There has been much talk lately about the so called Shidduch crisis. Various initiatives have been proposed to address this problem, all of which are well meaning and well thought out. Many might be surprised to learn that an interesting approach was suggested by a 12 year old girl in the town of Frankfurt on Oder way back in 1699. This approach was based on a Pasuk in Yirmiyahu which deals with Messianic times.

We are all familiar with the 31st chapter of Yirmayahu. The first 19 pesukim of this Perek comprise the Haftorah of the second day of Rosh Hashana. The Navi begins, “Koh Amar Hashem, Matzah Chain BaMidbar”. The Haftorah proceeds to lay out a vision of Hashem’s love for the Jewish people and its eventual return to Tziyon, a fitting theme for a day in which we ask Hashem to grant us a good year. The stirring Pasuk of “HaVain Yakir Li Ephraim” concludes the Haftorah, but the Perek continues with Yirmiyahu’s vision of Yemos HaMoshiach.Yirmiyahu speaks of the Jewish people in Galus and after having been there for so long, they return to Hashem. Pasuk 21 states the following:

כא עַד-מָתַי תִּתְחַמָּקִין, הַבַּת הַשּׁוֹבֵבָה: כִּי-בָרָא יְהוָה חֲדָשָׁה בָּאָרֶץ, נְקֵבָה תְּסוֹבֵב גָּבֶר

How long will you hide, O backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created something new on the earth, a woman shall go after a man.

According to the Radak, the Navi is imploring the people to travel on a straight path and to return to Hashem. This will be a time when, as it were, the Bas HaShoveiva, the backsliding daughter, will be the one who seeks out a husband, in this case Hashem. The Navi says that this is something that is radical, but certainly required at that time.

We fast forward a bit to 1696 and we meet an amazing nine year old girl, born in Amsterdam, but now living in Dessau, Germany. Her name is Elle and she is the daughter of a man named Moshe ben Avraham Avinu. Moshe worked for years setting type and printing important Jewish books in various places in northern Europe, the last of which he did under very trying circumstances in Halle.(1) Moshe employed his children to help him in the arduous task of typesetting. We know a bit about his daughter Elle from some crumbs that she left us as she signed her name to the books she helped bring to print. She and her brother worked on setting type of the Siddur Drash Moshe printed in Dessau in 1696. After recording that the book was set to type by Yisroel ben Moshe, someone wrote a poem which tells us that a nine year old girl named Elle (עלה) helped Yisroel in this project:(This scan and those following are all courtesy of the JTS Library)

The Yiddish letters I set with my own hand
I am Elle, the daughter of Moses from Holland
a mere nine years old
the sole girl among six children
So when an error you should find
Remember, this was set by one who is but a child (2)

Did she compose the poem herself, or was it composed by her father or brother? Remarkably, we find another case not soon thereafter, of a nine year old setting type, and there we do know whether he could read or not. Nicholas Basbanes, in his book “A Gentle Madness”, records the following:

“Born in poverty, Isaiah Thomas came to know the touch and smell of ink on paper when he was only a child. Only nine years old in 1758….young Thomas was already completing his apprenticeship in the dingy Boston shop of Zechariah Fowle…When he later became the most successful printer and publisher in the United States-Benjamin Franklin dubbed him the Baskerville of America- Isaiah Thomas enjoyed telling friends that he knew how to set type before he was able to read.”(3)

Whether or not she could read at age nine, we do know that this little girl was able to recognize the Judeo Yiddish letters of a manuscript and set to type similar letters from which to print a book. Perhaps she had the potential to become as successful as Isaiah Thomas but for her gender and religion.

We meet Elle again in 1699, this time as a typesetter working on the famous Berman Shas of Frankfurt on Oder. This printed edition of the Talmud ( 1697-1699) was financed by the wealthy court Jew, Yissachar Berman Segal of Halberstadt who gave away half the 5,000 copies printed to needy scholars throughout Europe.(4)The Berman Shas is one of the most respected early printed editions of the Talmud because it contained many additional commentaries which became standard in following editions. It was the first edition since that of Gershom Soncino in the early 16th century to contain most of the diagrams we are familiar in Seder Zeraim, and Masechtos Eiruvin and Sukah. (5) It was also the first to contain Charamos from various Rabbanim prohibiting others in that general area from printing the Talmud for an extended period of time.(6) The following Cherem, recorded in Maseches Brachos, was written by Rav Dovid Oppenheim who lived at that time in Nikolsburg and later became chief Rabbi of Prague:At the end of Maseches Nidah printed in 1699, Elle signs her work a bit more boldly, and leaves us wondering what was going through her mind when she set the letters for the colophon.

“ By the hand of the faithful typesetter in this holy work, Yisroel the son of Reb Moshe. And by the hand of his maiden sister Elle, daughter of Rav Moshe, in the year “N’Kaivah T’Soivev Gaver” ( “a woman shall go after a man”.)

When you add up the letters which are set in large type, you come up with the year 459 according to the Peret Koton ( the abbreviated era ). This is the year 5459 (1699). What intrigues even the casual observer is why she, or her older brother Yisroel chose to record the year 5459 using that unusual Pasuk? One could argue that the Pasuk is tangentially related to some of the topics covered in Maseches Niddah, but there are many other Pesukim which deal more directly with the subject matter that could have been formatted to equal 459.(7) I think it is more logical to relate the Pasuk to the girl typesetter, who we are informed, is still unmarried. In Messianic times, it will be the Kallah, Am Yisroel, who seeks out its Chasan, Hashem. Perhaps Elle thought her circumstances and position necessitated a similar approach to finding a suitable Chasan. We hear the last from her in the next year having worked on a Machzor with her brother Yisroel.(8) We hope that after that, this extraordinary girl found an appropriate Shidduch. We wish the same for all those seeking the wonderful rewards that marriage has to offer.

(1) Marvin J Heller, “Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book”, Boston 2008 pps. 218-228. The entire chapter on Moses ben Avraham Avinu makes for some fascinating reading. I am indebted, as are we all, to Marvin Heller for his research into this field of study.
(2) Ibid: p.222
(3) Nicholas Basbanes, ‘A Gentle Madness” New York, 1995 pps144-145
(4) R.N.N. Rabinowitz “Ma’amar Al Hadfasas HaTalmud”, A.M. Haberman edition, Mosad HaRav Kook 2006, page 96 footnote 1.
(5) Ibid. p. 98
(6) Ibid p.100
(7) Two examples of a more fitting Pasuk to denote the year of publication for Tractate Niddah are:

“B’Mai Nidah Yischatah” which was used in Frankfurt A/M edition of 1720, and

“V’Safrah Lah Shiva Yomim, V’Achar Ti’Taher” which was used in the Dyhernfurth edition of 1816-21 ( although the highlighted letters actually add up to (5)773)

(8) Heller, page 223

The “Note on Maimonides and Muhammad” found at the end of the English section requires a bit of explanation, as it speaks to the times in which we live and the sometimes precarious state of scholarship when it comes up against larger political forces. In 1993, I published an article in Judaism entitled “Islam and the Halakhah.” In the version of the article submitted to the journal, I mentioned that Maimonides referred to Muhammad as a “madman,” and in a few lines I also explained the origin of the term. When the article appeared in print, however, I was surprised to find that this had been removed without my knowledge. Naively, I thought that this was an innocent mistake, and I inquired as to what had happened. Imagine my shock when I was told that my article had been censored because the journal did not want to publish anything that could be seen as offensive to Muslims! While some may see this as understandable in the wake of the Salman Rushdie episode, it was nevertheless a betrayal of scholarship, which cannot be guided by political correctness. I would hope that any Muslims who see the “Note on Maimonides and Muhammad” will understand that its intent is not to insult their prophet, but rather to clarify a historical issue.

Sources contemporary to the Baal Shem Tov that attest to his deeds, or that even discuss him at all, are sparse. Although some secular sources, including tax records and other documents, have recently been unearthed by academic researchers, there is a paucity of Jewish texts. Most of the “historical” record regarding the Baal Shem Tov comes from a collection of stories, Shivhei Ha-Besht.[1] That work, however, was collected much later and is less reliable than others when assessing the Baal Shem Tov. [2] One important text regarding the Baal Shem Tov, however, appears in the Teshuvot Mayim Hayyim.

Mayim Hayyim was published in Zhitomer by Shapira press. The Shapira press is well-known for publishing hassidic works, and the press was originally in Slavita. As a result of dubious circumstances, the press moved to Zhitomer and in 1857 the Mayim Hayyim was published.[2a] While the publication of that book took place long after the Baal Shem Tov’s death in 1760, Mayim Hayyim consists of responsa both from the time of the Baal Shem Tov and later. Mayim Hayyim mainly consists of the responsa of R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport (1772-1839), was published by R. Hayyim’s son, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport. R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport included material from other relatives as well (i.e., aside from his father, R. Hayyim). One such responsum is from R. Meir, son of R. Jacob Emden, who we shall return to later.

This undated responsum begins with a technical question regarding a lesion found in the lungs of an animal after shechitah. The slaughterer could not remove the lesion and took it to the local rabbi in Medzhybizh, a Rabbi Falk, who appeared to be unsure of the status of the animal. Based upon the remainder of the responsum, however, R. Falk eventually permitted the animal. It appears that some disagreed with the decision of R. Falk and thus sent the question to R. Meir to see if the local rabbi got it right. In an effort to ensure that R. Meir would get the whole story, it was recorded and signed by R. Mordechai, the ne’eman (literally, the trustee; but in this context, probably the secretary); the following appears after the question:

Thus, one of the three signatories was R. Israel Baal Shem Tov. The questioners then continue to flesh out their question as to whether or not Rabbi Falk paskened correctly. As Moshe Rosman notes, this question places the Baal Shem Tov as an important figure within Medzhybizh. That is, the Baal Shem Tov involved himself in this controversy, a controversy that may have resulted in the dismissal of their local rabbi. Furthermore, this episode illustrates how the Baal Shem Tov was important enough to be one of the three persons picked to sign on this letter. As Rosman states: “this incident presents a dimension of the Besht not usually emphasized by the interpreters of the hagiographic stories about him in Shivhei Ha-Beshet. It makes it difficult to portray him – as has often been done – as an unalloyed populist figure, alienated from the rabbinic or political establishment” (118).

Aside from the above value of the letter, there is the additional importance of how R. Meir treated the Baal Shem Tov, thus providing a contemporary account on how others viewed the Baal Shem Tov. Although the letter was from three people, R. Mordechai, R. Moshe Joseph and the Baal Shem Tov, R. Meir in his response only addresses himself to the Baal Shem Tov. Moreover, the honorifics R. Meir uses demonstrates that he surely held the Baal Shem Tov in the highest regard. R. Meir addressed the Baal Shem Tov as:

As is apparent from the titles provided, “champion in Yehuda and Israel” and with the use of the terms “the great sage, the eminent rabbi” that R. Meir held the Baal Shem Tov in very high regard. Additionally, from both the Baal Shem Tov’s own use of “Baal Shem” to describe himself and R. Meir’s mention that the Baal Shem Tov “provides balm and medicament to persons without strength,” the term “Baal Shem” as used here refers to a medicine man. That is, aside from whatever else the Baal Shem Tov was known for, he was known for being a healer – thus Baal Shem means healer. This understanding is confirmed by tax records that refer to the Baal Shem Tov as a “Doctor.” From all this is should be apparent that the Baal Shem Tov was respected by his peers and was known outside of Medzhybizh while he was there.[4]Teshuvot Mayim Hayyim
There is a question, however, regarding when the foregoing letter was written. Most place it sometime around 1744, but, at the latest, 1747. They do so based on the mention of “our teacher Gershon.” They understand that the Gershon referenced here is Avraham Gershon of Kutower, the Baal Shem Tov’s brother-in-law. As R. Gershon moved to Israel in 1747, and the letter mentions R. Gershon, it must have been while he was still in Medzhybizh.[5] Personally, I think that that conclusion assumes that R. Meir was intimately familiar with R. Gershon’s whereabouts. While there is no doubt that R. Meir heard of R. Gershon, it does not automatically follow that he was informed regarding when R. Gershon moved to Israel. It could very well be the letter was written after R. Gershon left for Israel and R. Meir then merely assumed that R. Gershon was still living in Medzhybizh – it is not as if there was an announcement in the Międzybórz Times or at OnlySimchas.com that R. Gershon had made Aliyah! Either way, this letter was written while the Baal Shem Tov was alive, and provides a virtually unimpeachable source for his participation in the community-at-large and about how others viewed him. I don’t think Rosman is exaggerating when he says that “[t]his responsum, then, would seem to be an excellent starting point for attempting to gauge the Besht’s position in his community and his relationship to the political and religious establishment” (119).

Aside from the above points that can be gleaned from this responsum, R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in an article that originally appeared in Sinai and has now been reprinted in the nice, new edition of his le-Ohr Halakhah uses this responsum for a different purpose. R. Zevin wants to disprove the notion that “the Hassidim and their Rebbes don’t care about studying the revealed Torah and thus they did not spend much time on studying talmud and poskim.” R. Zevin notes, as well, that this attitude towards Hassidim was prevalent right from the start of the Hassidic movement. That is, “even today, those who are not hassidim allege that the founder of the Hassidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov, was not a ben torah, heaven forbid.” R. Zevin totally rejects this notion as “false and incorrect.” As proof the Baal Shem Tov was indeed learned R. Zevin cites to the above responsum. R. Zevin explains:

Therefore, R. Zevin, with this responsum, demonstrates that the notion that the Baal Shem Tov was not learned and not respected is utterly false.

Until now, we have been focusing on the Baal Shem Tov, but there is another important person in this responsum, the author – R. Meir (1717-1795)[7], the first born son of R. Jacob Emden.[8] R. Meir was the rabbi in Constantine in the Ukraine. R. Meir was highly respected in the area, as is demonstrated by this responsum. This is so, as you will recall, in that the purpose of the responsum was to settle a controversy in the town of Medzhybizh – a controversy between the local rabbi and some of the persons in the town. This was a serious controversy — indeed the petitioners describe it as “a fire burning in the community” — and, especially in light of R. Meir’s response, where he notes that the rabbi was wrong and if the rabbi refuses to admit that he is wrong, he is to be dealt with as a zakan maamrei as the rabbi, according to R. Meir, is denying a portion of the torah. This was no small matter. As the three persons picked R. Meir to adjudicate the matter, they must have respected him and thought that his answer, what ever it would be, would settle the issue.

Unfortunately, until now, we only had a tiny amount of written material from R. Meir, the bulk of which appears in Mayim Hayyim. Specifically, of the six extant responsa from R. Meir, four can be found in Mayim Hayyim. Now the reason they are included in Mayim Hayyim is because R. Meir is related to R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport.[9] What is shocking is that in his introduction to the Mayim Hayyim, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport, publisher of the Mayim Hayyim, uses his relationship to R. Meir as the sole reason for publishing R. Meir’s responsa. That is, although the Mayim Hayyim was published by the Shapira hassidic publishing house in Zhitomer, and done so in the mid-19th century, R. Yaakov HaKohen Rapoport never mentions that he includes a responsum — the only one of its kind — from the Baal Shem Tov. Instead, the reason for the inclusion of the responsum is R. Meir.

As mentioned previously, today, Shmuel Dovid Friedman has attempted to fill the void of R. Meir’s works in publishing the first volume of R. Meir’s hiddushim. These hiddushim are on Mishnayot Seder Nashim and on the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. The title of the book is taken from the above responsum. As R. Meir was referred to as “HaMeor HaGodol” thus the title of this new work is HaMeor HaGodol. See Meir Konstantine, HaMeor HaGodol, ed. R. Shmuel Dovid Friedman (Brooklyn, NY, 2007), [30], 352. [6]

While the publication of the Hiddushei Torah of R. Meir is indeed welcome, this particular work is plagued with numerous deficiencies. Firstand foremost is the problem with the manuscript itself. It does not appear that the Meor HaGodol was published from R. Meir’s actual manuscript. Instead, R. Meir’s manuscripts were copied over time by the Bick family and it is from these copies that the Meor HaGodol is comprised. Thus, there is no independent method of verifying that this material actually came from R. Meir. Aside from the manuscript, the introduction is rather bizarre. The introduction includes various stories about R. Meir, most of which focus on his relationship to hassidim. The bulk of the stories are then shown to be false, but only in the footnotes. So, the body of the text are the stories and then a careful reader will see that most of the stories likely never occurred. For instance, there is a story that R. Meir’s daughter — when R. Meir was sick and unbeknownst to him– sent a request to the Baal Shem Tov to ask him to heal R. Meir. The editors of Meor HaGodol, in note 49, then say it is hard to reconcile the story with the facts known about R. Meir. Or, another example is that the introduction includes a story that after R. Meir became a hassid — there is no evidence that he ever did so, but the story assumes so — his father, R. Jacob Emden, disowned R. Meir. Again, the editors, in note 59, state that “there are many difficulties with this story” and then proceed to enumerate them. Why a story for which there is no support would be included to begin with is left unexplained. Perhaps the reason is that the editors are unduly interested in demonstrating that R. Meir was a full hassid (indeed, the main chapter in the introduction is entitled “[R. Meir’s] Connection with the Baal Shem Tov”). It is particularly ironic that they present such shaky evidence in light of the fact the responsum in Mayim Hayyim from R. Meir is the only objective contemporaneous evidence of the Ba’al Shem from a Jewish source.

Moreover, the introduction seems to have missed and, in fact purposely left out, some material. Specifically, in note 3, the editors of HaMeor HaGodol note that R. Jacob Emden at some point added the name Yisrael. In the introduction they then attempt to understand what precipitated this change. They cite the following from R. Jacob Emden’s Hitavkut, (p. 112,a)

מבטן אמי קראני יעקב, אליו פי קראתי ורומם תחת לשוני, והוא יתברך שלחני בשמי קראני, וכעת הראני לקרוא שמי ישראל וכו’, ע”כ

“from birth I was called Yaakov, this is what I was called and my name elevated, and then God sent [a message] to me that I should be called in God’s name, and thus I will now be called Yisrael.”

Although we can see from that quote that R. Emden added his name, the introduction does not tell us exactly why. What is astounding is that the editors ought to know why R. Emden added his name. The reason is because the above quote from Sefer Hitavkut continues beyond the portion quoted and explains that the name Yisrael was added because it was a testament that R. Jacob Emden was correct in his battle with R. Jonathan Eybeschütz. Instead, the editors cut off the quote right before R. Emden explains precisely that. Therefore, I assume that the omission is because they would rather not bring up that R. Emden had a fight with R. Eybeschütz, or that R. Emden viewed himself as having been correct. It is worth noting that the Sefer Hitavkut is not the only place R. Emden offers his victory as the reason for the name change. Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, on page 754 (n.11) of his dissertation about Rabbi Jacob Emden (Harvard, 1988), refers to a passage in Mitpachat Sefarim (p. 118 in the Lemberg, 1871 ed. and p. 171 in the most recent 1995 ed. – provided below) where R. Emden says “that after he battled with IS”H [R. J. Eybeschütz] a name was added” — a play on the verse in Genesis 32:24, 28. So it is incorrect to assert, as the editors of HaMeor HaGodol do, that “why and when R. Emden’s name was changed is unclear.” Rabbi Schacter also notes that Emden’s earliest reference “to himself as ‘Yaakov Yisrael’ is in a responsum SY [She’elat Yaavetz] II:24) dated February 22, 1765. In another responsum dated just six days later (SY II:144), Emden was addressed as ‘Yaakov Yisrael.’ For other references to this name, see SY II:25, 71, 72, 73, 112, [and] 146” (p. 754, n.11 – special thanks to Rabbi Schacter for his discussions with Menachem Butler about this aspect about Rabbi Jacob Emden).

Thus, in the editors’ effort to highlight the connection of R. Meir to hassidim, they downplay any opposition R. Meir’s father, R. Jacob Emden, had to hassidism (see n.59). They apparently were unaware (?) that an additional important statement from R. Jacob Emden has recently been published. (see here )

One final note. It is particularly disappointing today to find a sefer that does not contain an index. With technology as it is today, publishers easily should be able to provide a decent index to a book; it is quite surprising, then, that Meor HaGodol, does not contain an index.

Notes
[1] There are other sources as well, including letters. Many of the letters are highly controversial as to their authenticity. See Moshe Rosman, Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov (University of California Press, 1996), 99-113, 119-126; Nahum Karlinsky, Historia SheKeneged (Jerusalem, 1998); and Immanuel Etkes, The Besht: Magician, Mystic and Leader (UPNE/Brandeis University Press, 2005), chapter six, “The Historicity of Shivhei Habesht,” 203-248, among many other sources.
[2] See Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, 143-155 and 162-8 (lending credence to some of the stories in Shivhei Ha-Besht based on governmental records), as well as his earlier article, “The History of a Historical Source: On the Editing of Shivhei Ha-Besht,” Zion 58 (1993): 175-214, and in his recently published monograph, Stories That Changed History: The Unique Career of Shivhei Ha-Besht (=The B.G. Rudolph Lectures in Judaic Studies, new series, 5) (Syracuse University Press, 2007), Rosman notes how through this text of some two hundred stories, one can “explore such themes as the Besht’s miraculous birth and childhood, his initiation into the mystical secrets, his revelations, his prayers, his dreams, his travels, his encounters with noblemen and priests, his contests with doctors, his attraction of various associates, and, most of all, the miracles, large and small, that he performs” (1). Rosman notes, as well, that over the past sixty years alone, “there have been five new Hebrew editions, some printed more than once; one Yiddish and two Hebrew reworkings; a German translation and critical edition, and an English translation printed four times. All this was in addition to various adaptations in fiction and in educational materials used by all types of Jewish schools, from Israeli secular to American Reform and Brooklyn Ultra-Orthodox” (24), and Rosman notes quite humorously how “Shivhei Ha-Besht has been analyzed as inspirational literature, political tract, holy writ, silly stories, historical source, and theological doctrine. It has entertained, inspired, embarrassed, inspired repentance, and formed the basis for doctoral dissertations. For nearly two hundred years it has been read with passion and diligence by people of many approaches and predilections. In search for the wellsprings of modern Jewish culture, it surely represents a unique source” (20).
[2a] For a discussion of the Shapira press see Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography in Poland (Tel Aviv, 1950), 104-09 (discussing the Slavita period) and 135 (discussing the Shapira press in Zhitomer). For what precipitated the move, see Saul Moiseyevich Ginsburg, The Drama of Slavuta, trans. by Ephraim H. Prombaum (Lanham, Maryland, 1991).
[3] I have essentially used Rosman’s translation of this responsum.
[4] See Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, at 168.
[5] Dinur, B’Mifaneh HaDorot, vol. 1, pp. 205-6, cited in Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, 119 n.29.
[6] This is actually incorrect. The Baal Shem Tov does not sign himself as the Maggid of Medzhybizh, rather the final signatory, R. Moshe Yosef signs himself as the Maggid.
[7] 1795 is the death date given in HaMeor HaGadol, (there are no page numbers provided in the introduction thus I will use the footnote numbers to attempt to give a rough citation) at n.60. The source given is “a letter from R. Mordechai Blechman z”l the chief rabbi of Constantine to R. Hayyim Bick the chief rabbi of Medzhybizh.” The editors of HaMeor HaGodol, however, fail to provide where this source is located, i.e. is it in their possession, is it in some library or perhaps somewhere else. Moreover, they do not provide the context of the letter – was R. Meir’s death date mentioned in passing or was that the focus of the letter. Nor do they mention how R. Blechman knows this date. Did he pull it off of R. Meir’s tombstone or was it simply a legend? This sort of lack of information plagues the entire introduction of the Meor HaGodol.
This same death date, however, is given by Abraham Bick, Rebi Yaakov Emden (Jerusalem, 1974), 17, 182. Bick doesn’t either provide a source for this date. See also id. at 17-8, citing to where R. Jacob Emden and others quote R. Meir. About Bick’s 1974 biography, Schacter writes in his dissertation, that this work “is uncritical, incomplete and simply sloppy. it is barely more useful than an earlier historical novel in yiddish about emden by the general author with the same title published in New York, 1946. In general, all of Bick’s work is shoddy and irresponsible and cannot be taken seriously.” See Jacob J. Schacter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Works,” (PhD dissertation, Harvard, 1988), 17.
The editors of HaMeor HaGodol explain that most of the biographical information on R. Meir comes from Kitvei HaGeonim (Pietrokov, 1928), 127-30, n.3. Additionally, R. Meir is mentioned a few times in his father’s autobiography, Megilat Sefer, Kahana ed., (Warsaw, 1896), 104 and 110. R. Jacob Emden mentions that he was unable to attend R. Meir’s wedding in 1732 even as his wife attended, though as Schacter notes in his dissertation, R. Emden had “travel[ed] to Amsterdam during this period” (152, n. 126).
[8] R. Meir was related to R. Rapoport through the marriage of R. Meir’s daughter to R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport’s grandson, Dov Bear. See R. Jonathan Eybeschütz, Luchot Edut (Altona, 1755), 62a. Additionally, R. Meir was the brother-in-law of R. Shlomo Chelm, author of the Merkevet HaMishna. One of the responsum in Mayim Hayyim, no. 28, from R. Meir is to R. Shlomo.
[9] In fact, this is the only reason why the responsum that includes the mention of the Ba’al Shem Tov appears in Mayim Hayyim. As mentioned above, when the Mayim Hayyim was published, it was done so not by R. Hayyim HaKohen Rapoport, the author of the bulk of the teshuvot, but instead by his son R. Yaakov. R. Hayyim had died prior to publishing his own works. Thus, R. Yaakov decided to include not only his father’s responsa but those from other relatives, as well. Thus, the Mayim Hayyim contains two title pages. After the first title page, the approbations that R. Hayyim received for his responsa are included (one additional later approbation is included but the main are addressed to R. Hayyim). R. Yaakov then included a second title page after which two additional approbations are included. These approbations were collected by R. Yaakov and mention not only R. Hayyim’s responsa but the inclusion of other luminaries including R. Meir. The second title page is used a division between the two types of approbations, those directed at R. Hayyim and those at the book Mayim Hayyim. It is worthwhile noting that in the electronic editions they have removed the second title page. For instance, www.hebrewbooks.org only includes the first. This is but one example of the need to actually obtain a hard copy of a book and not solely rely on such databases. See Anthony Grafton, “Future Reading, Digitization and its Discontents,” The New Yorker (Nov. 5, 2007) and his New Yorker web-supplement, “Adventures in Wonderland,” for other limitations of digitization.

I thought that I had exhausted all I had to say about Rabbi Zvi Benjamin Auerbach’s edition of the Eshkol — see my first two posts at the Seforim blog, here and here [and elaborations] — but thanks to some helpful comments from readers, there is some more material that should be brought to the public’s attention. Even before looking at this, let me express my gratitude to Dan Rabinowitz who sent me this picture of a youthful Auerbach.
In my first post I cited R. Yitzhak Ratsaby as a very rare example of a posek who is aware of the problems with Auerbach’s Eshkol. A scholar who wishes to remain anonymous, and who has helped me a great deal in the past,[1] called my attention to R. Yehiel Avraham Zilber (the son of R. Binyamin Yehoshua Zilber), who is also aware of the Eshkol problem. In his Berur Halakhah, Yoreh Deah (second series), p. 111, he notes that R. Ovadiah Yosef cites Auerbach’s Eshkol in matters of hilkhot niddah. Yet the authentic Eshkol does not have any section for niddah. In fact, as Yaakov Sussman has pointed out,[2] Auerbach’s Eshkol, vol. 1, p. 117, also refers to the Yerushalmi on Niddah. However, this is impossible as neither R. Abraham ben Isaac nor any of the other rishonim had this volume.

Zilber writes that his own approach is not to rely on anything in either Auerbach’s Eshkol or the Nahal Eshkol. In his Berur Halakhah, Orah Hayyim (third series), p. 16, he also states that a certain passage in Auerbach’s Eshkol, Hilkhot Tzitzit cannot be authentic. Before I was alerted to these two sources I had never examined any of Zilber’s volumes (although I have perused the works of his father). Now that I have looked at them I see that they contain a great deal of learning, but my sense is that they are of no significance in the halakhic world, and are rarely quoted.

This doesn’t mean that they are not valuable in and of themselves, but with so many halakhic books being published, only some can make it to the top. The rest, no matter how learned, remain little studied and even less quoted. One must feel bad for authors who put so much effort into producing their works which could be of great use to people, yet at the end of the day do not have any impact.

As Eliezer Brodt has already pointed out, in a previous post at the Seforim blog, with respect to books on hilkhot shemitah, although new volumes continue to appear, it is hard to believe that much of anything original is being added.[3] The same can be said for the laws of Shabbat, where I don’t see how another new book recording the halakhot can possibly have any value as we already have so many fine books in this area. If the author is going to come up with new rulings, then fine, but it is hard to see how the world will benefit from yet another collection of the various melakhot and what is permitted and forbidden.

This doesn’t mean that up-and-coming halakhic scholars have nothing to write about. For example, there is only one book on the halakhic issues involved in sex change operations, so here is an area that cries out for our best and brightest to direct their talents towards.
For those who are writing books that are not given the attention due them, one should not lose hope. Occasionally a book that is ignored in its time comes back in a future generation and assumes great popularity (e.g., the Minhat Hinnukh), while books which were very popular in previous years fall out of style. One example of the latter is the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh. When I was young everyone seemed to study it. It has been reprinted numerous times and also translated into many languages. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, it went through fourteen editions in the author’s lifetime, which I think is a record for halakhic works. Yet today, I don’t know anyone who uses it as a work of practical halakhah. (Simply writing this ensures that people will e-mail me to point out that there are indeed some who still use it).

Returning to the anonymous scholar mentioned above, he also alerted me to a letter by R. Michael[4] Aryeh Stiegel which appeared in Tzefunot 1 (Tevet, 5749): 108. In this case I had actually seen the letter, as I own the journal and even have my pen mark on this page. But I had forgotten about it, so once again I am in the anonymous scholar’s debt. Before noting what he says, let me repeat what I mentioned in a previous post, namely, that the publication of the fourth volume of the Eshkol is very strange. We are given no information about the manuscript such as where it came from and why no one, including Auerbach’s family, had ever heard of it until it was published.

There is one other point which I neglected to make in my previous post, but it also is relevant. In 1974 Bernard Bergman published an essay on Auerbach in the Joshua Finkel Festschrift (later included as an appendix to vol. 4 of the Eshkol) in which he defended him against Albeck’s attack. At the time of this essay Bergman knew nothing about any unpublished manuscript of Auerbach’s Eshkol. It is very suspicious, to say the least, that Bergman is also the one to publish the newly discovered volume. Are we supposed to assume that it is just coincidence that Bergman, who earlier had published an essay on Auerbach, discovered this manuscript? (Those who are old enough will recall that during these years Bergman had lots of other things on his mind.) Of course, it is possible that some rare book dealer came into possession of the manuscript and knowing Bergman’s interest in Auerbach, sold it to him. In my previous post I stated that despite the problems that can be raised about the new volume, barring any further evidence we should give Bergman the benefit of the doubt.

Yet Stiegel notes something which should force us to reopen the issue. In volume 4, p. 26 n. 24, we find the following in the Nahal Eshkol.

The problem is that the edition of Ra’avan with R. Solomon Zalman Ehrenreich’s commentary Even Shlomo only appeared in 1926, many years after Auerbach’s death. This sort of anachronism is often what enables scholars to uncover a fraud.

When problems became apparent in Auerbach’s edition, Albeck called for the manuscript to be produced, and this was never done. Here too, I call for the manuscript of volume 4 to be produced, and for the publisher, Machon Harry Fischel, to join in this demand. Only when we can examine the manuscript will we be able to determine what is going on. If the answer given is that the manuscript cannot be located, which was the same answer given one hundred years ago, then the possibility that Eshkol volume 4 is a late twentieth century forgery will have to be seriously considered.

The anonymous scholar also alerted me to R. Hayyim Krauss’ Toharat ha-Shabbat ke-Hilkhatah. Krauss is known for a campaign he mounted in the 1970’s, culminating in the publication of his books Birkhot ha-Hayyim and Mekhalkel Hayim be-Hesed, which were in large part devoted to showing that the proper – and original — pronunciation in the Amidah is morid ha-geshem, not gashem. There is no doubt that Kraus was correct, but I don’t know if his campaign bore any fruit. Certainly in the United States when I was growing up, virtually everyone said gashem since that is what the siddurim had, including Brinbaum. Matters have changed greatly in the last twenty years because of the ArtScroll siddur. This siddur vocalizes – or, to use the word that ArtScroll prefers, “vowelizes” – גשם as geshem. I have previously noted one example where the Artscroll siddur has changed the davening practices of the American Orthodox community[5] and this is another. Had the ArtScroll siddur given gashem as the pronunciation, that’s what we all would be saying now.

Since this blog is devoted to seforim, with a great focus on bibliographical curiosities, let me mention the following: It has been awhile since I’ve seen the literature about geshem vs. gashem, but I remember that the side that supported gashem was able to show that it was not only grammarians who supported this reading, but R. David Lida (c. 1650-1696) Ashkenazi rav of Amsterdam, also attested to it. In fact, he might be the earliest authority to do so. But those who cited Lida didn’t know a couple of things about him. Neither do the people who keep publishing his works. To begin with, Lida was a plagiarizer, and not a very skilled one at that.[6]

People can live with plagiarism, especially as it is not uncommon in haredi “mehkar.”[7] But worse, much worse, is that Lida also appears to have been a Sabbatian. In my Limits of Orthodox Theology, p. 42 n. 21, I called attention to something similar. The Yemenite kabbalists who attacked R. Yihye Kafih made use of, and defended, a Sabbatian work written by Nehemiah Hayon. It was only after R. Kook pointed out the true nature of Hayon’s work that they excised this defense. As I commented in my book, this shows the elasticity of apologetics, in that if one beleves a work is “kosher,” he will devote great efforts to defending it, but after learning that the author is a Sabbatian the defense is immediately dropped. We must ask, however, why were the ideas in this work acceptable before the author’s biography was known?

Returning to Krauss’ Toharat ha-Shabbat ke-Hilkhatah, in volume 1 of this work he cites Auerbach’s Eshkol. In volume 2, p. 450, Krauss publishes a letter he received from R. David Zvi Hillman. Hillman, in addition to being an outstanding talmid hakham, also has a real historical sense and many years ago edited Iggerot ha-Tanya u-Venei Doro (Jerusalem, 1953). In more recent years he published an interesting, though wrong-headed, article arguing that Meiri’s views of anti-Gentile halakhot are not to be taken seriously but were written due to fear of the censor (which was a concern even in pre-printing days).[8] He has also been involved with the Frankel edition of the Rambam, most recently editing Sefer ha-Mitzvot. Despite its problems, the Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah is now the standard edition for both yeshivot and the academic world.[9]

As everyone knows, the Frankel edition has been attacked for systematically ignoring the writings of some prominent non-haredi gedolim. For example, there are no references to R. Kook, even though he wrote a commentary on the Rambam’s shemitah laws, which will be mentioned in an upcoming post at the Seforim blog. (He is cited the ArtScroll Mishnah volume on Shevi’it.) It was because of this affront that R. Kook’s followers have put out a separate index of commentaries on the Mishneh Torah, which is now available online. See here.

A particularly harsh criticism of the Frankel edition, which appeared as an “open letter,” is found here:
Hillman chose to answer this critique. He briefly mentions the issue of R. Kook, but has a lot to say about R. Kafih, and his critique of the latter is incredibly sharp. Here is his letter:

Even if one doesn’t agree with him, it should be obvious to all that Hillman has a much broader knowledge than the typical talmid hakham. It therefore should not be surprising that he was critical of Krauss for including Auerbach’s Eshkol. In fact, Krauss does not even print Hillman’s entire letter, but cuts out a section that no doubt would have been seen as disrespectful to Auerbach. Thus, Hillman writes:

The second ellipsis was inserted by Krauss. In his letter Hillman must have written, “Even if you want to say that Auerbach didn’t forge this section, and it really was stated by the Eshkol.” Yet Krauss didn’t want anything negative about Auerbach to appear in print, so he cut it out. Hillman also calls attention to the comments of R. Hayyim Eleazar Shapira in the introduction to his Darkhei Teshuvah on hilkhot mikvaot. Here Shapira notes that the Maharsham cited Auerbach’s Eshkol, and this once again raises the problem I have earlier discussed, namely, what to do with pesakim that rely on forged texts? (This is not such a problem in hilkhot mikvaot, as Shapira notes that most of what is quoted from Auerbach’s Eshkol is le-humra).

Shapira states that he is not prepared to decide the matter of the authenticity of Auerbach’s Eshkol, yet according to Hillman נראה מכתלי דבריו שדעתו נוטה לצד המערערים על אמיתותו. It is obvious that the reason Shapira does not definitively decide the matter is because of his feeling of respect for Auerbach as a great talmid hakham. The notion that such an outstanding Torah scholar, one of the German rabbinic elite, could perpetrate such a fraud is difficult for people to accept. Yet Shapira is also surprised that the Maharsham cites Auerbach’s Eshkol entirely oblivious to the problems with this edition.

I don’t see this as unusual at all. Shapira was an incredibly learned man, with knowledge of all sorts of things, but the Maharsham was an ish halakah whose life was spent in Shas and Poskim. Similarly, although R. Moshe Feinstein quotes Auerbach’s Eshkol, I would assume that he too had never heard of the controversy, as it is not something that penetrated the walls of the traditional Lithuanian Beit Midrash (at least not until so many bachurim began reading the Seforim blog!). Shapira writes:

In his reply to Hillman, Krauss states that he was indeed aware of the problems with Auerbach’s Eshkol, and even referred to Shapira’s introduction, but he did not want to elaborate (and indeed, he never quotes what Shapira says, but only tells the reader to examine it). I think that many people in the traditional world who know about the issue have this problem as well. They are between a rock and a hard place. If they say nothing, then a forgery is allowed to remain part of the Torah world. Yet if they write against it, they must take on someone who in his lifetime was recognized as one of the gedolim of Germany. Like all gedolim, he was also regarded as a great tzaddik.

Krauss does allow himself to say the following:

Prof. Yaakov Spiegel has also called my attention to his article in the latest Sidra[10] focusing on the various terms used for describing the blessing of the new moon. It so happens that in medieval times the term kiddush levanah was not found in either the Sephardic world or among Provencal scholars. Yet as Spiegel notes, this expression is found in Auerbach’s Eshkol, in a section that is missing from Albeck’s edition. This is another proof (if any was needed) that Auerbach’s edition is a forgery.[11]

The Auerbach forgery relates to another issue, that of rabbis lying and making things up for what they view as good reasons (which ties into my current project on censorship). Let me offer one example of this, but first I must give some background. If there is one thing Orthodox Jews know it is that sturgeon is a non-kosher fish. Yet as with so much else that people know, this is not exactly correct. While our practice today is not to eat sturgeon, no less a figure than the great R. Yehezkel Landau, the Noda bi-Yehudah, permitted it.[12] This decision led to enormous controversy as many of the greatest rabbis of Europe lined up in opposition.

Rabbi Aaron Chorin, at this time rav of Arad, Hungary, was a student of R. Yehezkel and he took up the cause of kosher sturgeon, publishing the volume Imrei Noam (Prague 1798) in support of his teacher’s view. At this time he had not yet crossed over to the dark side where he would, in the Hatam Sofer’s words, become known as אחר, an abbreviation of the way Chorin signed his name: Aron Choriner Rabbiner (see Teshuvot Hatam Sofer, 6:96). R. Isaac Grishaber, the rav of Paks, took up the battle against Chorin and published the volume Makel Noam (Vienna 1799). Here is the title page of the book:
Chorin responded with another book on the subject, Shiryon Kaskasim (Prague, 1800).

Grishaber was a fairly well known rabbi, and in recent years Torah journals have begun to print his unpublished writings. The problem that Grishaber was up against was that even with the many rabbis who wrote haskamot for his book, the great R. Yehezkel Landau had ruled differently. How could he destroy Chorin’s argument, convince the people that he was right, and most importantly, spare Jews from eating non-kosher when the recently deceased gadol ha-dor stood in his way?

Even before Chorin published his book, Grishaber had been on a crusade to have sturgeon declared as non-kosher. As part of this battle Grishaber took a fateful step which I have no doubt was done le-shem shamayim, but which from our perspective must be regarded as reprehensible.

In his effort to stop the eating of sturgeon, which he firmly believed was a terrible sin, Grishaber declared that R. Yehezkel sent him a letter retracting his decision and asking him to forward this letter to the rabbi of Temesvar, to whom he originally gave his lenient opinion. Grishaber states that the original letter of R. Yehezkel, which he received and sent on to the other rabbi, was lost in the mail.[13] He also writes that he misplaced the copy he made of R. Yehezkel’s original letter to him. This is all very fishy. Not surprisingly, R. Yehezkel’s son, R. Samuel, and R. Yehezkel’s leading student, R. Eleazar Fleckeles, rejected Grishaber’s testimony. They declared that he never received such a letter. In other words, he was lying when he stated that the Noda bi-Yehudah had retracted his opinion.

These are strong words, but it is hard to read what R. Samuel and R. Fleckeles write and still have any doubts that Grishaber was engaging in a fraud – although as R. Samuel states, Grishaber no doubt believed that in the effort to stop people from eating non-kosher even this was permissible. Here are some of R. Samuel’s words (Noda bi-Yehudah, Yoreh Deah, tinyana, no. 29), which are very interesting in that he keeps the standard respectful phrases at the same time that he is telling Grishaber that he is a liar.

Grishaber also had to deal with the fact that in Turkey the Jews ate sturgeon. To this he replied that one could not rely on the Turkish Jews since many of them were still followers of Shabbetai Zvi. R. Samuel had no patience for this nonsensical assertion.

Fleckeles also speaks harshly (Teshuvah me-Ahavah, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah no. 329), and this comes after beginning his letter with all the customary rabbinic introductory words of praise.

Although there were some who supported R. Yehezkel, this remained a minority opinion. By now no one is in dispute about this matter. Yet I wonder if any readers recall eating sturgeon in the United States. I ask because there was a time when sturgeon was regarded as kosher in this country. Here is a page from the list of kosher fish published by Agudas ha-Rabbonim in Ha-Pardes, April 1933. This advertisement for delicious sturgeon appeared in subsequent issues of Ha-Pardes.