day of Atonement. Residents of the Land of Israel [bless] four times on that day: shaharit, musaf, minha, and neila. 

56.                (*). Residents of Babylon permit [the consumption of] milk [from a cow] which a gentile has milked, [even] without a Jew having watched him, provided that there are no unclean animals in his flock. Residents of the Land of Israel forbid its’ consumption. (This item is found in only one manuscript. Thus, Margulies doubts whether it is included in the original collection; however, he maintains that it is historically authentic and thus included it in the commentary section.)

Margulies' running commentary has not been translated.

[Translator's note on additional items:

There are four different types of items and it is important to distinguish between them.

A. Items which appear in multiple versions of the Geonic list collections, the main body of the present work.

B. Items which appear to have been added to certain manuscript versions of the list after its “publication,” during the Geonic period or shortly thereafter. This includes items 46, 50, and 56, and possibly others. Since they may actually be remnants of the original list and do appear in the manuscripts, Margulies and Lewin did include them in attempting to produce a critical version of this text itself. [Elkin's 1998 Tarbiz article hints that the original work may have been smaller than Margulies supposed and hence more of the text translated above would fall into this category.]

C. Items which are culled from external Geonic literature and provide direct testimonial evidence for the historical validity of these distinctions. They could conceivably have been included in the original list, but for one reason or another were not. This describes Lewin's additions, and the first section of Miller's additions.

D. Items which were deduced from prior Talmudic literature. Kaftor w'Ferah seems to have pioneered this field, picked up and extended by Miller and others. It should be noted that these items should all be evaluated separately, as they do not necessarily constitute testimonial evidence and rather, in some cases, may be merely theoretical.]

Additional items collected by R. Yoel HaKohen Miller (1878)

From Masekhet Sofrim:

56.                People of the East recite kaddish and borkhuwith ten men. People of the Land of Israel [recite] with seven (10:7)

57.                 People of the East respond “Steadfast are you” after the reading of the prophets while sitting. Residents of the Land of Israel [respond] while standing. (13:10)

58.                 People of the East fast before Purim. People of the Land of Israel [fast] after Purim, based on Nikanor. (17:4, from Tosefta)

59.                People of the East recite Kedusha each day. People of the Land of Israel only recite it on the Sabbath and Festival days. (Tosafot Sanhedrin 37b ad. Loc. Mknp, citing Geonim

Compiled by Miller from Kaftor w'Ferah of Rabbi Ashtori HaParḥi (Isaac HaKohen ben Moses, 1280-1366), deduced from talmudic sources:

60.                People of the East do not ordain judges. People of the Land of Israel do ordain. (Sanhedrin Chapter 1)

61.                People of the East conclude [the threefold benediction]: “for the land and the fruit.” People of the Land of Israel [conclude]: “for the land and its fruit” (Berakhot, 6^th chapter)

62.                People of the East first plow and then sow seeds. People of the Land of Israel first sow and then plow. (Sabbath, 7^th chapter)

63.                People of the East do not chase after idol worship [in order to destroy it]. People of the Land of Israel do chase after it. (Sifre Devarim Re'eh 61)

64.                People of the East do not collect fines. People of the Land of Israel do collect in court. (end of Ketuvot ch. 3...)

65.                People of the East permit a brown citron [for use among the four species]. People of the Land of Israel forbid it. (Sukkah, ch. 3)

66.                People of the East grind with a small mortar on a festival day. People of the Land of Israel forbid it (Beitza, ch. 1)

67.                People of the East [formally] begin the meal [and apply its laws] once the belt has been released. People of the Land of Israel [begin] once the hands have been washed. (Shabbat, ch. 1)

68.                People of the East maintain that one who purchases a slave from a gentile, who does not wish to become circumcised [immediately], may postpone and continue deliberations up to twelve months. People of the Land of Israel do not allow any delay lest sanctified food become defiled through contact with him. (Yevamot 48b)

69.                People of the East do not transfer bones of the dead from little caves to small holes in caves [where presumably whole cadavers could not fit,] in order to bury other dead. People of the Land of Israel do transfer [bones]. (Rav Hai Gaon, as cited by Ramban, in Torat ha-adam)

Collected by Miller from Sefer Erekh Millinby Rabbi Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport (SHIR)

70.                People of the East first marry and then learn Torah. People of the Land of Israel learn Torah first and then marry. (Kiddushin 29b)

71.                People of the East recite nineteen blessings. People of the Land of Israel recite eighteen blessings. (Rabbenu Yeshaya ha-Zaqen, RID, in his commentary to Ta'anit, cited here)

72.                People of the East do not mention “dew” during the summer. People of the Land of Israel do mention it. (PT Ta'anit ch. 1, Berakhot ch. 5)

73.                People of the East are not concerned with “pairs.” People of the Land of Israel are concerned. (Pesahim 110) [in all manuscript and printed versions of the Talmud known to me it appears in reverse and was apparently copied by mistake here.]

    I would now like to present some very special additions of Rabbi Benjamin Wolf Singer (1855-1930). R. Daniel Sperber published a volume of his hiddushim/novella. See his biography of the author here and here. Much more about him later. I hope to devote a future post to Rabbi Singer and his brother.

      These notes have never before been published, and were found in the form of his handwritten notes in the back of his personal copy of Miller's edition of the work, now housed in the Bar Ilan University central library. The notes follow the extra hiluqim of Kaftor v'Ferah, ShIR, and Miller which we have just translated above. Apparently, they inspired Rabbi Singer to continue their work on the very same page! His notes look like this:

(Click for large, high-resolution images)

 

What follows is the best I could do for a transcription. All of the main points are clear, but not all of the references. Even this I couldn't have done without a lot of assistance from my friend R. Yehezkel Druk, who is responsible in no small part for the many corrections and additions in Moreshet L'Hanhil's volumes of the new Friedman Shulhan Arukh.

Hopefully, some of the readers viewing at home can decipher some more of this. If you can, please comment! A translation and more follows.

תוספות חלופי מנהגים של ר' בנימין זאב זינגער

א. מחלמ"נ [=מחלפי מנהגים?] דבבבל לא קפדו אטבילת קרי עיין ברכות כ"ב. ובא"י קפדו. ע' ירושלמי שם פ"ג ה"ב, תמן נהגין כו' ע"ש.

ב. בבבל שובתין מתוך מריעין, שבת לד: מנהג אבותיהן בידיהן. ע”ש.

ג. בבבל קרו הלל בר"ח ובא"י לא. תענית כח: מנהג אבותיהן בידיהן. ע"ש.

ד. בבבל קרו פרסא עי' (חולין) פסחים צג: וצ. ולהיפך בא"י קרו רק ד' מילין. עי' ירושלמי ברכות פ"א ה"א ושם נסמן [וירושלמי שבת סוף פרק קמא עד ד' מיל ועיין יומא כ:] ואותה ?הכחיי? עצמה דרבי יהודה דאיתא בפסחים פרסא היא בירושלמי במילין. והא דבחולין קכב: עד ד' מיל דאמר בשם רבי ינאי ורשל"ק [ריש לקיש] בני ארץ ישראל. ועי' ברכות טו ע"א [אבל לאחוריה אפילו מיל אינו חוזר [ומינה] מיל הוא דאינו חוזר הא פחות ממיל חוזר] סוטה מו: [וכמה א"ר ששת עד פרסה ולא אמרן אלא רבו שאינו מובהק אבל רבו מובהק שלשה פרסאות] סנה' ה: [ותניא תלמיד אל יורה הלכה במקום רבו אלא אם כן היה רחוק ממנו שלש פרסאות כנגד מחנה ישראל] סוכה מד: [אמר אייבו משום רבי אלעזר בר צדוק אל יהלך אדם בערבי שבתות יותר משלש פרסאות] ושם נראה דראב"ץ [=רבי אלעזר בר צדוק] בבלי היה מדאמר בלשון פרסי ועי' תו'[ספתא] ב"ק פ"ח מ"ט [אין פורסין נשבין ליונין אלא אם כן היה רחוק מן היישוב שלשים ריס]  ל' ריס (והיינו ד' פרסי) ועי' נדה כד: תניא אבא שאול אומר ואי תימא רבי יוחנן כו' ורצתי אחריו ג' פרסאות

ה. לדעת בני א"י ד' מפתחות ביד הקב"ו ולדעת הבבלי ג' עיין ריש תענית ומאיר עיני חכמים דף מב: וכיוצא בזה ברכו' ג' ע"ב רבי אומר ד' משמרות רבי נתן ג' ונראה שבא"י קיימו מספר ד' ובבל ג'

ו. ירושלמי פ"ק דראש השנה תמן חשן [תמן חשין לצומא רבה תרין יומין]  ? יומא רבה ב' יומי' ועי' סה"ד [סוף הלכה ד'] שאבוה… בשמת ע"י זה [פני משה מסכת ראש השנה פרק א: "תמן חשין לצומא רבא תרין יומין. בבבל היו אנשים שחששו לעשות מספק ב' ימים יה"כ ולהתענות ואמר להן רב חסדא למה לכם להכניס עצמיכם למספק הזה שתוכלו להסתכן מחמת כך הלא חזקה היא שאין הב"ד מתעצלין בו מלשלוח שלוחים להודיע לכל הגולה אם עיברו אלול ואם אין שלוחין באין תסמכו על הרוב שאין אלול מעובר. ומייתי להאי עובדא דאבוה דר' שמואל בר רב יצחק והוא רב יצחק גופיה שחשש ע"ע וצם תרין יומין ואפסק כרוכה ודמיך. כשהפסיק מן התענית ורצה לכרוך ולאכול נתחלש ונפטר. ועל שהכניס עצמו לסכנה מספק לא הזכירו שמו להדיא ואמרו אבוה דר' שמואל בר רב יצחק".]

ז. ירושלמי ברכות פ"ב ה"א כך אינון (בבלאי) נהגין גביהון זעירא לא שאל בשלמיה דרבה

ח. עי' ירושלמי סוכה פ"ד ה"א ושביעית פ"א ה"ז ועיין שם פ"ד ה"א או' רבי יוחנן לרבי חייה בר בא בבלייא תרין מילין סלקון בידיכון מפשיטותא דתעניתא וערובתא דיומא שביעייא. ורבנן דקיסרין אמרין אף הדא מקזתה ועי' בבלי סוכה מד. ??

ט. יוסף בבבלי יוסי בירושלמי עי' ?יבמות? קג ע"א

7. ברכות פ"ח ה"א ירו' אמר אר"י ב"ר נהיגין תמן במקום שאין יין ש"צ עובר לפני התיבה ואומר ברכה אחת מעין שבע וחותם במקדש ישראל ואת יום השבת. ועי' ?רא"ש? ?? י"ב שלא מצאנו כן בבבלי

8. עיין ברכות נ. בבבל נהגי כרבי ישמעאל ברכו א"ה המבורך – וירושלמי פ"ז דברכות ה"ד [נדצ"ל: ה"ג] נראה דבא"י כר"ע

9. ירושלמי ברכות פ"ז ה"ד [נדצ"ל: ה"ג] נראה דבא"י כשקראו כהן במקום לוי לא בירך שנית ובבבל מברך. עיין שם. תוס' גיטין נט: [ד"ה כי קאמרינן באותו כהן, והשווה תוספת לוין סו' י"ג וי"ד]

10. פסחים נו: בענין ברוך שכמל"ו [שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד] דבא"י אומרין אותו בקול רם מפני המינין ובנהרדעא בחשאי שאין שם מינין מב.. לר.. גבי ר' אבהו ב'. [אולי הכוונה לצטט ויכוח של מין עם ר' אבהו.]

Here is a loose translation without the references:

1. In Babylon they were lax regarding the requirement for one who experienced seminal emissions [Ba'al Qeri] to immerse himself in a mikva. In the Land of Israel they were stringent.
2. In Babylonia they commence the Sabbath in the midst of the blowing of the shofar teru'ah — They retain their fathers’ practice. (Sabbath 35b)
3. In Babylon, they read the hallel on the day of the New Moon. In the land of Israel they did not (Ta'anit 28b, “They retain their fathers’ practice”).
4. In Babylon [a large unit of length] is referred to as a “parsa.” On the other hand, in the land of Israel, it is referred to as “four mil.” [miles]
5. According to the understanding of the sages of the Land of Israel there are four keys in the hands of the holy one, blessed be he. According to the understanding of the sages of Babylon, there are three.
6. In Babylon there were sages who fasted two Days of Atonement due to uncertainty as to on which day the new month begins.
7. The Babylonians do not greet [rabbinic authorities], so Z'eira [respected their custom and] did not greet Rabbah when he visited.
8. Rabbi Yohanan said to Rav Hiyya bar Bo: “The Babylonians have brought two [customs] up with them: full prostration on the fast days and the taking of the willow on the seventh day [of Sukkot]. The Rabbis of Caesarea added bloodletting [to the list] as well.
9. In the Babylonian Talmud we find: “Yosef.” In the Jerusalem Talmud: “Yosi.”
10. (7) “There, in Babylon, when there is no wine, the prayer leader descends to the bima and recites the one blessing in place of seven and concludes with meqadesh Israel v'et yom hashabbat.” However, in the Babylonian Talmud we do not find this.
11. (8) In Babylon the custom followed Rabbi Ishmael in reciting “borkhu et hashem hamevorakh.” It appears that in the Land of Israel they followed Rabbi Akiva [instead].
12. (9) Is seems that in the Land of Israel, when a Kohen was called to the Torah reading in the absence of a Levite, he would not recite a second blessing. In Babylon he recites the benediction.
13. (10) In the Land of Israel they recite “Barukh shem kavod malkhuto l'olam va'ed” out loud because of the heretics. In Nehardea they whisper it since there are no heretics there.

As you can see, the numbering switches from Hebrew to Latin after tet. This is probably because the tet resembles a six, so he followed it up with seven. Remember, these were just personal notes, not intended for publication, obviously. Rabbi Singer's mind was on more important things, as the erudition of his notes speaks for itself. Anyway, who was Rabbi Singer? We'll return to that at the end of this post. Here in the middle of the work there is a citation apparently to a Yalkut in Parshat VaYeshev, but I can't make heads or tails of it.

Appendix to Lewin's edition. The articles originally appeared in Sinai 10 and 11.

Like Zinger, Lewin also noted the additional Hiluqim in Miller's volume and decided to add more. Instead of adding exclusively from Talmudic sources, Lewin leaned more on Geonic sources, of which he was the great master.  Some of these additions are quotations, and some Lewin formulated himself.

1.                    After completion [of the section from the public reading], the reader blesses: “Blessed are you … ruler of the world, rock of ages, righteous of all generations, the steadfast deity ...” Then the congregation promptly rise and say: “Steadfast are you, he, the Lord, our G-d, and steadfast is your word. Steadfast, living, and lasting is your name and it's utterance. Always will you rule over us forever and ever.” This is one of the disputes between the sons of the East and the sons of the West, for the sons of the East respond while sitting whereas the sons of the West [respond] while standing.

2.                    In Zoan, Egypt, which is called Fustat [today part of old Cairo], there are two synagogues: one for the people of the Land of Israel, the al-Shamiyin congregation [=the "Yerushalmi", this name is still used today to refer to a Jewish Yemenite branch] (It is named after Elijah, of blessed memory [?, see below]). The other is the congregation of the people of Babylon, the al-Iraqiyn congregation. They do not observe the same customs. (Selections from Yosef Sambari, Seder HaHakhamim, Neubauer I, p. 118. On page 137 it states that the congregational synagogue then still in use was built before the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem.) One, (the people of the Land of Israel) stands during kedusha, while the other, (that of the residents of Babylon) sit during kedusha. (Rabbi Avraham ben HaGra, Maspiq l'ovdei hashem.In the 1989 edition published by Nissim Dana, page 180, the opinions appear in reverse order)

3.                    It is written in the responsa of the Geonim that the residents of the Land of Israel recite kedusha only on the Sabbath, since it is written [in Isaiah 6:2] that the Hayot have six wings. Each wing sings praises corresponding to the days of the week. When the Sabbath arrives, the Hayot say to the holy one, blessed be he: “We do not have another wing!” He replies to them: “I have another wing which sings praises to me, as in (Isaiah 24:16): “From the end [literally: wing] of the world we have heard song.” (Tosafot Sanhedrin 37b, ad. loc. Mikanap, Miller 59)

4.                    We do not recite kadish or borkhu with any less than ten [men]. Our sages in the west recite it [in the presence] of [even] seven [men]. They explain themselves according to the verse: “bifroa p'raot ...” (Judges 5:2) according to the number of words [in the verse = seven. See also verse 5:9.] Some recite it with even six [men] since [the word] borkhu is the sixth [word in the verse]. (Some base this opinion on Psalms 68:27, which contains six words – Avudraham)

5.                    R. Joseph said: How fine was the statement which was brought by R. Samuel b. Judah when he reported that in the West [Israel] they say [in the evening], “Speak unto the children of Israel and thou shalt say unto them, I am the Lord your God, True.” (Berakhot 14b, Soncino translation). Still now, several cities [alternatively: regions] in the Land of Israel observe this custon in the evening. They reason that shema and v'haya im shamoa, [the first two paragraphs], are observed both day and night, whereas va'yomer is only observed during the day [as per Mishna Berakhot 2:2]. (Hilkhot Gedolot 1, Hilkhot Berakhot 2, p. 37, second Hildesheimer edition)

6.                    The sages of the Land of Israel behave as follows: they recite the evening prayers and later they read the Shema in its proper time. They are not concerned about connecting [the blessing ending with] geula to the evening prayers. (Sha'arei Teshuva 76, See Otzar HaGeonim for a list of numerous rishonim and collections who cite this responsum.)

7.                    Conserving a festival which begins after the Sabbath, it is still maintained in the Land of Israel that a fourth blessing is recited separately... but as for us, Rab and Samuel instituted for us a precious pearl in Babylon: “Just judgements and true Torah.” (attributed to Rav Hai Gaon, Otzar HaGeonim Berakhot, Perushim p. 46)

8.                    On the final day of the festival miṣwot u'ḥuqim and bekhor are read (Megilah 31a, acc. to mss. Munich and rishonim). Rav Hai Gaon explains this passage as a mnemonic sign: 1. There are those who read “for this miṣwa” (Deut. 30:11) and this is still read in the Land of Israel. 2. There are those who read from “im be'ḥuqotaiuntil “qomemiut.” (Lev. 26:3-13) 3. There are those who read: “kol ha'bekhor” (Deut 15:19). We read “kol ha'bekhor.” (various sources, Otzar HaGeonim Megillah, p. 62, no. 230)

9.                    Upon the conclusion of the Day of Atonement, residents of the Land of Israel blow qashraq [=tashrat, a serious of various tones]. Residents of Babylon only sound one plain blow in remembrance of the jubilee. [From here until the end, Lewin composed most of the statements himself based on the sources he provides.]

10.                The three fast days – Ta'anit Esther – are not observed consecutively, but rather, separately: Monday, Thursday, and Monday. Our sages in the Land of Israel were accustomed to fast after the days of Purim, on account of Nicanor and his company. Also, we delay [unpleasant] payment and do not predicate it. (Masekhet Sofrim 17)

11.                Residents of the Land of Israel would not actually fully prostrate themselves on fast days. Residents of Babylon would actually fully prostrate themselves.

12.                Residents of the Land of Israel did not read Hallel at all on the day of the New Moon. Residents of Babylon read it while skipping sections [an abbreviated version].

13.                Among residents of the Land of Israel, the first reader from the Torah recites the beginning blessing, and the last reader recites the final blessing. According to the residents of Babylonian, each and every reader blesses before and after the reading, since [members of the congregation may be] coming and going [during the readings and thus miss one or the other].

14.                In the absence of a Levite, residents of the Land of Israel would call a second Kohen to read from the Torah in his place. Residents of Babylon would call up the very same Kohen again who just read the first portion.

15.                Residents of the Land of Israel permitted writing [Torah] scrolls on the skins of pure animals even if they were not slaughtered according to specifications of dietary laws. Residents of Babylon forbade this since they were not slaughtered.

Translated summary of selected sections of Margaliot's introduction

Margulies' Table of Contents

[The entire Table of Contents of Margulies has been translated. However, only a summary of chapter 2 and the text of the original work itself have been translated here.]

Chapter 1

Relations between Babylon and the Land of Israel from the close of the Talmudic period until the close of the Geonic period

1.                    The end of the Talmudic Period

2.                    The Geonic period

3.                    Attitudes towards divergent customs until the Geonic period

4.                    Attitudes of Babylonian Geonim to the customs of the Land of Israel

Chapter 2

The Book of Disputes between East and West, the nature of the work and its use by Rabbinic and Karaite Jews.

1.                    The name of the work

2.                    The author, his period, and locale

3.                    Purpose of the work

4.                    Characteristics and scope of the book

5.                    Language and sources

6.                    Legal sources and historical development of the disputes

7.                    Use of the book by Geonim

8.                    Use of the book by Rabbinic legal authorities

9.                    Use of the book by Karaites

10.                Scholars who have studied the work

Chapter 3

Textual sources of the Book of Disputes, Printed Editions and Manuscripts

1.                    Text versions, families and formation

2.                    The first group

3.                    The second group

4.                    The third group

5.                    This edition's presentation and stemmatic diagram of source       relationships

6.                    The varying order of the disputes in all of the versions

7.                    The text

Presentation of the actual text with variant apparatus

Sources, History, and Development of the Disputes [Systematic Commentary]

Chapter 1 is a general introduction to the context of the work and is not translated at this time

Chapter 2 Summarized in translation

1.                    The name of the work

The work appears in numerous manuscript versions and cited by various Rishonim. Virtually every single one has a different title for the work – all variations on the same descriptive theme. [Both the variation in titles and the descriptive nature suggest that the work may have been not only anonymous, but also untitled. It was simply a list drawn up by a sage, copied and possibly added to.]

The majority of sources contain a variation of the root ḥlqin the title, including the first printed edition (1616, starts at middle of page) included at the end of Bava Kamma in Yam shel Shelomo, by the great Ashkenazi sage Rabbi Solomon Luria, better known as Maharshal (1510-1573).

I don't know who decided to include the work in Maharshal's edition, it led some to believe that the Maharshal himself collected it, a point justly disputed by Rav Avraham ben HaGra [see below].

Margulies is perplexed as to why Miller chose a title based on the root ḥlp, which only appears in a few secondary sources like Ravya, Rosh, and Tur.

[Lewin also followed Miller on this point. It seems that the selection of this root was designed to minimize the controversial nature of the work. As Lewin stresses in his introduction, this is a work of divergent customs, not disputes regarding actual Torah law. The reader can evaluate both titles, which have themselves both been translated here as “alternates”. In this writer's opinion, both of the roots may be “alternate” variations of one original word (probably from the root ḥlq)as the letters pehand qof are graphically similar. A supporting example of variation between these very same words is found in The Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon in the “French” manuscript branch. See Lewin's edition, page 22, left column, note 19.  There you will find a manuscript with precisely such an alternate reading.

Also of note is that certain Islamic literature which records divergent legal opinions is referred to as kḥilaf. See here, beginning of intro. On the other hand, an 11^thcentury Karaite work is entitled Ḥilluq ha-qara'im we-ha-rabbanim]

2. The author, his period, and locale

The author is anonymous, and we have no clue as to his identity.

The first serious recorded attempt to date the work is by Rabbi Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna, the son of the famous GRA, in his work Rav P'alim, p. 126. He was uncertain as to whether the work was authored by amoraim or in a later period. [His chief concern here is disproving the erroneous theory that the Maharshal himself collected the work from various rabbinic sources.] Miller was able to hone in closer, from the savoraim at the close of the Talmudic period to the beginning of the Geonic period. Margulies provides considerable evidence that the work was composed around the year 700. That is, after the Arab conquest and before Rav Yehudai Gaon.

According to Miller, our author was a native of the Land of Israel and familiar with Babylonian customs through travel to Babylon. Western Aramaic and Western Hebrew forms abound. In fact, the very composition in Hebrew suggests composition in the land of Israel, the language of the “Minor” Talmudic tractates produced there during the Geonic period, as well as Hebrew translations of Eastern Aramaic Babylonian Geonic works themselves. Margulies points out that since Miller's publication, new evidence has emerged from the Cairo geniza which shows that after the Arab conquest, Babylonian Jews migrated to the Land of Israel and formed their own separate congregations in Tiberias, Ramla, and Mivtzar Dan (Panias-Banias), with the most likely speculative location for our author being Tiberias, which was a native Torah center that may have already boasted a Babylonian community during the Talmudic period.

3. Purpose of the work

According to Miller, the work was designed to oppose the Babylonian side in the dispute between the two great Torah centers. He points out that many more explanations are offered in support of the "Yerushalmi" side than the Babylonian. Later, Miller appears to backtrack and seems to conclude that the work is simply meant to impartially catalog the various discrepancies.

Margulies accepts the claims regarding the basic "Yerushalmi" orientation, but understands the purpose more subtly. Rather than taking a confrontational stance, the work merely seeks to explain and rationalize the local customs and decisions to the new Babylonian immigrants who were not aware or respectful of the locals. No attempt is made per se to reject the validity of the Babylonian customs themselves and at times the author troubles himself to explain them only.

          4. Characteristics and scope of the book

The items in the work are haphazardly arranged with only occasional grouping according to topic. It is nowhere near complete in cataloging all of the items of dispute. According to Miller, the complete version of the work has not yet been transmitted to us. [This understanding may underly many efforts to expand on this list, discussed in the Appendix.] Margulies disagrees, on the basis of the numerous manuscript examples at his disposal. According to him, the author never meant to compile an exhaustive list.

         5. Language and sources

It has already been pointed out that the work was composed in "Yerushalmi" Hebrew. A list of words and phrases is provided by Margulies along with parallel examples from Talmudic and Geonic "Yerushalmi" literature. He supposes that many more parallels would be found in halakhic works from the period and region which are no longer extant.

[This section is of considerable philological interest especially regarding Geonic material in Hebrew which may be of uncertain provenance.]

          6. Legal sources and historical development of the disputes

          Most of the items can be documented partially in other Talmudic and Geonic literature. As would be expected, there is a high level of correspondence between the "Yerushalmi" side and the Jerusalem Talmud; also, between the Babylonian side and the Babylonian Talmud.

Most of the items appear to predate the collection and stem from the Talmudic period, many probably earlier, from the  Tannaitic period.

In some cases, a Tannaitic dispute may have been transmitted unresolved to both regions and eventually decided differently in each locale in a purely internal manner. Conversely, sometimes entirely external factors may drive the discrepancies in later periods as well.

Of special interest is following the disputes from the Geonic period until the end of the period of the Rishomin signified by the publication of the Shulhan Arukh. In general, the Babylonian side prevailed as their hegemony increased, but in a number of cases, the position native to the Land of Israel in fact dominated, especially when it did not contradict any explicit statements in the Babylonian Talmud. This tradition was especially strong in Tsarfat and Ashkenaz (France and Germany) as opposed to Sepharad (Spain), which historically remained tied to the Babylonian Geonim. The influence of the Land of Israel side is especially noticed in the house of study of the great Rashi and his students (items 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 18, 19, 25, and more).

The period following the publication of the Shulhan Arukh is not discussed systematically in Margulies' commentary since to a large extent geographic boundaries were erased by the free transfer of books from one region to another and a great amount of cross-fertilization occurred. Nevertheless, it is noted that a number of disputes remain with us to this very day between Ashkenazi and Sepharadi communities.

         7. Use of the book by Geonim

In Babylonian Geonic responsa literature, a number of disputes are addressed, but apparently not through direct exposure to the work. It is more likely that the inquirers from the Land of Israel or North Africa might have been motivated in their queries by exposure to concepts from the work.

However, the later European collections of Geonic material did see fit to gather material from this work into their nets. The collection known as Sha'are Tsedeq includes no fewer than eleven items culled from the disputes.

In a few cases, items from the collection are attributed to Babylonain Geonim themselves, but it is difficult to rely on any of these attributions and most were clearly added by the later compiler.

          8. Use of the book by Rabbinic legal authorities

Many of the great authorities were most probably unaware of the work as they never cite it or it's contents. Others who do cite it generally cite only sections known to them through second or third-hand rabbinic sources.

Geographic location was clearly a major factor. In France and Provence use was much more pronounced than in Spain. The work seems to have reached different locations at different times. By the 14^th century the work seems to have been lost for the most part, as only citations from by previous authorities are ever quoted.

One reason for the neglect of this work may have been it's brevity. [For example, the usual explanation for the grouping of the twelve prophets in one scroll, and today in one volume, is so that the small books would not become lost.] However, a more compelling reason appears to be the negative impression that the work made on certain authorities, most notably, Nahmanides, Ramban (Avodah Zara 35b). It was (correctly) perceived that the work contains material which contradicts the Babylonian Talmud, already considered supremely authoritative. Methods of study which stressed a proper historical understanding of all legal points of view would become common in rabbinic circles well before the modern period, but at the time they were not yet developed. If an opinion could not be utilized for determining the halakha, it was not deemed worthy of further inquiry. Nahmanides is the only early Spanish sage who even mentions the work, so it is not at all surprising that he considers it outside the pale of legal precedent.

Possibly, the Spanish Sages resisted the work as a result of the utility that Karaites received from it and quoted from it. They may have suspected the work of being a Karaite forgery.

In contrast, early Provencal authorities made ample use of the work. They include: Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (Eshkol), Rabbi Isaac ben Abba Mari of Marseilles (Ittur), and Rabbi Abraham ben Nathan of Lunel (Manhig). The textual versions cited by the Provencal sages are similar to those found in the Geonic Responsa collections which appear to be most original.

Ashkenazi sages also utilized the work widely, but the stylized textual citations indicate that they were generally quoting secondary and tertiary rabbinic sources rather than the work directly. The sages include: Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan of Mainz (Ra'avan, Even Ha-Ezer), Ravya, Tosafot, Rabbi Eliezer of Metz (Yereim), Sha'arei Dura, Machzor Vitry.

From the fourteenth century on mention and discussion of the work seems to virtually disappear. A most notable exception is Rabbi Ashtori HaParḥi (Isaac HaKohen ben Moses, 1280-1366) in his Kaftor w-Ferah, who traveled from France to the Land of Israel, on which his work focuses. He cites the work according to versions not attested to otherwise among French sages. [Furthermore, he took an interest in expanding upon the principle of the work as seen in the additions which Miller culled from it. See below after the main body of the translation.]

Students of the Maharam of Rottenberg, such as Hagahot Maimoniot, Mordechai, and Rabbenu Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh) mention the work haphazardly. Other sages who cite the work include Rikanati, Tashbatz, Agur, Or Zarua, and Shiltei Giborim. None of the early or later sages undertook an elucidation of the entire work – they left this important work for us to do!

9. Use of the book by Karaites

Karaites took a much keener interest in the disputes than Rabbanites. This is not at all surprising. The  Rabbanites claimed to possess an authoritative Talmudic tradition handed down from the earlier sages. Every known dispute amongst the Talmudic sages themselves was utilized in order to argue against these claims. From Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai to disputes amongst the Babylonian Geonim themselves, the Karaites seized upon the disputes between East and West eagerly.

The first Karaite sage to quote the work is Jacob Qirqisani (10^th century). Since he cites the work in an overtly apologetic manner (read: missionary), he was wont to exaggerate and even forge sections of the work. Thus, it goes without saying that his work cannot be utilized uncritically. Nevertheless, despite this cautionary note, his early explanations can at times be very useful in understanding the nature of the disputes themselves.

He explains his interest in the disputes very clearly. According to him, the disputes between East and West were more extensive than the disputes between the  Rabbanites and the Karaites, but nevertheless, claims of heresy were never leveled and a spirit of tolerance reigned between the communities. So too, the Karaites should be accepted by the  Rabbanites . This stance led him to exaggerate at times the extent of the disputes which were considered normative. Thus, even though the majority of the disputes concern extra-legal customs, he would attempt to thrust them into the body of the legal arena as exemplars of radical opinions. If at times he may have honestly misunderstood the disputes, in some of them it appears that he was making a cynical attempt misrepresent them and create confusion to advance his rhetorical purposes.

One example which stands out is a dispute which Qirqisani appears to have invented out of whole cloth, an out and our forgery not attested to in any other versions of the work:

“People of Babylon do not permit one to betrothe a woman with [the fruit of] the seventh year. People of the Land of Israel permit this. Therefore, the betrothals of that year in the Land of Israel are not considered by the Babylonians to effect marriage, and their children are not valid.”

[According to Mordekhai Akiva Friedman (Madaei HaYahadut 31), a maculation of taba'atto shevi'it resulting from graphic similarity between the letters tetand shin led item 25 to be misconstrued by Qirqisani in this manner. If Lewin did not mention this possibility, at the very least, he noticed the similarities and listed them together in his collection.]

From Qiqisani's time on, Karaites have continued to utilize the work in their own disputations with Rabbanites. As we saw earlier, this may have led to the work's falling out of favor among Rabbanites in regions where Karaites were active.

          10. Scholars who have studied the work

1.                    Rabbi Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna, the son of the  GRA, in Rav Pe'alim

2.     Dr. P. P. Frankl in Monatscrifft,1871 (Heft 8), p. 352-363 (available through compactmemory)

3.                    R. Yoel HaCohen Miller, 1878

4.                    A. H. Weiss, Dor Dor v'Dorshav,Additions to vol. 3, p. 285-, 1883

5.                    Rabbi Gershon Hanoch Leiner, the Admor of Radzin, in his commentary to Orchot Hayyim, mentions that he has composed commentaries on 50 disputes from the work. This has not been published and according to Margulies may no longer be extant.

6.                    R. Yehudah Meshil HaKohen, Kneset Hokhmei Israel 1, 60and 91, 1893

7.                    R. Ezra Altshuler, Tosefta, 1899. According to Lewin and Margulies, he plagiarized Miller (3 above) without mentioning him at all, even copying his printing errors. Someone should do a study on this work and figure out if the accusations are justified. Both Eliezer Brodt and I suspect that R. Ezra did, in fact, add plenty of his own material and didn't see anything wrong with copying transcriptions from a previous edition. This version of the Hiluqimhas been republishedwith additional notes from the Aderes.

8.                    R. Hayyim Stahon, Eretz Hayyim, 1908

9.                    R. Ya'akov Shor, Ner Ma'aravi  in HaMe'asef, 1910 [for a complete listing of all issues containing this serial column, see Simha Emanuel's index, entry 98]. These were reprinted in כתבי וחדושי הגאון רבי יעקב שור זצ"ל.

10.                R. Dr. Benjamin Menashe Lewin, Otzar HaGeonim, [Otzar Hiluf Minhagim, 1942. Lewin's edition was prepared more or less simultaneously as Margulies' edition. Forthcoming from R. Yosaif Mordechai Dubovickis a study on the various versions of Lewin's publication.]

11.                Dr. Dov Revel, Horev 1,1.

12.                [After over a Jubilee of reliance on the two critical editions of Marulies and Lewin, without further critical study, Ze'ev Elkin re-opened the field with his 1997 Tarbiz article focusing on the earliest manuscripts of the work, which are all of Karaite origin. He questioned several of Margulies conjectures. Elkin later became a member of the Knesset.

13.                R. Dr. Uzi Fuchs, Netuim 2003. An examination of the Rothschild manuscript and its role in the development of the various textual variants.]

Hillel Neuman in Ha-Ma'asim 2011 discusses several items from this related work in passing. This is a new revised version of his 1987 master's thesis(Hebrew University).

Chapter 3          Textual sources of the Book of Disputes, Printed Editions and Manuscripts

[This technical section has not been translated, except for the last section, the text itself, found at the beginning of this article. According to Elkin's 1997 article the textual analysis may be in need of an update and revision.]

Now that we are finished duscussing the Hiluqim, we can return to the question about who Rabbi Benjamin Zev Singer was. Rabbi Singer published Hamadrich, a Talmudic anthology, in collaboration with his brother, Rabbi Abraham Singer of Varpalota in 1882 and Das Buch der Jubiläen (Die Leptogenesis) in 1898 as “Wilhelm Singer.” Also, Neue Lehrmethode für den hebräischen Lese- und Sprachunerricht in der ersten Klas in 1867, with an additional Hebrew subtitle, אור חדש. This is a slim German Sefer Mesores for learning the Hebrew alphabet, davvening, handwriting, and selected phrases in Judeo-German.Singer is identified as a hauptschullehrer, a schoolteacher.

R. Daniel Sperber published a volume of Rabbi Singer's novella/hiddushim on Tractate Shabbat in 1986 and included a biography of him:

That biography is incorporated in a list of his many unpublished Hebrew works still in manuscript which are housed in boxes at Bar Ilan. Apparently University of Toronto houses manuscripts of his writing in German (maybe Hungarian, too, but he wrote both of his books in German. I noticed that at least one of the items Singer listed above (four mil) is apparently given fuller treatment in these manuscripts. Given the sheer quantity of his output, I suspect that many more items in the list are as well.

On the title page of the book, Singer lists a couple of learned review articles in German of the Miller volume.  See it here:

One review appears in Graetz's Monatsschrift, 1879, pp. 87-91 (Heinrich Graetz took over as editor after Zecharias Frankel); the other is in Brüll's Jahrbuecher, vol. 4, pp. 169-173. (Both are available at www.compactmemory.de.)  A couple of other articles are listed here as well, after the fact. At the top, the aforementioned 1871 Monatsschrift article of Dr. P. P. Frankl (listed by Marguleis), p. 357. At the bottom, an additional Brüll Jahrbuecher article from the first volume of the series, p. 44, where Talmudic customs of the Galil and Judah are discussed.

It is quite interesting to see that the Rabbi Singer brothers, the authors of HaMadrich, featuring haskamot of R. Yitzchak Elchanan Spector, the Netziv, and (over a hundred!) gedolim, had an openness to modern scholarship which accommodated Graetz and even Brüll, a reform rabbi who for a time headed the congregation in Frankfurt opposite R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch. This openness is also manifest in the very existence of R. Singer's volume on the book of Jubilees, Seforim Hitzoni'im.

Another point worth mentioning is that HaMadrich is essentially a collection of chapters to be learned by beginning and intermediate students all in one volume with an eclectic running commentary. That work was briefly touched on in this forum previously, but it would be more interesting to explore in greater detail exactly how eclectic it was once we have a clearer picture of the depth of lomdus and of academic scholarship displayed by the authors of this first “Artscroll.”

This “openness” of the Singer brothers did not appeal to everyone. R. Yehoshua Monsdhein's article on HaMadrichdetails the controversy surrounding the work. It is difficult to piece together exactly to what extent the opposition was to any change whatsoever in the education process, and to what extent it was towards entrusting the enlightened Singer brothers to this task.

If it can be compared were these haskamot procured (many of them probably after the controversy already developed!) any more successful than the ones in Rabinowitz's Dikdukei Sofrim? How many lomdim actually learned with HaMadrich? It was only reprinted once and then again twenty years ago.

Back to the Hiluqim notes, It seems to me that except for the first Monatsschrift  review, the additional three references were added in pencil by another hand, perhaps R. Singer's brother R. Abraham, who worked closely with him on HaMadrich.  But probably not the other way around. I consulted with R. Yechiel Goldhaber– he thinks that these notes are in the same style as the published hiddushim on Shabbat, and that seems quite reasonable.

Thanks to Lucia Raspe for deciphering these journal references, and to Sara Zfatman for the assist.

---

Translator's note: Thanks to Avi Kessner for suggesting and sponsoring this project, also for proofreading and valuable comments. I am indebted to Sander Kolatch and the Kolatch Foundation for general assistance during the year. Eliezer Brodt provided several useful references, without which this post would have been much poorer. The Guetta, Jacobi, and Peled families who continue with their unfailing support, especially my wife Dana, who makes it all possible. This translation is dedicated to my father, Nathan ben Tzipporah, in the hope that he should enjoy a complete and speedy recovery.

Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt) by Amos Hakham

September 9, 2012, 8:01 pm

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Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt)

by Amos Hakham

Translated by David S. Zinberg

Amos Hakham passed away on August 2, 2012 at the age of 91.  The following is an unofficial translation of an excerpt from the Introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, published in 1973 by Mossad Harav Kook, in the Da’at Mikra series of Bible commentaries.  

The selection below is an outstanding example of Hakham’s distinct approach, in both his Introduction and commentary, characterized by uncompromising scholarship coupled with faithfulness to tradition.  Here and in his other writings, he displays a profound mastery of the Bible and the literature of the Sages, a keen eye for subtle literary and linguistic features of the text, a love of Jewish tradition, and a genuine religiosity that is never cloying.  His style is marked by a fluid, graceful clarity.  With courage and sensitivity, Hakham confronts one of the most challenging subjects in traditional biblical exegesis.   

Hakham’s presentation is transparent and honest rather than pedantic.  First, he cites a broad range of general approaches and specific theories, from both traditional and modern sources.  He then carefully and fairly evaluates each view, adds his own observations and, finally, offers a  conclusion.   

Biblical quotations are from the New JPS Version, except for translations inconsistent with Hakham’s understanding of the verse.  The translation of a passage from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah is from I. Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (New York: Behrman House, 1972).  Where valuable, I have included Hakham’s original Hebrew in square brackets.  Hakham’s footnotes are not included in this translation.    

__________________________________________

The Content and Meaning of the Song of Songs in the Literal Sense

The Song of Songs, in the natural sense of Scripture [peshuto shel mikra], is about a man’s love for his beloved woman [ahavat ha-dod le-ra’eyato], and the woman’s love for him.

The question of continuity and division is critical for understanding the Song of Songs, and there are a variety of views on the subject.  Aggadists tended to interpret its verses independently, each conveying its own idea.  Opposing this method, Rashi wrote in his Introduction: “There are many aggadot on this book . . . but they are inconsistent with the syntax of Scripture and the sequence of the verses.  I have endeavored to follow the natural sense of the verses and to interpret them sequentially . . .”  Indeed, one who studies Rashi’s commentary on the Song of Songs will find that he attempts to interpret the entire book as a single, continuous poem.  For Rashi, the continuity of the Song of Songs lies mainly within its referent [nimshal], which is Israel’s history from its origin to the end of days.  R. Abraham ibn Ezra interpreted the Song of Songs in similar fashion, though Ibn Ezra also tried to find continuity within its literal sense.  In his commentary, the Song of Songs is a chronology of events taking place between two lovers.

A number of modern biblical scholars attempted to follow this approach to its logical conclusion; they maintained that the Song of Songs is a single, continuous poem written in the form of a dramatic dream vision.  But adherents of this view are forced to posit far-fetched interpretations and to take many verses out of context.  Other scholars held that the Song of Songs is an anthology of several poems (excerpts of poems, for the most part) -- composed in various periods and provenances -- which were compiled haphazardly at a later time.

The most plausible approach, I believe, is as follows:  The Song of Songs is not a continuous chronology of two lovers, and it is certainly not a drama.  But neither is it an anthology of poetic excerpts.  Rather, it is an anthology of complete poems written by a single author on a single subject, following a specific methodology and purpose.  The poems are sometimes brief and simple, sometimes lengthy and complex.  Nevertheless, for the most part they are self-contained units.  In the commentary, I have assigned a unique title to each poem and have also noted its division into sections or stanzas.  Often, the divisions are ambiguous; other commentators have split or combined the poems differently.  But these are merely details which do not undermine the central thesis that the Song of Songs is an anthology of complete poems.

As mentioned, the overall theme of the poems is the love between the dod and his ra’eyah.  However, there are several differing opinions regarding the circumstances in which the poems were composed.  Rashi (in the  Introduction to his commentary) says that the ra’eyah in the Song of Songs is a “widow of the living,” i.e., her husband has abandoned but has not divorced her, and she longs for him in her songs.  He consoles her, promising that he will yet return.  Ibn Ezra reads the Song of Songs as the story of a preadolescent girl, whose beloved is a shepherd, guarding a vineyard.  

Modern biblical scholars have suggested that the poems in this book do not describe events which took place between a particular pair of lovers but, instead, these songs were popular at wedding banquets.  As proof, some point to a statement of the Sages forbidding the use of lyrics from Song of Songs in drinking halls (Sanhedrin 101a; Tosefta Sanhedrin 12:5).  Because the Sages prohibited such a practice, their argument goes, this was in fact the original custom.  It was eventually forbidden, they say, due to deteriorating moral standards and out of fear that it might create an atmosphere of levity leading to the desecration of the sacred.  Among those who maintain that the Song of Songs comprises wedding songs, some suggest that the name “Solomon” -- appearing seven times in the book -- refers not to King Solomon, but to the groom, who is likened to a king.  In light-hearted humor, he is caricatured as “Solomon.”  Some have claimed that these songs were originally sung at festivals for Israelite girls, such as the dance festival at Shiloh recorded in Judges (21:21), and the festival mentioned at the end of Mishnah Ta’anit (4:8) as well as the Targum to Lamentations, on the phrase “her maidens are unhappy” (1:4).         

The most reasonable approach, I believe, is as follows: Although the Song of Songs does include dance songs (e.g., “Turn back, turn back, O maid of Shulem!” 7:1), one cannot claim that all the poems are dance songs.  It is likely that the poet borrowed phrases from dance songs and embedded them, as necessary, within his poems.  Likewise, some of the poems may have originally been wedding songs -- at least one, ending in the words, “Eat, friends, drink deeply, beloved” (5:1), is an obvious example; it is a call to the diners at a wedding banquet to eat and drink -- but one cannot generalize this to all the poems.  Most likely, the portraits of the lovers within the Song of Songs depict a variety of circumstances.  In some, the lovers may be formally unconnected; in others, they may be betrothed, at their wedding banquet, or already married.  Also, the notion that every “Solomon” is a metaphor for the groom seems far-fetched.  Sometimes, “Solomon” is simply King Solomon himself.  

The love portrayed in the Song of Songs is untainted and pure.  It is entirely within the bounds of that which is appropriate, permissible, and accepted.  No divine or human obstacle stands in the way of their love.  The ra’eyah brings her dod to her mother’s home; that is, everything is conducted according to custom and convention, and with the family’s approval.  The ra’eyah does have desperate moments.  But although she calls herself “lovesick” (2:5, 5:8), she is referring to an intense longing for her beloved rather than an emotional crisis.  At times, the ra’eyah refuses her dod, and the dod may elude her and disappear, but that does not mean that there was animus between them.  Instead, this dynamic should be understood as “a rejection with the left hand, and an embrace with the right.”  The ra’eyah is treated cruelly by her brothers, but they do not keep her away from her beloved.  They are intent only on increasing their possessions but, in  the end, they relinquish what is hers.

Whether the entire Song of Songs refers to a single pair of lovers, or describes multiple couples, is a significant question.  That is, can all that is said of the dod and the ra’eyah be conflated within the portrait of an individual man or woman?  There do not appear to be substantive contradictions between the different descriptions of the dod and ra’eyah; we may thus assume that the book intends to describe different circumstances or events in the lives of a pair of lovers who actually lived at some point in time.  

I do not mean to suggest that everything recounted in the Song of Songs should be taken as a narrative or that it only describes events that actually took place between two specific individuals.  The very nature of poetry is to portray circumstances more beautifully and more perfectly than they really are.  Here too, the primary goal of the Song of Songs is to present an ideal portrait of the innocent love between a dod and his ra’eyah.  But the descriptions are based on reality.  

The dod portrayed in the Song of Songs is a shepherd.  His sheep are never mentioned explicitly in the poems, but “shepherd” is used several times as his alternate name.  Although there appear to be instances where “shepherd” is used a metaphor for the dod, wandering the hills and tending his gardens like a grazing gazelle, he is initially depicted as a real shepherd, as implied by the verse, “Where do you pasture your sheep?  Where do you rest them at noon?” (1:7).  Possibly, because he would wander the countryside with his sheep, he mentions the names of several places scattered far and wide throughout the land.  It is also possible that because he was a shepherd, he compares his love’s beauty to flocks of goats and ewes.  But there is no hard evidence that compels us to interpret the text this way.  Nevertheless, we may infer from Scripture that he roamed the mountains (“leaping over mountains”; 2:8), which is consistent with shepherding.  The image of the dod is depicted with all the emotion and intensity of one who is “lovesick.”  Scripture suggests that he was tall (“preeminent among ten thousand,” “stately as the cedars”; 5:10,15), that his hair was “curled, and black as a raven” (5:11), his cheeks were ruddy and bearded (“his cheeks are like beds of spices”; 5:13), and he was a swift runner (2:9, 8:14).    

The ra’eyah is also tall, with an upright posture (“Your stately form is like the palm”; 7:8), her hair is black (“Your hair is like a flock of goats”; 4:1), and her complexion is dark as well (“because I am swarthy”; 1:6).  The white of her teeth, which “bear twins” (6:6), stands out against her dark face.  Her movement and her gait are full of grace (“How lovely are your feet in sandals, O daughter of nobles!”; 7:2).

She is called a “daughter of nobles,” and the poems imply that she was from a well-to-do family: She wears costly perfumes, and her brothers offer her a “silver battlement” (8:9).  They own vineyards, but she too has a vineyard of her own.  Her brothers direct her to tend the vineyards, and she also tends to sheep (perhaps at the advice of her dod, so that he might see her more easily: “Go follow the tracks of the sheep, and graze your kids by the tents of the shepherds”; 1:8).  The portrait in the Song of Songs suggests that her brothers treated her heavy handedly, forcing her to work in the vineyards.  She knew her dod previously and, unbeknownst to her brothers, fell in love with him; to them, she was still a child.  After much time elapsed, the brothers were finally inspired to provide for their sister’s upcoming marriage, only to discover that she had already found her intended.                                              

God is never mentioned in the Song of Songs.  This is likely one of the motivations for the Sages’ pronouncement that “every ‘Solomon’ in the Song of Songs is divine” (Shavu’ot 35b).  But the question remains why God is not mentioned explicitly.  Commentators and thinkers have said that the holiness of a text is not determined by tallying its divine names.  Just as there are texts whose sacredness is self-evident even without reference to God, so is the untainted and sacred love depicted in the Song of Songs.  Nevertheless, it seems that the poet deliberately excluded the explicit form of God’s name from the text.  Possibly, because the poems -- in their literal sense -- were originally meant to be recited as expressions of love between a groom and bride, it was feared that they might not always be recited in purity, and for this reason God’s name was omitted.  It is also possible the omission contains a moral statement, related to Rava’s comment (Mo’ed Katan 18b), that a lover may not solicit divine intervention in the hope of marrying his love.            

It is also worth noting that the dod and ra’eyah are nowhere mentioned by name.  They address each other not by proper name, but by pet name, like dodi, ra’eyati, and many others.  The ra’eyah’s friends are called “Daughters of Jerusalem,” and the dod’s friends are called “companions” [haverim], “friends” [re’im], and “beloved” [dodim].  This is a known biblical feature, in which male or female characters may remain anonymous for the duration of a lengthy and detailed narrative.    

The Song of Songs as a Parable of Divine Love

In the Midrash, the Sages offered many allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs, taking its earthly love as a parable for the love between God and Israel.  This notion is based on prophecies in which God’s covenant with Israel is symbolized by the marriage covenant between a man and his beloved wife.  The great medieval Jewish exegetes interpreted the Song of Songs within this conceptual framework and objected strenuously to the idea that its meaning is limited to its literal, natural sense of the love between a man and woman.

It is well known that the term “parable” [mashal] in the Bible, as well as in Hebrew generally, has several different meanings.  Many types of parables are found in the Bible (and not all parables are explicitly termed “parables”).  The parable in the Song of Songs is apparently not the type in which the referent displaces the literal sense but, instead, adds a nobler and more sacred meaning to the natural meaning.  That is, although the natural, literal sense refers to the love between a flesh-and-blood dod and ra’eyah, by virtue of the fact that their love is wholesome, innocent, pure, and holy, it is worthy of serving as a representation and a model for a more exalted love.  Support for such an approach can be found in the statements of the Sages and Jewish scholars throughout history.  Indeed, while the Sages of the Midrash interpreted the Song of Songs’ love as that between Israel and God, they also interpreted it naturally, viewing the dod and the ra’eyah as two human beings.  For example, in R. Yohanan’s exegesis of the verse, “I have come to my garden, my own, my bride” (5:1; see the commentary, in the poem’s summary section) [In the summary of that poem, Hakham cites Vayikra Rabba (9:6): “The Torah teaches you proper etiquette: A groom may enter the bridal chamber only after receiving his bride’s consent. First, (the bride) says, ‘Let my beloved come to his garden and enjoy its luscious fruits’ (4:16); and only then (in the next verse, the groom responds), ‘I have come to my garden, my own, my bride’ -dsz].  This is linked to the idea, appearing frequently in the literature of the Sages, that all aspects of marital relations are rooted in holiness and allude to holy matters.  For this reason, the marriage blessings include the following: “The barren will surely rejoice when her children return to her joyfully.  Blessed are you, God, who brings joy to Zion with her children.”  From the formulation of this blessing, we may infer that the joy experienced by every bride and groom represents the joy associated with the redemption and the ingathering of the Diaspora.  There are many kabbalistic teachings which take aspects of marital relations as symbols of lofty matters.      

We should also draw attention to the mistaken notion that the Sages interpreted the Song of Songs allegorically because they considered its natural sense to be unworthy of the Holy Scriptures. It is not so.  Some of the greatest exegetes have noted that one must not even contemplate the idea that a prophetic text would employ something inherently offensive to suggest that which is holy and pure.  Rather, just as the referent is holy, so is the allegory.  The fact that the prophets compare the covenant between God and Israel to the marriage covenant suggests that the latter is sacred and noble.  The Sages have said, “If a married man and woman are worthy, God’s presence dwells with them” (Sotah 17a).

As noted, many exegetes interpreted the Song of Songs allegorically, viewing the ra’eyah as an emblem for Israel and the dod for God.  Thus, the love between the dod and the ra’eyah represents God’s love for his people and Israel’s love for God.  In the Midrash, the Sages followed this exegetical method.  Likewise, the Targum translated the Song of Songs allegorically and ignored its literal sense.  Many such midrashim are embedded in Jewish liturgical poetry [piyyutim].  On Passover, several communities once recited -- some still do -- piyyutim based entirely on the Song of Songs, from start to finish, on the subject of God’s love for his people and the promised redemption.  Many piyyutim for other occasions include phrases from the Song of Songs; such phrases were a quintessential part of the piyyut vocabulary and, subsequently, entered popular usage.  

The great medieval exegetes such as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and others, were also of the view that the Song of Songs allegorizes God’s love for his people.  The difference between the approach of Rashi and Ibn Ezra and that of the Midrash is as follows:  The Midrash generally ignores the allegory entirely and exclusively addresses the referent.  The exegetes, on the other hand, also address the literal sense of the allegory.  Furthermore, they attempt to connect adjoining verses and to find context and continuity within the Song of Songs as a whole.  In their view, the Song of Songs includes hints regarding all of Jewish history, from its origins until the end of days.  The hints are not of a general nature; they refer to specific future events.  Thus, for example, Rashi interprets the verse, “Before I knew it, my desire set me mid the chariots of Ammi-nadib” (6:12) as an allusion to the civil war between the Hasmonean brothers John Hycranus and Aristobulus, which led to Israel’s subjugation by Rome.  They saw the Song of Songs as a prophetic or visionary work.  But there are those who do not accept -- within the natural sense of the book -- interpretations predicting future events.  However, this objection does not undermine the view which sees the love in the Song of Songs as emblematic of God’s love for his people.  

All the midrashim and the exegesis cited above view the ra’eyah as a “collective personification,” representing Israel as a whole.  However, some exegetes emphasize that God’s love applies to each Jew individually and they thus identify the ra’eyah with the devout soul, serving God out of love and longing for Him.  The Bible does contain expressions supporting the notion that the devout’s yearnings for God are represented by human love, e.g.: “We long for the name by which you are called” (Is. 26:8); “My soul thirsts for you, my body yearns for you” (Ps. 63:2); “My soul is attached to you” (Ps. 63:9).  See also Hagigah 15b where the verse “Draw me, let us run after you” (Song 1:4) is said to refer to R. Akiva, who “entered the orchard” of divine wisdom in peace, and left in peace.  Maimonides writes in the Laws Concerning Repentance (10:3):

What is the love of God that is befitting?  It is to love the Eternal with a great and exceeding love, so strong that one’s soul shall be knit up with the love of God, and one should be continually enraptured by it, like a lovesick individual, whose mind is at no time free from his passion for a particular woman, the thought of her filling his heart at all times, even when sitting down or rising up, when he is eating or drinking.  Even more intense should be the love of God in the hearts of those who love Him.  And this love should continually possess them, even as He commanded us in the phrase, “with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 6:5).  This, Solomon expressed allegorically in the sentence, “for I am sick with love” (Song 2:5).  The entire Song of Songs is indeed an allegory descriptive of this love.

See also what Maimonides states in Guide of the Perplexed, Section III, at the end of chapter 51.

Many exegetes followed this approach by interpreting the details of the Song of Songs as allusions to the inner spiritual life of devout lovers of God; their feelings, longings, uncertainties, doubts, failures, and triumphs in attaining their goal, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.  A number of them saw allusions to scientific and philosophical subjects -- as they understood them -- within the detailed descriptions of the book.  Among the adherents of this approach are R. Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon (translator of the Guide of the Perplexed), R. Joseph ibn Aknin (a disciple of Maimonides), R. Joseph ibn Kaspi (a commentator on the Bible and on the Guide), and R. Meir Malbim.  R. Abraham ibn Ezra and R. Isaac Arama (author of the Akedat Yitzhak) rejected this type of exegesis.  In their respective Introductions to the Song of Songs, they underscored the obligation to remain completely faithful to the Sages, and they rejected the conception of the Song of Songs as an allegory of anything other than the love between God and his people. Yet it appears that their statements were not directed at Maimonides.  His words stand firm, and we may take the yearnings of love in the Song of Songs as faithful expressions of the worshiper’s yearnings for God.  However, in Maimonides’ view, the allegory applies to the general theme of the book, but we should not attempt to draw  parallels between details of the allegory and details of the referent.       

We must also mention the kabbalistic approach to the Song of Songs.  Generally, “we are not to delve into hidden things”; as R. Isaac Arama writes in the Introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, he does not wish to address kabbalistic interpretations.  Still, it was the kabbalists who, in recent times, popularized its study -- or, at least, its recitation -- among the Jewish populace.  Based on their commentaries, the custom of reciting the Song of Songs before the Service for Welcoming the Sabbath has become widespread.    

In simple terms, the kabbalistic view is essentially this: The love in the Song of Songs represents the longing of creation for its Creator, the longing of worlds detached and distant from their origin to return and reunite with their Maker.  However, for our purposes we must emphasize that for kabbalists, that which takes place in the supernal realms is reflected in (or, casts a shadow upon) the events of our world.  The reflection is revealed in multiple stages and by various means.  Thus, we may conclude, a variety of hermeneutics of the Song of Songs are possible: The literal interpretation, describing the love between a man and woman; the midrashic, referring to God’s love for his people; the hermeneutic which speaks of the devout’s love for God; the mystical interpretation, which is about the love that permeates all of creation.  For kabbalists, each hermeneutic points to the same essential idea, even if revealed in a variety of ways and in different stages.

What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor?

September 21, 2012, 9:21 am

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What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor? 

by Eli Genauer

                                                                    

Below, we will present some timely notes regarding an English/Hebrew Machzor for Rosh Hashana which was printed in England in 1807.  We will touch upon a variety of issues, and thus first present general backgrounds regarding Hebrew printing in London, the prayer for the state, and Kol Nidrei.  

Hebrew Typography in London  

The earliest use of Hebrew typography in England is sometime in the middle to the late 1520s.  Of course, at that time, Jews were banned from England and the earliest works containing Hebrew type in England were produced for non-Jews.  

The prize of first was thought to go to Thomas Wakefield’s publication of his address regarding “Three Languages” – Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean (Oratio de laudibus et utilitate trium linguarum [link]). The type, as you can see, was quite primitive.

This lecture was given in 1524, and as the book itself is undated, it was assumed that the lecture was published soon after it was given.  Thus, many dated it to 1524/25.  Wakefield, a noted Hebraist, actually spends the majority of the book discussing Hebrew and the other two languages get short shrift.[1]   

Recently, however, the dating of this work has been challenged and been shown to likely incorrect.  The author, in the self-described “Holmesian manner,”[2]   highlights the various persons Wakefield claims to have tutored in Hebrew and the honorifics used to describe those persons.[3] Based upon some of the descriptions, it seems likely that Wakefield’s work was not published prior to 1527 and most likely in 1528.   [4] This conclusion, coupled with the dating of another work by a different author, unseats Wakefield’s book claim to first.  Instead, Richard Pace’s Praefatio in Ecclesisten, printed in August 1527, is the most likely candidate for the first use of Hebrew typography in England.[5] Here is a sample:

It took nearly two hundred years after the appearance of Hebrew typography for the first Hebrew book published for a Jewish audience in England.  The controversy surrounding R. David Nieto’s remarks and their affinity or lack thereof to Spinoza would produce the first printed Jewish Hebrew book in England.  The first was a very small one, only a few pages, of a responsum written by R. Tzvi Ashkenzi, in R. Nieto’s defense, and published in 1705. It included both Spanish as well as Hebrew (available here).[6]   For more on R. Nieto and this controversy, see the Seforim Blog's earlier post here. 

The Prayer for the Welfare of the State

The prayer for the welfare of the king or ruler is ancient.  Many point to the statements of Ezra as well as the passage in Avot as early sources for the prayer.  A variety of rationales are offered for this obligation.  For example, Rabbenu Yonah interprets the need for these prayers as indicative of a Universalist worldview, which requires all humans to display empathy for one another.  In order to effectuate that goal, Jews therefore pray for not only the Jewish leaders but also the secular one.  R. Azariah di Rossi, claims that the prayer carries a pacifist message as he emphasizes the lack of allegiance to a specific ruler or country and thereby transforms the prayer into one arguing for peace among all nations. 

The earliest extant prayers are from the Geniza, and can be dated to between 1127 and 1131.  The prayer is for the “Fatimid caliph al-Amir bi-ahkam Allah who ruled Egypt and its regions during the years 1101-1131.” See S.D. Goitein, "Prayers from the Geniza for Fatimid Caliphs, the Head of the Jerusalem Yeshiva, the Jewish Community and the Local Congregation,” in Sheldon R. Brunswick, ed., Studies in Judaica, Karaitica and Islamica: Presented to Leon Nemoy on His Eightieth Birthday (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1982), 47-57.[7]   In this instance, the prayer includes not only a prayer for the secular ruler, but also a prayer for the local Rosh HaYeshiva.  Additionally, it blesses all of the Rosh HaYeshiva’s deceased predecessors, providing a nice genealogy. Goiten posits that these prayers may have been written in response to specific historical events and may not be indicative of the general practice in 12th century Egypt.  See id. at ___. 

The earliest sources, however, do not include the modern formulation of HaNoten Teshua.  Instead, early on there was a lack of conformity regarding this prayer.  Kol Bo records the custom but indicates that each community had its own practices.  But, none used the HaNoten Teshua formulation.  The first extant example of HaNoten Teshua is found in a Spanish manuscript dated between 1479-92.[8]   Ironically, this example was prepared for King Ferdiand V, who, in 1492, issued the expulsion order.  

It appears that with the expulsion and dispersion of the Spainish Jews, the HaNoten Teshua was disseminated throughout the Jewish world.  Indeed, the inclusion of this prayer in Yemenite rites, appears to undermine a major thesis of the noted Yemenite scholar, R. Yosef Kapach.  He asserts that the rite presents a pristine rite, unchanged over hundreds of years.  But, as the Yememite rite includes HaNoten Teshua, which is from the 15th century, indicates that the Yemenite rite is less pristine than Kapach would have it. [9]  

The prayer is also linked to the readmission of Jews into England.  Menasseh ben Israel in his plea  for readmission of the Jews to England (link) provides the full text - in English - of the HaNoten to demonstrate the Jews' loyalty to their rulers.[10]

A English Hebrew Machzor Printed in London

The Jewish Encyclopedia notes “In 1794 David Levi published an English version of the services for New-Year, the Day of Atonement, and the feasts of Tabernacles and Pentecost, and thirteen years later gave a new version of the whole Mahzor. This second edition was “revised and corrected” by Isaac Levi, described as a “teacher of the Hebrew Language.”

The Machzor features a frontispiece with various engravings of the Jewish holidays. The engraving for Shavuos features Moshe Rabbeinu dressed in a manner probably unknown 3,000 years ago, and holding the Aseres HaDibros with the numerical sequence from left to right. Yom Kippur correctly shows two identically sized “Se’irim” as per our tradition.

If you look closely at the name of the engraver, you will see that it was done by an R. Gavey.

I tried to find out more about R. Gavey and finally came upon a website which dealt with his family. I sent an email to the address listed and waited and waited. Two years later, I received the following response from a fellow in Australia:

"Robert Gavey b.1775 London was my 4xGreat Grandfather. He is listed as an engraver. Both his father and grandfather were watch makers.  Robert Gavey's daughter Harriot Angelina Gavey  married my 3x Great Grandfather whose son James Fletcher  emigrated to Australia 1852. The Fletchers were originally Huguenot silkweavers with the surname Fruchard and I believe the Gavey's would have been Huguenots also." 

It turns out that Robert Gavey’s Australian descendent had a copy of his certificate of indenture as an engraver to a goldsmith named William Norris. Robert was 15 years old at the time (1790) and his period of indenture lasted for seven years. He promised not get married during that time period or play cards or dice. He also was forbidden to frequent taverns or playhouses or engage in any act which would cause his master a loss of money. (Click to see a large, high-resolution image.)

The certificate of indenture was signed in May of 1790 which was noted as the thirtieth year of the reign of George III who is described as the king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.

Speaking of George III, he received much better treatment in this Machzor than in our American Declaration of Independence. On our side of the pond, we know George III as a man who “ has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” As part of the agreement by Cromwell to allow Jews back into England, the Jews promised to always pray for the welfare of the ruler. Accordingly, this Machzor blesses King George in this manner:

This is not the only edition that continued to praise the monarch.  Isaac Lesser, published the first complete machzor in the United States in 1837-38, for the Spanish and Portuguese rites with an English translation.  Lesser’s translation relies heavily upon that of David Levi’s translation.[11]   In an attempt to sell his machzor in both the United States as well in other English-speaking locals, he includes two version of the prayer, one asked that God “bless, preserve, guard, assist, exalt, and raise unto a high eminence, our lord the king.”  The other, replaced this phrase with the request that God “bless, preserve, guard, and assist the constituted officers of the government.”[12]  

The person who finally brought the prayer for the government more in keeping with American democratic values was Max Lilienthal (1814-1882).[13]   While some had been willing to change the prayer, they did so only in the vernacular but retained the Hebrew HaNoten Teshua.  Lilienthal, however, totally reworked the prayer, altering its tone and focus.  Lilienthal removes all mention of kings, focuses on the country more than its rulers, and seeks to bestow God’s blessing, not on the ruler but on all the inhabitants of the land.  This version was included in Henry Franks’s Teffilot Yisrael, a siddur containing the Orthodox liturgy. This siddur was first published in 1848, and reissued in more than 30 editions.  As Sarna notes, the acceptance of the prayer is somewhat ironic in that Lilienthal, later became part of the American Reform movement, was the author of a prayer that became the standard even in Orthodox siddurim.[14]  Id. at 436.

Aside from changing the text of the prayer to fit American sensibilities, how the prayer was recited was also changed.   Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York, after the revolutionary war, “ceased to rise for Hanoten Teshu’ah. According to an oral tradition preserved by H.P. Solomon, ‘the custom of sitting during this prayer was introduced to symbolize the American Revolution’s abolition of subservience.’”[15]

The United States was not the only country to undergo significant changes to its governmental structure.  France, in 1787, abolished (temporarily) the monarchy.   After which the prayer for the welfare of the government was radically changed.  Instead of praying for the benefit of kings and rulers, the French prayer focuses upon the Republic and its people.  All the biblical verses included bless the people and not the king.   [16] The prayer begins “Look down from your holy place on our land, the French Republic, and bless our nation, the French people, Amen.”

Other changes to the prayer, due to time and place, were common. For example, during the height of the Sabbati Zevi messianic frenzy, two versions of the prayer were produced, not asking to bless the secular ruler, but, instead, blessed Shabbati Zevi.

Today, the most significant change to this prayer has been the new prayer on behalf of the State of Israel.  The authorship of the prayer as well as its use is subject to controversy.[17]

In the most recent "Prayer For the State" news, French President François Hollande, specifically invoked this prayer when discussing French Jews' relationship to the state.  He included in his remarks, translated in NYRB, commemorating the round-up of Jews at the Vélodrome d’Hiver: "Every Saturday morning, in every French synagogue, at the end of the service, the prayer of France’s Jews rings out, the prayer they utter for the homeland they love and want to serve. 'May France live in happiness and prosperity. May unity and harmony make her strong and great. May she enjoy lasting peace and preserve her spirit of nobility among the nations.'" 

Kol Nidrei 

The Yom Kippur volume of this set contains a detailed “apology”for the Kol Nidre prayer. The Jews endeavored to incorporate themselves into general society and felt the need to emphasize that their word was binding on them. Kol Nidre was seen as indicating otherwise, so an explanation of the prayer was seen as necessary, both for Jew and Gentile. (See Y. Goldhaver, Minhagei Kehilot, Jerusalem: 2005, pp. 209-19 on the history of Kol Nidre and the controversy.) It concludes as follows.

Finally, I would like to focus on the special prayer said during the Yamim Noraim when the Torah is taken from the Aron Kodesh. It first appeared in the Siddur Shaarey Tzion of Rabbi Nathan Hanover and begins with the words “Ribbono Shel Olam”.

In it we ask Hashem to remember us for a long and good life, with everything that comes along with that. We include in our request that Hashem should provide us with “Lechem Le’echol, Beged Lil’Bosh, V’Osher V’Chavod”.  Let us see how David Levy translates these words.

As you can see, the request for “wealth and honor” is nowhere to be found in the English translation. I was curious about this and asked Dan Rabinowitz for his opinion. He offered that it is possible that this Machzor was printed at a time when the English community was quite interested in the Hebrew language. Non-Jewish scholars eagerly bought any books printed in Hebrew. As such, it could be that Levy decided to leave out the reference for our desire for wealth and honor because, well, maybe it was a bit too pushy on our part.

I hope all of you are blessed with a Shana Tova, even one that includes within it the promise of wealth and honor.

[1]  See Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book, Brill, Leiden:2004, entry for Oratio and pp. 959-60 and the sources cited therein. But see Brad Sabin Hill, Incunabula, Hebraica & Judaica . . ." Ottawa:1981, #52 asserting that 1561 is the earliest introduction of Hebrew typography to England. It is unclear what the basis of that assertion is.
[2] Richard Rex, “Review: Robert Wakefield On Three Languages 1524,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42:1 (Jan. 1991) 159.
[3] Richard Rex, “The Earliest Use of Hebrew in Books Printed in England: Dating Some Works of Richard Pace & Robert Wakefield,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Vol. 9, No. 5 (1990), 517-25.
[4] Id. at 517-18.
[5] Id. at
[6] See B. Roth, The Hebrew Printing Press in London, Kiryat Sefer 14 (1937), pp. 97-99.
[7] See also, Fenton,
[8] See Aaron Ahrend, "Prayers for the Welfare of the Monarchy and State," in Aaron Ahrend, ed., Israel's Independence Day: Research Studies (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1998), 176-200 (Hebrew). This date is contrary to Schwartz who incorrectly posits that there is no evidence of HaNoten Teshua prior to the 16th century, and none in pre-expulsion Spain. See Barry Schwartz, “Hanoten Teshua: The Origin of the Traditional Jewish Prayer for the Government,” in HUCA, 57, (1986) 113-20. Sarna appears unaware of Ahrend’s article as he continues to assert that HaNoten Teshua was not composed prior to the 16th century. See Jonathan Sarna, "Jewish Prayers for the United States Government: A Study in the Liturgy of Politics and the Politics of Liturgy," in Ruth Langer & Steven Fine, eds., Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 207 & n.9 (link).
[9] See Ahrend, “Prayers for the Welfare,” at 183.
[10] See Menasseh ben Israel, The Humble Address to his Highness the Lord Protector, 1655.
[11] Leeser was not the first American to utilize Levi’s translation. The first Hebrew prayer book published in the United States, The Form of Daily Prayers (Seder Tefilot), New York, 1826, also includes an English translation by Solomon Henry Jackson. Jackson, who emigrated to the United States from London, also relied heavily upon Levi’s translation. Jackson, in the introduction, indicates that HaNoten Teshua was adapted for U.S. audience, in fact, the Hebrew remained the same, only the “translation” was altered. See Sarna, Jewish Prayers, 213.
Additionally, some time in the 1820s, there was an attempt to reprint Levi’s machzor in the United States. A prospectus was issued, but Levi’s machzor was never reprinted in the United States. See Yosef Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926, Brooklyn, NY, 2006, no. 33.
The first appearance of HaNoten Teshua in the United States is found in the first prayer book published in the United States. Isaac Pinto’s holds that honor. In his English only edition whose first volume was published in 1761 with the second volume published in 1766, he includes HaNoten Teshu’ah.
[12] Jonathan Sarna, “Jewish Prayers for the United States Government,” at 215.
[13] See Jonathan Sarna, “A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government ,” in Hesed ve-Emet, Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. Magness & Gitin, Atlanta, Georgia, 1998, 431-40.
[14] Today, however, the most widely used Orthodox siddur in the United States, Artscroll, does not include the prayer in any form in its standard editions. It is unclear why Artscroll omitted this very old prayer.
[15] Sarna, Jewish Prayers, at 210.
[16] Moshe Katon, “An Example of the Revolution in the Hebrew Songs of the French Jews,” Mahut 19 (1997) 37-44, esp. 37-8.
[17] See Aharon Arend, “The Prayer for the Welfare of the Monarchy and Country, in Arend ed., Pirkei Mehkar le-Yom ha-Atzmot, Ramat Gan: 1998, 192-200.

On some new seforim, Copernicus, saying Ledovid , Moses Mendelssohn and other random comments

September 25, 2012, 10:06 am

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On some new seforim, Copernicus, saying Ledovid , Moses Mendelssohn and other random comments

By Eliezer Brodt

Here is a list of recent seforim and books I have seen around in the past few months. This is not an attempt to list everything or even close to it; rather it's just a list of seforim and books on many random topics, which I have seen while shopping for seforim. I enumerated a few titles which I have a Table of Contents for. Please feel free to e-mail me for them.

1.   רשב"ץ על מסכת ברכות, אהבת שלום, עם הערות של ר' דוד צבי הילמן

In this work they claim to have double checked the manuscript, thereby fixing some mistakes in the earlier edition of Rav Hilman. They included all of Rav Hillman's notes

2.    חידושי הריטב"א, מהדורא בתרא, על מסכת קידושין מוסד רב קוק

3.   מנחת יהודה פירוש לתורה לר' יהודה בן אלעזר מבעלי התוסופת, מכתב יד, על ספר בראשית, מוסד רב קוק, מהדיר: פר' חזוניאל טויטו, מבוא של 176 עמ' ורכ עמודים טקסט

4.     אבן עזרא, קהלת, מוסד רב קוק

5.    ספר המחלוקות, ספר הפשוטים, ר' יהושע בועז [בעל ה'שליטי גיבורים'] ג' חלקים, נדפס לראשונה מכתב יד על הספרראה כאן

6.    אגרות ותשובות רבינו חיים בן עטר, בעל האור החיים הקדוש מכתב יד, כולל תפילה, ליקוטי

שמועות, תשובות ופסקים, מכתבים, קינות, הספדים, רעה עמודים.

This volume is nicely done, and it contains many new pieces never before printed. One thing that I found strange is when citing the sources for the various pieces, he did not bother to mention that some of them were already printed many years ago by Binyomin Klar in various journals. Later on they were collected in a volume called Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar, printed by Mossad Rav Kook in 1951. Oddly enough they do quote some of the original places where Klar had printed the pieces first

7.    עטרת ראש לר' לוי מקאנדי, על מסכת ברכות.

8.   יין ישן בקנקן חדש, על מסכת ברכות, מכון הדרת חן, תתקצב עמודים, אסופות חיבורים עתיקים מגדולי האחרונים שהיהו גנוזים מעיני הלומדים, בעריכה חדשה בתוספות מראה מקומות מפתחות ותולדות, [עשרים ספרים]. בין הספרים, ולא עוד אלא, בכור שור, גפן פוריה, ויאמר שמואל, לווית חן, מלך שלם, מירא דכיא, גנזי יוסף, למנצח דוד, זרע יעקב, ארץ החיים, איי הים, רוב דגן, מעיל שמואל, קהלת יעקב, צרור החיים, לשמוע בלימודים, ברכת דוד, מכתב לחזקיהו, ילקוט הגרשוני.

9.     מבוא המסורה, ר' יוסף קלמן מקאסוויע, נדפס בווארשא תרמ"ט, 112 עמודים.

This work, first printed in 1862 and again in 1889 deals, with the subject of the Masorah by Rabbi Yosef Kalman. One of the points of interest to me about this work is that it received many different haskamot from gedolim of the time. This of interest because the first 15 pages of the work quotes many passages from R. Eliyahu Bachur’s classic work on the subject, including his controversial opinion about the post-Talmudic origin of the nekkudot. Now in the comments on the bottom of the page the author writes that this was already disproven (more on this shortly) but he had no problem to quote this controversial opinion in the main text of the work without arguing on it in the main body or censuring the Tishbi in any form. This is in sharp contrast to the work Nekudot Hakesef printed in 2001.

Now what is interesting is that the person who just printed this new work (someone from Bnei Brak) felt he had to add in one comment to this sefer, so right in the beginning of this long quote from R. Eliyahu Bachur he added in the following:

עיין בספר מגדל עוז מר' יעקב עמדין בעלית הכתיבה ראיות מכריעות נגד דעת הנ"ל של רא"ב

What's interesting is that on the next page the original author of the sefer writes:

אמר המאסף וכבר השיג עליו בזה בעל אמרי בינה מהזוה"ק והאידרא שהנקודות היו קודם חתימת התלמוד ע"ש באורך הביאו הרמבמ"ן בהקדמתו על התורה ע"ש

I am positive that the recent printer of this sefer did not realize who this was. The original author of this sefer is quoting the Meor Einayim from Rabbi Azariah Min Hadomim who is quoted by Moses Mendelssohn in the introduction to his Chumash, where Mendelssohn quotes him in regard to the origin of the Nekudot. Possibly we can see from this another piece of evidence that it was not considered so bad to quote from Mendelssohn at that time, and especially how well known Mendelssohn’s introduction was. Apparently the printer did not realize the initials הרמבמ"ן refers to Mendelssohn. For a recent case of someone not realizing what these initials are see he work on the Koheles falsely attributed to the Malbim by Oz Vehadar [See Yeshurun 25 pp. 724-735, (PDF available upon request)]

One more addition to all this, in 1870 Rabbi Yosef Kalman put out another sefer on the subject calledShaar Hamesorah which received haskamot from Litvish Superstars of the time. In the introduction he returns to the subject of the origin of nekkudot and again he quotes the Meor Einayim of Rabbi Azariah, who is quoted by Moses Mendelssohn. However here he makes a strange mistake of thinking that the Rabbi Azariah quoted by Mendelssohn was the Rama Mepano!

Returning to the work Mevo Hamesorah, one last discussion of his worth nothing is about Ibn Ezra and his opinion of the origin of Nekudot (pp. 104-105).

[For more on the subject of Nekudot see Dan Rabinowitz's excellent article availablehere; Jordan Penkower, The Dates of Composition of the Zohar and the book Bahir (Heb.) Cherub Press; Rabbi Dovid Rothestein work availablehere. See also my Likutei Eliezer, pp. 71-72]

10. יד יהודה, ר' יהודה לנדא, תשובות פסקים וכתבים, מכתב יד, קלו עמודים

11. חמודי דניאל עם פ' רחבת ידים

12.  חמודי דניאל על הלכות נדה, נדפס לראשונה מכתב יד בתוך ספר מעין בינה על מסכת נדה

13. קשר תורה, [לקשר סוף התורה לתחילתה] נדפס פעם ראשונה ווילנא תרסז, ר' יצחק מו"צ בעיר ריטווא, 112 עמודים.

14. קול חיים, סדרי לימוד ותפילות להגיע האדם לגיל שבעים שנה ואילך, ר' חיים פאלאג'י, מכון אהבת שלום

15. הקללה לברכה, הלכות איסור קללה, ר' מרדכי גרוס, קמה עמודים

16.  מנהג אבותינו בידינו, ר' גדלי' אבעלראנדר, ביאורים ובירורים במנהגי ישראל מקורותיהם ושרשי טעמיהם, שבת, נישואין שונות, תסד עמודים, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.

This volume is a collection of Rabbi Oberlander's articles originally printed in the journals Or Yisroel and Heichel HaBesht as well as other places. These essays are very organized and well written on a wide range of interesting topics, all based on a nice collection of sources. I highly recommend this work. Of course one can always add to such collections of material here but לא המלאכה עליך לגמור .

17. אני לדודי, שיחות מוסר וחיזוק לחודש אלול וימים נוראים, ר' שריה דבליצקי, קעג עמודים

18. ישא יוסף, אורח חיים חלק ב, ר' יוסף אפרתי, רכו עמודים

19. הטבילה בהלכה ואגדה, ר' משה סופר, תסד עמודים

20. ביד נביאך, בעניני הפטרות ונביאים, כולל אסופות תשובות ומאמרים בהלכה ואגדה, פרקי הלכה בעיני הפטרה וכתיבת נביאים, כולל כת"י של האדר"ת  על נביאים וכתובים בשם 'נביאים טובים', הלכות הפטרה להגר"ש דבליצקי, וס' סימנים על עניני הפטרה  ונביאים, תרב עמודים

21. שעות שוות בהלכה, כולל מחקר וסקירה על תולדות הפחתות מדידית הזמן לאורך הדורות, ר' יצחק זילבער, שצ עמודים

22. שמות בארץ, שמות אנשים, ממשנתו של מרן ר' חיים קניבסקי, דיני וענייני שמות  אנשים ונשים ובשווי שמות בשידוכין, וקו' שמות נשים, ר' צבי יברוב, קלט עמודים

23.  ברכת הלבנה, הלכות ומנהגים, ר' יוסף אדלר, קב עמודים

24.  בים דרך, מאמרי עולם חלק א, ר' מיכל זילבר, שסז עמודים

25. גם אני אודך על ענייני ברכת כהנים, ר' גמליאל רבינוביץ, תרלב עמודים

26. ספר פת שחרית כהלכה, ר' יששכר דוב הופמן, צו עמודים

This is another work from the author of the now-famous recent work all about sneezing in Jewish law..

27. מאורות הגר"א, חלק ב, ר' רובין, שפ עמודים

28. ר' ראובן פרידמן, כי עת לחננה, הליה וישיבה בארץ ישראל, 490 עמודים, מוסד רב קוק

29. ר' ישראל גארפינקל, כיצד מרקדין, בענין ריקודין של מצוה מצוה טאנץ, רמח עמודים

30. חזון עובדיה, שבת חלק ה, ר' עובדיה יוסף הל' צובע, קושר ומתיר, תופר צד ממחק כותב ומוחק, השמעת קול, בונה, אוהל, מתקן מנה, תד עמודים

31.הלכה ברורה חלק יג, ר' דוד יוסף, סי' רמב-רנב, תקלו +צ+נד עמודים

32. זהב לבושה, איסור פאה נכרית, הלכה הגות מחשבה, שכד עמודים

33. לוח ההלכות והמנהגים לשנת תשע"ג, 372 עמודים

34. קוטנרס האינטרנט בהלכה, קב עמודים

35. ישועות כהן, ר' יהושע אדלר, ביאור סוגית קוי התאריך, צג עמודים

36. ספר תהלים עם פירוש מפורש, כולל ביאורים על תרגום כתובים ר' לייביש דיייטש, תק"ח עמודים

37. שערי חג הסוכות, הלכות סוכה, ד' מינים הו"ר שמיני עצרת ושמחת תורה, ר' יהודה טשזנר, תקל עמודים

38. קובץ תשובות חלק ד, ממרן ר' אלישיב זצוק"ל,  שכט עמודים, כולל מפתחות על לארבע כרכי קובץ תשובות, 73 עמודים

39. הערות במסכת ברכות, מר' אלישיב זצוק"ל, תקמא עמודים

40.  כתבי הגרי"ש, בהלכה ואגדה, מכתבי יד של ר' אלישיב זצוק"ל, ימים נוראים וסוכות, קס עמודים

41.  אשרי האיש, פסקי מרן הגרי"ש אלישיב זצוק"ל, יורה דעה, ב' חלקים נלקט ע"י ר' יחזקאל פיינהנדלר

42.  רישא דגולתא הספדים על ר' אלישיב זצ"ל

43. שו"ת פוע"ה מניעת הריון, קובץ שאלות רבני פוע"ה ותשובות של פוסקים, 141 עמודים

44.  באמונה שלימה, ר' יוסף בלאך, תרם עמודים

This work is written by Rabbi Yosef Bloch, who is a well-known Talmid Chacham from Monsey. In this volume Rabbi Bloch deals with many "hot" issues related to Emunah, bringing many interesting discussions to the table. Just to list a few side points of his: he brings that some say that the Chazon Ish's work Emunah Ubitachon was never supposed to be printed (pp. 69-70) as the Chazon Ish never wanted it printed. He also deals with a piece that was censored from later versions of the Emunah Ubitachon (p. 39). He brings numerous sources against the Ralbag (pp. 140-141). He has a radical statement about what chazal mean when they say "there is wisdom by the Gentiles" (pp. 301-302):

דכל חכמת הגוים הוא בדברים גשמיים דוקא וכגון מכוניות סעלפאון כלי השחתה למלחמה וכדומה, שם ורק שם יש להם חכמה,... ברוחניות אין להם שום מגע והבנה כלל, ותיקון העולם הוא עצמו איבוד חכמיהם וזה כלל גדול בהבנת ענין חכמת האומות בברזל ובעצים ואבנים ובאלקטריק יודעים קצת, בצומחים יודעים פחות מזה בגופות בעלי חיים יודעים הרבה פחות מזה, בגוף האדם עוד הרבה פחות מזה, בחכמת התכונה השמיימית עוד הרבה פחות בנפשיות האדם

יודעים משהו ממשהו ממש , בחכמה עליונה אפס מוחלט לא כלום!

He has a radical explanation for the famous Gemarah about killing lice on Shabbas (pp. 305-307). Another very interesting discussion of his is about the sugyah of Elu Ve-elu Divrei Elokim Chayim (pp. 308-323).

A few years ago I wrote a few comments (here) about Rabbi Bloch's work against Copernicus. I recently revisited the topic in the last issue in Hakirah. In this new volume Rabbi Bloch includes his anti-CopernicanEssay but with various updates. If one reads the essay carefully one can see many of these updates he is referring to points in my article. Hopefully in the future I will deal with all the issues he raises but for now I would just like to mention two points at one point he writes (p. 358):

ולא מצאתי אחד מגדולי ישראל מכל הדורות שיחזיקו אפילו במקצת דמקצת כדעת התוכנים ומה שהעידו בשם קדוש ה' המהרי"ל דיסקין זצוק"ל דהיהו סבר ככה, שקר העידו בו דלא כך היה מעשה אלא שענה שלואל דאין הכרח נכד

התוכנים מלשון הברכה כמדומה ממה שנקראת ברכת החמה אבל מעולם לא יצא מפיו הקדוש דנקט איהו כהתוכנים.

I honestly have no idea what he is talking about but as I brought in my article (p.29) the source says as follows:

"וכן אמר לי ידידי הרב וכו' ר' אבנר נ"י בעל המחבר סי' ציר נאמן, בתורת עדות ששמע מפי רבנו הקדוש רשכבה"ג מהרי"ל דיסקין זצוק"ל שהשיטה החדשה אינה מופרכת. ושאל לו מן הכתוב בקהלת א' וזרח השמש ובא השמש וכו' הולך על דרום כו' וענה לו שהכתוב אמר לפי ראות עיני האדם".

I also explained there (p. 31) why this sources is very reliable. But what bothered me even more was what he writes there on pg. 359.

 ומה שכמה מהמשגיחים וראשי הישיבות מהדור הקודם נ"ע כתבו דרך אגב בין הדברים בספריהם... כשיטת קופעריקוס, אין מזה שום הוכחה כלל לדעת התורה בענין הזה, דלא באו אותם הגאונים זללה"ה ליקח עמדה בהדיון הזה, דלא היתה זו הסוגיא שלהם ולא ידעו שיש בזה סתירה להשקפת התורה שלא ניסו בכגון אלו ולא עיינו בה, ונסתמכו דכיון דככה אומרים הכל מסתמא הוכיחו התוכנים דהאמת כן הוא, ולא ירדו לסוף דעתם של התוכנים לידע שכוונתם עקירת האמת ואין מדבריהם ז"ל הוכחה של כלום, וכאילו לא אמרו כלום בנידון הזה

Now besides for the haughtiness of this statement the only Rosh HaYeshiva I quoted in my article that wrote an essay very pro Copernicus was Rabbi Yonah Mertzbach someone who had a college degree in these areas so I am not really sure what he is talking about.

One last source related to this topic of Copernicus was brought to my attention in a collection of things by Rabbi Zerach Shapiro who was close with the Chazon Ish (part of this booklet was printed in Yeshurun volume 26) where he asked the Chazon Ish about Copernicus:

בענין מה מסתובב השמש או כדור הארץ, אמר שאין הכרעה בדברי חז"ל.

One last point in regard to Rabbi Bloch's book is he prints an unprinted essay of his father's, extremely anti Zionistic and the Mizrachi from 1943 (p. 115-116). I think the reason why he is printed this letter here, while it may otherwise seem out of place, is rather simple. In the same issue of the Hakirah where my essay about Copernicus appeared he saw another article froms Elazar Muskin,When Unity Reigned Yom ha'azmaut 1954 which deals with Rabbi Bloch positive attitude to Yom ha'azmaut.

קבצים

1  המעין גליון 203, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים

2. אור ישראל גליון סה, שפג עמודים, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים

3.  היכל הבעל שם טוב, גליון לד, קצב עמודים

4.  מוריה גליון שעג-שעד

5.  ארזים, גליון א, גנוזות וחידושי תורה, מכון שובי נפשי, תקפח עמודים [כולל רס עמודים של כת"י על ענינים שונים]

6.    קובץ בית אהרן וישראל גליון קסב, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.

This issue includes another attack on Rabbi Dovid Kamentsky (PDF available upon request].

7.  עץ חיים גליון יח, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים

8.   ישורון חלק כז,  תתקמ"ב עמודים, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים

One piece worth mentioning in this issue is the complete manuscript of the Meishiv Nefesh printed for the first time, edited by Rabbi Yehudah Hershkowitz (59 pp).

מחקר ועניינים שונים

1.  גאון ההוראה אחרי 50 שנה:  היסטוריה, הגות, ריאליה; קובץ מחקרים בעקבות יום העיון במכללת אפרתה על הרב צבי פסח פראנק / עורך - ישראל רוזנסון, קע עמודים, מכללת אפרתה.

2.  המסע האחרון, מאתיים שנה למסעו בעל התניא בעיצומה של מלחמת נפוליאון תקע"ב-תשע"ב, [לאור מסמכים ותעודות, חדשים גם ישנים, וגם סיפורים ושמועות דרושים ומאמרים], יהושע מונדשיין, 378 עמודים.

3.  נתיבי מאיר, אסופות מאמרים, מאיר רפלד, 456 עמודים ]ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים]

This is a beautiful collection of Dr. Rafeld's articles on a very wide range of topics. Some of the articles relate to Rishonim on Chumash and many others relate to the world of minhag and Tefilah. There is also a nice collection of important articles related to the Maharshal and his generation (one of Rafeld's specialties). All these articles show a great breadth and depth in each of their perspective subjects.

4.  הרב פנחס הירשפרונג, מעמק הבכא הנאצי, זכורנות של פליט, 215 עמודים

5.  ר' יחזקאל סופר, במאי קמיפלגי, הפולמוס המשיחי בתנועת חב"ד, 408 עמודים

6.  הלבוש היהודי באירופה במהלך הדורות, הלכה, מנהגים, גזירות מאבקים, תקנות, מנחם מקובר, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.

7. אביר הרועים, קורות העתים הנהגתו ומשנתו של ר' עובדיה יוסף, משנת תרפ"א-תשי"א,יעקב ששון, 320 עמודים

8.  רבן של ישראל, מראות קודש ממרן פוסק הדור הגרי"ש אלישיב זצוק"ל, 219 עמודים

9.  יש"א שלום, הערכתו של הגרי"ש אלישיב זצ"ל כלפי מרן הראי"ה קוק זצ"ל, 58 עמודים

10.  הדף היומי, ר' דוד מנדלבוים

11.  רועה ישראל, על ר' ישראל יעקב פישר, חלק ב

12. יהדות התורה והמדינה, ר' אוריאל צימר, בירור רעיוני קצר בשאלת היחס לציונות ולמידנה עם קצת פרקי היסטוריה מן העבר הקרוב, 47 עמודים,

13.  מפיהם אני חיים, ר' משה קנר, מאמרים על תלמוד בבלי וירושלמי, רב האי גאון, רבינו גרשום, רש"י בעל התוספות, מהר"ם מרוטנבורג וגדולי ספרד, 375 עמודים.

14.   משונצינו ועד וילנא, תולדות הדפסת התלמוד, ר' יעקב לופיר, 310 עמודים,

I hope to review this book at length here shortly.

15.   משה אידל, שלמויות בולעות קבלה ופרשנות, ידיעות ספרים, 695 עמודים

16.   רשימת הפירסומים, יוסף דן, תשי"ח-תשע"ב, 205 עמודים

17.   יעקב לאטס, פנקס קהילות רומא, שע"ה-תנ"ה, כולל מבוא והערות, מכון יצחק בן צבי, 409 עמודים

18.   משנת ארץ ישראל, שמואל, זאב, וחנה ספראי, מסכת פאה

19.    משנת ארץ ישראל, שמואל, זאב, וחנה ספראי, מסכת כלאים

After recently completing Seder Moed they are now almost finished with Seder Zerayim.

20.  צדיק יסוד עולם, השליחות הסודית והחוויה המיסטית של הרב קוק, סמדר שרלו, 444 עמודים, אונברסיטה בר אילן

21.  דעת גליון 73

22.  מקראות גדולות - `הכתר`-שמות א`-מהדורה מוקטנת

23.  משה פלאי, עטרה ליושנה, המאבק ליצירת יהדות ההשכלה, 501 עמודים, קיבוץ המאוחד

24.  ללמוד את שפת המולדת, מאמריו של י"ל גורדון בשנים 1881-1882, [מאמרי ביקרות על ספרים ועוד], מוסד ביאליק, ספריית דורות, 367 עמודים

25.  כִּתַאבּ אַלנֻּתַף: פירושו הדקדוקי של ר' יהודה חיוג' לספרי נביאים בעיבוד עלי בן סלימן מאת אהרן ממן ואפרים בן-פורת, אקדמיה ללשון העברית

26.   פרקי עיון בעברית החדשה ובעשייה בה מאת משה בר-אשר, אקדמיה ללשון העברית  

27.  מקורות ומסורות, סדר ניזקין, דוד הלבני, מגנס

28.  ההלכה: הקשרים רעיוניים ואידאולוגיים גלויים וסמויים, מגנס

29.  סידור תפילות בלאדינו, סלוניקי, המאה השש עשרה, מכון יצחק בן צבי

30.  רעואל וחבריו פרשנים יהודיים מביזנטיון מסביבות המאה העשירית לספירה, גרשון ברין, אוניברסיטת תל-אביב

31.    רבי חיים בן עטר ופירושו אור החיים על התורה, אלעזר טויטו, 291 עמודים, מכללת אורות ישראל

32.  מחשבת ישראל ואמונת ישראל, בעריכת דניאל לסקר, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון, 293 עמודים בעברית, 186 עמודים באנגליש, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.

This volume has many interesting articles. Worth mentioning is Marc Shapiro's Is there a Pesak for Jewish Thought and  David Shatz 's article Nothing but the truth? Modern Orthodoxy and the Polemical uses of History. In the first footnote Shatz mentions Marc Shapiro's posts on the Seforim Blog. Much can be added to this essay but of note is footnote 28 where he writes:

To be clear, academics, I find, generally shun blogs that are aimed at a popular audience because the comments are often, if not generally, uninformed (and nasty). A few academics do read such blogs, but do not look at the comments. One result of academics largely staying out of blog discussions is that non-experts become viewed as experts. Even when academics join the discussion, the democratic atmosphere of the blog world allows non-experts to think of themselves as experts and therefore as equals of the academicians. Some laypersons, though, as I said earlier, are indeed experts in certain areas of history.

33. חקרי קבלה ותפילה, משה חלמיש, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון, 458 עמודים ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים

This work is a collection of twenty five articles by Professor Hallamish about tefilah and kabbalah. Some of these articles appeared in print in various journals, festschrifts and memorial volumes, others are supposed to appear soon, and some were written specially for this volume. They all share the common denominator that they are based on research of an incredible amount of manuscripts and rare volumes. I have no idea how he had patience to open up that many books! Based on these discoveries Hallamish shows the influence of Kabbalah on tefilah. One can also find wealth of information on nussach of Tefilah in these volumes. There is a lot to comment on different points on this volume.

Just to make one small comment as it relates to Elul and a subject I have written about. In chapter thirteen he deals with sources for the custom of saying Ledovid in Elul. He brings early sources for saying it all year around. He quotes the Siddur Shaarei Rachamim which brings this custom to say Ledovid. Now the importance of this find is that this siddur is based on R.Chaim Hacohen who was a Talmid of Rabbi Chaim Vital. If this source is reliable then we have an earlier source for this custom. The first person (not noted by Hallamish) to point to this siddur for an early source for saying Ledovid in Elul was Rabbi Yakov Rokeach in his work Shaarei Tefilah, first printed in 1870. Now it's well known that the editor of this siddur, Chaim Abadi, added in lots from the Chemdas Yamim and other sources so it's not so simple if one can consider this siddur a reliable source. However, recently Rabbi Goldhaber checked up the many manuscripts of the actual siddur of R. Chaim Hacohen and found that the custom of saying Ledovid does not appear anywhere in it. Recently part of this siddur was printed by Mechon Zichron Aharon and the custom of Ledovid does appear inside this siddur. So based on this new printed siddur Hallamish has a very early source for saying Ledovid.

First of all what is clear is this is not a source to say Ledovid specifically during Elul but rather an early source to say Ledovid the whole year around. Earlier in this siddur where R. Chaim Hacohen has various chapters of Tehilim to be said on special days he does not include Ledovid to be said during Elul. However at the end of davening Ledovid appears in this new siddur. But more importantly one has to be careful to read the fine print on the page as above where it is printed to say Ledovid in small print the editor adds in that saying Ledovid here does not appear in the original manuscript! Now all this is rather strange; why did he bother adding this in? This is not the place for it as it should be earlier in the siddur with the other chapters said on special days. Even more interesting is that the editor of this siddur says that they decided that four of the manuscripts are authentic but all others have parts added in so they are not going to print all added in pieces  so the question is why did they choose to add in Ledovid

and add nothing else in this printed version.

A few months back I mentioned that the new work by David Assaf Hazitz Unifgah appeared in print. I noted that a complete bibliography of the sources that were used for writing this book was printed in the recent volume of Mechkarei Yerushalayim 23 (2011) pp. 407-481. This was not included in this new work. Recently this bibliography appeared on line here.

English 

1. The Tent of Avraham, Gleanings from the David Cardozo Academy, edited by Nathan Cardozo, Urim Press. 232 pp.

2. Inside Stam, A complete buyers Guide, Rabbi Reuvain Mendlowitz, Israel bookshop, 440 pp.

3.Edward Fram, A Window on Their World: The Court Diaries of Rabbi Hayyim Gundersheim Frankfurt am Main, 1773-1794, Wayne State Univ Press, 653 pps.

Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

September 27, 2012, 9:12 pm

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Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb?

A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

by 

Shnayer Z. Leiman

1. Prologue

           This essay attempts to identify the authentic grave of the Vilna Gaon (d. 1797).¹ As will become apparent, it surely is not the grave that Jewish pilgrims are shown today when they visit Vilna. We shall attempt to identify his authentic grave by applying the biblical rule: על פי שני עדים יקום דבר “a matter is established by the testimony of two witnesses.” We shall cite two different kinds of witnesses. One witness will represent primarily  תורה שבכתב, i.e., literary evidence. The other witness will represent primarily תורה שבעל פה  , i.e., oral history.    

2. Introduction

            Three Jewish cemeteries have served the Vilna Jewish community throughout its long history. The first Jewish cemetery, often called by its Yiddish name der alter feld (Hebrew: בית עולם הישן), was north of the early modern Jewish Ghetto of Vilna, and just north of the Vilia River (today called the Neris) in the town of Shnipishok. It served as the main Jewish cemetery until 1830, when, due to lack of space, it was closed by the municipal authorities. The following photograph, taken in 1912, presents an aerial view of the first Jewish cemetery, looking north from Castle Hill in the old city. One can see the Neris River flowing south of the cemetery; portions of the fence surrounding the cemetery; and the house of the Jewish caretaker of the cemetery near the north-western entrance to the cemetery. (Each of the following images may be enlarged and viewed in higher resolution by clicking on them.)

            Such famous rabbis as R. Moshe Rivkes (d. 1671), author of באר הגולה, and R. Avraham Danzig (d. 1820), author of  חיי אדם, were buried in der alter feld. See the following photograph for the grave of the חיי אדם in the old cemetery. 

            The second Jewish cemetery, in use from 1831 until 1941, was east of Vilna proper, on a mountain overlooking the nearby neighborhood called Zaretcha. Here were buried famous Maskilim such as Adam Ha-Kohen Lebensohn (d. 1878), and famous rabbinic scholars such as R. Shmuel Strashun (d. 1872), R. Avraham Avele Pasvaler (d. 1836), R. Shlomo Ha-Kohen  (d. 1906), and R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzenski (d. 1940). With 70,000 graves in place in 1940, the second cemetery ran out of space, and a third Jewish cemetery was acquired and dedicated by the Vilna Jewish community shortly before the outbreak of World War II. It lies north-west of central Vilna, in Saltonishkiu in the Sheshkines region, and is still in use today by the Jewish community in Vilna.

            The Vilna Gaon, who died in 1797, was, of course, buried in the first Jewish cemetery. That cemetery was destroyed in the Stalinist period circa 1950, but just before it was destroyed we are informed by the sources that the Gaon was moved, perhaps temporarily to the second cemetery,²  but certainly to the third cemetery, where he rests today.

            Let us enter the third cemetery and stand before the Ohel ha-Gra.

            It is a modest and narrow Ohel. When one enters the Ohel, one sees seven graves laid out from left to right, with five tombstones embedded in the wall at the heads of the graves.

            The tour guides inform the visitors that the Gaon is buried in the fourth grave from the left. Indeed, directly above his grave, embedded in the wall, is a tombstone that clearly identifies the grave as that of the Gaon. One wonders who else is buried in the Ohel. The narrow confines of the Ohel, and the poor lighting in the Ohel, make it almost impossible to read the tombstones. One American publication identifies the others as R. Shlomo Zalman, the father of the Gra (d. 1758); R. Avraham, the son of the Gra (d. 1809); R. Yehoshua Heschel, Chief Rabbi of Vilna (d. 1749); R. Shmuel b. Avigdor, last Chief Rabbi of Vilna (d.1793); R. Avraham Danzig, author of חיי אדם; and Avraham b. Avraham, the legendary Ger Zedek of Vilna.  Another American publication presents a different list that includes R. Moshe Rivkes, author of the באר הגולה , and Traina, the mother of the Gaon. In Israel, several published lists know for a fact that R. Shmuel Strashun was moved together with the Gaon, and now rests in the new Ohel. All these accounts are imaginary.³

            When one reads the accounts of the reinterment of the Gaon, and of those buried in his Ohel today, it becomes apparent than more than bodies were moved. Wherever possible, the original tombstones were moved together with the dead and then reset at the head of the graves. All one has to do is read the tombstone inscriptions in order to identify who was moved. Reading from left to right, buried in the Ohel ha-Gra are:

1. R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles (d. 1817). A relative of the Gaon, whose grandfather, R. Eliyah Pesseles (d. 1771), helped finance the Gaon’s study activity.

2. R. Yissachar Baer b. R. Shlomo Zalman (d. 1807). A younger brother of the Gaon, he was a master of rabbinic literature who was also adept in the exact sciences.

3. R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz (d. 1797). Distinguished Kabbalist, he was the author of  פרפראות לחכמה and נפלאות חדשות. He married Minda (hence: Mindes), the daughter of R. Eliyahu Pesseles, mentioned above (grave 1). A close associate of the Gaon during his lifetime, he and the Gaon share a single tombstone in death.

4. The Gaon.

5. Minda Lipshutz (date of death unknown).  She was the daughter of R. Eliyah Pesseles and the wife of  R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz.

6. Devorah Pesseles (date of death unknown). She was the wife of R. Dov Baer Pesseles, a son of R. Eliyahu Pesseles, and the mother of R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles (grave 1).

            The seventh grave is unmarked, that is, it is without a tombstone. The tour guides will tell you that it contains the ashes of Avraham b. Avraham, the legendary Ger Zedek of Vilna.⁴

            A pattern emerges. Clearly, the original plot in the Shnipishok cemetery belonged to the Pesseles family, one of the wealthiest and most distinguished in Vilna. The Gaon found his resting place here due to the generosity of his relatives and friends in the Pesseles family. More importantly, when a hard decision had to be made in 1950 or so regarding who should be moved from the old cemetery in Shnipishok, it was not the greatest rabbis who were moved and reinterred. It was neither R. Moshe Rivkes, nor R. Yehoshua Heschel, nor R. Shmuel b. Avigdor, nor R. Avraham Danzig, nor R. Shmuel Strashun. Nor was it the Gaon’s father, mother, or son. It was the Gaon and the persons to his immediate right and left; the Gaon saved not only himself, but also those buried in proximity to him.

3. The Problem

            While the identification seems reasonable, the ordering of the graves is problematic. Anyone familiar with traditional Jewish cemeteries will know that some keep men and women separate, while others are mixed. Clearly, the old Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok was mixed. But even when mixed, husbands and wives tended to be buried next to each other. So too mothers and sons. Yet in the Ohel ha-Gra, R. Zvi Hirsch Pesseles is buried at the extreme left, whereas his mother Devora is buried at the extreme right. Neither is buried next to his or her spouse. Even more puzzling is the fact that the Gaon rests in between Rabbi Noah Mindes Lipshutz and his wife Minda Lipshutz. Now it may be that Rabbi and Mrs. Lipshutz were not on speaking terms, but this was hardly the way to decide where the Gaon should be buried.

            The problem assumes prodigious proportions when we examine Israel Klausner’s קורות בית-העולמין הישן בוילנה, published in Vilna in 1935. Klausner visited the Shnipishok Jewish cemetery, recorded some of the tombstone inscriptions of its most famous rabbis and, more importantly, drew a precise map of the location of each grave. It is important to note his orientation, as he drew the map. Klausner stood at the northern entrance to the Jewish cemetery, looking southward toward the Vilia River. See the depiction of the Ohel ha-Gra in Klausner’s map.

            The graves in the Ohel ha-Gra, from left to right, are numbered 20-27. Some of those numbers represent two graves of persons buried immediately next to each other. Klausner, in his narrative, identifies the occupants of graves 20-27 as follows:

20. a)  ר' שלמה זלמן אבי הגר"א

       b)               ר' אליהו שתדלן                          

21. a)                ר' יהודה ב"ר אליעזר (יסו"ד)

       b) חיה אשת ר' יהודה ב"ר אליעזר (יסו"ד)  

22.          ר' צבי הירש פעסעלעס     

23.               דבורה פעסעלעס         

24.             מינדה פעסעלעס ליפשיץ

25. a)         ר' נח מינדעס ליפשיץ   

       b)            הגר"א                     

26.            ר' ישכר בער אחי הגר"א

27.        ר' יהושע העשיל ב"ר שאול

            This, then, is a complete list of all those who were buried in the original Ohel ha-Gra in the old Jewish cemetery. That Klausner has the order perfectly right can be seen from the following photograph.

            Notice the inscription פ"נ הגאון רבינו אליהו in the center of the photograph, near the roof-top of the Ohel. Turning to the extreme left of the Ohel, where the roof slopes down almost to the ground, one can see two grave markers above a single tombstone.

            When enlarged, the inscriptions above the tombstone clearly read (from left to right): פ"נ אבי הגר"א and   ר' אליהו שתדלן, exactly in the order recorded by Klausner (see above, grave number 20).  When we compare Klausner’s list with the present occupants of the Ohel ha-Gra, it becomes clear that those who moved the Gra from the first to the third cemetery, moved the graves numbered 22-26, a total of six persons altogether, from the original Ohel ha-Gra. The seventh grave, unmarked, remains unidentified and could have come from any part of the old cemetery, and not necessarily from the Ohel ha-Gra.

            When we enter the Ohel ha-Gra today, we need to bear in mind that we are entering from the south and looking north. We see the mirror image of what Klausner depicted on his map. Thus the expected order today should be:

            The expected order solves all our problems. On the extreme right, Devorah and her son R. Zvi Hirsch are buried next to each other. In the center, R. Noah and his wife Minda are buried next to each other. And the Gra is second from the left. It is the actual order that creates our problem. Devorah and R. Zvi Hirsch are separated; neither is buried next to his or her spouse. The Gra is buried in between R. Noah Lipshutz and his wife Minda. אין זה אומר אלא דרשני.

            One more piece of evidence needs to be introduced before we attempt to solve the problem. Israel Cohen, British Zionist and world traveler, visited Vilna twice before World War II. Regarding the Shnipishok cemetery, he records the following:

 Most famous of all is the tomb of the Gaon Elijah, who lies in the

 company of a few other pietists on a spot covered

 by a modest mausoleum which is entered by an iron-barred door.

The tombstones, with long eulogistic epitaphs,

 are not enclosed within the mausoleum, but stand at the back of it,

 in close juxtaposition and closely protected by a

 thick growth of shrubs and bushes.

Israel Cohen, Vilna (Philadelphia, 1943), pp. 415-416. Cf. his Travels in Jewry (New York, 1953), pp. 149-150.

4. The Solution

            It seems obvious that those who moved the Gaon to the new Jewish cemetery made one slight adjustment relating to the ordering of the graves. They moved R. Zvi Hirsch from the extreme right to the extreme left. We will never know with certainty why they did so. What was gained, perhaps, is that now all the males were together on the left, and all the females were together on the right. By moving R. Zvi Hirsch to the extreme left, the Gra was now the third grave from the left. But the actual order today appears to have the Gra as the fourth grave from the left, and buried in between R. Noah and his wife Minda.

            We need to remember that in the old Jewish cemetery the tombstones were outside the Ohel ha-Gra, each tombstone opposite the remains of the person it described, with text of the tombstone facing in a northerly direction. Indeed, every tombstone in the old Jewish cemetery was placed opposite the remains of the person it described, with the text of the tombstone facing in a northerly direction.

            We also need to remember that the Gra and R. Noah shared one tombstone.⁵

            The Gra’s epitaph was on the right side of the tombstone; R. Noah’s epitaph was on the left side of the tombstone. This was in perfect order, since inside the Ohel, the Gra was to the left of R. Noah, and R. Noah was to the left of, and next to, his wife Minda. In the new Jewish cemetery, the six graves were laid out exactly as in the old cemetery, with the exception of R. Zvi Hirsch as indicated. But it was decided to place the original tombstones inside the Ohel, at the head of each of the graves. Instead of facing in a northerly direction, with texts that could be read only by standing outside the Ohel, the tombstones, now reversed, faced in a southerly direction, with texts that could be read only when standing inside the Ohel. Doubtless, this was done in order to protect the historic tombstones from exposure to the elements, from deterioration, and from vandalism. Also, the tombstones now immediately identified who was buried in each grave. Unfortunately, when the single tombstone shared by the Gra and R. Noah was reversed and set up inside the Ohel, it automatically (and wrongly) identified the third grave from the left as R. Noah, and the fourth grave from the left as the Gra, and caused a split between R. Noah and his wife. In fact, the Gra is the third grave from the left, and R. Noah is the fourth grave from the left – and R. Noah is properly buried next to his wife Minda. In other words, all Jews who visit the grave of the Gra today, pray, and leave qvitlach, at the wrong grave (i.e., at the grave of R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz).

            The above solution was based upon an examination of the literary evidence, and upon an examination of photographs preserved mostly in books. I call this עד אחד  (one witness), that is, the testimony of תורה שבכתב  (i.e., the literary evidence). But a matter established by only one witness is precarious at best.⁶ Intuitively I was persuaded by the one witness, but hesitated to put the solution in print until more evidence was forthcoming. Fortunately, a surprise second witness has come forward בבחינת תורה שבעל פה  (i.e., oral history). Rabbi Yitzhak Zilber (d. 2003) was a courageous Jew who lived most of his life under Soviet repression between the years 1917 and 1972, before ultimately settling  in Israel. He published a riveting autobiography in Russian in 2003. It has since been translated into Hebrew and English. In his autobiography, Zilber describes how in 1970, under Communist rule, he visited the Ohel ha-Gra in Vilna. The Jew who took him to the Ohel had participated in the transfer of the Gra from the first Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok to the third Jewish cemetery in Saltonishkiu. As they stood before the Gaon’s grave, the Jew turned to Zilber and said:⁷

            Remember the following forever: the Gaon’s tombstone is above the

           fourth grave from the left, but the Gaon’s body is in the third grave [from

           the left].

           

על פי שני עדים יקום דבר!  “A matter is established by the testimony of two witnesses.”

NOTES

1

  This essay should not be confused with an earlier essay of mine with a similar title, “Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Mysterious Tale with Seven Plots,” Jewish Action, Winter 1998, pp. 36-41. The primary focus of the earlier essay was on the identification of the six persons buried together with the Vilna Gaon in his mausoleum (the Ohel Ha-Gra). The primary focus of this essay is on the identification of the  grave of the Vilna Gaon himself. A version of this essay was read at a conference in honor of Professor Daniel Sperber, held at Bar-Ilan University on June 13, 2011. It is presented here in honor of the Vilna Gaon’s  215^th yahrzeit on 19 Tishre, 5773.

2

  The claim that the Vilna Gaon was moved temporarily from the first to the second Jewish cemetery appears, among many other places,

in Y. Alfasi, ed., וילנא ירושלים דליטא חרבה (Tel-Aviv, 1993), p. 9; Y. Epstein, ",דער יידישער בית-עולם אין ווילנע"   ירושלים דליטא, October-November 1996, pp. 5-6; and N.N. Shneidman, Jerusalem of Lithuania (Oakville, Ontario, 1998), p. 161. An examination of eye-witness accounts of the reburial of the Gaon, and of much other evidence, yields the ineluctable conclusion that the Gaon was moved only once, directly from the first to the third Jewish cemetery.

3

  See the references cited in the Jewish Action essay (above, note 1).

4

  So reads the Hebrew sign above the entrance to the Ohel Ha-Gra. But the Ohel Ha-Gra was constructed over a three-year period between 1956 and 1958. I cannot say with certainty when the sign first went up, but logic dictates it did not go up before there was an Ohel. In all the early photographs of the Ohel I have seen, there was no sign at all. It surely wasn’t there during the period of Soviet domination of Lithuania, which means it first when up sometime after 1991. As such, it is hardly evidence for who is buried in the Ohel Ha-Gra. More importantly, one of the participants in the reinterment of the Vilna Gaon testified that he and his colleagues wanted to move the remains of Avraham ben Avraham, the Ger Zedek of Vilna, but could not locate his ashes in the old Jewish cemetery. See R.Yitzchak Zilber, To Remain a Jew (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 389-390.

5

  For side by side transcriptions of the epitaphs on their tombstone, in clear Hebrew font, see R. Noah Mindes Lipshutz, פרפראות לחכמה (Brooklyn, 1995), p. 17.

6

  I was plagued by the remote possibility that the movers, precisely because the shared tombstone required the Gaon to be to the right of R. Noah, switched the remains of the Gaon and R. Noah, and deliberately buried the Gaon in between Minda and R. Noah. (I considered this a remote possibility, because it is highly unlikely that any rabbi would allow such tampering with who was buried to the immediate left and right of the Gaon. As is well known, R. Hayyim Zvi Shifrin [d. 1952] presided over the reinterment of the Gaon. See R. Yaakov Shifrin, קול יעקב [Jerusalem, 1981], pp. 26-30.) If so, all the tombstones are accurately positioned in the Ohel Ha-Gra, even today. Cf. my deliberations in American Jewish Monitor , October 24, 2003, p. 18.

7

  R. Yitzchak Zilber, op. cit. (above, note 4), p. 389.

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October 18, 2012, 4:35 pm

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A selection from Strictly Kosher Reading by Yoel Finkelman

October 23, 2012, 1:03 pm

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The Seforim Blog is happy to present this selection from Yoel Finkelman’s recent book, Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Literature and the Condition of Contemporary Orthodoxy.

Coalescence

The first function of Haredi popular literature involves the “coalescence” of the Jewish and the non-Jewish. In defining coalescence, Sylvia Barack Fishman distinguishes it from two other common ways of describing relationships between Judaism and general culture. First, “compartmentalization” involves a situation in which the Jewish tradition holds sway in its own spheres, such as the synagogue or Shabbat table, while non-Jewish culture dominates in other areas of life, such as the workplace or the theater. Despite its conceptual clarity, Fishman claims that “compartmentalization” does not accurately describe actual American Jewish practice, since contemporary American Jews are too Americanized and America is too welcoming of Judaism for such neat divisions to have much explanatory power. Second, “adaptation” involves a situation in which the Jewish and the non-Jewish exist side by side. Tension between the two remains, and the individual or community “privileges one or the other as the situation seems to demand.”[1]Adaptation, she explains, “implies a continuing awareness of difference” between Jewish and general values and an attempt to negotiate these differences.

Yet, claims Fishman, many American Jews have lost an awareness of differences between Jewish and American values.

During the process of coalescence… the ‘texts’ of two cultures, American and Jewish, are accessed simultaneously…. These values seem to coalesce or merge, and the resulting merged message or texts are perceived not as being American and Jewish values side by side, but as being a unified text, which is identified as authoritative Judaism…. Many American Jews – including some who are very knowledgeable and actively involved in Jewish life – no longer separate or are even conscious of the separation between the origins of these two texts.[2]

Haredi popular literature, like much of Haredi popular culture, seamlessly merges aspects of the Jewish tradition with contemporary American cultural norms and styles. In coalescence, normative Judaism becomes a hybrid or syncretic combination of the Jewish and the American, the traditional and the modern, the past and the present. For example, Haredi music takes its lyrics from traditional Jewish texts, but its musical style imitates contemporary pop music.[3]Haredi self-help books, as we shall discuss, present contemporary values of individualism, personal happiness, self-expression, and (according to some critics) self-absorption as Jewish values, supposedly in the self-improvement tradition of musar.[4] Haredi novels borrow literary genres and formulas from the general best-sellers and fill them with Haredi characters and values.[5]

Given Haredi commitment to isolationism and rejection of non-Haredi culture, Haredi coalescence seems surprising. Still, Haredi Jews are genuinely acculturated, and the same cultural forces that make a genre or idea popular among the general public make it popular among Haredi Jews as well. Community members may prefer a Haredi version of a literary genre, such that it will more precisely match their values and style. In addition, imitating the most contemporary styles helps make the tradition seem sophisticated and up-to-date. This allows Haredi Judaism to respond to modernity and its perceived anti-Orthodox biases on modernity's own terms.[6]

Take the example of Yaakov Levinson’s book, The Jewish Guide to Natural Nutrition. According to Levinson, there are “Jewish roots to natural nutrition.” Holistic health and natural foods are presented as traditional Jewish values. Levinson works to “combine a system for healthy living and eating with a strong connection to our important Jewish heritage.” He rhetorically grounds his work in traditional Judaism, explaining that “Rambam’s [Maimonides’] medical writings contain the Jewish roots of today’s system of natural nutrition. Our modern approach is basically an extension of his main principles and teachings.”[7]

Yet, the author says little about Maimonides’ specific nutritional advice or his medieval biology, and Levinson quotes from Maimonides’ medical writings only very rarely. Instead, Levinson focuses on contemporary scientific concepts such as cholesterol, vitamins, and the USDA food pyramid. Maimonides does not serve as an authority on the workings of the body. Rather, he is an authoritative precedent for the borrowing of contemporary medical advice. Levinson is, to a great degree, aware of and articulate about the fact that the medical and nutritional advice he suggests does not come from Torah, but from modern science. He dances a cautious dance between the new and the old, the modern and the traditional. Maimonides’ “medical writings were based on Jewish Talmudic sources as well as on secular, non-Jewish teachings.”[8]In other words, Levinson argues that it is authentically and traditionally Jewish for today’s Haredi Jews to self-consciously adapt contemporary scientific theories, just as Maimonides did in his day. Maimonides is important to Levinson not as a source of information about eating and health, but as a figure whose very name and reputation can help make the book seem authentically Jewish and grounded in the tradition, even if the book’s content is not actually derived from his writings.

The dust jacket of The Jewish Guide to Natural Nutrition clearly articulates coalescence. The author’s biography on the dust jacket celebrates his extensive Torah studies as well as his accomplishments in the field of medicine. Photographs visually reinforce this. The front cover shows a professional studio photograph of a bearded man – presumably the author – carrying a large, attractive basket of fresh green apples and dressed in a clean white lab coat. The apples signify the value of natural and healthy eating, while the lab coat symbolizes the scientific validity and authority of the book’s nutritional suggestions. The back cover includes a parallel photo of the same man dressed in Hasidic garb carrying a stack of Maimonides’ halakhic writings. Science and Jewish religion, including both its mystical-Hasidic and its rationalistic-legal-Maimonidean strands, are not only compatible with one another, but mutually enforcing. The authority of science is backed, symbolically and visually, by Torah, and Torah leads to an appreciation of contemporary nutritional science. Not accidentally, the book opens with three almost identical approbations: two by well-known yeshiva deans and one by a professor at a Jerusalem medical school. The approbation from the medical doctor praises coalescence, in that the book “melds an expert’s view of nutrition and disease with its special implication and application to religious Jewish tradition.”[9]

Levinson’s coalescence goes further. He not only provides standard American nutritional advice for Haredi readers, but also claims that following that advice is fundamentally a spiritual experience and religious obligation. Here Levinson goes beyond his Maimonidean precedent. For Maimonides, maintaining one's health is a means to an end, a requirement so that illness or weakness would not distract the individual from the higher values of study and religious self-development. “It is impossible to understand or know anything of the knowledge of the Creator when one is ill. Therefore a person must distance himself from things which damage the body and a person should become accustomed to things which make one healthy.” For Levinson, in contrast, health is not merely a means toward a higher end; rather, there is an inherent “spirituality in eating.”[10]Combining kabbalistic language and basic biology of the digestive system, Levinson explains that healthy eating exemplifies a central religious goal of separating the “good” from the “evil” in creation. The “nutrients” are good and therefore associated with the holy “sparks” of the Kabbalah, while the “waste” is the evil, associated with the evil kabbalistic “husks.” “The separation of nutrients from waste in the act of eating has its spiritual counterpart in the extraction of the sparks of holiness which are contained in food. And is not the physical and spiritual separation of good from evil the very meaning of human existence?”[11]

Levinson also hints that the foods people eat and how they eat them are not value free, but exemplify their cultural identity. “Foods are much more than just a collection of nutrients; they are a wealth of influences and connotations…. The various religions use foods to connote their special approach to life.” Levinson’s health advice exemplifies this point, perhaps more clearly than he intended. While he intends to underscore the inherent spirituality, according to Judaism, in eating, he also implies that eating like an American means having absorbed American mores and sensibilities. He advocates a “healthier, lighter style of eating,” which became a virtual American infatuation in the nutrition discourse of late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (even as Americans grew fatter).[12] Levinson’s concern with calorie counting, weight-loss, and balanced consumption of nutrients reflects the biological knowledge and cultural aesthetics of contemporary America, a community of plenty with an almost infinite variety of foods to choose from, with a deep concern with the long-term health impact of overeating, and an aesthetic that celebrates thinness. For almost all of human history, the central culinary dilemma facing humans involved procuring enough food to fend off starvation or at least chronic hunger. In contrast, Levinson and his American Haredi readership share with other middle-class Americans a challenge of negotiating an almost unlimited quantity and variety of food.[13]The late twentieth-century American infatuation with light, healthy eating, which Levinson exemplifies, supports values that Haredim and the general population share and which are reflected in their culinary culture and popular literature. Levinson’s book suggests that religious people, even those profoundly committed to a given canon, read and interpret their scripture and tradition not only in their own terms, but “in order to make sense of their lived experiences.”[14]

That Haredi Jews share a culinary culture with their neighbors, and that they follow the best medical and health advice available, are relatively unproblematic notions from a Haredi perspective. After all, the Jewish tradition for the most part supports the idea that Jews should seek quality medical treatment,[15]and Maimonides indeed advocated learning from the best available science. However, other examples of coalescence raise significant ideological and religious challenges.

For example, Haredi popular literature, like its devout Christian counterparts, adopts the modern notion of the “companionate marriage.” Here the coalescence appears in a matter of profound ideological and religious significance, since, as Helen Hardcare explains about Protestant Fundamentalists, the family is a “primary unit for ritual observance as well as an influential site of religious education and the transmission of religious knowledge from one generation to the next.”[16]Or, as one Haredi author puts it, “The Jewish family [is] a vital force in insuring our people’s continued existence.”[17]Popular Haredi works identify the Torah’s “timeless formula for marriage,” and contrast that with the “non-Jewish system” that is “floundering in its own confusion” and therefore “has nothing to offer the Jew.”[18]Yet, a brief historical comparison reveals how acculturated Haredi families have become, and how the Haredi popular literature coalesces by presenting the modern, monogamous, suburban nuclear family as part and parcel of the tradition.

Both the contemporary Haredi family and the pre-modern Ashkanazic one share a commitment to strict monogamy, as opposed to the polygamy of ancient Judaism and at least some of historical Sephardic culture. Yet, in pre-modern Ashkenaz, parents contracted marriages for their children, often with the help of professional matchmakers. When choosing a partner for their child, parents paid less attention to emotional or romantic compatibility and more to finding a spouse who could offer the greatest socio-economic advantage. Often, marriages were arranged, if not always consummated, when the children were in their mid-teens. This marriage was more of an economic agreement than a romantic one, certainly at the outset. The couple might continue to live with the bride’s family for some time, until they became financially and socially independent. In this constellation, “personal compatibility not to speak of romantic attachment [between the couple] were not taken into account at all.”[19]On occasion, feelings of love and mutual attraction would push a young couple to choose one another as marriage partners, but rabbis and community members saw this as a rebellion against communal values rather than a fulfillment of them.[20]

Today, Haredi couples, usually in their early 20s, care deeply about emotional compatibility and therefore search for marriage partners through dating. This period of courtship allows the young couple to determine if they are emotionally compatible and romantically suited. Under these circumstances, when courtship and emotional compatibility have become central to Haredi images of marriage, Haredi authors write dating guidebooks for such young people, providing “guidelines for dating and courtship,” so that the dating couple can most effectively determine if they share the same values, if they have the same expectations from married life, and if their “personalities” will enable “the couple to get along with each other.”[21]

Furthermore, for medieval Ashkenazic Jews the home was a center of economic life, because merchandise and services were produced in the home for the use of its residents as well as for trade with others. Women, though also mothers, played central roles in the medieval Jewish marketplace, at a time and place when parenthood was not considered a full-time endeavor and where raising children was perceived as requiring less moment-to-moment vigilance than it does today.

For contemporary Haredi rhetoric, in contrast, the “Jewish home” rather than being a locus of economic production, serves as a “haven in a heartless world,” a domestic shelter from the dangers of the marketplace and the outside culture.[22]It is a modern, middle-class, child-centered, nuclear family. In these families, rearing offspring, who require full-time attention and continuous nurturing, requires parents primarily and educators secondarily to be sensitive, vigilant, and loving toward children more or less on a constant basis. Women are, therefore, encouraged by Haredi literature to dedicate themselves first and foremost to being mothers and wives, and to go to work only if the family’s financial situation requires it.[23]

As numerous historians of both the Jewish and non-Jewish family have noted, these modern family patterns, in broad terms, developed with the rise of the middle class, under conditions of urbanization and industrialization.[24]In their popular literature, acculturated contemporary Haredim describe, analyze, and celebrate this modern family. In particular, Haredi popular literature celebrates one particular aspect of this modern family: what historians and sociologists have come to refer to as the “companionate marriage.” In this modern family, marriage ought to lead to self-fulfillment, happiness, and the satisfaction of the psychological need for friendship and emotional closeness.

The ideal of companionate marriage came to dominate discussions of marriage in twentieth-century America…. It elevated anticipation of achieving emotional, sexual, and interpersonal fulfillment in marriage. The goal of marriage was no longer financial security or a nice home but emotional and sexual fulfillment and compatibility. Though marriages were not expected to be conflict and tension free, it was hoped that disagreements could be overcome if husbands and wives talked about their feelings, recognized the existence of conflicts, and worked out their problems through close “communication.”[25]

The norm of the companionate marriage has penetrated Haredi circles, and Haredi books which guide couples to achieving that kind of relationship serve as prime examples of coalescence. For medieval Ashkenazic Jews, there was “an absence of any philosophy promising happiness in marriage.”[26]Today’s Haredi books on marriage view happiness and self-fulfillment as the central goals of married life. These works focus particularly on communication skills between couples, in order to assure that the couple will remain emotionally responsive to one another. “A healthy relationship is built on clear and honest communication. Listening, understanding and conversing all contribute to the empathy so vital to a marriage.”[27]Furthermore, “Marriage… creates the possibility of the closest emotional relationship that can exist between living beings, the love between husband and wife.” “Happiness in marriage” can be achieved by “building trust,… maintaining affection,… [and] creating intimacy.” Ultimately, “Marriage is a primary catalyst for the development of each partner’s individual potential to the utmost.”[28]

The adoption of the model of the companionate marriage relates closely to another very popular genre of Haredi popular literature, namely the parenting guide. Here, too, coalescence prevails, with these parenting guides presenting images of child rearing as part and parcel of the Jewish tradition. And here too the coalescence appears in discussions of central religious values: how to raise children to become Torah-observant and God-fearing Jews. Hence, one might expect a greater reliance on traditional sources and a more suspicious stance toward contemporary norms. Still, Haredi parenting guides, even those that claim to reject so-called “modern” approaches to parenting, adopt the strategy of coalescence and share much of their style and content with their non-Haredi counterparts.

Lawrence Kelemen’s parenting guide, To Kindle a Soul, for example, claims in the subtitle to contain "ancient wisdom." "At the foot of a mountain in the Sinai desert, the Creator of the universe directly revealed His profound wisdom to approximately three million people…. Those present received… a comprehensive guide for raising great human beings." The book attempts to describe "this ancient, Torah approach to education" which is "more comprehensive and effective… than any of the schools of child psychology I studied at university." Kelemen describes the "significant” differences between these supposedly "ancient traditions" and the practices of contemporary parents.[29]

Yet Kelemen's parenting approach fits neatly within late twentieth-century American parenting discourse, and it differs significantly from that of pre-modern Jewish sources. Kelemen combines an American religious-right critique of supposedly decadent American family life with a child-centered parenting approach advocated by endless American mass-market parenting guides in the 1990s. Criticism of American materialism and permissiveness; advocacy of limiting the mother's time at work; polemics against spanking; emphasis on good nutrition, proper sleep time, and bedtime routine; concerns about the adverse impact of television viewing; claims to provide a "system" for raising moral children; and advocacy of "quality-time" for empathy and close communication between parents and children, all characterized American experts’ suggestions to worried middle-class parents at the end of the twentieth century. Even Kelemen’s claim that his approach derives from the Bible follows the pattern of American religious parenting guides. Indeed, the book’s unstated assumptions – that parenting is a full-time endeavor, and that parents should actively monitor their children’s moment-by-moment lives – typify experts’ advice and popular assumptions in America during the so-called "century of the child."[30]

Not only does Kelemen’s approach match that of contemporary parenting experts, but it differs from traditional Jewish sources on the topic. While a complete history of Jewish approaches to children and family has yet to be written, it is enough in this context to note that traditional Jewish literature speaks of childhood and parenting in spotty and unsystematic ways, scattered in works focused on other topics.[31]This reflects a historical past in which families were considerably less child-centered than they are today, and parents learned how to parent more by imitation, instinct, face-to-face conversation, and osmosis than from the written word of experts. Pre-modern Jews did not write parenting manuals since they assumed that knowing how to parent was an intuitive or natural thing.[32]

Take the example of Kelemen’s approach to corporal punishment and spanking. This is a particularly important example because traditional sources do say quite a bit on the topic, and what do they say clashes rather dramatically with the approach of contemporary Haredi parenting literature. Kelemen polemicizes against corporal punishment of children, and even harsh verbal reprimands. Instead – reflecting both contemporary notions of individual autonomy and the voluntary nature of modern religious commitments, which make it difficult to coerce people into religious conformity – he insists that parents should calmly explain to their children what is proper and improper. Parents should then serve as living role models of the proper, hoping thereby to help children come to their own appreciation of and identification with the parents’ values. While Kelemen advocates setting clear and consistent boundaries on children’s behavior, he claims that enforcing those boundaries with violence and verbal harshness undermines the child’s respect for the parents and prevents children from being receptive to higher values. “Yelling and hitting usually flips [sic] children out of the learning mode… which is characterized by a relaxed and happy state that facilitates accepting the educator's values… and into the obedience mode… which is characterized by a nervous, distrusting or rebellious state.” Spanking is part of an "authoritarian" approach typical of "dictatorships," which leads to uninspired obedience in which youth do not come to identify with the values of the parents. Ultimately, "harshness” leads to “rebellion." Kelemen also argues for the importance of parental affection. "Affection is more than just attention. Attention just requires being responsive to a child's needs. Affection is the next step. It is warm and it is the most powerful medium we possess for communicating love." Kelemen teaches that, "If we want to produce people with integrity, internally driven by a specific value system, we must utilize gentle means."[33]

This advice stands in stark contrast to traditional Jewish sources on child rearing, which explain that spanking does not promote rebellion but prevents it. In a typical passage, the ancient Jewish text, Midrash Rabbah, quoting the book of Proverbs, relates that, "'He who spares his rod hates his child.' This teaches that preventing physical punishment (mardut) leads [the child] to bad culture.”[34] R. David Altschuler, the seventeenth century Galician author of the Biblical commentary Metzudat David, goes further in commenting on the same verse: "Do not refrain from making [your son] suffer even if you see that this is not effective, because there is hope that much reproof will be effective."[35]Sources, particularly from early-modern Ashkenazi culture but from other contexts as well, openly polemicize against fatherly affection. For example, R. Alexander Ziskind of Grodno, the eighteenth century mystic, explained that, "Even though I had many sons, I never kissed even one of them, and never held them in my arms, and never spoke with them of frivolous things, God forbid."[36] The seventeenth century rabbi, Yeshayahu Horowitz (the Shlah), states: "If the father rebukes his son early in his life with the staff… and uses fear while he is young… then he [the son] will be accustomed to fear his father always.… If in childhood the father displays great affection… then later when he matures he will not listen.… Mothers are… not to spare the rod but to strike their sons even if they scream.… Women who are compassionate with their children… murder them."[37]

In the next chapter we will examine the complex ways in which Kelemen defends the idea that his approach derives from the ancient tradition. Here it is enough to note the way in which his book reflects the strategy of coalescence: identifying contemporary American values as being authentically Jewish. To Kindle a Soul, like other contemporary Haredi books on parenting, shares more with contemporary American mass-market parenting guides than it does with pre-modern Jewish sources on parenting. However, a close examination of other aspects of these works on families reveals that coalescence is not the whole story. Haredi works may borrow the companionate marriage and child-centered parenting from contemporary culture, but they borrow selectively. This leads to a second function of Haredi popular literature in mediating the tension between isolation and acculturation: filtering.

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[1] Ibid.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction,” 75. For internal Haredi discussion regarding this issue, see Mordechai Schiller, "Chasidus in Song – Not for the Record," The Jewish Observer10:8 (March, 1975), 21; Breindy Leizerson, "Set the Record Straight," The Jewish Observer 20:4 (May, 1987), 40-41; Dovid Sears, "Who Took the 'Jewish' Out of Jewish Music?," The Jewish Observer 29:10 (January, 1997), 12-16; Yosef C. Golding, “How to Get the Entire Jewish Music World Angry at Me… Or a Parent’s Guide to What Your Children Listen To,” The Jewish Observer 40:4 (May, 2007), 36-37.

[4] Stolow, Orthodox by Design, 132-142; Andrew R. Heinze, “The Americanization of ‘Mussar’: Abraham Twerski’s Twelve Steps,” Judaism48:4 (1999), 450-469. On the self-absorption of this therapeutic self-help literature, see Wendy Kaminer, I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).

[5] See below and Yoel Finkelman, “Medium and Message in Contemporary Haredi Adventure Fiction,” The Torah U-Madda Journal 13 (2005), 50-87.

[6] The academic literature has focused on this trend primarily regarding the development of Orthodox historiography. See below, Chapter Four, n. 4.

[7] Yaakov Levinson, The Jewish Guide to Natural Nutrition (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1995), 4-5. Much of the following analysis could be duplicated for the issue of The Jewish Observerentitled “A Healthy and Productive Life as a Torah Jew,” 40:8 (November, 2007) and for David J. Zulberg, The Life-Transforming Diet: Based on the Health and Psychological Principles of Maimonides and Other Classical Sources(Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2007).

[8] Levinson, Natural Nutrition, 5. Zulberg, The Life-Transforming Diet, quotes more extensively from selected passages from Maimonides’ medical writings, those in line with contemporary sensibilities.

[9] Unpaginated approbation of Prof. Leon Epstein.

[10] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot, 4:1; Levinson, Natural Nutrition, 128.

[11] Levinson, Natural Nutrition, 136.

[12] Ibid., 4. Maimonides did advocate eating until not fully satiated, though Levinson’s language, as noted, derives from modern, not Maimonidean categories. See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot, 4:2.

[13] Harvey Levenstein, Paradoxes of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), Chap. 16. For further reflections on the contemporary Orthodox diet, see Brill, “Judaism in Culture,” 3 and Stolow, “Aesthetics/Ascetics: Visual Piety and Pleasure in a Stricly Kosher Cookbook,” Postscripts 2:1 (2006), 5-28 (some of which also appears in his Orthodox by Design). Levinson does not put as much emphasis as American general culture on the aesthetic aspects of weight loss, perhaps because he does not perceive looking attractive as a religious goal. In this, Zulberg’s The Life-Transforming Diet comes closer to the general American concern with body-image and aesthetics.

[14]Molly Worthen, “Housewives of God,” The New York Times Magazine, November 12, 2010, available here  viewed November, 2010.

[15] See, for example, Shulhan ‘Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, 336:1. The ambivalence about seeking doctors, on the theory that divine providence governs illness and heath, was generally of theoretical import only, and usually did not have practical implications. See the commentary of the Taz, ibid.

[16] Helen Hardcare, “The Impact of Fundamentalism on Women, the Family, and Interpersonal Relations,” in Fundamentalisms and Society, Eds. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 129. On similar Christian conflation of modern notions of marriage with traditional ones, see James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 76-93.

[17] Avraham Pam and Tzvi Baruch Hollander, “The Jewish Family – In Its Glory and in Crisis,” The Jewish Observer 29:4 (May, 1996), 6.

[18] Yirmiyohu Abramov and Tehilla Abramov, Two Halves of a Whole: Torah Guidelines for Marriage (Southfield, MI: Targum/Feldheim, 1994),158.

[19] Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York: Schocken, 1971), 141-142. Unfortunately, a systematic history of the Jewish family has yet to be written. But see, Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004); ChaeRan Freeze, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (Hanover, NH: Brandies University Press, 2004); David Kraemer, Ed., The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe, Trans. Jonathan Chipman (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004), Chaps. 2-4.

[20] David Biale, Eros and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1992), Chap. 3.

[21] Meir Winkler, Bayis Ne’eman b’Yisrael: Practical Steps to Success in Marriage (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1988), 53, 57.

[22] The expression comes from Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

[23] Ironically, in the early modern period, the Haskalah, rather than the tradition, called for marriages based on love and compatibility rather than socio-economic advantage, and called to protect women from the marketplace by carving out for them a domestic role in which they could spend more of their time and energy on child-rearing. The central Jewish polemic against marriage as a financial arrangement and against women’s role in the workplace came from Haredi popular literature’s rhetorical enemies, the maskilim. See Biale, Eros and the Jews, 159-161.

[24] Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (New York: Harper and Row, 1977); Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life(New York: Free Press, 1988).

[25] Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Revoluations, 115, describing the particular model of companionate marriage advocated by early twentieth century progressives in America. Also see 186. Haredim, like these progressives, advocate “divorce by mutual consent… on the grounds of incompatibility,” at least as an unfortunate consequence of the failure of the companionate marriage (ibid.). Yet, Haredim are less likely than these progressive to support free use of contraception and open sex-education. Haredim also remain attached to Victorian sensibilities that distinguish between the feminine/domestic/secure sphere and the masculine/public/dangerous sphere, a distinction against which progressives polemicized.

[26] Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 141-142.

[27] Abramov and Abramov, Two Halves, 65.

[28] Aharon Feldman, The River, the Kettle and the Bird: A Torah Guide to Successful Marriage (Israel: CSB Publications, 1987), 11; Radcliff, Aizer K’negdo: The Jewish Woman’s Guide to Happiness in Marriage (Southfield, MI: Targum/Feldheim, 1988), 11. Abramov and Abramov, Two Halves, 19. Also see Malka Kaganoff, Dear Kallah: A Practical Guide for the New Bride (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1993); Winkler, Bayis Ne’eman.

[29] Lawrence Kelemen, To Kindle a Soul: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Parents and Teachers (Southfield, MI: Targum Press and Leviathan Press, 2001), 19-21. Some of Kelemen’s formulations, as well as one of the book’s central metaphors – that parenting consists of “building” and “planting” – come from the parenting guide of the twentieth-century Israeli Haredi rabbi, Shlomo Wolbe, which Kelemen had been involved in translating into English. Wolbe’s ideas themselves are influenced by modern psychological and cultural categories, though the influence of modern psychology on contemporary musaristis like Wolbe has yet to be studied, to the best of my knowledge. See R. Shlomo Wolbe, Zeri’ah U’Vinyan BeHinnukh (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1995), 23-24, and his Planting and Building: Raising a Jewish Child, Trans. Leib [Lawrence] Kelmen (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2000).

[30] See Peter N. Stearns, Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America (New York and London: New York University Press, 2003), and Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), Chap. 11.

[31] On the difficulties in determining ancient Jewish attitudes toward child rearing, see David Kraemer, “Images of Childhood and Adolescence in Talmudic Literature,” in his Ed., The Jewish Family, 65-68.

[32] Baumgarten, Mothers and Children, 155.

[33] Kelemen, To Kindle a Soul, 129-152. Quotes from 109, 130, 132-133.

[34]Shemot Rabbah, 1 s.v. Ve’eleh Shemot, quoting Proverbs 13:24

[35] Also see B.T. Makkot, 8a, Bava Batra 21a; Midrash Tehillim, Buber, 6; Midrash Tenaim, Devarim 25:3; Rashi on Mishlei 13:24 and on 19:18; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Talmud Torah, 2:2; Shulhan ‘Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, 240:20 and Rama, 245:10; Sefer Hasidim, 302, cited in Baumgarten, Mothers and Children, 162; R. Yeshayahu Horowitz, Shenei Luhot HaBerit(Jerusalem: n.p., 1975), Letter Daled, paragraph 23-32; The Gaon of Vilna, Even Shelemah (n.p.: n.d., n.d.), 6:4. When Shulhan ‘Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, 240:20 insists that one not beat his older children (according to Rama, 22-24 years old), this is not due to any opposition to corporal punishment per se, but, following his source (BT Mo’ed Qatan 17a), because the son might retaliate and violate the more serious prohibition of injuring one’s parent.

[36] R. Alexander Ziskind of Horodno in his ethical will, quoted in Simhah Asaf, Meqorot LeToldot HaHinnukh BeYisrael (New York and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2002), Vol. 1, 688. Also see Yitzchak ben Eliakim, author of Sefer Lev Tov (published in Prague in 1620), who insists that parents “not reveal their love [of their children] in their presence because then the children would not fear them and would not obey them." Cited in Gerson David Hundert, "Jewish Children and Childhood in Early Modern East Central Europe," in Kraemer, Ed. The Jewish Family, 82. Also see the related sources quoted in Hundert, 83, and Ephraim Kanarfogel, "Attitudes Toward Childhood in Medieval Jewish Society," in Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times, Ed. David R. Blumenthal (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), Vol. 2, 1-34.

[37] Horowitz, Shnei Luhot HaBerit, Letter Daled, para. 23-25. 

Wine Strength and Dilution

October 31, 2012, 5:37 pm

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Wine Strength and Dilution

by Isaiah Cox

June 2009

Isaiah Cox trained as an historian at Princeton, and conducted postgraduate work in medieval history at King's College London. He is also a technologist, with over 50 patents pending or issued to date. iwcox@alumni.princeton.edu

There is a common understanding among rabbonim that wines in the time of the Gemara were stronger than they are today.[1]This is inferred because we know from the Gemara that wine was customarily diluted by at least three-to-one, and as much as six-to-one, without compromising its essence as kosher wine, suitable for hagafen.  While repeated by numerous sources and rabbonim, the earliest suggestion that wines were stronger appears to be Rashi himself.[2][3]

In the Torah, wine is mentioned many times, though there is no mention of diluting it. The only clear reference to diluted wine in ancient Jewish sources is negative: “Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.”[4]In ancient Israel, wine was preferred without water.[5]  Hashem would provide “a feast of fats, and feast of lees -- rich fats and concentrated lees,”[6]‘lees’ being shmarim, the sediment from fermentation. Lees are the most flavorful and strong part of the wine, particularly sweet and alcoholic – more like a fortified port than a regular wine.[7]

Yet if we jump forward to the time of the Mishna and Gemara: wine was considered undrinkable unless water was added?!

In Rashi’s world, wine was drunk neat, and he concludes that wine must have been stronger in the past. We could work with this thesis, except that there is a glaring inconsistency: the Rambam a scant hundred years later shared the opinion of the Rishonim: we require wine for the Arba Kosot to be diluted “in order that the drinking of the wine should be pleasant, all according to the wine and the taste of the consumer.”[8][9]We need not believe that wine was stronger both during the time of the Gemara, and in Rambam’s day -- but not for Rashi sandwiched between them.  Indeed, Rambam seems to put his finger on the nub of the issue: the preferences of the consumer.[10]

Today we drink liquors that are far more powerful than wine (distillation as we know it was not known in Europe or the Mediterranean until centuries after the Rambam): cask strength whiskies can be watered down by 4:1 and achieve the same alcoholic concentration as wine – but we likestrong whiskies. Wine itself can be distilled into grappa, and we enjoy that drink without adding water. Given sweet and potent liqueurs like Drambuie, it seems quite logical that if wine could be made more alcoholic, we would enjoy it that way as well.

While the Mishnah and Gemara are clear that wine should be drunk diluted, the opinion that wine was too strong to drink came from later commentators, writing hundreds of years later. In the Gemara itself, Rav Oshaya says that the reason to dilute wine is because a mitzvah must be done in the choicest manner.[11] Indeed, the Gemara itself seems to allow that undiluted wines were drinkable – it was just not considered civilized behavior. A ben sorer umoreh, a rebellious son, is one who drinks wine -- wine which is insufficiently diluted, as gluttons drink.[12]In other words, undiluted wine wasdrinkable, but it was not the civilized thing to do.

A review of the history of civilizations reveals the origin of the preference for diluting wine: Greek culture. The first mention of diluted wine in Jewish texts is found in the apocrypha: about 124 BCE, “It is harmful to drink wine alone, or again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment,”[13]The source, it is critical to point out, was written in Greek, outside the land of Israel.

Greek culture and practices started being influential in the Mediterranean in the final two centuries BCE, and by the time of the Gemara, had become the dominant traditions for all “civilized” people in the known world. When the Mishna was written, for example, all educated Romans spoke Greek, and Latin had become the language of the lower classes. Greek customs were the customs of all civilized people.

And Greeks loved to dilute their wine. Earlier in the latter part of the second century Clement of Alexandria stated:

It is best for the wine to be mixed with as much water as possible. . . . For both are works of God, and the mixing of the two, both of water and wine produces health, because life is composed of a necessary element and a useful element. To the necessary element, the water, which is in the greatest quantity, there is to be mixed in some of the useful element.[14]

Today, wine is not diluted; the very thought of it is repulsive to oenophiles. But just as in Isaiah’s day diluted wine was considered poor (and concentrated dregs were considered choice), the Greeks only liked their wine watered down.[15]We have hundreds of references to diluting wine in ancient Greece through the late Roman period – ancient Greeks diluted wine that Israelites preferred straight. In Greece, wine was always diluted with water before drinking in a vase called "kratiras," derived from the Greek word krasis, meaning the mixture of wine and water.[16]   As early as the 10^th Century BCE (the same time as Isaiah), Greek hip flasks had built-in spoons for measuring the dilution.[17]  Homer, from the 8^th or 9^thCentury BCE, mentions a ratio of 20 to 1, twenty parts water to one part wine. But while their ratios varied, the Greeks most assuredly did not drink their wine straight.[18]  To Greeks, ratios of just 1 to 1 was called “strong wine.” Drinking wine unmixed, on the other hand, was looked upon as a “Scythian” or barbarian custom. This snobbery was not based solely on rumor; Diodorus Siculus, a Greek (Sicilian) historian and contemporary of Julius Caeser, is among the many Greeks who explained that exports of wine to places like Gaul were strong in part because the inhabitants of that region, like Rashi a millennium later, liked to drink the wine undiluted. This fact leads us to an inescapable conclusion: there is no evidence that Greek wine was any stronger than that of ancient Israel, Rome, Egypt, or anywhere else. Greeks and Romans liked their wine with water. Ancient Jews and Gauls liked the very same wine straight up.[19]  We know that it was the same wine, because wine was one of the most important trade products of the ancient world, traveling long distances from vineyard to market. A major trade route went from Egypt through ancient Israel to both northern and eastern climes.[20]Patrick McGovern, a senior research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the world's leading ancient wine experts, believes wine-making became established in Egypt due to "early Bronze Age trade between Egypt and Palestine, encompassing modern Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Jordan."[21][22]  

By the time of the Gemara, Hellenistic cultural preferences had become so common that nobody even thought of them as “Greek” anymore; civilized people acted in this way. Rambam would no more have thought having water with wine to be a specifically Greek custom than we would consider wearing a shirt with a collar to be the contamination of our Judaism by medieval English affectations.

Another possible reason why certain peoples preferred their wine watered down[23]is that ancient wine was more likely to cause a hangover. The key triggers for a hangover are identified as follows:

1. A bad harvest. If you are drinking wine that comes from a country where a small change in the climate can make a big difference to the quality of wine (France, Germany, New Zealand), then in a bad season the wine contains many more substances that cause hangovers.

2. Drinking it too young. Almost all red wines and Chardonnay are matured in oak barrels so that they will keep and improve. If you drink this wine younger than three years there will be a higher level of nasties that can cause hangovers. If left to mature these nasties change to neutral substances and don’t cause hangovers. As a rule of thumb, wine stored in oak barrels for six months should be acceptable to drink within the first year. If the wine is stored for twelve months or more in oak barrels, it should then be aged at least four years. Some winemakers have been known to add oak chips directly into the wine to enhance flavors (especially in a weak vintage and especially in cheaper wines); this can take years to become neutral.[24]

In other words, in the ancient world, with less precise agriculture, and minimal control over fermentation – and the common consumption of young wine that was not kept in barrels, the wine was surely “stronger” in the sense that the after-effects were far more potent, meriting dilution.

We can also explain the Rashi/Rambam difference of opinion using cultural norms. Greek culture, which dominated the Mediterranen  and Babylonia for hundreds of years, ceased to be dominant in Gaul and elsewhere in Northern Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire. But in the Mediterranean, region, Greek and Roman customs remained dominant in non-Muslim circles for far longer. Rashi was in France, where the natives had never preferred their wine diluted. The Rambam was in Alexandria, where wine, made anywhere in the Mediterranean region (including Israel) had been drunk with water for a thousand years.

Part II

A Brief History of Wine Technology and Dilution

Wine is one of mankind’s oldest inventions; the archaeological record shows wine dating back to at least 3000 BCE, and the Torah describes Noach consciously and deliberately planting a vineyard and getting inebriated. But technology has changed a great deal since then, not always for the better. For starters, wine was always basically made the same way: crush the grapes and let them ferment. Grapes are a wondrous food, in that they collect, on their outer skins, the agents for their own fermentation. Yeast, of various kinds, settle on the exterior skin, and as soon as the skin is broken (when the grape is crushed), the yeasts mix and start to react with the sweet juice inside.

The problem is that there are thousands of different yeasts, and while some of them make fine wine, many others will make an alcoholic beverage that tastes awful.[25]Additionally, there are many bacteria that also feast on grape juice, producing a wide range of compounds that affect the taste of the finished product.

The end result, in classic wine making, was that the product was highly unpredictable. Today, sulfites (sulphur dioxide compounds) are added as the grapes are crushed, killing the native yeast and bacteria that otherwise would have fermented in an unpredictable way. Then the winemaker adds the yeast combinations of his choice, yielding a predictable, and enjoyable product. Today, virtually every wine made in the world includes added sulfites for this very reason. Adding sulfites prior to fermentation was NOT employed in the ancient world, and was only pioneered two centuries ago. There is no mention of killing the native yeast in the Gemara or in the Torah, nor of adding sulfites.

With the advent of Pasteur  in the 19^th century, and a new understanding of the fermentation process and of yeasts, the process of winemaking turned from an art to a cookbook science. Wines steadily improved as winemakers learned to add sulfites and custom yeasts, leading to today’s fine wines.

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman - medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Controlled fermentation	Poorly understood. Unstable results.[26] Though when wine was boiled before fermentation, it allowed for a more controlled product.[27]	Poorly understood, with unstable results. Salt-water was often added to the must to control fermentation.[28] Wine cellars were sometimes fumigated prior to crushing the grapes.[29] Grape Juice was known, and could be made to keep.[30]	Poorly understood, with unstable results. Salt-water was often added to the must to control fermentation.[31] Wine cellars were sometimes fumigated prior to crushing the grapes.[32]	Sulfides became known, and then consciously applied.	Controlled environments became the norm.

Storage  of wine was another matter. The ancient world was better at preserving wine after it was made. In the ancient world (from Egypt through Greece and early Rome), wine was kept in amphorae.

Amphorae are earthenware vessels, typically with a small mouth on top. The amphorae were sealed with clay, wax, cork or gypsum. The insides of the amphorae, if made of clay, were sealed with pitch, to make them airtight. It was well understood that if air got in, the wine would turn bad, and eventually to vinegar. Some amphorae were even made of glass, and then carefully sealed with gypsum, specifically to preserve the wine.

Wine Strength and Dilution

With proper amphorae, if the wine was good when it went into the vessel, it was quite likely to be good when it was retrieved, even if it was years later. The Egyptians and Greeks and Romans had vintage wines – wines that they could pull out of the cellar decades after it had been made.

But amphorae represented the pinnacle of wine storage, unmatched until the glass bottle was invented in the 19^thcentury. 

Around the time of the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash, the technology shifted. Barrels became prevalent[33], and remained the standard until the advent of the glass bottle in the 19^thcentury. Barrels are made of wood, and they breathe. Without proper sealing, wine that is uncovered, untopped or unprotected by insufficient sulfur dioxide has a much shorter shelf life. Once a wine goes still (stops fermenting), it’s critical to protect it.[34]

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman – medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Storage	Sometimes sealed amphorae; sometimes poor ones.[35]	Amphorae with good seals.[36] Sulfur candles were sometimes used. Romans and Greeks continued to add salt water when the wine was sealed – as well as boiling and using pitch.[37]	Sealed wine is valued.[38] Even so, amphorae fell out of use, and were replaced with wooden barrels, which breathe.  But  Gemara forbids sulphur in korbanos.[39]	Wooden barrels continue.	Wine bottles are used. For the first time since the time of the Beis Hamikdash, wine can be safely stored for a long time.

Predictability proved to be another major problem for winemakers, especially in the ancient world.

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman – medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Predictability of product	If the wine was good when sealed, predictability was excellent. But sulfides were not understood well enough to make the raw product consistently drinkable.	Unpredictable. Very much a “buyer beware” market, with no warranty, and a belief in mazal to keep wine good.[40]	Slightly more predictable, as sulfides were sometimes used.	Very good. Storage was good, in barrels.	Excellent. Advances in understanding the role of yeast and bacteria, and the addition of selected wine yeasts means that wine is highly predictable.

Marcus Porcius Cato (234-150 B.C.),   refers to some of the problems related to the preservation of fermented wine. In Cato alludes to such problems when he speaks of the terms “for the sale of wine in jars.” One of the conditions was that “only wine which is neither sour nor musty will be sold. Within three days it shall be tasted subject to the decision of an honest man, and if the purchaser fails to have this done, it will be considered tasted; but any delay in the tasting caused by the owner will add as many days to the time allowed the purchaser.”[41]Pliny, for example, frankly acknowledges  that “it is a peculiarity of wine among liquids to go moldy or else to turn into vinegar; and whole volumes of instructions how to remedy this have been published.”[42]

Sulfites, which are used now for fermentation and also for stored wine, were in occasional (if not consistent) use in the ancient world as well. The Gemara speaks of “sulfurating baskets,” for example.[43]It is well-documented that by 100 B.C.E. Roman winemakers often burned sulfur wicks inside their barrels to help prevent the wine from spoiling.[44]They also sealed barrels and amphorae with sulfur compounds, with the same goal. The practise was not universal, and it was not well understood, so results varied widely. Freshly pressed grape juice has a tendency to spoil due to contamination from bacteria and wild yeasts present on the grape skins. Not only does sulfur dioxide inhibit the growth of molds and bacteria, but it also stops oxidation (browning) and preserves the wine's natural flavor.[45]From the Romans until the 16^th Century, wine preservation in the barrel was not reliably achieved; throughout the medieval and early modern period all wine was drunk young, usually within a year of the vintage.[46]… wines kept in barrels generally lasted only a year before becoming unpalatable.

In the 16^th century, Dutch traders found that only wine treated with sulfur could survive the long sea voyages without it turning to vinegar.[47] 15^th  century German wine laws restored the Roman practise, with the decree that sulfur candles be burned inside barrels before filling them with wine, and by the 18^th century sulfur candles were regularly used to sterilize barrels in Bordeaux. The sulfur dioxide left on the container would dissolve into the wine, becoming the preservative we call sulfites. Even then, they were clever enough to realize that the sulfur addition improved wine quality.[48]

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman – medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Shelf life	Boiled wine lasted a long time, making storage and exports less risky, at the cost of reduced quality.[49]	Variable, but could be excellent. Vintage wines existed, and old wines were prized.[50] There were no corks, so wine did not breathe in storage.[51]	By the time of the Gemara, wine only 3 years old was considered very old.   Wine aged very poorly. And the Romans abandoned the use of sulfites in wine storage.[52]	Shelf life is somewhat longer, as sulfides are rediscovered.  Bottles were introduced in the late 17th century. Corks also come into use.	Vintage wines once again exist. Corks allow for wine to age in a bottle – the tradeoff is that shelf life is more limited than in the ancient world.[53]

In the ancient world, wine flavorings appear to be as old as wine itself! The oldest archaeological record of wine-making shows that figs were used in the wine as well – as we have said, wine made without benefit of sulfites, will be unpredictable at best; fig juice would sweeten the wine and make it more palatable.[54]But with all the added flavorings in the world, the process itself often led to some pretty unattractive results.

The impregnation with resin has been still preserved, with the result of making some modern Greek wines unpalatable save to the modern Greeks themselves. … Ancient wines were also exposed in smoky garrets until reduced to a thick syrup, when they had to be strained before they were drunk. Habit only it seems could have endeared these pickled and pitched and smoked wines to the Greek and Roman palates, as it has endeared to some of our own caviare and putrescent game.[55]

When Hecamede prepares a drink for Nestor, she sprinkles her cup of Pramnian wine with grated cheese, perhaps a sort of Gruyere, and flour.[56]The most popular of these compound beverages was the  (mulsum), or honey wine, said by Pliny (xiv. 4) to have been invented by Aristaeus.

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman – medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Flavorings	Highly variable, and usually added.[57][58]	Added in copious quantities and varieties, almost surely to cover odd tastes and oxidation caused by poor manufacture and storage techniques.[59] Cornels, figs, medlars, roses, cumin, asparagus, parsley, radishes, laurels, absinthium, junipers, cassia, peppers, cinnamon, and saffron, with many other particulars, were also used for flavouring wines.[60] Greeks added grated goat’s milk cheese and white barley before consumption of wine.[61] Discriminating Romans even kept flavor packets with them when they traveled, so they could flavour wines they were served in taverns along the way.	Became less common, as it is acknowledged that flavorings were to cover failings in the wine.	Post-fermentation, flavorings are almost never used.  Wine from a bottle is consistently more pure in the modern age than it ever was before.	Virtually unheard of; to add a flavour to wine would be considered a gross insult to the winemaker, and the noble grape itself.

Trade also changed greatly over time.  The ancient Mediterranean was a hotbed of trade, and wine was also shipped overland. Many wine presses and storage cisterns have been found from Mount Hermon to the Negev. Inscriptions and seals of wine jars illustrate that wine was a commercial commodity being shipped in goatskin or jugs from ports such as Dor, Ashkelon and Joppa (Jaffa). The vineyards of Galilee and Judea were mentioned then; wines with names like Sharon, Carmel and from places like Gaza, Ashkelon and Lod were famous.[62]Wine was a major export from ancient Israel.

This situation was mirrored in Greece and Rome. Wine was traded throughout the Mediterranean (it was as easy to ship wine 100 miles by ship as it was to haul it 1 mile across land). But Roman wines were popular, and were shipped overland to Gaul and elsewhere.

In the later Roman period, the spread of winemaking inland (away from the convenient Mediterranean) meant that wines were rarely shipped far. The wine trade remained for the benefit of the very wealthy for over a thousand years, only resuming in the 16^th and 17^thcenturies. And today, of course, the wine trade is ubiquitous, with wines available from around the world.

Grape juice was almost always fermented; before Pasteur, avoiding the fermentation of wine was not well understood, and any grape juice that is not sulfated will ferment if yeast is added to it. Still, the concept of grape juice was understood before wine – the butler squeezed grapes directly in Pharoah’s cup, after all.  And the Gemara calls it “new wine.”[63]It certainly could be drunk then, though it was far from achieving its full potency.

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece through medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Cultural consumption	In Israel, wine was drunk straight. Drunkenness was discouraged; self control praised.	Drunkenness was http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/10/wine-strength-and-dilution.html#_ftn64" name="_ftnref64" title="">[64] wine was consumed in large quantities.	Dilution is seen as a way to cheat the consumer; common in lower class taverns.	Social drinking is praised; wine is drunk to achieve the same buzz the Greeks praised.

It is evident that wine was seen in ancient times as a medicine (and as a solvent for medicines) and of course as a beverage. Yet as a beverage it was always thought of as a mixed drink. Plutarch (Symposiacs III, ix), for instance, states. “We call a mixture ‘wine,’ although the larger of the component parts is water.” The ratio of water might vary, but only barbarians drank it unmixed, and a mixture of wine and water of equal parts was seen as “strong drink” and frowned upon. The term “wine” or  oinos in the ancient world, then, did not mean wine as we understand it today but wine mixed with water. Usually a writer simply referred to the mixture of water and wine as “wine.” To indicate that the beverage was not a mixture of water and wine he would say “unmixed (akratesteron) wine.”[65]

There is some question whether or not what “wine” and “strong drink” Leviticus 10:8, 9, Deuteronomy 14:26; 29:6; Judges 13:4, 7, 14; First Samuel 1:15: Proverbs 20:1; 31:4,6: Isaiah 5:11, 22; 28:7; 29:9; 56:12; and Micah 2:11. “Strong drink” is most likely another fermented product – beer. Beer can be made from any grain, and would be contrasted with wine most obviously because it was substantially less expensive  (typically 1/5^th the cost, in ancient Egypt) while still offering about the same alcohol content.[66]  (Yeast works the same way in both).

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece through medieval	Europe, 16th Century onward	Europe 19th century to present
Watered down	Isaiah refers to watered wine perjoratively.	Greeks watered down wine, as they preferred to drink large quantities. They knew of people who drank undiluted wine, but considered it a barbaric practise.. Wine was customarily diluted with water in a three-to-one ratio of water to wine during Talmudic times.[67] Still even the famously strong Falernian wines were sometimes drunk straight.[68]	Wine is not diluted, at least not in better establishments	Consumer never drinks wine known to be diluted.

Why did people water down wine? One possibility, given in Section I is that certain wines were more likely to cause a hangover.[69]The more commonly suggested solution than the presence of hangover-inducing components, is that wine served as a disinfectant for water that itself might be unsafe.

Today, we know this is true. Drinking wine makes our water safer to drink, and it also helps sanitize the food we eat at meals when we drink wine. Living typhoid and other microbes have been shown to die quickly when exposed to wine.[70]Research shows that wine (as well as grape juice)[71], are highly effective against foodborne pathogens[72]while not significantly weakening “good” probiotic bacteria.[73]In one study, it was shown that wine that was diluted to 40% was still effective against foodborne pathogens, and drier wines were much better at killing dangerous bacteria.

The ancients believed that wine was good for one’s health[74], even if they didn’t have the faintest idea why this was so. Microbes were only discovered in the 19^th century, and ancient medicine was in many respects indistinguishable from witchcraft.  Still, it seems hard to deny that Romans and Greeks at least grasped some of the medicinal value of the grape; wines were a common ingredient in many Roman medicines.[75]And given the antibacterial powers of wine, it is obvious that a patient who drank diluted wine instead of water would be helping his body by not adding dangerous microbes when the body was already weakened by something else.

Still, the evidence remains anecdotal. The Torah does not mention wine as having medicinal benefits, though the New Testament does suggest wine as a cure for poor digestion[76]– entirely consistent with what we know about wine’s antibacterial properties. And as noted by the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Gemara reflects many of Galen’s positions on the health-giving qualities of wine:

Wine taken in moderation was considered a healthful stimulant, possessing many curative elements. The Jewish sages were wont to say, "Wine is the greatest of all medicines; where wine is lacking, there drugs are necessary" (B. B. 58b).  …  R. Papa thought that when one could substitute beer for wine, it should be done for the sake of economy. But his view is opposed on the ground that the preservation of one's health is paramount to considerations of economy (Shab. 140b). Three things, wine, white bread, and fat meat, reduce the feces, lend erectness to one's bearing, and strengthen the sight. Very old wine benefits the whole body (Pes. 42b). Ordinary wine is harmful to the intestines, but old wine is beneficial (Ber. 51a). Rabbi was cured of a severe disorder of the bowels by drinking apple-wine seventy years old, a Gentile having stored away 300 casks of it ('Ab. Zarah 40b). "The good things of Egypt" (Gen. xlv. 23) which Joseph sent to his father are supposed by R. Eleazar to have included "old wine," which satisfies the elderly person (Meg. 16b).   Until the age of forty liberal eating is beneficial; but after forty it is better to drink more and eat less (Shab. 152a). R. Papa said wine is more nourishing when taken in large mouthfuls. Raba advised students who were provided with little wine to take it in liberal drafts (Suk. 49b) in order to secure the greatest possible benefit from it. Wine gives an appetite, cheers the body, and satisfies the stomach (Ber. 35b).[77]

Others have made the bolder argument  -- that the core purpose of dilution was to purify water for drinking.[78]

The ancients began by adding wine to water (to decontaminate it) and finished by adding water to wine (so that they didn't get too drunk too quickly). A letter, written in brownish ink on a pottery shard dating from the seventh century BC, instructs Eliashiv, the Judaean commander of the Arad fortress in southern Israel, to supply his Greek mercenaries with flour, oil and wine.

The [Israel Museum in Jerusalem] exhibition's curator, Michal Dayagi-Mendels, explains that the oil and flour were for making bread; the wine was not for keeping them happy, but for purifying brackish water. To prove her point, she displays a collection of tenth-century BC hip flasks, with built-in spoons for measuring the dosage.[79]

While the archaeological record is strong in this respect, the lack of textual support, in this author’s opinion, means that there is more evidence that wine was diluted for cultural reasons than because there was a conscious understanding that wine made water safe to drink.

	Ancient Israel and Egypt	Ancient Greece and Early Rome	Late Roman – medieval	Europe 19th century to present
Used for health reasons	No direct evidence	Mainstay for medicine; perceived as valuable to health	Mainstay for medicine; perceived as valuable to health	With safer water, wine not as important.  Recently, wine is prized for its resveratrol for health and longevity, instead of anti-microbial properties as previously.

---

[1]“Up to and including the time of the Gemara, wines were so strong that they could not be drunk without dilution…. Nowadays, our wines are not so strong, and we no longer dilute them.” Rabbi Avraham Rosenthal (link), “During the time of the Talmud, wine was very concentrated, and was normally diluted with water before drinking. “Rav Ezra Bick (link), “In Talmudic times, wine was sold in a strong, undiluted form, which only attained optimal drinking taste after being diluted with water.” Rabbi Yonason Sacks,  (link), “Records indicate that the alcohol content of wine in the ancient days was very high. Therefore, it was a common practice to dilute the wine with water in order to make it drinkable.” (link), “In ancient times, wines were powerfully strong and adding water to dilute their taste and power was common. … Pure wine, undiluted with water, is highly concentrated and difficult to drink. Rabbi Gershon Tennenbaum, (link), “In the days of the Talmud the wine was so strong and concentrated that without dilution it was not drinkable.” Zvi Akiva Fleisher, (link), “During the time of the Talmud, wine was very concentrated, and was normally diluted with water before drinking.” Rav Yair Kahn, (link), “Our wines, which are considerably weaker than those used in the days of Chazal, are better if they are not diluted.” (link)

[2] Rashi on Berachos 50b

[3] Wine naturally ferments to no more than 16% alcohol (typically 12-14%) before the alcohol kills the yeast off. Alcohol boils away at a lower temperature than water, so boiling wine does not concentrate it. And without the technology of distillation (which was not known in the ancient world), the only practical method that might have concentrated the alcohol in a wine would be to add plaster of paris; water would be absorbed, and the alcohol would be concentrated. But we have no evidence that this was done; it would have been far more than a mere flavoring. (see)

[4] Isaiah 1:22

[5] Spices and flavorings, on the other hand, were considered fit for guests and offerings: Proverbs 9:2,5 and Isaiah 65:11 both refer to wine which is “mem-samech-ches”, meaning that it has been spiced and is ready to serve. This is the best of wine, though as warned in Proverbs 23:30, such wine has dangerous side effects. This is entirely consistent with what we know of wine flavorings in the ancient world (see Part II): spices made wine more palatable, so it could more easily be consumed to excess.

[6] Isaiah 25:6

[7] Dr. Uprichard adds: Fermentation is the conversion of complex sugars, via glucose and pyruvic acid into ethanol and CO2.  Natural yeasts die when the alcohol content of their culture medium (i.e. the liquid that is being produced for human consumption) exceeds a certain limit. Limit varies depending on the yeast and other factors, but is generally somewhere between 12-15% alcohol by volume. For wine to be stronger, it has to be fortified. Fortification is a process in which spirit is added to the wine. There are many fortified wines made around the world. However there are only two basic ways of fortification:

1: The Sherry Method - the must, which is a mixture of juice, pulp, skins and seeds, is fermented out, leaving a dry wine. The spirit is then added. Consequently all sherry method wines are dry to begin with. If the final style of wine is other than dry, sweetening is added prior to bottling. Sherry was invented in the 8^th Century, CE.

2: The Port Method - the must is only partly fermented, and the process is stopped by the addition of sufficient spirit to prevent the yeast working. ie the alcohol content is raised to a level which kills the yeasts and leaves much of the sugar unfermented. Consequently port-method wines are generally sweet. Adding sugar will feed the process but only until the yeasts (which are effectively the enzymes in the reaction) are used up (or in this case killed off). The Rambam, who diluted wine, did NOT consider fortified wine to be suitable for Kiddush; his wine was unfortified, and undistilled, and therefore could not exceed 15-16% alcohol.

[8] Hilchot Chametz UMatzah 7:9

[9] Rambam considered young new wine (presumably only lightly fermented) to be distinctly unhealthy (see).

[10] It is clear that personal and cultural preferences remain very important when talking about whether to use wine or grape juice for Kiddush or the Arba Kossos. Rav Soloveitichik writes that if one does not enjoy wine, he should use grape juice for the Arba Kosot, as that will be a pleasant drink according to his taste.

[11] Berachos, 50b

[12] Sanhedrin 70a. The Greeks had the same standard: to drink wine diluted 1:1 was repudiated as disgraceful (see). 

[13] II Maccabees 15:39

[14] Instructor II, ii, 23.3—24.1

[15] Athenaeus quotes Mnesitheus of Athens: “The gods has revealed wine to mortals, to be the greatest blessing for those who use it aright, but for those who use it without measure, the reverse. For it gives food to them that take it and strength in mind and body. In medicine it is most beneficial; it can be mixed with liquid and drugs and it brings aid to the wounded. In daily intercourse, to those who mix and drink it moderately, it gives good cheer; but if you overstep the bounds, it brings violence. Mix it half and half, and you get madness; unmixed, bodily collapse.”[Odyssey IX, 232.]

[16]http://www.allaboutgreekwine.com/history.htm

[17]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/city-life-jerusalem-from-water-to-wine-and-back-1098746.html

[18] Pliny (Natural History XIV, vi, 54) mentions a ratio of eight parts water to one part wine. In one ancient work, Athenaeus’s  The Learned Banquet, written around A.D.  200, we find in Book Ten a collection of statements from earlier writers about drinking practices. A quotation from a play by Aristophanes reads: “‘Here, drink this also, mingled three and two.’ Demus. ‘Zeus! But it’s sweet and bears the three parts well!’”

[19]http://www.mmdtkw.org/VRomanWine.html.  Why did the Greeks enjoy diluted wine, and the Jews of ancient Israel preferred it straight?  We cannot be certain of the answer, but it is clear that the Greeks praised drinking very large quantities; it was a feature of every meal, which regularly lasted for hours. For them, wine was a necessity, and the culture rotated around its unrestrained consumption – the Greeks drank by the gallon. Undiluted wine, however, cannot be drunk by the gallon. Greeks liked to get drunk, but they wanted it to take time. Ceremonious, sociable consumption of wine was the core communal act of the Greek aristocratic system.[http://tinyurl.com/cmlsbu].

By contrast, in the Torah wine is consistently praised – in moderation. Drunkenness is never a virtue in Judaism, and the shucking off of self control and loss of inhibitions that was part and parcel of Dionysian rites is considered unacceptable to G-d fearing Jews. So wine, in full strength, was praised and consumed, but consumption for its own sake was not encouraged.

[20] Hundreds of clay jars of wine (with a total volume of some 4,500 liters (118.78 gallons) were buried with one of the first Egyptian kings, Scorpion I (about 3150 B.C.E.). Analysis of the clay shows that the jars were made in the modern Israel-Palestine region. http://www.answers.com/topic/wine-in-the-ancient-world

[21]http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002316.html

[22] Had there been any significant qualitative difference between wine grown in one place as opposed to another, it would be apparent by the archaeological and written records we have; the ancient Greeks, for example, spent a lot of ink writing about wine, with no mention that any wine was significantly stronger than any other.

[23] Proposed by Brian Foont

[24]http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopas.htm

[25] As written about a modern wine that is made without sulfides: “we had an organic, ‘no sulfite added’ chardonnay on the menu. It was an amazing wine to behold. That is when it wasn’t brown and vaguely reminiscent of sewage, which was about one out of every four bottles.” http://winekulers.com/11_1_08.htm. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast#Winefor more information about the process in general. Ancient wineries, lacking modern sanitation, would have had a much lower “success” rate.

[26] Egyptian wines cannot have been very stable because the grapes were picked and crushed in August, then were slowly crushed and pressed and then rapidly fermented, all in the summer heat. http://www.answers.com/topic/wine-in-the-ancient-world

[27]http://tinyurl.com/dl5ypr . Though according to oeniphiles, boiling the wine at any time destroys the flavor. Boiled wine was not allowed as a korban, though it would have led to a more predictable (if mediocre) product. Terumos 11:1 – Rabbi Yehuda, in a minority opinion, considers boiled wine to be superior.

[28]“Some people—and indeed almost all the Greeks—preserve must with salt or sea-water.” Columella, On Agriculture 12.25.1. Columella recommended the addition of one pint of salt water for six gallons of wine.

[29]http://tinyurl.com/d38a7j

[30] Fresh must, when boiled, could have been stored in amphorae and kept sweet, and this could be the boiled wine mentioned in the Gemara. Certainly we don’t need to speculate in the case of the Romans, as http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/3.htmlwrites:

Columella gives us an informative description of how they did it: “That must may remain always as sweet as though it were fresh, do as follows. Before the grape-skins are put under the press, take from the vat some of the freshest possible must and put it in a new wine-jar; then daub it over and cover it carefully with pitch, that thus no water may be able to get in. Then sink the whole flagon in a pool of cold, fresh water so that no part of it is above the surface. Then after forty days take it out of the water. The must will then keep sweet for as much as a year.”  [Columella, On Agriculture 12, 37, 1]… This method of preserving grape juice must have been in use long before the time of Pliny and Columella, because Cato (234-149 B.C.) mentions it two centuries before them: “If you wish to keep grape juice through the whole year, put the grape juice in an amphora, seal the stopper with pitch, and sink in the pond. Take it out after thirty days; it will remain sweet the whole year.” [Marcus Cato, On Agriculture 120, 1.]

[31]“Some people—and indeed almost all the Greeks—preserve must with salt or sea-water.” Columella, On Agriculture 12.25.1.

[32]http://tinyurl.com/d38a7j

[33] Barrels have many advantages: they are less expensive and less prone to breakage; they stack and roll, and generally allow for easier transportation. The downside of a shortened shelf life for the wine was apparently considered an acceptable price to pay for these advantages.

[34]http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/article/indices/34-sulfite/765-wine-wizard-revealed-a-top-10-winemaking-questions

[35] In Egypt, the clay jars were slightly porous (unless they were coated with resin or oil), which would have led to a degree of oxidation. There was no premium on aging wine here, and there are records of wine going bad after twelve to eighteen months. http://www.answers.com/topic/wine-in-the-ancient-world

[36] Jeremiah 48:11, Moab is compared to a container of fine wine that is not disturbed: “therefore its taste has stayed in it, and its scent was not diminished.” Unsealed wine in the ancient world was known to lose its essence.

[37]http://tinyurl.com/d38a7j

[38] The foster-mother of Abaye is authority for the statement that a six-measure cask properly sealed is worth more than an eight-measure cask that is not sealed (B. ‑3. 12a)

[39] John Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature says: “When the Mishna forbids smoked wines from being used in offerings (Manachoth, viii. 6, et comment.), it has chiefly reference to the Roman practice of fumigating them with sulphur, the vapor of which absorbed the oxygen, and thus arrested the fermentation. The

Jews carefully eschewed the wines and vinegar of the Gentiles.” But presumably smoked wines were acceptable for consumption, even if not for offerings?

[40] Rab said that for three days after purchase the seller is responsible if the wine turns sour; but after that his responsibility ceases. R. Samuel declared that responsibility falls upon the purchaser immediately upon the delivery of the wine, the rule being "Wine rests on the owner's shoulders." R. ‑Hiyya b. Joseph said, "Wine must share the owner's luck" (B. B. 96a, b, 98a). If one sells a cellarful of wine, the purchaser must accept ten casks of sour wine in every hundred (Tosef., B. B. vi. 6).

[41]On Agriculture, Chapter 148. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/J*.html.  Cato shares the opinion of Rav: “For three days after purchase the seller is responsible if the wine turns sour; but after that his responsibility ceases.” B. B. 96a.

[42]www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/3.html

[43] Berachos 27b, line 14.

[44]http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20040813wc.html

[45]http://www.ecowine.com/sulfites.htm

[46] Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade

Tim Unwin

[47]http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20040813wc.html. Even snakes could recognize the dropoff in quality– only boiled wine, if it were left uncovered, could be drunk the next morning (Avodah Zarah 30a).

[48]http://www.goosecross.com/education/sulfites.html

[49] Yerushalmi, on Terumos 11:1 notes that cooked wine is inferior in quality to uncooked wine, but is superior in the sense that it lasts longer.

[50] "The good things of Egypt" (Gen. xlv. 23) which Joseph sent to his father are supposed by R. Eleazar to have included "old wine," which satisfies the elderly person (Meg. 16b). At the great banquet given by King Ahasuerus the wine put before each guest was from the province whence he came and of the vintage of the year of his birth (Meg. 12a). In Rome, wines were preferred to be aged anywhere from 10 to 25 years. In fact, the Emperor Caligula was once presented with a 160 year old vintage that was considered a supreme treat. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/wine.html

[51]Vintage wines of the ancient world were lost when sealed amphorae were replaced with wooden barrels at the end of the second century, AD (Techernia, 1986), and their reappearance had to await the development in the 17^th century of glass bottles stoppered with cork. From “Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and Wine Trade”

[52] If William Younger is to be believed, the Romans had entirely abandoned sulfites by the end of their millenium of winemaking. http://www.winecrimes.com/winecrimes/

[53] Singer, Holmyard, Hall et cie "History of Technology”

[54]http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002316.html

[55]http://chestofbooks.com/food/beverages/Drinks-Of-The-World/Roman-Wines.html

[56] Aelian (V. H. xii. 31, quoted by http://chestofbooks.com/food/beverages/Drinks-Of-The-World/Classical-Wines-Greek-Wines.html

[57] To prevent wine from becoming acid, moldy, or bad-smelling a host of preservatives were used such as salt, sea-water, liquid or solid pitch, boiled-down must, marble dust, lime, sulphur fumes or crushed iris.

[58] The aroma, taste and texture of Egyptian wines are lost to us, but in any case the wine was often flavored with herbs and spices before being consumed. [http://www.answers.com/topic/wine-in-the-ancient-world]

[59] (1) "alun‑mit," made of old wine, with a mixture of very clear water and balsam; used especially after bathing (Tosef., Dem. i. 24; 'Ab. Zarah 30a); (2) "‑3afrisin" (caper-wine, or, according to Rashi, Cyprus wine), an ingredient of the sacred incense (Ker. 6a); (3) "yen ‑ìimmu‑3in" (raisin-wine); (4) "inomilin," wine mixed with honey and pepper (Shab. xx. 2; 'Ab. Zarah l.c.); (5) "ilyoston", a sweet wine ("vinum dulce") from grapes dried in the sun for three days, and then gathered and trodden in the midday heat (Men. viii. 6; B. B. 97b); (6) "me'ushshan," from the juice of smoked or fumigated sweet grapes (Men. l.c.); not fit for libation; (7) "enogeron," a sauce of oil and garum to which wine was added; (8) "api‑3‑mewizin," a wine emetic, taken before a meal (Shab. 12a); (9) "‑3undi‑mon" ("conditum"), a spiced wine ('Ab. Zarah ii. 3); (10) "pesinti‑mon" ("absinthiatum"), a bitter wine (Yer. 'Ab. Zarah ii. 3);

[60]http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0103%3Aact%3D3%3Ascene%3D2and http://tinyurl.com/djtrzl

[61]http://tinyurl.com/cny5jx

[62]http://www.wines-israel.co.il/len/apage/20029.php

[63] Rabbi Hanina B. Kahana answers the question: “How long is it called new wine?” by saying, “As long as it is in the first stage of fermentation . . . and how long is this first stage? Three days.” Sanhedrin 70a.

[64] The Greeks were aware of the results of excessive consumption of wine, and it was recommended that wine be diluted with water in order to avoid this. It was also seen as socially stigmatizing to drink undiluted wine, and this was often seen as “a habit confined to barbarians”. The Romans were also well aware of the results of drunkenness, and Pliny’s famous comment “in vino verias” is not to be a disinterested observation, but a chastisement of those who “do not keep to themselves words that will come back to them through a slit in their throat.” [http://www.mta.ca/faculty/humanities/classics/Course_Materials/CLAS3051/Food/Wine.html]

[65]http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/Bible/Doctrines/Holiness/Drugs%20&%20Alcohol/Wine-Drinking%20in%20New%20Testament%20Times.htm

[66] Beer is typically less alcoholic than wine; typical brewing yeast cannot survive at alcohol concentrations above 12% by volume. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeerWine can run to 15-16%.

[67] R. Eliezer says “boreh pri hagefen” is pronounced only when the wine has been properly mixed with water.

[68] Catullus wrote:

Postumia more tipsy than the tipsy grape.

But water, begone, away with you, water,

destruction of wine, and take up abode

with scrupulous folk. This is the pure Thyonian god. [ http://ammonastery.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/wine-le-vin/ ] . Falernian wines were as strong as fifteen or sixteen percent alcohol. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/wine.html

[69] Proposed by Brian Foont

[70]http://tinyurl.com/cnzwes [The Origins and Ancient History of Wine By Patrick McGovern, Stuart James Fleming, Solomon H. Katz]

[71] Grape juice and wine are much more beneficial to health than beer with the same alcohol content – other properties of the grape, even before fermentation, are good for people. This means that diluted grape juice (and boiled grape juice or wine) also had health benefits even without alcohol.

[72]such as Helicobacter pylori, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Typhimurium and Shigella boydii,

[73]edt.missouri.edu/Fall2008/Thesis/DasA-121208-T11486/research.pdf

[74] A passage in the Hippocratic writings from the section “regimen in Health” draws upon this basic assumption:

“Laymen…should in winter…drink as little as possible; drink should be wine as undiluted as possible…when spring comes, increase drink and make it very diluted…in summer…the drink diluted and copious.” [http://www.mta.ca/faculty/humanities/classics/Course_Materials/CLAS3051/Food/Wine.html– Hippocrates dates from 400 BCE] Drugs such as horehound, squills, wormwood, and myrtle-berries, were introduced to wine to produce hygienic effects.

[75]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome_and_wineThe Romans believed that wine had both healing and destructive powers. It could heal the mind from depression, memory loss and grief as well as the body from various ailments-including bloating, constipation, diarrhea, gout, halitosis, snakebites, tapeworms, urinary problems and vertigo. Cato wrote extensively on the medical uses of wine, including espousing a recipe for creating wine that could aid as laxative by using grapes whose vines were treated to a mixture of ashes, manure and hellebore. He wrote that the flowers of certain plants like juniper and myrtle could be soaked in wine to help with snakebites and gout. Cato believed that a mixture of old wine and juniper, boiled in a lead pot could aid in urinary issues and that mixing wines with very acidic pomegranates would cure tapeworms.[23]

The 2nd century AD Greco-Roman physician Galen provides several details about how wine was used medicinally in later Roman times. In Pergamon, Galen was responsible for the diet and care of the gladiator. He made liberal use of wine in his practice and boasted that not a single gladiator died in his care. For wounds, he would bath them in wine as an antiseptic. He would also use wine as analgesic for surgery. When Galen became the physician of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, he worked on developed pharmaceutical drugs and concoctions made from wine known as theriacs. The abilities of the these theriacs developed superstitious beliefs that lasted till the 18th century and revolved around their "miraculous" ability to protect against poisons and cure everything from the plague to mouth sores. In his work De Antidotis, Galen notes the trend of Roman tastes from thick, sweet wines to lighter, dry wines that were easier to digest.[14]

[76] Paul commands Timothy to use alcohol with his water due to his frequent illness (1 Timothy 5:23). Evidently Timothy had been drinking only water, and that was causing sickness.

[77]http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=201&letter=W&search=wine#599

[78] Inhibitory activity of diluted wine on bacterial growth: the secret of water purification in antiquity, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, Volume 26, Issue 4, Pages 338-340 P.Dolara, S.Arrigucci, M.Cassetta, S.Fallani, A.Novelli

[79]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/city-life-jerusalem-from-water-to-wine-and-back-1098746.html

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

November 7, 2012, 5:38 pm

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Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

by David S. Farkas*

Abstract

Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir of Troyes) is known today primarily for his Biblical commentary, which is often seen as a forerunner to modern academic study of the Bible. Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary, by contrast, is often dismissed as merely a more “prolix” version of his grandfather Rashi, devoid of the critical methods that make his Biblical commentary unique.  While a proper study of Rashbam’s Talmudic exegesis has yet to be written, this exploratory essay seeks to demonstrate that many of the hallmarks of modern academic study are all featured regularly in Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary.  Several examples are cited for each of a wide variety of academic fundamentals, including Rashbam’s awareness of the development of the Talmudic text; appreciation of general Talmudic methodology; distinctions made between the stama d’gmara editors and the actual statements of chazal they edit; and the Rashbam’s preference for critical editions of the Talmud.

Likewise, examples are shown highlighting Rashbam’s use of field research, and his aversion to wild or exaggerated statements of fact.  In brief, the essay takes some initial steps towards dispelling the prevailing notion of a “split personality” Rashbam when it comes to his commentaries to the Torah and the Talmud, and seeks to show the uniformity and consistency shown throughout his entire corpus.

*Mr. Farkas, an attorney practicing as in-house labor counsel for FirstEnergy Corporation, received his rabbinic ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College in 1999. He lives with his family in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

David S. Farkas

Professors of academic Talmud are not known for their practical social experiments, but here’s one that would be interesting to try: Take two men, each unknown to each other, and each reasonably knowledgeable in both traditional learning and modern methods of study. Put each of them in separate rooms, one with a Rabbinic Bible (Mikraos Gedolos) on the complete Torah, and one with the tractates of Bava Basra and Pesachim of a standard edition of the Babylonian Talmud.  Tell each individual he can take as long as he needs to study the commentary of Rashbam upon each [perhaps this is why the experiment remains only a hypothetical] and report back when he’s done. When the subjects return, ask each of them independently: Is Rashbam a traditional commentator, or is he a modern academic? As a corollary, the professor should ask his students a follow-up question: What do you think the two subjects will answer?

No hard data exists for a definitive answer, but I suspect most students would answer that subject #1, holding the Bible, would think Rashbam an academic, while subject #2, with the Talmud, would think him a traditional commentator.  However, and paradoxically, I also think the subjects themselves, having just studied the material in isolation, would both provide the identical answer, and would find the Rashbam thoroughly modern in both. 

To be sure, the question in the experiment above is somewhat misleading, as obviously Rashbam was a traditionalist through and through, and no one would ever seriously claim otherwise. Rabbi Samuel ben Meir of Troyes (c. 1085-1158), the grandson of Rashi, was clearly well grounded in the learning of his times and fellow Ballei Tosafos. But his commentary to the Torah has long stood out for its eye-opening and often daring interpretations of scripture.  Rashbam does not hesitate to state what he believes to be the straightforward meaning of the verse, the peshat, even when it conflicts with the opinion of chazal before him.  In this way Rashbam is often seen as something of a forerunner to academic students of the Torah, who use modern methods of study to arrive at what they believe to be the original meaning of the text.[1]

Despite this, Rashbam’s commentary to the Talmud is often entirely ignored by academics, not to say disdained. In her book concerning Rashbam’s commentary to Job, Sara Japhet notes that a proper study of the characteristics of Rashbam’s Talmudic exegesis has yet to be written.[2]In its entry on Rashbam, the Jewish Encyclopedia devotes considerable space towards analyzing his biblical commentary, but dispenses with his Talmudic commentary with little more than a single sentence, and that only to dismiss it as “much weaker than Rashi.”[3] And in his review of Elazar Touitou’s Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion, Mordechai Cohen concludes with three suggestions to augment existing scholarship on Rashbam, one of which urges a greater focus upon Rashbam’s biblical commentaries beyond the Pentateuch.[4]Nowhere, however, is any suggestion made to consider Rashbam’s Talmudic output.

This neglect shows no sign of change anytime soon.  Typical are the comments of one knowledgeable blogger, who writes, concerning a major conference organized by Bar Ilan University in 2011 devoted to the study of Rashbam:

 “It amazes me, the amount of attention that scholars of medieval biblical exegesis lavish on a fairly limited corpus. I must admit that it also frustrates me that despite all this enthusiasm for studying Rashbam's biblical exegesis, his Talmudic commentaries and, to an even greater degree, his Halakhic writings have received virtually no attention whatsoever.”[5]

Indeed, the conference referenced by the writer focused exclusively on Rashbam as a pashtan on Torah and Kesuvim - with not a single session devoted to his writings on shas.

We do not have Rashbam’s commentary to shas. Although there is evidence that he wrote much more, we are left essentially with his commentary to most of Bava Basra (“BB”) and the last chapter of Pesachim.[6]  Still, this amounts to nearly 370 pages of commentary, more than enough to get a firm sense of his methods. “Prolix” is a word often used to describe his Talmudic commentary. “Peshat”, however, is not. This seems strange. Why would one man’s commentary be so markedly different from one arena to the next? If Rashbam’s commentary displays all the signs of modern methods of study in his commentary to the Torah, why, then, does his commentary to the Talmud seem so devoid of the same?

The purpose of this brief essay is to show that, contrary to the common misconception, Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary displays precisely the same hallmarks of intellectual honesty and modern methods as he displays in his work on the Torah. Below I cite concrete examples to prove the point.  However, there needs to be a framework for this type of study. Nearly every single Tosafos in shas probes into the text, yet few would mistake their methods for that of a modern critical approach.  What, then, are the hallmarks of the modern method in which we can test the hypothesis we began with?

There is certainly no definitive answer to this question. One writer identifies no less than six different aspects of what he calls the “scientific-academic” approach to the Talmud, and in passing notes that “the approaches termed “academic” or “scientific” today are actually closer to the approaches of classical Talmudic scholars than those in use by traditional religious institutions today.”[7]  Many others have written about the academic study of the Talmud without any attempt to reduce the approach down to a specific list of methods.[8]  Accordingly, with no pretenses to believing the following to be exhaustive, this author will follow in the footsteps of at least one of his forebears in identifying the following six prerequisites necessary for a proper academic approach to the study of Talmud:[9] 

1)     An understanding of how the Talmudic text developed over time; a recognition of the layers within each sugya and how the existence of such layers can help us better understand the text;  

2)     A recognition of the stama d’gmara; an appreciation of the fact that the anonymous editors of the Talmud sometimes paraphrased or otherwise edited the actual statements of the tannaim and amoraim;

3)     An attempt to use the best critical editions available;

4)     A feeling for the overall methodology of the Talmud as an organic whole, to aid with understanding the immediate text at hand;

5)     A general sense of rationalism, or an aversion to wild or exaggerated notions;

6)     A willingness to use field research beyond the bare text to clarify the meaning of difficult or obscure terminology.

No doubt others could add or subtract from this list, or refine it in some other way.  However, the foregoing represents at least a decent summary of some of the more fundamental elements of a modern critical approach to the study of Talmud.  And with that in mind, let us see if these methods are employed by Rashbam in his commentary to Bava Basra and Pesachim.[10]

*   *    *

Development of the Text

In the following examples Rashbam demonstrates a keen understanding of how the development of the Talmud affects the understanding of the passage in front of him.

1)   אמר רבא א"ר נחמן מחאה בפני שנים ואין ואין צריך לומר כתובו מודעא בפני שנים ואין

 צריך לומר כתובו הודאה בפני שנים וצריך לומר כתובו קנין בפני שנים ואינו צריך לומר כתובו וקיום שטרות בשלשה

ואין צריך לומר כתובו. שטר מודעא כללא דמילתא כל מידי דזכות הוא לו אין העדים צריכין ליטול הימנו רשות והא דלא כייל ותני להו ולימא מחאה ומודעא וקנין בפני ב' ואין צריך לומר כתובו היינו משום דרבא קאמר להו משמיה דר"נ ולאו בחד יומא שמעינהו אלא כל מילתא שמעה באפי נפשיה והדר חברינהו רבא כחדא כסדר כמו ששמען .  . . .

2)   וכדרבא דאמר רבא כל האומר אי אפשי בתקנת חכמים כגון זאת שומעין לו מאי כגון זאת כדרב הונא אמר רב דאמר רב הונא אמר רב יכולה אשה שתאמר לבעלה איני ניזונת ואיניA עושה

מאי כגון זאת. באיזו תקנת חכמים היו מדברים בבהמ"ד שעליה אמר רבא כל האומר אי אפשי בתקנת חכמים כגון זאת התקנה שאנו מדברים בה שומעין לו:

3)    תנן התם אמר רבן שמעון בן גמליאל לא היו ימים טובים לישראל כחמשה עשר באב וכיום הכפורים שבהן בנות ירושלים יוצאות בכלי לבן שאולין שלא לבייש את מי שאין לו בשלמא יום הכפורים יום סליחה ומחילה יום שנתנו בו לוחות אחרונות אלא חמשה עשר באב מאי היא אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל יום שהותרו שבטים לבא זה בזה מאי דרוש זה הדבר דבר זה לא יהא נוהג אלא בדור זה רבה בר בר חנה אמר רבי יוחנן יום שהותר שבט בנימן לבא בקהל דכתיב ואיש ישראל נשבע במצפה לאמר איש ממנו לא יתן בתו לבנימן לאשה מאי דרוש ממנו ולא מבנינו רב דימי בר יוסף אמר רב נחמן יום שכלו בו מתי מדבר דאמר מר עד שלא כלו מתי מדבר לא היה דיבור עם משה שנאמר ויהי כאשר תמו כל אנשי המלחמה למות מקרב העם וסמיך ליה וידבר ה' אלי לאמר אלי היה הדיבור עולא אמר יום שביטל בו הושע בן אלה פרדסאות שהושיב ירבעם על הדרכים שלא יעלו ישראל לרגל רב מתנה אמר יום שנתנו הרוגי ביתר לקבורה דאמר רב מתנה אותו היום שנתנו הרוגי ביתר לקבורה תקנו ביבנה הטוב והמטיב הטוב שלא הסריחו והמטיב שנתנו לקבורה רבה ורב יוסף דאמרי תרוייהו יום שפוסקין בו מלכרות עצים למערכה

יום שהותר שבט בנימן. כל הנך אמוראי לא פליגי אלא מר גמיר האי מרביה ומר גמיר האי מרביה

In the first example (BB 40a), Rava records a series of halachic rulings he heard in the name of Rav Nachman, concerning the amount of witnesses various transactions had to be conducted in front of, and which transactions, if they were to be recorded, required explicit verbal instructions from the parties. Rashbam wonders why all the like instructions were not presented as one simple rule, rather than stating each separately.  He explains that what appearsto be one statement in the name of Rav Nachman, actually took place over many separate occasions. Rav Nachman, at various times, taught about the various types of transactions, and Rava himself wove them together into a single statement.  Thus, while it might appear verbose in our text, Rava would have misquoted his teacher were he to have quoted him as though Rav Nachman had given a general rule. Instead, Rashbam explains, Rava quoted him accurately, one statement at a time.

In the second example (BB 49b), Rava pronounced a ruling that when one declines a rabbinic ordinance designed as an aid, “in such a situation” we accept his decision. The Gemaraasks what exactly “such a situation” is.  Rashbam clarifies that Rava issues his ruling in the context of a live discussion in the beis midrash.  Thus, he explains, what the Gemara really wants to know is, “what subject were they studying that day, when Rava made his pronouncement?” In so stating, Rashbam demonstrates an awareness that the give-and-take on any page of the Talmud did not take place in a vacuum (as we read it today), but rather, in the context of a lively study hall.  This awareness leads to a clearer understanding of the text.

In the third example (BB 121a), we read a long series of explanations from amoraim, explaining why the 15^th day of Av is considered a day of celebration. On the surface of the cold page of the Talmud it appears to be a great debate.  Rashbam explains that it is no debate; rather, each amora is merely registering what he heard from his teacher in an isolated setting. In other words, the amoraim might indeed differ in their explanations, but it was not in the context of an actual argument.  The difference is significant, because an actual debate implies that one does not agree with the reason advanced by the other.  As Rashbam explains it, there is no reason to suspect that the amoraimwould have disagreed with the other explanations.  They may well have agreed with these other explanation, they simply never heard them offered.

Here, then, are several examples where Rashbam shows a keen understanding of the development and background of the Talmudic passage. These examples, and others like it provide vivid illustrations of how knowing the background of a Talmudic passage gives one a clearer picture of the text being studied.[11]

Editors (Stama D’Gemara) of the Text

In recent years an approach to the study of Talmud known as Revadim (“layers”) has gained some degree of traction.  The approach seeks to uncover the various historical layers, or strata, often present in the Talmud, as a means to achieving clarity. In the following two examples, Rashbam provides us with the kernel of this idea, by showing the importance of knowing when an amoraor tanna is speaking, and when the anonymous editors of the Gemara are speaking.  It is not often easy to pick up where the one ends and the other begins.

4)     איתמר רב הונא אמר רב הלכה הלכה כדברי חכמים ורב ירמיה בר אבא אמר שמואל הלכה כרבי עקיבא אמר ליה רב ירמיה בר אבא לרב הונא והא זמנין סגיאין אמריתה קמיה דרב הלכתא כרבי עקיבא ולא אמר לי ולא מידי א"ל היכי תניתה א"ל איפכא תנינא משום הכי לא אמר לך ולא מידי

אמר ליה איפכא. לר' עקיבא בעין רעה ולרבנן בעין יפה וגמרא הוא דקמפרש דאיפכא הוה תני רב ירמיה ומיהו איהו לא אמר לרב הונא לשון זה איפכא תנינא שאם היה יודע שאין רב הונא שונה כמותו לא היה לו לתמוה דהיינו הך דבין לרב הונא בין לרב ירמיה הלכתא דבעין רעה מוכר

5)   אמר רב הלכה כדייני גולה אמרו ליה רב כהנא ורב אסי לרב הדר ביה מר משמעתיה אמר להו מסתברא אמרי כדרב יוסף

כדרב יוסף. גמרא הוא שקיצר דברי רב אבל רב לא הזכיר רב יוסף שהרי קדם לו רב הרבה דורות

Example # 4 (BB 65a) is cited by Professor Ta-Shma, in his survey of the literary history of European and North African Talmudic commentary, as a “particularly interesting” example of Rashbam’s focus on Talmudic methodology.[12]  The passage concerns a debate between R. Akiva and the Sages over an easement in a particular piece of property, and whether or not it is automatically included in a bill of sale. Rav Huna said in the name of Rav that the halachafollows the Sages, rather than R. Akiva. Rav Yirmiyahu then told Rav Huna that he often said “the opposite” to Rav, and wondered why Rav never said anything to him.

 Rashbam explains that Rav Yirmiyahu himself did not actually use the words “the opposite”, because it would then have been obvious to him why Rav never said anything.  Rather, says Rashbam, when the discussion between the two men occurred, Rav Yirmiyahu actually detailed how he had heard the halacha reported.  The report was - as the stama d’gemara tells us in a paraphrase – the opposite of how Rav himself reported the halacha. In other words, the discussion between Rav Yirmiyahu and Rav Huna never transpired in the way one would think from reading the text of the Gemara alone.

In the fifth example (BB 51a) the Gemara discusses whether one can obtain adverse possession (chazaka) in the property of a married woman. Rav held one could not, while the “Judges of the Exile” [Shmuel and Karna] held one could. When two of his students later heard a contrary ruling from Rav and asked about it, Rav said he was referring to the case mentioned by Rav Yosef.  Rashbam explains that Rav could not possibly have mentioned Rav Yosef by name, since the latter lived several generations later. Rather, he continues, the stama d’gemara is abridging Rav’s statement. In actuality, Rav proceeded to describe a case similar to a case described earlier by Rav Yosef, in which case Rav would agree that one could have chazaka.  In this way, the text of the Gemara makes perfect sense.

Here, then, are two examples where Rashbam demonstrates how knowing when the first person is speaking, and when the editor is speaking, helps us with our grasp of the Gemara.

Use of Critical Editions

Although “critical editions” as we know them did not exist in his time, Rashbam’s frequent citations to the “precise editions” or his usage of comparative texts is based upon the very same principles of scholarship used in preparing today’s critical editions.  In a famous statement, Rashbam’s brother Rabbeinu Tam remarked that for every statement amended by Rashi, his brother Shmuel, basing himself upon older texts, would amend twenty.[13]  The following are some examples.

6)                      וכדברי ר"ע בית רובע מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה לא דזבין ליה חצי סאה

ה"ג וכדברי ר"ע בית רובע מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה לא דזבין ליה חצי סאה. והכי קפריך מאי לאו דזבין ליה סאה ואפ"ה לא אמרי' נותן חצי רובע לכל חצי סאה דהוי מחילה אלא כיון דהוי ליה בין כל המותרות שיעור גנה הדרי כרב הונא חצי רובע הוי מחילה לחצי סאה כי היכי דרובע הוי מחילה לסאה ומשני דזבין ליה חצי סאה הלכך חצי רובע הוי מחילה וטפי מחצי רובע יעשה חשבון רובע דהוי שיעור גנה יחזיר כן נראה בעיני ועיקר וכן מצאתי כתוב בספרים מדויקים

7)        אמר רבא בלע מצה יצא בלע מרור לא יצא בלע מצה ומרור ידי מצה יצא ידי מרור לא יצא כרכן בסיב ובלען אף ידי מצה נמי לא יצא

בלע מרור לא יצא. דבעינן טעם מרור וליכא דמשום הכי קפיד רחמנא למרר את פיו של אוכל זכר לוימררו את חייהם (שם א)כך מצאתי כתוב בכל הספריםובפי' ר"ח ורבינו פי' בלע מרור יצא א"א שלא יהא בו טעם מרור בלע מצה ומרור יחד ולא אכל עדיין לא מזה ולא מזה ידי מצה יצא ידי מרור לא יצא הואיל ולא לעסו ואכל מצה עמו אין לו שום טעם ולפי הכתוב בספרים צריך לפרש בלע מצה ומרור ידי מצה מיהו יצא דלא תימא אף ידי מצה לא יצא דאיכא תרתי לריעותא שלא טעם טעם מצה וגם לא נגע בגרונו שהמרור חוצץ בינתיים

In these two examples (BB 104b) and (Pesachim 115b) Rashbam shows how he uses the best available texts.  In the first example Rashbam recites the explanations of the text, stating that it (the explanation) is based upon what he found in the most “precise” texts. Similarly, in the second example he gives an explanation from what he found in “all the books”, implying that he used more than one edition in preparing his commentaries.

These examples can also be multiplied, see Pesachim 108b (Ketani Mihas) and BB 85b (bein pesak) (in some editions) for similar usages. On other occasions Rashbam tells us he consulted “older texts” (e.g., BB 87a and 87b.)   In general, Rashbam frequently employs language telling us how the proper text should read.  As noted by R. Ephraim Urbach, “Rashbam devoted great attention to clarifying the Talmudic text.”[14]

Talmudic Methodology

In his Biblical commentary, Rashbam devoted great attention to uncovering the conventions and methodology of scripture.[15]  In the following examples, we shall see that Rashbam devoted no less attention to the general principles and postulates used by the Talmud.

8)     איידי דתנא רישא כו'. לא גרסינן ושיבוש הוא ויש מפרשים דאשובר קאי ולמימרא דאיהי יהבה השכר ולא הבעל ואיידי דתנא רישא בדידיה משום גט שהבעל נותן שכר תנא נמי בדידיה גבי שובר ולאו דוקא ואין זה שיטת גמרא למיתניה בדידיה שיקרא משום רישא

9)     יתיב רב אידי בר אבין קמיה דרב חסדא ויתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דרב הונא הא דאמרת שינוי מקום צריך לברך לא שנו אלא מבית לבית אבל ממקום למקום לא א"ל רב אידי בר אבין הכי תנינא לי' במתניתא דבי רב הינק ואמרי ליה במתניתא דבי בר הינק כוותיך ואלא רב הונא מתניתא קמ"ל רב הונא מתניתא לא שמיע ליה ותו יתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה הא דאמרת שינוי מקום צריך לברך לא אמרן אלא בדברים שאין טעונין ברכה לאחריהן במקומן אבל דברים הטעונין ברכה לאחריהן במקומן אין צריך לברך מאי טעמא לקיבעא קמא הדר

ה"ג במתני' דבי רב הינק כוותיך ותו יתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה ולא גרסי' מתני' אתא לאשמועי' ושיבוש גמור היא שכן הוא שיטת הגמרא להשמיענו האמורא דבר המפורש בברייתא דזימנין שאין הכל בקיאין בברייתא וגם האמורא עצמו זימנין דלא ידע לה לההיא ברייתא עד דמייתי ליה סייעתא מיני' ולפי שראו דיתיב רב חסדא וקאמר משמיה דנפשיה וטעו לומר מכלל שחזר בו ממה שאמר למעלה משמיה דרב הונא והגיהו בספרים קושיא זו ואינה אלא שני דברים אמר רב חסדא בההיא ברייתא חדא משמיה דרב הונא וחדא משמיה דנפשיה

In example #8, cited above with no Talmudic text, Rashbam tell us (BB 168a) that a certain proposed text should be deleted or otherwise not included in the Talmudic passage.  The particulars need not concern us, but Rashbam dispenses with the proposed text by calling it mistaken, and observing that is not the method of the Talmud to teach us a mistaken ruling, simply in order to bring us to a different conclusion.

In example #9 (Pesachim 101b), Rashbam employs nearly identical language, again in deleting the existing text, which had questioned why an amora (Rav Chisda, in this case) would teach us a halacha if it was already known from an earlier baraisa.  Rashbam rejects the text, explaining that it is indeed the way of the Talmud for an amorato teach us something, even thought that “something” might be found explicitly in an earlier baraisa, because not all amoraim were familiar with all the baraisos.  In the particular case in front of us, Rashbam proceeds to explain, someone had thought to amend the text because Rav Chisda appeared to be retracting from a statement he made earlier.  Rashbam explains that there was no retraction, and it was a mistake to amend the text.

Thus, here again are two examples where Rashbam’s knowledge of what Talmudic methodology consists of, and what it does not consist of, not only clarifies the meaning of the Talmudic passage, but actually helps us with establishing the correct text itself. Other examples are adduced by Professor Ta-Shma.[16]  In this regard, Rashbam was simply employing the same methods and methodology he had already established in his Biblical commentary.

Aversion to Exaggeration

As it is important for students of any discipline to separate fact from fiction, it is likewise important to distinguish the literal from the exaggerated. Understanding the difference, Rashbam demonstrates, can bring meaning to otherwise incomprehensible Talmudic passages.

10)      א"ר לוי משאוי שלש מאות פרדות לבנות היו מפתחות בית גנזיו של קרח וכולהו אקלידי וקליפי דגלדא

משוי שלש מאות. לאו דוקא וכן כל שלש מאות שבש"ס

11)      אמר רב זביד האי יומא קמא דריש שתא אי חמים כולה שתא חמימא אי קריר כולה שתא קרירא

כולה שתא חמימא. כלומר רוב השנה

12)      ארבעה דברים צוה רבינו הקדוש את בניו אל תדור בשכנציב משום דליצני הוו ומשכו לך בליצנותא ואל תשב על מטת ארמית איכא דאמרי דלא תיגני בלא קרית שמע ואיכא דאמרי דלא תינסב גיורתא ואיכא דאמרי ארמאית ממש ומשום מעשה דרב פפא ואל תבריח עצמך מן המכס דילמא משכחו לך ושקלי מנך כל דאית לך ואל תעמוד בפני השור בשעה שעולה מן האגם מפני שהשטן מרקד בין קרניו

שהשטן מרקד. לאו דווקא אלא משוגע כדמפרש לקמן

In example #10 (Pesachim 119a) R. Levi informs us it took three hundred mules to carry the keys of Korach’s treasure houses. Rashbam, in a typically understated way, tells us the number 300 is an exaggerated number, “and so too are all uses of the number 300 in shas”.  Presumably Rashbam would say the same of other such common numbers in shas, such as 400 or 13. They are mere exaggerations, and not to be taken literally.[17]

In example #11 (Bava Basra 147a), R. Zvid posits a sort of “Groundhog Day” rule for predicting the weather: If the first day of the New Year is warm, all the rest of year will be warm. If it is cold, all the rest of year will be cold. Rashbam is sensitive to the overstatement, and explains that “all” merely means “most”, thus removing the hyperbole from R. Zvid’s statement.

In example #12, Rabbeinu Hakodesh [R. Yehuda Ha-Nasi] gave four bits of advice to his children.  The fourth directive is to avoid standing in the path of an ox when it comes out of the swamp, because at that time “the accuser (satan) is to be found between its horns.”  Here again, Rashbam informs us that the statement is not intended to be literal, and merely means that an ox at that time will be found in a state of agitation.

Thus, in these cases and others like it, the Rashbam displays a marked tendency towards the rationalist point of view, and away from the hyperbolic or exaggerated.

In one important way, however, the sense of rationalism found within Rashbam’s commentary must be qualified, and that is when it comes to matter of halacha.  In his commentary to the Torah, Rashbam focused simply on explaining the meaning of the text, with no attempt to grapple with or address the halacha.  Thus, Rashbam felt no constraints in explaining the plain meaning of the verse as he saw it.  In his Talmudic commentary, however, Rashbam has an entirely different goal. This does not mean Rashbam was a “halachically responsive, but anti-peshat Talmudic exegete”, as one notable authority has argued.[18]  Rather, it simply means Rashbam allowed himself more freedom in his works on the Torah than he did on shas. To refer to Rashbam as “anti-peshat”, seems to this writer an unfair characterization of Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary.

Field Research

A charming old tale, whose origins are lost in time, speaks of a heated debate among scholars debating the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth. After many days and nights of arguing, a novel solution is proposed: head to the nearest stable and count! The outrageous proposal is met with frowns and disgust, and thus the scholars are doomed to continue the debate forever more.

The moral, of course, is that “book-learning” alone is insufficient; it must be accompanied by actual field research into the realia of the subjects being studied.  In our times, this issue has often been characterized as the debate over knowing what Rashi wore as opposed to what he said.[19]  The truth is that both are important, as demonstrated by Rashbam in the following examples.

13)       אמר רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטים ואחד אומר אכלה שעורים הרי זו חזקה מתקיף לה ר"נ אלא מעתה אחד אומר אכלה ראשונה שלישית וחמישית ואחד אומר אכלה שניה רביעית וששית הכי נמי דהויא חזקה

מתקיף לה ר"נ אלא מעתה כו'. ר"נ לא היה יודע טעמו של רב יהודה המפורש לפנינו דבין חטין ושעורין טעו אינשי אלא ס"ל דהא דקאמר רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטין ואחד אומר אכלה שעורין כו' לאו באותן ג' שנים דקמסהיד האי מסהיד האי דא"כ עדות מוכחשת היא ותיבטל אלא ס"ל לר"נ דה"ק רב יהודה אחד אומר אכלה חטין ג' שנים כפי מנהג עובדי אדמה ואחד אומר אכלה שעורים שלש שנים כפי מנהג עובדי אדמה והיינו שש שנים בדילוג ושאלתי לעובדי האדמה ואמרו לי שלעולם כך הוא המנהג שנה אחת חטין ושנה אחת שעורין כן כל הימים ואינה צריכה שביתה כלוםה"ז חזקה שהרי אין מכחישים זה את זה כלל וממ"נ כל אחד מעיד שאכלה שני חזקה והלכך הויא חזקה דדמיא להא דר' יהושע בן קרחה דאמרי' בפירקין לעיל (דף לב.)אין עדותם מצטרפת עד שיראו שניהם כאחד ר' יהושע בן קרחה אומר אפי' בזה אחר זה וטעמא דר' יהושע מפורש בסנהדרין בפ' זה בורר דאע"ג דאמנה דקמסהיד האי לא מסהיד האי מיהו תרוייהו אמנה קמסהדי והכא נמי תרוייהו אחזקה קמסהדי

14)     אמרו עליו על רבי עקיבא שהיה מחלק קליות ואגוזין לתינוקות בערב פסח כדי שלא ישנו וישאלו

קליות. קלי מחטים ישנים דחדש אסור עדיין בלילה הראשון של פסח ומקומות יש בספרד שמייבשין חטים ישנים במחבת על גבי האור ואוכלין אותם עם אגוזים בקינוח סעודה מפי רבינו שמואל החסיד

In example #13 (BB 56b), the issue at hand concerns adverse possession. If one witness sees the occupier taking wheat, and the other says he observed him taking barley, this is sufficient to take possession. R. Nachman demurred, observing that were this to be the case, if one witness observed the occupier taking crops in the first, third, and firth years, while another witness reported it in the second, fourth, and sixth years, it would also be sufficient.  In explaining why this troubled R. Nachman, Rashbam asserts that the passage is dealing with the method of crop farming.  In passing, Rashbam tells us “I asked the farmers, and they told me this was their custom, to plant wheat one year, and barley the next year, without any need to leave the ground fallow.”  The Rashbam thus approached the experts – farmers, in this case – to know their precise methods, so that it would help him understand the sugya.

In the 14^th and final example (Pesachim 109a), Rashbam wishes to explain the word “keliyos”, which are to be distributed to children on Passover eve, as a mean to keep the children up.  Rashbam explains (citing another source) that such “keliyos” are actually made from the old grain (yoshon), and reports that there are places in Spain where such “Keliyos” are eaten regularly as a sort of dessert.

Thus, in these examples we see how Rashbam would cite others or speak to others to ascertain technical terms or practices.  Rashbam would not hesitate to use field research or go “outside the page”, if it helped him understand the text.

*   *   *

      We have shown, I hope, that the impression some have of a Rashbam whose greatness shines through only in his Biblical works is profoundly mistaken. The examples above show the Rashbam using the full range of modern research tools to examine the Talmudic text in front of him.  Far from using dual approaches to the Torah and the Talmud, Rashbam employs a single, unified method throughout his commentary.

 Though unquestionably lengthier than that of his illustrious grandfather, Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary displays all the hallmarks of intellectual rigor that have endeared him to so many moderns.  If the academic community, or indeed, anyone wishes to see a complete picture of the man and his methods, it would do well to look again, for the first time, at Rashbam’s commentary to shas.

---

[1] See, e.g., Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (Oxford University Press, 2011) “Since its emergence in the Middle Ages, Peshathas remained an important focus of Jewish Bible Study (and in modern times has been viewed as a forerunner of the historical critical method) (etc.)” (Entry on Peshat); Cf. also the remarks of Professor Martin Lockshin upon the publication of his two-volume edition of Rashbam’s commentary to the Torah, referring to Rashbam as the most prominent among the Northern French scholars whose style “closely resembles the work of modern academic Bible scholars today.” (Cited in York University YFile, 9/11/09.)

[2] Sara Japhet, The Commentary of Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job(Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2000) p 9-10, cited by Mayer Gruber, Rashi’s Commentary to Psalms, (JPS, 2004) at 43.

[3] Entry on Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam). The entry found in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1972) is no different substantially.

[4]Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion(Mordechai Cohen) JQR 98:3 Summer 2008, 388-408.

[5]http://manuscriptboy.blogspot.com/2011/05/peering-through-conferenceshttpwwwblogg.html.

[6] Ephraim Urbach, Ballei Ha-Tosafot, Volume I, p.53. As Urbach explains, two different editions of Rashbam’s commentary on Bava Basra exist. In this essay I have used the (lengthier) edition found in the standard volumes of the Vilna shas.

[7]Pinchas Hayman, Implications of Academic Approaches to the Study of the Babylonian Talmud for the Beliefs and Religious Attitudes of the Student, printed in Abiding Challenges: Research Perspectives on Jewish Education (Freund Publishing House, Bar Ilan University 1999) pp 375 ff.  See also the (negative) review of Dr. Hayman’s article by Rabbi Gil Student on the popular Torah Musings (formerly Hirhurim) website, May 24, 2004.

[8]Shamma Friedman, Five Sugyot From the Babylonia Talmud: The Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud (Jerusalem 2002) English Introduction; idem, “The Talmud Today” appearing in Jewish Book Annual, www.atranet.co.il/sf.talmud_today.pdf. and the extensive bibliography and websites listed therein. 

[9]Some (but not all) of these points overlap with the six points listed by Hayman, supra.

[10] Of note, in Rashi’s Methodology in his Exegesis of the Babylonian Talmud (Jerusalem, Magnes Press 1980), the late Dr. Yona Frankel writes only that Rashbam “occasionally followed the approach of Rashi in Bava Basra, and occasionally did not follow him.” (p. 201.) It is beyond the scope of this exploratory essay to examine the influences upon Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary, and the ways in which he contributed to the Tosafos (“Tosafos shelanu”) that appear in standard texts of the Talmud. The academic nature of Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary is evident there as well. (See e.g., Zevachim 102b s.v. Parich, where Rashbam deduces from the unusual language of R. Achai that the passage must date from Geonic times.) However, our limited inquiry must be limited to an examination of Rashbam’s sustained running commentary, rather than selected statements as they appear in Tosafos.

[11]See also Rashbam to BB 141a (D’tanya) for a similar example.

[12]Yisrael Ta-Shma, Ha-Safrut Ha-Parshanit La-Talmud (Jerusalem 1999) at 63. Ta-Shma devotes several pages to Rashbam’s commentary, but not specifically to the more academic features of it.

[13]Sefer Hayashar, Introduction (Zhitomir 1869)

[14]Ballei Ha-Tosafot,supra, at 47.

[15]See The Torah Commentary of Rabbi Samuel Ben Meir (1982, unpublished doctoral dissertation for Harvard University) by מורי Rabbi Moshe Berger, at 77. (“A major characteristic of both Rashi and Rashbam’s Torah exegesis is their search for darkei hamikraot . . . . Indeed, it is probably this element more than any other that has won for these exegetes the admiration of modern scholars . . . (etc.)”

[16]Ta-Shma, supra, citing Rashbam to BB 39a amar rava; 43a yihu; 51a kidirav Yosef, and several others.

[17]See Rashi to Shabbos 119a s.v. treisar, stating the number 13 is an exaggerated number. (תריסר עיליתי דדינרי. עליות מלאות דינרי זהב וגוזמא בעלמא הוא כלומר הון עתק מאד כך פירש רבינו הלוי וכן בכל מקום כגון תליסר גמלי ספיקי טריפתא (חולין דף צה:)וכן תליסר טבחי דלעיל)

[18]David Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (Oxford University Press 1991) at 170

[19]See Shamma Friedman, Five Sugyot, supra.

Blazing Critics

December 1, 2012, 8:57 pm

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Recently, the question of how critical a reviewer should be was raised by Pete Wells' review of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant.  In that review, Wells eviscerates everything about the restaurant.  For example, he asks Mr. Fieri: 

"Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?" 

Needless to say, Mr. Fieri was not pleased and he fired back, alleging that Wells had ulterior motives.  The internets were sent a twitter about the "feud" and this ultimately led to a piece by the Times Public Editor defending the snarky review - or the "all guns blazing" review.  In her defense, rather than just offer that Mr. Wells, as a critic, had a duty to candidly review Mr. Fieri's resturant, the editor helpfully collected other such examples of "classic" all-guns blazing reviews.  

We discuss one one, well known, Jewish example here. 

But, perhaps the most well known example of a candid review is that of Professor H. Soloveitchik's review of Peter J. Haas in AJS, 24:2 (1999) 343-57 ($).  Indeed, Soloveitchik's review was referenced in the movie Footnote, where a doctoral student is the stand in for Haas and is berated with a version of  "[o]ur author is apparently unaware of the writings of Yitzhak Baer, Salo Baron, Eliezer Bashan, H.H. Ben-Sasson, Menahem Ben-Sasson, Reuven Bonfil, and Mordechai Bruer, to mention only historians whose names begin with B."  344.  

Soloveitchik has another recent "all guns blazing" review worth mentioning.  This one, published in the Jewish Review of Books, where he reviews ($) Tayla Fishman's award winning, People of the Book.  To be fair, it appears that Soloveitchik long ago apprised Fishman of his views and warned her that he would review her book and air his views to the world.  Soloveitchik explains that he is "thanked for reading a draft of one chapter."  But, he continues that based upon that reading he "strongly urged Dr. Fishman" that she should "not publish and further informed her that as her writing would mislead English-speaking readers, most of whom know nothing about rabbinics" and thus he "would feel obligated to review the book."  The substance of the review argues that Fishman displays not even a basic familiarity with the Tosefot, the focus of her book.  Obviously, the whole review is worth reading, but Soloveitchik's opinion is readily gleaned by his explanation as to the futility in even attempting to reconstruct where Fishman's  misunderstandings lead her astray.  After spending much time on this endeavor he had the epiphany that she was not just misunderstanding the texts because "misunderstanding requires partial understanding." Consequently, he offers, "if this fractional comprehension is lacking, there are no parameters limiting the interpretation; the meaning of the source will then be whatever the writer wishes it to mean, or, absent this bias, whatever comes to mind."     

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

December 5, 2012, 9:16 am

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German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

Marc B. Shapiro

1. I recently published a translation of Hirsch’s famous lecture on Schiller. You can see it here.

At first I thought that this lecture remained untranslated into English for so long because of ideological concerns. (I still think that this is the reason it was never translated into Hebrew.) Yet before the article appeared, I was informed that the reason it did not appear in the English translation of the Collected Writings of Hirsch was not due to ideological censorship, but censorship of a different sort (see the article, note 2). I will let readers decide if this was a smart choice or not. I plan on publishing another translation from Hirsch which has also never appeared in English or Hebrew, and which many people will regard as not “religiously correct” for the twenty-first century.

With regard to the Schiller lecture, I thank Elan Rieser who called my attention to the following: Hirsch quoted Schiller as saying about a plant, “What it [the plant] unwittingly is, be thou of thine own free will.” It so happens that this very thought also appears in the Nineteen Letters, Elias translation, p. 56: “The law to which all forces submit instinctively and involuntarily—to this law you, too, are to subordinate yourself, but consciously and of your own free will.” This shows that even in his earliest work, Hirsch was influenced by Schiller.

While on the topic of non-Jewish writers influencing German rabbis, here is another example which might lead some to wonder if we have crossed the line from influence into plagiarism. (I do not think so, as I will explain.) Rabbi Marcus Lehmann (1831-1890) was a well-known German Orthodox rabbi. He served as rabbi of Mainz and was founder and editor of the Orthodox newspaper Der Israelit. Apart from his scholarly endeavors, he published a series of children’s books, and is best known for that. These were very important as they gave young Orthodox Jews a literature that reflected traditional Jewish values and did not have the Christian themes and references common in secular literature. Yet despite their value for the German Orthodox, R. Israel Salanter was upset when one of Lehmann’s stories (Süss Oppenheimer) was translated into Hebrew and published in the Orthodox paper Ha-Levanon. Although R. Israel recognized that Lehmann’s intentions were pure and that his writings could be of great service to the German Orthodox, it was improper for the East European youth to read Lehmann’s story because there were elements of romantic love in it. This is reported by R. Isaac Jacob Reines, Shnei ha-Meorot, Ma’amar Zikaron ba-Sefer, part 1, p. 46. Here is the relevant passage:

והנה ברור הדבר בעיני כי הרה"צ רמ"ל כיון בהספור הזה לש"ש, ויכול היות כי יפעל מה בספורו זה על האשכנזים בכ"ז לא נאה לפני רב ממדינתינו להעתיק ספור כזה שסוף סוף יש בו מענייני אהבה.

This passage is followed by another, which was made famous by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg in Seridei Esh, vol. 2 no. 8. This is Weinberg’s well-known responsum on co-ed groups. He describes how R. Israel Salanter visited R. Esriel Hildesheimer and saw him giving a shiur in Tanakh and Shulhan Arukh before young women. R. Israel commented that if a rabbi from Lithuania would institute such a practice in his community they would throw him out of his position, and rightfully so. Yet he only hoped that he would be worthy enough to share a place in the World to Come with Hildesheimer: הלואי שיהי' חלקי בג"ע עם הגה"צ ר"ע הילדסהיימר.

Weinberg doesn’t say where he learnt of this story, but it comes from Reines, who heard it directly from R. Israel Salanter. Yet Weinberg’s recollection was not exact. Before World War II, Weinberg had access to Shnei ha-Meorot, and he refers to it in his essay on Reines (Seridei Esh, vol. 4, p. 355, originally published before the War). After the War he no longer had access to this book, and thus was not able to check R. Israel Salanter’s exact words. Although, based on Weinberg, people often repeat Salanter’s comment that he hopes for a share of the World to Come together with Hildesheimer, he never actually said this. Here are his words, as recorded by the only witness, Reines, and I hope that from now on the great R. Israel Salanter will be quoted accurately. (The passage in the parenthesis is a comment from Reines himself.)

הלכתי לבקר גם את ביה"ס אשר לבנות, ששמעתי שגם שם מגיד הרה"ג הנ"ל [הילדסהיימר] איזה שעור, ומצאתי שבחדר גדול ורחב ידים עומד באמצע שולחן גדול וסביב השולחן יושבות נערות גדולות, והרה"ג הנ"ל בראש השלחן מגיד לפניהם שעור בשו"ע (הוא אמר לי אז גם באיזה הלכה שאמר להם אבל שכחתי) והוסיף לומר בזה"ל "ברור הדבר בעיני כי כוונת הרב היא לש"ש, וגם נעלה הדבר בעיני מכל ספק, כי כל התלמידות האלה השומעות לקח מפיו תהיינה לנשים כשירות, תמלאנה כל המצות שהנשים חייבות בהן, תחנכנה ילדיהן על דרכי התורה והאמונה, באופן שיש לומר בוודאות גמורה ומוחלטת כי הרה"ג הנ"ל עושה בזה דבר גדול באין ערוך, בכ"ז ינסה נא רב במדינתינו לעשות ב"ס כזה, הלא יקראו אחריו מלא ומן גיוו יגרשוהו; ואין ספק כי יהי' מוכרח לנער את חצני' מן הרבנות כי לא תהלמו עוד", כל הדברים האלה דבר הרה"ג הצדיק הנ"ל בהתרגשות מיוחדה והתלהבות יתירה

Returning to Lehmann, one of his short stories is titled Ithamar. Eliezer Abrahamson called my attention to the fact that chapter 17 tells the same story as is found in Lew Wallace’s classic American novel, Ben-Hur, Book 3, chs. 2-3. I prefer to call this “borrowing”, rather than plagiarism, since Ben-Hur was a worldwide sensation and Lehmann was not trying to hide his borrowing. At that time, any adult reading Lehmann’s book would know what he was basing the chapter on, and that he was providing a Jewish version of certain episodes. In fact, the name of the main character of Lehmann’s book, Ithamar (not a very common name), is also the name of the father of the main character of Ben-Hur (Judah ben Ithamar ben Hur). By naming his character Ithamar, Lehmann was signaling his debt to Wallace.[1]

Regarding Lehmann’s stories, in the 1990s they also appeared in a censored haredi version. Ha-Modia actually published an article attacking this “reworking”. Here it is, followed by the response. (You can right-click to open larger images, or download it as a pdf here.)

I found these on my computer and don’t remember anymore how I got them (and unfortunately, there is no date visible on the articles). Click them to enlarge.

2. Not too long ago Hakirah 13 (2012) appeared, and as with the previous issues, it is a great collection of articles. The other Orthodox journals have to ask themselves why Hakirah has been so successful in overshadowing them. I think the answer is obvious. Hakirah is not afraid to take risks in what they publish. They don’t mind rocking the boat a bit, and dealing with controversial matters. I want to respond to two articles in the issue. The first is R. Elazar Muskin’s piece in which he discusses a 1954 Yom ha-Atzmaut event in Cleveland, which featured R. Elijah Meir Bloch, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Telz yeshiva. From the article one sees that Bloch had a positive attitude towards the State of Israel. Before reading further, I suggest people look over Muskin’s article again, so you can best appreciate that which will follow. You can find the article here.

Muskin notes that Bloch’s letter justifying his appearance at the Yom ha-Atzmaut event was published in R. Joseph Epstein’s 1969 book Mitzvot ha-Shalom. Although there have been many books that express a positive, or tolerant, view towards Zionism, anti-Zionist extremists chose to focus on this volume. Muskin quotes Gerald Parkoff who wrote as follows in a letter published in the Torah u-Madda Journal 9 (2000), p. 279:

When the first edition of the Mizvot ha-Shalom was published, the unsold inventory, which represented most of the extant copies, was kept in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. As it turned out, the sefer came to the attention of some misguided people[2] who were particularly upset with Rabbi Epstein’s association of Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch with Yom ha-Azmaut. They proceeded to burn the first edition of Mizvot ha-Shalom in Rabbi Epstein’s garage. Subsequently, the perpetrators of this dastardly act were found and brought to a Satmar Bet Din. Financial restitution was then made to Rabbi Epstein.

As Parkoff notes, when the next edition of the work was published, Epstein took out Bloch’s letter, so as not to have another confrontation with the extremists. Yet something doesn’t make sense. Why would Satmar (or Satmar-like) extremists care about a letter from Bloch in Epstein’s book? What does this have to do with them? The extremists certainly had no interest in defending the honor of an Agudist whose ideology is rejected by them just as they reject the Mizrachi position. So why would they care about Epstein’s book at all?

If you compare the first edition of Mitzvot ha-Shalom to the second edition, the answer is, I think, obvious, and it has nothing to do with the Bloch letter. Pages 605-624 from the first edition are omitted in the second edition. The first few pages of this is Bloch’s letter, but beginning on p. 612 there is a section titled “Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Teshuvah.” This section is a rejection of R. Joel Teitelbaum’s views (in which, by the way, Epstein refers to the writings or R. Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, R. Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, and R. Menachem M. Kasher). The very title of the section is an allusion to the Satmar Rav’s book, Al ha-Geulah ve-al ha-Temurah. While Epstein’s views are expressed respectfully, it is easy to see why the extremists would have gone after him, as a means of upholding the honor of their Rebbe. They presumably also saw the following passage, p. 611, as directed against the Satmar Rav, and even if it wasn’t directed against him personally, it is certainly directed against his followers.

אמנם השטן מרקד בין תלמידי חכמים על תלמי הפירוד והפילוג בישראל להטיל קטטיגוריא ביניהם, עד כדי השמצת שמות אהלי תורה ויראה, ועד כדי הורדת כבוד גדולים ארצה בכתבי פלסתר והוצאת דיבה, ללא חשש הלבנת פנים, וחטא מבזה תלמיד חכם, ונמצאים נכשלים בחטאים יותר חמורים מאלה שבאו לצעוק עליהם.

On p. 615 he writes as follows (even referring to the Satmar Rav’s views as “has ve-shalom”):

עיני גדולי וצדיקי הדור רואים נסים ונפלאות (ראה לעיל מבוא, מ"מ 32) – קול דודי דופק – אם אתחלתא דגאולה, אם רק פקידה, אם רק רמז רמיזה "מן החרכים" מאבינו שבשמים לריצוי, לפיוס – בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לן – איתערותא דלעילא הקוראת לאיתערותא דלתתא – וכי כל זה אך אור מתעה הוא חו"ש? (ראה "על הגאולה ועל התמורה עמ' כ' . . . )

I found a relevant “open letter” in the R. Leo Jung archives, File 2/1, at Yeshiva University. I thank the Yeshiva University Archives for permission to reproduce the letter here.

From this letter we see again that the issue had nothing to do with Bloch. Yet since there were other people attacking the Satmar Rav’s views during this time, I still think we need an explanation as to why these crazies decided to focus on Epstein. From the “open letter” it would appear that this was just another way to attack R. Moshe Feinstein, who wrote a haskamah for Epstein. In the “open letter” it states that if R. Moshe does not retract his haskamah then those behind the letter will take action. This action no doubt includes the burning of Epstein's sefer.[3]

Here is how these wicked people expressed themselves, sounding just like mobsters:

משה'לע תדע שזה היא האזהרה האחרונה שאם לא תתחרט ברבים על ההסכמה שכתבת להספר הנ"ל לא נבוא עוד בכתב רק בידים נעשה מעשים נבהלים שתסמר שערות ראשך שתבוש להראות פרצופך הטמא.

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, he was a real Agudist, even serving on the U.S. Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah. Yet his positive view of the establishment of the State of Israel is not unexpected. I say this because his father, R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva of Telz and also rav of the city – the combination of rosh yeshiva and city rav was not so common [4] – appeared to be inclined to a type of Religious Zionism. Here is his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, published in the latter’s Li-Netivot Yisrael (Beit El, 2001), vol. 1.

 

I realize that R. Joseph Leib Bloch is usually portrayed as a strong anti-Zionist. This needs further investigation, but it could be that his opposition was only against secular Zionism and what he regarded as the Mizrachi’s compromises with the secular Zionists. From his letter, we see that he had a much different view of R. Kook’s Degel Yerushalayim.[5]

The letter above that of R. Joseph Leib Bloch is from R. Avraham Shapiro, the Kovno Rav, who unlike many other Lithuanian gedolim was a real opponent of Agudat Israel. (Another noteworthy opponent was R. Moses Soloveitchik.) Here is R. Shapiro’s picture.

R. Shapiro also was a supporter of Religious Zionism and a great admirer of R. Kook. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a biography of his life. Those who want to know a little more about his attitude towards Zionism can see his 1919 letter to R. Kook in Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 94. Here he writes as follows:

החלטנו שבהמעשים הפוליטיים להשגת חפצנו באה"ק, כלומר העבודה לפני אסיפת השלו', נלך ביחד עם הציונים שלא בהתפוררות כבאי כח מפלגה ומפלגה, כי אם כבאי כח כל העם העברים בסתם. למטרה זו נבחרה קומיסיה פוליטית לבוא בדברים עם הציונים, וכבר נעשה הצעדים הדרושים לזה. מקוה אני שתמצא הדרך להתאחדות הפעולות.

We see very clearly from this letter that the Kovno Rav supported working with the non-Orthodox Zionists in order to achieve the Zionist objective, which became a real possibility after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1.

In a 1921 letter to R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, p. 557, the Kovno Rav refers to the Agudah paper Ha-Derekh in a mocking tone: כפי שראיתי מ"הדרך" לא-דרך. In this letter he tells R. Zvi Yehudah that it is important for the Orthodox in Palestine to be involved in the political process that was set up by the British Mandatory authorities. Yet instead of doing that, he claims that the Orthodox have turned a large portion of the women against them, alluding towards the Eretz Yisrael rabbis’ ruling forbidding women’s suffrage, a ruling which R. Avraham Yitzhak Kook was at the forefront of. Look at these words and remember that the one writing them was one of the greatest poskim of his time, the great rav of Kovno, not some minor Mizrachi figure:

האומנם חושבים הם את השתתפות הנשים לאיסור גמור המפורש בתורה שאין אומרים בו מוטב יהיו שוגגים כו'? לדעתי הסכילו עשה.

This opposition to women voting in Israeli elections has disappeared from the haredi world, for obvious political reasons. Yet examination of haredi writings leads to the conclusion that female suffrage is only a hora’at sha’ah, and that if the haredim ever became a majority the right to vote would be removed from women. But I think that this is more theory than reality, as I can’t imagine that even a haredi society would take this step as the backlash from women would be quite significant. As for the followers of R. Kook, do they also think that female suffrage is hora’at sha’ah and hope for a day when the vote will be taken away from women, for all the reasons R. Kook offered? Based on a recent statement by R. Aviner, it appears that for some of them the answer to this question is yes.

The Kovno Rav ends his letter to R. Zvi Yehudah with these strong words against Agudat Israel:

כנראה אסע אי"ה בקרוב בשביל צרכי צבור ללונדון. כמובן לא בשביל אגודת-ישראל. כנראה אחר כ' את האספה בפ"ב. מה דעתו עליה? אנכי בכוונה לא נטלתי חלק בה, לפי שכל מעשיהם עד עכשיו אינם רצוים בעיני ואינם בדרך האמת. הדו"ח של רוזנהיים לא הי' אמת. הקומיסא הפוליטית איננה יודעת מאום מאשר עשו ולכה"פ אנכי איני מסכים על כל דרכיהם שהזיקו רק להאורטודקכסיא ולא לאחרים. אני אומר זאת לכל מפורש מבלי התחבא בהשקפתי.

I mention the Kovno Rav’s opposition to Agudat Yisrael not only for its historical significance, but also because it brings us back to a time when Agudat Israel actually did something other than put on a big Daf Yomi celebration every seven years.[6] There was a time when Agudat Israel tried to accomplish great things, so there was reason to oppose it by those who thought that it was moving in the wrong direction. Today, however, what is Agudat Israel? There was a time when it was a movement, and today it is a lobbying organization, pure and simple, and without much influence at that. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t even have a website or a journal. You sink into oblivion, only to be remembered in another seven years at the next Siyum ha-Shas.

In a 1931 letter to R. Kook, Iggerot la-Re’iyah, no. 273, the Kovno Rav asks R. Kook if he agrees with him that a world congress of rabbis should be convened – אספת רבנים עולמית . I mention this only because in later years it became almost an article of faith in the haredi world that such rabbinic gatherings were absolutely forbidden. The fear was that the gatherings would make decisions at odds with the haredi Daas Torah. The only way to make sure that their followers would not attend these gatherings, where they might actually hear different viewpoints, was for the haredi leaders to ban these gatherings.[7] This is as good an example of any of how the haredi leadership uses its rabbinic “muscle” for political goals. If someone were to ask on what basis can one state that it is forbidden for rabbis with different viewpoints to gather to discuss issues, the answer is obviously not going to be that the Talmud or Shulhan Arukh says it is forbidden. It is forbidden because the gedolim say it is forbidden, i.e., Daas Torah.

R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg writes as follows about the Kovno Rav (Kitvei ha-Rav Weinberg, vol. 2, p. 234):

ועלי להעיר כי הגאון דקאוונא שליט"א הוא אחד מגדולי הדור בזמננו, אחד המוחות היותר טובים שבתוכנו. ואעפ"י שאנשים ידועים משתדלים להשפילו ולהמעיט את ערכו, מ"מ אי אפשר להחשיך את אור תורתו וחכמתו.

What does Weinberg mean when he speaks of those who oppose the Kovno Rav and try to minimize his importance? Who are these people and what led them to this judgment of the great Kovno Rav? Let me thicken the plot. The late R. Tovia Lasdun wrote to me as follows: “Kovner Rav was a great person, but his views did not always meet the views of the Orthodoxy [!]”[8] By “Orthodoxy” he meant Lithuanian yeshiva world Orthodoxy. From what we have seen already, namely, his anti-Agudah stand and the other points I noted, one can begin to understand why there would be opposition to the Kovno Rav from yeshiva circles.

R. Jeffrey Woolf recorded the following story about the Kovno Rav. He heard it from an eyewitness and it is very illuminating.[9]

The pre-war Jewish community of Kovno (Kaunas, today) Lithuania was divided into different components, divided by the Neris River. On the one side was the general community, which was made up of every type of contemporary Jewish religious and cultural population. Indeed, the community was a bit notorious for a lackadaisical form of religiosity. On the other side of the Williampol bridge, was the famous Slabodka Yeshiva, a flagship of the Mussar Movement. As might be expected, relations between the two sectors were often tense. There was a saying attributed to the Alter of Slabodka, R. Nosson Zvi Finkel זצ"ל, that the bridge from Kovno to Slabodko only went one way.

Coping with the myriad of challenges, modernization and secularization in Kovno was its illustrious rabbi, R. Avraham Dov-Bear Kahana-Shapira זצוק"ל, author of the classic collection of responsa and Talmudic essays דבר אברהם, and known more popularly as the 'Kovner Rov.' One central concern of his was the alienation of young Kovner Jews from the synagogue. Thus, when the administration of the Choral Synagogue came to him with an intriguing approach to the problem, he jumped at it.

The idea was to have the synagogue's cantor, the internationally renowned tenor Misha Alexandrovich, offer public concerts that would feature classical חזנות alongside renditions of serene Italian bel canto compositions. The hope was that this type of cultural evening would draw modernizing young Jewish men and women to the synagogue, where they would socialize and (perhaps) find mates. 

The first concert was a smashing success and more were planned. Everyone was thrilled, except for the heads of the Slabodka Yeshiva. They turned angrily to the Kovner Rov and demanded that he intervene to stop the concerts. They were indecent, the Rashe Yeshiva objected. The led to fraternization between men and women, and in the synagogue. Worse still, they might corrupt yeshiva students.

The Kovner Rav listened quietly, and then firmly rejected the Yeshiva's objection. “You are responsible only for your yeshiva,” he asserted. “I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of the Jews of Kovno.” The concerts, he declared, would continue.

Returning to R. Elijah Meir Bloch, there is another relevant source and that is found in Chaim Bloch’s Dovev Siftei Yeshenim. (There was no familial relationship between the two Blochs.) As we have discussed numerous times, one can’t believe anything that Bloch wrote, and all of the letters of gedolim he published must be assumed to be forgeries. However, this only applies to the letters he published of deceased individuals, but the letters he published of living figures are indeed authentic. In vol. 1 (1959), p. 392, he published a letter he received in December 1944 from Jacob Rosenheim, the president of World Agudat Israel, then living in New York. Chaim Bloch had written to him asking on what basis the Agudah was now supporting the establishment of a Jewish state. Rosenheim replied that this policy was based on the decision of the “gedolei ha-Torah.” He also mentioned that this support was dependent on two important points. (1) The State had to be run according to Torah, and (2) that the new State would be accepted peacefully by the Arabs. He states that if the Arabs and the world governments agree to the establishment of the State, then there is no prohibition of שלא ימרדו באומות. He also adds that there is no prohibition to establish a state without a Temple, i.e., a State before the coming of the Messiah.

Chaim Bloch strongly rejects Rosenheim’s words, and declares that based upon what Rosenheim writes, there is now no difference between the Agudah and the Mizrachi. This was exactly the claim of the Edah Haredit in Jerusalem, and eventually it and the Agudah would go their separate ways.

The end of Rosenheim’s letter is of interest to us, because after stating that he personally doesn’t believe that in the current (end of 1944) circumstances there is any chance of a Torah state, he adds that R. Eliezer Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch do think such a Torah state is possible. I don’t know what this says about the political acumen of Silver[10] and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, but it shows that R. Bloch had a very optimistic view of the religious development of the future State.

Rosenheim concludes his letter by stating that, unlike Silver and R. Elijah Meir Bloch, “we” (by which he must mean the rest of the Agudah leadership) regard the creation of a State as a real catastrophe. Rosenheim and the others assumed (correctly) that the non-religious would be the majority and that this would create a very difficult circumstance for Orthodox Jews. Their preference was that the land remain under British control, with religious freedom given to all. Rosenheim’s comments today appear surprising, but we must remember that from the perspective of most Agudists, nothing was worse than having a secular “Hebrew State”. Many of them assumed that Zionist control of the Land of Israel would lead to anti-religious measures (which turned out to be correct in some instances). Others might even have believed that the Zionists were to be suspected of wanting to kill the Orthodox![11]

Regarding R. Elijah Meir Bloch, let me call attention to one more interesting source. In the volume Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 234-235, Bloch contributed an article on Agudat Israel, in which, as mentioned, he was very involved. In this article he says the following, which fits in very well with what we learn from Muskin’s essay (I have added the emphasis).

"אגודת ישראל" בליטא, כמו מרכז "יבנה", התענינו גם בהפצת הדיבור העברית והשתמשו בטקסיהם בדגל הכחול-לבן, שכן סיסמתה של ה"אגודה" בליטא היתה ללחום רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד להשקפתה, אבל לא נגד דברים נכונים כשלעצמם, אף שאחרים דוגלים בהם בדרך מנוגדת להשקפת העולם החרדית. סיסמתנו היתה שכל דבר טוב שייך לנו, אף שאחרים הרימוהו על נס, ונקבל את האמת ממי שאמרו. אדרבה, בזה יכולנו לרכוש את דעת-הקהל לצדנו בהיות מאבקנו רק נגד הדברים שהם בניגוד למסורת.

As Bloch says, the approach of the Lithuanian Agudah was not to oppose something just because it was supported by the non-Orthodox. Just because the non-Orthodox spoke in Hebrew in their schools and used the blue and white flag didn’t mean that the Orthodox had to avoid these things. (I have to admit that for Agudah members to use the blue and white flag strikes me as very strange, as from its beginning this was a Zionist flag, not a flag for the Jewish people as a whole.)

In his article, Bloch describes how in the 1930s two hundred Agudah halutzim went on aliyah, after hakhsharah at Tzeirei Agudah kibbutzim in Lithuania. Sounding very Zionistic, he notes that among them were those who took part in defense of the yishuv against Arab attacks: ופעלו במסירות למען בנין הארץ.[12]

* * * *

In a previous post I asked two quiz questions. No one was able to answer no. 1, which means that the prize will remain for the winner of a future quiz. These were the questions.

1. Tell me the only place in the Shulhan Arukh where R. Joseph Karo mentions a kabbalistic concept? I am referring to an actual concept e.g., Adam Kadmon, Ein Sof, etc.

2. If more than one person answers the above question correctly, the one who answers the following (not related to seforim) will win: Which is the only United States embassy that has a kosher kitchen?

Nachum Lamm and Ari Zivotofsky both got the answer right for no. 2. The embassy is in Prague and the ambassador is Norman L. Eisen. I had the pleasure of davening with him every morning on my trip to Prague last summer. You can read about him here.

Now let’s turn to the question no. 1. The first thing to note is that there are many halakhot in the Shulhan Arukh. If R. Joseph Karo was a mystic, as in the title of Werblowsky’s book on him,[13] one would expect to see evidence of this in the Shulhan Arukh, and also in the Beit Yosef. Yet we don’t have this, and references to the Zohar and even basing halakhot on the Zohar have nothing to do with whether one should be thought of as a mystic. By the 16^th century the Zohar was a canonical text, so referring to it says nothing about whether one is a mystic, neither then nor today.

However, we know that R. Joseph Karo was a mystic because of his book Magid Meisharim, which recounts his visions of a heavenly figure, who taught him over many decades.[14] Interestingly, R. Leopold Greenwald denied that Karo wrote this book. He attributes it to an anonymous לץ.[15] This reminds me of something I noted in an earlier post. See here where I mention how Abraham Samuel Judah Gestetner denies that R. Jacob Emden wrote Megilat Sefer, his autobiography. Gestetner claims that it could only have been written by a degenerate maskil! (There is no doubt whatsoever that Emden wrote the work.)

Despite the fact that the Shulhan Arukh does not generally mention kabbalistic ideas, there is one place, and only one place, where he indeed does so. It is in Orah Hayyim 24:5, where he states that the two tzitzit in front have ten knots, which is an allusion to the ten Sefirot:

כשמסתכל בציצית מסתכל בשני ציציות שלפניו שיש בהם עשרה קשרים רמז להויות

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I am happy to report that this summer, God willing, I will once again be leading Jewish history-focused tours to Central Europe and Italy. (A trip to Spain is being planned, but will not be ready by the summer.) For information about the trip to Central Europe, please see here.

Complete information about the Italy trip will will soon be available on the Torah in Motion website.

To be continued

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[1] With regard to Ben-Hur, there are at least eight different Hebrew translations, and they all censor Christian themes in the novel. See Nitsa Ben-Ari, “The Double Conversion of Ben-Hur: A Case of Manipulative Translation,” Target 12 (2002), pp. 263-302.

[2] Why such lashon nekiyah? I can think of many more appropriate ways to refer to such criminals.

[3] In the introduction to Iggerot Moshe, vol. 8, p. 27 (written by the sons and son-in-law), it states that some Satmar hasidim would come to R. Moshe for advice and to receive blessings. But on p. 26 it also records as follows:

בגלל עמדת האגודה לגבי ארץ ישראל וההתנגדות החריפה של חסידות סטאמר לעמדה זו, הוחלט אצלם לתקוף את רבנו ופסקיו (כך ספרו לרבנו אנשי נטורי קרתא בירושלים כאשר היה שם בשנת תשכ"ד). כמטרה להתקפה זו נבחרו תשובותיו בעניין הזרעה מלאכותית ושיעור מחיצה של עזרת נשים. מחלוקת זו שלא היתה לאמיתה של תורה גרמה לרבנו עגמת נפש מרובה. התקפות אלה לא היו רק באמצעות מאמרים ותשובות, אלא גם בהתקפות אישיות חירופים וגידופים, מעשי אלימות, איומי פצצות, הטרדות טלפוניות ושריפת ספריו.

[4] His father-in-law, R. Eliezer Gordon, also held both positions, as did his son, R. Avraham Yitzhak Bloch (who was martyred in the Holocaust). Although in the U.S. the Telz yeshiva adopted a very anti-secular studies perspective, this was not the case in Europe. R. Joseph Leib Bloch was very involved with the Yavneh day school system in Lithuania, which incorporated secular studies (and also Tanakh), and in the context of Eastern Europe can be regarded as a form of Modern Orthodox education. It is also significant that in Yavneh schools Hebrew was the language of instruction for all subjects. The preparatory school (mekhinah) of the Telz yeshiva also contained secular studies (which the government insisted on if students wanted to be exempted from the draft).

The graduates of Yavneh attended universities, in particular the University of Kovno, and they had an Orthodox student group named Moriah. By the 1930s, Lithuania had begun to produce an academically trained Orthodox population. Had the Holocaust not intervened, much of Lithuanian Orthodoxy would have come to resemble German Orthodoxy. This is important to realize since people often assume that Bnei Brak and Lakewood are the only authentic continuation of Lithuania, when nothing could be further from the truth. What R. Ruderman attempted to establish in Baltimore was, speaking historically, the true successor of the pre-War Lithuanian Orthodox society’s dominant ethos. (I am speaking of Orthodox society as a whole, not the very small yeshiva population.)

In speaking of R. Joseph Leib Bloch, Dr. Yitzhak Raphael ha-Halevi Etzion, the head of the Yavneh Teacher’s Institute in Telz, writes as follows:

בדברי על הגימנסיה העברית לבנות "יבנה" בטאלז ובהזכרי על החינוך בעיר בכלל אינני יכול שלא להזכיר את דמותו המופלאה והדגולה של הרב ר' יוסף ליב בלוך זצ"ל, רבה של טאלז וראש ישיבתה. אחד הרבנים הגדולים והקנאים ביותר של ליטא – היה הראשון שהבין את הנחיצות של חינוך עברי דתי-מודרני לבנות ולבנים.

See “Ha-Zerem ha-Hinukhi ‘Yavneh’ be-Lita,” Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 160-165.

R. Shlomo Carlebach wrote as follows, after describing the creation of the Kovno Gymnasium, a Torah im Derekh Eretz school established by R. Joseph Zvi Carlebach (Ish Yehudi: The Life and the Legacy of a Torah Great, Rav Joseph Tzvi Carlebach (Brooklyn, 2008), pp. 74, 76):

The Kovno Gymnasium left a deep impression upon the Lithuanian Torah leaders, who could not help but notice the enthusiastic response to the Torah im Derech Eretz educational approach on the part of students and parents. They realized that this approach caused no compromise in Yirat Shamayim. The enormous upheaval in the political and social structure of Jewish society throughout the land, in the aftermath of war, threatened the stability and loyalty of Jewish youth. Under those circumstances, these Torah leaders felt an urgent need to introduce a similar educational program, on a broad scale, by reorganizing existing schools and establishing new ones, where subjects in Derech Eretz would be taught alongside Limuday Kodesh.

At the behest of the Telzer Rav, Rav Joseph Leib Bloch, a world-renowned gaon and Rosh Yeshivah of the equally renowned Telzer Yeshivah, Dr. [Leo] Deutschlaender, director and guiding spirit of the Keren Hatorah Central Office in Vienna, was summoned to Kovno to organize, in consultation with the Rav [Joseph Zvi Carlebach] such an educational system, to be called Yavneh. . . . At its conclusion, he published a summary of the “Yavneh educational project” in the “Israelit”. He reported that separate teachers’ seminaries for men and women had been established in Kovno, in addition to “gymnasium-style high schools in Telz, Kovno, and Ponevesh, and approximately 100 elementary schools spread throughout the land.”

It is interesting that when the late, unlamented, Jewish Observer published a review of this book by R. Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, the editor felt constrained to insert the following “clarification,” knowing that its readers would be shocked to learn that Lithuanian Torah Jewry was not an enlarged version of Lakewood.

The best part of this “clarification” is the final sentence. I wonder, why does such a careful scholar and talmid hakham as Rabbi Carlebach need to have his book vetted by “gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivos”, who for all their talmudic learning are not known as experts in historical matters? Since the Agudah gedolei Torah and roshei yeshivot are prepared to cover up historical truths (as seen in their signing on to the ban of Making of a Godol), why in this case did they agree to allow the masses to learn what really was going on in Lithuania? Is it because they too feel the need to change the direction of American haredi Orthodoxy to a more secular studies friendly perspective, and this could help set the stage for this?

Returning to Telz, the question remains why Telz in Cleveland adopted such an extremely negative outlook regarding secular studies? Maybe a reader can offer some insight. R. Rakeffet has reported that R. Samuel Volk of YU, who was himself an old Telzer, commented that Telz in Cleveland distorted what Telz in Europe was about.

An interesting story about the Cleveland Telz was told to me by Rabbi M.C., a Cleveland native (and YU musmach). He was at the Telz high school and upon graduating decided to go to YU. R. Mordechai Gifter summoned M.C.’s mother and told her that if her son goes to YU, within a few months he will no longer be religious. She then angrily demanded that R. Gifter return to her all the years of tuition she had paid. She said: “If you tell me that after all the years my son has studied here, it will only take a few months at YU before he becomes non-religious, then the education you offer must be pretty lousy, and I want my money back!”

R. Dov Lior recalls that R. Zvi Yehudah Kook had a similar reaction when at a meeting of roshei reshiva with Minister of Defense Shimon Peres a haredi rosh yeshiva claimed that putting yeshiva students in the army could lead to them becoming non-religious (Hilah Wolberstein, Mashmia Yeshuah [Merkaz Shapira, 2010], p. 296):

הרכין הרב צבי יהודה את ראשו כולו בוש ונכלם. הרי צבא ישראל, צבאנו הוא, ולא צבא הפריץ הנוכרי, ולכן חובה עלינו להשתתף בו. זאת ועוד, האם המטען שהבחורים קיבלו בישיבות אינו חזק דיו שיש לחשוש כל כך לקלקולם?

[5] See his Shiurei Da’at (Tel Aviv, 1956), vol. 3, p. 65 (in his shiur “Dor Haflagah"), where we see that he was also opposed to messianic Zionism, so it appears that he didn’t really understand R. Kook’s ideology.

הגאולה אי אפשר להביא על ידי תחבולות בני אדם ואי אפשר לדעת אותן, נעלה ונעלם הוא ענין הגאולה, ולכן תבא בהיסח הדעת, כי לא ידעו בני אדם אל נכון איזה מצב הוא הראוי לגאולה.

[6] In all the discussions recently about the success of Daf Yomi, I didn’t see anyone note that one of the reasons this success is so surprising is that the whole notion of Daf Yomi goes against what for many years was the outlook of the rabbinic elite. The Shakh, Yoreh Deah 246:5, quoting the Derishah, states that laypeople should not only study Talmud but also halakhah, which he thinks should be their major focus as practical halakhah is שורש ועיקר לתורתינו. It is not hard to understand the point that since a layperson's time is limited, he will get more out of his learning by focusing on practical material. If, for example, one has an hour a day to learn, what makes more sense: to go through hilkhot Shabbat or to study Talmud? While people today prefer Talmud, the Shakh prefers halakhah, and I don’t know of any rabbinic figures in years past who disagreed with the Shakh. This Shakh is also mentioned in the introduction to the Mishnah Berurah. While it is obvious that one who has time to learn both Talmud and practical halakhah is in the ideal circumstance, how did we get to the situation where those whose time is limited are now encouraged to focus on Talmud? The credit (or blame, depending on your outlook) for this development can, I think, be laid at Artscroll’s door, for Artscroll made learning Talmud exciting for the masses, in a way that halakhah is not, and maybe can never be.

Daf Yomi is so revolutionary precisely due to its democratic ethos, that everyone is welcome to study that which used to be the preserve of only the elites. Much like American universities opened up higher learning to the masses, and created a situation where for the first time in history texts such as Plato and Aristotle were now taught (or spoon-fed) to all, so too, for he first time in history, Daf Yomi allowed Talmud to become a product of mass consumption.

[7] See e.g.. R. Eleazar Shakh, Mikhtavim u-Ma’amarim, vols. 1-2, no. 111.

[8] Rabbi Rakeffet has reported the following story that he was told by R. Bernard Revel’s widow, Sarah. When the Kovno Rav was in New York he was at some gathering with Revel. Revel told him that he had to excuse himself as he had yahrzeit and had to go recite kaddish at a minyan, The Kovno Rav replied: “You also believe in that?” The implication was that the notion of saying kaddish on a yahrzeit was folk religion, not something that Torah scholars take seriously. Mrs. Revel was shocked when she heard the comment, but Rakeffet is probably correct that this was an example of Lithuanian rabbinic humor.

[9] See here.

[10] I heard from a Holocaust survivor that in 1946 Silver came to Kielce. Dressed in a military uniform, he gave a speech telling the people to remain in Poland in order to rebuild Jewish life there. The man who told me this thought that Silver’s speech was directed against the Mizrachi. (Silver was in Poland on July 4, 1946, the date of the infamous Kielce pogrom, yet I don’t know if his visit to Kielce was before or after the pogrom.) Silver was not a chaplain, but rather an emissary of Agudat ha-Rabbanim and Vaad Hatzalah. “The American government agreed to Silver’s wearing an Army uniform so its insignias would add to his protection in areas where anti-Semitism was still rife.”Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Silver Era (Jerusalem/New York, 2000), p. 228.

[11] It has been reported that R. Moshe Sternbuch claims that he was told by R. Velvel Soloveitchik that his father, R. Hayyim, once expressed fear of not being left alone with a religious Zionist. He was worried that the latter would kill him, since the Zionists are suspected of shefihut damim. See Mishkenot ha-Ro’im, vol.1, p. 271, quoting Om Ani Homah, Sivan 5732. (I don’t know if Sternbuch is being quoted accurately, but I can’t imagine that R. Hayyim would ever have said this about a religious Zionist. A number of his own students and relatives were religious Zionists!). The exact same fear was, according to Moshe Blau, expressed by R. Joseph Rozin, the Rogochover:

הלא הם [הציונים] חשודים על הכל, הם חשודים גם על שפיכות דמים

See Yair Borochov, Ha-Rogochovi p. 70. (After the killing of Jacob de Haan, this viewpoint was given some basis.) See ibid., where Blau also quotes the Rogochover as saying that the reason he stopped publicizing his anti-Zionist views was because he was asked to do so by his daughter, who was married to R. Yisrael Abba Citron, the rav of Petah Tikvah. Citron was a Mizrachi supporter and it was creating problems for him that his father-in-law was attacking the Zionist movement. Regarding Citron, see the fascinating book-length biography of him that appears at the beginning of his volume of hiddushim, published in 2010.

[12] As Eliezer Brodt noted in his last post, Bloch’s son, R. Yosef Zalman Bloch, Be-Emunah Shelemah (Monsey, 2012), pp. 115-116, quotes a strongly anti-Zionist and anti-Mizrachi letter of the elder Bloch, attempting to leave the impression that when it came to this issue his father had a completely negative attitude. However, as we have seen, the truth is more complicated. In general, Y.Z. Bloch's book is quite a strange mix of wide learning combined with unbelievable nonsense, a point alluded to much more gently by Brodt. On the very page that he quotes his father’s view of Zionism, he tells us that one who does not believe that God’s individual providence encompasses everything in the world, even the animals, insects, falling leaves, etc. הרי הוא כופר בעיקר, ואין לו חלק לעוה"ב. He says that the sages in earlier times who didn’t have this perspective were tzadikim and they are at present in Olam ha-Ba, but today, after the matter has been “decided” by the Masorah, holding such a position is heretical. Leaving aside the question as to why he feels he is a prophet and can in bombastic fashion declare who has lost his share in the World to Come (something he is fond of doing in this book), does he not realize how many great Torah scholars from even recent generations he has (inadvertently?) condemned as heretics?

This is all so obvious to me that I don’t see any need to cite “authorities.” But for those who want this, let me offer the following. A few years ago, an author writing in Mishpahah asserted that one who believes that animals are not subject to individual providence, it is like he is “eating fowl with milk” (which is a lot less severe than Bloch’s judgment that such a person is a heretic with no share in the World to Come). R. Meir Mazuz, Or Torah, Tamuz 5769, pp. 867-868, responded to this strange assertion by citing many authorities who indeed held this position, and he mentions nothing about it being “rejected by the Masorah.” He concludes:

אבל אטו מי שסובר כדעת הרמב"ם והרמב"ן והרד"ק ורבינו בחיי וספר החינוך ומהרש"א והרמ"ק ומהר"י אירגאס והגר"א נקרא אוכל בשר עוף בחלב?

A large section of Bloch's book is designed to show that the only acceptable Torah belief is that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around the earth. As for Copernicus, he refers to him as קופירניקוס הרשע שר"י (p. 351 n. 36).

Among his nuggets of wisdom is that astronomy is the most heretical, and anti-Jewish, of all the sciences. P. 387 n. 1:

וצריכה למודעי, דספרי חכמת התכונה גרעי טובא יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמתם, שמלאים אפיקורסות ושנאת הקב"ה ר"ל, שנאת דת יהודית, ושנאת האמת, שטויות ושגעונות, עד שיש להתפלא מה טעם יהיו "חכמיהם" וספריהם האלו כל כך מטופשים ומלאי ארס הכפירה יותר מכל שאר ספרי חכמיהם.

Since, as he states, these scientists are not only heretics but also stupid fools, one can only wonder how they were able to figure out how to put a man on the moon.

On p. 331 he refers to the view of R. Jacob Kamenetsky (without mentioning him by name) that the first four chapters of Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah are not to be regarded as Torah but as פילוסופיא בעלמא. See Emet le-Yaakov (New York, 1998), pp. 15-16. Bloch sees this as absolute heresy, and he quotes R. Yehudah Segal of Manchester as saying that even if the Hatam Sofer or the Noda bi-Yehudah said this, we would not accept what they said, and would be forced to reinterpret their words. Bloch quotes this approvingly, and this illustrates the problem. He is so locked into his dogmatic assumptions that his mind is closed and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts.. If most people were shown an explicit text of the Hatam Sofer or Noda bi-Yehudah that diverges from their dogmatic assumption, they would conclude that their assumption of what is “acceptable” needs to be revised. But Bloch refuses to even acknowledge the possibility that people greater than him might have a different perspective on what constitute the fundamentals of faith.

Bloch advocates this approach even when it comes to the rishonim (p. 117):

ואפילו מה שכתבו עמודי העולם הראשונים ז"ל, אם אינו מתאים עם האמונה הפשוטה הברורה שבה"אני מאמין", וכפי שנמסרה לנו ה"אני מאמין" מאבותינו ואמותינו הצדיקים והצדקניות, הַניחו אותה בקרן זוית.

On p. 336 Bloch goes further than merely rejecting the Copernican outlook that earth revolves around the sun. He also denies that the earth rotates on its axis. According to him, it is a Torah truth that the earth stands still: שהארץ עומדת על עמדה ואינה זזה כלל.

The absolute craziest thing he says, in a book filled with absurdities, is that the sun, moon, and all the stars [!] revolve around the earth every twenty-four hours!:

שהשמש והירח וכל הכוכבי-לכת וכל הכוכבים וכל צבא השמים סובבים יחד את כדור הארץ בכל עשרים וארבע שעות.

I  guess it is a neat trick that stars so many light years away (i.e., trillions of miles away) are able to circle earth each day. (Our galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of stars.) But seriously, is one supposed to laugh or cry when reading this? How should one relate to a rabbi who so dishonors the Torah by claiming that this is Torah truth, and a required belief of any religious Jew?

On p. 289 Bloch writes:

והא דמצינו לפעמים שאחד מרבותינו הראשונים או אחד מגדולי האחרונים ז"ל אשר מימיהם אנו שותים, אמרו על איזה אגדתא שזה גוזמא, תדע לנכון דלא משום שח"ו לא הרכינו ראשם לכל הנאמר בגמרא, וחשבו שמה שרחוק מהמציאות שלעינינו בהכרח יתפרש רק כגוזמא, אלא דכך היתה קבלתם דזה המאמר המובא בתלמוד לא נאמרה מעיקרא כפשוטה אלא כגוזמא.

Everything in this sentence is incorrect, and is contradicted by numerous explicit statements in rishonim and aharonim.

[13] Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Oxford, 1962)

[14] Regarding why R. Joseph Karo doesn’t mention the maggid in his halakhic writings, see Eliezer Brodt, Likutei Eliezer (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 106ff. As usual, Brodt shows incredible erudition.

[15] Kol Bo al Avelut (Brooklyn, 1951), vol. 2, p. 31, in the note. Greenwald elaborates on this position in Ha-Rav R. Yosef Karo (New York, 1953), ch. 8.

Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

December 12, 2012, 7:20 am

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Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

                       

by Yitshak Cohen

In honor of Yitshak Cohen’s just-published book, “Or Sameah” Halakhah u-Mishpat: Mishnato shel Ha-Rav Meir Simhah ha-Kohen al Mishneh Torah le-ha-Rambam, the Seforim Blog is happy to present this post in English, which is taken from a longer article to appear in the Jewish Law Annual.

Introduction

R. Meir Simhah Hacohen (henceforth: RMS) was born in 1843 in the village of Butrimonys, in the Vilnius district. Gaining renown as one of his generation’s leading scholars, in 1888 he was appointed rabbi of the city of Daugavpils (Dvinsk), a post he held until his death in 1926.[1] He was most active during the period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which the Lithuanian yeshivot were ascendant in Eastern Europe.[2] His literary output was unique and varied as his writings fall into many rabbinic-legal genres. He spent most of his life writing a work on Maimonides’ Code of Jewish Law (henceforth: Code), the Or Sameah (henceforth: OS).[3] He also wrote a second literary work, published in Riga, approximately a year after his death, entitled Meshekh Hokhmah(henceforth: MH). In his one line introduction to MH, he characterized it as “elucidations and interpretations, insights and homilies, comments and novellae on the five books of the Pentateuch.”[4] In addition to these, R. Meir Simha wrote novellae on the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and a volume of responsa.

In my book I demonstrated that the rabbinic legal decisors (poskim) regarded OS not only as a collection of novellae but also as a halakhic work, containing legal rulings.[5] Should this also prove true of RMS’ commentary on the Torah, the MH, this would be an even more surprising and significant discovery, for RMS does not hint at this role in his introduction and since the closing of the Talmud there are almost no instances of halakhists offering midrashic exegeses of biblical verses as the basis for normative rulings.[6] If RMS took this path and the rabbinic decisors accepted it as the basis for establishing normative law, the roots of this phenomenon are worth exploring. Therefore, in this article, I will study RMS’ unique midrashic exegeses in MH and explore their legal status and the extent of their influence on later rabbinic decisors: Did these decisors attribute legal standing to MH in light of the midrashic exegeses it contains, or did they relegate it to the biblical commentary or novellae genres. Did they also rely on the conclusions RMS reached through his midrashic exegesis when the laws he deduced strayed beyond what were deemed the boundaries of the normative halakhic framework? Did they also rely on his novel interpretations when ruling on especially weighty matters, such as marital law, the release of agunot, and more? This article will present some of the findings RMS reached via his midrashic exegesis, and discuss the extent of their impact on the rabbinic decisors. Building upon this analysis, it will examine why RMS’ midrashic exegesis’ had such a remarkable impact on later decisors.

A. RMS and His Use of Midrashic Exegesis as a Legitimate Tool for the Development of Jewish Law

A.1. The Traditional Reticence to Engage in Midrashic Exegesis as a Means for Developing the Law 

Gilat wrote that in the post-talmudic period, we find almost no evidence of Jewish law being created through midrashic exegesis, not in the period of the Early Authorities (Rishonim, medieval authorities spanning the 11^th-15^thcenturies CE) and certainly not in the period of the Late Authorities (Aharonim, 15^th century CE and on).[7] Thus, legal creativity stemming from the Torah and the rest of Scriptures, as a rule, atrophied.[8] These sources were only used to provide a basis for laws already promulgated in the Talmud. Indeed, a decisor must display tremendous judicial boldness and courage to “skip over” or ignore the classical literary sources of antiquity, the Geonim, and the Early Authorities and create original, legal precedents based on the source text, itself. Indeed, it is natural that as time goes on and rabbinic decisors find themselves further and further from the “source”, those willing to turn their backs on the customary and the conventional, bravely opting to engage in midrashic exegesis to render new rulings will be few and far between.

Urbach[9] conducts a lengthy inquiry into the problematics of accepting midrashic exegesis as the basis for Jewish law. He quotes the opinion of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevy,[10] who contends that only masoretic transmission can function as the source for Jewish law; the Rabbis never relied on midrashic exegesis as the source for legal innovation. Epstein also adopts this approach.[11] In contrast, Albeck argues that when a case reached the High Court of Law (Beit Din Hagadol)on a point of law that had no extant tradition, the judges engaged in midrashic exegesis, plumbing the depths of the biblical text and deriving from it alone the legal verdict.[12] However, both Epstein and Albeck agree that the laws transmitted to us from the periods of the “The Pairs” (Zugot) and the Tannaim were only handed down in the following ways:  decrees, enactments (which derived from the authority invested in the established institutions), tales, testimony, and tradition (transmitted to us in the form of custom). In light of this historical background, the extraordinary boldness of a rabbinic decisor who innovates Jewish law based on his midrashic exegesis of the Bible becomes clear.

The rabbinic decisors’ reticence throughout the generations regarding deriving Jewish law from Scriptures stems from several fears: firstly, the stories in the Torah and even more so in the Prophets are told with a wealth of detail; they may unintentionally promote certain modes of behavior or action that the biblical “author” did not intend to teach; indeed, specific details may be mentioned merely to set the historical stage and possess no normative implications whatsoever. Secondly, there is an even more complex problem:even if the biblical author meant to impart halakhic rulings, the rabbinic decisors will have grave difficulty deciding which of the myriad details is relevant and foundational, crucial to informing the very nature of the law, and which is mere background, having no impact on the law’s formulation.[13] Therefore, RMS’ midrashic exegesis is a phenomenon demanding study in and of itself, and all the more so, if it influenced later rabbinic decisors.

 

A.2. RMS as Groundbreaker, Adopting Midrashic Exegesis as a Means to Develop the Law

Gilat cites four examples taken from the Late Authoritiesin which midrashic exegesis was used to develop normative Jewish laws, this, despite the traditional opposition to doing so. Surprisingly, three of the four examples were taken from RMS’ oeuvre. A thorough analysis of RMS’ work reveals that these are not the only instances. Some of these instances are widely cited in later works and by the academy as possessing original and surprising positions. Without a doubt, RMS’ work on the Bible, an unusual undertaking for a halakhist, presents us with ample opportunity for investigating this matter.

B. Creative Midrashic Exegesis: The Midrash, Its Rejection and Its Influence

In order to emphasize the complexity involved in creating Jewish law via midrashic exegesis, I have chosen to begin with three cases[14] where the rabbinic decisors reject RMS’ midrashic exegesis, instead of adopting it. RMS’ boldness will become even more evident, in the context of this rejection.

B.1. Rejecting Creative Midrashic Exegesis – One Who Murders a Person in his Death Throes

After the Israelites’ defeat in their war against the Philistines, a fugitive reaches David and tells the following tale:

I happened to be at Mount Gilboa and I saw Saul leaning on his spear, and thechariots and horsemen closing in on him … Then he said to me , ‘Stand over me, and finish me off, for I am in agony and barely alive.’ So I stood over him and finished him off, for I knew that he would never rise from where he was lying….[15]

The following dialogue ensues after David laments:

           

David said to the young man who had brought him the news, “Where are you from?” He replied, “I am the son of a resident alien, an Amalekite.” “How did             you dare,” David said to him, “to lift your hand and kill the Lord’s             anointed?” Thereupon David called upon one of the attendants and said to him, “Come over and strike him!” He struck him down and he died. And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head! Your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I put the LORD’s anointed to death.’ ”

Maimonides in Laws concerning Murder and the Preservation of Life(2:7) writes:

           

Whether one kills a healthy person or a dying invalid or even a person in his death throes, he must be put to death on this account. But if the death throes are humanly caused, for example, if one who has been beaten to the point of             death is in his throes, the court may not put his slayer to death.

Commenting on this section, RMS deduces a halakhic norm from the story about King David:

And note, that there was a dispute regarding whether one who killed a person              in his death throes should be punished as a murderer. And our Rabbi [Maimonides] ruled in accord with the Rabbis to exempt him. It seems that in this case as well, he is liable by the law of the king of Israel, so the king may slay him. And proof for this may be adduced from the case of David who             killed the Amalekite proselyte based on his own admission of guilt; and this was authorized by the king’s law…even though he [King Saul] had fallen on the spear and [the Amalekite] stated “for I knew that he would never rise from where he was lying”… and so we learn that in the case of one who kills a person in his death throes, the murderer is punishable by death, by the king’s law.

RMS agrees that the court cannot execute an individual who killed a person in his death throes; however, he adopts the novel position that the king has the authority to do so. In doing so, RMS improves upon Maimonides’ code by adding a halakhic component that stems from midrashic exegesis.[16]

RMS strives to prove that Maimonides would also agree with this ruling:

And our Rabbi demonstrated sensitivity to this point in his holy words: “and if the death throes are humanly caused … the court may not put his slayer to death.” He inferred: the court, but by the law of the king he is condemned to death,

It would be interesting to examine whether RMS’ success at finding support for his innovation in Maimonides’ language led later rabbinic decisors accept it. What did RMS hope to achieve by pointing out the consonance between Maimonides’ wording and the results of his own midrashic exegesis?

B.1.A. The Tzitz Eliezer’s Opposition to the Specific Midrash concerning the Law of the King

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (1917-2006), in his book Tzitz Eliezer, disputes the halakhic norm derived by RMS from Scriptures:

And so, apparently, we must study the source brought by the OS [to establish the law] in the case of one who killed a person in humanly caused death throes from the case of the Amalekite proselyte, from the language used by Scriptures therein … and this implies that David condemned him to death based on the authority of the special law delineating the punishment due one who defaces and murders the LORD’s anointed one. So he invoked the law of the king in this case wherein the murderer killed the LORD’s anointed one, even though the victim was already dying from humanly caused death throes. And therefore this does not provide proof that the law of the king would be invoked in a similar case if an ordinary human being was slain.

The Tzitz Eliezer argues that the victim being “the LORD’s anointed one” was a crucial element in the Amalekite proselyte’s transgression, and, indeed, played a critical role in David’s decision to execute him. In his opinion, had the killing not fulfilled this condition, the murderer could not have been subject to execution by order of the king. RMS apparently believed that this detail was only of historical import and was not a factor in David’s legal ruling; therefore, he concluded that one who kills a person in his death throes – no matter what the dying man’s stature may be – is condemned to death by the authority of the king. This discussion highlights the complexity involved in deriving Jewish law from Scriptures and aptly demonstrates the fundamental reason underlying the Late Authorities’ reticence to do so. Implicitly, however, it also demonstrates RMS’ daring in utilizing midrashic exegesis as a legitimate tool for developing or innovating Jewish law.

B.1.B. Paving the Way for Sanctioning the Use of Midrashic Exegesis as a Tool for Developing the Law

Reading between the lines of R. Waldenberg’s ruling, an astonishing phenomon comes to light: while R. Waldenberg rejects the halakhic ruling innovated via this midrashic exegesis, he, himself, adopts such a methodology. That is to say, he is influenced by RMS. He does not disagree with RMS’ means but with the conclusion he reached, for he also engages in midrashic exegesis, but arrives at a different reading. RMS pioneered the use of midrashic exegesis as a legitimate tool for developing the Halakha and the Tzitz Eliezer followed in his footsteps; however, in this case, he disputed RMS’ conclusions and limited the ruling to apply exclusively to one who killed the LORD’s anointed one. The Tzitz Eliezer could have stood upon principle and issued a categorical denunciation of such a methodology, as we will see others do below. The Tzitz Eliezer did not do so. He looked and was hooked.         

B.1.C. Creative Midrashic Exegesis: Amalekite Proselyte

RMS also understands the transgressor’s identity, as an Amalekite proselyte, to be of import and grants it legal weight. In the Torah portion of Ki Tetze, RMS notes the Mekhilta in which God swears that no Amalekite will ever be converted.[17]Ipso facto, there can never be an Amalekite proselyte, and the individual mentioned in the verse must be an ordinary Noahide. King David ordered his execution, as he would have for any Noahide; for Noahides are subject to execution based on self-incrimination. This in contradistinction to the law applying to Jews, who cannot be executed based on their own testimony: “no man may incriminate himself.”[18]This law which RMS seems to have innovated almost as an aside in the course of his pursuit of a greater innovation is not at all obvious; indeed, it is quite novel.

The Tzitz Eliezer objects to this midrashic exegesis offered by RMS.[19]In his opinion, Maimonides, himself, did not read the verse this way.[20]In fact, the opposite seems to be true; Maimonides seems to explicitly state that an Amalekite proselyte is a righteous convert who can be accepted into the ranks of nation of Israel. As proof of this, note that Maimonides finds it necessary to justify David’s decision to execute the proselyte based his own self-incrimination by explaining that it was either a horaat shaah(emergency ruling specific to that time and place) or stemmed from the authority of the king. Had the Amalekite proselyte been considered a Noahide, as RMS declares, there would have been no need to justify his execution.

---

[1]B.Tz. Eizenstadt, Dor rabbanav vesofrav [no official English title], 6, (New York: 5665) 39.

[2]S. Stampfer, The Formation of the Lithuanian Yeshiva, (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 2005) 12.

[3]This work is generally classified as a commentary on the laws contained in Maimonides’ Code; see, for example, M. Elon, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, 1-3, (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 1992), 930.

[4]This work was edited and published in more than sixteen different editions and was reprinted numerous additional times, including in expanded editions produced by A. Abraham, S.H. Domb, Z. Metzger, and Y. Cooperman.

[5]Doctoral dissertation cited above, p. 247ff.

[6]Responsa Maharik, Root 139, p.156; R. Elijah Mizrahi in his commentary on the Torah, beginning of Parashat Matot, s.v. vayedaber, notes that the authority to do so was only granted to the mishnaic sages; Sedei Hemed, Kelalei Haposkim 16, n. 50; Responsa Beit Avrahamremarks that we have not found this approach adopted by any rabbinic decisor, neither the early nor the late ones; and for an academic perspective, see: Z. Frankel, The Way of the Mishnah (Hebrew; Berlin: 1859), 18.    

[7]Y.D. Gilat, Studies in the Development of the Halakhah (Hebrew; Ramat-Gan: 1992), 389.

[8]See B. Lifshitz, “Aggada and Its Role in the Unwritten Law” (Hebrew), Shenaton Hamishpat Haivri 22 (2004), 233, 295, regarding the Written Law becoming a canonical work that does not function as the basis for legal creativity, even as it plays the role of authoritative source for all such creativity.

[9]E.E. Urbach, The World of the Sages – Collected Studies (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 2002), 50; Idem, “The Derasha as a Basis of the Halakha and the Problem of the Soferim” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 27/2 (1958), 166.

[10]Y.I. Halevy, Dorot rishonim (Berlin: 1923), part 1, vol. 3, 292; vol. 5, 467.

[11]Y.N. Epstein, Prolegomena ad Litteras Tannaiticas (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 1957) 511; see too M. Halbertal, Interpretative Revolutions in the Making, (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 1997) 14.

[12]H. Albeck, “Hahalakhot vehaderashot”, Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York: 1950), 1-8. S. Friedman appears to adopt a similar approach in Tosefta Atiqta: Synoptic Parallels of Mishna and Tosefta Analyzed With Methodological Introduction (Pesah Rishon) (Hebrew; Ramat-Gan: 2002), 77.

[13]Thus writes A. Grossman, The Early Sages of Ashkenaz (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 1988), 157: “There is no need to mention that usually such deductions from the Bible are not necessitated by the plain sense of Scriptures and oftentimes are not even required by the methods adopted by the halakhic midrashim; they are only cited as asmakhta, to bolster the law.” 

[14] [Only one case is mentioned in this post. For the others, see the forthcoming article in Jewish Law Annual.]

[15]2 Sam 1.

[16]In my article, “The Or Sameah's Objectives and their Halakhic and Jurisprudential Implications”(Hebrew) Shenaton Hamishpat Haivri  25 (2008), 97, I demonstrated that RMS’ primary goal in composing the OS was improving Maimonides’ code and expanding its contents to include additional cases that had not been incorporated originally. RMS performed this task by adopting a variety of methods described in the article. Here, we witness RMS adopting another method that allows him to innovate and improve the law; this time, innovations based on midrashic exegesis.    

[17] See M.I. Kahana, The Two Mekhiltot on the Amalek Portion  (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 1999), 102.

[18] See bSanhedrin 9b, Maimonides, Code, Laws concerning Evidence 12:2; A. Kirschenbaum, The Criminal Confession in Jewish Law (Hebrew; Jerusalem: 2004).

[19]Responsa Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 13, #71.

[20] Maimonides, Code, Laws of Kings 6:1-4. Kesef Mishneh comments that if they agree to observe the seven Noahide laws, they are no longer classified as Amalekites and they are to be treated like any other kosher (ritually unobjectionable) Noahides. 

A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

December 19, 2012, 12:58 pm

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A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

In response to my last post on the Seforim Blog, R. Nathan Kamenetsky sent me a long e-mail. Because of its value to those with an interest in the Lithuanian Torah world, I asked Rabbi Kamenetsky for permission to post it here, and he graciously agreed – Marc Shapiro

The central figure, albeit a mostly passive one, in the story I shall tell below is R' Maisheh Finkel, one of the twin sons who were the youngest children of the Alter of Slabodka, born around 1887. The other twin was R' Shmuel Finkel, whose son became a caterer in Chicago and is the father of the recently deceased son-in-law of R' Bainish Finkel (son of the the Alter's oldest son R' Laizer-Yudel), R' Noson-Zvi Finkel, a namesake of his great-grandfather the Alter of Slabodka who served as the Rosh of the mighty Yeshivat Mir of Jerusalem for about thirty years. 

R' Maisheh was far superior in Torah talent to his twin R' Shmuel. Someone described to me R' Maisheh's learning pose; he would pace back and forth the length of the beit midrash, and if someone asked a good question, R' Maisheh would give him one reply as he passed the questioner on the first time he transversed the beit midrash, then give him a second answer when he passed by him a second time, and a third answer when he passed him by for the third time. Raised by his mother – the Alteh lived in Kelem, not Slabodka, till the latter part of the first decade of the 20th century: see MOAG pp. 594-596 -- the Alter had at first sent him to learn under R' Baruch-Ber Leibowitz in Hlusk, and then brought him to Slabodka. R' Maisheh married Zlateh, the daughter of the Slabodka Rosh Yeshiva, R' Moshe-Mordkhai Epstein, in 1913, and was appointed as a maggid shiur in the Slabodka Yeshiva.

When the Slabodka Yeshiva opened a branch in the city of Chevron in the winter of 1925, R' Maisheh was sent along with the first talmidim to be a maggid shiur there. The Alter himself came to Palestine in the summer of 1925 – not as the mashgiach, but as a retiree – and three months later, R' Maisheh died. Chiddushei Torah of R' Maisheh Finkel were published beginning in 1986 by R' Chaim-Dov Altusky, Rabbi Pinchas Scheinberg's late son-in-law, under the name  "Chiddushei Hagram Mislabodka" (together with "Chiddushei Hamasbir", with the last word created from the acronym of Harav Morainu Soloveitchik Ber Yosheh, Reb) on various massekhtot. Rabbi Altusky had gotten R' Maisheh's manuscripts from a (posthumous) daughter-in-law of R' Maishe's. 

Before we go on with the story, I will quote Rabbi Altusky from one of the introductions of "Chiddushei Hagram Mislabodka" where he quotes R' Yeruham Levovitz, celebrated Mashgiach of the Mirrer Yeshiva, as having written about R' Maisheh: "I always said that in a generation which has a great timber as he (ilan gadol kamohu), Israel is not yet widowed (od lo alman Yisrael), and in his light shall we see radiance (b'oro nir'eh or)." Rabbi Altusky points out that R' Yerucham wrote this when such greats as R' Chaim-Ozer, R' Shimon Shkop, R' Baruch Ber Leibowitz and the Kovner Rav fully functioned; but Rabbi Altusky does not explain why it was R' Maishe Finkel's presence that assured R' Yeruham that lo alman Yisrael. The Alter and his talmid R' Yeruham saw the ideal gadol baTorah, the ilan hagadol, as one who is equally great in Torah and in Musar – and this combination was very rare to find. They both saw that R' Maishe filled that prescription – also cf. MOAG pp. 805-806 on what the Alter thought of his son.

Verily, according to one of Altusky's introductions, R' Maisheh was "designated (m'yu'ad)" to succeed both his father as Mashgiach and his father-in-law as Rosh Yeshiva; this is surely something that his daughter-in-law had heard within the family and passed on, together with the manuscripts, to Rav Altusky. Also see MOAG pp. 756 and 765 that R' Maisheh would be his father's agent to carry through sensitive matters. [Do you, R' Mailech, have my Improved Edition or only the original MOAG? The Improved Edition has a asterisked footnote on page 1278 regarding the Alter's high estimation of his son and also pertains to the subject of your landmark book, viz., to R' Yehiel-Yankev Weinberg.]

Now to the body of the story. I shall tell it in the way it came to me. My father had said several times, "The (Slabodka) Yeshiva was so dear to the Alter, that he would be willing to sacrifice a child for it." I never understood what he meant by this Aqaidah metaphor (nor did I question my father about it) until I arrived in Israel and repeated it to R' Laizer Goldschmidt, a dayyan on the Beit Din Hagadol and husband of Miriam nee Plachinsky, a granddaughter of the Alter of Slabodka, asking him what my father had meant. He explained that Slabodka talmidim attributed R' Maisheh death at so early an age to his having broken his engagement to another girl in order to marry R' Moshe-Mordkhai's daughter. He had been engaged to Chava-Leah Hutner of Warsaw (who later became the wife of R' Tzvi-Yehudah Kook). (You may look up MOAG pp. 791-798 where I conjecture that this breakup brought about [in a convoluted way] R' Hatzqel Libshitz's decision to turn down the rabbanut of Kovno - thus opening the door for R' Avraham-Dober Kahana-Shapiro's appointment.) Incidentally, when R' Yitzchak Hutner, later of Yeshivat Rabbenu Chaim Berlin, came to study in Slabodka after WWI, the Alter was ill at ease with him because he was closely related to the jilted young lady, and had his major talmid R' Avrohm Grodzinsky, by then part of the Musar-hanhalah – see MOAG p. 806 – deal with the neophyte.

And why did R' Maisheh break up? Because the wife of the Rosh Yeshiva, R' Moshe-Mordkhai, insisted on it: she insisted that R' Maisheh marry her daughter Zlateh. The Alter of Slabodka felt that if he would enter into bad relations with (Menuhah Epstein, and hence with) R' Moshe-Mordkhai, the yeshiva would suffer. And he was willing to sacrifice his son on the altar of Yeshivas Slabodka. It is said that when the Alter was told of his son's demise, he repeated Job's words (3:25) "What I greatly feared is come upon me; what I had apprehended has come on me." In MOAG, I have an excursus on pp. 1061-1064 about the power certain wives of rashei yeshiva wielded in some old yeshivot – especially the Netziv's (niece, who became his) second wife, sister of R' Baruch Epstein. When R' Maisheh broke his engagement, R' Hayyim Soloveichik was angry with the Alter, saying, "For politics one does not embarrass a Jewish daughter" – see MOAG pp. 419-420.

But I had a problem: if Menuha Epstein was intent enough on having the 'iluy Maisheh Finkel marry her daughter that she would have him break his earlier engagement, why did she allow him to get engaged to someone else to begin with? Why didn't she interfere with Maisheh Finkel's proposed shiddukhim immediately?. This was bothering me for a long time – until I heard another story about R' Avrohm Kalmanowitz, of Va'ad Hatzalah fame, from a son of his sister, R' Osher Katzman, an author of many popular articles in the Aguda monthly "Dos Yiddisheh Vort" (and whose son Eli'ezer is on the editorial board of "Yeshurun"). 

R' Avrohm Kalmanowitz had learned in Slabodka, having come there from the town of Aishishok (the town perpetuated by Yaffa Eliach) where he learned with its rav, Reb Zundel Hutner. In his famous speeches in the United States after WWII, Rav Kalmanowitz would often refer to his study sessions with Reb Zundel and would recall that they studied through the long commentaries of the Shakh in Section 25 of Hoshen Mishpat (about the laws of a judge who erred in his ruling) - and that Reb Zundel lamented that there is no one "nowadays" who learns thoroughly through the subject at which the Shakh had toiled so hard. R' Avrohm then studied under Reb Laizer Gordon in Telz (see fn. t on p. 964 of MOAG), and, by the time he came under the wing of the Alter of Slabodka, he was already close to 20 years of age. By that time he had already completed the 4 Sections of the Shulkhan 'Arukh. In fact, when he arrived in Slabodka, he would look down upon a bachur his age who had not completed covered as much Torah as he had. He was considered a 'iluy in the yeshiva, and there was an ongoing debate among the talmidim of the Yeshiva on who was the greater 'iluy, Avrohm Kalmonowitz or Aaron Sislovicher (later Kotler). In fact, when R' Avrohm died, in 1964, two years after R' Aaron Kotler, my father za"l remarked, "The last member of our chabhurahin Slabodka is gone." 

According to "Kulmos Hallev", a volume about Rav Kalmanowitz and "his Da'ath Torah and spiritual fervor (sa'arot ruach)" (published by his family in Jerusalem, 1996), p. 4, R' Zundel had spread his pupil's fame as a "wondrous 'iluy" and the Alter sent a wagon to fetch him and bring him to Slabodka; the Alter then arranged that he should learn together with his talented son R' Maisheh. R' Avrohm's father, who served as rav in Volhyn, in the town of Barashi, near Rogachov, once came to Slabodka to see how his son was faring. When the Alter told him, "He can already lead half the world," he became upset, and said, "I sent him here to learn, not to lead."

The story Katzman told was as follows: R' Avrohm had gone home for Pesach, at a time when two shiddukhim were being proposed to him; one was a daughter of his rosh yeshiva R' Moshe-Mordkhai Epstein, and the other was an orphaned daughter of the Rav of Rakov, a town between Volozhin and Minsk, and he had already met both young ladies. From home, he wrote out two envelopes addressed to the two female candidates, and then sat down to write out the letters he was planning to send them. First he wrote the letter to the Rakov girl and he put her letter into an envelope and took it to the post office. He then wrote a letter to the Epstein girl, and as he was putting the letter into the remaining envelope -- woe is him! – he saw that the remaining envelope was the one addressed to Rakov. This meant that the letter to the Rakov girl would arrive at the home of the Epstein girl. He rushed to the post office and asked the postman to return the letter he had given him, but the postman refused. R' Avrohm went on to offer the postman up to 10 Rubles to get his letter back, but the postman explained that the law is that once a letter is in his hand he must deliver it only to the addressee. In short, when the Rakov girl's letter arrived in Slabodka, and the daughter of R' Moshe-Mordkhai saw that Avrohm had even considered another shiddukh but herself, the proud granddaughter of the famous Kovno philanthropist R' Shraga-Feivel Frank (cf. MOAG Index), was beside herself, and decided she would hear no more of Avrohm Kalmanowitz.

When I heard this story I pieced two and two together, to wit: in the winter of 1913, Rebbitzen Epstein was not interested in Maisheh Finkel because she had as good a catch, if not a better one, for her Zlateh in Avrohm Kalmanowitz, the latter being not only a great 'iluy, but a tall, handsome and charismatic leader as well. So why should she care if R' Baruch-Ber Leibowitz, by-this-time the Rosh Yeshiva of Knesset Beit Yitzchak, the "other", non-Musar, yeshiva in Slabodka, had cast his eye on Maisheh for his daughter (see MOAG p. 525), and why should she care if Maisheh gets engaged to Chava-Leah Hutner of Warsaw? At the beginning of that winter, R' Moshe-Mordkhai presented R' Avrohm with an effusive Certificate of Ordination (Smikhah) testifying that he is "a wondrous baqi in all of Shas with Tospoth, and in the posqim, rishonim v'acharonim, as one of the greats of the generation." The Certificate manuscript is pictured on the page facing page 1 of "Kulmos Hallev", and is laid out in print on p. 5, together with ordinations by R' Elya-Barukh Kamai, Rav of Mir, and R' Rephael Shapiro of Volozhin, both awarded to R' Avrohm about a month later than R' Moshe-Mordkhai's, the manuscripts of which are pictured on the page following p. 220 of "Kulmos", the last page of the volume.

It is worth noting that in transcribing the manuscript of R' Moshe-Mordechai, the family misread one word, for, after praising the ordainee as "yet from his youth he stood out as a wondrous 'iluy," the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth written lines read: "Va'yiph va'yigdal va'yehi l'erez may'arzei Hatorah (he became beautiful and grew to become a cedar among the cedars of Torah)," while the printed transciption misreads the beginning of the quotation, that is, its first word, to: "Aph va'yigdal va'yehi (he also grew and became)." The family obviously did not realize that R' Moshe-Mordkhai used the language of Ezekiel 31:7 which describes "a cedar of Lebanon, that is Assyria (Verse 3)" which "Va'yiph b'godlo (became beautiful in its greatness)" to describe R' Avrohm who, after being a wondrous 'iluy in his youth, grew to become a cedar-like tall and handsome young man and one of the Torah cedars of his generations. (I had seen the manuscript Smikhah before "Kulmos Hallev" was published, and I immediately connected R' Moshe-Mordechai's expression to Ezekiel. I'll just add that R' Moshe-Mordechai used the expression from his by-heart knowledge of the verse, and did not look up the verse in a Tanakh before penning it, else he would have spelled the word "va'yiph" with two Yoddim - and the family would not have been mislead to read his Vav and single Yod as an Aleph, "aph" instead of "va'yiph".) 

I believe that R' Moshe-Mordkhai wrote the extremely flattering Smikha when R' Avrohm was a candidate to become his son-in-law, but R' Avrohm obtained the other two smikhot soon thereafter because he was also interested in the Rakov girl whose hand was offered together with her late father's rabbanut of the town of Rakov - as you know from the case of R' Yehiel-Yankev Weinberg of Pilvishok, a town would keep its rabbinical post vacant until their deceased rav's daughter would find a match suitable to take over the rabbinate. Therefore, R' Avrohm sought out ordinations from well-known rabbanim who served in towns close to Rakov, not in faraway Slabodka. During the same winter that the Epsteins were sure that R' Avrohm would close a shidduch with their Zlateh, R' Maishe became engaged to the well-to-do and pedigreed Chava-Leah, daughter of R' Yehudah-Laib Hutner, a Motz in Warsaw who also owned a printing company. After Avrohm's Pesach blunder, Zlateh was left with a second-choice mate, one who was already engaged, Maisheh Finkel: her mother took care of the rest. Under the hand of the daughter-in-law who supplied Rav Altusky with R' Maishe's Torah manuscripts, I saw the ketubah of Zlateh and Maisheh: they were married two months after the Pesach debacle, in Sivan 5673 (June 1913), and one of the two witnesses thereon is my grandfather, R' Bereh-Hirsh Heller, the "younger" mashgiach of the Slabodka Yeshiva. Rav Kalmanowitz went on to wed the Rakov girl and its rabbinate, and became known throughout his lifetime as "the Rakover Rav". It is said that R' Laizer Rabinowitz, who succeeded his father-in-law the Minsker Godol, R' Yeruham-Yehudah-Laib Perlman, as Rav of Minsk, took no major action in that metropolis without first discussing it with Rav Kalmanowitz. The latter verily became a great Torah leader as the Alter had predicted.     

I'll end by doing justice to the historically underrated Rav Kalmanowitz. During the First World War, Rav Kalmanowitz organized aid for the refugees who streamed from Poland into Russia, as recorded at length in "Kulmos Hallev". He also went on to become close to the Chafetz-Chaim and followed the latter's guidance in klal Yisrael activism. When the Mirrer Yeshiva underwent a financial crisis, he became the major fundraising representative of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Europe, and then traveled to America on behalf of that yeshiva. Because he was not a simple executive director but a great talmid chakham, he was given the title of "Nasi" of that yeshiva, and was promised that he would eventually deliver shiurim therein. (Nowadays, many religious institutions raise their stature by claiming to be uner the "n'si'ut" of one gadol or another. But the first to hold that title was Rav Kalmanowitz, who not only contributed his good name to the Mirrer Yeshiva, but earned the title by literally saving it from collapse.) 

But delivering shiurim in the Mirrer Yeshiva never worked out for R' Avrohm. I conjecture that it was due to the opposition of Reb Yeruham Levovitz, the Mashgiach who shared at least equally with the Rosh Yeshiva, R' Laizer-Yudel Finkel, the adulation of the talmidim. As a ba'al Musar who sought to raise the stature of bnai Torah who devoted themselves exclusively to Torah study, R' Yeruham felt that super-activist Rav Kalmanowitz was an improper role model. (See MOAG pp. 573-576 that R' Yeruham disagreed strongly with the Chafetz-Chaim's approach to the training of yeshiva students.) Instead, the Mirrer Yeshiva fulfilled its obligation by providing a group of its outstanding talmidim to set up a kolel in Otwotzk (near Warsaw) for its Nasi to head. The Kalmanowitz family told me that R' Avrohm always looked back at that time in his life when he sat and learned in the Mir-sponsored kolel as the happiest period of his lifetime.

In spite of this, Rav Kalmanowitz could not bring himself to shun the public arena for long. He returned to his activism and became Rav of Tiktin, an ancient and highly prestigious rabbanut. His many activities on behalf of Jewry and his prolific writings about them are recorded in "Kulmos Hallev", a book which should be read by all bnai Torah. When the Second World War broke out, he happened to be fundraising in the United States, and there became the linchpin of the Vaad Hatzalah organization. Among other accomplishments, he raised the monetary means to sustain the Mirrer Yeshiva throughout its Shanghai exile. In connection with this supreme achievement, there is a famous vort which R' Avrohm expounded. He asked: why did the lion claw and injure Noah when he was once late feeding it in the Ark, when, after all, he had fed it in time all the other meals? And he answered: there can be no excuse for treating the very last lion in the world in any manner less than royally. Rav Kalmanowitz used this bon mot when asking people to contribute to saving the last yeshiva remaining when the Jewish world was destroyed with the onset of the war.

I'll end with an exchange between gedolim that R' Yankel Leshinsky witnessed and relayed to me. The three Slabodka talmidim, R' Reuven Grozovsky, R' Avrohm Kalmanowitz, and R' Aaron Kotler were meeting in the Vaad Hatzalah office, and a heated argument broke out between Rav Kalmanowitz and Rav Aaron Kotler as to which course of action to take. Rav Kalmanowitz lost his composure and said, "Listen R' Aaron, if I had sat and learned all the years as you did, I would have been greater than you." To which R' Reuven retorted, "Yes, R' Avrohm, but R' Aaron did learn!" The point is that Rav Kalmanowitz sacrificed the pinnacle of personal rank in favor of the public needs: and he was never properly appreciated for it.

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New seforim and books

January 1, 2013, 7:13 pm

≫ Next: Winter book sale 2013

≪ Previous: A Letter from R. Nathan Kamenetsky

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New seforim and books

By Eliezer Brodt

Here is a list of seforim and books I have seen around in the past few months. This is not an attempt to list everything or even close to it; rather it's just a list of seforim and books on many random topics, which I have seen while shopping for seforim. I enumerated a few titles for which I have Table of Contents for. Please feel free to e-mail me for them.

ספרים:

א. פסקי הרי"ד מסכת נדה מכון תלמוד הישראלי

ב. האמונה ודעות לר' סעדיה גאון עם פירוש של ר' דוד הכהן [פרק א-ב] תפ עמודים

ג. דרשות ר' זרחיה הלוי סלדין [תלמיד ר' חסדאי קרשקש], אוניברסיטת בן גורין [מהדיר: ארי אקרמן], מבוא עז עמודים+ 186 עמודים

ד. קובץ על יד כרך כא [ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים]

ה. שלושת חיבורי הדקדוק של ר' יהודה חיוג' במקורם הערבי ובתרגומם לעברית - מהדורה ביקורתית, עלי ותד, דניאל סיון

ו. מקראות גדולות כולל פי' ר' יצחק ב"ר יוסף דפירא, תלמיד הרשב"א, שמות, תעג עמודים + מפתחות, [משפחת הולצר] ניתן לקבל דוגמא

ז. חקי משפט על חושן משפט [חתן של המגן אברהם]

ח. ר' יצחק בנימין וואלף, נחלת בנימין, ב' חלקים, על תרי"ג מצות, כולל מפתחות [נדפס פעם ראשונה בשנת תמ"ב]

ט. בתי כהונה [חנוכה] עם הערות ר' מנחם אדלר, רא עמודים

י. ר' אברהם אנג'יל, פתוחי חותם, ביאור תיבת גםבפסוקי תנ"ך [נדפס לראשונה בשנת תקע"ט] [כולל בשולי הגליון פירושים ממאות ראשונים ואחרונים על מילת גם, נאסף על ידי ידידי ר' משה היבנר], רכד עמודים, ניתן לקבל דוגמא של הספר.

יא. ר' אברהם בן הגר"א, רב פעלים ונוספות, הוצאת מישר I will hopefully review this work shortly.

יב. דרשות וחידושי רבי אליהו גוטמכר מגריידיץ על התורה, בראשית [מכתב יד] שפב עמודים.

יג. ר' אהרן אסאד, [בן של ר' יהודה אסאד], אש דת, פרקי מחשבה ומאמרי השקפה מיוסדים על דברי קדמונינו הראשונים ואחרונים, תפד עמודים

יד. דברי מלכיאל חלק ח, חידושים על ש"ס, מוסד רב קוק

טו. ר' שמואל שיטאווא, מנחת שבת על קיצור שלחן ערוך, שפח עמודים, +מפתחות.

טז. ר' צבי פסח פרנק, מקראי קודש, שבת א, רצו עמודים

יז. ר' יעקב פינק, תפארת יעקב, מאמרים הלכה ופרקי מחשבה רעינות לפרשיות השבוע ופרקי אבות, שצד עמודים

יח. ר' ברוך רבינוביץ, בינת נבונים, השואה באספקלריה תורנית, 135 עמ' מבוא, + רד עמודים

יט. ר' אלישיב זצ"ל, הערות במסכת שבת חלק א, עמ' תקמו עמודים.

כ. ר' שלמה שוחט,  מילה שלמה על מצות מילה,  תשכה עמודים

כא. ר' יאיר עובדיה, אור לגויים, הלכות עבודה זרה, 262 עמודים

כב. ר' אהרן ליכטנשטיין, באור פניך יהלכון, מידועת וערכים בעבודת ה' 295 עמודים, ידיעות ספרים

כג. ר' שריה דבליצקי, תשובת השנה, התעוררות והנהגות ליום הלידה, וקו' המעלות לכל השנה, עב עמודים.

כד.  ר' אברהם רוזנטל, [בעל הסידרה 'כמוצא שלל רב'] ורפואה קרובה לבוא,פניני הלכה ואגדה בעייני רפואה כולל שערי סגולות ותפילות לרפואה, תמח עמודים

כה. ר' יהודה ארצי, יקח מצות אוצר על עניני הידור מצוה, 1079 עמודים.

כו. אגרות וכתבים דרך אמונה, ממרן הגר"ח קניבסקי, הוראות והנהגות ממרן החזון איש, ואגרות מן הגרי"ש אלישיב,

כז. מנשים באהל, לזכר נשמת הרבנית לאה אויערבאך, כולל קובץ הלכות ממרן הגרי"ש אלישיב, וחידושי ר' שלמה זלמן אויערבאך על פרק במה מדליקין, אוסף חידושי תורה בעניני נשים במצות התורה, תקעא עמודים. ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.

כח. ר' זאב זיכערמאן, אוצר פלאות התורה, בראשית, תרמ"א עמודים.    One day I will hopefully review this work.  

ורפואה קרובה לבוא 5מחקר

מחקר

א. ר' שלמה זלמן הבלין, מסורות התורה שבעל פה, יסודותיה, עקרונותיה והגדרותיה, 632 עמודים, ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים.  

This sefer simply put is incredible. It does not come with an index instead you get a disk of the sefer fully searchable.

ב. משנת ארץ ישראל ספראי- מסכת תרומות

ג. יצחק כהן\ אור שמח הלכה ומשפט, משנתו של הרב הרב מאיר שמחה הכהן על משנה תורה להרמב"ם, אוניברסיטת בן גורין, 408 עמודים  I will be reviewing this work shortly Bn.

ד. להכות שורש, הראי"ה קוק והקרן הקיימת לישראל, ר' אברהם וסרמן ואיתם הנקין, 197 עמודים [כולל יותר מעשרים מכתבים של רב קוק חדשות שלא נדפסו וגם הרבה תמונות נדירים].

ה. עלה נעלה מענה לספר ויואל משה תשובות מפי ר' שלמה אבינר, 278 עמודים

ו. אדר היקר, ר' אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק על חתונ האדר"ת עם פירוש מר' שלמה אבינר, 452 עמודים

ז. יוחנן סילמן, בין ללכת בדרכיו, ולשמע בקלו, הוראות הלכתיות כהנחיות או כציוויים, 480 עמודים, מכללת הרצוג

ח. מיכה גודמן, חלומו של הכוזרי, 380 עמודים

ט. אליעזר טרייטל, פרקי דרבי אליעזר, נוסח, עריכה ודוגמת סינופסיס של כתבי היד, יד בן צבי, 445 עמודים [ראה כאן]

י. רבי ראובן כץ, רבה של אם המושבות, מסכת חייו השזורה בתולדות הימים, 398 עמודים.

יא. חיים שלם, אי של אפשר, סיפור חייו של בנימין מינץ, הוצאת הכרמל, 559 עמודים.

יב. פנקס קהל קאסאלי מונפיראטו שמ"ט-תי"ח, בעריכת ראובן בונפיל ויצחק יודלוב, 556 עמודים, מגנס, [תוכן העניינים]

יג. הרפואה במקרא ובתלמוד, ד"ר יצחק (יוליוס) פרויס, 1022 עמודים, מגנס [תוכן העניינים]

יד. דוד הלבני, מקורות ומסורות, סנהדרין עד מסכת הוריות, מגנס, 416 עמודים.

טו. דורש טוב לעמו, הדרשן הדרשה וספרות הדרוש בתרבות היהודית, עורכים נחם אילן\ כרמי הורוביץ/ קימי קפלן, מרכז זלמן שזר, 242 עמודים

טז. יוסף דן, תולדות תורת הסוד, ימי הביניים, חלק ח, מרכז זלמן שזר, 488 עמודים.

יז. גנזי יוסף פרל, שמואל ורסס, מרכז זלמן שזר, 359 עמודים.

יח. אלתר ולנר, אומה במאבקיה, 439 עמודים, מוסד רב קוק

יט. יורם ארדר, דרכים  בהלכה הקראית הקדומה, 372 עמודים, ספריית הילל בן חיים, [כולל חומר חשוב על האבן עזרא]

כ. יונתן מאיר, שבחי רודקינסון, מיכאל לוי פרומקין גוקדינסון והחידות, ספריית הילל בן חיים

כא. חיי אשה ד"ר חנה קטן

כב. המעין גליון 204 ראה כאן

כג. חקירה 14 ראה כאן

English

Ephraim Kanarfogel, The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013), 600 pages

Yaacov Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes, Oxford Press  304 pages

Michael T. Walton, Anthonius Margaritha and the Jewish Faith, Jewish life and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Germany, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013) 242 pages
Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, Yale University Press, 336 pages

Winter book sale 2013

January 3, 2013, 2:08 pm

≫ Next: Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

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Winter book sale 2013

By Eliezer Brodt

This list consists of two parts. Part one is composed of seforim and books [two parts] which I came across while hunting for seforim. Most of these titles are very hard to find. Some of the prices are better than others.. Almost all the books are in good shape. There is only one copy of most of these titles so they are being sold on a first come, first serve basis. Part two is a few lists of seforim which all are brand new. [Many titles are from Bialik] I have a few copies of each of the titles on this list. I personally recommend all of the titles on this second list [if they fit into your area of interest]. E mail your order to eliezerbrodt@gmail.com. I will than send you a bill based on what is available. Payment will be done Via Pay Pal. Shipping is not included in the price; that depends on the order and size, ranging between 5-9 dollars(with a few exceptions) a book. All books will be air mailed out after I receive the money. Part of the proceeds of this sale will be going to help support the efforts of the Seforim blog.

Feel free to ask for details about any specific book on the list. All questions should be sent to me at eliezerbrodt@gmail.com thank you and enjoy.

חלק א

א.       מטפחות ספרים ר' יעקב עמדין [תשנ"ה]  34$

ב.       ר' זאב רבינוביץ, שערי תורת בבל 50$

ג.        ר' זאב רבינוביץ, שערי תורת ארץ ישראל 50$

ד.       אלפי מנשה חלק א, 19$

ה.       מושב זקנים על התורה, 33$

ו.        ר' אליהו פייוולזאהן נצח ישראל [ספר מלא חומר חשוב ומעניין] 21$

ז.        אוהב הגר על תרגום אונקלוס שד"ל 36$

ח.       רש"י על התורה מכתב יד, הוצאת ליהמן 28$

ט.       סידור עבודת הלבבות, זאב יעבץ 25$

י.        מגילת תענית, מהדורת עוז והדר 12$

יא.     צאינה וראינה – מהדורה עברית מבוארת, ע"י מ' קוזק כולל הערות ומבוא על הספר, ירושלים תשל"ה, ש"ד עמודים + 54 עמודים (מבוא) 17$.

יב.     מדרשי הגאולה, מהדיר יהודה אבן שמואל 45$

יג.      ידיו באמונה 17$

יד.     רמב"ם, משנה תורה על פי דפוס קושטא, מדע, עם הערות, מוסד רב קוק 30$

טו.     אוצר ויכוחים 23$

טז.     רבי חסדאי קרשקש, אור השם, מהדורות ר' שלמה פישר, 24$

יז.      מחזור בית דין, לראש השנה, ר' אברהם חמוי 19$

יח.     חיבור יפה מישועה מוסד רב קוק 22$

יט.     כתבי פולמוס לפרופיט דוראון כלימת הגויים ואיגת אל תהי כאבותיך, עורך אפרים תלמג' מרכז דינור 18$

כ.       ר' שריה דבליצקי, דיני תשעה באב ביום א ודיני שבת שלפניו תשע"ב, 9$

כא.    ר' שריה דבליצקי, וזרח השמש, מנהגי מנין ותיקין בבית הכנסת תפארת ציון בבני ברק 14$

כב.    ר' דוד צבי הופמן -ספר ויקרא ב' חלקים $50

כג.     הלכות הנגיד 32$

כד.    ר' יוסף אבן כספי שולחן כסף [מכת"י נדפס לראשונה תשנ"ו] [עותקים אחרונים] 21$

כה.    שו"ת ציון לנפש חיה לייטר 16$

כו.     סדר הסליחות כמנהג ליטא, ד' גולדשמידט, מוסד רב קוק 32$

כז.     סדר הסליחות כמנהג פולין, ד' גולדשמידט, מוסד רב קוק 32$

כח.    ר' אברהם גבישון, עומר השכחה, פירוש על משלי, זמן דור גירוש ספרד, 25$

כט.    חידושי דינים מהלכות פסח, עם הערות הגאון רי"פ פערלא, 16$

ל.       סדר אליהו אדר"ת מוסד רב קוק 70$

לא.    דרשות נפוצות יהודה, ר' יהודה מוסקאטו [פורמוט גדול] 18$

לב.    מחזור גולדשמידט ראש השנה יום כיפור ב' חלקים 110$

לג.     מחזור גולדשמידט יום כיפור 55$

לד.    מחזור גולדשמידט סוכות 55$

לה.    ר' אברהם אליהו קפלן, דברי תלמוד ב' חלקים 44$

לו.     ר' אברהם אליהו קפלן, דברי תלמוד, חלק א 22$

לז.     בתורתו של ר' גדליה (נדל) [מהדורה שניה] 24$

לח.    הנוספות למנחת שי, (נדיר), 36$

לט.    אוצר כל מנהגי ישורון 25$

מ.       מגן אבות- חיבור על מנהגים להמאירי, עם מבוא והערות על פי כת"י, י"ל ע"י ר"י כהן, 19$

מא.   ר' מנחם מנדל מקמניץ, קורות העתים, מוסד רב קוק 23$

מב.   בעלי התוסופת על התורה (פרשת שופטים וכי תצא) ש' אברמסון, ירושלים תשל"ה, 94 עמודים 26$

מג.    ראיות מכריעות נגד ולהויזן- ר' דוד הופמן, ירושלים תרפ"ח, קנא עמודים (נדיר), 40$

מד.    גליוני יואל, אביו של ר' הרצוג, 20$

מה.   נועם אלמילך, ב' חלקים, מוסד רב קוק, גדליה נגאל, 45$

מו.     קרבן שבת\ צלותא דמעלי שבתא\ תיקוני שבת 12$

מז.     קובץ ספרי הגאונים: כולל ה' חיבורים של ר' בנימין משה לוין: אוצר חילוף מנהגים בין בני ארץ ישראל ובני בבל\ ספר מתיבות\ ספר חפץ לתלמוד\ רב שרירא גאון, תולדות חיים\ אגרות רב שרירא גאון [שני הנוסחות וכו']: 19$

מח.   שו"ת ר' עזריאל הילדסהיימר או"ח 30$

מט.   קובץ מפרשי המהרש"א: חמשה ספרים בכרך אחד: הוראה שעה\ בית אברהם\ אמרי בינה\ מחנה אפרים\ ישוב הדעת. 16$

נ.        החילוקים שבין אנשי מזרח ובני ארץ ישראל, מרדכי מרגליות, 33$

נא.    טעמי וסודות התפילות להושענות ופיוטי שמחת תורה להרוקח סז עמודים, מהודורת ראזענפעלד, סז עמודים 7$

נב.    דקדוקי סופרים, בבא קמא, בבא בתרא, 12$

נג.     תהלוכות היבשה [הלכות הולכי דרכים] [נדפס ב1869] 14$

נד.     ספר העתים, עם הערות ר' יעקב שור, 19$

נה.    אגרות ר' יהודה בן קוריש תל אביב תשי"ב 17$

נו.      מספר הפרדס לר' אשר בן רבי חיים על הלכות ברכות 13$

נז.      כתבי הרמב"ם ובנו ר' אברהם, [כולל: תשובות הרמב"ם השלם, ספר חידושי הרמב"ם, אגרות ואמרי הרמב"ם השלם, חידושי הרמב"ם למסכת ר"ה, ספר ברכת אברהם לר' אברהם בן הרמב"ם] 18$

נח.    א' קופפר, מהדיר, פירושי מסכת פסחים וסוכה מבית מדרשו של רש"י, מקיצי נרדמים, ירושלים תשמ"ד, 11$

נט.     בארות נתן, ר' נתן רבינוביץ ביאורים על הש"ס, 12$.

ס.       הגדה של פסח פרי עץ חיים, ר' יצחק רצהבי, 19$

סא.   הגדה שלמה, סדר הגדה של פסח, ר' מנחם כשר, 18$

סב.   ר' יצחק טייב, חקת הפסח, וערך השלחן 18$

סג.    להודות ולהלל, פיוטים מפורשים ומבוארים ומקורתיהם בהלכה ובאגדה לארבע פרשיות להפסקות ולשבת הגדול, ע"י ר' משה רוזנווסר, תשי"א עמודים, 22$

סד.    מנוחה וקדושה 22$

סה.   ילקוט מכירי, ישיעה משלי 16$

סו.     מסכת אבות על פי כתבי יד, ב' חלקים כארולוס טילור 32$

סז.     אור פני יצחק,  על ר' יצחק פייגענבוים 13$

סח.    עזר הדת, ר' יצחק פולקר, 16$

סט.   ילקוט חדש  8$

ע.       הלכות ארץ ישראל מן הגניזה, מוסד רב קוק, מרדכי מרגליות 21$

עא.   רס"ג אמונה ודעת, קאפח 16$

עב.   ר' ברוך עפשטיין בעל תורה תמימה, ברוך שאמר פירוש על תפילות השנה, 17$

עג.    דרש משה, דרוש ר' משה ראב"ד קראקא, 15$

עד.    תלמוד בבלי, שבת, דפוס ונציה ר"פ –דפוס צילום 10$

עה.   אוצר הגאונים למסכת סנהדרין 16$

עו.     תשובות חכמי פרובינציא, מהדיר, ר' אברהם סופר, 28$

עז.     ר' יהודה חלאוה, אמרי שפר על התורה 13$

עח.   מנחת יהודה על ש"ס תלמיד נחלת דוד 14$

עט.   תורי זהב על שיר השירים\ שקל הקודש על מגילת אסתר\ ברית קודש על עניני מילה לר' שמואל באנדי 22$

פ.       גבעת פנחס, ר' פנחס מפאלאצק, תלמיד הגר"א 12$.

פא.   ר' יצחק וויס, שיח יצחק על התורה מכון ירושלים 9$

פב.   תורת מוסר ר' חיים ריינס, מוסד רב קוק, 10$

פג.    מאורות נתן\ברך משה ר' נתן אלעווסקיא, מכון ירושלים 9$

פד.    מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל מהדורת מ' איש שלום, 15$

פה.   ספרי מהדרת מ' איש שלום, 15$

פו.      משברי ים ר' משה לייטר, ביאורים וחידושים לתלמוד בבלי, רעט עמודים, מוסד רב קוק תשל"ט, 15$

פז.     משיבת נפש ר' יעקב פעלדמאן על ספר תורה תמימה 550 עמודים 35$

פח.   ירחון תבונה לר' ישראל סלנטר 10$

פט.   מסכת מגילה ומועד קטן על פי כתב יד ע"י י' פרייס, 14$

צ.       חקר ועיון חלק ג ר' קלמן כהנא 8$

צא.   אמת קנה\ ספר חסידים [אחיין של הרא"ש]\ דרך טובים\דרך סלולה\ דרך חיים\ מגילת סדרים [ר' יהודה הורובייץ ויכוח ומחקר בין מקובלים ותלמידים]\ צל המעלות 9$

מחקר

א.       מאור עיניים ג' חלקים [מקור] 130$

ב.       מבוא לתלמודים ח' אלבק 37$

ג.        רבי זרחיה הלוי בעל המאור ובני חוגו, ישראל מ. תא-שמע, מוסד רב קוק 32$

ד.       ר' צבי הורווביץ לתולדות הקהילות בפולין, מוסד הרב קוק 42$

ה.       מפרשי המקרא ע' מלמד ב' חלקים 50$

ו.        יונה פרנקל, רש"י 25$

ז.        אשה חכמת לב, מנחת זיכרון לד"ר שרה פרנקל תשע"א, כרכיה רכה, 144 עמודים 21$

ח.       ערך מילין שי"ר ב' חלקים 80$

ט.       גנזי שכטר, חלק ב, פירקוי בן באבוי ועוד, 20$

י.        אברהם השל, תורה מן השמים באספקלריה של הדורות, ב' חלקים 75$

יא.     הלכה מקורותיה והתפתחותה, אפרים א. אורבך, 27$

יב.     הרמב"ם והגאונים חבצלת 21$

יג.      מחברות עמנואל הרומי, מהדורת דב ירדן, 50$

יד.     אברהם השל, תורה מן השמים באספקלריה של הדורות, חלק א, 35$

טו.     יספור לדור, יונה עמנואל 17$  על השואה [יש לציין שר' שלמה זלמן אורבעך היה קורא בחיבור זה בתשעה באב]

טז.     ר' אליעזר ליפמן פרינץ, פרנס לדורות, 24$

יז.      אליעזר בשן, שבייה ופדות, בחברה היהודית בארצות הים התיכון, 18$

יח.     דוד קופמין, מחקרים, מוסד רב קוק 22$

יט.     ר' שלמה זלמן הבלין, מסורת התורה שבעל פה תשע"ב, ניתן לקבל דוגמא 25$ [ספר מצוין, 632 עמודים]

כ.       יונה פרנקל, עיונים בעולמו הרוחני של סיפור האגדה 16$

כא.    מורה דרך בארץ ישראל,  א' לונץ 22$

כב.    שאלו שלום ירושלים, ר' מאיר דן פלצקי, על הירושלמי המזויף, 20$

כג.     דרכי משנה, זכריה פרנקל 29$

כד.    בן ציון כץ רבנות חסידות השכלה, 18$

כה.    פ' חורגין, תרגום כתובים, $21

כו.     כתבי רמח"ל, מאיר בניהו 100$

כז.     אוצר זכרונותי, י"ד איזנשטיין, 16$

כח.    במרכזים ובתפוצות, שרגא אברמסון 35$

כט.    קובץ אהל שרה לאה, ירושלים תשנ"ט, 1000+ עמודים, כולל חיבור חשוב של ר' דוד צבי רוטשטיין בשם 'ספר תורה מנוקד', יותר מ200 עמודים, על עניני נקודות ועוד, 24$.

ל.       רבי יעקב אליישר – מאיר בניהו 28$

לא.    רבי משה אלשיך שמעון שלם, מכון בן צבי, [בעריכת מאיר בניהו] 25$

לב.    נפתלי בן מנחם, בשערי ספר, מוסד רב קוק 20$

לג.     יוסף פאור, הרב ישראל משה חזן, האיש ומשנתו, 20$

לד.    המשנה בבבלי ובירושלמי, שכטר מוסד רב קוק 29$

לה.    מכתבים ואגרות קודש מאוסף יחיאל פישהאוף, תשס"ב, 419 עמודים, 24$

לו.     אחד בדורו חלק א, ר' שמואל קול, על ר' יסף שלמה כהנמן 24$

לז.     פרקי עיון במשנת האבן עזרא, ליפשיץ, מוסד רב קוק 20$

לח.    לפלגת ישראל באונריה,ר' יקותיאל גרינוואלד 60$ דפוס נדיר

לט.    לתולדות הסנהדרין בישראל, ר' יקותיאל גרינוואלד, 20$

מ.       השוחט והשחיטה בספרות הרבנות ר' יקותיאל גרינוואלד 25$

מא.   ארץ ישראל בבל וארצות הגולה ר' יקותיאל גרינוואלד50 $

מב.   תולדות הכהנים הגדולים, ר' יקותיאל גרינוואלד 50$

מג.    הסנהדרין גדולה ביכליר 22$

מד.    פירוש על המשנה למסכת עירובין ר' אברהם גולדברג 28$

מה.   ש' באילובלוצקי, אם למסדורת, בר אילן תשל"א, 280 עמודים, [כולל מאמרים על רבו ר' איזה'לה מפוניבז' רב סעדיה גאון ועוד דברים חשובים], 23$

מו.     שלשלת הקבלה 24$

מז.     מסות ומסעות, רפאל ליהמן, מוסד רב קוק 18$

מח.   צבי מנחם פיניליש, דרכה של תורה 30$

מט.   אלה מסעי, רשימת מסע הרבנים בראשותם של הרב קוק ור' יוסף חיים זוננפלד, תשע"א 22$

נ.        אגרות ר' אייזק הלוי, (בעל דורות הראשונים), מוסד רב קוק, 22$

נא.    בין סמכות לאוטונומיה במסורת ישראל, עורכים זאב ספראי, ואבי שגי 23$

נב.    הראשונים לציון :תולדותיהם ופעולתם, א' אלמאליח 24$

נג.     דוד אסף, הציץ ונפגע, תשע"ב 32$

נד.     כנישתא, מחקרים על בית הכנסת ועולמו, חלק  א 25$

נה.    קרית נאמנה, פין 70$

נו.      משה סמט, משה מונטיפיורי האיש והאגדה 19$

נז.      מ' בלבן, לתולדות התנועה הפראנקית, 45$

נח.    עזרא מלמד, מחקרים במקרא בתרגומיו ובמפרשיו, 24$

נט.    הרב הירש ומשנתו 21$

ס.       הלל זידמן ר' שרגא פיבול מנדלוביץ 22$

סא.   דקדוק ארמית, יעקב נחום אפשטין 18$

סב.   שמואל ספראי, העליה לרגל בימי בית שני, 33$

סג.    יעקב נחום אפשטיין, מבואות לספרות התנאים 42$

סד.    התפילה בתקופת התנאים והאמוראים, יוסף הינמן כרכיה קשה 28$

סה.   התפילה בתקופת התנאים והאמוראים, כריכה רכה 23$

סו.     ג' אלון מחקרים תולודת ישראל ב' חלקים 30$

סז.     קובץ ר' יהודה הלוי, מוסד רב קוק, תש"י,  22$

סח.   שבט יהודה- מוסד ביאליק  26$

סט.   ש' קוק עיונים ומחקרים שני חלקים, מוסד רב קוק, 45$

ע.       ש' קוק, עיונים ומחקרים, מוסד רב קוק  חלק א 23$

עא.   על היצירה הספרותית של האמוראים, אברהם ווייס $28

עב.   לחקר התלמוד אברהם ווייס 28$

עג.    הסנהדרין הגדולה, מוסד רב קוק, הוניג $22

עד.    תולדות ר' שלמה קלוגר\אביר הרועים\ אהל שלמה 19$

עה.   תולדות אדם\ תולדות מנחם \ תולדות יצחק 19$

עו.     אגרות רמח"ל , מהדורת גינזבורג, שני חלקים 75$

עז.     ספר רש"י, מוסד רב קוק 33$

עח.   ר' מאיר הילפרין, הנוטריקון, הסימנים, והכנוים 24$

עט.   ש"ד גויטיין, מסעות חבשוש $26

פ.       משל הקדמוני ישראל זמורה 24$

פא.   ספר היובל לכבוד הרב סולובייצ'יק, מוסד רב קוק, שני חלקים 120$

פב.   קובץ על הרמב"ם מוסד רב קוק,  30$

פג.    ביכורים, שני חלקים 66$

פד.    משה צינוביץ, עץ חיים על ישיבות וולוז'ין 40$

פה.   ראובן מהלר חסידות והשכלה 27$

פו.     מחקרים בתקופת בית שני פ' חורגין 30$

פז.     מ"א טננבלאט, התלמוד הבבלי בהתהוותו ההיסטורית, 28$

פח.   ספר היובל לכבוד ש' מרסקי 23$

פט.   ד' תמר מחקרים בתולודת היהודים בארץ ישראלבארצות המזרח מוסד רב קוק 21$

צ.       ד' תמר, מחקרים בתולודת היהודים בארץ ישראל ובאיטליה 21$

צא.   ספר מרגליות (ספר זכרון לר' ראובן מרגליות) 28$

צב.   ספר הבעל שם טוב (מוסד רב קוק) 36$

צג.    מבוא למשנה תורה לרמב"ם טברסקי 34$

צד.    מחקרי ספר אברהם יערי 47$

צה.   יהודה ליב גירשט, תחנות בספרות ישראל, חלק שני, מזמן ראשית הצמיחה של ספרות ישראל בספרד המוסלימית עד דורו של ר' יהודה הלוי, 22$

צו.     בפרדס החסידות ה' צייטלין (כריכה קשה) 20$

צז.     על גבול שני עולמות ה' צייטלין (כריכה קשה) 20$

צח.   התורה והחיים, גידמן סט ג' חלקים 75$

צט.   נפתלי בן מנחם מגנזי ישראל בוואטיקאן, מוסד רב קוק 33$

ק.        נתיבות ציון וירושלים : מבחר מאמרי אברהם משה לונץ, מוסד רב קוק  28$

קא.   קום ריב את ההרים, חיים בלוך עם חתימת המחבר 26$

קב.   מגיד דבריו ליעקב רבקה 33$

קג.    יונים ויונית, שאול ליברמן 30$

קד.    ש"ד גוטין הישוב בארץ ישראל 22$

קה.   אגרות ר' עזריאל הילדסהיימר 28$

קו.     אברהם קורמאן, יציאת מצרים קורמן 22$

קז.     אברהם קורמאן, אבולציה יהודות 22$

קח.   אברהם קורמאן, אבות ושבטים קורמן 22$

קט.   אברהם קורמאן,  יהודי מיהו יהודי קורמן 22$

קי.     אברהם קורמאן, זמרים וכתות 22$

קיא.י"ז כהנא, מחקרים בספרות השו"ת, מוסד רב קוק 35$

קיב.כנסת עזרא ספר היובל לכבוד עזרא פליישר, 28$

קיג.  ר' חיים קרויס, מכלכל חיים בחסד\ שני חלקים \פולמוס בענין גשם ובענין תפילות יהי רצון שבין התקיעות -26$

קיד.  יוסף כהן, מקורות וקורות [כולל הרבה מחקרים חשובים כמו: מסכת אבות פירושיה ותרגומיה, סדר קבלת שבת ופזמון לכד דודי\ מגילת אסתר בצפת במאה הט"ז ועוד ועוד] 28$

קטו.לכה דודי, ראובן קימילמן, 33$

קטז.נתיבי אמונה ומינות, י' תשבי (כריכה קשה)24$

קיז.   קורות התהוות הבבלי, אברהם ווייס [נדיר] 30$

קיח.בית ישראל בפולין, מימים ראשונים ועד לימות החורבן, חלק א 20$

קיט.אברהם וויס, על מסכת ב"ק 28$

קכ.    משיחות  בדור גירושי ספרד ופורטוגאל, י' תשבי 23$

קכא.                        ר' שבתי דונלו, ז' מנטנר, מוסד רב קוק 28$

קכב.                        תולדות יהודים באפרקיה שני חלקים, הירשברג 36$

קכג.מחקרים ומקורות לתולדות ישראל, וונריב 23$

קכד.מכיאל הכהן ברור ובנו ר' אברהם, זכרונות אב ובנו, מוסד רב קוק $26

קכה.                        שמחה אסף, תקופת הגאונים וספרותה 21$

קכו.  ר' נתן דוד רבינוביץ, בינו שנות דור ודור$28

קכז.  חזון האיש: בעניני אמונה ובטחון, תורה ומוסר, מדות והנהגות, חינוך וציבור, חכמי ישראל ועוד  מנוקדים, מתורגמים ומבוארים /  מלוקטים מספריו וכתביו שלרבי אברהם ישעיה קרלי ירושלים מכון פתחי מגדים, תשנ"ז. 23$

קכח.                        שמואל ורסס, מגמות וצורות בספרות ההשכלה 20$

קכט.                        תולדות שלשת הרועים – ג' ספרים בכרך אחד: א]-עטרת הלוים על השל"ה פ' מדובנא 80 עמודים ב] כתר כהונה על הש"ך- ח' פרידבערג 37 עמודים ג] שלשלת זהב על ר' נפתלי כץ 92 עמודים – 23$

קל.     הסכמה ורשות בדפוסי ויניציאה מאיר בניהו 50$

קלא.                        הדפוס העברי בקרימונה מאיר בניהו 50$

קלב.                         המקרא ברמב"ם יוסף קאפח 22$

קלג.ספר המצרף, ביאורים והגהות לאגדות חז"ל, אברהם דובזויץ, (דפוס צילום, אודעסא תרל"ו) 15

קלד.תקופת הסבוראים וספרותה יעקב אפרתי 23$

קלה.                        אוצר ההגדות- יצחק יודלב, ביבליוגראפיה של הגדות של פסח מראשית הדפוס העברי עד שנת תש"ך, 70$ עותקים אחרונים

קלו.    אגרות ארץ ישראל, אברהם יערי, 29$

קלז.  תלמידי הגר"א בארץ ישראל, היסוטריה\ הגות\ רייאליה, קובץ מחקרים תשע"א, 20$ כריכה רכה

קלח.                        גאון הוראה אחרי 50 שנה, היסוטריה\ הגות\ רייאליה, קובץ מחקרים תשע"ב, על ר' צבי פסח פרנק, כרכיה רכה 18$

קלט.                         חברה ודעת, מנחם פרידמן 24$ [עותקים אחרונים[ - האורטודוקסיה הלא ציונית בארץ ישראל 1918-1936

קמ.    מחקרים בתלמוד, בנימין דה פריס, מוסד רב קוק $18

קמא.                        יצחק אלפסי, החכם המופלא ר' שלמה הכהן אהרנסון 11$

קמב.                        שערי זמרה הארוך 14$

קמג.מקורות ומסורות ד' הלבני, סדר נשים 30$

קמד.                        יוסף דרנבורג, משא ארץ ישראל 18$

קמה.                        מעלות היוחסין מאת ר' אפרים זלמן מרגליות עם הערות 10$

קמו.אברהם ביכלר, עם הארץ הגלילי, מוסד רב קוק 12$

קמז.תולדות הישוב היהודי בארץ ישראל ש' קליין 22$

קמח.                         פנקס התקנות והרישומים של החברה קדישה דג"ח וורמיישא, תע"ו-תקצ"ז, א' אונא, מוסד רב קוק תש"ם, 204 עמודים 12$.

קמט.                         בן ציון אלפס, מעשה אלפס, ישראל תשל"ח, רכ עמודים, 8$

קנ.    ספר המלבי"ם (נצח) [כולל כמה ספרים תולדות ע"י א' סורסקי, שנת היובל נכתב ע"י המלבי"ם, עלה לתרופה –על הל' דעות להרמב"ם, משל ומליצה –נכתב ע"י המלבי"ם], רסג עמודים, 15$

קנא.דניאל שפרבר, תרבות חומרית בארץ ישראל בימי התלמוד חלק ב  16$

קנב.בעקבות תולעת השני הארץ ישראלית, זהר עמר 16$

קנג.  אברהם אמיר, מוסדות ותארים בספרות התלמוד, מוסד רב קוק, $17

קנד. הלכה הליכה ומשיחיות בכת מדבר יהודה 18$

קנה.ר' דוד צבי הופמן המשנה הראשונה ופלוגתא דתנאי 9$

קנו.  ש"י עולומת, דן סדן 9$

קנז.  Yonah Emanuel, Dignity to survive- $18

קנח.–Magicians Theologians and doctors, H. J. Zimmel 25$

קנט.Julius Kaplan - $40, Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud

Part two

אלפא ביתא קדמיתא דשמואל זעירא, ר' שמואל אשכנזי, 842 עמודים , $52

This is the first volume of Rabbi Shmuel Askenazi's work printed 12 years ago. This volume is out of print for some time and very hard to find. Recently I came across a few copies, available on a first come first serve basis. If you enjoyed the recently printed two volumes [which are still available] you will certainly enjoy this volume.  

All books, #1-16, in this section are $10 each. Table of contents of the Kovetz Al Yad volumes are available.

1.  אלף המגן: פירוש על אגדות מסכת מגילה לר' שמריה בן אליהו האקריטי, מהדורת אהרן ארנד, ירושלים תשס"ג

2.  לדויד מזמור: פיוטי דויד הנשיא בן יחזקיהו ראש הגולה, מהדורת טובה בארי, ירושלים תשס"ט

3.  מעשה נסים: פירוש לתורה לר' נסים בן ר' משה ממרסיי, מהדורת חיים קרייסל, ירושלים תש"ס

4.  פיוטי ר' יחיאל בר אברהם מרומא, אבי ר' נתן בעל הערוך, מהדורת אברהם פרנקל, ירושלים תשס"ז

5.  פירוש רש"י למסכת מגילה: מהדורה ביקורתית, מהדורת אהרן ארנד, ירושלים תשס"ח

6.  פנקס קהילת שנייטאך, מהדורת מאיר הילדסהיימר, ירושלים תשנ"ב

7.  קיצור ספר מצוות גדול לר' אברהם ב"ר אפרים,, מהדורת יהושע הורוביץ, ירושלים תשס"ה

8.  שירי ר' אהרן אלעמאני, מהדורת שרה כהן, ירושלים תשס"ח

9.  קבץ על יד, כרך יג (תשנ"ו)

10.  קבץ על יד, כרך יד (תשנ"ח)

11.  קבץ על יד, כרך טו (תשס"א)

12.  קבץ על יד, כרך טז (תשס"ב)

13.  קבץ על יד, כרך יז (תשס"ג)

14.  קבץ על יד, כרך יח (תשס"ה)

15.  קבץ על יד, כרך יט (תשס"ו)

16.  קבץ על יד, כרך כ (תשע"א)

ספרים של הוצאת ביאליק

א.       הגדה של פסח,דניאל גולדשמידט- עורך, 14$

ב.       ספר בן סירא השלם, משה צבי סגל, 17$

ג.        ספר יהודיתגרינץ 13$

ד.       מחזור פיוטי רבי יניי, לתורה ולמועדים – שני חלקים, צבי מאיר רבינוביץ (עורך), 35$

ה.       פיוטי יוסי בן יוסי, אהרון מירסקי (עורך) 16$

ו.        ספר זכירהסליחות וקינותאפרים ב"ר יעקב מבונא 10$

ז.        שלושת חיבורי הדקדוק של ר' יהודה חיוג' במקורם הערבי ובתרגומם לעברית - מהדורה ביקורתיתעלי ותד, דניאל סיון 20$

ח.       ספר ההשגהלר' יונה אבן ג'נאחדוד טנא 23$

ט.       ר' אברהם בר חייא, הגיון הנפש העצובה 10$

י.        לוית חן, לר' לוי בן אברהם,איכות הנבואה וסודות התורהחיים קרייסל 26$

יא.     כתבי ר' משה אבן תבוןבעריכת: חיים קרייסל, קולט סיראט, אברהם ישראל 24$

יב.     ספר הברית וויכוחי רד"ק עם הנצרותאפרים תלמג' (עורך) 10$

יג.      שער הרזיםר' טודרוס בן יוסף הלוי אבולעפיא 14$

יד.     דרשות ר' זרחיה הלוי סלדיןארי אקרמן 19$

טו.     קבץ על יד כרך כא 20$

טז.     דרך אמונה, ר' אברהם ביבאג' 10$

יז.      מעיין עין יעקב לר' משה קורדובירוהמעיין הרביעי מספר אלימהברכה זק 23$

יח.     מאמר על יהודי ונציה שמחה לוצאטו 11$

יט.     לקט כתבים יהודה אריה ממודינא 10$

כ.       ספר הישר עם מבוא מיוסף דן 10$

כא.    כתבי עזריה מן האדומיםמבחר פרקים מתוך ספר 'מאור עיניים' וספר 'מצרף לכסף',עזריה מן האדומים, 14$

כב.    מעלות העבריםיצחק פרנאנדו קארדוזו 10$

כג.     פנקס ועד ארבע ארצותליקוטי תקנות, כתבים ורשומותההילפרין ישראל (עורך) 16$

כד.    כתביםשמואל דוד לוצאטו –שני חלקים 20$

כה.    מגדל עוז או תומת ישרים, מחזה מר' משה חיים לוצאטו, 10$

כו.     לישרים תהילה, מחזה מר' משה חיים לוצאטו, 10$

כז.     מעשה שמשון, מחזה מר' משה חיים לוצאטו, 10$

מחקר

א.       ביקורת נוסח המקראפרקי מבואעמנואל טוב 14$

ב.       מבוא למשנהחנוך אלבק 18$

ג.        המקרא ותרגומיובזיקתם להתפתחות הפנימית של היהדותאברהם גייגר12$

ד.       הדרשות בישראלוהשתלשלותן ההיסטוריתיום-טוב ליפמאן צונץ 20$

ה.       הכישוף היהודי הקדוםמחקר, שיטה, מקורותיובל הררי 23$

ו.        אסטרולוגיה ומדעים אחרים בין יהודי ארץ-ישראלבתקופות ההלניסטית-רומית והביזאנטיתמאיר בר-אילן20$

ז.        לתולדות נוסח השאילתותירחמיאל ברודי13$

ח.       מסודו של משה הדרשןחננאל מאק 20$

ט.       כנסת מחקרים כרך א: אשכנזעיונים בספרות הרבנית בימי הבינייםישראל תא-שמע 23$

י.        כנסת מחקרים כרך ב: ספרדעיונים בספרות הרבנית בימי הבינייםתא-שמע י"מ, 23$

יא.     כנסת מחקרים כרך ג: איטליה וביזנטיוןעיונים בספרות הרבנית בימי הבינייםישראל מ' תא-שמע, 23$

יב.     כנסת מחקרים כרך ד: ארצות המזרח, פרובנס ומאסףעיונים בספרות הרבנית בימי הביניים
ישראל מ' תא-שמע,23$

יג.      בעלי התוספות (2 חלקים) תולדותיהם, חיבוריהם, שיטתםאפרים א. אורבך 25$

יד.     הרמב"ם כפילוסוף וכפוסקיעקב לוינגר 14$

טו.     ריבוי נשים בישראלמקורות חדשים מגניזת קהיר, מרדכי עקיבא פרידמן 19$

טז.     גנזי חז"ל בספרות הקראית בימי הביניים - כרך א: עיונים פילולוגיים ובלשניים
עפרה תירוש-בקר 20$

יז.      גנזי חז"ל בספרות הקראית בימי הביניים - כרך ב: מהדורה מדעית מוערת של הטקסטים
עפרה תירוש-בקר 23$

יח.     דור דור ופרשניואסופת מחקרים בפרשנות המקראשרה יפת 17$

יט.     ש"י לשרה יפת 23$

כ.       סיפור העם העבריתולדותיו, סוגיו, ומשמעותו,עלי יסיף 19$

כא.    לא יסור שבט מיהודההנהגה, רבנות וקהילה בתולדות ישראל, מחקרים מוגשים לפרופ' שמעון שוורצפוקסעורכים: יוסף הקר, ירון הראל 20$

כב.    טוב עלם: זיכרון, קהילה ומגדר בחברות יהודיות בימי הביניים ובראשיתמאמרים לכבודו של ראובן בונפילעורכים: אלישבע באומגרטן, רוני ויינשטיין, אמנון רז-קרקוצקין 23$

כג.     הרבנות באיטליה בתקופת הריניסאנסראובן בונפיל 20$

כד.    חברה במשבר לגיטמציההיישוב הישן האשכנזי 1971-1900מנחם פרידמן 17$

כה.    אור שמח- הלכה ומשפטמשנתו של הרב מאיר שמחה הכהן על משנה תורה לרמב"ם, יצחק כהן 20$

מחשבה

א.       להבין דברי חכמים,מבחר דברי מבוא לאגדה ולמדרש משל חכמי ימי-הבינייםיעקב אלבוים 15$

ב.       על פי הבארמחקרים בהגות יהודית ובמחשבת ההלכה מוגשים ליעקב בלידשטייןבעריכת אורי ארליך, חיים קרייסל, דניאל י' לסקר 23$

ג.        ישן בקנקן חדשמשנתו העיונית של החוג הנאופלטוני בפילוסופיה היהודי במאה ה-14דב שוורץ 17$

ד.       מחשבת ישראל ואמונת ישראלבעריכת דניאל י' לסקר 20$

ה.       לימוד ודעת במחשבה יהודית - כרך ב בעברית)בעריכת חיים קרייסל 17$

ו.        סמכות רוחניתמאבקים על כוח תרבותי בהגות היהודיתבעריכת: חיים קרייסל, בועז הוס, אורי ארליך 20$

ז.        עיוני תשובההלכה, הגות ומחשבה חינוכית בהלכות תשובה לרמב"םעדיאל קדרי16$

ח.       עיונים במחשבת ההלכה והאגדהיעקב בלידשטיין 20$

ט.        שבת - רעיון, היסטוריה, מציאותבעריכת: יעקב בלידשטיין 20$

קבלה

א.       משנת הזוהר – ב' חלקיםישעיה תשבי 40$

ב.       כזוהר הרקיע,פרקים בתולדות התקבלות הזוהר ובהבניית ערכו הסמלי,בועז הוס 23$

ג.        אברהם כהן הירירהבעל 'שער שמיים', חייו, יצירתו והשפעתה,גרשם שלום10$

ד.       בשערי הקבלה של רבי משה קורדוברוברכה זק 17$

ה.       מ'בעל שד' ל'בעל שם' - שמואל פאלק, ה'בעל שם מלונדון'מיכל אורון19$

ו.        שומר הפרדסהמקובל רבי שבתי שעפטל הורוויץ מפראגזק ב' 17$

ז.        תורת האלוהות של ר' משה קורדוברויוסף בן-שלמה, 12$

ח.       וזאת ליהודה - קובץ מאמרים המוקדש לחברנו, פרופ' יהודה ליבסלרגל יום הולדתו השישים וחמישהעורכים: מארן ר' ניהוף, רונית מרוז, יהונתן גארב 23$

ט.       מחקרים ומקורות לתולדות השבתאות וגלגוליה,גרשום שלום15$

י.        סוד האמונה השבתאיתקובץ מאמרים,יהודה ליבס 23$

תפילה

א.       חקרי קבלה ותפילהמשה חלמיש 21$

ב.       התפילה במשנתו ההלכתית של הרמב"םיעקב בלידשטיין 19$

חסידות

א.       בין אידיאולוגיה למציאותענווה, אין, ביטול ממציאות ודביקות במחשבתם של ראשי החסידות
מנדל פייקאז' 16$

ב.       בימי צמיחת החסידותמגמות רעיוניות בספרי דרוש ומוסר,מנדל פייקאז' 16$

ג.        במעגלי חסידים,קובץ מחקרים מוקדש לזכרו של מרדכי וילנסקי,אטקס ואחרים, 18$

ד.       חסידות ברסלבפרקים בחיי מחוללה ובכתביהמנדל פייקאז' 16$

ה.       חסידות פוליןמגמות רעיוניות בין שתי מלחמות העולם ובגזרות ת"ש-תש"ה (ה'שואה)מנדל פייקאז' 16$

ו.        מחקרים בחסידות ברסלביוסף וייס, 14$

ז.        חסידים ומתנגדים (2 כרכים)לתולדות הפולמוס שביניהם בשנים תקל"ב-תקע"ה, מרדכי וילנסקי

ח.       ספרות ההנהגותתולדותיה ומקומה בחיי חסידיו של הבעש"ט,זאב גריס, 16$

ט.       שלום על ישראל - אליעזר צבי הכהן צוויפל ב' חלקים 20$

י.        ההנהגה החסידיתסמכות ואמונת צדיקים באספקלריית ספרותה של החסידותמנדל פייקאז' 23$

יא.     מסורת אהובה ושנואההות יהודית מודרנית וכתיבה ניאו-חסידית בפתח המאה העשרים,
ניחם רוס, 20$

יב.     ספרות העדות על השואה כמקור היסטוריושלש תגובות חסידיות בארצות השואהמנדל פייקאז' 20$

יג.      אברהם בר גוטלובר זכרונות ומסעות ב' חלקים $20

יד.     יצחק קובנר ספר המצרף 10$

טו.     וידוי של משכיל אביעזר $10

טז.     משה לייב ליליינבלום  כתבים אוטוביוגראפיים ג' חלקים 30$

יז.      יהודה יודל רוזנברג הגולם מפראג ומעשים נפלאים אחרים – מבוא עלי יסיף 10$

ספרים שונים

א.       ספרי במדבר, ספרי זוטא, מהודרת הורביץ, 18$

ב.       תנא דבי אליהו מהדורת איש שלום, 18$

ג.        מכילתא דר' ישמעאל, מהדורת הורביץ 18$

ד.       מדרש דברים רבה, שואל ליברמן, 13$

ה.        שקיעין- מדרשי תימן, שואל ליברמן 13$

ו.         טעמי מסורת המקרא, לר' יהודה החסיד 7$

ז.         פרושי התורה לר' חיים פלטיאל, 22$

ח.        שירת הרוקח 20$

ט.       אזהרות ר' אליהו הזקן 17$

י.        שירת רבנו תם $20

יא.     דרכי התלמוד לר' יצחק קפנאטון 8$

יב.     שו"ת מענה אליהו להאדר"ת 18$

יג.      תפילת דוד, נפש דוד- חיבור על תפילה וצוואה של האדר"ת, 15$.

יד.     הלכות מדינה לבעל ציץ אליעזר, 26$

טו.     קול התוהר 15$

טז.     שד"ל על התורה, 24$

יז.      עין איה, רב קוק על ברכות ב' חלקים, שבת ב' חלקים 21$ כל חלק

יח.     מאמרי הראי"ה [אוסף מאמרים של רב קוק] 15$

יט.     מועדי הראי"ה, ר' משה צבי נריה, 19$

כ.       מלאכים כבני אדם [על רב קוק], 20$

כא.    תורה משמחת [ח"א, על הרב שלמה זלמן אויערבך] 20$

כב.     אורו של עולם [ח"ב, על הרב שלמה זלמן אויערבך] 21$

כג.     בתורתו יהגה הרב שגר [אפשר לקבל תוכן הענינים], 18$

כד.    אגרות רמח"ל, 22$

כה.    יעקב גרטנר, גלגולי מנהג בעולם הלכה [אפשר לקבל תוכן הענינים], 15$

כו.      התשובה בספרות הלכה, 15$

כז.     מציאות רפואה בסדר נשים [ניתן לקבל תוכן הענינים] $25

כח.    רפואה מציאות והלכה ולשון חכמים מרפא, ר' מרדכי הלפרין, ניתן לקבל תוכן הענינים $22

Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

January 13, 2013, 2:20 pm

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Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

Marc B. Shapiro

Hakirah has performed a valuable service in dealing forthrightly with the matter of homosexuality. Issue no. 13 (2012) contains R. Chaim Rapoport’s “Judaism and Homosexuality: An Alternative Rabbinic View,” which I think is an outstanding presentation of the alternative to what has seemingly become the “official” haredi position in this matter. This “official” position is, in my opinion, so misguided that I would like to say a few words on the topic, since R. Rapoport did not go far enough in his criticism.

To remind readers, Hakirah no. 12 had a discussion on homosexuality with R. Shmuel Kamenetsky. This was followed by the publication of a document signed by many rabbis which follows R. Kamenetsky’s approach. It is available here. (The document is also signed by an assortment of mental health professionals,  rebbitzens and "community organizers".)

There are so many problems with the approach found in this document (called a “Torah Declaration"), some already noted by R. Rapoport in his response to R. Kamenetsky, that it would take a lengthy piece to go through them all. Let me just call attention to a few points that I don’t think have been made yet. To begin with, while many rabbis have signed this document, including a number that I know personally, I have yet to speak to someone who actually believes what the document says, and this includes the people who have signed it! Many will regard what I have just said as pretty shocking, in that I have declared that people who signed the document do not believe what it says. Yet I know this to be true, at least with regard to some of the signatories (those that I know personally), and I suspect that other than R. Kamenetsky, it might be that no one who signed the document really believes what it says (and it wouldn’t be the first time that people sign declarations that they really don’t believe in).

Let me explain what I mean. According to the document,

Same-Sex Attractions Can Be Modified And Healed. From a Torah perspective, the question whether homosexual inclinations and behaviors are changeable is extremely relevant. . . . We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. . . . The only viable course of action that is consistent with the Torah is therapy and teshuvah. The therapy consists of reinforcing the natural gender-identity of the individual by helping him or her understand and repair the emotional wounds that led to its disorientation and weakening, thus enabling the resumption and completion of the individual’s emotional development.

The ideas just quoted are the very foundation of the Torah Declaration, and as we see in his Hakirah interview, R. Kamenetsky has been convinced by the dubious proposition that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation. He goes so far as to say that "no one is born gay with an inability to change" (p. 34 [emphasis added]. Not long after the appearance of the interview and the Torah Declaration, the man most prominently identified with the notion that gays can change publicly rejected his earlier viewpoint.)

Whether people can change their sexual orientation is a scientific or psychological issue, no more and no less. The first objectionable point of R. Kamenetsky’s approach is turning this into a matter of theology. Indeed, R. Kamenetsky has created a new dogma in Orthodoxy. According to him, believing that a homosexual can change his orientation is a basic Torah value. The reason for this is stated in the document: “The Torah does not forbid something which is impossible to avoid. Abandoning people to lifelong loneliness and despair by denying all hope of overcoming and healing their same-sex attraction is heartlessly cruel. Such an attitude also violates the biblical prohibition in Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:14 “and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind.”[1]

There you have it. Human beings are deciding what God can and cannot do and declaring that it is impossible for someone to be created with an inalterable homosexual nature. That this is completely incorrect is acknowledged by none other than the most extreme advocates of reparative therapy. They themselves acknowledge that there is a significant percentage of people who cannot change their orientation. They have never claimed that everyone can change. What the document gives us, therefore, is a theological statement that is rejected by all scientists and psychologists, including the ones who provide the very basis for reparative therapy. That itself should be reason enough to reject it. (On Nov. 29, 2012 the RCA acknowledged "the lack of scientifically rigorous studies that support the effectiveness of therapies to change sexual orientation." See here.)

This relates to my point above that no one really believes what they signed. To those who doubt what I say, do the following experiment and report back if your results differ. Ask someone who signed the document if he really believes that every homosexual can change his sexual orientation. The answer you will get will be “Of course not everyone. You can never speak about everyone. But many (or most) can change.” In other words, the signatories will acknowledge that they diverge from the document on a basic point. You will have to ask them why they signed a document if they don’t accept everything it says, and the response will probably be that there is much about the document that they do accept, and that is why they signed it. But I repeat my point that this is an unusual document in that I don’t think that there is any signatory, with the possible exception of R. Kamenetsky, who accepts the Torah Declaration on Homosexuality in its entirety.

Furthermore, it is not a “liberal” idea to say that people can’t change their sexual inclinations. By looking at another example we can see that it is indeed nonsense to say that everyone can change their sexual orientation and recreate themselves as typical heterosexuals. There are some men who have strong urges for pedophilia. No matter what they do, and how much therapy they get, they can’t get rid of these urges. (I am obviously not comparing homosexuals with pedophiles, or implying that there is any connection between the two. I am only using the example of pedophiles to make a point.[2]

) If we adopt the theology of the Torah Declaration, it means that even hardened pedophiles, who have abused lots of children, can change, because God wouldn’t create someone without a possibility for a healthy sex life. Yet we know that this isn’t the case, and some people simply can’t change. They might be able to control their urges, but as they have told us again and again, the urges don’t go away. It is hardwired into them. (Is it perhaps the false theological notion expressed in the Torah Declaration that explains why yeshivot continued to allow known pedophiles to work? That is, did the rabbis assume that just because someone sexually abused children last week, there is no reason to think he can’t repent and cease to be a danger this week?)

And what about the people who are created with uncontrollable urges to kill? We know about these people, as they usually become murderers. And what about the people who are created with diseases that kill them before they are able to marry and have children, or the ones created without arms so they can’t wear arm tefillin[3]? In other words, sometimes people are created a certain way and they are not what we regard as normal. That is the world, and we simply can’t understand why things are the way they are. But one thing I would hope that we can agree on is if people can keep their faith in a good God even while knowing that some children are born with terrible illnesses that will cause their death, it certainly should not shake their faith to believe that some people are born with inalterable homosexual urges. A homosexual who can’t be changed hardly presents a challenge to theodicy the way a child with cancer does, so I can only wonder why the Torah Declaration feels that only the former is theologically untenable.

All traditional sources cited in support of the Torah Declaration’s assumption that people can change their orientation only refer to behavior. That is, it is an accepted belief that all people have the ability to control their behavior. Without this belief, the notion of a mitzvah doesn’t make sense. This distinction between orientation and behavior is so obvious that I don’t know how so many learned rabbis overlooked the document’s collapsing the two categories.

The more problematic element of the document, which I have already mentioned and which verges on the blasphemous, is that the Torah Declaration presumes to tell God what he can and cannot do. Based on the human intellects of the authors of the document, they establish as dogma that God would never create someone whose only sexual attraction is to his own gender. This is all very nice, but since when can humans dictate to God what he can and cannot do? If God “wants” to create a person who only has same-sex attraction, He can, and the proper response is silence, since we can’t understand why God would do that. Humans don’t have all the answers, and the Torah Declaration should stop pretending that we do. Whether homosexuality is nature or nurture is something the scientists and psychologists can discuss, but contrary to the document, all of the evidence is that there are plenty of people who cannot be “fixed.”

2. In my last post I mentioned that Agudat Israel has transformed itself into a lobbying organization. One of the areas they have been involved with is metzitzah ba-peh, so let me say a few things about this. It is really incredible how for many the debate around metzitzah ba-peh has become one in which the Modern Orthodox are one side, and the traditionalists on the other. I say this because the truth is that the virtually all of the rabbinic greats of Lithuania approved of metzitzah without oral contact. Alexander Tertis’ Dam Berit is a valuable resource that all interested in this matter must consult. Here is the title page.

On p. 33, R. Shlomo Cohen, the famed dayan of Vilna, says the following about metzitzah, which is very relevant to what we ourselves have seen (namely, the rejection of the firm opinions of countless doctors and scientists on the matter, all in the name of tradition).

דבר הזה אינו שייך לרבנים רק לרופאים המומחים ולכן אין לי מה להשיב על שאלתו

According to R. Shlomo, the question of how to perform metzitzah is entirely a medical issue, and the rabbis therefore have nothing to say on this matter, much like in all other halakhot dealing with medical issues the opinions of the doctors are determinative. (It hardly needs to be said that in matters of pikuah nefesh the opinions of thousands of experts, including the world's most outstanding authorities, cannot be overruled by one idiosyncratic figure who appears to be motivated by non-scientific concerns.) 

Also of interest is that in 1906 R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski reported that in Vilna virtually all of the mohalim did metzitzah with a sponge. He wasn’t happy with this, but this was the reality.[4]

An interesting tidbit regarding metzitzah ba-peh is found in the Taz, Orah Hayyim 584:2. Here he mentions that he heard that R. Feivish of Cracow, when he circumcised on Rosh ha-Shanah, would not clean the blood out of his mouth. Rather, he would blow the shofar with the blood in his mouth so that the mitzvot of milah and shofar were joined.

Finally, for those who want to understand why it was only in the nineteenth century that metzitzah came to be regarded as central to the mitzvah of milah, Jacob Katz’s article “Polmos ha-Metzitzah” in his Ha-Halakhah ba-Metzar is crucial. In short, the centrality of metzitzah, and its description as a basic part of milah, is a product of the Orthodox defense of metzitzah in the face of Reform attacks. I think we are seeing something similar today. The digging in of haredi heels in defense of metzitzah ba-peh, complete with over-the-top rhetoric, is understandable (to a certain extent) and due precisely to the fact that it is an outside force that is threatening the practice. Had their own poskim suggested what the government is now insisting on, we would not have seen the same reaction. Yet it is still difficult for outsiders to grasp why some rabbinic leaders of these communities seem entirely oblivious to any medical dangers associated with the practice,  וסלחת לעונם כי רבנים המה

Let me say a few more things about metzitzah ba-peh. 

1. I saw on one of the blogs (I can’t locate it at present) that someone stated as self-evident that metzitzah ba-peh is only done with babies, not adults. The truth is that while the accepted opinion is indeed that metzitzah ba-peh is only done on babies (and maybe also on older child converts – I haven’t been able to find an answer to that), there are indeed opinions that even adult converts have to have metzitzah ba-peh performed on them. R. Moshe Klein (the son of R. Menasheh), Mishnat ha-Ger, p. 71, states without qualification that a convert has to have metzitzah, and if the mohel is afraid of catching a disease he should inquire of a posek if it can be done without the mouth. However, R. Yitzhak Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Milah 6:1, rejects this viewpoint and states that there is no metzitzah, ba-peh or otherwise, with an adult convert.

2. According to R. Marcus Horovitz, Mateh Levi, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah no. 60, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch was prepared to accept the government’s abolishment of metzitzah without objection. It is difficult to square this assertion with Hirsch’s writings on the topic that show him as a strong defender of the practice.[5] Is it possible that Horovitz’s comment, meant as a criticism of Hirsch, reflects the difficult relationship these two men had?

3. In Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah I, no. 223, R. Moshe Feinstein, in writing to a hasidic rebbe, expresses the standard viewpoint that metzitzah is only a medical procedure and has nothing to do with the mitzvah of milah. There is nothing surprising here. However, his correspondent had written otherwise, that metzitzah was an essential part of the mitzvah. In response to this, R. Moshe writes: חושב אני שהוא רק פליטת הקולמוס. The language R. Moshe uses implies that he did not know that among the hasidim metzitzah isindeed viewed as part of the mitzvah. Is it possible that R. Moshe was unaware of this? I don’t think so. It would appear, therefore, that the words I just quoted are a polite way of R. Moshe telling his correspondent that “what you wrote is without any substance.”

4. In 1994 R. Schachter’s Nefesh ha-Rav appeared. On p. 243 he states that R. Soloveitchik thought that today there is no need for metzitzah at all, not just metzitzah ba-peh. I remember how shocked I was when I read this, and was certain that it had to be wrong. As far as I know, no Orthodox authority has ever agreed to abandon metzitzah entirely, and I therefore couldn’t believe this report. My doubts were strengthened by the fact that R. Schachter quotes the Tiferet Yisrael as agreeing that metzitzah could be abandoned, when the truth is that the Tiferet Yisrael, Shabbat 19:2, says the exact opposite, that metzitzah must be continued no matter what the doctors say.

As part of this post I wanted to include this page of Nefesh ha-Rav, so I went to Otzar ha-Hokhmah to download a PDF. Here it is.

Lo and behold, the copy on Otzar ha-Hokhmah is the third edition published in 1999, and there is a note on this page in which R. Schachter states that he has been told that what he wrote was incorrect, and that R. Soloveitchik only opposed metzitzah ba-peh. This makes much more sense and is what I assumed all along, so I was happy to see that my suspicions were confirmed.

R. Schachter recently spoke publicly about metzitzah ba-peh, and he is entirely opposed to it.[6] You can listen to his talk here.

Some might be surprised to hear R. Schachter say, after explaining that the Sages followed the most advanced medicine of their times, “When we look back at Chazal, look at medical statements in the Gemara, we laugh. . . . So you look back in the Gemara, it’s ridiculous, but the Gemara, in the days of the Tannaim, they were following the latest information of the doctors of their generation, of the scientists of their generation.”

I have to say, however, that R. Schachter is mistaken in his description of how the Hasidim understand metzitzah ba-peh. He incorrectly assumes that no one really regards it as a basic part of the mitzvah, i.e., halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai. “You know and I know and we all know that it is not halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai.” He claims that all those who do say it is halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai are exaggerating for rhetorical purposes, much like the expression yehareg ve-al yaavor is used for all sorts of things but is not meant to be taken literally. (R. Schachter himself created a good deal of controversy a couple years ago when he said that the refusal to ordain women was a matter of yehareg ve-al yaavor.)

Finally, I would like to make a general statement about how many in the Modern Orthodox world have been relating to metzitzah ba-peh. There is no question that for those in this segment of Orthodoxy, metzitzah ba-peh should not be done, both for medical reasons and also, I have learnt, for aesthetic reasons. With regard to the latter point, there is a sense among many in the Modern Orthodox world, and I myself have heard this and seen it in writing, that metzitzah ba-peh is “disgusting”. I understand that this is how people feel, but it is an improper feeling. Until the nineteenth century, metzitzah ba-peh was universal at every circumcision. How can observant Jews regard a practice that was basic in every Jewish community of the world as “disgusting”? I understand that it doesn’t fit in with today’s aesthetic sense, and that itself is perhaps reason enough for people not to do metzitzah ba-peh. However, everyone should be careful to avoid any denigration of metzitzah ba-peh that does not originate in medical concerns.

Don’t get me wrong, as I don’t mean that every practice that we find in Jewish communities throughout history should get such a “pass”, but here we are talking about a universal practice over thousands of years. It can’t be denied that there were “repulsive” and “gruesome” practices in Jewish communities.[7] Here are two cited by Shlomo Sprecher in his article mentioned in note 6: 1. Barren women would swallow the foreskin of newly circumcised boys as a segulah so that they could become pregnant. 2. Epileptics drank a potion that contained a girl’s first menstrual blood as a segulah to cure them of their epilepsy.[8]

I recently found another bizarre segulah that also falls under the rubric of “repulsive”, and I think that it would probably also be regarded by law enforcement as a form of sexual abuse. It comes from R. Zvi Hirsch Kaidonover (1646-1712), Kav ha-Yashar, ch. 52. For obvious reasons I am not going to translate this into English.

ועוד סגולה נפלאה לתינוק הנולד שלא יקרה עליו חולי נכפה בר מינן, מיד כשנולד ישימו בפיו ברית קודש של תינוק ויהיה ניצול כל ימיו מחולי נכפה

3. Following one of my previous posts I had correspondence with a reader and the discussion turned to the issue of how much of rabbinic literature is inner directed, that is, from intellectuals to other intellectuals.[9] I assume that this was the mindset of the Sages, and this explains some texts that I don’t think would have been recorded had there been an expectation that the masses would ever see them. In particular, I have in mind the talmudic stories that do not reflect well on certain rabbis. If we understand these texts as scholars talking to other scholars, then it makes sense that they would criticize each other, and even make fun of one another.[10] People in a closed community (in this case, the rabbinic elite) converse with one another in a different way than when outsiders are allowed in.[11] The problem is when the masses are studying Talmud, as today, that they have a difficult time with these texts, and Artscroll needs to explain them in an appealing fashion.

Here is one example of the sort of story I am referring to, that I assume was designed for internal consumption only, as it doesn’t reflect well on one of the Sages who is portrayed as being quite rude and insensitive. Taanit 20a-20b:

Our Rabbis have taught: A man should always be gentle as the reed and never unyielding as the cedar. Once R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher, and he was riding leisurely on his ass by the riverside and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, Sir". He, however, did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "Raca,1 how ugly you are. Are all your fellow citizens as ugly as you are?" The man replied: "I do not know, but go and tell the craftsman who made me, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made'." When R. Eleazar realized that he had done wrong he dismounted from the ass and prostrated himself before the man and said to him, "I submit myself to you, forgive me". The man replied: "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made'." He [R. Eleazar] walked behind him until he reached his native city. When his fellow citizens came out to meet him greeting him with the words, "Peace be upon you O Teacher, O Master," the man asked them, "Whom are you addressing thus"? They replied, "The man who is walking behind you." Thereupon he exclaimed: "If this man is a teacher, may there not be any more like him in Israel"! The people then asked him: "Why"? He replied: "Such and such a thing has he done to me." They said to him: "Nevertheless, forgive him, for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah." The man replied: "For your sakes I will forgive him, but only on the condition that he does not act in the same manner in the future." Soon after this R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon entered [the Beth Hamidrash] and expounded thus, A man should always be gentle as the reed and let him never be unyielding as the cedar. And for this reason the reed merited that of it should be made a pen for the writing of the Law, Phylacteries and Mezuzoth.[12]

It appears that we see a continuation of this internal conversation in post-talmudic times. For example, I don’t think the rishonim who so harshly criticize their colleagues — I am referring to the colleagues they respected — would speak this way in a derashah before the common man. However, in internal dialogue they exercised more freedom. I think this can also explain the strange way that R. Isaac of Corbeil, the author of Sefer Mitzvot Katan, is referred to. He is called בעל החוטם. According to tradition, he was called this לפי שהיו לו שערות על החוטם.[13] Here too, I think that this was a humorous nickname that his colleagues knew him as, but not something that the average person would be expected to use. (Those who went to BMT will probably recall how various rabbis would speak of "Whitey Horowitz". I don't recall students ever referring to R. Moshe Horowitz this way.)  

I came across another example of what appears to be "internal conversation" from modern times that I think readers will find interesting. Both are found in R. Pinchas Miller’s Olamo shel Abba. Miller’s father, R. Asher Anshel Yehudah Miller, was a posek and author of seforim. I can’t imagine that the following comment, cited in the name of R. Shmelke of Nikolsburg, was something Miller, or R. Shmelke, wanted the masses to hear. Rather, I assume that it was an insider’s joke, designed to be shared among colleagues.

Shabbat 118b states that if Israel observes two Sabbaths properly they will immediately be redeemed. R. Shmelke explained that this refers to Shabbat ha-Gadol and Shabbat Shuvah. It is traditional that on these Sabbaths the rabbis give derashot before the community. R. Shmelke added that the rabbis act as if what they are saying is original to themselves, even though they have taken it from others. The Sages say that if you repeat something in the name of one who said it, you bring redemption to the world (Avot 6:6). Based on this text in Avot, R. Shmelke explained the above talmudic passage as follows: “If Israel observes two Sabbaths properly”, that is, if the rabbis who give the derashot on Shabbat ha-Gadol and Shabbat Shuvah (“two Sabbaths”) actually acknowledge where they get their ideas from (“repeat something in the name of one who said it”), “immediately Israel will be redeemed” (p. 501). This is such a provocative text because not only does it accuse the rabbis of plagiarism, but it states that the redemption itself is being delayed because of their behavior. If it was repeated by the masses it would be regarded as terribly degrading of the rabbis, but seen as a somewhat playful "derashah" to be shared among rabbinic colleagues, it loses much of its sharpness.[14]

There is another interesting passage on p. 326, which despite being humorous, I would have also assumed could only be said among colleagues. Yet Miller’s son tells us that his father used to repeat the following in his derashah at weddings: We know that it is a mitzvah to help the bride and groom to rejoice, but the rabbis come to weddings and instead of doing this, they deliver a long derashah and speak words of mussar to the young couple and thus disturb their joy.[15] That is why at the sheva berakhot we state שמח תשמח רעים האהובים כשמחך יצירך בגן עדן מקדם. In other words, we wish the bride and groom that their joy should be complete like the joy Adam felt when Eve was created for him, because in their time, in the Garden of Eden, there were no rabbis around who were able to disturb their joy!

* * * *

4. I want to call attention to a book that has just appeared. Its English title is Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief and it is edited by Daniel J. Lasker. You can read more about it here. It is available for purchase at Bigeleisen.

This is just the latest in a series of valuable books published by Ben Gurion University Press as part of the Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought. The articles that I think readers of this blog will find particularly interesting are David Stern, “Rabbinics and Jewish Identity: An American Perspective;” David Shatz, “Nothing but the Tuth? Modern Orthodoxy and the Polemical Uses of History,” Baruch J. Schwartz, “Biblical Scholarship’s Contribution to the Concept of Mattan Torah Past and Present;” Menachem Kellner, “Between the Torah of Moses and the Torah of R. Elhanan;” Tovah Ganzel, “‘He who Restrains his Lips is Wise’ (Proverbs 10:19) – Is that Really True?” and the symposium on Jewish thought in Israeli education, with contributions from R Moshe Lichtenstein and Adina Bar Shalom (R. Ovadia Yosef’s daughter).

Here are a few selections from Shatz’s article:

To be clear, academics, I find, generally shun blogs that are aimed at a popular audience because the comments are often, if not generally, uninformed (and nasty). A few academics do read such blogs, but do not look at the comments. One result of academics largely staying out of blog discussions is that non-experts become viewed as experts. Even when academics join the discussion, the democratic atmosphere of the blog world allows non-experts to think of themselves as experts and therefore as equals of the academicians. Some laypersons, though, as I said earlier, are indeeed experts in certain areas of history.

(In this quotation, one could also substitute “rabbis” or perhaps better, “poskim”, for “academics”, and “areas of halakhah” for “areas of history.”) Shatz is specifically speaking about historians, and contrasting experts vs. non-experts in this area. Yet when it comes to the sort of things I often write about here, I can attest that it is usually non-academics who are the real experts. Time and again I am amazed at the vast knowledge of so many of the people who read this blog. As for the general phenomenon of blogs, there are many people who for whatever reason (usually lack of interest, ability, or patience) are not going to write lengthy articles. Yet they often have a great deal to contribute, much of which is very important to the world of scholarship (almost always in terms of uncovering unknown sources and correcting earlier errors, as opposed to offering new interpretations or original theories). Academics ignore this to their own loss.[16]

In my future book I refer to numerous blog posts, and posts from the Seforim Blog have already been mentioned in a number of scholarly publications. My own reason for writing posts is because most of the material I discuss is, I think, interesting and sometimes even important. While this material is often not of the sort that can be included in a typical article, the genre of the blog post suits them just perfectly. Speaking of the Seforim Blog in particular, its readership encompasses a very large percentage of English speaking traditionally learned Jews of all backgrounds, beliefs, and professions (from Reform rabbis to Roshei Yeshiva and poskim, and everything in between). Thanks again are due to Dan Rabinowitz for providing this unique and wonderful platform.

Here are two more quotes from Shatz:

Be the causes what they may, there is an intramural struggle among the Orthodox, a competition for the soul of Orthodox Judaism, and the primary weapon with which it is being waged is history. For Modern Orthodox Jews today, instead of history being a threat to belief, as in earlier periods, it has become a way of arguing for one version of Othodoxy over another. And it is used for polemical purposes far more than philosophy. There are today few Orthodox philosophers, but comparatively many Orthodox academically trained historians.

Can the Modern Orthodox explain why it is admissible for Hummash and the Sages (in aggadot) to write non-accurately and provide inspiration and memory, but inadmissible for those on the right to write in that genre?

My article in Jewish Thought and Jewish Belief is entitled “Is there a ‘Pesak’ for Jewish Thought.” Those who publish know that it is often the case that only after it is too late does one realize that one's article or book omits something important. Here too that was the case. In the article I discuss Maimonides’ view in Guide 3:17 that there is no punishment without transgression. That is, he rejects the notion of yissurin shel ahavah. I note that Maimonides claims that this is the opinion “of the multitude of our scholars,” and he cites R. Ammi’s opinion in this regard from Shabbat 55a. What is significant is that later in the sugya the Talmud states that R. Ammi’s opinion was refuted. Maimonides ignores this rejection, and even states that R. Ammi’s opinion is the majority view. This illustrates how Maimonides felt free to reject a talmudic viewpoint in a non-halakhic matter, even when it seems that the opinion is deemed authoritative by the Talmud.

What I unfortunately neglected to mention is that in Guide 3:24 Maimonides also deals with yissurin shel ahavah. Here he acknowledges that there are talmudic sages who accept this notion, but he adds that his own opinion, i.e., the rejection of yissurin shel ahavah, “ought to be believed by every adherent of the Law who is endowed with intellect.” In our own language, we might say that this viewpoint should be obvious to anyone with “half a brain.” Yet this is quite a shocking statement when one considers that there were talmudic sages who had a different perspective. Did Maimonides regard them as lacking intellect?

Here is another point I would like to add: In my Limits of Orthodox Theology I argue that it is most unlikely that Maimonides would choose to establish something as a dogma if it was a matter of debate among the Sages. (If establishing dogma was simply part of the halakhic process, this would not be problematic.) I see that R. Shlomo Fisher apparently has the same perspective, as he writes in his Hiddushei Beit Yishai, no. 107 (p. 413):

וגוף הדברים שכתב הרמב"ם בפה"מ ועשאן עיקר גדול תמוהין מאד. חדא, אם הם עיקר גדול היכי פליג עלה ר' יהודה.

The issue of deciding matters of hashkafah in a halakhic fashion has also recently been discussed by R. Yaakov Ariel in his new book Halakhah be-Yameinu, pp. 18ff. I have to say that the more I read by Ariel the more impressed I am, as everything he writes is carefully formulated and full of insight. He strikes me as very open-minded with a good grasp of Jewish philosophy. He is, of course, also an outstanding posek. I now understand why it was so important for the haredim, under R. Elyashiv’s lead, to prevent him from being elected Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. What the haredim wanted, and were successful in this, was to destroy the Chief Rabbinate as a force to be reckoned with. The way to do this was to make sure that its occupant would be nothing but a “crown rabbi”. That is, they wanted to appoint a chief rabbi who is a figurehead, who interacts with the government on behalf of the haredi leadership, who goes around the world speaking about Jewish topics to the masses, and who can deal with non-Jews. What they absolutely did not want in a chief rabbi was a figure who had any rabbinic standing and who could thus challenge haredi Daas Torah.

At a time when much of the right wing religious Zionist world appears to have gone off the deep end, R. Ariel stands as a voice of sanity. Be it his attack on Torat ha-Melekh (a book which I still plan on discussing) or his strong rejection (together with R. Aharon Lichtenstein and R. Nachum Rabinovitch) of the outrageous letter written by Rabbis Tau, Aviner and others in support of Moshe Katzav, or his defense of women voting (arguing that today R. Kook would not be opposed; Halakhah be-Yameinu, p. 189) he shows that right wing religious Zionism need not be identified with the craziness we have been accustomed to see in recent years. 

Let us return to his recent essay where he argues, in opposition to what I wrote in my article, that Maimonides often does “decide” in matters of hashkafah no different than in halakhah. To illustrate his point, Ariel notes that there is a dispute among the Sages about whether there are reasons for commandments. He claims that Maimonides מכריע ופוסק  in accord with the position that there are reasons. He concludes:

אף על פי שלדעתו כללי ההלכה אינם חלים בענייני אמונה, בכל זאת ניתן להכריע את האמונה על פי דרך הלימוד הנקוטה גם בהלכה.

The notion of a pesak emunah, if it is to be parallel to a pesak halakhah, would mean that after Maimonides gives his pesak, in his mind it is now forbidden to adopt the other viewpoint (just as when Maimonides rules that something is forbidden on Shabbat) .Yet where does Maimonides ever say that there is an obligation to accept his viewpoint about reasons for the commandments? What Maimonides does is show why his viewpoint is correct, and Ariel cites these sources. But just because Maimonides wants his readers to adopt his own viewpoint, in what way is this a “pesak emunah”? Maimonides is simply expressing his strongly held belief. He is not ruling alternative positions out of bounds, as he does in deciding halakhah. This appplies as well to the other examples Ariel brings to prove his point. All he has established is that Maimonides argues for a position in matters such as the nature of prophecy and providence, but that is far removed from the notion that Maimonides saw his opinions as halakhically binding. On the contrary, just because Maimonides tells us what he thinks the Torah’s position is in a matter such as providence, he had no expectation that the masses would (or in some cases even should) follow him in this, and he was fully tolerant of the masses holding to their errant opinions as long as the matter was not an authentic dogma.

5. I have now finished my book on censorship. I can’t say when it will appear as it still has to be properly edited, typset etc., but hopefully this won’t take too long. I have loads of interesting material that for various reasons I was unable to include in the book, so the Seforim Blog will give me a good opportunity to bring it to the public’s attention. Let me begin with something sent to me by Rodney Falk.

Professor Louis Henkin, the son of R. Joseph Elijah Henkin, died in 2010. Here is his obituary as it appeared in Ha-Modia.

 

Notice what is missing! The obituary won’t even mention who his father was. Had Louis Henkin been a businessman or a doctor this information would not have been excluded, of this there is no doubt. But it is considered a disgrace to R. Henkin’s memory that his son was an intellectual, one who lived the life of the mind, and yet he didn’t become a rav or a rosh yeshiva . People in the haredi world can understand how not everyone is cut out to be a rosh yeshiva or sit in kollel, and these “unfortunates” are therefore forced choose a profession. But apparently, the notion that one who has the brains and intellectual stamina to become a great scholar might choose to devote himself to non-Torah subjects borders on the blasphemous for Ha-Modia. As such, while Louis Henkin can be acknowledged for his achievements, he has to be severed from his father’s house (the same father who sent him and his two brothers to Yeshiva College).

I think Yoel Finkelman has put the matter quite well in discussing the larger issue of which this example is  part and parcel of:

Haredi writers of history claim to know better than the great rabbis of the past how the latter should have behaved. Those great rabbis do not serve as models for the present. Instead, the present and its ideology serve as models for the great rabbis. Haredi historiography becomes a tale of what observant Jews, and especially great rabbis, did, but only provided that these actions accord with, or can be made to accord with, current Haredi doctrine. The historians do not try to understand the gedolim; they stand over the gedolim. Haredi ideology of fealty to the great rabbis works at cross purposes with the sanitized history of those rabbis.[17]

6. Rabbi Jason Weiner, a fine musmach from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, has recently published a Guide to Traditional Jewish Observance in a Hospital. Formerly assistant rabbi at the Young Israel of Century City, he now serves as Senior Rabbi and Manager of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The book comes with approbations from R. Asher Weiss and R. Yitzchok Weinberg, the Talner Rebbe, and the halakhot in the book have been reviewed by Rabbis Gershon Bess, Nachum Sauer, and Yosef Shuterman. The book can be downloaded here.

7. Some readers have asked me about upcoming shul lectures. Here is what is on my schedule through Passover.

Feb. 15-16: Sephardic Institute of Brooklyn

March 1-2: Beth Israel, Miami Beach

March 8-9: Shearith Israel, New York

March 15-16: Beth Israel, Omaha

If any readers are interested in having me speak at their shuls, please be in touch.

8. No one got the answer to the last quiz, so let me do it again. The winner gets a copy of one of the volumes of R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s commentary on Rashi. If you know the answer to the question, send it to me at shapirom2 at scranton.edu.

What was the first Hebrew book published by a living author?

---

[1] What does this last sentence mean? How can an attitude violate a biblical prohibition?

[2] As a good illustration of changes in attitude in the last forty years, here is what R. Norman Lamm wrote in his classic article on homosexuality in the 1975 yearbook of the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Such a sentence would, today, be quite politically incorrect, and regarded by gays as incredibly offensive: "Were society to give its open or even tacit approval to homosexuality, it would invite more aggresiveness on the part of adult pederasts toward young people." 

[3] R. Meir Schiff (Maharam Schiff) is unique in believing that one without arms should put the tefillin shel yad on the head, together with the tefillin shel rosh. This is the upshot of his comment to Gittin 58a.

[4] See R. Sinai Schiffer, “Mitzvat ha-Metzitzah,” p. 106 (printed together with R. Sinai Adler, Devar Sinai [Jerusalem, 1966])

[5] See Eliyahu Meir Klugman, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, pp. 292-293.

[6] “Following in the Footsteps of Our Fathers,” Nov. 13, 2012.

[7] The words are those of Shlomo Sprecher from his article on metzitzah in Hakirah 3 (2006), p. 51.

[8] Speaking of drinking, take a look at this strange passage. It appears in R. Hayyim Rabbi’s letter at the beginning of R. Haggai Ben Hananyah’s Nimukei Levi (Ashdod, 2008), p. 2. Add this to the long list of texts that I refuse to translate.

בדין חלב אשה. נשאלתי פעם, אם בזמן תשמיש עם אשתו, החלב שלה אסור עליו, או שבעל ואשתו כגופו, ואין בו דין של יונק שרץ. ובפרט לטעם שמא יינק מבהמה טמאה, ובאשתו כגופו שהתירו לו בשעת פיוס וכו', לא גזרו בזה. ויתכן שמותר כדין פסיק רישיה בדרבנן. ובנידון כזה, שזה חשש גזירה, גם בניחא ליה יש מקום להתיר. כן נראה לכאורה.

[9] The previous post is found here.

In the comments, Yehudah Mirsky wrote:

Fwiw, as I recall, Steve Wald in his book on Eilu Ovrin shows that the genuinely awful am-haaretz passages in Pesachim are a later stammatic addition, and that Jeff Rubinstein argues has a chapter on this in his "The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud" where he argues both that that sugya in Pesachim is sui generis in Hazal and - interestingly - reflects the Stammaim's needing to justify their very scholastic lifestyle vis-a-vis people who were working for a living. Rubinstein cautions that the whole sugya may have been intended as a series of private jokes and need not necessarily reflect actual social relations between the stammaim and their surrounding society.

[10] Yeshayahu Leibowitz quipped that the Sages must have had a good sense of humor, since they included the following passage in the Talmud: תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם. See Sihot al Pirkei Ta’amei ha-Mitzvot (Jerusalem, 2003), p. 289. In all seriousness, however, there are indeed humorous passages in the Talmud, as pointed out by R. Moses Salmon, Netiv Moshe (Vienna, 1897), pp. 45-46. Here is one example he gives (Bava Batra 14a).:

The Rabbis said to R. Hamnuna: R. Ammi wrote four hundred scrolls of the Law. He said to them: Perhaps he copied out the verse  תורה צוה לנו משה

Salmon claims that anyone with a bit of sense can see that R. Hamnuna’s reply is a wisecrack made in response to the obvious exaggeration about R. Ammi.

Nehemiah Samuel Leibowitz states that even in the Zohar we have passages that show a humorous side. One of the many examples he points to is Zohar, Bereshit, p. 27a:

וימררו את חייהם בעבודה קשה בקושיא. בחומר קל וחומר. ובלבנים בלבון הלכתא. ובכל עבודה בשדה דא ברייתא. את כל עבודתם וגו' דא משנה.

See Leibowitz, “Halatzot ve-Divrei Bikoret be-Sefer ha-Zohar,”Ha-Tzofeh le-Hokhmat Yisrael 11 (1927), pp. 33-45. For more on humor in the Talmud, see Yehoshua Ovsay, Ma'amarim u-Reshimot (New York, 1946), ch. 1; R. Mordechai Hacohen, "Humor, Satirah, u-Vedihah be-Fi Hazal," Mahanayim 67 (5722), pp. 8-19.

[11] Such a community also establishes special rules for itself, of which I can cite many examples. Here is one, from R. Solomon Luria, Yam Shel Shlomo, Bava Kamma 8:49:

ואם חוזר בפעם השלישי א"כ הוא משולש בחטא, אזי אין מניחין כלל לפדותו מן המלקות אלא ילקה בב"ד ודיו, אם לא שהוא בר אורין שאין ראוי להלקותו

After all we have seen in the last few years, I am quite certain that today the average person would not accept that when it comes to criminal matters that the rabbis should be given special privileges and exemptions.

[12] See also Va-Yikra Rabbah 9:3 where it describes how R. Jannai called his host “a dog”, and then learnt how wrong he was.

[13] See the introduction to the Constantinople 1510 edition of the work, reprinted in the Jerusalem, 1960 edition.

[14] On p. 187 Miller offers a different perspective. Here he quotes another rabbi who said that if necessary it is OK for one to repeat another’s hiddushim in the Shabbat ha-Gadol derashah, because the Sages tell us (Pesahim 6a): שואלין ודורשין בהלכות פסח.  This means:

מותר "לשאול" מאחרים בשעת הדחק ולדרוש בהלכות פסח

[15] I am told that it is still the practice in certain communities for the rabbi to deliver a derashah at a wedding..

[16] I think in particular of S.’s wonderful blog On the Main Line, which routinely provides important, and until now unknown, primary sources that are vital to a wide range of areas of scholarship.

[17] Strictly Kosher Reading, p. 122.

Quiz Runoff

January 15, 2013, 6:20 pm

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Quiz Runoff

by Marc B. Shapiro

Written on 4 Shevat, 5773, the yahrzeit of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

1. In the last post, as the quiz question, I asked for the name of the first Hebrew book published by a living author. The answer is Nofet Tzufim by R. Judah Messer Leon. As the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon states, this work “was printed by Abraham Conat of Mantua in 1475-6, the only work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century.”

A number of people got the right answer, and as a few of them told me, and I confirmed for myself, it was not that difficult to find the answer using Google. There is nothing wrong with using Google or any other search tool, and it is my fault for not realizing that the answer could be found so easily.

Some of the material in the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia, but not the sentence I quoted above. The second part of the sentence is in fact incorrect, as there is at least one other work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century. I refer to the Agur, by R. Jacob ben Judah Landau (died 1493). This work appeared sometime between 1487 and 1492, so Wikipedia tells us, and in this instance Wikipedia’s information comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia. These sources also tell us that “The ‘Agur’ was the first Jewish work to contain a rabbinical approbation, besides being the second Hebrew book printed during the author's lifetime.”

Why then did a number of those who contacted me think that the Agur was the first book to appear in the author’s lifetime, rather than the second? Perhaps because in the Encyclopaedia Judaica entry “Haskamah”, which is reprinted here, we find the following incorrect statement: “The first haskamah appeared in the 15th century, in the Agur by Jacob Landau (Naples, c. 1490), the first Hebrew book printed during its author's lifetime.”

Starting now, I will try to make my quiz questions a bit harder (i.e., not so easy to find the answers via Google). Here are the names of those who answered correctly on the last quiz: Shalom Leaf, Alex Heppenheimer, Leor Jacobi, Eric Lawee, Moshe Lapin, Shimon S., Ari Kinsberg, Yonason Rosman, Peretz Mochkin, Yehudah Hausman, Dovid Solomon

Since I can’t reward all of them, there will be a runoff. The following questions are to be answered only by them and only by emailing me the answer. If you can only answer one of the questions please do so.

A. What is the first volume of responsa published in the lifetime of its author?

B. There is a verse in the book of Exodus (hint: we haven’t yet reached it this year) which has a very strange vocalization of a word, found nowhere else in Tanach. (The word itself is also spelled in an unusual fashion, found only one other time in Tanach). The purpose of this vocalization is apparently in order to make a rhyme.[1] What am I referring to?

I had thought to ask: What is the first Hebrew work to use modern punctuation including question marks, but via Google I found the answer in a few seconds. So hopefully the answers to what I have asked are not so easily found.

2. I have a good deal more to say on themes discussed in the last post, which I will get to in future posts. But I have one piece of information that I think is quite significant (a real “chiddush”) and I don’t want to delay passing it on. It turns out that R. Schachter was too quick to add the correction in Nefesh ha-Rav. Here is an email I received by someone who prefers to remain anonymous.

I am not into writing reactions (Israelis call them "talkbacks") on blogs, since I have not become accustomed to the 21st Century. But I want to give you a bit of information that is relevant to your discussion of Metzitza. I attended Rav Aharon Lichtenstein's shiurim at Gruss for a number of years, and I clearly remember what he said on the subject during what the guys called "a press conference." He said very clearly that the Rav was against any Metzitza at all, and he expressed this view explicitly at the brit of one of Rav Aharon's sons. To me such a view makes lots of sense, if one understands that it is required in the gemara only because it was then thought that the lack of Metzitza was dangerous.(כי לא עביד סכנה הוא (שבת קלג,

3. Many people have mentioned to me the problems with the commenting feature (at least for those using Chrome). When you click on it, you often don’t see the most recent comments. One way to fix this is after you click to see the comments, where it says “Discussion” check "Newest" or “Oldest”, and everything will come up. We will try to come up with a fix for this.

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[1] I am referring to the level of peshat, as I realize that all sorts of explanations based on derush, remez, and kabbalah can be offered. 

A Review of “Alo Na'aleh”

February 6, 2013, 2:34 pm

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A Review of “Alo Na'aleh”

הרב מרדכי ציון, 'עלה נעלה: מענה לספר ויואל משה, תשובות מפי הרה"ג שלמה אבינר שליט"א', בית אל תשע"ב, 278 עמודים

By Ezra Brand

The opinion of R' Yoel Teitelbaum, better known as the Satmar Rebbe, opposing the State of Israel has recently received a resurgence of interest. With the shifting to the right of the Orthodox Jewish world in general, as well as attempts by some Israeli politicians to end Chareidi draft exemptions in particular, many Chareidim are now feeling sympathetic to the Satmar opinion. In any discussion online about Israel drafting Chareidim or cutting funding to yeshivas, there will always be one person commenting on the prescience of the Satmar Rebbe. I have heard that some people are using the Kahanist slogan in regard to this: “הרבי מסאטמאר צדק”(“The Satmar Rebbe was right”)! Therefore, the appearance of a book intended as a response to the Satmar opinion is timely[1].

Alo Na’aleh is a response to the Satmar Rebbe's book, Vayo'el Moshe. To be more precise, it is a response to the first of the three parts of Vayo’el Moshe, which is titled “Ma’amar Shalosh Shevu’ot”. Alo Na’aleh is written by R’ Mordechai Tzion, in consultation with his Rebbe, R’ Shlomo Aviner[2]. Itis published by Sifriyat Chava (ספריית חוה), the publishing house based in Beit El that publishes R' Shlomo Aviner's books. Vayo’el Moshe was published in 1961[3]. Although it might seem strange to write a response to a book so long after the book was originally published, the times seem to call for it.

There have been other attempted rebuttals to Vayo'el Moshe (including by R’ Aviner himself, see further), but Alo Na'aleh is probably the most comprehensive (though it is only on the “Ma'amar Shalosh Shevuos” part of Vayo'el Moshe). It is the most comprehensive both in the sheer amount of sources quoted, and in terms of the fact that every point made by Vayo’el Moshe is discussed and disputed (including the reason given by R’ Yoel for the title of his book!). Much of the earlier literature that responds to Vayo'el Moshe is quoted by Alo Na'aleh, but no bibliography is provided. I will therefore provide one here (including works not mentioned in Alo Na’aleh).

הרב חיים שרגא פייבילפראנק, בירור הלכה במעלת ומצות ישובה של ארץ ישראל : תולדות זאב, ירושלים      תשכ"ד (ומילואים ב'המעין', טבת תשכ"ה)

הרב מרדכי עטייה, סוד השבועה, ירושלים תשכ"ה

הרב מנחם מנדל כשר, התקופה הגדולה, ירושלים תשכ"ט

הרב רפאל קצנלנבויגן, 'לא מרד אלא השבת גזילה לבעליו', שערים, כ' בסיון תשכ"ט

הרב משה מונק, 'שלושת השבועות', שערים, ד' בתמוז תשכ"ט

הרב שמואל הכהן וינגרטן, השבעתי אתכם, ירושלים תשל"ו

הרב חיים צימרמן, 'בענין שלש שבועות', תורה לישראל, ירושלים תשל"ח (available here)

מחבר אונונימי, פוקח עוורים, ירושלים תשמ"ד[4](available here)

הרב שלמה אבינר, 'שלא יעלו בחומה', הלכות משיח לרמב"ם, ירושלים תשס"ג

הרב יעקב זיסברג, 'נפש עדה', נחלת יעקב, ב, הרב ברכה תשס"ה

הנותן ליעף כח: כ"ח קושיות על ויואל משה, הוצאת בני הישיבות (בעילום שם המחבר)

הרב אברהם ווייס, מחנה החרדי, גליון 341

חוברת "בעית זמננו" (א:ד)

The beginning of the introduction is fascinating. It attempts to find an ultimately uncomfortable middle ground between attacking the Satmar Rebbe for his harsh anti-Zionism, and respecting him for his greatness in Torah. The introduction begins by bringing a Radvaz (Shu”t 4:187), which says that it is prohibited to degrade a talmid chacham, even if that talmid chacham is “making a mistake in the foundations of the religion” (במקור: תלמיד חכם הטועה בעיונו בדבר מעיקרי הדת)[5]. While the author states clearly that despite their differences of opinion he will still repect the Satmar Rebbe, there is a silent polemic against the Satmar Rebbe's famously harsh attacks against his opponents.

The rest of the introduction of the book is gossipy. A string of juicy stories are told, portraying the negative attitude of various people toward Vayo’el Moshe. The book then gets down to business, responding to Vayo’el Moshe point by point.

Alo Na'aleh indeed lives up to its aspiration of pointing out the many (apparent) mistakes in “Ma'amar Shalosh Shevuos” of Vayo'el Moshe. The author even demonstrates that the Satmar Rebbe made some historical mistakes. For example, in the introduction of Vayo'el Moshe, the Satmar Rebbe explains why all the poskim didn't bring the Three Oaths in their halacha seforim: “This issue of the awakening of a movement to transgress these oaths, we have not found from the days of Ben Koziba until the time of the Rambam, which is about a thousand years, and so too from the time of the Rambam until the days of Shabsai Tzvi, and so too, from after the time of Shabsai Tzvi until now in these generations. Therefore the poskim in all these generations did not see any need to explain this issue in their times.” Alo Na'aleh correctly points out (pg. 15) that there were many other attempts by Jews to rebel against non-Jew in the time period discussed by the Satmar Rebbe.

However, true to form, Alo Na’aleh attempts to defend the Satmar Rebbe. Before discussing a particularly egregious misreading of a source in Vayo’el Moshe, Alo Na’aleh (pg. 172-3)claims that the misreadings of the sources exhibited in Vayo’el Moshe don’t stem from actual mistakes by the Satmar Rebbe. Rather, the Satmar Rebbe was convinced that Zionism was a terrible calamity, and was willing to twist sources in order to convince people that it is wrong. In other words, the ends justify the means. Alo Na’aleh finds a source permitting such tactics in the well-known Gemara in Pesachim 112a, where it says that הרוצה ליחנק היתלה באילן גדול, explained by Rashi there to mean that one is permitted to falsely quote his Rebbe if he knows the halacha to be true, and he won’t be listened to otherwise. However, Alo Na’aleh limits this heter to polemical works such as Vayo’el Moshe.

While Alo Na'aleh does identify mistakes exhibited in Vayo'el Moshe, it has many flaws itself. It is often long-winded, bringing paragraphs from pro-Zionist authors having nothing to do with the issue at hand. In addition, there is a lack of consistency in the writing style, as entire articles, or pieces of articles, are brought down verbatim in the main body of the text, without any kind of indentation or other helpful citation. Besides for ruining the literary consistency, it can take an effort to know when the quotation ends. It is for these two reasons that Alo Na'aleh runs to a long 278 pages.

Another issue is the lack of clear organization in Alo Na'aleh.  Often, the text will give one response to Vayo'el Moshe, move on to a different response, then return to the first response without any warning. This can make it difficult to follow.

A good amount of research has gone into Alo Na'aleh, and the responses to the Satmar Rebbe are the most comprehensive to date. But it is a work marked by flaws: technical errors, a propensity to go off on tangents, and a lack of clarity in its argumentation. A respectable effort that falls short of its promise[6].

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* I would like to thank Eliezer Brodt for reviewing this post, and my father for editing it.

[1]Although the Satmar Rebbe (meaning R’ Yoel, as opposed to his father)  wasn’t the first to attack Zionism based on (pseudo-) halachic sources, he was the one to have the biggest impact. For a short scholarly discussion of the Samar Rebbe’s opposition to Zionism (focusing on his interpretation of the Three Oaths), see יצחק קראוס, שלש השבועות כיסוד למשנתו האנטי-צונית של ר' יואל טייטלבאום, עבודת גמר לתואר מוסמך בפילוסופיה יהודית, האוניברסיטה העיברית בבלטימור, תש"נ. A general history of discussion of the Three Oaths is given by Mordechai Breur: מרדכי ברויאר, 'הדיון בשלוש השבועות בדורות האחרונים', גאולה ומדינה, ירושלים תשל"ט, עמ' 49- 57. For a history of Eastern European Chareidi opposition to Zionism, see יוסף שלמון, 'תגובת החרדים במזרח אירופה לציונות מדינית', הציונות ומתנגדיה בעם היהודי, ירושלים תש"נ, עמ' 51- 73.

[2]R’ Tzion seems to claim at the end of his introduction (pg. 14) that the book basically consists of his writing down the responses of R’ Aviner; however, from R’ Aviner’s haskamah it is clear that the R’ Tzion had a much substantial part in the writing of the book.

[3]Shalmon (ibid., footnote 1), says that that was a second edition. I am not sure when the first edition was published, and what the difference was between the first and second editions.

[4]This book claims that a large part of Vayo’el Moshe was forged!

[5] The Radvaz proves this from the famous Gemara in Sanhedrin 99a, where R' Hillel says that Mashiach will never come, since there was only a one-time chance in the time of Chizkiyahu Hamelech. R' Yosef there responds to this statement of R' Hillel by saying, “Hashem should forgive him” (שרי ליה מריה), and does not degrade him. As to whether R' Hillel's statement makes him a heretic, see Marc Shapiro's Limits of Orthodox Theology. R' Tzion on page 10 quotes a responsum from R' Yehuda Hertzel Henkin, a grandson of R' Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, that Chazal even refrained from degrading the famous heretic Elisha ben Avuyah (Shu”t B'nei Banim 2:34). With respect to R' Henkin, I find this attitude of respect to one's enemies he attributes to Chazal does not  fit in with hundreds of examples throughout the generations of Torah leaders' harshness to enemies and heretics. Even Elisha ben Avuyah was branded “Acher” (“The Other”) by Chazal, which is not the most respectful title.

[6]The most comprehensive discussion if the Three Oaths that is also well organized is נפש עדה in נחלת יעקב, mentioned earlier in the bibliography.