In fact, the following are the correct details.

(1)The first Rabbinic Bible was published by Bomberg in Venice and completed in 1517. The editor was the convert Felix Pratensis. This edition appeared in two versions: one with a dedication to the Pope in Latin (on the verso of the title page), and at the end of Chronicles a short decree by the Pope (in Latin) that this edition had exclusive rights for 10 years. The second – aimed at the Jews – without the Latin material.

(2) The second Rabbinic Bible was published by Bomberg in Venice, and completed in 1525. The editor of this edition was Jacob ben Hayyim Ibn Adoniyahu (who converted to Christianity sometime after 1527).

These two editions differ in a number of ways (the lack of the Latin material is not really to be considered, because such a Latin-free edition had already appeared in 1517 – see above).

Here, I will note the following differences between the two editions: (a) more commentaries in the second edition; (b) the printing of the whole apparatus of the Masorah Parva, the Masorah Magna, and the Masorah Finalis – for the first time in the second (1525) edition; (c) the bible text in the second edition was re-edited anew based on manuscripts and Masorah. As a result, one finds variants in text, vocalization and accentuation between these two editions.

Further details on the differences between these editions can be found in my Jacob ben Hayyim and the Rise of the Rabbinic Bible (Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, 1982; Hebrew); see further my articles in: J.H. Hayes, ed., Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (Abingdon Press, Nashville 1999), vol. 1: “Bomberg, Daniel,” “Jacob Ben Hayyim Ibn Adoniyahu,” and vol. 2: “Rabbinic Bible.”

Appendix:
Dedication Page to the Pope from the 1517 ed.

Decree at the end of Chronicles from 1517 ed.

Responses to Comments and Elaborations
David Glasner

I thank all those who have responded to my posting of February 15. I have for the most part not engaged in a back and forth with those who have commented for a variety of reasons but mainly a desire to avoid getting too caught up in discussions that could easily take up an inordinate amount of my time.

Adderabbi wrote to inquire whether my father was his grandfather’s friend in Baltimore. The answer is yes. My parents were very fond of your grandparents, and it was a great loss to them when your grandfather passed away suddenly a number of years ago and again when your grandmother passed away not too long after that. My older brother is the one from State College, PA. And my question to you is whether Eugene is your father or your uncle.

About the fate of my unpublished introduction, I hope to revise it and submit it to a suitable Hebrew language journal for publication. I think we’ll just have to wait and see whether it ever gets posted on this blog.

I thank Yehudah Mirsky for his multiple contributions. After his first mention of Rav Amital, I immediately thought of the achingly beautiful tribute he wrote in memory of his Rebbi, R. Haim Yehudah Levi, a grandson of the Dor Revi’i. Rav Amital delivered a hesped at my father’s burial in Jerusalem just over three years ago and mentioned the closeness that he felt to the family of the Dor Revi’i and how important he believed it is to preserve the legacy of morality and justice and honesty that the Dor Rev’i represented. It is also a pleasure to renew, even if only via cyberspace, my acquaintance with Yehudah, with whom my wife and I enjoyably spent many a Friday evening in the splendid company of my illustrious cousins Menahem and Ruth Schmelzer, their family and friends.

Anonymous (02.16.08 – 6:47 pm) charged me with complicity in suppressing the truth about my great-grandfather. Well, obviously there were multiple values at stake and the outcome represented some sort of balancing of those not entirely congruent values. Did I clarify that for you? I also thank anonymous (2:17.08 – 12:31 am) for what I understood to be a sympathetic comment about the difficulty of the situation in which I found myself.

Thanbo asked about the new edition of Dor Revi’i published about five years ago. I had no role in that enterprise. I can’t really comment about its physical dimensions or about future editions.

Zalman Alpert is clearly more conversant with Haredi demographic trends than I, but I will just add another interesting tidbit, which is that although Hassidus was making inroads in Hungary before WWII, it was only after WWII that the great majority of Haredi Hungarian Jewry attached themselves to one or the other of the Hassidic dynasties. The Klausenburger Rebbe, for example, obviously had many thousands more Hasidim after the war than he ever did before the war. In my own family, my maternal aunt and uncle from fine upstanding Oberlanderish extraction became staunch Belzer Hasidim after the war. Hungarians I think did come to predominate after the war in a number of sects that, like Belz, were not mostly Hungarian before the war. While there may be something in Zalman Alpert’s conjecture that being from a separatist Hungarian background helped preserve the Dor Revi’i’s standing among the Haredim, I am not inclined to think that it mattered very much. His Zionism was of such an outspoken nature that he was reviled in his own time as a turncoat and a traitor to his roots and his upbringing. Indeed, the animosity toward him resulted from an existential feeling that his Zionism was not a mistake but a kind of treachery. By the way, there are at least two places in which he explicitly addresses the question of separation. First in a teshuvah (shut dor revi’i, 2:86, dated seder tetzaveh 5657) defending separation against the criticism of separation made by the rishon l’tzion, Rabbi Yakov Shaul Elisher (interestingly the only (?) other defense of separation against this criticism was by my great-great-grandfather, R. Amram Blum in shut beit she’arim). This teshuvah is largely a rhetorical recitation of the outrages perpetrated by the Neologs in trying to force the Orthodox to yield to their state-sanctioned domination, and a plea to Rabbi Elisher not to be duped by the misrepresentations made by the Neologs. Almost 25 years later, the Dor Revi’i revisited the question of separation in his essay on Zionism (my English translation is posted on http://www.dorrevii.org/). In the latter essay, he took a more analytical approach to the question of separation, arguing that separation was defensible only on the grounds that the hidden agenda of the Neologs was to promote assimilation. Since Zionism was aimed at maintaining the Jewish national identity, the precedent of separation was therefore irrelevant to the question whether cooperation by the Orthodox with irreligious Zionists was justified. He further accused the Haredim of his day of competing with the Neologs in unedifying displays of Hungarian patriotism (e.g., describing themselves as Magyars of the Mosaic faith), a withering condemnation that surely did not endear him to his Haredi antagonists. About Professor Moshe Carmilly-Weinberger, I didn’t forget him, but I wasn’t writing a comprehensive religious history of Klausenburg, so, with all due respect to him, I didn’t feel that he was particularly relevant to the story I was telling. But having warmed to the subject, I will note that in one of his writings (or perhaps a talk that someone once told me about) he described his boyhood experience of being taken by his father to see the Dor Revi’i and the lasting impression that the encounter made on his memory. I don’t have any statistics at my fingertips, but I would be really surprised if the Neolog community was much more than a tenth the size of the Orthodox community in Klausenburg.

Anonymous (2.17.08 – 12:01 pm) asks about the friendship between Rav Glasner and R. Shaul Brach. This relationship was certainly between my grandfather, R. Akiva (about whom more will be said below) and R. Brach. I have no specific information about their relationship except that R. Brach was one of a number of highly regarded Haredi rabbis from whom my grandfather obtained glowing haskamot for his first book, Dor Dorim. The choice of the title (as well as, if one reads carefully, the hashqafic discussion in the introduction) and the choice of rabbis to write haskamot show how delicate a balance my grandfather was trying to maintain between loyalty to his father and achieving a reconciliation with his father’s enemies.

To Yaakov R., without going into any details, I can assure you that the cast of characters involved in the story I told was international. I also did not mean, and am sorry if anyone thinks that I tried, to “bash” Haredim or to satirize them. If they appear in a less than favorable light, it is not because they are bad people, but because they face social pressures to conform that are very difficult to withstand.

Anonymous (2.19.08 – 7:13 am) wants to know if there is unpublished material of the Dor Revi’i. Yes, unfortunately there is a lot that has never been published, and, even more unfortunately, no one seems to know what has become of it. At the end of his introduction to Hulin, he mentions that he hoped to arrange and publish his hidushim on “rov sugyot ha-shas” as well as many hundreds of teshuvot and divrei aggada which he had in manuscript. He presumably took most of that with him to Palestine in 1923. I recall reading in some source, whose identity, to my great consternation, I can no longer recall, that his unpublished manuscripts were held by Mosad ha-Rav Kook. When I contacted someone in the mosad about those manuscripts, I was told that they had no knowledge of their existence and that in any case all extant manuscripts in Israel had been photographed and were held in the microfilm collection of the Jewish National Library. The only holdings of microfiche of works of my great-grandfather held by the JNL are of the 200 or so teshuvot that somehow came to light in the mid-1970s that were published in two volumes of shut dor revi’i.

To Zalman Alpert, since you mention the story about R. Koppel Reich, I will just note that Koppel Reich’s son married a daughter (possibly the oldest) of the Dor Revi’i. They died in the Holocaust and left no survivors. About my grandfather’s speech at the Knessiah Gedolah in 1937 at Marienbad, my father accompanied his father on that occasion (he was then 19). He told me that his father decided to join Agudah at that time, because at that meeting the Agudah dropped its opposition to the creation of Jewish state in Palestine. According to my father, that was the matir for his father to join Agudah, which contributed to his own fence-mending and furthered his (ultimately futile) desire to re-unite the Orthodox community in Klausenburg. As I pointed about above, to achieve that goal, my grandfather always sought to mend fences with his father’s enemies (though certain well known relatives of my dear and learned friend Mechy Frankel were utterly implacable), and he even made every effort to maintain cordial relations with Rabbi Halberstam. I have heard, though I have been unable to confirm, that at the wedding of one of his daughters he was mekhabeid Rabbi Halberstam with a brakhah at the hupa. At any rate, it was the change of position by Agudah that led my grandfather to join Agudah and make the speech from which you quoted. I was once told by my grandmother’s brother that in Mizrahi circles his speech was viewed as a betrayal and resulted in his not being offered a suitable rabbinical post in Israel after 1948 when he might have been receptive to such an offer. In the end, however, the resolution adopted in Marienbad in 1937 (which also precipitated the creation of Neturei Karta in outraged protest) reflecting the position of the majority in attendance at Marienbad was effectively negated by the determined opposition of Rabbis A. Kotler and E. Wasserman with the enthusiastic support of the Hungarian anti-Zionists. I would add as a postscript that b’sof yamav, my grandfather made totally clear his true convictions when in 1956 only a few months before his petirah (29 tishri 5717) he wrote a teshuvah ruling that one is obligated to say Hallel on Yom ha-Atzmaut. My translation of that teshuvah is available on the Dor Revi’i website (http://www.dorrevii.org/).

To Lawrence Kaplan, you are probably right to be surprised. While I knew that Rabbi Kook was not a hero to Haredim and his books were not recommended, I did not imagine that the mere mention of his name in connection with another person would suffice to pahsel the other person as well. I also thought that the fact that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Elyashiv were his students and always remained devoted to him and his memory provided a certain amount of cover for him. Nor did I imagine that there was anyone who knew about the Dor Revi’i that did not also know that he was a Zionist. Live and learn.

I’m not sure why the esteemed and learned Dr. Frankel seems to have a problem with my dating of events in Klausenburg near the time of the Dor Revi’i’s departure. Those dates are well established in publicly available sources. He is correct to say that the Klausenburg secessionists were not the first Sephardic community to be formed in Hungary, but the existence of earlier Sephardic communities elsewhere in the vicinity does nothing to establish that the Klausenburg chapter predated 1921. Whatever it was that happened in 1873 (and Dr. Frankel provides no details or documentation to support his assertion about that date), it was evidently short lived. If Dr. Frankel believes otherwise, I would most respectfully invite him to provide any information that he might have about the leadership (rabbinical or otherwise) or the makeup of the community in the nearly five decades between 1873 and 1921. It is well-established that there was a Neolog breakaway in Klausenburg in the 1880s (one oft-cited reason for which was my great-grandfather’s affection for Hassidim and Hassidut). That breakaway, at least, did last until the Holocaust. And I thank my friend for his nostalgic (to me, at any rate) references to bygone times when we were neighbors in geographic as well as hashqafic space.

Comments by Steve Brizel and Michoel Halberstam suggest that my posting misled them into thinking that something that the Dor Revi’i wrote was suppressed. That is not, repeat not, the case. What I withhold, out of consideration for the feelings of those who would have been embarrassed, offended, or would have felt otherwise aggrieved, by seeing such a reference in the newly published volume of his works was my introduction about the life and character of the Dor Revi’i, which mentioned both his Zionism and his close friendship with Rabbi Kook. I would just like everyone to be clear on those facts.

David Glasner, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, is a great-grandson of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner.

This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog.

Many readers of the Seforim blog may be interested, perhaps even pleased, to hear about the recent publication of a new volume containing a number of works of Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (1856-1924), chief rabbi (av beit din) of Klausenburg (1877-1923), one of the founding fathers of Mizrahi, author of Dor Revi’i on Hullin, Shevivei Eish on the Torah and on selected sugyot, as well as two volumes of posthumously published responsa (Shu”t Dor Revi’i is available online at HebrewBooks.org), and a new volume, entitled Ohr Bahir, which contains six previously published shorter works (kuntresim) that were published between about 1900 and 1915. In chronological order the six kuntresim are Haqor Davar published in 5661 (1900/01) which addresses the permissibility of conversion in cases of intermarriage; Ohr Bahir published in 5668 (1907/08) on the laws of mikva’ot and a defense of the kashrut of the Klausenburg mikveh against (likely politically inspired) aspersions on its kashrut; Yeshna li-Shehitah, on the laws of shehitah published in 5671 (1911); Halakhah l’Moshe published in 5672 (1911/12) on the laws of shehitah and bedikat ha-sakin; Matzah Shemurah on the requirement of shemirah for matzah and on the kashrut of machine matzah during Passover published in 5675 (1914/15); Hametz Noqsha on the sugya of hametz noqsha in Pesahim published together with Matzah Shemurah. In addition to these six previously published works, the volume also contains a previously unpublished responsum by the Dor Revi’i dating from about 1921 or 1922 as well as three short articles by my late father, Rabbi Juda Glasner, which were previously published in the rabbinical journal ha-Pardes.[1]

In a post at the Seforim blog entitled “From Ma’adanei Eretz to Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz” (link), Rabbi Chaim Rapoport of London discussed the recent publication of a new volume of writings about shemitah by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach entitled Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz, which includes substantial portions of Rabbi Auerbach’s classic Ma’adanei Eretz, a book written specifically to address halakhic questions associated with shemitah. Rabbi Rapoport posed the question why Ma’adanei Eretz, a classic work that has been out of print for over 30 years, was not itself republished in its entirety. Rabbi Rapoport posited two reasons for its not having been republished. First, in Ma’adanei Eretz, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length the heter mechirah, which, while not his preferred option, Rabbi Auerbach did regard as halakhically valid and treated respectfully as a legitimate option. Second, Rabbi Auerbach discussed at length, and with the utmost veneration, the halakhic positions of his mentor, Rabbi A. I. Kook. Rabbi Rapoport speculated that Haredi opinion regards both the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook as being beyond the pale of acceptability. To allow contemporary readers ready access to Rabbi Auerbach’s opinions could evidently have two dangerous outcomes. Questions might arise in some minds about the justification for casting the heter mechirah and Rabbi Kook into the outer darkness, and, perhaps even more disconcerting, in other minds doubts might arise about Rabbi Auerbach’s position as a (or the) pre-eminent late twentieth century Haredi halakhic authority.

Rabbi Rapoport noted that this Haredi attitude toward Rabbi Kook had apparently caused the latter to be excluded from the index of authorities on the Rambam in the Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah. In his Spring 2005 review of the Frankel Rambam in Jewish Action [PDF], Rabbi Rapoport commented on the exclusion of Rabbi Kook (along with such other luminaries as Rabbis Y.Y. Reines, I. Herzog, J. B. Soloveitchik and M. M Schneerson) from that index. He also pointed out with a certain hint of surprise that the filter against religious incorrectness that had apparently screened the above-mentioned authorities had not excluded the name of my illustrious ancestor from the index of notables despite my ancestor’s outspoken Zionism and other (from a Haredi perspective) problematical positions.

This somewhat rambling introduction is intended to set the stage for the following little drama in which I participated during the runup to the publication of the new volume of my great-grandfather’s writings. The idea for the volume began to take shape three or four years ago when my nephew decided that he would like to sponsor the publication of a volume of works by one of our many distinguished ancestors to mark the bar-mitzvah of his oldest son (which was celebrated b’sha’ah tovah u-mutzlahat a few weeks ago on Shabbat Shirah). I suggested to him the idea of republishing the five kuntresim of the Dor Revi’i, which had been out of print for nearly a century and are now almost unknown and unavailable. I took upon myself the task of re-typing the original into a Hebrew word-processor and to the best of my ability flagging problematic spellings, misprints, typos, etc., and providing as many references to citations as I could find on my own. We eventually retained a cousin in Israel to finish the editorial process (find remaining references for citations and add explanatory footnotes as needed) and to guide the project through its final stages. After the passing of my father, we decided to dedicate the volume to his memory as well as to the celebration of my great-nephew’s bar-mitzvah, and therefore included three short articles that my father had published. It was also agreed that I would write an introduction in which I would say something about the life and work of my great-grandfather and about my father.

By last August, when the editorial process was nearing completion, I had finished a draft of my introduction. In the introduction, I tried to give a brief account of the Dor Revi’i’s life and an appreciation of his (in my eyes heroic) character. To me it did not seem possible to portray his life or his character adequately without mentioning his dedication to Zionism and his large role in the founding of Mizrahi. I also thought that it was necessary to point out that he was very much alone among his colleagues in the Hungarian rabbinate in supporting Zionism and, as a result, was much abused and vilified. His response, however, was never in kind, only to work even harder to support and defend his positions with ever more powerful and more rigorous arguments. I also made mention of the high regard in which he was held by the gedolim of his time, e.g., by Rabbi Kook, to whom he became very closely attached after leaving Klausenburg in the spring of 1923 for Jerusalem where he spent the last 18 months of his life before his sudden passing during haqafot on the night of Shemini Atzeret in 1924. But I also pointed out that he was similarly esteemed by other gedolei ha-dor who were not known for their ardent Zionistic tendencies such as the Maharsham of Brezan (who wrote haskamot to Ohr Bahir and Matzah Sh’murah which are also included in this volume), R. Meir Simha of Dvinsk, R. Haim Ozer Grodzinski, and the Tchebiner Rav.

The draft of my introduction was shown to various members of my extended family. The Dor Revi’i had ten children, and the political and religious views of the descendants, as one might expect, cover a pretty wide spectrum of opinions. The feedback from the more Haredi sectors of the family was not positive.

The first objection that I received was from someone who considered it inappropriate to mention the Dor Revi’i’s close relationship with Rabbi Kook, inasmuch as it is no longer acceptable in Haredi circles to mention Rabbi Kook’s name. I was, to put it mildly, shocked when I heard this objection. I would not have been surprised by an objection to my mention of the Dor Revi’i’s Zionism, but I was not prepared for an objection to the mere mention of Rabbi Kook’s name. In view of the friendship between my great-grandfather and Rabbi Kook and the fact that Rabbi Kook had defended my great-grandfather against scurrilous attacks that had been made upon him,[2] I decided that I could not, on principle, delete Rabbi Kook’s name. But I also told my niece and nephew that if they wished, I would withdraw my introduction and they could substitute a more acceptable introduction by someone else in its place. Their response was that they did not want to publish the volume without my introduction and that I should continue to work on it.

Then the other shoe dropped. This time the objection came from a source with whom my niece and nephew have a much closer personal relationship than they have with the first complainant who had objected only to my mentioning Rabbi Kook’s name, but had not objected explicitly to my discussion of Zionism. The new complaint was that politics had no place in the introduction to a book (such as this) about halakhah, and that whatever my great-grandfather had meant by Zionism in his day, it was certainly much different then from what it is today. Moreover, it was asked, what purpose could possibly be served by revisiting all these old issues that no one really understands, or even cares about, today? I was taken aback by the criticisms to say the least, because it seemed to me that if my great-grandfather had devoted so much effort and suffered such heartache in working and writing and speaking on behalf of Zionism and had endured so much abuse as a consequence, then surely it would not be right to pretend that his mesirut nefesh for the sake of Zionism was null and void and unworthy of memory or mention. I then suggested a compromise in which I would delete the word “tzionut” and would substitute “shivat tzion” in its place. However, I said that I would not delete mention of his participation in the founding of Mizrahi and the 1904 conference in Pressburg. That proposal was shot down at once. I was told that in Haredi circles the very word “Mizrahi” is considered a form of nivul peh and that the social standing of my relatives in their communities would be at risk if it ever became known that they had an ancestor who had been a founder of such an organization. When I pointed out that it was a well-known fact that the Dor Revi’i was a Zionist, I was told that in their circles it was not well-known and they would do all they could to keep it from becoming well known.[3] At this point, I realized that my introduction would not be printed as it was, and rather than seek to rewrite it (there was not enough time for me to have done a decent job even if I had wanted to), I took out everything that I had written about my great-grandfather, but left intact the short account of my father’s life that I had written. To replace my introduction, my niece and nephew were able to secure at the last minute a contribution from Rabbi Avraham Yafe Schlesinger of Geneva and Jerusalem, who is also a great-grandson of the Dor Revi’i, a prolific author (several volumes of Shu”t Be’er Sarim) with, as far as I can tell, impeccable Haredi credentials, and who recently published a new edition of Shevivei Eish combined in one volume with a previously unpublished collection of drashot by the father of the Dor Revi’i, Rabbi Avraham Glasner (1825/26-1877) which he called Dor Dorshav.[4]

What is the deeper significance of this sad little tale? First, it solves the minor puzzle about which Rabbi Rapoport wondered in his Jewish Action review, namely, what made the Dor Revi’i an acceptable entry for the Frankel index of authorities when other luminaries of a similar ilk were not acceptable. The answer, I now understand, is that there is nothing that makes the Dor Revi’i more acceptable than the others beyond the (from my perspective) unfortunate fact that there are too few people around who know who the Dor Revi’i was and what his political and hashqafic beliefs were to make the appearance of his name objectionable to most contemporary Haredim.[5] It’s not a matter of the intrinsic acceptability of the authority, just a question of what one can get away with. If enough people recognize the name and associate it with taboo opinions, it has to go. If they don’t recognize it, or don’t know enough about it to mind, then gezunter heit. Second, it shows how extraordinarily powerful are the pressures to conform in Haredi society. Individuals and ideas that do not perfectly fit the accepted norms (and thereby suggest the possibility of different norms) of that society are literally taboo. To mention Rabbi Kook in the context of a halakhic discussion or as something other than an object of scorn is in wide sections of that community to cross a red line. For my Haredi relatives, it is truly a scary thought that their ancestor would be grouped together with one such as Rabbi Kook. I really am on very close and friendly terms with many of my Haredi relatives, including some who are and some who aren’t Dor Revi’i einiklakh, and I have great respect and admiration and very deep affection for them. But this episode has forced me to view their society from a new and, I regret to say, disturbing angle. In the course of my little encounter with Haredi sensibilities, I felt a whole range of emotions, but the one that remains after having (largely) gotten over it is compassion for people who actually have to live in fear lest the events of a life such as the one led by their very own ancestor, the Dor Revi’i, become known within the community in which they live.

Notes:
[1] For further information about my great-grandfather, the Dor Revi’i, see my “Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the Dor Revi’i,” Tradition 32.1 (Winter 1998): 40-56, which is available, along with other translations of his various works — including all the divrei torah on the parshiot and hagim from Shevivei Eish and translations of various writings of his son and successor as chief rabbi of Klausenburg, Rabbi Akiva Glasner — online at www.dorrevii.org. If you would like to purchase a copy of Ohr Bahir ($20 a copy plus $3 shipping and handling for single copies), please contact me by email (tovi0214@verizon.net, please put “Ohr Bahir” in the subject heading). If you are in Israel and would like to purchase a copy, please contact Rabbi Shaya Herzog 04-697-4802 or 052-764-6975 for further information. If you are a book seller and would like to order copies, please contact me directly.

[2] The attacks were made in a pamphlet (Mishpat Tzedeq) published by the newly formed Sephardic community in Klausenburg, which was the creation of a small group consisting of perhaps one hundred families (out of a total Jewish population in Klausenburg that exceeded 10,000) who decided that they could no longer remain subject to the authority of a Zionist rabbi. The term “Sephardic community” was a sort of legal fiction designed to gain the recognition of the secular authorities that would recognize only one Orthodox community within a given town or district. The only “Sephardic” aspect of the community was that they recited prayers in “nusah s’fard.” Largely made up of Sigheter Hasidim, the group chose as their spiritual leader Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the future Satmarer Rebbe, whose older brother, the Atzei Haim, was then the incumbent Rebbe in Sighet, original seat of the family dynasty. R. Joelish never took up residence in Klausenburg, and after heading the Klausenburg Sephardic community for about five years, he vacated the position in favor of his nephew Rabbi Y. Y. Halberstam, who eventually was to become famous as the Klausenburger Rebbe. While the brilliance and charisma of the latter were already evident during his years in Klausenburg, he led a community that was never more than one or two percent the size of the community headed by my grandfather, and who, in his own right, was one of the leading rabbinical figures in Europe in the interwar period. It was only after Holocaust destroyed organized Jewish life in Hungary, and after he had left Klausenburg, that the adjective “Klausenburger” became routinely attached to Rabbi Halberstam. For the three quarters of a century prior to the Holocaust the title “Klausenburger Rav” was held by a Glasner. That, as such things go, is a fairly straightforward historical fact, and is not meant as explicit or implicit derogation of Rabbi Halberstam. Unlike his uncle, whose hostility to the successor of the Dor Revi’i was unrelenting, Rabbi Halberstam did maintain a civil, even friendly, relationship with my grandfather during his nearly twenty years in Klausenburg. After publication of Mishpat Tzedeq, the Orthodox community of Klausenburg published a pamphlet (Yishuv Mishpat, now available online on the website of the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem) opposing the breakaway community and defending my great-grandfather against the attacks leveled against him. Rabbi Kook contributed an open letter (a hyperlink to the letter is available at www.dorrevii.org) to the rabbis who allowed their opinions permitting the breakaway of the Sephardic community from the Orthodox community in Klausenburg to be published in a pamphlet containing slanderous accusations against the Klausenburger Rav whom Rabbi Kook described as “gadol ha-dor b’torah b’hokhmah, bi-z’khut avot, u-v’midot terumiot.”

[3] I was also told by one relative that he had it on good authority that after the Dor Revi’i arrived in Palestine and saw with his own eyes the disasters perpetrated by the Zionists, the Dor Revi’i repented of his Zionism and was subsequently shunned by his former Zionist friends. A rumor to this effect actually seems to have circulated during the lifetime of the Dor Revi’i, and a former resident of Klausenburg, Shlomo Zimroni, who settled in Israel after the Holocaust and wrote a number of works about the religious history of Klausenburg, refers to this rumor in a short article about my great-grandfather in Shana b’Shanah, published by Heichal Shlomo (5640): 434-39. He quoted from a letter that the Dor Revi’i wrote to a former lay antagonist who, having heard the rumor, wrote to invite his return to Klausenburg and to propose reconciliation. The letter quoted by Zimroni (pp. 436-37) makes emphatically clear that the writer had not changed his mind. The suggestion that the Dor Revi’i changed his mind about Zionism and was then shunned by his former friends is further refuted by the following story which, my father told me he had heard from his father, Rabbi Akiva Glasner, when his father sat shiva for his mother (the wife of the Dor Revi’i) in the early 1930s (when my father was probably in his mid-teens). According to my father, my grandfather said that when Rabbi Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld, a student of the Ketav Sofer, the Dor Revi’i’s uncle and (briefly) teacher, paid a shiva call at the home of the Dor Revi’i in Jerusalem, he begged forgiveness from the Dor Revi’i’s rebbetzin for not having attended the funeral of her husband. He said that he had not meant any disrespect by not attending and indeed had had every intention to attend the funeral, but had been misled as to the time of the funeral by his aides who did not want him to show public respect to a Zionist. That apology and explanation would obviously not make any sense had the Dor Revi’i renounced his Zionist opinions and had he been shunned by his former Zionist friends. In that case, why would Rabbi Sonnenfeld’s handlers have wanted to prevent a show of public respect by Rabbi Sonnenfeld to the Dor Revi’i? Such inventions of “b’sof yamav” have become a characteristic of of Haredi oral traditions (urban legends) and historiography as Rabbi Rapoport noted in footnote 10 of his posting.

[4] Avraham Glasner was a talmid muvhaq of the Ketav Sofer. He married Raizel Ehrenfeld (daughter of Dovid Tzvi and Hindel Ehrenfeld), a niece of the Ketav Sofer and the oldest granddaughter of the Hatam Sofer. In his twenties, he was appointed chief rabbi of Gyonk, Hungary, and after eleven years in that position he became chief rabbi of Klausenburg. He served in that position for 14 years until his premature death at the age of 52. His only son, Moshe Shmuel, though only 21 years old, was appointed to succeed him on erev Hanukah in 1877. Moshe Shmuel was the oldest great-grandchild of the Hatam Sofer, which along with the implicit Zionistic allusion, was the reason that he chose “Dor Revi’i” as the title of his great work.

[5] It’s therefore somewhat comforting to know that the memory of the Dor Revi’i is being kept alive, if not exactly well, among the Satmarers. They have long memories and nurse their grievances with care and feeling. Thus in volume six of the official biography of the Rebbe, Reb Joelish, unpretentiously entitled Moshian shel Yisrael, there is a whole chapter that is largely devoted to my great-grandfather. The title of the chapter is “milhemet ha-shem neged amaleq.”

In a recent discussion in the journal Or Yisrael concerning the permissibility of using ArtScroll gemaras — for PDFs of the articles, see here — one source deserves closer scrutiny. In particular, some authorities who are against the use of ArtScroll gemaras cite to a passage in the Leket Yosher in support of their opinion. Thus, an examination of the Leket Yosher is appropriate.

The Leket Yosher was compiled by R. Yosef ben Moshe (1423-c.1490), a student of R. Israel Isserlein (1390-1460), the author of the Terumat HaDeshen. The Leket Yosher records R. Isserlein’s customs and rulings. The Leket Yosher was the first work to base itself on the four part division of the Turim, however, only the sections on Orach Hayyim and Yoreh Deah are extant. While it appears that there was a third part on Even haEzer which is no longer extant, it is unclear whether there ever was a part on Hoshen Mishpat. [1] Leket Yosher [2] was not published until 1903 (Orach Hayyim; and in 1904 Yoreh Deah was published) by R. Ya’akov Freimann from Munich manuscript in R. Yosef’s own hand.[3] It has been published at least three times and today is typically available as part of a set of three minhagim works, Leket Yosher, Yosef Ometz and Noheg KaTzon Yosef.

The passage used by some in the discussion in Or Yisrael regarding ArtScroll, records the disapproval of R. Isserlein of the practice of “spoiled, rich kids” who used a revolving table to avoid having to get up and get a book. (vol. 2, p. 39). The passage reads in full:

“אותם הבחורים העשירים המפונקים שעשו להם שולחנות כשיושבין במקומן הופכין השולחן לאי זה צד שירצו ועליו הרבה ספרים לא טוב הם עושים, אדרבה כשמבקש אחר הספר ובא לו בטורח גודל זכור באותו מעשה מה שרוצה ללמוד, כמדומה לי שמצאתי לו סמך ב[יורה דעה] בסימן ג’ (שפח) ‘ולא כאלו שלומדין מתוך עידון’ וכו”

Thus, argue those you compare the turntable to ArtScroll Talmuds, Torah study should not be easy, and one should struggle in preforming that commandment. In other words, because studying with Talmud with an ArtScroll is easy, it is inappropriate for Torah study. As an initial matter, the comparison is somewhat strained in that the Leket Yosher is referring to those who are lazy and does not necessarily speak to someone who uses ArtScroll because they cannot otherwise study gemara (or the additional commentaries that ArtScroll provides) at all. But setting aside this difficulty, it does not appear that the Leket Yosher’s opinion in this regard is agreed upon by all. For example, R. Yitzchak Hutner, in his approbation to the Otzar Mifarshei HaTalmud, explains why the Otzar is a good thing. As many are aware, the Otzar collects all (or almost all) the literature on a particular passage of the gemara (or mishna as is the case with the volume on Hallah). This avoids the need to look through many books to see what, if anything, they have to say on a particular passage. R. Hutner cites to a statement from the Hazon Ish, that “people confuse looking (hipush) with study” and, according to R. Hutner, the Otzar eliminates that problem. Thus, it can be argued that both according to R. Hutner and the Hazon Ish, there is no benefit or merit per se in the act of getting a book or looking to see if that book has anything relevant. This appears in conflict with the Leket Yosher.

Similarly, when the Vilna Shas was printed many years ago, the story goes that the printers said that whoever finds a mistake in this heavily invested shas will get rewarded. In the excellent book, Derech Etz Chaim (p. 568) about R’ Isser Zalman Meltzer, they record a story that a printer of a current Yerushalmi visited the Steipler with the idea to print a Yerushalmi in a similar format to the Talmud Bavli and to have, amongst other things, many commentaries in the back. When the Steipler heard this, he said that R. Meltzer used to complain that there’s a very big printing mistake in the Vilna Shas. Specifically, that in the Vilna Shas many commentaries in the back, but each commentary is 3 pages so you have to look 50 times for the same thing. R Isser Zalman wanted that they should put it in order of the Blatt, so he recommended that they not make the same mistake and do the same for the Talmud Yerushalmi.[4]

Setting aside R. Hutner and Hazon Ish, what is worthwhile to point out is the passage immediately preceding the above quoted passage in the Leket Yosher. The Leket Yosher records the following question and answer:

To be clear, the the Leket Yosher allows for the teaching of homosexual students. Now, obviously this passage, although immediately preceding the discussion about the revolving table, is not germane to the later topic, but I have never seen this passage quoted anywhere else, even though it appears to be espousing a fairly unique position both in the realm of Jewish education and attitudes towards homosexuality. [I have been informed that it is mentioned in R. M. Ashkenazi, Hilkhot Talmud Torah, however, even so it is not well-known by any definition.]

Since we are on the topic of the Leket Yosher it is also worthwhile to point out some of the other interesting observations related to the Leket Yosher. Perhaps the most important fact to come from the Leket Yosher is that the assumption, first espoused by the Taz and expanded upon by others, that the Terumat HaDeshen was not the product of actual questions and answers and instead R. Isserlein made up the questions himself and therefore, according to some, the Terumat HaDeshen is not authoritative. As R. Freimann demonstrates, however, this is incorrect. Instead, actual events as recorded in the Leket Yosher can be matched with teshuvot in the Terumat HaDeshen thus demonstrating that the questions in Terumat HaDeshen were based upon actual events and were not fabricated.[5]

Perversely, the criticism of the Terumat HaDeshen was turned on its head and applied to the Leket Yosher. Specifically, the Sanzer Rebbi in his Divrei Yatziv (E.A. 39), claims that one cannot rely upon the Leket Yosher as it records actual events and one cannot decide halakha from events. This is inapposite of those who complain that the Terumat HaDeshen is not reliable because the questions do not relate to real events. It appears that the position of the Sanzer Rebbi has not been accepted as R. Moshe Feinstein (which is especially noteworthy in light of his general disapproval of newly discovered works), R. Ovadiah Yosef, Daayan Weiss, R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and many others all cite with approval the Leket Yosher. Moreover, the Sanzer Rebbi himself is at least five other places[6] in Divrei Yatziv cites with approval the Leket Yosher. In only one other instance does he couch his citation of the Leket Yosher (E.A. 78) with a disclaimer “that is is unclear whether the Leket Yosher is reliable.”

Other interesting comments in the Leket Yosher include: R. Yosef, in 1456, records that he saw Halley’s Comet [7] (vol. 2, pp. 17-8), R. Isserlein used to tell Torah riddles on the first days of Pesach and Shavous and Purim (vol. 1, pp. 103-4), R. Isserlein’s daughter-in-law, Redel, studied Torah (vol. 2, p. 37), and the restriction against walking behind a woman is no longer applicable (id.).

Notes:

[1] See Freimann’s introduction XIII. Friemann’s introduction appears at the beginning of volume two on Yoreh Deah. The first volume, on Orach Hayyim has no introduction.

[2] Aside from being unique in it use of the Turim’s division, the Leket Yosher, has another unique attribute. As Professor Y.S. Spiegel has pointed out the title employed, Leket Yosher, hints not only to the authors own name (as is a a somewhat common practice – see Spiegel for more on this practice) but also to R. Yosef’s teacher, R. Isserlein as well. Specifically, the numerical value of Leket Yosher and is ישראל יוזלין Yisrael is for R. Isserlein Yozlin is for Yosef. See, Y.S. Spiegel, Toldot Sefer haIvrei, vol. 2 p. 411.

[3] For additional biographical and bibliographical information see generally Freimann’s introduction. For some reason neither R. M.M. Kasher in Sa’arei HaElef or Glick in Kuntres HaTeshuvot HaHadash or in the earlier version by Boaz Cohen has an entry for Leket Yosher.

[4] It is, however, worth pointing out that R. Isser Zalman Meltzer held that part of ameilus batorah is getting up a taking a sefer out of the bookshelf. Thus he would never allow anyone to get him a sefer. He would get it himself. According to R’ Shach explained that there were 2 reasons for this. One is because he didn’t want anyone to help him, and two because of his ameilus batorah.

Likewise, in the same book (p. 181) they record that R. Aharon Kotler uses the Gemara in Menochot where Avumy forgot something that he said. He turned to his talmid R. Chisda to remind him how he explained a certain topic. The gemara asks why he didn’t send his talmid to come to him. Rashi says that it’s because of yegata u’motzasa (he worked and he found). R’ Aharon deduces that going yourself is part of the learning.

In an effort to avoid having to get up to get books R. Teichtel writes to his father R. Yissachar Teichtel, author of Am habonim Semacha, that when R. Yissachar visited R. Menachem Zemba, he had sitting on the table in front of him, a gemara with Rambam and all of chazal so that way he wouldn’t have to waste time and get up every time he needed to look up something. (letters in Tal Talpios, mentioned here, on page 44).

R. Meir Bar-Ilan, in a beautiful chapter of his classic MiVolozhin l’Yerushalayim (p. 269), in describing how his uncle, the R. Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the Arukh HaShulhan, wrote his work said that R. Epstein also had a Rambam, shas and Shulchan Orach on the table and reference everything without having to move.

[5] See id. at XIV and id. note 40 discussing those who make the claim that the Terumat HaDeshen was not addressing actual cases and thus cannot be relied upon and specific statements in Leket Yosher that connect to the Terumat HaDeshen. R. Freimann discussed most of the literature on this topic only a few further cites should be added. To wit, Y.A. Dinari, Hakhme Ashkenaz be-Shelei Yemi HaBenayim, Jerusalem, 1984, pp. 303-5; Zevin, Soferim veSeforim, vol. Teshuvos, p. 14; R. P. Horowitz, Sefer HaBrit, p. 162, discussing the phenomenon of fictional responsa.

See also the comments of R. Munk in Pa’as Sadecha, who specifically rejects the notion that the Leket Yosher is not a reliable work. Instead, R. Munk states that the Leket Yosher was written with extreme care and can be relied upon.

In the newest edition of the Terumat HaDeshen, edited by Shmuel Avitan (Jerusalem, 1991), the editor is completely dismissive of R. Freimann. Although Avitan neither mentions Freimann by name nor explains why Freimann is wrong. This attitude is particularly striking in that R. Freimann devotes some 50 pages to an extensive and well documented introduction of the Leket Yosher as well as related topics. Avitan, on the other hand, is satisfied with a two page introduction that adds almost nothing to either the Terumat HaDeshen the work or R. Isserlein the person and in fact borrows heavily, many times without citation, from R. Freimann’s introduction. [It appears Avitan was not even aware of Dinari’s work.] For example, Avitan deals with when R. Isserlein refers to “one of the great ones – אחד מהגדולים” if R. Isserlein is referring exclusively to the Maharil. Freimann was the first to demonstrate that this reference is not exclusive to the Maharil. Avitan, also comes to the very same conclusion, without mentioning Freimann or even as Avitan is wont, “the introduction to the Leket Yosher.”

Aside from claiming that the responsa are fictional, others have made a distinction between the “teshuvot” and the “pesakim” of R. Isserlein. See Dinari, Hakhme Ashkenaz, p. 303-4 n. 223.

[6] Divrei Yatziv Orach Hayyim nos. 179, 236, 295, 297; Yoreh Deah 31.

[7] For a later mention of seeing a comet see Glikel Zikhronot, ed. C. Turnyanski, Jerusalem, 2006, p. 605 n. 314.

Rabbi Baruch Oberlander is the rabbi in Budapest, Hungary, since 1989, and is the editor of Tel Talpiot. He has published many articles in the journal Ohr Yisroel and is the world’s leading expert on the forged Yerushalmi Kodashim.

This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog.

בימים אלו רכשתי לעצמי כרך מפואר של ספר “אור זרוע השלם” לרבינו יצחק ב”ר משה מוינא, שיצא-לאור על-ידי “מכון תורני ישיבת אור עציון” בשיתוף עם “מכון ירושלים”. לידי הגיע הכרך השני שיצא לאור בשנת תשס”ו. הכרך הזה כולל בתוכו כל הלכות המועדים (כולל דיני שמחות-אבלות) ודיני זרעים, שכוללים הלכות כלאים, ערלה, חדש ושביעית.

מתוך כל הספר הגדול הזה שמתקרב ל-900 עמודים אתייחס רק לסימן רנו שהוא כעשירית הספר (עמודים נו-קנד), מפני המיוחד שבו: סימן זה הרי הוא כספר בתוך ספר. המחבר רבינו יצחק העתיק לכאן את כל פירושו של אחד מגדולי בעלי התוספות בדורו, רבינו שמואל מפלייזא [צרפת] (חי בסוף האלף החמישי ובתחילת האלף הששי), לפיוט “א-ל א-להי הרוחות” של רבינו יוסף טוב עלם (מראשוני חכמי צרפת, בן דורו של רגמ”ה), שנהגו רוב בני אשכנז לאומרו ביוצרות לשבת הגדול. פיוט זה מפרט את כל הלכות הפסח. הר”ש מפלייזא משתמש בפיוט כבסיס לדיונים מפורטים בהלכות פסח ובהלכות הקשורות להן, ומפרש אותו על פי פסקיהם ומנהגיהם של גאוני צרפת.

הספר יצא-לאור כפי שנאמר ב’שער’ “במהדורה חדשה ומתוקנת על פי כתבי-יד עם שינויי נוסחאות, מקורות וביאורים”, וב’מבוא’ מפורט שדברי הר”ש מפלייזא הגיעו אלינו בחמש כתבי-יד שונים (2 כת”י ‘אור זרוע’ – אמסטרדם ופרנקפורט, ועוד 3 כת”י – וטיקן, מוסקבה ופרמא).

לאחרי עיון קל ב’מבוא’ וב’ביאורים’ לספר הבחנתי מיד שיש כאן התעלמות מוחלטת ממהדורה קודמת של פירוש הר”ש מפלייזא. הגאון הרב גבריאל ציננער, שנודע בעיקר בסידרת ספריו ‘נטעי גבריאל’ הלכות ומנהגים על המועדים, הוציא לאור בשנת תשמ”ה את הספר “אוצר פסקי הראשונים”[1], שרובו הנו פירושו של הר”ש מפלייזא על-פי כת”י וטיקן ופארמא (הוא אמנם ידע כבר על כת”י מוסקבה, אבל לא הצליח להשיגו, כפי שמספר ע”ז ב’מבוא’), עם הרבה ביאורים וחידושים. ספרו זה של הרב ציננער ידוע בעולם התורה [2] וגם בחוגי האקדמיה,[3] והפלא שמהדירי ה’אור זרוע’ לא התייחסו אליו בכלל.

עבודת המהדירים של ה’אור זרוע’ שלפנינו מתחלקת לשנים: החלק הראשון הנו ההדרת הטקסט על-פי הכת”י בצירוף אפאראט של שינויי נוסחאות, והחלק השני הנו ביאורים. המהדירים התייחסו בכובד ראש לשני חלקי עבודתם גם יחד, ואכן בספר המודפס תופס בממוצע הטקסט והנוסחאות חציו העליון של העמוד, וחציו התחתון של העמוד מוקדש לביאורים. מבחינת הנוסחאות לא יכלו המהדירים להיעזר כל כך במהדורת הרב ציננער, שהרי בעוד שהוא עבד עם כת”י וטיקן (בתוספת כמה דברים שהעתיק מכת”י פארמא), עבדו הם, כאמור, עם חמשה כתבי-יד, וברוב הפעמים נראה שהם דייקו יותר[4] בהעתקת הכתבי-יד.[5] אבל במסגרת הביאורים יכלו להיעזר בבקיאותו הגאונית של הרב ציננער, אך בשל ההתעלמות מעבודתו החשובה יצאו הם – ואנחנו הקוראים אחריהם! – מופסדים, וחבל על דאבדין.

הרב ציננער (לקמן אציין אל ספרו בקיצור: אפס”ר) בהערותיו מבאר, מציין ומפלפל באריכות גדולה כיד ה’ הטובה עליו על כל פרט ופרט שבדברי הר”ש מפלייזא, ובנוסף הצליח למצוא עשרות מקומות שבהם נעתקו דברי הר”ש מפלייזא בספרי הראשונים[6] והאחרונים, מהמרדכי והמהרי”ל, ועד ל’משנה ברורה’, ודברי הר”ש מפלייזא מתפרשים ומתבארים כשמלה. ואכן בעוד שבנוסחאות של כתבי-יד הרי אין זה נחלתו הטבעית של תלמיד חכם רבני מסוגו של הרב ציננער, הרי בכך מתייחדת עבודתו של הרב ציננער שהוא הצליח בבקיאותו הטבעית לחשוף נוסחאות וביאורים במקורות חריגים אצל ראשונים ואחרונים, בהם הובאו דברי הר”ש, והם מקורות שאינם ידועים למהדיר שקדן מקצועי שרק מחפש מקורות והשוואות במקומות גלויים וידועים מראש.

ואציין בזה כמה דוגמאות ממה דאתי לידי תוך כדי דפדוף בספר:
* ב’אור זרוע’ עמ’ פח כותב הר”ש: “ואני שמעתי ממורי רבינו מנחם בשם בן רבינו יב”א שהיה אומר…”, ובהערה 605 הועתקו גירסאות שונות מכתבי-היד. – אפס”ר (עמ’ עו הערה כה) מפנה למרדכי פסחים סי’ תקנב, ששם הובאו הדברים בגירסא שונה: “כתב הרב רבי שמואל מפלמיז”א בשם רבו הקדוש רבינו שלמה מדרו”ש שקיבל מרבו ר”י ברבי אברהם…”.

* בעמ’ פח בסופו כותב הר”ש: “וכן נמצא בתשובת רבינו שלמה”, ובהערה ריח העירו המהדירים שב’מחזור ויטרי’ שלפנינו זה לא מפורש. – אפס”ר (עמ’ עז הערה לט) מפנה בין השאר לחידושי תלמיד הרשב”א לפסחים לא, א ששם נעתקו באריכות דברי רש”י.

* בעמ’ קב כותב הר”ש: “ותשובת גאוני לותיר ראיתי, שכל האוכל מצה מלוחה כאילו אכל חמץ בפסח”, ומעירים המהדירים בהערה שה: “לא מצאנו תשובה זו במקום אחר”. ואילו היו מעיינים באפס”ר (עמ’ צב) היו מרוויחים שני דברים. 1) שם נדפס ע”פ כת”י וטיקן: “ובתשובת…”, וזה מקל על הקריאה כאן. 2) בהערה סח ציין בין השאר גם למרדכי פסחים סי’ תקצד, שגם שם מובא תשובת גאוני לותיר זה, והוסיף לציין ל’מעשה הגאונים’ סי’ כד ועוד.

* בעמ’ קג כותב הר”ש: “והמצות צריכות שיהיו אפויות יפה, ואם לאו ישרפו מיד. והשיעור, כדי שפורסה ואין חוטין נמשכין ממנה”. ובהערה שז מעירים בדברי רבינו אלו. ואילו היו מעיינים באפס”ר היו מרוויחים גם כאן. 1) בהמשך הדברים נדפס כאן: “תדע דאמר וכן לענין לחמי תודה”, ושם נדפס ע”פ כת”י וטיקן: “ותדע דאמרינן…”. 2) בהערה עד מציין שדברי רבינו אלו מובאים במרדכי סי’ תר (כצ”ל), ומובא גם ב ב’ביאור הלכה’ של ה’משנה ברורה’ סי’ תסא ס”ג שהאריך לבארו.

כאמור, מציינים המהדירים ב’מבוא’ שבעריכת דברי הר”ש השתמשו הם ב-5 כתבי-יד שונים, אבל אין מציינים באופן ברור איזה נוסחאות נכנסו לפנים ואיזה מהם ירדו רק למדור הנוסחאות. אין המהדירים מגלים באיזה שיטה השתמשו: אקלקטית או דיפלומטית. אמנם הם כותבים בעמ’ 12: “מבדיקת כה”י ברור שכה”י מ [מוסקבה], ר [פארמא] הם מהדורה אחרת קדומה יותר ושלימה יותר של פירוש הר”ש, בעוד שכ”י ט [וטיקן] הוא מהדורת ביניים… פירוש הפיוט המובא באו”ז הוא קצור של הפרוש המקורי”.[7]

הדברים לא כ”כ ברורים, שהרי באם הם מרמזים כאן שהר”ש מפלייזא הוציא מתחת-ידו שתי מהדורות של הפירוש, הרי אז היו צריכים להדפיס את שתי המהדורות, או רק את המהדורה האחרונה, ואין לכל זה אף רמז בכל הספר. ועל כן אני נוטה להבין שהם התכוונו רק לומר שכה”י מ-ר שמר על הפירוש “הקדום והמקורי” כפי שיצא מתחת ידי המחבר, ואילו כה”י ט “הוא מהדורת ביניים” ששמר הרבה חלקים כפי שכתבם המחבר, אבל כבר נרגשים בו עריכה – מעשי ידי המעתיק, ואילו ב’אור זרוע’ נמצא “קצור של הפרוש המקורי”, שנשתנה הרבה מכפי שהמחבר כתבם.[8] ועל-פי האמור מסתבר שנוסח פנים הספר מיוסד על גירסת כת”י מ-ר.[9]

לאור האמור נבדוק קטע בעייתי אחד בעמ’ ק. שם כותב הר”ש: “…והיינו לאכול בשבת שלש סעודות, כמו שאבאר בע”ה [= בעזרת השם]…”, והנה בהערה 843 הם מציינים שברוב הכת”י (א-פ-מ-ר) הגירסא “בערב שבת” במקום “בע”ה” שנדפס בפנים. הרי שבמקום זה נדפס הפנים על-פי כת”י וטיקן (וכפי שתוקן במהדורת תרכ”ב), למרות שיחידאה היא! כנראה שהפעם לא רצו להסתמך על כתה”י מ-ר שנחשבים בעיניהם כהכי אמינים, שהרי “כמו שאבאר בערב שבת” אין לו שום מובן. אבל גם “כמו שאבאר בעזרת השם” לא פתר לנו את הבעיה, שהרי בהמשך הפירוש אין הר”ש דן בדיני שבת וסעודה שלישית, וא”כ למה הוא כוון כשכתב “כמו שאבאר”?

הברקה גאונית בענין זה נמצא באפס”ר בעמ’ לב. לדבריו “יתכן שזוהי הוספת האור זרוע עצמו שהוסיף בשעת ההעתקה, וכוונתו באמת למה שמבאר בהלכות ‘ערב שבת’ סימן נ”ה. ויש מקום לפי זה להשערה שמה שנדפס באו”ז כמה פעמים בשם ‘אבא מארי נ”ע’ שזה לא נמצא בשאר ההעתקות,[10] ויתכן שזהו באמת הוספת האו”ז ואינו מרבינו שמואל מפלייזא”. השערה זו עדיין צריכה עיון, שהרי עפ”ז נצטרך לומר שתיקוניו של ה’אור זרוע’ נכנסו גם לכתבי היד שאין להם קשר לספר ‘אור זרוע’, אבל יש לנו כאן קצה חוט שאולי יפתור לנו את הבעיה. ובאם יתברר שהדברים מסתברים, אולי נוכל לשער גם שהוא היה זה שקיצר את פירוש הר”ש כשהעתיקו לספרו (ואז אפשר אולי לשער שהשמיט בעיקר את הדברים שלא הסכים אתם).

בקשר לקביעת הנוסחאות אני רוצה לעורר על עוד נקודה. לפני התחלת הפירוש (בעמ’ נו) ישנם חרוזים, בהם מבקש המחבר מאלוקים שיצליח בעבודתו “לבאר נכוחות”. משום מה לא ראיתי הערה במדור הנוסחאות שבכת”י וטיקן חסרים החרוזים, כפי שיראה כל מעיין בצילום הכת”י שמופיע אחרי ה’מבוא’ עמ’ 22, אמנם זה מופיע בכת”י מוסקבה שצילומו מופיע שם עמ’ 20. החרוזים פותחים ככה: “אלקי הרוחות, המגיד שיחות…”, בהערה 1 ישנו הערה: “אלקי: א-פ א-להי”, כנראה כוונת ההערה לגלות לנו שבכת”י א-פ במקום “אלקי” נאמר שם “א-להי”. אבל באם ככה יש כאן כמה דברים מוזרים מאד: 1) האם באמת סופר כת”י א-פ שם מקף בין האותיות א ו-ל? אינו עולה על הדעת! 2) האם באמת בשאר כתה”י נאמר “אלקי” עם ק’ במקום ה’? גם זה אינו עולה על הדעת, כי הרי החומרא שלא לכתוב שם ה’ כצורתו אינו אלא מהחומרות של הדורות האחרונים.[11] 3) הפירוש מתחיל: “אלקי הרוחות. קרא כתיב…”, ובמדור הנוסחאות לא צויין כלום ע”ז, האם זה מלמד שבכל הכתבי-יד נאמר כאן “אלקי” עם קוף, אין זה עולה על הדעת בפעם השלישית! וההוכחה לכל זה הם צילומי שני הכתבי-יד הנ”ל שבתחילת הספר שרואים שבכת”י וטיקן ובכת”י מוסקבה נאמר: “אלהי”.[12]

ההרגשה שהספר לא נערך בצורה מקצועית ומדויקת, אלא יש בערכיה מן הרשלנות והחובבנות, מתקבלת מעוד דברים קטנים שצדו עיני.[13] ולדוגמא, ידועים הנאמר בתוספות לעבודה זרה (עד, ב ד”ה דרש): “וכן פירשתי בסדר ביעור חמץ בקרובץ שבת הגדול שיסד רבינו יוסף ט”ע”, הרי שדברים אלו נעתקו מפי כתבו של הר”ש מפלייזא, שהוא מחברו של הפירוש לקרובץ של שבת הגדול. ועל יסוד זה נקבע גם ש”התוספות שלנו לעבודה זרה אינן אליבא דאמת אלא עיבוד של תוספותיו של ר’ שמואל עצמו למסכת זו.”[14] אפס”ר (עמ’ פ הערה סז) מעתיק דברי התוספות בלשונם, ומראה שאכן הדברים נמצאים בפירוש שלפנינו. מהדירי ה’אור זרוע’ לא העריכו דברים אלו, ועל כן הם ציינו בצורה לקונית (עמ’ צב הערה רמא): “דעתו זו של רבינו הר”ש מפלייזא… המבוארת להלן הובאה בתוס’ (ע”ז עד, ב ד”ה דרש)”. והרי זה לא “הובאה”, אלא שהר”ש בעצמו הזכירו גם שם.

ואעיר בזה על עוד דבר הצריך תיקון, כיון שלא ירדו לסוף דברי הר”ש. בעמ’ ק בפיוט נאמר: “רקיקי מצות עושין זכר לעיגון”, ומפרש הר”ש: “זכר לעיגון. שאכלו לחם עוני”, ומעירים בהערה רצ: “רבינו פירש תיבת ‘עיגון’ מלשון עוני. ולולי דבריו היה אולי מקום לפרש שהכוונה לעוגות כמו שנאמר: ‘ויאפו את הבצק… עוגות מצות’ (שמות יב, לט)”. וקצת תמוה לי שבביאור לדברי אחד מגדולי בעלי התוספות מרגישים הם צורך לפרש באופן אחר “לולי דבריו” – בדבר שאינו מוסיף להבנת הסוגיא וכד’. ובנוגע לגוף הדברים לא הבנתי, מה הקשר בין המלה “עיגון” לעוני? ומעניין שלפני זה בעמ’ צט הערה רפ כותבים המהדירים: “ורבינו מפרשו שאופים רקיקים ‘זכר לעיגון’ לשון צער”.

והנה ב”מחזור חלק שני כמנהג ק”ק אשכנזים”, עם פירושו של הרב משה בון סג”ל, נדפס בהומבורג (לאחרי שנת תקס”ד, שנת ההסכמה),[15] בפירושו לפיוט (רנג, ב) הוא מפרש: “לעגון. לשון הלהן תעגנה”, וחיפוש בתקליטור יגלה שהמלה “תעגנה” מופיע פעמיים בתנ”ך. ברות (א, יג) נאמר: “הלהן תעגנה לבלתי היות לאיש”, ומפרש רש”י שם: “תעגנה. לשון אסור כלא כמו עג עוגה ועמד בתוכה”; וביחזקאל (ד, יב) נאמר: “ועוגת שעורים תאכלנה, והיא בגללי צאת האדם תעגנה לעיניהם”, ומפרש רש”י שם: “בגללי צאת האדם תעגנה. תאפינה בגחליהם שמייבשן ושורפן”, ומשמע שכאן מפרש “תעגנה” מלשון “עוגות”.[16] ועפ”ז אפשר לבאר דברי הר”ש מפלייזא כאן בשני אופנים. לפי פרש”י ביחזקאל מתפרש “זכר לעיגון” שהמצות הם זכר לעוגות לחם עוני (וכפי פירוש “לולי דבריו” שהציעו המהדירים!), ולפי פרש”י ברות זה מתפרש מלשון כלא, שהמצות הם זכר ללחם עוני שאכלו כשהיו אסורים במצרים.[17].

אני חושש שהדוגמאות שהבאתי לעיל לא עצמן יצא אלא על הכלל כולו יצא, למרות גודל עבודתם שמהדירי ה’אור זרוע’ השקיעו בעריכת הנוסח ובביאור הספר – השאירו עדיין בקעה פרוצה, ועבודתו של הרב ציננער באפס”ר היה יכול לשמש כחומר משובח שאתו היו יכולים לסתום הרבה פרצות,[18] ולכן עד שלא תופיע מהדורה מושלמת אני מציע להשתמש בשתי המהדורות גם יחד.

לסיום אעיר גם על החידוש שהכניסו לספר, שכל ציטוט מתנ”ך או תלמוד המובא בדברי ה’אור זרוע’ או בדברי הר”ש מודפס באותיות מובלטות, ודבר זה לא מצינו לו חבר, ואני חושש שלהרבה קוראים זה יפריע – כמו שזה הפריע לי.

ומכיון שניתן רשות להעיר, הרי כאן המקום להעיר על מבול הביאורים שהכניסו המהדירים לתוך ספר, שזוהי הסיבה שספר ‘אור זרוע’ שעד היום היה מודפס בשני כרכים דקים בלבד, הרי מעתה סידרה של ספרים עם אלפי עמודים. וחבל שאין המהדירים יודעים את סוד הצמצום כפשוטו וכמשמעו, שאין דבריהם אמורים להיות אלא הערות קצרות מוכרחות המחזיקות את המרובה בשולי הגליון, דוגמת הערותיו של גדול מהדירי כתבי-יד של רבותינו הראשונים בדור הקודם, הר”א סופר. וכדאי לצטט בקשר לזה ההגדרה הקולעת של הגרש”י זוין[19]: “…הרי כאן מעין ‘טלית קטן גדול’… תפס הביאור את מקומו של העיקר, ונדחקו רגליו של האחרון”…

הערות
1. עזרתי לו אז בכמה דברים שהיו קשורים לספר, והוא הזכירני לטובה בסוף ה’הקדמה’.
2. ראה לדוגמא הרב גדלי’ אבערלאנדער: ‘מנהג אבותינו בידינו’ חלק ב, ניו יארק תשס”ו, עמ’ שלו הערה 32; שם עמ’ תיד הערה 11; הרב יצחק שילת: “על הראשונים”, מעלה אדומים תשנ”ח, עמ’ עט מס’ קעח. ועוד. וזכורני שלפני כ-5 שנים יצא לאור במונסי (על-ידי אחד מקהל עדת ישרון) ביאור לפיוט ‘אלהי הרוחות’ – מיוסד על ביאורו של הר”ש מפלייזא כפי שזה מופיע באפס”ר של הרב ציננער, ואינו תח”י כעת.
3. ראה לדוגמא פרופ’ י”מ תא-שמע: “מנהג אשכנז הקדמון”, ירושלים תשנ”ט, עמ’ 250 הערה 2; שם עמ’ 265 הערה 6 (וראה שם ובעמ’ 277 הערה 9 הערות חשובות בביאור דברי הר”ש מפלייזא); פרופ’ א’ גרוסמן: “חכמי צרפת הראשונים”, ירושלים תשנ”ה, עמ’ 55 הערה 38.
4. ולדוגמא באספ”ר עמ’ פג נדפס: “והר’ יעקב בר’ שמשון הגיה וסכין”, וזה טעות המעתיק, והנכון כמו שהדפיסו ב’אור זרוע’ (עמ’ צד): “ופכין”, ובהערה 738 ציינו שבכת”י וטיקן הגירסא: “ובדין”. אמנם בסוף עמ’ צ נדפס: “כי לא באת תקלה על ידם”, ובהערה 670 צויין שבכת”י וטיקן הגירסא: “ידין”, ולדעתי הנכון בזה כבאפס”ר עמ’ פ: “על ידיו”, כי לפעמים (אמנם נדיר) ישנו בכת”י וטיקן וא”ו אריכתא, וגם כאן מסתבר כן.
5. יש לציין שבאפס”ר (עמ’ פ הערה סג) נעתק קטע ארוך “הוספה” על-פי כת”י וטיקן. נמשך בזה אחרי פרופ’ א”א אורבך: “בעלי התוספות”, ירושלים תש”מ, ח”א עמ’ 464 הערה 18, שקבע שב”בכ”י הוואטיקאנה 266 נמצאת כאן הוספה” ומעתיקו בארוכה. אבל בדיקת כתב-היד מגלה שטעה בזה, כי אין זה הוספה אלא לדברי הסמ”ג, שדבריו הועתקו בכת”י אחרי פירושו של הר”ש מפלייזא. וטוב עשו מהדירי ה’אור זרוע’ שלא התייחסו לזה (בעמ’ צא).
6. וכעת יש להוסיף גם את “סדר פסח לתלמיד הריצב”א”, שנתפרסם בקובץ ‘עץ חיים’ (באבוב), ניסן תשס”ז (ג), עמ’ יח-לז. וראה שם עמ’ טו.
7. וראה עוד מאמרו של הרב שלום קליין: “מים שלנו – דעת הר”ש מפלייזא והשלכותיה”, ‘מוריה’, ניסן-אייר תשס”ד, עמ’ ד (צויין גם במבוא כאן הערה 7).
8. אין הם מעלים לדיון האם ניתן לומר שרבינו יצחק, מחבר ה’אור זרוע’, הוא זה שקיצר וערך את הפירוש כשהעתיקו לספרו (וראה עוד לקמן).
9. בעיה קיימת גם בקשר לנוסח הפיוט שהדפיסו בספר, גם כאן לא צויין באופן ברור מקור הנוסח. אבל ב’מבוא’ עמ’ 12 נאמר: “יש לציין כי בכה”י מ, ר מובא גם נוסח הפיוט עצמו ואנו ציינו את שנויי הנוסח מהנוסח המקובל המובא בסידורים”, ניסוח מעורפל, וכנראה הכוונה שנוסח הפיוט נדפס עפ”י נוסחת כת”י מ-ר, ובמדור הנוסחאות צוינו שינויים על-פי נוסחאות הסידורים (בלי לפרט איזה סידורים). ואינו ברור האם באמת אין שום כת”י אחר שבו מופיע הפיוט? ובכל אופן כבר בהתחלת הפיוט (בעמ’ נו הערה 4) צויין בהערה 4 גירסה שונה לפיוט ע”פ כת”י מ-ר, הרי שהפנים נדפס כאן כנראה ע”פ “הנוסח המקובל המובא בסידורים”? (כנראה כדי שיתאים למובא בהערה 13).
10. הכוונה שלא נמצא בכת”י וטיקן, ראה אפס”ר עמ’ מז והערה מט (‘אור זרוע’ עמ’ ס הערה 90) ועמ’ מט הערה ע (והנמצא באו”ז עמ’ סב הערה 129 כנראה טעות, וצ”ל: ט חסר).
11. וראה דבר מעניין ב”לקט מתשובות מו”ר הרב יוסף בן דוד קאפח זצ”ל”, בתוך: “ספר זכרון להרב קאפח”, רמת גן תשס”א, עמ’ 33-34: “שאלה: כבוד תורתו אמר לי, שמותר להגיד אלוקים בה”א ואין צורך להגיד בקו”ף… תשובה: …מה שעניתי נכון כי חז”ל לא החמירו אלא ביוד הא וכו’… אבל להזכירם בתוך שטף דברים יהיו אשר יהיו מותר, ואף מצוה לאמרן כמו שהן, כי הסירוס הזה בקו”ף לדעתי ולמשמע אזני, גנאי הדבר ומכוער מאוד, גם כלפי הדיוט, כ”ש כלפי שמים. ואני בטוח שלא שאלת להזכירו לבטלה. אלא שאזניך כבר מלאים מן הכינוי המשובש אלקים צבקות, ולכך אינך כבר חש את הזרות ואת הכיעור שבדבר…”, וראה שם בהערות 17-18 מה שכתבו הפוסקים בענין זה.
12. טעויות הללו נמצאים גם באפס”ר.
13. דומה לזה הנאמר בעמ’ נו הערה א: “הועלתה אפשרות כי רבינו הר”ש היה רבו של המהר”ם מרוטנבורג. ור’ בהרחבה במבוא”, וזה מה שנאמר ב’מבוא’ (תחילת עמ’ 12): “הר”ש היה רבו של המהר”ם מרוטנבורג”, אין כאן שום הרחבה ואף לא צויין מקור לקביעה. אמנם הדברים מבוארים ב”בעלי התוספות” שם ח”א עמ’ 461 הערה 3; ח”ב עמ’ 528. אחד המקורות לזה הוא הנאמר בפירוש מהר”ם לנגעים (פ”א מ”א): “ומורי הרב ר’ שמואל זצ”ל מקשטטיירי [Chateau Thierry] פירש לנו בשבועות”. ויש לציין לדבר מוזר בספר “בעלי התוספות” בענין זה. במהדורה קודמת זיהה אורבך את רבי שמואל מקשטטיירי עם רבי שמואל מאיברא, עקבות לזה נשארו גם במהדורת תש”מ, ב’מפתח השמות’ שבסוף ח”ב עמ’ 787 נאמר: “ר’ שמואל מקשטל טיירי ראה ר’ שמואל ב”ר שניאור מאיברא”, ושוב כשהתברר לו שזה אינו אלא הר”ש מפלייזא תיקנו בעמ’ 461 שצוין לעיל, ושכח לתקן את ‘מפתח השמות’. ועוד יותר חמור, שבעמ’ 528 ברשימת רבותיו של הר”מ מרוטנבורג הוסיף את הר”ש מפלייזא, אבל לא הוריד את הר”ש מאיברא, וכך הוא כותב: “הוא רואה את רבותיו בר’ עזרא ממונקונטור, ר’ יחיאל מפאריז, ר’ שמואל מפלייז, ור’ שמואל מאיברא, בימי ישיבתו בקשטלטיירי”… [אחת ההוכחות שר”ש ב”ר שניאור מאיברא אינו הר”ש מקשטלטיירי הוא, שהרי המובא בסמ”ג (עשין קסב) בשם “הרב רבי שמואל ברבי שלמה”, מובא בספר ‘עץ חיים’ לר’ יעקב חזן מלונדרש (ח”א עמ’ כג) בשם “רב שמואל מקאטייא טיירי”, ואכמ”ל.]
14. “בעלי התוספות”, שם ח”א עמ’ 465. וראה שם ח”ב עמ’ 654.
15. קיבלתי צילומו מהרב גבריאל ציננער.
16. ולהעיר מרש”י לבבא קמא (פ, א ד”ה העגונה) שמפרש: “העגונה. מאוחרת כמו ‘הלהן תעגנה’ תאחרנה מלהנשא”, וברשב”ם לבבא בתרא (עג, א ד”ה וכן הוא) מפרש: “דעיגון דמתניתין לשון עכוב הוא כדכתיב הלהן תעגנה כמו תעשנה תתעכבו מלהנשא לבעל…”. ובפירוש “עיון תפלה” שבסידור “אוצר התפילות” (ח”ב עמ’ 244) פירש: “זכר לעגון. שהיינו מקושרים במצרים בעבותות העבדות”.
17. והאריכו המפרשים בקטע “הא לחמא עניא” שבהגדה של פסח, האם המצה הוא זכר לחירות או זכר לעבדות ואכמ”ל.
18. יש להוסיף הערה: בעמ’ קז כותב הר”ש: “והעומר נקרא לחם דכתיב [שמות טז, כב] לקטו לחם משנה, וילפינן לחם הדיוט מלחם גבוה דכתיב [במדבר טו, יט] והיה באכלכם מלחם הארץ”, ולא צויין לזה כל מקור. ובאפס”ר (עמ’ צז הערה לד) מעיר: “לא מצאתי מקורו וצ”ע”. ולכאורה הרי לנו מקור מפורש בעירובין (פג, ב): וכמה עיסותיכם? כדי עיסת המדבר. וכמה עיסת המדבר? דכתיב והעומר עשרית האפה הוא. וראה ב’תורה שלמה’ עה”פ (כרך יד עמ’ רמב הערה רח) מה שהביא מספר הפרדס לרש”י ועוד.
19. בספרו “סופרים וספרים – פסקים, פירושים, חידושים”, תל אביב תשי”ט, עמ’ 24.

Review of Tiferes Yosef
by Eliezer Brodt

Tiferes Yosef, Sefer Shemos, R. Yosef Engel, ed. Friedman, Mochon Ohavei Torah, Monsey, NY, 595 pages, 2007. [845. 426.6152]
About four years ago I noticed in the seforim store a sefer called תפראת יוסף. It caught my attention immediately because it said מאוצרות הגאון ר’ יוסף ענגיל זצ”ל and I am a big חסיד of R. Engel as I am sure many are. I purchased the sefer after looking at it for a few minutes being satisfied with what I saw. This was the first volume which was just on חומש בראשית. A year ago the much awaited first volume of חומש שמות came out. What follows is a short review of this terrific work.

As is well known ר’ יוסף ענגיל besides for being a tremendous גאון was also a prolific writer. See, e.g., N. Lamm, Seventy Faces, p. 61 (noting that R. Engel is “one of the most brilliant and underestimated figures of pre-World War II Europe”). On his tombstone it says he left behind over 101 works on all topics ready to be printed. His grandson lists in his book on ר’ יוסף ענגיל what they were, including a 36 volume encyclopedia work to complete his בית האוצר. After his death his son in law was able to print a few of the works. Unfortunately, the rest, as was the case with many other great people’s works, the manuscripts were lost during WWII. The one exception being R. Engel’s work of his on מסכת קידושין that the grandson, R. Dovid Morgenstern, was able to save called שארית יוסף (it is also printed under the name חוסן יוסף. R. Morgenstern, however, writes that people who printed the חוסן יוסף stole it from him and even made mistakes when printing it). In the past few years some additional pieces of his have been discovered and printed in various torah journals such as ישורון and כרם שלמה.

In the past few years especially (although it was done to some seforim years ago) the seforim market has witnessed many attempts some successful and many not of systematically gathering torah of different גדולים and putting them in various orders. Meaning gaon x wrote much on shas so they gather all that he said on Chumash or hashkafic topics and put it in order making his torah much more accessible. Rabbi Friedman decided to do the same for all of ר’ יוסף ענגיל works. He collected from everything that ר’ יוסף ענגיל wrote on including some manuscripts he got a hold of and put it out according to the order of the torah – so far just on בראשית and part of שמות.

But you are probably wondering what is so special about this job? The answer is the amazing skill of Rabbi Friedman at piecing together everything. As is well know ר’ יוסף ענגיל had a tremendous בקיאות in all areas of torah including ירושלמי and קבלה, nothing escaped him. Besides for all this he is known for having amazing perspective in everything going deep into understanding everything. Often R. Engel brings amazing proofs from all over. Many times, throughout his writings, he references something he wrote elsewhere and thus the only way to properly understand him is to see all the places he has written on the topic But many times he does not even tell you that he explains this more elsewhere. Many times the additional points are in places you would never expect him to talk about the point you’re looking into. What Rabbi Friedman did was to put it all together every piece is presented beautifully organized with footnotes where necessary including explanations from ר’ יוסף ענגיל words elsewhere on the topic. Many times he brings how other אחרונים explain the words of ר’ יוסף ענגיל other times he explains it himself.

Besides for all this Rabbi Friedman gives you the exact reference for all the wide range of sources that ר’ יוסף ענגיל quotes. He also includes many other references from other people who talk about the same topics. Going thru this work one can find all types and styles of תורה that one might be interested in on the פרשה . Any מגיד שיעור or רב can find a wealth of information or at least a spring board to give lectures on חומש from here. There are also excellent indexes in the back of each volume because of the great wealth of topics included in each sefer. Besides for all this in the back of the first volume he includes a nice biography on .ר’ יוסף ענגיל All in all I feel this is a great job and almost anyone can benefit from it. One can just hope that Rabbi Friedman is able to complete the entire חומש.

על ספרו של הרב אליהו שלזינגר:

מצות נר איש וביתו, חנוכה בהלכה ובאגדה

מאת: עקביא שמש

You may recall that in a prior post we noted that in the Reinetz edition of the Pirush Ba’al HaTurim al HaTorah is a victim of censorship. Specifically, Reinetz quotes a story about how quickly the Tur wrote his commentary on the Torah. In the early edition of Reinetz’s work, Shai Agnon is cited as the source while in later editions Agnon is removed.

In the comments, however, some took issue with the need to cite to Agnon as Agnon was ultimately citing to another work, Kol Dodi, and thus, according to some commentators, so long as Reinetz cites to the Kol Dodi it is ok. These commentators’ opinion is premised on the notion that Kol Dodi is another work. As was noted in the comments there is no such published work. Although there is no published work with that name that contains this story, there is still some abiguity as it could be Agnon was cited to an earlier work in manuscript. Now, however, we can put that all to rest and conclusively show that the only source is Agnon.

יש לציין לדברי ש”י עגנון בספרו ספר סופר וסיפור, ירושלים, תשל”ח, עמ’ ק, בשם ספר קול דודי:”בשעה שהיו ישראל עולין לרגל היו מביאין עמהם ספרי תורה שלהם והיו מגיהין אותם מספר עזרא הסופר שהיה מונח בעזרה.” פירוש מעניין שלא מצאתיו במפרשים. אמנם כפי שכתבה לי בטובה בתו גב’ אמונה ירון, ותודתי נתונה לה בזה, כינה אביה בשם קול דודי את חידושיו עצמו (וראה שם ברשימת המקורות, עמ’ תנט, שנאמר על ספר קול דודי שהוא כת”י המחבר.) וכן אמר עגנון עצמו לדוד כנעני, כפי שכתב האחרון בספרו ש”י עגנון בעל פה, תל אביב, תשל”ב, עמ’ 34-35

Update:

The truth is that Scholem made a mistake as in the bibliography of both Sefer, Sofer, ve-Sippur and Yamim Noraim, Kol Dodi is listed and described as “כת”י המחבר” meaning a manuscript of the author – himself not as Scholem translates it “a manuscript in possession of the author.” Scholem’s description of Kol Dodi is based on the English version translation! Addtionally, in the three places which Agnon quotes from this work in his Sefer, Sofer, ve-Sippur it appears to be a collection of stuff he heard from people on topics similar to the Sefer, Sofer, ve-Sippur. But it do not appear that Agnon was trying to fool anyone to a nonexistent book

R. Yehuda Hachasid & Natural Phenomenon: A Review of Amaros Tehoros

In Kovetz al Yad (new series), volume 12, Professor Y. Ta-Shma published, for the first time from manuscript, a small kuntres of R. Yehuda Hachasid, that he titled Zecher Asa Lenifleosav. More recently, this article was reprinted and included in Ta-Shema’s collected writings, Kenesset Mekharim, (vol. 1, chap. 14). Two years ago, R. Yaakov Stal decided to turn this small pamphlet in to a beautifully edited book. He turned the work into a 517 page sefer!

Professor Ta-Shma, for the most part, printed the text almost as is, and did not add citations for the statements of R. Yehuda Hachasid. Furthermore, Ta-Shema included only a brief introduction to this work (which in general is not like him, as I will elaborate in an upcoming post). R. Stal, however, in his work on Chasedei Ashkenaz in general and more specifically R. Yehudah Hachasid, decided to reissue this work in a proper critical edition.

First, R. Stal shows that the name of the sefer is really Amaros Tehoros Chizionis U’Pnemeis. Additionally, R. Stal went out of his way to research all the statements in this work and show parallels to other works of Chasidei Ashkenaz. He includes very lengthy notes to all the statements in this work. Moreover, R. Stal shows that there were many inaccurate readings of the actual words in the text by Ta-Shma. The end result is an excellent scientific edition of this sefer by R. Yehuda Hachasid.

This sefer is heavily influenced by R. Sa’adia Gaon’s haEmunah V’Deos. It is worth pointing out that R’ Yehuda Hachasid and the other Chasidei Ashkenaz had a different translation of this work than the standard ibn Tibbon translation of haEmunah V’Deos. This alternative translation has only recently been found by R.C. Kiener that he published in his PhD dissertation, The Hebrew Paraphrase of Saadia Gaon’s Kitab Al-amanat Wa’l-Ictiqadat (Penn. 1984) [according to Kiener’s website, he is working on a critical edition of haEmunah V’Deos]. [1] R. Stal highlights R. Sa’adia’s influence throughout the sefer and note the important distinctions between the two translations of the haEmunah v’Deos and its effect on R. Yehuda Hachasid’s work.

Turning now to the content of Amaros Tehoros. The main theme of the sefer is to explain difficult philosophical concepts and to do so the sefer uses items appearing naturally to explain the supernatural. Consequently, the sefer is full of topics relating to nature, how the world works, and animals. There is much about the topic of nevuah, and many topics relating to and about malachim. For example, R. Y. Hachasid writes everyone knows that Hashem is everywhere, but that’s incomprehensible. To help understand it, he gives the example of a magnet. A magnet has a force that we can’t see but everyone knows that hat force is there. This can help us understand a bit the concept that Hashem is everywhere even though we can’t see Him (pp. 6-7).

Another example of utilizing everyday occurrences to explain otherwise incomprehensible topics is a discussion of how Hashem knows the future. R. Yehuda Hachasid says that we can understand this from the fact that people sometimes see the future in their dreams (p. 33).

Or, the question of how the world was able to be created in six days, when a pregnancy takes nine months so the creation should have taken much longer. R. Yehuda Hachasid points to the fact that there are certain things are able to grow overnight, for example, certain mushrooms so the power exists to create fast and god has that power (pp. 36-37).

This work is the first mention of the compass in Jewish sources, again this mundane phenomena is used to show more complex notions. Specifically, R. Y. Hachasid writes:

Aside from the focus on explaining philosophical questions, the work contains other interesting points as well. For instance, R. Yehuda Hachasid says some interesting things about a pregnancy of triplets (pp. 50 -51):

On this topic R. Stal brings a wide range of sources about twins and triplets and whether or not such a pregnancy is a good or bad sign (pp. 371-388).

R. Y. Hachasid mentions the using of a sword to protect one from Demons by going around the bed with it. Here R. Stal includes many sources for this which was done especially by the bed of a woman who just gave birth (pp. 176- 178).

R. Y. Hachasid discusses and rejects the notion that a person can think two different thoughts simultaneously. (p.11). R. Stal, however, provides an excellent collection of sources that document many gedolim who were able to think two thoughts at the same time ( pp.304-312).

As R. Yehuda Hachasid mentions many unique ideas, R. Stal includes a 200 page section with lengthy articles about many of these topics. For example, R. Yehuda Hachasid discusses how many colors exist. R. Stal includes a chapter discussing the differences of opinion from early Jewish sources about the number of colors. R. Y. Hachasid has a discussion about magnets so R. Stal has a whole article on the topic of magnet from many sources – how it works, what the point is, etc. As mentioned above, this work is the first Jewish reference to a compass, so R. Stal includes a chapter from early Jewish sources about the compass and how it works, even getting into a discussion of the Bermuda triangle. R. Y. Hachasid mentions the famous Even Takumah, again, R. Stal includes a chapter on this to. R. Stal includes an excellent chapter on the topic of lengthy pregnancies – more than nine months and some as long as fourteen and fifteen months such as Yitzchak and Yissacar.

In sum, this work is great for anyone interested in philosophy, nature or a plain old real interesting read from a great rishon.

In the U.S. the book is available at Beigeleisen Books.

Note
[1] See also Kiener’s article, “The Hebrew Paraphrase of Sa’adia Gaon’s Kitab al-Amanat Wa’l-I’tiqadat,” AJS Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, (Spring, 1986), pp. 1-25.