Towards Decoding Ha-Yeriah Ha-Gedolah (The Great Parchment), A Cryptic 14th Century Italian Kabbalistic Text

By Ezra Brand

Ezra Brand is an independent researcher based in NYC. He has an MA from Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University in Medieval Jewish History. His main research focus is currently 13th and 14th century sefirotic Kabbalah, and he is interested in using digital and computational tools in historical research. His previous contributions to the Seforim Blog can be found here, and a selection of his academic research can be found here. He can be reached at ezrabrand-at-gmail.com; any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.^[1]

Sefirotic Kabbalah has its origins in thirteenth century Provence and Spain. It reached its apotheosis in the Zohar, which began to appear in Castile in the late thirteenth century. Kabbalistic literature started appearing in Italy soon after. Moshe Idel, in his masterly survey of kabbalah in medieval Italy, shows how “Rome was a place where Catalan Jewish culture, philosophical and kabbalistic, were already well established in the 1280s.”^[2] And further: “Thus, in one decade, approximately 1280-1290, the Jewish culture in Rome was enriched by the arrival of a variety of Jewish esoteric material: theosophical and ecstatic Kabbalah, as well as Ashkenazi esoteric material.”^[3] Idel raises the possibility that “a massive importation of kabbalistic literature took place in Italy at the very end of the thirteenth century.”^[4] Idel make programmatic statement that “a pluralistic vision of the history of Kabbalah, which entails deemphasizing the centrality of Spain in the history of Kabbalah, will help to distinguish more precisely the specific contributions of Kabbalah in Italy.”^[5]

Ha-Yeriah Ha-Gedolah (from here on: YG) is a fascinating, enigmatic work, which provides a window into this first flourishing of Italian Kabbalah. According to Giulio Busi, the academic scholar who first published YG from manuscript in 2004, “Ha-Yeri‘ah ha-Gedolah was probably written at the beginning of the 14th century by an author whose name remains unknown to us. Most likely, he was an Italian kabbalist, since all the preserved manuscripts have been copied by scribes working on the Italian peninsula.”^[6]

The first modern academic scholar to mention YG was Gershom Scholem in his 1937 list of commentaries on the Ten Sefirot. Scholem also mentioned the line-by-line commentary on YG written by the fourteenth-century Italian kabbalist Reuven Tzarfati.^[7] Scholem’s student Efraim Gottlieb, in a pioneering study on Tzarfati, discusses YG briefly.^[8]

In 2004, Giulio Busi, with Simonetta M. Bondoni and Saverio Campanini, published YG for the first time, based on the extant manuscripts.^[9] It comes out to 71 pages, with at most around 13 lines on a page.^[10] Busi gives an introduction summarizing previous research and presenting his own research on this work, and an overview of the extant manuscripts of YG and Tzarfati’s commentary. (Busi’s introduction is available online.)

Like the thirteenth-century Zoharic literature^[11] and related kabbalistic works, YG interprets biblical stories and topics in terms of the interplay between the sefirot. Busi describes it as a “forgotten masterpiece of kabbalistic literature,^[12] and as “one of the most obscure texts of the whole kabbalah”.^[13]

Even after its appearance in print, YG does not appear to have evinced very much interest, either among academic scholars or among enthusiasts of Kabbalistic literature. I am not aware of any further scholarship on this work. In a previous paper of mine, I gave an overview of some aspects of YG. Here, I’d like to revisit this enigmatic work, provide some suggestions for a way forward in decoding it, and hopefully spur further interest and research.^[14]

YG is set up as work made up of sixteen “Sections” (sippurim).^[15] Busi describes YG as “a booklet of a few extremely dense and symbolic pages.”^[16] He further writes: “There is no doubt, however, that the Great Parchment is one of the most obscure texts of the whole kabbalah.”^[17] Busi in his introduction gives an overview of each story based on Tzarfati’s commentary, prefacing: “Obviously, there is no guarantee that Sarfatti’s exegesis always reflects the thought of the unknown author of the work. Nevertheless, the detailed analysis of this early commentator represents the only starting point we possess with which to explore this still unknown chapter of late medieval kabbalah.”

I would claim that Busi overstates the obscurity of this work. I would like to point out a few aspects of YG that would aid in making progress in decoding this fascinating work.

Indexing Sefirotic Correspondences

Busi writes: “Apparently rebelling against the laws of meaning, [YG] is striking for its capacity to evoke waves of esoteric implications without ever mentioning directly the kabbalistic secrets.”^[18] And further: “The key is offered by a scheme of correspondences that the author never enunciates openly but the reader must be aware of”.^[19]

Again, I believe that this is somewhat overstated. Admittedly, the overarching narrative of the sections is often unclear.  The work is dense with biblical and Talmudic quotations and allusions, and written in a kind of associative, stream-of-consciousness style, making the overall narrative difficult to untangle. There are often what appear to be throwaway lines that don’t seem to be relevant in context. As I mention below, it may be that the author was simply writing with stream-of-consciousness, and never intended every line to have a deeper meaning. In any case, YG is by no means the only esoteric work to have been composed in a purposefully enigmatic style.

With all this in mind, the fact is that throughout the work, YG explicitly mentions sefirotic correspondences. Unlike the Zoharic literature, YG is replete with explicit usage of the standard terms for the ten sefirot. The Temple is a clear theme throughout (see below), and YG explicitly indexes the one-to-one correspondences between ten items in the Temple and the ten sefirot, using the sefirot’s standard names.^[20] Another explication of symbols can be found in YG’s discussion of Ezekiel’s Vision of the Chariot, where the correspondence of the Four Faces with specific angels, cardinal directions, and sefirot are given, again using the sefirot’s standard names.^[21]

Certain terms are used consistently for Evil (or closeness to Evil) throughout, such as Sha’atnez, Woman, Snake, Calf, Donkey, Limping Thigh, Mixture.^[22] Specific terms recur with presumably consistent sefirotic equivalences, such as Ruth and Upper Pool.^[23]

Even if YG never explicitly defines the meaning of a symbol, comparison with other thirteenth- and fourteenth-century works should allow for fairly certain elucidation.^[24]

Close Commentary of Biblical Texts or Specific Topics

In many sections, YG very closely hews to biblical texts, quoting the biblical words and performing an extremely close interpretation, sometimes phrase-by-phrase, or even word-by-word. Busi’s edition does a tremendous service by italicizing the biblical quotes, but many quotes fall through the cracks and are not italicized. YG is often written in a way that only a single word is added to biblical text, or a biblical word is paraphrased, the order of words is switched, words are skipped words, or a pastiche between two biblical verses is made. These techniques presumably impart meaning. Closely separating the biblical quotes from YG’s additions or paraphrase helps clarify what exactly YG is attempting to convey.

Even when YG is not closely interpreting a biblical text line-by-line, the topic is often still clearly defined.

By comparing how other thirteenth- and fourteenth-century kabbalistic works interpret these biblical stories and topics, it is likely that much light would be shed on the discourses of YG.

Please see the appendix of this article for a chart comparing YG’s Sections with corresponding biblical stories or topics.

Word Associations

A striking aspect of YG is the continuous flow of writing, using word associations and wordplay. This is true both in terms of how it interprets biblical verses, as well as how it segues into new topics seemingly based on linguistic similarities alone. This interest in wordplay likely ties in to the ideas of “Linguistic Kabbalah,” which were influenced by Abraham Abulafia.^[25] As mentioned earlier, YG was most likely written by an Italian kabbalist at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a time when Abulafia’s influence was strongly felt.

Some particularly notable examples of this can be found in Section 7, which is devoted to Jacob/Tiferet. I’ll adduce one example from there, a riff on the word “Tiferet” (my underlines, italics of biblical verses and biblical citations in Busi’s original, with small changes in punctuation where it seems appropriate):^[26]

ועל כן לא יאכלו בני ישראל את גיד הנשה [בראשית לב לג]. לא יכרתו החוט הבא עליהם בשפע אמיתי, הנשה שלא ישכחו התורה, הה״ד ישראל לא תנשני [ישעיה מד כא]. והחוט הוא הוא״ו הנאצלת על תפארת הה״ד <ישראל> אשר בך אתפאר [ישעיה מט ג] ולקדוש ישראל כי פארך [ישעיה ס ט] זה ואלהי יעקב.^[27] אפריון עשה לו המלך שלמה מעצי הלבנון [שיר השירים ג ט]. ובית תפארתי אפאר [ישעיה ס ז]. ועם כל זה לא תפאר אחריך [דברים כד כ] בעשרה היניקות היונקות ונאצלות מן הקו האמצעי קדוש ונורא [תהלים קיא ט]. כי תחלת העשרה הוא השם הגדול א׳^[28]. על כן <לא> תסיר האצילות מהם. אם הם שפלים (אם) בעיניך, פאר הראש הם וגדולים, כי בן בג בג עומד על גבה. 

The overall message of this passage is fairly clear: First, the author closely interprets the verse in Genesis as saying that Jews should not block the flow (YG interprets “gid” to mean “chut”), and should not forget the Torah (interpreting the next word “hanashe” to mean “forgetting”, using the verse in Isaiah to show that “hanashe” can mean forgetting^[29]).

The passage then clearly begins to riff on the root “Pe’er,” which is the root of the word Tiferet, the sefirah under discussion in this Section. YG brings quotes which use “Pe’er” in five different ways (התפאר, פאר, אפריון, תפארת, פיאר). The passage is saying not to “remove” the ten sefirot which emanate from Tiferet,^[30] since the beginning of the ten sefirot are Keter. It may very well be that the individual verses do not add an additional mystical meaning, and the author is simply reveling in adducing additional verses with the same root.

Post-Biblical Sources

As mentioned, YG is dense not just with biblical quotes and allusions, but also with quotes of and allusions to Talmud, Midrash, and other medieval sources.^[31]

YG mentions the messianic figures of Menachem ben Amiel and Nehemiah ben Hushiel,^[32] who appear in early medieval works, such as the apocalyptic Sefer Zerubavel and Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer.

YG supports an idea with a quote that seems to be an adage that was popular among medieval Jewish authors:^[33]

״הה״ד אשרי המדבר באוזן שומעת״

The first source that I could find for this adage is Ramban in his early work Milhamot Hashem, at the end of a long piece, where he lyrically writes that a certain opinion is correct:^[34]

״והדברים מודיעים שכולם נכוחים למבין וישרים למוצאי דעת ואשרי המדבר לאוזן השומעת״

It therefore seems clear that YG’s ״באוזן״ should correctly be ״לאוזן״ as the Munich manuscript has it.^[35] Soon after Ramban, this saying is used by Meiri and Sefer HaHinuch in a similar way: As an exhortation at the end of passage, and certainly not as a quote.^[36]

Some Greek philosophical concepts are mentioned in YG, such as the Five Senses and the tripartite soul.^[37]

A sampling of interesting scientific statements made by YG: “Water is good at all times and for all living creatures, which is not the case for other liquids”. ^[38] “The dove has no gallbladder.”^[39]

While discussing YG’s sources and quotations, I can’t help but discuss a fascinating passage found in the discussion on the Sotah:^[40]

״מה שאמרו ז״ל סוטה לא הייתה ולא נבראת, ר״ל במעשה מפורסם, ואם תאמר המעשה שמביאין שאשה אחת שתתה מי סוטה בחילוף אחותה ולא הזיקו לה ואחרי כן <באה> אצל אחותה ונקשה ומן הריח מיד <וצבתה> בטנה ונפלה ירכה [במדבר ה כז] כי היא הייתה טמאה, זה סיוע לדברינו, ורצו באומרם [זה המעשה]^[41] כי כל הדיעות^[42] חוצבו ממקום אחד ואדם אחד ישיג השגת <העדן ואדם אחד ישיג השגת> גיהנם.״

YG starts off with a(n allegedly) rabbinic quote which makes the shocking statement that the Sotah ritual never actually happened. The quote is cryptically explained by YG to mean “במעשה המפורסם”, presumably meaning that in fact the Sotah ritual occurred, but that there was never a “famous” (or “publicly-known” or “well-known”) case.^[43] YG then continues that if you may question this explanation on the basis of “a story which is brought” (״ואם תאמר המעשה שמביאין״). The story appears as described in more than one Midrashic source.^[44] For convenience, I’ll quote the Midrash Tanhuma’s rendition with the online Sefaria translation:

“[There is] a story about two sisters who resembled each other. Now one was married in one city and the other was married in another city. The husband of one of them wanted to accuse her of infidelity and have her drink the bitter water in Jerusalem. She went to that city where her married sister was. Her sister said to her, “What was your reason for coming here?” She said to her, “My husband wants to have me drink [the bitter water].” Her sister said to her, “I will go in your place and drink it.” She said to her, “Go.” She put on her sister’s clothes, went in her place, drank the bitter water, and was found clean. When she returned to her sister’s house, she joyfully went out to meet her, then embraced and kissed her on the mouth. As soon as the one kissed the other, she smelled the bitter water and immediately died, in order to fulfill what is stated (in Eccl. 8:8), “No human has control over the wind to contain the wind, nor is there control on the day of death […].”

YG goes on to say that on the contrary, this story actually supports his explanation (״זה סיוע לדברינו״). It is likely that what YG means is that since in the story of the two sisters the actual death of the sister occurred in private, it was not a publicly-known case.^[45]

YG next says the story of the two sisters can be understood allegorically to mean that all “knowledge” (or “evil”) comes from one place. In other words, the story of the Sotah water being passed from the innocent sister to the guilty sister should be understood allegorically. The Sotah water has inherent power, but the power that it has really depends on the person imbibing it. The innocent sister was unharmed by the Sotah water, but when it reached her unfaithful sister, it had an effect. In the same way, all knowledge starts off the same, but whether this knowledge is reified as good or evil depends on the person comprehending the knowledge.

I could not find any source for YG’s quote that “סוטה לא הייתה ולא נבראת”. YG prefaces the quote with ״ומה שאמרו ז״ל״, which generally means that it’s a quote from the Talmud or Midrash.  The Talmud Bavli in Sanhedrin 71a uses the formulation “לא היה ולא נברא” regarding the Wayward Son and City of Idol Worshippers (בן סורר ומורה ועיר הנידחת), but not about Sotah.

Ishay Rosen-Zvi made this very same claim from a critical historical perspective in his 2008 book (based on his doctoral dissertation), that the Sotah ritual never actually happened and was essentially a purely theoretical law.^[46] Meir Bar-Ilan harshly criticized Rozen-Zvi’s thesis, in a review article called “Between False Reality and Fictional History”, available on his homepage here.^[47] Bar-Ilan admits that there are instances where even the Talmudic rabbis said that a biblical story or a biblical ritual never actually occurred, but he believes that Sotah is not one of these cases. It would be interesting to discover additional traditional sources that state that the Sotah ritual (or “Sotah ordeal”, as Bar-Ilan believes is the more accurate appellation) never actually took place.

Let me point to another case of YG claiming that a story recounted in an authoritative text was not an actual historical event. This time, shockingly, it is regarding the Sacrifice of Isaac, where YG claims that this was a dream:^[48]

“שעשה חסד לעקוד את יצחק בנו להיות זריז על מצות המלך שעקדת יצחק חלום היה ולא דבר אחר”.

 Marc Shapiro in his book Changing the Immutable cites other medieval sources (including possibly Maimonides) which also say that the Sacrifice of Isaac never happened, and shows how this idea was considered so problematic by a later printer of Moreh Nevuchim that it was censored out of the Ephodi commentary.^[49]

In any case, the two parts of the statement would seem to contradict each other : If YG assumes that the Akedah was only a dream, then what was the great “kindness” (״חסד״) to offer up Isaac? It is very likely that this line in YG needs to be read sefirotically: Isaac is a common reference to Gevurah while Abraham is a reference to Hesed. The Akeda is being read as an amelioration of Gevurah by Hesed. If this is true, the meaning of this line in YG is as follows: Since the Akedah was a dream, and not a historical event, we cannot explain the story in a straightforward way, for example as illustrating Abraham’s submission to God’s will. Rather, it must be understood sefirotically, as illustrating the interplay of Gevuah and Hesed.^[50]

Temple Vessels and Rituals

Many of the of biblical sections interpreted by YG, as well as topics discussed, relate to the Temple. As I mentioned earlier, YG clearly indexes the correspondences between items in the Temple and the sefirot.^[51] A majority of the Sections begin with an item from the Temple. The Scapegoat, sent into the desert by the High Priest on Yom Kippur as part of the Yom Kippur Temple service, is a recurring symbol of evil in YG.^[52] Most of Section 11 is an extended discussion of the Candelabrum, in turn interpreting the verses relating to the Candelabrum in Zachariah, Ezekiel, and the Pentateuch. The entireties of Sections 14 and 15 are devoted to verse-by-verse interpretations of the Bible verses on the Sotah and the Red Heifer, respectively. Both of these rituals were performed at, or at least near, the Temple.

Conclusion

YG is an early, fascinating, and cryptic work. I have attempted in this article to give an overview of some themes of the work, as well as some fascinating statements that I could not find elsewhere. I am hoping that someone will take upon themselves to publish Reuven Tzarfati’s commentary in some form, which should greatly further progress in understanding YG.^[53]

Appendix

Breakdown by Section of Interpretation of Biblical Texts or Topics

^[1] I would like to thank Binyamin Goldstein and my father  for looking over a draft of this article and making very helpful comments and corrections.

^[2] Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 1280-1510: A Survey, pg. 99.

^[3] Idel, pg. 102.

^[4] Idel, pg. 111.

^[5] Pg. 113.

^[6] Pg. 23.

^[7] For more on Tzarfati, see Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, pp. 148-150, and index.

^[8] In Efraim Gottlieb, Studies in the Kabbala Literature (Hebrew), ed. J. Hacker (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1976).

^[9] Busi’s book includes Flavius Mithridates’s Latin translation of YG, which Mithridates had prepared for the well-known fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Busi also includes an English translation of the Latin.

^[10] The actual text of YG is pp. 119-191.

^[11] I use “Zoharic literature” to mean “The Zohar”, as is now common in academic scholarship.

^[12] The Great Parchment. Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version, Edited by Giulio Busi with Simonetta M. Bondoni and Saverio Campanini, Turin, Nino Aragno Editore, 2004, pp. 21, 28.

^[13] Pg. 29.

^[14] I still have not had a chance to study Tzarfati’s full commentary to YG. Busi says he has a transcription of it (pg. 29, footnote 19). Unfortunately I could not get access to this transcription. A few manuscripts of Tzarfati’s commentary are available through National Library of Israel’s Ketiv website. I read through a few pages of the commentary in Moscow RSL 134, which had the advantage of being available for download (the manuscript pages on Ketiv’s online reader load very slowly, and often buffer endlessly and don’t load at all).

I was excited to discover a new automated tool being developed for transcribing Hebrew manuscripts, which launched a few months ago, called Tikkoun Sofrim:  https://tikkoun-sofrim.firebaseapp.com/en. I read their documentation and contributed a few lines to each of the two manuscripts they have up, and I was quite impressed. I look forward to being able to use the tool to assist in transcribing additional manuscripts.

^[15] Although YG is called in some manuscripts “Iggeret Sippurim”, “sippurim” in this context likely means “sections”, as pointed out by Gottlieb. This is because there are no “stories” per se being told. For this reason I use the term “Sections” for YG’s “sippurim”, contra Busi who uses the term “Tales” to describe the Sections. That YG doesn’t contain any literal tales is in contrast to the Zoharic literature, where kabbalistic and midrashic interpretations are generally framed within tales of R’ Shimon bar Yochai and his circle. For a recent comprehensive study of this important aspect of the Zohar, see Eitan Fishbane’s, The Art of Mystical Narrative: A Poetics of the Zohar, Oxford University Press, 2018.

^[16] Pg. 21.

^[17] Pg. 29.

^[18] Pg. 28

^[19] Pg. 29.

^[20] Pg. 163, beginning of Section 11.

^[21] Pg. 169. The correspondences there are not completely clear to me, as mixed in with the standard names for sefirot are other superlatives, and it’s not completely clear to me how to punctuate the text. The sefirot seem to be grouped there into four parts as follows: 1) Keter; 2) Tiferet, Chochma, Bina; 3) Shechina (=Malchut); Gedulah (=Chessed), Gevurah; Netzach; 4) Hod, Yesod.

As an aside, I want to point out another confusing detail in this passage :

״וצורת אדם גבריאל ד׳ אלפין מרוח ימה.״

It would appear that רוח ימה in this context actually means East, and not West as it typically does. This is for two reasons: First of all, on pg. 183 YG states explicitly that צורת אדם corresponds with East. In addition, it is clear that it is actually צורת שור that corresponds to West, as it says in the continuation of pg. 169, as well as on pg. 183.

^[22] שעטנז, אשה (חוה), נחש, עגל (הזהב), חמור, ירך צולע, ערב.

^[23] רות, בריכה עליונה.

^[24] Eliyahu Peretz’s index of sefirot of selected thirteenth- and fourteenth-century kabbalistic works is especially useful in this respect: E. Peretz, Ma’alot ha-Zohar, Jerusalem 1987. I would like to thank Dr. Daniel Matt for bringing this work to my attention.

^[25] For more on this, see my previous article on YG, as well as my article “Joseph Gikatilla’s “Hasagot on the Moreh”: A Linguistic Kabbalist Reads Moreh Nevuchim”, which can be found here.

^[26] Pg. 144. Another very interesting illustrative example can be found earlier in that page, where one of the words in the association is not explicit:

״ואשרי המחכה ויגיע [דניאל יב יב] לקץ הימין, בזמן שהם עושים רצון השלשלת העליונה, ולא לקץ השמאל, הצולעה שנשמט מירך יעקב, ולא מישראל כי שרה עם אלהים, שאמר <גרש> האמה <הזאת> ואת בנה [בראשית כא י]״.

It seems clear that the connection being made is due to the wordplay of the homonyms spelled שרה, in the two verses, which is explicitly quoted in the first verse (where it means “struggled”), and implicit in the second verse (where “Sarah” is the speaker). Incidentally, this is an example of the word “Limping” being used a symbol for Evil, “Limping” being a common symbol in YG for Evil.

^[27] “Velohei Yaakov” seems to be a reference to a biblical phrase, which appears three times in the Bible. See Mithradates’ translation (pg. 216). It is unclear to me if Mithradates’ interpretation is correct.

^[28] This letter most likely is a shortening of “Akatriel,” which is used throughout the work to mean Keter.

^[29]  This may also be a play on “Yisrael” used in the verse in Isaiah, which can also mean Jacob.

^[30] The idea of each sefirah having its own secondary emanation of ten sefirot emanating from it, is a theme of YG, as Busi mentions in his introduction.

^[31] Busi’s edition does give those sources a handful of times, but mostly does not, even when a source is explicitly being quoted.

^[32] Pg. 165.

^[33] Pg. 133.

^[34] Milhamot Hashem on Rif Shabbat 12a, last line.

^[35] Apparatus fn. 184.

^[36] Meiri in his commentary to Bavli Berahot 3b s.v. “לעולם” (last line); Sefer HaHinuch, Parshat Va’ethanan, Mitzvah  419, s.v. “ומה שאמרו”. In subsequent generations, the adage is almost exclusively formulated in a more biblical style, as ״אשרי המדבר על אוזן שומעת״, on the pattern of Proverbs 25:12. It is formulated this way already by Meiri in his Magen Avot, Topic 1, s.v. ״ואף בשאלתות״ (last line).

^[37] Pg. 187. The manuscript on which the text is based only has two parts of the soul, but the apparatus in fn. 1025 says that the JTS manuscript has all three parts written.

^[38] Pg. 187: ״המים טובים בכל זמן ולכל בעלי חיים, מה שאין כן בשאר משקים״.

^[39] Pg. 141: ״ועל כן היונה אין לה מרה״. I also found this, using a search, in the Rashba (in his commentary on Bavli Hulin 42a s.v. “kol”) and in other medieval works.

^[40] Pg. 180.

^[41] This word is added in a MS, according to the apparatus.

^[42] According to the apparatus, one MS has “הרעות” in place of “הדיעות”, which may be the more correct version, based on the context.

^[43] See my footnote below for a discussion of this explanation and how to parse the whole passage of YG.

^[44] This story appears in Midrash Tanhuma parshat Naso (on one of the Sotah verses – Numbers 5:12),  §10 in the Buber edition, and §6 in the regular version, and in Bamidbar Rabbah (on that same verse) 9:9. As an aside, the story is also referenced by Rashi in his commentary on Numbers 5:13.

^[45] I would like to thank Binyamin Goldstein for clarifying this for me. Admittedly, the flow of the passage is confusing, with first stating the story as a question, and then suddenly saying that it’s in fact support.

^[46] Rosen-Zvi, The Rite that Was Not: Temple, Midrash and Gender in Tractate Sotah, Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008 (Hebrew).

^[47] Pp. 12-19. (See there pp.19-22 for an interesting discussion about the authenticity of Mishnaic descriptions of the Yom Kippur service in the Temple and the Red Heifer.) Bar-Ilan there in a footnote (fn. 42) points out that another scholar previously posited in her 1984 book that the Sotah ritual never happened and is totally theoretical.

I’d like to point out what appears to be a clear error made by Rozen-Zvi, not pointed out by Bar-Ilan (even though Bar-Ilan, pg. 13, quotes this passage in Rozen-Zvi verbatim). Rozen-Tzvi remarks, pg. 156, in reference to a story about a Sotah in the Mishnah in Eduyot 5:6 (parentheses and exclamation mark in the original):

״זוהי העדות היחידה (בכלל, לא רק בספרות חז״ל!) שנותרה על מאורע מסוים של השקיית סוטה בתקופת הבית.״

The Midrashic story quoted by YG is at least one instance of exactly such a textual witness. (As to whether the Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah and the Tanhuma are within the bounds of “Hazalic literature” is a separate discussion, but Rozen-Zvi explicitly adds there’s no such witness even outside of Hazalic/Talmudic literature.)

^[48] Pg. 138.

^[49] Shapiro, Changing the Immutable, pp. 67-73. I’d like to thank Marc Shapiro for telling me about this by email a few years ago, before Changing the Immutable was published.

^[50] I would like to thank Marc Shapiro and Jonathan Dauber for their insightful comments on this passage, when I was writing my first paper on this topic.

^[51] Pg. 163, beginning of Section # 11.

^[52] See especially the lines at the end of Section #11 (pp. 169-170):

״ושעיר המשתלח הפך המנורה. שמים חשך לאור ואור לחשך [ישעיהו ה כ], הה״ד בפיו ובשפתיו כבדוני ולבו רחוק ממני ותהי יראתם אותי מצות אנשים מלומדה [ישעיהו כט יג]. ושעיר המשתלח היה מעור סמאל. והמשלח את השעיר [לעזאזל] יכבס בגדיו [ויקרא טז כו].״

It is possible that עור סמאל is a play on אור, mentioned earlier in the section quoted,  as עור being the opposite of אור is a common idea in Kabbalah. In general, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the relevant well-known comment of the Ramban in his commentary on the biblical verse of the Scapegoat, where he makes the surprising comment that sending the Scapegoat to the desert is intended as a way to appease the forces of evil.

^[53] Reuven Tzarfati is an important Kabbalist in his own right, whose works deserve further study, according to Moshe Idel, one of the pre-eminent scholars of kabbalah. See Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 1280-1510: A Survey, pp. 148.

I would like to thank Eliezer Brodt for reviewing this article and discussing it with me, and my father for editing this article.

Some time ago there was a discussion in cyberspace regarding whether the Avos kept all of the mitzvos. The discussion was started when a video on Youtube made fun of the idea, and a response to the video was published on the Hirhurim blog (here), as well as counter-response (here). I’d like to discuss some of the basic issues involved.

The Mishnah at the end of Kiddushin says that Avraham kept the whole Torah.[1] The Rambam (Hil. Melachim 9:1) brings down the mitzvos that each of the Avos innovated. Many laws are learned from the stories in Bereishis even though they happened before the giving of the Torah.[2]

However, Chazal do not discuss any of the questions arising from the statement that the Avos “kept the Torah.”[3] Here and there, the commentators discussed some of the more obvious questions. For example, the Ramban in his commentary on the Torah (Gen. 26:5) famously asks how Ya’akov could have married two sisters, something prohibited by the Torah. This question in particular seemed to have intrigued many commentators.

The later commentators discussed whether the Avos and their children had the status of Jews or non-Jews, since they lived before Matan Torah. This question is discussed extensively by the author of the Mishneh L’melech in his sefer P’rashas D’rachim. Later, this was discussed at length by R’ Yosef Engel in the first volume of the encyclopedia he started to write, called Beis Ha’otzar, under the entry “Avos.” An interesting question that was first posed by R’ Pinchas Horowitz, one of the rebbeim of the Chasam Sofer, in his commentary on the Torah, Panim Yafos, is the following: According to the opinion that the Avos were inherently non-Jews, how could they keep the whole Torah, which includes keeping Shabbos? We know that a non-Jew is prohibited from keeping Shabbos, so what did they do? Many ingenious answers are given to this question.[4]

A few hundred years ago, a popular method of learning was the “pilpul” method. In short, this method consisted of explaining difficult passages in the Gemara by connecting the passage under discussion with other seemingly unconnected passages of Gemara in other places. This style was not limited to Gemara, but was also used when explaining the Chumash. This method was attacked by R’ Yair Chaim Bachrach, author of the Chavos Yair, as well as by others.[5] In any case, in these seforim pilpul was used to answer questions on the Avos’s actions.[6] To quote the Encyclopedia Judaica (1st edition, Volume 13, entry “Pilpul,” pg. 527): “Criticism was much more lenient regarding the application of pilpul to the exposition of the Bible and the homiletic literature, since this was considered irrelevant to a true understanding of halakhah. Consequentially, popular preachers used to strain their imagination by adducing the most complicated talmudic passages and controversies in order to throw new light on a story from the Bible or the Midrash.”

In the past 150 years, literature on the attempted synthesis of the Torah Shebichsav (Written Torah) and the Torah Shebal Peh (Oral Torah) has exploded. This literature was meant to show that the explanations of Chazal, Torah Shebaal Peh, are in truth hinted to in the Torah Shebichsav itself. Originally, the reason for this was the attacks of the maskilim on the tradition of Torah Shebaal Peh. This led to the commentaries of R’ Shamshon Rephael Hirsch, the Malbim, the sefer Haksav V’Hakabbalah, and the sefer Meshech Chochma. In addition, many anthologies of the words of Chazal regarding the written Torah were collected and put in the order of the Torah. Examples of this include the sefer Torah Temimah, as well as the still-incomplete Torah Shleimah. [7]

However, these commentaries, in their comments on Sefer Bereishis, do not systematically try to harmonize the actions of the Avos with the accepted halachah.[8] This is somewhat surprising, since the point of their commentaries is to harmonize the Torah Shebichsav with the Torah Shebaal Peh, and this would seem to be a part of that job description.

With the contemporary stress in the yeshivos on the learning of Gemara to the exclusion of almost everything else (excluding perhaps mussar seforim), and the great stress on “lomdus”, some recent seforim have followed the trend of harmonizing Torah Shebichsav with Torah Shebaal Peh to the extreme. (Lomdus is an expression used in yeshivos to refer to the Brisk analytic-style of identifying and analyzing concepts. The Yiddish term reid is also used to mean the same thing.) These modern seforim will treat the possuk like a piece of Gemara, ignoring possible theological or philological explanations, and only answer using lomdus. This lomdus can be taken to such extremes that it is often very similar to the pilpul commentaries on the Torah of the 17th century. These seforim basically spend a long time trying to answer a question in any possible way, without trying to actually fit the explanation into the passuk in any way.

The sefer Chavatzeles Hasharon by R’ Mordechai Carlebach (on Bereishis, Yerushalayim 5765) is the most popular of this genre. This sefer essentially contains essays of lomdus based on the parshah, including many questions on the halachic acceptability of the Avos’s actions. Even more recently, the sefer Arugas Habosem by R’ Menachem Ben Yakov (on Bereishis and Shemos, Yerushalayim 5772) is almost an exact copy of Chavatzeles Hasharon, not only in content but also in the physical layout. A sefer by a nephew of R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, R’ Baruch Rakovski, called Birchas Avos (Yerushalayim 5750), is completely devoted to questions on the Avos’s actions, as is the sefer Mili D’Avos (by R’ Shmuel Yaffah, Lakewood 5770).

Recently, seforim which collect divrei torah on the parshah from different sources have gained popularity.[9] One of the first of this genre is the Pardes Yosef (by R’ Yosef Pazanavski, incomplete, Bereishis, Piotrkow 5690, Shmos and Vayikra, Lodz 5697).[10] This was followed many years later by R’ Yisachar Rubin’s very popular Talelei Oros (10 volumes, Bnei Brak 5753-5757). Another sefer of this genre is K’motzei Shallal Rav, which collects divrei torah on the parshah from places one would normally not expect to find them, such as in introductions to a halachic works. Since these divrei torah are in the context of a halachic work, many times they are very halachically oriented. Hence, these divrei torah also fall into the category of trying to synthesize. Pilpula Charifta, by R’ Natan Margolis (on Bereshis, volume 1, Yerushalayim 5755, volume 2, Yerushalayim 5750), also collects divrei torah in the same manner.

Are these kinds of explanations part of the “Seventy Faces of Torah”? Do the authors of these explanations themselves think there is any truth to the explanations they are presenting? The author of the Klei Chemda writes in his introduction that much of what he wrote in the sefer is “לחדודי בעלמא”, to sharpen the mind. This idea comes from the Gemara, which says that sometimes teachers who say a false din in order to get their students thinking, and ultimately to correct them.[11]

I think that a similar question has to be asked on many Chassidic explanations, as well as the common “vort.” Did the authors of these explanations really think this was a possible explanation of the text? I think not. In fact, many times authors will write that their explanation is “בדרך צחות”. So why do they bother writing them? There are two possible explanations. First of all, even if the explanation is not true, the parts leading up to it are. (Assuming there is more than one part to the explanation.) The vort is a fun way to teach people the intermediate parts. In addition, they will be able to remember the intermediate parts more easily, since they are logically connected to an interesting end.[12] A second possible explanation for why the authors wrote such explanations is that there is an underlying moral message (assuming there is an underlying moral message). As with the first explanation, the vort is an enjoyable, and therefore effective, way of getting across a moral lesson.

Would a Chassidic Rebbe admit that his “Toyreh” is not the true explanation of the verse? That is a question that I cannot answer.[13]

[1] also Yoma 28b; Yerushalmi Kiddushin Perek 2 Halacha 12; Vayikra Rabbah 50:10; Tanchuma Lech L’cha 11; and many more places. See Encylopedia Talmudit, Volume 1, entry “אבות”, pg. 36-37.

[2] See Encylopedia Talmudit, Volume 1, entry “אין למדין מקודם מתן תורה”, pg. 635ff. However, see the Encyclopedia Talmudit ibid. that quotes the Yerushalmi that says that we don’t learn laws from stories of events that happened before the giving of the Torah. See Encyclopedia Talmudit ibid. for various attempted explanations.

[3] See Sanhedrin 58b where the Gemara discusses some of the marriages of the Avos in the context of discussing the laws of incest for b’nei no’ach. However, the laws of b’nei no’ach are far less than what a Jew must keep. The Gemara in Yoma (referenced in note 1) says that Avraham even kept rabbinically mandated laws.

[4] Regarding all this see Encyclopedia Talmudit referenced in note 1. See also Maharatz Chayes in Toras Hanevi’im, Chapter 11, pg. 63-72; Nefesh Hachaim, Sha’ar 1, Chapter 21; Leket Yosef (available here); Steven Wilf, The Law Before The Law, Lexington Books, 2008 (here).

[5] R’ Bachrach attacked the pilpul method in Shu”t Chavos Ya’ir, siman 123, and at length in an unpublished sefer of his called Ya’ir Nesiv. Parts of it were published by Jellenik in the journal Bikurim, Vienna 5624, pg. 4. Pilpul was also attacked by the Maharal and the Shelah. See also the ostensibly anonymous K’sav Yosher, published in 5544, pg. 9b, (here). It’s author was Saul Berlin of Besomim Rosh infamy.

[6] I’d like to point out at this point that much of what I will write also applies to the Jews after matan torah. There are many questions on how their actions fit with the commonly accepted halacha. However, I am mainly focusing here on the actions of the Avos. As for the actions of the Bnei Yisroel after matan torah, the Gemara discusses these questions in many places. Many times the answer of the Gemara is that the action was a hora’as sha’ah, i.e. a temporary waiver of the prohibition. See at length Encyclopedia Talmudit, Volume 8, entry “הוראת שעה”. R’ Yitzchok Halevy in his monumental Doros Harishonim, in the volume discussing Tanach and aimed at refuting the Bible Critics, tries to answer many of the questions of the maskilim on the Torah Shebaal Peh based on Tanach. Another sefer that I am aware of that discusses these questions is the commentary Mussar Hanevi’im, on Nevi’im Rishonim (by R’ Yehuda Leib Ginzburg, Volume 1, St. Louis 5705, Volume 2, Yerushalayim 5736, available here and here).

[7] Interestingly, a hundred years before the publishing of the Torah Temimah, R’ Dov Ber Treves, who was on the beis din of Vilna at the time of the Gra, also wrote a commentary on the Torah bringing down many of the saying of the Gemara in order of the Torah. In fact, the Torah Temimah was accused of plagiarizing from the Revid Hazahav. Another little known work of this sort is the Be’er Heiteiv (Vayikra, Vilna 5627), available here. The Chazon Ish writes on this workוראיתי להגאון האדיר ר’ אריה ממינסק בספרו באר היטב… (חזון איש, קדשים ס’ כו אות טז).

[8] They do, however, discuss these questions in many places, especially the Meshech Chochma. The Netziv in his commentary on the Torah, Ha’amek Davar, also incorporates much from Torah Sheba’al Peh, and answers questions on the Avos’s actions.

[9] There is a similar phenomenon of seforim collecting the different explanations of the commentators on the Talmud, such as Machon Yerushalayim’s Otzar Mefarshei HaTalmud, Frankel’s Mafte’ach, and many others.

[10] For a description of the Pardes Yosef, see an earlier post on the Seforim Blog here.

[11] Eiruvin 13a, and other places. This is one of the contexts in which it is permitted to lie. See R’ Yosef Chaim, Shu”t Torah Lishmah, siman 364, Yerushalayim 5736, pg. 250 s.v. ובגמרא דעירובין. R’ Yosef Chaim in that response collects all the places in which it is permitted to lie. Contrary to popular belief, it permitted to lie in far more than the three places the Gemara in Bava Metzia 23b says. One of the most surprising cases in which it is permitted to lie, is the following: If a person knows that a certain halacha is true, but because of his low standing in people’s eyes, when he says it, it will not be accepted, he is permitted to say that a certain gadol said that halacha, even if that gadol never said such a thing! See at least four examples of this in Torah Lishmah there (pg. 250, s.v. ובגמרא דשבת; ibid. s.v. עוד שם בדף נא; pg. 251. s.v. ובגמרא דפסחים; pg. 252, s.v. עוד שם בדף כ. This would seem to cause problems for the mesorah of Torah Shebaal Peh, and was in fact one of the maskilim’s questions on the veracity of the mesorah. See I.H. Weiss, Dor Dor V’Dorshov, Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 4.

[12] This is similar to what the Rambam writes in the introduction to his Peirush Hamishnah (Mossad HaRav Kook edition pg. 10) regarding asmachtos. He writes that the Gemara never intended to to say that asmachtos are true explanations of the verse. Rather, the asmachta is a formula to help people remember the halacha, as in the times of Chazal it was prohibited to write Torah Shebaal Peh. This view is atacked harshly by the Ritva, Rosh Hashonoh 17a. See Encyclopedia Talmudit, Volume 2, entry “אסמכתא”, pg. 106, footnote 16 and 28.

[13] A possible nafkah minah (halachic ramification) is whether it is permitted to learn the explanation in the bathroom, where learning Torah is generally prohibited. However, this nafkah minah is mostly theoretical, because, as was pointed out, even if the explanation itself is not true, many times the constituent steps are Torah. See Yisroel Bazenson, Messilat Hak’sharim (Tel Aviv 5766), (this sefer is written by a follower of Breslov and attempts to formulate “rules” for learning Likutei Moharan) pg. 153, where the author asks this question regarding the teachings of R’ Nachman of Breslov; he points out that many times R’ Nachman’s explanations even go so far as to contradict the simple meaning of the phrase he is coming to explain. Bazenson answers:

ברוב הפסוקים ומאמרי חז”ל שהוא שהוא מפרש על פי דרכו הפנימית , לאף שנראה כמשנה או אפילו כסותר הפירוש הרגיל , אם יזגה המעיין ישיג את המקום שבו שני הפירושים מתחברים ועולים בקנה אחד. ואז הפירוש הרגיל יקבל, כתוצאה מחיבור זה, תוספת בהירות שמעולם לא היתה לו.

Bazenson then goes on to bring three examples of such places in Likutei Moharan, and attempts to show how in fact the nistar complements the nigleh. (I would like to thank Eliezer Shore for pointing out this source to me.) I have not studied his explanations in depth to see if they are convincing.