Antoninus, R. Moses Kunitz, and Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan
Antoninus, R. Moses Kunitz, and Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan [1]
Marc B. Shapiro
Continued from here
Returning to our discussion of Antoninus, we now come to a figure we have often dealt with in previous posts, R. Moses Kunitz, who for some reason has become much more controversial in recent years than he was during his lifetime.
In his biography of R. Judah ha-Nasi, found at the beginning of the Vilna Mishnayot, R. Kunitz writes as follows:
(ומערה היתה פתוחה לפני בית רבי בעיר טבריא שהיתה גדולה מאד והגיע עד בית מלך בעיר רומי כמאמרם (עבודת כוכבים י ב
Kunitz tells us that there was a cave near R. Judah’s house that led to a tunnel that was very long and connected Tiberas with the house of the king in Rome, as the Talmud states in Avodah Zarah10b.
Yet contrary to what R. Kunitz states, Avodah Zarah 10b does not say anything about a magic tunnel. It states as follows: “Antoninus had a cave which led from his house to the house of Rabbi.” This must mean that Antoninus (who has not been identified with any certainty) had a house in the land of Israel in the vicinity of R. Judah’s house.[2]
Before looking at where R. Kunitz would have got his story about the magic tunnel, I must note that this very passage of R. Kunitz was the focus of an attack on him in Yated Ne’eman by Reuven Elitzur.[3] Elitzur’s article is titled צלם בהיכל, which gives you an idea of how strong his article is going to be.
Elitzur begins by mocking R. Kunitz’s statement that there was a tunnel going from Tiberias to Rome, which is much longer than even the longest tunnel in the world today. He adds that those who know the passage in Avodah Zarah referred to by R. Kunitz will be even more astounded. Not only does it not say anything about a tunnel to Rome, but it also speaks of Antoninus often visiting R. Judah, which according to R. Kunitz would mean that he went back and from Rome to Tiberias. Elitzur mocks R. Kunitz by adding: “this was, of course, through the miracle of ‘kefitzat ha-derekh’.”
Elitzur seems convinced that no one could be so stupid as to suggest that Antoninus had access to a magic tunnel. So where does that leave R. Kunitz who, it needs hardly be said, was not stupid at all? Elitzur explains that Kunitz’s entire point must have been to mock the Talmud. Whereas the Talmud does not say anything about Antoninus being in Rome, R. Kunitz adds this and then explains about the magic tunnel. Any normal reader seeing that the Sages believed that Antoninus had a magic tunnel will be led to mock them, which according to Elitzur was exactly R. Kunitz’s point, namely, to undermine the authoritativeness of the Talmud. As Elitzur puts it, readers of Kunitz’s essay, who do not know that the Talmud mentions nothing about a tunnel from Rome to Tiberias, will ask, “Is it possible to believe the words of those who are capable of writing such an absurd thing?”
Elitzur’s attack on R. Kunitz, which has a good deal more than this one point, paid off for him. Following the appearance of his essay in Yated Ne’eman, R. Nissim Karelitz ruled that R. Kunitz’s biography of R. Judah ha-Nasi should be removed from new printings of the Mishnayot, as he was not a faithful Jew.[4] Today, I do not think that any new printings include R. Kunitz’s essay.
Let me leave aside for now Elitzur’s general ignorance of the history of R. Kunitz and his relationship with the rabbinic world .[5] Instead, I wish to focus on the magic tunnel which Elitzur uses to defame R. Kunitz.
Moses Alshekh writes as follows in his commentary to Song of Songs 7:6:[6]
הנה זה יובן במאמר רבותינו ז”ל (עבודה זרה י ב) כי מערה אחת היתה בין צפורי שהיה בו רבי, לרומי שהיה דר בו אנטונינוס
Similar to R. Kunitz, R. Alshekh writes that Avodah Zarah 10b states that there was a tunnel between Sepphoris and Rome. As has already been mentioned, the Talmud says nothing of the sort. It does not mention Rome, or Sepphoris for that matter.
Following up on his mistaken statement that the Talmud in Avodah Zarah 10b refers to רומי, R. Alshekh notes the problem of the great distance between Rome and the Land of Israel and states that the Talmud is referring to the Galilean town Ruma, a place mentioned already by Josephus.[7] R. Alshekh also makes the interesting suggestion that when the Talmud[8] speaks of the Messiah sitting at the gate of רומי, it does not refer to Rome, as we are accumstomed to think, but to the Galilean town Ruma.
It seems that R. Kunitz made the unwarranted assumption that when the Talmud speaks of Antoninus’ house it had in mind his palace in Rome. R. Alshekh, however, mistakenly remembered the Talmud as actually using the word רומי, and this led to his suggestion that it must be referring to another place called רומי in the Land of Israel.
What about R. Kunitz’s suggestion of a magic tunnel? I have to say that Elitzur’s notion that R. Kunitz was trying to undermine respect for the Sages is ridiculous. It is obvious that by suggesting what he did, R. Kunitz showed a lack of sophistication, even for the nineteenth century. Indeed, anyone who examines R. Kunitz’s books will see a similar lack of sophistication throughout.
In describing R. Kunitz’s Ben Yohai, his most famous work, J. H. Chajes writes that it contains Kunitz’s “characteristic virtuosity, learned and dialectical, and an undeniable absurdity that did not escape the notice of scholars whose conservative inclinations should have made them natural allies.”[9] I would only add that people often forget that something that sounds crazy today could have sounded much more plausible in previous generations. While it is true that even in previous generations this particular suggestion of R. Kunitz was never taken seriously, it is a far distance from such rejection to conclude that he was trying to destroy the Sages’ reputation. Anyone who bothers to read his works will immediately see how wrong this conclusion is.
Information about R. Kunitz and his relationship to the rabbinic world, is found in the book I just published, Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan.
This work contains more than thirty years of rabbinic correspondence sent to me by some of the most outstanding Torah scholars. It is currently for sale at both Biegeleisen and Mizrahi Books. The latter store is selling the book online here where you can also view the table of contents (or click here for a version which might be more clear). The book should also be available in Israel soon. Anyone in Israel who would like to acquire a copy should email me.
___________
[1] I had hoped that when Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan appeared that I would have my regular size post ready. Unfortunately, this was not the case, but I did not wish to postpone the announcement of the new book so I figured that this “mini-post” would have to do.
[2] See Tosafot, Megillah 5b s.v. ve-ha:
נראה שהיה בטבריה בימי אנטונינוס כשהיו יחד
[3] Yated Neeman, parashat Shemot, 5757 (Musaf Shabbat Kodesh). The article is reprinted in Degel Mahaneh Reuven (Bnei Brak, 2011), pp. 350ff.
[4] R. Karelitz’s letter is printed in Degel Mahaneh Reuven, p. 356.
[5] I have been to R. Kunitz’s grave in Budapest many times. It is found together with the other communal rabbis, which is only natural as he served as a leading rabbi in both Buda and Pest. Here is a picture of the tombstone which I took a few years ago.
R. Leopold Greenwald, Mekorot le-Korot Yisrael(Humenne, 1934), p. 27, provided what he claimed is the text of R. Kunitz’s tombstone. But his version differs in a number of places from the original.
There are a few more points worth mentioning. R. Kunitz is the source that the Maharal (R. Kunitz’s forefather), recited the post-talmudic Birkat ha-Hamah without mentioning God’s name. See Kunitz, Ben Yohai, p. 141. Many halakhists know this report from R. Kunitz as it is mentioned by R. Akiva Eger in his note to Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 229.
R. Kunitz’s first volume of responsa, Ha-Metzaref, vol. 1, no. 20, contains a letter from R. Nathan Adler, which I believe is the only letter of his that ever appeared in print.
For previous discussions of R. Kunitz on the Seforim Blog, see Eliezer Brodt’s post here, and my posts here and here (in this post I include a previously unknown picture of R. Kunitz). See also Shimon Steinmetz’s post here that focuses on R. Kunitz’s responsa.
Those who are interested in R. Kunitz can also listen to my two classes on him here.
[6] (Jerusalem, 1990). This passage is also quoted by R. Jehiel Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot (Bnei Brak, 2003), p. 412, Tannaim ve-Amoraim, s.v. יוסי בן קסמא
[7] Wars 3:7:21. This might be identical to the Rumah mentioned in II Kings 23:36. There is a tradition that none other than Reuben, the son of Jacob, was buried in Ruma, and other traditions include Gad and Benjamin as buried there. See Michael Ish-Shalom, Kivrei Avot (Jerusalem, 1948), pp. 104-105; Zvi Ilan, Kivrei Tzadikim be-Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 359-360; Avraham David, Al Bamatei Eretz ha-Tzvi (Jerusalem, 2013), p. 281.
[8] Sanhedrin 98a. This is the version in all manuscripts and older printings, before they were censored. See Dikdukei Soferim, ad loc.
[9] “Romanticising Rashbi: Moses Kunitz’s Ben Yohai,” Kabbalah 40 (2017), p. 75. My assumption was always that the main point of Ben Yohai was to defend the authenticity of the Zohar against R. Jacob Emden’s criticisms, and everything else in the book was secondary to this. However, Chajes shows that this is incorrect.
Reply from Haym Soloveitchik to the JQR Interview with Robert Brody
Reply from Haym Soloveitchik to the JQR Interview with Robert Brody
By Haym Soloveitchik
Editor’s Note: As a recap of a recent exchange between two scholars on a nuanced debate within medieval Jewish history (see the first footnote), we present this final note by Professor Haym Soloveitchik.
Part One
Dr. Robert Brody advances no new arguments against my thesis in his recent interview at the blog of the Jewish Quarterly Review (https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/blog/jewish-quarterly-review/jqr-contributor-conversation-robert-brody-origins-talmud-study). I have addressed all his points in my original essay and my reply in the Jewish Quarterly Review and online on my personal website.[1] The reader can judge for himself or herself whether my arguments are persuasive.
Basically, the issue between us boils down to two points. Brody does not believe in historical implication. Two facts, to him, imply nothing. If so, all the scholar can ever have is a large pile of inert facts. For example, he denies the notion that Sura and Pumpeditha would never have surrendered their monopoly on the “Vox Talmudica,” for that “would have been institutional suicide.”[2] If that’s the case, all we can know of the past is what is explicitly stated in the sources of the past. Brody equally does not believe in probabilities (not even cumulative probabilities [3]). In the absence of probability (or improbability), all theories are equal. If one can believe that scores of scribes both educated and ignorant, with good or bad memories can inscribe a text of a million and a half words without any change in that text’s meaning,[4] then one can believe almost anything. If so, no inference is better than another. The result is that it isn’t worth pondering the implications of the data of the past; one should concentrate on simply knowing them.
This is my last reply to Dr. Brody’s critiques. I believe the exchange has reached the point of diminishing returns.
Part Two
Dr. Brody has just published in the Bar-Ilan Internet Journal a critique of my remarks of Rashi’s emendations (haggahot) on the Talmud, online here (https://jewish-faculty.biu.ac.il/files/jewish-faculty/shared/JSIJ16/brody.pdf). As this point is irrelevant to my argument, I forgo answering it now. Allow me to explain.
The crucial point in my argument is that there existed ongoing contact between Bavel and the Rhineland in the ninth and tenth centuries. This would have enabled the leaders (he-{h.}ashuvim) of the Rhineland to make inquiries of the state of talmud torah in Bavel, the economic situation of the yeshivot and the level of scholarship in the various institutions in Bavel. Conversely, it would have enabled the men of the Third Yeshivah to make inquiries of the nature of the Jewish settlement in the Rhineland, the seriousness of any offer and the financial abilities of the Rhineland leaders to support such a migration and the enterprise upon which it would embark. This ongoing contact would also have enabled manuscripts from Bavel to reach Ashkenaz in those centuries. Such a continuance of contact is proven by the trade and communication routes of the time. With goods brought regularly from the Near and Far East came manuscripts of sifrei kodesh. Jews in the Rhineland would pay handsomely for manuscripts, just as the Christian prelates and monasteries paid for reliquia. There is no reason not to conclude that manuscripts of the widest variety were available the Rhineland the great emporium of Western Europe in the closing centuries of the first millennium. Whether or not Rashi took a copy of some of these manuscripts back to Troyes is irrelevant to my contention. I introduced this issue simply because Noam’s article treated both the diffusion of such manuscripts in Early Ashkenaz and the nature of Rashi’s haggahot on the tractate of Sukkah. I believe Noam to be correct about Sukkah, but this is simply frosting on my cake. Rashi’s haggahot are at least a century after the migration of the Third Yeshivah, and their nature is of no matter to my argument.
I have long pondered the nature of these emendations well before the idea of any Third Yeshivah occurred to me, and should I come to some conclusion, I will include it in the fourth volume of my collected essays. As of now, I have spent enough time replying to Dr. Brody and must return to my own research.
Footnotes:
[1] Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays, vol. 2 (Oxford: Littman Library, 2014), 150-201; Haym Soloveitchik, “On the Third Yeshivah of Bavel: A Response to Robert Brody,” Jewish Quarterly Review 109:2 (Spring 2019): 289-320; Haym Soloveitchik, “Reply to Brody–Part II,” at HaymSoloveitchik.org, available here (https://haymsoloveitchik.org/downloads/Reply%20to%20Brody%20II.pdf). The only new point that he adds here is the documentation of his statement of the difference between significant and trivial variants. However, I never challenged this principal; I simply argued that there are also other principles in textual criticism, and the mark of a good editor is his or her ability to use the one most appropriate for the case at hand. See “Reply to Brody—Part II,” pp. 39-40.
[2] Collected Essays, pp. 171-172; “Reply to Brody–Part II,” pp. 9, 20.
[3] “Reply to Brody—Part II,” pp. 38-41.
[4] Ibid. pp. 21-22.
The Anonymous Author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna: An Antinomian or a Radical Maimonidean?
The Anonymous Author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna: An Antinomian or a Radical Maimonidean?
By Bezalel Naor
Today, it is an accepted fact in scholarly circles that Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna form a single unit that postdates the main body of Zohar.[1] More than one reader has been scandalized by statements in Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna likening the Mishnah to a shifhah or maidservant.[2] Predictably, in response, there grew an apologetic literature that attempts to justify how such shocking statements are compatible with normative Halakhah.[3]
One cannot rule out altogether the assertion by various secular historians that these pejorative statements betray an antinomian streak,[4] though to be certain, such statements of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna are not situated in the present but deferred to the future. With this proviso, they are no more “antinomian” than the statement of Rav Yosef in the Talmud: “Mitsvot (commandments) are nullified in the future.”[5]
I wish to present a hitherto unexplored possibility. It seems likely that the anonymous author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna (which surfaced in Spain in the first decades of the fourteenth century)[6] was not so much an antinomian as a radical Maimonidean. It is in this light that we should understand negative statements issuing from the author regarding the study of Mishnah or those comparing the various Talmudic exercises and mental gymnastics to the backbreaking labor to which the Children of Israel were subjected in Egyptian exile.[7] These do not spring from an anti-halakhic mindset but rather from taking at face value Maimonides’ syllabus as laid out in his introduction to Mishneh Torah:
Hence, I have entitled this work Mishneh Torah (Review of the Law), for the reason that a person, who first reads the Written Law and then this [compilation], will know from it the whole of the Oral Law, without having need to read any other book between them [italics mine—BN].
We should be asking ourselves: Are there any historical grounds to assert that in Spain in the early 1300s there were halakhic Jews who openly—we should add, brazenly—promulgated the Maimonidean curriculum to the exclusion of Talmudic studies and the concomitant exercise of pilpul?
I offer the words of Joseph Ibn Kaspi:
Therefore my rabbis, listen to me and God will listen to you! I see that it is the intention of those among you who engage in Gemara, novellae and opinions (shitot),[8] to know proofs for the practical commandments, for you are not satisfied with the tradition from Mishneh Torah composed by Rabbenu Moshe [i.e. Maimonides], though he said: “And one shall have no need of any other book between them [Italics mine—BN].”
Here is an example. Ha-Rav ha-Moreh [i.e. Maimonides] wrote in his laws: “A sukkah that is higher than twenty ammah is invalid.”[9] Yet you despair and are without comfort until you know whether the reason is because “the eye does not rest upon it,” or because “one is not sitting in the shade of the sekhakh (overhead boughs) but of the walls,” or because “the sukkah must be a temporary dwelling,” as written in the Gemara.[10] Even this will not satisfy the very punctilious (mehadrin min ha-mehadrin) until they have added problems and opinions (shitot)[11]: “If you should say,” “one may say,” etc.
Truly, I admit that this is good, but why is the knowledge of proofs an obligation in regard to practical commandments, while not [even] an option,[12] but an outright prohibition when it comes to commandments of the heart? What sin has been committed by these four commandments of the heart (that I mentioned) that you do not treat them in the same manner but are satisfied by a weak tradition of few words, wanting comprehension?[13]
Who was Joseph Ibn Kaspi? Born either in Arles, Provence or Argentière, Languedoc,[14] around the year 1280, he passed in 1345 on the island of Majorca. His was a peripatetic life. The first period of his life was spent in the south of France. Later he gravitated to Barcelona, where his married son David resided. At approximately age thirty-five he travelled to Egypt for several months,[15] hoping to acquire there the intellectual legacy of Maimonides from the Master’s fourth and fifth generation descendants but was sorely disappointed in this respect. He even entertained the thought of traveling to Fez, Morocco in search of wisdom,[16] but that particular journey never materialized.
Ibn Kaspi’s reputation is that of an ultra-rationalist. His naturalistic explanations of events in the Bible far exceed even those of Maimonides; for that reason his opinions were marginalized. Though there is an abundance of manuscripts, it was only in the nineteenth century that Ibn Kaspi’s works were published from manuscript. (A few still remain in manuscript.) To this day, his interpretations have yet to “mainstream.”
My juxtaposing the Maimonidean enthusiast Joseph ibn Kaspi to the anonymous author of the kabbalistic works known as Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar may strike the reader of this essai as bizarre. Besides their contemporaneity, what basis is there for this juxtaposition?
Geographically, there are certainly grounds for relating the two authors to one another. Though separated by the Pyrenees, there was much traffic, intellectual and otherwise between Provence and Northern Spain. Some of the greatest families of Provencal scholars originated in Spain: the Kimhis, Joseph and his son David, who excelled as grammarians and Bible exegetes; and the Tibbonides, Judah and his son Samuel, who were the premier translators of classic philosophic works from Judeo-Arabic to Hebrew. And the traffic was two-way. Prominent Provencal families wended their way to Sefarad. The halakhist Rabbi Zerahyah Halevi (“Ba‘al ha-Ma’or”), a native of Gerona, established his career in Narbonne, only to return to Gerona at the end of his days. (His great-grandson was the Talmudist Rabbi Aharon Halevi of Barcelona.)[17] Ibn Kaspi is an example of a Provencal scholar who relocated to Catalonia: Barcelona, and eventually, the Balearic isle of Majorca. Thus, there could easily have been a sharing of ideas between southern France and northern Spain.[18]
In terms of mindset, the border between rationalist philosophy and kabbalah was especially porous at this time. Whoever authored Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar, carried with him much Maimonidean baggage. Linguistically, it is apparent to any student of the Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunim that they are rife with the philosophic jargon made popular by the Tibbonides’ translations from Judeo-Arabic.[19] And let us not forget that the very backbone of Ra‘ya Mehemna is an enumeration of the commandments à la Maimonides’ Sefer ha-Mitsvot. (Rabbi Reuven Margaliyot isolated these commandments and presented them in orderly fashion in the introduction to his edition of the Zohar.)
*
When we put it all together it makes perfect sense. As shocking as some of its bold statements may be, the literary oeuvre of Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar cannot be construed as issuing from the mind of an antinomian. An antinomian would not go to the bother of constructing a Book of Commandments after a fashion. Rather, I maintain that the downgrading of the study of Talmud in general, and Mishnah in particular, should be attributed to a radical adoption of Maimonides’ curriculum of studies, whereby his halakhic magnum opus Mishneh Torah has superseded the study of Mishnah and Gemara.
In this respect, Maimonides’ devotees in Provence and Spain ventured beyond the Master himself. Maimonides penned a convincing letter to Rabbi Pinhas, the Dayyan (Justice) of Alexandria,[20] that regardless of what he wrote in the introduction to Mishneh Torah, the traditional study of the Talmudic tractates (albeit as summarized in Alfasi’s Halakhot) continues unabated in his beit midrash.[21] The curriculum that Maimonides once proposed remained an abstraction. It seems that Egyptian Jewry was not overly receptive to this innovation. Only well over a century later, did this great intellectual experiment of Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, a “hivemind of halakhah,”[22] designed to replace the “dialectics of Abayye and Rava,” find foot soldiers in the likes of Ibn Kaspi and the anonymous author of Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar. They launched their campaign from the soil of Provence and Spain.
Our thesis does not ride on the reputation of Joseph ibn Kaspi. Ibn Kaspi’s statement is perhaps the most outspoken and provocative call for adoption of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah as a way of bypassing Talmudic studies, yet there are other testimonies (from the least expected quarter) that the exclusive study of Mishneh Torah was starting to gain traction in medieval Spain.
The great halakhist Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh) emigrated from Germany to Spain at the turn of the fourteenth century and eventually emerged as the Rabbi of Toledo, Castile, where he left his stamp on the shape of Castilian Halakhah.[23] Evidently, Rabbi Asher had cause to fulminate against authorities who decided questions of practical Halakhah based solely on the rulings of Mishneh Torah without recourse to Talmud.
Rabbi Asher writes:
I heard from a great man in Barcelona who was eminently familiar with three orders [of the Talmud, i.e. Mo‘ed, Nashim and Nezikin]. He said: “I am amazed at people who have not studied Gemara and adjudicate based on their reading in the books of Maimonides, of blessed memory, believing that they understand them. I know myself, when it comes to the three orders that I studied, I am able to understand when I read Maimonides’ books. However, his books that are based on Kodashim and Zera‘im—I do not understand at all. And I know that it is that way for them regarding all his books![24]
*
Rabbi Yahya Kafah (1850-1931) was not wide of the mark when he asserted that those statements in Zoharic literature that undercut the Talmud (comprised of Mishnah and Gemara) were designed to enhance the prestige of the Kabbalah. (By the same token, one may safely say that Ibn Kaspi’s desire to streamline the study of Halakhah, stemmed from his valorization of Philosophy.)
Logically, our next question should be: What was Maimonides’ own stake in proposing that his compendium Mishneh Torah take the place of protracted Talmudic studies? Maimonides provides a simple answer to this question in his introduction to Mishneh Torah:
At this time, severe vicissitudes prevail, and all feel the pressure of hard times. The wisdom of our wise men has disappeared; the understanding of our prudent men is hidden. Hence, the commentaries of the Geonim and their compilations of laws and responses, which they took care to make clear, have in our times become hard to understand so that only a few individuals properly comprehend them. Needless to add that such is the case in regard to the Talmud itself—the Babylonian as well as the Palestinian—the Sifra, the Sifre and the Tosefta, all of which works require a broad mind, a wise soul and lengthy time, and then one can know from them the correct practice as to what is forbidden or permitted, and the other rules of the Torah.
On these grounds, I, Moses the son of Rabbi Maimon the Sefardi, bestirred myself…[25]
While perhaps not the ideal curriculum, the exigencies of the time demanded the production of a bold new work on the order of Mishneh Torah that would preserve the practice of Halakhah for the masses ill-equipped to make their way through the labyrinthine discussions of the Talmud or even the decisions of the Gaonica (originally intended to clarify the canons of Jewish Law).
But was there perhaps another purpose of Mishneh Torah that Maimonides kept to himself and was not willing to divulge in writing? In Hilkhot Talmud Torah (Laws of the Study of Torah), Maimonides would proceed to sketch the traditional trivium of Mikra (Bible), Mishnah and Talmud, [26]such that Pardes (the esoteric teachings of Judaism) comes under the rubric of “Talmud”[27]; and that furthermore, the mature scholar who has covered the requisite literature and is thus no longer bound by the daily trivium, “will devote all his days exclusively to Talmud, according to the breadth of his mind and the composure of his intellect.”[28]
Was the condensing of Talmud into Mishneh Torah Maimonides’ master plan to free time for the study of Pardes or esoterica? Should that prove true, then Ibn Kaspi’s interest,[29] and mutatis mutandis that of the Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna, was not so very different from that of HaRav HaMoreh.[30]
[1] This fact was recognized two and a half centuries ago by the discerning eye of Rabbi Jacob Emden. See Emden’s Mitpahat Sefarim, Altona 1768, Part 1, chap. 3 (6b); chaps. 6-7 (16b-17b); Lvov 1870, pp. 12, 37-39.
Whereas Zohar itself has come to be associated with the name of Rabbi Moses de Leon, no single name surfaces in regard to Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna (though there are some who would attribute the latter to a yet unidentified disciple of De Leon).
It should be mentioned in passing that even in regard to the authorship of the Zohar there has been a sea change in scholarly thinking. Unlike Scholem, who was convinced that the single author of the Zohar was Rabbi Moses de Leon, current thinking (spearheaded by Yehuda Liebes) rejects this notion of single authorship and assumes the Zohar to be a collaborative or composite work on the part of a mystic fraternity or haburah.
[2] See Zohar I, 27b. This is actually a segment of Tikkunei Zohar that the Italian printers in 1558 mistakenly embedded in Zohar. See Editor Daniel Matt’s note to the Pritzker edition of the Zohar, vol. 1 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 170, note 499. See also the Introduction to Tikkunei Zohar (Vilna, 1867), 15b and gloss of the Vilna Gaon, s.v. shalta shifhah.
And see the Tikkunim appended to Tikkunei Zohar (Margaliyot ed.), tikkun 9 (147a).
By the same token, there are passages where the Mishnah is related to Metatron, the “‘eved” (male servant). See e.g. Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 29b; and The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna (Hebrew), ed. Efraim Gottlieb (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2003), p. 1, line 3.
Moshe Idel has demonstrated that this motif whereby the Mishnah is juxtaposed to Metatron is to be found in the obscure work of Rabbi Abraham Esquira, Yesod ‘Olam (Ms. Moscow, Günzburg 607, 80a-b). See Idel’s introduction to The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna, pp. 23-24, 27-28. Inter alia, Esquira’s text makes mention of “six hundred orders of Mishnah.” This is a reference to b. Hagigah 14a. See Rashi there s.v. shesh me’ot sidrei Mishnah. Thus, p. 23, n. 76 of Idel’s introduction is in need of correction. By the same token, Esquira’s “seven hundred orders of confusion” (“shesh me’ot sidrei bilbulim”) is a parody of the “seven hundred orders of Mishnah” in b. Hagigah 14a. See Idel, ibid. p. 28, n. 105.
Concerning the juxtaposition of the six-lettered Metatron, the servant, to the six days of the work week, see the Vilna Gaon’s gloss to Tikkunei Zohar (Vilna, 1867), tikkun 18 (33b), s.v. be-gin de-Metatron. There is precedent in a Teshuvat ha-Ge’onim (Gaonic responsum) for restricting the activity of the angelic realm to the six days of the week and reserving the seventh Sabbath day for Israel’s sphere of influence. See Tosafot, Sanhedrin 37b, s.v. mi-kenaf ha-’arets zemirot shama‘nu; and Rabbi Reuven Margaliyot, Margaliyot ha-Yam ad locum, and idem, Nitsutsei Zohar to Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 93a, note 2.
Later, in sixteenth-century Safed, Rabbi Isaac Luria advised reserving the Sabbath day for the exclusive study of Kabbalah (“as was the custom of the early ones”), while relegating the study of Halakhah to the six work days. This is hinted to in the two verses “Hishtahavu la-Hashem be-hadrat kodesh” (whose initials form the word “Kabbalah”) and “Hari‘u la-Hashem kol ha-’arets (initials “Halakhah”). See Rabbi Hayyim Vital, Peri ‘Ets Hayyim (Dubrovna, 1804), Sha‘ar ha-Shabbat , chap. 21 (103c); Rabbi Jacob Zemah, Nagid u-Metsaveh (Lublin, 1881), 25b. And see Peri ‘Ets Hayyim, Sha‘ar Hanhagat ha-Limmud, s.v. kavvanat keri’at ha-Mishnah (85a): “Know that the Mishnah is Metatron in Yetsirah…”
In the Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 279b, the Mishnah is referred to as the “shifhah…the female of the ‘eved, na‘ar (“lad”). “Na‘ar” or “lad” is yet another epithet for Metatron; see b. Yevamot 16b (based on Psalms 37:25) and Tosafot ad loc. s.v. pasuk zeh sar ha-‘olam amaro. Just as Metatron is referred to as “‘eved,” “for his name is like that of his Master” (b. Sanhedrin 38b). Both Metatron and Shadai have the numerical value of 318. (In Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 82b it is spelled out that “Metatron is a good servant, a faithful servant to his Master.”)
In Ra‘ya Mehemna, in Zohar III, 276a, three of the most difficult tractates of the Mishnah are singled out for derision, ‘Eruvin, Niddah and Yevamot, as they are assigned the acronym ‘Ani (poor man). The Vilna Gaon points out that the derogation of the rabbis, students of the Mishnah, is not absolute, but only relative to the “ba‘alei kabbalah” (“masters of the Kabbalah”). See Yahel ’Or, ed. Naftali Hertz Halevi (Vilna, 1882), Tetse, 276a, s.v. ve-i teima.
Earlier in that passage (Zohar 275b) we have the underhanded compliment, “Hakham Mufle Ve-Rav Rabbanan” (“Outstanding Sage and Rabbi of Rabbis”), whose initials spell the word “hamor” (jackass). (This cynical remark found its way into the modern mystery novel by Richard Zimler, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon [Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998], p. 44.)
One who found absolutely outrageous the labeling of the Mishnah as a “shifhah” was the Chief Rabbi of Sana‘a, Yemen, Rabbi Yahya ben Shelomo (Sliman) Kafah (1850-1931). See his ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam (Tel-Aviv, 1914; limited facsimile edition Jerusalem 1976), p. 12. Available at hebrewbooks.org.
‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam is Rabbi Kafah’s rejoinder to the bans placed upon him by the various batei din (courts) of Jerusalem—Ashkenazic, Hasidic and Sefardic. It struck Rabbi Kafah as highly ironic that he, a staunch defender of Talmudic Judaism, was placed under the ban, while the Zohar, with its numerous derisions of Talmud and its students, was upheld and, what is more, sanctified. Ibid. p. 14.
The constraints of space do not allow us to explore the controversy regarding the Zohar that erupted in Yemen in the early part of the twentieth century between Rabbi Kafah and his disciples, the self-styled Darda‘im, on the one hand, and their opponents, to whom they referred as ‘Ikeshim. (The first label is based on the Midrashic pun on Darda‘ [1Kings 5:11] as Dor De‘ah, “a generation of knowledge”; the second comes from Deuteronomy 32:5, “dor ‘ikesh u-petaltol,” “a perverse and twisted generation.”) At the instigation of his critics, Rabbi Kafah was jailed on more than one occasion by the Muslim authorities. (Rabbi Kafah alludes to this in ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, p. 14.)
The man who acted as a peacemaker between the warring factions was none other than Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook. While upholding Rabbi Kafah’s status as an unusual Torah scholar, Rabbi Kook conveyed to him that he had erred in taking literally passages that were intended to be understood metaphorically. See Igrot ha-Rayah, vol. 2, ed. RZYH Kook (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook 1961), no. 626 (pp. 247-248); Haskamot ha-Rayah, ed. Y.M. Yismah and B.Z Kahana (Jerusalem, 1988), no. 41 (pp. 46-47); Ma’amrei ha-Rayah, vol. 2, ed. Elisha Aviner (Langenauer) (Jerusalem, 1984), pp. 518-521. An incomplete variant of the letter in Haskamot ha-Rayah was published by Rabbi Moshe Zuriel, Otserot ha-Rayah, vol. 1 (Rishon LeZion, 2002), no. 76 (p. 447). See further Rabbi Zevi Yehudah Hakohen Kook, Li-Sheloshah be-Ellul I (Jerusalem, 1938; photo offset Jerusalem, 1978), par. 107 (p. 46).
For Rav Kook’s involvement with the Yemenite community and facilitating their ‘aliyah at the beginning of the twentieth century, see ibid. par. 42 (p. 21); and recently Ben Zion Rosenfeld, “Yahaso shel ha-Rayah Kook le-Hakhmei ha-Mizrah bi-Tekufat Yaffo 5664-5674 (1904-1914)” [“HaRav Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and his Attitude Regarding the Sephardi Sages During His Stay in Jaffa 5664–567 4(1904–1914)”], Libi ba-Mizrah (My Heart Is in the East) 1 (2019), pp. 287-290.
[3] See Rabbi Hayyim Vital, introduction to Sha‘ar ha-Hakdamot (printed as an introduction to the standard editions of ‘Ets Hayyim); Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Iggeret ha-Kodesh (4th section of Tanya), chap. 26 (especially 143a). And see Rabbi Dov Baer Shneuri, Bi’urei ha-Zohar (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2015), Bereshit (to Zohar I, 27b), 5a-8d.
[4] Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, cited in Gershom G. Scholem, “The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism,” in idem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), p. 70, n. 1.
[5] b. Niddah 61b.
Contra Graetz, Scholem, referring to “the ambiguity of certain statements about the hierarchical order of the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Kabbalah, which are frequent in the Ra‘ya Mehemna and the Tikkunim, and which have baffled not a few readers of these texts,” states categorically: “It would be a mistake to term these passages antinomistic or anti-Talmudic” (op. cit. p. 70). Rather, to describe the peculiar posture of the Ra‘ya Mehemna and the Tikkunim, Scholem coins the term “utopian antinomianism” or “antinomian utopia” (op. cit., pp. 80, 82).
Other secular scholars who objected to Graetz’s judgment concerning the controversial passages in the Zohar (or to be more precise, Tikkunei Zohar) were Bernfeld and Zinberg. See Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 7, Beilage 12; Shim‘on Bernfeld, Da‘at Elohim, Part 1 (Warsaw, 1897), pp. 396-397, note 1; Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, vol. 3, transl. Bernard Martin (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973), pp. 55-56.
[6] Scholem and Idel would date Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna as early as the end of the thirteenth century (bringing the work in contact with Rabbi Moses de Leon). See Idel’s introduction to The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna, pp. 10, 25-26, 29. Tishby established the years 1312-1313 as the terminus ad quem for the composition of Tikkunei Zohar based on its Messianic expectations for those years. Cited in Idel, ibid. p. 10, n. 7. See also p. 23. Idel, relying on Liebes, would make the terminus ad quem a year earlier, 1311. (Ibid.)
[7] See Zohar I, 27a:
They embittered their lives with hard labor (‘avodah kashah)—with kushya (difficulty);
with mortar (homer)—with kal ve-homer (a fortiori);
and with bricks (levenim)—with libun hilkheta (clarification of the law);
and with all [manner of] labor in the field—this is Beraita;
all their labor—this is Mishnah.
Though mistakenly embedded by the Italian printers back in 1558 in the text of the Zohar, this is actually a segment from the later work Tikkunei Zohar. See above note 2.
This same anachronistic interpretation of the verse in Exodus 1:14 is found (with slight variations) in the Ra‘ya Mehemna, again embedded in Zohar III, 153a, 229b (though in this case explicitly identified as Ra‘ya Mehemna). See also Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 21 (Margaliyot ed. 44a); the additional Tikkunim appended to Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 9 (147a); and the Tikkunim appended to Zohar Hadash (Margaliyot ed.), 97d (where the end of the verse is interpreted, “be-pharekh—da pirkha”), 98b, 99b.
And see now, The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna (Hebrew), ed. Efraim Gottlieb and Moshe Idel (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2003), pp. 39-40.
This degradation of Talmudic hermeneutic was duly noted by Rabbi Kafah (see above note 2). Kafah believed that the not so hidden agenda of the anonymous writer was to promote the study of Kabbalah at the expense of the study of Talmud. See ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, p. 12: “The entire purpose of the author of the Zohar is to cause the Mishnah and the Talmud to be forgotten from Israel, to stop up the mouth of the well of living waters from which flow the ways of the Oral Law, and have them occupy themselves with his new Torah.”
[8] The primary meaning of the Hebrew word shitah is a line; hence, a line of thought. For its derivative usage in medieval rabbinical literature, see Mordechai Breuer, ’Ohalei Torah (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2004), pp. 109, 510; Ya‘akov Spiegel, ‘Ammudim be-Toledot ha-Sefer ha-‘Ivri, vol. 2 (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan, 2005), p. 442; and lately, Hayyim Eliezer Ashkenazi, “Heker ve-‘Iyun be-Sifrei Rishonim (4),” Yeshurun, vol. 40 (Nisan 5779), p. 930, n. 7.
In the London Beth Din Ms. 40 (designated in the microfilm collection of the National Library of Israel, F4708), f.30, this word reads “mishnayot,” rather than shitot, but the reading is unlikely, to say the least. Cf. below n. 11.
[9] Maimonides, MT, Hil. Sukkah 4:1.
[10] The three opinions are found in b. Sukkah 2a.
[11] In the London Beth Din ms. for “shitot” there occurs the grotesquerie “shtuyot” (foolishness).
[12] The London Beth Din ms. has the superior reading “eino reshut o makom patur.”
[13] Joseph ben Abba Mari ibn Kaspi, Sefer ha-Mussar/Yoreh De‘ah, chap. 15.
Ibn Kaspi’s Sefer ha-Mussar was published in a couple of collections: Eliezer Ashkenazi of Tunis’ Ta‘am Zekenim (Frankfurt am Main, 1854); and Isaac Last’s ‘Asarah Klei Kesef (Pressburg, 1903). Our particular chapter (15) appeared earlier in the introduction to Ibn Kaspi’s ‘Ammudei Kesef u-Maskiyot Kesef, ed. Salomo Werbluner (Frankfurt am Main, 1848), p. xv. In Ta‘am Zekenim our quote appears on 53a; in ‘Asarah Klei Kesef on p. 70.
Sefer ha-Mussar was written for Ibn Kaspi’s twelve year old son Shelomo residing in Tarascon (Provence). According to the colophon, it was completed in 1332 in Valencia (Catalonia).
[14] Moshe Kahan is of the opinion that Joseph himself was born in Arles, and that it was his ancestors who hailed from Argentière (hence the Hebrew surname Kaspi). See M. Kahan, “Joseph ibn Kaspi—From Arles to Majorca,” Iberia Judaica VIII (2016), pp. 181-192.
[15] Kahan dates the journey between the years 1313-1315, and writes that Ibn Kaspi stayed in Egypt for about five months. Op. cit. p. 182.
In Mishneh Kesef I, ed. Isaac Last (Pressburg, 1905; photo offset Jerusalem, 1970), chap. 14 (pp. 18-19), Ibn Kaspi writes that about two years ago, at approximately age thirty-five, he went down to Egypt. The colophon of the book (p. 168) is datelined Arles, 1317, which would mean that the Egyptian expedition took place about the year 1315.
In Sefer ha-Mussar, which according to the colophon was completed in Valencia in 1332, we receive a slightly different picture. In the introduction, Ibn Kaspi writes that twenty years previous he wandered to Egypt; the total trip, from beginning to end, lasted five months. If we take him at his word, the trip to Egypt was in 1312. What is clear is that the actual sojourn in Egypt was less than five months.
[16] Introduction to Sefer ha-Mussar. In chap. 15, Ibn Kaspi spells out his fascination with Fez: “The Jews find repulsive and abandon today the Guide…the Christians respect and exalt it, and have translated it [to Latin]. All the more so the Ishmaelites; in Fez [italics mine—BN] and other lands, they established study-houses to learn the Guide from the mouth of Jewish scribes.”
[17] See Israel Ta-Shma, Rabbi Zerahyah Halevi (Ba‘al ha-Ma’or) u-B’nei Hugo (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1992), pp. 2, 16; Hayyim Eliezer Ashkenazi, “Heker ve-‘Iyun be-Sifrei Rishonim (4),” p. 933, n. 17.
[18] Though scholars assume a Castilian—rather than a Catalonian—provenance for Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna, I do not see that as a major obstacle. Surely, the main flow of traffic was between Provence in the south of France and Catalonia in the north of Spain, but for Jews, Sefarad was an overarching unity, no matter the local potentates into which it was fragmented. Thus, in 1305, the Rabbi of Barcelona, Catalonia, Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (Rashba) was able to place a newly arrived German émigré, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh) in the rabbinate of Toledo, Castile. (See Avraham Hayyim Freimann, Ha-Rosh ve-Tse’etsa’av, trans. Menahem Eldar [Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1986], pp. 28-29.)
Sometimes, within a single family one finds both strands of Kabbalah, Castilian and Catalonian. Isaac ibn Sahula, native of Guadalajara, Castile, author of the bestiary Meshal ha-Kadmoni (1281), as well as a kabbalistic commentary to Song of Songs, was a disciple of Rabbi Moses of Burgos, as well as an assumed associate of Rabbi Moses de Leon. (The first reference to the Midrash ha-Ne‘elam, an early stratum of the Zoharic literature, is found in Ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni.) His brother, Meir ibn Sahula, on the other hand, prided himself on his Catalonian and Provencal pedigree, being a disciple of “Rabbi Joshua ibn Shu‘aib and of Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (Rashba), who received from Nahmanides, who in turn received from Rabbi Isaac the Blind, son of Rabad of Posquières, who in turn received from Elijah the Prophet.” So writes Meir ibn Sahula at the conclusion to his commentary on the Bahir, “’Or ha-Ganuz.”
(Yehuda Liebes speculated that the especially acerb remarks that precede this peroration are directed against recent developments in Castilian Kabbalah, namely the Zohar. See Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993], pp. 168-169, n. 50. However, in all fairness, the description of those “who expound books and books of the nations, and transcribe therein their gods, and call them ‘Secrets of the Torah’ [Sitrei Torah],” sounds more like an attack on Maimonides and his followers who construe Aristotelian philosophy as Sitrei Torah, than an assault upon the Zohar. At the end of his lengthy footnote, Liebes conceded this distinct possibility.)
Thus, the division of Spanish Kabbalah into discrete units of Castilian versus Catalonian traditions need not prejudice us against the possibility of penetrations and influences that defy this dyadic model. One needs to complexify the general picture of Spanish Kabbalah in order to appreciate the multiplicity of forces at work. Binaries are helpful as historic guidelines but they can never do justice to the complexity of lived reality.
[19] Tishby collected some of these Tibbonide neologisms, starting with “nefesh ha-sikhlit” or “intellectual soul” (Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 29b). See Isaiah Tishby, Mishnat ha-Zohar, vol. 1, 2nd printing with corrections (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1949), pp. 77-78.
One can well appreciate how the Chief Rabbi of Sana‘a, Yemen, Yahya ben Shelomo Kafah, a most outspoken opponent of the Zohar, typified its author as “the philosopher, author of the Zohar” (“ha-philosoph mehabber ha-Zohar”). See his ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, pp. 12-16.
Besides the obvious use of Maimonidean terminology, there is the subtle copying of categories. An example would be the way in which the author of Tikkunei Zohar patterned his “hamesh minim” (“five species” or “five sects”) of the ‘Erev Rav (Mixed Multitude) after Maimonides’ “hamishah minim” (“five sectarians”). The passage from Tikkunei Zohar was incorporated by the printers in Zohar I, 25a. (The note in Derekh Emet alerts the reader that the material correlates to Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 50. In the new Pritzker edition of the Zohar, the passage from Tikkunei Zohar has been removed.) Maimonides’ “hamishah minim” are found in MT, Hil. Teshuvah 3:7. This is just a random sample of the pervasive influence of Maimonides on the author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna.
Cf. the direct quote from Maimonides, Hil. Teshuvah 3:6 in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni (Venice, 1546), Sha‘ar ha-Rishon (10a), s.v. va-yo’el ha-tsevi le-va’er. And see now Sarah Offenberg, “On Heresy and Polemics in Two Proverbs in Meshal Haqadmoni” (Hebrew), Jewish Thought 1 (2019), pp. 64-65. Recently, Hartley Lachter has attempted to demonstrate that the general tenor of Meshal ha-Kadmoni is esoteric; see H. Lachter, “Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni,” Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 111-138.
[20] It should be noted, for whatever it is worth, that Pinhas ben Meshullam was a Provencal rabbi who took up the post of Dayyan of Alexandria, Egypt. It would be pure conjecture on my part to posit that his critique of Maimonides reflected the way in which Mishneh Torah had been received in Provence. It is equally possible that Pinhas’ critique was not based on actual observation of the Provencal reception of Mishneh Torah.
[21] See Igrot ha-Rambam, ed. Yitzhak Shilat, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1988), pp. 438-439; quoted in Bezalel Naor, The Limit of Intellectual Freedom: The Letters of Rav Kook (Spring Valley, NY: Orot, 2011), pp. 297-298.
[22] The term “hivemind” referred originally to the coordinated behavior of a colony of insects (bees or ants) which to an outside observer, appears the workings of a single mind. In the age of the Internet, it refers to the collectivity of the users who function as a single mind in expressing their thoughts and opinions. This is, in effect, what Maimonides created in Mishneh Torah. As he stated it so eloquently in the introduction to that work:
I…intently studied all these works, with the view of putting together the results obtained from them in regard to what is forbidden or permitted, clean or unclean, and the other rules of the Torah—all in plain language and terse style, so that thus the entire Oral Law might become systematically known to all, without citing difficulties and solutions or differences of view, one person saying so, and another something else [italics mine—BN]—but consisting of statements, clear and convincing, and in accordance with the conclusions drawn from all these compilations and commentaries that have appeared from the time of Rabbenu ha-Kadosh [i.e. Rabbi Judah the Prince] to the present, so that all the rules shall be accessible to young and old, whether these appertain to the (Pentateuchal) precepts or to the institutions established by the sages and prophets, so that no other work should be needed for ascertaining any of the laws of Israel, but that this work might serve as a compendium of the entire Oral Law…
(Moses Hyamson translation with correction)
[23] See A.H. Freimann, Ha-Rosh ve-Tse’etsa’av, chap. 4 (pp. 32-41).
[24] She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rosh 31:9; quoted in Bezalel Naor, The Limit of Intellectual Freedom, pp. 300-301.
[25] Translation of Moses Hyamson with slight alterations.
[26] b. Kiddushin 30a. See Tosafot there s.v. lo tserikha le-yomei.
[27] MT, Hil. Talmud Torah 1:11.
[28] Ibid. 1:12.
[29] In Sefer ha-Mussar, chap. 10, Ibn Kaspi lays out a study plan for his twelve year old son, Shelomo. He advises Shelomo to spend the next two years studying Bible and Talmud. From fourteen to sixteen, he should turn his attention to ethics: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Avot with the commentary and introduction of Maimonides, Hilkhot De‘ot of Sefer ha-Madda‘, as well as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Starting at age sixteen, for the next two years, he should tackle the Halakhic codes of Alfasi, Rabbi Moses of Coucy [i.e. Sefer Mitsvot Gadol or SeMaG] and Maimonides, and pursue the study of logic. At age eighteen, he would be well advised to study natural science for two years. Finally, at age twenty, Shelomo should commence studying Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Maimonides’ Guide. (He is also advised to take a wife at that time.)
[30] See Maimonides’ famous parable of the King’s palace in Guide of the Perplexed III, 51.
Don’t Oppress the Ger
Don’t Oppress the Ger
Ben Zion Katz
The Torah in Motion blog by Rabbi Jay Kelman[1] discusses the daily daf as well as the parashah of the week. When reviewing Baba Metzia 59, Rabbi Kelman mentioned that the Talmud stated that there were 36 or 46 places where the Torah commands not to oppress the stranger/convert[2] (ger), but that he was not aware of any list of the verses in question. This paper is an attempt to generate such a list.
We will begin with the Talmudic discussion itself, which is not completely straight forward. The gemara (Bab Metzia 59b) begins (my translation): “Our rabbis taught: One who oppresses a stranger/convert verbally (from the root aleph-nun-heh) violates three negative commandments, and one who oppresses a stranger/convert financially (from the root lamed-chet-tzadi)[3] violates two negative commandments.”
One would expect the Talmud now to bring three prooftexts for the former and two for the latter statement. Instead, the Talmud brings three prooftexts for each, the third in each case not even using the word ger!
The three prooftexts for the first statement are Exod. 22:20, Lev. 19:33 and Lev. 25:17. All three verses use the root aleph-nun-heh, but only the first two use the word ger; the third verse uses the word amito, which could be translated as his fellow citizen. The Talmud excuses the latter anomaly by claiming that certainly a ger is a fellow citizen!
The three prooftexts for the second statement are (again) Exod 22:20 (this verse uses the verb lamed-chet-tzadi as well as the root aleph-nun-heh, so it can be used as proof for both statements), Exod. 23:9 (which uses the root lamed-chet-tzadi) and Exod. 22:24 which again is missing the word ger (and also does not use the root lamed-chet-tzadi) – the verse simply states You shall not be a usurer to him, the Talmud again stating that the ger is included in the generic “him”. The Talmud then concludes that with either type of oppression (financial or verbal) one is actually violating three negative commandments.
The Talmud then continues: “We learned in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer the Great stated: Why did the Torah warn us 36 times, and some say 46 times, about the ger?” Before analyzing the verses referred to by Rabbi Eliezer the Great, we will conclude the Talmud’s discussion of the ger. The Talmud answers Rabbi Eliezer’s question by saying “because their inclination is bad.”[4] The most charitable way to explain this seemingly harsh response is that the convert has more temptations to sin because he or she wasn’t brought up with Torah values and/or has no religious family for support, so it is easier for them to backslide; consequently we must be especially careful in our dealings with them. The Talmud then asks one final, obvious question: Why are we reminded not to verbally or financially oppress the convert because we were strangers in the land of Egypt? Why is our being strangers in the land of Egypt thousands of years ago a reason for not oppressing a convert today? The answer is taken from a baraita of Rabbi Nathan, which explains that one should not gloat about a past defect in yourself that is (still) present in another. Presumably Rabbi Nathan felt that converts may feel like strangers even after their conversion. The Talmud then concludes this discussion with a reminder not to offend anyone even inadvertently.[5]
Now we will analyze the purported 36 or 46 verses to which Rabbi Eliezer the Great (Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus – a second generation tanna[6]) referred. The word ger appears in the Torah 68 times in 61 verses according to the Evan Shoshan concordance.[7] Six verses can be eliminated from consideration because they are either referring to Israelites, they are in a narrative and not a legal context or there is simply no oppression of any kind mentioned or implied in the verse. For example, when Abraham is attempting to purchase a burial plot for his recently departed wife Sarah from the people of Chet he says to them “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you” (Gen. 23:4). A second verse using the word ger unrelated to Rabbi Eliezaer’s statement is when God says to Abraham that his children will be strangers in a land not theirs (Gen. 15:13)[8]. Moses says twice he is a stranger in a strange land (Exod. 2:22 and 18:3). God warns us of strangers rising up against us if we disobey the Torah (Deut. 28:43). Finally we are told not to sell property forever because all land belongs to God and we are merely strangers and sojourners before Him (Lev. 25:23).
Of the remaining verses, 9 specifically state to be good to the stranger/convert because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.[9] These 9 verses (or sets of verses) are the three to which the Talmud already called our attention (Exod. 22:20, Lev. 19:33-34 [these two adjacent verses make a single point, so they will be counted as a single instance] and Exod. 23:9), as well as Deut. 5:13-15 (the Sabbath commandment in the second set of the Ten Commandments,[10] which commands that even the stranger/convert needs to rest on the Sabbath because we [lit. you] were slaves in Egypt), Deut. 10:18-19 (commands to love the stranger because we [lit. you] were strangers in Egypt), Deut. 16:11-12 (the stranger should rejoice on Shavuot because we [lit. you] were strangers in Egypt),[11] Deut. 23:8 (don’t hate the Egyptians because you were once strangers in his land) Deut. 24:17-18 (don’t pervert judgment against the stranger because we [lit. you] were strangers in Egypt), and immediately following, Deut. 24:19-22 (crops that should be left for the stranger [and others] because we [lit. you] were strangers in Egypt. (These last 3 verses list three types of crops to be left for the stranger, but give a single reason at the end, so are counted as a single reference.)
The next set of 6 verses or sets of verses parallel the ones just brought, but omit the reason (because we [lit. you] were strangers/slaves in Egypt) presumably because the rationale was already stated in the parallel verse. For example, in the first set of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:10) the stranger/convert is also commanded to rest, but a different reason is given (because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, although as Ibn Ezra points out [long commentary on Exod. 20:1] that is not a specific reason why the stranger/convert should rest; only the reason given in Deut. explains that part of the command.) Another verse also commands to allow the stranger/convert to rest on the Sabbath (Exod. 23:12). Lev. 19:10 mirrors Deut. 24:21, but again sans raison. Lev. 23:22 parallels Deut. 24:19-21 in idea, but without the reason or the linguistic parallels of the previous example. Two verses/sets of verses parallel Deut. 16:11-12 re the stranger being joyous on holidays: Deut. (16:13-14) command the stranger to be happy on Succot and Deut. 26:11 reiterates the command for the stranger to be joyous on Shavuot; in both of these cases, however, the reason (because we [lit. you] were strangers in Egypt) is lacking. This brings the total number of verses or sets of verses warning not to oppress the stranger to 15.
Six more verses remind us to be good to the ger in different situations, or warn us not to oppress the ger, without the reason being given anywhere: Lev. 25:35 (do not lend money with interest even to a ger), Lev. 25:47 (redeem the property of a ger as you would a kinsman), Deut. 14:29 (regarding a tithe that includes distribution of benefits to the ger), Deut. 24:14 (you may not withhold anyone’s wages, including those of the ger), Deut. 26:12-13 (the declaration given when the tithe from Deut. 14:29 is brought to Jerusalem), and Deut. 27:19 (a curse for someone who subverts the rights of the ger). This brings the verse count to 21.
The next set of 23 verses/sets of verses state that the ger should be treated the same as an Israelite and has similar obligations and punishments. Exod. 12:19 forbids the ger from consuming leaven on Passover (Hag HaMatzot). Exod. 12:48-49 commands that a circumcised ger can share in the paschal offering and then states more generally that one set of laws (torah achat) should apply to the circumcised ger and us (lit. you). Num. 9:14 in the discussion of the second Passover, parallels both the specific command regarding the stranger celebrating the pesach offering and equality before the law (chukah achat), although the requirement for circumcision is lacking, likely because it is understood. Lev. 16:29 includes the ger in the Yom Kippur commemoration. Lev. 17:8 equates the obligations of two kinds of sacrifices (the olah and zevach) for the ger and Israelite, while verse 17:9 commands the ger too upon the proper, applicable sacrificial procedure. Verses 17:10-12 enjoin the ger as well as the Israelite from consuming blood. Verse 17:13 instruct the ger and Israelite how to hunt. Verses 17:14-16 again forbid the consumption of animal blood but add prohibitions for both Israelite and ger about how the meat must be consumed and what to do if the meat is not consumed properly.[12] Lev. 22:18 equates the ger and Israelite regarding freewill offerings. Num. 15:14-16 in general equates the sacrificial laws for Israelites and gerim. Lev. 20:2 forbids a certain kind of idolatry (Molech worship) equally for gerim and Israelites. Lev. 18:26 and 24:22 again make general statements about equality under the law for gerim. Lev. 24:16 enjoins both ger and Israelite from blasphemy. Num. 19:10 and 35:15 equate Israelite and ger regarding the exculpatory ceremony of the red heifer (for an unsolved murder) and cities of refuge (for one who commits accidental homicide). Num. 15:26 includes the ger in the communal sin offering ritual, while Num. 15:27-29 includes the ger in the individual sin offering ritual. Num. 15:30-31 includes the ger in the punishment (karet) meted out for the willful violation of commandments. Deut. 1:16 commands that judges treat gerim as they would their (Israelite) brethren. Deut. 29:19 includes gerim in the second covenant between God and the Israelites at the end of the forty years of desert wandering, while Deut. 31:12 includes gerim in the obligation to hear the public recitation of the Torah every seven years on Sucot (Hakhel).
This brings the total verse/set of verses count to 44. Presumably, there were some Rabbis who were “lumpers” and may have included some of the duplicate verses above as single instances when interpreting the list of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, making the list total 36, while others were “splitters” and divided some of the verses above considered a set, making the total 46. In any event, I submit that the list of verses generated above is likely similar to the one compiled by Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.
[1] TIM.org
[2] While ger (plural gerim) is usually translated as stranger or foreigner, in Rabbinic parlance it often means a convert. I will use the term ger or translate as either stranger or stranger/convert unless it becomes obvious from the context (see below) that the Talmud is referring to a convert. See also below, footnote 12.
[3] Probably because both roots are found in the same verse (Exod. 22:20 – see below) the Rabbis assumed they referred to different types of oppression. These two definitions are already found in the Tannaitic literature (Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, ed. JZ Lauterbach, vol. 3, Jewish Publication Society, 1935, 1961, p. 137).
[4] Here it is obvious the Talmud is referring to a convert.
[5] The expression used in the Talmud is not to mention to someone to “hang something up” if someone in that person’s family had been hung.
[6] M Margolioth. Encyclopedia of Talmudic and Geonic Literature. Joshua Chachik. Tel Aviv. 1970. vol. 1. Pp. 92-101 (Hebrew).
[7] Avraham Even Shoshan. A New Concordance of the Bible. Kiryat Sefer, Jerusalem. 1990, 1997. Pp 242-3.
[8] While clearly this verse provides the moral basis for not oppressing the ger, since it is referring to descendants of Abraham, it cannot be part of a list warning not to oppress the “other”.
[9] Based on the Talmudic discussion, it is surprising there aren’t more verses such as these in the Torah.
[10] Ten Statements is probably a better translation for the way the expression is used in the Torah (e.g., Deut. 4:13).
[11] Perhaps because the pilgrimage festivals all are tied in to leaving Egypt, strangers also need to rejoice on those festivals, for we too were also once strangers (although it is odd that this injunction is not found in relation to Passover, only for Shavuot and Succot – see below).
[12] Deut. 14:21 is not included in this list, because this verse allows a ger to eat certain types of prohibited meat, unlike Lev. 17:15, presumably because the two verses are dealing with different types of gerim.
On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana, Part 3
On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana, Part 3
By Avi Grossman
Some time ago, my first article appeared on the Seforim Blog (link). It felt good to join the club.
In the comments section, readers took much more issue with the opinion of Rabbi Bar Hayim that I mentioned at the outset than they did with any of the arguments I myself was advancing, and it it even got a little personal, but along the way, I was able to refine some points I had always wanted to make, and I discovered some potential answers to other lingering questions.
The Talmud relates (Sanhedrin 42a):
“R. Aha b. Hanina also said in the name of R. Assi in Rabbi Yohanan’s name: Whoever pronounces the blessing over the new moon (hahodesh) in its due time (bizmano) welcomes, as it were, the presence of the Shechinah: for one passage states, “This month will be your first month,” while elsewhere it is said, “This is my God, and I will glorify Him.””
Rabbi Bar Hayim had argued that “in its due time” was a reference to Rosh Hodesh. I called this an elegant proof, and others challenged the assertion of elegance, saying it was no proof at all. I countered that if one were to look elsewhere in the Talmud, specifically in the second chapter of Rosh Hashana and Maimonides’s laws of Sanctifying the New Moon, the expression the “new moon in its due time” always meant the night when the court was expecting witnesses to spot the new moon, i.e. the first night of the month. For some inexplicable reason, this was still not accepted, with the other side arguing that somehow, this passage in Sanhedrin was referring to something else, possibly the allowed, as opposed to prescribed, time for reciting the blessing,[1] which was the first half of the month. I showed that that was untenable based on the language, and also redundant, because if it were not the first half of the month, the blessing could not be recited at all, and therefore Rabbi Yohanan should just have said “he who recites the blessing on the moon.”
I also pointed out that Rabbi Yohanan’s proofs from the verses are also unequivocal. What is the connection between the verses he cites? Both have the word zeh, “this,” denoting that in the former verse, the one used as the source for all of our sages’ teachings concerning finding and sanctifying the new moon, God, so to speak, pointed out the appearance of the new moon to Moses and Aaron, while in the latter verse the people perceived God so clearly, it was as if they were pointing at Him. It is clear that Rabbi Yohanan can only be referring to spotting the new moon, and nothing else.
Some then pointed out that the offending word, bizmano, was not in some manuscripts of the Talmud, making any proof based thereon moot, but once again, the opposite would be true: If Rabbi Yohanan was specifically referring to the blessing on the hodesh, then it by force must be the first night of the month because thereafter the moon is not referred to as hodesh, “NEW moon,” but rather as just yareiah or l’vana!
Parenthetically, this, and the follow-up comments to my second post, made me realize that when trying to analyze the Talmud and codes, it is important to practice a form of talmudic constitutional-originalism, in this case approaching the source texts with an intention to understand them as their writers meant them. In this case, I was advocating for an originalist approach to understanding what bizmano meant, and really, one should try to compare the sources with contemporaneous sources in order to be sure what the terms mean. My disputants were certainly not taking an originalist approach, and you can read their various arguments.[2]
However, and this is something that carries a significance I have only begun to realize, although intellectual honesty requires of us to be originalists when dealing with those facets of the Oral Law that have been committed to writing, when the sages themselves looked to the scriptures, they practiced originalism when trying to give over the p’shat, the plain meaning, but they also practiced a form of “living-and-breathing constitutionalism” (or whatever is the opposite of talmudic originalism) when they derived teachings using the methods of exposition, or as we would say in Yeshivish, “when they made drashos based on the middos shehatorah nidreshses bahem.” The sages engaged in active reinterpretation of verses, and in a functioning Sanhedrin, such new teachings were halachically binding for all of Israel. If you think about it, the Written Torah with its critical oral counterpart was meant to be interpreted as a living and breathing document, and this harks back to a point I made a few years ago.
I then pointed out something which has even more halachic consequences. The aforementioned passage from Sanhedrin continues:
“In the school of Rabbi Ishmael it was taught: Had Israel earned no other privilege than to greet the presence of their Heavenly Father once a month, it would be sufficient. Abaye said: Therefore, we must recite it standing.”
That is, according to this exact reading of the Talmud, one only succeeds in greeting the Divine Presence if he recites birkat hal’vana the night of Rosh Hodesh, and therefore one needs to stand for the blessing only if he recites the blessing the night of Rosh Hodesh! If you take another look at Maimonides’s formulation, you can see that is implied, because he first mentions the issue of standing, citing our version of the Talmud, and then mentions that after the fact, one can still recite the blessing after Rosh Hodesh.
Most importantly, the points I was making, namely that Rabbi Yohanan in Sanhedrin is discussing birkat hal’vana specifically on Rosh Hodesh, and that the implication is that one should stand for reciting the blessing only on Rosh Hodesh, can be found by reading Rabbeinu Manoah’s commentary on Maimonides, and that he goes even farther. Many of the blog’s commentators were arguing that what I was writing was entirely my own, but they should have looked at the sources!
The Hebrew version of the Schottenstein edition mentions that the classic commentators do not explain why the word bizmano is there, and that the expression has a seeming redundancy that of course one has to recite the blessing when it is the blessing’s time, but they do not try to find out what the term means elsewhere, and they mention that an alternative manuscript does not have that word, but they fail to make anything of it. Dealing with Rabbeinu Yona on B’rachot, there were always some lingering difficulties I had with his essay, as I wrote here:
Rabbeinu Yona’s comments at the end of the fourth chapter of B’rachoth describe three ways to understand what Massecheth Sof’rim meant by not reciting the blessing “ad shetithbasseim…” Rabbeinu Yona offers his own understanding, and this is the basis for all later misunderstandings: tithbasseim refers to the light of the moon being significantly “sweet,” a state that it only achieves “two to (or ‘or’) three days” into the new lunar cycle. Why the vague language? Because no two months are the same. By the time the moon becomes visible for the first time, it could be that the molad itself was anywhere from twelve hours to 48 hours to even more or even less before that, and each month has its own set of astronomical conditions that affect this. See this chart. Notice that no two months share a percent illumination, or location in the sky, and each has its own level of difficulty being spotted. When two days are shown consecutively, it is because the first day’s conditions were not sufficient for most to have actually enjoyed or even seen the light of the moon. The possibilities are endless, and there is no objective rule for determining how much time the moon takes each month to get to the stage Rabbeinu Yona describes, and that is why he used the vague terminology “two to three days.” (As pointed out on the last page of the linked file, Maimonides did feel that there was a mathematical formula for determining minimal visibility.) More importantly, the “two to three days” statement is just an example of how long it takes, but the underlying rule is when the light becomes “sweet…” In languages like 13th-century Rabbinic Hebrew and Modern Hebrew and English, “two to three days” or “two or three days” allow for all of those possibilities. The halacha also allows for that… it seems that in every subsequent work you can find (with the the very important and critical exception of the Beth Yosef), the opinion of Rabbeinu Yona’s mentor is referred to as “Rabbeinu Yona’s opinion,” even though he offered one that actually differed from that of his mentor, and it is inaccurately reported as waiting for three days after the molad, taking out the the critical “two or/to.” Even later, it is further transformed into waiting until after three days have passed, i.e., at least 72 hours. This evolution is clear from reading the sources as they appear in the halachic record in chronological order. This is unfortunate and also illogical, because we saw above that the whole idea of “two to three days” is only offered as a way to describe how long it may take the light of the moon to become “sweet.” It could actually vary, because the sweetness is the point. Rabbeinu Yona did not mean “three days, in every single situation, no matter what,” and even if he had said that the underlying rule is to wait three days from the beginning of the cycle, why did they add that “at least” modifier?
The readers of the Seforim Blog rightfully asked: how could it be that Rabbeinu Yona did not read what was obvious to others, that the starting point for the recitation of the blessing was Rosh Hodesh? Perhaps it was not obvious!? To this I offered that perhaps he had incomplete access to the sources. After all, he himself admits that he was unfamiliar with our text of Massechet Soferim, which explicitly mentions birkat hal’vana on Saturday night. It is not such a stretch to say that his text of Sanhedrin was deficient, or that he did not have the complete version of TY B’rachot.
They also failed to notice that Rabbeinu Yona’s explicit hava amina, assumption, was that birkat hal’vana should be recited on Rosh Hodesh, but Massechet Soferim could be used to derive when the blessing should first be recited because his text of Sanhedrin apparently could not. That is, just like he did not recognize our text of Soferim, he apparently did not have our text of Sanhedrin.
In their commentaries to Maimonides’s ruling that birkat hal’vana should be recited on Rosh Hodesh, two other 13th century sages, Rabbeinu Manoah and the Hagahot Maimoniyot, aka Rabbi Meir Hakohen, a student of the Maharam of Rothenburg, are explicit that the Talmudic sources indicate what Maimonides says, and they go further. Rabbeinu Manoah explains why the decisors did not take Massechet Soferim into halachic account on this issue:
“Because it does not make sense for one to delay performing a commandment that he has an opportunity to perform. Who knows how the world runs and what may occur, and there is much that can come upon someone that can prevent him from eventually performing [the commandment]. Therefore, any one who fears God should bless [the moon] right when he sees it in its renewal, and not wait for Saturday night.”
Note that Rabbeinu Manoah also refers to the recitation of the blessing as “a commandment.”
The Hagahot Maimoniyot also described how the Maharam dealt with the apparent contradiction posed by following Massechet Soferim:
“And thus my master, Rabbeinu, may he live long, practices: when he takes the initiative to recite the blessing during the week so that he not miss the time for reciting the blessing – which is until the sixteenth of the month – he wears his fine suit.”
That is, the Maharam realized, as I wrote earlier, that our received text of Massechet Soferim describes how to recite the blessing, and not when. Thus, he satisfied the opinion of Massechet Soferim not by reciting the blessing on Saturday night, but by reciting it some other time while dressed nicely.
I also wondered why Rabbeinu Yona postulated that the blessing on seeing the new moon involved deriving pleasure (or benefit, depending on how you translate the word hana’a) from the light of the moon. Since when did that have to do with the other birkot har’iyah, the blessings recited upon seeing certain phenomena? Is one required to somehow benefit from seeing the sun, or the sea, or lightning in order to recite the relevant blessings? Now, the blessing on the blossoming of the fruit trees makes mention of how people receive pleasure from seeing them, but then why can’t that be the case with the moon, that one enjoys seeing it, but does not have to have enough light to have some utility.
I believe the answer is that Rabbeinu Yona took his cue from a similar blessing that is also connected to Saturday night, the only one that the sages said demands that one derive some sort of pleasure/benefit from that which he sees: the blessing on the fire, in the eighth chapter of the Brachot.
Most importantly, I also found an amazing explanation as to why Rabbeinu Yona’s interpretation of Massechet Soferim became the basis for a halachic practice and opinion that persisted in Northeast Europe, even though it was rejected by scholars who lived in more temperate lands.
Check out a link to this site, which has some pretty good diagrams indicating where and when the new moon was or will be visible. I have been looking at the site regularly for some years, but this afternoon I found something very interesting. During the summer of 1990, there were months in which the moon was positioned very far to the south of the sky. On August 21, 1990, which was Rosh Hodesh, 30 Av 5750, the new moon was visible in most of Africa and South America as the night began, but in Israel and Europe and most of North America, the moon was not visible until late the following afternoon (Fig. 1).
(Fig. 1)
Almost a month later, on September 19, 1990, Erev Rosh Hashana, the new moon was visible in the South Pacific (Fig. 2) and the next day, September 20, 1990, Rosh Hashana 5751, it was visible across Australia, Africa, and South America (Fig. 3), but once again, those In Israel, Europe, and most of North America did not see it until September 21 (Fig. 4), and this is remarkable because Australia is well to Israel’s east, and it seems reasonable that if the Australians could see the new moon, then the Israelis should have had an even easier time spotting it, being that for them the moon is almost half a day older, and therefore larger.
(Fig. 2)
(Fig. 3)
(Fig. 4)
On December 5, 2002, 30 Kislev 5763, the new moon was at least visible in Israel, but once again, it was not visible in Northeast Europe, in places where the Ashkenazic aharonim had lived (Fig. 5). The true molad, the lunar conjunction, had been the previous day, December 4, at 9:34 am Jerusalem time while the average molad was at 9:06 pm and 13 parts, although as can be seen from here, it is actually not easy to translate the average molad times to our current UTC system. See more below about that.) The following February, the moon was much harder to see in classical Lita than it was in the Mediterranean basin (Fig. 6).
(Fig. 5)
(Fig. 6)
I found all of these examples by a very superficial perusal of their archives, and it turns out there are dozens of examples that can be easily found in the last 30 years. A general rule can be derived: the farther a place is from the equator, the harder it will be there to spot the new moon compared to places of similar longitude but closer to the equator. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, there are many months when the added difficulty is quite significant.
Looking back, I could have extrapolated this from other information I already had, including the fact that the Israeli New Moon Society always publicizes that it is easier to spot the new moon from the Negev simply because it is in the south of the country.
All of this helps explain why we find that various forms of the practice of delaying birkat hal’vana for a day or two after what would appear to be the ideal time according to the classical opinions in the Talmudim is mostly a later Ashkenazic phenomenon, and one that Litvishe Rabbis, like Rabbi Tukachinsky, brought to Israel, whereas the generally Sephardic streams advocated for birkat hal’vana on Rosh Hodesh, or a week later, as per the kabbalistic practice. The fact that in Northeast Europe, the moon was often not visible until a day or two later than when it became visible in the more temperate regions seems to be a good explanation for this feature of the literature. Often, the Jews in Northeast Europe really had to wait for the moon to become barely visible even after the molad calculations indicated it was already well-visible in the places where the sages of the Talmud and the Rishonim used to live. I am grateful to have found this very real justification for a practice that at first seemed to go against the plain meaning of the Talmud.
Ultimately, I should have known that Maimonides was aware of all this, and took this into account. Chapters 11-17 of Kiddush Hahodesh are dedicated to explaining how to find the new moon in the sky, and that is the ultimate reason for knowing when the molad is of each individual month, and not so that one can add 72 or 168 hours to it in order to know when to recite the blessing, while the the eighteenth and last chapter discusses the practical case of the moon not being spotted for a number of months due to extenuating circumstances such as weather, and in our days, pollution. Towards the end of that chapter, he mentions that the more one stands to the east, the less likely he is to spot the new moon, while the farther to the west, the more likely, and then concludes with:
“All the above statements apply to the countries west and east [of Israel ] at the same latitude, i.e., they are between 30 and 35 degrees north [of the equator]. If they are located farther to the northerly, or less to the norther, different principles apply, for they are not parallel to Eretz Yisrael.”
There is no reason, therefore, to consider that places in northern Europe should be able to spot the new moon according to the molad in Israel, and as we have seen, they often have to wait significantly longer to see the moon.
…
Getting back to the issue of calculations and Professor Bromberg’s thesis, I recently saw that this year, the Ittim L’vina calendar has a new appendix explaining how there is a major disagreement regarding how to present the classic, average molad times in our modern terms. Considering that there are 1080 parts per hour instead of 3600 seconds, it should be easy to translate any molad time to any time on our clocks, but the problem is that no one knows, for example, if the tradition says that the molad for a given month is exactly at 15 hours of the day (9am), when that is according to the UTC time (adjusted for the Jerusalem time zone)! As Maimonides writes, the clock we use to determine the average moladot is, unlock the ritual clock used everyday, a constant, 24-hour clock, that assumes the day starts at hour 0, always 24 objective hours after the start of the previous day (like the secular system defines the start of the day as exactly 24 hours after the start of the previous) and therefore, during the summer, the “molad day” starts hours before the sundown, while during the winter, the “molad day” starts sometime well after the sundown that started that halachic, calendar day. The Ittim L’vina calendar brings four attempts to figure out how to determine when the average molad for any given month actually happens, and as Prof. Bromberg has shown, the truth is that no one knows. This can not be over-emphasized. When the calendar writers say, therefore, that on a given Saturday night, laymen should refrain from reciting birkat hal’vana at 7pm, as they depart the synagogue, because the average molad was say, at 8pm three or seven days earlier, and therefore they still have another hour before “the first opportunity” (sic) to recite the blessing, it is disingenuous, because they do not really know when the average molad was! It must be stated that, when Maimonides described the times of the average moladot, the only practical application was not birkat hal’vana, because up until the 13th century, no one even imagined that the time for birkat hal’vana should depend on the molad, but rather calculating the day of the week on which to establish the first day of Tishrei, which did not necessitate knowing when exactly the molad occurred according to which ever time piece they may have used. For example, if the calculation showed that on Monday the average molad was shortly before the end of the 18th hour (noon), making Monday fit for Rosh Hashana, it only meant that in the theoretical, 24-hour clock that started with the first molad, the molad of Tishrei was before the end of the 18th hour, but no one could know if that translated to before halachic noon on that particular Monday. And no one cared, either.
This revelation thus renders most of the foregoing discussions on the matter practically moot, and gives another very good reason why, if one were wondering when to recite the blessing on seeing the new moon, he should just follow the basic understanding of the talmudim and rishonim: when he sees the new moon, he should recite the blessing.
I would like to thank Rabbi David Avihail, Rosh Yeshivat Ramot, for his constant encouragement and support in producing these articles.
[1] For more on this critical distinction between the prescribed time and the allowed time, see, for example, Maimonides’s descriptions of the times for the daily prayers in his Laws of Prayer, 3:1-7.
[2] My blog, avrahambenyehuda.wordpress.com, has many more articles about understanding the original biblical and talmudic terms in context.