Shnayer Leiman: In Appreciation*

Yitzhak Berger and Chaim Milikowsky

אוצר נחמד ושמן בנוה חכם

 (משלי כא,כ)

In multiple ways, the above-cited biblical phrase, on which the title of this volume is based, calls to mind its distinguished honoree. For one thing, few collections of Jewish writings surpass Shnayer Leiman’s אוצר נחמד – a vast store of literary treasures that encompasses, among much else, an abundance of rare traditional classics. For both its scale and its exquisiteness, the renowned Leiman Library inspires an inevitable sense of awe.

This repository of writings, however, attests to more than the efforts of a great collector. While it is difficult, within Shnayer Leiman’s many spheres of interest, to identify a book that he does not possess, it is equally challenging to find information that he does not know. If the volumes in his home comprise a storehouse of Jewish knowledge, it is hardly an exaggeration to say the same of their illustrious owner.

Indeed, whereas the Leiman Library constitutes an אוצר נחמד because of the “precious treasures” that it holds, we may apply the same Hebrew phrase to the man himself – a “delightful repository” of both knowledge and kindness who has enriched the lives and minds of scholars and laypeople alike. Widely sought out for his erudition and scholarship, Leiman has shared his expertise with countless individuals in academia and beyond, always with his signature pleasantness and soft and inviting demeanor. The success of his heavily attended biweekly classes, offered in his home for many years, owes not only to their rich content but also to the welcoming environment generated by him and his equally gracious wife Rivkah. Not only do Jewish books line the shelves of the Leiman home; their proprietors generously share the Torah that they comprise with an eager and inquisitive Jewish public.

The professional career of Shnayer (Sid) Leiman attests to his intellectual breadth and to the wide admiration he has earned in both academic and communal circles. A Mirrer yeshiva bochur who attained a Ph.D. in Bible under Moshe Greenberg at the University of Pennsylvania, Leiman spent several years as head of the Judaic Studies program at Yale. Later, he would return to New York to head the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University. Maintaining a sustained relationship with YU, he then commenced a professorship in Jewish Studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, where he remained for several decades, including a period during which he served as Editor of the Yale Judaica Series. Currently, he holds a Distinguished Professorship at Touro College, assisting in the development of its Ph.D. program in Jewish Studies. In the broader community, Leiman remains a popular speaker across a wide spectrum of populations. He is especially known for his involvement in tours of European cities, where he has fascinated travelers with his lectures on pre-war Jewish communities and rabbinic figures.

Leiman’s scholarship stands out in multiple respects. With a degree in Bible that yielded a pivotal study on the canonization of Scripture – an inquiry demanding expertise in both Biblical Studies and Rabbinics – Leiman has contributed to a strikingly wide array of fields. Shedding the constraints of ever-increasing academic specialization, he has produced well over a hundred essays on such diverse topics – covering a range of eras – as canonization, Masorah, modern and early-modern rabbinic figures, Jewish ethics, modernization and rabbinic leadership, contemporary Jewish issues, and more. Notably, with his superior academic credentials in hand, Leiman has consciously chosen to diversify his writings among professional and more popular outlets, seeking to enrich and inspire the public no less than to advance the frontiers of scholarship. Lists of his publications and more, including the full text of several dozen essays, are conveniently available online at leimanlibrary.com.

Consistent with the breadth of its honoree, the present volume, marking fifty years of his contributions to Jewish Studies, contains essays that span a range of fields: Bible and philology, Masorah, biblical interpretation, philosophy and theology, halakhah and pilpul, works of art and their connection to Jewish law and thought, and the social and intellectual history of medieval and modern Jews of diverse regions and cultures. The eager participation of the authors, along with the kind tributes penned by several of them, reflects the warm admiration toward Shnayer Leiman felt by many. The editors, whom he ably and selflessly guided in their doctoral studies, join in wishing him enduring personal fulfillment and continued success in contributing to Jewish life and scholarship.

כי אם בתורת ה’ חפצו ובתורתו יהגה יומם ולילה

והיה כעץ שתול על פלגי מים אשר פריו יתן בעתו

ועלהו לא יבול וכל אשר יעשה יצליח

Yitzhak Berger

Chaim Milikowsky

יום העצמאות, תשע״ט

May 8, 2019

*Reprinted from *‘In the Dwelling of a Sage Lie Precious Treasures’: Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of Shnayer Z. Leiman*, eds. Yitzhak Berger and Chaim Milikowsky (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2020), with permission of YU Press, available to be ordered here.

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