Summer 2020 Sale Announcement: Eight New (or newish) book recommendations

By Eliezer Brodt

Normally this time of the year I post to announce book week and to list out many of the seforim and books printed during the year. This year, due to Covid-19, there is no book fair. At this time there is “talk” of holding a fair in a few months, but who knows what the future will bring. Some publishing companies are currently running sales via their websites; others did not. What follows is a partial list of publishers on sale right now: Bialik, Bar-Ilan University Press, Magnes Press, Academy L’Lashon Haivrit, Mechon Shlomo Uman, Zichron Aron, Mechon Yerushalayim (catalog available upon request), and Ahavat Shalom (catalog available upon request). As in previous years I am offering a service, for a small fee to help one purchase seforim or Books from these sales. For more information about this email me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com

This post serves a dual purpose; by mentioning and describing a few, new, important works (some are brand new; others are not), the Seforim blog readership is made aware that they are out there. The second purpose of this post is to make particular seforim available for a limited time and at a special price to those interested in purchasing them through me. Part of the proceeds will be going to support the efforts of the Seforim Blog. Contact me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com for more information.

The first book I would like to mention is in English, titled Torah & Rationalism, Understanding Torah and the Mesorah – Writings of Rabbi Aaron Chaim Halevi Zimmerman (216 pp.).

This work was compiled and annotated by Rabbi Moshe Landy. It’s very well written and will certainly be enjoyed by readers. Of note is that this work includes his attacks on Chochmat Yisroel in general and specifically on Louis Ginsburg, G. Scholem and Leo Strauss.

Here is the table of contents.

משה ארנד, שבעים פנים לתורה, 747 עמודים

The second work I would like to mention is a collection of Professor Moshe Arend’s writings. Arend was a famous educator at various institutions and universities. He also wrote numerous articles and books, including a critical edition of R’ Yosef Kra on Iyov and a work on Rashi with Nechama Lebowitz (via Open University).

This new work is composed of a few parts (see the table of contents below). The first section is based on Shiurim he gave devoted to outlying the methods of fourteen different Rishonim and Achronim on Chumash. This part is 348 pages long and is a very valuable tool, as he was known as a master educator.

Other sections are devoted to education (including a section on how to properly teach Tanach) Aggadah, articles on Moadim, Teffilah and Minhaghim. It also includes some memoirs of his interesting life, and write ups of some people he knew. The work concludes with some interesting letters. This wide range collection of material was compiled by his son Dr. Aharon Arend and includes a thorough index to easily locate the numerous gems found throughout the book. Some sample pages are available upon request.

Here is the Table of contents and cover.

 

 

 

 

יצחק טברסקי, כמעיין המתגבר, הלכה ורוח ביצירת חכמי ימי הביניים, עורך: כרמי הורוביץ, מרכז זלמן שזר, 749 עמודים

The third work I would like to mention is the collection of all of Professor Yitzchak (Isadore) Twersky’s thirty-one articles, translated into Hebrew on a wide range of topics. As the original English articles have yet to be collected into one volume, this compilation serves an additional benefit. Many of these articles have been quoted, used and become classics in academic literature, and now for the first time many of them are easily accessible for the Hebrew reader. A PDF of the introduction is available upon request.

Here is the Table of contents and cover.

 

 

 

גנזי הירושלמי, יעקב זוסמן, בהשתתפות בנימין אליצור, בתוספת החיבור, שלמה נאה הערות ללשון קטעי הגניזה של התלמוד הירושלמי, 831 עמודים, בן צבי

The fourth important work I would like to mention is Ginzei HaYerushalmi from Professor Yaakov Sussman. This work collects all of the Yerushalmi manuscript fragments from the Cairo Geniza as well as collections from all over the world. The original plan was to include in this volume, Sussman’s discussions on the Yerushalmi, but due to his health that part of the project was cancelled. A PDF of the introduction and some sample pages are available upon request.

שרגא אברמסון, מחקרים בספרות הגאונים, מגנס, 488 עמודים

The fifth work I would like to mention is a collection of articles by Professor Shraga Abramson. As the abstract of this book states, Abramson was the most important scholar of his time in the field of Geonic literature and the teacher of most of the proceeding generation in this field of study. This book is the third collection of his studies pertaining to the Geonic period. The two previous volumes are considered mandatory for those interested in this formative and fascinating period. The current volume contains studies published in his lifetime but were not included in other compilations, as well as some unpublished studies found in his estate. The articles deal with various aspects of the Geonic literature. A PDF of the Table of contents & introduction are available upon request.

ספר המספיק לעובדי השם לר‘ אברהם בן הרמב“ם, מהדורה שניה מתוקנת, הוצאת אוניברסיטת בר–אילן, 358 עמודים

The sixth important work worth mentioning is the Sefer Hamaspik of R’ Avraham Maimuni, son of the Rambam. This part of the work was first printed in 1989 and is mostly of a Halachic nature, focusing on Tefilah. At the time, critical reviews of the edition noted various issues with the translation from Judeo-Arabic, issues which were addressed in this new, revised edition. At this time, I am not able to weigh in if enough was corrected or not, however I can say the work is very special, unique and is definitely worth one’s time to learn through it.

יעקב זוסמן, תורה שבעל פה פשוטה כמשמעה, כוחו של קוצו של יו“ד, מגנס, 228 עמודים

This essay is one of the most incredible academic works I have ever read. The abstract describes it as follows: It deals with the famous question of the manner in which the Tannaitic and Amoraic literature was passed on, orally or in writing, which is of great importance in determining the basic cultural and historical facts in the world of the Sages and in understanding the development of the Oral Law and in the formation of its literature. In Sussman’s revolutionary study, this complex subject was re-examined based on a thorough and profound study of various Talmudic sources, while comparing them with external, time-based evidence, published for the first time in Talmud Studies in 2004. It is published again in this book, along with detailed indices for source texts and various topics discussed therein.

חנן גפני, מפי סופרים תפיסת התורה שבעל פה בראי המחקר, מרכז זלמן שזר, 342 עמודים

Another slightly older work I would like to mention is Chanan Gafni’s Conception of the Oral Law in Modern Jewish Scholarship. This book continues his previous, excellent work P’shuto Shel Mishna. The detailed table of contents below gives one an idea of the topics dealt with inside. A pdf of the introduction is available upon request.

 

 

 

 

Pets on Shabbat, Rabbi Morenu, and Epidemics

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In my last post here I wrote as follows:

R. Yitzhak Nahman Eshkoli calls attention to what he sees as another mistake made by those who published R. Moshe Feinstein’s works.[1] Here is Iggerot Moshe,Orah Hayyim 5, 22:21.

According to the text of R. Moshe’s responsum, animals are muktzeh, even those that children play with. This means that R. Moshe held that pets are also muktzeh. Yet in the small print the editor added that pets are permitted, even though this completely contradicts the first part of the sentence. See also Iggerot Moshe, Orah Hayyim 4, no. 16 (end), where R. Moshe forbids moving a fish tank on Shabbat and Yom Tov: דבע”ח מוקצין.

If you search online you will find a number of people who deal with R. Moshe’s view of pets on Shabbat. R. Chaim Jachter, referring only to Iggerot Moshe, Orah Hayyim 4, no. 16, states that R. Moshe held that pets are muktzeh. See here. Rabbi Dov Lev writes:

See Orach Chaim 308:39 that all animals are considered muktzeh. However, see Shu”t Igros Moshe (Orach Chaim 5:22:21) that rules that designated pets are exceptional and are not muktzeh. On the other hand, Rabbi Y. P. Bodner writes (Halachos of Muktzeh, Feldheim, p. 118) that he heard from Rabbi Feinstein that pets are indeed muktzeh. This is supported by Rabbi Feinstein’s responsum (#24) at the end of the book as well as by Shu”t Igros Moshe (Orach Chaim 4:16).

There are two interesting things here. The first is that R. Lev cites the most recent responsum in Iggerot Moshe that pets are not muktzeh without taking note of what many have seen as a contradiction between what R. Moshe wrote and the small print added by the editors. Also of significance is that R. Pinchas Bodner, who wrote a book on muktzeh and consulted with R. Moshe, claims that R. Moshe told him that pets are muktzeh. See also R. Natan Slifkin, Man and Beast: Our Relationships with Animals in Jewish Law and Thought, p. 237 n. 1.

R. Yonason Rosman, Petihat ha-Iggerot, p. 314, quotes R. Moshe Kaufman, a son-in-law of R. Mordechai Tendler, that after R Moshe gave his stringent answer to R. Bodner, he then reconsidered and came to a lenient opinion. R. Kaufman adds that  R. Moshe permitted his son-in-law, R. Moshe Tendler, to handle his cat on Shabbat.

R. Doniel Yehuda Neustadt, The Daily Halacha Discussion, p. 115, n. 108, writes that “there are conflicting sources regarding Harav M. Feinstein’s opinion on this subject.”

R. Anthony Manning writes:

In the 8th volume of Iggrot Moshe (published posthumously) (O.C. 5:22:21) Rav Moshe again rules that animals are muktza. However Rav Moshe’s grandson, R. Mordechai Tendler, adds afterwards – (אלא א”כ הם מיוחדים לשעשועים (פעטס. It is not clear if Rav Moshe agreed with this addition. Rabbi Pinchas Bodner writes (Halachos of Muktza p. 119 footnote 6) that he heard directly from Rav Moshe that pets are muktza.

R. Zvi Ryzman was also troubled by the apparent contradiction inIggerot Moshe,Orah Hayyim 5, 22:21. He wrote to R. Shabbetai Rapoport, as it was R. Rapoport and R. Mordechai Tendler who were the editors of this posthumous Iggerot Moshe volume and the ones responsible for the small print. Ryzman published his correspondence with R. Rapoport in Moriah 36 (Nisan 5778), pp. 358-359.[2]

 

I think that for most people R. Rapoport’s letter will settle the matter that R. Moshe did not regard pets as muktzeh. It would thus be permissible to handle your own cat that lives in your home, but not to do so with a stray cat or with an animal on a farm, as they are not pets. While we must be grateful to R. Rapoport for explaining matters, there is no question that this should have been properly explained in Iggerot Moshe, as the poor editing job there has created an enormous amount of confusion.[3]

Ryzman provides a number of sources in traditional texts that express a negative view of having dogs as pets. Chronologically, the first on his list is R. Jacob Emden in She’elat Ya’avetz, vol. 1, no. 17.[4] It is worth noting that R. Emden also discusses this matter in Birat Migdal Oz (Warsaw, 1912), p. 127a (5:16):

.ולגדל לשחוק בהן אית ביה איסור מוסיף אחד אנשים ואחד נשים ביחוד אותן המשתעשעים ומגעגעים בכלבים חלקים מעשה עכו”ם הוא ר”ל

R. Emden had another issue with dogs, in that he tells us that one of the leading members of the Ashkenazic community of Amsterdam named his dog after R. Emden’s father, as a way of showing how he despised him. This matter greatly upset R. Emden, and all he can write is:[5]

‘שהיה מגדל כלב וקורא לו שם כו
‘הוא גידל כלב וקרא שמו כו

We thus don’t know what exactly he called the dog. Azriel Shohet writes that he called it “Hakham Zvi,”[6] but that is not in the text, and he could have just as easily called the dog simply “Zvi” or some other form of the name.

Regarding dogs, the Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 22:18, states:

אלמנה אסורה לגדל כלב מפני החשד

“A widow is forbidden to raise a dog, because of suspicion [people will suspect her of bestiality].”

As far as I can tell, there is agreement among the aharonim that this law also applies to a divorced woman, but there is no consensus about a single woman. There also seems to be agreement that there is no problem with a female dog.

Despite the fact that this halakhah is found in the Shulhan Arukh, there is no question that it is ignored in the Modern Orthodox world, either because people don’t know about it or because they find it far-fetched or even offensive. The Taz, Even ha-Ezer 22:10, brings a limud zekhut for ignoring this law from Tosafot, Bava Metzia 71a, s.v. lo, who understood the matter as being in the realm of humra, but that there is no actual prohibition as Jews are not suspected of bestiality:

לא תרבי כלבא: משום לזות שפתים בעלמא לפי שהולך אחריה שלא נחשדו ישראל על הזכור ועל הבהמה וגם אין אסור להתייחד

(The Taz’s words should be examined in the Machon Yerushalayim or Rosh Pinah editions which are corrected based on manuscripts.)

R. Isaac Lampronte (1679-1756) testifies that in eighteenth-century Italy theShulhan Arukh‘s ruling was ignored and the rabbis did not protest.[7]

אלמנה לא תגדל כלב בתוך ביתה . . . והאידנא לא ראיתי מוחים באלמנה מלגדל כלב אולי דעתה לא נחשדו ישראל על כך

In general, dogs don’t come out looking too well in rabbinic literature, something which must be distressing for all of us dog lovers. In a future post I will give examples of what I am talking about. However, there are a few positive things said about dogs as well. For example, Yalkut Shimoni, Shemot ch. 11 (no. 187), tells us that the dogs were rewarded for not whetting their tongues against the Israelites (Ex. 11:7):

שזכו לעבד עורות מצואתן לכתוב בהן ספר תורה תפילין ומזוזות

In this same section of Yalkut Shimoni there is the following passage about dogs, but I don’t think you can regard it as saying anything positive about them:

כת’ לכלב תשליכון אותו (שמות כב, ל) ללמדך שהכלב מכובד מן הגוי שהרי טריפה לכלב ונבילה לגוי

Let me make one final point about dogs. In Louis Jacob’s autobiography, Helping With Inquiries, pp. 54-55, he writes:

Before leaving my account of the Gateshead Kolel, I feel it would be incomplete unless I said something more about Rabbi Dessler, one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. Until he became the spiritual guide of the Ponievezh Yeshivah in B’nai B’rak, near Tel Aviv, Rabbi Dessler was the moving spirit behind the Kolel and his wise counsel was sought by its members even when he had moved to Israel. He was physically small and had a full but neatly trimmed beard until he went to Ponievezh, when he allowed it to grow long. He had studied in his youth at the famed Musar School in Kelm, presided over by the foremost disciple of Reb Israel Salanter, R. Simhah Züssel. He married the daughter of Reb Nahum Zeev, son of Reb Simhah Züssel. Reb Nahum Zeev was also an outstanding Musar teacher. He earned his living as a merchant in Koenigsberg, where he dressed and conducted his life in Western style. His wife and daughters dressed in the latest fashion. He even had a dog. Rabbi Dessler told us of the occasion when a Polish rabbi, in Koenigsberg to consult a physician, was invited by Reb Nahum Zeev to be a guest in his home. Witnessing the Western style in which the home was conducted, the rabbi was careful to eat very little, suspecting that the food was not completely kosher. Late at night, the Polish rabbi was awakened from his sleep by the sound of bitter weeping from a nearby room. Thinking someone needed help, the rabbi went on tiptoe to the room from which the sobs were coming only to hear the “Westernised gentleman” sobbing his heart out as he chanted the verse from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanity; all is vanity.” Needless to say, after this experience, the rabbi had no further qualms about eating at Reb Nahum Zeev’s table.[8]

I cite this passage because it reports that that R. Ziv had a dog, and this information must have come from R. Dessler.

R. Ziv was a very great man and there is a lot more that can be said about him. R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg reports that when he lived in Germany, not only did he dress in a modern fashion, but he also trimmed his beard and shook the hands of women. R. Yosef Yozel Horowitz of Novardok was very upset about these things and asked the young R. Weinberg, at this time serving as a rabbi in Pilwishki, to rebuke R. Ziv. R. Ziv told R. Weinberg, “What does he want from a Jew in Germany? I am just a simple Jew and I do not wish to cause ahillul ha-Shem. I behave like the other German Orthodox Jews.”[9] R. Weinberg added that all of R. Ziv’s actions were infused with Mussar ideals, and when he had a question, he traveled to the Hafetz Hayyim to consult with him.[10]

2. In my last post here I gave an example where the people who put together Mesorat Moshe from R. Mordechai Tendler’s notes did not understand what was being discussed. Here is another example from Mesorat Moshe, vol. 3, p. 343, no. 1.

It begins by saying that R. Moshe Feinstein receive a letter from רב מורינו. The editor explains that this refers to Jacob Rosenheim. When I read this I immediately knew it was a mistake. This volume of Mesorat Moshe covers Tevet 5735-Tevet 5736, and Rosenheim died ten years prior to this, in 1965.

Leaving this aside, the editors were led to think that the story concerned Rosenheim as he was given the honorary title “Morenu ha-Rav” by the Agudat Israel organization.[11] Yet even if he was alive at the time of the story, no one would have referred to him as “Rabbi Morenu.” In fact, he was not a rabbi even though subsequent to his death and continuing until now he is constantly given this title,[12] much like today every askan or writer associated with the Agudah is referred to as “Rabbi”. (R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg commented that for the Agudah every rabbi who joins them is treated like a great gaon,[13] to which we can add that every askan is treated like a rabbi. For the haredi critics of the Agudah, it is not only that the askanim are treated like rabbis, but that they are often treated like gedolim. A recurring theme in haredi criticism of the Agudah, since the beginning and continuing until today, is that many of the important decisions taken by Agudat Israel in the past century were made by the askanim without consultation with the Torah leaders who are supposed to be in charge.[14])

Although I knew that Mesorat Moshe could not be referring to Rosenheim, I had no idea who רב מורינו was, and assumed that there was some problem in the transcription. It never occurred to me that מורינו here was actually a name. I have to thank R. Mordechai Berger who pointed out to me that the letter is referring to R. Zev Moreno (Morejno in Polish), who served as rabbi in Lodz until 1973 when he came to New York. R. Moreno has a Wikipedia page devoted to him here.

Even after leaving Lodz, R. Moreno continued to be regarded as the chief rabbi not only of this city but of the entire country of Poland. R. Moshe Feinstein even ruled that in all matters dealing with religious life in Poland, such as appointing rabbis or shochetim, R. Morenu had to give his approval. See here and here. When R. Menahem Joskowitz arrived in Warsaw in 1989 and started functioning as the Chief Rabbi of Poland, this caused a big dispute with R. Morenu who travelled to Warsaw to confront the new rabbi. See here.

R. Morenu was clearly somewhat of a character, as only such a person would have written letters to President Ephraim Katzir, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan with the following “genius” suggestions, in which great rabbis are placed in the highest political offices as figureheads, while the politicians do all the real work: The president of the State of Israel should be the Satmar Rebbe, three vice presidents (a position that Israel does not even have) should be R. Moshe Feinstein, the Gerrer Rebbe, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who will serve together with Katzir. R. Zvi Yehudah Kook should be appointed prime minister, while the real work of the prime minister’s office should be conducted by Begin. The foreign minister should be R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv while Dayan carries out the actual duties of the foreign ministry. You can read all about his political suggestionshere.

R. Berger also called my attention to another source relevant to my last post where I discussed R. Abraham Sofer. In 2018 Minhagei Yeshivat Torah va-Da’at (Torah Vodaath)[15] was published. On p. 23 n. 45, the following story about Sofer appears. Particularly interesting is the report that the Satmar Rebbe told the young man who refused to allow Sofer to get an Aliyah and publicly embarrassed him to ask Sofer for forgiveness.

פעם נכנס לישיבת ביהמ”ד עליון תלמיד חכם נכבד נכד החת”ס, אשר מחמת דוחק הפרנסה עבד במוסד של קאנסרבטיבים. כאשר כבדו הגבאי בעליה, קפץ אחד מתלמידי הישיבה ועלה במקומו לס”ת, והוכיח את החכם הנכבד האיך יכול הוא לעבוד אצל פוקרים בעוד שסבו נלחם במסי”נ נגד הניאולוגים, וביישו ברבים עד שההוא יצא מביהמ”ד מבוייש. כאשר סיפרו זאת להרב ראובן גרוזובסקי זצ”ל, אמר שהוא בבחינת הלכה ואין מורין כן, וכשסיפור זה הגיע לאזניו של האדמו”ר מסאטמאר זצ”ל הגיב שהבחור עשה כהוגן, אך משום כבודו של החת”ס שהוא זקנו של הלה .הורה לבקש ממנו מחילה.

3. Since so many have recently discussed rabbinic responses to epidemics, let me add the following. In years past there were two understandings of how diseases were spread. One is known as the Miasma Theory, and I can do no better than to quote the opening lines of the Wikipedia entry on the topic: “The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete medical theory that held diseases—such as cholera, chlamydia, or the Black Death—were caused by a miasma (μίασμα, ancient Greek: ‘pollution’), a noxious form of ‘bad air’, also known as night air. The theory held that the origin of epidemics was due to a miasma, emanating from rotting organic matter.”

The other theory is Germ Theory, which in non-scientific language must be regarded as a fact. Germ theory explains the spread of disease as coming about through the spread of living organisms. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, both the Miasma Theory and Germ Theory (in earlier versions) found supporters in the scientific community.

In an article published in 1851,[16] Joseph Loewy claims that the amora Samuel accepted the Miasma Theory. He calls attention to Bava Metzia 107b: “And the Lord shall take away from thee all sickness (Deut. 7:15). . . . Samuel said: This refers to the wind. Samuel follows his views, for he said: All [illness] is caused by the wind.”

Loewy also cites Ta’anit 21b:

Once Samuel was informed that pestilence was raging amongst the inhabitants of Be Hozae, and he ordained a fast. The people said to him: surely [Be Hozae] is a long distance away from here. He replied: Would then a crossing prevent it from spreading?

4. In my last post I discussed letters from R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski and R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg to R. Isaac Unna that were sold by two auction houses. I mentioned how these letters came from the Unna archive at Bar Ilan University which had disappeared. A third auction house has also gotten into the act, and on June 30, 2020 the following letter from R. Grodzinksi to R. Unna is being auctioned. See here.

I refer to this letter in Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 126 n. 69.

Obviously, the person who acquired the Unna archive has decided to unload it, and as mentioned in my last post, Bar-Ilan University could not care less that documents that it agreed to watch over are now being sold at public auctions. In the previous post I showed how the Bar-Ilan manuscript numbers are clearly visible on the letters that were sold. Take a look at the letter above from R. Hayyim Ozer to R. Unna. There is no manuscript number visible. Yet this is how the letter really looks (ignore my handwriting at the top of the page).

The manuscript number appears right above the name “Grodzienski,” but has been removed from the image used by the auction house (yet presumably is still found on the actual letter).

Excursus

The general practice is to transliterate יעבץ in שאילת יעבץ as Ya’avetz. Yet in I Chron. 4:9-10, the Bible mentions a righteous man named יעְבּץ, and his name is spelled with a sheva under the ע and a dagesh in the ב. When speaking of R. Jacob Emden, יעבץ stands for יעקב בן צבי. Yet in the introduction to שאילת יעבץ, R. Emden tells us that the title also alludes to the righteous man named יעבץ in I Chron. 4:9-10, as both of their births came with pain. On the title page of his responsa, in giving the publication date, R. Emden also cites I Chron. 4:10 with the name of יעבץ.

I assume, therefore, that R. Emden intended us to pronounce the word in the title as Ya’betz. This is also grammatically correct, as there is a sheva under the ע. Regarding the title, also note that the word is written as יעבץ and not יעב”ץ.

In the introduction to שאילת יעבץ, R. Emden mentions that the mother of Othniel ben Kenaz named him Ya’betz because of her painful childbirth. It is true, as Jacob J. Schacter points out, that there is nothing in Chronicles “to support Emden’s assertion that Yavez and Athniel were the same person.” See Schacter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Major Works” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1988), p. 70 n. 18. However, when R. Emden writes

קראתי בשם ספרי זה שאילת יעבץ, נסמך הכתוב בד”ה שאמו של עתניאל בן קנז קראתו יעבץ לאמר כי ילדה בעוצב

he has in mind Temurah 16a: “A tanna taught: Othniel is the same as Ya’betz. . . . He was called Othniel because God answered him, and Ya’betz because he counselled and fostered Torah in Israel.”

In I Chron. 2:55 it mentions “the families of scribes that dwelt at יעבץ.” Does this city have anything to do with the person Ya’betz mentioned in I Chron. 4:9-10? We have no evidence, but Radak, I Chron. 2:55, suggests that perhaps Ya’betz built the city and it was named after him. Rashi, ibid., connects יעבץ with the city אבץ in Josh. 19:10.

There is another noteworthy point about the name יעבץ. We find the following in Derekh Eretz Zuta, ch. 1:

ט’ נכנסו בחייהם בג”ע ואלו הן חנוך בן ירד ואליהו ומשיח ואליעזר עבד אברהם וחירם מלך צור ועבד מלך הכושי ויעבץ בנו של רבי יהודה הנשיא ובתיה בת פרעה וסרח בת אשר ויש אומרים אף ר’ יהושע בן לוי

This is a list of those who entered Paradise during their lifetimes. A few of the names are not what we would expect and need to be explained. There is also a textual issue, as another version has R. Joshua ben Levi replacing Hiram of Tyre rather than being added. Why Hiram should be on the list in the first place is something I can take up on another occasion. For now, I just want to note that the son of R. Judah ha-Nasi (other versions read בן בנו) was also named Ya’betz, and that he is reported to have entered Paradise alive.

There is another version that lists Ya’betz separately from the son of R. Judah ha-Nasi. See R. Matityahu Strashun, Mivhar Ketavim, pp. 90-91. Alfa Beita de-Ben Sira (Warsaw, 1927), p. 23, has both עבדו של רבי יהודה and Ya’betz.

The Jerusalem Talmud, Hagigah 2:1, refers to an amora named Ya’betz. For a list of post-talmudic figures named יעבץ, see R. Zev Aharon Teller in Beit Va’ad le-Hakhamim (Tishrei 5769), p. 504 n. 88. See also Asher Weiser, “Ya’betz,” Sinai 78 (1975), pp. 6-8. Masoretic scholars know of Ya’betz ben Shlomo. See e.g., Shlomo Zalman Havlin, Masoret Torah she-Be’al Peh (Jerusalem, 2012), p. 611.

For others who referred to themselves as יעבץ, including Judah Leib Gordon, see Saul Chajes, Otzar Beduyei ha-Shem (Vienna, 1933), pp. 162-163.

A very important figure called יעבץ is R. Emden’s contemporary, R. Jacob Ibn Tzur (Abensur; 1673-1753) of Fez, author of the responsa work Mishpat u-Tzedakah be-Ya’akov. For generations, all Moroccan Jews knew R. Ibn Tzur, who was also a poet, yet he is pretty much unknown in the Ashkenazic world. Menachem Elon recalls how he learned about R. Ibn Tzur. He was doing research on a topic and יעבץ was mentioned, but he could see that it did not refer to R. Emden. He investigated the matter and learned that there was another great halakhic authority who also is known as יעבץ. He writes:

גאון מופלג זה, שיותר ויותר התודעתי לתורתו ולאישיותו, היה זמן ניכר בבחינת נעלם בעולם התורה והישיבות הגדולות שבפולין, ליטא ואשכנז, וכמעט לא היה ידוע בין החוקרים, ומאד חוששני שכך הוא הדבר, עד עיצומם של ימים אלה

See Elon, “Yihudah shel Halakhah ve-Hevrah be-Yahadut Tzafon Afrika mi-le-Ahar Gerush Sefarad ve-Ad Yamenu,” in Moshe Bar-Yuda, ed., Halakhah u-Fetihut: Hakhmei Morocco ke-Foskim le-Dorenu (Tel Aviv, 1985), p. 24.

After R. Emden, the most famous יעבץ is R. Joseph Jabez of Spain, author of Or ha-Hayyim among other works. His name is often written as Yavetz or even Yaavetz, but I don’t know how he himself pronounced the first three letters. The one thing I can say is that he did not pronounce the final letter of his name as “tz”, as that is an Ashkenazic (inauthentic) pronunciation which never would have been heard in Spain and won’t even be heard today among Sephardim who have had a traditional Sephardic upbringing. See R. Benzion Cohen, Sefat Emet (Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 114ff. This explains why, for instance, in Hebrew Barcelona is written as ברצלונה and Safed is written as צפת.

With regard to צפת, the modern pronunciation is Tzefat. However, R. Meir Mazuz notes that the correct pronunciation is indeed Safed (using “s” for צ and the accent on the first syllable), and this is in line with the Arabic pronunciation. See his introduction to R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, He’lem Davar (Bnei Brak, 2006), p. 27. See also R. Jacob Saphir, Even Sapir (Lyck, 1866), p. 1a. In previous generations, this is how the Sephardim in Eretz Yisrael would pronounce it. See R. Elijah Hazan, Ta’alumot Lev, vol. 3, no. 19 (p. 38b). In the page on Otzar HaChochma the vowels are not clear, but you can see them clearly here.

R. Ovadiah Bartenura, in a letter sent from Eretz Yisrael, refers to the city as ספיתה. It should be vocalized as סׇפֵיתׇה as this is how the locals pronounced it, non-Jews and Jews alike. See Avraham Yaari, Iggerot Eretz Yisrael(Ramat-Gan, n.d.), p. 151.

It is true that there is a city צְפֵת (Tzefat) mentioned in Judges 1:17, yet this is a city in the south and has nothing to do with the northern city of Safed we all know so well. צְפֵת is never again mentioned in the Bible, which is understandable as Judges 1:17 tells us that the city was destroyed and its name was changed to Hormah.

As for the original pronunciation of צפת, R. Mazuz does not note that R. Elazar Kalir indeed pronounced the name of the city as Tzefat. Look at the first two lines below, which come from Kalir’s kinah איכה ישבה חבצלת השרון (from the Goldschmidt edition of Kinot, p. 50).

As you can see, the final word צפת can only be read as צְפַת. It thus seems that the pronunciation as Safed only dates from the medieval period. See Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v Safed: “Between the talmudic period and the Crusades the history of Safed is not known. The town reappears in 1140 under the name Saphet.”

* * * * * *

[1] Tza’ar Ba’alei Hayyim be-Halakhah ve-Aggadah, p. 514 n. 1171
[2] This was called to my attention by Yonatan Emett. R. Rapoport mistakenly refers to R. Shimon Eider as the recipient of R. Moshe’s responsum instead of R. Pinchas Bodner. He also refers to R. Eider as shlita, even though he passed away in 2007.
[3] From the various quotations, you can see that there are different ways people have transliterated the first word of R. Moshe’s responsa, אגרות. There is a dagesh in the gimel perhaps because of a nun that dropped off. Regarding the word, see R. Solomon Judah Rapoport, Toldot Rabbenu Natan Ish Romi (Warsaw, 1913), p. 24; R. Matityahu Strashun, Mivhar Ketavim (Jerusalem, 1969), p. 82 n. 9.
[4] See Excursus regarding the word יעבץ.
[5] Megilat Sefer, ed. Bombach (Jerusalem, 2012), pp. 41, 64.
[6] Im Hilufei Tekufot (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 104.
[7] Pahad Yitzhak, s.v. almanah.
[8] The same story, with slight variations, is found in Kitvei ha-Saba ve-Talmidav mi-Kelm, vol. 2, p. 649.
[9] That German Orthodox Jews shook hands with women is mentioned by R. Solomon Carlebach, who states that he also does so if the woman puts her hand out and to not shake it would embarrass her. See Meir Hildesheimer, et al., eds. Le-David Tzvi (Berlin, 1914), p. 218 (Hebrew section).
[10] From an unpublished letter of R. Weinberg.
[11] At the beginning of the Hebrew section of the Festschrift fuer Jacob Rosenheim (Frankfurt, 1931), the Agudah declaration is printed.

[12] For R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, the “original sin,” as it were, of Agudat Israel is precisely that it was founded by a layperson (Rosenheim), and R. Zvi Yehudah contrasts this to Mizrachi which was founded by a great Torah scholar, R. Isaac Jacob Reines. See Be-Ma’arakhah ha-Tziburit (Jerusalem, 1986), p. 76. In his eulogy for Rosenheim, R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, Li-Frakim (2016 edition), p.  607, also refers to him as the founder of Agudat Israel. Yet it is more correct to say that Rosenheim was the major force in the founding of Agudat Israel, as he cannot be identified as the organization’s sole founder.
[13] “Scholars and Friends: Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and Professor Samuel Atlas,” Torah u-Madda Journal 7 (1997), p. 111.
[14] See here for a recent example of the Agudah rabbinic leadership responding to such a claim (regarding synagogue closures and coronavirus). See here regarding Yaakov Litzman serving as minister in the current Israeli government, which was never approved by the rabbinic leadership of Yahadut ha-Torah. See also here.

In R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg’s letter to R. Moshe Soloveitchik, dated Oct. 20, 1949, and published here for the first time, R. Weinberg writes (ellipsis in original):

.וצדק הרבי ממונקאטש ז”ל שאמר לי כי עתידה האגודה להעביר את מרכז היהדות מביה”מ לאולם האספות ושם ימחאו הרבנים מחיאות כף לנאומים והאדמורי”ם יתכבדו באמירת ברכות . . . חכם עדיף מנביא

[15] On its hundredth anniversary in 2019, Torah Vodaath put out a beautifully produced book, America’s Yeshiva: Celebrating a Century of Torah Leadership in America. The pictures are wonderful and the story of the yeshiva’s beginning and growth are told in an honest way. Also noteworthy is that the yeshiva has a website with a lot of historical information, including most of the high school yearbooks that were produced. See here. Just going through the yearbooks, looking at the pictures, and reading the entries on each of the graduating students makes history come alive. The following yearbooks are missing from the website: 1944, 1947, 1948, 1951, If anyone has these yearbooks, please reach out to the yeshiva so they can be uploaded. The last yearbook on the website is 1978, which I assume means that the students did not publish any more yearbooks.

I do have two comments about the Torah Vodaath website and book. On the website herethere are biographies of the roshei yeshiva. However, there is no biography for R. Dovid Leibowitz, even though the book, pp. 150-152, devotes three pages to him, as well as mentioning him elsewhere. I hope that the omission from the website is not an intentional slight because of the dispute between R. Leibowitz and R. Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz that led to R. Leibowitz leaving Torah Vodaath and founding his own yeshiva. See Moshe D. Sherman, Orthodox Judaism in America (Westport, CT, 1996), p. 129.

While I think the book as a whole is great, there is a real blemish on p. 630 when the newest rosh yeshiva is discussed. I think most will understand why this is a terrible bizayon ha-Torah (a double bizayon ha-Torah, i.e., omitting mention of grandfather and father).

We are grateful that in 2018, just as Torah Vodaath began to mark its milestone centennial year, the Yeshiva welcomed Rav Yitzchok Lichtenstein, a descendant of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and a grandson through marriage of Rav Reuven Grozovsky, to lead the Yeshiva. Rav Lichtenstein was a talmid of Rav Dovid Soloveitchik in Yerushalayim.

On p. 628 the other rosh yeshiva, R. Yosef Savitsky, is introduced as follows: “Rav Yosef Savitsky was raised in Boston by his father Rav Mordechai, a highly-respected Rav.”

If R. Lichtenstein had distanced himself from his family, I could understand the omissions (not that it would be right, but I could understand it). Yet not only has R. Lichtenstein not done so, but he himself has contributed to the legacy of his grandfather, with his most popular contribution undoubtedly this edition of R. Soloveitchik’s insights on the Haggadah.

[16] “Toldot Shmuel,” Kokhvei Yitzhak 15 (1851), p. 31.

In Memoriam: Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm z”l

by David Berger

In the early modern period, we find reference in the works of Jews in the Islamic orbit to the ideal of a hakham shalem—expert in both Torah and the various forms of wisdom. If we wish to be yet more ambitious, we can imagine an individual who supplements these already daunting characteristics with a constellation of exceptional personal qualities.

Rabbi Norman Lamm came remarkably close to meeting this extraordinary standard. He was a major thinker who articulated and embodied an ideal of interaction between Torah in its purest sense and world civilization and culture. He contributed to the academic study of Jewish thought. He composed works that inspired Jews to renewed and enhanced observance of mitzvot. He delivered shiurim to classroom audiences and to packed auditoriums, and he published a book of hiddushei Torah. He was an orator of almost transcendent talent; no one in the Jewish world—certainly in the Orthodox world–after Rav Soloveitchik came close. He radiated atzilut (which I would translate inadequately as an aristocratic demeanor) while maintaining genuine concern for virtually everyone he knew; he is said to have responded personally to every letter he received, and he sent congratulatory notes to friends and acquaintances upon reading a review or even a letter to the editor of which he approved. He stood at the helm of a religious movement, leading its central, indispensable institution, founding the Orthodox Forum, the Orthodox Caucus, and the Torah u-Madda Project, serving as the first editor of Tradition, and initiating GPATS, the primary expression of Modern Orthodoxy’s commitment to genuinely advanced Talmud study for women.

Several years after Gerson D. Cohen left Columbia to become Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary—and well before his tragic, debilitating illness– he told me, “I am out of commission as a scholar.” Cohen was a brilliant, driven figure of stunning intellectual breadth and vibrant energy. I often thought of this comment when contemplating the remarkable productivity of Norman Lamm as he led a much larger, far more complex institution, and I shook my head in wonderment.

My one opportunity to characterize an aspect of Rabbi Lamm’s multifaceted accomplishments came when I was invited to write the Foreword to the Deuteronomy volume of his Derashot Ledorot, a series made possible by my wife Pearl, who was then Dean of Yeshiva University’s libraries. She spearheaded an initiative—in consultation with Rabbi Lamm– to place the treasure trove of his typewritten sermons in a digitally accessible data base, which continues to register triple-digit hits on a weekly basis, available here.

In that Foreword, I wrote about my reaction to his sermons, noting among other things his linguistic brilliance. My favorite example was his striking reformulation in a sermon about the drug culture of the late 1960’s of a classic line by Marx. “Opium,” said Rabbi Lamm, “is the religion of the masses.”

I conclude with the following passage from that Foreword recording two memorable incidents unrelated to the published sermons:

One [of these incidents] left me with an enduring impression of Rabbi Lamm’s extraordinary sermonic instinct, and the other revealed a sharp, quick, and agile mind that supplemented the deep and serious intellect expressed in his scholarly and philosophical works.

In March of 1987, Yeshiva University held “A Centennial Event Honoring the Establishment of the Yeshiva University Archives.” Because the archives contain major collections relating to the Holocaust, particularly the records of Orthodox organizations like Vaad Hatzalah and Rescue Children, the program was entitled, “Zachor: Written and Oral History,” and Prof. Geoffrey Hartman of Yale, who directed a video archive of Holocaust-related testimonies, was invited to address the gathering. Rabbi Lamm’s role was to provide a brief introduction to the event. He was by no means the principal speaker, and he could have fulfilled his obligation with a routine comment or two requiring barely a moment of thought or preparation. His introduction was indeed brief, but it was more memorable than anything said by the distinguished visitor.

I wondered, said Rabbi Lamm, why the director of an oral archive would be invited to speak at the launching of an archive of written materials. But then, he continued, I realized that when the Torah speaks of the requirement to remember Amalek, the quintessential precursor of the Nazi murderers, it introduces the divine commandment as follows: “Write this as a remembrance in a book, and place it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14). Remembering Amalek requires both a written and an oral archive.

The second episode emerged in the wake of a position that Rabbi Lamm took on a controversial issue that need not detain us here. A prominent rabbi in the Traditionalist Orthodox community responded in a public address with the assertion that Rabbi Lamm was a sone’ Hashem, a hater of God. The editor of the Yiddish newspaper The Algemeiner Journal asked the purported God-hater for his reaction. Rabbi Lamm replied with a single, brief quotation from the Talmud: “Those who are shamed and do not shame in return, who hear their disgrace and do not respond…—of them Scripture declares, “All who love Him shall be like the sun rising in strength” (Judges 5:31).

We have suffered the loss of a unique leader whose legacy will remain with us in virtually every nook and cranny of our Jewish lives.

An “Artscroll” ™ Illustration in the Vilna Shas–Masechet Shabbat 98b

By Eli Genauer

לזכר נשמת אבי מורי ר׳ יעקב קאפל בר׳ משה יהודה הלוי גענויער ז״ל. היארצייט שלו י״ד סיון.

For those studying Daf Yomi this week, there is a unique diagram that appears on Shabbat 98b. In the Vilna Shas one can see a closeup “picture” of one of the boards of the Mishkan (“קרש“) which would make Artscroll proud.[1] While one might be familiar with diagrams that appear in the Talmud, those diagrams illustrate comments in the rishonim, mainly Rashi. Most of these are called out specifically by Rashi: “kazeh” “like this.” Artscroll, however, includes their own illustrations beyond those from any of the rishonim. Yet, they were not the first publishers of the Talmud to do so. Indeed, this diagram on page 98b is a much earlier example of a publisher electing to incorporate their own diagrams into the text.

Diagrams in Printed Editions of the Talmud

The use of diagrams is attested to in numerous manuscripts. These diagrams appear in Rashi, Tosefot and even were used by the Geonim.

When manuscripts gave way to printing in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s, those diagrams were excluded in the early printed editions of the Shas. When Daniel Bomberg published the first complete edition of the Shas in the early 1500s, he did not include the actual diagrams, but instead left a space for the book’s owner to pencil in the relevant diagrams (how they would know what the diagram looked like is left unanswered).

Finally starting with 1697, (the Berman Shas of Frankfurt on der Oder) did diagrams start to reappear in the empty spaces (mostly in Eruvin and Sukkah).

What was the source of those diagrams in the Berman Shas and in ones that were printed soon after in the early 1700’s? There were three sources, the Maharshal, Maharsha, and Mahram of Lublin.

This is the Shaar Blatt from the Frankfurt on der Oder 1697 edition:

The Maharshal is the key point person when it comes to diagrams. He had the 2^nd edition of the Bomberg Shas (printed circa 1528) and made his notations there. He recognized the importance of the Shas being printed but also the dangers that lay in the fact that if there was a mistake, it would find its way into thousands of hands. He lived at a time when there were still manuscripts around, and he made his corrections based on those manuscripts and also his own logic. Since he had the status of an Adam Gadol, his own logic carried much weight. Originally, he did not set out to write a book with his corrections. Like the Ba’ch, he just made the corrections in his own Gemara. After he died though, his sons printed Sefarim which reflected his notes.[2] Therefore, if in the late 1600’s or early 1700’s you were printing a Shas, and you looked at a previous edition and in Rashi it said “Kazeh” and there was a space, you would look at the Chochmas Shlomo. If he had added a diagram, you would place that diagram in the empty space and feel comfortable that it had good Yichus. There were times that there wasn’t an empty space that the Chochmas Shlomo shows a diagram, and in that case, the printers usually added it.

The 1715 Amsterdam Edition of the Talmud

A complete edition of the Talmud was first published in Amsterdam in the 1640s by Immanuel Benveniste. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries Amsterdam was counted among the most important cities for the printing of Hebrew books and there were many well-known publishers that followed Benveniste and they printed many important works yet none of them attempted to reprinting the Talmud. Only some sixty years later did Amsterdam see a Talmud come off its presses. This one, that began in 1714, was never completed.

R. Judah Aryeh Loeb ben Joseph Samuel of Cracow appealed to Samuel ben Solomon Marsheses and Raphael ben Joshua de Palasios prominent members of the Amsterdam Sephardic community and asked them to print a new edition of the Talmud. Neither had ever published a book. In 1710, Loeb unsuccessfully sought to publish an edition of the Talmud in Frankurt. Now, in Amsterdam he sought to try again. Marcheses and Palasios formed a printing house specifically to print a “fine and accurate edition,” in an environment that “the workers would not be hurried so that they could work with care, reducing errors, and under the supervision of … the dayyan of the Ashkenaz Rabbinic Court of Amsterdam who would help establish the correct text.”[3] An emissary was sent to visit various Jewish communities to collect subscribers and reduce the burden of the significant printing costs. Relevant to diagrams, the emissary came bearing a gift, the Amsterdam 1710 edition of R. Jacob ben Samuel Bunim Koppelman of Brisk’s (1555-94) Omek Halakahah (first printed in 1510), a book that includes many diagrams to explain difficult passages of the Talmud.[4]

The first volume, Berakhot, was published in 1714[5] and the editors note the sources for their text and likely for the diagrams as well.

1. Chochmas Shlomo

2. Chochmas Manoach

3. Chidushei Halachos of the Maharsha

4. Maharam Lublin

5. Sifrei Hashas of Yosef Shmuel ben Zvi – seemingly these were concentrated on Zeraim, Kodshim and Taharos

The volume on Meseches Shabbos was published in 1715 and the top 4 appear in the Hakdamah:

The Source and Purpose of the Diagram in Shabbos 98b

The Gemara in Masechet Shabbat on Daf 98a and b deals with the laws of carrying and discussing some of the details of the boards (“קרשים“) which made up the walls of the Mishkan.[6] These board were comprised of a complex system designed to keep each board straight and provide sufficient support for the entire structure of the Mishkan. Indeed, if one examines modern editions of the Talmud, there is an illustration that appears on the page. But where did it come from and more importantly what is its purpose? As we will show, the first edition to incorporate this diagram was the 1715 Amsterdam edition of the Talmud.

This is how it appears in the 1715 edition.

This image was reprinted in the Vilna Shas in a slightly clearer format although with the same detail and is a bit easier to analyze.

 

The picture primarily shows that there were three rods (“בריחים”) that connected one board to the next. The rods on the top and bottom went through outer rings, but the rod in the middle went through the width of the board.( “עובי הקרש“) It also shows the sockets on the bottom (“אדנים“) and the grooves (“ידות“) inserted in them which provided stability to the boards as they stood.

As discussed above, manuscripts of Gemarot though generally do not contain pictures, and a check on the invaluable website “Hachi Garsinan” shows that no manuscript of these pages has a picture to illustrate what a board looked like.[7] One might expect Rashi in his description of some of the statements of the Gemara to state his opinion and then write “כזה” (“ like this” ) Then we could expect to find an illustration in any of the number of Rashi manuscripts we have, and we could expect that this illustration (or an empty space for it) would appear in subsequent printed editions. Here we have none.[8]

The most relevant Rashi appears to his comments regarding how the boards stood miraculously.[9] But It does not discuss the fact that the middle rod went through the thickness of the board, but rather the miraculous nature of how the rod bent as it turned the corner. Another potential relevant Rashi explains the statement “the Sages taught, the bottoms of the beams (kerashim) were grooved and the sockets were hollow.” This deals with a completely different aspect of the beams which is how they were shaped on the bottom (and only according to Rabbi Nechemya). Thus, it is unsurprising that the manuscripts of Rashi do not include this diagram.

It was only in the 1715 edition does this illustration first appear. Yet, in the case of the picture of the keresh on Shabbos 98b, we do not find this picture in any of the sources identified by the Amsterdam publishers, not the Maharshal, Chochmas Manoach, Chidushei Halachos of Maharsha, or in Maharam Lublin.

First, we must identify what the diagram is attempting to illustrate. Rather than the more common form of diagrams, this one is not an illustration tied to one of the rishonim, rather it is illustrating two statements of the Gemara, one in the middle of the Daf and one at the very bottom. This, despite the fact that the diagram appears close to Rashi’s commentary on the page, seemingly tying it to his commentary.

Instead, the illustration is the independent product of the Amsterdam publishers and intended to elucidate the text of the Gemara, what did the board system look like. The Mesivta edition of Oz Vehadar also understands that this picture illustrates the words והבריח התיכון בתוך הקרשים. They indicate that Tziyur 6 which except for the detail on the bottom looks very similar to the one in the Vilna Shas, illustrates that statement.

In truth, the main part of the picture showing the middle rod going through the width of the board is not at all aligned with a comment of Rashi. Understanding that it just tries to give a picture of the “קרש” will make it easier to understand for people who study this page. This illustration is designed to explicate the text of the Talmud itself and was the entirely the idea of the publishers of the Amsterdam Talmud.

Why did the editors of the Amsterdam 1715 Shas insert a picture like this? Perhaps they were inspired by diagrams that appeared in a book called Omek Halacha by Jacob ben Simcha Bunim Koppelman which had just been reprinted in Amsterdam in 1710 and was even used in the fundraising campaign for this edition of the Talmud.[10] It has a picture of the grooves that fit into the sockets that is associated with the second aspect of this picture.

Yet, the Amsterdam publishers did not reprint the Omek Halakha’s crude diagram. Like the text and the other aspects of this edition, they included a much clearer and more detailed diagram that is infinitely more helpful in understanding the complicated text. Adding such a picture to a Daf of Gemara was a revolutionary act at that time and once added, it became part of Tzurat HaDaf that we have until today.

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s Statement on Teaching Torah to Girls in Likutei Halakhot: Literary and Historical Context

Rachel Manekin and Charles (Bezalel) Manekin

Rachel Manekin is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.

Charles (Bezalel) Manekin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland.

The authors live in Jerusalem, Israel.

Dedicated to the memory of our mothers, Matel Becher ע”ה and Dorothy Manekin ע”ה

R. Israel Meir ha-Kohen Kagan’s statement in his Likutei Halakhot that it is “now” a “great mitzvah” to teach Torah to girls, has attracted a great amount of attention in recent years.[1] Benjamin Brown, dating the statement to 1911, suggests that it was instrumental in the founding of the first Bait Yaakov school in 1917 by Sarah Schenirer in Kraków.[2] Haym Soloveitchik, dating the text to 1918, views it as R. Kagan’s (late) perception of the erosion of the mimetic society in the wake of World War I.[3]

We show below that the statement was published some time in תרפ”ב (last third of 1921, first two thirds of 1922), after R. Kagan, known after his book as the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, returned to Radin (Raduń), then Poland, on 25 Sivan [=July 1], 1921. The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim had spent the previous six years in Russia at a time of revolution, civil war, and the beginnings of communist policy toward Jewish religious institutions.[4] The timing of the statement on Torah education for women is significant. Several months before his arrival in Radin, a gymnasium (high school) for Orthodox girls had been established in Telz, with the direct involvement of the rosh yeshiva, R. Yosef Leib Bloch, his son, and his son-in-law.[5] Girls were taught there ḥumash and nevi’im. A primary school for girls was also established there. This was the latest in a series of Orthodox initiatives for the formal Torah education of women in Lithuania. In Kovno, a Jewish realgymnasium for Orthodox boys and girls had been established already in 1915 through the efforts of the Neo-Orthodox R. Dr. Leopold Rosenak, a brother-in-law of Emanuel Carlebach, and Joseph Carlebach, Emanuel’s brother. These initiatives were introduced as responses to the requirement of mandatory primary education, first by the German military occupying Lithuanian and later by the government of independent Lithuania. Also, in Kovno, at the initiative of Ze‘irei Yisrael, which was composed of representatives of Agudat Yisrael and the Mizrahi, the Yavne Central School System was founded in 1920; in its first year, forty schools were founded; some included girls.[6] In Kraków, then in Habsburg Galicia, Sarah Schenirer founded her afternoon supplementary school in 1917 with the blessing of the Belzer rebbe; several other schools followed in 1921 and 1922. In Warsaw, formerly in Congress Poland, R. Emmanuel Carlebach founded the Chavatzelet Orthodox women’s gymnasium in the same year, with the blessing of the Gerer rebbe. Chavatzelet taught girls ḥumash and nevi’im in the Hirschian spirit of Torah ‘im derech ’ereẓ.[7] In the 1930s the school was attended also by Hasidic girls, including the Gerer rebbe’s granddaughter.[8]

Moreover, in late January, 1922, the year in which the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s statement was published, the assembly of the Agudat ha-Rabbanim of Poland issued a series of calls upon its members that included the following:

11. To educate the daughters in the spirit of yiddishkeit and to learn with them from their early childhood some words of Torah and musar, and commensurate with their age to continue to learn with them their obligations in such a manner that when they reach the age of marriage, they will easily accept the obligations pertaining to the purity of the daughters of Israel. And the members are obliged to establish in their towns for this purpose a special school for the young women.[9]

As we shall see below, the resolution that called upon all communal rabbis in Poland to establish schools for women followed an impassioned speech on the challenges facing Torah education in Poland by the Galician rabbi, R. Meir (Maharam) Shapira, then the Rav of Galina, and shortly to become one of Agudat Yisrael’s representatives to the Polish Sejm and the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Ḥakhmei Lublin.

In light of the above, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s statement on teaching Torah to Jewish daughters should be read as a hekhsher of formal Jewish education for women after and while schools for Orthodox girls were established in Poland and especially in Lithuania. All the aforementioned schools had strong connections with Agudat Yisrael operatives in their various locales. As is well known, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim was a major rabbinical authority for the Agudah; several months after his return to Poland (which now incorporated parts of Lithuania), he and R. Ḥayyim Ozer Grodzinsky of Vilna, called for the strengthening of the Lithuanian Agudah.[10] He was most likely informed about these schools, certainly the women’s gymnasium in Telz, upon his return to Radin, if not earlier.

In any event, the 1924 decision to have Keren ha-Torah, the education fund of Agudat Yisrael, support a network of Jewish schools for girls was sanctioned by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s aforementioned statement, according to Dr. Leo Deutschländer, the head of Keren ha-Torah, and subsequently one of the administrators of the Bait Yaakov seminary in Krakow.[11]

It is important to emphasize that the educational policies of all Orthodox schools in Poland-Lithuania were subject to rabbinical authority, and that no pedagogical steps were taken without consultation with, and approval, by rabbinical leaders.[12]

Part One. The Literary Context of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s Statement on Women’s Education

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s comment does not appear as a formal response to a halakhic question of the permissibility of teaching Torah to women. Rather it appears as a footnote to the halakha that women should not be taught written Torah ab initio cited in his Likutei Halakhot on Sotah. Likutei Halakhot is a condensation of the halakhic sections of the Gemarah in the manner of R. Isaac Alfasi’s Halakhot Gedolot. Initially a project to provide students with a halakhic digest to sugyot having to do with kodeshim, the study of which the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim considered to be unduly neglected and of capital importance,[13] the project was ultimately expanded to provide a halakhic digest of all sugyot on which there was no Rif or Rosh (R. Asher b. Yehiel). Unlike the Rif, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s’s aim was not to decide the halakha, but rather to provide student with an abridged description of the development of the halakha through the Rambam.[14] The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim believed that by reading halakhic condensations of the Rif with Rashi, and Likutei Halakhot with Rashi, the students would be able to master the fundamental halakhot of the Talmud – something that he felt could not be easily accomplished by reading the Mishneh Torah with its commentaries.[15] In later years he recommended such a program of study for those who lacked the time for in-depth study of the Gemarah.[16]

Before we analyze the footnote, we need to justify dating Likutei Halakhot on Sotah to תרפ”ב. Unfortunately, determining the publication history of Likutei Halakhot is complicated. The work was published serially, beginning with Zevaḥim, in 1899/1900,[17] in the form of kuntresim, which could be bound and published as seen fit by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim; the published volumes did not carry a separate title page from the individual kuntresim comprising them. The title pages of the kuntresim often do not mention all the titles of the individual tractates contained therein, and, like many Torah publications, their dates of publication on the title page have to be derived from gematriyot of rabbinic statements in which certain letters are in bold typeface. Sometimes tractates that were published earlier were republished with the same title page. The individual tractates themselves have their own pagination. An edition of the entire work was published by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s son-in-law, R. Menaḥem Mendel Yosef Zaks, in Brooklyn in 1960, and in Jerusalem 10 years later. The edition contains, dispersed throughout the work, some of the original title pages, but not always with their original dates. The order of the tractates in the R. Zaks edition is also not always according to the order of publication; sugyot from the same tracate that appeared in different kuntresim are placed together.

As noted above, two dates for Likutei Halakhot on Sota appear in the secondary literature, 1911 and 1918. We have found no textual basis for either date. The 1911 date appears in M. Gellis’s bibliography of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s writings without explanation.[18] We do not know what is the source for the 1918 date.[19]

The volume of Likutei Halakhot including Sotah that we inspected in the National Library of Israel binds three kuntresim together. The first consists of Bekhorot and Keritot, printed by H. H. Fohlman, the second consists of Arakhin, Nazir, and Sotah, with only Arakhin mentioned on the title page, without a date; the third consists of Niddah, printed by M. Cederbaum, undated. Of these tractates, only Sotah and Niddah appear for the first time. (Niddah also appears published with its own title page by Cederbaum in תרפ”ג.) The date on the cover page, תרפ”ב was added in pencil, perhaps by a library cataloger or book seller, after calculating the gematriya; the volume, belonged formerly to the Boston Hebrew College library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The תרפ”ב date is derived from the gematria of the emphasized letters: The saying (העוסקין בהלכות עבודה כאלו נבנה המקדש בימיהם (מנחות קי totals 682 ( 25 + 49 + 107 + 56 + 87+ 63 + 295), i.e., תרפ”ב.

As noted, the separate cover page for Arakhin (including Sotah and Nazir) is undated:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, who was in charge of the printing and distribution of his books, advises on the title page of Likutei Halakhot on Bekhorot not only to read the Introductions, but also to look at the Preface (הפתיחה) “which we have now newly printed” (אשר הדפסנו זה עתה מחדש). The phrase “which we have now newly printed” is ambiguous; it can mean that the Preface is being reprinted or printed for the first time. Although the natural reading today would be the former, we found the Preface printed only in Likutei Halakhot on Sanhedrin, which we date to late תרפ”ב. And on the title page of Niddah, published by Cederbaum in תרפ”ג, we find a reference to the Preface אשר נקוה שנדפיסה בקרוב (“which we hope to print soon.”) This sort of discrepancy should not worry us, especially since Likutei Halakhot on Sanhedrin was printed by Fohlman and on Niddah by Cederbaum.

The Preface, published for the first time in תרפ”ב enables us to provide a clear terminus a quo for the publication of Likutei Halakhot on Sotah. In the middle of the first paragraph, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim lists the tractates already completed (parentheses in the text below appear originally in the kuntresim as square brackets; the square brackets here are our own):

Barukh Ha-Shem, we have collected, according to our meager opinion, the words of the Rambam that he codified from the sugyot on thirteen tractates that pertain to matters of kodeshim, namely, Zevaḥim, Menaḥot, Tamid, Pesaḥim (from Tamid ha-Nishḥat to ‘Arvei Pesaḥim), Hagigah, Yoma, Tamid, Temurah, Keritot, Bekhorot [the three final chapters), ‘Arakhim, Me‘ilah, and Nazir (the later also has many things that are relevant to kodeshim), and likewise the first two chapters of Shavuot […] and now, only a few tractates are missing from the Shas, may God grant that over time some Jews will be found to complete the entire Shas […].[20]

And in the second paragraph he writes:

I wrote all this [i.e., the Preface until the present point] more than ten years ago. We have experienced many wanderings because of the war. Barukh Ha-Shem, who has kept us alive and did not allow our feet to falter. And now that I have come from the diaspora to my home, Ha-Shem, yitborakh, has helped me in his abundant kindness and goodness for the merit of Israel to complete Likutei Halakhot on the other tractates of the Shas that do not have the commentaries of the Rif and the Rosh. (And these are: Rosh Hashanah, Makkot, Horayot, Sotah, and Niddah […]).[21]

The second paragraph of the Preface attests to a time gap in both the composition of the Preface and in the publication of the tractates. The first paragraph of the Preface was written more than ten years earlier, i.e., no later than late 1910 or 1911. At that time the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim had completed, but not published, all the tractates mentioned in the first part of the Preface. Again, he did not publish the Preface itself until late 1921 or 1922. So although there is no date on Likutei Halakhot of Sotah itself, we can infer that it was published in תרפ”ב. As for the date of actual composition, we have no evidence in the Preface or anywhere else to suggest that it was written much earlier. Given that Niddah appears separately in תרפ”ג, the kuntres containing Sotah may have appeared late in תרפ”ב, after the aforementioned assembly of the Agudat Rabbanim in Warsaw. The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim would go on to complete other tractates and finish the work in 1925.

In short, the publication of Likutei Halakhot on Sotah is to be dated to late 1921 or the first two-thirds of 1922 (תרפ”ב) and not to 1911 or 1918,[22] according to the date of the aforementioned volume, and no earlier than Summer 1921, the date of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s return to Radin, according to the Preface.

Part II. The Historical Context of the Footnotes on Jewish Education in Likutei Halakhot on Sotah

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim was 83 years old when he declared it to be a great mitzvah to educate women in various Torah matters. To understand both the context and content of the statement, we first present the text and the two relevant footnotes. The main text of Likutei Halakhot on Sotah 11a (p, 21) may be translated as follows:

Rabbi Eliezer says, “Whoever teaches his daughter Torah teachers her tiflut.” You thought [actual] tiflut? Rather [it is] as if he teaches her tiflut. R. Abbahu says, “What is R. Eliezer’s reason? It is written, ‘I, wisdom, dwell with cunning,’** When wisdom enters a person, cunning enters with it.” And how do the Rabbis understand “I, wisdom”? The verse is needed for [the interpretation] of R. Yossi b. Rabbi Haninah, for R. Yossi b. R”H says, “The words of Torah stand permanently only for the person who makes himself naked for them, as it is written, ‘I, wisdom, dwell with nakedness.” In any event, the reasoning of R. Eliezer is not thereby rejected, and the halakha is according to his statement. [Later] rabbis said that “Torah” here refers davka to the Oral Torah. But even though the Written Torah should not be taught to one’s daughter ab initio,*** [teaching her Written Law] is not as if one teachers her tiflut. And women are obligated to learn from the Oral Torah the laws that pertain to them.[23]

(The asterisks refer to footnotes on this passage. Footnotes are rare in Likutei Halakhot, and rarer still are footnotes that refer to contemporary issues.)

Let us begin with the note preceded by three asterisks, on the prohibition of teaching the written Torah to women ab initio (based on M.T. Hilkhot Talmud Torah 2:13):

It seems that all this [the admonition not to teach written Torah ab initio to women] applies to previous times, when everyone dwelled in the place of his fathers, and the paternal tradition was very strong for each person to behave in the way that his fathers had tread, as the verse says, “Ask your father and he will tell you”. [Then] we could say that [a woman] should not learn Torah but should rely for her conduct on her upright fathers. But now, on account of our many sins, the paternal tradition has weakened considerably, and it is common that one does not dwell in one’s fathers’ location at all, and, particularly for those [women] who have accustomed themselves to learn to write and speak the languages of the nations, it is certainly a great mitzvah to teach them ḥumash, and also nevi’im and ketuvim, and the musar lessons of Ḥazal, such as tractate Avot, and Menorat ha-Ma’or, and the like, in order that our holy faith be confirmed for them. For otherwise, they are liable to stray completely from the way of the Lord, and to transgress all the foundations of the religion, God forbid.[24]

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim holds that the admonition not to teach women written Torah ab initio pertained to the past, when a woman could rely for her conduct on the example of her fathers. But today, we find a weakening of paternal tradition and the dislocation of the Orthodox from their paternal homes, which requires educating women, especially those women who are accustomed to learn the language of the gentiles; without Torah education, such women are likely to stray from the true path and to become heretics. What historical reality does this reflect?

As is well known, the use of legal literature as a source of history, even literature that purports to refer to historical events, is not unproblematic. On the one hand the geographical dislocation of Polish Jews because of the war indeed meant that many parents and children were no longer in the town and villages that had anchored their faith and practices for generation.[25] On the other hand, it would be wrong to infer from the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s remarks that in his view, pre-war Poland reflected a golden age of Jewish observance. Throughout much of his life he had railed against the weakening of observance among the Orthodox, and many of his published works tried to strengthen observance through teaching both the halakha and its centrality in the life of the Jew – and the penalties for its non-observance.

For example, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim was well aware that for decades there had been a weakening of traditional observance among women from some Orthodox homes. His son, R. Aryeh Leib Kagan, relates that when he came of marriageable age in the early 1880s, his father would not consider a match for him with a young woman from an Orthodox family who had attended a gymnasium (high school), or even an elementary school; such women and their families, even though they were Orthodox, were suspect in his eyes. In one case, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim ultimately forbade his son to accept an offer of the substantial financial assistance by a wealthy prospective father-in-law; it turned out that the prospective bride’s sister had been sent by her father to learn at a gymnasium in Grodno, where she had fallen in love with a gentile officer whom she had met (“presumably at the theater”), converted, and died in childbirth at the age of 15.[26]

In his 1905 handbook on family purity laws, Taharat Yisrael, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim attributes the decline of some women observing the mitzvah of mikveh to the shame they feel, not because of any foolish modesty (which is the case with some other women), but because they have been educated to look down at the laws of Torah. These women feel shame because

they have been raised in their free-thinking ways from their youth, when they attended schools, and became “wiser in their own eyes” than their predecessors, to the extent that they feel shame in observing the laws of the Torah according to the law of Moses and Israel, and particularly in a matter they consider to be beyond the boundaries of modesty.[27]

The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim responds to such women’s contempt of the Torah by providing well-worn arguments for its superiority and perfection. His defense is part of the larger project of the book, written both in Hebrew and Yiddish, to educate men and women in the importance of observing family purity laws. Urging Jews to observe Torah and mitzvot, and educating them for that purpose, is the leitmotiv that runs throughout the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s writings. Even his Likutei Halakhot on Kodeshim, though ultimately intended as an educational tool for learning Torah, was written as practical halakhic guide for the messianic age that Ḥafetz Ḥayyim thought imminent.[28]

This emphasis on deepening Torah observance in all sectors of the Orthodox community led him to publish a kuntres directed to women, Geder Olam, in 1889, on the importance of covering their hair. The kuntres was published in Hebrew and in Yiddish, and it includes at the end a basic halakhic guide to the laws of Niddah.[29] The halakhic guide was reprinted by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim in two other works: his book addressed to Jews migrating to places like America and South Africa, Nidhei Yisrael (1895), and his aforementioned book on family purity laws, Taharat Yisrael (1905); The Yiddish translation appears in all three works, which indicates that these sections were intended also for women to read.[30] Indeed, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim urges women who are literate to teach the book to women who are not, and to learn the Ma‘ayan Tahor of R. Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhely (the Yismah Moshe) (reprinted many times in the Korban Minḥah siddur for women). The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim writes, “We have written only the legal principles that are most common, that all women are obligated to learn abundantly, and to become expert in them, so they not stumble because of them.”[31] This is a clear call for women to learn halakha, albeit in a rudimentary fashion, from books written for them.

From the above we see how important it was for the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim to write educational materials for women on family purity and female modesty. This in itself was a novelty; we are not aware of such materials being written in Lithuania at the time by Orthodox talmidei ḥakhamim of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s stature. Contrast, for example, the words of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s contemporary, Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein, in Arukh ha-Shulḥan, Yoreh Deah 246:19:

Ours has never been the custom to teach [women] from a book, and we never heard of that custom. Rather every woman teaches the relevant laws to her daughter and daughter-in-law. Recently, laws pertaining to women have been published in the vernacular for women who can read from them. Our women are fervent (zerizot); in every doubtful matter they ask [a rabbi] and don’t decide for themselves in the smallest matter.[32]

To what recently-published laws pertaining to women was R. Epstein referring? Arukh ha-Shulḥan, Yoreh Deah was composed in the years, 1887-1894;[33] the early editions of Geder Olam were 1889, 1893, and 1894. In the latter, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim admonishes women who need to ask a halakhic question not to ask another women, but only a moreh hora’ah, “and for G-d’s sake, a woman should not dare to decide the law!”[34] It is very likely that R. Epstein was referring to this when he wrote, “Our women are eager; in every doubtful matter they ask [a rabbi] and don’t decide for themselves in the smallest matter.” Here we have two conflicting views on the education of women in practical halakha: R. Epstein sees no need to compose halakhic guidelines in Yiddish for women, since the women with whom he is familiar have learnt the material from their mothers or mothers-in-law and know when to ask questions. The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, observing women who are lax about observance, writes a halakhic/hashkafic manual in Hebrew and Yiddish that urges them (and their husbands) to study these guidelines diligently and to teach them to other women.

The importance of educating women in their religious duties, especially in the realm of family purity, remained with the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim for the rest of his life. As is well-known, he traveled to Vilna when he was old and frail to deliver a lecture in Yiddish at the central Synagogue on the importance of observing the mitzvah of mikveh in front of an audience of hundreds of women, with men listening in from the women’s gallery.[35]

To be sure, publishing educational materials on family purity for women is not the same as advocating Torah education for girls, but then, again, the situation in 1905 for Polish and Lithuanian Orthodox Jewry was not the same as in 1922. Orthodox Jewry in the Second Polish Republic was under severe stress. Dislocation and pressures – economic, ideological, and governmental — had accelerated the defection of Jews from the tradition; the dire situation provided an opportunity for conservatives to respond positively to new Orthodox initiatives to stem the tide. In particular, Orthodox Jewish education was at a crisis point, even more so for boys than for girls, which explains in part why much more attention was paid by Orthodox politicians and rabbis to the challenges facing the ḥadarim, than to the education of women, since, as we noted above, the compulsory education of law of 1919, which was in the early stages of implementation, required all Polish boys and girls to attend government certified schools. Agudat Yisrael negotiated repeatedly with the Polish authorities to have the ḥadarim certified, which meant that they needed to include subjects mandated by the Polish ministry of education; otherwise, even more ḥadarim would close. The negotiations with the government concerned how many hours of secular subjects would be taught, and what were those subjects to contain.[36] Formal Torah education for girls was already well underway, partly as a response to mandatory education, the general trend in female education, and the prevalence of alternatives to the ḥeder that attracted Orthodox parents, partly as a response to the weakening of observance among the Orthodox.

When the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim returned to Radin in 1921, he was faced not only with the fait accompli of formal Jewish education for women in Telz, Kovno, and elsewhere, but with the threat to both boys and girls posed by the implementation of universal compulsory education by the State. Unlike in Russia and Lithuania, compulsory education for Jewish girls had been the norm in Galicia, the part of Poland that had belonged to the Austrian Empire until the end of the First World War. Galician Jewish Orthodox girls, bereft of formal Jewish education, had attended Polish private and public schools for decades with disastrous consequences; the same now happened elsewhere in Poland. When, in his footnote, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim refers to “those [women] who have accustomed themselves to learn to write and speak the languages of the nations” he was, whether aware of it or not, referring to all Jewish girls in the Second Polish Republic, since, as Polish citizens even the strictest Hasidim were required to send their daughters to government certified schools. And unlike the case of their brothers, no Orthodox politicians negotiated with the government to exempt girls from these schools. School attendance for Hasidic girls was a well-entrenched tradition, even among the daughters of the zealots.

It is not surprising that the rabbi who raised the issue of women’s education at the assembly of the Polish Agudat ha-Rabbanim in 1922, Maharam Shapira, hailed from Galicia, where the situation had been bleak for decades. In his survey of the state of Orthodox Jewish education, he first turns to the challenges facing the ḥeder from the mandatory education law, on the one hand, and the attacks from the [Jewish] leftists (smoliyim) on the other. If the Polish government wished to spread general education among the people, it should take into consideration the most necessary requirements of the [Jewish] nation, which is the ḥeder. And if the Orthodox try to accommodate the government’s demands, it can only be in such a way that will not destroy the ḥeder. Most importantly, Orthodox boys need to be exempt from the obligation to attend general schools. And since the ḥadarim will now have to limit somewhat their hours for Jewish subjects, it is important that they be subject to universal standards, and that the instruction be overseen by experts and pedagogues. The Maharam Shapira then turned to the question of the education of girls:

We speak a great deal about the education of girls, which is a very painful subject for us. Our situation has become so bad because we have only taken a little interest in the subject for many years. At the same time as we devoted much of our thought, and always concerned ourselves, whether a lot or a little, with the education of boys, we continued to apply to the girls, “Kol kevudah bat melekh pnimah” as in earlier times, when a Jewish daughter did not come into contact and connections with the marketplace and the public sphere, and with the currents of the time that mostly oppose Yahadut. Then we did not need to give her an antidote and a powerful and effective counterforce against them. (“Whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as if he teaches her tiflut. (Sotah 20a).” Only men had in particular to learn Torah, for they needed the antidote – the countercurrent that repels foreign currents. But the daughter and the Jewish woman sat at home, where only that environment acted educationally upon them, and developed them and made them into true Jewish women and fit Jewish daughters.) We thus did not pay attention that the girls, unarmed and lacking any concept pertaining to Torah and Yahadut, have been taken outside from us into cultures and currents. They have become so educated and raised in the lap of foreign culture and anti-Jewish ways that every “common wind” and light attempt to ensnare their spirits, to penetrate into their souls, to poison and uproot them from their place, have wielded their evil ways upon them.

And we are faced with another grave question, which is strongly related with the education of the daughters, and this is the purity of the daughters of Israel….[37]

The Maharam Shapira diagnoses the illness but does not prescribe the remedy, anyway, not in the written version of his address. But as we saw above, the Assembly subsequently called for the establishment of Jewish schools for girls (supplementary to the general schools which they would attend). Connecting the crisis in the observance of the family purity laws with girl’s lack of education meant that rabbis like the Maraham Shapira understood that female observance of Jewish law could not be taken for granted. The Maharam Shapira also called for the production of Jewish youth literature, including textbooks, for the youth that would be free of all defect, and that would educate them in the spirit of faith and religion. This call was also ratified by the Assembly.

The question of the creation of textbooks that would be appropriate for use in ḥadarim seems to be alluded to in the earlier note in Likkutei Halakhot on Sotah on R. Abbahu’s explanation to R. Eliezer’s prohibition that “once wisdom enters into an individual, cunning enters with it.” The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim writes:

According to this, one should be even more careful not to teach boys and girls flippant writings and romances, which consume their heart and soul. One who reads them regularly is in the category of one who reads external books, who was treated with great severity by our sages, as is in the beginning of Helek (Sanhedrin 90). It makes no difference wheteher they are published in the Holy Tongue or the vernacular. See S. A. Orah Ḥayyim.307:16, and in the Mishnah Berurah ad loc.[38]

While attention in recent years has been focused on the footnote on Torah education for women, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s previous footnote on the education of boys and girls appears to have been entirely neglected. Why would a halakhic authority like the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim be concerned with teaching Orthodox Jewish boys and girls “flippant writings and romances”, i.e., literature written by Poles or by Jewish maskilim? Yet his concern makes sense in the context of the new Polish government’s requirement that general studies be included within the curriculum of the ḥadarim, and also in the context of Orthodox parents sending their children to non-Orthodox Jewish schools, like the Tarbut and Yiddishist schools. Even though the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim acquiesced to the limited introduction of secular subjects in the ḥadarim, we see from this note and the passage below that he insisted that only appropriate books be read by children. That was also the line taken by Agudat Yisrael in its attempts to control the growing popular youth literature, both in lending libraries youth, and in curricular materials for the ḥadarim and the Bais Yaakov schools under its auspices.[39]

In short, underlying both footnotes referring to contemporary matters in the Likutei Halakhot on Sotah are not the challenges of “modernity” in general, but rather the specific challenges facing the Polish Orthodox leadership in the interwar period brought about by the weakening of traditional authority, geographical dislocation, the introduction of universal primary education in the Second Polish Republic, and the attraction of Bundism, Zionism, and Socialism to the youth. Although the weakening of traditional authority, and the phenomena of Orthodox women attending Polish schools predated by decades World War I, the situation after the war threatened the very future of Torah Judaism in the eyes of the Orthodox establishment.

Part III. Other Statements of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim on Torah Education for Women

In the waning years of his life, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim returned several times to the question of Torah education for girls. Thus we read in his 1930 “Admonition to Kelal Yisrael”:

There is another principle that every talmid hakham in every town needs to enact, namely, to see to it that there is a kosher ḥeder in which our little sons (and also our little daughters) will be provided a kosher education in the way of the Torah, and not in schools that are full of heresy and sectarianism, which are completely bereft of teaching our holy Torah….

[One should accustom his son to learn the the aggadot of the Talmud…]. But even more one should distance his son from schools in which heresy and sectarianism is taught, where instead of the holy ḥumash, they make up books in which are found only stories of the ḥumash that they have copied without any sense of our Holy Torah – and that’s Torah in its entirety for them And all the laws and mitzvot like in Vayikra and Devarim they denigrate and do not copy. A father must be exceedingly careful not to allow his son to go to such schools where he destroys them with his own hands (and likewise he should be careful to educate his daughters in the way of Torah).[40]

And in a public appeal for the strengthening of religion that that he published in Sivan, 1931:

First of all, we must become fortified with all our strength in the education of boys and girls, to establish for them ḥadarim and kosher schools according to the law of our Holy Torah, not to deviate to the right or the left, or to forego anything of our Holy Torah, and not to allow them to attend such schools as are full of heresy and sectarianism, God save us….”[41]

We have found no mention of the importance of educating girls in the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s numerous writings devoted to education before World War I: educating women to observe and appreciate family purity, yes, but not teaching Torah to girls. This changed after the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s return to Radin in 1921. Already in 1922 there is abundant reason to believe that the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s foonote in Likutei Halakhot on Sota referred to formal Jewish education for girls, which was already well underway. As we noted above, his position was used to justify the establishment of schools for girls by the Agudah’s Keren ha-Torah in 1925. From the 1930s he made his position explicit: teaching Torah to Jewish daughters includes establishing “kosher schools” for them.

So it is hardly surprising that in 1933, when attempts to open a Bait Yaakov school in Fristik (Frysztak), Poland, were met with opposition by the local rabbi, R. Menachem Mendel Halberstam, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim signed a public approbation of Beit Yaakov in order to convince Jewish parents from the town to send their daughters to the school:

B”H 23 Shevat, Tarzag [= Feb. 19, 1933]

To the worthy lovers and esteemers of Torah, the Godfearing people of Fristik, may the Rock guard them,

When I heard that Godfearing people had devoted themselves to establish in the towns a Beit Yaakov school, in which is taught Torah, the fear of Heaven, morals, and manners, which is Torah for the girls of our Jewish brethren, I addressed their fine action [saying] “May the Lord strengthen them and establish the work of their hands!” For [that action] is a greatly needed matter in these day, when the current of heresy, God save us, reigns in all its force, and all sorts of freethinkers lie in wait to ensnare the souls of our Jewish brethren. Whoever’s heart has been touched with the fear of God is obligated to send his daughter to learn in this school. And there is no room for concern in this day and age for all the apprehensions and doubts arising from the prohibition of teaching one’s daughter Torah. This is not the place to elaborate.

For our generation is not as the earlier ones, for in previous generations each Jewish house had a paternal and maternal tradition to walk in the way of Torah and religion, to read Zeenah u’Reenah every Shabbat. But this is not the case, due to our many sins, in our generation. Therefore we must strive to increase schools such as these and to save everything that we possibly are capable of saving.[42]

The appeal seems to have worked because there was still a Beit Yaakov in Fristik in 1935, according to the list of schools provided by Deutschländer.

* * *

We conclude with a final comment: Some have inferred from the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s footnote in Likutei Halakhot and the appeal on behalf of Bais Yaakov schools that in his eyes formal education for girls should be considered “bediavad”, i.e., that in an ideal Jewish world, girls would not need to be taught Torah outside the home. If that is true, then the bediavad status of women’s education is somewhat akin to the bediavad status of the compilation of the Mishnah: in a world without the persecution and dispersion of the Jewish people, Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi would not have had to compile the Mishnah and thereby transgress the prohibition of committing Oral Torah to writing.[43] But the Torah, which is eternal, is adapted by the Torah sages in each generation to the world in which God-fearing Jews live. Formal Torah education for girls became for the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim “in this day and age” a “mitzvah gedolah,” in other words, lekhatkhilah, and his statements on the subject reflect that.

On the other hand, to say that it is a mitzvah gedolah to teach Torah and yirat shamayim to women is not to say that the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim wished to extend the commandment of Talmud Torah to include women.[44] That conflates the commandment of Talmud Torah, which applies only to Jewish men, with the obligation of teaching yiddishkeit to Jewish women through teaching them, inter alia, selections from Tanakh. While the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim emphasizes the former repeatedly and at great length in his writings and public activity, he barely mentions the latter. One need only compare his brief mention of teaching girls “ḥumash, nevi’im, ketuvim” in his footnote in Likutei Halakhot with his frequent statements about the necessity of teaching ḥeder boys ḥumash with Rashi “without skipping anything.” Even after his return to Radin, his public activities on behalf of women’s observance focused mainly on family purity, modesty, shabbat, and kashrut – not girls’ education.

Still, it is no wonder that the conservative Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, who had written numerous tracts to strengthen the observance and piety of Jewish baalei ha-batim and their families, embraced in later years the formal Jewish education of girls. Decades earlier he had called upon literate women to teach their illiterate sisters family purity laws from a book. He was not concerned with expanding the study of Torah among women, as much as expanding its observance and taking its message to their hearts. The Torah these girls were to be taught was a combination of Torah, the fear of heaven, morals, and manners. His goals were similar to that of Bais Yaakov movement, which was not to teach Torah to the daughters of Israel as an intellectual activity, or to make them life-long learners of Torah, but to form their character as religiously observant Orthodox Jewish women.[45]

Notes:

[1] Likute Halakhot on Sotah, 11ab (pp. 21-2). Unless otherwise stated, we have consulted the 1969-1970 edition of R. Menahem Mendel Yosef Zaks (Jerusalem, 1969-1970). This appears to be a reprint of the edition published in Brooklyn 10 years earlier.
[2] “This leniency enabled the opening of the first school of Beit Yaakov.” See Benjamin Brown, “The Baal ha-Bayit: R. Yisrael Meir ha-Cohen, the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim,” in Benjamin Brown and Nissim Leon, ed., Ha-‘Gedolim’: Ishim she-‘izvu et pene ha-Yahudut ha-haredit be-Yisrael. ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017), 106-151, esp. 133 (Hebrew)
[3] See Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradition, vol. 28, no. 4 (Summer 1994): 106-107 note 6.
[4] M. Yashar, Dos leben un shafn fun Ḥofets Ḥayyim (New York, 137), II, 377, 381.
[5] This is inferred from the celebration in Purim of 1931 of the school’s tenth anniversary.
[6] Yizhak Rafael Ha-Levi Etzion (Holzberg), “The Yavneh Educational System in Lithuania,” in Yahadut Lita (Tel-Aviv, 1972), II, 160-163
[7] According to one graduate of the school, “Chavatzelet’s general studies program was of a high caliber. It was headed by a non-religious woman and the teachers were either gentiles or secular Jews, since it was very difficult for a religious Jew to obtain the degree needed to teach secular studies. The religious studies, however, was not so successful […] The religious studies principal was the only religious faculty member – a Yekke (a German Jew). Under his influence Chavatzelet was conducted in the German manner of Torah im Derech Eretz. He taught us Chumash, Navi, history, and basic Hebrew grammar […] At any rate, the Torah portion of our education took only an hour of the day. The other six hours were devoted to secular studies.” Gutta Sternbuch and David Kranzler, Gutta: Memories of a Vanished World (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 2005), 19-20.
[8] Ibid., pp. 17, 21.
[9] יא) לחנך את הבנות ברוח היהדות וללמוד עמהן מראשית ילדותן מעט מעט ד“ת ומוסר, וכפי רבות שנותיהן כן יוסיפו ללמוד עמהן היובים שעליהן באופן כשיגיעו לפרק נישואין יקבלו בנקל החיובים השייכם לטהרת בנות ישראל, והחברים מחויבים להשתדל שיתיסד בעירם בית ספר מיוחד לזה בעד הנערות. Peratei-kol me-ha-ve‘idah ha-rishonah shel agudat ha-rabbanim be-Folin (Warsaw, January 23-25), published at the end of Kovetz Derushim, Ḥelek Rishon, Keraḥ Sheni, ed. M. Warszawiak and Y. M. Sagaloṿits (Piotrkow, 1924), f. 9b.
[10] Mikhtavim u-maamarim mi-Maran Rabenu ba‘al ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, Ḥelek Bet, ed. Z. H. Zaks (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim [Jerusalem, 1990], IV, pp. 83-34)
[11] Leo Deutschländer, ed., Beth Jakob: 1928, 1929 (Frankfurt a. M.: Hermon, 1929), p. 7. Deutschländer cites the footnote and refers to it as a pesak din in Keren ha-Torah’s report on the state of Jewish education delivered at the Second World Assembly (ha-Knesiyal ha-Gedola) of Agudat Yisrael (Vienna, Elul,1929), 44-45. (The full report is available at https://hebrewbooks.org/36599.)
[12] In The Rebellion of the Daughters: Jewish Women Runaways in Habsburg Galicia (Princeton UP, forthcoming), p. 204, Rachel Manekin discusses a 1923 letter from Sarah Schenirer, in which she reveals that she consulted with the Belzer rebbe over whether the girls in her school could stage her play, Judith. Although the rebbe forbade staging it as “ḥuqqat ha-goy,” she expressed the hope that it could be performed as a declamation. From this one may infer that the Belzer rebbe was the school’s rabbinic authority until it came under the auspices of the Keren Ha-Torah of Agudat Yisrael in 1924-1925.
[13] See, for example, the letters in Mikhtavim u-ma’amarim, Ḥelek Bet, 24-39 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, IV, 24-39), and the kuntres, Torah Or at the end of Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, II.
[14] See Likutei Halakhot, Second Introduction, f. 6a-b.
[15] Ibid., f. 7a
[16] Likutei Amarim, ch. 7, pp. 10-12, esp. p. 11 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim III).
[17] The Bar Ilan University Library web catalogue lists a copy of Likutei Halakhot on Zevaḥim with prenumerants, bound with the gemarrah of Zevaḥim, that dates from 1891/2. See R. Aryeh Leib ha-Kohen’s account of the delays in publishing Likutei Halakhot in his biography of his father, Mikhtevei ha-Rav ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, ed. Aryeh Leib ha-Kohen, p. 51, in Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III. R. Aryeh Leib saw his father’s decision to write on Kodeshim, in part, as a reaction to the wave of migration to Eretz Yisrael from Eastern Europe following the expulsion of Jews from Moscow in 1890-1891, and the sense of messianic expectation; see ibid., pp. 38-39.
[18] M. Gellis, Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim…reshimah bibliografit (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 56. Brown (see n. 2 above) relies on Gellis.
[19] The date also appears in Shoshana P. Zolty, And All Your Children Shall Be Learned: Women and the Study of Torah in Jewish Law and History (Northvale, N.J: J. Aronson, 1993), p. 67, n. 34 (The place of publication is given as “St. Petersburg” rather than Piotrków.) An edition of Likutei Halakhot, Part Two, of R. Natan Sternhartz, was published in Warsaw in 1918-1919; perhaps this explains the confusion
[20] וב“ה על י״ג מסכתות ששייכים לעניני קדשים והם זבחים ומנחות ותמיד ופסחיס (מפרק תמיד הנשחט עד ערבי פסחים) וחגיגה ויומא ותמיד ותמורה וכריתות ובכורות (שלשה פרקים אחרונים), וערכים ומעילה ונזיר (שגם היא יש בה הדבה ענינים ששייכים לקדשים) וכן שני פרקים הראשונים ממסכת שבועות על כל אלו לקטנו בעניות דעתנו מדברי הרמב״ם מה שהעתיק מהסוגיות לדינא […].וכעת אין חסר מן הש“ס רק איזה מסכתות יתן ד׳ שבמשך הזמן ימצאו בישראל משליטים לכל הש״ס […]
[21] והנה כל זה כתבתי יותר מעשרה שנים ועבר עלינו נדודים הרבה מפני המלחמות וב״ה ששם נפשינו בחיים ולא נתן למוט רגלינו. וכעת שבאתי מן הגולה בשלום לביתי עזרני הש״י ברוב חסדו וטובו בזכות כלל ישראל להשלים הליקוטי הלכות גם על יתר מסכתות של הש״ס שאין עליהם רי״ף ורא״ש (ואלו הן ראש השנה וסנהדרין ומכות והוריות וסוטה ונדה […]) ]. The Ḥafetz Ḥayyim mentions that there are other tractates on which there are no Rif and Rosh, and he suggests that others may come to complete his work. In fact, he himself completed the work and revised the Preface in 1926; the revised Preface was published posthumously as chapter seven (“A Worthy Article on the Study of the Holy Torah”) in Likutei Amarim, pp. 10-12 (In Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III.)
[22] Although Deutschländer writes in his 1929 historical account of Bait Yaakov schools that their legal sanction had been provided “decades ago” (vor Jahrzenten) by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim in Likutei Halakhot on Sota, he may have been unaware of the publication history of Likutei Halakhot. In any event, he does not repeat the claim in his more detailed Hebrew report, published in the same year. For references see n. 8 above.
[23] ר‘ אליעזר אומר כל המלמד את בתו תורה מלמדה תפלות. תיפלות ס“ד אלא כאילו מלמדה תפלות. א“ר אבהו מאי טעמא דרבי אליעזר דכתיב אני חכמה שכנתי ערמה מכיון שנכנסה חכמה באדם נכנסה עמו**) ערמומית. ורבנן האי אני חכמה מאי עבדי ליה מיבעי ליה לכדר‘ יוסי ברבי חנינא דאמר רבי יוסי בר“ח אין ד“ת מתקיימין אלא במי שמעמיד עצמו ערום עליהן שנאמר אני חכמה שכנתי ערמה ומ“מ לדינא אין נדחה מפני זה סברת ר‘ אליעזר ונקטינן כן להלכה. וכתבו רבוותא דהיינו דווקא תורה שבע“פ אבל תורה שבכתב אף שאין ללמדה ***) לכתחילה מ“מ המלמדה אינו כמלמדה תפלות וגם מתורה שבע“פ הדינים השייכים לאשה מחוייבת ללמוד.
[24] **ונראה דכל זה דווקא בזמנים שלפנינו, שכל אחד היה דר במקום אבותיו, וקבלת האבות היה חזק מאוד אצל כל אחד ואחד, להתנהג בדרך שדרכו אבותיו, וכמאמר הכתוב ‘שאל אביך ויגדך‘; בזה היינו יכולים לומר שלא תלמוד תורה, ותסמוך בהנהגה על אבותיה הישרים. אבל כעת בעוונותינו הרבים, שקבלת האבות נתרופף מאוד מאוד, וגם מצוי שאינו דר במקום אבותיו כלל, ובפרט אותן שמרגילין עצמן ללמוד כתב ולשון העמים, בוודאי מצווה רבה ללמדם חומש וגם נביאים וכתובים ומוסרי חז“ל, כגון מסכת אבות וספר מנורת המאור וכדומה, כדי שיתאמת אצלם עניין אמונתנו הקדושה; דאי לאו הכי עלול שיסורו לגמרי מדרך ד‘, ויעברו על כל יסודי הדת ח“ו”
[25] According to Leo Deutschländer’s report of Keren ha-Torah at the Second Kenesiya Gedolah in Vienna in 1929, between 40 and 50 thousand children had been taken from their parents during the war and its aftermath, and these children had grown up without Torah, ethics, education, and faith. See Ha-Kenesiyah ha-Gedolah ha-Sheniyah shel Agudat Yisrael, ed. Shabbetai Sheinfeld (Vienna, 1929), p. 29. The situation among Polish Orthodox youth led Agudat Yisrael to establish, for the first time in Poland, organizations for the purpose of strengthening the faith and commitment of the younger generation. See Gershon C. Bacon, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Israel in Poland, 1916-1939 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996), 181-141.
[26] Mikhtevei ha-Rav ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, pp. 20-22, in Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III.
[27] Taharat Yisrael, ch. 8, pp. 10-11, esp. 10, in Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III.
[28] See Mikhtevei ha-Rav ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, pp. 53-54, in Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III.
[29] This guide is attributed in the early editions of Geder Olam to a יצחק בר“ז, who says that they are based on the tract, Dinei Niddah, by Shlomo Zalman Lifschutz, the authors of the Ḥemdat Shelomo on the Shulhan Arukh. יצחק בר“ז is likely the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s close associate in Warsaw, R. Isaac b. Zeev (“Itche”) Grodzienski. According to R. Aryeh Leib Kagan, R. Grodzienski translated Geder Olam into Yiddish in a second printing, in 1890, which explains why the name Isaac is on the title page. However, the first 1889 edition also has both Yiddish and Hebrew and more to the point, subsequent editions remove all mention of Isaac. Since the the Yiddish appears in two other books by the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim printed under his own name, one assumes that the Yiddish translation, too, was the work of the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, perhaps in partnership with R. Grozdienski
[30] The reference to the Dinei Niddah of the Ḥemdat Shelomo is omitted in these works. The Yiddish is absent from R. Zaks’ edition, which also omits the chapter on family purity in Geder Olam. It was not unusual for the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim to reuse parts of his kuntresim.
[31] Geder Olam (Warsaw 1889), f. 19 ,p. 37.
[32] Arukh ha-Shulhan (Jerusalem, 1969), VI, f.18, p. 35.
[33] Eitam Henkin, “The Books of the Arukh ha-Shulhan – The Order of Their Composition and Their Publication,” Ḥitzei Giborim –Pleitat Soferim, vol. 7 (2014): 515-536, esp. 516 (Hebrew), available online here (https://tinyurl.com/y8t7a7ncThis).
[34] Ed. 1895, 15a, p. 29
[35] For the Yiddish address, with Hebrew translation, see Kol Kitvei ha-Hafetz Ḥayyim III, 171-174.
[36] For an account of these negotiations, and the “quiet revolution” in Orthodox education, see Bacon, The Politics of Tradition, pp. 147-177.
[37]מדברים אנו הרבה ע“ד חנוך הבנות, שהוא אצלנו שאלה מכאבת מאד. מצב הענין הזה רע אצלנו כל כך משום שאך מעט מזעיר התענינו בו שנים הרבה, בה בשעה שעל אודות חנוך הבנים הרבינו לחשוב מחשבות ולהתעניין בו תמיד ברב או במעט, השארנו הבנות על חשבון “כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה“, כבשנים קדמוניות, בשעה שבת ישראל לא באה כל כך ביחס וקשור עם השוק ורשות–הרבים, עם זרמי העת המתנגדים לרוב להיהדות ולא היינו צריכים ג“כ לתת לה איזו תבלין וכח–מנגד חזק נגדם. (‘כל המלמד את בתו תורה כאילו למדה תפלות‘ תורה היו צריכים ללמוד ביחוד רק הגברים, שהיו נחוצים להם תבלין, זרם–מנגד ודוחה לזרמים הזרים, אולם הבת והאשה הישראלית ישבו להן בביתן, במקום שרק הסביבה פעלה עליהן פעולה חנוכית ופתחה ועשתה אותן לבנות ישראל כשרות ויהודיות אמתיות). לא שמנו אפוא את לבנו לזה, כי גם הבנות מוצאות לחוץ, ברשות הרביות וזרמים זרים המזורה לרגליהן, בהיותן אי–מזוינות, בלי היות להן כל מושג בתורה ובהיהדות, נתחנכו ונתגדלו בחיק תרבות זרה, ודרכים אי–יהודיים, וכל רוח מצוי‘ וכל נסיון קל לצודד נפשותיהן ולחדור לתוך נשמותיהן ולהרעיל ולעקרן ממקומן – פעלו עליהן את פעולתם הרעהץ עומדות לפנינו עוד שאלה חמורהת הקשורה בקשר אמיץ עם חנוך הבנות והיא טהרת בנות ישראל.
[38] **) הערה ולפ“ז כ“ש שיש ליזהר מללמד להנערים והנערות כתבי לצון ובדברי חשק שזהו ממש מכלה לבן ונפשן והמרגיל עצמו בזה הוא בכלל הקורא בספרים החצונים שהחמירו החכמים מאוד בזה כדאיתא בריש פרק חלק (סנהדרין דף צ) ואין נ“מ אם הם נדפסות בלשה“ק או בלשון לע“ז ועיין בשו“ע או“ח בסימן ש“ז סט“ז ובמ“ב שם.
[39] The Maharam Shapira, in the aforementioned address to the Polish Agudat ha-Rabbanim, also remarks on creating appropriate literature for Jewish youth.
[40] עוד ישנו עיקר גדול שעל כל הת“ח שבכל עיר לתקן והוא לראות שיה‘ בעירו חדר כשר שבו יתחנ כובנינו הקטנים (וגם הבנות הקטהות שלנו) בחינוך כשר בדרך התורה ולר בבתי ספר כאלו המלאים כפירה ומינות שאין בהם שום זכר ללמוד תורה“ק… אבל ביותר צריך להרחיק את בנו מבתי ספר כאלו שלומדים שם כפירה מינות, שבמקום החומש הקדוש המציאו ספרים כאילו שבהם נמצאו רק סיפורי החומש שהעתיקו אותם בלי שום טעם וריח של תורה“ק, וזה להם כל הצורה כולה. וכל דיני התורה והמצוה כמו ספר ויקרא וספר דברים בזו להם ולא העתיקם כלל…ומאד מאד יזהר האב, מלהניח את בניו ללכת לבתי ספר כאלה שהוא מאבד בידים את בניו (וה“ה גם בנותיו יזהר לחנכן בדרך התורה) Mikhtavim u-ma’amarim, Ḥelek Bet, pp. 56-57 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, IV). For the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s attack on the “methods” pedagogy of the non-Orthodox Hebrew schools, see Ḥomat ha-Dat, pp. 20, 52-55 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, II), and his 1927 appeal against teaching the Bible in this fashion in Mikhtevei ha-Rav ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, pp. 24-26 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III)
[41]ראשית הדבר,עלינו להתחזק בכל כחנו בענין חנוך הבנים והבנות,ליסד עבורם חדרים ובתי ספר כשרים כדין תורה“ק, שלא להטות ימין ושמאל ושלא לוותר על שום דבר מתורה“ק ולא להניחם ללמוד בבתי ספר כאלו, מלאים כפירה ומינות, ר“ל…. “Appeal for the Strengthening of Religion,” in Mikhtevei ha-Rav ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, p. 99 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, III).
[42] ב“ה, יום כ“ג לחודש שבט תרצ“ג אל כבוד האלופים הנכבדים חובבי ומוקירי תורה החרדים לדבר ה‘ אשר בעיר פריסטיק נ“י. כאשר שמעתי שהתנדבו אנשים יראים וחרדים לדבר ד‘ ליסד בערים בי“ס “בית יעקב” ללמוד בו תורה ויר“ש מידות ודרך ארץ זו תורה לילדות אחינו בני ישראל. אמרתי לפעלם הטוב יישר ד‘ חילם ומעשה ידיהם יכונן כי ענין גדול ונחוץ הוא בימינו אלה. אשר זרם הכפירה ר“ל שורר בכל תקפו והחפשים מכל המינים אורבים וצודים לנפשות אחב“י וכל מי שנגעה יראת ד‘ בלבבו המצוה ליתן את בתו ללמוד בבי“ס זה וכל החששות והפקפוקים מאיסור ללמד את בתו תורה אין שום מיחוש לזה בימינו אלה. ואין כאן המקום לבאר באריכות. כי לא כדורות הראשונים דורותינו אשר בדורות הקודמים היה לכל בית ישראל מסורת אבות ואמהות לילך בדרך התורה והדת ולקרות בספר “צאינה וראינה” בכל שבת קודש מה שאין כן בעוונותינו הרבים בדורותינו אלה. ועל כן בכל עוז רוחנו ונפשנו עלינו להשתדל להרבות בתי ספר כאלו ולהציל כל מה שבידינו ואפשרותנו להציל. הכותב למען כבוד התורה והדת ישראל מאיר הכהן, in Mikhtavim u-ma’amarim, Ḥelek Bet, pp. 24-39 (Kol Kitvei ha-Ḥafetz Ḥayyim, IV).
[43] See Mishneh Torah, Introduction. Although Rambam does not say explicitly that the compilation of the Mishnah was a violation of the prohibition of writing Oral Torah down, he suggests that the compilation was a novelty required by the travails of the time. For a look at this question see Michael Wygoda, “‘You Are Not Permitted to Write Down Oral Statements,’ On the Development of a Forgotten Halakha,” Dimuy 26 (1996): 48-63 (Hebrew).
[44] Cf. Benjamin Brown, “The Value of Torah Learning in the Ḥafetz Ḥayyim’s Writings and His Ruling on Women’s Torah Learning,” Diné Yisrael, vol. 24 (2007): 79-118, esp. 116-11
[45] For this see Manekin, The Rebellion of the Daughters, 182-235.

The Lost Library, Missing Manuscripts, Saul Lieberman, and More
Marc B. Shapiro

When I finished my new post, it ended up being so long that I had to split it into five parts. Here is part 1.

1. All of us are able to benefit from the Seforim Blog because of the efforts of Dan Rabinowitz, who founded the blog almost fifteen years ago. In the early days, there was only a relatively small amount of people who knew about it, and Dan wrote all the posts. I encourage everyone to check out these early posts which are full of fascinating information. Today, the blog has grown very large, and is a major resource for both traditional and academic scholars. Dan has generously allowed people from all walks life to use the Seforim Blog as a place to post their scholarship and ideas.

Dan’s recent wonderful book, The Lost Library: The Legacy of Vilna’s Strashun Library in the Aftermath of the Holocaust, actually began as a Seforim Blog post.

You can learn about the book in Dan’s talk available here. I mention all this now because in the latest Jewish Review of Books there is a great review of The Lost Library by Allan Nadler, who as former research director at YIVO is able to provide his own insights that add to the story Dan tells. You can see the review here.

Since I began by speaking about the nature of the Seforim Blog, it is also worth recalling that things could have developed very differently had Dan not stood strong in his principles that the blog remain a site for “the free and open exchange of ideas and of opinions in the belief that as Jews you have a right to hear and to be heard.”[1] Some readers might recall the following announcement that appeared on the blog on June 24, 2008 (here).

Dear Seforim Blog Readers,

It is with great pleasure that we announce today that Tradition Online (TraditionOnline.org) will be adopting the Seforim blog onto its website.

We believe that the Seforim blog is a premiere source of online Jewish learning, and we hope that our resources and expanding website will help the newly-named Tradition Seforim Blog (TSB) continue to grow. TSB remains easily accessible at its new URL – seforim.TraditionOnline.org, and can also be accessed through Tradition’s website.

Allow me to assure you that the current Seforim editors will continue to exclusively direct the content and direction of the blog, and that TSB will continue to welcome your comments on the site. We salute Dan Rabinowitz for his excellent work, and look forward to helping him bring TSB to greater audiences.

This would have been an excellent partnership as it would have given the Seforim Blog technical assistance, while at the same time brought readers to Tradition’s website which had recently launched. Some commenters on the post expressed doubt that the partnership could last, and it turned out that they were correct. Although the people involved with the Tradition website were gracious, forward thinking, and fully committed that there would be no interference with the content on the Seforim Blog, this sentiment was not shared by some others in the Rabbinical Council of America. Demands were made that the content of posts and readers’ comments be overseen by someone approved by the RCA. In particular, it was my posts that these unnamed people wanted to censor. (Ironically, around this time I was actually invited to give a lecture at an RCA convention.)

To his great credit, Dan immediately made it clear that under no circumstances would the Seforim Blog be put under such censorship control, and it was back to the old website (which itself brought some financial costs). The years since have shown this to be a very good decision as the readership and influence of the Seforim Blog only grew. In retrospect, it should have been obvious to all that a rabbinical organization as large as the RCA, which represents a constituency with sometimes widely divergent views, would not be able to give its imprimatur to a blog whose purpose is to post interesting and occasionally even controversial material, and which refuses to censor comments. This would have made the RCA responsible for every post that went up, which would have put them in an impossible situation. Needless to say, many members of the RCA are themselves avid readers of the blog and they recognize the value of it being independent.

I think the same difficulty was seen with the journal Tradition. It is no accident that shortly after appearing on the scene, Hakirah had become the most popular of the Orthodox journals, entirely overshadowing Tradition. Hakirah, precisely because it was independent, was not afraid to be cutting edge and take on controversial issues, and thus created excitement and became a must read, while Tradition continued to stagnate.

One major difficulty in keeping the Seforim Blog going is that it costs money. There are also plans to make significant improvements to the site, and improvements obviously cost money Those who enjoy the Seforim Blog, and are able to donate something to keep it going, are encouraged to go here for a Paypal link. Whatever you can give is appreciated and will help the Seforim Blog continue its important work. The site is incorporated as a 501(c) charity and all donations are tax deductible. You will receive documentation of any donation. If everyone reading this now gives a little, it will go a long way.

2. Since in his recent book Dan deals with YIVO and its issue of ownership of books, let me turn to a similar issue, the ownership of manuscripts. In its June 2019 catalog, Kestenbaum offered for sale two letters from R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and one letter from R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski. For reasons I will soon explain, I almost fell off my seat when I saw these being offered at auction. First, I must note that I know these letters very well. I even published the letter from R. Grodzinski inKitvei ha-Gaon Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, vol. 1, pp. 275-276. The letter was then republished, without acknowledging where it first appeared, inIggerot R. Hayyim Ozer (Bnei Brak, 2000), vol. 1, no. 481.

Here is the original letter from Kestenbaum’s website.

Here is part of the letter as printed in Kitvei R. Weinberg.

Take a look at the very end of the letter. I couldn’t make out a word, and neither could anyone else I asked, so I inserted three dots. (If anyone can make out the word, please let me know.)

Here is the second page of the letter in Iggerot R. Hayyim Ozer. Take a look at the end.

The first thing they did was good, in that they corrected a typo. מוהר”א should be מוהר”ע and refers to R. Ezra Munk (in Hebrew he went by Azriel). However, they also inserted the word נסע which anyone can see is not correct. They did this even though they did not have a copy of the manuscript. They just assumed it must be the missing word, but how can anyone make a guess like this without actually seeing the manuscript?

As for the letters from R. Weinberg to R. Unna, here is how they are shown on Kestenbaum’s website.

I published one of these letters in the appendix to my dissertation and refer to both of them in Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy, p. 125 n. 69.

So why did I almost fall off my chair when I saw the three letters (one from R. Grodzinski and two from R. Weinberg) in the Kestenbaum catalog? Because these letters were kept in an archive at Bar-Ilan University. Apparently, the archival material was regarded as belonging to both the Institute for Holocaust Research and the Institute for Diaspora Jewry, as both names were used to designate where it was held. That is why in different publications of mine, when I cite this material, I sometimes refer to it by one name and sometimes the other. It was in this archive that I found the letters, made copies, and then published two of the three (and I have copies of other documents from there as well). If you look at the images of the documents in the upper left-hand corner, you can see the Bar-Ilan manuscript number.

Here is the first page of Kitvei R. Weinberg, vol. 1.

For the appendix, no. 6, I identify the document as coming from the Institute for Diaspora Jewry 102:7/18. Now look at the upper left of R. Grodzinski’s letter. You can clearly see VII 18.

I was disturbed to see items that belonged to Bar-Ilan University being sold. I realized that there are two options. One is that Bar-Ilan itself had arranged for the sale, or had sold the letters to someone who was now reselling them. We have lots of examples of libraries that have sold material in them. However, in this case a sale would be very inappropriate. The Unna family gave the archive of R. Yitzhak Unna to Bar-Ilan with the purpose of preserving it for posterity and allowing researchers to have access to this material. If for some reason Bar-Ilan could not fulfill this task, the only appropriate thing would have been to give it to another archive. To have sold this material would be a complete abandonment of Bar-Ilan’s most basic responsibility as holder of an archive.

The other option is that the material was stolen, and unfortunately, we also have plenty of examples of stolen material ending up at auction.

The first thing I did was contact Bar-Ilan, as I thought that they would be interested in investigating this matter and perhaps stopping the auction until the issue could be sorted out. The response I got was somewhere between apathy and annoyance. They had absolutely no interest in what I was telling them, and even seemed annoyed that I was taking the time to tell them this. The fact that materials that they assumed responsibility for were being sold at auction, and thus not available for scholars to access anymore (as no copies had been made), was of absolutely no interest to them. I was shocked and speechless.

Eventually, I was able to figure out what I think happened. I was told by someone who was involved in one of the institutes that one of the people who worked with the archival materials had taken documents home to help with his research. When he died in 2000 the material was at his home, and it was thought that it was disposed of, no doubt by someone who did not realize what it was or that it belonged to Bar-Ilan. But now we know that it was not disposed of.

It is clear that Kestenbaum, which is known as a scrupulously honest auction house, had no way of knowing that the material it was given belonged to Bar-Ilan (assuming that what I wrote in the previous paragraph is what happened). Before it reached Kestenbaum, it could have gone through a few different hands without anyone realizing this either. Since even after I alerted Bar-Ilan no one there cared about this material, there really wasn’t anything that could be done. The problem, however, as in all such cases, is that material that was designed to be available for scholars to examine has now vanished. Although I haven’t been back to Bar-Ilan for many years, one of the things I was planning to do next time I was there was to return to these archival collections which have much important material and which I haven’t seen in over twenty years.[2] But now neither I nor anyone else will be able to do so.

What motivated me to write about this now is that in April 2020 another “old friend” of mine, a letter from R. Weinberg to R. Unna from the same Unna archive at Bar-Ilan, was offered for sale at a different auction house. You can view it here.

Here is the copy that I made (which also has some of my own handwriting). You can clearly see the Bar-Ilan manuscript number.

After this post was completed, I was alerted to another auction house in London which on May 18, 2020 (today!) is auctioning a letter from R. Weinberg to R. Ben Zion Uziel. You can see it here. After the auction concludes the page might be removed, but you can still see the catalog here, no. 176. This letter was stolen from the Israel State Archives, file number 000i7uz (old number: 887/12-פ). You can see the archive file here. A copy of this letter was made by Professor Amihai Radzyner in 2010, before the archive was digitized. In 2013 he sent a copy to me. Prior to this, I was sent a copy of the letter by someone who purchased it, yet neither of us then knew that it was stolen. Unlike Bar-Ilan University, I am sure that the Israel State Archives will want this letter returned to it after learning about its fate.

3. In my last post here I included a letter from Saul Lieberman to Max Rowe that many people found interesting.[3] I forgot to mention that it was Ariel Fuss who alerted me to the correspondence between Lieberman and Rowe. Although I carefully went through the Lieberman archive years ago in preparing Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, I did not make copies of all the documents, and I thank Ariel for reminding me of this interesting material. Here are the letters in the archive from Rowe to Lieberman, from which we see not only who received the first Rothschild awards, but that R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik was also consulted in this matter.[4]

In the last post I also gave a couple of examples where it appears to me that the editors of books did not realize that the Jewish Theological Seminary is not an Orthodox institution. R. Moshe Maimon called my attention to the following example, from Mesorat Moshe, vol. 3, p. 213, no. 81, where we also see confusion about JTS.

The people who put the book together from R. Mordechai Tendler’s notes did not realize that when he asked R. Moshe if it is permitted to send a book to the “library of the Seminary,” that he and R. Moshe were referring to JTS. The editors mistakenly thought, as we can see from the heading, that this referred to “the” Christian seminary (as if there is one such place).

R. Yitzhak Nahman Eshkoli calls attention to what he sees as another mistake made by those who published R. Moshe Feinstein’s works.[5] Here is Iggerot Moshe, Orah Hayyim5, 22:21.

According to the text of R. Moshe’s responsum, animals are muktzeh, even those that children play with. This means that R. Moshe held that pets are also muktzeh. Yet in the small print the editor added that pets are permitted, even though this completely contradicts the first part of the sentence. See also Iggerot Moshe, Orah Hayyim 4, no. 16 (end), where R. Moshe forbids[6] moving a fish tank on Shabbat and Yom Tov: דבע”ח מוקצין.

Here is one more story about the Orthodox response to JTS. It was told by R. Joseph Buxbaum, the director of Machon Yerushalayim:[7] When R. Abraham Sofer came back to Jerusalem after teaching at the Seminary, the Brisker Rav, R. Isaac Zev Soloveitchik, stopped talking to him “in learning”. This upset Sofer and he complained to the Brisker Rav, what is the difference between him and Shraga Abramson. Abramson also taught at the Seminary and yet everyone knew that he was welcome to come speak in learning with the Brisker Rav.

The Brisker Rav replied with a story: The beit din in Vilna ruled that a woman should be divorced without receiving her ketubah because she did not cover her hair and thus had the status of עוברת על דת יהודית. The woman objected that just yesterday the beit din ruled that another woman who also did not cover her hair did not have the status of עוברת על דת יהודית, so what is going on? The dayanim explained to her that the woman from yesterday grew up in Vilna where it is common for married women not to cover their hair, so she is not regarded as עוברת על דת יהודית, but you come from Hungary where the practice is to shave the heads of married women. A Hungarian woman who goes without a head covering[8] is certainly an עוברת על דת יהודית. (The point is clear, but I wonder, in the twentieth century did any non-hasidic Hungarian women shave their heads?)

The Brisker Rav explained to Sofer that when a descendant of the Hatam Sofer teaches for the Conservatives, “he is a ‘sheigetz,’ but Shraga, where does he come from? From Lomza, nu . . . it is not so far away.”[9] His point was that Lithuanian Torah scholars, who are generally more open-minded than Hungarian scholars, have often not seen it as problematic to have relationships with non-Orthodox scholars.[10]

Along these lines, R. Eliezer Brodt called my attention to the fact that, together with numerous great rabbis, Louis Ginzberg was named one of the honorary presidents of the Telz alumni association, something that today appears unimaginable. The following appears in R. Aaron D. Burack, Pirhei Aharon (New York, 1954), vol. 2, p. 278.

In my post here I mentioned how R. Abraham Sofer’s edition of Meiri’s Hibbur ha-Teshuvah is dedicated to Ginzberg. Ovadya Hoffman called my attention to the fact that Sofer also dedicated another work to Ginzberg, this time in his memory. This work is Tractate Shekalim with two medieval commentaries (New York, 1954; the dedication is missing in the Copy Corner printing found on hebrewbooks.org).

Hoffman also informed me that there are three pages of Ginzberg’s notes at the end of the volume.[11] Hoffman also mentioned that there are notes from Lieberman at the end of the Meiri on Niddah.

Finally, regarding Lieberman and the Brisker Rav, it is of note that in Tosefta ki-Feshutah, Pesahim, p. 562, Lieberman writes:

וערבים עלי דברי מרן הגאון הרב ר’ זאב מבריסק

I don’t know of anyone else whom Lieberman refers to as “Maran”.

4. In my last post here I mentioned Samson Bloch’s witticism that מבקר stands for מתכבד בקלון חבירו. Let me now add the following, related to the word קלון, which for reasons of space I could not include in the previous post.

Bereshit Rabbah 18:24 states:

.ודבק באשתו: ר’ אבהו בשם ר’ יוחנן בני נח על הנשואות חייבין, על הארוסות פטורין, ר’ יונה בשם שמואל זונה שהיא עומדת בשוק ובאו עליה שנים הראשון פטור והשני חייב משום בעולת בעל

In this passage, the words I have underlined make perfect sense: “If a harlot was standing in the street.” The Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 1:9, is a parallel passage, but there the text reads: זונה עומדת בחלון, “If a harlot was standing in the window.” What does it mean that the harlot was standing in the window? Korban Edah explains that she was standing in the window waiting for customers, as is the practice of harlots. While this makes sense in modern times, when we know that in some places (like Amsterdam) this is the practice of harlots, is there any evidence that in ancient times harlots would stand in the windows? Perhaps the contrary is true, as R. Shimon Amorai[12]  writes: שסתם זונות הולכות בחוץ. Yet while Korban Edah’s interpretation might seem anachronistic, what else could עומדת בחלון mean?

Jacob Reifman brilliantly suggests that instead of חלון the text should read: זונה עומדת בקלון, and he provides other examples of the use of the word קלון with reference to sexual immorality and prostitution.[13]

In general, Reifman’s writings, widely scattered throughout books and periodicals, should be gathered in one place. Readers will find in them many very insightful comments as well as many far-fetched interpretations.[14] Reifman often focuses on textual criticism but sometimes he offers other interpretations as well. For instance, he discusses Shabbat 55b-56b which gives a number of examples of “Whoever says that Reuben [David, Solomon, etc.] sinned is in error.” Reifman sees it as obvious that these are aggadic statements not meant to be taken literally.[15] He sees their purpose as twofold. The first is to train people to judge others favorably. Maimonides goes so far as to say that when dealing with a righteous person who it seems is doing something wrong, you should judge him favorably even if it is not easy to view matters in this fashion.[16]

The second purpose of the aggadic statements is so that the masses not be led astray by seeing how great people can also fall. The concern is that the masses will say that if these great people sinned, then we who are far below their level should not be too concerned about sinning. Reifman says that although the explanations given in the Talmud to explain the various sins are unconvincing, for the masses and the women it is possible that they would be effective. He refers to Rashi, Shabbat 30b, s.v. mutav, who speaks of aggadic expositions intended for these populations.

לאו מהכא יליף חלול שבת דפיקוח נפש נפקא לן מוחי בהם ולא שימות בהם אלא להטעימן הדבר באגדה המושכת את הלב לפי שהיו באים לשמוע הדרשה נשים ועמי הארץ והיו צריכין הדרשנין למשוך את לבבם

Reifman concludes similarly with regard to the passages he is focused on, which deny that certain great figures committed sins even though the biblical text states that they did:

והמאמרים הנ”ל, הם אפוא מן האגדות שהזמן גרמא והאגדות האלה אינם לא משפטים מקובלים ולא משפטים מושכלים כי אם תחבולות אשר קנו נבוני לב למשוך בהם את ההמון אחרי הטוב ולהרחיקו מן הרע.

It is noteworthy that R. Eliyahu Zini also concludes that the Talmud never intended to say that the biblical figures under discussion did not sin. That is why, R. Zini claims, the Talmud uses the language, “Whoever says [the biblical figure sinned]”, as the issue here is that we are not supposed to publicly mention these matters, and that that is what is problematic.[17]

שאכן יש בעיה, אלא שאסור להעלותה על דל שפתותינו ברבים או בפרהסיא. וכונתם ברורה: המפרסם את הדבר אינו אלא טועה, אף אם הדבר אמת

Before leaving Reifman, let me call attention to another comment of his that appears on the same page in Ha-Magid as the one I just dealt with. He deals with the following statement in Shabbat 119b which explains Psalms 105:15:

אל תגעו במשיחי אלו תנוקות של בית רבן ובנביאי אל תרעו אלו ת”ח

“Touch not mine anointed refers to school children; and do my prophets no harm, to disciples of the Sages.”

We can understand why “my prophets” might refer to Torah scholars, but what does “mine anointed” have to with school children? There have been any number of homiletic explanations of this, yet Reifman suggests that the passage has been corrupted and it really should be reversed so that “my prophets” are identified with the school children and “mine anointed” with the Torah scholars. Here is what he says, and I think everyone must acknowledge that it makes great sense:

נ”ל ברור, כי צ”ל להפך: אל תגעו במשיחי אלו ת”ח ובנביאי אל תרעו אלו תנוקות של בית רבן, וכי כנוי משיחי לת”ח הוא ע”ש: דרדוגי דמשחא ארישא דרבנן (כתובות י”ז ב’) וכנוי נביאי לתנוקות של בית רבן הוא ע”ש: א”ר יוחנן מיום שחרב בית המקדש ניטלה נבואה מן הנביאים וניתנה לתינוקות (ב”ב י”ב ב’), וע”ש: ר’ יוחנן בדיק בינוקא (חולין צ”ה ב’) וראה והביטה, כי ר’ יוחנן אשר בדק בינוקא הלך לשיטתו שהנבואה נתנה לתנוקות אחרי חורבן ביה”מ. ועל בדק בינוקא פי’ רש”י: דשייל ליה פסוק לי פסוקיך עכ”ל, והוא מתאים היטב עם אשר אמר ר’ יוחנן: השכים ונפל לו פסוק לתוך פיו הרי זו נבואה קטנה (ברכות נ”ה ב’) , והבן.

I realize that we can’t change the text of the Talmud, but will you ever read the passage again without thinking about Reifman’s suggested emendation? As far as I know, the only commentator to take note of Reifman’s suggestion is R. Reuven Margaliyot, Nitzotzei Or, Shabbat 119b [18] He doesn’t even remember where he saw the suggested emendation, as he writes:

בזכרוני שצ”ל להיפך אל תגעו במשיחי אלו ת”ח כמש”א בכתובות י”ז ב דרדוגי דמשחא ארישא דרבנן, ובנביאי אל תרעו אלו תנוקות של בית רבן דמיום שנחרב ביהמ”ק ניתנה הנבואה לקטנים (בבא בתרא י”ב א)

Much more can be written about Reifman, both with regard to his own writings and also his relationship with the rabbinic world, but this will have to await a future post.[19] Here is his picture.

5. In my last post I wrote:

When it comes to the word דִבׇּה, which means “slander” in biblical Hebrew, it has a very different meaning in medieval texts. “As Jacob Klatzkin [in his Thesaurus] notes, dibbah in medieval Hebrew does not mean ‘slander,’ but rather a false claim, nonsense, or absurdity.” Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s Modern Medieval Translation of the Guide,” in Josef Stern, et al., eds., Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in Translation (Chicago, 2019), p. 268.

Although this might seem like a tidbit of pedantry, it actually is much more than this, and many people have been misled because they did not realize what the word דִבׇּה means in medieval texts. For example, the following appears in Maimonides’ Introduction to Helek, in the medieval translation by Solomon ben Joseph found in the back of the Talmud:

ואף על פי שהנראה מקצת דבריהם יש מהם מן הדבה והריחוק מן השכל, עד שאילו סופר על פשוטו לעמי הארץ כל שכן לחכמים היו תמהים בהתבוננם בהם והם אומרים היאך יתכן שיהיה בעולם אדם שיחשוב כזה או שיאמין שהיא אמונה נכונה קל וחומר שייטב בעיניו.

In this passage, Maimonides is describing the first category of those who take aggadot literally. Here is how Fred Rosner translates these words (his translation is from the Hebrew, not from the original Arabic):[20]

And this, in spite of the fact that in their literal sense, some of the words of the Sages would seem to be so slanderous and absurd that if they were related to the uneducated masses in their literal sense—and all the more so to the wise—they would reflect upon them in amazement and exclaim “How is it possible that there exists in the world anyone who would think in this manner or believe that such statements are correct, much less approve of them.”

Clearly, the word “slanderous” makes no sense in this sentence, and that is because when the medieval translation uses the word דִבׇּה it means something else entirely. In his note to the passage, Rosner writes: “Kafah omits the word ‘slanderous.’” This is an incorrect formulation. R. Kafih was translating the commentary anew, so he was not tied to the medieval Hebrew translation. He translates:

ואף על פי שיש בפשטי מקצת דבריהם מן הזרות

Furthermore, R. Kafih actually refers to the medieval translation on p. 136 n. 35 of his edition. In his typical sharp fashion, R. Kafih writes:

בנדפס “מן הדבה” ודבה היא

In his play on words, R. Kafih is saying that the medieval translator engaged in slander by falsely translating the passage as “slanderous.” The only thing that is surprising here is that R. Kafih seems to have also been misled and did not realize that when the translator uses the word דִבׇּה it means “false claim,” “nonsense”, “absurdity,” or a similar word.[21]

In seeking to make sense of the word דִבׇּה and assuming it means slander, the Rambam le-Am, p. 118 n. 12, explains:

הוצאת דיבה על חז”ל, ביחסם להם דברים תפלים שאין להם שחר

These are nice words, but they have nothing to do with what Maimonides said, or for that matter, with what appears in the medieval translation.[22]

The same word דִבׇּה also appears in Maimonides’ Introduction to Helek in his discussion of the second group of people who distort the meaning of Aggadot. In the medieval translation:

והם באים לסכל אותם ולגנותם ומוציאים דבה על מה שאין בו דבה וילעיגו על דברי חכמים לרגעים

Rosner translates: “They eventually call these (rabbinical assertions) foolish, and deprecate them and slander that which should not be slandered. From time to time, they deride the words of the Sages.” Once again, “slander” has nothing to do with what Maimonides wrote. R. Kafih translates:[23]

וחשבו למוזר מה שאינו מוזר

In his note (p. 136 n. 43), he writes:

בנדפס “ומוציאים דבה על מה שאין בו דבה” ואינו נכון

However, the medieval translation makes perfect sense once we understand that when it uses דִבׇּה it does not mean “slander”. Thinking that this is what the word means, it makes sense that R. Kafih would say that it is incorrect.

Yitzhak Shilat translates:[24]

ולגנות מה שאין בו גנאי

In his translation of Guide 1:51, Samuel Ibn Tibbon uses דִבׇּה in the same way:

ולאמתם בצעקות ובהוצאת דבות והרחקות ובפנים רבים מורכבים ממחלוקת נצוח והטעאה

Strangely enough, and presumably because the printers did not know the meaning of דבות in the sentence, most printings (including the standard one with the commentaries)[25] replace ובהוצאת דבות with ובהוצאות רבות, which itself has no meaning.[26]

* * * * * * * * *

[1] For many people in the New York area in the 1980s and 1990s, these words—replacing Jews with “American citizens”— will bring back memories of driving home from work. For those who want to hear this opening line again, listen here. I actually know of one gadol who used to listen to the Bob Grant show at home.
[2] The letter from R. Hayyim Lauer that I published in Milin Havivin 2 (2006), pp. 25-33, also came from the archive we are discussing. You can see it here. R. Lauer discusses whether in contemporary times, in a she’at ha-dehak, a pilegesh can be permitted.

Regarding a pilegesh, R. Jacob Emden, in his recently published Em la-Binah, p. 82, explains in an original fashion that the root of the word is פלג אשה. (As noted in the text, he already mentioned this explanation in Lehem Shamayim, Parah 1:3; regarding the vocalization of Em la-Binah, see Berakhot 57a).

Em la-Binah, which is a commentary on the entire Torah, is a very significant publication and required reading for anyone with an interest in R. Emden. It is noteworthy that the editor, R. Elimelech Zwiebel, leaves out some harsh comments from R. Emden about earlier commentators (including Ibn Ezra, see p. 98). However, when he does so he indicates this in the text, so when the manuscript from the British Library is eventually put online, readers will be able to find out what was left out. We must all be grateful to Zwiebel that he took this important step, rather than just omitting the “problematic” comments.

On pp. 60-63, Zwiebel cites R. Emden’s famous passage about circumcision that is only found in a few surviving copies of the first printing of Migdal Oz (Altona, 1748). I discuss this passage in Changing the Immutable, p. 204, where, following Scholem and others who have dealt with the matter, I state that R. Emden himself removed this passage. Zwiebel, on the other hand, argues that R. Emden initially did not include the passage in the first printing, but before the printing was complete he added it to some copies. See Yeshurun 32 (2015), pp. 851-852.

In my opinion this is incorrect and makes no sense at all. In what I assume is the self-censored Altona 1748 “edition”, the missing passage is preceded by these words:

ובאמת דבריו הללו מתאימים כו’

The word ‘כו appears on the second line and there is a big space after it, and also a little space before it. Here is what the page looks like as found in Zwiebel’s article.

Zwiebel writes that:

מילת כו’ מוכיחה כי כוונתו היתה להרחיב עוד בענין זה

This makes no sense. First of all, no one prints a book intending at the outset to redo the pages (with all the work this entails), and adds ‘כו to let the reader know that a new section is coming. Second, even if this was the case, there would be no need for the spaces before and after ‘כו. Here is what p. 2b in the “uncensored” version looks like.

Look at lines 1 and 2 and compare to the “censored” version shown above. It is obvious that the “uncensored” version is the original text, and the material from line 2 and on was removed by R. Emden.

One final passage which caught my attention is on p. 110 where R. Emden says that despite Proverbs 31:30: “Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain,” women’s beauty is nevertheless important and is something Scripture mentions, and “Jacob our forefather went after his eyes.”

לא לחנם כתב תורה את זאת והדומה לזה שמשתבח הכתוב ביופי נשים, ושיעקב אבינו עליו השלום הלך אחר עינים

What this means is that Jacob saw that Rachel was beautiful, and this is why the Torah writes in Gen. 29:17: “Rachel was of beautiful form and fair to look upon.”

What then are we to make of the verse in Proverbs? R. Emden says that “beauty is vain” only when it comes without fear of Heaven, and that is why this appears in the second half of the verse from Proverbs. Yet when it is combined with fear of Heaven, then beauty is a positive thing. He continues by explaining how one’s outer appearance is connected to one’s inner spirituality. In other words, Rachel’s outer physical beauty was, in Jacob’s eyes, also a sign of her inner spiritual beauty.

אין היופי הבל אלא כשהוא בלי יראת שמים, אבל בודאי שיופי הגשמית הוא צורת אדם [הפנימי] . . . ולכן ודאי הכיר כי הגשמות ציור הרוחנית היא, ואם נמצא אשה בפגם וסרת טעם, דע שלא נזהרו בה כראוי ונתקלקלה בחברה רעה

[3] The website Matzav not only posted the letter together with two paragraphs from my post, but made it seem as if I wrote the piece for Matzav, as there is no mention that it originally appeared on the Seforim Blog. See here. Even after Matzav was told that this is inappropriate and that they should take down the post, nothing was done. I am sure that Matzav’s interest in the letter was because of how Lieberman praised R. Chaim Kanievsky.
[4] Documents provided courtesy of the Saul Lieberman Archives (ARC 76/8) of the Jewish Theological Seminary Library.

In Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, I published Lieberman’s letter against ordaining women. The last sentence of this letter  reads:

אבל אשה שפסולה לדון, ולא תהא ראויה לכך, אין להסמיך אותה בתואר זה (ואפילו כמליצה בעלמא, עיין בתוספות ע”ז ה ע”א ד”ה אלא) ובל נעשה את עצמנו חוכא ואיטלולא.

While preparing the book, I did not know what the meaning of the reference to Tosafot is. R. Chaim Rapoport explained it to me.

The Tosafot in Avodah Zarah suggest that the figurative expression “ha-eynei ha-anashim ha-heim tenaker” (Numbers 16:14) – clearly a melitzah – would not have been written in relation to people who were physically blind. Lieberman’s claim is that since a woman is not able to be a rabbi in the true, talmudic, sense of the word, therefore the title should not even be applied to her “be-derech melitzah”, hence the reference to the Tosafot.

It is interesting that in R. Herschel Schachter’s article against women rabbis, Hakirah 11 (Spring 2011), pp. 19-23, one of his major sources is “Rabbi Shaul Lieberman”.
[5] Tza’ar Ba’alei Hayyim be-Halakhah ve-Aggadah, p. 514 n. 1171.
[6] R. Menasheh Klein discusses other issues related to an aquarium. See Mishneh Halakhot, vol. 6, no. 216 (called to my attention by R. Aviad Stollman).
[7] It is recorded in R. Eliyahu Soloveitchik’s unpublished memoir, p. 16 (unnumbered).
[8] The same approach, in which the lack of head covering among Lithuanian Jewish women—as opposed to Hungarian women— was not viewed as reflecting negatively on their general religiosity, is seen in the following story recorded by Moshe Potolosky of what the Hazon Ish told his father (Mevakshei Torah 49 [Tamuz 5769]), p. 71, called to my attention by Joel Wolowelsky).

.אמר רבנו לאבי: כשאתה תארח בבית שבו אין האשה נוהגת לכסות את ראשה, אם היא מליטא – יתכן שאף המהדרים והמחמירים ביותר יכולים לסעוד אצלה בלב שקט. אבל אם היא מהונגריה – אסור לטעום מתבשיליה

ומדוע? כי בליטא לא הקפידו רוב הנשים על כסוי ראש (א”ה, בתקופה ההיא בליטא היה פרוץ הדבר) ואף נשים צדקניות רבות מאד הקלו בזה. אבל בהוגנריה, היתה בקהלות האורתודוקסיות הקפדה רבה בענין זה, ובדרך כלל,רק אשה שזלזלה במצוות היתה נמנעת .מלכסות את ראשה, ועל אחת כזו אי אפשר לסמוך בעניני כשרות

Moshe Botchko writes simply (Mikhtavim u-Ma’amarim ha-Rav Botchko, p. 252):

.בליטא לא נהגו נשים דתיות לכסות ראשן אף מחוץ לביתן, חוץ מנשות הרבנים

The following appears in the anonymous Ha-Keter ve-ha-Kavod le-Hai Olamim (Jerusalem, 2017), p. 102:

.והנה האמת היא שאין שום מקום להרגיש, את ההרגשה המוטעת אשר ינסה היצר לטעת בלב חלק מההורים, כאילו הדור הצעיר שחפץ לתקן את הדבר, ולקיים את המצוה הזו כתיקונה, הרי זה – חס ושלום – מחמת מעלתו ויתרונו על הדור הקודם

מחשבה זו אינה נכונה כלל, מפני שהאמת היא שהדור הקודם אינו אשם בזה כלל וכלל, כי התחלת הדבר היה מחמת הקושי הגדול שהיה בחוץ לארץ, בין הגוים, ובהתגברות מחריבי הדת, שעקרו לגמרי את קיום מצות כיסוי הראש, עד שאפילו מבתים של יראים ושלמים בליטא, היו נשותיהם מהלכות בגילוי ראש ממש, וכמו שמפורש בערוך השלחן סימן ע”ה סעיף ז.

Binyamin Zev Jacobson,Divrei Ben Shlomo(Jerusalem, 1957), vol. 1, p. 306, tells the following story:

לפני יותר מחמש ועשרים שנה הייתי בעיר גדולי בלטויה ובקרתי שם את הרב ואשתו כבדה אותי בכוס יין, ואז הייתי מדקדק ולא רציתי לשתות מפני שערה המגולה, והרב גער בי מאוד ואמר לי שרבות מנשי רבני ליטא הולכות כן

(He also records R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski’s sharp response when told of what this rabbi said.)

Regarding Hungary, the Orthodox community in Budapest was very strict about the matter of women’s head covering. If a married woman did not cover her hair, her family would not be accepted as a member of this community. See Shmuel Weingarten, “Ha-Shelilah she-be-Shitat ha-Pirud be-Ungaryah,” Areshet (1944), p. 438.
[9] Abramson studied in Lomza but he was actually from Ciechanowiec (near Grodno), the birthplace of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg.
[10] See my Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox; Moshe Maimon, “Perek be-Hithavut ha-‘Olam ha-Torah’ be-Artzot ha-Berit le-Ahar ha-Milhamah,” Hakirah 26 (2019), pp. 31-52; and the discussion at the Otzar haHochma forum here. R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer, Menuhat Shalom, vol. 6, p. 124, in mentioning R. Joseph Zechariah Stern’s citation of “problematic” works, refers to שיטת קצת חכמי ליטא בענין.

It continues to amaze me that, as noted in Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, p. 31 n. 110, even in a 1935 private letter to R. Shlomo Heiman, R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski referred to Louis Ginzberg as ‘הרה”ג מו”ה לוי ד”ר גינזבורג שי. See Iggerot R. Hayyim Ozer, vol. 2, no. 1004. In Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox I included a letter from R. Grodzinski to Ginzberg where understandably he gives Ginzberg the typical fancy titles. This letter was later included in Iggerot R. Hayyim Ozer, vol. 3, no. 276, with no acknowledgment of where the letter first appeared. At the end of the letter there is a name that neither I nor anyone else could make out. I transcribed it as מאיר באראן and then added a question mark. In Iggerot R. Hayyim Ozer they removed the question mark. Uriel Bener called my attention to Shenot Dor va-Dor (Jerusalem, 1999), p. 271, from where we see that the name is מאיר באסין, who happened to be the father-in-law of R. Yisrael Gustman.
[11] Regarding Ginzberg, see also R. Zev Leiter, Mi-Toratan shel Rishonim (Jerusalem, 2000), p. 61, who refers to him as מהר”ל גינצבורג. R. Gedaliah Felder, Yesodei Yeshurun, vol. 3, p. 146 refers to ר”ל גינזבורג. Here is the title page of the 1946 edition of Ma’alot ha-Torah by R. Abraham ben Solomon Zalman, the brother of the Vilna Gaon. R. Nissan Waxman and R. Yehiel Michel Feinstein were willing to collaborate with Ginzberg and to even put his name on the title page.

[12] Ha-Posek, 9 (Tamuz-Av 5708), p. 1529. He offers his own far-fetched interpretation.
[13] Beit Talmud 4 (Vienna, 1883), p. 16, also printed in his Ruah Hadashah (Pressburg, 1885), pp. 2-3. Reifman’s interpretation is cited by R. Azriel Hildesheimer, Hiddushei Rabbi Azriel (Jerusalem, 1992), Kiddushin 9b (p. 316). Without mentioning Reifman, the same emendation is suggested by A. Rosenberg, Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi (Lodz, 1928), p. 71. In a future post I will discuss who this “A. Rosenberg” was.
[14] R. Meir Mazuz discusses one of Reifman’s comments in my Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan, p. 314. Those who wish to purchase this volume can do so here. Those in Israel who are interested in the book should contact me directly.
[15] Ha-Magid, May 14, 1873, p. 175. See my Changing the Immutable, p. 5, for many examples of sages who understood David’s sin with Bathsheba literally.

[16] It is fascinating to note that the kabbalist R. Judah Fatiyah was not happy with the talmudic explanation, also found in the Zohar, that Uriah had given a get to Bathsheba. He regarded this as a forced explanation. In his Matok la-Nefesh, pp. 56a-b, he offers an explanation which came to him from someone in a dream, according to which King David voided the marriage of Uriah and Bathsheba. He did this by himself, as he was too embarrassed to involve the Sanhedrin. As the most distinguished member of the Sanhedrin, he had this authority to void a marriage. R. Fatiyah was told in his dream that this explanation had never before been told to anyone else, because the spirit telling him this he was too embarrassed to have shared this information before then.

לבי ולבך ידעי שכל התירוצים הם דוחק ומוכרחין אנן לעייל פילא בקופא דמחטא מפני כבודו של משיח ה’ שהיה יקר בעיני ה’ . . . יש תירוץ רביעי הנגלה אלי בחלום . . . כי ראיתי כאלו אדם שאינו נראה כלל אומר אלי הנה אנן קיימא לן בדיני הקדושין שכל המקדש אדעתא דרבנן איהו מקדש ויכולין רבנן הנמצאים בדור ההוא לעקור ולבטל הקידושין של איזה אדם ותהיה אשתו פנויה למפרע . . . וכשאירע מעשה דבת שבע ראה דוד את עצמו שאינו יכול לכוף את יצרו עמד בינו לבין עצמו בלא צירוף הסנהדרין עמו ובטל את קדושי אוריה ובחר הרע במיעוטו שלא לפגוע באיסור ערוה ח”ו כי היה בוש לבטל את קדושי אוריה בצרוף הסנהדרין עמו שלא לצורך, ויש כח בדוד שהוא לבדו יכול לבטל הקדושין כי הוא היה מופלא שבסנהדרין . . . כל זה נאמר אלי בחלום בקיצור נמרץ כי המדבר אלי היה בוש ונכלם להרחיב הדברים, גם אמר אלי כי מיום שאירע ביטול זה עד היום הזה לא נתגלה עוד ענין זה לשום אדם מעולם לא בהקיץ ולא בחלום כי היה בוש להגיד ענין זה הביטול, ובפי’ הד’ הזה יותרו כל השאלות מעל עבד ה’ ועל משיחו נעים זמירות ישראל.

After citing R. Fatiyah’s statement, R. Ovadiah Yosef writes (Meor Yisrael, Shabbat 56a):

ובמחכ”ת דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין ואין ממש בדבריו . . . ואין לנו אלא דברי רבותינו שהם דברי אלקים חיים

Ovadiah was clearly upset that R. Fatiyah, whose expertise was in Kabbalah, chose to weigh in on a halakhic matter and offer the incorrect view that a great Torah scholar can simply invalidate a Jewish marriage without aget. For another response to R. Fatiyah, see R. Nissim Kaduri,Ma’aseh Nissim, p. 12. These sources are cited by R. Meir Mazuz, Bayit Ne’eman 56 (5 Nisan 5777), p. 4 n. 23.

For more dreams of R. Fatiyah, this time with reference to the book Hemdat Yamim, see Avraham Yaari, Ta’alumat Sefer(Jerusalem, 1954), ch. 8.
[17] Etz Erez, vols. 1-2, pp. 287-288 (emphasis in original). Since I have discussed Saul Lieberman in this post, it is worth noting that R. Zini does not regard him positively. This is what he writes in Etz Erez, vol. 4, p. 224.

.וכרגיל בעל תוספתא כפשוטה נהג כאן כחוקרים רבים אחרים, שברמות רוחם מדברים כאלו הם מתנבאים מפי השכינה, וקובעים עמדות ללא כל הוכחה, אפילו לא נתן את דעתו לסתירה הפנימית שבדבריו

Etz Erez, vol. 3, p. 25 n. 10 (emphasis in original):

ובעל תוספתא כפשוטה בלהיטותו לפרש כל דבר עפ”י המידע המדעי, היסטורי או אחר, כמעט כילד קטן שלא החזיק צעצוע מעולם ונותנים לו אחד, לא הבין כלום, לכן כתב (ברכות פ”ד שם) “הלכה זו מתארת את מנהגי הסעודה בזמן העתיק אצל נכבדי העם ונכללו כאן כמה פרטים שאין להוציא מהם מסקנות להלכה, מפני שמקורם נעוץ בנימוסי המקום ולא בהלכה. ובדרך כלל הסדר מתאים למנהגי הרומאים בסעודה וגם של היונים בתקופה המאוחרת, ואין כאן ‘הלכה בסעודה‘.” הרי הוכחני שיש כאן הלכות ממש, אבל ודאי לא מה שחשב.

Etz Erez, vol. 3, p. 35:

.אינני מסתמך אף פעם על חבור של מי שמיסד את היהדות הקונסרבטיבית בא”י, וכוונתי למחבר התוספתא כפושטא עצמו, אף אם הוא היה בן דוד של ה’חזון איש’

Etz Erez, vol. 1, p. 124 n. 191:

וזה דומה לחוקרי מדעי היהדות הכותבים ‘מהרי”ן אפשטיין’, ‘מהר”ש ליברמן’ וכדו’, תוך נסיון נואש להעביר את הסמכות התורנית לחוקרי האקדמיה, כאילו הם עמדו בראש ישיבות. מדובר במגמה פסולה לחלוטין בעיני איש ירא ה’. חוקר תלמוד, אף אם למדן גדול הוא, איננו איש תורה על תקנו זה, אלא סתם ידען, ולהעניק לו תואר המיועד למשמשים בקודש, היא חילול הקודש וגניבה במחתרת, ורק עם הארץ יעשה זאת.

Hesed Leumim Hatat, pp. 19-20 n. 29:

בתוספתא כפשוטה (עמ’ 756) כתב כל מיני דברי הבל (כמו שהתחיל לעשות מאז מכר נשמתו לקונסרבטיבים) . . . רק מי שאיבד כל תחושת של כבוד האומה הישראלית, עם ה’, מי שאיבד את דרכו האמונית, יכול לומר שלא ברור מהיכן איסור זה. ליברמן בעל הזכרון המופלג, בעל הבקיאות הרחבה מאד, שכל כך שקע במקורות של תושבע”פ אינו זוכר עוד תוכן של פסוקים אלמנטריים ביותר, שכל ילד ידע בע”פ בגלות, ואינו מסוגל להבחין שאין צורך במקור, כיון שתורה מפורשת היא!! . . . ועל חטא זה הוא מוסיף פשע פרשנות עפ”י שיטה ‘דרוויניסטית’ היסטורית מטופשת, פרי עבדות לדעות הנכרים.

Unfortunately, none of R. Zini’s books are on Otzar HaHochma.

[18] Regarding R. Margaliyot, whose writings are of great interest to many, I have recently discovered a few articles of his that are completely unknown and have not been reprinted in the various collections of his writings. I will discuss them in a future post.
[19] See the letters to him from R. Elijah David Rabinowitz-Teomim published in Mikabtze’el 36 (2009), pp. 47ff., ibid. 37 (2011), pp. 75ff. See ibid., p. 76, that when R. Joseph Zechariah Stern published his responsa which were sent to Reifman, he abbreviated his name.
[20] Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah: Tractate Sanhedrin (New York, 1981), p. 141.
[21] If I am correct, this was only an early mistake and R. Kafih must have later realized this. I say this because Al-Harizi used the term in his translation of the Guide a number of times. See Langermann, “Rabbi Yosef Qafih’s Modern Medieval Translation of the Guide,” pp. 168ff.
[22] The same mistake is made by R. Shlomo Aviner in his edition of Hakdamat ha-Rambam le-Perek Helek (n.p., 2013), p. 82.
[23] Just to show you how times change, Rosner translates R. Kafih’s words: וחשבו למוזר מה שאינו מוזר, “and consider queer that which is not queer.” If Rosner were translating this today, instead of “queer” he would use “strange,” as queer has come to mean something entirely different.
[24] Hakdamot ha-Rambam la-Mishnah (Jerusalem, 1992), p. 134.
[25] See Yehudah Ibn Shmuel’s textual note in his edition of Moreh ha-Nevukhim, vol. 2, pp. 27-28 (third pagination).
[26] See also David Kaufmann, Geschichte der Attributenlehre in der Jüdischen Religionsphilosophie des Mittelalters (Gotha, 1877), p. 273 n. 64, for what seems to be an example of replacing דבה with רבה.