Rabbi Bezalel Naor is a multifaceted scholar, recognized as the leading interpreter of R. Kook in the English language. His newest book is The Limit of Intellectual Freedom: The Letters of Rav Kook. It can be purchased from his website, www.orot.com.

The most important utterance in Judaism is the Shema’: Shema’ yisrael adonai eloheinu adonai ehad. (Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.) This declaration of the absolute unity of God is the cornerstone of our faith. By Biblical mandate, a Jew recites the Shema’ twice daily, be-shokhbekha u-ve-kumekha (“when you lie down and when you rise up”). See Deuteronomy 6:7.

All of the above is quite famous. What remains today a little known fact is that once upon a time this recitation was accompanied by head movements to the four directions, and up and down. This practice is recorded both in the Ge’onim (post-Talmudic Babylonian sages) and the Rishonim (medieval European sages).[1] The basis for this observance is the following statement in the Talmud:

Symmachus says: “Whoever prolongs the word ehad (“one”), his days and years are prolonged.

Said Rav Aha bar Ya’akov: “And [specifically] the letter dalet [of ehad].”

Said Rav Ashi: “Provided he does not speed up the letter het [of ehad].”

R. Yirmiyah was sitting before R. [Hiyya bar Abba]. He saw that he was prolonging overly much. He said to him: “Once you have proclaimed Him King above and below, and to the four winds of heaven, you need not any further.”[2]

Rashi, the eleventh-century exegete of Troyes, France, comments: “Proclaimed Him King above, etc. – You have prolonged the amount [of time] necessary to think in your heart that the Lord is one in heaven and on earth and its four directions.”

This is a disembodied approach; no mention in Rashi of actual body movements. The visualization of heaven and earth and the four cardinal points is purely mental.

However, if one consults the commentary of Rabbi Menahem Ha-Me’iri of Perpignan, Provence (1249-1306) one finds an added dimension: “The amount of lengthening the letter dalet is that required to picture in the heart that He, blessed be He, rules over heaven and earth and the four winds of the world. And for this reason, it is customary to tilt the head and move it to these sides. Nevertheless, if one prefers not to tilt the head, one need not, because the thing depends not on the tilting of the head and its movements, but rather upon the feeling of the heart.”[3]

Me’iri revisits this theme in his commentary to Tractate Sukkah when discussing the na’anu’im or waving of the lulav (palm frond) during the Sukkot festival. There, he opines that both in regard to the movement of the lulav during the recitation of Hallel and the movement of the head during Shema’, only a to-and-fro and up-and-down movement is called for (as opposed to the four directions, and up and down). “Even that which they said. . .to prolong the word ehad (“one”) sufficiently to proclaim Him King above and below and in the four winds of the world, even this necessitates only a movement to the two directions, and below and above. Furthermore, some say that in ehad no movement is necessary, only picturing in the heart.”[4]

Neither is Me’iri the only Provencal commentator to bear witness to the practice of head movements. His contemporary Rabbi David ben Levi of Narbonne writes: “How long? Long enough to proclaim Him King, etc. – Some interpret that one proclaims Him King by moving one’s head. And so interpreted Rabbenu Hai, of blessed memory.”[5]

In Provence, where we find most evidence of the head movements, there were some who found the practice ludicrous (huka ve-itlula).[6] Perhaps, these authorities took exception not so much to the movements themselves, as to the fact that as often happens in the case of rituals, the simple folk focus on the externals rather than on the inner awareness which is the essence.[7]

The German codifier Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (d. Toledo, Spain before 1340) defended the practice of the head movements accompanying Shema’:

One must prolong the dalet of ehad the amount [of time] necessary to think in one’s heart that the Holy One, blessed be He, is unique in His world, above and below, and in the four winds of the world. There are some accustomed to tilt the head according to the thought, above and below, and to the four directions. Some object to the practice because of the statement of the Rabbis, “He who recites Shema’ should not gesticulate with his eyes or lips.”[8] My father, of blessed memory, used to say that one need not heed [their words], for there, the gesticulations are for an extraneous purpose, and interrupt the concentration, but here, the gesture is a requisite of the concentration and brings it about (tsorekh ha-kavvanah ve-goremet otah).”[9]

Rabbi Joshua Boaz Baruch (Italy, d. 1557) offers a very graphic description of the head movements of Shema’:

This is the amount [of time] to prolong the word ehad: one third in the letter het and two thirds in the letter dalet. How does one proclaim the Kingship? Up and down during the het, and in the four directions during the dalet.[10] And one concentrates while moving the head up and down, to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south . . .[11]

One can only speculate what happened to these head movements. Whereas the movements of the lulav or palm frond continue in full force to this day, wherever Jews are found, we are not aware of any community that has retained the custom of moving the head during Shema’, though as we have seen, it was once widespread in communities as diverse as Babel (today Iraq), Provence, Spain and Italy.

One of the most provocative statements found in Rav Kook’s Orot is this:

We dealt much in soulfulness; we forgot the holiness of the body.[12]

Perhaps these head movements of Shema’ are a “mitsvah yetomah” (orphan mitsvah) due for revival.[13]

Notes

The Legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s Death: Truth or Fiction & the Cairo Genizahby Eliezer Brodt

A few years ago on the Seforim Blog I dealt with the famous legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s death (link). More recently in Ami Magazine (# 32) I returned to this legend and related topics. This post contains new information as well as corrections that were not included in those earlier articles.

R. Yehuda Halevi was born in the year 1075 in Toledo, Spain, and died in 1141.[1] He is famous in Jewish history for being a great paytan,[2] authoring hundreds of beautiful piyutim. However, he is even more famous for authoring one of the most important Jewish philosophical works of all time, the Kuzari. This work is written in dialog form between a king and a Jew who is persuaded to convert to Judaism. The Jew defends Yiddishkeit, dealing with many issues of philosophy and various Mitzvos among other topics. This work was written by R. Yehuda in Arabic, but was translated into Hebrew in 1167. It was learned by many throughout the centuries, and numerous works were written to explain it.[3] The Kuzari had a tremendous impact on Jewish thought through the centuries and continues to do so today. In this article, I hope to deal with two legends told about R. Yehuda Halevi: one about how he met an untimely death when he got toEretz Yisroel [4] and the other about him being the father-in-law of Ibn Ezra.

Among the more famous kinos that we recite on Tisha B’Av is Tzion Halo Tishali. This piyut is about the author’s passion to walk on the holy soil of Eretz Yisrael and to pray at the Kevarim. Throughout the Kuzari and in many of his piyutim we find a strong emphasis of his love for Eretz Yisroel[5]. R’ Yosef Dov Soleveitchik, when talking about R’ Yehuda Halevi in his lectures on the Kinos, said “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi adored everything about Eretz Yisroel; he was madly in love with Eretz Yisroel. I have never known anyone so in love with Eretz Yisroel as Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. There were many others who went to Eretz Yisroel, but they did not confess their love for the land in such terms as he did”.[6]

Already in the Machzor from Worms written in 1272 and in the Nuremburg Machzor written in 1331 we find this kinah was said on Tisha Bav. The piyut, however has become famous for a different reason.[7]

In the Artscroll commentary on the Kinos, R. Avraham Chaim Feuer writes:

An ancient manuscript states that R. Yehuda Halevi composed this kina while journeying towards Eretz Yisroel and recited it when he reached Damascus, facing the direction of Zion. Although many historians believe that R. Yehuda Halevi only got as far as Egypt, never even reaching Damascus, tradition has it that he finally reached Jerusalem (circa 1145).[8] There he fell to the ground in a state of ecstasy… As he was embracing the dust near the temple mount, he was trampled and killed by an Arab horseman.[9]

R’ Yosef Dov Soleveitchik, when talking about R’ Yehuda Halevi in his lectures on the kinos, said,

“While we know that he left for Eretz Yisroel, we know nothing about him from the date of his departure from Egypt. A story is told, I do not know if it’s true, that when he arrived in Eretz Yisroel, he fell on the soil… at that very moment a Bedouin on a horse rode over him and killed him. Now they say there is documentary evidence that he died in Egypt on his way to Eretz Yisroel. I do not know about it.”[10]

The story has certainly entered Jewish popular culture. In 1851 Heinrich Heine published his Romanzero, and in the section of ‘Hebrew Melodies’ he writes of “Jehuda ben Halevy’s” death at the hands of an “impious Saracen” horseman:

Calmly flow’d the Rabbi’s life-blood,

Calmly to its termination

Sang he his sweet song.—his dying

Sigh was still—Jerusalem!

In this article I intend to discuss this legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s death. Did he actually reach Eretz Yisrael? When did he compose the piyut of Zion Haloeh Tishali? Why did he want to go to Eretz Yisroel so badly, considering that it was very dangerous in his time?

By the way of introduction, it is worth noting the words of R’ Elazar Ezkiri in his classic work Sefer Chareidim. He says that everyone is supposed to love Eretz Yisroel and go there… therefore the Amoraim would kiss the ground when they came,[11] and it’s good to recite the piyut Shir Yedidus composed by R’ Yehuda Halevi . . . [12] Apparently Rav Yehuda Halevi is considered a first stop for expressing such affection.

R. Abraham Zacuto (1452-1514) in Sefer Yuchsin (first printed in 1566) writes that “R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty [years old] when he came to Eretz Yisroel and he is buried together with his first cousin, Ibn Ezra.”[13] Later, however, R. Zacuto writes that R. Yehuda Halevi is buried with R. Yehuda bar Ilay in Tzefat.[14] Setting aside the apparent contradiction regarding R. Yehuda Halevi’s burial place, in both of these descriptions R. Yehuda Halevi is depicted as having actually made it to Eretz Yisrael. Notably absent, however, is the legend of an Arab/Bedouin horseman killing him.

Adam Shear called attention to an edition of the Kuzari printed in 1547 which says on the front page:כוזרי חברו בלשון ערבי החכם הגדול אבי כל המשוררים רבי יהודה הלוי הספרדי ז”ל אשר קדש שם שמים בויכוחו הישר הזה… (ראה: ארשת א, עמ’ 67).

This term is usually used for martyrdom. Shear suggests that perhaps it comes from this story, later mentioned by the Shalsheles Hakabbalah,[20] although he concludes that the idea is far-fetched.

In 1840 R. Shmuel David Luzzatto (ShaDaL) in his collection of the Diwan containing the poems of R. Yehuda Halevi, Besulas Bas Yehuda, questions the legend on the grounds that Jerusalem was in the hand of Christians at the time, and Arabs were not allowed in the city. Furthermore, even if there were Arabs around, they would not have done such a brazen act right at the city gate.[21] So Shadal concludes that he died on his way from Egypt, never even reaching Eretz Yisroel.[22] S. Fuenn accepts the conclusion of Shadal.[23] R. Michael Sachs in his work Die religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien also accepts Shadal’s conclusion because he notes that while Ibn Ezra refers to him in his work on Chumash he does not mention anything unique about his death,[24] he just says שאלני ר’ יהודה הלוי מנוחתו כבוד.Around the same time R. Matisyahu Strashun reached the same conclusion, perhaps independently. In a letter written in 1841, he questioned the veracity of the legend,[25] alsopointing out that Jerusalem in the times of R. Yehuda Halevi was ruled by Christians and not by Arabs. R. Strashun allows that although it is possible that R. Yehuda Halevi composed Zion Halo Tishali when he got to Jerusalem — not that we know that he did — the part of the story about the Arab killing him is certainly not true. As a general matter, R. Strashun notes that it is well known that the Shalsheles Hakabbalah is an unreliable source.[26]Simon Dubnov suggests that there is a kernel of truth to the story –that some Crusader must have killed a Jew right after he arrived in Eretz Yisroel.[27]Israel Zinberg suggests that, most likely, R. Yehuda Halevi returned home to Spain after visiting Eretz Yisrael, based on the fact that R. Shlomo Parchon, a student of R. Yehuda Halevi who lived in Spain, quotes a statement from R. Yehuda Halevi “after R. Yehuda Halevi was in Egypt”.[28]Specifically, R. Yehuda Halevi had told Parchon that he was doing teshuva and therefore no longer composing.[29] Zinberg therefore argues that this statement to Parchon must have taken place after R. Yehuda Halevi was in Egypt; thus R. Yehuda Halevi must have returned to Spain.[30] David Kaufmann also used R. Shlomo Parchon as a source to deduce how R. Yehuda Halevi died. Kaufmann points out that had R. Yehuda Halevi died in such a spectacular fashion as the legend has it, R. Shlomo Parchon would have been sure to note it. Since R. Parchon makes no note of this extraordinary death, R. Yehuda Halevi must have died a natural death.[31] InAmudei Avodah, Landshuth also questions the legend due to lack of evidence that R. Yehuda Halevi ever made it to Eretz Yisrael.[32]

In regard to the piyut, Zion Haloh Tishali, Leser Landshuth cites different opinions about where it was written: either in Spain, Damascus, or Syria.[33] Yitzhak Baer[34] and David Kaufmann cite a manuscript housed at Oxford which says that R. Yehuda Halevi said this piyut when he got to Yerushalayim.[35]

Earlier I mentioned that the Sefer Yuchasin writes that R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty years old when he came to Eretz Yisrael, and he is buried with his first cousin, Abraham Ibn Ezra. Later he writes that he is buried with R. Yehuda bar Ilay in Tzefas. In the Travels of R. Benyamin of Tudela, written around the year 1170, which is only thirty years after the R. Yehuda Halevi died, R. Benjamin records that he visited the grave of R. Yehuda Halevi in Tiveriah.[36] It’s interesting to note that in the travels of R. Pesachya of Regensburg which were written right after R. Benyamin of Tudela’s (around 1180) there is no mention of the grave of R. Yehuda Halevi.[37]

In the travels of R. Yitzchak ben Alfurah, written around 1441, he also writes that he visited the graves of Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi.[38] In a different anonymous list of Kevarim in Eretz Yisroel from the fifteenth century, recently printed from manuscripts from the Ginsburg Collection, it also records that Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi are buried next to each other.[39]All of these sources provide strong evidence that R. Yehuda Halevi actually made it to Eretz Yisrael. Nevertheless, an anonymous traveler in 1473[40] and R. Yosef Sofer in 1762 write that they visited the grave of Ibn Ezra but make no mention that R. Yehuda Halevi is buried there as well.[41] In the travels of R. Moshe Yerushalmi from 1769, he writes that he visited the graves of Ibn Ezra and R. Shlomo Ibn Gabirol , but no mention is made of the grave of R. Yehuda Halevi.[42] A manuscript from the author of the Koreh Hadoros, seems to indicate that R. Yehuda Halevi was buried in Jerusalem.[43] It should of course be noted that the location of Ibn Ezra’s death in Eretz Yisroel is itself problematic. Although Sefer Yuchasin brings the opinions that he is buried in Eretz Yisroel, he initially states that he died in Calahorra, Spain. Furthermore, Rabbi Moshe of Taku – an earlier source than Sefer Yuchasin – writes of a legend told to him by Jews of England that Ibn Ezra died there, after encountering a number of sheidimwhich appeared to him as black dogs.

Another piece of evidence can be found inn some early manuscripts, where we find before the kinah the following superscription:

זאת הקינה יסד ר’ יהודה קשטלין לפני הר ציון

But even more than that Rabbi Holzer discovered in a manuscript written before 1300 (which he is preparing for print) , which has the following statement:

יסוד רבינו יהודה הלוי הקשטלין אשר יסדה תחת הר ציון בבואו לירושלים עם המלך מספרד וראה הר ציון שמ(ו)[ם] נשא את קולו ובכה על חורבנו ואמר ציון הלא תשאל

See The Rav Thinking Aloud, p. 222. I would like to thank Zecharia Holzer for bringing this source to my attention. What is important about these sources is that they are before theShalsheles Hakabbalah.

One area that benefited greatly from the later discoveries of Goitein was the history of R. Yehuda Halevi. Before this discovery, the biography of R. Yehuda Halevi was written by the early scholars of Jewish history such as Shadal[47], David Kauffman, Chaim Schirmann and many others. Their work was based heavily on the poems of R. Yehuda Halevi, for this was just about the only source. These poems existed in many manuscript collections. For example, R. David Conforte (1618-1678) in his Koreh Hadoros mentions seeing one such collection.[48] Before the aforementioned discoveries, all that was known about R. Yehuda Halevi was that he was a great poet, a medical doctor,[49] and an Askan. He was possibly a talmid of the Rif[50]and was certainly close with the Ri Migash, and may have even been his secretary for a short time.[51]And of course, in addition to his piyutim he was most famous for his important work of Jewish thought, the Kuzari.

However, among the Genizah discards Shlomo D. Goitein found many documents relating to R. Yehuda Halevi, all written around 1130-1141, including many in R. Yehuda Halevi’s own handwriting! Many of these documents can be viewed online today. Starting in 1954, Goitein printed his discoveries with his explanations of the material, in various journals, mostly inTarbitz. Later on, in his classic multi-volume A Mediterranean Society (volume V, pp. 448-468), he included an excellent chapter on R. Yehuda Halevi based on all the material which he had found over the years. Most of his interpretations of the material he discovered have been accepted by Professors C. Schirmann and Ezra Fleischer, renowned experts on Piyut.

What follows is a brief time-line of R. Yehuda Halevi’s journey to Eretz Yisrael based on the research of the aforementioned professors.[56] In 1129, when R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty four years old, he decided to make the journey to Eretz Yisrael. In the year 1130, R. Yehuda Halevi began his journey. He intended to travel through Egypt. We don’t know why he didn’t. But we do know that he ended up in North Africa. In North Africa, he became good friends with Ibn Ezra. For some unknown reason, he ended up back in Spain.[57] Not too much information is known about why this journey to Eretz Yisrael did not end up happening. Ten years later, in 1140, R. Yehuda Halevi began the journey again. He ended up in Alexandria on September 8. He had intended to leave from Egypt to Eretz Yisrael immediately, but was delayed. He ended up staying in Cairo until Pesach. After that he returned to Alexandria. A few days before Shavuos of 1141, he boarded the boat, and on Shavuos, he set sail to Eretz Yisrael.[58] A letter written about 6 months later indicates that R. Yehuda Halevi was no longer alive. It seems that he was alive for 2 months in Eretz Yisrael and that he died in either Tammuz or Av.[59] We don’t have any information about his stay in Eretz Yisrael. It would seem that either he got sick or died a natural death. From the documents there is no clear answer as to whether the legend is true or not (except by omission). It’s rather disappointing that with all the manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Geniza that enriched us with an in-depth, heavily detailed history of R. Yehuda Halevi’s last years until he left to Eretz Yisrael, we do not know anything more, but of course the documents could not refer to the unnatural death if that had not happened or been dreamed of yet.

However, there is one letter written three months after the death of R. Yehuda Halevi that does seem to indicate that perhaps the legend is true. The letter reads as follows (the ellipses appear in the original):

ולא נעלם ממנה אודות רבינו יהודה הלוי הצדיק החסיד זק”ל אשר עליו באמת ניבאו נביאי האמת עין לא ראתה, ההיה גבור ביראת אלהים ובתורתו, ומאמרי פעליו מעידים צדקו, באודותיו ירונו כצפורים בעתותן למנוחת עולם הוטע כבוד גן אלהים, וברמה הוא נשא נס גדולותיו והליכות גבורותיו, אשר תרונה ביקרו, והתיקר… וביקרו, ותמונת ה’ הביט… בשדה צען להאירה… זק”ל לא… צור… מחנה שדי… להתנחל לרשת… עזי…וישם… בדמות השכינה ובמראה… בשערי ירושלים

This letter was first printed by Jacob Mann in 1920 but he dismissed the possibility that it was referring to the author of the Kuzari.[60] Goitein highlights the line “ולא נעלם ממנה אודות רבינו יהודה הלוי הצדיק החסיד זק”ל,” which would seem to indicate that his death was not natural (calling him a kadosh is typically reserved for martyrs). Note that the last words, בשערי ירושלים, would seem to support the legend. However, the letter is damaged and hard to read so one cannot say anything conclusively. However Fleischer is willing to use the letter, even with its missing parts, to support the legend. Especially since, he says, the author of the letter used the word קדוש twice in the phrase זק”ל instead of the usual ז”ל. He also has other proofs from a careful reading of the letter. Fleischer concludes from this that the legend about R. Yehuda Halevi’s death is not so far-fetched. In light of this possibility, Fleisher notes, that one should be careful not to make fun of legends.[61] Additionally ,there is also another letter in this collection that refers to R. Yehuda Halevi as a kadosh.[62]

We have shown, in light of the documents discovered in the Cario Genizah that R. Yehuda Halevi did indeed make it to Eretz Yisroel. And it would seem that there is also a good chance that the story that the Shalsheles Hakabbalah brings is true, and that he died a strange death through unnatural causes. The question remains as to why he decided to go to Eretz Yisroel at that time.[63] There were no real communities of any sort there, traveling was dangerous, and he was an older man. It is clear from many of his poems and especially from specific passages that he had a tremendous love for Eretz Yisroel. Professor Elchanan Reiner notes that he was one of the first known people that actually made the dangerous voyage to Eretz Yisroel in the times of the Rishonim. Reiner says that it was due to his strong desire to daven there, especially at various Kevarim.[64] There is strong support for this, especially in his kina Zion Halo Tishali,where he mentions this desire to daven at the kevarim. Ezra Fleischer suggests that R. Yehuda Halevi thought others would follow him to Eretz Yisroel.[65]

Goitein writes: “one might argue that the themes of Israel’s uniqueness, of the holiness of Palestine… are overdone in the Kuzari and in Ha-levi’s poetry. They are but for good reasons. It was a time of extreme urgency. Constant and gruesome warfare was going on in Spain. As Judah Ha-Levi emphasizes in his poems, whenever Christians and Muslims fought each other, the Jews were affected most by the disturbance of peace. The feeling of impotence in the absence of any signs of relief was dangerous forebodings of despair and loss of faith… All in all, the voice of encouragement ringing out from Ha-levi’s poems was stronger than whimpers of despair.”[66]

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Gerst, without seeing what Goitein wrote, suggested that since this was a time that Jews were downhearted, especially about Eretz Yisroel, he wanted to reawaken love for Eretz Yisroel. Even though it was dangerous to go at that time and it seems that many tried to convince him not to go, he still gave up everything: family, friends and a comfortable life style. He writes that even if the story of the Shalsheles Hakabbalah did not happen exactly as he heard it, his trip to Eretz Yisroel still caused a tremendous Kiddush Hashem.[67]

Although R. Yehuda Halevi’s trip did increase the Jewish people’s hope and did increase its emphasis on Eretz Yisrael, it is not clear that this was his own personal intention for going. In one of the letters discovered in the Geniza, it sounds as if he wanted to go quietly. He knew his days were numbered and he wanted to be in Eretz Yisrael alone.[68]

There is one last point worth mentioning: R’ Shlomo Yosef Zevin wrote a beautiful piece that shows that in addition to the Kuzari being a philosophical work, it also has many halachic aspects and was accordingly used by many.[69] One recent example is in the famous controversy between the Chazon Ish and many other gedolim regarding the placement of the International Dateline – specifically regarding which day the bochurim of the Mir yeshiva should celebrate Yom Kippur in Japan. One of the main sources on the topic of the Chazon Ish was the Kuzari.[70]Regarding the halachic aspect of going to Eretz Yisroel, the Kuzari writes that it is a Mitzvah even nowadays, making him one of the earliest sources to say such a thing. Even more importantly, he says one should go even if it’s dangerous.[71] In this light, it is evident why he made this trip: he held that he was halachically obligated to even though it was dangerous![72]

I would like to conclude with one last point that is related to all this. I mentioned earlier that R. Abraham Zacuto in Sefer Yuchasin writes that “R. Yehuda Halevi was fifty [years old] when he came to Eretz Yisroel and he is buried together with his first cousin, Ibn Ezra.[73] Now we know that there was certainly a strong connection between Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi. D. Kaufmann gives a listing of the many times which Ibn Ezra quotes R. Yehuda Halevi throughout his works.[74] In addition, there are many other places in his works which clearly indicate that R. Yehuda Halevi had a great influence on his works.

R. Azariah de Rossi, in his Me’or Eynaim, writes that R. Yehuda Halevi was Ibn Ezra’s father-in-law (chapter 42). Koreh hadoros also brings this down. R. Immanuel Aboab in his Bemavak ‘al Erko shel Torah, written in 1615, claims that Ibn Ezra was both R. Yehuda Halevi’s son-in-law as well as a cousin.[75]

The Shalsheles Hakabblah brings a legend which he had heard about how exactly Ibn Ezra became the son-in-law of R Yehuda Halevi.[76] The gist of the story was that R. Yehuda Halevi was working on a poem and he got stuck. He left his notebook open and went away, and when he returned, he found the poem completed. It turned out that Ibn Ezra had completed it, and because of this, R. Yehuda Halevi let him marry his only daughter. There are many versions of this story, but strangely, if this were true, in the many times that Ibn Ezra quotes the Kuzari in his works, he never once refers to him as his father-in-law.[77]

R. Yehuda Al-charizi writes in his Sefer Tachkemoni, (written between 1195-1234) that Ibn Ezra had a son Yitzhak who was also a great poet but he tragically left the proper path, apparently converting to Islam.[78] Some took this as a license and went so far as too say that any of the problematic ideas[79] mentioned in the writings of Ibn Ezra were added in by this son.[80] For many years scholars were searching for more details about this sad saga. Finally they found a collection of Yitzchak’s poems which they hoped would shed some light on the matter, but the owner wanted a ridiculous sum of money for it. It was not purchased, and during the Second World War it was lost. Eventually, the collection was found and printed but it turned out that it did not really shed much light on this story.

However, in the same documents that Goitein found about R. Yehuda Halevi, there were many mentions of Yitzchak Ibn Ezra (some in the documents written by R. Yehuda Halevi himself). Both Goitein and Fleischer concluded that although R. Yehuda Halevi was not the father-in-law of Ibn Ezra, his son Yitzchak did marry R. Yehuda Halevi’s only daughter.[81] They go so far as to show that Yitzchak and his wife, R. Yehuda Halevi’s daughter, were supposed to follow him to Eretz Yisroel eventually. So there was indeed a family connection between Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi. There is even a letter with instructions from R. Yehuda Halevi for a Yehuda ibn Ezra which some want to suggest was his grandson, son of Yitzchak![82] In Sefardi communities it is not unique at all to name after a living relative.

In conclusion I have shown based on documents from the Cario Genizah that it is likely that the legend recorded by Shalsheles Hakabbalah regarding R. Yehuda Halevi is true and he did indeed make it to Eretz Yisroel and that he died an unusual death. We also see from these documents that the legend which is brought by many that there was a family connection between R. Yehuda Halevi and Ibn Ezra is also true, as Yitzchak, Ibn Ezra’s wayward son married R. Yehuda Halevi daughter.

I would just like to conclude with a great quote from the Chazon Ish which I think is very appropriate here:

דברי הימים וקורות עולם הם מאלפים הרבה את החכם בדרכו, ועל תולדות העבר ייסד אדני חכמתו. ואמנם בהיות האדם אוהב לחדש ולהרצות לפני הקהל, נצברו הרבה שקרים בספרי התולדות, כי בן אדם אינו שונא את הכזב בטבעו, ורבים האוהבים אותו ומשתעשעים בו שעשועי ידידות, ועל החכם להבר בספורי הסופרים לקבל את האמת ולזרות את הכזבים, וכאן יש כר נרחב אל הדמיון, כי טבע הדמיון למהר ולהתקדם ולהגיד משפט, טרם שהשכל הכין מאזני משפט לשקול בפלס דבר על אפנו, והדמיון חוץ משפטו כרגע, מהו מן האמת ומהו מן הכזב (אמונה ובטחון, פרק א אות ח).

[24] Die religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien, Berlin: Veit, 1845, pp. 287-291.

Interestingly enough the Meiri in his Seder Hakabbalah and the Sha’ari Zion make no mention of this relationship between Ibn Ezra and R. Yehuda Halevi.

Computer Confirmation of “P” – A Biblicist’s Perspective By Joshua Berman

Joshua Berman is a lecturer in Tanach at Bar-Ilan University and an associate fellow at the Shalem Center. His most recent book, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford, 2008) was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Scholarship in 2008.

Prof. Moshe Koppel—a revered friend and senior colleague—has produced what is for me as a biblicist is a fascinating and exciting study.[1] His demonstrated capacity to tease apart books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel when their verses are randomly shuffled will find good application, I am sure, within the field of biblical studies. At the conclusion of that study, Koppel and his team report that they applied their methodology to the Torah, and that their split of its verses “corresponds to the expert consensus regarding P and non-P for over 90% of the verses in the Pentateuch for which such consensus exists.” The claim has generated much theological debate. In this post, however, I wish to respond to these findings solely within the terms and assumptions found within the discipline of biblical studies itself. The findings produced by Prof. Koppel’s team constitute an academic, scientific claim and deserve to be addressed in kind. I wish to extend my heartfelt appreciation to Prof. Koppel for sharing his data with me, and for elucidating many points for me in subsequent exchanges between us. For two primary reasons, I conclude that the findings are of little consequence for Pentateuch studies, and to the extent that they are of consequence they suggest a different significance than that reported in his initial article. The Koppel team’s compelling work, teasing apart books such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, does not, in its present form, provide sufficient basis for an analysis of the Torah. Here’s why: Jeremiah and Ezekiel are two whole, integral works. Buoyed by the success of separating two books Koppel’s team split the verses of the Torah into two “authorial categories,” one of which seems to have affinity with the set of verses source-critical scholars refer to as the priestly source of the Pentateuch. The other authorial category, however, “Non-P” is not a single, integral, distinct book. Source critics (again, I am constructing an argument here that would be valid within the field of biblical studies) are unanimous that the non-priestly material in the Pentateuch is an amalgam of many other sources. It is more difficult to separate a single integral book from an amalgam of many different works than it is to separate one integral work from another. Put differently, an alternative experiment needs to be carried out utilizing other biblical books, before these data about the Torah can be statistically validated. Prof. Koppel and team would need to take, say, all of Jeremiah, and shuffle it with smatterings of verses from several other books, and successfully retrieve the verses from Jeremiah. I am clueless about computational linguistics, and so I shared this intuition with Prof. Koppel. He confirmed for me that the experiments carried out separating whole integral books can only offer a “weak-indicator” for the case of the texts of the Torah. But let’s give that weak-indicator the benefit of the doubt, or let’s assume that those experiments have been successfully executed, extracting Jeremiah, say, from an amalgam of other texts. What do the data in hand about the Torah suggest? I would propose that the significance is rather different than that which has been reported. To appreciate the data, however, requires a brief whirlwind tour of the history of source criticism of the Pentateuch, particularly of developments of the last twenty years. Classical source-criticism does not merely claim that the first four books of the Torah may be divided into three sources, J, E and P. It claims that each of these three sources were originally complete histories of Israel, from Creation until the time of Moses. There was a time—in the early twentieth century—that the comprehensive theories of the great minds were considered to be the final word on the subject. Einstein, it was believed, had given us the final word on physics, Freud on psychology. In the world of biblical studies, it was Wellhausen who was believed to have given us the final word on the origins of the Pentateuch with his source-critical account. But in the last generation many scholars have walked away from the table of source-criticism. For some, source-criticism proved too unruly; scholars seemed never to agree on the criteria necessary to split the putative sources. Others found source-criticism disappointing on the level of content: the sources did not seem to produce clear, consistent and differentiated theological agendas. Others found that many of the so-called indicators of multiple authorship could better be explained by recognizing the literary techniques at work in these texts as coherent wholes. For others—and this is significant—the inconsistencies in the text are best understood as individuated issues. There were indeed two flood stories in ancient Israel, they would say, but why assign these to larger strands or sources?[2] Koppel and his team use the work of Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? as a baseline to identify the Priestly source. They chose that work because Friedman—like Driver before him—schematically assigns each and every verse of the Torah to one of the four classical sources. Friedman’s work—written in 1987—is still quoted in some circles. But it cannot be said to be the universally accepted gospel on the Torah within the field of biblical studies. It is telling that since Friedman no scholar of any note has deigned to offer (let alone defend) a schematic accounting of all the verses of P, much less the whole Pentateuch. This speaks volumes to the methodological malaise currently afflicting Pentateuch studies in the academy. Unable to find a common methodological language, biblicists themselves now inhabit a post-Babel world. Does this mean that there are no source-scholars left in the 21st Century? Does it mean that there is no consensus about anything pertaining to source-criticism within the academy? Hardly. Concerning biblical law, such consensus exists. Nearly all biblicists, for example, will happily identify legal sections pertaining to the cult as deriving from a source called P. Where there is far less consensus is in the area of narrative. It is true that those that engage in source-criticism of Pentateuchal narrative find a common language and accord on many passages in identifying them as P narratives. But they are a dwindling breed. For the vast majority of scholars working today, the determination that the laws of Leviticus should be ascribed to a source called P is an infinitely easier call than is the ascription to P of the account of Shimon and Levi in Shechem. It’s not that they’re convinced that the story should be ascribed to another source. Nor would they rule out the possibility that perhaps that account was penned by the author of a P source. The hesitation comes from misgivings about the entire enterprise of viewing Torah narratives as derived from distinct, continuous sources that each detailed the history of Israel. Now let’s go to the data. In many instances, verses that source-critics assign to a source other than P, the Koppel team’s program, likewise, assigns to the category “Non-P. ” At the same time, it is important to note that the program also fails to positively confirm what source critics see as priestly material. Here we come to the main point: in the genre of law, the program does a very good job of correlating with the sections that critics see as priestly law. These, not surprisingly, tend to be cultic law. In the genre of narrative, however, a very different story emerges. Of 253 verses in Genesis that source-critics identify as “priestly”, the program could only confirm 38 of them (15%). In Exodus the discrepancy is even greater, and the program confirms 5 out of 80 (6%) priestly narrative verses. In Numbers, the correlation is much higher, but overall, the program’s results correlate with the so-called priestly narrative less than half the time. Does this suggest a “flaw” in the Koppel team’s program? Not at all. Rather, it confirms the suspicions of a very large number of biblicists: the notion of priestly narrative in the Pentateuch is on much shakier ground than is the notion of priestly law. Finally, moving away from the Koppel team’s stimulating findings, I’d like to address an issue that hovers over the entire discussion and that is the definition of an “author” and the highly anachronistic use we make of that term, especially when analyzing ancient sources. It’s a good thing that Rashi wrote in the eleventh century, because had he come out with his commentary to the Torah today, he would likely be assailed in some quarters as a plagiarizer. In many instances, Rashi attributes the midrashim he cites. But in many other instances he simply borrows entire sentences from chaza”l and presents them in his own voice. Only the discerning disciple will note that Rashi, has, in fact, lifted entire sentences from an earlier source, without attribution. Of course, Rabban Shel Yisrael was no plagiarizer. Rather, Rashi, like many medieval and ancient writers before was writing in a world where old was good. The mark of a good writer was someone who appropriately saw himself as a member of a long and venerated tradition. Good writing was precisely writing that imitated earlier style—nay, sometimes a variety of styles–and in many cases, directly lifted and borrowed whole passages.[3] The same was true in ancient contexts as well. You’d think that to ask, “Who wrote the Code of Hammurabi?” is akin to asking, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” But it isn’t. The issue is not simply that it was Hammurabi’s scribes who actually penned that classic, and not the Babylonian king himself. It’s that we now know that those scribes invoked a number of sanctioned styles in their composition, and lifted phrases from prior works.[4] The composition is unitary because a single agent—Hammurabi and his scribes—published this composition as something to be read as such. Ancient readers may, no doubt, have noticed the unevenness of its style. But they would have seen that as the mark of a great work, produced within a venerable tradition, in which writing routinely draws from a variety of canonical and classical works. Its status derived not from the fact that it was the original composition of a single author, but that it was produced by a single authority. Readers of the Code would never have even thought to ask whether every sentence originated with Hammurabi himself. But the fact that it was under his authority that multiple styles were brought together is what made it a great work. Many other classics of the ancient world, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh likewise exhibit a plurality of styles. This is how many of the great works of the ancient world looked.[5] In defense against the claims of higher biblical criticism, the faithful often counter that divine writing is different than human writing, for the Almighty speaks in several styles and voices. This dichotomy, whereby God alone can speak in many styles, but humans must exhibit consistency, is a false one. It is human writing, too, in the premodern, and especially ancient world, that expresses itself in a variety of styles. In his commentary to the beginning of parashat Pekudei, the Ralbag questions why the Torah repeats the parshiyot of the Mishkan, in a manner that seems overly repetitious. He concludes that what appears to us as repetitious and hence, unseemly, may not have been the case in an earlier age: ואפשר שנאמר שכבר היה מנהג האנשים ההם בזמן מתן תורה שיהיו סיפוריהם בזה האופן. והנביא אמנם ידבר לפי מנהג. We may say that it was the norm at the time of Matan Torah that compositions were crafted in this fashion, and that the prophet speaks in the style of the times. It may well be that divine writing expresses itself in multiple styles. But if the Almighty has indeed done so in the Torah, then He has done so, לפי המנהג – according to literary tastes that may seem grating to modern notions of authorship, but were entirely keeping with ancient sensitivities.