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The Gematriya Haggadah

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The Gematriya Haggadah
By Eli Genauer
I try to buy a new Haggadah every year to make sure I have something new to say. It is especially important at my stage in life when grandchildren will remind you if you use last year’s Dvar Torah.
This year’s Haggadah was definitely in the category of “מה נשתנה ההגדה הזאת מכל ההגדות”. It’s name is ״כוס ישועות״  and it was printed on the Isle of Djerba, Tunisia in 1947. It’s author was Rabbi David Cohen (also known as רבי דוד כהן אלמג׳רבי) who served as the Rav in the southern Tunisian city of Tataouine (תיטאוין). The text of the Haggadah is translated into Judeo-Arabic and the Halachos and instructions are in that language. Thankfully, the Peirush of Rav Cohen is in Hebrew which allowed me access to his approach to the Haggadah.
We find out a bit about Rav Cohen from the Haskamah given at the beginning of the book by six prominent Rabbis of Djerba. It states as follows:
הרב זצ״ל היה כמעט הראשון בהתישבות אחינו בית ישראל שם מראשיתו בתור שוחט ובודק ומרביץ תורה ושליח צבור,ואחר כך נתמנה לרב ומורה צדק שם.
We learn that he was a pioneer in establishing the Jewish community in Tataouine and served in many capacities there before become the Rav of the town. He authored numerous books, some printed while he was alive, and some, like this Hagaddah, printed after his Petirah in 1934.
The Haggadah was printed by a committee (המשתדלים) in Tataouine who raised money for this purpose. There are over 800 names of families or individuals who contributed to its publication. Included in this are over 100 contributors from Tataouine which gives one some idea of the size of the community.
Most of the contributors included with their names the memory of a deceased relative or a blessing for a hoped for milestone for their children. Some of the blessings were familiar to me and others were a bit different.

For a married child: ויפקדהו בבנים זכרים של קיימא אמן abbreviated as ויפקדהו בבזשק״א

This seemed to reflect a cultural preference for boys and perhaps a high rate of infant mortality.

There were no blessings for someone just to have children.

For boys there were two blessings depending on age:

ויזכה לתורה ולתפילין ולחופה and ויזכה לתפילין ולחופה

For unmarried men the hope was ויזכה לחופה 

For those a bit older (?), it was ויזכה לחופה בקרוב
In his Hakdamah, the author explains why he chose to name his Peirush כוס ישועות. He writes that the Gematriya of כוס ישועות is the same as אני הקטן דוד בן המנוח אבאתו כהן. Sort of.  The total of the latter is nine short but if you add to it the nine words כוס ישועות andאני הקטן דוד בן המנוח אבאתו כהן it comes out the same ( 878 ). One senses that the author is very attuned to Gematriyos and his commentary proves this to be true.
A good example of Rav Cohen’s use of Gematriyos is how he plays with the phrase הא לחמא עניא
He first notes that הא לחמא  has the same numerical value as the word מילה (85) indicating that בזכות המילה יצאו ממצרים.

He then writes that the word עניא has the numerical value of ענוה indicating that דבזכות הענוה יצאו
Getting back to הא לחמא which equals 85, he relates it to the word פה which has the same numerical value. Matzah is לחם עוני which requires us to do the following: שׁצריך פה האדם לענות בליל פסח בהלל והודאה לשמו יתברך שעשׂה עמנו ניסים ונפלאו

Finally, if you take the total of the first letters of הא לחמא עניא די אכלו you get 110 which is the number of years that Yosef lived. This hints at the fact that it was because of the sale of Yosef, the Jews suffered in Egypt.
The city of Tataouine is famous in popular culture because it served as the inspiration for the name of the fictional planet of Tatooine in the Star Wars movie series. Many of the scenes of Luke Skywalker’s home planet in the original movie were shot near Tataouine. I was very glad to meet a real inhabitant of Tataouine, one who has enhanced my Seder experience.


An Incident of “Pilegesh B’Givah” in 19th Century Germany

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AN INCIDENT OF “PILEGESH B’GIVAH” IN 19TH CENTURY GERMANY
by Eli Genauer
I recently purchased an antique Hebrew book for less than the price of a dinner at a moderately priced restaurant. This particular edition is what some would call a “common” — meaning it is the 36th edition (the fourth edition of a revised version) of this book and it was printed in the mid-19th century. Generally, the market does not assign a high price for books like these, but they can be a treasure trove of knowledge and information.
The work is Tikkun Shlomo and is primarily focused on the Shabbos liturgy.  I reproduced the title page:
Many will no doubt recognize the name of the compiler, Shlomo Zalman London (1661-1748) who wrote the book “קהלת שלמה”and that it was reprinted thirty times in the next 200 years.  
Tikkun Shlomo was first published in Amsterdam by Dr. Naftali Hertz HaLevi in 1733.  Dr. Levi published many a storied book, including the first edition of Mesilat Yesharim and the edition of the Shu”t HaTashbetz that is alleged (erroneously) to have been cosigned to flames.  According to Friedberg, when Dr. Levi published the Tikun Shlomo, not much else was being published in Amsterdam due to the effect of the Thirty-Year War.[1]  The Tikkun Shlomo was very popular, going through almost 40 editions by the late 19th century. Heidenheim expanded this work in 1835, and the edition I purchased was the fourth Heidenheim edition (two of the three were published in Roedelheim and the other in Lemberg).  
Things get off to a wonderful start in this book with the Hakdamah which is indicated to come from the third edition. In it, the unnamed editor pays tribute to his mentor Wolf Heidenheim Z”L and maintains that he has followed in his footsteps in all matters because “anyone who follows him will not err”. The editor only refers to himself at the end of the Hakdamah as “HaTzair”, but he leaves us an unmistakable hint as to his identity. Before we get to that, let us see what else he includes in this “Hakdamah”
ויהי מימים,ויקם עוד בּישׂראל פּורץ גדר,וישׁחת דברים נעימים, ויוסף עוד להרוס חומת שׂפת עבר ולדבּר תועה אשר לא כּדת. כּי פּרץ מצפון בא בא, ותפתח הרעה, וידפיס אישׁ אחד את המחזורים ב׳האננאפער׳, ויעבור חק, ויהפוך וישׁנה מדעתו את דברי התפילות ופיוטים, ויעקש ויעקל מאוד כמעט בכל דף ודף, ותהי זמירת ישׂראל בידו מעין משחת ומקור נרפשׁ, אשה יפה וסרת טעם, כּי שנה את טעמה ויתעמר בה וימכרה בּכּסף, וכן לא יעשׂה.
He takes great offense to a certain Machzor printed by “one man”. The Machzor to which he referring to is known as “Ordnung der Oeffentlichen Andacht für die Sabbath und Festtage des Ganzen Jahres, nach dem Gebrauche des Neuen Tempel-Vereins”, otherwise known as “Seder ha-‘Abodah, Minhag Ḳehal Bayit Ḥadash” printed in Hamburg (not Hanover) in 1819. Two editors are listed:  Seckel Isaac Fraenkel and Meyer Israel Bresslau. It was the new prayer book of the Hamburg Reform Temple dedicated in 1818.  To paraphrase what he writes about this effort: “ a great evil has descended from the north, one that has been perpetrated by a man who published Machzorim in the city of Hanover ( Hamburg ). In his hands, the prayers, which are like a beautiful  woman , are now left with no personality. His purpose was to destroy the Hebrew language, the prayers as we know them, and Judaism itself.”



He continues by writing that he has authored a work Zichron Livnei Yisroel ( Altona 1819) in which he lays out his war against these Machzorim.[2] The title incorporates this explanation:
זה ימים יצא בדפוס קונטרס מיוחד לתפילת ערבית ושחרית לשבת, ומעתיקי תפלה הזאת עברו גבול אשר גבלו הראשונים, גרעו והוסיפו כחפץ לבבם … חלילה … לשנות מסדר תפלתינו / … דברי … עקיבא בר”א ברעסלויא, ראב”ד פה ק”ק אלטונא
This was Rabbi Akiva Wertheimer (1778-1835), the Rav of Altona, Germany, today part of the city of Hamburg. He wrote “Zichron Livnei Yisroel” and was the editor of our edition of “Tikun Shlomo”. His opposition to the new Reform prayer service is noted in a book called “Shnos Dor V’Dor” printed in Jerusalem by Artscroll/Mesorah in 2004. It records the following that occurred in 1819 which coincides with the printing of his book “Zichron Livnei Yisroel”:
בשנת תקע״ט, עוד קודם להתמנורנו, בקום המחדשים ״אנשי ההיכל״
הרפורמי דהמבורג לשנות את סדרי התפילה היה הוא הראשון אשר יצא כנגדם והזהיר את כל הקהילות סביבות אלטונא מפניהם.
Continuing in the Hakdamah to Tikun Shlomo, we find that Rav Wertheimer has launched a campaign against the reformers by adding that he has sent this out broadside everywhere to warn others of this assault on tradition. He does this brilliantly by paraphrasing a Pasuk in Tanach ( Shoftim 20:6) which deals with the tragic story of “Pilegesh B’Givah” an incident which almost tore the Jewish people apart.
The Pasuk reads:  וָאֹחֵז בְּפִילַגְשִׁי, וָאֲנַתְּחֶהָ, וָאֲשַׁלְּחֶהָ, בְּכָל-שְׂדֵה נַחֲלַת יִשְׂרָאֵל:  כִּי עָשׂוּ זִמָּה וּנְבָלָה, בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל.
His paraphrase reads:
ואוחז בפּילגשׁו ואנתחה ואשׁלחה בכל גבול ישׂראל, למען יראו זקני עם וקציניו, והסירו גם את המכשלה הזאת מקרבּם
The full text of the broadside was published in Dukes, AW”H leMoshav, Cracow: 1903, 104-05.  Additionally, the National Library of Israel has a copy (perhaps that of Israel Mehlman, see his catalog Ginzei Yisrael, no. 1743).  The broadside is signed, Akiva br”a Bresslau without additional identifiers, i.e. the son of Avigdor Wertheimer.  As Dukes notes, Graetz mistakenly attributed this work to a different Akiva, Akiva Eiger.  But he was not the only one to publish against the Hamburg Temple and its prayer book in Altona that year.  The work, Eleh Divrei ha-Brit, was also published in Altona in 1819 and it contains, among others, the position of the Hatam Sofer.  
The battle was waged by both sides, and Meyer Israel Bresslau, one of the editors of the Hamburg prayer book, that same year responded with Herev Nokmat (available online here).  The other editor, Fraenkel, in the prayerbook includes a defense of the changes[3].  
As with many editors of Siddurim, Rav Wertheimer extols the exactness of his edition, claiming that he has fixed many of the errors that have crept into previous Siddurim. Specifically, he addresses the text of Mishnayos Shabbos which appeared in many Siddurim and which he has carefully edited especially when it comes to the “Nekudos”.
He continues and states that when it comes to words of foreign origin, such as in Greek, Latin or Arabic, he has also made sure that the “Nekudos” are correct reflecting the proper pronunciation in those languages.
Unfortunately this is not a simple task and this example will illustrate the difficulty in doing so.
The laws of what a woman may or may not carry outside on Shabbos are discussed in Shabbos 6:3. Among the items prohibited is something called a “Tzlochis Shel Palyiton”, a flask of “Palyiton.” Jastrow defines this word as “an ointment or oil prepared from the leaves of spikenard”. He adds that its origin is the Latin word “foliatum”. The Latin Lexicon website spells this word foliātum and gives the exact same definition. So how should this Latin word be spelled in Hebrew?
Rav Wertheimer indicates that it should be pronounced something like “Folia’tone”which is pretty close to the Latin word except for there being an “n” sound at the end of the word instead of the “m” sound.
I have a Mishnayos printed in Pisa during the same time period (1797) which makes it look more like “Pal’yi’tone”:
Two very old manuscripts of the Mishneh shed some light on how the word was originally spelled. One of the most famous is known as Codex Kaufmann ( MS Kaufmann A 50) which was written in 10th or 11th century Palestine. There we find the word looking more like “Pil’Ya’Tome”, with an “m” sound at the end:
The Parma manuscript referred to as MS Parma, De Rossi 138 written in 1073 has it the same as Kaufmann.
In recently printed Mishnayos such as from Feldheim, Artscroll, Steinsaltz, and Blackman, the word is spelled “פלייטון” with either a Patach ,Chirik, or “Shva”  under the “Peh”, or “פולייטון”, which looks more like Rav Wertheiner’s rendering.
One thing is clear- it is sometimes very difficult to write a foreign word with Hebrew letters and vowels, and it is also difficult to ascertain which version is “correct”.
Another wonderful aspect to the book that I bought was learning about the man whose name is embossed on the front cover. He is listed as יוסף אשר בן כ״ה (כבוד הרב) משה פאלאק   
We know a bit about Yosef Asher Pollock from some of the other books and manuscripts he owned. The following two citations are from the online catalogue of the Israel National Library:
1. A manuscript written in the 19th century by Chaim ben Yaakov Abolofia.
תקנות קהלת איזמיר. ‬
Los Angeles – University of California 960 bx. 1.9
ותו הספר: “מספרי יוסף אשר פאלאק ז”ל” משנת תרפ”ה. ‬
From this record we know that he had passed away before 1925 and that the manuscript is now in Los Angeles.



2. A manuscript written in the 18th century
(ספר הכונות (חלק שבת ומועדים. 
Amsterdam – Universiteitsbibliotheek MS Rosenthal 567
בראשו תו ספר של הבעלים “יוסף אשר פאלאק
This rare manuscript has been scanned and is available online. The first page looks like this:
From this one we also learn quite a bit more about Yosef Asher Pollock because it contains this bookplate on the inside front cover

We surmise from here that this was not the only book he had that was donated, as someone went to a lot of trouble composing and printing such a heartfelt donation plate. (“ Yosef is not here, nor is Shimon”) The year the bookplate was printed was 5693(1933). There is also a stern warning that since this is a gift, it may never be sold by the recipient.   

The history of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam is also interesting, especially how the collection of Judaica survived the Nazi occupation. The library’s website notes the following:
“The Germans closed the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in the summer of 1941 and transported part of the collection to Germany, where it was earmarked for Rosenberg’s ‘Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage’.
Happily, these plans were thwarted with the German capitulation. Most of the boxes of books were in storage in Hungen, near Frankfurt am Main, where they were found and shipped back to Amsterdam. But the curator and his assistant together with their families had also been deported-for them there was no return”
Finally, it seems clear to me that my book was also a gift never to be sold. I surmise this from the fact that the name of Yosef Asher Pollack is beautifully embossed on the front cover of the Siddur, making it unnecessary to have an ownership bookplate inside the Siddur.
Nevertheless, on the inside front cover there is a rectangular remnant of a bookplate which has been torn off.  
Coincidentally, its size exactly matches the bookplate of the manuscript donated to the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, which contained the admonition of not selling the book. Tearing off this “warning label” enabled the book to be sold, something that most likely happened over time to many books that were donated to libraries.
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[1] Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography, Antwerp: 1937, 49.  Although Dr. Levi’s production may have slowed, the bases for Freidberg’s assertion that Amsterdam publishing was affected by the Thrity-Year War is uncertain.  During the 18th century, production of Hebrew books in Amsterdam ranges from 82 to a high of 246 per decade.  The 1730s, the period that Tikkun Shlomo was published, is in the mid-range of those two extremes, with 145 books published between  1730-39.
[2] This work is a single sheet broadside and begins with Moda’ah raba . . . Zikhron Le-veni Yisrael.  
[3] For a summary of his arguments, see Petuchowski, Prayerbook Reform in Europe, New York, NY: 1968, 53-54.


What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor?

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What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor? 
by Eli Genauer
                                                                    
Below, we will present some timely notes regarding an English/Hebrew Machzor for Rosh Hashana which was printed in England in 1807.  We will touch upon a variety of issues, and thus first present general backgrounds regarding Hebrew printing in London, the prayer for the state, and Kol Nidrei.  
Hebrew Typography in London  
The earliest use of Hebrew typography in England is sometime in the middle to the late 1520s.  Of course, at that time, Jews were banned from England and the earliest works containing Hebrew type in England were produced for non-Jews.  
The prize of first was thought to go to Thomas Wakefield’s publication of his address regarding “Three Languages” – Hebrew, Arabic and Chaldean (Oratio de laudibus et utilitate trium linguarum [link]). The type, as you can see, was quite primitive.
This lecture was given in 1524, and as the book itself is undated, it was assumed that the lecture was published soon after it was given.  Thus, many dated it to 1524/25.  Wakefield, a noted Hebraist, actually spends the majority of the book discussing Hebrew and the other two languages get short shrift.[1]   
Recently, however, the dating of this work has been challenged and been shown to likely incorrect.  The author, in the self-described “Holmesian manner,”[2]   highlights the various persons Wakefield claims to have tutored in Hebrew and the honorifics used to describe those persons.[3] Based upon some of the descriptions, it seems likely that Wakefield’s work was not published prior to 1527 and most likely in 1528.   [4] This conclusion, coupled with the dating of another work by a different author, unseats Wakefield’s book claim to first.  Instead, Richard Pace’s Praefatio in Ecclesisten, printed in August 1527, is the most likely candidate for the first use of Hebrew typography in England.[5] Here is a sample:
It took nearly two hundred years after the appearance of Hebrew typography for the first Hebrew book published for a Jewish audience in England.  The controversy surrounding R. David Nieto’s remarks and their affinity or lack thereof to Spinoza would produce the first printed Jewish Hebrew book in England.  The first was a very small one, only a few pages, of a responsum written by R. Tzvi Ashkenzi, in R. Nieto’s defense, and published in 1705. It included both Spanish as well as Hebrew (available here).[6]   For more on R. Nieto and this controversy, see the Seforim Blog’s earlier post here. 
The Prayer for the Welfare of the State
The prayer for the welfare of the king or ruler is ancient.  Many point to the statements of Ezra as well as the passage in Avot as early sources for the prayer.  A variety of rationales are offered for this obligation.  For example, Rabbenu Yonah interprets the need for these prayers as indicative of a Universalist worldview, which requires all humans to display empathy for one another.  In order to effectuate that goal, Jews therefore pray for not only the Jewish leaders but also the secular one.  R. Azariah di Rossi, claims that the prayer carries a pacifist message as he emphasizes the lack of allegiance to a specific ruler or country and thereby transforms the prayer into one arguing for peace among all nations. 
The earliest extant prayers are from the Geniza, and can be dated to between 1127 and 1131.  The prayer is for the “Fatimid caliph al-Amir bi-ahkam Allah who ruled Egypt and its regions during the years 1101-1131.” See S.D. Goitein, “Prayers from the Geniza for Fatimid Caliphs, the Head of the Jerusalem Yeshiva, the Jewish Community and the Local Congregation,” in Sheldon R. Brunswick, ed., Studies in Judaica, Karaitica and Islamica: Presented to Leon Nemoy on His Eightieth Birthday (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1982), 47-57.[7]   In this instance, the prayer includes not only a prayer for the secular ruler, but also a prayer for the local Rosh HaYeshiva.  Additionally, it blesses all of the Rosh HaYeshiva’s deceased predecessors, providing a nice genealogy. Goiten posits that these prayers may have been written in response to specific historical events and may not be indicative of the general practice in 12th century Egypt.  See id. at ___. 
The earliest sources, however, do not include the modern formulation of HaNoten Teshua.  Instead, early on there was a lack of conformity regarding this prayer.  Kol Bo records the custom but indicates that each community had its own practices.  But, none used the HaNoten Teshua formulation.  The first extant example of HaNoten Teshua is found in a Spanish manuscript dated between 1479-92.[8]   Ironically, this example was prepared for King Ferdiand V, who, in 1492, issued the expulsion order.  
It appears that with the expulsion and dispersion of the Spainish Jews, the HaNoten Teshua was disseminated throughout the Jewish world.  Indeed, the inclusion of this prayer in Yemenite rites, appears to undermine a major thesis of the noted Yemenite scholar, R. Yosef Kapach.  He asserts that the rite presents a pristine rite, unchanged over hundreds of years.  But, as the Yememite rite includes HaNoten Teshua, which is from the 15th century, indicates that the Yemenite rite is less pristine than Kapach would have it. [9]  
The prayer is also linked to the readmission of Jews into England.  Menasseh ben Israel in his plea  for readmission of the Jews to England (link) provides the full text – in English – of the HaNoten to demonstrate the Jews’ loyalty to their rulers.[10]
A English Hebrew Machzor Printed in London
The Jewish Encyclopedia notes “In 1794 David Levi published an English version of the services for New-Year, the Day of Atonement, and the feasts of Tabernacles and Pentecost, and thirteen years later gave a new version of the whole Mahzor. This second edition was “revised and corrected” by Isaac Levi, described as a “teacher of the Hebrew Language.”
The Machzor features a frontispiece with various engravings of the Jewish holidays. The engraving for Shavuos features Moshe Rabbeinu dressed in a manner probably unknown 3,000 years ago, and holding the Aseres HaDibros with the numerical sequence from left to right. Yom Kippur correctly shows two identically sized “Se’irim” as per our tradition.
If you look closely at the name of the engraver, you will see that it was done by an R. Gavey.
I tried to find out more about R. Gavey and finally came upon a website which dealt with his family. I sent an email to the address listed and waited and waited. Two years later, I received the following response from a fellow in Australia:

“Robert Gavey b.1775 London was my 4xGreat Grandfather. He is listed as an engraver. Both his father and grandfather were watch makers.  Robert Gavey’s daughter Harriot Angelina Gavey  married my 3x Great Grandfather whose son James Fletcher  emigrated to Australia 1852. The Fletchers were originally Huguenot silkweavers with the surname Fruchard and I believe the Gavey’s would have been Huguenots also.” 

It turns out that Robert Gavey’s Australian descendent had a copy of his certificate of indenture as an engraver to a goldsmith named William Norris. Robert was 15 years old at the time (1790) and his period of indenture lasted for seven years. He promised not get married during that time period or play cards or dice. He also was forbidden to frequent taverns or playhouses or engage in any act which would cause his master a loss of money. (Click to see a large, high-resolution image.)


The certificate of indenture was signed in May of 1790 which was noted as the thirtieth year of the reign of George III who is described as the king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.
Speaking of George III, he received much better treatment in this Machzor than in our American Declaration of Independence. On our side of the pond, we know George III as a man who “ has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” As part of the agreement by Cromwell to allow Jews back into England, the Jews promised to always pray for the welfare of the ruler. Accordingly, this Machzor blesses King George in this manner:

This is not the only edition that continued to praise the monarch.  Isaac Lesser, published the first complete machzor in the United States in 1837-38, for the Spanish and Portuguese rites with an English translation.  Lesser’s translation relies heavily upon that of David Levi’s translation.[11]   In an attempt to sell his machzor in both the United States as well in other English-speaking locals, he includes two version of the prayer, one asked that God “bless, preserve, guard, assist, exalt, and raise unto a high eminence, our lord the king.”  The other, replaced this phrase with the request that God “bless, preserve, guard, and assist the constituted officers of the government.”[12]  

The person who finally brought the prayer for the government more in keeping with American democratic values was Max Lilienthal (1814-1882).[13]   While some had been willing to change the prayer, they did so only in the vernacular but retained the Hebrew HaNoten Teshua.  Lilienthal, however, totally reworked the prayer, altering its tone and focus.  Lilienthal removes all mention of kings, focuses on the country more than its rulers, and seeks to bestow God’s blessing, not on the ruler but on all the inhabitants of the land.  This version was included in Henry Franks’s Teffilot Yisrael, a siddur containing the Orthodox liturgy. This siddur was first published in 1848, and reissued in more than 30 editions.  As Sarna notes, the acceptance of the prayer is somewhat ironic in that Lilienthal, later became part of the American Reform movement, was the author of a prayer that became the standard even in Orthodox siddurim.[14]  Id. at 436.

Aside from changing the text of the prayer to fit American sensibilities, how the prayer was recited was also changed.   Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York, after the revolutionary war, “ceased to rise for Hanoten Teshu’ah. According to an oral tradition preserved by H.P. Solomon, ‘the custom of sitting during this prayer was introduced to symbolize the American Revolution’s abolition of subservience.’”[15]

The United States was not the only country to undergo significant changes to its governmental structure.  France, in 1787, abolished (temporarily) the monarchy.   After which the prayer for the welfare of the government was radically changed.  Instead of praying for the benefit of kings and rulers, the French prayer focuses upon the Republic and its people.  All the biblical verses included bless the people and not the king.   [16] The prayer begins “Look down from your holy place on our land, the French Republic, and bless our nation, the French people, Amen.”

Other changes to the prayer, due to time and place, were common. For example, during the height of the Sabbati Zevi messianic frenzy, two versions of the prayer were produced, not asking to bless the secular ruler, but, instead, blessed Shabbati Zevi.

Today, the most significant change to this prayer has been the new prayer on behalf of the State of Israel.  The authorship of the prayer as well as its use is subject to controversy.[17]

In the most recent “Prayer For the State” news, French President François Hollande, specifically invoked this prayer when discussing French Jews’ relationship to the state.  He included in his remarks, translated in NYRB, commemorating the round-up of Jews at the Vélodrome d’Hiver: “Every Saturday morning, in every French synagogue, at the end of the service, the prayer of France’s Jews rings out, the prayer they utter for the homeland they love and want to serve. ‘May France live in happiness and prosperity. May unity and harmony make her strong and great. May she enjoy lasting peace and preserve her spirit of nobility among the nations.'” 

Kol Nidrei 
The Yom Kippur volume of this set contains a detailed “apology”for the Kol Nidre prayer. The Jews endeavored to incorporate themselves into general society and felt the need to emphasize that their word was binding on them. Kol Nidre was seen as indicating otherwise, so an explanation of the prayer was seen as necessary, both for Jew and Gentile. (See Y. Goldhaver, Minhagei Kehilot, Jerusalem: 2005, pp. 209-19 on the history of Kol Nidre and the controversy.) It concludes as follows.

Finally, I would like to focus on the special prayer said during the Yamim Noraim when the Torah is taken from the Aron Kodesh. It first appeared in the Siddur Shaarey Tzion of Rabbi Nathan Hanover and begins with the words “Ribbono Shel Olam”.

In it we ask Hashem to remember us for a long and good life, with everything that comes along with that. We include in our request that Hashem should provide us with “Lechem Le’echol, Beged Lil’Bosh, V’Osher V’Chavod”.  Let us see how David Levy translates these words.

As you can see, the request for “wealth and honor” is nowhere to be found in the English translation. I was curious about this and asked Dan Rabinowitz for his opinion. He offered that it is possible that this Machzor was printed at a time when the English community was quite interested in the Hebrew language. Non-Jewish scholars eagerly bought any books printed in Hebrew. As such, it could be that Levy decided to leave out the reference for our desire for wealth and honor because, well, maybe it was a bit too pushy on our part.

I hope all of you are blessed with a Shana Tova, even one that includes within it the promise of wealth and honor.

[1]  See Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book, Brill, Leiden:2004, entry for Oratio and pp. 959-60 and the sources cited therein. But see Brad Sabin Hill, Incunabula, Hebraica & Judaica . . .” Ottawa:1981, #52 asserting that 1561 is the earliest introduction of Hebrew typography to England. It is unclear what the basis of that assertion is.

[2] Richard Rex, “Review: Robert Wakefield On Three Languages 1524,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42:1 (Jan. 1991) 159.
[3] Richard Rex, “The Earliest Use of Hebrew in Books Printed in England: Dating Some Works of Richard Pace & Robert Wakefield,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Vol. 9, No. 5 (1990), 517-25.
[4] Id. at 517-18.
[5] Id. at
[6] See B. Roth, The Hebrew Printing Press in London, Kiryat Sefer 14 (1937), pp. 97-99.
[7] See also, Fenton,
[8] See Aaron Ahrend, “Prayers for the Welfare of the Monarchy and State,” in Aaron Ahrend, ed., Israel’s Independence Day: Research Studies (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1998), 176-200 (Hebrew). This date is contrary to Schwartz who incorrectly posits that there is no evidence of HaNoten Teshua prior to the 16th century, and none in pre-expulsion Spain. See Barry Schwartz, “Hanoten Teshua: The Origin of the Traditional Jewish Prayer for the Government,” in HUCA, 57, (1986) 113-20. Sarna appears unaware of Ahrend’s article as he continues to assert that HaNoten Teshua was not composed prior to the 16th century. See Jonathan Sarna, “Jewish Prayers for the United States Government: A Study in the Liturgy of Politics and the Politics of Liturgy,” in Ruth Langer & Steven Fine, eds., Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 207 & n.9 (link).
[9] See Ahrend, “Prayers for the Welfare,” at 183.
[10] See Menasseh ben Israel, The Humble Address to his Highness the Lord Protector, 1655.
[11] Leeser was not the first American to utilize Levi’s translation. The first Hebrew prayer book published in the United States, The Form of Daily Prayers (Seder Tefilot), New York, 1826, also includes an English translation by Solomon Henry Jackson. Jackson, who emigrated to the United States from London, also relied heavily upon Levi’s translation. Jackson, in the introduction, indicates that HaNoten Teshua was adapted for U.S. audience, in fact, the Hebrew remained the same, only the “translation” was altered. See Sarna, Jewish Prayers, 213.

Additionally, some time in the 1820s, there was an attempt to reprint Levi’s machzor in the United States. A prospectus was issued, but Levi’s machzor was never reprinted in the United States. See Yosef Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926, Brooklyn, NY, 2006, no. 33.
The first appearance of HaNoten Teshua in the United States is found in the first prayer book published in the United States. Isaac Pinto’s holds that honor. In his English only edition whose first volume was published in 1761 with the second volume published in 1766, he includes HaNoten Teshu’ah.
[12] Jonathan Sarna, “Jewish Prayers for the United States Government,” at 215.

[13] See Jonathan Sarna, “A Forgotten 19th-Century Prayer for the United States Government ,” in Hesed ve-Emet, Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. Magness & Gitin, Atlanta, Georgia, 1998, 431-40.

[14] Today, however, the most widely used Orthodox siddur in the United States, Artscroll, does not include the prayer in any form in its standard editions. It is unclear why Artscroll omitted this very old prayer.

[15] Sarna, Jewish Prayers, at 210.

[16] Moshe Katon, “An Example of the Revolution in the Hebrew Songs of the French Jews,” Mahut 19 (1997) 37-44, esp. 37-8.

[17] See Aharon Arend, “The Prayer for the Welfare of the Monarchy and Country, in Arend ed., Pirkei Mehkar le-Yom ha-Atzmot, Ramat Gan: 1998, 192-200.



The Proselyte Doth Protest Too Much

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THE PROSELYTE DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH
By Eli Genauer
I recently acquired an early edition of Abarvanel’s Peirush Al Neviim Rishonim. It was printed in Leipzig in 1686. It was only the second edition of this commentary, following the first edition printed in Pesaro in 1511 by Gershom Soncino.
The publisher of this edition was Mauritium Georgium Weidmannum. The editors were Friedrich Albrecht Christiani, an apostate, and August Pfeiffer, a German Lutheran theologian. It was printed primarily for a Christian reading audience for reasons we shall discuss.
F. A. Christiani, who was the main editor, is described in a publication called “World – Today’s News Christian Views” (March 2, 2002):

“Friedrich Albrecht Christiani is stunned to find himself believing in Christ. The Hamburg resident, educated in the Talmud, says, ‘I was so zealous for my Jewishness that had someone told me then of my prospective conversion, it would have appeared as strange to me as it seems incredible to others.’ But finding himself unable to refute Esdras Edzard’s arguments, he decides to go with what his mind, rather than tradition, tells him, and takes the last name “Christiani.””

It seems that later on he returned to Judaism as noted by this entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica:

“He was baptized in 1674 at Strasburg, having formerly borne the name of Baruch as Hazzan at Bruchsal. After having occupied for twenty years the chair of Semitic studies at the University of Leipsic, he retired to Prossnitz, where he returned to Judaism.”

For the purpose of this study, we will assume that he was a practicing Christian when he edited this book by the Abarvanel, as this was before he had returned to Prossnitz. 
In studying the cover page of my Leipzig edition, I noticed the following handwritten notation:
The top notation reads עיין דף רמ”ד 2 (“see page 244b”). I do not know who made this notation in the last 300+ years, but I was curious to see what it was all about.
Shlomo Hamelech had died and his son Rechavam took over as king. The people had asked him to relieve some of the burdens placed on them by Shlomo, but instead he told the people that he would deal much more harshly with them than had his father. The people replied that they wanted nothing to do with him as king.
Their reply is reflected in the following pasuk in Melachim Alef 12:16.

טז וַיַּרְא כָּל-יִשְׂרָאֵל, כִּי לֹא-שָׁמַע הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲלֵהֶם, וַיָּשִׁבוּ הָעָם אֶת-הַמֶּלֶךְ דָּבָר לֵאמֹר מַה-לָּנוּ חֵלֶק בְּדָוִד וְלֹא-נַחֲלָה בְּבֶן-יִשַׁי לְאֹהָלֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַתָּה רְאֵה בֵיתְךָ דָּוִד; וַיֵּלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל, לְאֹהָלָיו 

16 And when all of Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered the king, saying: ‘What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Yishai; to your tents, O Israel; now see to your own house, David.’ So Israel departed unto their tents.

Abarvanel cites a Maamar Chazal which explains that the Jews meant as follows:
אין לנו חלק בדוד, זו מלכות שמים. ולא נחלה בבן ישי זו מלכות דוד.לאוהליך ישראל זה בית המקדש אל תקרי לאהליך אלא לאלוקיך
The people stated that they had no portion in the Kingship of Heaven, the Kingship of the House of David, nor of the Beis HaMikdash, which is interpreted to mean that they wanted no part of Hashem.
First let us look at how this section looks in the first edition printed in Pesaro in 1511. Starting on the 3rd line it reads ….. ובפרק כהן גדול אמרו אין לנו חלק בדוד . Clearly there is no editorial note in this edition after the words ובפרק כהן גדול אמרו אין..


Now let us see how this is recorded in our Leipzig edition, whose editor was F.A. Christiani.

It turns out that the quotation is actually from Yalkut Shimoni, Shmuel Aleph 8:26 (and quite similarly in the Midrash Shmuel Chapter 13) but the Abarvanel mistakenly cites “Perek Kohen Gadol” in Maseches Sanhedrin as the source.
This error precipitated Christiani to launch into what can only be termed a “rant”.
You can follow his harangue starting on the first line, inside the parentheses, starting with the abbreviation א”ה

Let me paraphrase what Christiani writes: “So says the editor…It is truly unbelievable what he (Abarvanel) says…..the Rav has made so many mistakes in citing specific sources from the Rabbis….he should be totally embarrassed to cite a source that is not found anywhere close to where he said it was…It is only because he relied on his memory and his mind, which is a conceited and harmful trait….because, setting his honor aside, it is a bold and shamefaced lie to say that this saying is contained in this Perek or in any Perek in Sanhedrin…I have looked high and low for this Maamar Chazal and have found it nowhere …if anyone can find it and bring to a close this terrible error, he will truly be blessed.”
Christiani opens himself up for some criticism by stating that he has searched, “Chipus achar chipus be-gemaros u-midrashim” and was not able to find this Maamar Chazal. And yet we know that it is found both in the Yalkut Shimoni and the Midrash Shmuel, both of which pre-dated Christiani by many centuries. The Jewish Encyclopedia lists Abravanel as the first to quote from Yalkut Shimoni saying, “after the beginning of the 15th century, on the other hand, the work must have been disseminated in foreign countries, for it was used by Spanish scholars of the latter half of that century, Isaac Abravanel being the first to mention it.”
One might imagine that launching a diatribe against a respected Jewish scholar was to be expected of a Meshumad. However, Christiani’s hakdamah to this edition shows a complete other side of him. He writes as follows (starting from the second line with the word od):
Again, let me paraphrase: 

“I found in many places where the Rav erred in citing sayings of Chazal by saying that it was in this Masechta and it turned out to be in another one…..The reason for this might be that he relied on his memory or relied on other authors who misquoted the source. It is also possible that he did not have with him his books, as he was exiled from the land of his birth and wandered from place to place with his books being lost…as he himself laments in the foreward to this and in other works.”

Christiani is referring to Don Isaac’s life on the run. He lived in Portugal until 1483 and was forced to flee to Spain at that time leaving behind his books and his wealth. He fled Spain in 1492, again leaving everything behind. He settled in Naples and was forced to flee from there in 1495. He wrote his commentary on Yehoshua, Shoftim and Shmuel in 1483 after he had fled to Spain. He wrote his commentary on Melachim in 1493 after he had fled to Naples. Most ordinary humans would have been satisfied to just survive, but the Abarvanel did much more than that. He continued to write with or without a library, relying on an almost superhuman memory, and was truly one of the creative geniuses of commentary in Jewish history. Christiani seems to acknowledge that in his foreward, but he cannot contain himself later on from lashing out at the Abaravanel. What gives?
I mentioned before that this Leipzig edition was produced by Christians for a Christian audience. It would be helpful to find out what attracted them to Abarvanel. B.Z Netanyahu in his book “Abaravanel, Statesman and Philosopher” (fifth edition, Cornell 1998, pp.252-253) gives several reasons on what made Abarvanel popular with Christian audiences. Among them are:
1. “His lucid and colorful style was preferred to the schematic, sometime illusive language which characterized the works of other Jewish commentators.”
2. “His manysided method of discussion….was preferred….to the terseness of his predecessors..”
3. The audacity he displayed in refuting certain Jewish authorities and the objecitivity with which he treated certain Christian biblical interpretations. ( my paraphrase)
However he concludes with the following statement:

“These, however, were merely contributory causes to Abarvanel’s influence in the Christian world. The main cause from a Christian standpoint, lay not in the positive aspects of Abarvanel’s writings, but rather in their negative ones. More plainly, his influence in Christendom was due to his attack upon Christianity as a whole and its messianic doctrine in particular, and that is why it was in the religious world, even more than in the world of learning, that Abarvanel’s figure loomed large.”

It seems that what Netanyahu is describing is that the Christians had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with Abarvanel. The love portion is displayed in Christiani’s hakdamah where he makes excuses for the Abarvanel, but the hate portion comes to the fore when he digs into the Abarvanel for misquoting a source. It is almost as if he tried to control himself, but in the end, was not able to.
There was another edition of the Abarvanel printed in Hamburg in 1687. It was meant for a Jewish audience and quite clearly did not contain Christiani’s editorial note.
At the end of the seventh line starting with “u-be-pherek”, you can see that the diatribe by the Lepizig editor is missing because the Hamburg edition was copied from the first edition printed in Pesaro in 1511.
The next printed edition of the Abarvanel did not appear until 1956. The title page looks like this:
It states quite empahitically that this edition was researched and edited very carefully according to all the previous editions “by the hands of one of the resident Rabbis of Jerusalem who is great in Torah,” והכל מוגה על צד היותר טוב בעיון רב על ידי אחד הרבנים מתושבי ירושלים גדול בתורה.
This great Torah scholar was not aware that Christiani’s diatribe was written by a Meshumad, or I doubt whether he would have included it in the edition he so carefully researched!
You can see it above starting from the 8th line from the bottom.
The next edition of the Abarvanel was printed between 1989 and 1999 as one of the commnetaries in a Mikraot Gedolot. The title page looks like this:
Here too we find the offensive hagaha ( starting on the 4th line):
We finally find it missing from the latest edition which was printed in 2011. The editor of this latest edition notes that he based his edition “Al pi defus rishon, u-defusim yeshanim”, but not on any kisvei yad of the Abarvanel. Here, the editor cites Midrash Shmuel as the source. While most editions of the Midrash Shmuel do not read exactly the way it is quoted in the Abarvanel, Shlomo Buber in his Cracow 1893 edition notes that in a manuscript of the Medrash Shmuel, the last portion is found אל תקרי לאהליך אלא לאלוקיך.
Finally, I want to mention that Christiani’s edition did receive praise from a noted scholar of the 19th century. This scholar composed an entry on Abarvanel in A Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, John Kitto ed., 3rd ed., J. B. Lippincott and Co, Philadelphia, 1866.
The end of the entry speaks about which editions of Abarvanel’s various works are recommended by this scholar.
This scholar writes clearly that the best edition of the commentary on the earlier Prophets is the one printed in Leipzig in 1686 and edited by Professor Pfeiffer and F. A. Christiani. This scholar bypasses the first edition printed in Pesaro in 1511, and the Hamburg edition printed in 1687 which included the important commentary of Rabbi Yaakov Fidanque. He signed his name to this entry as C.D.G. He is better known by his full name Christian David Ginsburg, the noted 19th century scholar of the Masoretic corpus of the Tanach. He is described in the Jewish Encyclopedia in part as: “English Masoretic scholar and Christian missionary; born at Warsaw Dec. 25, 1831. He was converted in 1846, and was for a time connected with the Liverpool branch of the London Society’s Mission to the Jews, but retired in 1863, devoting himself entirely to literary work.” It seems that in many ways, he followed in the footsteps of F. A. Christiani and perhaps that is why he favored Christiani’s edition of the Abarvanel.


A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions – Part II

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A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS – PART II (Part I)
by Eli Genauer

The classic Vilna Shas, published by the firm of the Widow and Brothers Romm, was completed during the years 1880-86. It was the most complete and accurate edition of the Talmud printed until that time, containing many new Peirushim and using new sources to ensure the accuracy of text. This fact was not lost on the chief editor Shmuel Shraga Feiginsohn as he states in the famous Achris Davar at the end of Maseches Nidah.

“We did not print a Shas like every other Shas,… by copying what came before us like a monkey. We wanted to create something entirely new and to illuminate it with an entirely new light”

My purpose here is to concentrate on one small Sugya in Shas , the commentary of Rashi on it, with the accompanying diagrams in the Vilna edition. I will then show diagrams from some previous editions of the Talmud that are more illustrative and more accurate. Perhaps the reader will then conclude that there were some portions of previous editions that the Vilna Shas should have copied rather than the one that it did.

The Gemara on Yoma 11b discusses doorways that are or not required to have a Mezuzah. It then discusses one type of doorway for which there is a Machlokes between Rav Meier and the Rabbanan and that is the so called Shaar Madai. As Rashi there explains it, a Shaar Madai is a gate in the wall of a city which has within it an arched doorway (Kipah) and was used commonly in Madai. For our own purposes, think of the Shaar Yafo which is substantive structure in itself and within it is the actual doorway into the old city.

As a bit of background, for a doorway to require a Mezuza it needs to have three elements. It has to be at least four Tefachim wide on the bottom and the top, it’s side posts ( Raglayim) have to be ten tefachim high, and it has to have a lintel on top. The Gemara states that the only case of Shaar HaMadia where there is disagreement in Halacha between Rav Meier and the Rabbanan is this: The doorway starts with a width of 4 Tefachim on the bottom, each side of the doorway ( Regel) rises up straight at least 3 Tefachim so that at that point there are still 4 Tefachim between them, but then the doorway starts curving inwards, rising on each side to a height of 10 Tefachim. However, at that point, there is no longer 4 Tefachim in width between the two sides. Rav Meier says that if the gate structure( the Chomah) itself is at least 4 Tefachim wide at a height of at least 10 Tefachim, we apply the concept of “Chokekin L’Hashlim” to this case. Chokekin L’Hashlim is a Halachic concept which literally means that we “excavate to complete ( the required measurement)”.Rav Meier says that if the walls surrounding the archway are thick enough that had they been excavated, the doorway could be made 4 Tefachim wide for a height of ten Tefachim, then the doorway requires a Mezuzah. The Rabbanan disagree and say that even this type of Shaar Madai does not require a Mezuzah.

Let’s go through the Rashi: “V’Yaish B’Ragleha Shlosha” “The sides of the doorway rise up ( at least) three (Tefachim)”….still maintaining a width between them of four Tefachim….but the width between them is not four Tefachim at the height of ten Tefachim…because before the sides rise to the height of ten Tefachim, they narrow to a width of less than four Tefachim…but you can expand the emptied out space contained in the encompassing structure ( The Chomah) to the width on the bottom ( 4 Tefachim)… for the gate structure does not parallel the inner doorway like this (“Kazeh”)…rather the wall ( meaning the gate structure)is longer on top than the doorway opening like this (“Kazeh”)

There are very nice diagrams of the two possibilities mentioned by Rashi in the 1829-1831 edition of the Shas printed in Prague by Moshe Yisrael Landau, grandson of the Nodah B’Yehudah.

It is very clear from the diagrams that the first possibility mentioned by Rashi ( the one that is not referred to in the Gemara) is where both the doorway and gate structure curve inwards so that neither of them has a width of 4 Tefachim on top. The actual case discussed by the Gemara ( the second possibility of Rashi) is where the doorway curves in to be less than four Tefachim on top, but the gate structure itself retains at least the width of four Tefachim on top and is also straight on top.

Similar diagrams appear in the Lemberg small and large folio editions of 1862, and the Vienna edition of 1841. Here is what the small folio version of the Lemberg edition looks like.

Before we take a look at the diagrams presented in the Vilna Shas, let us look at these diagrams in much earlier editions so we can trace their development. The only manuscript copy of Rashi that I was able to obtain (courtesy of Dr. Ezra Chwat at Hebrew University) looks like this.

The first thing you notice is that this manuscript does not have the word “Kazeh” after the first case, rather just referring to the second case. The illustration for the second case shows a curved doorway within a rectangular structure, exactly the way we have seen it in the Prague, Vienna and Lemberg editions. This illustration also seems to indicate that the sides of the inner doorway must be at least 10 Tefachim high before curving inwards. The words “Ragleha Asarah” are inside the doorway structure making it appear that they apply to the sides of the doorway being ten Tefachim before they curve inwards. This seems to be the case where even the Rabbanan agree that a Mezuzuah is needed. The diagram goes against Rashi’s Lashon here which is “She”kodem She’Higbiah Asarah,Nisma’et Rechava Mi’Daled”.

Advancing to the printed edition, we first look at Bomberg 1521.

The Bomberg scholars must have had a Rashi manuscript which had the word “Kazeh” after both the first and second case in Rashi. However, they did not leave any room for it to be filled in by hand as in other Masechtos which have missing drawings. Here is an example of such a situation in the Bomberg Eiruvin.

Moving forward I did not find these diagrams from Yoma 11b in the Constantinople 1585 edition, the Frankfurt on Oder 1698 edition ( even though it has the diagrams from Eiruvin ), or the Amsterdam 1740 edition. I did find fairly accurate diagrams in an Amsterdam 1714 edition but I believe they were drawn in.

The first edition I found these printed diagrams in was Amsterdam 1743 from the Proops printers. Here is what it looks like.

I did not find this diagram ( maybe it is two diagrams?) very helpful in understanding what Rashi meant when he said “Kazeh”. The diagram seems almost humorous to us, but imagine how many eyes studied this diagram and tried to make sense of it.

As mentioned before, by 1831, there were very helpful diagrams in editions printed in Prague, Vienna and Lemberg. The same cannot be said of the Zhitomir edition of 1864 which looks like this.

The first diagram is not nearly as accurate as the one in the previously mentioned editions. It mainly tries to show that the structure of the gate parallels the doorway by “curving” inwards. The second diagram which resembles a tooth, shows the doorway narrowing as it extends upwards with the gate structure maintaining its rectangular shape. My opinion is if a Rashi says Kazeh, the diagram should be as helpful as possible. No one expects a sophisticated illustration but it should be something that clearly shows what Rashi meant. In this case, I think the diagram should look like a doorway within a gate or walled structure.

We finally get to the Vilna Shas. The editors of this Shas clearly had the Vienna, Prague and Lemberg editions at their disposal. They knew what these diagrams could look like. Yet their diagrams look very much like the Zhitomir edition, with a little improvement on the second diagram.

It is possible they did not have the technology to replicate the Prague 1831 edition but that seems unlikely, because in a parallel Sugya in Eiruvin 11b they have diagrams that look like this.

Maybe they had a Rashi manuscript that made the first diagram look like this ^. But even so, I think they should have tried to make things as clear as possible and the two diagrams they chose just do not do that.

Perhaps the ultimate irony in this whole Sugya is that not only may the diagrams be incorrect, but even the term “Shaar Madai” may be incorrect. The Rashash notes that in K’sav Ashuris, a Mem and a Tes look similar, and because of a Ta’us Soferim, the term Madai was used instead of the correct “Shaar Taddi”, which was a gate on the Har Habayis.




Change Has Come To Modena

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Change Has Come To Modena

By Eli Genauer

I would like to thank S. of “On The Main Line” for his assistance and insightful comments.

The Kitzur Shelah by Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein, was first published in Fürth in 1683.[1] It was not truly an abridgement of the Shnai Luchos HaBris, but rather a Sefer which stood on its own. It was used for many years by people in smaller communities as a guide for what to do at different times of the year.[2] As many know, it is reputedly the source of the actual Pesukim recommended for the custom of saying Pesukim Lishemot Anashim. [3]

I have an old copy of this Sefer (Amsterdam 1707) whose title page looks like this:

In fact, this custom of reciting a Pasuk associated with one’s name is recorded there at the very end.

Chapter 5 of Post Sabbatean Sabbatianism by Rabbi Dr. Bezalel Naor goes into the reasons why Rav Yakov Emden blacklisted this book. It is based on the Hakdamah which uses the expressions Mashiach Ha’Amiti and Y’Mot HaMashiach, which equal 814 and is also the Gematria for Shabbetai Zvi.[4] The copy I have from 1707 comes with the original quotation marks, functioning like italics, on both Mashiach Ha’Amiti and Y’mot Hamashiach. (Starting from the third line from the bottom with the word V’Yizku.)

Detail:

I was looking through the book to find the part that speaks about the Pesukim L’Shemot Anashim and found it at the very end. I was fascinated to see that immediately before the final section, Rabbi Epstein concludes his Sefer with a hope for the coming of Moshiach, and he refers to Moshiach as Nezer Rosheinu ( bottom line below).

I was curious about the words Nezer Rosheinu to describe Moshiach, and suspecting foul play, I did two things. Firstly, I wrote to Dr. Shnayer Leiman and asked him about the Kitzur Shelah and its use of the word Nezer Rosheinu. This is what Dr. Leiman answered (posted with permission).

“Briefly, Kitzur Shelah is a Sabbatian work. It is suffused with Sabbatian material, so one needn’t look for evidence just at the beginning and end. It was already identified as Sabbatian by R. Yehezkel Katznellenbogen in the first quarter of the 18th century. See also Krengil’s שם הגדולים השלם, vol. 2, p. 148, in הגהות עין חנוך, where the work is identified as Sabbatian.

נזר ראשינו (if that is the correct נוסח — one always need to check the first 3 editions; Amsterdam, 1707 is the 4th edition) is surely a reference to Sabbetai Zevi. The latter name in gematria totals 814, a sacred number for Sabbatians. נזר ראשינו adds up to 824. Either the author wrote נזר ראשנו which totals 814, and the printer misspelled it ראשינו; or, the total 824 stands for ה”ה שבתי צבי. Sabbatians regularly wrote ה”ה before his name. It is an abbreviation for המלך המשיח.

What really needs to be noted is that in a recent edition of קיצור של”ה (Ashdod, 1998), the offensive phrase has been censored and replaced.”

It appears then that Kitzur Shelah has Sabbatean allusions right from the Hakdamah ( which anyone can see for themselves by the use of Mashiach Ha’amiti, etc.) to the last lines which use the words Nezer Rosheinu. It is almost as if it is Koheles in reverse where “its beginning is words of Torah and its end is words of Torah” (Shabbat 30b).

I also did a search online putting in the words “Shabbetai Zvi” and “Nezer Rosheinu”. I got one pertinent hit and it brought up an entirely new issue. I found referenced an article from the Israeli publication HaMaayan published by Mossad Yitzchak Breuer in Tammuz of 5743 (1983).

There we find an article by Rav Yosef Yehoshua Apfel (a Dayan in Leeds, and a noted Talmid of the Seridei Eish) on Yom Kippur Kattan, where he writes about the connection between Nezer Rosheinu and Shabbetai Tzvi. Rav Apfel references the famed Siddur Avodas Yisroel printed in 1868 by Dr. Yitzchak (Seligmann) Baer:

and specifically the Piyyut Yom Zeh Yehi Mishkal Kol Chatasai, included in the Yom Kippur Kattan service which appears there.

He writes as follows

Rav Apfel is at first puzzled a bit as to why Modena would write a Piyyut for a Kabbalistic service (“Ha’Inyan Hu K’tzas Muzar”). He then tells us that Dr. Baer changed the last line of the Piyyut by exchanging the phrase “נא א-ל שלח נושא נזר ראשנו” for “נא א-ל שלח נושא הוד ראשנו”. Dr. Baer explains his reasoning for this change: because he wanted to restore the proper meter, and because he wanted to save the Piyyut from having a “Remez Passul.” Rav Apfel understands this to mean a hint of Shabbetai Zvi. Dr. Baer did this even though, as Rav Apfel writes, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh MiModena could not have been referring to Shabbetai Zvi, because the Piyyut was written around 1614, and Shabbtai Zvi was only born in 1626. Rav Apfel writes that the Nussach of “נא א-ל שלח נושא נזר ראשנו” appears in many Siddurim (בהרבה סדורים). I recently looked at many Siddurim at the Library of Congress and found this to be true, especially in ones published pre-1868.

Rav Yakov Emden, who needed little prompting to find Sabbatean allusions, did not understand this phrase as referring to Moshiach, but rather to the Kohen Gadol. This booklet contains the Yom Kippur Katan service with the commentary of Rav Yakov Emden:

The Peirush of Rav Yaakov Emden on the words “נא א-ל שלח נושא נזר ראשנו” indicates as such. “שלח לנו כהן גדול הנושא הציץ כמו נזר”.

The phrase “נא א-ל שלח נושא נזר ראשנו” is also used in the following book which is generally based on Kisvei Yad of Modena found in the Bodleian Library, although this particular Piyut is not from a Ksav Yad. [5]

(דיואן – יהודה אריה ב”ר יצחק ממודינא, courtesy of Hebrewbooks.org)

In this book, Professor Simon Bernstein takes on the change in phrase matter and writes[6]:

Probably the best proof as to what the original Nusach really was comes from a book named Seder Shomrim LaBoker printed in Cracow in 1626, only 12 years after the Piyyut was probably written.

As you can see, not only is the phrase Nosei Nezer Rosheinu used, the commentary actually explains that it refers to Moshiach and not to the Kohen Gadol (נושא נזר ראשינו הוא משיח שלו נאה נזר עטרה)!

All the many Siddurim that I looked at in the post-1868 period also have the phrase which includes the words Nezer Rosheinu. The new ArtScroll Siddur printed in August of 2010 which includes for the first time the Yom Kippur Kattan service, has the Nussach of Nezer Rosheinu. It seems that in the end, that Nussach won out. The only one I could find who used Hod Rosheinu, following Dr. Baer, was T. Carmi in the Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (1981):

I am not sure what Dr. Baer’s main reason for changing the Nussach from what seems was the normative one. Could it have mainly been the fixing of the meter and the Shabettai Zvi issue was brought along Agav Urchay?[7] He introduces his comment on his version of the text with the abbreviation כצ”ל . Does this mean that he had a written source for his version? In the introduction to his Siddur, Dr. Baer lists more than 25 post-1650 Siddurim that he consulted in the process of putting together his work. I am curious as to why he did not cite a source for this textual variation. As stated by Rav Apfel and Dr. Bernstein, it is clear that this phrase when written in 1614, did not originally refer to Shabbetai Zvi who didn’t “appear” until a few decades later. Was Dr. Baer reacting to a later development in history and changing the past to reflect the present? We have seen that quite often lately, and example of which was pointed out by Dr Shnayer Leiman above: “What really needs to be noted is that in a recent edition of קיצור של”ה (Ashdod, 1998), the offensive phrase has been censored and replaced”

[1] Encyclopedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972. Article entitled “Epstein, Jehiel Michal Ben Abraham Ha-Levi” attributed to Dr. Yehoshua Horowitz
[2] Ibid.
[3] This matter is in contention and is based on the question of when the book was first printed. S. wrote me “When was the Kitzur first published? Like the Encylopedia Judaica, many sources state that the book was first published in 1683, Steinschneider contends that it was published in 1693. He claims that this is what the chronogram on the title page adds up to. Since this is a dispute about a yud, my guess is that he is correct. The first significant bibliographer before him, Julius Fuerst (Bibliotheca Judaica v. 1 pg. 246 under Eppstein) listed the year 1683. However, shortly afterward Steinschneider cataloged the Hebrew books in the Bodleian Library and there he writes that it’s 1693. He not only bases this on the chronogram, but also on the content of the haskamos. Following him is the next significant Jewish bibliographer, Isaac Benjacob, who in his Otzar Ha-seforim (pg. 535) agrees with Steinschneider. Whether or not Benjacob saw the book, I cannot say, but Steinschneider obviously did.

“What makes this interesting is that if this is true, then the Kizur Ha-shelah was actually published three years *after* the Sefer Ben Zion, (which lists actual Pesukim Lishmot Anashim) not seven years before. This would make the Ben Zion the first to list names and pesukim [that we know of so far].”

Be that as it may, here is an excerpt from the page on Names in my Kitzur Shelah (Amsterdam 1707):

[4] What I find fascinating is that the author of the Encyclopedia Judaica article cited above, completely ignores this point. He writes “It is very doubtful that he (Rav Epstein) had any associations with the Sabbatean movement, although he was suspected of it because of the wording of a certain passage in his Siddur”.
[5] Yom Zeh Yehi Mishkal, which is printed on page 199, is not from Modena’s Divan, which evidently didn’t include this pizmon. Rather, the poem was so famous that the editor evidently thought he simply had to include it. He copied it from a Siddur, the 1845 Prague edition of Seder Tefilat Yisrael edited by Wolfgang Wessely.
[6] In the Introduction to the Divan, Bernstein also writes:

[7] S.’s conclusion was that Dr. Baer’s primary concern was grammatical. There were at least two sources prior to him which alluded to a Sabbatean suspicion about Nezer Rosheinu in Yom Zeh Yehi Mishkal (and both of them reject it as absurd). If the concern was primarily about Sabbatianism, why then didn’t he change Nezer to Keter? The answer must be that this change would not fix the problematic meter, but Hod does. Thus under the cover of removing even a “Shemetz” of a doubt, despite it not even being a real issue, he makes the change which soothes his grammarian’s soul.