Two of these for one little kid?*

A zuz was an oft-referenced coin worth a quarter of a sheqel (or two dinars).

In Binyamin Mussafia's addition to R. Nathan b. Yehiel's Aruch the following appears in the entry for זוז zuz:

פי' בלשון יוני שם אליל על כל האלילים וצורתו נטבעה במטבע הנקרא על שמו ולכן רבי מנחם בר סמאי בצורתא דזוזא לא הוה מסתקל בריש פ' דר' ישמעאל במסכת ע''ז דף נ

Zuz \zōōs\, noun: Greek; the name of the head of the pantheon of gods. His image was stamped on the coins which bore his name. It is for this reason that R. Menahem bar Simmai would not gaze at the image of a zuz (see Avodah Zarah 50a).

ע''ז דף נ reads:

מאן ניהו בנן של קדושים רבי מנחם ברבי סימאי ואמאי קרו ליה בנן של קדושים דאפי' בצורתא דזוזא לא מיסתכל

Who was 'the son of the holy'? R. Menahem son of R. Simai. And why did they call him 'the son of the holy'? — Because he would not gaze even at the image on a zuz.

Perhaps a zuz was something like this:



I do wonder where this etymology comes from. I checked Buxtorf's Lexicon Chaldaicum Talmudicum and there is no entry for זוז at all. I have discovered no other plausible etymology for זוז, so I guess Zeus it is, and it was Mussaphia's original idea.

For related info, s ee Alexander Kohut, Zeus in Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash, JQR, Vol. 3, No. 3. (Apr., 1891), pp. 552-554. and Daniel Sperber, Mark XII 42 and Its Metrological Background: A Study in Ancient Syriac Versions, Novum Testamentum, Vol. 9, Fasc. 3. (Jul., 1967), pp. 178-190.
* The reference.

When Latin was Rex: a 1715 apologia for an English translation of a Latin work.

I came across something quite interesting.

Sébastien Castellion (1515-63) was a French-born Reformer and opponent of Calvin (and Church or state persecution of heretics). I was looking at an English translation of his Dialogorum Sacrorum Libri Quatuor printed in London, 1715 as The history of the Bible. Collected into one hundred and nineteen dialogues. By Sebastian Castalio. Translated from the original.

The translator (seems to have been someone called William Wyatt) gives an interesting explanation in his preface for translating a Latin book such as this into the English vernacular.

A bit of background is in order, since it is not self-evident why such an explanation (apologia, really) is necessary. At the time, Latin was still the uncontested lingua franca of European scholarship. Indeed, it would remain such for at least the remainder of the 18th century, although obviously that was also the century when it was changing. With so many tongues in Europe, it obviously made sense for their to be a common tongue, a medium by which a Polish astrononmer and an Dutch botanist and an English mathematician can hold a dialog, and this medium was Latin. If my history isn't too simplistic, this was eventually supplanted by German, which was supplanted by English, which today is still the international language of scholarship (not to minimize the use of vernaculars even then, and of course now).

Here are parts of the preface:



There are self-evidently disadvantages. But only good intentions!



The translator wants those who can't read Latin to be able to read this and profit from it.



But don't worry--its English style not going to hinder students (Boys) who are learning Latin.



Finally, the translator asserts that this work was merely the "Innocent Amusement of [his] Leisure Hours," that is, don't think he wasted time to produce it.

If I understand him correctly, he assumes that his work would be regarded as a simple waste of time, therefore he has to assure the public that this wasn't the case.

Wow. All this about translating a book from Latin to English.

Although I cannot supply any practical examples at the moment, a similarly defensive and apologetic posture is sometimes found by authors who translate seforim from Hebrew into English, "I understand the problems. I mean well. I deliberately made sure it isn't a substitute for the original and kept the bachurim in mind. This isn't the full focus of mine."

Precocious thirteen year old renaissance yingelach; a marvelous Hebrew-Italian poem of the 16th century.

This neat linguistic feat ought to be more well known than it is. Written by R. Yehuda Aryeh (Leone) de Modena (more about him to come) in honor of his dearly beloved, departed teacher R. Mosè della Rocca.

The poem is both Hebrew and Italian at the same time.

קינה שמור אוי מה כי פס אוצר בו
כל טוב אילים כוסי אור דין אל צלו
משה מורי משה יקר דבר בו
שם תושיה און יום כפור הוא זה לו
כלה מיטה ימי שן צרי אשר בו
צייון זה מות רע אין כאן ירפה לו
ספינה בים קל צל עובר ימינו
הלים יובא שבי ושי שמנו

Chi nasce, muor. Oimè, che passo [a]cerbo!
Colto vi è l'uom, cosí ordina 'l Cielo
Mosè morí, Mosè: già car di verbo
Santo sia ogn'uom, con puro zelo
Ch'alla metà, già mai senza riserbo
Si giunge, ma vedran in cangiar pelo
Se fin abbiam, ch'al cielo ver ameno
- Ah - l'uomo va, se viv' assai, se meno.

Ostensibly it should give us information about Hebrew pronunciation in 16th century Italy.

From an 1855 Notes & Queries:




Actually, R. Leone de Modena was thirteen when he wrote this (1584), not seventeen.

(Mar G [now Rav G?!--!מזל טוב] posted about him recently.)

A similar feat was attempted (on a smaller scale and with a bit of borrowing) by Ephraim Luzzatto in the 18th century:

הלום
מי זה רואה
שנות אידי
פנה אלי
או מה
שאול שבר
קינה שמור
אני מתי
אבוי ימי
און עמל
הה כי פסו

Ah! L'uom
misero è
se notte e dí
pene e lai
- ohimè -
suol cibar.
Chi nasce muor
animati;
A voi giammai
avvenga mal
- ah - che passo.

See.

Kennicott's textual criticism triumphs and failures, dating the Bible books and an artificial Tiberian Hebrew influence on the name "David."

One of the great names in 18th century Bible study was Benjamin Kennicott (Britain; 1718-1783). He made an amazing, unparalleled contribution to textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, yet not one without flaws.

He undertook a massive project of collating as many Hebrew Bible manuscripts as he could find, sparing no expense, with the purpose of recording its variae lectiones (variant readings). His collation was huge (over 600 manuscripts and more than 50 printed editions), but by no means comprehensive. Following him was Giovanni de Rossi (an Italian Hebraist) who greatly increased the number of manuscripts used in this project). Together this collation formed the foundation of modern textual criticism of the Bible.

Kennicott had the right idea, but was not very critical as far as assigning equal weight to bad and good texts.

As M.H. Goshen-Gottstein (Biblical Philology and the Concordance, Journal of Jewish Studies 8, 1-2 (1957) (1). 5-12) wrote:

"When Kennicott and de Rossi set out to collect "extra-massoretic" readings, they faithfully noted down every mistake, which some scribe or monk who taught himself to write Hebrew cared to make, and we who stand on their shoulders, must not accuse them of being ignorant of the problems involved in their undertaking. Their collections, however, became an unfailing source for the modern scholar, who could "prove" the correctness of the reading in LXX (and other versions) from Hebrew manuscripts, without bothering to figure out in what way ancient aberrant readings could have crept into the post-massoretic manuscripts used by Kennicott and de Rossi."

In any case, Kennicott was not, of course, merely a collector. He was also a scholar.

I found this interesting passage concerning the earlier and later Biblical orthography of the name David (דוד and דויד) in a work of his from 1753 on comparisons between I Chron. XI and II Sam. V and XXIII. He is trying to date these books.

The discussion begins like this, with a comparison of the two texts:



and continues




As you can see, he observes that the plene spelling (דויד) is later than the defective spelling (דוד).

Nothing much to add, but a thought which has been on my mind recently. It is important to remember that written languages don't intrinsically have a uniform orthography (i.e., one correct way to spell words). Rather, uniformity is usually imposed eventually at a certain stage in the history of the written language. At an earlier stage languages basically are written according to how the words sound, and lacking dictionaries or some kind of authoritative text to dictate spelling, the spelling is a choice made by the one writing the text. What tends to happen (or tended, since nowadays most written languages have already settled upon uniformity of sorts) is that the influence of widely disseminated, very important texts begins to dictate uniformity in spelling. This is compounded by printing, when massive quantities of texts that are exactly alike can appear. Finally, prescriptive authorities like dictionaries and lexicons can easily finish the job. Indeed, these ingredients were mostly missing from English until the 16th century, and that is why English spelling did not begin to stabilize until then.

In the case of Hebrew, the existence of supremely authoritative texts compounded by the nature of the language itself accelerated this process at an earlier stage. What I mean by the nature of the language (and this applies to other so-called Semitic languages; better described as Triliteral languages) is that many of the peculiarities of English are missing from it and it lends itself to more uniformity, as the consonants are more stable and consistent in their pronunciation. English, however, is highly influenced not only by its Anglo-Saxon roots, but also several stages of Latin and Greek. This accounts for most words that use the letter F or PH for the same sound. Without knowing the etymology, how is one to know how to spell such words? Only through memorization.

If I want to spell the name "Moshe" in Hebrew, without having ever seen what the word looks like, I could probably come up with משה. Perhaps I'd have written מושה, but that's a minor variant. In English, I might choose to spell it Mosche or Mosheh or Mose or any of several other ways. In English different consonants often have exactly the same value. Thus, if I had to spell the name of the Biblical Caleb I might have guessed that I could use a K. In fact, without ever having seen the name before I probably would have--it so happens that C used to be fashionable for the hard K sound, while today K is usually chosen. Although in Hebrew there appears to be little or no difference between כ and ק, which should mean that if I have never seen the word I might choose to spell Caleb either as כלב or קלב, in fact you can tell which consonant is meant without seeing the word quite easily. Just add a לכלב : ל, and the hard K become the guttural /kh/.

Thus it was that Hebrew (sort of) had more uniformity in spelling much, much earlier than English. Hebrew spelling was highly influenced by the Bible. But the Bible itself, particularly the earlier books, could hardly have been influenced by itself. So you find more variation then you do in later stages of Hebrew. One particular kind of variation is whether or not words are written plene (that is , using letters like ו, ה and י). It seems that at its earliest stage Hebrew was always written defective. A noteworthy example is the Mesha Stele, which begins with the word אנכ for the word אנכי, which we are familiar with. What apparently happened was that eventually it was realized that adding little touches like a י could guide the reader in how to pronounce the word.

Thus the name דוד eventually began to be spelled דויד. (Although the former can be pronounced Dod, while the latter cannot be confused for it, it is doubtful that this was the specific reason for the change. It seems hard to believe that later writers really felt that דוד without a י was ambiguous. Rather, the tendency at that point was to fill out defective words to aid in pronunciation overall. Thus, דוד became דויד in those later books of the Bible. Eventually the plene spelling mania tipped back a little bit and went out of style. Once vowel points were invented, they became fairly unnecessary to begin with.)

Now, according to the rules of Tiberian vocalization דוד and דויד are not pronounced exactly alike. The former is a short /i/ vowel and the latter a long /ee/, so we're talking about something like David and Daveed.

In effect, the nekkudot force an artificial pronunciation. This is not to say that the Masoretes invented this dual pronunciation. By the time they devised the nekkudot to record the traditional liturgical chant in all its details, this dual pronunciation could have already existed, hence the Tiberian rule that chirik-yud is /ee/ while chirik-without-yud is /i/.

But the net effect is the same: the nekkudot influenced the pronunciation of the name, thus to this day, the name David is pronounced Daveed in Israeli Hebrew, while there are no grounds for choosing /ee/ over /i/ in trying to reconstruct how the historical name was truly pronounced.

British Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler's explanation of פסוק לי פסוקיך on Gittin 56

A rationalist 19th century British interpretation of a Talmudic oracle at English Hebraica.

A rationalist 19th century British interpretation of a Talmudic oracle

Being that we are on the eve of Tisha B'av, I thought it would be interesting to see an interpretation, or rather reinterpretation, of a famous incident from Gittin 56 (the Gemara which recounts the fall of Jerusalem, which many people study on Tisha B'Av).

The specific piece reads as follows

שדר עלוייהו לנירון קיסר כי קאתי שדא גירא למזרח אתא נפל בירושלים למערב אתא נפל בירושלים לארבע רוחות השמים אתא נפל בירושלים א"ל לינוקא פסוק לי פסוקיך אמר ליה (יחזקאל כה) ונתתי את נקמתי באדום ביד עמי ישראל וגו' אמר קודשא בריך הוא בעי לחרובי ביתיה ובעי לכפורי ידיה בההוא גברא ערק ואזל ואיגייר ונפק מיניה ר"מ

He [the Emperor] sent against them Nero the Caesar. As he was coming he shot an arrow towards the east, and it fell in Jerusalem. He then shot one towards the west, and it again fell in Jerusalem. He shot towards all four points of the compass, and each time it fell in Jerusalem. He said to a certain boy: Repeat to me [the last] verse of Scripture you have learnt. He said: (Ezekiel 25) And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel. He said: The Holy One, blessed be He, desires to lay waste his House and to lay the lame on me. So he ran away and became a proselyte, and R. Meir was descended from him.

In 1882, שבת שקלים, Hermann Adler (1839-1911), Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire, delivered a sermon about the plight of Russian Jewry, a theme which justly occupied the attention and concern of Western Jews at that time.



As you can see, the sense of the passage is that Nero asked the boy what verse of Scripture had learned and took it as an oracle. R. Adler, however, responding to the needs of his time interprets it very differently:

"Now, think not, my brethren, that this was a superstitious practice, or a kind of divination. Our Synagogue fathers knew full well that, in a time of national stress, the wise schoolmaster would teach his young charges such Bible texts as would afford some comfort, guidance, and wise practical counsel how to meet the crisis."

But it can easily be seen that such a method was seen as oracular by the Sages themselves, by comparing this with the other instances where the פסוק לי פסוקיך method occurs; e.g., Gittin 67b-68a

א"ל ריש גלותא לרב ששת מ"ט לא סעיד מר גבן א"ל דלא מעלו עבדי דחשידי אאבר מן החי א"ל מי יימר אמר ליה השתא מחוינא לך א"ל לשמעיה זיל גנוב אייתי לי חדא כרעא מחיותא אייתי ליה אמר להו אהדמו לי הדמי דחיותא אייתו תלת כרעי אותיבו קמיה אמר להו הא בעלת שלש רגלים הואי פסוק אייתו חדא מעלמא אותיבו קמיה אמר ליה לשמעיה אותביה נמי להך דידך אותבה אמר להו האי בת חמש רגלים הואי אמר ליה אי הכי ליעבדו קמיה <שמעיה> דמר וליכול א"ל לחיי קריבו תכא קמייהו ואייתו קמיה בישרא ואותיבו קמיה ריסתנא דחנקא חמתא גששיה ושקלה כרכה בסודריה לבתר דאכיל אמרי ליהאיגניב לן כסא דכספא בהדי דקא מעייני ואתי אשכחוה דכרוכה בסודריה אמרי ליה חזי מר דלא מיכל קא בעי אלא לצעורן אמר להו אנא מיכל אכלי וטעמי ביה טעמא דחיורא אמרי ליה חיורא לא עביד לן האידנא אמר להו בדקו בדוכתיה דאמר רב חסדא אוכמא בחיורא וחיורא באוכמתא לקותא היא בדוק אשכחוה כי קא נפיק כרו ליה בירא ושדו ליה ציפתא עילויה ואמרי ליה ליתי מר לינח נחר ליה רב חסדא מאחוריה אמר ליה לינוקא פסוק לי פסוקיך אמר ליה (שמואל ב ב) נטה לך על ימינך או על שמאלך אמר ליה לשמעיה מאי קא חזית אמר ליה ציפיתא דשדיא אמר ליה הדר מינה לבתר דנפק אמר ליה רב חסדא מנא הוה ידע מר אמר ליה חדא דנחר לי מר ועוד דפסק לי ינוקא פסוקא ועוד דחשידי עבדי דלא מעלו

The Exilarch once said to R. Shesheth, Why will your honour not dine with us? He replied: Because your servants are not reliable, being suspected of taking a limb from a living animal. You don't say so, said the Exilarch. He replied, I will just show you. He then told his attendant to steal a leg from an animal and bring it. When he brought it to him he said [to the Servants of the Exilarch], place the pieces of the animal before me. They brought three legs and placed them before him. He said to them, This must have been a three-legged animal. They then cut a leg off an animal and brought it. He then said to his attendant, Now produce yours. He did so, and he then said to them, This must have been a five-legged animal. The Exilarch said to him, That being the case, let them prepare the food in your presence and then you can eat it. Very good, he replied. They brought up a table and placed meat before him, and set in front of him a portion with a dangerous bone. He felt it and took and wrapped it in his scarf. When he had finished they said to him, A silver cup has been stolen from us.1 In the course of their search for it they found the meat wrapped in his scarf, whereupon they said to the Exilarch, See, sir, that he does not want to eat, but only to vex us. He said, I did eat, but I found in it the taste of a boil. They said to him, No animal with a boil has been prepared for us to-day. He said to them, Examine the place [where my portion came from]. since R. Hisda has said that a white spot on black skin or a black spot on white skin is a mark of disease. They examined and found that it was so. When he was about to depart they dug a pit and threw a mat over it, and said to him, Come, sir, and recline. R. Hisda snorted behind him. and he said to a boy. Tell me the last verse you have learnt. The boy said. Turn thee aside to thy right hand or to thy left. He said to his attendant, What can you see? He replied. A mat thrown across [the path]. He said, Turn aside from it. When he got out, R. Hisda said to him, How did you know, sir? He replied. For one thing because you, sir, snorted [behind me], and again from the verse which the boy quoted, and also because the servants are suspect of playing tricks.

in this case, the servants of the ריש גלותא were laying a trap for רב ששת and he used a schoolchild's verse to let him know what to do. Was this a time of national or person stress? רב ששת is using פסוק לי פסוקיך for it's oracular ability.

Finally, and more clearly, Hullin 95b

רב בדיק במברא ושמואל בדיק בספרא רבי יוחנן בדיק בינוקא כולהו שני דרב הוה כתב ליה רבי יוחנן לקדם רבינו שבבבל כי נח נפשיה הוה כתב לשמואל לקדם חבירינו שבבבל אמר לא ידע לי מידי דרביה אנא כתב שדר ליה עיבורא דשיתין שני אמר השתא חושבנא בעלמא ידע כתב שדר ליה תליסר גמלי ספקי טריפתא אמר אית לי רב בבבל איזיל איחזייה א"ל לינוקא פסוק לי פסוקיך אמר ליה (שמואל א כח) ושמואל מת אמר ש"מ נח נפשיה דשמואל ולא היא לא שכיב שמואל אלא כי היכי דלא ליטרח רבי יוחנן

Rab used to regard a ferry-boat as a sign. Samuel a [passage in a] book, and R. Johanan [a verse quoted] by a child. During the lifetime of Rab, R. Johanan used to address him thus in his letters: Greetings to our Master in Babylon! After Rab's death R. Johanan used to address Samuel thus: Greetings to our colleague in Babylon! Said Samuel to himself, ‘Is there nothing in which I am his master’? He thereupon sent [to R. Johanan] the calculations for the intercalation of months for sixty years. Said [R. Johanan], ‘He only knows mere calculations’. So he [Samuel] wrote out and sent [R. Johanan] thirteen camel loads of questions concerning doubtful cases of trefah. Said [R. Johanan], ‘It is clear that I have a Master in Babylon; I must go and see him’. So he said to a child, ‘Tell me the [last] verse you have learnt’. He answered: ‘Now Samuel was dead’. Said [R. Johanan], ‘This means that Samuel has died’. But it was not the case; Samuel was not dead then, and [this happened] only that R. Johanan should not trouble himself.

In this case we see most clearly that פסוק לי פסוקיך is regarded as a sign. (And, as it happens, in this case the sign was misleading, albeit deliberately so). The practice itself, called bibliomancy, was used and taken quite literally among Jews in early modern Europe. A variation, called gorel ha-gr"a, persists even today.

This specific sermon was printed in R. Adler's collection Anglo-Jewish memories, and other sermons (1909: New York). In the introduction, he notes that he had recently reached his 70th birthday: "During the present month I shall, by Divine mercy, complete the threescore years and ten ordinarily allotted to man." In addition, it had been about 50 years since he had delivered his first derasha on behalf of his father R. Nathan Adler, who was sick on that occasion. In honor of these anniversaries he decided to publish some of his discourses, with prominence given to "those delivered on occasions which moved our hearts both as Englishmen and as Jews."

You can download the entire "Cry of Our Russian Brethren" sermon here.

All in all, a most interesting, very 19th century interpretation of a well-known Talmudic passage.

A missing minhag shtus in the Shulchan Aruch

Here is how siman 605 in the Shulhan Arukh Orah Hayyim appeared in the 1565 Venice edition (courtesy of JNUL).

and a modern edition, about 100 years old (courtesy of hebrewbooks.org):



As you can see, sometime after 1565 the designation of kapparos as a מנהג של שטות disappeared from the standard printed editions. I did not do any comprehensive research, but I understand that this change actually occurred in the 1570s, in an early Ashkenazic edition which included the addition of the Rema.

Graetz in the view of 19th century German Orthodoxy

Even Der Israelit could not conceal the fact that Graetz's History had made inroads among Orthodox Jews. One article related how on a Friday night, the author found himself in a heated discussion comparing Graetz and his teacher, Samson Raphael Hirsch. As he sat at his dinner table "I took the first volume ofHirsch's commentary on the Pentateuch and the first volume of Graetz's Geschichte derJuden and showed my friend an example ofhow I can distinguish them." He then proceeded to explain to his friend how Hirsch explained a particular term better, but "my friend would not accept it. Graetz has become such an important, idealized figure that this reproach does not hurt him.,,115 His inability to break his friend's faith in Graetz's judgment led him to think of Graetz as a secular version of a Hasidic rebbe, whom no one will doubt, and he described how the "cult" of Graetz's history has grown even larger since his death. Yet it is important to remember that all the time he was trying to undermine his friend's support of Graetz, he was using a copy of Graetz's Geschichte der Juden that he had acquired for himself and placed on a bookcase near the dining room table where any of his guests could see it.

Writing for the Masses: Heinrich Graetz, the Popularization
of Jewish History, and the Reception of National Judaism by Jeffrey Charles Blutinger, pg. 127-128

Looooong davening

“I'm going to quote what I remember Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel z"l saying to me "No one can have a spiritual orgasm for 3 hours." I hope I remembered correctly and would never use a word or phrase flippantly and attribute to such a great mind and soul. However, assuming I did recall it correctly, it is very true.”

From an email list; hope it was okay to post it.

Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish as holy tongues in the 5 Towns Jewish Times.

There is a very interesting letter section in last week's 5 Towns Jewish Times. Four letters were sent as a response to a prior article, Longing For The Old Country, which was basically an old school anti-shtetl screed. He writes "There is only one place that a Jew calls holy, and it’s not anywhere in the exile. Similarly, there is only one language that a Jew calls his own, and it’s not Yiddish."

One of the letters is from a Cedarhurst rabbi who defends the sanctity of Yiddish, citing Maimonides:

And finally, to refer to the Yiddish language as not a “holy” language, but just another example of clinging to the world of the exiled and battered Jew, is doing a great disservice to the countless Jews in today’s world who view the Yiddish language as sacred. And by the way, I believe so do Chazal. The Rambam, in his Introduction to the Mishnah questions why the Gemara was written in Aramaic and not in Lashon HaKodesh. After all, the Jews learned that language during galus Bavel; why would they write the Torah down in this language that is a “galus language”? And the Rambam explained that since the great Sages of the time spoke in Aramaic in their daily Torah studies, it became elevated and has a din of a lashon ha’kodesh. Yiddish—spoken for hundreds of years by the leading sages of each generation and passed on from rebbi to talmid and from father to son—clearly can be referred to as a lashon ha’kodesh. True, it does not have a level of kedushah of Lashon haKodesh itself, but it has earned the right to be referred to as a holy language, as well.

However, I find this puzzling, as try as I may I can't find the Rambam's discussion of Aramaic in his Introduction to the Mishnah.

What I did find was his discussion of why the post-Talmudic Sages write works in Arabic and Hebrew which explain the Talmud:

וכאשר מתו כל החכמים ע"ה שהאחרונים מהם רבינא ורב אשי וכבר נשלם התלמוד, הרי כל מי שעמד אחריו אן מטרתו אלא הבנת דבריהם שחברו בלבד, עליו אין להוסיף וממנו אין לגרוע, ולפיכך חברו הגאונים הפירושים המרובים, אבל לפי ידיעתנו לא יכל אף אחד מהם להשלים פירוש כל התלמוד, יש שמנעו קוצר החיים, ויש שמנעתו טרדת בני אדם במשפטיהם. וכן חברו חבורים בפסקי הלכות מהם בערבית ומהם בעברית, כגון הלכות גדולות, והלכות קטועות, והלכות פסוקות, והלכות רב אחא משבחא, וזולתם

As far as I can tell Aramaic is not mentioned even once in the Introduction to the Rambam's Commentary on the Mishnah; certainly he does not say or imply that Aramaic is "elevated and has a din of a lashon ha’kodesh," or anything like it.

The only other conceivable reference is to Hebrew and less-than-stellar knowledge of it is

והיה צח לשון ובקי בשפה העברית יותר מכל אדם, עד שהיו החכמים ע"ה לומדין ביאור מלים שנסתפקו להם בלשון המקרא מפי עבדיו ומשרתיו, וזה מן המפורסמות בתלמוד

which lauds Rabbi's expertise in Hebrew (albeit with a limitation, discussed here).


I think this is an example of how a popular idea might be projected onto a text and a person without double checking the source.

Interestingly, the Rambam himself does not agree that the reason why Hebrew was sometimes called לשון הקודש i[1] is because it was "spoken for hundreds of years by the leading sages of each generation and passed on from rebbi to talmid and from father to son" or that "the great Sages of the time spoke in [Hebrew] in their daily Torah studies."

Rather, Rambam believed that Hebrew can be called לשון הקודש because

I have also a reason and cause for calling our language the holy language-do not think it is exaggeration or error on my part, it is perfectly correct-the Hebrew language has no special name for the organ of generation in females or in males, nor for the act of generation itself, nor for semen, nor for secretion. The Hebrew has no original expressions for these things, and only describes them in figurative language and by way of hints, as if to indicate thereby that these things should not be mentioned, and should therefore have no names; we ought to be silent about them, and when we are compelled to mention them, we must manage to employ for that purpose some suitable expressions, although these are generally used in a different sense. Thus the organ of generation in males is called in Hebrew gid, which is a figurative term, reminding of the words, And thy neck is an iron sinew" (gid) (Isa. xlviii. 4). It is also called shupka, pouring out 'I (Deut. xxiii. 2), on account of its function. The female organ is called kobah (Num. xxv. 8), from kebab (Dent. xviii. 3), which denotes" stomach": rehem," womb," is the inner organ in which the foetus develops; zoah (Isa. xxviii. 8)," refuse," is derived from the verb yaza," he went out"; for" urine" the phrase meme raglayim," the water of the feet" (2 Kings. xviii. 17), is used; semen is expressed by shikbat zera'," a layer of seed." For the act of generation there is no expression whatever in Hebrew: it is described by the following words only: ba'al," he was master": shakab," he lay": lakah," he took"; gillah 'ervah," he uncovered the nakedness." Be not misled by the word yishgalennah (Deut. xxviii. 30), to take it as denoting that act: this is not the case, for shegal denotes a female ready for cohabitation. Comp." Upon thy right hand did stand the maiden" (shegal)" in gold of Ophir" (Ps. xlv. io). Yishgalennah, according to the Kethib, denotes therefore he will take the female for the purpose of cohabitation."

Guide to the Perplexed 3:8 (Friedlander)

Incidentally, I side with the Yiddishists--in the sense that it is nothing shameful about our past and present, but part of our rich cultural and religious heritage.

[1] There are, in fact, only a few scattered Talmudic and Midrashic references to Hebrew by the לשון הקודש appellation, which became much popular later.

Itchy Old English

In Old English the first-person, personal, singular pronoun was ic (today it is I). It was probably pronounced something like each. By the 12th century ic was already I (but I don't know when ee became eye).

Interestingly, probably due to the remoteness of village life, traces of ic seem to have persisted until the 19th century.

In Thomas Hardy's 19th century novel about rural life in Wessex, The Woodlanders, there's an old woman who uses " 'ch " for "I": link

"Can't abear it! No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because 'ch have something on my mind....'Ch have been going to ask him again to let me off, but I hadn't the face."

This wasn't only an effect created for a book. In 1889 Hardy mentioned that this dialect still existed: "This & kindred words – e.g. – “Ich woll”, “er woll”, &c, are still used by old people in NW Dorset & Somerset . . . I heard “Ich” only last Sunday; but it is dying rapidly. I know nobody under seventy who speaks so, & those above it use the form only in impulsive moments when they forget themselves’."

Herman Wouk, Richard Feynman, the Talmud; and why hasn't Aish discovered this anecdote yet?

The Will to Live On: This is Our Heritage by Herman Wouk pp. 165-167.

edit: A commenter points out this passage from Feynman's autobiograph,pp. 285-287), which might as well be a reply to Wouk (although it isn't)!

Mammoths in the news and in 19th century rabbinics.

An old post by Yoinoson Schreiber cites Derush 'Or Ha-hayyim by R. Yisrael Lifschuetz (1782-1860) writing in the 19th century about palaeontological discoveries likes wooly mammoths. (Now in the news.)

I have uploaded a copy of his Derush 'Or Ha-hayyim for your perusal. It is nine pages long, and the relevant discussion about this issue begins on page 7.

From the relevant passage:



DovBear translation of part of it:

In the year 1807... they found in Siberia... a great elephant... whose skeleton now stands in the Zoological Museum in Petersburg... We already know of a giant creature found in... the city of Baltimore... bones of this creature have been found in Europe, too. This creature had been named mammoth... they have found... iguanodon... whose height was 15 feet, and whose length was as much as 90 feet...there is yet another creature called megalosaurus... from all this it is clear... [citing kabbbalists, Gemarahs, Rabaynu B'chaya, the Ramban, and Ibn Ezra] that the world has been destroyed and renewed over and over again as many as four times...

However, see my comments beginning here.

Encyclopedia Judaica biography:

LIPSCHUTZ, ISRAEL BEN GEDALIAH (1782–1860), German rabbinic scholar. Lipschutz served as rabbi in the towns of Wronki (1821), Dessau and Colmar (1826–37), and Danzig (1837–60). His fame rests upon his commentary to the Mishnah, entitled Tiferet Yisrael, one of the finest of its class. In this work, he explains the words of the Mishnah briefly, offers new interpretations to difficult passages, particularly in the orders of Zera'im, Kodashim, and Tohorot, and adds everywhere the halakhic ruling as decided on in the Shulhan Arukh and its commentaries. To each of the orders of Mo'ed, Kodashim, and Tohorot, he prefaces general introductions comprising a methodic summation of all the principles of the order, after the manner of *Maimonides in his introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah. A considerable portion of the commentary is taken from that of his son, Baruch Isaac *Lipschutz, as well as from Akiva *Eger, *Elijah b. Solomon (the Gaon of Vilna), and others. Tiferet Yisrael became the most widespread Mishnah commentary and is regarded as an invaluable adjunct to that of Obadiah *Bertinoro. Lipschutz's commentary to Zera'im, Zera Emunah, and to Tohorot, Ta'am ve-Da'at, with a general preface entitled "Yevakkesh Da'at," was published in Hanover (1830). His commentary to Nashim, Hosen Rav, was published later (Danzig, 1843). Appended to it was Avi Ezer, a work by Lipschutz's father on the Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer. The commentary to Mo'ed, Davar be-Itto (ibid., 1844), included an introduction dealing with topics relevant to the Sabbath and intercalations. Nezikin was published in Danzig in 1845, along with a treatise on immortality and the resurrection. Kodashim, under the title Hokhmat Elohim (Koenigsberg, 1850), includes laws of the order entitled Homer ba-Kodesh at the beginning, and diagrams of the Temple and altar at the end. The commentary was republished in its entirety (Berlin, 1862) with additions by Lipschutz's son Baruch Isaac. Lipschutz also composed an extensive commentary to the order Tohorot, Ateret Tiferet (Vilna, 1887–95), in which he separated the plain interpretation from the pilpul, calling the former "Yakhin" and the latter "Bo'az,"and added a section giving the halakhic rulings, "Hilkheta Gevirta," at the end of each chapter. In later editions of the Mishnah Tiferet Yisrael was similarly divided. He also published a brief commentary to the Mishnah called Zera Yisrael (Vilna, 1852), and his ethical will was published in Koenigsberg in 1861. His son mentions that Lipschutz left in manuscript sermons, notes on the Talmud, on Maimonides and on the Shulhan Arukh, and many responsa. He apparently also compiled Rashei Avot, a commentary on Avot, and Megillat Setarim.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

B.I. Lipschutz, in: Ha-Maggid, 4 (1860), 170–1; H.N. Maggid-Steinschneider, Ir Vilna, 1 (1900), 38–39; Brann, in: MGWJ, 50 (1906), 375; H. Albeck, Mavo la-Mishnah (1959), 253; Posner, in: Shanah be-Shanah, 4 (1963), 395–401.

[Abraham David]

A simple stone.

mendelssohn

No shittos vs metzius allowed at Cross Currents?

Evidently I hit some kind of a nerve at Cross Currents, because I wasn't allowed to respond to a comment directed at me on this post. Although Cross Currents moderates posts, they're somewhat open to critical and opposing comments (at least of a moderate sort; pun intended). So it surprised me that my benign comment should not be allowed through. I posted it days ago. Nothing. So a couple of days ago I posted another comment asking why they couldn't put mine through and allow me to respond. Since that was already two or three days ago, I'll post it here. See, the thing is, Cross Currents can choose not to post comments, but anyone can then post it anyway and talk about how they won't allow it through. Oh well.

So here goes. The background: in that post R. Yitzchok Adlerstein yearns for normalcy with frumkeit:

A frum psychologist once drew the line for me between Leningrad and the present. (Don’t even try to guess. No, it is not Dr Twerski; besides, he’s a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.) He was dismayed by what he saw as a trend in certain parts of the community – belief in what should not be believed by rational people. He was disappointed that so many could accept notions like facilitated communication (reports that autistic children when given keyboards would break their silence to write long documents in Yinglish exhorting people to repent) and over-reliance on alternative medicine to the exclusion of conventional medical intervention. He argued that too many people were pressured into a life style that really was not meant for everyone, and which suppressed ordinary and basic human needs that HKBH programmed into us, like self-reliance, and providing for one’s family. Sensing that their lives were not in synch with what much of humanity (and, on some level, they themselves) regard as “normal,” they had to turn their backs on the value of the normal and embrace the paranormal.

I’ve mentioned Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l’s frequent byword before in these pages: Man darf zein normal – a person ought to be normal. [...]

So I commented, and they posted it:

Unfortunately you can’t simultaneously immerse children into an environment in which they will be told rebbeshe mayselach (or Aggadah) and allow them to believe it to be true and historical and then expect fully rational people to emerge. Furthermore, you can’t simultaneously expect people to dismiss science and yet consume it and then distinguish it from pseudo-science.

If we’re looking for normal, we’d need to be normal.

Later R. Adlerstein responded to me:

The Rambam (Hakdamah to Mishnah) disagrees with you. Champion of an allegorical approach to Chazal though he was, he nonetheless asks the question of why the Rabbis didn’t just come out and say what they meant, rather than speak in code. One of his answers is that they employed the best approach for children. I believe that what he means is that it is quite healthy for children to grow up with a simple understanding of some of the more dramatic stories in Chazal. They can change over to the more “sophisticated” adult understanding later in life. Failure to convey the power of the message of Chazal (in the final analysis, the core message is a true one, whether understood simply or allegorically) to children would be a mistake. Depending on the needs of the individual, transitioning to “normal” adulthood would only require exposing him/her to the possibility of an allegorical intent later in life.

My response, which never got posted was something like this:

It's an issue of metzius (reality) and not shittos (views; esp. when opined by what may be considered canonical Sages).

My meaning was that it's all well and good that Rambam's view (according to R. Adlerstein) is that it is appropriate to teach the literal meaning of aggadah to children (note: my main point concerned "rebbeshe mayselach"). However, that doesn't then mean that what I wrote--"Unfortunately you can’t simultaneously immerse children into an environment in which they will be told rebbeshe mayselach (or Aggadah) and allow them to believe it to be true and historical and then expect fully rational people to emerge. Furthermore, you can’t simultaneously expect people to dismiss science and yet consume it and then distinguish it from pseudo-science."--isn't true! We see it. I see it. You see it.

Another example of this phenomenon (choosing shittos over metzius) pertains to historical matters. A favorite example of mine is the matter of the origin or evolution of language. People may say that "the original language of man" was Hebrew, despite all evidence to the contrary, putting aside the question if there even was "an original language." Yes, citing shittos and studying them is talmud Torah. But it isn't metzius if it isn't also how it happened.

Getting back to my contention that the Rambam's view of how to present Aggadah to children doesn't change my point--sure, it's my opinion and I didn't make any formal surveys, so I suppose you can challenge me that it's metzius. So challenge me.

In theory one can agree with me and also the Rambam, namely that today such teaching leads to arationality in our time that spills over into acceptance of bogus fads, but in the Rambam's time it needn't. After all, the Rambam's time was quite foggy by contemporary standards in terms of actual knowledge of many things about the world that we've at least come to clarify. A favored example of mine is Prester John. For centuries it was widely believed that there was a Christian king known as Prester John who headed a mighty empire in either Ethiopea or Arabia. It perplexes the modern mind how people could believe that this king--who, by the way, no one had ever met or truly corresponded with--existed. Century after century. Apparently it didn't occur to people that if it is now 1400 and I think this guy exists, why did people in 1200 also think he exists? Makes no sense, right?

But that was the pre-modern world.

And, by the way, there *were* copies of correspondence with Prester John, that great Christian hero, the emperor who lived in the heartland of the Infidel (i.e. the Muslims). Of course, the correspondence was all fake but it was copied and circulate and believed for centuries. (Jews knew of it and believed it as well; having our own legends, our own travelers with fake stories. Our own chronicles and historiography ALSO incorporated legend with fact.)

That being so, clearly the idea that eschewing miracle stories and fantastic legend was really an option then is untenable.

In any case, here is my comment, which now is a lengthy post instead of two lines which no one would have noticed anyway.

Edit: in the comments David suggested that my term "shittos" might have been inadvertently blocked by Cross Currents because of its unfortunate first four letters and that my comment (two comments) may not have been submitted innocently, since the moderators may never have seen them in the first place!

So I emailed Reb Yaakov Menken of Cross Currents to see if that indeed happened. He replied that it shouldn't have filtered out a word like "shittos," but nevertheless for some reason only the second comment appeared in moderation, and since it was inexplicible, having not seen the first one, it wasn't posted.

Therefore, in light of this knowledge I must retract my charge (reasonable, I think) that C-C refused to post my comment. Nevertheless, this is a post so I'll leave the substance, my opinion, as it stands. But let me stress that I no longer believe that my comment was not allowed to be posted.

Do you have to know how to write a kosher get or believe the correct things for a get you've written to be kosher?

I ask, because here it is said that "The late Conservative Rabbi Boaz Cohen comes to mind. His gittin were accepted by the Rav and the RCA."

and here R. Boaz Cohen wrote

"I am convinced that only through creative interpretation shall we be able to solve our present-day problems in the spirit of the great exponents of historical Judaism, such as Frankel, Graetz and Schechter."

Rav Yisrael sof hor'ah

Thanbo weighs in on the "minimizing the Arukh Ha-shulhan" campaign (discussed in this review) of the new Oz Ve-hadar edition.

Also at Seforim.

Knowing "אמר רבא" late in the game.

There was an interesting discussion in the comments of this post, by Menachem Mendel, about whether or not and to what extent coming from a yeshiva background gives an advantage to critical scholars of rabbinic literature.

Were there loads of siddurim (prayer books) in the time of the tosaphot?

No.

תוספות מסכת תמורה דף יד עמוד ב
דברים שבכתב אי אתה רשאי לאומרם בעל פה - וא"ת היכי קאמרינן מזמורים על פה וי"ל דאין להקפיד רק מה שכתוב בחומש אמנם קשה היכי קרינן ויושע וקריאת שמע וי"ל דאין להקפיד אלא בדבר שמוציא אחרים ידי חובתן

Commenting on the Talmudic law that Bible may not be said by heart, the tosaphot asks why "we" say psalms by heart (as you can soon see, from context it is talking about the psalms that are in the daily prayers, like the pesukei de-zimra). If the answer is that the Talmud's rule really only applies to Torah, then it is necessary to explain how in the daily prayer service "we" read additional parts of the Bible from the Torah, the Song of the Sea in Exodus and the Shema, from Deuteronomy, by heart. (The tosaphot's answer is not relevant to this discussion, but I posted it anyway).

This tosaphot seems to incidentally present proof that in its time and place prayers were mainly recited by heart and, presumably, siddurim (prayer books) were scarce.

Conversely, it might not be taken as proof for that assertion since when the tosaphot asks היכי קאמרינן מזמורים על פה it may not mean that the usual practice was to recite by heart. Maybe it meant occasionally people look away from the siddur, just as today many, or most, say aleinu by heart. We certainly have siddurim. In other words, perhaps it is asking how we can justify reciting the psalms in pesukei de-zimra by heart, as people are sometimes wont to do, if one looks outside the siddur.

I think that's the weaker interpretation, for a couple of reasons.

1. Who said that's justifiable? If everyone has a siddur and someone chooses or happens to say pesukei de-zimra by heart, but could read it, why is it a given that this is acceptable? [1]

2. Books had to be hand copied then, and we know that they were not cheap. I just did a quick check of how many words the daily shacharit alone is, and although I used a contemporary nussach and the text included things like multiple repetitions of kaddish, I counted over 12,000 words. Even if we reduce the number to 10,000, that is not such a short text. Producing one of those hand-written--and, mind you, this is only the text of shacharit, and not many other daily prayers, it doesn't include hallel, etc. for each and every person is unlikely.

[1] Alternatively this could be a type of thinking formerly found in rabbinic literature (although occasionally still), where popular practice was assumed to be proper, rather than improper. However, I don't think this is the case here because these kinds of justifications didn't pertain to the occasional, individual practice, but rather to things which masses of people did which would seem to contravene halakhah, hence the assumption that it didn't so one only had to try to understand why not.

Artscroll: one should not be dogmatic.

משנה עדיות א''ד

ולמה מזכירין דברי שמאי והלל לבטלן ללמד לדורות הבאין שלא יהא אדם עומד על דברו

“And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel to nullify them? To teach future generations that a person should not stand by his words--”

note 2. (Schottenstein ed.) reads:

I.e. one should not be dogmatic, which is a serious character flaw and a great impediment to arriving at the truth (Tiferes Yisrael).

Wow!

(Actually, the Tiferes Yisrael (יכין) says here להיות (רעכטהאבריש) שהוא חסרון גדול בנפש האדם ומניעה גדולה מלבוא אל האמת .

רעכטהאבריש , rechthaberisch means all-knowing or overly opinionated.)

Artscroll: “One should not be dogmatic”

at WBA?

The Mishna contains

557 Biblical citations.

I didn't count. But Jason Kalman (The Place of the Hebrew Bible in the Mishnah, MA thesis, McGill U, 1999) did.

Lonely tefillin in an Indian mound.

One day in 1815 Captain Joseph Merrick of Pittsfield, Massachusets plowed his field on his farm, built on what had been called "Indian Hill" in the 18th century (later a fort was established there in 1754, and so in his time it was called "Fort Hill."

In turning up the earth out popped tefillin--which is what it proved to be, although he didn't know it. A local resident named Elkanah Watson (note the last name; don't be fooled by the first) heard about it and went to investigate. At Merrick's house he found several Christian clergymen, all of whom were excited, realizing it must have belonged to a Jew. This Watson knew of the theory that the Native American Indians were descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel, and was excited.

What is interesting is that he claimed to compare "this phylactery with those described in the Old Testament." I'd like to know where! In any case, he wrote that they "are described in Scripture as composed of five folds of raw hide or leather, sewed completely together by the entrails of animals. In order to understand the appearance of this discovery, imagine five pieces of leather or raw hide, or some composition similar to India rubber, and capable of resisting the ravages of time and exposure, cut into squares of two inches, sewed together with entrails. Suppose, also a hole in the center, half an inch in diameter made to admit a tube two and a half inches long with eyelet holes at the corners to receive strings--and you will have an idea of this article."

In any event, Watson described the difficulty of opening it and how he "drew out from the tube three of four scrolls of parchment, which it contained when found, and inscribed with texts of Scripture, written in beautiful Hebrew in an elegant manner, and the ink of a beautiful jet black. The parchment, writing, ink, were all perfectly fresh."

Locals declared that it belonged to early Jewish settlers in Pittsfield, perhaps one from Germany who was remembered, who had since gone.

On the other hand, some investigators wished that it were Indian, and so declared that it was (the hill happened also to be an Indian burial ground).

Lee M. Friedman, whose article "The Phylacteries Found at Pittsfield, Mass," PAJHS, 1917, 25, pp. 81-85 is where this info comes from, noted that upon investigation an Isaac Isaacs appeared on the Pittsfield military rolls of 1780-1781. However, he sees no evidence that this person was Jewish and in fact might have belonged to the non-Jewish Isaacs of Connecticut.

On the other hand, five separate men called Isaac Isaacs show up in the 18th century in A Biographical Dictionary of Early American Jews by Joseph R. Rosenbloom. However, they are all in New York City or Long Island, and even if one of them is also Isaac Isaacs in the army in Pittsfield, we still haven't even come close to showing that the tefillin were his.

So....

?

Lonely tefillin in an Indian mound

"One day in 1815 Captain Joseph Merrick of Pittsfield, Massachusets plowed his field on his farm, built on what had been called "Indian Hill" in the 18th century (later a fort was established there in 1754, and so in his time it was called "Fort Hill."

"In turning up the earth out popped tefillin...

at English Hebraica.

Yeshivishists

The mighty Philologos continues his discussion of Judeo-English here and here (original column is here; previously discussed on my blog here.)

In his second column, he allowed that Yeshivish is Judeo-English. I'd like to think that my comment in the first column contributed to his investigation of the matter. Although he does not act as if his question “Judeo-English.” Is there such a thing? was not intended as rhetorical, there was no indication in the original colum that it was, or that he'd ever heard of Weiser and Frumspeak. And Philologos himself went to Ramaz, many moons ago, so one cannot say that he is familiar with Yeshivish from his own experiences of his youth.

In any case, a comment at the Forward in the third colum provided fodder for thought. Someone said “How about "by", which in Heimishe-Reid is used to mean "at....'s [place]". "I'm by Chaim", instead of "I'm at Chaim's". "I'm staying by my brother", instead of "I'm staying at my brother's",” to which I replied that "by" is a Yiddishism, ביי, from German "bei," which means "with."

But then I thought about it. Although Yiddish ביי and German bei are not English by, do all Yeshivish speakers realize this? Clearly not, as I never used to realize this when I spoke in this manner. Like most of my generation (yes, I'm admitting I'm not 60) we did not understand Yiddish, at least not as young teenagers. Many words, sure, but not Yiddish per se. When I'd say something like "I'm eating by Chaim" I thought I was saying "I'm eating by Chaim" and not "I'm eating ביי Chaim."

Another example: when Yiddisher Yidden studied Torah we might say they'd lern. We Americans learn. Yes, English learn is derived from Old German lernen, and so is Yiddish לערנען, but in Yiddish it doesn't only meant to acquire knowledge, as it does in English, but to study Torah (even if only reviewing). Now, we bochurim surely knew that we meant study, but did we think we were saying lernen or learning? Surely the former. In fact, we wouldn't (and I don't) ever say "I will learning Torah," rather I'd say "I will learn Torah." And לערן is not a word in Yiddish (I think?), only לערנען. So there's already a new word right there: learn, in the sense of study---which is not לערנען or the non-existent לערן. And it is English, but it merely sounds like Yiddish.

My question is this: if Anglo Yeshivish speakers think they're speaking English even though they're using English words which sound Yiddish, what are they speaking?

A notable comment

Here.

Be curious about "a R. Akiva Eger" AND "R. Akiva Eger"

An interesting discussion ensued in the comments here.

Someone chided Chareidim for lacking curiosity; someone else responded that he should "be curious about a R' Akiva Eiger!"

To which I responded:

“Also be curious about R' Akiva Eiger and not only a R' Akiva Eiger.”

“If you were, for example, you'd learn that he gave a haskamah to a reprinting of Mendelssohn's Bi'ur in 1832 and bought a copy himself. Should this rock your world? Not necessarily, but it should allow you to begin to realize that R' Akiva Eiger may not have precisely been who you think he was. Recall that this is the same Mendelssohn whom the Yated appends “sheim reshoim yirkav” to. If that is their opinion, fine. But it was not R' Akiva Eger's opinon.”

“You have no idea about R' Akiva Eiger because all you were exposed to is a narrow snapshot of him, and in fact, of almost all gedolei Yisrael. There is no doubt that some gedolei Yisrael of all ages were hashkafically very much like contemporary charedi gedolim, but by the same token there are many differences as well. ”

My other comments cite Meir Hildesheimer's article on the image of Mendelssohn in 19th c. rabbinic literature in PAAJR, where he writes:

“In 1831-33, the M'Kor Hayyim Pentateuch was published in Berlin...The Book of Exodus contained the haskamah of Rabbi 'Akiba Eger, the celebrated rabbi of Posen and father-in-law of Rabbi Moses Sofer (Hatam Sofer). His approbation, written in 1832, praised the elegant edition containing translations, Rashi's commentary, Tikkun Soferim and Bi'ur la-Talmid. Rabbi Eger expressed his hope that the work would be completed, and noted that he had subscribed to purchase it.”

The note there reads:

“In 1815 Rabbi 'Akiba Eger came out against prayers in foreign languages. In support of his view he cited the translation by “the 'head scribe,' Rabbi M. Dessau, of the verse, 'Hear O Israel' [Deut. 6:4]: 'Der Ewige unser G-tt ist ein einzig[es] ewiges Wesen.' He substituted the word Elokim with the word Hashem” (Liqqut Teshuvot ve-Hiddushim mi-Rabenu 'Akiba Eger, Bnei Brak, 1968, para. 2).”

Finally, I note

The point is that the issue about the Bi'ur in its time was about German. When that issue faded away, so did the objection--except in circles where the vernacular remained an issue, which is why among 19th century Chassidim the Bi'ur remained an issue.

The question is why today in circles where the vernacular does not remain an issue that it is still an issue. I will tentatively speculate that it is because of ahistoricity. The Chasam Sofer didn't like it, and various rebbes didn't like it, and for goodness sake, the Noda Be-yehuda didn't like it--and that is enough.

But, as I pointed out in these comments, R' Akiva Eger had no problem with it, because the Noda Be-yehuda's problem wasn't his problem and the Chassidim's problem wasn't his problem and, well, he was a bar plugta with the Chasam Sofer, of course. This is not the same as saying that the historical RAE wasn't very, very close in outlook to the historical CS or even that the historical RAE wasn't very, very close in outlook to many of today's contemporary chareidi gedolim--only that this whole discussion was precipated by the suggestion that no sources, precedents and great people existed who offer justification for an Orthodox Judaism which isn't chareidi. And that is why someone could suggest that curiosity should only be satisfied by knowing *A* Rabbi Akiva Eger, when ironically, also knowing *Rabbi* Akiva Eger would lead one to discover that he just might not be a "Maran" in Bnei Brak. Perhaps he might--but that remains to be discovered through curiosity, not axioms.

The conversation is still ongoing.

Yekkes in black hats.

Two to three hundred years ago most Jews in Germany and Holland wore a specific type of hat called the barrette (rabbis wore a different hat). Barrettes were round and flat and made of felt or wool. It was originally a popular hat worn by scholars all over Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. It was first worn daily by Jews but gradually became reserved exclusively for shabbos hence it became known as the schabbes deckel.

The following image (which can be enlarged) is from 1800. Many, many more images from the 18th century (and even into the 19th) show Jews wearing this distinctive hat. (Look at the kallah maidelach to the left, as well as the little boy).



An 18th century example survives (in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich):



(images are from here)

This is a portrait of R. Seckel Lebi Wormser, the so-called Ba'al Shem of Michelstadt (1768-1847), wearing a version of the hat. Given his evident advanced age in the portrait, we see it being worn still quite late: