R. Nathan Kamenetsky has republished the first volume of his book, “Making of a Godol.” This new edition is labeled “Improved Edition.” The reasons for the improvements are well-known. The original edition was placed under a ban due to perceived slights in the honor of certain Gedolim.

In this new edition, there is a helpful index which shows what exactly has been improved upon. According to the index only one story has been removed in it’s entirety. That story, in which R. A. Kotler responded to an interruption during his shiur from a “red-bearded scholar.” R. Kotler responded by saying “Red Heifer, be still!” This was removed due to the source of the story. Apparently, the source for this particular story did not support R. Kamenetsky when R. Kamenetsky questioned the validity of the ban, and thus R. Kamenetsky did not want to include this persons comments.

According to the index there are no more omissions in this new edition. Instead, there are numerous elaborations, corrections, and a significant amount of new information. R. Kamenetsky states in one of the first “elaborations” that “the unexpected ban issued on the original, unimproved, version” helped the current edition be of value for all time.

unfortunately, this improved edition still suffers from a serious lack of editorial oversight. Although, the book has been altered to conform and appease those that issued a ban, it was not altered to make it more reader friendly. The improved edition still utilizes the same format of text followed by excursuses with numerous footnotes and tangents. It still requires, as R. Kamenetsky points out, a pencil and paper to be able to be able to flip back and forth through the book and keep track of what page one is on.

There is one important addition to the book, while not solving all the difficulties, at least alleviates some of them. R. Kamenetsky included a timeline line which tracks both significant events in world history with a parallel timeline that tracks significant Jewish events. When the Jewish events appear in the book, R. Kamenetsky included a footnote to alert the reader which page they can be found on. This allows, if one so desires, to read the book in a chronological order.

Although, the original book was only $40 (when it was published, subsequent to the ban the book was selling and continues to sell for outrageous prices) this improved version is $125. I assume that the steep raise in price was to allow for R. Kamenetsky to recoup some of his losses he suffered from the first edition. There were only 1,000 copies of the first edition published, however, R. Kamenetsky stopped selling and ordered his distributor to stop distributing them once the ban was pronounced. While it is impossible to know with certainty, this probably left him with numerous unsold copies thus causing significant loss. R. Kamenetsky implemented this policy even though he stood to profit immensely from the ban, he has said he felt bound by the ban even if he felt it was unjust.

The post below focuses on R. Elijah haBahor’s dictionary- Sefer haTishbi. There are, however, numerous other Hebrew Dictionaries. R. Elijah haBahor himself wrote another focusing on Aramic words from the Targuimim, titled Sefer haMiturgumin. The most complete exposition on Hebrew Dictionaries is Shimeon Brisman’s “A History and Guide to Judaic Dictionaries and Concordances.” While the title indicates it also discusses Concordances, in truth, there is a second volume, not yet published, that focuses on those. This volume, however, is devoted to the history of the Hebrew Dictionary. While Brisman does a very good job of giving a very good overview, at times, I found the book somewhat lacking. He focuses much of his attention on the bibliographical details which causes the content to suffer.

Perhaps the most well-known dictionary to students’ of the Talmud is Marcus Jastrow’s dictionary. While recently there have been a few dictionaries that claim to be comprehensive dictionaries of the Talmud for the English reader, Jastrow’s is still king. The University of Pennsylvania has now posted online a permanent exhibit on Jastrow as well as on Hebrew Dictionaries. The exhibit has reproduced many of the title pages and given brief histories on many of the most important Hebrew Dictionaries.

Perhaps one of the more interesting dictionary was done by a Jew who converted to Christianity. Philippe d’Aquin (originally Mordechi) wrote a commentary on the famed dictionary of R. Nathan of Rome – the Arukh. His commentary, Marikh haMarkhot was published just once (you can see the title page here) . His commentary was not that novel, most of it was “borrowed” from earlier commentaries on the Arukh. R. Yosef Toemim, author of the Peri Megadim, states that the commentary that one should use when studying the Arukh is Marikh haMarkhot -the commentary d’Aquin. [There is no other commentary by that name, nor is the fact that the author was a non-Jew hidden. On the title page it states that the author is a professor of Hebrew at the University of Paris.]

Printing was started by non-Jews, however, Jews quickly entered the printing business. However, at times, Jews “borrowed” from non-Jews sources with some interesting repercussions.

Early on many of the Jewish books borrowed title pages from non-Jewish works. This was so, as early title pages utilized woodcuts, which were rather expensive to make. In an effort to cut costs, printers would reuse these woodcuts from other books. Soncino in his early Talmuds as well as in other books used the title page that was used for Aesop’s Fables. (See Marvin J. Heller, The Printing of the Talmud, p. 68-70)

In 1697 the Teshuvot haBakh were published for the first time. This first edition actually has two variant editions. The first one was published with a rather elaborate title page that included unclothed women. It appears this edition was immediately pulled and a second title page was substituted. This second page was much simpler with just two cherubs above the text of the title no more nudes. (For more on this topic of altering title pages, see Isaac Rivkind, Sefer Ashir B’Sha’arim, in Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, vol. 1 1953 p. 96-100; A. Freimann, “Ueber Schicksale hebraischer Bucher,” in Zeitschrift fur Hebrasche Bibliographie, X (1906) esp. p. 175)
More recently, R. Mordechai Yaffo’s Levush was republished. This reprint, aside from resetting the type, adding the Eliyaha Rabba and Zuta, and adding additional notes also includes an extensive introduction. This introduction traces the history of the various editions of the Levush as well as explaining its overall value. When it traces the printing history, it includes reproduces the title page of the first edition (Lublin 1589). However, this title pages has strategic white outs. In the first edition on the title page it includes female nudes, these are now whited out.

The inclusion of nudes was not that uncommon. I have seen other seforim that include such depictions either on the title page or at times even in the text. One notable example is a Mahzor published in Venice in 1710. This edition includes a depiction of semi-nude women right before the start of Barukh She’amar. From an artistic perspective this arguably adds to the book, however, from a religious perspective one must assume that it may offend some. However, there is no explanation for this picture so we are left to wonder what was the motive of the publishers.

On the Main Line asks how many seforim are actually out there. Although, it is probably impossible to give an exact count there are ways to give a fairly good estimate. In Y. Vinograd’s Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book, he lists by year the amount of seforim that were published. Vinograd’s work, however, only covers from the beginning of printing until 1863. According to that count I came up with approxiamatly 32,503 seforim published. The CD Rom, The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book which spans until 1960, estimates that they have approximately 85,000 titles. Now both of these lists include printed books and not individual books, thus, if a book was published multiple times it is counted as such. Consequently, we can’t tell how many seforim were actually written only that the number must be significantly less than those totals as many are probably reprints, siddurim, humashim and other works of no one single author.

Furthermore, this counting issue is compounded in that it is unclear what exactly would be considered a “sefer.” Should we include all books printed only in Hebrew or do other languages count? In both the above counts, they include books published in other languages. Also do the seforim have to be about “Jewish” topics or is it sufficent that they were written or published by a Jew. Some seforim are about what can be considered secular topics, natural sciences, math, history etc. Again the above lists include all of these. However, what the above lists don’t reflect is when multiple works are included in a single work. Should each of these works be considered a seperate work or not? Therefore, there really is no one single method to arrive at a number and all the figures have what to quibble with.

What is perhaps relevant to this discussion is R. Jacob Emden’s comments on the proliferation of seforim in his time. He says “How great is the hole in this orphaned generation. Any idiot or fool who’s spirit takes him can write a book, this is so even if he doesn’t know mikra, mishna u’derek eretz. He doesn’t have to know Hebrew nor is he congent of suta d’rabonon. He takes his stuff and displays it in the marketplace . . . and he wastes Jewish money.” R. Jacob Emden, Amudi Shamyim [Siddur], Ma’amodot l’yom rishon [p. 563 Eshkol ed.].

R. Emden continued and advocated for some board or committee to oversee what should and should not be considered worthy of printing.