Genazym Auctions: Illustrations & the Friendship Between the Hazon Ish and R. Zevin
As we have shown in the past, one can learn all kinds of things from the information found in the writeups in the various auction catalogs including seeing actual clear copies of the manuscripts (lot 55). there is a letter of his from 1886 about his essay on Antisemitism called Shar Yisroel which he was about to print. He writes to his son to check it over as someone told him that perhaps some might get angry about and it would cause problems for him and the Yeshiva. This is not the only time that we find the Netziv nervous about his actions and that it would cause possible problems for the Yeshiva.
New book announcement
The present work traces the history of the ante-penultimate blessing of the Amidah, “Birkat ha-Avodah”, from Second Temple times through the Middle Ages. The first chapter deals with the rabbinic sources that describe its recitation in the Temple and compares versions of the blessing found in siddurim with prayers found in literature from the period of the Second Temple. The second chapter is devoted to the early evidence of the blessing’s formulation located in the 4th century church order, The Apostolic Constitutions. In the third chapter, all of the various versions of the blessing located in siddurim and in medieval halakhic literature are analyzed. In the fourth chapter, he utilizes a variety of sources, including a large corpus of classical Piyyut, to reconstruct a lost version of the blessing’s doxology. The fifth chapter unpacks the language of cultic worship utilized in the various versions of the blessing and compares it with the understandings of the blessing’s meaning found in classical Piyyut and in medieval sources. In the summary, he provides a new model for understanding the development of the version of the blessing that was eventually adopted and address the ramifications of this study for our understandings of the development of Jewish liturgy and of the substitution of sacrifice in Jewish thought.
Book Announcement
The Ze’enah –Re’enah and its Author
Ze’enah –Re’enah
and its Author
M. Faierstein, Ph.D.
Neuberg’s argument and supported it.[3] The Elbaum/Turniansky article provides a clear summary of Neuberg’s argument. It would be helpful to begin with this summary:
conclusion that whoever included the booklet in the second volume of the Tsene-rene wished to differentiate Lamentations from the other Megillot. Since the khurbn booklet consisted of midrashim, the preceding rendition of Lamentations required no more than a Yiddish translation and explanation of the text, as has been done in
the section of the Haftarot. Indeed, there is a great similarity between the manner of rendition of the haftarot and the methods used in the rendition of Lamentations.[6]
work on the Ze’enah U-Re’enah.
take the most obvious example, the number and type of commentaries
available for the Humash
is dramatically greater than what is available for the Megillot,
which is greater than what is available for the Haftarot.
As a result, the Humash
commentary is richer, has greater depth and is more extensive than
the other sections. Even within the Humash
commentaries, it is a well-known phenomenon that the quantity of
comments on Genesis and Exodus is much greater than those on
Leviticus, Numbers and Exodus. This pattern follows through from
Midrash and through all post Talmudic commentaries, from the earliest
medieval commentaries to those being written in the present. This is
also reflected in the allocation of space in the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah. For example, the number of
pages devoted to Genesis is double the number of pages devoted to
Deuteronomy. It is a reflection of the available resources and not a
deliberate decision by Rabbi Jacob to privilege one part of the Torah
over another.
differing level of resources is much greater when one goes from the
Torah to the Prophets and Writings. In the Jewish tradition in
contrast to the Christian tradition, the Torah (Humash)
has been the center of study and interest, while the rest of the
Bible plays a secondary role. This is particularly true in the
Ashkenazi tradition and is evidenced by the paucity of commentaries
on the Prophets and Writings. The great exception is Rashi, whose
commentary encompasses the whole Bible and much of the Talmud. Thus,
we find that Rabbi Jacob has more than a dozen commentaries that he
regularly quotes and cites, not to mention the whole of Midrashic
literature that is largely focused on the Humash
and in the case of Midrash Rabbah,
also includes the Megillot.
The Talmud is also a rich source of comments and stories that are
interspersed in the Torah commentary. In contrast, when one comes to
the Haftarot,
the only commentaries that he relies on regularly are Rashi and Rabbi
David Kimchi.[9] Rabbi Jacob tries to leaven the commentary on the Haftarot
by adding to the end of most of the Haftarot,
a group of three stories taken from the medieval anthology, Yalkut
Shimoni. It is noteworthy that this
group of stories is quoted in the same sequence that they are found
in the Yalkut Shimoni.
Jacob does not have a fixed form or pattern in his commentary. Each
verse or part of a verse is approached on its own merits. He appears
to have examined the universe of comments on that passage and then he
chooses those things that appeal to him. The range can be anything
from one sentence to several paragraphs, from one commentator to a
medley of several comments that expand on each other or they might
offer conflicting perspectives. Sometimes he ends a commentary with
the phrase, “from here we can learn”, which is a sign that he is
adding his own insights. In addition to the commentaries, or
occasionally in place of a commentary, he might cite a Talmudic or
midrashic passage. Not only do his sources vary widely, but his mode
of citation also varies. Sometimes he translates the Hebrew original,
more or less precisely. Other times, he might paraphrase a text or
summarize an argument from a source. It is also worth noting that he
does not comment on every verse. This too follows the pattern of the
commentaries that he relies upon, in that they also do not feel the
need to comment on every verse. The same applies to the Megillot
and Haftarot,
with the proviso that the universe of sources is smaller and
therefore the variations in form and style will not be as dramatic.
summary, any literary analysis of the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah must take into account the
nature of the sources that underlie the text, how the author utilizes
the sources and the methods of composition. Without a thorough
knowledge of rabbinic literature in the broadest sense and the
ability to deal with these texts, both in the Hebrew/Aramaic original
languages and a solid ability to understand the Yiddish text of the
Ze’enah U-Re’enah, it
would be impossible to make any judgments about this work that have
merit and should be taken seriously.
argument raised by Neuberg is the fact that the Basel/Hanau, 1622
edition of the Ze’enah U-Re’enah was
published in two volumes, with the Torah in one volume and Megillot
and Haftarot
in the second volume. He ascribes great significance to this fact but
does not provide any evidence to support his argument that there is
significance to this fact beyond the things that have already been
discussed. Since this was the first extant edition, we cannot learn
anything from the three preceding editions that have not survived. We
can only look at subsequent editions and see if this pattern is
repeated. The next edition of the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah was published in Amsterdam,
1648. Rabbi Jacob’s son wrote in the Introduction of his edition of
his father’s small book Sefer Shoresh
Yaakov that he was publishing this book
to raise funds to enable the publication of a new edition of his
father’s Ze’enah U-Re’enah.[10] The Amsterdam edition retained the same
format as the 1622 edition. That is, the Torah came first, followed
by the Megillot,
and ending with the Haftarot.
The one important change was that the work was published in one
volume and in a folio format. The first edition to break this pattern
was the Amsterdam, 1711 edition, which placed the Haftarot
for the Torah portions immediately behind the respective Torah
portion, in the same way that one would find it in a printed Hebrew
Humash.
This was probably the reason for the change and nothing more
significant. All subsequent editions followed the model of the 1711
edition. In addition, all editions of the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah beginning with the
Amsterdam, 1648 were published in one volume.[11] The Basel/Hanau, 1622 edition is the only one that was published in
two volumes. It is most likely that the two volumes had simple
internal reasons related to practical aspects of the printing
process. Without additional evidence it would be inappropriate to
make assumptions about this fact.
The authorship of Hurban ha-Bayit.
Lamentations in the Ze’enah U-Re’enah
there is a separate section entitled, “Hurban
ha-Bayit
[Destruction of the Temple].” An examination of this section shows
that it is a Yiddish translation/paraphrase of a famous passage from
the Talmud about the causes of the destruction of the Second Temple,
found in tractate B. Gittin
55b-58a. After the passage from Gittin
until the end of this text there is a combination of passages taken
from Yalkut Shimoni,
Lamentations, Remez
995 and 996, and selections from Lamentations
Rabbah,
Petihtah
24.
1979, Sara Zfatman published an article about a pamphlet by an
anonymous author that was published in Cracow, before 1595.[12] The text of this pamphlet is identical to the “Hurban
ha-Bayit
[Destruction of the Temple]” material in the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah.[13] Two pamphlets containing this material were reprinted in the
nineteenth and twentieth century[14] and it was even translated into German.[15] It is likely that they were extracts from the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah, and not from the Cracow
pamphlet.
The
question that concerns us is the authorship of this pamphlet and the
section in the Ze’enah U-Re’enah.
The similarity of both versions of the text is strong evidence that
one person is the author of both. The title page of the second volume
of the Basel/Hanau, 1622 begins with the following statement. “The
five Megillot
and the Haftarot.
In addition, the destruction of Jerusalem in Yiddish which was
weighed and researched by the noble and pious Rabbi Jacob, the son of
Rabbi Isaac, of blessed memory.” Having argued that there is one
author of the whole Ze’enah U-Re’enah,
Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac, it naturally follows Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac is
also the author of this pamphlet and the text in the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah.
is not hard to understand why Rabbi Jacob might have felt the need to
create a supplement for Lamentations, where there is no similar need
or the other Megillot.
Tisha B’Av
when Lamentations is read in the synagogue became the date to
commemorate and mourn a variety of destruction and catastrophes in
Jewish history. The text of Lamentations is so specific to the
situation of the First Temple that over the centuries a whole
literature developed to supplement the Book of Lamentations and
better express the emotions engendered by later events being
commemorated and mourned. I would suggest that Rabbi Jacob first
wrote this pamphlet as an additional text for Tisha
B’Av observances and later
incorporated it into the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah. The sparse nature of his
commentary on Lamentations points to this. There is virtually no
effort to add commentary. Aside from a few references to Rashi, the
commentary on Lamentations is no more than translations or
paraphrases of the Biblical text.
Melitz Yosher
(Lublin, 1622; Amsterdam, 1688); Sefer
ha-Magid (Lublin,
1623-1627); Sefer
Shoresh Ya’akov
(Cracow, 1640). The relationship of Rabbi Jacob ben Isaac to Sefer
ha-Magid is
complicated. See, R. Hayyim Lieberman, “Concerning the Sefer
ha-Magid and its
Author [Yiddish].” In idem. Ohel
RH”L. 3 vols.
(n.p.: Brooklyn, 1984), 2: 231-248. A Hebrew version of the article
is found in idem. 3: 365-382. The article was originally published
in Yidishe Shprakh,
vol. 26 (1966): 33-38.
Neuberg,
Simon. Pragmatische
Aspekte der jiddischen Sprachgeschichte am Beispiel der Zenerene.
Buske: Hamburg, 1999, 109-115.
Elbaum,
Jacob. and Turniansky, Chava. “The Destruction of the Temple: A
Yiddish Booklet for the Ninth of Av.” In Midrash
Unbound, Transformations and Innovations.
Ed. Michael
Fishbane and Joanna Weinberg. Oxford: Littman Library, 2013,
424-427.
See Neuberg,
Pragmatische
Aspekte,
109-115.
At this point there is a lengthy footnote about the significance of
the title pages of the two volumes and the fact that there are two
volumes. I will address the issues raised here in my response.
and Turniansky, “The Destruction of the Temple,” 425.
U-Re’enah: A Critical Translation into English.
2 Vols. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017 (Studia Judaica, 96).
wide variety of sources found in the Ze’enah
U-Re’enah.
Biblical commentary that emphasized grammar and logic rather than
the more midrashic and mystical approach of many of the Ashkenazi
commentaries. It is noteworthy that neither Kimchi nor the other
great Spanish commentator Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra are mentioned in
the Torah commentary. It is only in the Prophets where Kimchi is
consulted, because the number of commentaries is limited.
Yaakov, Cracow,
1640, Introduction.
U-Re’enah
editions can be found in Morris
M. Faierstein, “The
Ze’enah U-Re’enah:
A Preliminary Bibliography”, Revue
des etudes juives,
172, 3-4 (2013), 397-427.
Destruction of the Temple, Cracow, before 1595 – An Additional
Yiddish Text from the Sixteenth Century [Hebrew],” Kiryat
Sefer 54 (1979):
201-202.
(Prussia), 1862. See,
Faierstein, “The
Ze’enah U-Re’enah:
A Preliminary Bibliography,” 411 no. 121. The twentieth century
edition was Brooklyn, 2007. See, idem. 422, no. 240.
Zerstörung Jerusalems: aus dem Buche Zeena u’reena. Deutsch von
Alexander Eliasberg
(Berlin: F. Gurlitt, 1921). See, Faierstein, “The
Ze’enah U-Re’enah:
A Preliminary Bibliography,” 424 no. 264.
מצות ישיבת ארץ ישראל
1
.כתובות קיב, א
.שיר השירים א, יא ורש”י שם
.תפילת מוסף של שלוש רגלים
.(כבר נדפס ממני דרוש זה בראשית אוני על מסכת ברכות, חלק א (ניו-יורק תשל”ה
.בספרי אוירין (ירושלים, תש”מ), עמ’ פה-פז
.כתבי רמב“ן, ערך רח”ד שוול, כרך ב (ירושלים, תשכ”ד), עמ’ תקיז
.רבינו נסים בן ראובן גירונדי, דרשות הר“ן, ערך ר’ אריה ל’ פלדמן (ירושלים, תשל”ז), עמ’קכג
.שם, עמ’ שסט
וראה מה שכתב בשיטת הרמב”ם (הלכות מלכים פרק ה, הלכה יב) ר’ חיים הלוי, זה מקרוב נדפס:
.ראה בצלאל נאור, אמונת עתיך (ירושלים, תשמ”ז), “הארון ואביזריו”, עמ’ קלט-קמ
:ר’ בנימין הביא את דברי ספר הזוהר, חלק ב, קפא, ב
.ספר הזוהר, שם.
22
Book announcement: Two books on Karlin-Stolin Chasidim
The table of contents to this work may be viewed here (link).Here is the cover:
The second book just released earlier this week is called Kesavim from Rabbi Abish Shor. R’ Abish is one of the most prolific writers in the Charedi Chasidic world. His articles have been featured in the Karlin-Stolin journal Kovetz Beis Aron V’Yisroel for the past thirty years. This is a collection of all his essays that appeared in that journal arranged in chronological and topical order. This volume has important information related to the history of Chasidim in general, based on numerous manuscripts amongst other sources. This huge volume was printed in a limited edition and for a short time is available for sale through me at eliezerbrodt@gmail.com
View the table of contents to the work here (link).Here is the cover: