אין חכמת אדם מגעת אלא עד מקום שספריו מגיעין[1]¹

ר‘ יצחק קנפנטון

(ואין ספריו מגיעין בשעת המגיפה[2])

Pandemic Bibliopenia:[3] A Preliminary Report of Disease Eradication

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

The number of seforim written during, about or related to the Covid 19 pandemic continues to grow at breakneck speed.[4] What has largely gone unnoticed among the other unprecedented aspects of this pandemic, is that since the development of the printing press, we have not seen so much quality rabbinic literature produced in the midst of a pandemic.[5] In fact, if anything, a diminution in the quantity and quality of literature was more the norm during previous pandemics. This literature proliferation during Covid 19 heralds in a new age and reflects the eradication of a common condition prevalent in the premodern era- Pandemic Bibliopenia (heretofore, PB).

Few alive today have previously experienced a pandemic of the magnitude of Covid 19. While those Torah scholars and bibliophiles who weathered pandemics of the past would surely have been familiar with PB, possibly even from personal experience, the scholars of today are simply unfamiliar with this condition and have likely never seen a case. Furthermore, we are unlikely to see many cases of PB in the future as well (see “treatment” section below).

Since cases of PB in the present and future are likely to be exceedingly rare, the possibility of misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis is therefore a significant concern. We therefore review this condition and some illustrative cases to record its history for posterity, lest we completely forget this previously incurable disease that afflicted the Jewish community for centuries.

Definition/ Diagnosis

Pandemic

adjective

Associated with a widespread outbreak of a contagious disease.

Bibliopenia

noun

Biblio- relating to a book or books

Penia (suffix)- lack or deficiency

A lack or deficiency of books

Pandemic Bibliopenia (PB) is defined as the lack or deficiency of books available to scholars during times of widespread disease.[6] This often leads to quantitative or qualitative decline in literature produced during times of plague or pandemic.[7]

Etiology

While the Talmud explicitly recommends one to shelter in place during times of plague,[8] the practice evolved from at least the late Middle Ages and onwards to flee the urban areas for more rural, less densely populated locations.[9] Access to rabbinic works was often severely limited, if existent at all, in these remote areas. Production of literature was thus severely hindered or curtailed in areas of disease. Plagues often lasted for many months or longer.

Literary Manifestations

PB appears to be more explicitly manifest in halakhic, specifically responsa, literature, with less impact on other genres, such as poetry,[10] or other forms that do not require or rely heavily on texts. Halakhic writing often requires referencing a wide spectrum of legal writings. Furthermore, due to the often-urgent nature of halakhic queries, the response cannot await the passing of the pandemic. Elective works, however, can simply be delayed until calmer times, when access to libraries, be they private or public, can be restored.

Epidemiology

The impact and prevalence of PB throughout history is difficult to assess,[11] though it has likely been significantly underreported. Cases can only be definitively identified from manuscripts and printed works where PB is explicitly mentioned. One of the primary manifestations of Pandemic Bibliopenia is the unwritten book. How many works were conceived, and perhaps even gestated, though not birthed as a result of PB? As this is manifestly impossible to quantify, as no evidence of such remains, we will thus never know the extent of the bibliographic mortality of PB throughout history.

PB shows no innate predilection for age, gender or geographic location and is associated solely with the presence of pandemics.

Case Studies

There are a number of possible presentations of PB.

Severe Cases of Pandemic Bibliopenia

Below are two clear cases of severe PB.

1. Rabbi Yom Tov Tzahalon (c. 1559-1638)[12]

Rabbi Yom Tov Tzahalon (known as Maharitz) authored a number of halakhic works in the late sixteenth-early seventeenth centuries and lived in Tzfat for part of that time. There were a number of plagues in Tzfat during this period. In Tzahalon’s responsa we see clear evidence in a number of places of his affliction with Pandemic Bibliopenia.[13]

Siman 8

Due to plague in Tzfat, Tzahalon was forced to flee from mountain to mountain, village to village, and states explicitly that he lacks sufficient access to works of poskim to answer the question properly. He nonetheless offers a limited response to appease the questioner.

Siman 19

Tzahalon again notes his lack of access to rabbinic literature in the midst of plague, including the tractates of the Talmud, with the exception of tractates Bava Kama and Bava Metzia, and a portion of Rambam.

During the writing of the above responsum Tzahalon resided, albeit temporarily, in Kfar Par’am, located to the Northeast of the city. People generally fled to villages on the outskirts of their city of residence.

(the pin represents Par’am)

Siman 44

During the writing of this responsum Tzahalon appears to have returned to wandering between villages and once again laments his inability to provide an in depth and expansive response.

Siman 81

In our final, albeit less explicit, example of PB in Tzahalon’s responsa, written in 1589, Tzahalon bemoans his prolonged exile and the toll it has taken, though does not allow this to prevent him from offering a halakhic analysis of the issue.

We not only have mention of Pandemic Bibliopenia in Tzahalon’s responsa, it also surfaces in his Talmudic commentary.[14] Tzahalon wrote his commentary on the fifth chapter of Bava Metzia, at least partially, while in exile. Parenthetically, this may explain why the only volumes of Talmud he possessed in exile were Bava Kama and Bava Metzia, as he likely packed these specific tractates for his travels anticipating work on his commentary. In the midst of his Talmudic commentary[15] we are introduced to Tzahalon’s personal tragedy while in exile in Kfar Par’am with the following line:

Tzahalon digresses from his commentary to share the details of the tragic death of his infant son.[16] The timing of the death, associated with a delayed burial, precipitated a halakhic question for the author:[17] Here again he reiterates his lack of access to required Talmudic tractates and poskim. He writes of his intent to review and expand his analysis upon his return to the city and to his library after the cessation of the plague.

Of note, while this passage is physically situated in the midst of this Talmudic commentary, it is in essence a halakhic responsum.

2. Rabbi Hayyim Palachi (1788-1868)[18]

Rabbi Palachi was the Chief Rabbi of Izmir in Turkey. During his lifetime a cholera pandemic affected Turkey. In a number of his works he acknowledges suffering from Pandemic Bibliopenia. An explicit reference is below:

Hikikei Lev, vol 2, H. M., n. 51, p. 164a

Palachi was exiled to the village of Boron on the outskirts of Izmir. While lamenting that there is “no wise man without seforim,” he endeavors to respond to a halakhic question with the resources he has available him in addition to relying on his memory. Below we see the repeated mention of PB throughout multiple works reflecting a most serious case of the condition.[19]

Hikikei Lev, vol 1, E. H., n. 57, p. 114b

Hayyim Biyad n. 79, p. 98a

In a letter to Rabbi Hayyim Yehudah Avraham, published in the latter’s Ahi vaRosh[20] Palachi writes while still in exile in the village of Boron:

Varied Prevalence of PB

In the following case, we see the clear impact of PB on one Torah scholar, while another scholar during the very same pandemic appears to enjoy immunity from the condition.

In perhaps our most poetic example, Rabbi Yehudah Ibn Verga[21] corresponds with Rabbi Yosef Karo, author of the Shulhan Arukh, about a financial matter.[22] After lengthy praise for Rabbi Karo, he launches into a lament about the current state of plague in Tzfat.

Ibn Verga’s invokes the same phrase from Tehillim[23] (nikhsifah vigam kaltah nafshi) as does Tzahalon (Siman 81 above) to express the emotions evoked by the plague. His comment at the end of this passage about his elation upon meeting another person in the midst of the plague will sound familiar to those of us who have weathered complete lockdown during the current pandemic.

The next passage reflects the duration of Ibn Verga’s exile. Ibn Verga remarks that his exile had passed the entire summer, now into the winter, and the plague still lingered. “We have said, it is long due to the sins of the generation.” Ibn Verga and Karo both lived in Tzfat. Ibn Verga had hoped to speak to him directly about this case, face to face, but as the plague dragged on, he had no recourse but to commit his comments to paper.

Ibn Verga concludes that he had wanted to cite a responsum of Rosh in support of his position but was unable to include it due to his affliction with PB.[24] 

In his response, Rav Yosef Karo likewise longs to speak face to face with Ibn Verga:

He concurs that sin has caused them to be in a state of “mistar panim” until the plague passes. Rabbi Karo then proceeds to discuss the halakhic issue and makes no mention of lack of access to literature. He also lived in Tzfat and endured the same plague. In fact, we know Rabbi Karo fled Tzfat during the plague to live in the village of Birya.[25] It is in Birya in 1555 that he completed the first volume of his Shulhan Arukh. While the Shulhan Arukh was only first printed in 1565 in Venice, the colophon of each volume reflects the date and place of its completion.

Colophon at end of the 1565 edition of the first volume of Shulhan Arukh:

By the time he had completed the second volume, Yoreh De’ah, less than one year later, he had already returned to Tzfat, presumably after the cessation of the plague.

Colophon at end of the 1565 edition of the second volume of Shulhan Arukh:

While Rabbi Ibn Verga was clearly a victim of PB, Rabbi Yosef Karo does not appear to have been affected whatsoever. We thus have evidence of the variable prevalence of the condition during the same pandemic.

Mild or Implicit PB

Some cases of Pandemic Bibliopenia are not as explicit or easily diagnosed as those of Rabbis Tzahalon and Ibn Verga. At the same time as the aforementioned were experiencing plague in Northern Israel, Rabbi Moshe Isserles faced advancing disease in Cracow. Rabbi Isserles describes his dire situation in the introduction to his Mehir Yayin, a commentary on Megilat Esther that he wrote for his father-in-law, in lieu of mishloah manot, while in exile in the city of Shidlov.

While Rabbi Isserles does not explicitly refer to Pandemic Bibliopenia, he makes passing references possibly alluding to the condition. For example, he writes:

which means that his intellect still remained, despite his lack of access to an extensive library.

In describing the work, he writes:

Perhaps PB is reflected in his choice of composition, a work relying heavily on his textual analytic skills, and less so on obscure or hard to obtain texts, likely unavailable to him in Shidlov.[26]

Furthermore, his qualifying statement,

might reflect a lack of bibliographical resources. Whether this case meets the diagnostic criteria for PB remains a question.

Differential Diagnosis

Pandemic Bibliopenia may possibly be confused with other forms of Bibliopenia. To be sure, many individuals have lost access to their libraries due to personal tragedies,[27] but here I refer specifically to systemic forms of Bibliopenia that impacted entire communities. In these cases authors were similarly deprived access to rabbinic literature, though for entirely different reasons. One such example will suffice.

The Physician Abraham Portaleone was a prominent figure in Renaissance Italy, treating royalty, authoring several medical works.[28] At the age of 62 he suffered a stroke which prompted a reevaluation of his life. He concluded that his affliction befell him as he had not devoted enough of his life to Torah learning. He undertook to write a work on prayer and the Beit HaMikdash which he dedicated to his children. At the end of chapter thirty-two, which discusses the shulhan in the Temple, we find the following comment.

Portaleone notes that, “Perhaps some place in the Talmud Hazal spoke of this, and I am not aware. As a result of the known deficiency [my emphasis] I have not been able to properly ascertain this.”[29] One might erroneously assume that he is referring to Pandemic Bibliopenia as the etiology for his lack of access to the Talmud. In fact, Portaleone is referring to a variant form of the condition, called Censorship Bibliopenia. A review of the entire work of Portaleone, including his introduction, will clarify any confusion.

In his introduction, Portaleone details the nature of his early education, and recalls how while a student studying Talmud with R’ Yaakov MiPano, the infamous decree led to the Talmud “being consumed by fire before our eyes.” This refers to the burning of the Talmud in Rome in 1553.[30] After the initial burning of the Talmud in Rome, other Italian cities followed suit with their own citywide burnings. Portaleone was witness to one such event. Decades later, as he penned his classic work, Shiltei haGibborim, the Talmud still remained largely unavailable in Italy. Portaleone was forced to use substitute works that alluded to or quoted the Talmud, if available, but sometimes the information was simply not accessible. One such example is his discussion of the Shulhan above.

In one remarkable instance Portaleone reveals his elation at being able to acquire a bona fide Talmudic reference. He writes that after he completed the chapter on the Lishkat haGazit (Chamber of Hewn Stone), God ordained (hikra) that he happen upon a wise man from the city of Tzfat (where the Talmud was available) who had come to Italy to seek financial support for his family. “From his mouth I heard the sugya in the second chapter of Yoma on the laws of the Lishkat haGazit, and I write them here for you (my children) from his mouth…”[31]

In yet another place he excitedly relates of his accessing a small passage from Tractate

Chagigah from a tattered manuscript remnant in the library of a great Torah scholar (Gaon) of Verona.[32] All of these instances are examples of Censorship Bibliopenia.

Treatment

During previous pandemics, in the pre-modern era, PB was considered untreatable. Fortunately, however, it was temporary and ultimately resolved with the cessation of the pandemic. Today, however, the treatment for PB is readily available and inexpensive, though its safety has been called into question. Despite the fact that the understanding of disease transmission has evolved, people still, if feasible, flee their homes in urban areas for less populated locations. As such, they could still be susceptible to PB. However, PB is now completely remediable through internet access to Rabbinic literature.[33] Not only is virtually the totality or rabbinic literature widely and freely available for scholars (rabbis, poskim and laymen) via the internet, facilitating the production of quality work; the publication and dissemination of these works can be accomplished with ease on the internet as well. It is only today, in the midst of the current Covid 19 pandemic, that we are witnessing the eradication of PB. As a result, there have likely been more pages written of rabbinic discourse (both halakhic and aggadic, related to the pandemic or not) during the present pandemic than during all previous pandemics combined.[34]

Conclusion

Pandemic Bibliopenia is an underrecognized phenomenon in Jewish history. In addition to the medical impact of pandemics in the past, our ancestors experienced spiritual and intellectual suffering by being deprived access to the Torah library, our life blood. Today, however, even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, while libraries have shuttered, and some have fled their homes, there has been little diminution in the access to rabbinic literature. As the world may never again experience Pandemic Bibliopenia and the unique literary impact of plagues and pandemics, it behooves us to recall it in appreciation that despite the many adversities associated with this pandemic, loss of access to our beloved Torah literature is not counted among them. Not only have we eradicated Pandemic Bibliopenia, it appears to have been replaced with a new diagnostic category, Pandemic Polybiblia,[35] though in this case, fortunately, a healthy and desired condition. May we be zokheh to the continuation of Polybiblia without any associated pandemics in the future.

Women, Simchat Torah, and Censorship
By: Eliezer Brodt
A recent book, Mi-pehem, (Bnei Brak,2008), collects interviews that were conducted with various Gedolim. One interview was conducted with Rebbetzin Ginsburg the daughter of R. Yechezel Levenstein. In the course of this interview she described the Simchat Torah celebration at the Mir in Europe:אבל שמחת תורה בישיבה היה משהו
מיוחד. הנשים עמדו בפינת בית המדרש מאחורי מחיצה, ומחכות בהתרגשות לתחילת
ההקפות! (מפיהם, עמ’ 199).

According to this interview, women in the Mir were behind the Mechetziah. But, I recall hearing from others that witnessed Simchat Torah in the Mir in Europe that the women were not behind a Mechetziah. Indeed, when, looking up this source of this interview I realized it was a Hebrew translation of an English article that appears in Daughters of Destiny published by Artscroll. The quote in the original reads: “The woman would stand in a corner of the bais medrash separated from the men and wait excitedly for the Hakofos to begin” (p.76). Thus, according to the original woman were not standing behind the Mechetziah during the ST celebration.

Avraham Ya-ari in his important work on ST, Toldos Chag Simchas Torah provides additional sources discussing woman’s participation in ST celebration from various communities. These sources parallel the original interview of Rebbetzin Ginsburg that women were not behind a Mechetziah but they came in to the Beis hamedrash on this night to watch the dancing up close (pp.251-252).Aside from woman entering the BM on ST woman participated in other parts of the celebration. For example, in Worms we find:מנהג שמחת תורה… מנהג נשים
בין מנחה למעריב הנ”ל באים במלבושיהן היקרים והנאים הטובים שיש להם. ובאם
בחצר החיצון של בית הכנסת ולפני הפתח החיצון של בית הכנסת דנשים ורוב הנשים בפרט
נשים בחורות מחברי’ יד ליד ובראשם נשי חתן תורה וחתן בראשית, והולכין בעיגול סביב
סביב ומשוררין יגדל, וזמירות שרגילין לשורר לכבוד החתן וכלה והכל לכבוד התורה ואחר
כך הולכין לבית הכנסת שלהם… (ר’ יוזפא שמש, מנהגים דק”ק וורמיישא,
א, עמ’ רכ). In Baghdad R. Dovid Sasson describes another custom with woman on ST:בכפור, בשמיני עצרת ובשמחת
תורה מוציאם בכל בתי הכנסת את כל ספרי התורה ומניחים אותם בהיכל והאנשים
והנשים הולכים מבית כנסת לבית כנסת לנשק כל ספר וספר וקוראים זאת זייארה (מסע
בבל, עמ’ רכז)In truth something similar to this (but not on ST only on HR and YK) is found earlier in the letters of R. Ovadia Bartenurah where he describes a custom that he saw:גם ראיתי בליל יום הכיפורים
ובליל הושענא רבה אחר שסיימו הצבור תפלת ערבית, פותחים הנאמנים שני שערי ההיכל
צפונה ונגבה ויושבים שם כל הלילה עד הבוקר, ובאות הנשים משפחות מפחות למשתחוות
ולנשק הספרי תורה, ובפתח האחד תכנסנה ונכחו תצאנה. וכל הלילה, זו נכנסת וזו
יוצאת… (אגרת א”י, עמ’ 106).One other point regarding woman and Simchat Torah is Rivkah Tiktiner (died in 1605) composed a song for Simchat Torah in Yiddish. Tiktiner is famous for being the first Jewish woman who wrote a complete work called Minkes Rivkah. Yaari suggests that this song was song while the woman decorated the Sifrei torah (Toldos Chag Simchas Torah, p.464). This song was recently reprinted by Y. Levine with an introduction and a translation in Hebrew (Simchat Torah Leyad). On Rivkah Tiktiner, see Levine’s Introduction (ibid); Z. Gris, Hasefer Kesochen Tarbus, p.172 and here.

Another custom which women are involved in on Simchat Torah is the throwing of the fruit to the children. On this topic see also Y. Gibralter in his memoirs of Kovno who writes:זלמן טרקניסקי הגבאי הראשי נהג לשבת לאחר הקידוש בשמחת תורה כששק מלא תפוחי עץ גדולים ויפים בידיו ולחלקם לילדים כפי שמבוא בהלכה בבית המוסר דקדקו בהלכה בתכלית הדקדוק (יסור
יסרוני, עמ’ 110).This custom has been the subject of many articles see recently: Avraham Ya’ari, Toledot Chag Simchat Torah, 231-237; Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael 6:140-154; Shlomo Hamberger, Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz 4:430-461; Yechiel Goldhaber, Minhagei Hakehilos, 2:147-152; . Y. Tessler, Heichel ha-Besht 20:75-100; Ohr Yisrael 41:187.

Half Faith, Half Heresy: Between S.Y. Agnon and Gershom Scholem

Jeffrey Saks

The bonds of friendship between S.Y. Agnon and Gershom Scholom are well documented in their writings and in the copious scholarship on the celebrated Nobel laureate and the revered professor of Jewish mysticism. In this context, the interview that Dan Miron conducted with Scholem about Agnon (broadcast on Israeli television in February 1981, a year before Scholem’s death) is noteworthy. The recording (part 1 not preserved; part 2 and 3 available) and the transcript of the interview (in Hebrew or translation) are available online.

Agnon and Scholem met during the First World War, in the reading room of the Jewish Community Library in Berlin. Last summer, we marked the centennial of the burning of Agnon’s house in Bad Homburg, an event that brought the writer’s fruitful stay in Germany to an end. On the night of June 4-5, 1924, Agnon’s fellow tenant set fire to his apartment in the shared building in an act of arson and insurance fraud, thus proving the Sages’ adage, “Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor” (M. Negaim, 12:6). The Agnon family lost almost all of their possessions in this fire. In addition to the manuscripts of two almost-finished books, “four thousand Hebrew books, most of which I inherited from my ancestors and some of which I bought with money I scrimped from my daily bread,” went up in flames, as Agnon later recounted in his speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony in 1966. Among these 4,000 books was at least one that Agnon had received as a gift from Scholem: the young scholar’s first publication, Das Buch Bahir, a product of Scholem’s doctoral dissertation. It was an annotated German translation of a Hebrew manuscript from 1298 of that ancient Kabbalistic text. The book was published by Druglin in Leipzig in 1923, and subtitled Ein Schriftdenkmal aus der Frühzeit der Kabbala auf Grund der kritischen Neuausgabe, which means: “A written monument from the early days of Kabbalah based on a new critical edition.” It appeared in a series called Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Jüdischen Mystik (Sources and Researches on the History of Jewish Mysticism). On the cover, decorated with a woodcut image of a Kabbalist next to a diagram of the Ten Sefirot, is the title “Qabbala.” The backstory of the publication of this dissertation—published at the height of the German inflationary period on a rather esoteric subject—is told by Scholem in From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memories of My Youth (Schocken Books, 1980), 142-143.

In the same year that he published his edition of the Bahir, Scholem left Germany for the Land of Israel, arriving on Yom Kippur 1923. A little over a year later, Agnon also left Germany and returned to Jerusalem on Friday, erev Shabbat Parashat Noah 1925. Upon renewing their relationship, Scholem gave Agnon another copy of his book in place of the original, which had been consumed by the flames in Bad Homburg. As an inscription Scholem wrote:

Scholem inscription to Agnon on Das Buch Bahir (Agnon House Library, #2473).

A gift to my friend S.Y. Agnon
May this enter the treasury of his books
Instead of Replacing the first one that was burned
From me, his faithful loving [friend]
Gershom Scholem

Like many new arrivals he was self-conscious of his Hebrew, making occasional errors in his speech (less so in writing). The inscription shows that Scholem had written and crossed out the word bimkom, replacing it with the more poetic tahat. Is there a hint in this edit (on a note to one he considered master of the Hebrew language) to this self-consciousness on the part of the new immigrant to the Hebrew Republic? Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, Scholem deliberated between two job offers: teaching mathematics in a high school or working in the National Library. It was clear that librarianship was a better fit for his personality and interests, but he himself admitted that he was afraid that in school “who could say whether my pupils would not laugh at my Berlin-accented Hebrew?” (From Berlin to Jerusalem, 163).

The Agnon House library in Jerusalem preserves dozens of books, booklets, and offprints by Scholem, many of which bear dedications from the author to Agnon. Agnon, for his part, paid tribute to Scholem and he too inscribed books in exchange (see, for example, an enigmatic dedication from 1952 to his book Ad Henah, published by David Assaf on the Oneg Shabbat website).

One of the most interesting dedications is written on an offprint of Schalom’s well-known article “Mitzvah Ha-ba’ah be-Aveirah,” which was first printed in Knesset: Divrei Sofrim in Memory of H.N. Bialik, vol. 2, edited by Fischel Lachower (Bialik Institute, 1937), 347-392.

The article appears in English as “Redemption Through Sin,” translated by Hillel Halkin, in The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (Schocken Books, 1971), 78-141 (the acknowledgment on p. 365 misstates the publication date as 1937 rather than the correct December 1936).

This is one of Scholem’s most important studies that broke new ground in understanding Sabbateanism, and it shaped all subsequent research on the subject. Later, the article was republished at the beginning of his collection Mehkarim u-Mekorot le-Toldot ha-Shabtaut (Bialik Institute, 1974), and just last year in a new edition edited by Yonatan Meir, supplemented with an introduction, a comparison of the article’s manuscripts and published versions, notes, and appendices (Blima Books, 2024).

In this broad-ranging article, Scholem sets Sabbateanism as a touchstone through which the continuity of Israel’s history should be reassessed. In his opinion, that false messianic movement led to a disconnect between Halakha and Rabbinic Judaism, on one side, and Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism on the other. The vacuum created in the space in between allowed the rise of modern movements such as the Jewish Enlightenment, secularism, and Zionism. One of Scholem’s well-known assertions in this article is that Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz was a believer in Shabbtai Zvi, as his contemporary Rabbi Yaakov Emden had claimed (see the Y. Meir edition, p. 52 and especially in n. 15). This claim provoked the ire of scholars from the rabbinical world, which may explain the Hebrew rhyme that Scholem wrote on the offprint he gifted to Agnon:

Scholem inscription to Agnon on “Mitzvah Ha-ba’ah be-Aveira” (Agnon House Library).

Half-faith and half-heresy
Almost completely undisguised
To S.Y. Agnon, with friendships’ blessing
From me, Gershom Scholem

In the 1981 interview with Dan Miron, Scholem mentioned the fact that Agnon stood by him when he was attacked by religious and Haredi scholars who were upset by what he wrote in “Mitzvah Ha-ba’ah be-Aveirah” and in subsequent articles. Miron asked about this and the extent of Agnon’s interest in academic research in Jewish studies in general. Scholem replied:

He was interested, he wanted to hear details, understand my grounds for saying what I did. The details were what interested him, the research. He stood up for me when rabbis came and said to him: He’s such an aberration, that Scholem—a perfect ignoramus where the Torah is concerned, Talmud he knows nothing of—and he says the most outrageous things about Sabbetaians, and so on and so forth. Because so long as I wrote about the Zohar, nobody cared a bit, you see, but when I happened to mention in one line—after being convinced of the truth of it—that Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz had been a Sabbetaian—Heaven help me! Agnon’s friends from Poalei Agudat Yisrael—that was a large part of Agnon’s theatrics, his friendship with the Poalei Agudat Yisrael people—well, their rabbis called on him and they said whatever it was, and Agnon told them: “You don’t understand what it’s all about, you don’t understand what Scholem is doing.” So when I came to see him, he told me: “Rabbi So-and-So just left here ten minutes ago, and he called you a…” And he told me what his answer to the rabbi had been too. In a word, Agnon could have regard for a scholar when he considered there was some point to his work. And in all, it was a matter of individuals—respecting some, and some not—because research as such didn’t frighten him, because what did he care whether the Zohar was written at the time of the Tannaim so and so many centuries later. Agnon would have been the first to understand a thing like that. But the world of research in general—that, I think, did not exist for Agnon.

“Gershom Scholem on Agnon: Interview by Dan Miron—Part Two,” Ariel 53 (1983), 62-63.

It is unclear who Agnon’s Haredi “friends from Poelei Agudat Yisrael” were. It is possible that at the time of the interview, 45 years after the publication of “Mitzvah Ha-ba’ah be-Aveirah,” Scholem confused them with members of Mizrachi and the Religious Zionist Community, since among his staunch critics were Yitzhak Werfel (later Yitzhak Raphael, who also went under the penname A. Hashiloni) and Rabbi Reuven Margolies (1889-1971), both of whom were identified with Religious Zionism.

After Scholem deepened and substantiated his assertion regarding R. Eybeschutz’s Sabbatean beliefs (in a critical review of a psychoanalytic biography of R. Emden written in English by Mortimer Cohen), Margolies published a harsh response against Scholem. Margolies, who authored dozens of Torah books, was then the chief librarian of the Maimonides Library in Tel Aviv (now part of Beit Ariella) and was a distinguished Torah scholar. The current librarian, R. Avishai Elbom, published a column “Rabbi Reuven Margolies vs. Professor Gershom Scholem” (Am HaSefer Blog, 2021) reviewing the controversy that spilled over into adjacent topics in Zohar research.

Rabbi Reuven Margolies (1967)

Scholem, for his part, authored a twenty-page pamphlet published by Schocken in 1941 and titled Leket Margaliot (whose English subtitle would be: Assessing the New Defense of Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz). It is reprinted in his Mehkarei Shabtaut, edited by Yehuda Liebes (Am Oved, 1991), 686-706, with a bibliographical appendix reviewing the substance and stages of the debate. The pamphlet was a sharply worded response to Margolies’ criticisms.

A copy of the pamphlet with an inscription from Scholem to Agnon survives in the Agnon House collection:

Scholem inscription to Agnon on Leket Margaliot (Agnon House Library, #2839).

To S.Y. Agnon, my friend and comrade in the war against the ignoramuses (amei ha’aretz).
With blessings, Gershom Scholem

Agnon appreciated Scholem’s dual personality: an open faith and an almost undisguised heresy. As far as we know, he had little or no relationship with R. Reuven Margolies, who was also a native of Galicia, despite their common affinities. The years of Agnon’s and Margolies’ lives overlapped almost entirely. Margolies, a Lviv native studied in Agnon’s hometown of Buchach, receiving semikha from Rabbi Meir Arik (1855-1925), the town’s dayyan and posek, who appears a number of times in Agnon’s ‘Ir u-Meloah (A City in Its Fullness), a collection of his tales of Buchach. The Agnon House library has thirteen of Margolies’ books in its collection, but unlike the inscriptions that memorialize the warm friendship between Agnon and Scholem, there is not a single dedication to Agnon in Margolies’ books.

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Director of ATID and its WebYeshiva.org program, is Director of Research at Agnon House in Jerusalem and editor of the journal Tradition. Thanks to Profs. David Assaf and Yonatan Meir for their assistance.