I'm no Hebrew paleographer . . .

. . . but neither was William Chomsky.

William Chomsky was a Hebrew scholar who wrote one of - if not the best - popular histories of the Hebrew language in English ( Hebrew: The Eternal Language Philadelphia : Jewish Publication Society of America, 1957). In addition, he authored scholarly articles and translated, annotated and reorganized the important medieval Hebrew grammar and dictionary, the Mikhlol of Radak (unfortunately without including the Hebrew text).

It is probably impossible to not mention that his son is MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, so I did not do the impossible.

Getting back to "Hebrew: The Eternal Language." The book is full of most interesting information presented in a very clear and engaging format. It contains a wealth of technical information which doesn't seem technical. It is suffused with a very Jewish spirit and a love for the Hebrew language and literature. t's a very good book.

Yet, it is not without factual error and the favoring of pet theories. For example, Chomsky adopts Solomon Zeitlin's war against the Dead Sea Scrolls view that the Dead Sea Scrolls are medieval and Karaitic (p. 298 n. 2) - although he does present the prevailing scholarly view regarding their antiquity, if not the identity of their authors (which can now be considered fact) and gives his reasoning for rejecting that view.

In any case, on pp. 87-88 we find the following about the Yiddish cursive script:

" . . . the Yiddish or neo-Hebraic current script . . . [along with the Rashi script] . . . of course, evolved from the square script, in different localities and periods. . . . Although the cursive script is clearly traceable to the square script as its origin, it also possesses traces of the old Hebrew script. This is particularly evident in the case of the Aleph letter, which in the Yiddish cursive form is closer to the old Hebrew than is the same letter in the square script."
(The letter he is talking about looks like this: )

One wonders, what could Chomsky have meant by this? Now, as trivia - as opposed to useful information - it is true that the letter aleph in the "neo-Hebraic current" script does more closely resemble a Ktav Ivri/ paleo-Hebrew aleph than does a square aleph. In fact, I once wrote out the Ktav Ivri script for a 12 year old who promptly told me that he thought the paleo aleph looked like the cursive aleph he was used to. But what could Chomsky have meant that "it also possesses traces of the old Hebrew script"? Traces? Does he mean this literally? How would that be possible?

As I said, I'm no Hebrew paleographer, but actually it seems to me that the aleph of the "current neo-Hebraic," or "Yiddish cursive" is derived from the form of the aleph in the Hebrew cursive form known as Rashi script.

Here are some examples.

This title page from a mid-19th century siddur for travelers to America is interesting in its own right, but take a look at the aleph in the name Ephraim (and the others). In virtually all respects this signature facsimile is written in the current cursive script, but instead of the right side of the aleph being a semi circle, it is more like a "greater than" sign.


Detail:



This well known signature of Wolf Heidenheim appears on the title pages of all the books outputted by his printing firm in Roedelheim. Same form of aleph appears.



Many, many more examples can be supplied, but here is a sample of 19th century writing (this word happened to have been written by R. Yosef Feimer, rabbi of Slutzk).



Virtually all the letters (written by Ashkenazim) reproduced in the excellent series Shenos Dor Vador (by Reuven Dessler, publ. Mesorah/ Artscroll) show that this was by far the common way this letter was written until the 20th century.

Here is a chart from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia:



Note that in every example prior to 1900 in this chart has the two elements making up the letter attached - granting, that in the 19th century there were also those who wrote the aleph as a line with a half circle. But that was a later development in this script.

As near as I can tell, originally this particular letter was essentially of the the same appearance as the Rashi aleph. It was written in an easy way, by writing a line and a little <-like stroke. What basically happened later was, the right side rounded and detached from the left bar. Today one usually sees it written that way, but on occasion one sees it the older way as well (although often the < attaches in the center of the bar, instead of closer to the top, as it used to).

Now, it is true that the rounded form, the current one, looks kind of like that paleo-Hebrew aleph. But did the original form look like a paleo-Hebrew aleph? I submit that it did not. It looked kind of like a ches, as the Rashi script aleph tends to look. Does the Rashi script aleph "possess traces of the old Hebrew script"? I highly doubt it - how would it? I am sure there are excellent charts showing the development of that letter from a regular, garden variety square aleph.

The faces of Rav Ha-ketav ve-hakabbalah and Rav Yachin u-Boaz

It's always interesting to put faces to names, so I thought I'd do a part II of sorts for this post.

Below is from a photograph of R. Ya'akov Zvi Mecklenburg (1785-1865), author of the commentary Schrift und Tradition על חמשה חומשי תורה:





You can download his commentary from the links here. His work is normally grouped with 19th century Jewish exegete Malbim, although similar in kind (eg, for its devotion to uniting the rabbinic interpretation with the pshat on grammatical and critical, rather than homiletical grounds) R. Mecklenburg's found more use for contemporary quasi-non-traditional sources than Malbim (although this factoid should not be blown out of proportion). For example, Ha-qetav We-ha-qabbalah cites Julius Fürst and the Biurists, while Malbim will not cite contemporary maskilim and only occasionally cites someone like Philo (in his commentary) or Shadal (in Ya'ir Or, on Hebrew synonyms).

R. Mecklenburg corresponded with modern Jewish Bible scholars of his day. See below for a letter he wrote to יוליוס פורסט (and check out the umlauts he placed atop the letter ו!):




(I found this letter in article on Fuerst in the 1905 issue of Ost und West: illustrierte Monatsschrift für modernes Judentum. Click to enlarge.)

For good measure, here is a depiction of the author of the Tiferes Yisrael commentary on the Mishnah, R. Yisrael Lipschuetz of Danzig (1782-1860):



On him, see this post.

Both these images come from volume two of Gedolei Ha-dorot by Yechiel Michel Stern, a set of books which are a treasure trove of photographs and images of early modern and modern rabbis, many of whom are well known, but not their faces.

And that, my friends, is how you spin a post out of very little at all. ;)

Mother's milk segulah

Here's an interesting excerpt from a most interesting book, מעגל טוב, the travel diary of R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulay. The entry is dated 12 Iyyar, which correspondeded to May 1, 1776:



Señor Sabbetai Fano sent Giaronomo, a gentile, to escort us to Lugo. Also with us was the lad Señor Michael Solomon Hazaq. Two miles before our destination, people from the town came out to meet us. We arrived safely in Lugo and we stayed in the home of Señor Sabbetai Shemariah Fano, in a beautiful room, at the community's expense.

An elder named Rabbi Judah Fano told me that the Rem'a of blessed memory wrote on a small parchment שמע ישראל with the milk of mother and daughter that were nursing mixed with lemon juice.¹ Accompanied by fasting and immersion, this is a wonderful segulah for whomever swallows this parchment, that he should not apostasize. It is tried and true.

Update: Later on Rav Chida applies this segulah, as follows:

27 Kislev (5538; Dec. 27, 1777). I ate with Rabbi David, and dining with us was his wife's husband Señor Elia Perpignan and his wife, who were having major marital problems; the state of their marriage was going downhill, and they asked me to make peace between them.

28 Kislev (Dec. 28). Sunday Vayigash. Señor Elia Perpignan and his wife came to me, and I gave her a שמע ישראל to swallow, the segulah of the Rem'a, because they were afraid that she had thoughts of apostasy, God forbid. I gave them marital advice in order to make complete reconciliation between them.

¹ I don't know if this was the intention, but many a child knows that lemon juice makes for a fine invisible ink, which becomes readable when exposed to heat!

Artscroll: Modern scholarship buttresses the Rashbyic authorship for the Zohar

A חבר (in both senses of the term) pointed out to me an amusing bit in Artscroll The Rishonim,* (Brooklyn: 1982), p. 98.

The entry for R' Moshe de Leon:

"R' Moshe earned his livelihood as a traveling scribe, copying old manuscripts. Thus, he discovered and published the Zohar, the principal book of the Kabbalah, compiled by the Tanna R' Shimon bar Yochai. . . .

Modern scholars have pointed out that the kabbalistic ideas expressed in R' Moshe's own works do not accord with those of the Zohar, making untenable the supposition, first recorded in Yuchasin and echoed by subsequent generations of the Kaballah's opponents, that R' Moshe himself authored the Zohar."

Interesting in itself that the question of Ben Yochoic authorship should find mention in a book by Artscroll. More interesting is that it marshals "modern scholarship" (whom?) in implied defense of Ben Yochoic authorship (compileship?), while modern scholarship definitely opposes the idea that the Zohar is a true tannaitic work, that is, compiled or taught mainly in the 2nd century by R. Shimon ben Yochoi (friendly trends which credit the Zohar for containing pre-13th century material that may in fact be many centuries old is not the same thing).

Still, it's worth mentioning! Happy Lag Le-omer!

*This book, and it's sequal The Early Acharonim, is a biographical compendium of the Shem Ha-gedolim genre. It is unclear if another volume in this series was ever intended, but the second volume ends at the end of the 18th century. Once you get into the 19th century, the ideological purity headache begins, and perhaps the company wished to avoid it. Perhaps not. In any case, over at What's Bothering Artscroll? I had begun a series of posts on "controversial rabbis" as covered by the company, particularly in their Early Acharonim (link). I would have - and probably will - posted about R. Yehuda Aryeh Mi-Modena, R. Eliyahu Bachur and others . These books are an example of a type of openness which Artscroll exhibited in its early years, which it later learned to check. Thus, it is doubtful to me if today they would include De Rossi and Modena in such a collection. Incidentally, in this post I acknowledge that The Early Acharonim elucidated one of my Main Line posts - even if The Early Acharonim doesn't 'fess up to its sources. ;)

A blow to Maharatz Chajes's reputation put into the mouth of the Chasam Sofer by a seminal zealot of the 19th and 20th centuries

In the history of Hungarian Orthodoxy (and /or Ultra-Orthodoxy), the name Akiba Joseph Schlesinger (c. 1838-1922) is well known. He is credited with virtually creating a 'cult' of the Chasam Sofer. His father-in-law had been a student of the CS. He saw himself as following in the line and as totally faithful to the teachings and legacy of the CS (who died when he was only a year old).

He published a buch called Lev ha-Ivri (Lemberg, 1865), which includes the text of the Chasam Sofer's Last Will & Testament, along with a commentary. Although in his preface he writes that the work contains only the CS's teachings, one wonders how a short text (the Will) became a 330 page text if it truly contains none of Schlesinger's own ideas. But I digress.

After a discussion about how terrible it is that works of Torah content are being published in his generation by wicked people, there is the following interesting note on pg. 92 (text below)regarding "one of our contemporaries who wrote notes on the Talmud - all soulful people should not study Torah from it, because I know those who asked Rabbenu z"l why he would write to this individual with praises for him in the text of his responsa, and he told them a secret: this person has one foot chasing after Aher**, and if he didn't keep him close he too would join the assembly of the wicked with his scholarship - God forbid - and who knows what the end was? Therefore he put in efforts to draw him close.

Schlesinger is speaking here of none other than 'the Mahritz Chiyos,' ie, Maharatz Chajes (R. Tzvi Hirsch Chajes [1805-1855]) whose Talmud commentary (published first in 1850) is printed in practically every Talmud edition today. Accessible, if not essential, reading on him is the Ph. D. thesis of Bruriah Hutner link. Paranthetically, my impression of doctoral work is that generally the student is attracted to the topic, if not admiring. Hutner (David) must have been attracted to her subject, but ultimately he repels her, too, and this attitude predominates. I just found that interesting.



Oh, and is his charge true? Did the Chasam Sofer really write him in a respectful, praising manner only to keep him within the good group? In my opinion: maybe.

* The versions I am reading are that of Hebrewbooks.org - 1868 - and Otzar Ha-chochma - 1870. Apparently there are differences between the first and other editions. For example, in the first addition the acronym RMD is not fully explicated to mean "Rasha Moshe Mendelssohn." In later editions, M is even changed to read "Moritz." (Info courtesy of Meir Hildesheimer's exhaustive articles on the attitude of the Chasam Sofer and his disciples toward secular study, and his attitude toward Mendelssohn [in PAAJR]).

** Aher= 'Aharon Choriner Rabbiner,' ie, proto-Reform rabbi Aaron Chorin.

Witty philosophe-y self-awareness

"A philosopher who is a bad Catholic implores a philosopher who is a bad Protestant to grant a residency privilege to a philosopher who is a bad Jew. There is too much philosophy in all this; reason cannot but support the petition."*

- Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens to Frederick II the Great of Prussia, petioning the latter for permission for Moses Mendelssohn to reside in Berlin.

*("Un philosophe, mauvais catholique, supplie un philosophe, mauvais protestant, de donner le privilège à un philosophe, mauvais juif. Il y a dans tout ceci trop de philosophie, pour que la raison ne soit pas du côté de la demande". )

The most popular On the Main Line post ever is

No nun in Ashrei - in case you were wondering.

I know this because it is the one the receives the most hits and searches. Apparently there are a lot of people who want to know why the nun verse is missing in this psalm, a seemingly never ending stream for two years, a few a day.

(I should revise it to make it more clear and more accurate. I should do a lot of things.)

Acquiring and not acquiring Hebrew; A comparison with Latin's traditional role in education.

Here's an interesting excerpt from an essay by Shaul Stampfer called 'What Did "Knowing Hebrew" Mean in Eastern Europe?' printed in Hebrew in Ashkenaz, A Language in Exile, ed. Lewis Glinert. (From pp. 132-133, below):

"Not surprisingly, an analysis of how Latin functioned in Christian society sheds light on the place of Hebrew in Jewish society.The similarities between the role of Hebrew and that of Latin are many. The higher educational program of most European societies took a knowledge of Latin for granted. This was not a simple matter, for learning Latin was a long process which could take over eight years.12 However, it was necessary for the individual who wanted to go on to advanced study. The curriculum of the medieval university was based on texts written in Latin, and much scholarly work, depending of course on time and place, was done in Latin. Therefore, "Before the student could profitably attend university lectures, he must have learned to read, write, and understand such Latin as was used in the schools," ¹³ and this knowledge was the basic academic precondition for admission to the medieval university. University freshmen were "as a rule . . . between thirteen and sizteen"¹⁴ and most of their pre-university study was devoted to learning Latin.

"Much, if not all of this advanced education could have been in the spoken language. Indeed, the rapid spread of use of the vernacular in post-Renaissance periods shows how little education is dependent on knowledge of Latin. There is little doubt that the classical literature is well worth studying. However, for the level of understanding that most people reach, a translation is almost as good as the original. What the concentration on Latin did achieve was to weed out the number of students who reached advanced study. Tuition itself cost money. Moreover, it required long-term commitment, for the study of Latin was worthwhile only if the long course of study necessary to reach even an elementary proficiency in Latin was completed. This meant that only children of a certain level of society could in practice prepare themselves for admission to university and higher study. Access was restricted, by using language as a hurdle on the way to valuable knowledge. This in a sense is what kept up the value of the knowledge since it was not readily available to most people. To get information most people had to go to one of the individuals who had learned Latin and had access to the knowledge written in it. The change to the use of the vernacular as the language for scholarly and religious writing meant that one major barrier to the direct acquisition of information was eliminated.
. . .
"One of the virtues of Hebrew appears to have been the fact that a good knowledge of the language and of the literature¹⁶ was limited. The relative failure of the heder to produce graduates with a good knowledge of Hebrew was in this respect a very desirable goal from the point of view of the elite. It should be emphasized that both the elite and the masses were totally unaware of this function of education.<sup>17

13</sup> Rashdall 1936, 3:341-42; (RASHDALL, HASTINGS. The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, eds. New edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936.)
¹⁴ Ibid, p. 353
¹⁶ I am well aware that the Talmud is written in Aramaic but at the time there was no distinction between the knowledge of the two languages - he who knew one knew the other.
¹⁷ For an explanation of this theme from a very original but somewhat different approach, see Funkenstein and Steinsaltz 1987. (FUNKENSTEIN, AMOS and ADIN STEINSALTZ. Sociology of Ignorance. Tel Aviv: University of the Air, 1987.)

See old post (which really could use some revision): 'Semi-talmidei hakhomim, or semi 'amei ha-'aretz: A unique modern challenge to rabbinic authority.'

Jameel and family visit Samaritans

Jameel at the Muqata has a fantastic series of posts on the trip he and his family took to visit Shomronim (Samaritans).

I
II
III

There are fantastic photos and commentary. Jameel also took a wonderful video of a fellow named Yefet Ha-cohen reciting the שמע in the Samaritan dialect of Hebrew (first post, or watch and listen below).

The half-century battle for new English translation of Jewish classics

On Shabbos I was perusing the Jewish Press and saw an ad for a new Artscroll edition of Avos De-Rabbi Nassan.* The ad noted that this classic is "now available in English."** Funny, I thought. It was also available in English a month ago, a year ago, forty years ago. There is the Soncino version in the Minor Tractates set (admittedly, hard to find now) and the Judah Goldin version. Searching on Google Books yields yet two more versions. (link)

Did Artscroll really mean to say that the work is available only now, for the first time in English? Or is the implication that the previous, existing versions are simply irrelevant? I must say, that I heard Nosson Scherman address this topic in a speech. Cognizant of criticism of the Artscroll oeuvre from the right, he attempted to demonstrate that they have the support of the gedolim at the highest level. He recounted his and Meir Zlotowitz's meeting with Moron Rov Chaim Kanievsky. They came merely to seek his blessing, but instead he (a) stood up when they walked into the room and (b) spoke to them for 15 minutes - highly unusual. He compared their Schottenstein Shas project to the projected German Talmud translation (Hebrew commentary, actually)** proposed by R. Yisrael Salanter in the 19th century. However, noted R. Kanievsky, that edition was necessary for the non-Jews to see what the Talmud was all about (so they could overcome their prejudice against it). Today - the Schottenstein Shas is necessary for Jews to see what the Talmud is all about, for the same reason. R. Scherman admitted he was surprised at such a powerful endorsement. He then noted that a lot of frum people don't realize the vast amount of classic Jewish material there is in translation, however they are faulty! Thus, Artscroll can correct this breach by presenting well translated classics to the Jewish (and non-Jewish) public.

In any case, once upon a time a book called Making of a Godol was banned and various denunciations of the book were written. Here is a piece of one missive (in translation):


As you can see, the writer of this piece is of the opinion that over the past half-century the gedolim have endeavoring to uproot foreign matter from the study of Torah.*** See above and see prior post: Soncino Talmud statistics. Now one will no longer have to read what Zunz opined, for example, when reading Avos de-rabbi Nathan in English.

* UPDATE: Well, as it turns out this isn't an Artscroll ADRN; it is by Judaica Press. In the newspaper, the full page had combined Judaica Press and Artscroll ads and to my tired eyes it looked like one ad!
** Suprisingly, the web site still does not have this book listed. It must be very new indeed. See the Pirkei Avos section.
*** There is a widespread perception that R. Yisrael Salanter intended to translate the Talmud into German. However, his vision was really for a straightforward Hebrew commentary to the entire Talmud, which would have made independent Talmud study possible for the non-learned (albeit, Hebraically literate). His vision was that 100 great Talmud scholars would pledge to write a comentary on 30 Talmud folios. He did, however, advocate the inclusion of Talmud into the curriculum of gymnasia and universities, hoping to raise the prestige of the Talmud in society in general so that Jewish youth would also become interested.
*** This doesn't only refer to printed matter, but surely it includes it.

An 'Index of Prohibited Books' from Satmar, Rumania 1927

Thanks to HebrewBooks.org I found an interesting Hebrew periodical published in Satmar (Satu Mare) in the 1920s, edited by one Shimon Pollack, called Beis Va'ad Le-chakhomim.

It looks like this:



In the 11-12 issue from 1927 the following appears:



As you can see, books by these authors are to be stored away so they cannot be read (and these are heavy duty heretical classics, not bush-league types like 'One People, Two Worlds, 'Making of a Godol' or 'The Science of Torah'):

1. Works by R. Abraham Isaac Kook.

2. Works by R. Aaron Chorin.

3. Works by R. Samuel Glasner.

4. Works by the rebbe of Muncacz, the Minchas Elazar.

5. The 'Bi'ur' of R. Moses Mendelssohn.

6. Works by R. Naphtali Hirtz Wessely.

Chorin's Chasam Sofer-coined euphemism אח"ר (for 'Aron Choriner, Rabbiner') is supplied. It is explained that the acronym רמ"ד for Mendelssohn means 'רשע משה דעסוי,' and, oddly yet somewhat understandably, the older Wessely is counted as a disciple of Mendelssohn.

It of course must be pointed out that it is eminently better to call for books to be 'put away' rather than to destroy them.

A German translation of a Hebrew book dedicated to Moses Mendelssohn

UPDATE 7.17.2012:

I have been accused by Dr. Edward Breuer of plagiarizing the main idea of this post from his book The Limits of Enlightenment. Without further ado I hereby credit him and his excellent book and apologize for any anguish I caused.

In 1771 German Bible scholar Johann Salomo Semler (1725-91) produced a German translation of R. Eliyahu Bahur's (Elias Levita) מסורת המסורת titled Übersetzung des Buchs Massoreth Hamassoreth.(Semler was the editor; the translation itself was done by an apostate Jew called Christian Gottlob Meyer; Meyer also eventually translated Moses Mendelssohn's prospectus to his Bible translation, the עלים לתרופה into German.)

Fortunately this edition of Massoreth Ha-massoreth is now available online (link).



A sample of the book:



Following the title page we find the following dedication:



Semler dedicated this to Moses Mendelssohn, a man he greatly admired. As a fellow Aufklärer, he assumed that Mendelssohn shared his views of modern Bible scholarship, the מסורת המסורת representing a key component of the modern view, namely that the nekkudot and te'amim were late additions to the Bible text (at least the graphic symbols, if not what they represented). In fact, Mendelssohn did not. He vigorously upheld the dominant Jewish traditional view that they were old (from Ezra, if not from Sinai). In Mendelssohn's Introduction to the Torah, the אור לנתיבה he defended the antiquity of the points and accents, citing the work of R. Azariah min ha-Adumim (de' Rossi) who was the foremost Jewish rebutter of Bahur's thesis (see here for a sample of that - in English - from 1860).

Paranthetically, it is worth pointing out that when I bring this up many are surprised Mendelssohn would uphold the more traditional, non-critical view - especially as Bahur's view would seem to cost nothing. But this is based on a misunderstanding of Mendelssohn's approach to the Bible (and the assumption that Bahur's view costs nothing!). Perhaps Mendelssohn was non-traditional, but his overall approach was not that of contemporary 18th century Biblical scholarship, but more closely resembled the peshat oriented exegesis of those rishonim who concentrated mainly on peshat.

In Semler's introduction he explains that he shares (so he believed) with Mendelssohn the struggle to rid the people - Christian and Jew alike - of superstitious sort of beliefs about the Bible. It is true, one might suggest, that Mendelssohn's peshatian orientation could be seen as closer to Semler's than whatever the superstitious Bible beliefs among Christians and Jews which Semler had in mind. But given the true nature of Mendelssohn's views about the Bible, views which actually ran counter to almost every modern and enlightened work about the Bible, it would seem to be ironic that this book specifically should be dedicated to him. It just goes to show how people can give off mistaken impressions.

R. Azariah de'Rossi in - or out of - Artscroll

link

Orthodox unity, Schmorthodox schmunity

Marc B. Shapiro prescribes "a complete break with the haredi halachic authorities and the establishment of religious courts that share at least some of the values and worldview of the community in which they serve" (link).

R. Azariah De' Rossi in - or out of - Artscroll

Here is an excerpt from a review by Zvi Zohar of Artscroll's Aleppo; City of Scholars by David Sutton (link):

Censorship and 'Correction' of 'Improper' Sources Cited in Previous Editions

Not only does Rabbi Sutton ignore academic literature and conceal his use of non-religious sources, he also censors 'improper' sources mentioned in previous editions of LiKedoshim Asher Ba'Aretz. For example: both previous editions quote in full the short work Zichron Divrei Aret"z, by Rabbi Abraham Dayan, which first appeared in 1850.42 In that composition, Rabbi Dayan included a variety of anecdotal information that had reached him regarding the city of Aleppo and the Jews within it, from antiquity until his own times.43 Inter alia, Dayan relates that one elderly scholar told him of a tradition according to which, in each one of the old city's gates was preserved a wondrous ancient object. Thus, in one of the gates there was the tooth of an ancient fish, two feet long, in another gate 'the nail of one of the giants, as [large as] a pillow and a duvet', and in a third gate, a jug of sand from the river Sambatyon. Rabbi Dayan knew that some people tend to discount the factuality of information such as this, and so he wrote:

And as I have seen some persons, wise in their own eyes, who say that “the world goes according to its ways”,44 and they believe nothing unless they see it with their own eyes or unless it's written in the books of Hamirs,45 therefore I shall transcribe for them here what was written in the book of Me’or Eynayim by dei Rossi on p. 88, in the name of the head of the Christian scholars,46 book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the giants' body. That [scholar reported that] he saw the tooth of a man which, if cut according to the measurement of our teeth, could be divided into one hundred [of our] teeth.

In other words, in order to put an end to these skeptics' criticism, Rabbi Dayan reveals that he read Azariah dei Rossi's Me’or Eynayim, and that the author quoted there information from the book of a very major Christian scholar. This Christian scholar reported that he saw a huge human tooth, and this finding verifies the fact that giants existed in the past. From this, the above-mentioned skeptics may conclude, that there is no reason to doubt the report about the giant's nail found in one of the gates of the City of Aleppo.

Let us now see, how the paragraph quoted above is paraphrased in Aleppo:

I have seen some people, convinced of their own intelligence, who think that nothing exists beyond nature and don't believe what they haven't seen with their own eyes or in secular sources. Therefore, for these skeptics I cite a book which quotes secular sources concerning the existence of ancient giants. He writes of scientific finds of the teeth of giants that are one hundred times the size of average human teeth.47

The contrast between this "translation" and the original text is striking! The title Me’or Eynayim has been exorcised and it is now cited anonymously as "a book", and the information dei Rossi attributed to “the head of the Christian' scholars” is now attributed to "secular sources". Furthermore, while that Christian scholar reported [one!] giant tooth that he saw with his own eyes, in Aleppo's rewriting this report became "scientific finds" of "teeth of giants" [=many teeth of many giants].

In order to explain this amazing transformation we should recall, that the book of Me’or Eynayim raised a huge debate when it was published, for the writer was of independent critical thought and dared to raise difficult questions regarding various traditions found in Rabbinical literature. The Rabbis of Venice imposed a ban (herem) upon ownership of the book and upon reading it, and the same was done by Rabbis in other towns in Italy, as well as by the Rabbis of Safed. The Mahara"l of Prague attacked Azariah dei Rossi and Me’or Eynayim in his book Be'er haGola.48

The fact that Rabbi Abraham Dayan, son of the most aristocratic Jewish family in Aleppo and author of several 'kosher' religious books, read Me'or Eynayim, treated it as a reliable source and attributed credibility to information quoted in it in the name of a major Christian scholar – does not at all cohere with the portrait of the characteristics of the Aleppo community and its scholars, which Rabbi Sutton would like to cultivate among his readers. Based on his (not unfounded) confidence that nobody within the English speaking Aleppan community would be likely to discover the change, Sutton permitted himself to 'purify' the original text by Abraham Dayan – a text that neither David Zion Laniado nor Mordechai Attiah had thought to change. Furthermore, knowing that English readers in the early 21st century attribute credibility to scientific findings, Sutton decided to write that in this anonymous text there are "scientific finds of the teeth of giants" – even though all that really appears there is the testimony of one man who saw one tooth.

But this Ultra-Orthodox censorship led the writers of the book to a place where they would surely be surprised to find themselves. For who is this Christian scholar, whose words they converted to "scientific finds"? If one reads the text of Me'or Eynayim one finds that Rabbi Azariah dei Rossi is citing none other than … Augustine of Hippo! Indeed, in his City of God, book 15 chapter 9, Augustine seeks to confirm belief in the veracity of the Bible's reports about the bodily measurements and the life spans attributed by the Bible to pre-diluvian humans. He testifies that on the sea shore by Utica (a city sited in what today is Northern Tunisia) he saw the molar of a human being, apparently one of the giants of yore, that was one hundred times larger than one of 'our' teeth. The bottom line is, then, that the Syrian community inBrooklyn and elsewhere were treated, thanks to Sutton's efforts at censorship, to a text in which the words of St. Augustine in his book 'City of God' were raised to the level of "scientific finds" with an Ultra-Orthodox "hechsher" from Artscroll Publishing! To which we can only say: "this is 'Torah' and this is its reward."

42 The work was published in Livorno in 1850, together with other works by the author: Holech Tamim and Poel Tzedek.

43 This is how Yaron Harel summarizes the contents of this work: 'a random enumeration of various historical events which took place in Aleppo, as traditionally told in the city. Beginning with legends about the city's conquest by Yoab ben Seruyah, and ending with events which took place in the author's times' (Yaron Harel, ibid n. 19, p. 48).

44 Hebrew: Olam ke-Minhago Noheg, i.e., reality follows the laws of nature (and thus, such anecdotes are suspect).

45 The books of Hamirs = the books of Homerus = books considered to be credible by the educated world.

46 Examining the source in the Me’or Eynayim (Mantova 1674 p. 88) reveals that Rabbi Dayan omitted one word here, maybe because it seemed unclear to him. And here is the original text: "the head of the Christians' scholars wrote in his City in book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the body of giants, that he saw the tooth of a man which if cut to the size of our teeth, would be divided into one hundred teeth." For further identification of this source, see text below.

47 P. 11.

48 See Joseph Dan, ROSSI, Azariah, in: Encyclopedia Judaica (1973) 14:315-31, and see also the editor/translator's introduction in Light of the Eyes, Azariah de´ Rossi; Translated from the Hebrew, with an introduction by Joanna Weinberg, Yale University press, 2001.

Please see my prior post 'What would R' Azaryah surely have resented? The portrayal of a controversial rabbi by Artscroll.,' which is probably the first and last time that the name of R. Azaryah de' Rossi will be mentioned in an Artscroll publication. De' Rossi's work Me'or 'Enayim was not only cited by obscure (at least outside of Aleppo) rabbinic figures like Abraham Dayan, but he was also cited by the author of Minhas Shai on the Bible - a massoretic commentary with accepted halakhic authority - by R. Yaakov Emden, by a Lithuanian roshei yeshiva such as Netziv, by modern scholarly rabbis like Menachem Kasher, whose works are considered very valuable and certainly acceptable in the faithful communities which Artscroll hopes to shape the religious thinking of.

Read the rest of Zohar's review (in English translation, as linked above, or in the Hebrew original). It includes such chestnuts as the fact that the book reproduces a photograph from an out-of-print work on Aleppan Jewry from 1910 - by a Jewish Christian missionary without explaining who he is; the book helpfully misspells his name, ve-ha-mevin yavin. Incidentally, this Joseph Segall was allowed by the communal leaders to photograph a page of the Aleppo Codex, which is wonderful because it meant that the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy from the Codex was preserved (see its image here); but also not so wonderful, since it may well be that the reason why after this point the Aleppan rabbis and communal leaders steadfastly refused to allow the entire codex to be photographed by anyone, was because of the Segall incident - a consequence that proved most unfortunate, since a lot of the Codex is now missing, unphotographed).

Re-illustrating the sensibilities of 16th century Jews; a great Holy Hyrax post:

Holy Hyrax has an excellent post about a modern facsimile of a 17th century Haggadah which censors many images in line with current Orthodox sensibilities. The reprinted Haggadah in his possession was distributed by the kiruv organization Arachim, however HH allows that he is not sure if they comissioned the changes, or if they simply distributed an already changed Haggadah. He did email to ask, but has of yet received no reply. In any event, it is very interesting; sleeves were added to women with rolled up sleeves in the original, statues and naked babies disappeared and more. See his post for images and explanation: link

Doing Daf Yomi in London, 1849*; along with a Christian theory as to the origin of Reform and modern Tanakh study among the Jews

Thanks to the New York Public Library Google has many issues of the mid 19th century periodical Journal of Sacred Literature, edited by John Kitto.

In the third volume, published in 1849, there is an interesting article called 'The Schools of the Hebrews,' translated from the French original by Dom. Augustine Calmet. 'The Schools of the Hebrews' purports to give an account of Jewish education and academies throughout the ages, and is supplemented by the translator's account of modern Jewish learning societies in Europe (beginning pg. 103).

First mentioned is the Chevra Shas. "Every member must read a folio every morning . . . Once in seven years the whole of the Talmud is concluded; when a grand feast is made null and void . . . (See pg. 104 for the interesting account given between my dots ( . . . )).

There is much more of interest, but let me just mention one note towards the end (pg. 106): "The fourth association is termed [Chevra Mikra] or Scripture Society . . . The members of the society have a profound knowledge of the Scriptures . . . Since the 'London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews' began to accommodate the Jews abroad with cheap copies of the Old Testament free from all the above commentaries [ie, Rashi, Radak, Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, Metzudoth, etc.] there is generally to be found in every large town inhabited by Jews in Poland and Russia, a society of young men called Chevrah Tanach, whose object is to read the Bible without any comment; for which purpose these young men have a room for themselves; for the Beth Hamedrash would not be allowed for that purpose. All these young men are sceptical about the Rabbinical oracles, and it is most probable that the present movements amongst the Jews, and the cry for reformation and 'no Rabbinism,' owe their existence, under God, to the London society, in giving free course to the oracles of God amongst the Jews, to whom they were first committed."

*Edit: tz"l 1843. MenachemMendel pointed out the following: This is actually from Moses Margoliouth's The Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism Investigated, pp. 84 ff., which can be seen here (I hope). This was published in 1843. It was taken either directly from there or from the Rev. W. Ayerst's The Jews of the Nineteenth Century, which quoted Margoliouth and was published in 1847. I came across this last year while who knows looking for what.

Margoliouth's name came up in the post about the Rambam image the other day.

Haggadah of the Times of London, 1840: a civilised response to the Damascus Blood Libel.

The background to the Damascus Affair (ie, the 1840 blood libel against Jews that became famous around the world) is or should be well known. If not, click the link.

What is most interesting is that in reaction the Times of London printed a translation of virtually the entire Haggadah on page 3 (August 17, 1840 edition) titled "Celebration of the Passover by the Jews."

It begins "A correspondent has furnished the annexed very minute account of this ceremony, which will be exceedingly curious in itself to most of our readers, and has at the same time an evident bearing on the Damascus case. It repels strongly the barbarous notion that human blood, or blood of any kind, is essential to its celebration:-- (click below to enlarge)




It must be noted that shefoch chamoscha is not mentioned (nor Chad Gadya, the other songs at the end or the declaration of Lshana Habaah be-Yerushalayim). One cannot help but get the impression that it was not mentioned not because the editors of the Times were duped by whomever prepared this translation and account. It was a time of almost comical erudition about all sorts of obscure topics in the mainstream press.

As Simon Winchester writes of a slightly later period in "The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary," "[F]or very many they were also cultured and learned times besides. . . . It is perhaps worth recalling just how very well educated people were in those days - or at least to recall how very well educated the educated clases were. . . . [p]eople, or people of a certain kind in the Britain of the day, were quite simply possessed of much time and much learning, and in far greater abundance than many like people possess it today. Items from the newspapers of the time hint at the almost incidental, quite casual cleverness of the cleverest of the reading public. An illustration of the kind of things appears that day in the 'Telegrams in Brief' section of The Times, in which it reports, without explanation or adornment, that:

Further hostilities are reported between the Zaranik tribe and the forces of the Zaidi Imam Yahya of Sana'. The Zaranik attacked a Zaidi detachment at Mansuria, near Hodeida, and have been plundering caravans trading with Sana'.

No further details are offered to suggest where all this fighting was (Yemen, one imagines), nor the identities of the parties to the feud. The newspaper's editor presumes that readers, quite simply, had sufficient education to know.

In short, I suspect that the reason why the last hour of the seder is summed up in a paragraph mentioning birchas ha-mazon, but not what can legitimately be seen as a dark moment of the seder (shfoch chamoscha), or the messianic hopes of the Jews (leshana habaah be-Yerushalayim) was because the editor thought it best not to mention it, fearing that such moments would distract from the thesis the paper was trying to present: that what actually happens and what is actualy said by a Pesach seder "repels strongly the barbarous notion that human blood, or blood of any kind, is essential to its celebration."

Further reading: 1841 English translation of Effés Dammim: A Series of Conversations at Jerusalem Between a Patriarch of the Greek Church and a Chief Rabbi of the Jews, Concerning the Malicious Charge against the Jews of using Christian Blood by the maskil Rival (Yitzchak Baer Levinsohn), author of Teudah Be-yisrael. Appended to this particular book is a must-read: extracts from "Reuchlin's defense of the Talmud," pp. 201-208.

On that famous picture of the Rambam

There's a famous image portraying Rambam (Maimonides) that we've all seen. link

Perhaps you remember it from the cover of that blue 'Machberes' notebook you used as a child:



(Like the image above; sorry, I can't locate a picture of the older ones with the Rambam image).

Perhaps you remember it from Israeli currency:



There's a statue in Córdoba of the famous son of Córdoba:



This is from the 1906 Jewish Encylopedia:



The point is, this is the image you know. But where is it from? I certainly would not have imagined it to be very old, but considering the Jewish Encyclopedia, my guess was that it is from the 19th century.

In fact, it is from the 18th. I could have learned this by visiting the Yale Maimonides 800th yahrzeit exhibit (or site), but I came across the info in a more interesting way.

Apparently this image was 'discovered' in the mid 19th century by Italian scholar Yashar (R. Isacco Samuele Reggio, 1784-1855). Reggio found the following portrait in a 34-volume encylopedic work called ' Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum' (1744-69).

Here it is:



Read an excerpt from an interesting letter, dated 1847, by a Jewish Christian missionary living in England named Moses Margoliouth:

"I know you [ie, Rev. Dr. J. Horlock] are a profound admirer of that Hebrew sage. I think you will be pleased, therefore, with the accompanying miniature portrait of him. You may have seen it before, for I printed it as a heading to the prospectus of the Philo-Hebraic Society. If not, here it is. I do not think that anybody in England ever saw it before I introduced it. You will, however, wonder whether it is a real likeness, or merely a fictitious one. I will, therefore, give you all the information I possess about it, and judge for yourself. The famous Italian-Hebrew Scholar, Reggio, discovered it first in that masterpiece of a work, "Thesaurus Antiquitatum," published at Venice, by Blaseus Ugolinus. He sent a sketch of his discovery to his friend, Herr Solomon Stern, of Berlin. The latter was naturally anxious to know whether the representation was real or imaginary. Reggio, therefore, sent the following explanation; " In the celebrated work, ' Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum Blasie Ugolini, Venetiis, 1744,' in the first volume, p. 384, is found the likeness of Maimonides, which the author [of ' Thesaurus Antiquitatum'] says was taken, ' ex-antiqua tabula,' without, however, stating more fully and circumstantially how he came to the possession of this tabula, where it existed, and if any one bore testimony to the authenticity of the likeness. However, as Ugolinus is known as an industrious, honourable man, acquainted with his subject, and who cannot easily be suspected of fraud, there is nothing against assuming the probability that at the publication of his work he had really before him such a tabula."

"Herr Solomon Stern printed on one sheet of paper a few copies of the above miniature, accompanied by a copy of Reggio's letter. I was fortunate enough to get a copy of that document, sent to me by a kind friend from Berlin, who knows my partiality for such literary curiosities."

So there you have it. The image is certainly from 1744, but the editor of the Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum claimed that it was copied from an old image. Margoliouth must be believed that it was not common in England in 1847, even if it isn't literally true that it was he who 'brought' it to England - not that it needn't be. By 1906 it must have been widespread, thus it seems to have originated in the mid 18th century, been 'discovered' in the mid 19th by Reggio, and disseminated from there.

(If you want to read something really interesting, continue reading Margoliouth's account of the image, where he digresses to complain at ill-treatment by a Jewish scholar to whom he called the image's attention to:

"...did Dr. A. Benisch acknowledge publicly that he was indebted to me for Maimonides' likeness, as well as for Reggio's letter ? No, no. I am a Christian Jew ; it would be an acknowledgment that converted Jews have been misrepresented, as to their characters and principles. Besides, what would the Jews, at large, say? " Dr. Benisch was actually applying for information on Jewish literature to a M'shumad (an apostate), and we have all along maintained that converted Jews know nothing about our learned men, and that it is only the ignorant who are entrapped in the conversion nets." I can understand all this; but common justice asks, " Is it right?"

link).

Mordecai Kaplan and Louis Ginzberg discuss the relative merits of derashas vs ancient (and modern) laundry lists

Here's a record of a fairly interesting exchange between Louis Ginzberg and Mordecai Kaplan, recorded in the latter's diary (as published by Mel Scult; Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, 1913-1934):

R. Nathan Marcus Adler's instructions for his family

Throughout the mid-19th century, one figure dominated the religious life of Jews in Great Britain, Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler (1803-1891).¹ In addition to bearing such distinctions as being Europe's first Orthodox rabbi with a doctorate (1828; for his dissertation De idea summi Numinis), a personal friend of Queen Victoria's husband Albert from his youth, and generally successfuly navigating political minefields, he was also an accomplished talmid chochom, author of a valuable study of Targum Onqelos, Nesina Le-ger (his most famous work; he also wrote other scholarly works, many halakhic teshuvos and chiddushim on Talmud), and despite his British Hanover-origin, (ie, he was "German") he was veddy, veddy British; when he was appointed Chief Rabbi it was on condition that he learn to speak English within two years. He accomplished it in one. (Interestingly enough, another serious candidate was R. Samson Raphael Hirsch. Although he found his niche, one wonders what a Britified R. Hirsch might or might not have eventually accomplished and what his career might have looked like.)

Here are some interesting excerpts and summaries of his Last Will & Testament written for his descendants on "December 31, 5644 - 1883." The matters discussed here shed valuable light on his own priorities as well as what rabbinic concerns within Britain were at the time. His words alone are in inverted commas.

"I have been very ill and near death, but Almighty God in His mercy has so far restored me to health that I am able, although inadequately, to write. Being in Brighton, and no longer surrounded by members of my family, I feel bound to lay the following religious duties to the hearts of my children, grand- and great-grandchildren, with the earnest wish that they may always observe them, and thereby keep my memory fresh and green."

Adler goes on to explain why it may seem that he will speak less of "moral duties" than "religious duties." It is not because the former are less important - on the contrary, they are also mitzvos and thus commanded by God. However, in his time there is a greater spirit of laxity in the aforementiones religious duties, and therefore his family faces a greater temptation to neglect them. Adler then writes that the main principle of Judaism is conained in Deut 6. They must always remember "ushmartem va'asitem," (Lev.19.37).

Next Adler explains that Tanakh, our Bible, is our most precious book, because it "affords us guidance through life," and also "it teaches Israel his origin, his history, his mission to influence mankind in the knowledge of the only one God." Furthermore, it introduces the concept of the eventual arrival of the moshiach, when the whole world will know the one God. Given how important Tanakh is, Adler councils his family, cause your children to read one perek daily, perhaps after morning prayer.

Having mentioned the centrality of Tanakh, he then stresses the importance of Torah she-be-'el peh - Oral Law - giving by way of illustration the examples of tefillin and mezuzah. Then he asks them to read the weekly sidra with targum ("or an easy commentary"), or even with English translation should his descendants not know Hebrew sufficiently. (Interestingly, he does not stress the importance of Hebrew proficiency. Perhaps these are the words of a man resigned to the fact that not all of his descendants could be counted upon to know Hebrew. It should be remarked that Adler was party to the establishment of a society for the promotion of the revival of Hebrew, spearheaded by Eliezer Lipmman Silbermann, editor and founder of Ha-maggid.) Also - study rabbinical literature so that they would be acquainted with it - at the very least, on shabbat.

Next Adler turns to the home, which he says is the most important Jewish institution and the center of Jewish life. Parents must keep kashrut with rigor and they must teach their children to keep it just as strictly outside of the home. The wife must take care that nothing trefa enters the premises and - interesting! - she should not be ashamed to involve herself in the kitchen to ensure that the servants are keeping kashrut, especially basar ve-chalav (ie, the separation of meat and dairy).

"Do not listen, my dear children, as regards the Law 'Thou shall not seethe a kid in its mother's milk' (Ex. 23.19, 34.26, Deut. 14.21), to the criticism of the so-called Neologians (ie, Reformers. 'Neolog' was the term current among Hungarian Jewry. In Reform in general, but especially in Britian, there was a decided neo-Karaite tendency), who assert that the Law must be taken literally, for this would be senseless. Depend upon it, from the very time of its promulgation it was expounded and carried out in its extended sense." Adler emphasizes that the threefold repetition in the Bible teaches us to keep it scrupulously - "Depend upon it."

Furthermore, they should know that there are also the commandments called chukim, for which we do not know a reason for its command, whether such a reason is "spiritual, moral or sanitary or all three together" - but we do know that no mitzvah is without beneficient motive.

Next he discusses behavior for all week long: integrity and scrupulousness in business is a must. He reminds them that such behavior will give them a good name and make their reputation, but above all, it will constitute a kiddush Ha-shem.

He then tells them forcefully: shun usury! "Whatever your calling, shun, oh my dear ones, every kind of usury, for usury still constitutes, alas! the malignant canker which sullies the fair name of our nation."

Moving away from the week, he tells them that as industrious as they must be during the week, they must rest and keep the shabbat. The shabbat teaches the greatest truths of Judaism. It has been "the cause and moving spirit of Israel's preservation." (Ahad Ha'am may have coined the clever phrase that the Sabbath kept the Jews even more than the Jews kept the Sabbath, but you can see that the sentiment predated that.) What should their shabbat be like? It should be joyous, a day of joy and tranquility. They must "distinguish it with a better meal, better dress" and with exercise in the fresh air, but above all a "higher rest," which sanctifies God's name.

Although he already mentioned that they ought to study the sidra with Targum and also rabbinic literature, he reemphasizes this point. On shabbat they must show an even greater devotion to and more zealous study of Torah (than, presumably, during the week). He suggests that on the shabbat they give their children examinations to see how they've advanced in their Torah study.

What else mus they do for shabbat? They must keep shabbat holy - from beginning to end. There must be no business, writing or riding - no matter how early shabbat begins (presumably here we see that a tendency toward laxity with the beginning of shabbat, when it started early during winter, was rampant). Adler reminds his family to remember Neh. 13.15-23, wherein the profanation of the beginning of shabbat brought about great evil.

He assures them that if they lead a pious life, they could expect to escape the punishments which God warned sinners of, and they will instead partake of the choice blessings that he promised the individual and the nation. They can be assured that they will enjoy this world and the world to come. שֹׂבַע שְׂמָחוֹת, אֶת-פָּנֶיךָ; נְעִמוֹת בִּימִינְךָ נֶצַח - forevermore!" (Ps. 16.11)

He concludes "Most solemnly" that they are to "be good Jews and Jewesses," and are to keep in mind future reward and punishment, to lead a life of firm morality and strict observance!

I obtained the text of R. Nathan Marcus Adler's will from Ethical Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury, by Jack Riemer and Nathaniel Stampfer.

Further reading, see the interesting tribute "The Late Chief Rabbi, Dr. N. M. Adler ‮זצ״ל‬," by M. Friedländer in JQR Vol. 2, No. 4. (Jul., 1890), pp. 369-385.

^{1 It should be noted that he pioneered an interesting technique for asserting his rabbinic authority: he all but banned other rabbis from operating as such in Great Britain. To such an extent did he personally enjoy hegemony over the rabbinate in Britain, that dayyanim serving under him were unable to even use the title "rabbi," - when they were being called to the Torah or otherwise!}

Rabbi Chid"a and chocolate

In R. Haim Jos. David Azulay's travelog מעגל טוב there is an interesting passage (one of many) which records events that took place on January 6-7, 1766:

"We departed from Nice at noon . . . and crossed two mountains and a hill . . . we came upon a mountain with such deep snow that we could even stand; us and all of our things sank into the snow. So we hired four gentiles to assist us . . . It was a sunny day and I was wearing two samaras² and two pairs of socks, but even so I was in great distress from the cold. It was a good thing I had chocolate with me - I ate more than a litre!



¹ The title is from Proverbs 2.9.
² Spanish sheepskin coats

Are there female מדקדקים?

at What's Bothering Artscroll?

Can a woman be מדקדק?

Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 61.24

צריך לקרות קריאת שמע בטעמים כמו שהם בתורה. הגה: אבל לא נהגו כן במדינות אלו, ומ"מ יד המדקדקים מחמירים בכך

One must recite the Kerias Shema with cantillation, as the Torah is read. Rema's addendum: But this isn't customary in our [Ashkenazi] countries. Nevertheless, the grammatically-inclined are stringent in this matter.

Here is a typical example of Kerias Shema as found in Artscroll siddurim ("Everyone should have a copy").



(click above to enlarge or click here)

But here is the Kerias Shema as found in the Artscroll Ohel Sarah Woman's Siddur, where the cantillation is not included "for the convenience of those who recite in the manner it is read from the Torah":



Interestingly enough, in the Artscroll "chinuch edition" siddur (Chaim Shlomo) for schoolchildren the cantillation is present (without the note explaining why there is cantillation).

Hat tip goes to Moshi.

What's peshat with peshat? Is there a place for peshat in Orthodoxy?

In this comment thread (link) commenter SB critiques the forthcoming YU-OU Day of Peshat conference (see here* - I think I'll be there).

He writes:

"WADR, if one would read the list of topics, one would think that Pshat and the academic study of Tanach, as defined and severely critiqued by R Moshe Lichtenstein are the only or preferred means of Parshanut HaMikra. Like it or not, Rashi and Ramban both spend much time delineating what is Pshat, Drush and which Medrash is worth considering and which is far fetched from the Pshat. Ibn Ezra cites but also for the most part vehemently rejects Karaite based interpretations. It is too bad that noone is on the listof speakers who can deal with the issues of the borderline between Pshat and Drash."

...

"FWIW, the Abarbanel is very critical of Ibn Ezra's intimation that Joshua Bin Nun wrote part of the Torah ( Bamidbar 21:1)."

To which I reply:

"The homiletic style is sovereign within Orthdoxy right now (as partially evidenced by your fine parasha roundups), with peshat being almost considered illegitimate these days.Thus, a better critique would be for the drush establishment to integrate some peshat a bit more, rather than for some solitary occasions like this one, which are trying to return peshat to a legitimate endeavor within Orthodoxy, to be asked to integrate homiletics. Homiletics is strong, now let's support peshat too."

and I ask:

"Will you cherry pick to find commentators who are critical of Abarbanel's unorthodoxies? Or to criticize the Gemara's intimation that Yehoshua wrote part of the Torah?It isn't the Orthodox exegetical establishment that is beleaguered, within Orthodoxy, these days. My recommendation is to allow Ibn Ezra and Neo-peshat some space to function within Orthodoxy, if not for their own intrinsic value, then at least so that the part of our community which is incapable of being edified by gematriah and farfetched non-literal explanations can also be edified by the study of Tanakh."

* And here for the list of speakers and topics.

The הברה אשכנזית in a 17th century English book

It isn't all that often that one sees this.

Have a look at the spelling of the word לילית in the following from the book The present state of the Jews by Lancelot Addison, London 1675:

To think that I shall never see, A Poem lovely as a . . .19th century Hebrew forgery scandal

Here's a slightly bizarre poem about the Shapira strips affair, which appeared in Punch (London, England), Saturday, September 08, 1883.

Jerome's Hebrew

I posted a comment in the Lieberman post directly below this, and I liked the way I brought out my point, so it's becoming its own post. It concerns Jerome.

Shmuel noted that Jerome "actually did know some Hebrew, having lived in Israel and who was tutored by a local Jew in the Hebrew language and the Tanach." I wanted to broaden that, and acknowledge that Jerome's Hebraic knowledge did exceed the way that sounded, despite the fact that he is cut down as a Hebrew authority by the Jewish Encyclopedia's (1906) thorough entry on him (link, saying that his "knowledge of Hebrew is considerable only when compared with that of the other Church Fathers and of the general Christian public of his time. His knowledge was really very defective. Although he pretends to have complete command of Hebrew and proudly calls himself a "trilinguis" (being conversant with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), he did not, in spite of all his hard work, attain to the proficiency of his simple Jewish teachers."

However, keeping in mind Shmuel's statement that he "knew some Hebrew," I say: He knew more than some Hebrew. He knew Hebrew well, not only having lived in Israel, not only having been tutored in Hebrew (and Jewish interpretations) by JewS, but I know he knew Hebrew well also because he translated the Bible into Latin from Hebrew. Whether or not the Vulgata is the *best* translation ever it is no mean feat to translate the entire Tanakh from Hebrew. (As it happens, it is pretty good, although it naturally also Christological, which makes it Christo-midrashic rather than always literal or peshat oriented.)

Doing only a reasonable job on a translation is impossible without knowing Hebrew well. It is not like today where you can sit down with a stack of translations, Hebrew dictionaries, concordances and references, and so in theory someone who only knows the slightest amount of Hebrew could pretend to make a translation, and perhaps pass it off as something original and even "reasonable." Jerome was working from scratch. He was also an exegete, and he wrote quite a bit about the Hebrew language itself. (Incidentally, he knew Punic, which is cognate with Hebrew. Since he engaged in a little bit of comparative linguistics, I suppose his knowledge of that language helped him. He was no stranger to the tongues of the Shemites, Hebrew included.)

When one considers that the science of Hebrew grammar had barely developed yet, if at all - and that meant that knowledge of Hebrew was achieved through intensive steeping in the texts of that language, nurturing a good intuition and feel for the language - fluency probably would have been achieved in an almost osmosis-like fashion. And how was that done? It would have meant a classic rabbinic education of the time. He therefore did knew Hebrew well.

Jerome achieved what he did in the language (including being able to describe it with sometimes excellent insights) without being, essentially, a צורבא מרבנן.

R. Saul Lieberman on being historical: tikkunei soferim and not conflating ancient with modern sensibilites

Saul Lieberman,"Corrections of the Soferim," in Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, pg 33-34 1994 edition:

"Jacob Reifmann collected a great number of Biblical passages which contain rougher expressions than many of those included among the corrections of the Soferim. Why then, he asks, did the Soferim (or the verse) modify some utterances while they left others unchanged? Why the inconsistency."

"However, we cannot apply our modern standards to the ancients. We are not in a position to measure their sensitivity to certain expressions and their definition of rudeness of style. We really find no consistency in the use of euphemisms even in later rabbinic literature. We are in no position to judge the ancients for their seeming inconsistency; they were guided by their own standards and reasons. We must also take the individuals, times and places into consideration."

A wedding poem in honor of Ramchal and Mrs. Luzzatto, with non-pc imagery

An Italian* Jewish wedding custom was to compose poetry in honor of the bride and groom. The poems would be distributed to the guests and read at the wedding. This custom persisted into the 20th century.

Here is a description:

The wedding poems, or epithalamia, in The Jewish Theological Seminary's collection date from the 17th - 20th centuries. They are written in Italian, German or Hebrew in verses praising the bride and bridegroom and praying for their prosperity. Designed primarily as celebratory poems praising the newlyweds and their families, Jewish epithalamia are characterized by a common structure. An introduction consisting of honorific statements introduces the names of the groom and his father. Frequently, the bride and her lineage are also noted. In the central section the author presents the poem itself employing any one of a variety of literary formats. The third section usually consists of the author's final salutations and a signature, using either the poet's full name or initials. While many of the poems are printed, the few handwritten examples that remain attest to the personal nature of such verses.

The following is one such poem from 1730, in honor of the wedding of Moshe Chaim Luzzatto to Zipporah Finzi (by Raffaele Haim D’Italia).



Even if this charming custom were to reappear, I doubt the nude cherubs would prove a popular stationary choice these days.

Be sure to check out the JTS Digital Collection (which includes over 200 wedding poems, including another one in honor of 23-year old Moses Hayyim and Zipporah).

Related: Racy title page series at the Seforim Blog.

*To a more limited extent, this custom existed in other lands, including Germany.

Is Lakewood Yeshiva - BMG going to have a web site?

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The history of the supposed credo of Karaism

Sometimes when I come across something particularly interesting, I jot a note down for myself. Here's something I found, but I don't remember where I read it, so sorry to whomever I stole the thought from.

A cardinal principle of early Karaism (and perhaps a popular saying among Karaites still, although I am unsure of that) is the following, which is attributed to Anan ben David, possibly a seminal figure in the founding of Karaism, but certainly a seminal figure in Karaism in general.

His saying is as follows:

חפישו באורייתא שפיר ואל תשענו על דעתי
"Search diligently in the Torah and don't rely on my opinion."

This credo really sums up the Karaite attitude toward Scripture. Independence of interpretation being seen as a desirable thing, even as it informs practical halakhic practice.

Someone pointed out that the first half is in Aramaic, while the second half is in Hebrew. Thus it would seem plausible that the second half is actually a gloss on the first. Perhaps Anan did say "Search diligently in the Torah," but perhaps someone else said "and don't rely on my opinion."

'Facing the Truths of History' revisited, pt. II; on the Weinberg-Atlas correspondence

The whole Weinberg-Atlas correspondence thing has renewed itself, in a discussion here about this symposium. For the unfamiliar, see my overview on the subject from almost two years ago.

Here is a quote from the Chopping Wood blog:

"While Dr. Shapiro's thesis about the Seridei Eish might certainly be true, the letters that he published were truly private. Rabbi Weinberg never published them, but instead sent them to a friend in confidence. After all, aren't private letters supposed to be confidential. In fact, Dr. Atlas saved his letters but never disseminated them publicly, and it was only his widow - who really had no appreciation for the implications of the publication of those letters -- who gave final permission for him to use them.

"To me, this raises the complicated issue of rabbinic privacy. Of course the Seridei Eish was a gadol, and his halachic works and other public writings have defined him for posterity. But does that public persona then make his entire life "public property"? Doesn't he also deserve to have a private life?" (emphasis mine)

The answer to that question must be "yes," however there is a common and widespread tradition in both Torah and Western scholarship of collecting and publishing the correspondence of notable people, particularly of the non-mundane variety (sometimes shopping lists are published, but you've got to be a George Washington for that, not a John Paul Jones). While this doesn't mean that there is therefore no such thing as the private life of the notable person, it does mean that the notable person does not write letters under the mistaken impression that they will never see the light of day.¹ It is unlikely that R. Weinberg expected Prof. Atlas to destroy the letters he sent him, or that he could have had the expectation that no one would ever publish them.

Finally, there is the question of the judgment that the correspondence between a respected Orthodox rabbi and a Talmudic scholar in a Reform theological school² would be embarrassing to the respected Orthodox rabbi. One could make a case that respected Orthodox rabbis who carry intimate correspondence with a Talmudic scholar in a Reform theological school are simply not like other Orthodox rabbis in the first place, and assuming the correspondence to be embarrassing is merely projection onto the respected Orthodox rabbi on the one hand, or perhaps the embarrassment is to elements within Orthodoxy that respect the rabbi on the other.

Indeed, in one of Prof. Atlas's published studies on the Talmud³ there is a letter from R. Weinberg printed, which highly praises these studies and wistfully observes that he wished that the traditionalist Torah students would read these studies and learn how to express themselves clearly, precisely and scientifically in Hebrew. Was this letter a secret and was Prof. Atlas wrong to have printed it?

R. Spolter (the Chopping Wood blogger) continues that he got when he challenged Shapiro on the issue of privacy, the latter agreed that he wouldn't be the one to reveal that a respected rabbi had an illegitimate child, provided that the rabbi had acted correctly as a father to that child. On the other hand, if the rabbi had not then he would publicize that fact. This then shows that even Marc Shapiro agrees that gedolim are entitled to a degree of privacy, even posthumously.

It is indeed interesting that Marc Shapiro personally feels that having an illegitimate child is not per se a diminution of the gadlus of a rabbi, but it is no chiddush that a responsible historian must distinguish between gossip and something of importance, nor is it a chiddush that sometimes what is or isn't gossip is basically a matter of opinion. These are problems, to be sure, but nothing ever leaves everyone happy.

Hat tip.

¹ I would agree that a distinction might be made between letters from the notable person's youth--before they were notable--and afterward. People cannot predict their future, but the Weinberg-Atlas correspondence which was published in TUMJ begins in 1946.

² Also notable is that R. Weinberg published a paper jointly with Paul Kahle in the Jewish studies annual of this very Reform theological school (see here if you want to read that paper). Perhaps the reader wishes to make a distinction between the relatively private life of R. Weinberg after WWII, and before when he was Rector of the Berlin Rabbinerseminar? While the Weinberg-Atlas letters were indeed from after the war, the HUCA article is from 1935.

³ I don't remember the name or much about it. I found it lying unloved on a shul's bookshelf, and only got to look at it for about twenty minutes.

...and 'like an olive' used to be 'like an olive,' too...

Ari has an excellent post about how 18th century Jewish women knew what time to light the Shabbat candles.

"In today’s age we are extremely punctilious when it comes to various zemanim (assigned times). Take Shabbat, for example—we begin and end at a precise minute, and one that varies from week to week. I always wondered, however, exactly how in an era before clocks and watches were household items did people know when to light Shabbat candles. I assume most people did not own a sundial and you can’t always rely on the skies. So how did they know it was 4:53 pm and time to light the candles? Or that the eighteen minutes were up and you had to park your horse and walk home?

"A few years ago I discovered the answer of how they told the difference between 4:53 and 5:07.

"Answer: they couldn’t tell the difference.

Read the entire post.