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Tu Bishvat and The Symmetry Between Aesthetics and Eros

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Tu Bishvat and The Symmetry Between Aesthetics and Eros
Based on a homily by R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz (1872-1937)[1] in Sha’ar Yessakhar, volume 2, p. 481-482 Translation[2] and Commentary by Shaul Magid

Professor Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University. This text was originally prepared for a text-study at a Tu Bishvat Seder at Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA on January 27, 2002. Sincere thanks goes out to Gloria Greenfield for her organizing the seder and for co-producing a beautiful Tu Bishvat Haggadah of which this was a part. Special thanks to the editors (and readers) of the Seforim blog for their gracious consideration of this essay. Professor Magid’s most recent book is Hasidism Incarnate Hasidism: Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University Press, 2015), and his previous post at the Seforim blog is entitled: “‘Uman, Uman Rosh ha-Shana’: R. Nahman’s Grave as ErezYisrael”.

TEXT: In his collected sermons Bnei Yesakhar, Rabbi Zvi Elimelekh of Dinov (d. 1829)[3] mentions a rabbinic tradition that one should pray for a beautiful etrog on Tu Bishvat. Examining this custom, he invokes another rabbinic dictum stating that “the way of man (ish) is to pursue a woman (isha).” The word ish (man) shares the same numerical value as the word Shevat (311). Woman in this passage corresponds to the etrog because the etrog is the only one of the Four Species (lulav, aravah, hadasim, etrog) taken on Sukkot that carries the feminine gender in Hebrew. The mystical tradition also holds that the etrog represents the sephirah Malkhut (the feminine recipient of the other three Species). We can now re-read R. Zvi Elimelekh’s insight into the first rabbinic citation in light of the second. “It is the way of man” that is, the
essence of the month of Shevat, “to pursue a woman” i.e., a beautiful etrog.[4]
It is also the custom on Tu Bishvat to eat various types of fruit accompanied by the appropriate blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” (Who blessed the fruit of the tree).[5] The Bnei Yesakhar interprets this custom in the following manner. Tu Bishvat falls exactly forty days before the creation of the world (according to the opinion of Rabbi Yehoshua that the world was created in Nisan and not in Tishrei). When God decided (“when the ThoughtWill went up in His Mind”) to create the world, this creative process began forty days before the actual creation.[6] The letters of the word “will” (razon) (RZN) are also the letters of the word “conduit” (zinor) (ZNR) as the Kabbalists noted. This means that the (idea of creation) descended through the Primordial Divine body (from the Mind, the sephirah Da’at- the source of the Will) through the spinal column (zinor) until it reached Yesod (the organ of creation). The blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” occurs in Yesod (as it celebrates the fulfillment and telos of the fruit).[7] We have another tradition from the zaddikim that Tu Bishvat is a time for pro-creation in that it is a cosmic time when the willful act of creation begins in the Divine Mind.
COMMENTARY: Both of these short readings are focused on the attempt to integrate aesthetics and Eros as the two fundamental parts of the holiday of Tu Bishvat. Before pursuing a more detailed analysis of how this synthesis works, it should also be noted that the entire mystical, cosmic and psychic narrative that constitutes Hasidic discourse is rooted here in acute sensitivity to the changing natural environment. The mystics (including the Sabbateans, who were most probably the originators of the ritual of the Tu Bishvat Seder so common in popular Judaism in the late 20th century)[8] were very attuned to the changing hues of their environment and viewed this natural shift as responding to and reflecting the ever-changing cosmic world.
In our texts Tu Bishvat represents the Origin before the Beginning. That is, it marks the moment in the cyclical cosmic calendar when the Divine Will is conceived, initiating a process in the highest realm of the Godhead (the Divine Mind), which emanates and subsequently culminates in creation. The emulation of this process through human copulation and its cyclical manifestation in Tu Bishvat requires a closer look at the relationship between the aesthetic and the erotic in the Jewish mystical imagination. Our first text teaches that the innate human “will” toward Eros is a reflection of the aesthetic appreciation of nature by juxtaposing the prayer for an etrog on Tu Bishvat with the innate human need for conjugal union. “The way of man is to pursue a woman,” offers an opinion on the nature of human sexuality, however problematic such an assertion may be.[9]
The etrog stands out in the biblical and rabbinic tradition as one of the only religious objects (hefez shel mitzvah) where the aesthetic value of the object is the basis of its religious status (i.e., its kashrut). The etrog as a religious; object requires our aesthetic sense and appreciation because the viability of an etrog for ritual use demands that it is beautiful to its owner. This is the notion of hidur as a requisite category for the etrog. This is derived from the biblical description of the etrog as Pri Etz Hadar.[10] This Hasidic text suggests a correlation between the Eros of human sexuality and the aesthetic sensitivity required to use an etrog. Tu Bishvat is the time of year when the fragrance of spring, the colors of new life and the lengthening of days arouse both our artistic and romantic natures. As mentioned above, the mystics viewed the environmental transformation and its effect on human beings as having its roots in the cosmic realm. The expression of this correlation is accomplished by invoking the aesthetic appreciation of mitzvah (etrog) with the erotic realm sense necessary for creation/creativity.
The second text extends the central idea of beauty as creativity/creative-ness by viewing Tu Bishvat through the lens of the rabbinic disagreement on the date of creation. This is based on two oft-quoted rabbinic dicta. The first is the debate between R. Eliezer and R. Joshua as to whether the world was created in Nisan or Tishrei. The second is the statement that the human embryo is only ensouled 40 days after conception. R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira suggests that these two rabbinic dicta can aid in explaining the concealed nature of this apparently minor festival that, while mentioned in the Mishna (Tractate Rosh Ha-Shana 1:1),[11] has never resulted in any significant ritual activity until the 16m century.[12]
The initial forty-day period of gestation in the embryo before ensoulment is mystically rendered as simultaneously reflecting the process of emanation from Divine Will (Pure Thought) to Action (Creation) and from erotic human desire for love (Eros) to its fulfillment in conjugal union (pro-creation). His description of the descent from the Mind (Da’at) to the sexual organ (Yesod) reflects a common medieval medical belief that the male semen is rooted in the base of the brain (in Kabbala, the sephirah Da’at) and descends via the spinal column until it reaches the male sexual organ.[13] The will to create/procreate and the initial projection of that will toward action is rooted in the emotive faculty of the intellect, which reaches fulfillment in the consummation of the creative/conjugal act.[14] As mentioned in the text, both in the cosmic realm and the process of ensoulment in the human embryo, this process takes forty days.
Tu Bishvat falls forty days before the 25th of Adar, the first day of creation according to position that Nisan as the month of creation. This is because the first of Nisan, like the first of Tishrei, is the day of the creation of humankind, the telos, of the entire process of creation. This is the moment where the creative process begins_ in the Mind/Will of God, in the ethereal realm of Pure Thought. Thus, our author utilizes the kabbalistic wordplay Will (razon) and conduit (zinor) (each containing the same letters RZN), suggesting that Tu Bishvat represents the purely emotive impulse to create, the product of Eros, initiating a movement toward union that will conclude forty days later in the renewed act of creation, carrying with it all the implications of redemption.[15]
This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. The mystics, always looking to weave the cyc1e of the Jewish year into a seamless tapestry of erotic desire and consummation (both cosmic and human), correlate the 15th of the month of Shevat with the 15th of the month of Av, a neglected festival mentioned once in the Mishna. The similitude of these two minor festivals does not rest solely on the fact that both fall on the full moon. Rather, their correlation rests on their juxtaposition to the months of Nisan and Tishrei, the two months seen as the moment of “beginning” in rabbinic tradition. If we look to the other talmudic stance on the date of creation (Tishrei), we find that precisely forty days before the 25th of Elul (the first day of creation if Rosh Ha-Shana is the creation of Adam and Eve) is Tu B’Av (the 15th of the month of Av) which is mentioned in the last mishna in Tractate Ta’anit 4:8.
Said Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, There, were no festive days in Israel like the 15th of Av (Tu B’Av) and Yom Ha-Kippurim. On those days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out dressed in (identical) white garments, borrowed so as not to embarrass (the poor among them). All of the garments first underwent ritual immersion. The daughters of Israel would go out in circles in the vineyard. What would they say? “Young man – Do not be seduced by beauty, be drawn to lineage…
The Hasidic masters pick up the same line of reasoning we suggested about Tu Bishvat regarding Tu B’Av.[16] That is, Tu B’Av is the moment where the pure Thought of God (God’s initial act of volition) to create the world comes into being. Such a moment yields arousal of aesthetic beauty (“the maidens in the vineyard”) followed by the arousal of male Eros (“as the young men gaze upon them”). Tu Bishvat, according to our Hasidic text constitutes a similar arousal of emotion(s). However, on Tu Bishvat, marking the blossoming natural environment, initiates this willing for new life and the fulfillment of human desire played out in the relationship between Shevat (male) and the etrog (female). On this reading we are directed on Tu Bishvat to simultaneously submit to the natural changing of the seasons and respond to the cosmic moment of conception. The blessing “Borei Pri Ha-Etz” is not merely limited to the consumption of fruit but also points to the celebration of aesthetics and Eros, both of which are required in order to consummate human intimacy and creativity, divine Creation, and the final redemption that is conceived before creation and unfolds in the cyclical nature of the natural world.
NOTES:
[1] R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz, popularly known as the Minhat Elazar after the title of his book of halakhic responsa published in Munkacz and Pressberg 1903-1938, was a leader of Hungarian Hasidism in interbellum Hungary. Although most widely known for his adamant protest against Zionism, modernity and Agudat lsrael, he was a widely accepted halakhic authority, community leader, and Hasidic author. For the most detailed study of his thinking, see Alan Nadler, “The War on Modernity of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz,” Modern Judaism 14:3 (October 1994): 234-264. Cf. Samuel Ha­Kohen Weingarten, “Ha-Admor mi’Munkacz Rabbi Hayyim Elazar Shapira ‘Baal Techusha Bikoret’,” in Shana be-Shana (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 440-449, and Aviezer Ravitzky, Ha-Ketz Ha-Megueh Ha-Medinat Ha-Yehudim (Tel Aviv, 1993), pp. 60-74.
[2] I have attempted to remain fairly close to the original text in my translation although I have taken considerable liberty to elaborate at certain points. The parentheses are my insertions which do not appear in the text. Any Hasidic text eludes translation precisely because it often originate in an oral format and little attempt is made to transform it into a coherent literary. R. Shapira is particularly difficult to translate in that his discourse is highly referential, mentioning a word or phrase to imply an entire complex idea.
[3] R. Zvi Elimelekh of Dinov was the great-great grandfather of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira. He was a leader of Galician Hasidism in the early 19m century. We have four major collections of his sermons and teachings: Bnei Yessakhar (New York, 1946), Igra D’Kala (Munkacz, 1942), Igra D’Pirka (Lemberg, 1910) and Derekh Pekudekha (Lemberg, 1914). The uncritical but informative hagiography Ha-Rebbe Zvi Elimelekh mi-Dinov (Bnei Brak, 1972), by Nathan Orenter gives us a wealth of infonnation about his life. R. Hayyim Elazar often begins his discourses in Sha’ar Yesakhar with a citation from his great-great grandfather’s Bnei Yesakhar.
[4] See an abbreviated version of this in R. Yeheil Michel Geller, Darkhei Hayyim v’Shalom (the customs and practices of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira) (Jerusalem, 1960) p. 310. Darkhei Hayyim v’ Shalom also mentions the custom of eating a cooked etrog that was set aside after the
previous Sukkot. It is noted that R. Hayyim Elazar was stringent that the etrog should not be cooked before nightfall on the 15th of Shevat.
[5] This is likely taken from R. Avraham Avlei of Kalish, Magen Avraham to Shulhan Arukh ‘Orakh Hayyim # 131, citing Tikkun Yessakhar. While both Magen Avraham and R. Judah Askenazi’s Be’er Hetiv ad loc. mention that the custom of eating fruit only applies to Askenazi Jews, the anonymous Pri Etz Hadar (adopted from the Sabbatean Hemdat Yomim), p. I adds, “Sephardim also follow such a custom.” No reference is given for this addition.
[6] This forty day period is based on a rabbinic opinion, not universally accepted in rabbinic or post-rabbinic literature, that the ensoulment of a human embryo only occurs forty days after conception of the child.
[7] It is also the case that the word pri is also a term denoting part of the circumcision ritual called priah, or the peeling
away of the sides of the penis to reveal the crown. Thus the blessing of pri ha-etz could also be rendered to mean to disclosure of male Eros (“the way of man is to pursue woman).
[8] The most reliable and perhaps oldest text which elaborates on the ritual of the Tu Bishvat Seder is the anonymous Hemdat Yomim which is said to have probably been written either by Nathan of Gaza, Shabbatai Zevi’s closest disciple and leader of the movement after his death, or a member of his circle. It was probably first published in lzmir or Kushta although the publication date is not known.. The extant edition was published in Zolkiew two or three times between 1745-1762. Cf. Yizhak Isaac ben Ya’akov Ozar Ha-Seforim (Vilna, 1880), p. 193, # 678. A practical guide to the Tu Bishvat Seder, the anonymous Pri Etz Hadar (Jerusalem, 1968), includes various readings from the Zohar which accompany the eating of various types of fruit, all of which are interpreted according to the Lurianic tradition. This pamphlet largely adopts the mystical explanations of the festival given in Hemdat Yomim.
[9] The Kabbalists were not concerned with the biological or political nature of such dicta. They viewed such statements as teaching them something about the human condition in general which yielded a deeper understanding of the cosmic environment in which they lived.
[10] The rabbis, who offer various possibilities as to what it means, recognize the ambiguity of the word hadar. Beauty is one such rendering.
[11] The position of Tu Bishvat (the 15th of Shevat) as the “New Year for the Trees” is the position of Beit Hillel against Beit Shammai who argues for the first of Shevat. According to the structure of the Mishna alone, Beit Hillel’s position is problematic. The mishna delineates four “New Years”, each one beginning on the first day of a particular month. Only Beit Hillel suggests that regarding the New Year for the Trees, the 15th day as opposed to the first is appropriate. The Talmud explains that the disagreement is based upon meteorological estimations.
The disagreement rests on determining when most of the rain has fallen for that season. This would indicate at what time fruits would start to blossom and dictate when the appropriate tithes should be taken. Of course, this agricultural debate is completely irrelevant to our Hasidic author who takes the accepted rabbinic position (the 15th) and builds an entire cosmic edifice upon it.
[12] This may very well be due to the fact that its significance, at least in the talmudic understanding of the Mishna, only relates to Temple tithes and thus is legally inoperative. Again, the mystics are never willing to limit the significance of any event to its legalistic and ritualistic construct. It is therefore not surprising that Tu Bishvat is re-formulated and re-signified by the mystical tradition.
[13] R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira is most likely deriving this from The Zohar. See Zohar 1.15a, 2.2a and The Gershom Scholem’s Annotated Zohar (Jerusalem, 1992) p. 1512, cited and discussed in E.R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines (Princeton, 1989), p. 389 and n. 236. For this theory in medieval medicine see D. Jacqert and C. Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1980), p. 53ff.
[14] In light of this the mystical tradition suggests that the arousal of Eros in the human mind results in “forgetting” or loss of memory. In one Hasidic text, such a position was used to justify why Er and Onan, the sons of the biblical Judah, refused to consummate their relations with Tamar. Although the Torah is quite adamant about their wrongdoing, this text utilizes the above theory that they did not want to leave their perpetual state of devekut (communion with God) and thus refused to allow their mind to be re­ directed toward Eros. See R. Mordecai Joseph of lzbica, Mei Ha-Shiloah, vol. I, p. 15b,16a.
[15] This connection between renewed creation and redemption justifies the centrality of Tu Bishvat in the Sabbatean teaching as a celebration of the initial moment of the final unfolding of the messianic drama.
[16] Tu B’Av and Tu Bishvat are cited together in Shulhan Arukh ‘Orakh Hayyim # 131:6 regarding the custom to refrain from reciting supplication prayers (takhanun) on those days. Outside of the custom of Askenazi Jews to increase the consumption of fruit, there appears to be no other recognition of Tu Bishvat in the classical legal tradition outside of deleting takhanun.


The Greatest Story in the Annals of Jewish Book Collecting

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The Greatest Story in the Annals of Jewish Book Collecting
 By Jeremy Brown

Jeremy Brown is the author of New Heavens and a New Earth; The Jewish Reception of Copernican Thought. He writes on science, medicine and the Talmud at Talmudology.com 

As we approach the end of Masechet Yevamot in the Daf Yomi cycle, it seems appropriate to reflect on a legendary story in the annals of Jewish bibliography. This story involves King Henry VIII, the laws of Yevamot, and the greatest private Jewish library in the world.
About thirty years ago, while a medical student in London, I had the good fortune of visiting the Valmadonna Trust Library, that greatest of private Jewish libraries. (How I got there is another story for another time). And while there, I held the Talmud that certainly once belonged to Westminster Abbey. It may also have been owned by Henry VIII, who had brought a Bomberg Talmud from Venice in order to help him end his marriage to Catherineof Aragon, the first of his many wives. The story of Henry VIII’s purchase of the Bomberg Talmud – the first complete printed Talmud – actually hinges on Yevamot, and whether the rules of levirate marriage, or yibum, applied to him. 
Catherine of Aragon was actually a widow, having first been married to Henry’s younger brother Arthur. About six months after Catherine married Arthur he died childless, and in 1509 his older brother Prince Henry married his widow.  One more thing to know: Catherine claimed that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated; this is important later in the story. (And here is an interesting historic footnote: it was Catherine’s parents, Ferdinand and Isabella who had expelled the Jews from Spain.)
By 1525, Prince Henry had become King Henry VIII, and has had one daughter with Catherine. He wanted a son, and now wished to marry Ann Boleyn. There was, however, a problem:  what was he to do with Catherine, his existing wife?  Divorce, remember, was tricky for this Catholic King. And here is where the Talmud comes in.  
Henry argued that his marriage to Catherine should be dissolved since it was biblically forbidden for a man to marry his sister-in-law. (Henry claimed years earlier that he could marry her because the marriage to his brother had not been consummated. See, I told you that was important information…)
But as we from Masechet Yevamot, the Bible commands a man to marry his widowed sister-in-law if his brother died without children. Since Arthur died childless, it could be argued that Henry was now fulfilling the biblical requirement of levirate marriage – known as yibum. If that was the case, the marriage was kosher and could not be dissolved
How was this conundrum to be resolved? Let’s have Jack Lunzer, the custodian of the library, tell the story. (You can also see the video here. Sorry about the ads. They are beyond our control.) 
As Lunzer tells us, the Talmud was obtained from Venice to help King Henry VIII find a way to divorce his wife (and former sister-in-law) Catherine, and so be free to marry Ann Boleyn. In fact, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. Behind the scenes were Christian scholars who struggled to reconcile the injunction against a man marrying his sister-in-law found in one part of the Bible, with the command to do so under specific circumstances, found in another. In fact the legality of Henry’s marriage had been in doubt for many years, which is why Henry had obtained the Pope’s special permission to marry.
John Stokesley, who later became Bishop of London, argued that the Pope had no authority to override the word of God that forbade a man from marrying his brother’s wife. As a result the dispensation the Pope had given was meaningless, and Henry’s marriage was null and void. In this way, Henry was free to marry.  But what did Stokesley do with the passages in Deuteronomy that require yibum?  He differentiated between them.  The laws in Leviticus, he claimed, were both the word of God and founded on natural reason. In this way they were moral laws; hence they applied to both Jew and Christian.  In contrast, the laws found in Deuteronomy, were judicial laws, which were ordained by God to govern (and punish) the Jews – and the Jews alone. They were never intended to apply to any other people, and so Henry’s Christian levirate marriage to Catherine was of no legal standing. There was therefore no impediment for Henry to marry Ann. As you can imagine, this rather pleased the king.
It remains unclear whether the Valmadonna Library Bomberg Talmud is indeed the very same one that Henry had imported from Venice. According to Sotheby’s and at least one academic, it actually came from the library of an Oxford professor of Hebrew, who bequeathed it to the Abbey. In any event, a Bomberg Talmud lay undisturbed at Westminster Abbey for the next four hundred years.  How Lunzer obtained it for his library is possibly the greatest story in the annals of Jewish book collecting. In the 1950s there was an exhibition in London to commemorate the readmission of the Jews to England under Cromwell. Lunzer noted that one of the books on display, from the collection of Westminster Abbey, was improperly labeled, and was in fact a volume of a Bomberg Talmud. Lunzer called the Abbey the next day, told them of his discovery, and suggested that he send some workers to clean the rest of the undisturbed volumes.  They discovered a complete Bomberg Talmud in pristine condition, and Lunzer wanted it. But despite years of negotiations with the Abbey, Lunzer’s attempts to buy the Talmud were rebuffed.  
Then in April 1980, Lunzer’s luck changed. He read in a brief newspaper article that the original 1065 Charter of Westminster Abbey had been purchased by an American at auction, but because of its cultural significance the British Government was refusing to grant an export license. Lunzer called the Abbey, was invited for tea, and a gentleman’s agreement was reached. He purchased the Charter from the American, presented it to the Abbey, and at a ceremony in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey the nine volumes of Bomberg’s Babylonian Talmud were presented to the Valmadonna Trust. It’s a glorious story, and it’s so much better when Lunzer himself tells it, as he does here: (You can also see the video here,and end it at 14.35. We continue to apologize for those ads.)

The Valmadonna Trust Library – all of its 13,000 books and manuscripts, including the Westminster Abbey Talmud, is now on sale at Sotheby’s in New York. It can be yours for about $35 million.  But if you buy it, you must agree to two conditions set by Lunzer: that the Library remain whole, and that it be made available to scholars. In that way, just as I once held that magical Talmud, others may continue to do so. 


עד היום הזה, הרב אמנון בזק, הוצאת ידיעות ספרים

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עד היום הזה, הרב אמנון בזק, הוצאת ידיעות ספרים מאת: רב צעיר
 
הרב אמנון בזק עשה חסד עם לומדי וחובבי תנ”ך רבים בהוציאו לאור את ספרו “עד היום הזה”. הספר מרכז את שאלות היסוד שלומדי התנ”ך נפגשים בהם, שאלות שהעיסוק בהם בבית המדרש הינו דל יחסית, ודווקא במסדרונות האקדמיה רבתה העיסוק בהן. כך מתאר המחבר את החשיבות שבעיסוק בשאלות אלו: “בשנים האחרונות אני נתקל באופן אישי במצוקתם של יותר ויותר בוגרים ובוגרות של מערכת החינוך הדתית, בעיקר כאלו שהגיעו ללמוד במוסדות אקדמיים ואגב כך נחשפו גם למחקר המקרא. חשיפה זו מעוררת אצלם לעתים שאלות שהם חשים שאין להן מענה, ולעתים אף תדהמה וזעזוע מהקעקוע של כל צורת החשיבה שעליה גדלו.”
הספר מחולק לשלושה שערים:
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“בין מסורת לביקורת” – בשער זה דן המחבר בזמן חיבור התורה וספרי הנ”ך, בכפילויות של סיפורי התורה ובסתירות בין סיפורי ומצוות התורה.
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“ארכיאולוגיה וספרות המזרח הקדום” – שער זה מחולק לשני פרקים ארוכים יחסית. חלקו הראשון עוסק בערעורים ובתימוכים שניתן למצוא בעולם הארכיאולוגיה למסופר במקרא. חלקו השני מתייחס לקבצי חוקים שונים שנמצאו מתקופת המקרא, כדוגמת חוקי חמורבי, ובהשפעתם על הבנת מצוות התורה.
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“בין פשט לדרש” – שער זה עוסק ביחס בין פשוטו של מקרא למדרשי אגדה ומדרשי הלכה וכן לנושא הפולמוס המכונה (למורת רוחו של המחבר) “תנ”ך בגובה העיניים”.
ללא ספק יש ברכה רבה בניסיון להתמודד בתוך בית המדרש עם השאלות הקשות שעלו כתוצאה מהמחקר האקדמי, הן מפאת העמדת דברים על דיוקם והן מפאת הצלת נפשם של תועים. ככלל, הספר הינו חובה לכל מי שלימוד התנ”ך והנושאים סביב לימוד התנ”ך מעסיקים אותו. ככזה, הספר הינו דבר מתוקן שהוציא מתחת ידיו חבר, תלמיד ור”מ בבית מדרש שחרטה על דגלה את החזרה ללימוד המוגבר של תנ”ך, ושהוביל למהפכה בכל הקשור ללימוד ולעיסוק בתנ”ך התרחש בדור האחרון.
דיון והערות לספר:
שני הפרקים הראשונים בספר עוסקים בשאלה מי חיבר את התורה. אמנם כל ילד מכיר את העיקר השמיני מתוך י”ג העיקרים לרמב”ם הקובע כי התורה כולה מן השמים, אך בכדי לקבל אמונה זו יש להתמודד עם השאלות העולות כנגדה. זאת המשימה שלקח על עצמו הרב אמנון בזק בשני הפרקים הללו. כאמור, את העיסוק בשאלת מחבר התורה ותקופת חיבורה חילק הרב בזק לשני פרקים. הפרק הראשון עוסק ב”יצירת התורה על פי המקרא ומסורת ישראל” והפרק השני עוסק ב”פסוקים מאוחרים בתורה: התופעה והשלכותיה”. את הפרק הראשון פותח המחבר בסקירה מקיפה של מה ניתן ללמוד מהמקרא עצמו על חיבור התורה. בספרי הנביאים הראשונים הייחוס היחיד לתורה הוא למצוות בספר דברים המצוינים מספר פעמים כמופיעים ב”תורת משה”. הפעם הראשונה במקרא בו מופיע אזכור מפורש לתורה שאינו רק לספר דברים הינו בנחמיה, בציווי לחוג את חג הסוכות כפי המופיע בספר ויקרא.
כל זה עומד לכאורה בסתירה, או לכל הפחות כקושי מסוים למסורת חז”ל שהתורה כולה, על חמשת חומשיה, נמסרה לבני ישראל בטרם מותו של משה. הרב בזק איננו מקהה את העוקץ של הקושי הזה, אלא בזה שהוא טוען שניתן לראות דמיון סגנוני בין סיפורים מסוימים בנביאים הראשונים לסיפורי התורה. לדוגמא (עמ’ 32):
“ישנה הקבלה נרחבת בין סיפור נישואי דוד ומיכל לבין סיפור נישואי יעקב ורחל”
גם אם נקבל הקבלות סגנוניות אלו כעובדה נתונה, עדיין אין זה מוכיח כלל כי זמן כתיבת סיפורי התורה קדם לזמן חיבור נביאים ראשונים (לכל היותר זה יכול להוכיח שהם נכתבו באותה תקופה), או לחילופין שהיה בפני אבותינו בתקופת הנביאים הראשונים את התורה בשלמותה (לכל היותר זה יכול להוכיח שהיה בפניהם סיפורים אלו). בפרק השלישי בספר המחבר מזכיר גם את העובדה שישנם ביטויים ספרותיים ולשוניים המופיעים רק בספרי התורה וביטויים אחרים המופיעים רק בספרי הנביאים, כדוגמת המילה “נוה”, מה שמוכיח את כתיבתם בזמנים שונים.
עוד נמצא בפרק הראשון בספר דיון בסוגיית “תורה מגילה מגילה נתנה” או “תורה חתומה נתנה”, וכן בשאלה האם, לפי מסורת חז”ל, נתנה למשה הרשות לכתוב כאוות נפשו את מילות התורה, או שכל מילה הוכתבה לו מאת הקב”ה.
הפרק השני המכונה “פסוקים מאוחרים בתורה: התופעה והשלכותיה” דן בנושא יחסית מוכר של שאלת הימצאותן של פסוקים בודדים שהוכנסו לתורה לאחר מותו של משה רבינו. פסוקים כאלו מכונים לעתים, בעקבות דברי הראב”ע “סוד השנים עשר” (בנושא זה מומלץ גם מאמרו של הרב שמריה גרשוני).
העיסוק בנושא מתחיל ממחלוקת בחז”ל בשאלת זהות מחברם של הפסוקים האחרונים בתורה, המתארים את מותו של משה. חז”ל מתייחסים לשמונת הפסוקים האחרונים, אך
הראב”ע כבר מרחיב את דבריהם לשנים עשר הפסוקים האחרונים בתורה. ומשנתנה הרשות מצרף אליהם הראב”ע פסוקים, או חלקי פסוקים ממקומות שונים בתורה. המחבר אף מציג פירושים נוספים, כדוגמת פירושי רבי יהודה החסיד בהם מובאת האפשרות שפסוקים נוספים בתורה נכתבו בתקופות מאוחרות, כדוגמת תקופת אנשי כנסת הגדולה.
לאחר שבסיום הפרק הראשון המחבר מגיע למסקנה כי “מסורת חז”ל קובעת באופן חד משמעי שמשה רבנו הוא שכתב את כל החומשים” (עמ’ 48), הרי שבפרק השני ישנו עיסוק מינמלי בלבד בשאלה כיצד ניתן, מצד אחד, לטעון כי ישנה תופעה של פסוקים מאוחרים, ומצד שני לחיות עם דברי הגמרא (סנהדרין צט ע”א, הובא בפרק הראשון עמ’ 40):
תניא אידך: כי דבר ה’ בזה – זה האומר אין תורה מן השמים. ואפילו אמר: כל התורה כולה מן השמים, חוץ מפסוק זה שלא אמרו הקדוש ברוך הוא אלא משה מפי עצמו – זהו כי דבר ה’ בזה. ואפילו אמר: כל התורה כולה מן השמים, חוץ מדקדוק זה, מקל וחומר זה, מגזרה שוה זו – זה הוא כי דבר ה’ בזה.
האם ראשונים אלה חולקים על עיקרו של הרמב”ם, ותופסים שיש מחלוקת בין סוגיות ומכריעים שלא כסוגיא זאת? האם הראשונים הללו מצליחים למצוא דרך בו ניתן לקבל את דברי הגמרא אך גם להחזיק בפירושיהם?
זאת ועוד, כשמצוטטים בפרק השני דברי חז”ל (בבא בתרא טו ע”א):
שמונה פסוקים שבתורה יהושע כתבן, דתני’: וימת שם משה עבד ה’ – אפשר משה (מת) [חי] וכתב וימת שם משה? אלא, עד כאן כתב משה, מכאן ואילך כתב יהושע, דברי ר”י, ואמרי לה ר’ נחמיה; אמר לו ר”ש: אפשר ס”ת חסר אות אחת? וכתיב: לקוח את ספר התורה הזה! אלא, עד כאן הקדוש ברוך הוא אומר ומשה אומר וכותב, מכאן ואילך הקדוש ברוך הוא אומר ומשה כותב בדמע, כמו שנאמר להלן: ויאמר להם ברוך מפיו יקרא אלי את כל הדברים האלה ואני כותב על הספר בדיו.
השאלה לכאורה זועקת: מדוע אין רבי שמעון מקשה מהפסוק “כי דבר ה’ בזה”? האם רבי נחמיה ורבי שמעון חולקים על הברייתא על פיה קבע הרמב”ם את העיקר השמיני?
הפתרון שמציע המחבר הוא (עמ’ 53):
“שאכן כל התורה כולה נאמרה בנבואה מאת ה’, אך אין הכרח לומר שכל האמור בתורה הוא מנבואת משה דוקא”
ועוד בהערה בעמוד 55 הוא מוסיף הסבר נוסף בשם רבי יוסף בן אליעזר: “יש להשיב, כי על עניין המצוות כאשר אמרנו למעלה, ולא על הסיפורים”.
על אף שלטעמי ניתן היה להרחיב יותר במתן מענה לשאלות דלעיל, יש מקום להסתפק גם בהתייחסות המעטה של המחבר. אך כשהוא מציג את גישת ראשוני מבקרי המקרא שהסתמכו על אותם ראשונים שאיחרו פסוקים אחדים מהתורה על מנת לאחר את רובה ככולה של יצירת התורה לתקופה מאוחרת, הוא כותב את הדברים הבאים (עמ’ 68):
“נראה, שבכל הנוגע לשאלה זו הויכוח איננו נובע מן הנתונים עצמם, אלא מהנחות היסוד האקסיומטיות של הפרשנים והחוקרים… טענתם של החוקרים הסבורים שלא מדובר בתוספות בודדות, אלא במעט המעיד על המרובה, אינה מבוססת על הוכחה אובייקטיבית”.
וכאן, נדמה לי שהיה מקום להאריך ולהסביר, כיצד הממצאים מפרק א’ של הספר משתלבים כאן? האין הם מחזקים את טענת מבקרי המקרא? ואם לא, מדוע לא?
על זאת יש להוסיף ולשאול. כאמור, שמה של הפרק הוא “פסוקים מאוחרים בתורה: התופעה והשלכותיה”. אך לאחר שהוצגו אותם פסוקים בודדים בהם חלק מהראשונים נוטים לאחר את זמן כתיבתם, ה”תופעה” עדיין אינה ברורה. מדוע דווקא פסוקים אלו הינם מאוחרים? מה היתה שיקול הדעת של מחבר הפסוק “והכנעני אז בארץ” להוסיף את פסוקו לתורה? מה היתה התורה חסרה לולי תוספת זו? ושוב, אליבא דמבקרי המקרא אין כאן קושיא כלל, שהרי התורה כולה נכתבה בזמן מאוחר יותר, אך מי שרוצה לומר שרק פסוקים בודדים נתווספו בתר-משה, ובפני אותם מוסיפים היתה תורה שלמה, למעט אותם פסוקים בודדים, מה ראו לשלוח יד בתורת משה ולהוסיף אותם?
אך לא רק ה”תופעה” אינה ברורה, גם “השלכותיה” אינן ברורות. מספר ראשונים הצביעו על מספר פסוקים שלדעתם הם מתקופה בתר-משה, מהן ההשלכות של פירושים אלו ושל דרך פרשנות זו? האם זו דרך פרשנית לגיטימית? המחבר מקדיש כמעט רבע מהפרק השני כדי להסביר שאת המילים “וירדף עד דן” ניתן לפרש שלא ע”י איחורו לתקופה בתר-משה. אך אם דרך הפרשנות של איחור פסוקים בודדים הינה לגיטימית, מדוע שלא נפרש כך גם את פסוק זה? מדוע הראב”ע חילק בפרשנות שלו בין פסוק זה לפסוק “והכנעני אז בארץ”? בהמשך הספר המחבר מציג באריכות רבה את שיטת הבחינות של מורו הרב מרדכי ברויאר. קשה לדרוש מתלמיד שיבקר את דרכו של רבו, אך בכל זאת היה מקום להוסיף לפחות ברמז את הבעייתיות שיש בשיטת הבחינות. אם בחלק השלישי של הספר המחבר מדגיש עד כמה דרכם של מפרשי התנ”ך לאורך הדורות היה לחלק בין הפשט לדרש, הרי שבשיטת הרב ברויאר הפשט והדרש שזורים יחד, באופן שבהחלט סוטה מדרכם של מפרשי התנ”ך לאורך הדורות. כמו כן, הגבולות של שיטת הבחינות אינן ברורות. ישנן דעות במחקר שסיפורי האבות אצל פרעה ואבימלך הינן למעשה אותו סיפור שמצא את מקומו שלוש פעמים בתורה, כל פעם עם פרטים קצת שונים. איש שיטת הבחינות יוכל לומר, שלמעשה הסיפור ארע רק פעם אחת, איננו יודעים מה היו הפרטים המדויקים, אך התורה בחרה לכתוב אותו שלוש פעמים כדי להדגיש בחינות שונות אצל אברהם ויצחק ויחסם אל פרעה ואבימלך. האם פירוש כזה, המנתק לחלוטין את התורה מהמציאות, נכלל בכוונת ממציא השיטה?
בפרק השביעי בספר הנקרא “המקרא וספרות המזרח הקדומה”, המחבר דן בספרים עתיקים נוספים שהתגלו באזור ועל השלכותיהם על הבנת התנ”ך. ראוי להזכיר בהקשר זה סדרת מאמרים מרתקים באנגלית שפרסם בחורף דאשתקד פרופ’ יהושע ברמן (קישור לחלק הראשון), אף הוא בוגר ישיבת “הר-עציון”, ובו הוא מבקש להתבונן על תורת התעודות במבט חדש. מדוע, שואל פרופ’ ברמן, איננו מוצאים בקרב קבצי החוקים האחרים שהתגלו באזור גם כן טענות לתורת תעודות? האם ייתכן שרק בתורה שלנו חוברו תעודות שונות, ולא באף קובץ חוקים אחר מאותה תקופה?! מתוך ההנחה שיש למצוא את פתרון השאלות לסתירות בתורה מתוך הבנת אופן הכתיבה החוקית והסיפורית שהיתה נהוגה באותה תקופה בקרב העמים האחרים באזור, מגיע פרופ’ ברמן לתובנות מעניינות במיוחד שצריכים לעורר דיון ער בבית המדרש. אפשר רק לקוות שהדברים יתורגמו במהרה לעברית ויזכו לדיון גם בשפת הקודש.
אסיים את הערותי על הספר בדבר שכתב המחבר לקראת סופו. הפרק האחרון של הספר נקרא “חטאיהן של דמויות מרכזיות במקרא”. המחבר מציג שבאופן עקבי ניתן למצוא שני כיוונים בחז”ל ביחס לחטאי גיבורי התנ”ך. כידוע, מפרשי המקרא בחרו בדרך כלל בדרך הפשט. בדיונו בחטא דוד ובת-שבע מציין המחבר כי “רש”י אימץ את גישת רבי יונתן והוסיף דבר מפתיע – ששליחת אוריה למוות נועדה להתגבר על הבעיה ההלכתית של היות בת שבע אשת איש”. לענ”ד לא ניתן לומר דבר זה כלל. בפרקים יא-יב בשמואל ב הפירוש היחיד שמופיע ברש”י המזכיר את דברי רבי יונתן הוא שדוד שלח את אוריה למות “כדי שתהא מגורשת” (שם יא טו). פירוש זה של רש”י אינו בא לנקות את דוד מן החטא החמור, אלא להסביר מדוע בער לדוד להרגו. רש”י אינו מזכיר כלל שאוריה היה מורד במלכות, והלומד את דבריו בשמואל בודאי לא יגיע למסקנה שדוד לא חטא.
לסיכום, הספר “עד היום הזה” של הרב אמנון בזק בלול מכל טוב שיעניין את לומד התנ”ך בעידן שלנו. הספר מציג את הנושאים בצורה בהירה מאד, עם שלל מקורות והוכחות לכל כיוון. הערותיי דלעיל אינם גורעים מאומה מהכלי המתוקן שיצא מתחת ידיו של המחבר, אלא נועדו רק לתת ביטוי לרצון לראות מהדורה שניה מורחבת שיכיל עוד יותר חומר, ידע ונקודות מחשבה.

 



The Rav as a Mechadesh Halacha: One Small Example From Shabbat Rosh Chodesh

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The Rav as a Mechadesh Halacha: One Small Example From Shabbat Rosh Chodesh
Michael J. Broyde
In the Koren Rav siddur, in the minhagim of the Rav, in the section dealing with the halachic rules of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, זצ”ל it is written:
The Rav posited that if one forgot to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo on Rosh Hodesh during Shaharit, one should not repeat the Amida, but should rather rely upon the reference to the holiday that will be made in the Musaf prayer. The Gemara in Shabbat (24a) states that one who forgot to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo must indeed repeat the Amida and include Ya’aleh VeYavo in that second recital; but the Gemara in Berakhot (30b) qualifies this ruling, teaching that it is not necessary if one intends to recite Musaf subsequently, since the required reference to the special status of the day will take place during Musaf. Even though Rashi there (s.v. betzibbur) cites those who maintain that this dispensation applies only to the Leader in order to avoid any unnecessary delay to the start of the Repetition of the Amida, the Rav felt that we should follow the opinion of the Magan Avraham (Orah Hayyim 126:3) that even an individual should not repeat the Amida of Shaharit and should rely on his subsequent recitation of Musaf.
The rationale behind this view is as follows: When one forgets to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo, the need to repeat the Amida is only in order to be able to make reference to the special day within the context of the prayer. The obligation to recite the Amida per se, however, has in fact already been fulfilled. This second Amida therefore has the status of a tefillat nedava – a voluntary prayer, as it is recited not to fulfill any obligation to pray, but rather only to provide the needed context for the reference to the special day made through Ya’aleh VeYavo. Since it has become the practice to refrain from offering this form of voluntary prayer nowadays, Rav Hayyim Soloveitchik ruled that it is preferable not to repeat the Amida, but to rely upon the recitation of Musaf, if it will be done at the proper time. In light of this understanding, the Rav suggested that when Rosh Hodesh falls out on Shabbat, it would actually be prohibited to repeat the Amida if one forgot to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo, since it is prohibited to offer a tefillat nedava on Shabbat. [Eretz HaTzvi, pp. 43-44.] (Emphasis added)
And one is not surprised to find that this exact recitation is found in R. Tzvi (Hershel) Schachter, Eretz HaTzvi (Yeshiva University Press: New York, 1991).
While at first glance this note is not surprising – it appears that the Rav and his grandfather are adopting the ruling of the Magen Avraham over his peers — upon further examination it is clear that this is an exceptionally innovative ruling, in fact.  Furthermore, the expansion of this ruling by the Rav himself (“the Rav suggested that when Rosh Hodesh falls out on Shabbat, it would actually be prohibited to repeat the Amida if one forgot to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo”) is unprecedented, but logically compelling. A review of the sources is needed.
The Talmudic Sources, the Rishonim and the Codes.
 
The Gemera in Shabbat 24a recounts rather directly:
דתני רבי אושעיא: ימים שיש בהן קרבן מוסף, כגון ראש חודש וחולו של מועד – ערבית ושחרית ומנחה מתפלל שמונה עשרה, ואומר מעין המאורע בעבודה, ואם לא אמר – מחזירין אותו
R. Oshaia taught: On those days when there is a mussaf, such as Rosh Chodesh and Chol Hamoed at the Evening, Morning and Afternoon services, the shemona esrai is recited, and the nature of the day is inserted in the avoda blessing [ya’aleh veyavo] and if one does not insert it, one repeats the Shemona Esrai.
And the gemera in Brachot 30b recounts rather directly what appears to be a slightly different rule.
והתניא: טעה ולא הזכיר של ראש חודש בשחרית[1] – אין מחזירין אותו מפני שיכול לאומרה במוספין, במוספין – אין מחזירין אותו מפני שיכול לאומרה במנחה! – אמר ליה: לאו איתמר עלה, אמר רבי יוחנן, – בצבור שנו.
If one forgot and did not recite yaaleh veyavo in the morning [tefillah], he is not made to repeat [the prayer], because he can say it in mussaf if he forgot it in musaf, he is not made to repeat, because he can say it in mincha? — He said to him: Did you not leave out the rule of Rabbi Yochanan: This applies only to prayer said in a congregation?
Rashi (aware of the possible contradiction between these two sources) seeks a simple resolution with his two sided comments. Rashi in Brachot 30 b states:
בצבור שנו – דאין מחזירין, משום דשמע ליה משליח ציבור, ואיכא מקצת הזכרה, אבל ביחיד צריך לחזור, ובהלכות גדולות מפרש לה בשליח ציבור משום טירחא דצבורא, אבל יחיד הדר.
In a Congregation: One does not repeat davening, since one can hear it from the chazzan, and that is some partial recitation, but an individual must repeat; The Bahag explains that the chazzan is different since otherwise the community will be delayed, but other than the chazzan, one must repeat.
And one of these two resolutions of the contradiction (or both) is – as far as I can see – accepted by every single rishon who comments on
the gemera.  Rambam (Tefillah 10:10-12) states directly:
טעה ולא הזכיר יעלה ויבא אם נזכר קודם שישלים תפלתו חוזר לעבודה ומזכיר, ואם נזכר אחר שהשלים תפלתו חוזר לראש,* * * *. במה דברים אמורים בחולו של מועד או בשחרית ובמנחה של ראשי חדשים, אבל ערבית של ראש חדש אם לא הזכיר אינו חוזר.כל מקום שהיחיד חוזר ומתפלל ש”ץ חוזר ומתפלל אם טעה כמותו בעת שמתפלל בקול רם, חוץ משחרית של ראש חדש שאם שכח ש”ץ ולא הזכיר יעלה ויבא עד שהשלים תפלתו אין מחזירין אותו מפני טורח ציבור, שהרי תפלת המוספין לפניו שהוא מזכיר בה ראש חדש.
Rambam Tefillah 10:10-12
 
If one errs and forgets to mention Ya’aleh veyavo — if one remembers before one has finished one’s amidah, one should return to retzey, and recite it. If one remembers after one has concluded one’s amidah, one must repeat the amidah from the beginning.  * * *When does this rule apply? On Chol Hamo’ed or in the morning or Mincha amidah of Rosh Chodesh. However, in the evening service of Rosh Chodesh, if one failed to mention it one need not repeat one’s prayers. In every case in which an individual is required to repeat his prayers, the chazzan is also required to repeat his prayers if he made that mistake while praying out loud, with the exception of the morning service of Rosh Chodesh, where if the chazzan failed to mention Ya’aleh v’yavo before completing the amidah, he is not required to repeat the amidah because of the delay this would cause the congregation, since the Musaf service is still to be recited and Rosh Chodesh will be mentioned there.
And the same rule is codified in the Shulchan Aruch, with the addition that one can also adopt the approach of the Bahag as quoted by Rashi and instead of praying again, one can hear the prayers from the chazzan.  Shulchan Aruch OC 124:10 codifies the rule in Shabbat 24a and Shulchan Aruch OC 126:3 codifies the exception in Brachot 30b.
שולחן ערוך אורח חיים הלכות תפלה סימן קכד סעיף י מי ששכח ולא אמר יעלה ויבא בר”ח או בחולו של מועד או בכל דבר שצריך לחזור בשבילו, יכוין דעתו וישמע מש”צ כל י”ח ברכות מראש ועד סוף כאדם שמתפלל לעצמו; ולא יפסיק ולא ישיח
Shulchan Aruch OC 124:10
One for forgets and does not recite yaaleh veyavo on Rosh Chodesh or chol Hamoed or any other cases where one must repeat the amidah due to the omission, he can focus himself during the repetition and hear the words from the chazzan of all Eighteen blessings, from beginning to end, like a person who is himself praying without interruption or digression.
שולחן ערוך אורח חיים הלכות תפלה סימן קכו סעיף ג כל מקום שהיחיד חוזר ומתפלל, ש”צ חוזר ומתפלל, אם טעה כמותו כשמתפלל בקול רם, חוץ משחרית של ר”ח, שאם שכח ש”צ ולא הזכיר יעלה ויבא עד שהשלים תפלתו, אין מחזירין אותו, מפני טורח הצבור, שהרי תפלת המוספין לפניו שהוא מזכיר בה ר”ח.
Shulchan Aruch OC 126:3
In every case in which an individual is required to repeat his prayers, the chazzan is required to repeat his prayers if he made that same mistake while praying out loud, with the exception of the morning service of Rosh Chodesh, where if the chazzan failed to mention Ya’aleh v’yavo before completing the amidah, he is not required to repeat the amidah because of the delay this would cause the congregation, since the Musaf service is still to be recited and Rosh Chodesh will be mentioned there.
So far, the halacha is clear and simple.  One must repeat the amidah if one forgets yaaleh veyavo (either by actually repeating it or through listening to it recited by another) except for the rare situation of the Shacharit chazzan who forgets during his repetition.
The Alternative of the Rama MePano: A Different Rule
Rama MePano 25:5 understands the basic flow of the sources in a different way and adds something quite new to the codification of the halacha.  He states:
יחיד ששכח ולא הזכיר קדושת היום בתפלת שחרית ואחר שהתפלל מוסף חזר והתפלל שחרית, ודאי אינו צריך לחזור ולהתפלל מוסף, שאפי’ בקרבנות גופייהו אם הקדים את שאינו תדיר מה שעשה עשוי. ואי לאו דמסתפינא אמינא דלא אמרו בגמרא להחזיר את היחיד שטעה אף על פי שיש לפניו תפלת המוספין אלא קודם שהתפלל מוסף כיון שבידו לתקן יתקן לגמרי, הא אם התפלל מוסף הרי הזכיר קדושת היום ואין צורך לחזור ולהתפלל שחרית, דלא גרע דיעבד ליחיד ממאי דשרינן לכתחלה לרבים, ודברים של טעם הם להלכה מהתם, הגע עצמך שש”צ יהא נזקק להוציא עשרה שאינן בקיאין ידי חובתן ושכח ולא הזכיר שחרית מעין ר”ח ועם תפלת מוסף פוטר עצמו וחבריו לכתחלה ולא אחד בהם חוזר ומתפלל שחרית, לא יהא יחיד הבקי בדיעבד אלא כעשרה שאינן בקיאין ולכתחלה.
An individual, who forgets and does not recite the mention of the day in the Shacharit amidah and then he recites musaf, returns to recite Shacharit.  Certain he does not have to return to recite musaf again, since even with the Bet Hamikdash sacrifices themselves, if one did them out of order, and sacrificed the infrequent first, that which was done, was done.  If I were not uncertain, I would say that that the gemera does not direct an individual who errors to repeat the amidah, only before he has recited musaf, since he can fix this matter, he should do so completely.  But, if he already recited musaf, he has already recited the proper sanctification of the day and he does not have to recite Shacharit again, since the after the fact rule for a single prayer is no worse than that which we permit ideally for the many.  This seems logical and normative as a matter of halacha: Consider for yourself that the chazzan who is connected to the obligation to fulfill the obligation for ten who cannot pray when they are not experts, and yet when he forgets to recite yaalah veyavo in Shacharit, he can fulfill his and others obligations in musaf perfectly. And not of them have to go back and recite Shacharit again.  A single person who can pray for himself after the fact, is no worse than ten who are not experts ideally.
The Rama mePano understand the sources in a new and novel way: really according to the formulation in Brachot 30b (which the halacha follows) one can rule that if one already prayed the proper mussaf before one realized that one forgot to recite ya’aleh vehavo in Shacharit, one need not pray again, since one can be no worse that the chazzan mentioned in the gemera above. And this view is adopted by the Magen Avraham (OC 126:3) as well, who states:
כל מקום – כ’ מ”ע סי’ כ”ה אי לאו דמסתפינא הייתי אומר יחיד שלא הזכיר ר”ח בשחרית והתפלל מוסף אין צריך שוב להתפלל שחרית דלא גרע דיעבד ליחיד מלכתחלה לרבים ודברים של טעם הם להלכה ע”כ, ול”נ דנכון למעשה שלא יתפלל דלא יהא אלא ספק [כ”ה סימן תכ”ב]:
3            Any place.  It is written in the Rama Mepano 25 that if he were not so uncertain he would say that a person who forgets to recite yaaleh veyavo in Shacharit and then recites musaf he does not have to again go back and recite shacharit another time, since the after the fact rule for a single person is not worse that the ideal rule for the many.  This approach has much merit as normative halacha.  In my view, it is proper lemaseh that one should not recite shacharit again, since the matter is in doubt.
Magen Avraham seems to agree with the tentative rule of the Rama mePano and thus decides that if one already recited musaf, then one does
not have to say shacharit again.  Magen Avraham, however, does not claim that one can decide not to recite Shacharit again and intend it rely on this subsequent recitation of musaf.
An Explanation of the Rav’s View
As quoted above, this was not the Rav’s view.  Rather (as the Koren siddur notes) “the Rav posited that if one forgot to recite Ya’aleh VeYavo on Rosh Hodesh during Shaharit, one should not repeat the Amida, but should rather rely upon the reference to the holiday that will be made in the Musaf prayer.” Notice the incredible chiddish the Rav puts forward.  He expands the Rama mePano and Magen Avraham to include the case where one is eventually going to recite musaf, but has not yet done so, and he adds to this that on Shabbat one must adopt this rule, since a teffilat nedava is prohibited.  This chiddish – which to the best of my knowledge is completely unfound in any Rishon at all — is I think built on a totally different approach to the two Talmudic sources from any Rishon and even quite distinct from the Magen Avraham and Rama mePano, although related and derived from it.
Consider how to explain the three basic views adopted:
All Rishonim: Either Brachot 30b is addressing the unique situation of the chazzan or is because one can hear it correctly from the chazzan, but it never applies in the case of a person who is davening alone without a minyan present.  Shabbat 24a is the rule – one who leaves out Ya’aleh VeYavo has to repeat the amida.  No distinction is made between weekday and Shabbat.
 
Rama MePano and Magen Avraham: Shabbat 24a is the rule, but Brachot 30b is the exceptional rule for the chazzan in order to not delay the community.  One who is not the chazzan cannot rely on Brachot 30b.  If one has already prayed mussaf, then one has no choice but to follow the Brachot 30b rules, since he has already after the fact fulfilled his obligation.  Again, no distinction is made between the weekday and Shabbat.
Rabbi Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik: Brachot 30b and Shabbat 24a are in tension since one directs one to repeat amida and one directs one not to.  The halacha follows the rule of Brachot 30b in that one who skips Ya’aleh VeYavo in Shacharit never really has to repeat the amida, except as a voluntary prayer, and when voluntary prayer is prohibited (such as on Shabbat), such a repetition is prohibited too.  This is based on the insight of the Rama MePenao, but is quite an expansion of it.
Allow me to suggest, as a proof to Rabbi Soloveitchik’s understands of the basic Talmudic sources, that one can focus on three basic aspects of the two sugyot to support this chiddish.  First is the fact that that the gemera in Shabbat can reasonably be limited to weekdays (chol) cases where 18 blessings is said, which is why it used the language of shemonah esrai – and on such days, a tefillat nedavah is possible.[2]  Second, the Brachot sugya can reasonably be limited to Shabbat, since it discusses forgetting that it is Rosh Chodesh but yet reciting musaf: when can one forget that it is Rosh Chodesh and yet still recite musaf?  Almost never during the weekdays (since if one did not remember it was Rosh Chodesh, one would not say musaf as a factual matter) but only on Shabbat, when no tefillat nedavah is possible, and yet musaf is recited, even if it is not Rosh Chodesh![3]  Parsing the two sources in their context allows one to see that Shabbat 24a directive is the suggestion for a tefillat nedava and the Brachot 30b rule is actually the rule – no repetition is permitted when no tefillat nedavah is possible.[4]
Finally, it is not difficult to divide the Brachot sugya into two thoughts along a line similar to the Rama MePano (but not identical). The first is the general rule that no repetition for ya’aleh veyavo is needed when one says a subsequent amidah (musaf), and the second view is that of Rav Yochanan that in a tzibbur is different, since one does not actually have to wait until the next amidah to fulfill one’s obligation, but one can fulfill it by listening to the chazzan repeat this davening (as per the main view of Rashi).  Of course, this view concedes, according to Rabbi Soloveitchik, that when one cannot hear it from the chazzan, one still does not repeat the amidah, except when a teffilat nedavah is acceptable (which nowadays is never).  In fact, the Rav must have ruled that whether or not the halacha adopts Rav Yochanan’s view, the rest of the Brachot sugya is correct.  This also makes the Brachot sugya (the “on topic” gemera) normative (lehacha), and the Shabbat sugya (the “off topic” gemera) not normative (shelo lehalacha) – a more compelling read of the sugyot.
It is worth noting that if this explanation of the Rav’s view is correct, another chiddish seems also to be correct.  On Shabbat Rosh Chodesh, when one is davening by oneself without a minyan, and one forgets that it is Rosh Chodesh for both Shacharit and Musaf, and remembers after mincha, one does not repeat musaf again, since one can follow the formulation of Brachot 30b thatבמוספין – אין מחזירין אותו מפני שיכול לאומרה במנחה! and a tefillat nedava is not possible.  The same is true if one forgets it is Rosh Chodesh on Shabbat mincha, but had previously remembered at shacharit and mussaf.

 


[1] I have deleted the words “בערבית – אין מחזירין אותו מפני שיכול לאומרה בשחרית” since nearly all the rishonim do not have them in their gemera and this makes more sense given the flow of the sugya.
[2] The Gemera in Shabbat 24a states מתפלל שמונה עשרה, ואומר מעין המאורע בעבודה.
[3] Of course, one could also read the Gemera in Brachot as speaking about a case during the weekday when one forgot ya’aleh veyavo in shacharit but recited musaf – but then the sugyot are in flat out conflict.  The approach, which also notes that the term shemona esrai (the weekday amidah) is in Shabbat 24a and not is Brachot 30b, eliminates the ccore onflict between the two sugyot.
[4] This approach has the additional advantage of making the Brachot Talmudic source superior to the Shabbat one, which is more reasonable and in line with the general rule, in that the Brachot source is directly on the topic of ya’aleh veyavo and the Shabbat source is off topic and incidental, following the general Talmudic rule that when Talmudic sources conflict, we prefer to follow the one that is central and not the one that is incidental.


ArtScroll’s Response and My Comments

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 ArtScroll’s Response and My Comments
by Marc B. Shapiro 
My recent post here was more popular than my typical post. I base this statement on the fact that I received more emails from readers than usual and the post was picked up by a variety of different websites. The part dealing with the censorship of Rashbam was translated into Hebrew here (with one of the commenters calling for a herem to be placed on ArtScroll)[ and see also here.
ArtScroll has now issued its response. The following has been sent out to those who wrote to ArtScroll about the censorship.
Let us make clear at the outset, ArtScroll has total and uncompromising respect for Chazal and the classic commentators. We do not censor them. Every one of their words is holy, and we have never deigned to tamper with their sacred texts.
For an understanding of the matter under discussion, it is important to present the background of the published versions of Rashbam’s commentary on the Torah.

·      Rashbam’s commentary was first printed in 1705, based on the only existing manuscript of his virtually complete commentary on the Chumash. That manuscript began with Parashas Vayeira.

·      Subsequent editions were based on that 1705 printing.

·      In 1882, David Rosin published a new annotated edition of Rashbam’s commentary.

·   The new edition also included a commentary on the Parshiyos Bereishis, Noach, and Lech-Lecha based on comments culled by Rosin from Rashbam’s other writings as well as selections from other works that cite Rashbam. Additionally, this 1882 edition included material taken from a newly-discovered manuscript containing one page of commentary ascribed to Rashbam, on only the first chapter of Bereishis ending in the middle of verse 1:31.

·      This manuscript fragment includes an exegesis that appears several times – an exegesis that Ibn Ezra, in his famous Iggeres HaShabbos, vehemently condemns, stating, that it had been put forth by “minim” (heretics). Furthermore, a later exegesis in the same manuscript page (on verse 14) directly contradicts that earlier exegesis.
In our Czuker edition of Mikraos Gedolos, we wished to provide the Torah public with the fullest version of the Rashbam’s commentary, so rather than beginning with Parashas Vayeira, we incorporated additional material from the 1882 Rosin edition, from the beginning of Bereishis. However, given Ibn Ezra’s attribution of this exegesis to “minim,” coupled with a completely contradictory exegesis in verse 14, it is questionable whether Rashbam actually proposed the exegesis attributed to him.  Because of these factors we added only those writings attributed to Rashbam whose authenticity have not been questioned. Far from “censorship,” we have added to the older, standard Mikraos Gedolos editions.
Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, we should have indicated that the basis for our text of Rashbam was the standard Vilna edition of 1898, with emendations from the Rosin edition of 1882. Indeed, this is what we have indicated in our just-published Sefer Shemos volume, and which will be reflected in future reprints of Sefer Bereishis.
* * * *
In my response I will only deal with the matter at hand, that is, the censorship of Rashbam’s commentary, not with the larger matter of whether ArtScroll really has “total and uncompromising respect for . . . the classic commentators.” I have dealt with this latter point in previous posts and offered evidence that contradicts ArtScroll’s assertion.
Let me begin by saying that the one word that best describes ArtScroll’s statement is “chutzpah”. Here we have an explanation from Rashbam that has been discussed and dealt with by some of the greatest Torah scholars for well over a century, yet ArtScroll feels that it knows better than all of them and thus has the authority to simply delete passages from the commentary. If that isn’t chutzpah, I don’t know what is.

Rashbam’s brother, Rabbenu Tam, famously attacked those who deleted or emended passages in the Talmud based on their own understanding.[1] Rabbenu Tam realized that if everyone had the freedom to do with the text as he wished, it wouldn’t be long before the Talmud was irrevocably damaged. As such, anyone who has a suggestion about a mistake in the text is free to add it in the form of a note or in a commentary, but he is not permitted to alter the text itself. The only honest thing would have been for ArtScroll to have included the “objectionable” passages and then explain why they feel that these texts are not authentic.
The fact that ArtScroll sees the passages that it deleted as heretical is irrelevant. Great people have regarded texts of the Rambam, of R. Kook, and of many others as heretical. Does that mean that we can start deleting these texts? There are aharonim and at least one rishon who believe that there are passages in the Talmud that were inserted by people intent on mocking the Sages (details will be in a future post). Does that mean that if ArtScroll shares this opinion it is entitled to delete these passages as well?
As I mentioned, the chutzpah is seen in the fact that ArtScroll feels that it knows better than such great figures as R. David Zvi Hoffmann[2] and R. Yaakov Kamenetsky.[3] Both of these men were not simply great talmudists but were also great biblical scholars, and they expound Rashbam’s view. It never occurred to them to delete the passages or to claim that they aren’t authentic. Cassuto was another great biblical scholar and he believed that Rashbam’s understanding of the verse is correct.[4]
Every student of Torah is taught the virtue of humility. What this means is that if you don’t understand something you seek out people greater than yourself to hear their perspective. How come ArtScroll didn’t follow this route before taking the drastic step of deleting the comments of Rashbam?
Unfortunately, if ArtScroll’s mikraot gedolot becomes the standard, anyone who uses the commentaries of R. Hoffmann, R. Kamenetsky, Cassuto and so many others will be very confused. These commentaries will cite Rashbam and explain his words, but the reader who opens up his ArtScroll mikraot gedolot to see what Rashbam says “inside” won’t be able to find it. If he doesn’t read the Seforim Blog, he won’t know what is going on.
For over a hundred years people studied Rashbam’s commentary without any problem. Different interpretations were offered, all in order to make sense of Rashbam’s words. Around fifteen years ago a few people, none of whom have any scholarly or religious standing, started making noise that there is heresy in Rashbam’s commentary on Genesis chapter 1.[5] This led a couple of haredi publishers to delete some or all of the “problematic” comments (different editions have different deletions).[6]
ArtScroll has chosen to follow this regrettable path. When this nonsense first began with the haredim in Israel, the great R. Yehoshua Mondshine, whose recent passing is an enormous loss for all, published the following letter in Kovetz Beit Aharon ve-Yisrael.[7]

The disdain he shows in this letter would be magnified if he were writing about ArtScroll, as one would expect ArtScroll to know better. It is unfortunate that ArtScroll did not heed his final words directed towards publishers inclined to censorship.
יש להתרות במו”לים שלא יהיו נחפזים “לצנזר” את פירוש הרשב”ם מכח סברות תמוהות וקלושות, ויחרדו לנפשם מאזהרות הקדמונים דלייטי ליד המגיה בספרים.
Following R. Mondshine’s letter, there appears a very lengthy letter by R. Menahem ben Shimon[8] explaining that Rashbam’s comments at the beginning of Genesis should not be controversial at all. He concludes by comparing censorship of Rashbam to the burning of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, and adds
יש בזה עזות מצח, וביזוי דברי הקדמונים, והתייחסות לדבריהם כאילו חלילה מדובר בתקליטור עם משחקים חינוכיים “בהכשר הרבנים”, וכיו”ב, וכבר הזהירונו חז”ל להיזהר בכבוד תלמידי חכמים שכל דבריהם כגחלי אש.
I have to acknowledge that some people are having a good chuckle right now at my expense. Call it naiveté, but I was convinced that the response of ArtScroll would be to admit the mistake, blame it on an error in “editing” or something like that, and correct matters in the next printing. That would have been a great outcome. I, more than many others, was shocked by ArtScroll’s response. 
In its response ArtScroll states: “[G]iven Ibn Ezra’s attribution of this exegesis to “minim,” coupled with a completely contradictory exegesis in verse 14, it is questionable whether Rashbam actually proposed the exegesis attributed to him.”
The first thing to note is that in the preface to the Iggeret ha-Shabbat, where Ibn Ezra explains what led him to write the work, he does not attribute this exegesis to “minim”. ArtScroll would have you believe that Ibn Ezra stated that the passages they have deleted are heretical interpolations. Even if this was the case, it would only be Ibn Ezra’s opinion. This would not entitle ArtScroll to delete the passages, just like they don’t have the right to delete other passages that some commentator thought were not authentic. But in this case ArtScroll is simply wrong, and I hope that they are not intentionally misleading people. (I also hope that they informed the sponsor of the new mikraot gedolot that they intended to delete passages from Rashbam.[9])

Here is the text from Ibn Ezra.[10]

As you can see, Ibn Ezra responds very sharply to the interpretation mentioned by Rashbam. Although Rashbam is not mentioned by name, the standard view in traditional and scholarly circles is that Ibn Ezra was indeed directing his words at Rashbam and not at others who shared this perspective. This would explain his use of the words ולא תשא פני איש which would only be used with reference to an outstanding scholar.[11] David Kahana suggests that, as a sign of respect, Ibn Ezra does not mention Rashbam by name and he also does not curse the author of the explanation he is attacking.[12] He only curses the one who reads it aloud and the scribe who writes it. If Ibn Ezra was directing his comment against some heretic, we would expect him to curse this person, so the fact that he does not do so is quite significant and indeed points to Rashbam as the “addressee” of Ibn Ezra’s Iggeret ha-Shabbat.
Ibn Ezra never denies the authenticity of the interpretation he is responding to; he just attacks it. His attack on Rashbam’s view is just like Nahmanides’ attack on Maimonides’ view that the angels who came to Abraham were really just part of a prophetic vision. Nahmanides does not deny that Maimonides said this, but he does say that it is forbidden to accept what Maimonides says. It is the exact same thing here. Ibn Ezra is not denying that Rashbam offered the interpretation. He is simply saying that it is forbidden to accept this approach. (I should also add, since we are discussing a dispute between Ibn Ezra and Rashbam, that by any traditional measure Rashbam must be regarded as a more significant and authoritative figure than Ibn Ezra.)

ArtScroll also states that since Rashbam’s commentary to Genesis 1:14 contradicts what he says in the passages deleted by ArtScroll, this gives weight to their assumption that the other passages were not written by Rashbam but were instead inserted by some heretic. To begin with, since there are five[13] “problematic” comments and one “non-problematic” comment, perhaps it is the “non-problematic” comment to Genesis 1:14 that is to be regarded as inauthentic and should be removed. I say this only tongue and cheek, since ArtScroll should have realized two pretty basic things.
1. Rashbam often offers explanations, even in matters of halakhah, that are in line with the peshat of the text but diverge from the talmudic understanding. I understand that in some contemporary circles this would be regarded as heretical, since they assume that the meaning of the verse, especially in halakhic matters, can only be what the sages of the Talmud declare. Yet Rashbam had a different perspective, and he allowed for a peshat that diverges from what the Talmud states.
2. If you have contradictory explanations in the same chapter, the proper thing to do is to see if they can be reconciled before deciding that some of the comments are not authentic and can therefore be deleted. This was the approach of the great scholars of the last century who discussed Rashbam’s commentary. If ArtScroll had “uncompromising respect” for these figures, who devoted great time to understanding what Rashbam was saying, they would not have dared delete Rashbam’s comments, since by doing so they are in effect claiming that they know better than R. Hoffmann, R. Kamenetsky, and so many others.
Let me cite some other writers, including outstanding Torah scholars, who discussed Rashbam’s comments on when the day begins. In ArtScroll’s eyes this was all a big waste of time, since Rashbam never could have said what appears in his commentary. I guess we should all feel sorry for these Torah scholars that when they wrote they didn’t have ArtScroll around to set them straight. The more important question is why didn’t ArtScroll think that any of the explanations offered by these scholars were enough to save Rashbam’s comments from being deleted? (My own sense is that the individual who made the choice to censor Rashbam did not begin to understand the issue and was unaware of the sources referred to in this post.)
1. R. Menahem M. Kasher discusses Ibn Ezra’s attack on Rashbam and offers an explanation for Rashbam’s position, distinguishing between how the days were structured in the first six days of creation and what occurred afterwards.[14] R. Kasher also cites R. Pinhas Horowitz, Ha-Makneh to Kiddushin 37b, that before the giving of the Torah night came after day, and this can also be an explanation for Rashbam’s approach. In support of his assumption, R. Horowitz cites a verse not mentioned by Rashbam, Genesis 8:22:  ויום ולילה לא ישבתו. As you can see, in this verse night comes after day. (R. Horowitz repeats this explanation in his Panim Yafot to Genesis 8:22.) R. Moses Sofer cites this point from R. Horowitz and notes that even today it is only with regard to Jews that night precedes day, but for non-Jews the halakhah remains that day precedes night.[15]
R. Ezekiel Landau agrees with R. Horowitz that before the giving of the Torah the day did not start at night.[16] In support of this approach, R. Samuel Mirsky refers to Ugaritic literature which he regards as real evidence for Rashbam’s position.[17]
R. Moshe Malka also takes note of R. Horowitz’s position.[18]  Based on it he claims that
נחה שקטה תמיהתו של הראב”ע על הרשב”ם, כי הוא דבר על מעשה בראשית לפני מת”ת
R. Catriel David Kaplin also refers to R. Horowitz’ perspective and explains that Rashbam agrees with it.[19]
R. Kasher further cites R. Isaac Israeli (14th century) as agreeing with R. Horowitz. In his Yesod Olam[20] R. Israeli writes
וכן נהגו כל ישראל ממתן תורה ועד עתה להתחיל קדושת השבת ושאר ימי מקראי קודש מתחילת הלילה . . . ועל העיקר הנכון הזה יסדו לנו קדמונינו וקבעו בחשבון מולדות הלבנה ותקופת החמה.
R. Kasher calls attention to the words ממתן תורה ועד עתה and concludes that R Israeli is telling us that before the giving of the Torah the day began in the morning.
Finally, R. Kasher points to two separate rabbinic texts, one talmudic and one midrashic, that he feels can support Rashbam’s approach.
2. Da’at Mikra to Genesis 1:5 (p. 10 n. 168) explains that Rashbam’s understanding of when the day begins only refers to the six days of creation.
3. A different approach in explaining Rashbam is taken by R. Moshe Schwerd in a recent article in Or Yisrael.[21]
4. The Lubavitcher Rebbe refers to Rashbam’s explanation of when the day begins in order to illustrate how explanations in accord with peshat can contradict the accepted halakhah.[22]
5. R. Chaim Leib Zaks calls attention to the fact that two medieval authorities explain Genesis 1:5: ויהי ערב ויהי בקר, just as Rashbam did, that is, that day comes before night.[23] The first is the commentary attributed to Rashi, Ta’anit 11b, s.v. למחר.[24] The second is the commentary attributed to Rashi, Nazir 7a s.v. התם.[25]
6. R. Eliyahu Katz, who served as rav of Bratislava under the Communists and later as chief rabbi of Be’er Sheva, published a number of interesting books which appear to be completely unknown. In his Emor ve-Amarta[26] he states that R. Judah ha-Nasi might also have held that according to the peshat night comes after day, and that Rashbam might have based his explanation on R. Judah’s opinion. He also points out that Rashi, Genesis 1:14 writes
שמוש החמה חצי יום ושמוש הלבנה חציו הרי יום שלם
This is a strange formulation since Rashi appears to be agreeing with Rashbam that the day – שמוש החמה – comes before the night – שמוש הלבנה.
7. R. Jacob of Vienna, in his commentary to Genesis 1:5, writes[27]:
וא”ת אימא הלילה הולך אחר היום והכי קאמר ויהי ערב של יום הראשון ויהי בקר של יום שני אז נשלם יום שלם
In his note to this passage R. Zvi Rotberg understandably refers to Rashbam, as R. Jacob might indeed be alluding to him here.[28] The editor of R. Jacob’s volume, R. Menasheh Grossberg, refers to R. Pinhas Horowitz’s view mentioned above.
8. R. Shlomo Fisher, without question one of the top Torah scholars in the world, elaborates on the implication of Rashbam’s view that it is only through Torah she-Ba’al Peh, not the peshat of the verses, that we know that day comes after night.[29] A student of R. Fisher asked him about the censorship of Rashbam, and not surprisingly he expressed strong opposition to any such tampering with the writings of rishonim. He also told this student about a contemporary “scholar” who claims that Rashbam was influenced by evil people who caused him to go astray! Talk about chutzpah![30]
10. Michael Landy called my attention to the fact that Abarbanel cites the interpretation mentioned by Rashbam in the name of יש מהמפרשים.[31]
All of these sources that I have quoted, and believe me when I tell you that there are many more, are simply designed to show that the view of Rashbam expressed in his commentary to the first chapter of Genesis is part and parcel of Torah history and literature. Many of our great minds have discussed Rashbam’s view in a variety of contexts. Yet ArtScroll, on its own, has decided that it knows best and chose to remove the words of Rashbam from the public eye. They have no right or authority to do this. Their action is a betrayal of Rashbam and of those who want to study the writings of Rashbam. It is also an incredible display of disrespect to those great Torah scholars who have devoted time to the matter and explained the comments of Rashbam that ArtScroll prefers to view as heretical.
After all we have seen, let us return to the issue of Ibn Ezra’s attack on Rashbam and ask why it was so harsh. After all, what is so terrible about explaining the peshat of the Torah even if it diverges from the accepted halakhah, an approach that is found in numerous commentators?
The significance of the example we have been discussing is that there were indeed sectarians who observed Shabbat from Saturday morning until Sunday morning. Rashbam’s interpretation was thus dangerous as it could have had real world implications by giving support to the anti-halakhic behavior just mentioned.
In his commentary to Exodus 16:25 Ibn Ezra refers to “many people, lacking in faith” who erred in this matter and did not start Shabbat on Friday night. He tells us that they based their mistaken approach on Genesis 1:5: ויהי ערב ויהי בקר. In other words, they interpreted the verse in the same way that Rashbam did. Towards the end of Iggeret Shabbat, p. 171, he also mentions these “minim” who do not observe Shabbat beginning Friday night. It is thus easy to see why Ibn Ezra reacted so strongly and set out to uproot Rashbam’s interpretation.
Who were these sectarians Ibn Ezra refers to? Presumably the Mishawites, a group that we know started Shabbat on Saturday morning.[32] Benjamin of Tudela records meeting sectarians in Cyprus, again presumably Mishawites, who indeed observed the Shabbat in this fashion.[33]
In the last paragraph of the ArtScroll letter it states that from now on they will note that their text of Rashbam is the standard Vilna edition of 1898 with “emendations from the Rosin edition of 1882”. This is clearly obfuscation as we are not dealing here with any “emendations” suggested by Rosin. To repeat what the issue is: Rosin printed from manuscript Rashbam’s commentary to Genesis chapter 1. This section of the commentary does not appear in the standard Vilna edition. ArtScroll chose to include Rashbam’s commentary to Genesis chapter 1 in its recently published mikraot gedolot. However, ArtScroll also chose to delete those sections of the commentary it didn’t like, assuming (without any evidence) that these sections were written by heretics. This is censorship of  Rashbam. That is all people need to know.[34]
ArtScroll has done some great things. They have also done some pretty disappointing things. But as I said in the prior post, nothing comes close to this. Deleting comments of one of the greatest rishonim is simply outrageous. Some have said that what ArtScroll did is unforgivable. I think this is going too far. If ArtScroll acknowledges its error and reinserts that which has been removed, I think that we all would be very happy to put this behind us. One of the most important aspects of a Torah personality is the ability to recognize when one has made a mistake and rectify it. If ArtScroll is able to do this, it would lead to great admiration.

On the other hand, if ArtScroll refuses to acknowledge that it has made a terrible error, even after seeing the evidence presented in this post, then one must conclude that ArtScroll is knowingly suppressing the words of a great rishon. One can only hope that ArtScroll does not wish to have this blemish permanently attached to its name.

[1] ArtScroll and other publishers should pay close attention to the words of Rabbenu Tam, which I would have thought would be enough to scare off the censors. Sefer ha-Yashar, ed. Rosenthal (Berlin, 1898), p. 75:
ומגיהי חנם, בעיני דינם, למדורי גהינם
P. 105:
כי כאשר לא יודעים, העולם מטעים, וכאשר תוהים, הספרים מגיהים. ואתם הרעות מהם, כי הם כותבים ה”ג בהגהותיהם, ולכן ניכר מעבדיהם. ואתה לא כן, אך סותם הגהותיך וסומכים עליך וטועים . . . אין עצה ואין תבונה, רק להעמיד על האמת ולזרוק מרה במגיהי הספרים
Even if they are not scared of מדורי גהינם, one would have thought that they would have seen the wisdom of what Rabbenu Tam writes in the introduction to Sefer ha-Yashar, ed. Schlesinger (Jerusalem, 1985), p. 9:
והדין נותן אם לא ידע אדם הלכה יכתוב פתרונו לפי ראות עיניו אם ירצה אך בספרים אל ימחק שדברי תורה עניים במקומן ועשירים במקום אחר ואם דבר רק הוא ממנו הוא [רק]
                       
[2] Sefer Bereshit, trans. Asher Wasserteil (Bnei Brak, 1969), pp. 26-27. Hoffmann writes as follows:
כמו גם פרשנים חדשים רבים הוא [רשב”ם] סבר, שבימי מעשה בראשית נמנו הימים באופן שונה מדרך מנייתם לאחר מכן, בימי מתן תורה, כשם שגם תחילת השנה לפני מתן תורה שונה – לדעת ר’ אליעזר – מזו שלאחריו.
[3] Emet le-Yaakov (Cleveland Heights, 2007), p. 17.
[4] Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem, 1998), p. 28.
[5] As far as I know, the first one to assert that Rashbam’s comments are heretical interpolations was R. Yehudah Nachshoni, Hagut be-Farashiyot ha-Torah (Bnei Brak, 1981), vol. 1, p. 262, but this had no impact on the haredi world. Here is the page from Nachshoni.

He writes:
לדעתו יש לחשוש שמא חלו ידי קראים בדברי הרשב”ם
What this means is that Ibn Ezra thought that perhaps Rashbam’s metaphorical interpretation of the commandment of tefillin in Ex. 13:9 is a Karaite interpolation. This is complete nonsense as Ibn Ezra says nothing of the sort. I think, therefore, that there is a typo and the first word should read לדעתי. It is still nonsense but at least now the sentence is understandable. Following this, Nachshoni adds another absurdity, stating that Rashbam’s interpretation of when the day starts is also a Karaite interpolation. (Prof. Daniel Lasker has confirmed to me that all Karaites began the Sabbath on Friday night.)
Now comes the real irony. ArtScroll published a posthumous translation of Nachshoni’s book in 1988. Apparently ArtScroll was embarrassed by what Nachshoni wrote so ArtScroll censored it! Here is the English version, Studies in the Weekly Parashah, vol. 2, pp. 414-415.
In 1988 ArtScroll censored the writings of Nachshoni because he said that Rashbam’s comments were heretical interpolations, but in 2014 ArtScroll accepted this very position and instead censored Rashbam! Can it get any crazier than this?
As an aside, let me also note that I find it strange that ArtScroll does not give Nachshoni the title “Rabbi” on the title page of its translation of his book, even though he is referred to as such in the preface.
[6] It is possible that the haredi publishers who censored Rashbam did so purely for financial reasons. After putting a lot of money into their editions, a pashkevil directed against them, incited by some extremist, could be financially devastating. In the haredi world it is often enough to say that there is a “problem” with a book for people not to buy it. The masses won’t have a clue about the issue, but if there is a choice between two competing mikraot gedolots, they will feel safer buying the one which has not had any questions raised about it.
[7] (Kislev-Tevet 5760), p. 150.
[8] Ibid., pp. 151-155.
[9] I don’t have the newly published ArtScroll mikraot gedolot on Exodus (and will refuse to buy it until Rashbam’s commentary is fixed). I was curious if Rashbam on Ex. 13:9 appears in full or if it too was censored. Here Rashbam states that the commandment of tefillin in this verse: והיה לך לאות על ידך ולזכרון בין עיניך, is to be understood metaphorically. Ibn Ezra, in his commentary on Ex.13:9, harshly criticizes the metaphorical interpretation. A friend sent me a copy of this page of Rashbam and the commentary appears in full. I did notice, however, that in the following verse in Rashbam, Ex. 13:10, it reads חוקת הפסח with a dagesh in the kuf. This is a mistake, and in the next printing the dagesh should be removed.
If ArtScroll is looking for something to censor in the newly released volume, Or ha-Hayyim to Ex. 31:16 probably fits the bill. In this controversial passage Or ha-Hayyim states that we don’t violate Shabbat to save the life of someone who will not live until the next Shabbat. This contradicts an explict talmudic passage, Yoma 85a, that one violates Shabbat even for hayyei sha’ah. See R. Ovadiah Yosef, Hazon Ovadiah: Shabbat, vol. 3, pp. 296ff. R. Judah Aryeh Leib Alter, Sefat Emet: Likutim (New York, 1957), p. 77a (Ki Tisa), already suggested that an “erring student” wrote these words in Or ha-Hayyim.
[10] It appears in Kerem Hemed 4 (1839), pp. 160-161.       
[11] See Aharon Mondshine, “Li-She’elat ha-Yahas she-Bein Perusheihem shel R. Avraham Ibn Ezra ve-Rashbam la-Torah: Behinah Mehudeshet,” Teudah 16-17 (2010), p. 17.
[12]  Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (Warsaw, 1894), vol. 1, part 2, p. 45 n. 4.
[13] In the previous post I noted four examples of ArtScroll’s censorship with regard to Rashbam’s peshat  understanding of when the day begins: Gen. 1:4, 5, 8, 31. I neglected to mention Rashbam’s commentary to Gen. 1:6 which is also censored by Artscroll. Regarding why Rashbam’s commentary to the first three parashiyot of Genesis were missing from the manuscript, see Itamar Kislev in Tarbiz 73 (2004), p. 229 n. 12.
[14] Torah Shelemah, vol. 10-11, pp. 276-279.
[15] Hiddushei Hatam Sofer to Shabbat 87a. R. Akiva Eger points out that R. Horowitz’s position leads to a very interesting conclusion. Here is the summary in R. Yaakov Moshe Shurkin’s commentary to Teshuvot Rabbi Akiva Eger (Lakewood, 2003), vol. 2, p. 769 (Pesakim, no. 121):
וכתב רבינו דלפי חידושו של הפנים יפות הנ”ל, דדין עכו”ם ששבת חייב מיתה הוא ביום ולילה שלאחריו, יש להמליץ זכות על אלו שבאו להתגייר ומרגילים את עצמם לשמור את השבת גם קודם שנתגיירו כנ”ל, די”ל שאינם עוברים בזה באיסור דעכו”ם ששבת, דסגי להו אם יעשו מלאכה במוצאי שבת, וכדברי הפנים יפות הנ”ל. ואין צריך למחות בשפחות הנ”ל מלשבות בשבת.
[16] Tziyun le-Nefesh Hayah to Pesahim 116b.
[17]  “Midot ha-Parshanut ha-Mikrait,” Sura 1 (1954), p. 396.
[18] Be’er Moshe (Lod, 1994), p. 14. He also questions R. Horowitz’s position by citing Mishnah, Hullin 5:5:
                  
מה יום אחד האמור במעשה בראשית היום הולך אחר הלילה
Rashbam could easily reply that the Mishnah is not speaking in terms of peshat. However, I am surprised that neither R. Horowitz nor R. Landau discuss this text which would appear to contradict their approach, as they assume that the Talmud agrees that before the giving of the Torah night came after day.
[19] Keter Nehora (Jerusalem, 2004), p. 114.
[20] (Berlin, 1848), vol. 1, p. 35 (2:17).
[21] “Hagdarat Zemanei ha-Yom ve-ha-Laylah al pi Halakhah u-Mahashavah” Or Yisrael (Nisan 5770), pp. 226ff.
[22] Sihot Kodesh (1967), part 2, sihah from 12 Tamuz 5727, p. 284.
[23] “Be-Inyan ha-me-Et le-Et shel Ma’aseh Bereshit,” Ha-Maor (Oct. 1957), pp. 4ff.
[24] This source was also noted by R. Abraham Elijah Kaplan. See Divrei Talmud (Jerusalem, 1958), vol. 1, p. 42 n. 97:
וזה מזכיר דברי רשב”ם שנלחם בם ראב”ע במחברתו אגרת השבת
[25] Kaplin, Keter Nehora, p. 115, also refers to this commentary to Nazir.
[26] (Be’er Sheva, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 26-27.
[27] Peshatim u-Ferushim (Mainz, 1888),  pp. 9-10
[28] Le-Misbar Kera’e (Bnei Brak, 2005),  p. 49.
[29] Derashot Beit Yishai (n.p., 2004), p. 48 n. 11.
[30] E-mail of this student to me.
[31] Commentary to Genesis, p. 33 in the standard edition.
[32] Regarding the Mishawites, see Zvi Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 372-416. Regarding whether the Dead Sea Sect started the Sabbath on Saturday morning, see Lawrence Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden, 1975), pp. 84-85. See also Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Rabbinic Essays (Cincinnati, 1951), pp. 446ff.
[33] See The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Adler (London, 1907), pp. 17-18 (Hebrew), p. 15 (English).
[34] Here is the page listing the texts used in preparation of the ArtScroll mikraot gedolot for the Book of Genesis.

There is no mention of the Mossad ha-Rav Kook editions, perhaps because of copyright concerns. But there is no doubt that in preparing its text of the mikraot gedolot, an important source for ArtScroll for the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Hizkuni, R. Bahya ben Asher, and Sforno were the Mossad ha-Rav Kook editions (and perhaps also Bar Ilan’s Mikraot Gedolot ha-Keter).
For instance, look at the description of Hizkuni. The page from ArtScroll states that its text is based on the first printing and the manuscript thought to be from the author. This is exactly what one finds in Chavel’s edition of Hizkuni published by Mossad ha-Rav Kook. Does anyone really think that ArtScroll compared, line by line, the first printed edition to the manuscript? This work was already done by Chavel. All ArtScroll had to do was use the text provided by Mossad ha-Rav Kook. So how come ArtScroll can’t tell us this, and instead puts on this charade?

ArtScroll does not mention consulting manuscripts with any of the other texts included in its mikraot gedolot, only with the ones already published by Mossad ha-Rav Kook. ArtScroll also says that its edition of Hizkuni is based on the first printing, Cremona 1559. Yet the first printing was in Venice 1524. ArtScroll simply repeated Chavel’s mistake. See Chavel’s introduction to his edition, p. 11.
The title Hizkuni (which I don’t italicize since it is now used as a personal name) comes from the author’s introductory poem to the work. Here is the relevant page from the Chavel edition and on line 7 you can see the word vocalized.

Louis Jacobs, Jewish Biblical Exegesis (New York, 1973), p. 69, claims that the word should be vocalized as Hazekuni, which is the piel plural imperative (“strengthen me”; dagesh in zayin, sheva under zayin). R. Chaim Mordechai Brecher made the same point. See G. Kressel, ed., Ha-Ahim Shulsinger (Jerusalem, 1986), p. 119. I don’t see why this is preferable as Hizkuni is also correct, as the kal plural imperative, and the kal imperative is actually much more common in the Bible than the piel imperative. Furthermore, Hizkuni rhymes better with yizkeruni, the parallel word in the poem. Finally, look at the sentence in its entirety
ויקרא שמו בישראל חזקוני, למען קוראיו בשמו יזכרוני
This means that one who pronounces the title of the book, Hizkuni, will be reminded of the name of the author, Hizkiyah. This mnemonic only works if the title of the book has a hirik under the het, like in the author’s name. See A. Ben Ezra in Kressel, ed. Ha-Ahim Shulsinger, p. 119.
Here is the introductory poem from ArtScroll’s edition. The word חזקוני is missing a dagesh in the zayin which means that ArtScroll understood it as an imperative. (Chavel places a dagesh in the zayin, meaning that he understood it as  piel plural perfect.)

Look at the third line from the bottom on p. 8 where ArtScroll has
ומבואר [נ”א: ומכוער]
Anyone who understands Hebrew can see that ומבואר is incorrect (and this error also appears in the Venice 1524 edition). When ArtScroll prepared its mikraot gedolot it had Chavel’s edition in front of it. Chavel’s edition is based on what appears to be the manuscript of the author. In this manuscript (which ArtScroll claims to have consulted) one finds the reading ומכוער. So how come this is not the word that appears in the text published by ArtScroll? This is the original reading, not a נוסח אחר. (At best, ArtScroll could have put ומבואר in brackets, but why would this even be necessary in a non-critical edition?) If ArtScroll thinks that it is important to cite the Cremona reading, then how come immediately following this it doesn’t have כי מי ימצא בו דבר חכמה מפואר. As you can see, this is what appears in the Cremona text, and again, one who knows Hebrew will realize that it doesn’t make much sense.

In the manuscript, which is the basis of Chavel’s version, the text reads אשר ימצא בו דבר חכמה מפואר. This is what appears in ArtScroll, with no indication that there is an alternative text. So why did ArtScroll feel the need to add [נ”א: ומכוער] in the previous part of the sentence? Is this just a way of showing the reader that ArtScroll is “scientific” and has examined the different versions?
If you compare ArtScroll’s version of the introductory poem to that which appears in Chavel’s edition, which is based on the manuscript, you will find that other than the example just mentioned, ArtScroll relies entirely on the mistaken text from the Cremona edition instead of using the correct version from the manuscript. Just skimming through the commentary I found other examples where ArtScroll ignores the manuscript reading in favor of the Cremona edition. I don’t know why ArtScroll did this, but it again shows that ArtScroll’s new edition of mikraot gedolot was not properly edited. 

I also found what I think is a punctuation mistake in ArtScroll’s edition of the poem. See the page from Chavel printed above, the second column, second to last line: ובעיני א-להים יישר. Chavel punctuates יישר as a pual imperfect. ArtScroll punctuates it as a kal imperfect. Because of the rhyming, I think Chavel is correct.

The issue of how ArtScroll uses works of prior scholarship requires a more detailed study than I can provide here. I would, however, like to point to one problematic aspect. Let us look briefly at ArtScroll’s Five Megillos, the earliest ArtScroll publication. ArtScroll is very proud of the fact that it only uses traditional rabbinic sources. On the first page of the commentary to each of the five megillot, we are informed that all material in square brackets is a comment from the author, which we are to assume is an original insight.
Here is ArtScroll’s commentary to Ruth 4:10.

Now read what appears in the Soncino commentary to Ruth 4:10.

ArtScroll’s entire comment is lifted from Soncino. Quite apart from the plagiarism, I find it troubling that ArtScroll feels that Soncino is good enough to be used, just not good enough to be mentioned by name. (When ArtScroll changed some of Soncino’s wording, a mistake crept in. Soncino has “sacred duty of building a home.” ArtScroll intended to change this to “sacred task of building a home,” but instead of “task” it reads “text”.)
After David Farkas called this example to my attention, it did not take me long to find other examples, of which I offer two. Here is Soncino’s commentary to Ruth 4:1.

Now look at ArtScroll on this same verse.

It is obvious that Soncino is the basis for what is found in ArtScroll. (Note the words “fairly large edifice” in both Soncino and ArtScroll.) 
Here is Soncino’s commentary to Esther 2:20.

Now look at ArtScroll on this same verse

Again, it is obvious that Soncino is the basis for what is found in ArtScroll. (Note the words “filial piety” in both Soncino and ArtScroll.)


Abraham’s Chaldean Origins and the Chaldee Language

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ABRAHAM’S CHALDEAN ORIGINS AND THE CHALDEE LANGUAGE

by Reuven Chaim (Rudolph) Klein
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of the newly published Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew [available here]. His book is available online and in bookstores in Israel and will arrive to bookstores in America in the coming weeks. Rabbi Klein published articles in various journals including Jewish Bible Quarterly, Kovetz Hamaor, and Kovetz Kol HaTorah. He is currently a fellow at the Kollel of Yeshivas Mir in Jerusalem and lives with his wife and children in Beitar Illit, Israel. He can be reach via email: historyofhebrew@gmail.com.
For the purposes of this discussion, we shall divide the region of Mesopotamia (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers) into two sub-regions: the southern region known as Sumer (Shinar in the Bible) and the northern region known as Aram. Under this classification, Sumer incudes Babylon and the other cities which Nimrod (son of Cush son of Ham) built and ruled in southern Mesopotamia (Gen. 10:8–10). The northern Mesopotamian region of Aram includes the city of Aram Naharaim, also known as Harran, and Aram Zoba, also known as Aleppo (Halab). Both regions of Mesopotamia shared Aramaic as a common language.

ABRAHAM WAS BORN IN SUMERIAN UR

In painting the picture of Abraham’s background, most Biblical commentators assume that Abraham was born in Ur and that his family later migrated northwards to Harran. The Bible (Gen. 11:28; 11:31; 15:7; Neh. 9:7) refers to the place of Abraham’s birth as “Ur Kasdim,” literally “Ur of the Chaldeans.” Academia generally identifies this city with the Sumerian city Ur (although others have suggested different sites).[1]
According to this version of the narrative, Abraham’s family escaped Ur and relocated to Aram in order to flee from the influence of Nimrod. The reason for their escape is recorded by tradition: Nimrod—civilization’s biggest sponsor of idolatry—sentenced Abraham to death by fiery furnace for his iconoclastic stance against idolatry.[2] After Abraham miraculously emerged unscathed from the inferno, his father Terah decided to relocate the family from Ur (within Nimrod’s domain) to the city of Harran in the Aram region, which was relatively free from Nimrod’s reign of terror (Gen. 11:31). It was from Harran that Abraham later embarked on his historic journey to the Land of Canaan (Gen. 12).
Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews mentions a similar version of events. He quotes the first-century Greek historian Nicolaus of Damascus who wrote that Abraham, a “foreigner” from Babylonia, came to Aram. There, he reigned as a king for some time, until he and his people migrated to the Land of Canaan.[3]

NAHMANIDES: ABRAHAM WAS BORN IN HARRAN

Nahmanides (in his commentary to Gen. 11:28) offers a slightly different picture of Abraham’s origins and bases himself upon a series of assumptions which we shall call into question.
He begins by rejecting the consensus view that Abraham was born in Ur Kasdim by reasoning that it is illogical that Abraham was born there in the land of the “Chaldeans” because he descended from Semites, yet Chaldea and the entire region of Sumer are Hamitic lands. He supports this reasoning by noting that the Bible refers to Abraham as a “Hebrew” (Gen. 14:13) not a “Chaldean.”
He further proves this point from a verse in Joshua (24:2) which states, Your forefathers always dwelt ‘beyond the River’, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor. The word always (m’olam) in this context implies that Abraham’s family originated in the “beyond the river” region, even before Terah. Similarly, he notes, the next verse there (24:3) states And I took your forefather Abraham from ‘beyond the river’ and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, which also implies that Abraham is originally from the region known as “beyond the river.” For reasons we shall discuss below, Nahmanides assumes that the term “beyond the river” favors the explanation that Abraham was originally from Harran, not Ur Kasdim.
Nahmanides further proves his assertion from the fact that the Bible mentions Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife and he went forth with them from Ur Kasdim to go into the land of Canaan and they came unto Harran and dwelt there (Gen. 11:31). In this verse, the Bible only mentions that Terah travelled to Harran with Abraham, Sarah, and Lot, yet elsewhere, the Bible mentions Nahor lived in Harran (see Gen. 24:10 which refers to Harran as the City of Nahor). Nahmanides reasons that if Abraham’s family originally lived in Ur Kasdim and only later moved to Harran without taking Nahor with them, then Nahor would have remained in Ur Kasdim, not in Harran. Hence, the fact that Nahor lived in Harran proves that the family originally lived in Harran, not Ur Kasdim.
Elsewhere in his commentary to the Bible (Gen. 24:7), Nahmanides offers another proof that Abraham was born in Harran and not Ur Kasdim. He notes that when Abraham commanded his servant to find a suitable bride for his son Isaac, he told him, Go to my [home]land and the place of my birth (Gen. 24:4), and the Bible continues to tell that the servant went to Harran, not to Ur Kasdim, implying that Harran is the place of Abraham’s birth. He further notes that it is inconceivable that Abraham would tell his servant to go to Ur Kasdim to find a suitable mate for Isaac, because its inhabitants—the Chaldeans—were Hamitic and are therefore unsuitable to intermarry with the family of Abraham (who were of Semitic descent).

Abraham’s early travels according to Nahmanides

In light of his conclusion that Abraham was born in Harran, not in Ur Kasdim, Nahmanides offers a slight twist to the accepted narrative. He explains that Abraham was really born in Aram, which is within the region known as “beyond the river,” and is well within the territory of Shem’s descendants. He explains that Terah originally lived in Aram where he fathered Abraham and Nahor. Sometime later, Terah took his son Abraham and moved to Ur Kasdim, while Nahor remained in Aram in the city of Harran. Terah’s youngest son, Haran, was born in Ur Kasdim. Based on this, Nahmanides explains that when the Bible says Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur Kasdim (Gen. 11:28), the Bible means to stress that Ur Kasdim only was the city of Haran’s birth, but not the city where Abraham and/or Nahor were born. After living in Ur Kasdim, Terah and his entourage eventually left and returned to Harran (when Abraham was en route to the Land of Canaan).
The Talmud (TB Bava Batra 91a) mentions that Abraham was jailed in the city Cutha and identifies that city with Ur Kasdim. Nahmanides also cites Maimonides (Guide to the Perplexed 3:29) quotes the ancient gentile author of Nabataean Agriculture[4] who writes that Abraham, who was born in Cutha, argued on the accepted philosophy of his day which worshipped the sun, and the king imprisoned him, confiscated his possessions, and chased him away. Nahmanides explains that researchers have revealed that the city of Cutha is not in Sumer, the land of Chaldeans, but is, in fact, located in the northern Mesopotamian region of Aram between Harran and Assyria. This city is considered within the region of “beyond the river” because it lies between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (making it “beyond the Euphrates” if the Land of Israel is one’s point of reference).[5] Thus, argues Nahmanides, the Talmud also shares his view that Abraham was born in Aram, not Sumer.
Based on his view of Abraham’s early life, Nahmanides explains an inconsistency addressed by the early commentators. When God commanded Abraham to go to the Land of Canaan, He told him to leave from your [home]land and from the place of your birth and from the house of your father (Gen. 12:1). The early commentators (see Rashi and Ibn Ezra ad loc.) address the following question: If Abraham had already left Ur Kasdim, the presumed place of his birth, and had moved with his father to Harran, then why did God tell him again to leave the place of his birth? Nahmanides answers that according to his own understanding, this question does not even begin to develop because Abraham was not born in Ur Kasdim, he was born in Harran and later moved to Ur Kasdim, only to return to Harran from where God commanded him to go to the Land of Canaan.
In addition to what Nahmanides wrote in his commentary to Genesis, he repeats this entire discussion of Abraham’s origins in his “Discourse on the words of Ecclesiastes.”[6]

QUESTIONING NAHMANIDES’ ASSUMPTIONS

As we have already mentioned, Nahmanides’ position is based on several assumptions, each of which needs to be examined. Firstly, Nahmanides asserted that it is illogical to claim that Abraham was born in Ur Kasdim because the inhabitant of Sumer were Hamitic peoples, yet Abraham was a Semite. This claim is unjustified because there is no reason to assume that only Hamites lived in Sumer, only that Sumer was, in general, a Hamite-dominated principality. Furthermore, even according to Nahmanides’ own internal logic, this argument is certainly flawed because Nahmanides himself admits that Abraham and his family did live in Ur Kasdim at some point, thus he clearly concedes that Semites could live there.
Secondly, Nahmanides maintains that while Terah and his two eldest sons were born in Harran, he later relocated with Abraham alone to Ur Kasdim. Nahmanides fails to explain Terah’s rationale for moving with Abraham Ur Kasdim and why he did not take Nahor with him. This vital part of the story should have been explained by the Bible or at least by tradition. Abarbanel (to Gen. 11:26) raises this issue as one of five difficulties with Nahmanides’ approach. He compounds the difficulty by arguing that if Terah’s family originally lived in Harran and only later moved to Ur Kasdim, then the Bible should read and he went forth with them from Ur Kasdim to go into the land of Canaan and they returned to Harran and dwelt there, to imply that they had once lived in Harran. Yet, instead the Bible says and they came unto Harran and dwelt there, implying that they reached Harran for their first time.
Furthermore, Nahmanides proves that Abraham’s family originated in Harran not Ur Kasdim from the fact that after Terah took Abraham, Sarah, and Lot from Ur Kasdim to Harran—leaving Nahor where he was—Nahor was also found in Harran, even though he did not come there with his father. However, this proof is also unjustified and had already been addressed by Ibn Ezra (in his commentary to Gen. 11:29). Ibn Ezra writes that it is likely that Nahor arrived to Harran either before or after his father and for that reason he is not listed amongst Terah’s entourage when relocating from Ur Kasdim to Harran. In fact, there is Biblical precedent for Ibn Ezra’s first suggestion, for when Jacob and his family relocated from the Land of Canaan to Goshen in Egypt, Judah was sent there ahead of the rest of his family (see Gen. 46:28). In the same vein, it is likely that when Terah relocated his family from Ur to Harran, Nahor was sent ahead of everyone else.
In addition, Nahmanides proves from Abraham’s incarceration at Cutha that he lived in Aram at the time; however, contemporary scholars seem to agree that Cutha is actually in Sumer, not in northern Mesopotamia as Nahmanides mentions in the name of other researchers.[7]
Nonetheless, to Nahmanides’ credit, there is some proof that Cutha is in northern Mesopotamia, not in Sumer: The abovementioned Talmudic passage (TB Bava Batra 91a) notes that in addition to his incarceration at Cutha, Abraham was also jailed at Kardu. Where is Kardu? When the Bible tells that the Ark of Noah landed at the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 8:4), all the Tagumim (Onkelos, Jonathan, Neofiti, and Peshitta) explain that Ararat is Kardu. This leads to the conclusion that the location of Abraham’s imprisonment was Armenia, north of Assyria and northeast of Aram, the region in which the Ararat mountains lie (in present-day Turkey). In fact, the name Kardu is preserved by a contemporary nameplace in that region: Kurdistan and its inhabitants who are called Kurds.[8] Based on this, one can argue that if Abraham was incarcerated at Kardu, then Cutha is also likely in that same general area, placing the city closer to Aram than to Sumer.

R. NISSIM OF GERONA AND ABARBANEL DISAGREE WITH NAHMANIDES

R. Nissim of Gerona (1320–1376), in his commentary to the Torah, quotes Nahmanides and then proceeds to disagree. He argues that even if Ur Kasdim is in Sumer as Nahmanides assumes, the verse Your forefathers always dwelt ‘beyond the River’ is still not true. This is because the word always implies that Abraham’s family never lived elsewhere, yet even Nahamanides freely admits that the family lived in Ur Kasdim, which he does not consider within the region of beyond the river. R. Nissim reasons that if Haran and Lot were born in Ur Kasdim, then Terah’s family must have stayed there for at least thirty years (a reasonable age of fatherhood in the post-Babel era, see Gen. 11:10–26) for Haran to be born, mature, and father Lot.
Instead, R. Nissim proposes that Ur Kasdim is, in fact, considered beyond the river. Accordingly, he understood that Ur Kasdim is actually located in northern Mesopotamia [9] and Abraham was born there, as were Haran and Lot, before the family relocated to Harran, which is also within the same region. According to this explanation, Your forefathers always dwelt ‘beyond the River’ literally means that Abraham’s family never left that region, even when they lived in Ur Kasdim.[10] This view is also adopted by Abarbanel.[11]
In addition to the two difficulties mentioned above and R. Nissim’s question, Abarbanel points out two more difficulties with Nahmanides’ approach. He quotes the verse And Abram and Nahor took for themselves wives… (Gen. 11:29) and notes that by grouping together Abraham and Nahor’s respective marriages, the Bible implies that Abraham and Nahor married their wives together—at the same time and place. If so, this passage is at odds with Nahmanides’ explanation who understood that at that time, Nahor was in Harran while Abraham was in Ur Kasdim.
Abarbanel’s fifth and final difficulty is with Nahmanides’ assumption that Ur Kasdim is not considered beyond the river. He cites two Biblical verses which together imply that Ur Kasdim is considered beyond the river. When God identified Himself to Abraham He said unto him: ‘I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur Kasdim, to give thee this land to inherit it’ (Gen. 15:7). Quoting God, Joshua says I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac (Josh.24:3). When analyzing these two verses collectively, one concludes that Ur Kasdim and beyond the river are synonymous, casting suspicion on Nahmanides’ view that Ur Kasdim is not considered beyond the river. (Nahmanides himself addresses this issue by differentiating between being “brought out of” Ur Kasdim and being “taken” from beyond the river, a distinction which Abarbanel rejects.)

WHO WERE THE CHALDEANS?

Another issue with Nahmanides’ abovementioned explanation (although not necessarily crucial to his position on Abraham’s birthplace) is his assumption that the Chaldeans were Hamites who did not live together with Semites and would certainly not marry them. This assumption is clearly at odds with other early commentators who assume that the Chaldeans were indeed Semitic peoples. Furthermore, the Bible never explicitly mentions the “Chaldean” people in connection with Sumer until the time of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; thus, there is no reason to assume that the Chaldeans occupied Sumer in the time of Abraham.
The notion that the Chaldeans are Semitic peoples has its roots in early works. Josephus writes in Antiquities of the Jews that the Chaldeans descend from Arphaxad, the son of Shem,[12] an assertion echoed by R. Gedaliah Ibn Yahya (1515–1587).[13] Interestingly, the last three letters of Arphaxad’s name (KHAF-SHIN-DALET) spells Kesed (Chaldea), the eponym of the Kasdim (Chaldeans).
Ibn Ezra (to Gen. 11:26) writes that while Abraham was born in Ur Kasdim, the city was not yet known under that name in his time because Kasdim are descendants of Abraham’s brother Nahor.[14] It seems that Ibn Ezra understood that in Abraham’s time, the Chaldeans had not
yet developed into a nation. Similarly, Radak (to Gen. 11:28) writes that Ur Kasdim was not actually called “Ur of the Chaldeans” at the time that Terah’s family lived there because the Chaldeans did not yet exist. He explains that the Chaldeans are descendants of Terah’s grandson Kesed, son of Nahor (mentioned in Gen. 22:22, see Radak there) who was born later. Radak mentions this a third time in his commentary to Isaiah 23:13 where he notes that the Chaldeans, who descend from Kesed, son of Nahor, conquered the cities originally built by Assur and his descendants.
Maharal of Prague (1520–1609) explains[15] that the Chaldeans were mostly descendants of Assur (a son of Shem, see Gen. 10:22) but were called “Chaldeans” because the descendants of Kesed conquered them. Maharal also equates the Chaldeans with the Arameans, implying that the Chaldeans were not a Hamitic nation, but rather a Semitic nation descending from Aram, another son of Shem (see Gen. 10:22). By equating the Chaldeans with the Arameans, Maharal understood that the Chaldeans were not a Hamitic nation; but were Semitic. Maharal elsewhere[16] also identifies the Chaldeans with the Arameans and notes that his explanation is inconsistent with the words of Nahmanides in Parshat Hayei Sarah, but does not specify what Nahmanides says or even to which passage in Nahmanides he refers. Given our discussion, it seems that Maharal refers to the passage in question in which Nachmanides writes that the Chaldeans are descendants of Ham. In fact, Maharal in his commentary to the Torah (Gur Aryeh to Gen. 24:7) explicitly rejects much of what Nahmanides there writes.[17]
In short, most commentators understand that the Chaldeans were actually Semitic peoples, unlike Nahmanides’ assumption that they were Hamitic. Nonetheless, there is some support for Nahmanides’ position in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees (11:1-3) which tells that Reu, the great-grandfather of Terah, married the daughter of Ur, son of Kesed, who founded the city Ur.[18] While according to Radak, the Chaldeans descend from Kesed, a grandson of Terah, Jubilees seems to maintain that the Chaldeans descend from an earlier person named Kesed who already lived in the time of Reu, Terah’s great-grandfather, and merely married into the Semitic family.[19] Either way, there is certainly no validation of Nahmanides’ assertion that the Hamitic Chaldeans and the Semites were completely separate.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR THE CHALDEAN WAS A HAMITE

There is one Talmudic source which, by reasonable extension, might serve as a source for Nahmanides’ assumption that the Chaldeans were Hamitic peoples. The Talmud (TB Hagiga 13a) states that Nebuchadnezzar was “a son of a son of Nimrod.” As explicitly noted in the Bible, Nimrod was a Hamite (a son of Cush, son of Ham).[20] Prima facia, the Talmud explains that Nebuchadnezzar was a grandson of Nimrod, thereby making Nebuchadnezzar a Hamite. Although the Bible never mentions explicitly that Nebuchadnezzar was a Chaldean, it certainly implies such by calling his subjects in Babylonia “Chaldeans.” Furthermore, the Talmud calls Nebuchadnezzar’s granddaughter Vashti a Chaldean (see below), implying that Nebuchadnezzar himself was also Chaldean. All of this together raises the likelihood that the Talmud understood that Chaldeans are Hamites.
Rashi (to TB Pesahim 94b) endorses a somewhat literal reading of the Talmud and explains that Nebuchadnezzar was not really Nimrod’s grandson; he was simply a descendant of Nimrod (a view shared by Tosafot to TB Yevamot 48b). Rabbi Aryeh Leib Ginzberg (1695–1785) favors this approach in his work Turei Even (to TB Hagiga 13a), giving credence to the notion that Nahmanides took this Talmudic passage literally as well.
However, the Tosafists (there) reject a literal reading of the Talmud. They argue that since there is no source to the notion that Nebuchadnezzar was a descendant of Cush (Nimrod’s father), then the Talmud must not mean that Nebuchadnezzar was literally a grandson or even descendant of Nimrod.[21] Instead, the Tosafists explain that the Talmud was simply drawing an analogy between Nimrod, who was a wicked ruler of Sumer and persecuted Abraham, and Nebuchadnezzar, who was also a wicked king there and persecuted the Jews, as if to imply that Nebuchadnezzar was his “spiritual” heir. Furthermore, there is a Jewish legend which states that Nebuchadnezzar descended from the union of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.[22] According to this legend, Nebuchadnezzar was certainly not paternally Hamitic.[23]
Finally, some commentators understand that the Talmud does not mean that Nebuchadnezzar was literally a genealogical descendant of Nimrod, rather that he was a reincarnation of Nimrod.
All in all, there is no clear proof from the Talmud’s assertion about Nebuchadnezzar that the Chaldeans were Hamites.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE CHALDEANS

We shall now turn to a discussion concerning the Chaldean language, which may help us better understand the origins of the Chaldean people and whether they were Hamitic or Semitic.
The prophet Isaiah relates that God said, I will rise up against them—the word of God, Master of legions—and I will discontinue from Babylonia its name and remnant, grandchild and great-grandchild—the word of God (Isa. 14:22). The Talmud (TB Megillah 10b) tells that R. Yonatan would expound this verse as an introduction to the Book of Esther. The Talmud understood that this verse refers to the Chaldeans (the people of Babylonia) who destroyed the First Temple. R. Yonatan would explain that its name refers to their script, remnant refers to their language, grandchild refers to their monarchy, and great-grandchild refers to Vashti—the last scion of the Babylonian royal family who was wed to the Persian king Ahasuerus and was executed at the beginning of the Book of Esther. Accordingly, declares the Talmud, the Chaldeans are a nation that has neither script nor language.[24]
However, in actuality, the Chaldeans did have a language, for the Chaldeans spoke Aramaic. Why then does the Talmud not reckon with the fact that they spoke Aramaic? This question is asked explicitly by the Tosafists (to TB Megillah 10b, Avodah Zarah 10a) and is addressed by many commentators.
Rashi[25] explains that the Talmud does not mean that the language spoken by the Chaldeans would cease to exist, but rather that the Chaldeans borrowed their language (Aramaic) from other people (Arameans). According to this understanding, the Chaldeans were the inhabitants of Southern Mesopotamia (i.e. Sumer, where Babylon lies), while the Arameans were the inhabitants of Northern Mesopotamia (i.e. Aram) and are not the same people, they simply shared a common language. Although Rashi fails to explain the significance of the fact
that the Chaldeans borrowed Aramaic from the Arameans, his explanation does shed light onto the Talmud’s declaration that the Chaldeans do not have a language; the Talmud means that the Chaldeans do not have their own language.
The Tosafists (there) offer another answer. They explain that the when the Talmud states that the Chaldeans have neither language nor script, this does not refers to a common language and script, but rather to a royal language and script. That is, the Talmud acknowledges that the Chaldeans spoke Aramaic, but understood that they are to be “discontinued” in that their royal class would no longer have a special language of its own. It seems that the Babylonian royalty originally spoke a separate language (perhaps Akkadian[26] or the even older Sumerian) than did the rest of the nation, and this language was eventually lost as punishment for their role in the destruction of the First Temple.[27]
R. Shlomo Alkabetz (1500–1580) proves this explanation in the introduction to his work Manot HaLevi (a commentary to the Book of Esther). He shows from the fact that Nebuchadnezzar and all the Babylonian kings after him spoke Aramaic—by then the dominant language in the Ancient World—that the original Chaldean language fell into disuse. In fact, he notes, the Bible tells that the Chaldean language had to be taught to members of the royal household (see Dan. 1:4), proving that it was by then relegated to obscurity. It is unlikely that the “Chaldean Language” referred to is actually Aramaic because one would assume that members of the royal court in Babylon already knew Aramaic![28] R. Alkabetz further notes that by the time of Ahasuerus, king of Persia, the Chaldean language was almost extinct and with the demise of Vashti, the language completely died, allowing Ahasuerus to declare each man shall rule over his house and speak the language of his nation (Est. 1:22), marking the utter end of the language of Babylon.
Interestingly, R. Moshe Ashkenazi Halpern (c. 1555)[29] writes in his work Zikhron Moshe (to Est. 1:22) that Vashti justified her impudence by claiming not to understand the language of Ahasuerus. He explains that this is the meaning of the verse the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment (Est. 1:12) which can super-literally be translated as the queen Vashti refused to engage in the king’s words. Because of this, upon executing Vashti, Ahasuerus proclaimed that each man should be able to speak the language of his nation, i.e. without his wife claiming not to understand him.
Maharsha and R. Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter (1847–1905)[30] reject a literal reading of the Talmud and instead explain it esoterically. They understand, in slightly different ways, that when the Talmud mentions that the language of the Babylonians would be discontinued, it does not refer to their actual language but to the “essence” of their existence, which their language represents. They are therefore not bothered by the question of the Tosafists that Aramaic continued and continues to exist as a spoken and written language because they understood that the Talmud was not actually talking about the discontinuation of their language, it was discussing the discontinuation of their core essence. Once their core essence disappeared, they needed to adopt the “essence” of other nations in order to continue to exist, thereby losing their own identity. If this meta-physical reality was mirrored by physical reality (a point which is unclear in those sources), it would probably mean that the Chaldeans originally spoke Akkadian and/or Sumerian, but when their “essence” was lost, they needed to borrow Aramaic from the Arameans, their northern neighbors (similar to the understanding of Rashi).
However, Maharal, who similarly interpreted this passage esoterically[31] and understood that the Chaldeans and Arameans are one and the same (as mentioned above), would certainly not agree with this theory. Instead, Maharal cites a Talmudic passage (TB Sukkah 52b) which relates that God “regretted” that He created the Chaldeans. Because of this “regret,” the Chaldeans are considered non-existent, personae non grata. If the Chaldeans do not exist, then their language, Aramaic, is to be considered equally non-existent, lingua non grata. For this reason, explains Maharal, Aramaic is not counted in the seventy languages.[32]

THE CHALDEAN LANGUAGE IN PERSPECTIVE

To summarize, according to Maharal, the Chaldeans and the Arameans are one and the same, so the Chaldean language is to be identified with Aramaic. This explanation precludes the view of Nahmanides who maintains that the Chaldeans were Hamitic people (as opposed to the
Arameans who were Semitic). In fact, we have already shown that Maharal explicitly disagrees with Nahmanides on this issue.
On the other hand, Rashi (and perhaps others) understood that the Chaldeans took Aramaic from the Aramean inhabitants of northern Mesopotamia. According to this explanation, the Chaldeans are a distinct people from the Arameans. This explanation leaves open the possibility for Nahmanides’ view that the Chaldeans were the original Hamitic inhabitants of Sumer, albeit their Semitic neighbors to the north influenced them linguistically.
Similarly, according to the Tosafists, the Chaldean language was spoken by the royal court in Babylon in tandem with Aramaic. This explanation also leaves open the possibility for Nahmanides’ explanation that the Chaldeans were the Hamitic inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, and despite their acceptance of Aramaic (which originated from their neighbors to the north and had spread throughout most of the civilized world), they also maintained a distinct Chaldean language to be used by the ruling class.

IN SUMMATION

In short, Nahmanides proposes a new theory that Abraham was actually born in Harran (in the northern Mesopotamian region of Aram), before his family relocated to Sumerian Ur and eventually returned to Harran. Nahmanides offers several justifications for his theory, most significant of which is the notion that Sumerian Ur, which was inhabited by the Chaldeans, was Hamitic territory and it is therefore unlikely that Abraham’s family, who were Semitic, originated there. We cast doubt on this proof by noting that even if the Chaldeans occupied Sumer at that time, they were not necessarily Hamitic peoples and certainly there is no justification for arguing that non-Hamitic families could not live there. Additionally, we explored the possibility of Hamitic origins for the Chaldean by surveying various commentators’ understandings of the “Chaldean Language” mentioned in the Talmud. While some of those explanations definitely allowed room for Nahmanides’ position, none of them directly support it. Finally, each of the proofs that Nahmanides offers for his view is based on certain assumptions and we have shown that each of those assumptions is not universally agreed upon.

 

 

[1] A. Marcus, Keset
HaSofer (Tel Aviv, 1971) pgs. 296–297 writes that Ur Kasdim was definitely
in the southern region of Mesopotamia, close to the Persian Gulf.

[2] TB Pesachim 118a, Bereishit Rabbah §38:13, Targum Jonathan
(to Genesis 11:28), and more.

[3] See Kitvei Yosef ben Matityahu, Kadmoniut
HaYehudim Vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1939) pg. 31.

[4] The work Nabataean
Agriculture was written in Arabic by the 9th century Muslim
philosopher Ibn Wahshiyya. It is supposedly an Arabic translation of an ancient
Syriac text describing the beliefs of the Sabian religion. However, academia
believes this work to have been forged (at least in part) by Ibn Wahshiyya
himself.

[5] Interestingly, several
popular maps place Ur Kasdim southwest of the Euphrates River, meaning that it
is on the same side of the Euphrates as is the Land of Israel, technically
outside of Mesopotamia, albeit still within the same general vicinity. This lends
credence to Nahmanides’ view that Aram is considered “across the river”
while Ur Kasdim is not, even though both are in the general region of
Mesopotamia. See A. Kaplan, The Living Torah (New York: Maznaim
Publishing Corporation, 1985) pg. 42; Ramban Al HaTorah Bereishit
Vol. 1 (Artscroll/Mesorah Publications, 2004) pg. 593; and Y. Elitzur & Y.
Keel (eds.), Atlas Da’at Mikra (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1998) pg.
66.

[6] C. Chavel (ed.), Writings
of the Ramban, Vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1963) pp. 202–203.

[7] M. Berenbaum and F.
Skolnik (eds.), “Cuth, Cuthah,” Encyclopedia Judaica 2nd ed.
Vol. 5. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007) pp. 344–345.

[8] Y. Elitzur & Y.
Keel (eds.), Atlas Da’at Mikra (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1998) pg.
386.

[9] P. Berlyn, “The Journey
of Terah to Ur-Kasdim or Urkesh,” Jewish Bible Quarterly Vol. 33:2
(Jerusalem: Jewish Bible Association, 2005) suggests that Ur mentioned in the
Bible is actually Urkesh, an ancient city in Northern Mesopotamia. Other than
that, she accepts the narrative proposed by Nahmanides (that Terah
originally lived in Harran where Abraham was born, relocated to Ur, and later
returned to Harran), without mentioning him by name.

[10] L. A. Feldman (ed.), Pirush
HaRan Al HaTorah (Jerusalem: Machon Shalem, 1968) pp. 153–154.

[11] See there for an
explanation of why Ur is associated with the “Chaldeans” if it is located in
Aram. Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi (1512–1585) disagrees with Nahmanides’
narrative and instead proposes that Abraham never lived in southern
Mesopotamia. He argues that Abraham’s family moved from within northern
Mesopotamia from Aram Naharim to Harran (which he understands to be two
separate places) and all references to Ur of the Chaldeans do not refer to a
southern Mesopotamian city named Ur but rather to the Chaldean (Sumerian?)
dominion over northern Mesopotamia in Abraham’s time. See Ashkenazi’s Maasei
HaShem (Warsaw, 1871) pp. 78a–79a .

[12] Kitvei Yosef ben
Matityahu, Kadmoniut HaYehudim Vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1939) pg.
27.

[13] Shalshelet
HaQabbalah (Jerusalem, 1962) pg. 218.

[14] A. Marcus, Keset
HaSofer (Tel Aviv, 1971) pgs. 296 criticizes Ibn Ezra for confusing Kesed
son of Nahor with Kesed of the family of Arphaxad.

[15] Gur Aryeh to
Deuteronomy 32:21.

[16] Gevurat HaShem (Ch.
54).

[17] See also “Galut
V’Geulah” (by Rabbi Chaim Wallin of Baltimore) printed in Kovetz
Yeshurun Vol. 7 (New York-Jerusalem: Machon Yeshurun, 2000) pg. 572 who
elaborates on what Maharal writes there.

[18] E. Yassif (ed.), The
Chronicles of Jerahmeel (Ramat Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001) pg. 121
gives “Milcah bat Ruth” as the name of Reu’s wife.

[19] Nonetheless, Jubilees
(9:4) mentions that Arphaxad’s land includes Chaldea, which implies that the
Chaldeans are descendants of Arphaxad (as Josephus understood).

[20] Rabbi Gershon Chanoch
Heinich Leiner (1839–1891) discusses Nebuchadnezzar’s lineage in light of his
previous position at the court of the Assyrian king Sannechreb. See Rabbi
Leiner’s Petil Tekheilet, (Lublin, 1904) pp. 137–138.

[21] R. Hayyim Yosef
David Azulai (1724–1806) in his work Petah Einayim (to TB Hagiga 13a) notes that a contradiction
between selections of Tosafot to differing tractates is not considered a
contradiction because they were authored by different people. However, Tosasfot
HaRosh, which was ostensibly written by one person, namely R. Asher ben Yehiel
(1250–1327), also contains this contradiction: In Tosafot HaRosh to TB Hagiga
13a, he writes that Nebuchadnezzar was not literally a descendant of Nimrod,
while in Tosafot HaRosh to TB Yevamot 48a, he writes that he was. This
contradiction has yet to be resolved.

[22] See Rashi to I Kgs.
10:13 and J.D. Eisenstein (ed.), Otzar Midrashim (New York, 1915) pg. 46
and Rabbi David Yoel Weiss’ Megadim Hadashim (to TB Hagiga
13a).

[23] Nonetheless, it is
possible that his Hamitic lineage comes from his maternal genealogy, for Sheba
is listed as a grandson of Cush (Gen. 10:7). However, it is equally plausible
that the Queen of Sheba herself was Semitic as the name Sheba also appears
twice in Semitic genealogies, namely as a son of Joktan (Gen. 10:28) and as a
grandson of Abraham (Gen. 25:3).

[24] The Talmud elsewhere
(TB Avodah Zarah 10a) makes a similar comment about the Romans (who destroyed
the Second Temple), see the commentators there.

[25] To TB Megillah 10b, as
explained by R. Yosef Hayim of Baghdad (1832–1909) in his Talmudic work Ben Yehoyada (there).

[26] If, in fact, the
“lost language” to is Akkadian, then it is much easier to understand
how and why Aramaic suddenly superseded Akkadian as the lingua franca of the
Ancient world and why rabbinic literature seemingly never refers to that
language.

[27] Azulai in Petah
Einayim (to TB Megillah 10b) quotes
an anonymous scholar who explains the juxtaposition of the lack of a royal
language and the death of Vashti. He explains that because Vashti rejected
Ahasuerus’ request to appear before him unclothed by publicly responding to him
a disrespectful way, Ahasuerus had no choice but to execute his wife in order
to save face. Had there been a royal language used internally by the ruling
class, Vashti’s insolence would not have created such an impact because she
would have responded to her husband in that language, limiting the knowledge of
her disrespectful response to her husband and his royal courtiers, while the
other attendees at the party would not have realized what transpired.

[28] Ibn Ezra (Daniel 2:4)
writes that when the Bible says that Nebuchadnezzar’s necromancers spoke to him
in Aramaic, this refers to the Chaldean language, which was spoken by the king.
See also M. Amsel, Shut Hamaor Vol. 1 (Brooklyn, 1967) pp.
472–474.
[29] R. Halpern was either
the father-in-law or brother-in-law of the more famous scholar R. Shmuel
Eliezer Eidels (Maharsha). See Zikhron Moshe (Jerusalem: Zichron
Aharon  Publications, 2003) pp. 7–9 for
further discussion.
[30] Sfat Emet (to TB Megillah 10b).
[31] In the introduction to Ohr Hadash (a commentary to the Book of Esther).
[32] See Tiferet Yisrael (Ch. 13), Gevurat
HaShem, (Ch. 54) and Chiddushei Aggadot (to TB Sotah 33a).