by Marc B. Shapiro

Written on 4 Shevat, 5773, the yahrzeit of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

1. In the last post, as the quiz question, I asked for the name of the first Hebrew book published by a living author. The answer is Nofet Tzufim by R. Judah Messer Leon. As the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon states, this work “was printed by Abraham Conat of Mantua in 1475-6, the only work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century.”

A number of people got the right answer, and as a few of them told me, and I confirmed for myself, it was not that difficult to find the answer using Google. There is nothing wrong with using Google or any other search tool, and it is my fault for not realizing that the answer could be found so easily.

Some of the material in the Wikipedia entry for Messer Leon comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia, but not the sentence I quoted above. The second part of the sentence is in fact incorrect, as there is at least one other work by a living author printed in Hebrew in the fifteenth century. I refer to the Agur, by R. Jacob ben Judah Landau (died 1493). This work appeared sometime between 1487 and 1492, so Wikipedia tells us, and in this instance Wikipedia’s information comes from the Jewish Encyclopedia. These sources also tell us that “The ‘Agur’ was the first Jewish work to contain a rabbinical approbation, besides being the second Hebrew book printed during the author’s lifetime.”

Why then did a number of those who contacted me think that the Agur was the first book to appear in the author’s lifetime, rather than the second? Perhaps because in the Encyclopaedia Judaica entry “Haskamah”, which is reprinted here, we find the following incorrect statement: “The first haskamah appeared in the 15th century, in the Agur by Jacob Landau (Naples, c. 1490), the first Hebrew book printed during its author’s lifetime.”

Starting now, I will try to make my quiz questions a bit harder (i.e., not so easy to find the answers via Google). Here are the names of those who answered correctly on the last quiz: Shalom Leaf, Alex Heppenheimer, Leor Jacobi, Eric Lawee, Moshe Lapin, Shimon S., Ari Kinsberg, Yonason Rosman, Peretz Mochkin, Yehudah Hausman, Dovid Solomon

Since I can’t reward all of them, there will be a runoff. The following questions are to be answered only by them and only by emailing me the answer. If you can only answer one of the questions please do so.

A. What is the first volume of responsa published in the lifetime of its author?

B. There is a verse in the book of Exodus (hint: we haven’t yet reached it this year) which has a very strange vocalization of a word, found nowhere else in Tanach. (The word itself is also spelled in an unusual fashion, found only one other time in Tanach). The purpose of this vocalization is apparently in order to make a rhyme.[1] What am I referring to?

I had thought to ask: What is the first Hebrew work to use modern punctuation including question marks, but via Google I found the answer in a few seconds. So hopefully the answers to what I have asked are not so easily found.

2. I have a good deal more to say on themes discussed in the last post, which I will get to in future posts. But I have one piece of information that I think is quite significant (a real “chiddush”) and I don’t want to delay passing it on. It turns out that R. Schachter was too quick to add the correction in Nefesh ha-Rav. Here is an email I received by someone who prefers to remain anonymous.

I am not into writing reactions (Israelis call them “talkbacks”) on blogs, since I have not become accustomed to the 21st Century. But I want to give you a bit of information that is relevant to your discussion of Metzitza. I attended Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s shiurim at Gruss for a number of years, and I clearly remember what he said on the subject during what the guys called “a press conference.” He said very clearly that the Rav was against any Metzitza at all, and he expressed this view explicitly at the brit of one of Rav Aharon’s sons. To me such a view makes lots of sense, if one understands that it is required in the gemara only because it was then thought that the lack of Metzitza was dangerous.(כי לא עביד סכנה הוא (שבת קלג,

3. Many people have mentioned to me the problems with the commenting feature (at least for those using Chrome). When you click on it, you often don’t see the most recent comments. One way to fix this is after you click to see the comments, where it says “Discussion” check “Newest” or “Oldest”, and everything will come up. We will try to come up with a fix for this.