Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past

by: Michael K. Silber

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The well known “coat of arms” of the priestly Rapaport family first appeared as a colophon at the end of Avraham Menachem Rapa of Porto’s Mincha Belulah (Verona, 1594), fol. 207b, readily at HebrewBooks.org (here). Instead of a motto, a banner proclaimed the author’s name above and below the shield which featured a pair of hands raised in priestly benediction in the upper half, while below was depicted a crow (Rabe in German) on a branch, a reference to the author’s family name. The shield is flanked by two heraldic supporters, and this is what interests us here.

The supporters feature two female torsos rampant facing away from the shield. They are nude from the waist up.

It was by no means rare to encounter nude women in Hebrew books between the sixteenth and the early eighteenth centuries, even prominently displayed on the covers (Adam accompanied at times by a buxom Eve is a ready example). But no doubt such nudity proves unsettling to the Orthodox public nowadays.

Benjamin Shlomo Hamburger’s recently published magisterial three volume history, Ha-Yeshiva ha-Rama bi-Fiorda (Bnei Brak, 5770) is a rich, learned study by one who has dedicated many scholarly books to the heritage of German Jewry. The volumes are noteworthy also for their rich illustrations, but one in particular catches the eye.

A chapter dedicated to Baruch Kahana Rapaport who served for many years as rabbi of Fürth (1711-1746), reproduces, as many a study on the Rapaports, the “coat of arms” from Mincha Belulah (volume 1, page 390).  

But the supporters here have been modestly transgendered and piously rendered with beards! 

Several studies by Jacob J. Schacter and others have noted the tendency to “verbessern” the past in Orthodox historiography. This then is a modest (but not very pious) contribution to the topic from the perspective of visual evidence of the past.

Addendum:

Dan Rabinowitz

the Seforim blog

It is indeed import to note as Dr. Michael K. Silber has, that we have yet another example of doctoring history to conform with today’s anachronistic views.  But, we should note that this is not the first time the Rapoport coat of arms has undergone a change.  Before turning to this early example, we need to a make a few points.

As Dr. Silber notes, this coat of arms appears at the end of the first edition of Mincha Belulah, Verona, 1594. Rapoport created this herald and the herald contains allusions to his name – Rapoport.  Hida, R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai, no Reform rabbi, includes an entry on Rapoport in Hida’s Shem HaGedolim (Machret Seforim, Mem, sub. Mincha Belula).  Importantly, although the herald appears at the back of Mincha Belulah, Hida calls attention to this herald. Hida notes that “Rapoport” is spelled differently on the herald than on the title page.  But, no where does Hida question the inclusion of the bare-breasted women on this rabbinic herald. Moreover, Hida doesn’t alert that reader that if one looks up the herald there are these “offensive” images.  Hida’s silence is remarkable but only if one ignores the prevalence of such imagery in Hebrew books.  That is, Mincha Belula is not the only work to include such imagery.  For example, as we have previously discussed, other works include similar imagery (see here, here, here, here, for examples of nudes, and here for examples of mythological images).

We also note that this was not the first time the herald from the Mincha Belulah has been modified. In the 1989 Beni Brak reprint of Mincha Belulah, the images are also altered.  While they haven’t been turned into men, the women are more modestly clothed.  The image below is taken from this edition.

ELIYAHU BACHUR (1469 – 1549) IN ISNY

 by: Dan Yardeni

Dan Yardeni, an engineer by profession (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, 1963), is entrepreneur specializing in cutting edge materials and materials production processes.

As sideline,  he researches problems in the history of Hebrew books printing and printers. He also contributes articles to the Culture and Literature sections of Haaretz and other Israeli newspapers. This is his first post at the Seforim blog.

A little street in Tel Aviv commemorates the personality of a colorful Jewish culture hero at the time of the Italian Renaissance, known as Eliah Levita by Christians and Eliyahu Bachur by Jews. While he considered himself primarily a linguist, he was also a teacher, translator, writer and editor, debater, poet, singer and humanist with a deep sense of social awareness, which he expressed in sharply worded satires. While all his life he was an observant Jew, he was also a close friend and teacher of the greatest Christian scholars of his day and became a foremost “cultural agent” between Judaism and Christianity.

Eliahu Bachur’s unusual name is due to the fact that he remained a bachelor for a long time, and later adopted the epithet in the sense of Bachur – Chosen (see his preface to Sefer HaBachur, Isny 1542 where he explains the name of the book and comments:  “…. היות שם כינויי משונה ובשם בחור מכונה …. ” ). He was born in southern Germany in 1469 and died and was buried in Venice at the age of 81, a rather advanced age at the time.

Most of his life he lived and worked in Italy. For a brief period of two and a half years, between 1540 and 1542, Eliyahu Bachur moved to the small town of Isny in the picturesque Allgäu region of southern Germany. Isny was at that time a a free self-governing city organized as a republic within the Holy Roman Empire, then under the rule of Charles V. Eliyahu Bachur was invited by the Christian reformer and Hebraist Paulus Fagius to work with him as editor and proofreader in the printing-house, which Fagius had founded in Isny. Despite the burden of his seventy-one years, Eliyahu accepted the invitation, left his home in Venice and crossed the Alps to live in that little town. Why did he do it? The large and world famous printing-house of Daniel Bomberg in Venice, where he had worked as an editor and proofreader for many years, ceased operating at that time and Fagius was offering him a good job and, most important, undertook to print  the books Eliyahu had written.

Eliyahu Bachur describes his journey to Isny at the end of his book ‘Tishbi,’ the first of his books to be published in the new printing-house. (The name of the book alludes to his name, Eliyahu). The book, printed in typical Ashkenazi Hebrew typography, constitutes a kind of dictionary describing 712 roots of Hebrew words. And so he writes in the preface to the book: “… I beg anyone, scholar or student who reads this book and finds a mistake or error, to note that it is the fruit of haste since I was in a hurry to reach this place and when I left my house the book was not yet finished, and as I was en route, crossing lands of raining hills and mountains I stood trembling, weighing matters up in my mind and writing them in my heart, and then, when I reached the inn, I opened my case, took out my notebook and wrote down the things which the Lord had put into my heart.”

We know of sixteen titles (sometimes in 2 editions, with and without Latin translation), which Eliyahu Bachur published in Isny. He may have printed more, of which no copies survived. Most of the time he was the only Jew in  that Christian town which was so devoutly Protestant that it did not allow Catholic Christians to reside within its walls. The contents of his books, and the texts which he wrote and appended to them, are of great interest still today. Most touching is the reflected conflict between his desire to publish the books he had written and the longing for his family and for Venice, the town where he had lived most of his life.

While being a deeply religious and observant Jew, Eliyahu Bachur displayed cultural openness to the Christian world. He did this in spite of the fierce opposition of rabbis, who regarded him with suspicion, as someone who was prepared to venture beyond the self-imposed barriers surrounding the Jewish scholarly community (See his preface to Masoret Ha-Massoret book printed in Venice 1938 and later). He also had the courage and intellectual honesty to admit that he had been helped in translating difficult Greek words to Hebrew by the learned Christian cardinal Egidio Viterbo, to whom he had taught Hebrew during his sojourn in Rome years earlier. He dared to state, in face of virulent opposition from leading orthodox rabbis, that the punctuation of the Hebrew language was a later invention and not as ancient as had been thought until then. In his rhyming introduction to his book ‘Tishbi,’ he challenged those who disagreed with him to react still in his lifetime:

“….. / כי אומנם לא שקר מילי / אם לא איפא מי יכזיבני / מה שגיתי יבין אותי / יכתוב לו ספר איש ריבי / אך יעשה זאת טרם אמות / כי מה אשיב אחרי שכבי / או ימות גם הוא כמוני / או ימתין לי עד שובי / …….”

“…Indeed my words are not a lie / So who will dispute me? / If I erred, please  show me where / And my rival may write his own opinion  / But let him do it before I die / Because once I died how could I reply? / Or possibly he too may meanwhile pass away / Or he might have to wait for my resurrection from the dead….”

Later, in a playful rhymed foreword, combining genuine modesty with an awareness of his own value, he added a well-known fable attributed to Pliny the Elder, which Eliyahu claims to remember from his youth:

“אפתחה במשל פי / אשר שמעתי בימי חרפי / כי היה באחד המקומות / אשר נקבו בשמות / אמן אחד צייר / וצייר צלם איש על נייר / והיה האיש ההוא / תם וישר / יפה תואר ומשוח בששר / וידביקהו על לוח עץ / ועל פתח ביתו היה אותו נועץ / להראות העמים והשרים את יופיו / כי כליל הוא מהדרו  וצבי עדיו / ויהי כאשר כל העם רואים / והנה בתוך הבאים / זקן אחד רצען / על משענתו נשען / וראה והביט גם הוא / אחרי כן פתח את פיהו / ויאמר הנני עומד משתאה / איך הצייר שגה ברואה / הלא תראו כי שרוך הנעל / הפוך למטה למעל / וכשמוע הצייר את זאת / יצא גם הוא לראות / וירא ויניע ראש / והודה ולא בוש / ויאמר צדקת אתה הזקן / אך הלילה המעוות אתקן / וכן תקנהו טרם הלך לישון / ולמחרתו הוציאו כמשפט הראשון / ויבוא הרצען שנית / ויוסף להביט בתבנית / ויאמר לצייר יפה תיקנת ועשית / אבל בדבר אחד שגית / כי רואה אני דבר נבזה / כי הברכיים אינם דומים זה לזה / האחד גדול והאחד קטן / ויאמר לו הצייר לך אל השטן / כי משרוך הנעל ולמעלה/ אין לך בחכמה חלק ונחלה / ויהי הרצען לבושה ולכלימה / ויפן וילך בחימה / וכן יראתי גם אני / שכמקרה הרצען יקרני / בעניין זה החיבור / רעה עלי ידובר / ויאמר אלי מי שהוא / מה לך פה אליהו / כלך למדברך אצל דקדוק ומסורות / אין לך עסק בנסתרות / אל תחמוד כבוד יותר מלימודך / ואל תנבל כסא כבודך / ולכן יראתי לקרב אל המלאכה / פן לא אראה בה סימן ברכה / אך רוחי הציקתני / ואש עצור בעצמותי ושרפתני / וכלכל לא יכולתי / ומאת השם עזר שאלתי / יצרף לי למעשה המחשבה / ויורני בדרך הטובה / כי מכיר אני את מקומי / שיותר מידי נטלתי גדולה  לעצמי / שמלאני לבי לפרש כל השורשים / אשר בשום מקום אינם מפורשים / ואף מאותם המפורשים כבר / אחדש בכל אחד איזה דבר / ורובם מן הגמרא ומדברי רבותינו / כגון בראשית רבא ותנחומא וילמדנו / ואף שבעוונותיי / כבר עברו רוב שנותיי / ולא ראיתי בטובה / בהוויות אביי ורבא / ולחכמים מעט שימשתי / ומשאם ומתנם לא בשתי ביקשתי / מכל מקום לבי לא מנעני / ובאגדות ובמדרשים יגעתי / להוציא מהם דברים חשוקים / ובפרושי ומדרשי הפסוקים / עד שרוב גירסתם היא לי ידועה / וזה יהיה לי לישועה / את הספר הזה לחבר / ולברר וללבן את אשר אדבר / …………/.

The fable tells the story of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a contemporary of Alexander the Great), and a cobbler,. Apelles drew a beautiful young man and pasted the painting on wooden board that he placed at his doorway to impress all passers–by. Among them was an old cobbler, leaning on his cane. The cobbler gazed at the painting and commented: “I am surprised how the artist made such a mistake. You see, the shoelace goes upside down”. When the artist heard that, he went out to see, nodded his head and consented: “You are right, old man. But tonight I shall correct the mistake”. And so he did before going to sleep and the next day he hung the painting in place as before. And the old cobbler came again. He looked at the painting and told the artist: “Well done but there is still another mistake: the knees are not alike, one is bigger than the other”. The artist said then commented angrily: “Go to hell. From the shoelace upwards you know nothing”. The cobbler was ridiculed by all around and turned away in a rage. And, says Eliahu Bachur, he is afraid that the same will happen to him with this book, the “Tishbi”. Somebody will say: “What are you doing here? Go back to Hebrew grammar and Massoret. Don’t deal in what you don’t know and don’t ask to be honored in doing so“. Therefore, he was afraid to undertake that work, in which he might fail. However, he could not restrain himself and asked God for help in showing him the right way. Eliyahu adds that he knows his place and that he may be presumptuous in daring to explain all the Hebrew roots, which are not explained elsewhere, adding that even to those that had been explained, he was still bringing something new from the Gmara and other sources.

Particularly impressive is the friendship and mutual respect that developed between the old Jew and the Christian preacher Paulus Fagius in the course of their work together in Isny, about which Eliyahu writes in the foreword to the book:

“……..ובבואי הנה תהיתי בקנקנו ומצאתיו מלא ישן ולא הוגד לי החצי מחכמתו וידיעתו, ורבים שואבים מי תורתו, ודורש טוב לעמו, נאה דורש ונאה מפרש  ………..ובראותו הספר הזה אשר חיברתי והכיר רוב טובו ותועלתו, נזדרז מאד והעתיק אותו ללשון לאטין אשר קראו קדמונינו לשון רומי וחיבר שתי הלשונות יחד ונשים עיוננו עליו בכל מאמצי כוחנו, הוא מצד אחד ואני מצד אחר. ונקרא איש אל אלוהיו שיצליח את מלאכתנו ………”

“…And when I came hither I wondered about his character, and I found him full of wisdom, and I had not been informed about the breadth of his knowledge, and many come to learn from him, and he performs good deeds, in sickness and in health… And when he saw the book which I had written he recognized its worth, and hastened to translate it into Latin, which was the language of ancient Rome, and together we made connections between the two languages, he on the one hand and I on the other, and each one of us sought guidance and help from his God.” (my emphasis, D.Y.)

Being a devoted Christian Pastor, Fagius didn’t abandon his missionary vision and one of the books he printed in Isny, ‘The Book of Belief’ (Sefer Amana), is unmistakably a missionary tract. The book was published in two versions, Hebrew and Latin. In the introduction to the Hebrew edition Paulus Fagius wrote in Hebrew: “The Book of Belief is a goodly and pleasant book which was written by a wise Israelite a few years ago in order to teach and prove quite clearly that the belief of Messianic in the Lord the father, his son, and the holy spirit, and other things is entire, correct and without doubt…”. We can only imagine how uncomfortable Eliahu Bachur felt in proofreading this book.

Now, as was customary in those days when printers took pride in their work, Paulus Fagius placed a colophon at the end of the books he printed with his printer’s emblem, an elaborate and beautiful woodcut of a tree surrounded by verses, which he regarded as his motto in life. Among them was one verse, which appeared with slight variations in most of the books that were printed at Isny:“תקוותי במשיח הנשלח שהוא עתיד לדון חיים ומתים“ “My hope is in the Messiah who was sent (נשלח) and who will judge the living and dead.”

As stated, ‘The Book of Belief’ appeared in Hebrew, apparently intended for the Jews, and in Latin for the Christians. The Latin version ends with the verse cited above, while at the end of the Hebrew version the printer’s emblem appears with a slight difference, which is not immediately discernible:

תקוותי במשיח הנשלך אשר הוא יבוא לדון את חיים ומתים

 

My hope is in the Messiah who was dismissed (הנשלך) and who will come to judge the living and dead.

There can be no doubt that this is no printer’s error but a subtle message sent by Eliyahu Bachur in his capacity as the book’s proofreader to his Jewish brethren down the ages, saying: “I have not betrayed. You know what I think about this”. I noticed this subtle difference when I examined the books, which are kept in the amazingly well preserved study of Paulus Fagius next to the Church of Saint Nicholas in Isny, where he preached nearly 500 years ago. When I brought it to the attention of the extremely kind priest who escorted me and who now occupies Fagius’s chair, he was very surprised and, I fear, somewhat offended. 

Eliyahu Bachur was attuned to the need to disseminate knowledge not only to the educated Jewish elite but also to the general Jewish community, men and women. Therefore, another book, which Eliyahu Bachur printed in Isny in the year 1541, was ‘Bovo d’Antona’, a popular adventure novel about knights, which he translated into the Judeo-German dialect, Ivri Teitsch (western Yiddish From the introduction he wrote to the book, we learn about the status of women in Jewish society at that time and about their reading habits. In rhymed introduction, he tells all righteous women“איך אליה לוי דער שרייבר, דינר אלר ורומן וויבר” that there are women who complain that he does not print for them in Ivri Teitsch the books that he has written, and they are right. And since he has written eight or nine books in Hebrew and since he is now rather old, he wishes to publish all these books and poetry in Ivri-Teitsch. The first of which will be the “Bovo Buch,” which he translated from Italian thirty-four years earlier. Since this translation contains words in Italian, he will print a glossary at the end of the book explaining their meaning [and so he did, D.Y.]. Naturally he cannot transmit,the melody by which the book should be read. “איך זינג עש מיט איינם ועלשן גיזנק, קאן ער דרויף מכן איין ביסרן, זא הב ער דאנק” . He himself sings it in the Italian melody but everyone can adapt a better melody to the text, as he wishes. At the end of the book, Eliyahu Bachur adds that he hopes to print more books in Ivri Teitsch, but apparently he did not, or perhaps no copy has reached us. Of the ‘Bovo d’Antona’ book, only a single copy (Unicum) survives, which is preserved in the Zurich Public Library. However, the book was so popular at the time that its name has given rise to the expression that we use still today, “Bobe Meise” in the sense of silly, nonsense tale.

The book ‘Meturgaman’, (“Translator”), which Eliyahu Bachur composed and printed in Isny in 1542, was intended to be a dictionary which “Will explain all words, difficult and easy alike, which appear in the Aramaic translations of the bible and Talmud Yerushalmi”. To the book Eliyahu Bachur added a colophon, which sheds light on a touching side of his personality. In the colophon Eliyahu printed a delicate and sweet love song to his wife whom he had left behind in Venice:

“והנה מאחר שקפצה עלי הזיקנה / ואני  איש זקן וכבד מאד / ומידי יום יום תכהה עיני ונס ליחי / אשוב מצבא העבודה ולא אעבוד עוד / ואלך לי אל ארצי אשר יצאתי משם / היא מדינת וונציה/ ואמות בעירי עם אשתי הזקנה / ולא אניד עוד רגל ממנה / והיא תשת עלי עינה / ורק המוות יפריד ביני ובינה/ ואשב שם כל ימי חיותי/ ואשלים חיבור הספרים אשר החילותי/  אז אומר לאל אשר יצר אותי/  קח נא את חיי כי טוב מותי”.

The song is translated here without modifications or explanations, though the charming wording in Hebrew is lost:

“And since I became old and heavy, and each day my eye sight weakens and my strength is leaving me, I shall retire from work and go back to the homeland that I left, the land of Venice, and die there with my old wife, and I shall never move again from her, and she will keep an eye on me and only death shall part us, and I shall live there the rest of my life and complete the books which I have already started to write. Then I shall ask the Lord who created me: take my life, it is better that I die”.

And in another song below this one, the old scholar summarize his life and work in most touching words:

                           

“הלל אל אל המלך נאמן              אבינו האב הרחמן

שהחייני עד הגעתי                       עתה אל זה היום וזמן

היה איתי עד נטעתי                     זה הנטע נטע נעמן

בו נגלות כל המילות                    העבריות עם תרגומן

גם הוא מורה בגיליון                   איה תחנותן ומקומן

הוא כמליץ שהוא ממליץ              ובטוב מילין הוא מטעימן

ויי שוכן שמים                              וממנו דבר לא נטמן

ידע כי לא עשיתי זאת                 להיות נקרא רב או אמן

כי הנותן לכסיל כבוד                   כצרור אבן תוך ארגמן

לאל בלבד נאה כבוד                   ולזולתו הא ליכא מאן

הן לכבודו ולאהבתו                     בלבד רשמתי רישומן

אנא אלי לי ולאשתי                     החסד גם האמת מן

שהיא לא תהיה אלמנה               ואני לא אהיה אלמן

יחד נמות ובגן עדנות                  תוך חיקה אישן עד לזמן

יבוא הקץ ואזי נקיץ                     ולחיי עד יחד נזדמן

ובכך תמו גם נשלמו                    דברי השירה עד תומן

ואני אליה המחבר                       לפרט זאת השנה סימן“

Eliyahu Bachur’s wish was only partly fulfilled. He returned to Venice after the short-lived printing house in Isny closed down, and even though he edited and proofread a few more books for printers who replaced Bomberg’s enterprise, his strength continued to weaken. His long time co-worker in the printing business, Cornelio Adelkind in a letter to the humanist Andrea Masius in 1547 calls Eliyahu איש ערירי (Lonely man) which implies that his wife passed away few years before him. Eliyahu Bachur died in the month of Shevat in the year Shin Tet (1549) and was buried in the old Jewish cemetery in the isle of Lido near Venice. The headstone on his grave is still to be seen. I visited his grave, put a little stone on it and read the engraved epitaph, which includes sophisticated wording and allusions in Hebrew. This and the fact that the epitaph does not refer to the day of his death may suggest that he composed the text himself:

ש”ט לפ”ק

ר’ אליהו הלוי בחור ומדקדק

הלא אבן בקיר תזעק ותהמה לכל עובר

עלי זאת ה-קבורה

עלי רבן-אשר נלקח ועלה בשמיים

אלי-יה ב-סערה

הלא הוא זה אשר האיר בדקדוק אפלתו

ושם אותו לאורה

שנת שט שט בחדש שבט בסופו, ונפשו ב

בצרור חיים צרורה

It was impossible to translate the delicate playing in words that is concealed through the epitaph. The text below is only a shadow of its poetic brilliance.

Shin Tet le Prat Katan

Rabbi Eliyahu Halevi Bachur And Grammarian

A stone from wall will cry and moan to every passer by

On this grave

On rabbi Eliyahu who went to heaven

To God by a storm

He is the one who lightened the darkness of [Hebrew] grammar

And put it to light

Year Shin Tet at the end of the month of Shevat and his soul

In the bonds of life be bound

תנצב”ה

Review of Shaul Stampfer, Families, Rabbis and Education: Traditional Jewish Society in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe

by Marc B. Shapiro

The continuation of my last post will be ready soon, but in the meantime I am posting my short review of Shaul Stampfer’s new book. It appeared on the H-Judaic listserv, but since most readers of Seforim Blog probably did not see it, I am posting it here as well.

For many years, Shaul Stampfer has been recognized as an authority in all things dealing with nineteenth-century Jewish Eastern Europe. In his newest book, we have a collection of numerous essays representing more than twenty years of his scholarship, including one essay published for the first time (“The Missing Rabbis of Eastern Europe”). Stampfer’s focus is not on the purely intellectual debates between rabbinic elites. He is more interested in social history, how average people and in particular women lived. Even his discussions of rabbis emphasize such matters as inheritance of rabbinic positions and the rabbi’s role in communal life. His sources are quite broad: traditional rabbinic works as well as Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian texts and newspapers.

I could write extensively about every essay, each of which taught me a great deal. (And I never imagined that an entire essay could be written on the pushke and its development.) Yet to remain within the word limit for this review, let me just mention some of Stampfer’s most important points, the major theses of the book.

People have generally assumed that marriages in Jewish Eastern Europe were very stable, with divorce being quite rare. Stampfer, however, provides evidence to demonstrate that divorce was common and not shameful. Based on his evidence, he is fundamentally correct. In addition to citing statistics, Stampfer also refers to memoir literature that mentions divorce. Yet I also think that Stampfer (and ChaeRan Y. Freeze before him) exaggerates the frequency of divorce. For example, one of his statistics of marriage and divorce is from the 1860s in the city of Berdichev where for every three to four marriages, there was one divorce. He cites similar statistics for Odessa (p. 46). Stampfer goes so far as to claim that “it may well be the case that there were thirty divorces for every hundred weddings in the nineteenth century” (p. 128). However, these numbers are certainly skewed for the simple reason that while marriages took place in every town, to obtain a divorce couples had to travel to a larger city where there was a beit din and scribe. Thus, divorces from any one city do not reveal a ratio of marriage to divorce. The situation is identical to what happens today. Couples get married anywhere they want, but must come to a central location for their divorce.

Stampfer also argues that contrary to another popular stereotype, early teenage marriage was not at all common in traditional Jewish society. While it occurred among the economic and intellectual elite, and is immortalized in memoirs of the latter, early teenage marriage does not reflect the life experience of the average young Jew. Similarly, the lower class, which encompassed most Jews, did not have much use for matchmaker services, and indeed, romance was a factor in their marriages.

Tied to the points made so far is the place of women in society. Many of us are accustomed to think of traditional society as one in which men had all the power and made all the decisions, and in which the husband went out to work while the wife served as a homemaker. Yet Stampfer shows that while this perception fits in very well with contemporary “family values,” it is not how East European Jewish society functioned. Women generally worked, were involved in business ventures, and were thus “out of the home.” Unlike today, the stay-at-home wife and mother was not necessarily an ideal. Stampfer also notes that many Jewish names were created from women’s names, which he thinks “reflects a reality in which both men and women could be in the centre” (p. 133).

Adding to these arguments, Stampfer includes the following suggestive comment: “Another indication of the place of women in Jewish society can be found in the aesthetics of Jews in Eastern Europe. Males were regarded as attractive if they were thin, had white hands, and wore glasses. These were all reflections of lives devoted to study and perhaps to asceticism. On the other hand, attractive women had full bodies and were strong and active. Their appearance promised work and support. Different ideals are expressed here, but the image of the ideal woman is not one of weakness” (p. 133). In short, East European Jewish society was not what we would regard as a patriarchy. Conservative views on the importance of women staying in the home to raise children might be sound social policy, yet we should not assume that this is how East European Jews ever actually lived.

Another fact noted by Stampfer, which will no doubt be surprising to readers, is the existence of coed heders. This is certainly not the image that people have of this institution. Yet while the coed aspect is interesting, especially, as Stampfer states, “given the contemporary concern (or obsession) in certain very Orthodox Jewish circles regarding co-educational education even in elementary grades,” even more significant is what this says about education for girls (p. 169 n. 11; see also p. 32). Contrary to what many think, there were East European Jewish girls who were educated just like their brothers, and Stampfer thinks that the ratio of girls to boys in heder was approximately one to eight (p. 170).

As for education in general, while some people like to imagine Eastern Europe as a placenwhere Torah study always thrived, Stampfer notes that “one can safely conclude that by the mid-1930s there were far more young Jewish males in secondary schools than in yeshivas” (p. 272). Also worthy of note is Stampfer’s point that the kollel (a school of rabbinic studies for married men) system developed because there were no longer many rich fathers-in-law willing to support a son-in-law who was studying. In addition, he argues that the shrinking of the job market for rabbis also had a share in the development of the kollel.

Let me conclude with some minor comments and corrections. On page 69, note 39, the proper reference in  Pithei Teshuvah  is  Even ha-Ezer 9:5, and the rabbi cited should be R. David Ibn Zimra (Radbaz), not R. Jacob Willowski (Ridbaz).On page 181, Stampfer discusses the famous description by R. Barukh Epstein of his aunt, Rayna Batya, the wife of R. Naphtali Zvi Judah Berlin. While acknowledging that some have doubted the veracity of Epstein’s story, Stampfer states that “the account seems plausible.” Here I must disagree. While there can be no doubt that Batya was an unusual woman, Epstein’s account of his conversations with her, as with much else in his autobiography, cannot be relied on. I have discussed this at length elsewhere, and readers can examine my arguments at the Seforim Blog here.

On page 285, Stampfer refers to the Moscow crown rabbi Jacob Mazeh (1859-1924) as having been martyred. Yet this is incorrect as Mazeh died a natural death. On page 326, note 6, regarding the Vilna Gaon’s attitude toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz, see Sid Z. Leiman, “When a Rabbi Is Accused of Heresy: The Stance of the Gaon of Vilna in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,” in Ezra Flescher, et al, eds., Meah Shearim (2001). Finally, on page 327, Stampfer offers evidence of criticism of the Vilna Gaon during his lifetime. In my September 12, 2009, post at the Seforim Blog, available here, I offer another example of such criticism. This is reported by R. Hayyim Dov Ber Gulevsky who heard it from his grandfather, R. Simhah Zelig Rieger, the dayan of Brisk. (Incidentally, Gulevsky is quoted by Stampfer on page 353.)

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, there is much more that can be said about Stampfer’s careful scholarship, which is a treat for all readers. I know that many share my wish to soon see in print the English edition of his classic work on the Lithuanian yeshivot.

* * *

Let me now add a few additional comments especially for the benefit of those who had already read the review before I posted it here.

1. Stampfer’s book is published by my favorite press, Littman Library. I want to call readers’ attention to another recent and wonderful book published by Littman: Sharon Flatto, The Kabbalistic Culture of Eighteenth-Century Prague. Interestingly, two dissertations were written at the same time on the Noda bi-Yehudah. The other was by David Katz, which bears the interesting title “A Case Study in the Formation of a Super-Rabbi: The Early Years of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, 1713-1754 (University of Maryland, 2004). Although Katz’ dissertation has not yet appeared in print, there is definitely room for the two as they focus on different areas and are both works of great learning. (Yet I hope that when Katz publishes his book, he changes the title. It is bad enough that today we have people writing about how they “consulted Daas Torah” as if there is such an individual so named. The only thing worse would be to hear people recount how “I asked the Super-Rabbi his opinion” or to have Yated tell how how “The Super-Rabbi has issued his Daas Torah.” That will surely leave the religious Zionists reaching for their kryptonite.)

Regarding how Landau was indeed a “Super-Rabbi,” to use Katz’ expression, I found interesting testimony in R. Shraga Feivish Shneebalg, Shraga ha-Meir, vol. 2, no. 76. He states that he heard from R. Dov Berish Wiedenfeld, who heard from R. Meir Arik, that the Noda bi-Yehudah was the posek ha-dor. Assuming there is such a position, I don’t know of anyone more qualified for it than Landau. I must admit, however, that this is an Ashkenazic-centered perspective, because it is unimaginable that a Sephardic scholar would ever come into consideration by most of those who like to speak of the gadol ha-dor. Thus when people refer to R. Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor, R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski, etc. as the gadol ha-dor. they never wonder if perhaps there was a great sage in the Sephardic world who fit the bill. When people speak about the gadol or posek ha-dor, it really means the gadol or posek of their world.

Returning to Arik, he said that after the Noda bi-Yehudah the Hatam Sofer held that role. Here again, I don’t think there will be much argument. But the names he gives after this show how Arik, a Galician scholar, sees matters differently than a Lithuanian. He claimed that R. Solomon Drimer was the next posek ha-dor, yet I don’t think most people reading this post have even heard of him. For the next period, he gave the Hungarian posek R. Solomon Leib Tabak of Sighet (died 1908), author of Erekh Shai. Again, I don’t think most people reading this post have ever heard of Tabak. Yet Arik regarded him as the posek ha-dor. As a Galician, not a Lithuanian, Arik had a different perspective on who the great poskim were.[1] Yet a Lithuanian hearing this would laugh. If you asked him who the posek ha-dor was for the period of Tabak, he could give all sorts of names: R. Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor, R. Naftali Zvi Judah Berlin, R. Jehiel Michel Epstein, R. Joseph Zechariah Stern, and the list goes on, but Tabak wouildn’t even make it to the top twenty.

This different perspective was recognized by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg. In one responsum (Kitvei R. Weinberg, vol. 1, no. 11), after quoting a position of a Hungarian posek, Weinberg writes:

ודאי שרבני ליטא ופולין ילעגו על דברים אלה ואולם המחבר הנ”ל הי’ גאון וצדיק מפורסם וחלילה לבטל דבריו בתנופת יד גרידא. כתבתי כל הנ”ל כדי להוכיחו שצריך הוא להיות זהיר ומתון ולא להמשך אחרי הקולות של רבני ליטא ופולין שהם גדולים וחכמים בהלכה אבל בהוראה למעשה עולה עליהם רבני אונגארן וגאליציען ומובחרי השו”ת בהוראה למעשה שיצאו בזמן האחרון נתחברו על ידם.

Earlier in this responsum Weinberg writes:

כבר רמזתי לכת”ר שבעינים כאלו יש לסמוך יותר על רבני אונגארן הקרובה לאשכנז ויודעים מצב הדברים באשכנז יותר מרבני פולין וליטא. ובכלל נוטה אני מדעת חברי ורבותי רבני פולין וליטא שאינם משגיחים הרבה ברבני אונגארן. גם אני הייתי סבור כן קודם בואי לכאן, אבל אח”כ ראיתי כי בעניני הוראה עולים הם על רבני פולין וליטא, כי יש להם חוש מיוחד להוראה מעשית וכמעט כולם נתחנכו בבית מדרשו של רבינו שבגולה החת”ס ז”ל שהוא הי’ עמוד ההוראה כידוע ומפורסם.

These words are amazing because Weinberg is admitting that before he came to Germany, he too shared the feeling of superiority that he describes here. Before then it was unimaginable to him that a posek outside of Lithuania or Poland would have had much of value to add.

2. In a previous post, available here, I wrote about rabbis who began writing books at a very young age. I was asked if there are additional examples of this. There are indeed a number, and in a future post I will discuss one in more detail. For now, here is the title page of R. Aaron Friedlander’s Avrekh, where it tells us that part of the book was written when the author was nine years old! See also the approbations to this volume.

Here is the title page of R. Hezekiah David Abulafia’s Ben Zekunim. If you read the introduction you will see that the first part of this book was written when the author was thirteen years old.

R. Yitzhak Arieli reported being told by R. Kook that the latter authored a book on Song of Songs when he was only eleven years old. You can find Arieli’s testimony here.

As I am writing this people are once again outraged by something R. Ovadiah Yosef said, in that he attributed the fires in Israel to lack of Sabbath observance. Obviously, this is not the sort of comment that appeals to those with a modern temperament, but in traditional societies it is an expectation of the people that the leading rabbis will find some spiritual reason to explain tragedies. So why I am mentioning this now? Because in the document from Arieli, no. 38, he quotes R. Kook as saying something that people will find even more shocking than anything R. Ovadiah has ever said. (I don’t think you will find the students of R. Kook ever repeating it.) R. Kook wondered if the 1929 pogrom in Hebron was perhaps due to the fact that the Hebron Yeshiva brought in their “modern” ways to Israel, by which he means their way of dressing, hair style and beardless faces.

בהפרעות (בשנת תרפ”ט) בחברון מצאתיו ביום ראשון יושב ובוכה והבליט מפיו שמא מפני שהכניסו תלבושת והנהגה חדשה בארץ (היה מתנגד לגלוח הזקן (כמובן במכונה או בסם) ובלורית ואולי גם בגדים קצרים, ובישיבה העיר כ”פ ע”ז ( אבל קשה היה לשנות ההרגלים שבחו”ל).

I agree that this sounds shocking and offensive to modern ears, especially to those who lost family members in this event. I mean, can you imagine telling someone whose child was killed that it was because certain yeshiva students were dressing in a modern fashion? But again, the traditional mind works differently than the modern mind. I say this not to recommend that we all reprogram our minds so that these sorts of explanations are once again appealing, any more than I would wish that, as with Jews in medieval Germany, we once again believe that demons are all around us causing all sorts of problems. I mention it only to add some context and help explain how the most influential rabbinic mind of the twentieth century could say something which to modern ears sounds outrageous. Just as it wrong to judge pre-modern science negatively because it didn’t have access to modern technology, so too we must be careful about being prejudiced against traditionalist explanations because we might no longer share the same assumptions as our predecessors

3. With regard to R. Baruch Epstein’s discussions about his uncle the Netziv in Mekor Barukh, the irony is that the Netziv thought that there was no good purpose in reading the biographies of great Torah sages. He thought that this was nothing less than bitul Torah. See the letter from R. Hayyim Berlin printed at the beginning of his father’s Meromei Sadeh.

The Netziv’s concern with bitul Torah was such that when his wife (I presume his first wife, Rayna Batya) had to have an operation and the students wanted to say Tehillim for her, the Netziv refused to stop the learning for this. After the students continued to push, he agreed to allow five minutes of tehillim. This was reported by R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, who must have heard it from his father. See R. Hayyim Avihu Schwartz, Be-Tokh ha-Torah ha-Goelet (Beit El, 2006), p. 201.

In an e-mail discussion with one reader, he contrasted the Netziv to R. Chaim Soloveitchik and R. Velvel ,saying that the Netziv was so “normal”. I don’t want to use words like that, and while R. Chaim had many unique qualities, I don’t think the stories told about him are any more unusual than those told of other gedolim. Most of these stories are, in fact, quite inspiring. The stories about R. Velvel are, I admit, of a different flavor. I mentioned two such examples here.

Yet lest one thing that these type of stories are unique to R. Velvel, let me mention a story about the Aderet “brought down” (to use the yeshiva lingo) in the book I just referred to, Be-Tokh ha-Torah ha-Goelet, p. 324. R. Zvi Yehudah told how one of the Aderet’s sons died right after birth, just as Shabbat was starting . The Aderet told his wife that she should perpare the Shalom Zakhor as if everything was normal, for there is no avelut on Shabbat and the community does not need to know that anything is wrong. When the Rebbetzin began to cry the Aderet replied to her that she is acting this way because she doesn’t study Talmud. If she studied Talmud she would know that there are often times when we are left with questions, and the same is true in life.

4. Stampfer’s point about the frequency, and lack of shame, of divorce in Eastern Europe was an eye-opener to me. In Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 22, I mention that divorce was very uncommon in traditional Lithuanian Jewish society, and almost unheard of among the rabbinate. I now see that I was mistaken in this assumption (which was based on my general impressions, not on the sort of evidence Stampfer makes use of). For examples of rabbinic figures who got divorced, see here.

5. I referred to Daas Torah above, and since someone asked me if I could write up what I said about it in a recent lecture, I will do so now. In this lecture I quoted what appears in R. Yitzhak Dadon’s new book, Rosh Devarkha. This is the follow-up to his earlier book, Imrei Shefer, both of which record the teachings of R. Avraham Shapiro, Rosh Yeshiva of Merkaz ha-Rav. On p. 10 one finds R. Avraham’s very harsh comments against Daas Torah. He would refer to it as Ziyuf ha-Torah. Here are some of his words:

האם התורה עוברת רק דרך אדם אחד?! בחו”ל לא היה כדבר הזה! זה אמר כך, וגדול פלוני חלק עליו וחשב אחרת, מישהוא אמר שהפלוני הזה הוא נגד “דעת תורה”?! מהיכן הביאו את הדבר הזה? אם ה”חפץ חיים” סבר כך ורבי מאיר שמחה אחרת ופלוני גדול אחר

חלק עליהם, יש מי מהם שהוא נגד “דעת תורה”? איזו הנהגה היא זו? זו השתלטות על דעת הרבנים, ולא היה כזאת בעם ישראל.

As for the practice of declaring what the Daas Torah is through the newspaper or through placards, without any sources to support this, here are R. Avraham’s strong words (and apologies if any wives are offended):

כלפי רבנים המוצאים חוות-דעת ותלמידיהם מפרסמים זאת תחת הכותרת: “דעת תורה”, בלי שום אסמכתאות ומקורות נאמנים היה מרן זצ”ל אומר: “איזו מין דעת תורה היא זו? כשאדם אומר “דעת תורה” בלי שום מקורות, אז הכוונה היא כזאת: זה קצת מבוסס על מה שהוא למד, והרוב זה מה שאשתו אמרה לו, זה הפירוש דעת תורה.

Anyone who is honest will admit that the current practice of Daas Torah is completely phony. My proof of this is very simple. If tomorrow R. Elyashiv would declare that everyone has to say hallel on Yom ha-Atzmaut, would the Lithuanian yeshiva world listen to his Daas Torah? Of course not. They would simply replace him with another gadol whose Daas Torah is more palatable to them. In other words, the gadol only has Daas Torah because the masses, or the askanim, let him have it, and only when they like what he says. (I am curious. Has R. Elyashiv’s ruling that fashionable sheitls are forbidden had any effect on his supposed followers?).

Try to imagine what would happen if someone in the haredi world discovered a letter from the Hazon Ish, the ultimate Daas Torah authority, in which he said that only the best and the brightest in the State of Israel should devote themselves to Torah study. However, everyone else should go to work. Does anyone think that this letter would ever see the light of day? Of course not! We all know what would happen. The letter would be kept hidden, and if by chance some rebel did publish it, the haredi world would find a way to justify why they don’t accept the Hazon Ish’s viewpoint.

6. In this post I referred to a mistaken point by R. Ezriel Tauber in his recent book Pirkei Mahashavah al Yud Gimel Ikarim le-ha-Rambam. I was asked if my negative comment relates to the entire book, or just the one point I referred to. My answer is that I wasn’t referring to the entire book, and I am sure that people will find things that are valuable in it. Yet I have to say that I don’t find it helpful when an author like Tauber asserts, p. 428, that people who claim to be atheists are really not. Rather, they just don’t want to believe, but deep down they know the truth.

Contrary to Tauber (and he is not the only one to express himself this way), the only intellectually honest position is to take people like Christopher Hitchens at their word and deal with it. Claiming that the atheist really believes is no better than the atheist saying that the believer really knows the truth that there is no God.

Furthermore, from my perspective I can’t take an author seriously when he says things like how in the Far East there are people who have the power to use black magic, and their knowledge is part of a tradition that goes back to Abraham. P. 133:

ואכן במזרח הרחוק יודעים שמות של טומאה, ויש להניח ששורש הידיעה היא מאברהם אבינו. ואף על פי שהם כוחות אמיתיים, אסור לנו להשתמש בהם.

*  *  *

I want to take this opportunity to invite all Seforim Blog readers on what I know will be an amazing Jewish heritage tour to Central Europe this summer. Details can be found here. They are still working on the price, and it will be posted soon. Those who want further details are invited to contact me.

With Christmas Eve almost upon us, I also invite readers to watch, or listen to, my lecture “Torah Study (or Lack of It) On Christmas Eve: The History of a Very Strange Practice.” It is available here. The few dollars (Canadian) that it costs go to support a very worthy organization, Torah in Motion.

Notes