Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger

Marc Herman

Marc Herman is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and a core member of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. His research focuses on Jewish and Islamic intellectual history in the medieval Mediterranean. He is the coeditor of Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism, and Kabbalah (Brill, 2021) and his monograph, titled After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Islamic World, is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press.

The study of medieval halakhah was recently enriched by the long-awaited publication of The Comprehensive Book (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by David ben Saʿadya al-Ger,[1] one of the earliest legal compendia that survives from Sefarad. Pieced together from Genizah fragments, other manuscripts, and citations in later medieval works, and comprising much of the original text, this new edition of Kitāb al-Ḥāwī recovers a once-prominent halakhist who fell into obscurity in the centuries after his death. Its publication is a landmark in the study of Jewish al-Andalus and Judeo-Arabic law. Not only does this volume recover a mostly lost, early rishon, it also bears witness to the reception of the last geonim in the Islamic West and it provides a new window into the beginnings of Iberian halakhic culture.

Next to nothing is known with certainty about the life of David ben Saʿadya, author of the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī and other halakhic works. David’s period of activity can be fixed sometime after the death of Hayya Gaon (d. 1038), who David cited with some frequency, and before the death of Isaac Ibn al-Bālīya (d. 1094), who mentioned David as deceased.[2] This might place David in the circle of Samuel ha-Nagid. In fact, the twentieth-century scholar, Mordecai Margaliot (1909-1968), suggested that David was the subject of a laudatory poem in the Dīwān of the Nagid, where a certain “Rabbi David” is praised for his persuasive knowledge and keen abilities.[3] But what about the uncommon appellation אלגר? Some historians have understood that David descended from converts, but others have connected this word to the Arabic muhājir, i.e., migrant. (The latter would imply that David’s father, or an earlier family member, was not native to al-Andalus.) David Sklare noticed that one Genizah fragment vocalizes this word as אלגֵר (al-ger, i.e., the convert), supporting the view that David ben Saʿadya was the descendant of proselytes.[4]

ENA 2859.7v, Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, The National Library of Israel. “Ktiv” Project, The National Library of Israel.

This reading coincides with the sole appearance of David’s name in the writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra, who called David “Rabbi David the judge, son of the convert (ha-dayyan ben ha-ger), Sefardi, from the city of Granada.”[5] The editor of this new edition, Y. Zvi Stampfer, who is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Talmud and Halakha at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, accepts this interpretation of אלגֵר, noting that Jews in the medieval Islamic world had few qualms about such ancestry. Stampfer even proposes that David proudly announced his forebearer’s conversion (as did other converts).[6]

David ben Saʿadya composed several works. In addition to the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī, written in a mixture of Judeo-Arabic and Aramaic, they include Judeo-Arabic volumes on the laws of oaths and on the laws of bequests, as well as commentaries on the Talmud and, according to Ibn Ezra, a work on Hebrew grammar. Of these additional writings, only the one on the laws of oaths survives. This work was translated into Hebrew by Isaac ben Reuven of Barcelona and printed, since 1521, in standard editions of tractate Shavuot bearing the title שערי שבועות. Unfortunately for David’s legacy, it has long been incorrectly ascribed to Isaac al-Fāsī.[7]

The ascription of this last work to al-Fāsī is something of an irony, as al-Fāsī was wont to criticize David ben Saʿadya.[8] In a responsum about the distinctions between biblically and rabbinically mandated oaths, al-Fāsī declared that David was wrong and would have been better off following the view of Hayya Gaon.[9] This may have been more than a straightforward halakhic disagreement. If David did travel in the circle of Samuel ha-Nagid, the charge that Hayya was correct would have had particular potency, as the Nagid and his faction sought to downplay—and thereby surpass—geonic expertise and hegemony, and they were especially wary of Hayya. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, whom the Nagid supported, praised his patron with the phrase וְַרב הָאיָי כְּלֺא הָיָה לְפָנָיו—it was as if Hayya was nothing compared to him![10] Al-Fāsī might have been hinting, then, that a whole generation of Andalusi scholars were betraying their shortcomings when they veered too far from the geonim. Stampfer himself suggests that al-Fāsī’s attacks on David may have been part of a larger program to disparage earlier Sefardic tamludists.[11] Indeed, Abraham Ibn Dāʾūd reported that al-Fāsī entered into debates with both Isaac al-Bālīya and Isaac Ibn Ghiyāth, two of the leading figures in eleventh-century Sefarad.[12]

Did al-Fāsī’s criticisms play a role in consigning David and his works to obscurity? It is hard to know. But before the advent of critical scholarship, David’s writings were mostly known only through brief citations by later rishonim, mostly of Sefardic extraction. These include al-Fāsī, Maimonides, and Abraham Maimonides. The last figures to have been familiar with texts by David ben Saʿadya were David ben ʿAmram ha-ʿAdani (fourteenth century), in his Midrash ha-Gadol, and Bezalel Ashkenazi (sixteenth century), who probably knew of David’s writings indirectly, in his Shittah mequbeset.[13] Most of the manuscripts of the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī are no later than the thirteenth century, apparently when this work fell out of circulation. A single manuscript is later, from seventeenth-century Yemen.[14]

David’s Kitāb al-Ḥāwī and other writings were first noticed by Samuel Poznański, B.M. Lewin, and Simḥa Assaf, scholars who pioneered the recovery of geonim and rishonim, especially from Arabic-speaking lands. As a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the early 1950s, Shraga Abramson submitted a doctoral thesis, written for Saul Lieberman,[15] on David ben Saʿadya,[16] though this project did not see the light of day until now.[17] Stampfer has helpfully included the first five chapters of Abramson’s thesis as an appendix in this volume (pp. 363-399); the remaining six will hopefully be published alongside a new edition of David’s work on the laws of oaths. Sklare was the next scholar to identify major pieces of David’s work, dedicating an important article to David’s identity, corpus, and thought, and Stampfer added many previously unidentified manuscripts to reconstruct a large portion of the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī.

The Kitāb al-Ḥāwī follows a unique arrangement, perhaps unparalleled in the writings of the rishonim.[18] Its structure is worth reviewing. David ben Saʿadya began this book with a sizeable consideration of jurisprudential topics. He followed this with three sections dedicated to practical law: section two treats holidays and the calendar; section three treats the laws of marriage (this is the only section that survives only in a medieval Hebrew translation, not in the Judeo-Arabic original); and section four treats monetary law. The fifth section provides perhaps the longest early medieval analysis of the thirteen hermeneutical middot. And the sixth section presents a series of challenges to Halakhot Gedolot. (Was this part of eleventh-century Sefardic attempts to move away from geonic-era works? Al-Fāsī, in another responsum, defended Halakhot Gedolot from one of David’s attacks.[19]) Stampfer shows that at least some of these sections were originally independent works.[20]

The sections on applied law suggest that, in part, David intended the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī to be a practical manual. Sklare proposed that this work was meant to be a handbook for judges or for second-tier rabbinic leadership who offered rulings in smaller Jewish communities.[21] This might even explain why some of this book was written in Aramaic, a curious feature that is shared by Samuel ha-Nagid’s mostly lost Hilkheta Gavratta.[22] Sklare suggested that some Sefardic readership may have been more comfortable with Aramaic than Judeo-Arabic—a fascinating possibility in light of the usual emphasis on the Arabization of Jewish elites in al-Andalus.[23]

The other parts of Kitāb al-Ḥāwī, however, clearly had other goals in mind. David’s decision to open with a discussion of the sources of the law was undoubtedly stimulated by the attention that this topic received among both Jewish and Muslim writers of his day. David was an innovative theorist regarding the sources of halakhic authority. The geonim, especially Saʿadya, generally portrayed revelation as all-encompassing, and they tended to downplay or even deny that the talmudic-era rabbis created new law. (This is usually, though not always, understood as a defense of the Oral Torah from Qaraite criticisms.[24]) David, on the other hand, expressed no qualms with the rabbinic innovation of norms. He even took many of the Arabic terms that Saadia had associated with the accursed jurisprudence of the Qaraites and applied them to the late antique rabbis.

David’s consideration of the thirteen hermeneutical middot might be thought of in this vein as well. In the tenth century, Saʿadya Gaon rejected the idea that the rabbis had created new law using the middot. He instead insisted that they just matched up received oral traditions with the text of the Torah.[25] David, by contrast, saw the middot as tools for generative and novel interpretations. Thus, when the Torah does not explicate the law, David asserted that the rabbis created it through legal reasoning (using the Arabic term qiyās).

David ben Saʿadya, of course, was only the first of many figures to break with the geonim on the question of how Jewish law developed. Among Andalusi Jews, Maimonides proposed the most powerful alternative to the ideas of Saʿadya Gaon. Even if Maimonides did not know much of the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī directly, there are distinct parallels between the Maimonidean picture of the Oral Torah and David’s. Maimonides, like David, fiercely rejected the Saadianic approach to the rabbis. Both Andalusis instead celebrated rabbinic legal creativity, and both did so by way of similar Arabic concepts.[26]

Stampfer’s edition of the Kitāb al-Ḥāwī is handsomely produced. It begins with a detailed introduction to David ben Saʿadya and presents the text in the Judeo-Arabic original with facing Hebrew translation. Stampfer provides learned notes with detailed references to relevant passages in the writings of the geonim and rishonim. He cites many unpublished geonic texts, suggesting that this is the first of many such books in the works. Anybody interested in medieval Jewish law should await further contributions with much anticipation.

Notes:

[1] Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger, ed. and trans. Y. Zvi Stampfer, incorporating work by David E. Sklare, Nissim Sabato, and Eliezer Reif (Jerusalem: The Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East and The Rabbi Moses and Amalia Rosen Foundation, 2024; Hebrew), available here.
[2] For the latter, see Yaakov Miller, “Responsa of Our Rabbi Isaac son of Rabbi Baruch on the Matter of Collecting Debts from Orphaned Estates,” Kovetz Hitzei Giborim, vol. 7 (2014): 18-34, esp. 30 (Hebrew), available here.
[3] Mordecai Margaliot, ed., Hilkhot ha-Nagid (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1962), 63 (Hebrew); see David Sklare, “R. David Ben Seʿadya al-Ger and His Work al-Ḥāwī,” in Joshua Blau, Haggai Ben-Shammai, Mordecai A. Friedman, and Joel L. Kraemer, eds., Encounters in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture [=Teʿuda, no. 14] (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1998), 103-123, esp. 115n40 (Hebrew), available here; for the poem, see Dov Yarden, ed., Dīwān Shmuel ha-Nagid: Ben Tehillim (Jerusalem, 1985), 151-53 (Hebrew), available here.
[4] David Sklare, “R. David Ben Seʿadya,” 111-12.
[5] Abraham Ibn ‘Ezra’, Sefer Moznayim, ed. Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Madrid: Ediciones El Almendro, 2000), 6* (the editio princeps is available here. As Stampfer notes (32n85), some manuscripts of this passage read “Rabbi Judah,” however.
[6] David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 21-24.
[7] David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 27-32.
[8] David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 79-82.
[9] Isaac Rothstein, ed., Shut ha-Rif (New York, 1977), 156-57 (#51); noted in Shraga Abramson, “Two Chapters from a Study on the Book ‘Sha‘are Shevuot’,” Sinai, vol. 104, no. 3-4 (1989): 122 (Hebrew).
[10] Ḥayim Brody and Ḥayim Schirmann, eds., Shelomoh Ibn Gabirol: Shire Ḥol (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1975), 47 (#85) line 53.
[11] David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 82.
[12] Gerson D. Cohen, A Critical Edition with a translation and Notes of ‘The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1967), 86 (English), 64 (Hebrew).
[13] David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 68-90.
[14] The one seventeenth-century manuscript is described in David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 107.
[15] For Abramson on Lieberman, see his “R. Saul Lieberman’s Method of Investigating Talmudic Literature,” in Researches in Memory of Saul Lieberman (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1983), 23-33 (Hebrew).
[16] Y. Zvi Stampfer, “Introduction,” in David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 100-101 (Hebrew):

“In the years 1950 or 1951, the student (later Professor) Shraga Abramson, at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, submitted a doctoral dissertation to Professor Saul Lieberman titled “Rabbi David ben Saadia ben ha-Ger: His Works and Times.” In his research, Abramson examined references to Rabbi David’s works in Talmudic and halakhic literature, along with various Genizah fragments, and discussed the question of Rabbi David’s era, location, and writings.”

[17] Y. Zvi Stampfer, “Introduction,” in David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 9-10 (Hebrew):

“Professor Shraga Abramson z”l laid a broad foundation for research into Rabbi David ben Saadia and his works in his doctoral dissertation on the book Sha‘are Shevuot, its author, its era, and its location. He submitted this research to Rabbi Professor Saul Lieberman in the early 1950s as a doctoral thesis. However, this work was never published, except for two brief articles derived from it. Mrs. Araleh Abramson z”l transferred a typed copy of the dissertation to Professor Haggai Ben-Shammai when he headed the Ben-Zvi Institute and co-directed of the Center for the Study of Judaeo-Arabic Culture and Literature, who then forwarded it to me.

The first part of the dissertation, which deals with the figure of Rabbi David and his writings, is included as an appendix at the end of this edition. The second part, which involves the study of Sha‘are Shevuot, I hope to publish along with an annotated edition of that work. Abramson’s research was not prepared for publication, and the primary challenge in preparing it for publication was identifying the references he alluded to. Since his writing was essentially directed at Lieberman, a scholar of unparalleled expertise, Abramson often sufficed with general references or vague hints to sources in rabbinic literature or scholarly works, mostly published in Hebrew and German. I have endeavored to locate the sources mentioned in his research as far as I could. To remain faithful to Abramson’s original manuscript and his research style, when he referred to editions published up to his time, I indicated, as much as possible, the editions that were in his library. However, in cases where he referred to rabbinic literature sources that have more accessible editions published after his death, I noted the newer editions. I also expanded the abbreviations and corrected typographical errors and incorrect references.”
[18] Another somewhat later, but still pre-Maimonidean, Andalusi work is even more diverse in its contents; see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “The Topic of Rosh Chodesh—Chapter 18 from the Composition ‘Issur ve-Heter’,” Kobez al yad 24 (34) (2016): 161-180, esp. 165-166 (Hebrew).
[19] See Abraham Harkavy, Teshuvot ha-Geonim (Berlin, 1887), 301 (Hebrew), available here.
[20] Y. Zvi Stampfer, “Introduction,” in David ben Saʿadya, Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī), 32-37 (Hebrew).
[21] David Sklare, “R. David Ben Seʿadya,” 119, 123.
[22] See Shraga Abramson, “From the Teaching of R. Samuel ha-Nagid of Spain,” in Yitzhak Rafael, ed., Sinai Centenary Volume [=Sinai, vol. 100] (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1987), 7-73, esp. 13 (Hebrew), available here, and Shraga Abramson, Perush Rabbenu Ḥananel la-Talmud (Jerusalem: Wagshal, 1995), 55-56.
[23] David Sklare, “R. David Ben Seʿadya,” 116-122.
[24] See Marc Herman, “Prophetic Authority in the Legal Thought of Saadia Gaon,” Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 108, no. 3 (Summer 2018): 271-294, available here.
[25] See most recently Y. Zvi Stampfer, “Saʿadia Gaon’s Interpretation of the Thirteen Hermeneutical Principles according to the Arabic Source Commentary, Tendencies, and Unknown Sources,” Tarbiz, vol. 87, no. 4 (July – September 2020): 655-660 (Hebrew), available here.
[26] See Marc Herman, “Situating Maimonides’s Approach to the Oral Torah in Its Andalusian Context,” Jewish History, vol. 31, no. 1-2 [=Special Issue: New Perspectives on Jewish Legal History] (December 2017): 31-46.

 Neturei Karta; ArtScroll, Arius, and Orangutans; Suicide and the Law of Rodef

Marc B. Shapiro

1. We have recently seen behavior by so-called religious Jews that is vile. I refer to the actions of Neturei Karta. Of course, we have all seen their antics in the past, but I think most of us looked at them as clowns and sick people that maybe we should feel sorry for. This is no longer the case. Now they are marching in support of the murderers of Jews, aligning themselves with the enemy, and attempting to destroy the State of Israel. They are doing this at the very time that Jews are being killed at war. It is true that in the past as well they openly aligned themselves with the PLO,[1] and R. Moshe Feinstein already in the late 1970s referred to Neturei Karta as reshaim.[2] But to be allied during wartime with Iran and Hamas is I think beyond what we have seen before.

Here you can see a video of a Neturei Karta delegation that went to Iran to pay respects after the death of President Raisi. Here a different delegation visits the Iranian ambassador to the U.N. to pay respects. Here they are in Qatar at the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh whose death they mourned in a public statement here. It is hard to imagine anything more obscene than this. What we have seen from Neturei Karta since October 7 goes way beyond making a hillul ha-shem.[3]

Until his death, the spiritual leader of this group was Rabbi Moshe Beck (1934-2021). Here you can see him showing his affection for the Iranian leader Ahmadenijad. In the ultimate obscenity, in his book Derekh ha-Hatzalah (Monsey, 2002), pp. 40ff., Beck actually explains why it is halakhically appropriate to congratulate terrorists on a “successful” operation, namely, when they murder Jews. Thus, it is entirely in line with Neturei Karta ideology for them to praise the October 7 “resistance.” Here is his outrageous conclusion (p. 44):

מותר לומר להפאלעסטינים יפה עשיתם שהרגתם, כיון שע“י דיבורים אלו יצמח הצלה להרבה מישראל המתנגדים לציונות

And what about the fact that even pious Jews will be hurt if Neturei Karta’s propaganda is successful and U.S. government aid to Israel is cut? Beck explains that this is not a problem, as the Zionists cannot be helped, even if the pious also would benefit (p. 41):

ועל אחת כמה וכמה לענין מורדים בה‘ וכופרים ומחטיאים כמו הציונים וכל כתותיהם, שבודאי נאסר הסיוע להם בכל אופן, אפילו שלא בענין העבירה, ואפילו יוצא תועלת מסיוע זה לצדיקים ועובדי ה‘

Over thirty years ago I was naive and thought that I might be able to have a productive correspondence with Beck. Here are three letters I received from him.

Regarding the third letter, I am not sure why he wrote that I “disguised” myself in my first two letters. I simply wrote to him with questions and never said or implied that I agreed with him in any way. In my second letter I actually strongly protested how he referred to Rav Kook. In his response to this letter he also answers my question how he could cite from R. Reuven Margaliyot’s commentary on Sefer Hasidim when R. Margaliyot was a religious Zionist whose book was published by Mossad ha-Rav Kook. (I never said that he was a maskil). In my third letter I attacked him for degrading great Torah scholars and I mentioned that R. Aharon Kotler supported the State of Israel. I never said he was a Zionist. My point was that once the State of Israel was declared, with the lives of millions of Jews depending on it, anti-Zionism in the sense of opposing the creation of a Jewish state was now no longer relevant. Once the State of Israel was created, anti-Zionism came to mean working to destroy the Jewish state, and thus putting millions of Jewish lives at risk. Satmar anti-Zionism is religiously based but remains entirely theoretical, even eschatological, and Satmar has always been absolutely opposed to allying with anti-Semites and terrorists and their supporters.)

See also here where a number of years ago I wrote the next few paragraphs (now updated slightly).

Readers should examine the following document, which is found in the Central Zionist Archives S25/4752

It is a copy of a letter sent to the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem from Aryeh Leib Weissfish. Weissfish was later to become famous as one of the leaders of the Neturei Karta, and strangely enough he was also a great fan of Nietzsche. You can read about his colorful career here, where it mentions how he illegally entered Jordan in 1951 to bring a message from the Neturei Karta that Jordan should invade Jerusalem and the Neturei Karta would be its ally in this. When he was deported to Israel he was put on trial and sentenced to six months in prison.

In view of the fact that during World War II there was a fear that Germany would invade the Land of Israel and that this would also lead to the Arabs persecuting Jews, Weissfish wrote to the local Muslim leaders to let them know that the Old Yishuv type of Jews that he is speaking about are not involved in politics and that they oppose the Zionists. They have always treated the Arabs with respect and he therefore requests that these Jews be protected. He also offers to provide the names of the families who should be given this special treatment. As you can see from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi’s handwritten note at the bottom of the letter, Ben-Zvi copied it from the original letter which he found in the Supreme Muslim Council’s archives.

R. Shlomo Brody has recently published a fabulous book, with a great title, which is unfortunately very timely: Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality. While I am sure I will have more to say about this book at a future time, I would for now just wish to add that when it comes to Neturei Karta and those of a similar mindset, I was wondering about some halakhic and ethical issues that Brody does not discuss. (In general, he does not discuss the home front.) For example, can such people be counted to a minyan? Are you allowed to give charity to them, and if not, how about the children who will suffer through no fault of their own? Can the children of such a family be kicked out of a yeshiva? If these people have businesses, should we boycott them, again, causing the children to suffer for the sins of their fathers? Or should we just ignore these people entirely? These questions are not only relevant when it comes to Neturei Karta, for as we have seen since October 7 there are many other enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. Some of them who support Hamas are themselves Jewish. As far as I know, there has not yet appeared an analysis of how such traitors are to be regarded in Jewish law.

2. A couple of people sent me something that was going around the internet asking what I thought, so I figured I would elaborate on the blog. Rashi, Deut. 1:12, quotes the Sifrei, Devarim, no. 13, that אריוס asked Rabbi Yose a question. In the ArtScroll translation of Rashi by R. Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg there is the following note on this passage: “Nothing other than what is mentioned here is known about this person. His name appears nowhere else in Torah literature.”

This is not exactly correct. As Louis Finkelstein points out in his edition of the Sifrei (p. 22), Tosefta Bava Metzia 3:11, records a question Arius asked the Sages. This is what appears in the important Erfurt manuscript of the Tosefta used by Zuckermandel in his edition, but Arius’ name does not appear in the Tosefta published in the back of the Talmud.[4]

In the updated version of the ArtScroll Rashi translation, they explain who Arius was (R. Herczeg had nothing to do with this update): “A 4^th century C.E. Christian theologian whose views on religion clashed with standard church teachings; his followers are called Arians. (An analysis of his question to R’ Yose appears in Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 34, p. 15.)

I do not know why someone working at ArtScroll decided it was important to add this information. I also do not know why the person who added the information did not see the immediate problem. Arius, who at most was only in the Land of Israel for a short time, was a fourth-century theologian in the period of the amoraim. How then could he be asking questions of the tanna R. Yose or any of the other tannaitic sages? This alone should have been enough to show that the Arius mentioned by the Sifrei is not the Christian theologian Arius. When the ArtScroll Rashi is next reprinted, the updated note should be deleted as it is clearly in error, and the original note should be reinserted. I have to say that I find it of interest that the updated note has a reference to the Likutei Sihot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a figure who does not appear often in ArtScroll publications. This reference should definitely remain.

Where did ArtScroll get the information in the new note? Perhaps from the entry on Arius in the Otzar Yisrael encyclopedia (vol. 2, pp. 192-193). The Otzar Yisrael entry states, without any evidence, that the R. Yose mentioned in the Sifrei is one of the amoraim named R. Yose, not the tanna. But there is no reason to assume this to be the case, and lots of reasons to assume it is not so. We are fortunate that the Otzar Yisrael entry has a bibliography and we are thus able to see where they got their information from: R. Elijah Benamozegh’s Em la-Mikra to Deut. 1:13, which goes on for many pages.

I have great respect for R. Benamozegh and have given a number of classes on him.[5] Yet as mentioned already, there is no reason to think that the R. Yose mentioned in the Sifrei is an amora as R. Benamozegh claims. We should assume that he is the second-century R. Yose ben Halafta for this is how the tanna R. Yose is mentioned in rabinic literature, namely, without his father’s name. I would also note that the Talmud records a number of R. Yose ben Halafta’s conversations with non-Jews. Therefore, his interaction with Arius makes perfect sense

As for Arius, Moshe David Herr believes that he must have been a convert to Judaism. Referring to his mention in Tosefta, Bava Metzia 3:11, Herr writes “This question, which manifests expert knowledge of the halakhah on the part of the inquirer, proves that he was a Jew.”[6]

Returning to R. Benamozegh, it needs to be mentioned that his commentary on the Torah suffers from the same problem as many others, in that as one who was up to date in modern historical scholarship and science, he tries to explain the Torah in the light of this knowledge. Yet mid-19^th century understandings in these areas has usually been rejected and thus cannot speak to 21^st century readers. On occasion, what he says will be found offensive by modern readers, such as his discussion of the curse of Canaan in his Em la-Mikra to Genesis 9:25. Here it is from R. Eliyahu Zini’s wonderful new edition.

Although it could be that R. Benamozegh himself held the liberal view of Tiedemann, the even-handed way he discusses the matter does not make for comfortable reading today.

R. Israel Lifshitz, the author of Tiferet Yisrael on the Mishnah, also liked to connect modern scientific discoveries with Torah and rabbinic texts. Unfortunately, not all of his information  was correct. Since R. Benamozegh mentions orangutans, let me tell you what R. Lifshitz has to say about them, which he must have read in some book or newspaper. In his commentary to Kil’ayim[7] 8:5, he states that in Africa orangutans are taught to chop trees and draw water, to wear human clothes and to sit at a table and eat with silverward. (In truth, orangatuns are not found in Africa but are native to parts of Asia.) And in case people were wondering, he also adds that despite the orangutan’s near-human characteristics, when it dies it is regarded like every other animal and does not create ritual impurity as do dead humans.[8]

Although, as mentioned, R. Lifshitz must have acquired his incorrect information about orangutans from some book or newspaper, I should note that the Talmud discusses how monkeys are capable of performing various tasks for humans and this might have influenced R. Lifshitz in assuming the same to be true of orangutans. The expression מעשה קוף is well known, and this page gives a number of talmudic references to actions of monkeys. However, the list is not complete and it omits Bava Kamma 101a which mentions a monkey dying wool with a particular dye. It also omits Yadayim 1:8 which refers to a monkey pouring water over a person’s hands. For those interested in the topic, R. Baruch Plotchek wrote an article on monkeys in the Bible and Talmud.[9] One of the interesting things he points out is that Kohelet Rabbah comments on Eccl. 6:11: כִּי יֵשׁ–דְּבָרִים הַרְבֵּה, מַרְבִּים הָבֶל, that included in the “vanity” is the raising of monkeys. This shows that when this Midrash was written, people, presumably including Jews, kept monkeys as pets. Also of interest is that Plotchek identifies what we can term proto-Darwinian ideas in some rabbinic statements. As far as I know, he was the first to make this point, which was later picked up by others trying to reconcile Torah and evolution.

3. In the last post I pointed to an interesting explanation of R. Chaim Heller that solved a textual problem. Here is another one he offered: Piskei Tosafot (at the back of the Vilna Shas), Shabbat, no. 130, states that in a city that has pigs, the buildings in it are exempt from the law of mezuzah: עיר שיש בה חזירים פטורה מן המזוזה

There is no talmudic source for this passage and on its face it is astounding, as why should the presence of pigs mean that Jews don’t need a mezuzah? If followed in practice, this text would mean that no city in the Christian world needs mezuzot. (In fact, from statements of Ashkenazic rishonim we know that in medieval Ashkenaz many people did not affix mezuzot, and perhaps this laxity arose from the view recorded in Piskei Tosafot.[10])

R. Heller suggested that there was a scribal error and that instead of עיר שיש בה חזירים the text should read דיר שיש בה חזירים, that is, a pigsty does not need a mezuzah.[11] I don’t think this emendation is found in any of R. Heller’s writings, but it is mentioned in his name by Dr. Tibor Juda, the late son-in-law of R. Pinchas Hirschprung,[12] in this video about R. Abraham Price, beginning at 36:38. R. Price was a student of R. Heller in Berlin before he came to Toronto. Not surprising, Abraham Rosenberg, whom I discussed in previous posts here and here, also mentions this emendation which he must have heard from R. Heller.[13]

This emendation is actually mentioned previously by R. Meir Soloveitchik in his Ha-Meir la-Aretz, p. 64a.[14] Here is the title page of the book.

R. Soloveitchik, after mentioning the emendation, offers his own alternative emendation:

ועוד נ“ל יותר טוב להגיה, עיר שאין בה חזירים כו‘, דטנופת הרבה מצוי בה והו“ל כמקום שהתינוקות מצוין בה

Before people start trying to figure out how this R. Soloveitchik is related to R. Chaim, let me note that there was at least one other Soloveitchik family in Europe, and this family was not levi’im like the more famous Soloveitchik family. R. Meir Soloveitchik came from the less distinguished Soloveitchiks.[15]

4. In my last post I dealt with euthanasia and suicide, and in response to that Ariel Fuss sent me something that I found truly astounding. If you had described it to me without me seeing it “inside”, I would have thought it was Purim Torah, or perhaps a halakhic paradox of the sort I have written about.[16] But no, we are talking about a real piece of rabbinic learning. Here is R. Mordechai Shlomo Carlebach, Havatzelet ha-Sharon, Vayikra (2), pp. 476-477.

R. Carlebach assumes that suicide falls under the prohibition of murder. While there are those who disagree (see Encyclopedia Talmudit, s. v. me’abed atzmo le-da’at), the majority opinion is that suicide is a form of murder, and this seems to be Maimonides’ opinion as well. R. Carlebach raises the issue of what to do if you see someone about to commit suicide. When someone is about to murder another, there is an obligation to kill the rodef. If suicide is a form of murder, R. Carlebach reasons that one who is going to kill himself is to be regarded as a rodef (of himself) and according to the halakhah you would be obligated to kill the man before he killed himself.

At first glance this seems crazy, since what sense does it make to kill a man because he is going to kill himself? But as R. Carlebach points out, by killing the man before he kills himself, you prevent him from violating the prohibition against murder, which will be a great benefit to him in the World to Come. R. Carlebach notes that when he presented this idea to R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, R. Auerbach liked what he said. Of course, it is impossible for us to know whether R. Auerbach really took the argument seriously or just smiled because it is such an interesting and counterintuitive approach.

When I shared this text with R. Moshe Maimon, and wondered whether R. Carlebach meant what he wrote seriously, he replied:

I think he means it seriously, though in a Talmudic sense, not in a practical sense. RSZA similarly approved it from a pilpulistic standpoint, knowing that R. Carlebach was in no way insinuating that this should dictate practical Halachah. To the halachic mind it is a form of mercy killing, since you are saving him from the sin of murder. Of course, practically, it could never be implemented since the modern sensibilities (at least from the Besamim Rosh and on!) dictate that one committing suicide be viewed as a victim rather than a perpetrator.

Speaking of the laws of rodef, there is another astounding passage in R. Shimon Sofer, Hitorerut Teshuvah, vol. 2, no. 157:2. R. Sofer states that if you see a cat chasing after a chicken to kill it, if the only way you can save the chicken is by killing the cat, then there is a mitzvah to kill the cat. He actually compares this to the law of rodef with a human. (At the end of the responsum he also mentions hashavat avedah and tza’ar baalei hayyim.)

See, however, R. Netanel Meoded of Hong Kong, Mizrah Shemesh, vol. 2, p. 287 n. 195, that R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach rejected the notion that there is a concept of rodef with regard to animals.

Regarding R. Sofer’s Hitorerut Teshuvah, the volumes are unusual as right at the top of each page it tell the reader not to rely on the halakhic conclusions in practice. I don’t know of any other responsa volume that does such a thing. In a future post I will cite sources that say that one does not need to pay attention when an author tells us not to rely on his rulings in practice.

5. Continuing with the new pictures of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, here is one of him and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[17] It is from R. Herzog’s visit to Montreux in the summer of 1950.

Here is R. Weinberg in conversation with R. Bezalel Rakow, at the time a rebbe in the Montreux yeshiva and later the rav of Gateshead.

Here is R. Weinberg with Robert and Francisca Goldschmidt at the wedding of their daughter Reine to Schmuel Höchster. The Goldschmidts owned a kosher pension in Montreux and their grandson is the famous R. Pinchas Goldschmidt.

Here is R. Weinberg with Mr. Yechezkel Rand and his wife. Rand was a leader of the Montreux Jewish community.

Here is R. Weinberg with his student R. Yaakov Fink. R. Fink was able to leave Germany and make his way to Argentina in 1939. He would later serve as chief rabbi of Brazil and later of Argentina before becoming av beit din in Haifa.

The story of his aliyah is of interest. Already in 1950 he discussed moving to Israel with the Hazon Ish. He was concerned about whether this was proper since he felt a responsibility to his community in Argentina. The Hazon Ish told him without hesitation that he should come to Israel. He thought that the education of R. Fink’s children, which was problematic in the Diaspora, came before all other concerns, and therefore he – and anyone else – who could come on aliyah should do so.

Interestingly, on returning home he first traveled to the United States where he also discussed the matter of his aliyah with R. Aharon Kotler. R. Kotler had the opposite approach, telling him that he must not abandon his community. Perhaps to let him know that he should not give up all hope of aliyah, R. Kotler added that when he himself goes to Israel, then R. Fink can also come.

Years later R. Fink decided to move to Israel, after being chosen as av beit din of Haifa. He had obviously decided not to follow R. Kotler’s opinion in this matter. Yet an amazing thing was to happen. R. Fink flew to Europe with his family and spent a few weeks in Montreux with R. Weinberg, whom he had not seen since before World War II. The pictures above and below are from that visit. He then went to Paris from where he was to fly to Israel. When he boarded the plane, and saw more religious travelers than usual, he inquired what the occasion was. It was then that he learned of the passing of R. Aharon Kotler and that his coffin was being brought to Israel on that very plane. So in the end it happened just as R. Kotler told him years before, that when he would go to Israel then R. Fink could also go![18]

Here is a picture of R. Weinberg with R. Fink on the left. On the right is R. Joseph Blumenfeld who held the position of av beit din in Tel Aviv. He also lived in the United States during the 1950s and while there he printed his edition and commentary of the medieval work Kaftor va-Ferah by R. Ishtori ha-Parhi.

Here is the title page as it appears on Otzar ha-Chochmah.

Notice how the original place and date is missing and ניו יורק תשי“ח has been added to the title page. That should raise everyone’s suspicions. If you look at the version on hebrewbooks.org you can see why the original place and date were removed.

On the title page R. Blumenfeld wrote שנה עשירית למדינת ישראל. This can still be read on the copy found on hebrewbooks.org, although someone crossed this out, not liking R. Blumenfeld’s Zionist sentiments. 

Here is another example of the title page that I copied many years ago in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

While in the United States, R. Blumenfeld obviously got to know Louis Finkelstein. When his work appeared he sent him a copy with a nice inscription and Finkelstein donated it to the library. The inscription might imply that Finkelstein assisted him financially in publishing the work.

Regarding R. Fink, although R. Weinberg thought very highly of him,[19] there was one time when R. Fink disappointed him. In 1952 when he was appointed chief rabbi in Brazil there was an article on this in Ha-Pardes.[20] Although the article is signed by someone else, R. Weinberg believed that the biographical information in it was provided by R. Fink. In describing R. Fink’s background it states:

תלמיד מובהק של הרב הגאון ה‘ אברהם שטיינברג מברודי, שאצלו למד בשעה שישב בעיר הבירה וינה, בשנות המלחמה הראשונה ואז שמש גם את הגאון העצום ר‘ יוסף אנגל וגדולי ישראל אחרים. משומעי שעוריו של הרב יחיאל וינברג, העילוי מסלובודקה בסמינר הרבנים בברלין

R. Weinberg wrote to R. Joseph Apfel, R. Fink’s classmate at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, with his annoyance at the above formulation. He assumed that R. Fink, having moved into more haredi circles, was embarrassed to acknowledge that he had been an actual registered student at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, and therefore wrote that he just attended R. Weinberg’s shiurim at the Seminary.[21] In an earlier post on the Seforim Blog here, Menachem Butler notes that when R. Yosef Zvi Dunner passed away, the obituary in Ha-Modia wrote:

At 19 he wanted to study in the yeshivos of Lithuania, but his father felt that due to the shortage of Rabbanim in Germany, it would be better for him to remain in the country and study in the beis medrash of Harav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, author of Seridei Eish. For four years, the young Rav Yosef Tzvi studied in this beis medrash, where he was awarded semichah at a young age after astounding those testing him with his penetrating understanding of all four sections of the Shulchan Aruch. He was granted the title yoreh, yadin.

Instead of writing that R. Dunner studied at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, Ha-Modia invented a new institution, the beis medrash of R. Weinberg.

This is a phenomenon we have sometimes seen with people who studied at Yeshiva University and/or RIETS but in later years did not want to acknowledge this. At most they would say that they heard shiurim from the Rav, without noting that they were actually registered students in YU or RIETS.

Returning to the pictures, here is a one of R. Weinberg’s father.

Here is his mother.

Here is R. Weinberg’s mother and other members of his family at his father’s grave in Ciechanowiec, Poland.

6. In the latest Hakirah (vol. 35, Summer 2024), R. Shmuel Lesher mentions Chaim Bloch’s Passover Haggadah forgery. Bloch claimed to have had a 1521 manuscript where instead of “Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you”, the mansucript had, “Pour out your love on the nations that know you”. This is such an obvious forgery, from a person whose forgeries have become legendary (see my post here, R. Jonathan Sacks included this forged text in his own Haggadah.

On p. 286 n. 12 Lesher states that assuming Bloch’s Haggadah passage is a forgery, the motivation for the forgery remains unclear. Let me first state that there is no reason for “assuming” it is a forgery, as there is no doubt whatsoever. As for the motivation, this too is clear. Bloch was very interested in apologetics and softening anti-Gentile passages that appear in the Talmud and later rabbinic literature. He even devoted an entire (very dishonest) book to this topic, Ve-Da Mah She-Tashiv (New York, 1962). In my post here I include a page from Bloch’s Heikhal le-Divrei Hazal u-Fitgameihem (New York, 1948), p. 9. Here Bloch invents an entire story about how before the war there was a collection of letters in Vienna dealing with the sections of the Talmud that were removed by non-Jewish censors. He tells us that R. Elazar Horowitz wrote a letter to R. Judah Aszod stating that R. Moses Sofer did not wish to print a Talmud with the censored sections. The reason R. Sofer supposedly gave was that it was divine providence that these passages were removed, and once they have been removed they should not be put back. Based on additional imaginary letters, Bloch tells us more fairy tales about other nineteenth-century rabbinic leaders who agreed that the censored passages should remain out, because of the antisemitism that could be generated by them.

Bloch’s forgery of the Gentile-friendly “Pour out your love” passage is no different than his other forgeries dealing with rabbinic texts that present a negative view of non-Jews and that were often cited in non-Jewish attacks on the Talmud and rabbinic literature.

* * * * * *

[1] See Menachem Keren-Kratz, “Satmar and Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism,” Modern Judaism 43 (Feb., 2023), pp. 66ff.
[2] Mesorat Moshe, vol. 2, p. 432.
[3] It could be that my language, implying that their current behavior is worse than a hillul ha-shem, is inappropriate, as in some respects hillul ha-shem is the worst imaginable sin. See Yoma 86a that unlike other sins, only death can atone for hillul ha-shem. The Hazon Ish pointed out that the three great sins for which one must martyr oneself rather than violate could indeed be pushed aside (i.e., violated) in order to prevent a hillul ha-shem. (Obviously, this type of decision is only something that the greatest rabbinic leaders could rule on.) See Shlomo Cohen, Pe’er ha-Dor, vol. 3, p. 185.

R. Samuel Mohilever writes:

חלול ה‘ היותר גדול המאריך גלותנו והמעכב גאולתנו ופדות נפשנו הוא אשר על ידי רוע מעשינו יחולל כבוד אומתנו בגוים לאמר: ראו מעשה העם הזה, אשר לפי דעתו הוא הנבחר מכל גויי הארצות להיות לעם סגולה עליון על כל, ומעשיו גרועים ואבדה חכמת חכמיו ודעתו שפלה וגם באמונתו ערב אמונות שוא וטפל ועוד הגדיל כי עשה את הטפל לעיקר

Mohilever, Berit ha-Ahavah ve-ha-Shalom, ed. Munitz (Jerusalem, 2023), p. 210.

Here is one way hillul ha-shem was dealt with in years past: R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Ma’agal Tov ha-Shalem, ed. Freimann (Jerusalem, 1934) p. 88, mentions how the leaders of the Jewish community in Modena, Italy cut off the beard of a rabbi who created a hillul ha-shem. See the explanation of the passage in R. Meir Mazuz, Mi-Gedolei Yisrael, vol 1, p. 218. As R. Mazuz notes, punishing someone by cutting off his hair is mentioned in Beit Yosef, Even ha-Ezer 16, s.v. כתוב and Shulhan Arukh, Even ha-Ezer 16:4. I do not know if this only means hair of the head or if it also includes the beard. Aaron Chorin, who would later become a leading advocate of religious reform, was also threatened with having his beard cut off. See R. Nosson Dovid Rabinowich, Safra ve-Sayfa (Jerusalem, 2013), pp. 139 n. 37, 171.

Hillul ha-shem is sometimes written as hillul ha-Shem or hillul Hashem. Yet this is a mistake. It is not Hashem (with a capital “H”, implying “God, or ha-Shem), but hashem, (or ha-shem). That is, it is not a desecration of God but of His name. Thus, one should not write ‘חילול ה but rather חילול השם. See Lev. 22:32: ולא תחללו את שם קדשי. Nissim Dana titled his 1989 translation of one of R. Abraham Maimonides’ works ספר המספיק לעובדי השם. Yet the last two words should be ‘לעובדי ה.

Regarding the use of “Hashem”, I found something very confusing in the ArtScroll Stone Chumash. In place of the Tetragrammaton, ArtScroll does not use the word “Lord” but “HASHEM”, as this is how people pronounce the Tetragrammaton. While ArtScroll is the first translation to adopt this approach, it does have a certain logic. However, this logic breaks down a few times on p. 319 when the ArtScroll commentary attempts to explain what occurs at the beginning of parashat Va-Era. For example, “Or Ha-Chaim comments that God’s essence is represented by the name HASHEM.” This makes no sense, as there is no name HASHEM. The commentary should have written that “God’s essence is represented by the four letter name of God.”

Here is what Maimonides says about one who separates himself from the community, and it certainly applies to Neturei Karta (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3:11):

A person who separates himself from the community even though he has not transgressed any sins, but has separated himself from the congregation of Israel and does not fulfill mitzvot together with them, does not take part in their hardships or join in their [communal] fasts, but rather goes on his own individual path as if he is from another nation and not one of them [the Jewish people], does not have a portion in the world to come

[4] The version that appears in Midrash Tannaim, Devarim, ed. Hoffmann, p. 7, has the name as ארווס. However, as R. David Zvi Hoffmann points out, this is an error for אריוס. See ibid., pp. 250, 253. The version that appears in the medieval Bereshit Rabbati of R. Moses ha-Darshan, ed. Albeck, p. 201, has the name אריסטו. I think it is obvious that not recognizing the name Arius, someone changed it to Aristotle, without realizing that Aristotle (fourth century BCE) lived hundreds of years before R. Yose (second century CE). See also here.

Regarding Aristotle, while some traditional Jewish sources speak highly of his learning, others refer to him in all sorts of negative ways. R. Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, in his praise of R. Elijah Mizrahi, actually compares his intellect to that of Aristotle. I do not know of any other such passage in rabbinic literature in which a rabbi is praised by comparing him to Aristotle. See Delmedigo, Novelot ha-Hokhmah, p. 32b:

ששכל הרא“ם רם ונשא . . . כשכל ארסטו‘ט בדקות ועומק ויושר

See also R. Meir Mazuz’s comment on this passage, Mi-Gedolei Yisrael, vol. 1, p. 359 n. 27.

[5]  See here and here (the first of three parts).
[6] “The Historical Significance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971), p. 149.
[7] The word is pronounced kil’ayim and not kilayim, as there is a sheva under the ל. People sometimes mispronounce it as kilaim, as if there is a patah under the ל and a hirik under the א of כלאים. This reminds me of another common mistake. If you google you will find that many refer to the concept of “shomer pesaim (petaim).” Yet this is a mistake. The verse in Psalms 116:6 reads: שֹׁמֵר פְּתָאיִם. The second word is pronounced pesayim (petayim), as the א is silent. Another example where the א is silent and many people make a mistake is with the name דניאל. Even people who have this name often pronounce it in Hebrew as Doniel (or Doniellah for women). Yet the name is properly pronounced Doniyel: דָּנִיֵּאל. This is unlike the name אֲרִיאֵל where the tzere is under the א and the word is pronounced Ariel. Another common mistake is that people often refer to sidelocks at peyot, but it should be pe’ot, as there is no yud in the word.
[8] In 1876 R. Abraham Bick published Yesod Ohel Moed. I cannot tell you where the book appeared, as there are two title pages, one for Pressburg and one for Lemberg.

The language on the title page is very unusual in its detail of what the book contains. On p. 53b he rejects R. Lifshitz’s identification of the orangutan with a creature mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, stating that he has seen an orangutan at the Hamburg zoo and it does not match the talmudic description. He then makes the following statement, affirming the truth of the Sages’ scientific statements even if modern man has trouble accepting them:

וקבלת חז“ל נאמנה מאוד ולא ראינו אינה ראי‘ ונודע שחוקרי הארץ לא יכלו לתור תיכונית אפריקא וגם במציאות בני אדם באמעריקא נוכח כפות רגלינו הכחישו כולם עד שנודע שידיעתם הבל וגם פה חז“ל ידעו הכל בסוד ה‘ ליראיו

[9] Ha-Mitzpeh, Oct. 25, 1912, pp. 4-5, Nov. 1, 1912, pp. 4-5, Nov. 15, 1912, p. 5, Nov. 22, 1912, p. 5.
[10] See R. Mordechai Menahem Honig’s learned note in Yerushatenu 1 (2007), p. 213 n. 43, which provides all the relevant information about the Piskei Tosafot passage and how this idea is also cited from the ירושלמי. See also Saul Lieberman, Ha-Yerushalmi ki-Feshuto, Introduction, pp. 26-27; Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, vol. 8, pp. 97-98, n. 6.

Regarding laxity with mezuzot and the notion that a city with pigs is exempt, see R. Aaron ha-Kohen of Lunel, Orhot Hayyim, ed. Schlesinger (Berlin, 1902), vol. 2, p. 195:

השתא שאין העולם נזהרין משום האי טעמא דסמכינן אהא דאמרינן עיר שיש בה חזירים פטורה מן המזוזה. וכתב הר“י מקורבל שאין זה נמצא בשום מקום לא בתלמוד ולא בירושלמי

[11] R. Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer, vol. 5, no. 18, suggests another emendation: שער instead of עיר. See also R. Ovadiah Yosef, Yabia Omer, vol. 3, Yoreh Deah, no. 16.
[12]  I treasure the conversations I had with Dr. Juda when I visited Toronto and he honored me by attending various talks I delivered. In one conversation he told me of the high esteem R. Hirschprung had for Rav Kook, and how R. Hirschprung noted that while R. Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld was certainly a great talmid chacham, in no way is he to be regarded as on the same level as R. Kook. Regarding R. Hirschprung, let me also record what I heard from R. Shlomo Goren in 1985, when he spoke at Beit Midrash le-Torah (BMT) in Jerusalem, that R. Hirschprung was the only one alive who knew the entire Talmud by heart.
[13] Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi, last page of the book (unnumbered; called to my attention by Moshe Dembitzer).
[14] Moshe Dembitzer informed me that R. Moses Shimon Sivitz, Ha-Mashbiah, vol. 3, p. 53b, also suggests this emendation. R. Baruch Epstein, Barukh She-Amar, p. 75, likewise suggests this.
[15] See here. There was another famous Soloveitchik, Max Soloveitchik from Kovno, who wrote perhaps the earliest Hebrew book on biblical criticism and was a government minister in Lithuania. See here. I don’t know which Soloveitchik family he was from.
[16] See here.
[17] The pictures in this post are found in Ganzach Kiddush ha-Shem in Bnei Brak. I thank R. Abraham Abba Weingort for his help with identifying some of the people in the pictures from Montreux.
[18] Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, pp. 49, 56 (first pagination).
[19] See for instance R. Weinberg’s letter in Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, p. 348.
[20] November 1952, pp. 28-29.
[21] See R. Weinberg’s letter in Ha-Ma’yan 32 (Tamuz 5752), pp. 16-17. For a picture of R. Fink’s Berlin Rabbinical Seminary semikhah, see Fink, Tiferet Yaakov, p. 339. The semikhah is signed by R. Weinberg, R. Samuel Gruenberg, and R. Alexander (Shimon Zvi) Altmann.

Mavericks, Mystics, & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History by Rabbi Pini Dunner (Toby Press, 2018)

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein

The first chapter of this book sets the tone by introducing the reader to the oft-retold story of the famous 17^th century false Messiah, Shabbetai Tzvi (1626–1676), and how he and his handler Nathan of Gaza bamboozled much of world Jewry. As the story unfolds, more and more people began to believe that Shabbetai Tzvi was indeed the scion of David sent to redeem the Jewish people, but the story climaxes with Shabbetai Tzvi’s conversion to Islam from which point more and more became suspicious of the dubious character. Although he died in near anonymity and was buried in an unmarked grave, the repercussions of his rise and fall still reverberate throughout Jewish history.

Secret followers of Shabbetai Tzvi, known as Sabbateans continued to exist for centuries after Shabbetai Tzvi’s death. They were known for their antinomian behavior and non-standard Kabbalistic teachings. The witch-hunt against Sabbateans led to one of the most explosive controversies in Jewish History, in which Rabbi Yaakov Emden (1697–1776) accused Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz (1690–1764) of being a closet follower of Shabbetai Tzvi. Rabbi Dunner dramatizes this story in Chapter 3 of his book, peppering the narrative with details little-known to those who have already heard about the controversy.

In Chapter 4, Rabbi Dunner tells the sordid tale of a seemingly paranoid man named Isaac Neiberg from Mannheim who divorced his young bride of one week in the town of Cleves and fled Germany. The sordidness focuses not on the young groom, but on the rabbinic controversy that erupted over the validity of this man’s gett (“bill of divorce”). The question centered on what sort of insanity passes the Halakhic threshold to legally disqualify a person from effectuating a divorce.

In his concluding remarks, Rabbi Dunner implies that the ruling that this gett was not disqualified later influenced Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986), who ruled that a person who is seemingly mentally unstable in some aspects, but is not totally insane, is not rendered a shotah in Halacha. This reviewer had the privilege to sit on a bus next to Rabbi Meir Simcha Auerbach, a son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910–1995), who affirmed that his father whole-heartedly agreed with Rabbi Feinstein’s ruling on this matter.

In his work Mateh Levi (§19), Rabbi Mordechai Horovitz (1844–1910) published a responsum that he ascribed to Rabbi Nosson Maaz (1720–1793), a judge on the Frankfurt court, that laid out the reasons for disqualifying the gett. Nonetheless, some have questioned the authenticity of this responsum by claiming that it was not really written by Rabbi Maaz. Despite Rabbi Dunner’s seemingly neutral position on this question, Rabbi Mordechai Emanuel of Beitar Illit, a renowned scholar who edited and published Rabbi Nosson Maaz’s writings wrote to this reviewer that a comparison of the linguistic expressions used in the responsum published by Rabbi Horovitz and those used in Rabbi Maaz’s recently published-for-the-first-time works reveals that the responsum is most likely authentic.

The common denominator among all the misfits and charlatans that Rabbi Dunner discusses in this interesting book is that each chapter has some connection to the City of London (save for the chapter about Shabbetai Tzvi): In his chapter about the Emden-Eybeschutz controversy, Rabbi Dunner mentions that Rabbi Emden’s father, the esteemed author of responsa Chacham Tzvi, was offered the post of the Chief Rabbi of London, but declined. In the chapter about the Cleves Gett, London appears again as the runaway groom’s destination. (By the way, that story concluded with a happy ending, as the young couple later reconciled and remarried.)

Another chapter focuses on the legacy of the folk-doctor Shmuel Falk (1708–1782), popularly known as the Baal Shem of London. He was reputed to have been a master Kabbalist and healer, and much lore has sprung up about him. Rabbi Emden accused him of being a follower of Shabbetai Tzvi, but that remains to be conclusively proven. Interestingly, for many years a portrait of Shmuel Falk was misidentified as that of the more famous Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760).

Rabbi Dunner also presents the reader with a biographical chapter about the forger Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg (1860–1935), who is most known for making the legends about the Maharal of Prague (1512–1526) and the Golem become mainstream, and for publishing a counterfeit commentary to the Haggadah Shel Pesach ascribed to the Maharal. Rabbi Rosenberg also published other forgeries, including a work entitled Choshen Mishpat, which claims that the twelve jewels of the High Priest’s breastplate have made their way to the Belmore Street Museum in London.

Other chapters in this book that pay homage to London by mentioning the Old Smoke include the one devoted to the peculiar story of Lord George Gordon (1751–1793)—a British aristocrat who led a failed revolt against the English crown (look up: The Gordon Riots) and eventually converted to Judaism—and the one dedicated to the fantastic tale of the escapades of an infamous Hungarian Jew named Ignatius Timotheus Trebitsch-Lincoln (1879–1943), whose various occupations include thief, member of the UK Parliament, international spy, and Buddhist monk. I am fairly confident that all these mentions of London are not unrelated to Rabbi Dunner’s hometown.

Although Rabbi Dunner presents this book to a popular audience and therefore did not provide the reader with well-sourced footnotes for every detail that he discusses (as befits a scholar of his caliber), he did offer a conclusion that sheds light on many of the different sources from which he culled information in preparing this captivating book.

Rabbi Dunner is a scion of a great rabbinic family and an alumnus of the most prestigious Yeshivas of contemporary times. He currently serves as a popular rabbi in Beverly Hills, but is also celebrated as a well-known lecturer, scholar, and social critic. His lectures and essays are thoroughly educational (and sometimes even humorous in his own way) and have special appeal to Jews of all stripes—including Hareidim, Religious Zionists, and even Secular Jews. Rabbi Dunner also boasts a magnificent and impressive collection of Judaica, including rare books, documents, leaflets, and pictures related to the history of the Jewish people. These resources no doubt aid Rabbi Dunner in his scholarly and rabbinic expertise.