Rabbi Joseph Hertz, Women and Mitzvot, Antoninus, the New RCA Siddur, and Rabbis who Apostatized, Part 1

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In my last post here, in discussing R. Joseph Hertz’s suggested alternative text for Maoz Tzur, I wrote that this suggestion “was simply made up by Hertz or perhaps suggested by an unnamed collaborator on his siddur commentary.” At least one person wondered if I had anything in mind when I wrote about “an unnamed collaborator.” Indeed, these words were chosen deliberately. I do not know anything specifically about collaborators on the siddur commentary. However, we do know about the collaborators on his famous Torah commentary. This Chumash used to be found in every Modern Orthodox synagogue, and now, just like the Birnbaum siddur, it is missing from most of these synagogues.[1]

When it comes to what I will describe about the Hertz Chumash, it is possible that we are dealing with a great injustice. At the very least, it was a great misunderstanding between Hertz and his collaborators. Here are the Hebrew and English title pages of the Hertz Chumash.

The English title page refers to the Chumash as edited by Hertz. The Hebrew title page, which most people don’t even bother looking at, even if they understand Hebrew, refers to a commentary that is the work of a group of Torah scholars headed by Hertz. These are quite different formulations.

Most people who have used the Hertz Chumash, even those who have used it for many years, will not know anything about this group of Torah scholars. Indeed, when people quote from this Chumash, Hertz is given exclusive credit for everything in it. Thus, when citing this Chumash’s commentary, people will say, “Hertz writes.” Yet is this correct?

If we turn to the Chumash’s preface, we learn that Hertz was assisted by J. Abelson, A. Cohen, G. Friedlander and S. Frampton. The first three individuals prepared the commentary to sections of the Torah (the exact sections are listed), and Frampton prepared the commentary to the Haftorahs. Hertz writes: “In placing their respective manuscripts at my disposal, they allowed me the widest editorial discretion. I have condensed or enlarged, re-cast or re-written at will, myself supplying the Additional Notes as well as nearly all the introductory and concluding comments to the various sections.” We see from this that Hertz had an important role, not just as editor, but in contributing content to the Chumash. Yet the commentary itself was not the product of Hertz. He was simply the editor of the material provided by the men mentioned above. In this role, he performed the regular task of an editor who takes texts and condenses and enlarges, re-casts or re-writes, but this editorial involvement does not make the editor the author.

We therefore have to wonder why it is that the men who labored so hard in creating the commentary are given no recognition, apart from the mention of their names in the preface which virtually no one bothers to read. As I already noted, the commentary to the Chumash is universally understood to have been written by Hertz when in fact most of it – other than the “introductory and concluding comments to the various sections” – is not his at all.

Now that the facts have been laid out, I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that Abelson, Cohen, and Frampton were not at all happy when the Chumash appeared and they were given no recognition for their labors on the title page. (Friedlander was no longer alive.) They thought that on the title page, following the mention of Hertz as the editor, it should have said something like, “With the collaboration of the Revs. Dr. A. Cohen, Dr. J. Abelson, the Rev. S. Frampton and the late Rev. G. Friedlander.” Hertz responded to their complaint that it had already been established at the initial stages of the planning of the Chumash that the contributors’ names would not appear on the title page.[2] In fact, this a major reason for R. Salis Daiches[3] withdrawing from collaboration on the project. (Obviously, Abelson, Cohen, and Frampton had a different understanding of how Hertz was supposed to acknowledge their work.) Daiches was also unhappy with Hertz’s “editorial policy of extensively rewriting and revising the installments submitted to him by the various annotators.”[4] Hertz later implausibly claimed that his revisions were “an incredible amount of labor, easily ten times the amount of my collaborators.”[5]

Another matter that must be noted is that in the preface found in the first volume of the first edition of the Chumash—it originally appeared in five volumes—Hertz writes that he supplied “nearly all the Additional Notes.” Yet in the one volume edition this sentence has been changed and the word “nearly” has been deleted, making Hertz the only author. Harvey Meirovich has called attention to this, and shows that the Notes dealing with evolution and sacrifices came from R. Isidore Epstein.[6]

I do not know why the following paragraph, which explains the method of the commentary and appeared in the preface to volume 1 of the first edition, was deleted from the preface of the one volume Chumash. This is exactly the sort of explanation of the commentary that the reader would find helpful.

Method of Interpretation: A word must be added as to the method chosen for leading the reader into what the Jewish Mystics called the Garden of Scriptural Truth. The exposition of the plain, natural sense of the Sacred Text must remain the first and foremost aim in a Jewish commentary. But this is not its only purpose and function. The greatest care must be taken not to lose sight of the allegorical teaching and larger meaning of the Scriptural narrative; of its application to the everyday problems of human existence; as well as of its eternal power in the life of Israel and Humanity. In this way alone can the commentator hope not merely to increase the knowledge of the reader, but to deepen his Faith in God, the Torah and Israel.

Also of interest is that the first edition of the Hertz Chumash includes maps which are not found in the one volume edition.

2. In my post here I mentioned that R. Shmuel Wosner defends the practice of women saying שלא עשני גוי and שלא עשני עבד instead of substituting the words גויה and שפחה. R. Yehudah Tesner agrees with R. Wosner and adds the following: If a woman would say שלא עשני גויה this would only mean that she does not want to be a non-Jewish woman. However, she might still prefer to be a non-Jewish man instead of a Jewish woman. Also, if she said שפחה it might only mean that she does not want to be a female maidservant, as this has two negative things, namely, that she is both a woman and enslaved.

שאין רצונה להיות שפחה, שיש בזה תרתי לריעותא, גם אשה וגם משעובדת

However, it might imply that if she could get rid of one of these negative things, i.e., the female, and be a male slave, that this might be acceptable to her. In order to prevent these misunderstandings, R. Tesner says that she must keep the standard text which includes women as part of גוי and עבד. This way she is thanking God that she is not a non-Jew, male or female, and that she is not a slave, male or female.[7]

There is no question in my mind that R. Tesner’s approach is somewhat convoluted and would never represent the thinking of any woman who recited the prayer. I only mention it because R. Tesner takes it for granted that it is better to be born as a Jewish man than a Jewish woman. Yet he also sees as obvious that it is still better to be a free Jewish woman than a male slave.

With regard to this latter point, it is of interest that R. Joseph Teomim states that there are a few things in which a male slave has an advantage over a woman:

עבד חשוב לענין קצת דברים . . . במקצת דברים עדיף מאשה

One of the things he mentions is that a male slave is circumcised, and circumcision is a great mitzvah given to men that women do not have the opportunity to fulfill.[8] This perspective is obviously very different than the outlook advocated by various kiruv speakers that while women are created perfect, men are created defective and thus need a berit milah to get them up to the level of women.[9] I have no doubt that if this argument was first made by someone who identified with Open Orthodoxy, that it would have been regarded as blasphemous for denigrating the commandment of circumcision.

Regarding women not having the opportunity to fulfill the great mitzvah of circumcision (and other mitzvot), I was surprised to find that R. Leon Modena, who was quite “modern” for his time, explains that this is because they do not rank very high in God’s eyes, which is another way of saying that women are simply unworthy of these mitzvot. Here are his misogynistic words:[10]

ומצינו שלא החשיב השי”ת בתורתו הנשים בשום אופן, ולא נתן להן אפי’ אות ברית במילה, ולא רוב מצוות עשה.

Apart from circumcision, it is a popular kiruv perspective that in general women are created with more spiritual perfection, and thus do not need all the mitzvot of men. R. Meir Mazuz attacks this position which he sees as absurd.[11]

דוגמא אחת  מהסילופים: המקשים מצביעים על ברכת “שלא עשני אשה”, והמתרצים מתפלפלים להוכיח שהאשה איננה צריכה כל כך סייגים וגדרים, כי מטבעה דיה במספר מועט של מצוות, ולכן היא מברכת בשמחה רבה “שעשני כרצונו” – שהקב”ה ברא אותה תמימה ושלימה שאיננה צריכה כל כך מצוות, והאיש מברך “שלא עשני אשה” – הוא על דרך שמברכין על הרעה כשם שמברכין על הטובה . . . [ellipses in original] ואילו היה כדבריהם, למה מברכין הנשים ברכת “שעשני כרצונו” בלי שם ומלכות . . . והאנשים מברכים “שלא עשני אשה” בשם ומלכות, ואדרבא איפכא מסתברא?! ובטור א”ח (סימן מ”ו) כתב שנהגו הנשים לברך שעשני כרצונו, ואפשר שנהגו כן כמי שמצדיק עליו את הדין על הרעה . . . ולדעת המתרצים הנ”ל אפשר לומר ג”כ שהגוים עדיפי מישראל, שאינם צריכים לתרי”ג מצוות רק לשבע דוקא, אתמהה.

To R. Mazuz’s words I would only add that if people find it problematic to say that men are created more perfect than women, why do they not find it also problematic to say that women are created more perfect than men? Should I have been offended when a woman once said to me that she is exempt from a number of mitzvot because women are on a higher spiritual level than men, as they are naturally more connected to God, while men can only achieve this connection through mitzvot? I am sure she would have been offended if someone said to her that women are on a lower spiritual level than men, as they are naturally less connected to God, and the evidence of this is that do not have as many mitzvot as men.[12] And what about Torah study? Can we say that men are only commanded to study Torah because they are not at the same spiritual level as women? This would be a complete inversion of the value traditionally assigned to Torah study.[13]

Yisrael Ben Reuven’s book, Male and Female He Created Them (Southfield, 1995), devotes a good deal of discussion to the kiruv perspective. On pp. 132, 133, he writes:

A number of recent books in English propose this idea of women’s spiritual superiority over men, and reportedly, the idea is taught as well in numerous schools for women. The reader should note that none of the books in question offer a classical source for the idea, and none of several teachers of the idea have been able to supply a source when interviewed by this author and numerous individuals known by the author. . . . [T]he teaching contradicts a principle from the Gemara that commandments are placed on a person as a result of his having spirituality (as opposed to his lacking it).

I believe that Ben Reuven is correct in noting that attributing this notion to the Maharal is a mistake. Yet I disagree with his discussion of the view of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, as Hirsch indeed suggests that women are not commanded in the positive time-bound commandments because they do not need them, for they, by nature, have “greater fervour and more faithful enthusiasm for their God-serving calling.” Contrary to Ben Reuven, doesn’t this mean that they are created with a superior innate spirituality? Men, on the other hand, according to Hirsch, can only reach their spiritual potential through the mitzvot. Hirsch includes circumcision as one of the commandments that men need because they are by nature on a lower spiritual plane then women.[14]

R. Zvi Yehudah Kook also thinks that women are inherently spiritually superior to men. The problem is that men don’t realize this. However, R. Zvi Yehudah claims that in Messianic days when men will understand the truth, they will no longer be able to able to make the blessing שלא עשני אשה, as they will see that women are superior to them.[15]

במצב העכשווי האיש יותר חזק בגופו, ומתוך כך בפרקטיקה האנושית. הוא אקטיבי יותר בכל החיים המעשיים. יש הרגשה שהוא תופס יותר מקום. הרגשה זו היא לפי המדריגה האנושית, והברכות נקבעו על פי ההרגשה האנושית היחסית. זאת התפיסה האנושית הרגילה, והברכה מתייחסת למציאות זו. משום כך אומר האיש כהרגשתו “שלא עשני אשה”, שהרי זו האמת היחסית, והאשה מברכת “שעשני כרצונו”. אך, כאמור, זו תפיסה אנושית חלקית, וההרגשה היא רק עניין יחסי של מצב עכשווי נתון, אמת נוכחית.

לעומת זאת, ההשקפה האלהית, האמת המוחלטת, אינה ענין של הרגשה חולפת, אלא האמת הנצחית מראשיתה ועד סופה. לעתיד לבוא, כאשר גם האדם יכיר את האמת, ויהיה כולו מבחינת “הטוב והמטיב”, לא יוכל לברך “שלא עשני אשה”, שהרי אז יכיר שבניינה של האשה יותר רם, יותר אלהי ופחות אנושי, ממצבו הוא.

For virtually all, the approaches suggested by Hirsch and R. Zvi Yehudah Kook in which women are created more perfect than men would have been inconceivable in pre-modern times. One possible exception, and the only exception I know of, was the sixteenth-century R. Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, author of Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah. He actually enumerates numerous ways in which women are superior to men. He also claims that women are not intellectually inferior to men, and they can thus understand all the wisdoms of the world. In the sixteenth century, this was a very radical position.[16]

Regarding women, R. Yonason Rosman called my attention to the following. The ArtScroll Chumash, p. 1086 (beginning of parashat Nitzavim) states:

On the last day of his life, Moses gathered together every member of the Jewish people, from the most exalted to the lowliest, old and young, men and women, and initiated them for the last time into the covenant of God. What was new about this covenant was the concept of ערבות responsibility for one another, under which every Jew is obligated to help others observe the Torah and to restrain them from violating it. This is why Moses began by enumerating all the different strata of people who stood before him, and why he said (v. 28) that God would not hold them responsible for sins that had been done secretly, but that they would be liable for transgressions committed openly (Or HaChaim).

According to the ArtScroll summary, R. Hayyim Ben Attar, the author of Or ha-Hayyim, states that women are obligated in ערבות. But is this really what he says? Here is his commentary to Deuteronomy 29:9:

R. Hayyim ben Attar actually says the exact opposite of what appears in the ArtScroll summary, in that he states that women are not obligated in ערבות, and they are grouped together with children and proselytes. R. Ben Attar tells us that children are not obligated because they do not have the requisite understanding for such an obligation. Proselytes are not obligated because it is not their place to be rebuking, and thus exercising authority over, those who were born Jewish.[17] Why are women not obligated? R. Ben Attar writes:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה והנשים כמו כן הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל

The sentence is ambiguous, and it all depends on where you put the comma. Here is one way to read the sentence:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה והנשים כמו כן, הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל

If you place the comma after the words והנשים כמו כן, the sentence seemingly means that women are just like children in not having the requisite understanding of the various sins to be obligated in ערבות. R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer finds it incomprehensible that R. Ben Attar would say that women’s level of understanding is comparable to that of children.[18] He therefore explains that when R. Ben Attar says והנשים כמו כן, he only means to say that the law for women is like the law for children, but not that the reason is the same.

You can also place the comma after the words אינם בני דעה so that one reads the sentence this way:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה, והנשים כמו כן הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל

Now the sentence means that children do not have the requisite understanding to be obligated in ערבות, and women are like proselytes in that it is not their place to be rebuking, and thus exercising authority over, Jewish men. Although this is how R. Avraham Sorotzkin understands the Or ha-Hayyim,[19] I find it difficult as the second half of the sentence does not read well this way.

3. In my post here I referred to Nero and Antoninus and their supposed conversions to Judaism. The Talmud, Gittin 56a, indeed states that Nero converted, and it adds that R. Meir was descended from him. Soncino’s note to the passage reads: “This story may be an echo of the legend that Nero who had committed suicide was still alive and that he would return to reign (v. JE IX, 225).” The Koren Talmud’s note, which is a translation of what appears in Steinsaltz, states that the talmudic story cannot be referring to the famous Nero: “The Roman emperor Nero was killed under strange circumstances and after his death rumors circulated that he was not actually killed but had taken refuge elsewhere.” The note continues that even though Nero is referred to in the passage in Gittin 56a as ,נירון קיסר the story actually refers to another person who was an officer in the Roman army in the campaign against Judea. This person’s name was also Nero, and since he was from the larger Caesar family, he too was called Nero Caesar. This explanation apparently first appears in Seder ha-Dorot.[20]

Graetz thought that the story of Nero converting was part of a rabbinic polemic against Christianity, while Bacher “attributed the origin of the legend to the view which considers the power of Judaism to be so great, that even its greatest enemies become converts either themselves, or, at any rate, their descendants.”[21]

Let me offer another way of explaining the story of Nero’s conversion, which I have not seen anyone else suggest. Josephus tells us that the Jews put up a wall in the Temple to prevent King Agrippa from viewing the sacrificial service. This upset both Agrippa and the Procurator, Festus, and Festus ordered that the wall be torn down. The Jews decided to go over Festus’ head and turned to Nero. Nero’s wife, Poppaea Sabina, pleaded their case, and as a favor to his wife, Nero ordered that the wall should stay.

Why would Poppaea plead the case of the Jews? Josephus tells us that she was a “God-fearer.”[22] Whatever the exact connotations of this term, which has been greatly discussed, she was clearly a sympathizer of the Jews. Josephus tells us that on another occasion she helped secure the release of some Jews who had been placed in prison in Rome. He also tells us that that Poppaea gave him many presents.[23] Could it be that originally the story about the conversion of Nero was said about his wife, and that in the hundreds of years before it was recorded in the Talmud, it was transferred to Nero himself?

As for the Emperor Antoninus, who was friends with R. Judah ha-Nasi, we do not know who this refers to as the title Antoninus was used for various emperors.[24] However, I want to call attention to a different point. In Sefer Yuhasin ha-Shalem, ed. Filipowski, p. 115, in listing the talmudic sages, R. Abraham Zacut includes a “Rabbi Antoninus”. Where does he get such a name? As he indicates, it comes from Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, and there are actually two separate references there to R. Antoninus.[25] The first reads:[26]

[א”ר אנטונינוס למלך שהוא דן על הכימה [הבימה

The second reads:[27]

…ר’ אנטונינוס אומר ג’ היו והוסיף עליהם עוד אחד והיו ד’

R. Antoninus is being cited as the source for halakhic teachings. Yet the text is corrupt, as was already pointed out by the Vilna Gaon. He emended both passages so that while Antoninus is mentioned, he is not identified as a rabbi.[28]Thus, in the first passage the Vilna Gaon emended it to read:

 [אמר רבי אנטונינוס המלך שהוא דן על הכימה [הבימה

The second passage he emended to read:

רבי אומר ג’ היו הוסיף עליהם עוד אחד והיו ד’ הוסיף אנטונינוס עוד אחד והיו ה’

While the Vilna Gaon may have only sensed intuitively that the text was corrupt, manuscript evidence exists that offers versions similar to or identical with that suggested by the Vilna Gaon.[29]

As for the conversion of Antoninus, R. Solomon Judah Rapoport argues that this is a late, and non-historical, aggadah.[30] He points to a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1:11, which shows that it was not clear whether Antoninus converted.

אית מילין דאמרין דאתגייר אנטונינוס ואית מילין אמרין דלא אתגייר אנטונינוס

Nevertheless, despite these words, the continuation of this talmudic passage records that he did in fact convert. This is also the conclusion in the Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 10:5. However, the matter is still not clear, since regarding the Megillah text the Leiden manuscript has a different version which leaves the matter of Antoninus’ conversion undecided.[31] Furthermore, as Shaye J. D. Cohen writes, “the Bavli clearly implies that Antoninus was not a convert, unlike the Roman dignitary Qetia who was.”[32] Cohen also calls attention to Yalkut Shimoni: Isaiah, no. 429, which states that Antoninus was one of the tzadikei umot ha-olam, that is, not a convert.

R. David Zvi Hoffmann examined the various aggadot regarding R. Judah ha-Nasi and Antoninus. With regard to most of them he concludes that they arose in Babylonia long after the events described, and that “it is difficult to find a historical core to them.”[33]He does not tell us whether he regards these stories as simply legends that arose from the people or if they should be seen as didactic tales no different than the numerous other aggadot that describe actions and dialogues of various biblical figures, matters that were also never intended to be taken as historical. R. Hoffmann also discusses how the notion of Antoninus actually converting to Judaism developed from earlier sources that only regard him as a “God fearer.”[34]

Regarding referring to people as rabbis when they do not deserve the title, such as Rabbi Antoninus, here is another interesting example that I believe was pointed out to me many years ago by Prof. Shnayer Leiman. When R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz’s Luhot Edut was reprinted in 1966, the publisher helpfully added an index of names at the back. What seems to have happened is that he went through the index putting “Ha-Rav” before all the names, and mistakenly added this title before Shabbetai Zvi’s name.

When the book was reprinted again by Copy Corner in the 1990s, they fixed this mistake and added שר”י.

It is interesting that in Solomon Zeitlin’s review of Gershom Scholem’s biography of Shabbetai Zvi, he criticizes Scholem for referring to Nathan of Gaza as “Rabbi Nathan.”[35] Had Scholem wished to defend himself from an Orthodox perspective, he could have pointed to the fact that decades after Nathan’s death (and also after Shabbetai Zvi’s death), one of the leading rabbis in Salonika, R. Solomon ben Joseph Amarillo (died 1722), refers to Nathan as הרב הקדוש מהר”ר נתן [36].אשכנזי ז”ל R. Joseph Molho (1692-1768), another leading rabbi in Salonika, refers to Nathan as הרב נתן ז”ל.[37] This positive reference to Nathan is found in R. Molho’s response to R. Solomon ben Isaac Amarillo, who also referred to Nathan this way.[38] In his famous work, Shulhan Gavoah, R. Molho refers to Nathan as follows: וכן קבלו מהרב נתן אשכנזי ז”ל המקובל האלהי.[39] I was surprised to see that in the new edition of Shulhan Gavoah (Jerusalem, 1993), this appears without any censorship, which presumably means that the editor did not know who R. Nathan Ashkenazi is. One final example: The famed R. Moses Zacuto (c. 1620-1697) refers to Nathan as הרב המופלא כמהר”ר נתן הידוע זלה”ה.[40]

Those who are interested in rabbinic history are familiar with R. Naphtali Yaakov Kohn’s nine volume Otzar ha-Gedolim. In vol. 4, p. 125, we find an entry for none other than the notorious Spanish apostate, Joshua Lorki, and his name is followed by שר”י ימ”ש.

Why is such a person included in a book of “gedolim”? The author explains that before he apostatized, he was a rabbi. (I do not believe this is correct. I have never before seen him described as a rabbi and know of no evidence to support such an assumption.) One can easily understand that even if someone was a rabbi, if he later converted, or became a Reform rabbi for that matter, including him in a book of “gedolim” is not going to sit well with many. This is so even though most of the rabbis included in the book are far from what one can consider “gedolim” in the way the term is used today.

Kohn did not print any letters or haskamot in the first four volumes of his work. These first appear in volume 5, and are from such varied figures as R. Joel Teitelbaum and the Chief Rabbis of Haifa. Kohn also includes a four-page letter from R. Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Klausenberger Rebbe. R. Halberstam saw the entry for Lorki and was very upset. He writes that just as no one would dream of including Dathan and Abiram among the great Jewish leaders, all the more so one should not include Lorki among the rabbis of Jewish history. He further asks, rhetorically, if אותו האיש ימ”ש שר”י   should also be included because he was a student of R. Joshua ben Perahiah?

R. Halberstam is even upset that the book includes an entry for Lorki’s father, and unfairly wonders what type of man he must have been if his son turned out this way. (I say “unfairly” since there are many examples of pious people whose children ended up very differently.) Finally, R. Halberstam makes the following strong point to Kohn: If you are going to sayyemah shemoafter someone’s name, then it has to actually mean something. By including an entry for Lorki in the book, not only are you not blotting out his name, but you are doing the exact opposite by preserving his name for all to see.

ובאמת שאצל המומר לורקי כתב כת”ה בתר שמו ימ”ש שר”י. אבל זה לא רק להלכה אלא גם למעשה ואם אומרים ימח שמו א”כ איך חוקקים שמו להזכירו בזכרון קדוש אחרי שבע מאות שנים?

Kohn thought that it was OK to include an entry for Lorki because he was a rabbi before he apostatized. With this logic it would be OK to also study the Torah works of rabbis who later apostatized, since these works were written before their apostasy. (In part 2 of this post I will deal with rabbis who published seforim and then apostatized.)

5. In my last post here, I wrote that the new RCA siddur will come to be the standard siddur at hundreds of synagogues for decades to come. This was a reasonable conclusion to reach, since ArtScroll is no longer allowed to sell the RCA ArtScroll siddur which has become the standard at Modern Orthodox synagogues. Thus, when these synagogues need to purchase new siddurim – and these siddurim must have the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF – they would naturally buy the new RCA siddur. Yet it seems that I was mistaken, as I did not anticipate ArtScroll’s response to its anticipated enormous loss of revenue. Here is the ad that many of you have already seen.

ArtScroll is continuing to sell the RCA siddur, minus the name “RCA” on the cover and Rabbi Saul Berman’s introductory essay. Instead of being the RCA edition, this siddur is now called the “Synagogue Edition.” This is designed to ensure that Modern Orthodox synagogues, when they need to buy new siddurim, continue purchasing the ones congregants are used to.

This move by ArtScroll is obviously a serious threat to the success of the new RCA siddur, as the typical Modern Orthodox synagogue will probably find it easier just to buy the new “Synagogue Edition.” It is going to take a lot of effort from the RCA to ensure that the new siddur becomes accepted across America, and only time will tell who will win the battle for the loyalty of the Modern Orthodox synagogues. I don’t know the details of ArtScroll’s contract with the RCA, so I can’t say if what ArtScroll has done is illegal. It certainly appears unethical.

When the original ArtScroll siddur appeared some thirty-five years ago, it immediately caught on, so much so that today it is hard to find an English-speaking Orthodox home that does not have an ArtScroll siddur. This is an enormous historical achievement. However, there was an obvious lack in that the classic ArtScroll siddur did not include the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF. This meant that it could never be adopted as the siddur for Modern Orthodox synagogues. There were many people who were upset with ArtScroll for not including these prayers. Would it have been so difficult for ArtScroll to have included them with the note that “Some congregations recite these prayers”? In a siddur that found room to include Gott fun Avrohom at Havdalah, for the tiny population of ArtScroll siddur-users that says it, why could it not include prayers recited by many thousands every Shabbat? They could also have put these prayers in the back of the siddur, with the Yotzerot that today hardly anyone says. These steps would have made for an inclusive siddur, and there never would have been a need for the RCA ArtScroll Siddur.

We were led to believe that as a matter of principle, as dictated by ArtScroll’s gedolim, the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF could not be included. It was thus a surprise that ArtScroll agreed to include these prayers in the RCA edition of the ArtScroll Siddur. The RCA recognized that everyone was moving over from Birnbaum to ArtScroll, and therefore it made sense to produce a Religious Zionist version of ArtScroll. How was ArtScroll able to include the religiously objectionable prayers? Obviously, the reason was money, but there was also deniability, as people could say that it wasn’t actually an ArtScroll siddur. Rather, it was an RCA siddur using the text of ArtScroll, so in this way ArtScroll wasn’t implicated as a partner in religious Zionism and its objectionable prayers.

With the publication of the new “Synagogue Edition” siddur, we now have a situation where ArtScroll itself is publishing a siddur with the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF. In other words, ArtScroll is publishing a Religious Zionist text. This is definitely news. You can be as cynical as you wish in explaining why when it comes to making lots of money from Modern Orthodox synagogues, Daas Torah can be pushed aside, but it is significant that a so-called haredi publishing house has broken with haredi standards in such a significant way. Nevertheless, I hope that Modern Orthodox synagogues will realize that there is a great difference between the old RCA ArtScroll siddur, which is just the standard ArtScroll siddur with a few extra pages, and the new RCA Siddur which, in its ideological outlook and historical sophistication, is a siddur perfectly suited for today’s Modern Orthodox community.

6. Rabbi Pini Dunner recently publishedMavericks, Mystics and False Messiahs, and I know readers of the Seforim Blog will find it a wonderful read. If you have ever watched any of Dunner’s videos, you know that no one can tell a story like him. The figures and events he discusses (Samuel Falk, Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute, ClevesGet, Lord George Gordon, R. Yudel Rosenberg, Ignatz Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln) are ones that are perfectly suited for his skill in this area. Readers should not go to this book looking for new discoveries of the sort that he has spoken about in some of his online lectures. Some people will have even read the published works upon which the chapters are based (e.g., Scholem, Leiman, Wasserstein). These sources are discussed in the concluding chapter which is itself fascinating, especially for those who love books. I heartily recommend the book even for those who know the original sources, because no one can bring a story to life quite like Dunner.

There is one thing, however, that I wish had been explained by Dunner. In the longest chapter of the book, dealing with the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute, there are lengthy dialogues recorded between different people. We also read about when individuals smiled, when they gasped, when they turned pale, when their voice was shaky, when tears flowed down their cheeks, when they sat upright in bed, etc. Occasionally, we find this also in other chapters. Since all this is made up by Dunner (and with regard to the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute could even be the beginnings of a movie storyline), it would have been helpful for some discussion as to why he decided to spice up the book this way. The most we get is that in the concluding chapter (p. 172), Dunner tells us that portions of the book “have been written in a style that has much more in common with dramatic fiction than with non-fiction history, including details of private conversations, and descriptive elements that may cause readers to wonder about their accuracy.” Yet the reader is never told why Dunner sometimes adopts this approach and at other times he sticks to the facts.

The chapter on the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute includes as part of the story the legendary account of how R. Emden, on his deathbead, said, “Barukh haba, my revered father, barukh haba, Rabbi Yonatan.”[41] This was understood to mean that he was finally reconciled with his longtime adversary, and explains why they were buried in the same row. Unless one reads the concluding chapter of the book, which deals with the sources, the reader will have no way of knowing that there is no historical basis for this tale. It is attributed in the original source to R. Abraham Shalom Halberstam of Stropkov (1857-1940), though he presumably was repeating a tradition he had heard. The story was obviously invented to create a posthumous peace between the two great rabbis.

I realize that what I have described is part of the liberties taken by any good storyteller. However, anyone who reads the book will wonder why the Emden-Eybeschuetz chapter in particular, which freely mixes fact with fiction, is written in such a different style than the other chapters, which stick much more closely to what the evidence tells us. Dunner has shown that he can be both expert storyteller and historian, but speaking as a fellow historian, my preference would have been not to mix these genres in one book.

[1] Regarding the Hertz Chumash, see the articles by Mitchell First here, and Yosef Lindell here.

[2] See Harvey Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism: The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch (New York and Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 187-189.

[3] Unlike the other contributors, Daiches was actually a rabbi (something not so common in Britain at the time). He received semikhah from the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin as well as from his father, the great R. Israel Hayyim Daiches, R.  Solomon Cohen of Vilna, and R. Ezekiel Lifshitz of Kalisz. See Hannah Holtschneider, “Salis Daiches –  Towards a Portrait of a Scottish Rabbi,” Jewish Culture and History 16 (2015), p. 4. Holtschneider’s biography of Daiches will be out later this year. See here. The famous author David Daiches was his son, and his book Two Worlds (Edinburgh, 1997) has a lot about Salis Daiches. Here are some passages that I think readers will find of interest, as it speaks to the differences between what it meant to be an Orthodox rabbi in Britain a century ago vs. today.

Pp. 29-30: The electric radiator – which did, I suppose, make some difference, though memory links it only with extreme cold – could be switched on and off on the sabbath, as the electric light also could, in accordance with a decision of my father’s which differentiated his position sharply from that of my grandfather, patriarchal rabbi of an orthodox Jewish congregation in Leeds, who would have been shocked if he had known how cavalierly we treated electricity. Gas light or heat, which required the striking of a match, was another matter that was clearly prohibited. But electricity was a phenomenon unrecognized by the Talmud, and my father felt free to make his own interpretation of the nature of the act of switching on the electric light or heat. He decided that it was not technically ‘kindling a fire’, which a biblical injunction prohibits in the home on the sabbath.”

Pp. 81-82: “For years we travelled with our own meat dishes (for we could not eat off the meat dishes of a non-Jewish house) and Mother had supplies of meat sent out by post from the Edinburgh Jewish butcher. Packing a trunk full of dishes was an arduous business, and eventually Mother gave it up and we went vegetarian throughout August – which was no hardship for Mother could do marvelous things with fish (the term vegetarian in our family meant simply eating no meat but did not exclude fish). Slowly and gradually, and I am sure never consciously on my parents’ part, we relaxed a bit in the matter of diet. When she was first married Mother baked all her own bread, but ceased to do this after her illness in 1919. And on holiday one found oneself going a little further than one would have done in the city. In Edinburgh, we usually ate bread from the Jewish bakery, but occasionally we would get a loaf from a non-Jewish shop. Cakes and biscuits we regularly got from non-Jewish sources. But though Mother would buy ordinary cakes from a non-Jewish baker, she would always make her own pastry, for pastry from a gentile shop was liable to have been made with lard. On holiday, however, pastries started to creep in among the cakes bought for tea, and nobody raised the question of what they were made with.”

I am certain that Daiches is mistaken in his last sentence, and that his father confirmed with the bakery that there were no non-kosher ingredients in these pastries.

Pp. 92: “At home we always covered our heads to pray, and to say grace before and after meals, but we were never expected to keep our heads covered continually. My father wore a black skull cap when receiving members of his congregation in his study, but as the years went by he developed the habit of keeping it in his pocket throughout much of the day and diving hastily for it when the bell rang. In his father’s presence he wore it continually.”

Pp. 174, 176: The rabbi did not believe in a literal personal Messiah; he believed in historical movements, in progress, in amelioration, and in the acceleration of movement in the right direction by the actions of individuals. . . . The Messiah was not a person, but a historical ideal. God, the rabbi was in the habit of telling his congregation, works in history.”

Pp. 175-176: “The priestly benediction recited on High Festivals, when all the Cohens assembled to bless the congregation in the old biblical words of benediction, had been abolished by the rabbi in his Sunderland synagogue and he would not allow it in Edinburgh either.”

[4] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, p. 31.

[5] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, p. 33.

[6] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, pp. 41ff.

[7] Siah Tefilah (Ofakim, 2003), p. 361.

[8] Mishbetzot Zahav, Orah Hayyim 46:4.

[9] See Excursus which will be in part 2 of this post.

[10] Magen ve-Herev, ed Simonsohn (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 47.

[11] See his derashah in R. Rephael Kadir Tsaban, Nefesh Hayah (Bnei Brak, 2007), vol. 2, pp. 269-270.

[12] See e.g, Derashot Rabbi Yehoshua Ibn Shuaib (Cracow, 1573), p. 48a:

כי נשמתן של ישראל הן קדושות יותר מן האומות ומן העבדים הכנעניים הפחותים ואפילו מן הנשים ואם הם שייכי במצות והן מזרע ישראל אין נשמתן כנשמת הזכר השייך בתור’ ובכל המצות עשה ולא תעשה.

[13] R. Shlomo Aviner, in discussing this matter, does not go so far as to say that men are obligated in Torah study because they are not at the same spiritual level of women. However, he comes close, and he is led to this approach because of his understanding of Torah study as leading to devekut, a position which is at odds with the Lithuanian perspective on Torah study. See Aviner, Bat Melekh (Jerusalem, 2013), p. 104:

שאלה: מדוע האשה, שניחנה בבינה יתרה, אינה מחוייבת בלימוד תורה?

תשובה: האיש, שאין בו בינה יתרה, דווקא הוא צריך להרבות בלימוד, אך האשה, שיש לה בינה יתרה, מבינה גם ללא הלימוד הרצוף והממושך. המהר”ל מסביר, שמי שיש לו נטיה טבעית לדבר, הוא משיגו בנקל. ללא נטיב טבעית יש צורך בעמל רב. לאשה באופן טבעי יש נטיה, שהאיש צריך לעמול עליה קשה (מהר”ל, דרוש על התורה עמ’ כז-כח). אלא, עמל לימוד התורה אינו איסוף ידיעות, בעומק הנפש, ודבקות בתורה. האיש הוא קשה עורף, מתקשה לשמוע לכן יש להכותו בגידים (שמות רבה כח ב. רש”י, שמות יט ג), בשוט השכלי של הלימוד. מי שניחן בנטיה טבעית לתורה אינו זקוק ל”גידים” כדי שתחול בו אותה תמורה פנימית, והיא מגיע אליו ביתר קלות . . . זו נטיה עמוקה באישיות האשה, לכן היא מגיעה לדבקות וקישור והתמלאות בתורה בנתיבים שונים מן האיש. האיש מגיע לדבקות זו בנתיב הלימודי, והאשה בנתיב ספיגת הדברים מן החיים.

See here from a Chabad site where we are told that “the female child inherently carries a higher degree of holiness, due to her own biological, life creating capability.” Would anyone today write the same sort of comment, but instead state that the male child has a higher degree of holiness? Faced with a situation where many people believe that women are regarded as inferior in traditional Judaism, defenders of Judaism are often led to offer apologetic answers that argue the reverse, namely, that it is actually women who are more special, spiritual, holy, etc. than men.

In my experience, men never seem to be offended when they hear this. One haredi friend explained to me that this is because the men do not believe it to be true, and thus no reason to be offended if it makes the women feel better. This is a cynical answer, but can anyone come up with a better reason? Imagine the scenario: A Shabbat meal with many guests and the father offers a devar Torah whose upshot is that men are more holy and spiritual than women. This will not go over well and the women (and some men also) will be offended. Yet if the message of the devar Torah is that women are more holy and spiritual, no one will take offense. Why not? And my more basic question is, why we can’t just say that men and women are equally holy and spiritual (albeit with different roles)? Why do people feel a need to say that one is more special than the other?

All this is in the realm of Jewish thought. However, when it comes to explaining halakhic matters in which women might be portrayed in a way that they would take offense at, here too new approaches must be offered. For example, can anyone imagine explaining to modern women why they cannot perform shechitah by telling them what R. Joseph Messas quotes from manuscript from the nineteenth-century R. Jacob Almadyoni (spelling?) of Tlemcen, Mayim Hayyim, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah no. 1?

אין להניח הנשים לשחוט ואפי’ בדיעבד ראוי להחמיר שאף המכשירין יודו האידנא שאין דעת נשי דידן מכוונות כדעת נשי דידהו. ואם על נשיהם אמרו אין חכמה לאשה אלא בפלך [יומא דף ס”ו ע”ב], קו”ח לנשי דידן

[14] See Hirsch’s commentary to Lev. 23:43, and regarding women and circumcision, see also Hirsch to Gen. 17:15. The most comprehensive discussion of Hirsch’s view of women and Judaism is found in Ephraim Chamiel, The Middle Way (Brighton, MA, 2014), vol. 2, pp. 152ff. On p. 153 he titles the section of a chapter: “Revolution: Women are Superior to Men.” Hirsch obviously opposed the notion found in R. David Abudarham that the reason women are not obligated in positive time-bound commandments is because they are “enslaved” to their husband to do his will, and if they were busy performing these commandments they could not serve him properly and this would create marital discord. See Abudarham ha-Shalem (Jerusalem, 1963), p. 25:

והטעם שנפטרו הנשים מהמצות עשה שהזמן גרמא לפי שהאשה משועבדת לבעלה לעשות צרכיו. ואם היתה מחוייבת במצות עשה שהזמן גרמא אפשר שבשעת עשיית המצוה יצוה אותה הבעל לעשות מצותו ואם תעשה מצות הבורא ותניח מצותו אוי לה מבעלה ואם תעשה מצותו ותניח מצות הבורא אוי לה מיוצרה לפיכך פטרה הבורא ממצותיו כדי להיות לה שלום עם בעלה.

The same reason is offered by R. Jacob Anatoli, Malmad ha-Talmidim (Lyck, 1866), pp. 15b-16a:

לפי שהנקיבה היא לעזר הזכר ואל אישה תשוקתה והוא ימשל בה להנהיגה ולהדריכה בדרכיו ולעשות מעשה על פיו והיותה על הדרך הזה הוא גם כן סבה שהיא פטורה מכל מצות עשה שהזמן גרמא כי אלו היתה טרודה לעשות המצות בזמן היה הבעל בלא עזר בזמנים ההם והיתה קטטה נופלת ביניהם ותסור הממשלה המכוונת שהיא לתועלתו ולתועלתה.

R. Ahron Soloveichik adopted an approach similar to that of Hirsch. He claimed that Judaism “recognizes the feminine gender as possessing an innate, unique spiritual blessing as compared with the male gender. . .  [T]he woman has innate spiritual advantage as compared with men.”Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind(Jerusalem, 1991), p. 93.

[15] Itturei Kohanim, no. 167 (5759), 4-5; R. Aviner, Panim el Panim (Jerusalem, 2008), p. 194. Significantly, R. Zvi Yehudah’s explanation acknowledges that the blessing שלא עשני אשה implies male superiority. While this was a common understanding in pre-modern times, in recent generations this interpretation was usually rejected. Yet R. Zvi Yehudah claims that the blessing’s formulation was a concession to human feelings. Does this then mean that if a contemporary man recognizes the superiority of women, or even just that they are equal to men, that according to R. Zvi Yehudah he can stop saying this blessing?

[16] See Avraham Grossman “Ma’alot ha-Nashim ve-Adifutan be-Hibur shel R. Gedaliah Ibn Yahya,” Zion 72 (2007), pp. 37-61.

[17] R. Simhah Bunim Lieberman raises a strong objection to Or ha-Hayyim‘s position. See Bi-Shvilei Orayta al Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh la-Zeh, p. 124:

אבל האמת דעצם דברי האור החיים צ”ע, דאטו מוכיח יש בו שררה, וכי מצאנו איסור לגר להוכיח ישראל שחטא

[18] Edut be-Yaakov, vol. 2, p. 164.

[19] See R. Avraham Sorotzkin, Rinat Yitzhak, Deut. 29:10.

[20] R. Yehiel Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot (Bnei Brak, 2003), vol. 1, p. 251.

[21] Naomi G. Cohen, “Rabbi Meir, A Descendant of Anatolian Proselytes,” Journal of Jewish Studies 23 (1972), pp. 54-55. Cohen also provides the Graetz reference.

[22] Antiquities 20.8.11.

[23] Life of Flavius Josephus, ch. 3. See A. Andrew Das, Solving the Romans Debate (Minneapolis, 2007), pp. 77ff.; Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1993), p. 351.

[24] R. Maimon ben Joseph (the father of Maimonides), Iggeret ha-Nehamah, trans. Binyamin Klar (Jerusalem, 2007), p. 38, states:

וכבר אמר פעם אחת אחד ממלכי רומי – קללה תבוא על כולם, חוץ מאחד רם המעלה המובדל מהם, הוא אנטונינוס שהיה בדורו של רבנו הקדוש ע”ה.

[25] R. Yehiel Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot, vol. 2, p. 138, has a version of the Mekhilta that reads Antigonos, and he therefore identifies a “Rabbi Antigonos”.

[26] Beshalah, hakdamah. In the edition with the Netziv’s commentary it is on p. 79.

[27] Beshalah, parashah 1. In the edition with the Netziv’s commentary it is on p. 111.

[28] Surprisingly, Abraham Joshua Heschel did not take note of the Vilna Gaon’s emendation, and cited one of the Mekhilta texts as is. See Torah min ha-Shamayim be-Aspaklaryah shel ha-Dorot (London and New York, 1962), p. 183 n. 3.

[29] See the Horovitz-Rabin edition of the Mekhilta, pp. 82, 89.

[30] See Rapoport, Erekh Milin (Prague, 1852), p. 270.

[31] See the comprehensive discussion in Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Conversion of Antoninus,” in Peter Schäfer, ed., The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (Tübingen, 1978), pp. 141-171.

[32] “The Conversion of Antoninus,” pp. 164-165.

[33] “Die Aggadot von Antoninus in Midrash und Talmud,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 19 (1892), p. 46.

[34] “Die Aggadot von Antoninus in Midrash und Talmud,” pp. 51-52.

[35] See Jewish Quarterly Review 49 (1958), p. 153.

[36] Penei Shlomo (Salonika, 1717), p. 43d.

[37] Ohel Yosef (Salonika, 1756), no. 14 (p. 13a).

[38] Devar Moshe (Salonika, 1750), vol. 3, no. 11 (p. 8a). The three sources just cited are mentioned by Meir Benayahu, Ha-Tenuah ha-Shabta’it be-Yavan (Jerusalem, 1978), pp. 191, 274-275.

[39] Shulhan Gavoah (Salonika, 1756), Orah Hayyim, vol. 2, Hilkhot Yom ha-Kippurim 620 (p. 68a). He also refers to Nathan this way ibid., Hilkhot Rosh ha-Shanah 584 (p. 35a).

[40] See Benayahu, Ha-Tenuah ha-Shabta’it be Yavan, p. 119. For sources regarding Zacuto, see Gershom Scholem, Mehkerei Shabtaut, ed. Yehuda Liebes (Tel Aviv, 1991), p. 528; Bezalel Naor, Post Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), p. 176 n. 8.

[41] The source of the story for Dunner is David Ginz, Gedulat Yehonatan, vol. 2, p. 286. Abraham Hayyim Simhah Bunim Michaelson, Ohel Avraham (Petrokov, 1911), p. 28b, also heard the story from R. Halberstam, but in his version R. Emden states simply, ברוך הבא אבא.

Tarnopol: A short-lived early 19^th century Hebrew press
by Marvin J. Heller[1]

The blossoms have appeared in the land, The time of your song has arrived,
and the voice of the turtledove Is heard in our land.
The green figs form on the fig tree. The vines in blossom give off fragrance.
Arise, my darling; My fair one, come away!
“O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks. Hidden by the cliff.
Let me see your face, Let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet And your face is comely.”
Catch us the foxes, The little foxes
That ruin the vineyards— For our vineyard is in blossom. (Song of Songs 2:12-15).

Tarnopol (Ternopol), a city with an established Jewish community, dates its founding to the mid-sixteenth century. The community had many positive aspects (blossoms have appeared in the land, The time of your song has arrived), and was home to a Hebrew printing press (The green figs form on the fig tree. The vines in blossom give off fragrance) for a brief time only in the early nineteenth century. Due, however, to the contentious relationship between conflicting segments of the community, that press, after publishing a variety of valuable works, was short lived and closed prematurely (The little foxes that ruin the vineyards).

Tarnopol is in Galicia, in the western Ukraine, approximately 227 miles (365 km.) from Kiev (Kyiv) and 73 miles (117 km,) from Lvov. Although there had been earlier residences in the area, credit for founding the city as a private town in 1540 is given to the Polish hetman, Jan Amor Tarnowski. Tarnowski permitted Jewish settlement almost immediately afterwards in what was his personal domain. The city charter permitted Jews to reside throughout the city, excluding the market place. Initially, the Jewish population was small, comprised of only a few dozen Jews, this based on the head tax paid, the revenues from it being, in 1564, 20 zlotys, rising to 23 the following year. Jews quickly became a majority of the population, with as many as 300 families resident there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[2] By 1765, the Jewish population of Tarnopol had increased to 1,246 Jews.[3]

In 1548, Tarnopol was granted the privilege of the Magdeburgian Laws, regulations concerning internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by the local ruler, developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973). In 1566, Tarnopol received the Emporium Right, the duty of storing the merchandise of the merchants passing through the town, and the privilege of the residents of the town to be the first to purchase the merchandise. Tarnopol was fortified and strengthened during the Tartar invasions in 1575 and 1589. In 1621, it became the property of Chancellor Tomash Zamoiski.[4]

A fire in 1623 caused significant damage to the homes in the city, but Zamoiski allowed the Jews to rebuild their homes as well as a new synagogue, this constructed in citadel style, to replace the one destroyed in the fire. Jews could buy and sell goods, excepting some leather merchandise, this to protect the monopoly of Christian shoemakers. Jews could be butchers, but had to provide the owners of the city annually with ten milk stones.

Tarnopol suffered, as did Jewish communities throughout Eastern Europe, from the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 (tah ve-tat) and again in 1653 from the Tartar invasions. Until the ravages of the former occurred, the Jewish community was prosperous. At that time, however, most Jews fled, those remaining being massacred. Jews participated in the defense of the city in the Cossack and Swedish wars. The city, now the property of Alexander Konyetspolski, was reconstructed, but suffered yet again in 1672 when the town’s castles and citadels were bombarded by the Turks. Towards the end of the century the community began to revive, Jewish merchants being dominant in the grain and cattle trades.[5] In 1690, Tarnopol became the private property of the Polish royal family, Subiesky, and subsequently was transferred to the noble Polish family, Pototski, remaining in their possession until 1841 when private ownership of cities was abolished.

An early rabbi in Tarnopol was R. Gershom Nahum R. Meir ben Isaac Tarnopoler, who stated that “Our community is the capital (i.e it was important).” The rabbis active in Tarnopol in the eighteenth century included R. Joshua Heschel Babad, followed by R. Jacob Isaac ben Isaac Landau. Joshua Heschel Babad’s (Babad is an acronym of Benei Av Bet Din, “children of the av bet din,” 1754-1838) itapprobations appear in several of the titles described in this article and served as rabbi of Budzanow and, from 1801, of Tarnopol. He opposed the growing circle of maskilim in Tarnopol and polemicized against their patron, Joseph Perl (below), and, in 1813, of the teaching system in the school founded by Perl where secular studies were taught.[6]

Tarnopol suffered from an outbreak of the Black Plague in 1770, suffering many deaths. Finally, in 1772, Tarnopol was annexed to Austria and from 1809 to1815 was in the possession of the Russians, returning to Austrian rule until it became part of the Western Ukrainian Republic. Its status changed yet again at the end of 1918 when it became part of independent Poland.

In the early eighteenth century Tarnopol was largely Hassidic. Nevertheless, among the significant figures in Tarnopol was Joseph Perl, a prominent Maskil, active in that movement and an opponent of Hassidus.

A Hebrew press was established in Tarnopol in 1812. At that time Nahman Pineles and Jacob Auerbach, accomplished printers, obtained permission from the Russian authorities to establish a Hebrew press, this with the condition that the books to be printed would be approved by the censor. They acquired typographical equipment from the printer Benjamin ben Avigdor and employed two workers, Mordecai ben Zevi Hirsch and Aryeh Leib ben David. Ch. Friedberg informs that this was not an auspicious time to establish a press due to the Napoleonic wars. Nevertheless, it was established with the support of Joseph Perl, who not only provided financial assistance, but also space in his school for the press. He did so in the belief that the books published by the press would be in support of the Haskalah.[7]

The Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book records twenty-two entries, from 1812-13 through 1817.[8] These works are varied. We will describe a portion of them, several in some detail, others in passing, giving a sense of the press’ output.

I

Yeshu’ot Meshiho – Printing is reported to have begun with Don Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel’s (1437-1508) Yeshu’ot Meshiho (the Salvation of His Anointed) in 1812-13.[9] Abrabanel, a noted statesman, biblical exegete, and philosopher, traced his lineage to King David. He was the grandson of Samuel and the son of Judah Abrabanel, the former an advisor to three Kings of Castile, the latter to the King of Portugal. Don Isaac Abrabanel received a thorough Jewish education, studying Talmud under R. Joseph Hayyun (d. 1497), as well as instruction in philosophy, classics, and even Christian theology, this last useful in his defense of Judaism. Abrabanel succeeded his father as treasurer to King Alfonso V of Portugal, during which time he was instrumental in redeeming Jewish captives brought to Portugal. Upon the death of Alfonso in 1481, João II (1481-95) became king of Portugal. In 1483, João accused Abrabanel of participating in a conspiracy. Forewarned, Abrabanel fled to Spain, where he served as an official in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1492, they offered him the opportunity to remain in Spain as a Jew, but he chose to go into exile and left with other Jews.[10]

A prolific author Abrabanel wrote extensive and highly regarded commentaries on books of the Bible, philosophical works, and a three-part trilogy of consolation on resurrection and redemption. Yeshu’ot Meshiho is the third part of the trilogy. The first parts are Ma’yenei ha-Yeshu’ah (Wells of Salvation), first printed in Ferrara (1551) on the book of Daniel, followed by Mashmi’a ha-Yeshu’ah (Announcing Salvation), first edition published in Salonika (1526); the trilogy is completed with Yeshu’ot Meshiho. The text addresses redemption, the Messiah, and the end of days.[11] This is recorded as the first edition of Yeshu’ot Meshiho in bibliographies, but is extremely rare and was not seen by this writer. It is recorded as an octavo.

Rosh Amanah – Our second work by the Abrabanel, also printed in 1813, is Rosh Amanah, on the principles of faith. First published in Constantinople (1505) this edition was printed in the year “[From Lebanon, my bride, with me!] Trip [look] down from Amana’s peak תשורי מראש אמנה (573 = 1813)” (Song of Songs 4:8), a reference to the principles of faith (Emunah). It was printed in quarto format (4⁰: 30 ff.). Abrabanel completed Rosh Amanah “in Naples at the end of Marheshvan, in the year, ‘The voice of rejoicing רנה (255=November, 1494) and salvation’” (Psalms 118:15), that is, two years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The verso of the title-page has an approbation from R. Joshua Heschel Babad, av bet din of Tarnopol, immediately below it is verses from Judah Abrabanel, the author’s son, and below that a statement that wherever the phrases akum or goi appears it refers to ancient idol worshippers, not to contemporary non-Jews who are upright people.

1813, Rosh Amanah

Next is Abrabanel’s introduction, in which he explains that his purpose in writing the book is twofold, to clarify the confusion resulting from the many lists on the principles of faith and to defend Maimonides from his critics, most importantly R. Hasdai Crescas (c. 1340–c. 1410–11, Or HaShem), and Joseph Albo (15^th century, Ikkarim). Stylistically, Rosh Amanah follows the same format as Abrabanel’s other works, that is, he poses a series of questions which he then resolves.

There are twenty-four chapters. In the first twenty-two Abrabanel enumerates twenty-eight objections to Maimonides thirteen principles of faith, twenty taken from Crescas and Albo. Abrabanel subsequently resolves these objections, defending Maimonides from his critics, although he too, in chapter twenty-three, rejects Maimonides’ formulation of a dogma for Judaism. Rosh Amanah begins with a discussion of the thirteen principles, followed (ch. 2-5) with Crescas and Albo’s objections; then nine necessary propositions for the ensuing discussion (6-11); the refutation of the objections (12-21); criticism of Crescas’ and Albo’s formulation (22); Abrabanel’s contention that Judaism has no dogmas (23); and lastly, a discussion of the Mishnah in Sanhedrin (90a), “All Israel has a share in the world to come,” which might seem to posit a dogma for Judaism.[12]

Despite Abrabanel’s contention that Judaism has no dogmas he writes (ch 22) that if he were to, “choose principles to posit for the divine Torah I would lay down one only, the creation of the world. It is the root and foundation . . . and includes the creation at the beginning, the narratives about the Patriarchs, and the miracles and wonders which cannot be believed without belief in creation.”

Rosh Amanah has been published at least nine times to the present, excluding a questionable 1547 Sabbioneta edition, and translated into Latin by Guilielmum Vorstium (Liber de capite fidei, Amsterdam, 1638 and 1684), French by B. Mossé (Le princips de la foi, Avignon, 1884), and English twice, that is, the first five chapters by Isaac Mayer Wise (The Book on the Cardinal Points of Religion), serialized in The Israelite (Cincinnati, 1862), and more recently in its entirety as by M. Kellner (Principles of Faith, Rutherford, 1982).

Hamishah Homshei Torah – Among the other works published at this time were a Hamishah Homshei Torah, that is, a small rabbinic Bible (Mikra’ot Gedolot) with commentaries. Four volumes were published in 1813 and one volume, Bamidbar (Numbers) was published in 1814. The text of Hamishah Homshei Torah, on facing pages, is comprised of the biblical text in square vocalized letters on the right page, and below it in rabbinic letters, R. Aaron of Pesaro’s (d. 1563) Toledot Aharon, a concordance, brief citations to the places where each word or phrase in the Biblical text appear; the commentaries of Rashi; and Siftei Ḥakhamim (R. Shabbetai ben Joseph Bass, 1641-1718), a super-commentary on Rashi. On the facing page is Onkelos in square vocalized letters, the Ba’al ha-Turim (R. Jacob ben Asher, c. 1270-1340) and the continuation of Rashi and Siftei Ḥakhamim, all in rabbinic letters.

Likkuttei Shoshanah – Another very different work, published in 1813/14 is R. Samson Ostropoler of Polonnoye’s (Volhynia, (d. 1648) Likkuttei Shoshanah. Ostropoler, a kabbalist of repute, died on July 22, 1648, at the head of his community in the Chmielnicki massacres. At that time, Ostropoler assembled 300 members of his community into the synagogue and, dressed in shrouds and prayer-shawls, said selihot and prayers until they were slaughtered. R. Nathan Hannover, in Yeven Metsulah on the Chmielnicki massacres, informs that a magid (heavenly teacher) who frequently instructed Ostropoler in the secrets of the Kabbalah, warned him of the impending catastrophe, advising Ostropoler to call the community to repent, which he did but to no avail.[13] Likkuttei Shoshanah, a kabbalistic work, was published in a small format, 20 cm. (8 ff.).

II

Pa’ne’ah Raza – R. Isaac ben Judah ha-Levi’s commentary on the Torah, Pa’ne’ah Raza, built upon literal interpretations (peshaṭ) intermingled with gematriot and notarikon (numerical and abbreviated letters of words) is also an 1813 publication. Isaac ben Judah ha-Levi (13th cent.) was one of the Tosafot of Sens, and a student of R. Hayyim (Paltiel) of Falaise. Printed previously in Prague (1607), this edition was published as an octavo (8⁰: 142, [2] ff.).

1813, Pa’ne’ah Raza

The title-page informs that the contents include, in addition to Isaac ben Judah ha-Levi’s commentary the insights of many other rishonim (early sages) who are then noted, and that Pa’ne’ah Raza, is novellae on Hamishah Homshei Torah and Megillah in veiled ways. Among the many virtues that the title-page lists are insightful forms of elucidation, all desirable, sharp, sweet peshat (literal interpretations), queries and responses, and much more. Also included are words of the sages through gematriot, as given at Sinai with sound and flame.

The title-page is followed by R. Joshua Heschel Babad’s approbation and then Isaac ben Judah’s introduction. He begins that “I am the youth of my mother’s house and of my people, ‘a worm and a maggot’ (Avot 3”1), I know my place . . . ‘I am but dust and ashes’ (Genesis 18:27).” The title alludes to his name Pa’ne’ah פענח and Raza רזא, both have a numerical value of 208, the numerical value of his name, Isaac יצחק (208). He has included what he has heard from his teachers, among them Ran, R. [Joseph] of Orleans, R. Joseph Bekhor-Shor, and some sayings of R. Judah he-Hasid, in gematriot and peshat. He also names R. Eliezer of Worms and others, stating that he has noted the name of every contributor where possible; for he does not, heaven forbid, wish to take someone else’s adornment. Where he does not know the name, it is left unspecified.

R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (Hida, 1724-1806), notes the wonder (miracle) and foreknowledge in the heart of the author, that Pa’ne’ah Raza, the name given so many years before, standing for Isaac twice, represents both the author and, after many centuries, the editor.[14]

Although Pa’ne’ah Raza is noted for its gematriot and notarikon much of the text is literal explanations. An example is the following, from Exodus 40:35:

“And Moses was not able to enter [into the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud abode on it]. Rashi explains, “the cloud was removed and he entered and He spoke with him.” A difficulty, how if so did He speak with him. For all the days of their encampment the cloud was over it? Furthermore, if so, Aaron and his sons could not enter, in which case, how did they burn the incense, light the menorah, and arrange the lehem ha-Panim? It is possible to say that this was one (another) cloud and during the days of their encampment they were able to enter . . . and R. Eliezer of Worms explains that for one hour the cloud was on it and afterwards removed so that they could enter.

As noted above, Pa’ne’ah Raza was first published in Amsterdam in 1607. This is the third edition, followed, according to the Bet Eked Sefarim, by two additional editions, the last being Warsaw (1928). The National Library of Israel records more recent printings, the latest being Ann Arbor, Michigan (1974) and Jerusalem (2019) editions.[15]

Torat ha-Adam – A work, undated and lacking the place of printing attributed to Tarnopol, although that is uncertain, is R. Samuel ben Shalom’s Torat ha-Adam, an ethical work with kabbalistic content. It was published in c. 1813; measures 23 cm. and comprised of 28 ff.[16] At the top of the title-page is the statement, “Happy is the man who has not forgotten you, and the son of man who finds his strength in You.” The text of the title-page states that it was written by the holy man of God. All who will look into it with open eyes will see how a person has to serve the Lord with a complete and perfect service in order to acquire true completion, for this is why man was created in this world. It further informs that the author, R. Samuel ben Shalom, is a grandson of R. Moses of Ostrog, author of Arugat ha-Bosum on the Song of Songs. The title page is followed by R. Samuel’s introduction, where he writes that he entitled the book Torat ha-Adam because it is how a person should conduct himself all the days of his life in this world. Much of the text is taken from or influenced by the Mishnat Hasidim of R. Emanuel Hai Ricci.[17]

Imrei Binyamin R. Benjamin ben Meir ha-Levi of Brody’s Imrei Binyamin, discourses on the weekly Torah readings, was printed in the year “Of Benjamin he said: Beloved of the LORD, He rests securely beside Him ולבנימין[אמר] ידיד ה“ ישכן לבטח’ (574 = 1814)” (Deuteronomy 33:12). Imrei Binyamin was published as an octavo (8⁰: [3], 92 ff.). Although the title-page describes Imrei Binyamin as being on all the weekly Torah readings the text is actually only from the beginning of Bereshit (Genesis) through be-Hukkotai (Leviticus). The title-page informs that these discourses were delivered on Shabbat by Benjamin when he was the maggid mesharim in Berdichev for seventeen years and afterwards in Brody. Imrei Binyamin was brought to press by R. Meir Eliezer ben Pinhas, the author’s grandson. He sadly begins the introduction, “I am the builder of the house of Benjamin, the father of my father.” Benjamin ben Meir had one son only, who predeceased him. In several instances, inserted between the columns of R. Benjamin’s commentary are annotations of Meir Eliezer. He hoped to publish other parts of this work but that, unfortunately, did not happen.[18]

III

Mishlei Shelomo – In 1814, the press published Menahem Mendel Lefin’s (Levin, 1749-1826) Mishlei Shelomo, a bi-lingual octavo format (8⁰: [2], 91 ff.) Hebrew-Yiddish commentary on Proverbs. Lefin, born in Satonov, Podolia, was therefore known as Satonover, and was also referred to as Mikolayev, as he also resided in Mikolayev for an extensive amount of time; spending his last years in Brody and Tarnopol. Lefin received a traditional Jewish education, studying Talmud and rabbinic codes, but early in his life, reportedly by accident, came across and was influenced by Joseph Solomon Delmedigo’s (1591–1655) Elim, dealing with mathematics and physics, motivating him to study those subjects. Lefin subsequently went to Berlin for medical treatment where he was also influence by Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), becoming a strong advocate of the Haskalah.

Lefin was a prolific author, his titles including a Hebrew translation of Dr. Samuel-Auguste Tissot’s popular book on medicine; and encouraged by a friendship with Prince Czartoryski, Essai d’un plan de reforme, avant pour objet déclairerhis la Nation Juive en Pologne et de la rdresser par s4es moeurs (An essay upon a Plan of Reform with the Object to Enlighten the Jewish Nation in Poland and to Improve it in Accordance with its Customs); . Lefin’s Hebrew works include Iggrot ha-Hokkmah, Refuot ha-Am, Heshbon ha-Nefesh, which, among other ethical topics, also elaborates on Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, which R. Israel Salanter (1810-83), founder of the Mussar movement, considered an excellent handbook for moral development and had reprinted; a new translation of Maimonides’ More Nevuchim, this in Mishnaic Hebrew, and Alon More, Lefin’s only original work, this an introduction to the philosophy of Maimonides, and Mishlei Shelomo, all in “a delightful prose”.[19]

The brief text of the title-page of Mishlei Shelomo states that it includes a concise new commentary in Ashkenaz (Yiddish) for the benefit of our brothers Beit Yisrael in the lands of Poland. Below that is that it was printed with the permission of the censors. There are two approbations, the first from R. Joshua Heschel Babad, the second from R. Mordecai ben Eliezer Sender Margolious, av bet din, Satonov. Below the approbations is Lefin’s introduction, in which he notes that so Torah should not be forgotten from Israel, he has included commentators and transcribed books of the Bible into different languages. He notes that in later generations with the movements of Jews and forgetfulness, older commentaries are not always understood, particularly in the lands of Ashenaz. Therefore, he has undertaken to bring out a concise commentary for our brothers in those lands, beginning with Proverbs (Mishlei).

1814, Mishlei Shelomo

The text follows, comprised, on facing pages, of the text of Proverbs in vocalized square letters, below it Lefin’s commentary in rabbinic letters, on the recto page. On the verso is Lewin’s translation in square vocalized letters and below it the continuation of the commentary. Zinberg writes that Lefin disregarded the distinction between the spoken and written language, and that Ecclesiastes and Proverbs should not be translated “in the language that the market-Jewess speaks to her customer in the street.” Zinberg describes Lefin’s purpose in the translation, putting an end to the standard style of the translations of the Bible that had been dominant for hundreds of years and according to which the children in the schools had the Biblical text taught and translated to them. He wishes to give ordinary Jews , worn out with toil, the “holy books” without embroidered covers, but in the simple, weekday garment of the colloquial language, with its homely concepts and images, including its Slavisms, as it is spoken at home and in the market place. . . .Mendel Levin-Satanow did not print his translation of Proverbs in the special “women’s type” customary for Judeo-German books, but in square Hebrew letters and with vowels. Levin’s spelling is also characteristic of his translation: he writes the words mainly according to their phonetic sound. Thus we find in his work rufikh, not ruf ikh: nemtzakh, instead of nemt es aykh . . .[20]

Mishlei Shelomo was part of Lefin’s translation of the Bible into Yiddish, of which only the volumes on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were published. He was able to publish Mishlei Shelomo with the financial aid of Joseph Perl. As noted above, Mishlei Shelomo has approbation from two av bet din. It is rare, indeed unusual, for rabbis to give approbations to books by Maskilim, especially in this case where a sponsor was Joseph Perl, who was opposed to the orthodox establishment.

Waxman observes that Lefin’s translation into the Yiddish vernacular raised the objection, “a hue and cry” among Maskilim who regarded Yiddish as a jargon and wished to reduce its use as much as possible. Tobias Gutman, another maskil, even wrote a pamphlet against Lefin, branding him a traitor to the cause of Hebrew. Leaders of the Galician Maskilim intervened and the pamphlet was not published during Lefin or Gutman’s lifetime. All of this notwithstanding, Lefin’s books were generally popular.

IV

Luach (Calendar) – Three calendars are recorded for the Tarnopol press, that is, 1813,1814, and 1815, all credited to Joseph Perl. Each calendar is octavo in format, the 1814 calendar, our subject calendar, is (8⁰: [9], [4], 1, 11, [1] ff).

Joseph Perl (1773–1839), already noted several times in passing, was a person of import in the Haskalah. He was born in Tarnopol to Todros. a wealthy wine merchant and for a time holder of the communal concession for the tax on meat. As a young man, Perl was attracted to Hassidism, but while a partner in his father’s business he travelled to various locations where he met Maskilim, among them, in Brody, Menahem Mendel Lefin, who inspired Perl. He was deeply involved throughout his life in education, founding a moderate Haskalah school in Tarnopol, one that continued to exist until World War II. Perl served as principal of the school, which initially gave lessons in Perl’s mansion taught in German, boys learning for eight years, girls for five. An opponent of the educational system established by Perl was Joshua Heschel Babad, av bet din of Tarnopol.

1814, Luach (Calendar)

Among his activities in Tarnopol, from 1813 to 1815, was the publication of these calendars, which cited rabbinic sources and popular science. Perl became an opponent of Hassidis, which he felt had left the path of tradition, authoring several anti-Hasidic satires, beginning with Über das Wesen der sekte Chassidim (On the Essence of the Hasidic Sect), written between 1814 and 1816. Next was a Hebrew-Yiddish parody of R. Naḥman of Bratslav, entitled “The Story of the Loss of the Prince,” which mocked Hasidism. His most important work was Megaleh temirin (The Revealer of Secrets; 1819), published under the pseudonym Ovadyah ben Petaḥyah, “harshly critical of Hasidic society, its leaders, and its customs its leaders, and its customs.” Perl wrote yet additional works in the same vein.[21] The activities of Perl and his fellow Maskilim resulted in a ban on the Maskilim by the admorim R. Jacob Orenshtein of Lvov in 1816 and by R. Zevi Hirsch Eichenstein in 1822, and R. T. Israel from Rejin, nicknaming “Joseph Perl ‘the second son of Miriam’” referring to the founder of Christianity.[22]

The cover of the calendar succinctly states that it is a calendar for the year 1814 and on the verso lists the contents, that is, the calendars and other material included within the publication. This is followed by a more detailed title-page that states that it is from the year five thousand תקע”ד ([5] 574 = 1814) from the creation of the world according to the accounting of the people of Israel, followed by its contents, which include the Roman (secular) calendar, other calendars as well as other virtues such as the eastern calendar, sunset, the days (history) of the Roman state, locations where places of justice are closed, concluding that added is a luah ha-lev (heart rest) in which all who read it will find calm for his soul, and, de rigeur, with the permission of the censor.

The verso of the title-page has a list of pertinent contractions for the year 1814 and below the order of Hoshanas (prayers said on Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot). This is followed by several charts for the molad (appearance of the new moon), chronology of historical events, additional calendars, customs, and customs pertaining to the year 1814, and then luah ha-lev which encompasses such subjects as hospitality, loving thy neighbor, loving Torah and wisdom, charity, honoring one’s parents, and much more. Next is a section entitled examining nature, with subheadings, encompassing such subjects as five things are said about a mad dog (Yoma 88), and concerning products such as grapes and olives. At the end are ethical parables and eleven riddles, for example. who is it that is born a few days after his mother; what is the easiest of all things to do, concluding that the answers will be given in the next calendar.

Shevah Tefillot – Another prayer book, attributed by some to Joseph Perl. It is a small work (15 cm., [40\] pp.), designed for the use of students. The title-page informs that it is “Shevah Tefillot: for the seven days of the week, as the young boys pray daily immediately when they come to learn in the Beit ha-Sefer (yeshivah) which exists to educate the Benei Yisrael (Jewish children) of Tarnopol). Immediately below it is like text in Yiddish. The following page has the verse “He who turns a deaf ear to instruction. His prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:29). The text is comprised of facing pages of prayers for each of the seven days of the week in square vocalized Hebrew letters and in Yiddish in square unvocalized Hebrew. The National Library of Israel (NLI) attributes Shevah Tefillot to the Beit Sefer ha-Hinukh Na’arei Benei Yisrael (Tarnopol), that is the school faculty. The Thesaurus attributes Shevah Tefillot to both the Beit Sefer and Joseph Perl, in contrast to the NLI description which states that the author compiler is unknow. However, given Perl’s involvement with education in Tarnopol the attribution to Perl appears reasonable.

V

Sha’arei Ziyyon – A very different type of work, in contrast to the works of Maskilim, is R. Nathan Nata ben Moses Hannover’s (d. 1683) Sha’arei Ziyyon, a collection of Lurianic kabbalistic prayers, particularly for Tikkun Hazot (midnight prayers in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple and for the restoration to the Land of Israel). Hannover’s birthplace and early background are uncertain. His residence in Zaslav, Volhynia, was apparently peaceful and untroubled, but came to an end with the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 (tah ve-tat), witnessed and recorded by him in Yeven Mezulah. He is reported to have learned Kabbalah with R. Samson Ostropoler of Polonnoye (Volhynia) who died in those massacres (above). In 1683, Hannover, then dayyan in Ungarisch Brod, was murdered while at prayers by a stray bullet fired by raiding Turkish troops.[23]

Hannover was the author of several other important works, among them Yeven Mezulah, which chronicles the experiences of Polish Jewry during the Chmielnicki massacres, based on first person accounts, first edition published in Venice (1653) and Safah Berurah, a popular four language, Hebrew-German-Latin-Italian,, glossary for conversation and as a guidebook for travelers consisting of 2,000 words (Prague, 1660). Another work, Ta’amei Sukkah (Amsterdam, 1652) is a discourse on the festival of Sukkot. Based on a sermon delivered in Cracow in 1646; the work is incomplete. Lack of funds prevented Hannover from publishing the entire work; therefore, he writes, he is publishing one discourse only. No other parts were ever published.[24]

Turning to Sha’arei Ziyyon, it was published in 1815 in a small format, as a 14 cm. sextodecimo (16⁰: 132 ff.). The title is from “The Lord loves the gates of Zion (sha’arei Ziyyon) more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Psalms 87:2). The title-page informs that Hannover relied on the works of R. Hayyim Vital (1542–1620), the foremost student or R. Isaac Luria (ha-Ari ha-Kodesh, 1534–1572), whose teachings were based on R. Shimon bar Yohai (mid-second century C.E.). The title-page is followed by a description of the seven sha’arim (seven gates) comprising Sha’arei Ziyyon. They are Tikkun Hazot based on Etz ha-Hayyim; Tikkun ha-Nefesh, to be said after Tikkun Hazot with Yedid Nefesh; Tikkun ha-Tefillah according to Kabbalah; Tikkun Kriat ha-Torah; Tikkun Kriat Shema with the appropriate kavvanot; Tikkun shel Erev Rosh Hodesh; and Tikkun Malkhut on Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom ha-Kippurim. Omitted are the approbations and Hannover’s introduction that appeared in the first edition (Prague, 1682).

Text is generally in a single column in square vocalized letters, occasionally accompanied by commentary in rabbinic letters. This too is in contrast to the first edition which was in a single column in rabbinic type with occasional headers, and some limited text in square letters. Sha’arei Ziyyon is primarily a compilation of existing prayers assembled into one work. Prayers currently recited on special festival days, such as Ribbono shel Olam, said prior to the removal of the Torah from the Ark and the Yehi Ratzon after the priestly blessing are taken from Sha’arei Ziyyon

1815, Sha’arei Ziyyon

Gershom Scholem, in describing the influence of Kabbalah on Jewish life, writes that one of the areas in which it had the greatest influence was prayer. Sha’arei Ziyyon is among the most influential books in this sphere, expressing Lurianic doctrines “of man’s mission on earth, his connections with the power of the upper worlds, the transmigrations of his soul, and his striving to achieve tikkun were woven into prayers that could be appreciated and understood by everyone, or that at least could arouse everyone’s imagination and emotion.”[25] Sylvie-Anne Goldberg describes as Sha’arei Ziyyon “one of the most widely read books in the Jewish world.”[26] The Bet Eked Sefarim enumerates fifty-four editions through 1917.[27] The National Library of Israel records an additional twelve editions through 2019.

Likkutei Zevi – Another liturgical work is R . Zevi Hirsch ben Hayyim Wilhermsdorfer’s Likkutei Zevi, a varied prayer book. Published in 1815 it too is a 14 cm. sextodecimo (16⁰: 102 ff.). Zevi Hirsch was a scholar and printer in Wilhemsdorf, active there for almost three decades, beginning to print in 1712 at the age of twenty-nine. He was the was the author of annotations to a Selihot (1714), Darkei No’am (1724) and Likkutei Zevi (1738) published by him in Wilhemsdorf, as well as Likkutei Naftali (Fuerth, 1769).[28]

The title-page notes that Likkutei Zevi has been printed numerous times and has added prayers for the shelosh regalim, on teshuvah. Likkutei Zevi begins with prayers in large square vocalized letters, followed by prayers in smaller square unvocalized Hebrew and includes material in rabbinic letters. The text is comprised of selections form Psalms, to be said on different occasions and times of the year, such as Hodesh Elul (hafares Nedarim), Rosh HaShanah, and Yom Kippur, Mishnayot for tractates Yoma and Sukkah with the commentary of R. Obadiah Bertinoro, brief halakhot for Sukkah, material on Pesah, Iggerot Teshuvah and Rabbenah Yonah’s Yesod ha-Teshuuvah. Likkutei Zevi has proved to be a popular work, Friedberg records this as the twenty-sixth edition of fifty-eight entries for that work in the Bet Eked Sepharim through 1875, and notes further editions with supplementary material.[29]

VI

We began by noting that the Tarnopol press of Naḥman Pineles and Jacob Auerbach published a variety of valuable works “blossoms have appeared in the land, The time of your song has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove, is heard in our land. The green figs form on the fig tree. The vines in blossom give off fragrance,” this despite being “short lived and closed prematurely.” The examples of the titles issued by the press encompass philosophic, Hassidic (Kabbalistic), and Maskilic works, many clearly designed to be of communal value, such as prayer books, calendars, Hamishah Homshei Torah, and Mishlei Shelomo, others reflecting the diverse composition of the community. The varied works include books by Don Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel, Samson Ostropoler of Polonnoye, Nathan Hannover, and Menahem Mendel Lefin, and Joseph Perl.

Pineles and Auerbach were partners in the press until 1814. After that Friedberg informs that Pineles was the sole printer. He suggests that as Tarnopol was part of the Russian domain the press omitted the place of printing from some title-pages in order to mislead the Austrian censor, citing Yeshu’ot Meshiho, Hamishah Homshei Torah, Imrei Binyamin, Torat ha-Adam, Pa’ne’ah Raza, and others as examples. With the exception of Torat ha-Adam and Likkuttei Shoshanah (below) all of the titles seen and reproduced here give Tarnopol as the place of printing, which supports Friedberg that Pineles printed copies with variant title-pages for different markets. The only problem with Friedberg’s examples is that Friedberg stated that he did not see the title-page of Yeshu’ot Meshiho but included it as an example of work with variant title-pages.[30]

The press ceased printing in Tarnopol in 1817 due to a boycott of the press publications by the Orthodox community for supporting the Haskalah.[31] Prior to that, according to Friedberg, on July 6, (1 Sivan) 1816, after Tarnopol had returned to Austrian rule the press published Mekor Haim (1816) as well as educational works in German. The National Library of Israel lists a small a small number of later works, such as Ibacharta Bachaim (komentarz do Szulchana Arucha) by Hayyim ben Pinchas Schachter (1838) and Ma’aseh Ninveh (Prophezeiung Obadia’s, 1848), the latter also listed by the Thesaurus. The short-lived life of the Tarnopol press and the controversy over the nature of several of its works notwithstanding, in retrospect it can be said that the Tarnopol did press publish a variety of valuable works. Given the brief life of the press and its unfortunate end we might conclude “The little foxes. that ruin the vineyards— For our vineyard is in blossom.”

1813/14 Likkuttei Shoshanah

[1] Once again, I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Eli Genauer for reading this article and for his general editorial suggestions. All images in this article are courtesy of the National Library of Israel excepting Likkuttei Shoshanah, which is courtesy of the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad Ohel Yosef Yitzhak.

[2] Nathan Michael Gelber and Aharon Weiss. “Tarnopol,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 19, pp. 516-518; Joseph Jacobs, Schulim Ochser, Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. 12 pp. 63-64

[3] Jonathon Meir, “”Ternopil,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe 2 (New Haven & London, 2008), 855-56.

[4] Francine Shapiro,  Project Coordinator, “Tarnopol,” Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume II (Ternopil, Ukraine), Translation of “Tarnopol” chapter from Pinkas Hakehillot Polin by translated by Shlomo Sneh with the assistance of Francine Shapiro, pp. 234-51, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol2_00234.html. The following description of Tarnopol is based on this Pinkas.

[5] “Tarnopol,” The Encyclopedia of Jewish life Before and During the Holocaust, editor in chief, Shmuel Spector; consulting editor, Geoffrey Wigoder; foreword by Elie Wiesel II (New York, 2001), III pp. 1291-93.

[6] Joshua Heschel Babad subsequently served briefly in Lublin (1828), but was compelled to leave the city because of his dispute with the Mitnaggedim there. He returned to Tarnopol serving there for almost forty years, until 1837. In 1830, Babad became ill and, in 1838, was replaced as rabbi, by the Maskil Shelomoh Yehudah Rapoport (Shir). Babad’s responsa, Sefer Yehoshu’a (Zolkiew, 1829), on Shulḥan Arukh, was considered a basic halakhic work. (Josef Horovitz, “Babad,” Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. III: vol. 3: pp. 14-15; Haim Gertner, “Babad Family,”; Yivo Encyclopedia, vol. I: pp. 102-03

[7] Ch. Friedberg: History of Hebrew Typography in Poland from its beginning in the year1534 and its development to the present. . . . Second Edition Enlarged, improved and revised from the sources (Tel Aviv, 1950), 148-49 [Hebrew].

[8] Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Listing of Books Printed in Hebrew Letters Since the Beginning of Printing circa 1469 through 1863 II.(Jerusalem, 1993–95), 340-41 {Hebrew].

[9] Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography, reports that the copy he saw lacked a title-page. He attributes this to the conditions described above.

[10] Benzion, Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman & Philosopher, (Philadelphia, 1972), var. cit.

[11] Ch. B. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sepharim, (Israel, n.d.), yod 1061 [Hebrew].

[12] M. Gaster, “Abravanel’s Literary Work,” in Isaac Abravanel. Six Lectures, ed. J. B. Trend and H. Loewe (Cambridge, 1937), pp. 48-49; and Menachem Marc Kellner, ed. and tr. Principles of Faith (Rosh Amanah) (Rutherford, 1982), pp. 11-50.

[13] Ada Rapoport-Albert, “Shimshon ben Pesaḥ of Ostropolye,” YIVO Encyclopedia 2: 1710.

[14] Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim ha–Shalem with additions by Menachem Mendel Krengel II (Jerusalem, 1979), p. 134 pe no. 123 [Hebrew].

[15] Ch. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim, (Israel n.d.), pe 575 [Hebrew].

[16] National Library of Israel; Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book, II, 340: 7. In contrast to the two previous citations Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim tav records Torat ha-Adam as Tarnopol, 1812

[17] Courtesy of Virtual Judaica.

[18] Bidspirit, Winners lot 102 (January 18, 2021). Imrei Binyamin had an estimated auction price of $300-500, price realized $130. Another copy, Moreshet lot 032 (August 26, 2020), was placed on auction, estimate $350. Not sold. Virtual Judaica (September 19, 2017), estimate $200-500, price realized $100.

[19] Meyer Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature (Cranbury, 1960), vol. III pp. 142-44; Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature translated by Bernard Martin, VI (Cleveland, 1972-78), pp. 275-280

[20] Zinberg, vol. IX, p.216.

[21] Jonatan Meir, “Perl, Yosef,” YIVO Encyclopedia, vol. 1342-44.

[22] Francine Shapiro, Project Coordinator, “Tarnopol,” Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, p.5.

[23] Concerning Hannover see Marvin J. Heller, “R. Nathan Nata ben Moses Hannover: The Life and Works of an Illustrious and Tragic Figure,” Seforim.blogspot.com, December 28, 2018, reprinted in Essays on the Making of the Early Hebrew Book, (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2021) pp. 256-72.

[24] Concerning other such small books published as a prospective for larger unpublished see Marvin J. Heller, “Books not Printed, Dreams not Realized,” in Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2013), pp. 285-303.

[25] Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (NewYork, 1973), p. 193.

[26] Sylvie-Anne Goldberg, Crossing the Jabbok: Illness and death in Ashkenazi Judaism in Sixteenth through Ninteenth-Century Prague (Berkeley, 1996), p. 88.

[27] Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim, shin 2148. Given all of those editions it should be noted that the Bet Eked Sefarim does not include the Tarnopol edition, which, if it did, would be the thirty-ninth printing or Sha’arei Ziyyon.

[28] Concerning Zevi Hirsch ben Hayyim and his press in Wilhermsdorf see Marvin J. Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700 to 1750 (Brill, Leiden, 1999), pp. 118-52; Moshe N. Rosenfeld, Jewish Printing in Wilhermsdorf. A Concise Bibliography of Hebrew and Yiddish Publications, Printed in Wilhermsdorf between 1670 and 1739, Showing Aspects of Jewish Life Also seen Mittelfranken Three Centuries Ago Based on Public and Private Collections and Genizah Discoveries. With an Appendix ‘Archival Notes’ by Ralf Rossmeissl (London, 1995), var. cit.

[29] Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim, lamed 645.

[30] Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography, op. cit.

[31] Gelber and Weiss, EJ, op. cit.

Rashi BaMidbar 22:9- “Taut Sofrim” or “Agadot Chalukot?”

By Eli Genauer

Summary: Here we find polar opposite approaches to a Stirah in Rashi’s commentary to the Torah. One approach maintains that Rashi used two different Midrashic sources for his contradictory comments, and the other solves the Stirah by saying that one of the comments attributed to Rashi is actually a Taut Sofrim.

There is a very perplexing verse towards the beginning of Parshat Balak:

ט:וַיָּבֹא אֱלֹקים אֶל-בִּלְעָם וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה עִמָּךְ:

Balak sent messengers to Bilaam asking him to curse the Jewish people. Bilaam retired for the night and Hashem approached him at that time. “Who are these men with you?”, Hashem asked. Certainly, the Omniscient One knew the answer to that question. We look to Rashi to explain the motivation for G-d’s question and surprisingly we find it all the way back in Parshat Breishit (Breishit 3:9). Adam and Chava had just disobeyed Hashem by eating the forbidden food and they heard Hashem walking in the Garden. Hashem asked Adam “where are you?”( איכה), the answer to which Hashem already knew. Rashi comments as follows:

“איכה“. יוֹדֵעַ הָיָה הֵיכָן הוּא אֶלָּא לִכָּנֵס עִמּוֹ בִּדְבָרִים, שֶׁלֹּא יְהֵא נִבְהָל לְהָשִׁיב אִם יַעֲנִישֵׁהוּ פִּתְאוֹם (בראשית רבה),[1] וְכֵן בְּקַיִן אָמַר לוֹ אֵי הֶבֶל אָחִיךָ (בראשית ד), וְכֵן בְּבִלְעָם מִי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵלֶּה עִמָּךְ (במדבר כ“ב), לִכָּנֵס עִמָּהֶם בִּדְבָרִים, וְכֵן בְּחִזְקִיָּה בִּשְׁלוּחֵי מְרֹאדַךְ בַּלְאֲדָן:

Hashem knew where Adam was, but He asked this in order to open up a conversation with him that he should not become confused in his reply, if He were to pronounce punishment against him all of a sudden……..Similarly with Bilaam, “who are these men with you?” — to open up a conversation with them.

Rashi in Breishis emphasizes that the reason Hashem asked Bilaam “who are these men with you” was to draw him into a conversation, thereby making him more comfortable in speaking to Him.

However in Parshas Balak (BaMidbar 22:9) Rashi seems to have a different take[2] on why Hashem asked “Who are these men with you?”

מי האנשים האלה עמך. לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא, אָמַר פְּעָמִים שֶׁאֵין הַכֹּל גָּלוּי לְפָנָיו, אֵין דַּעְתּוֹ שָׁוָה עָלָיו, אַף אֲנִי אֶרְאֶה עֵת שֶׁאוּכַל לְקַלֵּל וְלֹא יָבִין (תנחומא):

“Who are these men with you?” G-d’s question led Bilaam to conclude “Sometimes, not everything is revealed before Him, for He is not always omniscient. I will find a time when I am able to curse, and He will not realize it.” The words “ לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” with which Rashi begins, seem to indicate that Hashem was trying to mislead Bilaam into thinking that He was not all knowing, and not to draw him into a conversation . Here are a few attempts to translate לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא.

1. “To cause him to err did He come” – Linear Translation of Rashi – S.S. and R Publishing Company Brooklyn, NY 1949
2. “It came to delude him“ – Chabad website for Parshat HaShavua based on translation of Rabbi A.J Rosenberg for Judaica Press
3. He intended to delude him (1) – Chumash with Rashi of A.M. Silbermann and M. Rosenbaum, Jerusalem 1934

The Silbermann Chumash directs you to a footnote which reflects the approach of many of the Meforshai Rashi on the contradiction between the two comments of Rashi. “Rashi on Genesis 3:9 has already pointed out that sometimes G-d puts a seemingly superfluous question to a person to open a conversation. One of the instances he cites there is Bilaam. The heathen soothsayer did not understand the purpose of this question, and it suggested to him that G-d was not omniscient at all times”

The Artscroll Sapirstein Rashi does a much better job in encapsulating this approach by replacing “cause him to err” with “gave him room to err”.[3] Artscroll adds a footnote summarizing the approach of Gur Aryeh by saying that Hashem intended to gently open the conversation with Bilaam, but worded the question in an ambiguous way. Bilaam could have understood the question as Hashem’s way of entering into a conversation with him, but he instead chose to interpret it to indicate that Hashem was not always aware of all the details of a situation.

Professor Yeshayahu Maori Z”L in his book “Sugyot B’Nusach HaMikrah U’B’Parshnato”[4] advances the idea that the Stirah stems from the fact that Rashi accessed two different Midrashic sources, one for his comment in Breishit and one for his comment in BaMidbar.[5] This is based on the idea which was advanced by Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi that sometimes Rashi used “Agadot Chalukot”.[6] The author of “Tzaidah L’Derech” (Prague 1623) sees this case as one where Rashi used “Agadot Chalukot” and that is why Rashi’s comment on “מי האנשים האלה עמך “is different in Breishit and BaMidbar.[7] Here are the words of Rav Yissachar Ber Eilenburg (1570-1623) author of “Tzaideh L’Derech”

אלא מאי אית לך למימר שאגדות חלוקות הן ורש״י רגיל לפרש פעמים אחר אגדה אחת ופּעמים אחר אגדה אחרת כמו שכתב הרא״ם ז״ל בהרבה מקומות אין מספר

“But what can you say but that Rashi used different Aggadot here. Rashi is accustomed to explaining matters by using one Aggadah here and another Aggadah there as Rav Eliyah Mizrachi has stated in many places”[8]

Rav Yosef Ben Yissachar Miklish (1580-1654) is one who is very bothered by the fact that this comment in Rashi seemingly contradicts what he wrote in his commentary on Hashem’s question of “where are you?” to Adam ( Breishit 3:9).[9] He addresses this Stirah in a completely different manner. He maintains that he had a manuscript which was 315 years old in which the words “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” did not exist, nor did it contain the words that followed. Rather, it had a completely different Girsa in this Rashi. The website Alhatorah.org attributes a very similar Girsa to a manuscript called Berlin 1221[10] along with material from other manuscripts.[11] It also notes that Wolf Heidenheim attributed the comment to Rav Yosef Kara.

היידנהיים ייחס את התוספת לר׳ יוסף בר׳ שמעון ז״ל,[12] ואפשר שכך היה כתוב בכ״י שלפניו, אך בכל עדי הנוסח שבידינו, אין ייחוס מפורש לר״י קרא. והשווה רש״י בראשית ג׳:ט׳.[13]

The comment attributed to Rashi in this manuscript in general matches the words quoted by Yosef Daat for “his” version of Rashi. The main thrust is that Hashem addressed Bilaam in a way to engage him in the way one addresses someone to make them feel comfortable כשיבוא לתפוס את האדם מתוך דבריו, and not to delude him (ְלהַטְעוֹתוֹ)

Berlin 1221

https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN666097542&PHYSID=PHYS_0160&DMDID=DMDLOG_0001

Yosef Daat

The author of Yosef Daat even speculates that the words “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” are a Taut Sofrim inserted by printers “to cause people to err” as Rashi himself would never have written such a comment.

כי גירסת “לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא” היא גירסא בא בדפוס להטות את הבריות

However, the overwhelming majority of manuscripts contain the wording of Rashi as we have it today, something which the author of Yosef Daat would not have known.[14] Here is the important manuscript known as Leipzig 1.[15]

The three Defusim Rishonim (Rome, Alkabetz and Reggio di Callabrio) do not contain the Girsa cited by Yosef Daat. There is no indication in any early printed edition from the 1400’s and 1500’s that any other Girsa existed.

Avraham Berliner (Berlin 1867) normally notes the Girsaot of Yosef Daat but here completely ignores it.[16]

There was another approach taken a bit over 400 years ago in trying to explain what Rashi meant when he wrote לְהַטְעוֹתוֹ בָא and that is to insert an explanatory remark in parentheses embedded into the text of Rashi. The first time I could find it in a printed edition was in one printed in Hanau 1611-1614. This is how it looks:

)ר“ל ישרים דרכי ה‘ צדיקים ילכו בם ופושעים יכשלו בם כוונת הש“י שאמר מי האנשים היתה לטובה ליכנס עמו בדברים כמ“ש רש“י בפ‘ בראשית בתיבה איכה אך בא לבלעם לטעות כי הוא טעה)

This portion in the parentheses is clearly not part of Rashi and it makes no attempt to hide it as it states clearly כמ“ש רש“י בפ‘ בראשית בתיבה איכה. It tries to explain what Rashi means by first quoting a Pasuk, (ישרים דרכי ה׳… ) something Rashi could have done himself if he so desired.

The Hanau edition contained many other comments like this. The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book notes that this was an edition which featured additions to Rashi from some of the Meforshai Rashi.

ככל אשר נדפס בויניציאה [ש”ן-שנ”א] -מעבר לשער הקדמה קצרה (“אל עין הקורא”) ובה רשימת “כמה מעלות” שבהוצאה הנוכחית. בין השאר נאמר שהחומש והתרגום ובפרט פירוש רש”י הוגהו “מתוך חומש של … רּ ישעיה הלוי” (הורוויץ, בעל השל”ה).

After the Hanau edition, the embedded comment in parentheses had a very strong run. I consulted my personal collection of Chumashim from the 1700’s and 1800’s and, beginning with a Chumash printed in Amsterdam in 1729 to one printed in Pressburg in 1868, 13 have the comment and 6 do not. The comment also appears in practically all the Chumashim from the 1900’s that I looked at. This might be because many of them are photo offset of what is known as the Netter Mikraot Gedolot of Vienna of 1859 which served as the model for many editions that followed.[17]

Vilna Netter 1859

It is included on the Chabad website for the portion of the week, but only on the English side!

However, many new editions such as Oz Vehadar, Mosad HaRav Kook and HaMaor (2005) do not include this parenthetical comment, a practice which returns this Rashi to its original form.[18]

[1] בראשית רבה י״ט: י״א