There are a significant number of seforim that are considered “classic” commentaries on the Torah, including, for example, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Ralbag and Ramban, et.al. In this post, we shall discuss the Ramban’s commentary on the Torah, as it is also on important work in the history of Hebrew printing.

The first edition, published between 1469-72,[1] in Rome, was the first book published in that city (and the only one of the early works that positively identifies Rome as the city of publication) and is available online here [it was also reprinted by Mekor in 1970 with a short introduction by A.M. Habermann]. Over the years, the Ramban’s commentary increased in popularity, and in commensurate with that popularity, many books have been written to further understand this commentary. The most commonly used edition today is the edition by Charles B. Chavel.[2] This edition, published by Mossad HaRav Kook, in two volumes, contains a critical edition of the text as well as explanatory notes.

There are two interesting points about the above edition that are less well-known. The first, a fairly minor point, is the “problem” some apparently have with the fact Mossad HaRav Kook published this edition. In R. Wreschner’s excellent commentary on Masekhet Avodah Zarah, Seder Ya’akov, first printed in 1988 (reprinted in 2004, third edition), in his introduction, he discusses the problem of censorship (in the “Jewish/Non-Jewish” sense, for example, removal of mentions of Jesus) in Hebrew books. While he rightfully decries the numerous instances of censorship in the history of the Jewish book, he notes that of late we have been partially able to rectify some of these omissions.

He singles out various editions and says:

ובעזרת הית”ב החומל על דלותם באורך גלותם, נדפסים היום ספרים כאלו [אם המילים החסרים] מחדש כגון ספר הרמב”ם בהוצ[ת] פראנקל, וכן פרש”י והרמב”ן ורבנו בחיי עה”ת . . . בהוצאת ה.ק. עכ”ל

With the help of God who has pity on our impoverished state due to the lengthy exile, today we have many such books [with the censorship replaced] anew, for instance the Frankel edition of the Rambam, and also Rashi’s commentary and the Ramban and the Rabbeinu Bachya on the Bible printed by Hey. Kuf. (Emphasis mine).

What does ה”ק stand for? R. Wreschner, two pages later, includes a full page explaining all the abbreviations in his book — but this one, ה”ק, however, does not appear there. Of course, this abbreviation is for HaRav Kook, meaning Mossad HaRav Kook. It seems that even fully mentioning the name of this publisher was, in R. Wreschner’s mind, unthinkable, even while he condemns other forms of censorship. That is, not R. Kook himself, but a publishing house named after him is also considered taboo.

The second issue with the Chavel edition is that there may actually be a reason not to mention this particular edition, not because of the publisher but because of the content. In one of the more interesting introductions, R. Moshe Greenes, in his commentary on the Ramban, Keren Peni Moshe, criticizes the Mossad HaRav Kook edition for what he perceives as serious errors in that edition.

R. Greenes begins, after going on a few tangents—including claiming that back in 1988 people were so lazy they couldn’t get up to look for a sefer, or even turn pages—by praising R. Chavel’s work on the Ramban. However, shortly after that praise, R. Greenes spends the next eight pages or so pointing out all the shortcomings of R. Chavel’s edition. First, he argues that R. Chavel plagiarized multiple times from the earlier commentary on the Ramban by R. Mordechai Gimpel, Techelet Mordechai. R. Greenes then accuses R. Chavel of plagiarizing from R. Menachem Zvi Eisenstadt’s edition (both volumes have recently been reprinted together in a single volume but were unavailable to R. Green at the time).[3]

R. Greenes includes numerous examples of alleged plagiarisms and even explains that the footnotes with asterisks can be identified with the Techelet Mordechai. These, alleges R. Greenes, were added only after R. Chavel acquired the Techelet Mordechai, which required inserting into the existing footnotes without altering the numbering scheme, resulting in numbers with asterisks. Whether or not R. Chavel properly attributed these sources is still up for debate. Nonetheless, regardless of whether there was actual plagiarism, the fact remains that R. Greenes’s introduction is one of the more unique ones out there.

Notes:
[1] On the date of publication, see Moses Marx, “On the Date of Appearance of the First Printed Hebrew Book,” in Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York, 1950) pp. 485-501; and the bibliopgraphy in Catalogue of Hebrew Incunabula from the Collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, ed. Shimon Iakerson (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2004), [6]. For additional information on the prints of Ramban’s Commentary to the Torah, see M.M. Kasher, et al., Sa’arei haElef (Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 90-91, 571.
[2] For bio-bibliographical details about Chavel, see Moshe D. Sherman, Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook (Westport: Greenwood, 1996), s.v. “Charles B. Chavel.”
[3] Perush ha-Ramban al ha-Torah (Brooklyn: 5762)