How do you say "Extra soul" in Latin? A guest post on neshama yetera by Leor Jacobi

Ever wondered how to translate “Neshama Yeseira” into Latin?

Spiritu Excellentiori!

That's from the translation of Surenhusius (1664-1729) described here. He is translating the phrase as it appears in Rav Ovadia Bartenura six lines up from the bottom (click to enlarge and view the whole page).



Yes, he translated the entire Mishna, Rambam and Bartenura commentaries and then some. Here is the translation.

By the way, it appears that the Hebrew transliteration transliterated to English in common speech as "Bartenura" is in fact an accurate spelling of the name of the town in the regional dialect, as opposed to the “proper” Italian Bertinoro which many scholars insist upon. (So informs me Shemuel-Deborah Sa.)

The Talmud Bavli Betza 16a concludes that the gentiles know not of the nature of the Neshama Yeseira:

ואי בעית אימא: מתן שכרה נמי אודעינהו, נשמה יתירה לא אודעינהו

I leave it to the reader to decide to what extent this may apply to Surenhusius himself, the learned Christian translator.

It seems like his “rationalist” approach is in fact discussed by the Meiri:

הקדמה לבית הבחירה למאירי

וזה אצלי גם כן ענין נשמה יתירה יש בו באדם בשבת ולמוצאי שבת נטלה הימנו ואע"פ שהדברים נראים בתחלה דברי הבאי הם אמת ודבריהם אמת וכבר פירש בו זולתי שבאה מלת יתרה ליתרון מעלה לא ליתרון מספר כאלו אמר נשמה פנויה ומרווחת להתבודד על דרך נכון לא יבלבלהו דבר אבל אצלי לבאר יתרה ממש ליתרון מספר וכמו שכתוב בקצת הספרים להדיא שתי נפשות יש לו לאדם בשבת ולמוצאי שבת ניטלה אחת מהן והוא שכבר ידעת שנפש האדם עם היותה אחת תחלק לג' חלקים יאמר על כל אחת נפש עד שיאמר דרך העברה שיש לאדם ג' נפשות והם הצומחת והעיונית והמשכלת

בית הבחירה למאירי מסכת חולין דף סא עמוד א ומפרשים יתרה גדולה על הדרך שביארנו בנשמה יתרה והיא אמורה על אצבע האמצעית כלומר שיש להם שלש אצבעות והאמצעי הוא הגדול והנשר אין לו אלא שתים לפניו ואחת לאחריו

However, it seems highly doubtful that Rav Ovadia himself had this rationalist approach in mind since he felt no compunction in immediately before citing the even more mystical interpretation from Ta'anit 27b: “quia dies tertius est creationis hominis.”

Soon I hope to discuss Rambam's take on the Neshama Yeseira . . . the floor is open for sources.

Before I sent this post to S. I had asked some people if they could guess what "Spiritu Excellentiori" is in Hebrew.

Kudos to Marc Epstein who correctly guessed the Hebrew from the Latin translation! This is a good opportunity to mention his beautiful new book on the Medieval Haggadah, which in the first chapter alone solves the even greater riddle of the birds-heads and shows how a bright 10-year old kid can outsmart the whole scholarly community with his Hebrew Day School knowledge of Midrash. This is the all-time lomdus of coffee-table art books.

S. adds: Now would be a good time to mention that I, too, was struck by the very acute observation made by Epstein's son who successfully decoded an image in the famed Bird's Head Haggadah in a way that is very probably correct. Apparently not only was Epstein receiving נחת, but Leor and I were independently as well. I will save more discussion of that for my own review of his beautiful book.

As for Surenhusius (or Surenhuys, in his native Holland), although as I have posted before, he did not translate the entire Mishnah - he included whatever already existed in Latin translation, numbering a fine handful of tractates - the fact is that he did translate most of the Mishnah, along with the commentaries of the Rambam and Bartenora, as well as countless learned notes of his own. Not bad at all. And as long as we're talking about him, do you know how he translated Beit Hillel? Schola Hillelis. For some reason Shammai is still Schamai, not Schammeus. Here is my prior post on the Chida and his examination of the Latin Mishnah (link).

Finally, here are Leor's prior two guest posts: I, and II.