The Anatomy of an Auction: A Previously Undissected Body of Literature on the History of the Jews and Postmortem Dissection

 Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD 

The issue of autopsy and postmortem dissection has been exhaustively explored in halakhic literature.[1] If I were to ask where and when we find the first halakhic discussion about this topic, the immediate response would invariably be the teshuva of the Noda biYehuda, from the late eighteenth century.[2] It may be time to rewrite the medical halakhah history books. On Sunday, May 21 Genazym Auction House held its fifteenth auction. Lot #133 was a work entitled Pachad Yitzchak.

There are multiple works throughout history that bear the title Pachad Yitzchak. The modern reader will surely think of the work of Rav Yitzchak Hutner. The reader of this blog may also think of the first multi-volume halakhic encyclopedia, authored by Rabbi Dr. Yitzchak Lampronti (1679-1756). The volume offered for auction by Genazym is an earlier lesser-known composition of the same name by Yitzchak Hayyim Kohen me-haHazzanim (AKA Isaac Vita Cantarini)[3] published in 1685. 

Buried in Cantarini’s obscure work, in a section peripheral to the main theme of the book, we find a vivid and poetic description of a tragic incident relating to anatomical dissection.[4] Viewed in isolation, this incident merits historical attention due to its gravity. Yet, it merely reflects a much larger historical chapter about the Jews and postmortem dissection which long preceded the time of the Noda biYehuda and has remained largely undissected until now. But first a word about this work, its provenance and its author. 

The Work- Pachad Yitzchak (Amsterdam, 1685)[5]

The main subject of this work is the tale, told in poetic fashion, of the miraculous salvation of the Jewish congregation of Padua during the Austrian-Ottoman War in the year 1684. War erupted between the Austrian and Ottoman Empires in the year 1684 over the city of Buda (today part of Budapest). The virulently anti-Semitic Christian ruler of Padua spread a libel accusing the Jews of supporting the Muslim Turks in their battle against the Austrian Empire. His incitement caused an enraged crowd to break into the Padua Ghetto, yet the Jews miraculously persuaded the Venetian government to subdue the outburst. The Jews of Padua declared the 10th day of Elul as their Second Purim in gratitude for their miraculous salvation. This holiday was celebrated for many generations thereafter. 

However, the work also includes many additional unknown details of the history of the Jewish community and its rabbis. It is from this aspect of the book that we draw our discussion. 

Provenance

Regarding the item’s provenance, it was previously part of the William Gross Family Collection,[6] a significant portion of which has been recently sold at auction by both Kedem[7] and Genazym auction houses. Gross is a well-known prominent collector of Judaica and Hebraica and the selling of his collection is of historic significance. To see the collection of precious items united under one roof now become redistributed and disseminated across the world necessitates a moment of pause and reflection. Yet, this is the life cycle in the world of bibliophilia.[8] For centuries, passionate bibliophiles spent lifetimes amassing extraordinary and unique collections, only to have them subsequently sold piecemeal (for a variety of reasons) while still alive, or by less passionate heirs after death. Sometimes, however, collections are sold en bloc. An allusion to one such example is the image which appears on the bottom of the title page of the copy of Pachad Yitzchak sold at auction.  

This stamp, which is not mentioned in the catalogue description, indicates that this volume was previously part of the collection of Professor Lelio Della Torre. Della Torre was an Italian Jewish scholar of the nineteenth century, and prolific author, who served as a professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the rabbinical seminary in Padua, where Shadal also taught, from 1829 until his death in 1871. During this time, he was an avid collector of Hebraica. David Kaufmann, himself a renowned scholar and bibliophile, sought to procure Delle Torre’s collection upon the latter’s death. Kaufmann not only acquired Della Torre’s collection, but also that of Marco Mortara, a student of Shadal, and later Chief Rabbi of Mantua. Mortara’s collection in turn contained the library of Samuel Della Volta, whose life, work and library we discussed in this blog.[9]  All of these collections are now housed in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library in Budapest, to which Kaufmann bequeathed his library. This volume from Della Torre’s library somehow escaped the grasp of Kaufmann and traversed a different path, ultimately landing instead in the Gross Family Collection.[10]

The Author- Yitzchak Hayyim Cantarini (1644-1723)[11]

The Cantorini family were a prominent family of Kohanim who were also associated with the cantorial profession – hence the name Cantarini, or MinHaHazanim, as their Hebrew name reflects. Isaac Cantarini graduated from the University of Padua Medical School on February 11, 1664, one of many Cantarinis who earned their medical degrees from the university.[12] He authored a number of congratulatory poems in honor of Padua medical graduates.

After graduated from Padua, Cantarini went on to become a leading figure in Italian Jewry. He is considered one of the greatest Torah sages of his time, and his responsa have been published in both Yitzhak Lampronti’s Pachad Yitzhak and Samson Morpurgho’s Shemesh Tzedakah.[13] Cantarini wrote halakhic, historical, and homiletic works, as well as medical treatises in Latin. He was a poet, author, physician, and consummate orator; non-Jewish clergy and lay people attended his Shabbat sermons. In the year 5460 there were so many non-Jewish visitors in synagogue when he spoke that the regulars had to ascend to the women’s section (ezrat nashim) to pray.[14] He was a teacher of both Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Ramchal),[15] as well as Rabbi Yitzchak Lampronti.

Non-Jews sought Cantarini’s sage advice as well, as evidenced by his correspondence with the Christian intellectual Theophilio Ungar.[16]

Cantarini was known by his initials יחכם. He was also quite adept at word play, and Shadal mentions but one small example of his utilizing the acronym of his name in the introduction to a kinah he composed upon the passing of Rabbi Yehuda Briel:[17]

Shadal takes a stab at solving the riddle.

A Fearful Story in Pachad Yitzchak

The following story appears in the pages of Pachad Yitzchak.[18] On the 17th of Shevat 5440 (שנת מ”ת as per Cantarini), a young man by the name of Hananel (AKA Graziadio) Levi[19] died in the Ghetto. His body was prepared for burial, but in the interim, a band of raucous students from the University of Padua stormed the Ghetto, kidnapped the body, and whisked it away to the anatomy room in preparation for dissection and medical student instruction. The Jewish community was in an uproar, riots ensued, and all political channels were pursued to secure the return of the body. When initial efforts failed, some members of the Jewish community on their own initiative attempted unsuccessfully to enter the anatomy lecture hall under cover of night to procure the body. Ultimately, after one week, negotiations succeeded, and the Jews were promised by the University that they needn’t worry about similar infractions in the future, and that the bodies of the Jewish community would no longer be forcefully taken for anatomical dissection. 

Anatomy, the Jews, and the University of Padua- An Undissected Body of Literature

This frightening incident recounted in Pachad Yitzchak is significant in its own right, but here we situate it as part of a much larger narrative of anatomy, the Jews and the University of Padua, which began over a century earlier.

Since the Middle Ages, individual Jewish students experienced numerous hurdles to the completion of their medical training, many rooted in discrimination and antisemitism. It was sometime around the 16thcentury, however, as the result of the synchroneity of two major historical developments, that Jews, as a group, first encountered a new major challenge to their medical education. This challenge, unlike any previous, did not originate with their non-Jewish colleagues or institutions, but was self-imposed by the Jews. Its consequences however were no less severe.

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the University of Padua became the first European university to officially allow admission of Jewish students for medical training.[20] This policy led to a gradual influx of Jewish students and the creation for the first time in history of a significant Jewish presence and recognizable entity in a consistent fashion on a university campus.[21] This positive development for the broader Jewish community[22] unwittingly evoked unanticipated consequences.

Simultaneous with the expansion of the Jewish community in Padua, a young professor on campus was quietly revolutionizing the study of anatomy. Andreas Vesalius, who arrived in Padua in 1537, began to hold frequent public and private anatomical displays and approached the study of human anatomical dissection in a systematic fashion not previously attempted.[23] He would later come to be known as the founder of modern anatomy. With his innovations came the expansion of the anatomy course in Padua. Anatomy became identified from then on as the most essential course in medical training, and Vesalius, along with the University of Padua, were leading the revolution. 

The Ramifications of Vesalius’ Contribution for the Jewish Community

Vesalius’s work formalized and expanded the teaching of human anatomy at the University of Padua, as well as at medical schools throughout the world. With the expansion of the course came the necessity to supply more cadavers for the dissection tables. To procure cadavers for the anatomy course, the university turned to both the judicial system as well as its students and their communities. Executed criminals served as one steady source of cadavers, but this did not suffice. 

Grave robbing became commonplace in order to supplement the source of bodies. The practice was even encouraged by Vesalius and, though technically illegal, was unofficially tolerated by the government. A ducal document from 1549, during Vesalius’s tenure in Padua, condemns grave robbing,[24] but the ever-present fear and reality of the practice also affecting the Jewish cemeteries.[25] Indeed, one scholar has suggested that one of the historiated letters in the Fabrica specifically depicts a scene of the grave robbing of a body from a Jewish cemetery.[26]

The scene depicts putti (cherubic figures common in Renaissance art) removing a body from a grave. The “o” on the flag held by one of the putti was the symbol Jews were required to wear on their clothing and may reflect that this was a Jewish cemetery depicted.

The emphasis on anatomy begun by Vesalius would continue long into the future. Soon the university would further invest in this venture by building the first example in the world of a permanent anatomical theater, completed in 1595 (after the death of Vesalius), created for teaching anatomy through the dissection of corpses. The theater still stands to this day. 

The supply of cadavers was a perennial challenge for the medical school, and as a result, the university sought additional creative ways to address the issue. At some stage they instituted each community which sent medical students for training at the university would be required to provide a certain number of bodies for the dissection table.[27] The Jewish community, like others on campus, was expected to provide cadavers for the yearly anatomy course. However, the Jewish students and community took issue with this expectation. As elated as Jews were to walk the halls of a premier university for the first time in history, this privilege would not compel the abrogation of ancient Torah principles. Jewish law forbids the dissection of the human body after death absent mitigating circumstances yielding direct and immediate life-saving benefit from the procedure.[28] The prohibitions of desecrating and deriving benefit from the corpse, as well as the obligation to bury the body preclude routine dissection or autopsy. 

This refusal of the Jews to provide bodies sparked outcry from both the university and its students. The tension created from this conflict would play out over centuries. It is reflected, for example, in multiple recorded incidents of Padua medical students attempting to kidnap Jewish bodies to provide for the anatomy course.[29] Although we have no starting date, already in the earliest Vesalian and post-Vesalian days in Padua a compromise was struck with the Jewish community providing a hefty financial compensation to absolve them from the cadaver obligation. However, this was not a one-time incident, and the anatomy issue persisted, with frequent renegotiation of terms over the years and increased tension resurfacing periodically. Despite the Senate’s repeated pronouncements, frequently the graves in the Jewish cemetery were violated. It was not uncommon for gravely ill patients to be transported out of Padua for fear of being dissected upon their death.[30] The Jews were compelled to construct secret hiding places in the Ghetto where the bodies could be concealed until the funeral. Often, they buried the dead under the cover of night to avoid the dissection table.[31]

One would have expected to find halakhic responsa from 16th and 17th century Italy discussing this topic, but the extant halakhic literature is silent. The first cases discussing autopsy only surface in the late 18th century. We do however find reference to this ongoing issue in the Padua Jewish community archives as well as in the administrative records of the city and University of Padua. We share these documents here, many for the first time. While not enshrined in the extant responsa literature, this community response to anatomical dissection surely reflects the considered rabbinic opinion and halakhic analyses of the local Padua rabbinate, to whom the community deferred on such matters. Prominent rabbis who served the Padua community, or were connected with the medical students during the period under discussion include Maharam Padua (1482-1565), Rabbi Yehuda Arye de Modena (1571-1648) and Rabbi Yehuda Briel (1643-1722), Rabbi Dr. Isaac Hayyim Cantarini (1644-1723), Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lampronti (1679-1756), and Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-174), among others, and it is more than likely that they were involved, to some extent, in the discussions of the Jewish community regarding the provision of bodies to the medical school. 

The Padua Jewish Community Archives[32] 1624-1626

The Jewish community archives of Padua contain at least five entries from 1624 to 1626, discussed below, which directly address the anatomy issue. Daniel Carpi, the scholar of Italian Jewish history who transcribed and edited the archives, noted that since the Jews first settled in Padua the medical students requested from the Jewish community to provide to the university a specific percentage of Jewish bodies for use in the teaching of anatomy. The Jews refused and arranged a compromise to pay an annual ransom to absolve them from this obligation. However, the tension related to this matter never ceased, be it because the university continually raised the fee, or because they sometimes would only suffice with the supply of actual corpses for dissection. 

It is in this context that a tragic incident occurred in 1624 which frightened even the non-Jewish community. A group of students, led by a young anatomy professor, interrupted a Jewish funeral procession and attempted to kidnap the body. The agreement discussed in the first archival entry below appears to come on the heels of this incident in the hopes of preventing similar occurrences in the future.

April 19, 1624 (entry #545) compromise with the students during the season/days of dissection

In that the spirit of God has enlightened the esteemed philosopher Senior Cesare Cremonin to declare freedom (from dissection) for our deceased, through the continued annual designated payment to the students of the College of Arts, generation after generation. As a result, they are obligated to allow us to properly bury our dead during the season of dissection, lest anyone fear. Any violators will be fined, and they have coordinated with us to obtain from the government permission for a required fine for all who violate this agreement in a way amenable and sufficient for our needs. The aforementioned master Cesare and Yehudah Katz have already spoken on this matter and have begun discussion regarding the amount the Jewish community is willing to pay for this privilege. Therefore, to facilitate successful completion of these dealings, which will result in a salvation for our community, we present a parti to designate two members of our community,[33] even though they are not members of the committee, to negotiate directly with the aforementioned esteemed philosopher a sum which will then be presented to the community and the committee for a majority vote. 

Subsequent entries reflect the lengthy process of negotiation, implementation, and enforcement. A follow up entry from July 15, 1624 (entry # 554) states that the negotiations had been completed and a sum had been agreed upon with the government representative. The request is to approve the amount and facilitate payment. 

 An entry in the Padua University Archives from December 28, 1624 (pictured below) sheds a slightly different light on the negotiations, which may not have been officially ratified by the university.[34]

Here the university confirms an earlier privilege granted to the Jewish community by which those Jews studying medicine were granted free access to the anatomical theater, and the corpses of deceased Jews were to be left untouched by anatomical dissections due to strong religious objections to the procedure. For this privilege the Jews paid an annual sum of 100 Venetian pounds. The entry concludes, “the final decision on this proposal was delayed until the arrival of the “perillustris domini syndic.”[35] Parenthetically, this reveals that the agreements between the Jewish community and the university regarding Jewish cadavers date back to an earlier time.

An entry in the Jewish community archives some three weeks later (Entry # 566- January 21, 1625) corroborates the delayed decision of the university. It reiterates the need to arrive at an agreement between the Jewish community and the university to prevent the taking of Jewish bodies. A maximum fee of ten Ducat is set. This may have been a counteroffer to the much higher request of 100 ducats and explains why a specific number is mentioned here but not previously. 

May 17, 1626 (Entry #616)
Yet another entry reveals a creative solution to prevent grave robbing during the semester of anatomy.

Regarding designating two community representatives with the power to negotiate with Aharon Altarini to allow temporary burial[36] on his property (for community members) during anatomy season. They are granted permission to spend as much as necessary to appease those who oppose this practice.

While grave robbing was typically done secretly under the cover of night, some claims for Jewish bodies were more brazen. The entry of November 15, 1626 (Entry # 627) mentions a disturbing incident (mikre bilti tahor) of the interference of the medical students of Padua with the Jewish funeral procession of the wife of Moshe Fano (miPano). The incident, reminiscent of earlier similar episodes, appears to have been minor and fortunately did not escalate. Nonetheless, it precipitated another plea to find a long-term compromise with the university regarding the anatomy issue.

The Decree of 1672[37]

 On November 23, 1672, there was a decree reaffirming the Jews’ exemption from providing bodies for dissection and warning those who attempt to disturb the funerals or graves of members of the Jewish community. This decree appears in Jewish and governmental documents discussed below. It is unknown to me if or whether a specific historical event precipitated this reaffirmation.

The Case of Graziadio Levi and the Riots of 1679 

Here we position the story from Cantarini’s Pachad Yitzchak, occurring over a century after Vesalius’ expansion of the field of human anatomy with its subsequent creation of major halakhic and social problems for the Jewish community and its medical students. The event described by Cantarini which transpired in 1679[38] may have been the tipping point which led to a more serious and sustained response from the university. Following the death of a young Jew, Graziadio Levi, armed students stormed the Jewish ghetto in great numbers, kidnapped the corpse and brought it to the medical school in preparation for dissection. Riots ensued[39] and much effort was marshaled to rescue the body and provide a proper Jewish burial. The incident led to the issuance of a ducal letter dated February 27 of that year which rued the incident and emphatically reaffirmed the commitment by the university to protect Jewish corpses.[40]  As we have discussed, the events surrounding that fateful night in 1679 were recorded for posterity by Isaac Hayyim Cantarini in his Pachad Yitzchak. In the context of his recounting of the Levi affair, Cantarini mentions the earlier decree from November 23, 1672, protecting the bodies of the community from dissection. 

A record of the full 1679 decree is found in the Padua Civic Archives,[41] a copy of which I procured and present below. The name of Graziadio Levi is explicitly mentioned in the decree.

Ciscato transcribed the full text of the decree.[42]

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People possesses yet another record of the anatomy decrees. This unadorned document is a certified “copia” of the two decrees of 1672 and 1679.[43]

This was perhaps intended for archival records as opposed to public display. 

University (Governmental) Decrees Regarding Jewish Cadavers from 1672 to 1721

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People possesses yet another document, even more remarkable, related to the Padua anatomy decrees.[44] It includes not only one or even two decrees, but appears to be a summary or record of multiple decrees on the subject of cadavers, anatomy training at the medical school of Padua, and the Jewish community, spanning from 1672-1721. It includes the decrees of November 23, 1672, and February 27, 1679, as well as others. Furthermore, the presentation of these decrees, as an attractive broadside with calligraphy and illustrated header, indicates that it was likely intended for public display.[45]

Conclusion

In an obscure work published in 1685, recently offered for auction, appears an account of a tragic event involving the Jewish community and the dissection of human cadavers at the University of Padua. We have placed this seemingly isolated incident into a much broader historical context, fleshing out this chapter with new supportive archival material. For hundreds of years, beginning in the late sixteenth century, the Jewish community negotiated with the university for the right not to have Jewish bodies used for the anatomy course. There is no question that the local rabbinate of Padua must have been involved in these discussions and negotiations, though to what extent remains unknown. Refusal of the Jewish community to provide cadavers for dissection created major problems for both the many Jewish medical students who attended the university as well as for the Jewish community at large. The Jewish community’s restrictive position was premised entirely on halakhic grounds and would not have been sustainable throughout this lengthy period without significant rabbinic backing and support. Thus, while the extant published literature on autopsy begins with the Noda biYehudah in the late eighteenth century, there is little doubt that the halakhic discourse on the topic of anatomical dissection began long before.[46]

[1] For general discussions on anatomy and autopsy in Jewish law, see Kalman Kahana, “The Dissection of the Dead in Jewish Law: A Bibliography,” (Hebrew) haMa’ayan 7 (Tevet, 5727), 45-72; Avraham Steinberg, HaRefuah KiHalakhah 6 (Jerusalem, 2017), 512-550; Zev Farber and Irving Greenberg, “Autopsies I: A Survey of the Debate,” in Zev Farber, ed., Halakhic Realities (Maggid Books: Jerusalem, 2017), 323-417.
[2] For a discussion of the historical context of this teshuva, see Edward Reichman, “A Tale of Two Stones,” in The Anatomy of Halakha (Maggid/OU/YU Presses, 2022),
[3] Cantarini and Lampronti share at least one thing in common. They are both graduates of the University of Padua Medical School. Indeed, the passage in Cantarini’s work upon which I draw relates directly to the medical training at the university.
[4] This incident we describe transpired years before the so-called Purim of Buda (or Padua).
[5] The description of the work is drawn from the William Gross Collection Item Description, which is reproduced in the Genazym catalogue. See also M. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book (Brill, 2011), 1077.
[6] On Gross and his collection, see Shalom Sabar, Emile Schrijver, and Falk Wiesemann, Windows on Jewish Worlds: Essays in Honor of William Gross, Collector of Judaica on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Zutphen: Walburg Pers bv., 2019).
[7] In Kedem’s recent auction of items from the Gross Family Collection (Auction 92, May 2, 2023) we find two items of medical historical interest, one less obvious than the other. The first item is Mikne Avram (Venice, 1523), a Hebrew grammar work written by Avraham de Balmes (Auction 92, Part 1, Lot 4). De Balmes was a physician and his medical diploma from Naples, from the auspicious year of 1492, is the oldest extant Jewish medical diploma, now housed in the Braginsky Collection. On this diploma see, Giancarlo Lacerenza and Vera Schwarz-Ricci, “Il Diploma di Dottorato in Medicina di Avraham ben Me’ir de Balmes (Naploli 1492),” Sefer Yuhasin 2(2014), 163-193. De Balmes was also a student of Yehuda Messer Leon, who has been mentioned numerous times on this blog. Less known is that De Balmes is considered to be the first physician in history to perform a human-to-human blood transfusion. His patient was none other than Pope Innocent VIII. De Balmes transfused blood from three young boys, each of whom was paid a ducat, and infused the blood into the veins of the Pope. According to different reports, the Pontiff “either died or recovered.” See H. M. Brown, “Beginning of Intravenous Medication,” Annals of Medical History 1:2 (1917). Shortly thereafter we find him working in the printing press of Daniel Bomberg.  De Balmes was an expert in Hebrew language and grammar and was sought after by Christians for instruction. Mikne Avramwas published posthumously. A scholarly edition of this work was recently published placing it in the context of contemporaneous linguistic scholarship. See Dror Ben Arye, Mikneh Avram by Avraham de Balmes (Hebrew) (Ramat Gan, Bar Ilan University Press, 2022).

The second item (Auction 92, Part 2, Lot 115) is the spectacular medical diploma of Moshe ben Gershon Tilche from the University of Padua Medical School (1687), which we discussed in Edward Reichman, “Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: A Behind the Scenes Tour of a New Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua (November 2, 2022- December 31, 2022),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), December 1, 2022.
[8] For a lament about the sale and loss of access to great Jewish book collections, see E. Reichman, “The Lost Library by Dan Rabinowitz and the ‘Burial of Souls’ by Yehuda Leib Katznelson: Different Expressions of the Same Sentiment,” The Seforim Blog (April 3, 2019), available at https://seforimblog.com/2019/04/the-lost-library-by-dan-rabinowitz-and-the-burial-of-souls-by-yehuda-leib-katznelson-different-expressions-of-the-same-sentiment/.
[9] E. Reichman, “Samuel Vita Della Volta (1772-1853): An Underappreciated Bibliophile and his Medical ‘Diploma’tic Journey,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), November 5, 2021.
[10] When Kaufmann transferred Mortara’s library from Italy to Budapest a number of volumes were also “lost” on the way. See Asher Salah, “La Biblioteca di Marco Mortara,” in Mauro Perani and Ermanno Finzi, eds., Nuovi Studi in Onore di Marco Mortara nel Secondo Centenario della Nascita (Firenze: Giuntina, 2016), 149-168, esp. 157.
[11] On Cantarini, see, Harry A. Savitz, Profiles of Erudite Jewish Physicians and Scholars (Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1973), 25-28; C. Facchini, “Icone in sinagoga: emblemi e imprese nella predicazione barocca di I.H. Cantarini”, in Materia Giudaica, 7 (2002), 124–144. I thank Professor David Ruderman for this last reference. Cantarini’s Jewish legal responsa were published in both Yitzḥak Lampronti’s Paḥad Yitzḥak and Samson Morpurgo’s Shemesh Tzedakah. For his correspondence with the Christian intellectual Theophilo Ungar, see Y. Blumenfeld, Otzar Nehmad 3 (Vienna, 1860), 128-50.  For the definitive work on the Cantarini family, see Marco Osimo, Narrazione della Strage Compiuta nel 1547 Contro gli Ebrei d’Asolo e Cenni Biografici della Famiglia Koen-Cantarini (Casale-Monferrato, 1875). For a comprehensive bibliography on Cantarini, see Asher Salah, La Republique des Lettres: Rabbins, Ecrivains et Medecins, Juifs en Italie au XVIIIe Siecle (Brill: Leiden, 2007), 120-124.
[12] Modena and Morpurgo, Medici, 118; see D. Ruderman, Jewish Though and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (Yale University Press, 1995), 113-114, regarding families with multiple graduates from the university.
[13] On Morpurgo, See Edward Reichman, “The Illustrated Life of an Illustrious Renaissance Jew: Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-1740),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), June 22, 2021.
[14] S. Y. Glicksberg, Ha-Derashah Be-Yisrael (Mosad HaRav Kook, 5700), 203-20.
[15] Ramhal wrote a eulogy for Cantarini. See R. Moshe Hayim Luzzatto, Sefer Ha-Shirim, ed. Y. Zemora (Mosad HaRav Kook, 5710), 4.
[16] This correspondence was published by Shadal. See Y. Blumenfeld, Otzar Nehmad 3 (Vienna, 1860), 128-50.
[17] Ibid.
[18] 45a- 46a.
[19] I discovered a wedding poem written a number of years earlier Graziadio (Hananel) Levi, assumedly the same person, for the wedding of Saul Lustro and Allegra Barukh in 1676. See JTS Library B (NS)CR2.
[20] The university admitted non-Catholics, which included, for example, both Protestants and Jews. On the history of the Jews and the University of Padua, see Edward Reichman, “How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries- An Unrecognized Genre,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), May 29, 2022; idem, “Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: A Behind the Scenes Tour of a New Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua (November 2, 2022- December 31, 2022),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), December 1, 2022.
[21] The University of Montpellier was sporadically frequented by Jews in the Middle Ages, but does not compare to Padua, where Jews attended in far greater numbers and had their own student organizations.
[22] To be sure there were residual discriminatory practices towards the Jews at the university. In addition, while the Italian Jewish community viewed this development in a positive light, the Jewish communities in Poland and Germany were more concerned about the possible assimilation of the Jewish students and dilution and diminution of Torah study.
[23] We discuss the relationship of Vesalius to the Jews in Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law (Maggid/OU/YU Press, 2022).
[24] See Ciscato, Gli Ebrei in Padova, p. 297. Later documents, as discussed below, address body snatching in the Jewish community specifically.
[25] Carpi, op. cit., parti 616, discusses a request to delay burial during the season of anatomy at the medical school to preclude grave robbing.
[26] Jeffrey Levine, “Jewish History in Vesalius’s Fabrica,” September 17, 2014 (https://jmlevinemd.com/jewish-history-vesalius-fabrica/).
[27] Paul Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
[28] See Steinberg, Avraham Steinberg, HaRefuah KiHalakhah 6 (Jerusalem, 2017), 512-550. I realize it may be anachronistic to mention these specific halakhic concerns or formulation, as these were developed later in history starting with Rabbi Yechezkel Landau. Nonetheless, they are halakhic prohibitions and obligations that apply to dissection.
[29] For more on the history of anatomy and graverobbing in rabbinic literature, see Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law (Maggid/OU/YU Press, 2022).
[30] This practice might have violated the prohibition of moving a goses, the halachic equivalent to a “dying person.” A similar question was posed to Rabbi Moshe Stern: Could one move a critically ill patient out of the hospital for fear that, upon his death, his body would be taken for autopsy and dissection without family consent? Rabbi Stern ruled in the negative. See his Be’er Moshe 8, nos. 239, 240, 241, 243. Likewise, Rabbi Moshe Lemberger was asked whether a Kohen physician could expose himself to tum’ah in order to establish cause of death and prevent a likely autopsy. Rabbi Lemberger argues that the Kohen must do so, as this case is akin to a met mitzvah (one who dies without family or friends to bury him). See Lemberger, Ateret Moshe, Yoreh De’ah 2:244.
[31] Hebraische Bibliographie 16 (1876), p. 37.
[32] See Daniel Carpi, Minutes Book of the Council of the Jewish Community of Padua Volume Two: 1603-1630 (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1979). All references to the Padua Jewish community archives are from this source. I thank Pia Settimi for kindly bringing these documents to my attention. See also Ciscato, 209-212.
[33] According to Pia Settimi, one of these was Avraham Catalano, who would later coordinate the community response to the plague in Padua in 1631 and author the diary Olam Hafukh about the experience.
[34] ASUPd, ms. 655, f. 13r. I thank Francesco Piovan, Chief Archivist of the University of Padua Archives, for procuring a copy of this document for me.
[35] I am unsure to whom this refers.
[36] The idea of temporary burial was suggested and debated by some prominent rabbinic authorities in the nineteenth century regarding the situation in Cincinnati, OH where graverobbing was rampant. See Reichman, Anatomy of Jewish Law, op. cit., 223-226.
[37] See below for discussion of this decree.
[38] Cantarini lists the Hebrew date of the event as 17 Shevat, 5440. Standard Hebrew date converters place this in 1680, but the Italian decrees all clearly place the year at 1679.
[39] There were broader political issues at play during these riots which are discussed by Cantarini.
[40] See Ciscato, Gli Ebrei in Padova, pp. 299–300; Hebraische Bibliographie 16 (1876), 37. The latter reference discusses an unpublished manuscript by Chaim (Vital) Moshe ben Elisha Cantarini that details this incident. I have been unsuccessful in locating this manuscript. Cantarini, member of an illustrious Italian family comprising many rabbi/physicians, graduated from the medical school in Padua and apparently taught in a yeshiva there as well. As discussed in this essay, this incident is described in great detail by his relative Isaac Chaim Cantarini in the latter’s Pachad Yitzchak.
[41] Archivio civico antico Ducali volume 13 carta 3r. I thank Antonella Ortis for her assistance in procuring this document.
[42] Ciscato, 299. The date of this decree is February 27, 1679. He lists the location as Ducali, Reg. N. N. 123 c. I r.
[43] Ducale: Che sia conservata agli ebrei la facoltà di eseguire le sepolture secondo il loro rito (Emessa in seguito alle proteste degli ebrei contro gli studenti di Anatomia). IT-Pa-47-ovs, Padova – Jewish Community 1679. I thank Ariel Viterbo of the National Library of Israel for bringing this document, as well as the others from the Central Archives, to my attention, and I thank Yochai ben Ghedalia, Yael Franklin and Tami from the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People for so kindly providing copies of these documents.
[44] 206 Pergamena interessantissima concernente le violazioni di cadaveri degli israeliti che si permettevano gli studenti col pretesto  degli studi anatomici ” =IT-Pa 126 ovs. This broadside does not appear to have been mentioned by Ciscato or Roth, though the decrees were known to them. The Central Archives has another catalogue entry on the dissection of Jewish cadavers in Padua- Sulle violazioni dei cadaveri degli israeliti che si permettevano gli studenti col pretesto degli studi anatomici.  Archivio della Comunità di Padova, n. 206. 8 frames. HM-5157. This is a (poor) microfilm copy of the above broadside, thought the Archives does not identify it as such.
[45] Though he had not seen this document before, Francesco Piovan, the Chief Archivist of the University of Padua remarked, “As far as I can tell from the image, it’s just a summary of laws and decrees. Such summaries (even in print) of private documents and legal norms were quite normal: they can be found, for example, in processual documents. The interesting fact is that your document looks like a kind of ‘manifesto’ (placard), written in beautiful handwriting, and perhaps to be displayed, hung in a frame or fixed on a wooden tablet. In short, it seems destined for public viewing.”
[46] As a postscript, despite the religious limitation of providing bodies for dissection, there was at least some evidence of the interest and fascination amongst the Jews with the new discipline of human anatomy. When Padua’s anatomical theater was first built in 1595, the benches were not only occupied by the registered Jewish medical students, there is record of Jews from the community (non-students) attending dissections. See Cynthia Klestinec, “A History of Anatomy Theaters in Sixteenth Century Padua,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 59:3 (2004), n. 74. Furthermore, years after the publication of Pachad Yitzchak, when a young Abraham Levi was visiting Padua on his travels, his guide, our very same Rabbi Dr. Isaac Cantarini, as part of showcasing the highlights of the community, included a visit to an anatomy lesson where a cadaver was dissected. Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Eighteenth Century: A Jewish Biography, 1700-1750 (Indiana University Press, 2020), 242.

From Print to Pixel: Digital Editions of the Talmud Bavli

Ezra Brand

Ezra Brand is an independent researcher who resides in Tel Aviv. He has an MA from Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University in Medieval Jewish History, and has studied in the Talmud Department of Bar-Ilan University. He has contributed a number of times previously to the Seforim Blog (tag), and a selection of his research can be found at his Substack blog. His most recent major work is a “Guide to Online Resources for Scholarly Jewish Study and Research”. He is currently working on an overview of names and naming in early Jewish literature. He can be reached at ezrabrand@gmail.com; any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Intro – the tzurat hadaf[1]

It is a surprising fact that despite incredible advancements in technology, the layout of the Talmud has remained the same for centuries. The Bomberg edition from the 16th century, a groundbreaking achievement, still sets the standard. Yoel Finkelman writes in his recent, impressive overview of the layout of the printed Talmudic page:[2] “What is remarkable about the Gemara’s mise-en-page (the term for tzurat ha-daf in the academy) is not its invention, but its staying power as the normative way to produce texts of the Talmud.”[3] Finkelman then delves into the “history of the tzurat ha-daf of the Gemara.”

For an illustration of the lengths to which traditional publishers have gone to preserve the traditional tzurat hadaf, even in the 21st century, see Elli Fischer and Shai Secunda’s 2012 review article of the then-just-released “Artscroll Digital Library Schottenstein Talmud (English) App”, for the iPad:[4]

Since this elucidation is significantly longer than (and, in fact, already includes the actual text of) the Hebrew/Aramaic original, each Vilna page ends up being reproduced two to five times for every English page (a grey bar shows the reader which segment of the Vilna corresponds to the facing elucidation). This decision, both brilliant and perverse, added well over 10,000 pages, bringing the entire series to 73 volumes. The perversity of adding 10,000 apparently superfluous pages is obvious, but the brilliance of the decision was that it always kept the “original” page before the reader.

The digital daf

At the outset, Finkelman (in the above-mentioned article) highlights that the material manifestation of the written word can be broadly attributed to three factors: 1) The technological and material resources that are utilized to create and disseminate texts, 2) The economic and market forces that influence the demand for knowledge and education, and 3) The cultural perceptions of the role and function of language.[5] The ongoing decline in printing costs during the 20th and 21st centuries, coupled with the increasing accessibility of education, have led to significant advancements in all these factors.[6]

The advent of the internet has opened up entirely new avenues for publishing and designing the daf. Furthermore, for the very first time, readers have the opportunity to customize their reading experience, tailoring it to their unique preferences.

One popular author writes:[7]

“After more than a thousand years as the world’s most important form of written record, the book as we know it faces an unknown future. Just as paper superseded parchment, movable type put scribes out of a job, and the codex, or paged book, overtook the papyrus scroll, so computers and electronic books threaten the very existence of the physical book.”

However, one could plausibly say that the claim of the death of books has been greatly exaggerated. Physical books continue to be highly popular, and their sale has only continued to grow. And Orthodox Jews have yet an additional incentive to continue to buy physical books, as they can’t use ebooks on Shabbat and Chag. Regardless, there’s no question that we are in the middle of a decades-long revolution in how we have the ability to consume text, if one so chooses.

Despite the vast technological advancements that have revolutionized publishing, the digital daf is a peculiar return to pre-printing press methods in at least one regard: nowadays, the Talmud can be studied in isolation, without the surrounding commentaries. Most of the layouts that will be examined below diverge from the traditional tzurat hadaf that has been preserved for more than four centuries. In this way, they resemble the medieval Talmudic manuscripts, which include only the Talmud itself (sometimes accompanied by Rashi’s commentary).[8]

Let’s turn our attention to another aspect that Finkelman highlights: the groundbreaking nature of implementing a universal pagination system. Bomberg himself astutely utilized pagination and indexing as a key selling point.[9] Similarly, one of the numerous revolutionary features of digital editions such as Sefaria and Al-HaTorah is the capacity to reference not only the daf and amud, but also the section number. (I’ll explain the specific details of this later in this piece.) One can cite using section number, and hyperlink directly to that section. Every amud has around 10-15 sections, so this narrowing down is considerable. Even without reference to a specific section, checking a reference is far easier in a digital edition: with a simple “control + f”, one can search for a word from the quote. Gone are the frustrating days of scanning a giant wall of text in an amud to find a quote.

What will be discussed in this review

My focus here will be on modern editions that are available open-access digitally, online.[10] Therefore, I won’t review modern print editions.[11] I will also not review digital editions that, in my opinion, are inferior in every way to the editions discussed here.[12] And I won’t discuss editions targeted towards beginner students.[13]

As one of the resources exclusively pertains to Kiddushin (Katz’s Mahberot Menahmiyot), my sample will be from Tractate Kiddushin, specifically Kid. 2b, which solely features the Gemara without the Mishnah. Images will only be of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosafot, meaning that, I will exclude the surrounding glosses (Mesoret HaShas, etc). I will not be discussing supplementary texts and commentaries, and hyperlinks to outside sources that each has.[14] I will be discussing different customization and viewing options.

Another caveat: This piece is focused on layout, and so it will not discuss the textual accuracy of the editions.[15]

An interesting element of modern editions is the typography; specifically the choices of font. However, this will not be discussed here.[16]

Outline

Intro – the tzurat hadaf 1
The digital daf 2
What will be discussed in this review 4
Outline 5
Tzurat hadaf AND customizable 6
Mercava 6
Shitufta 7
Static PDF 9
Mahberot Menahmiyot (=MM) 9
Gemara Sedura HaMeir 10
Talmud HaIgud – Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud (האיגוד לפרשנות התלמוד) 12
Digital, not customizable 14
Wikisource 14
Pirkei Talmud Me’utzavim – R’ Dan Be’eri 15
Talmud Or Meir 18
Dicta 19
Digital and customizable 20
Sefaria 20
Al-Hatorah 22
Speculation on the future 24
Concluding Thought 27

Tzurat hadaf AND customizable

Mercava

At present, Mercava contains only Tractate Berachot. It includes a menu option that enables users to toggle punctuation and nikud. It is also worth noting that Mercava is presently in beta version, as stated explicitly by the page header. Many of the menu options are grayed out or non-functional, resulting in a suboptimal user experience. Often, it seems that two features cannot be employed simultaneously, without any discernible explanation.

Shitufta

Quite basic. It has section splits, which are the same as those of Sefaria and Al-Hatorah.[17] Like them, it enables linking to a specific section. However, it diverges from the section numbering in Sefaria and Al-Hatorah by commencing from 0 instead of 1, resulting in all section numbers in Shitufta being one less from those of Sefaria and Al-Hatorah.

Static PDF

Mahberot Menahmiyot (=MM)[18]

By Prof. Menachem Katz.

Image of Talmud text, from p. 3, line # 7:

MM is a static PDF. It divides every sentence into a separate line, as opposed to splitting into larger blocks of sections. The lines are numbered. It offers complete punctuation, without nikud.[19] MM displays citations for biblical verses, Mishnah, and Tosefta, as well as additional features discussed in the introduction.

Gemara Sedura HaMeir [20]

With punctuation, and split by line.

Talmud HaIgud – Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud (האיגוד לפרשנות התלמוד) [21]

The text is split into lines and numbered, similar to MM. Due to the nature of the work, the primary purpose of the Talmudic text in the Talmud HaIgud is not for its own sake, but to serve as a basis for subsequent commentary.

Digital, not customizable

Wikisource[22]

The crowd-sourced Wikisource is a sister-project of Wikipedia. It is replete with hyperlinks to primary sources, and to external secondary sources. Like MM, the text contains punctuation but not nikud. Instead of using numbered sections (like Sefaria and Al-Hatorah) or lines (like MM), the text is divided into unnumbered paragraphs. Moreover, these paragraphs are longer than those found in Sefaria and Al-Hatorah.

Pirkei Talmud Me’utzavim – R’ Dan Be’eri[23] [24]

Available as downloaded Word docs, from the Da’at website, for a few chapters. I consider this to be not customizable.[25] Has nikud, punctuation, and is split into numbered lines.

Talmud Or Meir

Has nikud, punctuation, and is split into numbered lines. While there are technically some customization options available, they are limited in scope.[26]

Dicta

Dicta has a suite of powerful tools, which combined could make for an incredible studying experience. These include automated tools for nikud and for Biblical sources.[27] Unfortunately, at this time it appears that the only way to view a passage of Talmud is via search results. There, a link is offered to the page in Sefaria. There is a section called Library, with powerful tools for reading rabbinic works, but only 300 works are currently offered there.[28]

Here’s a screenshot, of what appears after searching the first words of Kidushin 2b (“אי נמי שדות בכסף יקנו”), opening the first result, and scrolling to 2b:

Digital and customizable

Sefaria[29]

Image of customization options:

Splits into numbered sections. In our example, there are 15 sections. The default Hebrew doesn’t split these into paragraphs, but there is an option to split into paragraphs. Many tractates have nikud, some have punctuation. Our example page doesn’t have punctuation, even though it shows that option. Sefaria gives the option to remove nikud. As mentioned, as with Shitufta and Al-Hatorah, one can hyperlink to a specific section.

Al-Hatorah[30]

The section numbers in circles on the right side of the page are hyperlinked, which is a convenient feature. In the example page we are looking at, there is no nikud, unlike Sefaria. However, there is a period after each section, which provides a slight advantage over Sefaria‘s lack of punctuation, as it helps to break up the passages when viewing with no section breaks.

While Al-Hatorah also includes hyperlinked sections, it does not explicitly label which section is which, unlike Sefaria. Therefore, finding a specific section requires trial and error. As with Shitufta and Sefaria, it is possible to hyperlink to a particular section in Al-Hatorah.

One notable difference is that Al-Hatorah does not expand acronyms, as Sefaria does. For instance, מ“ט is not expanded to מאי טעמא, and אב“א is not expanded to איבעית אימא.

Speculation on the future

Secunda and Fischer, in the faraway land of 2012 (cited at the beginning of this piece), envision a future Talmud app:

“First of all, it would be a virtually borderless intertextual web. Talmudic passages that shed light upon one another would be linked in intricate overlapping networks. Passages citing earlier texts—biblical verses, the Mishnah, other rabbinic texts, the apocrypha—would be hyperlinked to the collection in which the cited text originally appears. Passages would also link to later commentaries, super-commentaries, relevant excerpts from legal codes and responsa, manuscript variants, monographs, homiletic interpretations, and, indeed, translations and elucidations. Discussions of Akkadian medicine would call forth images of Babylonian tablets. People, places, historical events, concepts, practices, and all sorts of other realia mentioned in the text would link to relevant explanatory pages, pictures, recordings, and video clips. […] [T]wo new Jewish text websites, themercava.com and sefaria.org, offer promising platforms for crowd-sourced translation, commentary, and discussion of the Bavli and other Jewish texts. […]”[31]

While some aspects of this idealistic vision have been realized, many others have not, at least not yet. Moreover, it remains unclear whether a more crowdsourced and social-media-oriented approach, (suggested in an un-cited part of Secunda and Fischer’s article), would even be desirable. In retrospect, the year 2012 was marked by somewhat utopian thinking, with Wikipedia and Facebook having recently achieved great success in spreading knowledge and connecting people worldwide. It seemed only natural to aspire to something similar in the realm of literature. However, today, with greater awareness of the unpredictable dynamics of such systems (such as misinformation), it is far from clear that such a goal is attainable or even desirable.

In my view, Sefaria, Al-Hatorah, and Dicta are the most promising candidates for realizing the immersive and highly hyperlinked experience envisioned by Fischer and Secunda. Once this is achieved, the resulting research tools are likely to be extremely powerful as well. However, the idea of leveraging comparative sources, as described by the authors, still seems quite far off, particularly with the current set of available tools.

Regarding the social and chavruta aspect discussed by Fischer and Secunda, a new possibility has emerged that was not even envisioned a year ago: an artificial intelligence-powered chavruta. I recently experimented with ChatGPT by providing it with the first paragraph of Kidushin 2b.[32]

As usual, ChatGPT demonstrated impressive coherence and confidence. However, it provided laughably incorrect interpretations. In fact, in some cases, it provided interpretations that were the exact opposite of the correct one.

I conducted a comparable test by inputting a paragraph of Ramban’s commentary on that sugya, requesting an explanation from ChatGPT. To my surprise, ChatGPT provided a reasonably good rephrasing in English. Although some of it was correct and some of it was incorrect, even the incorrect part was not entirely off. However, ChatGPT still requires further yeshiva study before being able to serve as a teacher.[33]

Given the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and large language models, it appears highly likely that AI will continue to improve its ability to interpret the Talmud, along with all other sources, including digitized manuscripts. It may not be long before we turn to AI to obtain the ultimate p’shat in the Talmud.[34] Furthermore, there is a possibility that AI could eventually bring comparative sources to bear, as previously mentioned.

To update the speculative future envisioned by Fischer and Secunda, my ideal Talmud study experience would be an app with a GPT plug-in acting as a virtual chavruta/Rebbe, to interpret text and answer questions. In fact, something like this is already being tested by Khan Academy.[35]

With current tools, it will even be possible to create a virtual shiur.[36] In the future, it could even be live and interactive, happening in real time.

Another interesting idea that is ripe to be explored is visualization of the Talmudic text. This was put to the test by Yael Jaffe, in a 2015 Columbia dissertation.[37] Jaffe writes in her abstract (bolding is mine):

“This study investigates the effect of access to a visual outline of the text structure of a Talmudic passage on comprehension of that passage. A system for defining the text structure of Talmudic passages was designed by merging and simplifying earlier text structure systems described for Talmudic passages, following principles taken from research on text structure. Comprehension of two passages were compared for students who did traditional reading of a Talmudic passage (the passages had punctuation added, and a list of difficult words and their meanings was appended) (the control condition), and students who read the passage with these same materials as well as with an outline of the text structure of that passage (the experimental condition) […]

The results provide evidence that awareness of the text structure of a Talmudic passage helps readers when the passage is concrete and somewhat well organized. ”[38]

It is interesting to note that Jaffe’s control group had punctuation added. There is, in fact, no good reason why the punctuation should not be added to all the standard Vilna-Romm editions. This is something that I did as a matter of course in my gemaras in my yeshiva days, and I presume that I was not the only one.[39]

Concluding Thought

Will there ever be a single Talmud application to rule them all, similar to how the Bomberg layout remained the standard for 500 years, and continues to do so? Such a scenario is improbable and perhaps even unwanted in today’s rapidly changing and complex digital landscape. It would suggest a lack of progress. We may have to wait for the arrival of the Messiah or, at the very least, the AI singularity to provide the ultimate Talmud super-app.

[1] This piece was written as part of preparation for the workshop “Editions of Classical Jewish Literature in the Digital Era”, to be held at University of Haifa, June 18-20, 2023, at which I’ll be presenting. I want to express my gratitude to Menachem Katz for his efforts in organizing that workshop, and for inviting me to speak there. I’d also like to thank Eliezer Brodt for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this piece. I would also like to thank my father, my brother, and S. Licht for reviewing, making suggestions, and helping clarify in conversation some of the ideas discussed.
[2]  Finkelman, ”From Bomberg to the Beit Midrash: A Cultural and Material History of Talmudic Page Layout”, Tradition (Winter 2023), Issue 55.1, p. 14. I’d like to thank Eliezer Brodt for bringing this article to my attention.
[3] Immediately before, he writes (my bolding): “[T]he famous and ubiquitous tzurat ha-daf (page layout) of the Gemara was never exclusively by Talmudists for Talmudists. It was a common practice for producing non-Jewish European glossed texts in manuscript and later print from the high middle-ages though the sixteenth century. Some copyists and later printers of the Gemara—whether those printers were Jews or not—adopted it from contemporary Christian textual production.” This point is also made by Michele Chesner, in her interview on the Seforim Chatter podcast: “With Michelle Chesner discussing old books, Seforim, and more” (April 29, 2020).
[4] “Brave New Bavli: Talmud in the Age of the iPad”, Jewish Review of Books (Fall 2012). Archived here.
[5] Finkelman, pp. 16-17.
[6] Relatedly, I have heard the theory a few times from Prof. Meir Bar-Ilan that the writing down of the Talmud may have occurred due to the spread of the Chinese invention of paper to the West in the early medieval period. For some work on when the Mishnah and Talmud were first written, with previous scholarship cited, see: Yaakov Elman, “Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud”, Oral Tradition, 14/1 (1999): 52-99 ; Shamma Friedman, “The Transmission of the Talmud and the Computer Age”, in Sharon Liberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein, eds., Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein (2005), pp. 143-154 (esp. pp. 146-148) ;

יעקב זוסמן, “‘תורה שבעל פה‘ פשוטה כמשמעה: כוחו של קוצו של יו“ד“, מחקרי תלמוד ג, א (תשס“ה), עמ‘ 209-384 (נדפס שוב כספר ב– 2019) ; נחמן דנציג, “מתלמוד על פה לתלמוד בכתב: על דרך מסירת התלמוד הבבלי ולימודו בימי הביניים“, בר–אילן ל–לא (תשס“ו), עמ‘ 49-112.

[7] Keith Houston, The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time (2016), introduction (available via Amazon Kindle sample). He adds in a footnote: “It is worth introducing “codex” as a technical term: it means specifically a paged book, as opposed to a papyrus scroll, clay tablet, or any of the myriad other forms the book has taken over the millennia.”
[8] Recently pointed out by Ari Zivotofsky in a Seforim Blog post (“The Longest Masechta is …”, March 31, 2023): “[I]t is worth noting that ambiguity regarding sizes of masechtot only arose when commentaries began to be put on the same page as the text of the gemara. In other words, until the era of the printing press there was no ambiguity as to which masechta was the longest.” See also Finkelman, pp. 18-19 ; Friedman, “Printing”, p. 148. The early Soncino editions also only contained the Gemara and Rashi, see Finkelman, pp. 22-24. And see the recent statement of Yehuda Galinsky (bolding is mine): “The end of the thirteenth century witnessed a discernable growth in the composition of glossed works in Ashkenaz. It was from this time onwards that authors penned influential talmudic and halakhic works from France and Germany with the intention that they be accompanied by a supplementary gloss, which was to be copied alongside the text […] Instead, we find stand-alone commentaries that were copied separately from the text it was interpreting. In contrast to the well-known layout of the printed Talmud page, the writings of Rashi and Tosafot were written and usually copied as stand-alone commentaries and not as actual glosses to be copied on the same page.” (Judah Galinsky, “The Original Layout of the Semak”, Diné Israel, Volume 37 (2023), pp. 1*-26*, pp. 1-2.) A commenter to Zivotofsky’s blogpost pointed out that there is a print edition that contains only the Talmud (with supplementary indexes). It was printed 25 years ago. Here’s bibliographic info according to the National Library of Israel catalog entry:

תלמוד בבלי: כולל כל המשנה והמסכתות הקטנות : נערכו, סודרו והודפסו מחדש בכרך אחד, עם חלוקה לפסקאות, איזכורים מהמקרא, מלווים בשבעה מפתחות בסגנון אנציקלופדי, כולל מפתח ערכים אלפבתי, בעריכת צבי ה‘ פרייזלר … הרב שמואל הבלין … הרב חנוך הבלין (1998).

As an aside, Finkelman states (p. 18) that “The earliest [Talmudic manuscripts] are Geniza fragments from the ninth century”. However, see Friedman, pp. 147-148, that the earliest Talmudic manuscript is a scroll that can be dated to the 7th century.
[9] Finkelman, pp. 25-28. See also the interesting point by Finkelman, p. 41 (based on Jordan Penkower), that Bomberg was also the one to establish the standard method of citation for Tanach in the Jewish world: “In his first Mikraot Gedolot, Bomberg made a significant addition by adding chapter numbers and (in the second edition) verse numbers, features with little Jewish precedent which were based on thirteenth-century Catholic developments.”
[10] See my recent “Guide to Online Resources for Scholarly Jewish Study and Research – 2022”, where I discuss many of the resources discussed in this piece with more breadth. There I also discuss many of the resources excluded from this review for the reasons enumerated further. Bar-Ilan Responsa Project’s Talmud is online, but is not open-access. Bar-Ilan Responsa Project’s Talmud is linked from Yeshiva.org.il’s Talmud pages, top right of page. (See on Yeshiva.org.il in a later footnote.) That version of Bar-Ilan Responsa Project’s Talmud has punctuation, but no nikud, and is not split into sections/paragraphs, and is inferior in every way than the editions discussed here.

For the same reason (not open-access), I have not reviewed any editions on Otzar HaHochma, or other digital libraries which require a subscription.
[11] Such as Vagshal, Oz VeHadar, Shas Vilna HeChadash, Gemara Sedura. See image here of layout of Gemara Sedura. (See Shimon Steinmetz’s interesting piece here on self-censorship in the Vagshal edition: “Vagshal’s revision of the history of the Vilna Talmud, or, One of the most egregious examples of censorship I have ever seen”.) The best completely static tzurat hadaf edition that I could find available online as open-access is the Moznaim edition, available at Daf-yomi and HebrewBooks. It is a PDF, simply re-typeset. There are also printed editions with punctuation, such as Steinsaltz-Koren; Oz VeHadar; and Tuvia’s. See these news articles from 2016 on Oz VeHadar’s (ongoing?) Talmud edition with nikud and punctuation: here and here. And see the National Library of Israel (=NLI) catalog entry here. See also the NLI catalog entry on Yosef Amar’s 1980 Talmud edition (17 vols.) with nikud based on Yemenite pronunciation, here. And see NLI catalog entries of Koren’s (ongoing?) Talmud edition with nikud and punctuation: Sanhedrin (2014) ; Bava Metzia (2015) ; Sukkah (2016) ; Bava Batra (2017) ; Kidushin (2018).
[12] So I won’t discuss the following: Kodesh.snunit ; Mechon Mamre ; Daf-yomi.com > “Text”. Daf-yomi.com’s “Chavruta commentary” and “tzurat hadaf” are indeed worthwhile. See previous note on Daf-yomi.com’s Moznaim tzurat hadaf edition. The Friedberg Project website Hachi Garsinan technically has a few digital editions of Talmud on their website, but they are all for the purpose of presenting the manuscript variants. So I won’t be reviewing that, since this piece is focused on layout and UX/UI, and in that regard, the edition is sub-par. (Again, this is not necessarily a critique, as this isn’t the point of those editions.) As I say further, in this piece I will not discuss the editions’ textual accuracy. For this reason, I also won’t discuss The Academy of the Hebrew Language’s Ma’agarim edition. Tashma.jewishoffice.co.il’s Talmud shows promise, but for now seems to be inferior in every way than the editions discussed here. The website Yeshiva.org.il (פרשני – ויקישיבה) has the Chavruta commentary of the Talmud. However, as mentioned, the original PDFs of Chavruta commentary are available on the Daf-yomi.com website, so in my opinion it’s clearly best to use that. There’s no advantage to the text version (except for the ability to copy-paste). Yeshiva.org.il’s Chavruta is fully editable, wiki-style. But I see that as a negative, as you don’t know what you’ll be getting.
[13] Such as Gemara Brura and The People’s Talmud. See more at R’ Josh Waxman’s blogpost, “Some excellent Talmud projects out there” (March 5, 2020).
[14] For example, Sefaria and Al-Hatorah have the Steinsaltz translation and commentary, and Wikisource has extensive links to other resources.
[15] Many of the textual elements of the Vilna-Romm edition have been superseded by better editions (though many are still incomplete). Some examples:

תלמוד: דקדוקי סופרים (השלם); הכי גרסינן

רש“י: מהדורות פרופ‘ אהרן אהרנד

תוספות ; תוספות ישנים; רבינו חננאל : מהדורות רב קוק

עין משפט: עינים למשפט של ר‘ יצחק אריאלי (כל שבעה כרכים זמינים בהיברובוקס, לדוגמא, כאן)

מסורת הש“ס: דקדוקי סופרים השלם; תלמוד האיגוד

רי“ף: מהדורת שבט

[16] For now, see Yakov Mayer in his recent ground-breaking book on the first edition of Talmud Yerushalmi (which was also printed by Bomberg’s press), who cites previous studies on typefaces used by Bomberg: Yakov Z. Mayer, Editio Princeps: The 1523 Venice Edition of the Palestinian Talmud and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing (2022, Hebrew).

See also the recent book by Simon Garfield, Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (2011 ) for a fascinating, well-written, popular overview of typesetting and fonts. On medieval handwriting styles of Hebrew, see the monumental 3-volume series, under Malachi Beit-Aryeh’s editorship (each area is a different volume):

מפעל הפליאוגראפיה העברית, אסופות כתבים עבריים מימי–הביניים (1987-2017)

On second temple era styles, see the various works by Ada Yardeni, especially:

עדה ירדני‘ ספר הכתב העברי: תולדות, יסודות, סגנונות, עיצוב (1991).

[17] It is unclear to me who first made these section splits. It’s a question I’d be quite interested in knowing the answer to.
[18] Links to all of parts of MM:

1. אקדמות למהדורה של התלמוד הבבלי – מסכת קידושין – מחברות מנחמיות

2. מסכת קידושין ב ע“א – יד ע“ב

3. מסכת קידושין יד ע“ב – כה ע“ב

4. מסכת קידושין כה ע“ב – כט ע“א

5. מסכת קידושין כט ע“א – מא ע“א

6. מסכת קידושין מא ע“א – נח ע“ב

7. מסכת קידושין נח ע“ב – סט ע“א

8. מסכת קידושין סט ע“א – פב ע“ב

Compare Katz’s similar work on Yerushalmi (which also includes textual variant apparatus, and short commentary, unlike his work on Bavli), available at his Academia.edu site: “פסחן ומצתן של נשים Women on Passover and Matzah”.
[19] I personally prefer this style (punctuation, without nikud). See my discussion later.
[20] Tractate Sukka, p. 2 (ב). Not to be confused with Gemara Sedura (no HaMeir). Currently available online: Tractate Sukka (2013, here) and Tractate Avoda Zara (2015, here). See more on the project here.
[21] From the latest volume available online:

נתנאל בעדני, סנהדרין פרק חמישי (תשע“ב), עמ‘ 4.

See more on the project here.
[22] See more on the project here.
[23] See also some of R’ Be’eri’s other editions, available on Da’at website, here and here. On R’ Be’eri, see the Hebrew Wikipedia entry on him: דן בארי – ויקיפדיה
[24] Screenshot of downloaded Word document.
[25] To explain: Even though everything in the Word doc can be customized, this isn’t built into the website. Any of the editions in this “Digital” section can be pasted into a Word document and customized.
[26] Notably, the text itself is actually an image, which makes copying it impossible.
[27] Dicta was started by Prof. Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan University. He has contributed to Seforim Blog.
[28] As of 15-Apr-23.
[29] See more on the project here.
[30] See more on the project here.
[31] Compare also, at length, Friedman, “Printing”, pp. 150-154 ; Shai Secunda, “Resources for the Critical Study of Rabbinic Literature in the Twenty-First Century” in Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum (CRINT) 16, Christine Hayes (ed.), (2022), pp. 621-632.
[32] On 15-Apr-23, at https://chat.openai.com/.
[33] I should point out that I did not have access to GPT-4, which is the latest version of GPT. So I could not test whether GPT-4 is more capable at interpreting Talmud. For a discussion of some sources of the Yeshivish dialect of English possibly used as datasets for training ChatGPT-4, see my “From the Shtetl to the Chatbot: Some contemporary sources of Yeshivish content, in light of ChatGPT-4”.
[34] For some preliminary algorithmic research on the Talmud, see, for example, Satlow M., Sperling M. (2017). “Naming Rabbis: A Digital List”; Satlow M., Sperling M. (2020), “The Rabbinic Citation Network”; Satlow M., Sperling M. (2020). “The Rabbinic citation network”, AJS Review ; Zhitomirsky-Geffet M., Prebor G. (2019), “SageBook: toward a cross-generational social network for the Jewish sages’ prosopography”, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 34(3), pp. 676–695 ; “A graph database of scholastic relationships in the Babylonian Talmud”, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 36, Issue Supplement_2, October 2021, Pages ii277–ii289, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqab015, Published: 22 February 2021. See also Shira Shmidman, “Self-Evident Questions and Their Role in Talmudic Dialectic”, AJS Review (2023), p. 128: “Recently, I analyzed talmudic questions (that open with the phrase baʿei or beʿah minei) and discovered that by charting the questions by the generation in which they were asked, one can identify chronological trends of question asking in the Babylonian Talmud.”
[35] See Sal Khan, “Harnessing GPT-4 so that all students benefit. A nonprofit approach for equal access”, Khan Academy Blog (March 14, 2023). See especially this description: “Khanmigo [=the AI tool] engages students in back-and-forth conversation peppered with questions. It’s like a virtual Socrates, guiding students through their educational journey. Like any great tutor, Khanmigo encourages productive struggle in a supportive and engaging way.” For fun, I asked ChatGPT for a clever name for an AI chavruta/Rebbe. It gave me ten options. One of them is a great one (ChavrutAI), while three of them were hilarious ( AIvrumi; AIsh Torah; RoboRabbi). RoboRabbi could provide many of the intellectual aspects of being a rabbi: psak, eitza, questions in learning, and divrei torah.
[36] With tools like ChatGPT (content), ElevenAI (voice), D-ID (video), one can create any style of shiur. See my “Heimish High-Tech: Video in Yeshivish dialect using Generative artificial intelligence”. For training sources for the Yeshivish dialect, see my article: “From the Shtetl to the Chatbot: Some contemporary sources of Yeshivish content, in light of ChatGPT-4”.
[37] Jaffe, The Relevance of Text Structure Strategy Instruction for Talmud Study: The Effects of Reading a Talmudic Passage with a Road-Map of its Text Structure (2015). See especially ibid. Appendix E (pp. 103-104).
[38] On visualizations, see also this article, and the bibliography cited there:

יעקב אמיד, “עיצוב ייצוגים גרפיים של דיון תלמודי: תחום דעת מתחדש בהכשרת מורים להוראת תלמוד“

See also the lengthy intro of Menachem Katz to his Mahberot Menahmiyot (discussed earlier), with relevant bibliography. One good existing resource for outlines and charts for Talmud is Daf Yomi Advancement Forum – Kollel Iyun HaDaf. See Josh Waxman, “Some excellent Talmud projects out there” (cited earlier), #2. A fascinating related project is that of R’ Dr. Michael Avraham on mapping out the logic of the Talmudic sugya, using the tools and notation of modern logic. See his massive series Studies in Talmudic Logic, currently at 15 volumes. Note the surprising claim made in the abstract of vol. 14 of the series (Andrew Schumann, ed., Philosophy and History of Talmudic Logic, bolding is mine): “The Talmud introduces a specific logical hermeneutics, completely different from the Ancient Greek logic. This hermeneutics first appeared within the Babylonian legal tradition established by the Sumerians and Akkadians to interpret the first legal codes in the world and to deduce trial decisions from the codes by logical inference rules. The purpose of this book is (i) to examine the Talmudic hermeneutics from the point of view of its meaning for contemporary philosophy and logic as well as (ii) to evaluate the genesis of Talmudic hermeneutics which began with the Sumerian/Akkadian legal tradition. The logical hermeneutics of the Talmud is a part of the Oral Torah that was well expressed by the Tannaim, the first Judaic commentators of the Bible, for inferring Judaic laws from the Holy Book.”
[39] My suggestion for breaking the tzurat hadaf into sections: the pilcrow (¶). On the pilcrow, see the entertaining popular book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks (2013) by Keith Houston, chapter 1. (Available from Amazon for free as a Kindle sample.)

 Final Response

By Marc B. Shapiro

In response to Rabbi Herschel Grossman’s strong criticisms of my Limits of Orthodox Theology, I wrote four responses on the Seforim Blog. You can view them here, here, here, and here. I then stopped responding even though there are still many criticisms I could have commented on. Readers can compare Grossman’s arguments with my replies and draw their own judgment. Grossman has recently responded to my posts and offered further criticisms in an article published in Dialogue. See here.

I do not wish to respond to all of his points in his new article, but I feel I need to make some comments and then I will leave this matter and let the readers decide which side is more compelling. Because Grossman complains in his article that “the merits of the arguments are easily lost in the loose internet format and enthusiastic cheering of his online supporters,” I have decided not to allow comments to this post. I can only express my regret at the style that Grossman chose to adopt in his articles. Had he written in an appropriate fashion then it would have been possible to have had a constructive discussion and debate.

P. 161: “DIALOGUE editors offered the author, Dr. Marc Shapiro, an opportunity to respond directly in these pages. He chose instead to issue a response on his own blog, where he wrote a number of lengthy posts in his defense.”

Dialogue never offered me an opportunity to respond in the journal. The Seforim Blog is not my own blog. I am a writer on it like lots of others.

P. 162: “In his [Shapiro’s] view, the tenets of belief are Rambam’s innovations and are therefore disputable.” The word “innovation” implies that the Rambam invented the doctrines he includes in his principles. I never said such a thing.

P. 163: In giving examples of supposed distortions in my book, Grossman writes: “One example is when Shapiro cites Rivash in support of the statement that Christians believe in a three-part God while the Kabbalists believe in a ten-part God – a clear rejection of the Second Principle. A quick glance at Rivash reveals that he does indeed say such a thing as a quote from a philosopher, which he then proceeds to debunk.”

I would like readers to take a look at the relevant page of my book (p. 40) and see if what Grossman says is correct, that I cited Rivash in support of the statement that Kabbalists believe in a ten-part God.

Pp. 166-167. Readers should see my discussion here. I cite a number of sources that support what I say, and thus contrary to what Grossman states, I do not just insist on my right to offer an interpretation. In note 21 Grossman writes: “Dr. Shapiro attempts to salvage his theory by speculating that the Vilna Gaon may not have really meant what he wrote.” Readers can turn to my discussion here and will see that I never said that.

p. 173. We see here an example of how Grossman just talks past me, leading to nothing productive. I had questioned why in the Mishneh Torah the Rambam did not require that the convert be instructed in the Thirteen Principles. In his original essay, Grossman criticized this question which he said showed lack of understanding of the method of the Mishneh Torah. In my response here I cite rabbinic authorities who deal with this very question, thus showing that it is not an ignorant point, as Grossman portrayed it. One of those I cite is R. Chaim Sofer who writes [1]:

והדבר נפלא הלא יש י”ג עיקרי הדת והי’ לו לב”ד להאריך בכל השרשים

Grossman replies that while I quote R. Sofer, I neglect “to apprise [my] readers of R. Sofer’s subsequent words ‘Rambam didn’t add to the talmudic formula,’ exactly as I had written and directly in contradiction to Dr. Shapiro’s position.”

Here is the paragraph from R. Sofer.

R. Sofer says exactly what I quote him as saying. The final passage in the paragraph, which is mistranslated by Grossman, has nothing to do with my point and does not refute it in any way.

I would also note that in his fascinating Ha-Emunah ha-Ne’emanah, p. 142, R. Dovid Cohen offers an explanation as to why אין לומדים כל י”ג עקרים טרם שיתגייר הגר

P. 174. In Limits I discuss different approaches to the phenomenon of tikkun soferim. While the generally accepted approach is that tikkun soferim is not to be taken literally, I cite a number of authorities who did take it literally and assumed that Ezra or the Anshei Keneset ha-Gedolah made changes to biblical texts (including the Torah). In a later post here (which has nothing to do with Grossman), I cited some other examples of sources that understood tikkun soferim literally. One of those I mentioned is R. Pesach Finfer.[2] He states as follows:

ראוי הי‘ עזרא שתנתן התורה על ידו . . . והוא ונחמי‘ עשו תיקון סופרים וכינויי סופרים

Grossman says that it is unclear what I see in this line. What I see is that R. Finfer states that Ezra and Nehemiah were responsible for tikkunei soferim. This is the same language that is used in other sources that take the notion of tikkun soferim literally. For those who don’t take it literally, Ezra has nothing to do with tikkun soferim. Following the sentence I quoted from R. Finfer, he refers in parenthesis to Radbaz’s comment which offers a different perspective, that tikkun soferim is halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai. Here is the page.

While on the topic of tikkun soferim, let me share something else that is relevant. In Limits I mentioned that the evidence points to Rashi understanding tikkun soferim literally, namely, that the biblical text was changed by the Scribes. There was some pushback to this assertion by those could not accept that Rashi would ever hold such a position. Yet subsequent to my book, Yeshayahu Maori also came to the conclusion that Rashi understood tikkun soferim literally.[3] Furthermore, R. Avraham Pessin also explains that Rashi understands tikkun soferim literally.[4] He states that according to Rashi the Anshei Keneset ha-Gedolah had the authority to alter the text of the Torah:

ומבואר ברש”י שניתן הכח לאנשי כנסת הגדולה לשנות גם תורה שבכתב

I find this significant, because although one can point to numerous statements that such an approach in unacceptable, R. Pessin sees it as the clear meaning of Rashi (and among traditional interpreters he is not alone in this understanding[5]). Here are the pages from R. Pessin’s sefer.

Speaking of tikkun soferim, the most famous of which is Gen. 18:22: ‘ואברהם עודנו עומד לפני ה, I found something in R. Solomon Algazi’s Yavin Shemuah (Venice, 1639), p. 15a, which is fascinating and, as far as I know, unique in rabbinic literature. It is also in opposition to Maimonides’ Eighth Principle which establishes that the Torah in its entirety was delivered by God to Moses. In discussing ‘ואברהם עודנו עמוד לפני ה, R. Algazi claims that when God dictated the Torah to Moses, He said that God was standing before Abraham. But Moses on his own, out of respect for God, changed the verse to read that Abraham was standing before God. I guess we can say that this falls between the traditional view that the verse was never changed and the view that the Scribes altered the verse out of respect for God. For R. Algazi it was Moses who made the alteration, but as far as Maimonides is concerned, this is just as problematic as viewing tikkun soferim as an alteration of the Scribes. Here is R. Algazi’s surprising interpretation.

כיון דהב”ה היה אומר לו על כל מלה כתוב א”כ ודאי דהב”ה אמר לו וה’ עודנו עומד דלא איש אל ויכזב ומשה היה משנה על דרך כבוד וכותב ואברהם עודנו עומד א”כ מה שייך בזה הלכה למשה מסיני והוא על דרך המשל שדוד המלך יאמר לסופר מהי’ [מהיר] כתוב שדוד מצוה לפלוני והסופר משנה על דרך כבוד וכותב המלך דוד אבל המלך בעצמו אינו אומר כתוב המלך מצוה כך הב”ה יתעל’ לא אמר למשה שהיה סופר כתוב ואברהם עודנו עומד שהוא דרך כבוד אלא אמר לו האמת וה’ עודנו עומד ומשה שינה על דרך תיקון סופרים

Pp. 175-176. I wrote here: “Even when it comes to other basic ideas of Maimonides, which are not included as part of the Thirteen Principles, we find that scholars wondered why Maimonides did not include them in Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah.” I then cited Joseph Ibn Caspi in support of this statement. Here is the page from Amudei Kesef u-Maskiyot Kesef (Frankfurt, 1848), p. 113.

What I would add here is the interesting point that Ibn Caspi, Commentary on Guide 2:32, actually concludes that the Mishneh Torah’s formulation is in line with Maimonides’ true view, namely, that prophecy is a completely natural phenomenon which will of necessity occur if someone has both the ability and training. On the hand, he thinks that the view expressed in Guide 2:32 as being the “opinion of our Law and foundation of our doctrine”, namely, that God might prevent a prophet from prophesying, is not Maimonides’ true opinion, but is an example of the famous “seventh contradiction”.

Grossman is also mistaken when he writes, “In Moreh Nevuchim [2:32], Rambam argues—in opposition to the philosophers—that prophecy is only activated proactively by God, even if the requisite conditions are met.” Maimonides actually says the exact opposite of this. He states that the Torah view of prophecy is identical to the philosophic view except that God can choose, if He wishes, to prevent someone from prophesying even though according to nature he would be a prophet. This is the opposite of what Grossman states, that “prophecy is only activated proactively by God.”

Pp. 176-177: I stated that the notion that Maimonides changed his mind about including Reward and Punishment among the Principles was suggested by R. Solomon of Chelm. To this Grossman replies that Maimonides did not withdraw his belief in Reward and Punishment. It is just that in the Mishneh Torah he classified things differently. Again, Grossman misunderstands. I never said that Maimonides rejected the idea of Reward and Punishment. I was only referring to whether it should be included as part of the Thirteen Principles. As R. Solomon of Chelm explains, Maimonides’ later understanding is that Reward and Punishment is included as part of other principles and thus does not need to be listed separately.

Pp. 177-178. Grossman claims that I cite R. Avraham Hochman in an improper way, and in response R. Hochman states that the entire theme of his sefer “is to show that Rambam’s Principles are absolute and that he derived all of the Thirteen Principles from the Talmud.” He also is quoted as saying, “Academics often quote a question and forget that for the wise, the question is half the answer. But the professors stick to the question and don’t wait around for the answer.” Grossman then speaks of my “brazenness of citing a recognized authority to promote a position that the author himself openly rejects.”

I don’t know if R. Hochman reads English, and could see what I actually wrote, or if he only is responding to what Grossman told him. Either way, his letter, published at the end of Grossman’s article, is a complete distortion of my position. Leaving aside the particular examples that people can see, look at this characterization:

ולפי הבנה מוטעית זו שפך חמתו על הרמב“ם מנין לו לחדש הלכה שאינה במשנה . . .

Talk about describing a writer inaccurately!

And what is one to make of this statement from him?

אין שום חולק על עיקר מיסודי הדת אלא שנחלקו על מספר העיקרים

It is precisely against such a false view that I wrote my book in the first place. A typical response to the book has been that the opinions in opposition to Maimonides are “not accepted.” But here he denies that anyone actually disagrees with any of Maimonides’ principles. With such an outlook, we can’t even begin to have a dialogue.

The following paragraphs are what I quoted from R. Hochman. Nothing I quote here has any connection to what Grossman states or what R. Hochman writes in his letter responding to my supposed incorrect conclusions that I derived from his words. As the reader can see, contrary to what R. Hochman states, I mention not just his question but his answer as well. Of all of Grossman’s criticisms this one is very difficult to understand, because there is nothing at all controversial in what I write, and my summary of R. Hochman is accurate.

As for my wondering why the Principles are not listed together as a unit, which Grossman sees as an illustration of how I am unaware of the structure of the Mishneh Torah, let me begin by repeating what I wrote in my last post: R. Yaakov Nissan Rosenthal, on the very first page of his commentary Mishnat Yaakov to Sefer ha-Madda, also wonders about the point I made, that the Thirteen Principles as a unit are never mentioned in the Mishneh Torah. (Had I known this when I wrote my book, I certainly would have cited it.)

ותימא למה לא הביא הרמב“ם בספרו ה”יד החזקה” את הענין הזה של י“ג עיקרי האמונה, וצ”ע

R. Avraham Menahem Hochman writes:

מאחר וכל כך חמורה הכפירה, וגדולה החובה לדעת את י”ג העיקרים, כיצד זה השמיטם מספרו ה”יד החזקה”, ולא כתבם כפי שסדרם בפירוש המשנה

והנה אחר שהתבאר שהאמונה בי”ג העיקרים היא בסיס לתורה נשוב לשאלה הרביעית (בסוף פרק ה’) אשר לכאורה היא פליאה עצומה מדוע השמיט הרמב”ם ביד החזקה את החובה הגדולה להאמין בי”ג עיקרים, באופן חיובי, ולא סדרם כי”ג יסודי האמונה שחובה להאמין בהם

R. Hochman goes on to explain that most of the Principles are indeed mentioned in Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah in a positive sense (even if not as a unit of Thirteen Principles). He also notes the following important point, that when principles of faith are mentioned in the Talmud, they are never listed in a positive sense, that one must believe X. Rather, they are listed in a negative sense, that one who denies X has no share in the World to Come. Why Maimonides, in his Commentary on the Mishnah, chose to formulate the Principles in a positive sense and require active belief as a necessity for all Jews—something the Talmud never explicitly required—is an interesting point which we will come back to. Regarding some of the Principles the difference is clear. For example, according to the Talmud, denial of Resurrection is heresy, but one who has never heard of the Resurrection and thus does not deny it, or affirm it, is a Jew in good standing. For Maimonides, however, the doctrine of Resurrection must be positively affirmed. In a future post we can come back to which Principles even the Talmud implicitly requires positive affirmation of (obviously number 1, belief in God, but there could be others as well).

After reading these paragraphs, please look at Grossman’s article, pp. 177-178, and R. Hochman’s letter, pp. 188-191, and you will see that nothing there has any connection to what I actually say when referring to R. Hochman. I simply cite him to show that the question I asked is not an ignorant one, as Grossman stated. I also cite R. Hochman’s answer. So Grossman’s seizing on this and printing a lengthy letter from R. Hochman is nothing short of bizarre.

Pp. 178-179. Grossman writes:

Things really start to go “off the rails” when we examine Shapiro’s claim in the name of R. Shlomo Fisher, zatzal, that one need not accept Mosaic authorship, that the Rambam abandoned his principles, and that “Rambam’s formulation of the tenets of Jewish belief was far from universally accepted.”

Grossman responds that he found these attributions questionable so he checked with the family and students, and “they were horrified that anyone would be using R. Fisher’s name in this way.”

What exactly did I say that Grossman finds so objectionable? In Limits of Orthodox Theology, p, 126, I quote the following sentence from R. Bezalel Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), p. 8: “The truth, known to Torah scholars, is that Maimonides’ formulation of the tenets of Jewish belief is far from universally accepted.” R. Naor tells us that he heard this insight from his teacher, R. Shlomo Fisher. (Anyone needing any indication of the high regard that R. Fisher held R. Naor in can examine their published correspondence.)

Grossman sees this as a radical statement whose authenticity he cannot accept. I don’t think readers of this blog will find it radical at all. In fact, I have elsewhere mentioned that R. Fisher made this statement in discussing R. Judah he-Hasid’s view on the authorship of the Torah, which diverges from Maimonides’ Eighth Principle. Contrary to Grossman, in none of my posts did I quote R. Fisher as saying that one need not accept Mosaic authorship. I simply cited his view about R. Judah he-Hasid. I also quoted his opinion that medieval Ashkenazic authorities had a different view on the matter of complete Mosaic authorship than Maimonides in that they did not regard the assumption that there are post-Mosaic verses in the Torah as heretical (a view also argued by Prof. Haym Soloveitchik, see here). Grossman claims that R. Fisher could not have said this, even though students can testify to him having said it. In fact, I can state right here that I too heard him make this distinction.

The final point that Grossman can’t accept is what I mentioned in 2007 here, from a student who attended R. Fisher’s weekly shiur on Avnei Miluim. “Interestingly enough, he reported to me that a few weeks ago R. Fisher declared that he believes the Rambam abandoned his system of 13 Principles, the proof being that they are never mentioned as a unit in the Mishneh Torah. In my book, I noted that R. Shlomo Goren held the same view.” Grossman summarizes my statement as “the Rambam abandoned his principles,” which would lead the reader to think that I was saying that the Rambam no longer accepted the truth of his 13 Principles, which would indeed be a radical position. But what I was really talking about, and I refer to this approach in my book, is the notion that the Rambam no longer accepted a system of 13 Principles. This would mean that he adopted another model to categorize the essential dogmas of Judaism, or as R. Goren suggested, maybe he later advocated a conception of Jewish theology like that held by Abarbanel, that one should not distinguish between so-called principles of Judaism and other aspects of the religion, since all must be regarded as equal.

When all is said and done, nothing I have attributed to R. Fisher is strange, radical, or unbelievable. Why Grossman would be horrified by what I wrote is anyone’s guess.

Grossman quotes from a 2018 letter put out by R. Fisher (some might say, put out by his family). In the letter, R. Fisher writes that no one is to quote anything he said in matters of Aggadah and hashkafah without the approval of his sons. This was because in the past he had been misquoted. We all know that misquoting of gedolim is nothing new. There are numerous examples of particular great rabbis being quoted as saying contradictory things, and of these rabbis stating that no one should believe anything they hear in their names unless they hear it directly from the rabbi. Yet this has never stopped people from quoting the gedolim and never will. This is simply the nature of the world. 

R. Fisher gave thousands of shiurim (a tiny percentage of them are online) and there are thousands of students who heard words of Torah from him. As with all students, they have repeated, and will continue to repeat, that which they heard from the rav, just like all students do. They have been doing this for at least fifty years. If R. Fisher’s letter means what it says, that no one is to repeat things that R. Fisher said, then this is simply an impossible request, and it also seems unprecedented in Torah history. It would mean that one who listens to a shiur from him dealing with non-halakhic matters, e.g., this one here, is not allowed to repeat any insights he heard. It would also mean that much of what was mentioned at the many eulogies, where people recalled things R. Fisher said, or on sites such as this and this, is inappropriate. It would mean that students are not allowed to repeat that which they heard from their rebbe. I don’t see how this is possible.

P. 179. Here is something that is really comical. Take a look at this page.

Grossman states that I mention that Shadal (Samuel David Luzzatto) claims that Ibn Ezra believed in post-Mosaic additions to the Torah. He writes: “Upon checking the source, we find yet another instance of Dr. Shapiro citing an author as believing something he actually vociferously denies. As Shadal points out, the primary source for this take on Ibn Ezra was the noted heretic Baruch Spinoza.”

I say this is comical since Grossman doesn’t have a clue as to what is going on here. The only way I can explain this is that Grossman merely skimmed the passage and thus misread it.

Shadal rejects Spinoza who (intentionally?) misunderstood Ibn Ezra to be hinting to the notion that Moses was not the author of the Torah.[6] This misinterpretation of Ibn Ezra is what Shadal rejects (and this is not mentioned in my book because it has nothing to do with what I was discussing). However, exactly as I said, Shadal also states that Ibn Ezra believed in certain post-Mosaic additions to the Torah. Here is the page in Shadal that I cited (as well as the subsequent page) so everyone can see it with their own eyes.

Shadal’s outlook in this matter is no secret, and he repeats this point elsewhere. See e.g., Mehkerei ha-Yahadut, vol. 2, p. 195:

מה שכתב ראב”ע ברמז, היות בתורה מקראות שנוספו בה אחר כמה דורות

In Iggerot Shadal, vol. 2, p. 246, he writes:

כי סברתו שיש בתורה מקראות נוספים קשה מדעת זולתו שקצת מלות מוטעות

In my book and subsequent posts I have identified around forty medieval and more recent authorities who share Shadal’s viewpoint in this matter.[7] Incidentally, R. Joseph Kafih, in his first work written when he was seventeen years old, attacks Shadal for attributing this view to Ibn Ezra. See Sihat Dekalim (Jerusalem, 2005), p. 90.

I must also note that Grossman does not simply miss Shadal’s meaning, but he also compares me to Spinoza in trying to ensnare the unsuspecting masses. If this wasn’t so comical, I might actually take offense. But I think readers should wonder how an author could say such a thing, and how a journal could publish it. It is simply beyond belief, made all the more absurd since Grossman is so mistaken about what Shadal actually states.

Incidentally, since we are talking about Shadal, it is worth noting that R. Elijah Benamozegh, whose commentaries on the Torah continuously dispute with Shadal, when it comes to Ibn Ezra and post-Mosaic additions, Benamozegh has the same position as Shadal. Here is what he writes in Ha-Levanon, July 3, 1872, p. 351, now easily available in the new edition of Em la-Mikra: Bereshit (Haifa, 2021), p. 114:

בראש ספר דברים ובמקומות אחרים רומז בעיניו מולל באצבעותיו ועל דלתות השער יתאו לרמוז שיש דברים בתורה נוספים ולא משה כתבם רק נביאים וצופים. ואני הפרתי את עצתו וקלקלתי את מחשבתו

P. 181. “Shapiro’s weakest scholarship appears when discussing kabbalistic matters.” I agree, which is why I try not to discuss these matters. If I do have to deal with them, I only rely on what recognized authorities have said,

P. 182. I wrote that according to Maimonides’ Seventh Principle, Moses was the greatest prophet who ever lived and there will never be a prophet as great as him in the future. Grossman says that I am mistaken, and that Maimonides does not declare that Moses was the greatest prophet, only that he was the “father of all prophets.” This statement is astounding. There are hundreds of discussions of the Seventh Principle in traditional rabbinic literature, and as far as I know they all agree with what I have written. The entire basis of the Seventh Principle is that Moses was greater than all other prophets. Maimonides states explicitly in the principle that “All are below him in rank . . . He reached a greater understanding of God than any man who ever existed or will ever exist.” This is so obvious that I do not want to spend any more time on it. It is only a mystery how Grossman could say something so wrong, and I do not know of anyone else who has ever written on this principle and made such a mistake (which Maimonides regards as heresy). Did no one from the editorial board of Dialogue read the article before publication? It is nothing short of incredible that an issue of Dialogue includes the false claim that there is no principle of faith to believe that Moses was the greatest prophet in Jewish history.

In addition to his explicit assertion that Moses was the greatest prophet, Maimonides does have an interesting formulation, stating that Moses is the father of all the prophets who preceded him and all who came after him. How can one be the “father” of those who came before him? R. Hayyim Dov Moshe Halpern explains it well[8]:

“אב” הכונה במעלה ולכן שייך לומר שהוא אב גם למי שקדם לו

Here are some passages from other authors whose books are found in my library. They all explain the principle correctly.

R. Yochanan Meir Bechhoffer writes[9]:

רבינו השווה את האמונה בעליונות משה רבינו על הנביאים הקודמים לו, לאמונה בעליונותו של הבאים אחריו. ואף כי אמת היא, שכך נחתמת התורה, לא קם כמשה וגו’, מ”מ יש לעיין מה הצורך בזה. נהי דהמאמין שאחר משה בא נביא גדול ממנו שיכול לבטל דבריו, כפר בנבואת משה, אך מה הסתירה לנבואת משה בחשבה שמי שקדם לו היתה גדול ממנו, הלוא הנביא הקדום לא יחדש דבר על פני משה

R. Ben Zion Epstein writes[10]:

ולכן נתנה למשה דוקא, כי היה דבוק כולו באין סוף ב”ה. ולכן היתה מדרגת נבואתו גדולה מכל הנביאים, ושכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו.

R. Avraham Menachem Hochman’s heading to his discussion of the Seventh Principle reads[11]:

להאמין בנבואת משה רבינו שהוא למעלה מכל הנביאים שהיו לפניו ולאחריו

And to mention one classic text (I could mention many more), R. Elchanan Wasserman writes[12]:

והנה בעיקרי הדת שמנה הרמב”ם בפירוש המשניות (פרק חלק) מנה שם עיקר אחד שכל דברי נביאים אמת, ועוד עיקר אחר שנבואת מהרע”ה היתה למעלה מנבואת כל הנביאים

R. Yaakov Weinberg in his Fundamentals and Faith, pp. 73ff. elaborates on Moses’ “prophetic superiority” (p. 81)

And finally, R. Yehudah Meir Keilson’s new edition of Kisvei ha-Rambam (which I encourage everyone to acquire), affirms my point (which as mentioned, is simply what Maimonides himself explicitly says, so it is not a question of how to interpret him).

Keilson, p. 82: “The Seventh Principle teaches that the nature of Moshe’s prophecy is unparalleled. . . . Rambam elaborates on Moshe’s prophetic superiority, which was the result of his moral and intellectual perfection.”

Keilson, p. 82 n. 1. “The title ‘father of all the prophets’ . . . Rambam takes this to refer to Moshe’s superiority in prophecy to that of all other prophets.”

Keilson, p. 154: “Rambam uses the expression that Moshe was the ‘father of all prophets’ to signify that he was the greatest of all prophets – that the level of his prophecy was superior to that of any prophet who ever was or who ever will be.”

Pp. 184-185. None of this makes any sense, and what Prof. Menachem Kellner writes has no relevance what I was referring to. I asked a simple question, which I later found that others asked as well (see here): Why does the Rambam not specify that future converts are to be instructed in the 13 Principles?

Coming next: Reviews of books by Benji Levy and Eitam Henkin, and an unknown article by R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

* * * * * * *

הוא האיש אשר שם את הרמב”ם סיר רחצו, ועל הראב”ע השליך נעלו

The Porto family: Eminent Sages, Scholars, and Prolific Seventeenth Century Authors

by Marvin J. Heller[1]

Among the illustrious families that have contributed to and enriched Jewish culture and history is the Porto (Rapa) family, comprised of sages and authors over the centuries. Known for their scholarship and valuable works, they also served in rabbinic positions in various locations. Originally from Lublin, the family came to Italy via Germany, settling in Porto in the vicinity of Verona. The family name Rapa stems from the German (Rappe in Middle High German), for raven. Rappoport is a combination of the Rapa, with Porto, done to distinguish this branch of the family from other Rapa branches. The Italian branch, our subject, providing eminent rabbis who authored distinguished works and served in the rabbinate in several cities in Italy.[2]

This article addresses the lives and works of several eminent members of the Porto family in the seventeenth century, describing a number of their diverse works. Entries are arranged chronologically.[3] A small number of Porto (Rapa) titles precede the works addressed in this article, also printed elsewhere. Among them are Kol Simhah (Prostitz, 1602) by R. Simhah ben Gershon Kohen, of Porto Rapa, on Shabbat zemirot; several editions of the Yalkut Shimonei with marginal annotations attributed to R. Menahem ha-Kohen Porto (Venice, 1566, Cracow, 1595-96, and Frankfort on the Main, 1687).[4] R. Abraham Menahem ben Jacob ha-Kohen Rapa mi-Porto (Rapaport)’s works, that is, the Minhah Belulah and Zafenat Pane’ah, are, as noted elsewhere, not addressed in this article, as having been described independently.

1608 Moses ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa (Rapaport) – Our first Porto family publication is a compilation of responsa by R. Moses ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa (Rapaport, d. 1624) concerning the prohibition by rabbis of the use of the mikveh in Rovigo. Moses ben Jehiel served from 1602 as rabbi of Badia Polesine in Piedmont, and afterwards as rabbi of Rovigo.

The dispute, a cause célèbre, concerned a mikveh built in 1594 by R. Jekuthiel Consiglio, then rabbi in Rovigo, in his home. Unable to obtain spring water, Consiglio dug a well and drew water with a pail, a halakhicly invalid procedure, as a mikveh requires free-flowing not drawn water. To resolve the problem, Consiglio used a pail with holes large enough to negate its status as a vessel. The mikveh’s validity depended upon whether the water passing through the bucket with holes was considered either drawn or pumped, thereby invalidating the mikveh.

After ten years possession of the house passed to R. Avtaylon Consiglio, Jekuthiel Consiglio’s older brother.[5] Among the first to invalidate the mikveh Avtaylon Consiglio, who upon studying the matter, found his brother’s position too lenient, the holes in the pail being too small to justify the leniency. Jekuthiel, however, found support for the halakhic appropriateness of his mikveh from several prominent rabbis from Venice. The dispute was widespread, in Italy prominent rabbis, such as R. Ezra of Fano, R. Moses Menachem Rapo, and R. Moses Cohen Porto, as well as R. Moses Mordecai Margalioth of Cracow responded. The dispute even extended to Prague and Safed, Eretz Israel, the respondent in the latter location there including R. Israel Galante in Safed.[6]

1608, Palgei Mayyim
Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

Three books are devoted to the subject of the Rovigo mikveh, namely Miḳveh Yisrael (Venice, 1607) by R. Judah ben Moses Saltero of Fano, Palgei Mayim (1608) by R. Moses ben Jehiel, both opposed to the mikveh, and Mashbit Milḥamot (Venice, 1606) by R. Isaac Gershon, this last in support of Jekuthiel Consiglio and his mikveh.

The title of interest to us is Moses ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa (Rapaport)’s Palgei Mayim. It was, in manuscript, initially entitled Milhamot ha-Shem but was renamed. Palgei Mayim was published by Zoan (Giovanni) di Gara in quarto format (4⁰: 78,[38\, [2] ff.) in the month of Shevat שסח (368 = January-February 1608). The title-page, which has a pillared frame, informs that it is responsa from rabbis from both Italy and elsewhere. The title-page is followed by Moses ben Jehiel’s introduction in which he informs that he has entitled this work Palgei Mayim (“rivers of water,” var. cit.) for a river of knowledge of Torah goes out of Eden. Moses ben Jehiel’s purpose in writing Palgei Mayim was to”

To defend the sage who prohibits [the mikveh] and all of us who agree with him, for this is our sole intention: to divert slanderous remarks from him, and if we do not succeed in getting people to stay away from the mikveh as we wished to do, what matter? At least we will have saved our souls.

Next is a lengthy forward preceded by a head-piece with several figurines which reappears towards the end of the book as a tail-piece (below). The text begins with a responsum from Avtalyon Consiglio, followed by a responsum from R. Ben Zion Zarfati, continuing with additional responsa.

Palgei Mayim is a compilation of the responsa of the rabbis who prohibited the use of the mikveh, quoting twenty-eight opinions in support of Porto’s position, followed by Mish’an Mayim, which is a refutation of the rejoinder of the opposition. As noted above, Porto originally intended to entitle Palgei Mayim Milhamot Ha-Shem (Wars of the Lord, Numbers 21:14) but, as he writes, reconsidered doing so to avoid creating a more combative environment. A collateral effect of this and other disputes at this time, which involved numerous rabbis, according to Robert Bonfil, was to weaken the authority of the rabbis involved.[7]

This is the only edition of Palgei Mayim, R. Moses ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa‘s (Rapaport) only published work. (Seforim Blog editor’s note: Palgei Mayim and the other works mentioned about the Rovigo mikveh controversy was recently reprinted by Mechon Zichron Aron in their two-volume set Geonei Padua (2014).

1627 R. Menahem Zion (Emanuel) Porto Kohen Rappa – Our next member of the Porto (Rapaport) family, R. Menahem Zion (Emanuel) Porto Kohen Rappa was born in Trieste towards the end of the sixteenth century, serving there as chief rabbi, subsequently holding a similar position in Padua, where he died in about 1660. A multifaceted individual, Menahem Zion (Emanuel) Porto, a mathematician and astronomer, authored a variety of books encompassing several fields. His works on those subjects were highly regarded. Indeed, he was praised for his works by Italian scholars such as the mathematician and astrologer Andrea Argoli; and by Tomaso Ercaloni and Benedetto Luzzatto for his sonnets. Menahem Zion was recommended, in 1641, by Gaspard Scüppius, editor of the Mercurius Quadralinguis, to the renowned Protestant Christian-Hebraist Johannes Buxtorf (the younger), with whom Porto later carried on an active correspondence.[8]

1627, Over la-Soher,
Courtesy of Virtual Judaica

Over la-Soher, a treatise on mathematics, is Menahem Zion’s primary, best known Hebrew title. It was published in 1627 as a quarto (4⁰: 22 ff.) at the press of Pietro, Aluise, and Lorenzo Bragadin. The title is from Abraham’s purchase of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite, concluding, “money current among the merchants (over la-soher)” (Genesis 23:16). The title-page has a pillared frame and simply states that it is a sefer ha-mispar (book of numbers).

The verso of the title page has verse encouraging purchase of the book, beginning, “hasten to acquire Sefer ha-Mispar, look into it . . .,” followed by Porto’s introduction (2a-3a) in square letters, extolling the great benefit and practical value of the subject matter and mentioning predecessors, particularly R. Elijah Mizrahi’s (c. 1450–1526) Sefer ha-Mispar, a deep and difficult work. However, Porto, while being concise, has added to and made his book more accessible to the reader. Having dealt extensively with merchants, Menahem Zion has entitled this book Over la-Soher. Finally, Porto greatly praises his patron R. Abraham ben Mordecai Ottiniger. There is a second introduction (3a-b) from R. Gershom ben Kalonymous Hefez, a student of Porto, who was responsible for publishing Over la-Soher.

The text follows in a single column in rabbinic type. Over la-Soher is divided into twelve chapters, dealing with practical arithmetic, multiplication, divisions and fractions. Numerous examples are given in Hebrew rather than Arabic numerals. This is the only edition of Over la-Soher.

Porto’s Italian works include Porto Astronomico (Padua, 1636); Breve Istituzione della Geographia (Padua, 1636); and Diplomologia, Qua Duo Scripturæ Miracula de Regressu Solis Tempore Hiskiæ et Ejus Immobilitate Tempore Josuæ Declarantur (Padua, 1643) reportedly translated into Hebrew by Porto and into Latin by Lorenzo Dalnaki.[9] Diplomologia, Qua Duo Scripturæ is dedicated to the emperor Ferdinand III. Originally written in Italian, it was translated by the author himself into Hebrew, who then sent it to Lorenzo Dalnaki of Transylvania who translated it into Latin.

Porto Astronomico di Emanuel Porto Rabbi Hebreo di Trieste (Padua, 1636), [10] is dedicated to Count Benvenuto Petazzo. In contrast to the favorable comments noted above, Cecil Roth is dismissive of this work, writing “The Porto Astronomico . . . is unimportant save as a curiosity.” Concerning Menahem Zion’s other books, Roth includes them in the category of “popularizing works” which “were published and seem to have achieved a measure of success.”[11]

 

 

1636, Porto Astronomico
Courtesy of Google Books

1628 Abraham ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto – A scholar of distinction, R. Abraham ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto, was active at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He resided in Cremona and Mantua, and afterwards in Verona. He studied under relatives and appears to have served as rabbi in Verona. Abraham Porto was the author of several works, most notably Havvot Ya’ir, rabbinic epigrams as well as several other works, still extant in manuscript.

Havvot Ya’ir, an alphabetical collection of Hebrew words with their cabalistic explanations, was published in 1628 in Venice at the Bragadin press by Pietro, Aluise, and Lorenzo Bragadin in quarto format (4⁰: 40 ff.). The title-page is dated in a straightforward manner, as שפח (388 = 1688), but the chronogram in verse at the end of the book provides a completion date of Rosh Hodesh Sivan [5]388 (Friday, June 2, 1628). The text is enclosed by a pillared architectural frame and states that it is an appetizer based on the sayings of our sages “‘His speech shall flow as the dew’ (cf. Deuteronomy 32:2) for from one word shall come forth, flourish, and shine many words for the honor of ‘the desirable of the young men” (cf. Ezekiel 23:6, 12, 23) such as R. Samuel Hayyim Bassan of Verona, a student of R. Samuel Meldola.”

There is a dedication to “the desirable of the young men,” R. Samuel Hayyim ben Mordecai Bassan of Verona (2a) which concludes with lines of verse. Abraham Menahem’s introduction follows, in which he gives two further reasons for entitling the book Havvot Ya’ir. Firstly, as the villages provide provision for the large cities (Megillah 2b) so this small work will much illuminate and enthuse great rabbis to remember and briefly speak the words of our sages. Also, as one that does not have children, so is his “soul abased and languishes, this is my generations before the Lord.”[12] Abraham Menahem writes that the book is called,

Havvot Ya’ir to enlighten להאיר and to inflame the hearts of choice students such as yourself (Bassan) in the way of our sages, as to why the Torah is called “Etz Hayyim (tree of life)”, (Proverbs 3:18, 11:30, 15:4), for as the small trees ignite the larger ones so too my friend, the young ignite and inflame the hearts of those who are older, “He will magnify the Torah, and make it glorious” (Isaiah 42:21).

1628, Havvot Ya’ir, Venice
Courtesy of Virtual Judaica

There is an approbation from R. Judah Aryeh (Leone) Modena, R. Simhah Luzatto, and R. Nehemiah ben Leib Sarival. The text, assembled from the beginnings of his speeches, follows in a single column in rabbinic type.

Example of entries, which are arranged alphabetically, are כ kaf: beginning karpas, yahaz כרפס יחץ, the initial letters are כי for “For כי, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon you” (Isaiah 60:2). The Patriarchs are an omen for their offspring. Jacob “divided ויחץ the children” Genesis 33:1). צ Tzadi:צחק “God has made me laugh “ (Genesis 21:6), and according to R. Pollack, Sarah said that she trusts that her offspring will be Talmudic scholars who will be experts in צ zizit and the ties of tefillin. This is the only edition of Abraham ben Jehiel Porto’s Havvot Ya’ir.

Among Abraham ben Jehiel ha-Kohen Porto’s other works are Gat Rimmon, a book of verse; Shimmush Avraham, a commentary on the Torah (below); and Hasdei David on the Psalms, all unpublished. He also wrote responsa, several published in the responsa of his contemporaries. Abraham’s brother was R. Moses ben Jehiel Porto-Rafa (Rapoport, d. 1624), and our Abraham also edited and printed the Minḥah Belulah (Verona, 1594) of R. Abraham Menahem ben Jacob ha-Kohen Rapa mi-Porto (Rapaport), a kinsman.

Shimush Avraham
Courtesy of the Russian State Library

1675 Zechariah ben Ephraim Porto: – This Porto, a seventeenth century Italian scholar, was noted for his learning and still more for his other virtues. A native, resident of Urbino, R. Zechariah ben Ephraim Porto (d. 1672) also resided in Florence and Rome, where, in the latter location, he officiated as rabbi, although he modestly refused to assume that title. Zechariah ben Ephraim was also a philanthropist; in his will, Zechariah Porto, who was childless, left all of his wealth for communal bequests for Talmud Torahs, dowries, and support of communities in Eretz Israel. His extensive library was dedicated to the Talmud Torah in Rome.

Zechariah Porto was the author of Asaf ha-Mazkir, a work containing a list of all the explanations and comments found in the Ein Ya’aḳov, R. Jacob ben Solomon ibn Habib’s popular and much reprinted collection of the aggadic passages of the Talmud. Zechariah Porto would not publish his book; it was printed after his death by the Roman community (Venice, 1688; according to Zedner, 1675).[13]

The title-page of Asaf ha-Mazkir has images of Moses and Aaron on the sides, cherubim above holding the tablets with the ten commandments, and at the bottom additional imagery. It is dated with the chronogram “It is ‘Asaph the recorder (Asaf ha-Mazkir) אסף המזכיר’ הוא (435 = 1675)” (II Kings 18:18, 37; Isaiah 36: 3, 22). Asaf ha-Mazkir was printed at the Bragadin press by Domenico Vedelago in quarto format (4⁰: [4], 400 ff.).

The title page of Asaf ha-Mazkir has the Bragadin frame with Moses and Aaron, and a brief text that simply states Porto’s name and that it is being published for the public good.[14] It is dated, “He is ‘Asaph the recorder’ אסף המזכיר הוא (435 = 1675)” (II Kings 18:18, 37, Isaiah 36:3, 22). The colophon dates conclusion of the work to Tuesday, 13 Adar, “relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place ממקום אחר (435 = March 11, 1675)” (Esther 4:14), which in fact was a Monday that year.

1675, Asaf ha-Mazkir
Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

The title page is followed by the introduction of the Talmud Torah, which praises Porto’s piety, charity, and many other fine qualities; verse, also praising Porto and his work, beginning, “The wage of the righteous” (Proverbs 10:16, 18:11); and the introduction of R. Moses ben Jacob Levi from Vienna, the editor. He writes in the same vein, but adds that he should not be held responsible for errors for work was done on Shabbat by gentiles which could not be corrected.[15] He too concludes with verse. Next is the Italian Noi Reformatori dello Studio di Padoa, dated 11. Marzo 1675 and signed Gio: Battista Nicolosi Segret.

1675, Asaf ha-Mazkir
Courtesy of the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad Ohel Yosef Yitzhak

The text of Asaf ha-Mazkir is set in two columns, headers and text from the Ein Ya’akov in square letters, sources in rabbinic type. Tractate names are in a decorative frame, chapters in bold letters. Entries consist of the statement in the Ein Ya’akov, followed by sources addressing those statements. An example of an entry is the last chapter of Kiddushin 82a,

One should always teach his son a clean and easy trade, etc.

Lehem Shelomo no. 366 109 f. amud a.

Tosfot Yom Tov ch. 4 195 f. amud b

This is the only independent edition of Asaf ha-Mazkir, Zechariah ben Ephraim Porto’s only published work. It was included in later editions of the Ein Ya’akov, beginning with the Amsterdam (1725-26) edition. As Eli Genauer noted, “It was included in later editions of the Ein Ya’akov, beginning with the Amsterdam (1725-26) edition.)  An example of something like this is Chochmas Shlomo which was printed a few times and then never again because it made it to the back of the Vilna Shas underneath the Maharsha. So even though it was only published independently three times, it was published dozens of times onward by being in the back of the Vilna Shas.”

1619 Allegro Porto – The most unusual entry in our collection of seventeenth century Porto imprints is Allegro Porto’s Nuevo Musiche, a collection of secular madrigals. This, our last Porto entry, is not in our chronological order, nor is it part of our description of the Hebrew works by members of the Porto family. It is included, however, assuming that Allegro Porto was a member of the extended Porto family, in order to show the great diversity and productivity, even outside of our subject area of Hebrew imprints, of the family’s accomplishments.

A madrigal is an elaborate multi-part song for several voices, without instrumental accompaniment. It is a genre popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Allegro Porto published Nuevo Musiche in 1619, followed by two collections of madrigals in 1622 and 1625, one lacking a title-page.[16] Shlomo Simonsohn credits Allegro (Simha) Porto with four collections of songs, but enumerates three only, all printed in Venice, Nuove Musiche, (1619), Madrigali a cinque voci (1625), and Madrigali a tre voci, libro primo (1619).[17]

Cecil Roth informs that although singers and instrumentalists were active elsewhere in Italy, it was in Mantua only that there was a “sequence of Jewish composers who published their works.” Among them was Allegro Porto whom Roth describes as prolific. His writings, according to Roth, also include four works, two collections of madrigals for five verses being published in 1625, one being dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, the daughter of the Duke of Mantua being his empress, Simonsohnn describes her, Eleanora Gonzaga, as the sister of the Dukes Francesco II, Ferdinando and Vincenzo II. Among Porto’s madrigals was a collection in the new style (Nuevo Musiche, 1619), this dedicated to Count Alfonso de Porzia, chamberlain to the Duke of Bavaria. Another collection of Porto’s madrigals, this for three voices “‘with some arias and a romanesque dialogue’ (the first part alone is recorded, but perhaps there were others), published first in 1619, was reissued in the nineteenth century.[18]

No image accompanies this entry, in comparison to the other book descriptions; it was not possible to find an image of Porto’s Nuevo Musiche. The reason is its great rarity, for as Roth explains “Musical publications of this age are prodigiously rare, many surviving in only a single copy – others perhaps were less fortunate, so that to state dogmatically that certain compositions were unpublished is hazardous.” He notes that in the famed musical collection of King João of Portugal, assembled in the late eighteenth century, destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, were four works by Allegro Porto.

Finale: the Porto family in the seventeenth centuries: – The various branches and members of the Porto family in the seventeenth century provided the Jewish communities of Italy, and by extension, world Jewry, with several distinguished rabbis and authors, their diverse works encompassing Torah commentary, responsa, mathematics, astronomy, kabbalistic linguistics, Aggadah, and even musical compositions. Their books, despite their value, were, with exception, published once only, in single editions. Given that these works are viewed positively, it is unfortunate that they were not republished or are not better known. Perchance, the very diversity of these Porto publications, represent the eclectic views of Renaissance Italy. They are a rich contribution to Jewish literature, representing the contributions of the seventeenth Porto family to the Jewish society of that period and to our times as well.

[1] I would like to express my appreciation to Eli Genauer for reading the article and his several comments, in particular for his observation on the editions of Asaf ha-Mazkir.
[2] This is a companion article to a previous article on a single distinguished Porto, R. Abraham Menahem ben Jacob ha-Kohen Rapa mi-Porto (Rapaport) and his works, the Minhah Belulah and Zafenat Pane’ah. Concerning that article see Marvin J. Heller, “Abraham Menahem ben Jacob ha-Kohen Rapa mi-Porto (Rapaport) Ashkenazi: A Renaissance Rabbi of interest” Seforim.blogspot.com (March 17, 2021).
[3] Several of the background descriptions of Porto family are from Richard Gottheil, Isaac Broydé, and Ismar Elbogen, “Porto,” Jewish Encyclopedia X (1901-06), pp. 133-34 and Shimon Vanunu, Encyclopedia le-Hachmah Italia (Jerusalem, 2018), var. cit.
[4] The Yalkut Shimoni entries are from the book descriptions in the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad Ohel Yosef Yitzhak library catalogue.
[5] Shmuel Glick, Kuntress ha-Teshuvot he-Hadash: A Bibliographic Thesaurus of Responsa Literature published from ca. 1470-2000 (Jerusalem & Ramat Gan, 2006-07) II, pp. 839-40 no. 2982 [Hebrew].
[6] A. M. Habermann, Giovanni Di Gara: Printer, Venice 1564-1610. ed. Y. Yudlov (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 123-25 no. 257 [Hebrew]; Carmilly-Weinberger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History, pp. 160-61; Avraham Yaari, Unknown Documents concerning the dispute in Rovigo,” Studies in Hebrew Booklore (Jerusalem, 1959), pp. 420-29 [Hebrew].
[7] Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, translated by Jonathan Chipman (London, Washington, 1993), pp. 107-08.
[8] Gottheil, Broydé, Elbogen, op. cit.
[9] Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi,. Dictionary of Hebrew Authors (Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle Loro Opere), ed. Marvin J. Heller, (Lewiston, 1999), p. 157
[10] Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (New York, 1959), pp. 235-36; Meyer Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature: From the Twelfth Century to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century II (New York, 1933, reprint 1960), p. 487.
[11] Cecil Roth, op cit, p. 236.
[12] Meir Benayahu, “The Caleon Press” Asufot XIII (Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 194-95 [Hebrew].
[13]  Ḥananel Nepi, Mordecai Samuel Ghirondi, Toledot Gedolei Yisrael (Trieste, 1853), p. 99 [Hebrew]; Joseph Zedner, Catalogue of the Hebrew books in the library of the British Museum (London, 1867), p. 788.
[14] Concerning the appearance of Moses and Aaron on the title-pages of Hebrew books see Dan Rabinowitz, “Aaron the Jewish Bishop,” ” Seforim.blogspot.com April 12, 2016).
[15] Concerning work done on Shabbat see Marvin J. Heller, “And the Work, the Work of Heaven, was Performed on Shabbat,” The Torah u-Maddah Journal 11 (New York, 2002-03), pp. 174-85, reprinted in Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2008), pp. 266-77.
[16] Willi Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, 1969), p. 446.
[17] Shlomo Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (Jerusalem, 1977), p. 676.
[18] Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (1959, reprint New York, 1965), pp. 286-87.

New Book Announcement: Mesoras Torah Sheba’al Peh by Harav Professor Shlomo Zalman Havlin

By Eliezer Brodt

ר‘ שלמה זלמן הבלין, מסורת התורה שבעל פה, יסודותיה, עקרונותיה והגדרותיה ב–ג [ב‘ חלקים], 1048 עמודים

I am very happy to announce the recent publication of an important two-volume work, which will be of great interest to readers of the Seforim Blog. Mesoras Torah Sheba’al Peh by Harav Professor Shlomo Zalman Havlin, of Bar-Ilan University’s Talmud department.

There are various “agendas” in the following post:

The first: to further the Seforim Blog’s mission to inform its readership of new works and furnish them with a descriptive review; case in point these two incredible new volumes recently published.

Second: making some of the seforim mentioned and reviewed here available for sale; the proceeds help support the Seforim Blog.

Professor Havlin is one of the more prolific writers in the Jewish academic scene, having authored hundreds of articles and edited and published numerous seforim.

His articles cover an incredibly wide range of subjects in many areas of Jewish Studies; Geonim, Rishonim and Achronim as well as Bibliography, to name but a few. It is hard to define his area of expertise, as in every area he writes about he appears to be an expert!

He also served as chief editor of Bar Ilan University’s bibliographical journal, Alei Sefer for many years; in this capacity he also wrote numerous short but immensely insightful book reviews.

Over his career, RSZ Havlin devoted a lot of time and energy studying and analyzing various important Rishonim. Of note is the Rashba, he expended immense energy in publishing numerous manuscripts alongside his own in-depth essays regarding them. These were collected a few years back and published in two volumes by Mechon Even Yisroel.

He has edited and printed from manuscript works of Rishonim and Achronim, being firmly of the opinion, contrary to that of some other academics, that there is nothing non-academic about publishing critical editions of important manuscript texts.

His uniqueness lies not only in the topics he has taken up, but also in that his work has appeared in all types of publications running the gamut from academic journals such as Kiryat Sefer, Sidra, Alei Sefer as well as many prominent Charedi rabbinic journals such a Yeshurun, Moriah and others.

Another point unique to Havlin’s writings, besides his familiarity with all the academic sources, is that he shows prodigious familiarity with all the classic sources from Chazal, Geonim, Rishonim and Achronim, to even the most recent discussions in Charedi literature – this bekius was apparent well before the advent of search engines such as Bar-Ilan’s Responsa Project, Hebrew Books and Otzar Ha-hochmah. Alongside all this is his penetrating analysis and ability to raise interesting points.

A few years ago, my dear friend Menachem Butler made available dozens of RSZ Havlin’s publications online at his academia page available here.

About ten years ago, he published volume one of his writings, which contained fifteen chapters spanning from Chazal all the way until the Chazon Ish.

At the time, Professor Havlin mentioned to me that he hopes that he will find the strength and funding to publish the rest of his material. Over the years I reached out to him about it and he said he had no luck finding funding. To my great surprise, a few months ago he reached out to me and sent me the Table of Contents, saying the work has been finally published.

As one can see from the Table below, lots of material is devoted to the Rambam – to whom Havlin has devoted years researching all aspects of his writings from the manuscript to early printings. At one point, he published under Mechon Ofek the “Sefer Mugah (Authorized Copy) of the Rambam’s Yad and included an incredible introduction. This classic essay is included in this new collection alongside numerous essays of his on the Rambam many of which have also become classics.

These volumes have other important essays on Rishonim; included are his lengthy introductions to the Meiri’s Seder Kabbalah and his work on Avos, both of which he published critical, annotated editions through Mechon Ofek a few years back.

Some other essays in these volumes worth pointing out are his excellent introduction to the set Torasan Shel Geonim (published by Vagshal), and his essay on the authorship of the Kol Bo and Orchos Chaim.

There are also very important essays starting with the earliest Achronim to various essays on the Chazon Ish; sandwiched between are important essays on the Gra and others. One essay I enjoyed learning through a few times is his material on R’ Yechiel Ashkenazi from the time of the Rama. Another important essay of his which I enjoyed and use often is on Pilpul which was based on a talk in Harvard he gave many years ago.

There are also various book reviews of editions of seforim (some are rather sharp) all worth learning through carefully.

There is much more to say about the materials and essays in these two volumes but time is short.

Some of the essays were updated with new material or corrections from when they were published the first time.

Two minor complaints I would like to voice, one is there is no index to these works which makes it impossible to maximize all the nuggets all over in his various tangents. I imagine the reason for this is because indices costs lots of money to produce and the raising of funds for the publication was long, tedious and painful as it is so no index was included.

Another complaint which I have not come up with a good defense for is not every article has the original publication information included in the beginning of the chapter or at the end of the volumes. I imagine this too had to do with the budget.

Be that as it may, these two small complaints are negligible; these incredible volumes are worth owning and learning through carefully to gain from the research and discoveries of Havlin of over fifty years of learning.

I am the distributor of this work and I am selling copies of this work (currently it is not for sale anywhere else), so for more information about ordering\purchasing this work, contact me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com

Here are the Table of Contents of the book:

Vol. I:

Vol. II:

New Seforim Lists, Seforim Sale, Highlights of the Mossad HaRav Kook Sale & Beta Version of My New Podcast Musings of Book Collector

By Eliezer Brodt

The post hopes to serve three purposes. The first section lists some new interesting seforim and thereby making the Seforim Blog readership aware of their recent publication. Second, to make these works available for purchase for those interested. Third, the last part of the list are some harder to find books, for sale. (This is a continuation of this post.)

Note: Some items are only available at these prices for the next 3 days.

Part of the proceeds will be going to support the efforts of the Seforim Blog. Contact me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com for more information about purchasing or for sample pages of some of these new works.

In addition, this post features some highlights of the Mossad HaRav Kook Sale.

As I have written in the past:

For over thirty years, beginning on Isru Chag of Pesach, Mossad HaRav Kook publishing house has made a big sale on all of their publications, dropping prices considerably (some books are marked as low as 65% off). Each year they print around twenty new titles and introduce them at this time. They also reprint some of their older, out of print titles. Some years important works are printed; others not as much. See here, here, here and here, for review’s, of previous year’s titles.

If you’re interested in a PDF of their complete catalog, email me at eliezerbrodt@gmail.com

As in previous years I am offering a service, for a small fee, to help one purchase seforim from this sale. For more information, email me at Eliezerbrodt-at-gmail.com.

Part of the proceeds will be going to support the efforts of the Seforim Blog.

The last day of the sale is, April 21. Orders for the sale need to be sent in by this Thursday morning.

Finally: Last night I recorded a beta version of a possible new podcast series called Musings of Book Collector. The first episode is about some of the recent seforim mentioned in this post. Based on feedback I will see if I will continue, try to improve the quality and style. If you wish to hear the episode, send me an email and I will send you the recording.

ספרים חדשים

1. שיעורי הגרי”ש זילברמן במסכת אבות, 372 עמודים

2. מחזור שפתי רננות לחג הפסח, מהדיר ר’ משה רוזנווסר, בהוצאת מכון מורשת אשכנז

3. מחזור ויטרי, חלקים ד-ו, השלמת הסדרה [פרקי אבות, סדר תנאים ואמוראים, מסכת סופרים, ועוד דברים חשובים]

4. ר’ יהודה זייבלד, בעל העקידה, רבי יצחק עראמה, תולדותיו, מפעלותיו משנתו, [מצוין], 763 עמודים, [ניתן לקבל דפי דוגמא]

5. קבץ על יד, כרך כח, הוצאת מקיצי נרדמים

6. שלמה גליקסברג, פנקסי קהילות אשכנזיות באיטליה מן המאה הי”ח, מקיצי נרדמים

7.   החסיד יעבץ, על מסכת אבות, על פי כ”י, מכון שלמה אומן, [ניתן לקבל דפי דוגמא]

8. מגיד מישרים למרן הבית יוסף, כולל מבוא ומפתחות על פי כתב ידות, אהבת שלום, מבוא 131+ תשלא עמודי  [מצוין]

9. מדרש רבה, במדבר, מהדיר: פרופ’ חננאל מאק

10. ילקוט מדרשים, חלק י, מדרשי עשרות הדברות [ניתן לקבל תוכן]

11. מנהגים לבעל הפרי מגדים, נועם מגדים, [ניתן לקבל דפי דוגמא]

12. דרישת הזאב על ששה סדרי משנה, לר’ זאב וואלף ממאהלוב, מהדיר: ר’ שלום דזשייקאב, 21+קעט עמודים

13. ר’ יהודה לירמה, לחם יהודה על מסכת אבות [נדפס לראשונה שי”ג], מכון אהבת שלום

14. אוצר הגאונים, נדה, הרב זייני

15. ר’ שמואל פרימו, דרשות אמרי שפר, אהבת שלום

16.  גן המלך, פירושי זוהר לר’ נפתלי הרץ בכרך

17. ר’ אליהו גוטמכר, סוכת שלם, מכתב אליהו, [מצוין], מהדורה שלישית

18. יומן ליוורנו ד’ – החיד”א, מכתב יד

19. ר’ שלמה יוסף זווין, סופרים וספרים, ג’ חלקים [מהדורה חדשה]

20. יוחאי מקבילי, טהרה תודעה וחברה, תפיסת הטומאה והטהרה במשנת הרמב”ם

21. י’ קושטר, מילים ותולדותיהן (מהדורה שנייה)

22. ר’ יוסף מפוזנא, יד יוסף על התורה מכתב יד, יסוד יוסף

23.  שדי חמד על התורה, כולל כת”י

24. ר’ חיים דובער הכהן, “המלאך”, אוצר אגרות קודש, תרכז עמודים

25. קונטרס ספדי תורה, הספדים על רבי מענדיל אטיק

26. דוד הלבני, מקורות ומסורות ביאורים בתלמוד מסכת זבחים, מנחות, חולין

27. מחשבת אליהו, שיעורים חדשים מאת רבי אליהו דסלר כולל מכתבים חדשים

28. גרשום שלום, מצוה הבאה בעבירה, מהדורה חדשה בעריכת יונתן מאיר

29. עשרה פרקים, מאת דאוד אבן מרואן אלמקמץ, תרגום שרה סטרומזה

30. מצות התכלת, 555 עמודים

מוסד הרב קוק

1. פירוש ר’ דוד צבי הופמן, ויקרא, ב חלקים, בעריכת ר’ יהושע ענבל

2. לכם יהיה לאכלה מהדורה חדשה עם הוספות ותיקונים מכתב יד של המחבר ר’ איתם הנקין, הי”ד

3. שיטה מקובצת, מעילה תמיד

4. ר’ מאיר קדוש, ממאורות הקבלה הקדושה, הלכות, מנהגים והנהגות, בספרות מקובלים ופוסקים, מסוף תקופת הגאונים ועד לסוף תקופת הראשונים, 963  עמודים

5. ר’ טוביה פרשל, מאמרי טוביה ז [כרך חדש] [ניתן לקבל תוכן]

6. ר’ יהושע ענבל, יורה משפט

7. אגרת ר’ שרירא גאון, בעריכת ר’ נתן דוד רבינוביץ [מהדורה חדשה]

8. פירוש המשניות להרמב”ם למסכת כתובות

9. מאירי על משלי

10. ר’ שלמה דיכובסקי, לב שומע לשלמה, חלק ג

11. הלכות גדולות חלקים א-ב

12. מדרש הגדול 5 כרכים, הופיעו מחדש

13. כתבי הגרי”א הרצוג, 13 כרכים, הופיעו מחדש

14. שו”ת מהר”ש מוהליבר, הופיע מחדש

15. ספר המנוחה, הופיע מחדש

חלק שני

1. ר’ דוד הנזיר, קול הנבואה מהדורה חדשה, $30

2. ר’ מאיר בר אילן, מוולוז’ין עד ירושלים, ב’ חלקים, $45

3. ר’ יצחק שילת, בתורתו של ר’ גדליה נדל, $31

4. פירוש על התורה מיוחס לתלמיד הר”ן, $36

5. אלמה, בעריכת ב”מ לוין (תרצ”ו), כולל חיבור מר’ יעקב ריפמן על תולדות רבנו בחיי, $25

6. ר’ יעקב עמדין, לחם שמים, סט משניות, דפוס צילום, $50

7. מעגל טוב, מהדיר הרב מנדלבוים, $40 [ניתן לקבל דפי דוגמא]

8. מ’ גינזבורגר, תרגום יונתן בן עוזיאל, $33

9. קובץ זכור לאברהם, כרך חדש, עניני ספר תורה $21 [ניתן לקבל תוכן]

10. הלכות המדינה לבעל ציץ אליעזר, $32

11. ר’ יהוסף שווארץ, תבואות הארץ, [מצוין], $35

12. יאיר לורברבוים, מלך אביון, $20

13. שמואל שילא, דינא דמלכותא דינא, $45

14. אבן עזרא איש האשכולות, קובץ מאמרים בעריכת דב שוורץ, $29

15. הרב עוז בלומן, איש משורש נביא, הממד האתי בבקשת האלוהים של הלל צייטלין [ניתן לקבל תוכן והקדמה], $28

16. יעקב שפיגל, עמודים בתולדות הספר העברי, כתיבה והעתקה, [נדיר] [מצוין], $75

17. נעימות הכהנים, ויכוח באיטליה בענין ניגון ברכת כהנים ותקפו של מנהג, מהדיר פרופ’ יעקב שפיגל, [עותקים אחרונים], $26 [ניתן לקבל דפי דוגמא]

18. רש”י עיונים ביצירתו, בר אילן, $34

19. ר’ אורי טיגר, קונטרס משפט עשה, פירוש צח וקצר על שו”ח חו”מ, סי’ כו, בדיני איסור הליכה לערכאות, עם הגהות רבי חיים קניבסקי, $10

20. אברהם יערי, תעלומת ספר [על החמדת ימים], $36

21. משנה ברורה, ו’ חלקים, עם יצחק יקרא, פסקים של ר’ אביגדור נבנצל, $85

22. ר’ אברהם וסרמן, מסילה חדשה, הראי”ה קוק ואתגרי החינוך, $22

23. אברהם ברלינר, כתבים נבחרים, ב’ חלקים, [מצוין] $42

24. מור אלטשולר, חיי מרן יוסף קארו, $26

25. תורת המנחה, לרבינו יעקב סקילי תלמיד הרשב”א, $30

26. ספר מוסר, פירוש משנת אבות לר’ יוסף בן יהודה, תלמיד הרמב”ם, $26

27. הרב משה אביגדור עמנואל, לנבוכי התקופה, $19

28. ר’ יצחק שילת, על האחרונים $21

29. ש’ רוטשטיין, תולדות ר’ חיים עוזר גרודזנסקי, $8

30. ש’ רוטשטיין, תולדות ר’ מנחם זמבה, $8

31. ספרא דצניעותא עם ביאור הגר”א, עם ביאור מר’ יצחק הוטנר, $16

32. עוטה אור על אונקלוס, $25

33. באורי אונקלוס לר”ש ברוך שעפטל, $35 [מצוין]

34. דיני קניין במסחר המודרני, יעקב הילסהיים, $29

35. דוד רידר, תרגום יהונתן בן עוזיאל, $28

36. איטליה, משה דוד קאסוטו, $16

37. איטליה, שמואל דוד לוצאטו, $32

38. י.ז. כהנא, מחקרים בספרות התשובות [מצוין], $34

39. מאמר על הדפסת התלמוד, $32 [מצוין]

40. תורתן של גאונים, כרך א, מבוא, $24

41. שרגא אברמסון, בעלי תוספות על התורה, $22

42. תמר אלכסנדר פריזר, מילים משביעות מלחם, $20

43. ר’ יצחק ברויאר, הכוזרי החדש $27

44. אברהם כהנא, קורות היהודים ברומא, $14

45. ר’ יצחק שילת, על הראשונים, $22

46. אגרות מרום, מכתבים מאת הרב יעקב משה חרל”פ, $24

47. שמואל ורסס ויונתן מאיר, ראשית חכמה [פולמוס כנגד חסידים] $26

48. מאמרי הראי”ה קוק [מצוין], $18

49. אפרים אלימלך אורבך, רשימות בימי מלחמה $28

50. יצחק לנדיס, ברכת העבודה בתפילת העמידה, $24

51. שמואל וינגרטן, מכתבים מזוייפים נגד הציונות, $23

52. דרכי נועם, כולל הסכמת הגר”א מווילנה, $26

53. ר’ יקותיאל גרינוואלד, לפלגות ישראל בהונגריה, 17$

54. נחום רקובר, זכות היוצרים במקורות היהודים [במצבו], $33

55. מאיר רפלד, המהרש”ל וספרו ים של שלמה, 288 עמודים, $23

56. משה סמט, החדש אסור מן התורה , $65

57. יד אליהו קוק, חלק ב- נשים, $14

58. כסא רחמים להחיד”א, מסכות סופרים, אבות דר’ נתן, $17

59. ש’ ווזנר חשיבה משפטית בישיבות ליטא, עיונים במשנתו של הרב שמעון שקופ,$25

60. שר שלום, שערים ללוח העברי $26

61. חסדי אבות, פירוש מסכת אבות לרבי דוד פרווינצאלו, מכתב יד, בעריכת פרופ’ יעקב שפיגל, $21

62. יצחק בער לעווינזאהן, תעודה בישראל, $25

63. ישראל תא שמע, הנגלה שבנסתר – 21$

64. יוסף תבורי, פסח דורות, $21