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Further Comments by Marc Shapiro

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Further Comments
By Marc B. Shapiro
I had thought that this would be my last post of the current batch, but it turned out to be too long. So I have divided it into two parts. Here is part no. 1.
The volumes Shomrei Mishmeret ha-Kodesh, by R. Natan Raphael Auerbach, have just appeared. Here is the cover.

This book is devoted to the Auerbach family, which was one of the great rabbinic families in Germany. They were the “A” in what was known as the ABC rabbinic families (the others being Bamberger and Carlebach). Over 150 pages are devoted to R. Zvi Benjamin Auerbach, who was the most prominent of the Auerbach rabbis. He was also the publisher of Sefer ha-Eshkol, to which he added his commentary Nahal Eshkol. In a number of posts I dealt with Auerbach’s edition of Sefer Ha-Eshkol, and discussed how both academic scholars and traditional talmidei hakhamim have concluded that the work is a forgery.1 Readers who are interested in the details can examine the earlier posts. In this newly published volume, which was called to my attention by Eliezer Brodt, the author speaks briefly about the Sefer ha-Eshkol controversy and responds to those who, in his words, continue to defame a gadol be-Yisrael (p. 382):
הממשיכים לבזות גדול בישראל ולהכפישו באופן אישי

In the note the author refers to Moshe Samet, who earlier had dealt with Sefer ha-Eshkol, and also to one of my posts on the Seforim Blog. While Seforim Blog posts have been cited in English scholarly writings, as far as I know this is the first time that there has been citation in a Hebrew volume.

I understand why members of the Auerbach family might feel obliged to defend him. (Yet one of my college suitemates was a descendant of Auerbach, and it didn’t seem to trouble him when I told him about the controversy.) Why a respected rabbi would forge a book is not something I want to get into now. In the earlier post I assumed that he was schizophrenic, as when it comes to Sefer ha-Eshkol I can’t think of any ideological reason for his actions. (Samet, He-Hadash Assur min ha-Torah [Jerusalem, 2005], p. 152 n. 235, identifies as one of Auerbach’s motivations: מגמה אורתודוקסית).

As for the argument that since he was a leading rabbi we must therefore assume that he couldn’t have done such a thing, this is disproven by all  the recent examples of well-known rabbis who were involved in a variety of types of improper behavior. Before they were exposed, no one could ever have imagined what we learnt, and everyone would have been 100 percent sure that these rabbis could not possibly have been involved in such activities. This simply shows that that just because someone is a well-known rabbi we don’t have to automatically conclude that he is innocent no matter what the evidence says.

In many of the recent cases, at least the ones dealing with sexual abuse, the rabbis no doubt suffered from some sort of mental illness, as I can’t imagine that men who did so much to influence people positively and help them were complete frauds. I think that Auerbach must also have had some psychological issues, and this is actually the best limud zekhut. For once we assume this, it means that we don’t have to view the rest of his illustrious career and achievements as fraudulent. In short, he had a problem and it manifested itself in his forgeries. Yet I admit that I can’t prove my supposition, and at the end of the day we will probably never be able to explain definitively why Auerbach would forge the text any more than we can explain how another great figure, Erasmus, forged a patristic work and attributed it to Saint Cyprian.2 Anthony Grafton, who has written an entire book on the subject, sums up the matter as follows: “The desire to forge, in other words, can infect almost anyone: the learned as well as the ignorant, the honest person as well as the rogue.”3

Unfortunately, Shomrei Mishmeret ha-Kodesh does not seriously deal with any of the evidence that has led to the conclusion that we are dealing with a forgery. (For reasons I can’t get into now, I find it completely implausible that someone in medieval times forged the work and Auerbach was duped. But let me make one point: Auerbach claimed to be working from a very old manuscript, and yet this “manuscript” contains material from the 17th and 18th centuries.). Since the author mentions Sefer ha-Eshkol vol. 4, which was published in 1986 together with the Nahal Eshkol, I once again renew my call for this manuscript to be made public and for some explanation to be given as to where it comes from, since Auerbach’s many defenders were unaware of it. The fact that a portion of Auerbach’s manuscript (i.e. his copy of the supposed medieval manuscript) mysteriously surfaced so many decades after Auerbach’s death, and that we are told nothing about it or even shown a picture of it, certainly raises red flags. As I noted in one of my previous posts, the Nahal Eshkol published here has a reference to a book that only appeared after Auerbach died. This means that quite apart from Sefer ha-Eshkol, we also have to raise questions about whether the Nahal Eshkol published here is itself authentic. It could be that it is indeed genuine, and the reference to the later book is an interpolation, but that is why we have to see the manuscript. After all, if the manuscript is written in one hand, and it includes the reference to the later book, then there is no doubt that it too is a forgery. So let the evidence about Sefer ha-Eshkol vol. 4, together with the manuscript, be placed on the Seforim Blog for all to see. Perhaps then we can begin to understand the mystery of this volume.

As long as the topic has been brought up, let me call attention to Shulamit Elitzur’s new book, Lamah Tzamnu (Jerusalem, 2007). On p. 115 n. 2, she gives an example where the Sefer ha-Eshkol forgery was perpetrated by using a quotation from the Shibolei ha-Leket, and cites a comment in this regard from the noted scholar Simhah Emanuel. On p. 235 n. 3,8 she mentions another example of forgery in the Auerbach Sefer Ha-Eshkol. For further instance, see Israel Moshe Ta-Shma’s posthumously published Keneset Mehkarim, vol. 4 (Jerusalem, 2010), p. 183 n. 28.4 In an article in Atarah le-Hayyim (Jerusalem, 2000), p. 292, Neil Danzig also points to a non-authentic interpolation in Auerbach’s Sefer ha-Eshkol. Yet I am surprised to see that he follows Ta-Shma in thinking that R. Moses De Leon might have had something to do with this.

In terms of traditional Torah scholars, I came across a comment by R. Avigdor Nebenzahl in R. Yaakov Epstein’s recently published Hevel Nahalato, vol. 7, p. 157. (Epstein is the grandson of Prof. Jacob Nahum Epstein.5) Nebenzahl comes from a German Orthodox background, so one might expect him to come to the defense of Auerbach, as did a number of prominent German Orthodox figures. Yet that is not what we find. Epstein had cited a passage from Auerbach’s Sefer ha- Eshkol to which Nebenzahl added that it is well known that some question the authenticity of this edition and claim that it is a forgery. In case you are looking for any non-scholarly motivations for this comment, I should mention that Nebenzahl’s sister was Plia Albeck (died 2005), the daughter-in-law of Hanokh Albeck and a significant person in her own right. (She paved the way for most of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.) Hanokh Albeck, together with his father, Shalom Albeck, published the authentic Sefer ha-Eshkol, and were both very involved in exposing Auerbach’s forgery. In other words, Nebenzahl’s comment shows that families stick together. (Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if there have been any marriages between the two important families, the Auerbachs and the Albecks?)

In a previous post, I mentioned R. Yehiel Avraham Zilber’s belief that the Auerbach Sefer ha-Eshkol is forged. To the sources I referred to, we can add Birur Halakhah, Orah Hayyim 75. Also, R. Yisrael Tuporovitz, who has written many volumes of Talmudic commentaries, is not shy about offering his opinion. Here is what he writes in Derekh Yisrael: Hullin (Bnei Brak, 1999), p. 8:

וכבר נודע שספר האשכול הנדפס עם ביאור נחל אשכול הוא מזוייף ואין לסמוך עליו כלל

He repeats this judgment on pages 38, 53 and 345.

In one of the earlier posts I mentioned that R. Yitzhak Ratsaby denies the authenticity of Auerbach’s edition. I also quoted from his letter to me. At the time,  I was unaware that portions of this letter also appear in his haskamah to R. Moshe Parzis’ Taharat Kelim (Bnei Brak, 2002). Another new source in this regard from Ratsaby is his Shulhan Arukh ha-Mekutzar (Bnei Brak, 2000), Yoreh Deah 138:3 (p. 287), where he accuses Auerbach of taking something from the Peri Hadash and placing it in Sefer ha-Eshkol. 

Ratsaby discussed the Sefer ha-Eshkol in his haskamah to Parzis’ book because the latter had called attention to the defense of Auerbach in Tzidkat ha-Tzaddik. Here is the title page of the latter work.

Among the defenders of Auerbach was R. Jacob Schorr of Kuty, Galicia. Schorr was a genius and is best known for his edition of the Sefer ha-Itim.6 He also wrote the responsa volume Divrei Yaakov (Kolomea, 1881), and a second volume, culled from various sources, both published and manuscript, appeared in 2006.  Here is his picture, taken from Aharon Sorasky’s Marbitzei Torah me-Olam ha-Hasidut, vol. 3, p. 11.

It is an unfortunate oversight that this incredible scholar does not have an entry in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. A list of all of his works can be found in the introduction to his Mavo al ha-Tosefta (Petrokov, 1930). This introduction also contains R. Zvi Ezekiel Michaelson’s biography of Schorr. As with everything written by this amazing bibliophile,7 one learns a great deal, not only about the subject he focuses on, but about all sorts of other things.8 Michaelson was killed in the Holocaust and numerous unpublished manuscripts of his were lost. His grandson was Prof. Moshe Shulvass, and a responsum is addressed to him in Michaelson’s Tirosh ve-Yitzhar, no. 158.

Schorr’s son was Dr. Alexander Schorr, who translated many classic Greek and Latin texts into Hebrew.9 Alexander Schorr’s grandson is the well-known Israeli film director, Renen Schorr.10

Since Prof. Leiman has just written about the Maharal, it is worth noting that Schorr tells an incredibly far-fetched story, which he actually believed, about the Maharal and Emperor Rudolph. According to the tale, Rudolph’s biological father was a Jewish man. What happened was that Rudolph’s mother, the queen, could not have children with the Emperor. She therefore asked a Jewish man to impregnate her or else she would unleash persecution on the Jews in the kingdom. Upon hearing this, the beit din gave the man permission to accede to her wishes. I don’t want to repeat any more of this nonsensical story, but those who are interested can find it in R. Abraham Michaelson’s Shemen ha-Tov (Petrokov, 1905), pp. 60a-b. (R. Abraham was R. Zvi Ezekiel’s son.)

Returning to Schorr, one of the most astounding examples of self-confidence—others will no doubt call it arrogance or foolishness—ever stated by a rabbi (in print, at least) was penned by him. In his Meir Einei Hakhamim, reprinted in Kitvei ve-Hiddushei ha-Gaon Rabbi Yaakov Schorr (Bnei Brak, 1991), p. 177, we find the following:

ואני מעיד עלי שמים וארץ כי לא היה ולא יקום עוד אחרי שום חכם אשר יהי’ בקי בטוב [!] בפלפול תנאים ואמוראים כמותי

This text is often quoted by R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer in his various works.11 This is not the only time Schorr expressed himself this way. On page 129 he writes
ודע דהופיע רוח הקודש בבית מדרשי

(This expression can also be found in other books, and originates in Rabad’s hassagah to Hilkhot Lulav 8:5. But to see this type of language in a sefer written by a someone very young [see below], even a genius like Schorr, is a bit jarring.) Sofer, Shem Betzalel, p. 28, also points to Meir Einei Hakhamim, p. 209, where Schorr writes about one of his ideas:

וזה נכון יותר מפירוש רש”י

(On this page, Schorr alludes to R Zvi Hirsch Chajes, referring to him as אחד מחכמי הזמן. Sofer claims that Schorr’s general practice is to not mention Chajes by name. Sofer wants the reader to think that he doesn’t know why Schorr acts this way. Yet the reason is obvious, and Sofer himself certainly knows that some talmudists were not fans of Chajes.)

Perhaps we can attribute Schorr’s over-the-top comments to his own immaturity. After all, as Sofer, Shem Betzalel, p. 29, points out, Schorr began writing the book  I am quoting from at age thirteen, and completed it by the time he was sixteen. A genius he certainly was, yet I think we should assume that his excessive comments were the product of youthful exuberance. Sofer sees Schorr’s youthfulness as also responsible for the very harsh way he criticizes the writings of various gedolim, which is something that is more understandable, and forgivable, in a teenager than in a mature scholar. I think all writers are embarrassed of things their penned in their youth, and that is to be expected.12 An example I often mention in this regard (when not referring to myself) is Hirsch’s harsh criticism of Maimonides. This appeared in Hirsch’s first book, the Nineteen Letters, published when he was 28 years old. Never again in Hirsch’s many writings does he ever express himself this way. My assumption is that he regretted what he wrote, and in his mature years he would not have used such strong language. Similarly, I wonder if in his mature years R. Soloveitchik would have commented to R. Weinberg—as he did in his twenties—that his grandfather had a greater understanding than even the Vilna Gaon. (I have printed Weinberg’s letter where this appears in a few different places, most recently on the Seforim Blog and in the Hebrew section to my Studies in Maimonides.)

In terms of young achievers in the Lithuanian Torah world, I wonder how many have ever heard of R. Meir Shafit. He lived in the nineteenth century and wrote a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, when not many were studying it. Here is the title page of one of the volumes, where it tells us that he became rav of a community at the age of fifteen. 

The Hazon Ish once remarked that the young Rabbi Shafit would mischievously throw pillows at his gabbaim!13

Returning to Schorr and Sefer ha-Eshkol, Ratsaby is not impressed by Schorr’s defense. He notes that in R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer’s Torat Yaakov, Sofer states that the ideas of Schorr “צריכים בדיקה.”

I found the comment in Torat Yaakov (2002 edition) p. 880. Here Sofer claims that despite his brilliance, Schorr often puts forth unsustainable suppositions, and he calls attention to R. Reuven Margaliot, Ha-Mikra ve-ha-Mesorah, ch. 12. Here Margaliot cites a suggestion by Schorr that the text of Kiddushin 30a should be emended because the vav of גחון is not the middle letter of the Torah. Schorr further states that the editor of Masekhet Sofrim was misled by the error in the Talmud. The implication of Schorr’s comment is that all of our sifrei Torah are mistaken, for they mark this letter as special. Margaliot responds:
ותמה אני על תלמיד חכם מובהק כמוהו איך הרשה לעצמו לחשוב על מסדר מסכת סופרים שהוא טועה ומטעה וגם בודה מלבו מנהגים בכתיבת ס”ת. ב”הגהות” כאלו יכולים לעשות כל מה שרוצים, וכאשר כתב הגר”א [אליהו] פוסק בפסקי אליהו שם: רעדה אחזתני לעשות טעות כזה בגמרא ולחשוב על כל הס”ת שגיונות בדקדוקים דו’ דגחון ודרש דרש.

With regard to Ratsaby, I should also note that his dispute with R. Ovadiah Yosef continues unabated. In his recent Ner Yom Tov (Bnei Brak, 2008), pp. 20-21, he goes so far as to accuse R. Ovadiah of plagiarism.

He also states, with regard to R. Ovadiah (p. 100):

 שכבוד התורה אצלו, הוא רק למי שמסכים לדבריו

Ratsaby’s book was written to defend the Yemenite practice of not making a blessing on Yom Tov candles against the criticism of R. Ovadiah. He also deals with R. Ovadiah’s larger point that the Yemenites must embrace the Shulhan Arukh’s rulings now that they are in the Land of Israel. The entire Yemenite rabbinate agrees with Ratsaby’s position, but upon seeing how he attacked R. Ovadiah, the condemnation of him from other Yemenite rabbis was swift. All I can say in defense of Ratsaby is that R. Ovadiah has been criticizing him in a less than respectful way for some time now. But in a sense, Ratsaby got what was coming to him, because for many years he has been writing very disrespectfully about R. Kafih.

In this new book, p. 98, Ratsaby goes so far as to repeat the legend that when Kafih was appointed a dayan in Jerusalem he swore to R. Ovadiah that he accepted the Zohar, and Ratsaby claims that Kafih swore falsely. Kafih, however, denied that he ever took such an oath.14 For a long time Ratsaby has been proclaiming that it forbidden to use Kafih’s books, as he is a member of the kat, i.e., the Dardaim who don’t accept the Zohar or Kabbalah in general. Yet R. Ovadiah has declared that the Dardaim are not to be regarded as heretics.15 This is in contrast to R. Chaim Kanievsky who holds that the Dardaim are heretics who cannot be counted in a minyan.16  R. David Teherani states that since the Dardaim reject the Zohar, their wine is yein nesekh.17 According to Aaron Abadi, R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach also ruled that rejection of the Zohar and Kabbalah is heresy.18

I can understand those who assert that one must believe that the Zohar was written by Rashbi or at the very least that it was written be-ruah ha-kodesh, and if you deny this it is heresy. Yet what is one to make of the following statement, which greatly enlarges the realm of heresy (R. Menasheh Klein, Mishneh Halakhot, vol. 7, no. 160):
ואם הוא אינו מאמין שהמ”ב [משנה ברורה] נכתב ברוה”ק אזי הוא בכלל אפיקורוס וכופר בתורת ה’ . . . יש בזמן הזה שאין מאמינים שגם בדורינו אנו ישנם חכמי הזמן שיש להם רוה”ק . . . ומי שלא מאמין בזה הרי הוא אפיקורוס וכופר בלי ספק.

Based on this definition, I think the entire Lithuanian rabbinate until World War II would be regarded as heretics. Would such a statement even have been imaginable before twenty years ago? It is, of course, no secret that the Lithuanian rabbinate has been transformed along hasidic lines. This change is undeniable and I can point to many examples of this. Here is one (which was sent to me by R. Yitzhak Hershkowitz).

Would any Jew in Lithuania ever fall for such a thing as magic (or holy) wine? Anyone who tried to peddle this stuff would have been thrown out of the beit midrash. I was actually told an anti-hasidic joke with regard to this picture. I ask all Hasidim not to be offended as neither I nor the management endorse the joke. Yet it deserves to be recorded for posterity, for as we all know, jokes are simply jokes, but the history of jokes (even bad ones), well that is scholarship. The joke goes as follows: “It is incredbible. We now see great Lithuanian Torah scholars doing things that until now only hasidic rebbes did. But even more incredible would be to see the reverse, that is, to see hasidic rebbes write seforim on Shas and poskim.”

With regard to the Zohar, I must mention an amazing point called to my attention by David Zilberberg, from which we see that R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik did not believe that R. Simeon bar Yohai wrote the Zohar, or at least that he didn’t write all of it. I always assumed as much, but as far as I know there was never any proof, until now. In The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways, pp. 206-207, the Rav discusses the Western Wall and says that there is no mention of it in Chazal and very little mention in rishonim. The Wall is mentioned in Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 2:2219, where it states that the Kotel will never be destroyed, but the Rav says about this Midrash:

I will tell you frankly that I am always suspicious about this midrash, because the classical sources, the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, do not mention the Kotel ha-Ma’aravi. The midrash cited earlier is, perhaps, a later insert. Apparently, Rabbi El’azar ha-Kalir knew the midrash. To my mind, this kinah of Rabbi Elazar ha-Kalir is one of the earliest documents to mention the Kotel ha-Ma’aravi.

Earlier in this book the Rav tells us when Kalir lived:

I do not know why historians have to explore when Kalir lived when he himself states that nine hundred years have passed and the Messiah has not yet arrived. It means that Kalir lived in the tenth century.

Yet as Zilberberg correctly points out, the Western Wall is seen as quite significant in the Zohar (II, 5b), and is referred to as Rosh Amanah.20 The Rav knew the Zohar very well, and therefore, when he tells us that Chazal do not mention the Western Wall, and it is only during the time of the rishonim that we begin to see references to it, he is also telling us that the Zohar (or at least this section of the Zohar) was written in the days of the rishonim.

Returning to Auerbach, let me add in conclusion that he is not the only great rabbi and Torah scholar who was involved in forgery. An earlier case is R. Benjamin Ze’ev of Arta (sixteenth century), author of the well known responsa volume Teshuvot Binyamin Ze’ev. Here is the title page from the first edition (Venice, 1539):

In the midst of a dispute he was involved in, he forged the signature of the Venetian rabbi, R. Baruch Bendit Axelrad, placing it on a document that supported himself. He also forged an entire letter in R. Baruch Bendit’s name. When all this was discovered, it helped lead to R. Benjamin’s downfall.21

Quite apart from the forgery, R. Solomon Luria, Yam Shel Shlomo, Bava Kamma, ch. 8 no. 72, also accuses R. Benjamin Zev of plagiarism. Here are some his words: 
כל דבריו גנובים וארוכים בפלפול שאינו לצורך וכנגד פנים מראה אחור . . . ושרי לי מרי אם הוא צדיק למה הביא הקב”ה תקלה על ידו הלא הוא היה הכותב ונתן לדפוס הספר מידו ומפיו.
One big question that needs to be considered is how far removed is forgery from false attribution? When it comes to false attribution there is a long rabbinic tradition supporting it, and in the book I am currently working on I deal with this in great detail. If you can falsely attribute a position to a sage, perhaps you can forge a document in his name as well (assuming it is not done for personal gain). Could that be what was driving Auerbach?
*        *        *

A few people have sent me a question about my Monday night Torah in Motion classes, so I assume that there are others who have the question as well. Here is the answer: If you cannot be with us at 9PM and you are signed up, the classes are sent to you so that you can watch or listen at your convenience. This is much cheaper than downloading the classes individually.

Notes

1 From my post here you can find all the links.
2 See Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, 1990), pp. 44-45.
3 Ibid., p. 48.
4 As has been noted by many, Auerbach’s edition of Sefer Ha-Eshkol has misled countless talmidei hakhamim. There is another way in which Auerbach misled a scholar, but in this case it was accidental. In the introduction to his edition, p. xv note 9, Auerbach reports in the name of a supposedly reliable person that the Yerushalmi Kodashim was to be found in the Vatican library. This false report led R. Mordechai Farhand to travel there from Hungary in search of this treasure, and he describes his journey. See Farhand, Be’er Mordechai (Galanta, 1927), pp. 154ff. Farhand was a gullible fellow. See ibid. p. 152, where even though it had been a number of years since Friedlaender’s Yerushalmi forgery had been established, he didn’t want to take sides. The legend that there was a copy of the Yerushalmi Kodashim in the Vatican had been disproven already in the nineteenth century. See R. Baruch Oberlander in Or Yisrael (Tamuz 5761),  p. 220.
5 In his review of my edition of Kitvei ha-Rav Weinberg, vol. 2, R. Neriah Guttel, Ha-Ma’ayan (Nisan 5764), pp. 82-83, writes that it was improper for me to publish Weinberg’ judgment of Epstein (p. 430). Although they were friends, and Weinberg thought that Epstein was a great scholar, he also pointed out that that Epstein wasn’t a lamdan. What Weinberg meant is that Epstein wasn’t a traditional talmid hakham but an academic Talmudic researcher. As such, while his publications had great value, in Weinberg’s eyes they didn’t get to the heart of what Talmudic scholarship should be about. In Weinberg’s words:
סוכ”ס אפשטיין אינו למדן, ואיננו אלא פילולוג בעל חוש חד. בלא לומדות אי אפשר לחקור לא את המשנה ולא התלמוד.
Statements like these are vital for evaluating Weinberg’s approach to academic scholarship, and I never would dream of censoring such things.
6 In his Sha’ar Yaakov (Petrokov, 1922), no. 16, there is a responsum to “Abraham Joshua Heschel.” Shmuel Glick, Kuntres ha-Teshuvot he-Hadash, vol. 3, s.v. Sha’ar Yaakov, assumes that this is the famous A. J. Heschel, but I don’t think we can conclude this based only on the name, which was shared by a number of others.
7 Eleh Ezkerah (New York, 1957), vol. 2, p. 196 (repeated in the Encylopaedia Judaica entry on Michaelson), states that in Michaelson’s Degan Shamayim (Petrokov, 1901), there are responsa written when he was twelve and thirteen years old. This is a mistake. The earliest responsa dates from when he was seventeen years old. See pp. 10a, 11a.
8 On p. 23 he prints a letter that Schorr wrote to Michaelson’s son, who wanted to translate the Sefer ha-Hinukh into Yiddish. Schorr was strongly opposed to this. He explained as follows, using words that won’t make the women very happy:
רבינו הרמב”ם והחינוך אחריו שהודיעו ברבים טעמי מצות וכו’ יכשלו בזה קלי הדעת לבטל המצוה כפי סכלות דעתם אשר לפי הטעם אין לחוש עוד בזמנינו וכיוצא שבטל בהם טעם זה וכו’ איך ניתן לגלות טעמי מצות גם בפני נשים ועמי הארץ אשר יקראו בו, חלילה לרו”מ לעבור על לפני עור.
9 See here
10 See here
11 Sofer often refers to a similar type of comment by R. Shlomo Kluger, Ha-Elef Lekha Shlomo, Orah Hayyim 367:
אם הייתי זוכר כל מה שכתבתי מעולם לא הי’ שום הערה בעולם שלא הרגשתי בזה.
(I cited both Schorr and Kluger in a footnote in my article on the Hatam Sofer in Be’erot Yitzhak: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky. Although other writers also cite this comment of Kluger, as with much else, I believe that I first saw the reference in one of Sofer’s writings.) Kluger wrote so many thousands of responsa, that it is not uncommon for him to contradict himself and forget what he wrote previously. See R. Yehudah Leib Maimon, ed., Sefer ha-Gra (Jerusalem, 1954), p. 99 in the note. R. Solomon Schreiber, Hut ha-Meshulash (Tel Aviv, 1963), p. 19, claims that R. Nathan Adler’s reason for not recording his Torah teachings was due to a belief that the permission to put the Oral Law into writing only applies if one is not able to remember this information. Since, according to Schreiber, R. Nathan claimed that he never forgot any Torah knowledge, he was not permitted to take advantage of this heter.
12 Regarding Schorr being a childhood genius, this letter from him to R. Shlomo Kluger appeared in Moriah, Av 5767. 

As you can see, the letter was written in 1860 (although I can’t make out what the handwriting says after תר”ך). We are informed, correctly, that Schorr was born in 1853, which would mean that he was seven years old when he wrote the letter. This, I believe, would make him the greatest child genius in Jewish history, as I don’t think the Vilna Gaon could even write like this at age seven. Furthermore, if you read the letter you see that two years prior to this Schorr had also written to Kluger. Are there any other examples of a five-year-old writing Torah letters to one of the gedolei ha-dor? Furthermore, from the letter we see that the seven-year-old Schorr was also the rav of the town of Mariompol! (The Mariompol in Galicia, not Lithuania.) I would have thought that this merited some mention by the person publishing this letter. After all, Schorr would be the only seven-year-old communal rav in history, and this letter would be the only evidence that he ever served as rav in this town. But the man who published this document and the editor of the journal are entirely oblivious to what must be one of the most fascinating letters in all of Jewish history. Yet all this assumes that the letter was actually written by Schorr. Once again we must thank R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer for setting the record straight. In his recently published Shuvi ha-Shulamit (Jerusalem, 2009), vol. 7, p. 101, he calls attention to the error and points out, citing Wunder, Meorei Galicia, that the rav of Mariampol was another man entirely, who was also named Jacob Schorr.
13 A. Horowitz, Orhot Rabbenu (Bnei Brak, 1991), vol. 1, p. 364.
14 See Avivit Levi, Holekh Tamim (Jerusalem, 2003), p. 133 n. 161.
15 See R. Yosef Pinhasi, Yefeh Toar, p. 116.
16 See his response in Mordechai Alemkayas, Va-Yikhtov Mordechai (Jerusalem, 2009), p. 340.
17 Yayin le-Nesekh (Betar Ilit, 1996), p. 70.
18 See here.  According to Abadi, R. Shlomo Zalman’s decision was made with regard to a well-known scholar who is very involved with Artscroll.
19 The Rav doesn’t note that there is a mention of the Wall in Shemot Rabbah 2:2 as well, but his judgment would no doubt be the same. Contrary to the Rav, since these midrashim are found in so many parallel sources, I don’t think there is any question that they indeed originate with Chazal.
20 See Pinchas Giller, Reading the Zohar (Oxford, 2001), pp. 12-13.
21 The event is described in Meir Benayahu, Mavo le-Sefer Binyamin Ze’ev (Jerusalem, 1989),  pp. 120ff. Once the dispute got going, all sorts things were said. R. Benjamin was even accused of purchasing his semikhah. See ibid., p.140. The source for this is R. Elijah ha-Levi,  Zekan Aharon (Constantinople, 1534), no. 184.


Benefits of the Internet: Besamim Rosh and its History

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Benefits of the Internet: Besamim Rosh and its History
By: Dan Rabinowitz & Eliezer Brodt
    In a new series we wanted to highlight how much important material is now available online.  This, first post, illustrates the proliferation of online materials with regard to the controversy surrounding the work Besamim Rosh (“BR”). 

[We must note at the outset that recently a program has been designed by Moshe Koppel which enables one, via various mathematical algorithims, to identify documents authored by the same author. We hope, using this program, to provide a future update that will show what this program can demonstrate regarding the authorship of the BR and if indeed the Rosh authored these responsa.]

Background

    Before turning to the BR and discussing its history we need to first discuss another work.  R. Raphael Cohen the chief rabbi of triple community, Altona-Hamburg-Wansbeck (“AH”W”), [1] published a book, Torat Yekuseil, Amsterdam, 1772 regarding the laws of Yoreh Deah.  Torat Yekuseil is a standard commentary and is unremarkable when compared to other works of this genre.  While the book is unremarkable in and of itself, what followed is rather remarkable. 

    Some years later, in 1789, a work with the putative author listed listed as Ovadiah bar Barukh and titled Mitzpeh Yokteil [2] was published to counter R. Raphael Cohen’s Torat Yekuseil (“TY”).  Mitzpeh Yokteil (“MY”), was a vicious attack both against the work TY as well as its author, R. Raphael Cohen.  R. Raphael Cohen was a well-known and well-respected Rabbi. In fact, he was the Chief Rabbi of the triple community of AH”W.  The attack against him and his work did not go unanswered.  Indeed, the beit din of Altona-Wansbeck placed the putative author, Ovadiah, and his work, under a ban.

    The Altona-Wansbeck beit din could not limit the ban to just Altona-Wansbeck as the attack in the MY was intended to embarrass R. Raphael Cohen across Europe.  Indeed, the end of the introduction to MY indicates that copies were sent to a list of thirteen prominent rabbis across Europe.  Specifically, copies were sent to the Chief Rabbis of Prague, Amsterdam, Frankfort A.M., Hanover, Bresslau, Gloga, Lissa, etc., “as well as The Universally Know Goan haHassid  R. Eliyahu from Vilna.”  Thus, the intent of the book was to diminish R. Raphael Cohen’s standing amongst his peers. 

    The Altona-Wansbeck beit din, recognizing the intent of the book, appealed to other cities courts to similarly ban the author and book MY – the ban, entitled, Pesak mi-Beit Din Tzedek, the only known extant copy was recently sold at Sotheby’s (Important Judaica, Nov. 24, 2009, lot 136).[3]
 

 
These concerns lead the ban’s proponents to the Chief Rabbi of Berlin, R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin, and to solicit him to join the ban. Initially, it appeared that R. Tzvi Hirsch would go along with the ban.  But, as he was nearing deciding in favor of signing the ban, someone whispered in his ear the verse in Kings 2, 6:5, אהה אדני והוא שאול – which R. Tzvi Hirsch understood to be a play on the word “שאול” in the context of the verse meaning borrow, but, in this case, to be a reference to his son, Saul. That is, the real author of MY was Saul Berlin, Tzvi Hirsch’s son.  Needless to say, R. Tzvi Hirsch did not sign the ban. [4]

    Not only did he not sign the ban, he also came to his son’s defense.  Aside from the various bans that were issued, a small pamphlet of ten pages, lacking a title page, was printed against MY and Saul. [5]  Saul decided that he must respond to these attacks.  He published Teshuvot ha-Rav. . . Saul le-haRav [] Moshe  Yetz,[6] which also includes a responsum from R. Tzvi Hirsch, Saul’s father.  Saul defends himself arguing that rabbinic disagreement, in very strong terms, has a long history.  Thus, a ban is wholly inappropriate in the present case. 

    R. Tzvi Hirsch explained that while MY disagreed with R. Cohen, there is nothing wrong with doing so.  The author of MY, as a rabbi – Saul was, at the time, Chief Rabbi of Frankfort – Saul is entitled to disagree with other rabbis.  Of course, Saul’s name is never explicitly mentioned. Moreover, in the course of R. Tzvi Hirsch’s defense he solicits the opinions of other rabbis, including R. Ezekiel Landau.  R. Landau, as well as others, noted that aside from the propriety of disagreement within Judaism, the power of any one particular beit din is limited by geography.  Thus, the Altona-Wansbeck’s beit din‘s power is limited to placing residents of Hamburg under a ban but not residents of Berlin, including R. Saul Berlin, the author of MY.[7]

    The controversy surrounding the MY was not limited to Jewish audiences. The theater critic, H.W. Seyfried, published in his German newspaper, Chronik von Berlin, translations of the relevant documents and provided updates on the controversy.  Seyfried agitated on behalf of the maskilim and editorlized that the Danish government should take actions against R. Cohen. It appears, however, that Seyfried’s pleas were not acted upon.[8] 

The Publication of Besamim Rosh


    With this background in mind, we can now turn to the Besamim Rosh.  Prior to publishing the full BR, in 1792, Saul Berlin published examples of the responsa and commentary found in the BR – a prospectus, Arugat ha-Bosem.  This small work whose purpose was to solicit subscribers for the ultimate publication of BR. It appears that while Saul may have been trying for significant rabbinic support, the majority of his sponsors were householders. 

    In 1793, the BR was published.  The BR contains 392 responsa (besamim equals 392) from either R. Asher b. Yeheil (Rosh) (1259-1327) or his contemporaries.  This manuscript belonged to R. Yitzhak di Molina who lived during the same time period as R. Yosef Karo, the author of Shulchan Orakh.  Additionally, Saul appended a commentary of his own to these responsa, Kasa de-Harshana. 

    The BR contains two approbations, one from R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin and the other from R. Yehezkel Landau.  R. Landau’s approbation first explains that Rosh’s responsa need no approbation.  With regard to R. Saul Berlin’s commentary, he too doesn’t need an approbation according to R. Landau.  This is so because R. Saul’s reputation is well-known.  R. Landau’s rationale, R. Saul’s fame, appears a bit odd in light of the fact that among some (many?) R. Saul’s reputation was very poor due to the MY. 

    R. Tzvi Hirsch’s approbation also contains an interesting assertion. Saul’s father explains that this book should put to rest any lingering question regarding his son.    

    In addition to the approbations there are two introductions, one from di Molina and the other from Saul. Di Molina explained the tortured journey of the manuscript. He explains that, while in Alexandria, he saw a pile of manuscripts that contained many responsa from Rosh that had never before been published. He culled the unpublished ones and copied and collected them in this collection.  What is worthy of noting is that throughout the introduction di Molina repeatedly asks “how does the reader know these responsa are genuinely from Rosh.” 

    R. Saul, in his introduction, first notes that the concept of including introductions is an invention long after Rosh, and is not found amongst any of the Rishonim. 

    As mentioned previously, the BR is a collection of 392 responsa mostly from Rosh or his contemporaries.  Additionally, R. Saul wrote his own commentary on these responsa, Kasa diHarshena. [9]  This commentary would contain the first problem for Saul and the BR.  In responsum 40, Rosh discusses the position of Rabbenu Tam with regard to shaving during the intermediate days (ho ha-moad).  While Rosh ultimately concludes that one is prohibited from shaving on hol ha-moad, R. Saul, in his commentary, however, concludes that shaving on hol ha-moad is permissible.  In so holding, R. Saul recognized that this position disagreed with that of his father.  Almost immediately after publication, R. Saul printed a retraction regarding this position allowing for shaving on hol ha-mo’ad.  This retraction, Mo’dah Rabba, explains that Saul failed to apprise his father of this position and, as Saul’s father still stands behind his negative position, Saul therefore retracts his lenient position. [Historically, this is not the only time a father and son disagreed about shaving on hol ha-moad.  R. Yitzhak Shmuel Reggio (YaSHaR)and his father, Abraham, disagreed on the topic as well.  As was the case with Saul and his father, the son, YaSHaR took the lenient position and his father the stringent.  Not only did they disagree, after YaSHaR published his book explaining his theory, his father attacked him in an anonymous response.  For more on this controversy see Meir Benayahu, Shaving on the Intermediary Days of the Festival, Jerusalem, 1995.] 

    This retraction, while may be interperated as evidence of Saul humbleness in his willingness to admit error and not stand on ceremony, others used this retraction against him.  The first work published that questioned the legitimacy of BR is Ze’ev Yetrof, Frankfort d’Oder, 1793, by R. Ze’ev Wolf son of Shlomo Zalman.  (This book is very rare and, to my knowledge, is not online.  Although not online, a copy is available in microfiche as part of the collection of books from the JTS Library, and on Otzar Hachomah see below)  The author explains that eight responsa in BR are problematic because they reach conclusion that appear to run counter to accepted halahik norms. In addition, the author states in his introduction, “that already we see that there is something fishy as it is known that the author [Saul Berlin] has retracted his position regarding shaving.” It should be noted that no where does R. Ze’ev Wolf challenge the authenticity of the manuscript for internal reasons – it is incorrectly dated, incorrectly attributed etc.  Apparently, Ze’ev Yetrof, was not well-known as it is not cited by other contemporaries who too doubted the authenticity of BR.  Samat theorizes that either wasn’t printed until later or, was destroyed.[10]  

    The second person to question the legitimacy of BR was R. Rafael Hamburg’s mechutan, R. Ya’akov Katzenellenbogen.  In particular, he wrote to R. Cohen’s student, R. Mordechai Benat. As was the case with Wolf, R. Katzenellenbogen located 13 responsa where he disagreed with the conclusions.  R. Katzenellenbogen indicated that R. Benet shold review the BR himself and apprise R. Katzenellenbogen regarding R. Benet’s conclusions. 

    R. Katzenellenbogen also wrote to Saul’s father, Tzvi Hirsch, and Tzvi Hirsch eventually responded in a small pamphlet.  R. Tzvi Hirsch first deals with the predicate question, is the manuscript legitimate. That is, prior to discussing the conclusions of particular responsum, regarding the manuscript, R. Tzvi Hirsch testifies that he is intimately familiar with this manuscript. He explains that for 11 years, the manuscript was in his house.  In fact, R. Tzvi Hirsch created the index that appears in BR from this manuscript.  Additionally, he had his other son Hirschel (eventual Chief Rabbi of London) copy the manuscript for publication.  Thus, R. Tzvi Hirsch argues that should put to rest any doubt regarding the authenticity of the manuscript.

    R. Tzvi Hirsch then turns to the issue regarding conclusions of some of the responsa. He first notes, that at most, there are a but a small number of questionable responsa.  Indeed, it is at most approximately 5% of the total responsa in BR.  That is, no one questions 95% of the responsa (at least not then).  Second, with regard to the conclusions themselves, that some conclusions are different than the halahik norms, that can be found in numerous books, none of which anyone questions their authenticity.  Thus, conclusions prove nothing.

Leaving the history and turning to the content of BR.  One of the more controversial responsa is the one discussing suicide.  In particular, according to the responsum attributed to Rosh, the historic practices that were applied to a suicide – lack of Jewish burial, no mourning customs – are not applicable any longer.  This is so, because suicides can be attributed to the poor conditions of the Jews and not philosophical reasons.  Thus, we can attribute the motivations of a suicide to depression and remove the restrictions that applied to suicides. 

    This responsum was what lead some, including R. Moshe Sofer (Hatam Sofer), to conclude that the entire BR was a forgery.  Indeed, this responsum was one of the two that were removed in the second edition.  Others, however, point out this responsum and its conclusions are not in any conflict with any accepted halakhic norms.  And, instead, while providing new insight into the current motivations of a suicide, the ultimate conclusion can be reconciled with all relevant laws.  [11]  

This particular example illustrates the problematic nature of merely relying upon a particular conclusion to demonstrate the authenticity or lack thereof of a work. Although R. Sofer was certain this responsum ran counter to a statement of the Talmud, others were easily able to reconcile the Talmudic statement with the conclusion of the responsum.

    Another controversial responsa deals with someone who is stuck on the highway as the Shabbat is fast approaching.  The traveler is thus faced with the following dilemma, stop in a city where he will require the charity of strangers or continue on and get home.  The BR rules that the traveller can continue and is not required to resort to charity.  This, like the responum above, was similarly removed from the second edition. These are the only two responsa removed from the second edition.  Of course, this removal isn’t noted anywhere except that the numbers skip over those two.  In fact, the index retains the listing for the two responsa. 

    Other controversial responsa include one dealing with belief in the afterlife and messianic era, kitnoyot – BR would abolish the custom, and issues relating to mikvah. 

Today, common practice regarding suicide appears, for the most part, to conform with the position of BR.

Status Today

    After its publication in 1793, it would be almost one hundred years before the BR would be reprinted.  In 1881, the BR was reprinted in Cracow.  This edition was published by “the well-known Rabbi Yosef Lazer from Tarnow'” R. Lazer’s was part of a well-known Hassidic family.  His grandfather, R. Menachem Mendel Lazer was the author of Sova Semochot, Zolkiov, 1845.[12] It appears that the BR was the only controversial book that R. Yosef Lazer published.  Although he published approximately 30 books, the are mainly run-of-the mill works, Machzorim, haggadot, as well as some standard rabbinic works. It is unclear what prompted R. Lazer to republish the BR.  Lazer provides no explanation.  Although Lazer’s publishing activities are difficult to reconcile with his publication of the BR, the printers, Yosef Fischer and Saul Deutscher, other publications indicate that they were more open to printing all types of books. For example, the same year they published BR, they published a translation of Kant, Me-Ko’ach ha-Nefesh, Cracow, 1881.  In all events, it appears that Lazer (or perhaps the printers) was aware of the controversy surrounding the BR as he removed Saul Berlin’s introduction as well as two of the more controversial responsa, one discussing suicide and the other allowing one to continue to travel home after sunset on Friday to avoid having to rely upon the charity of strangers.  In addition, one responsa was accidentally placed at the end of the volume, not in its proper order.[13]  Although the two responsa were removed in the text, they still appear in the index. A photo-mechanical reproduction of this edition was published in New York in 1970, and a copy is available on Hebrewbooks. 

    In 1984, the BR was reprinted for only the third time.  This edition, edited by R. Reuven Amar and includes an extensive introduction, Kuntres Yafe le-Besamim, about BR.  Additionally, commentary on the BR by various rabbis is included.  The text of this edition is a photo-mechanical reproduction of the first edition.  This edition contains two approbations, one from R. Ovadiah Yosef, who in his responsa accepts that BR is a product of R. Saul Berlin, but R. Yosef holds that doesn’t diminish the BR’s value.  The second approbation is from R. Benyamin Silber.  But, R. Silber provides notes in the back of this edition and explains that he holds the BR is a forgery and that he remains unconvinced of Amar’s arguments to the contrary.

    In his introduction, Amar attempts to rehabilitate the BR.  Initially, it should be noted that Amar relies heavily upon Samet’s articles on BR, but never once cites him.  Samet had complied a bibliography of works about BR as well as where the BR is cited, Amar also provides the latter in a sixty four page Kuntres, ריח בשבמים, in the back of his edition. In his introduction Amar relates the history of the BR and attempts to demonstrate that many accepted the BR and those that did not, Amar argues that many really did accept BR.  This introduction contains some very basic errors, many of which have been pointed out by Shmuel Ashkenazi in his notes that appear after the introduction.  

Difficulties in Authentication   

    Today, various theories have been put forth to demonstrate that the BR is a forgery.  Specifically, some have pointed to “hints” or “clues” that R. Saul left for the careful reader which would indicate that BR is a carefully created forgery.  For example, some note that the number of responsa, 392, the Hebrew representation of that number is שצ”ב which can be read to be an abbreviation of Saul’s name – Saul ben Tzvi.  Others take this one step further and point to the was R. Asher (Rosh) is referenced – רא”ש – which again can be read R. Saul.  Obviously, these clues are by no means conclusive.  In the academic world, the BR is written off as a “trojan horse” intended to surreptitiously get R. Saul’s masklik positions out in the masses or something similar.  All of these positions, however, rely upon a handful of responsa at best and no one has been able to conclusively demonstrate that the entirety of BR is a forgery. At best, we are still left with the original criticisms – that a few of the responsa’s conclusions espouse positions that appear to be more 18th century in nature than 13th century. [14]   

 R. Yeruchum Fischel Perlow aptly sums up much of what has been written regarding the question of authenticity of BR:

Just about all who have examined [the question of the authenticity of BR] walk around like the blind in the dark, and even after all their long-winded essays, they are left with only their personal feelings about the BR without ever adducing any substantive proofs in support of their position. And, on the rare occasions that they actual do provide proofs for their positions, it only takes a cursory examination to determine that their is nothing behind those proofs. [R. Yeruchum Fischel Perlow, “Regarding the book ‘Besamim Rosh,'” Noam 2 (1959), p. 317. For some reason this article is lacking in some editions of Noam]

    Assuming that one discounts the testimony of Saul and his father regarding the manuscript, it is not easy to determine if the BR is authentic or not.  For example, responsum 192, according to R. Moshe Hazan, one of the defenders of BR, this responsum “is clear to anyone who is familiar with the language and style of the Rishonim, from the Rishonim.” Responsum 192, is attributed to R. Shlomo ben Aderet (Rashba), and discusses the opinion of Rosh that allowed for capital punishment for pregnancy out of wedlock.  Thus, according to R. Hazan, 192 is conclusive proof that BR is authentic. 

    Simcha Assaf, however, has shown that responsum 192 is a forgery – or there is a misattribution.  Assaf explains that if one looks at the date of this incident, responsum 192 could not have been written by Rashba.  Rashba died 10 years prior to this event.  Simcha Assaf, Ha-Onshim Ahrei Hatemat ha-Talmud, Jerusalem, 1928, pp. 69-70.  Thus, the very same responsum whose “language and style” demonstrated that it was from the times of the rishonim has attribution problems.  To be sure, Assaf isn’t saying this responsum isn’t necessarily from the rishonim period, however, it surely isn’t from Rashba.[15]

    Or, to take another example. Talya Fishman argues that “[halakhic literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . . . climbed to new (and fantastic) heights of theoretical speculation, creating, in effect, a body of non applied law.”  Talya Fishman, “Forging Jewish Memory: BR and the Invention of Pre-emancipation Jewish Culture,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory, ed. Carlbach et al., Hanover and London: 1998, pp. 70-88.  Based on this understanding of seventeenth and eighteenth century literature, as contrasted with literature from the period of Rosh, she turns to the BR and finds such speculative responsa.  This, according to Fishman, implicitly demonstrates that BR is a product of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Indeed, Fishman concludes “[i]n short, [BR], has an unusually high concentration of eyebrow-raising cases.”  Id. at 76. 

    But, if one subjects Fishman’s argument to even a minimal amount of scrutiny, her argument, as presented, is unconvincing.  First, in support of Fishman’s “high concentration” of odd responsa, Fishman provides three examples.  That is, Fishman points to three out of 392 responsa that contain “eyebrow-raising cases” and concludes this represents “an unusually high concentration.”  I think that most would agree that less than 1% does not represents an unusually high concentration.  Second, of the three examples Fishman does provide, one is from Kasa deHarshena, which everyone agrees is a product of the eighteenth century.  Third, one of the examples, no. 100, it appears that Fishman misread the responsa.  Fishman provides that responsa 100 is a “bizarre question about whether a one-armed man should don tefilin shel yad on his forehead alongside tefilin shel rosh.”  Id. at 76.  Indeed,  responsa 100 is about a one-armed man and whether because he cannot fulfill the arm portion of tefilin if that absolves him of the head portion.  Nowhere, however, not in BR or Kasa de-harshena, does it mention the possibility of putting the tefilin shel yad on one’s forehead.  Thus, if we discount these two responsa, Fishman is left with a single responsum to prove her generalization about BR.[16]   

    Regarding the manuscript, that too is an unsolved mystery.  We know that a manuscript that may have been the copy which R. Hirschel made is extant but the manuscript from di Molena is unknown.  Additionally, although we know that the Leningrad/St. Petersberg library had Tzvi Hirsch’s copy with his annotations, the current location of that book is unknown. See Benjamin Richler’s post regarding the manuscript here.

    The BR’s most lasting effect may be in that this was to be the first of many newly discovered manuscripts to be accused of forgery because of the conclusions reached.  Subsequent to the BR, responsa or works in other areas of Jewish literature were tarred with cry of forgery because of their conclusions. [See Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, Chapters in the History of the Jewish Book, Writing and Transmission, Ramat-Gan, 2005, 244-75, (“until the publication of BR, there were no questions raised regarding the authenticity of a book”) Spiegel also demonstrates that we now know that in many instances that the charge of forgery was wholly without basis and today there is no question that some of the books that are alleged forgeries are legitimate.]

Other Works by Saul Berlin

    One final point.  While we discussed Saul’s work prior to BR, there was another book that he wrote, that was published posthumously.  This work, Ketav Yosher, defended Naftail Wessley and his changes to the Jewish educational system.  Indeed, Ketav Yosher, is a scathing attack on many traditional sacred cows. [17]  Ketav Yosher, like MY, was published without Saul’s name, but again, we have testimony that Saul was in fact the author.  In light of the position Ketav Yosher takes, it is no surprise that this book doesn’t help Saul’s standing among traditionalists.  

    Saul may have written additional works as well, however, like the BR itself, there is some controversy surrounding those additional works.  R. Saul’s son, R. Areyeh Leib records an additional 11 works that Saul left behind after he died.  The problem is these very same works – although all remaining in manuscript – have been attributed to someone else.  But, before one jumps to conclusions, it should be pointed out that this story gets even more complicated.  The book which attributes these works to another is itself problematic.  Indeed, whether this list attributing the books to another even exists is a matter debate.  And, while that sounds implausible, that, indeed is the case.  Ben Yaakov, Otzar ha-Seforim (p. 599 entry 994) says there is a 1779 Frankfort Order edition of Sha’ar ha-Yihud/Hovot ha-Levovot that includes an introduction (and other material) that lists various manuscripts which the editor, according to Ben Ya’akov, was a grandson of Yitzhak Yosef Toemim, ascribes to his grandfather – and not Saul. Weiner, in his bibliography, Kohelet Moshe, (p. 478, no. 3922) says that Ben Ya’akov is wrong – not about the edition, Weiner agrees there was a 1779 Frankfort Oder edition, just Weiner says there is no introduction and Toemim wasn’t the editor (and other material is missing). Vinograd, Otzar Sefer ha-Ivri lists such a book – 1779 Frankfort Oder, Hovot ha-Levovot/Sha’ar ha-Yichud, but there is no such edition listed in any catalog that we have seen including JNUL, JTS, Harvard, British Library etc. It appears that Samat couldn’t locate a copy either as although he records the dispute between Weiner and Ben Yaakov, he doesn’t offer anything more.  Thus, Saul’s other writings, for now, remains an enigma.

    It is worthwhile to conclude with the words of R. Matisyahu Strashun regarding Saul and the BR:

“After all these analyses, even if we were able to prove that the entire BR from the begininning to end is the product of R. Saul, one cannot brush the work aside . . . as the work is full of Torah like a pomegranate, and the smell of besamim is apparent, it is a work full of insight and displays great breadth, the author delves into the intricacies of the Talmud and the Rishonim, the author is one of the greats of his generation.”  Shmuel Yosef Finn, Kiryah Ne’amanah, notes of R. Strashun, p. 93.

The Internet


    As hopefully should be apparent, most of the books discussed above or referenced below are available online.  These include the rare retraction that R. Saul published regarding his position on shaving on hol ha-ma’od, Ketav Yosher, the prospectus for BR, as well as the BR itself.  Indeed, not only is the BR online but both editions are online. And, the BR exemplifies why one should be aware of multiple internet sources.  Hebrewbooks has a copy of BR which they indicate is the first edition “Berlin, 1793,” however, in reality it is the later, 1881 Warsaw edition of the BR.  As noted above, that edition, however, is lacking two responsa.  This highlights an issue with Hebrewbooks, the bibliographical data is not necessarily correct.  The JNUL, has the first edition. Indeed, in the case of the JNUL, the bibliographical information is much more reliable than Hebrewbooks. Thus, one needs to use both the JNUL as well as Hebrewbooks if one wants to get a full picture of the BR. Or, another example.  Both the JNUL site as well as Hebrewbooks has MY online; but, the JNUL version was bound with two rare letters at the end and those appear online as well.  Additionally, when it comes to Hebrewbooks, one must be aware that they have removed books that someone presumably finds objectionable so although MY and KY are there now, there is no guarantee it will be in the future.  Similarly, although not online, and unlike the MY the JNUL has, Otzar haChomah has the Ze’ev Yitrof with additional material bound in the back. Besides for all these rare seforim mentioned, many of the other seforim quoted in this post, as is apparent from the links, can now be found on the web in a matter of seconds instead of what just a few short years ago would have taken a nice long trip to an excellent library.

Saul’s Epithet, he was buried in the Alderney Road Cemetery in London, next to his brother, Hirschel, Chief Rabbi 
Notes

[1] For more on R. Raphael Cohen see the amazingly comprehensive and insightful bibliography by the bibliophile R. Eliezer Katzman, “A Book’s Luck,” Yeshurun 1 (1996), p. 469-471 n.2. See also R. Moshe Shaprio, R Moshe Shmuel ve-Doro pp.103-110 especially on the BR see 108-09. C. Dembinzer, Klielas Yoffee, 1:134b, 2:78b writes that the work on TY caused R. Saul to lose his position as Chief-Rabbi of Frankfort and his wife divorced him because of it. See also, S. Agnon, Sefer Sofer Vesipur, p.337. On R. Raphael Cohen and his connection with the Gra and Chasidus see D. Kamenetsky, Yeshurun, 21, p. 840-56. As an aside this article generated much controversy for example see the recent issue of Heichal Habesht, 29, p.202-216 and here.
[2] Regarding the correct pronunciation of this title see Moshe Pelli, “The Religious Reforms of ‘Traditionalist’ Rabbi Saul Berlin,” HUCA (1971) p. 11.  See also R. Shmuel Ashkenzi’s notes in the BR, Jerusalem, 1983 ed., introduction, n.p., “Notes of R. Shmuel Ashkenzi on Kuntres Yefe le-Besamim, note 6.  
Additionally, MY was not Saul’s first literary production, nor was it his first that was critical of another’s book.  Instead, while he was in Italy in 1784, he authored a kunteres of criticisms of R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai’s Birkei Yosef.  See R. R. Margolis, Arshet pp. 411-417; Moshe Samat, “Saul Berlin and his Works,” Kiryat Sefer 43 (1968) 429-441, esp. pp. 429-30, 438 n.62.  On Chida’s opinion of the BR see for example Shem Hagedolim:

עתה מקרוב נדפס ספר זה בברלין… ועוד יש הגהות כסא דהרסנא. ואשמע אחרי קול רעש כי יש בספר זה קצת דברים זרים ואמרו שהמעתיק הראשון בארץ תורגמה מכ”י הרב יצחק די מולינא ז”ל יש לחוש שהוסיף וגרע. ולכן הקורא בסי’ זה לא יסמוך עליו דאפשר דתלי בוקי סריקי בגדולים עד אשר יחקור ויברר הדברים ודברי אמת ניכירים ודי בזה… (שם הגדולים, ערך בשמים ראש, וראה שם, ערך מר רב אברהם גאון)

See also the important comments of R.Yakov Chaim Sofer, Menuchas Sholom, 8, pp. 227-230 about the Chida.
[3]  Eliezer Landshut, Toldot Anshei Shem u-Puolotum be-Adat Berlin, Berlin: 1884, 89-90 for the text of the ban as well as its history.  Additionally, for the proclamation read in the main synagogue of Altona see id. at 90-1. This proclomation has been described as “one of the harshest condemnations” of the time.  See Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment in the Eighteenth-Century, Jerusalem: 2002, p. 310. 
[4]  Id. at 91. Samat, however, notes that neither Saul nor his father ever admitted Saul’s authorship of MY.  Samat, “Saul Berlin and his Works,” p. 432, 4.  
[5] According to A. Berliner, the author of this pamphlet is R. Eliezer Heilbot. See Samat, id. Saul and MY were not the only ones attacked. The publisher of MY, Hinukh Ne’arim, was also attacked and, not only MY but all the books they published were prohibited by some. The publishers, however, defended their decision to publish MY.  They argued that the whole point of MY was to ascertain if R. Raphael Cohen’s book was riddled with errors or, the author of MY was mistaken.  The publishers pointed to the above mentioned introduction to MY wherein the MY’s author explains that he has sent copies of the book to leading rabbis to determine the question regarding R. Cohen’s book. Thus, MY is either right or wrong, but there can be nothing wrong with merely publishing it.  See id. at 92-3.
Additionally, it should be noted that according to some, Saul authored a second attack on R. Raphael.  R. Raphael published Marpeh Lashon, Altona, 1790, and was soon after attacked in the journal Ha-Meassef by someone writing under the pen-name EM”T.  Many posit that this is none other than Saul.  Katzman, Yeshurun 1, 471 n.3, disagrees and points to internal evidence that it is unlikly that Saul is the author of this critique. 
According to Feiner, these attacks were not one-sided.  Feiner argues that R. Cohen criticizes Saul, albeit in a veiled manner, in Marpeh Lashon.  See Feiner, Jewish Enlightenment, op. cit., 314-15.  
[6] Landshuth, id., suggests that Moshe is a non-existent figure like MY’s putative author Ovadiah. See also, Samet, “Saul Berlin and his Works,” 432 n.4 who similarly questions the existence of Moshe.  Carmilly-Weinberg makes the incredible statement that his Moshe is none other than Moses Mendelssohn.  Carmilly-Weinberg, Sefer ve-Seiyif,  New York, 1967, p. 215, (Carmilly-Weinberg’s discussion about both MY and BR are riddled with errors).  As Pelli notes this is impossible as the letter is signed 1789, the same year MY was printed, and Mendelssohn died three years prior. Pelli resurrects Moshe and links him with a known person from Amsterdam, Saul brother-in-law. See Pelli, HUCA (1971) p. 13 n.75.  Ultimately, however, Pelli rejects this and demonstrates that Moshe is indeed a pseudonym but a well-selected one.  See id.  
[7]  See Landshuth, 93-9; Pelli, 13-15.  See also R. Alexander Sender Margolioth, Shu”t ha-RA”M, Lemberg, 1897, no. 9.    
[8] See Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment, op. cit., 312-13.  This newspaper is online here, and Feiner provides the relevant issues which are 1789 pp. 484-88, 520-24, 574-81, 680-82, 768-74, 791-802, 867-92, 932-72.   
One of which includes this portrait of R. Cohen.
Which is a very different portrait, both in time and look, to the one appearing in E. Duckesz, Ivoh le-Moshav, Cracow, 1903.

[9] For the deeper meaning of the title Kasa de-Harshena, see Moshe Pelli, The Age of Haskalah, University Press of America, 2006, 183 n.51.
[10] See Samat, who discusses the exact progression of the ban.

[11] See Yechezkel Shrage Lichtenstein, Suicide: Halakhic, Historical, and Theological Aspects, Tel-Aviv, 2008, pp. 438-44. See also,Yeshurun 13:570-587 especially pp.578-581; Marc B. Shapiro, “Suicide and the World-To-Come,” AJS Review, 18/2 (1993), 245-63. 
On the issue of suicide there are others who similarly reach the same holding as the BR see Strashun in his מתת-יה pp. 72a-72b (this source is not quoted by Samet or Amar).
[12] Biographical information on R. Yosef Lazer is scant.  For information on his father and grandfather, see Meir Wunder, Me’orei Galicia, Israel, 1986, vol. III, pp. 456, 462-3. See also T.I. Abramsky, “‘Besamim Rosh’ in the Hassidic Milieu,” Taggim, (3-4), 56-58.   
[13] Samat only notes the removal of one responsum, he fails to note that exclusion of the second.  He does, however, note the misplaced responsum.  Additionally, Kuntres ha-Teshuvot ha-Hadash, fails to record that any are missing or that one responsum was moved to the end. 
[14] See Pelli, Age of Haskalah, pp. 185-89, comparing a few responsa with 18th century haskalah literature.
[15] Assaf was not the first to use this responsa and note its historical anacronisms.  Leopold Zunz, also highlights the issues with this responsum (as well as others).  Leopold Zunz, Die Ritus des Synagogalen Gottesdienstes, Geschichtlich Entwickelt, Berlin: 1859, 226-28.  Zunz’s critique is quoted, almost in its entirety by Schrijver, but Schrijver appears to be unaware of Assaf’s additional criticisms of the responsum (and others).
Assaf provides one other example where he shows through internal data that there is a misattribution.  Assaf concludes that he has other examples of historical anacronisms in BR but doesn’t provide them here or, to our knowledge, anywhere else.
[16] For another critique of Fishman’s position see Emile G.L. Schrijver, “Saul Berlin’s Besamim Rosh: The Maskilic Appreciation of Medieval Knowledge,” in Sepharad in Ashkenaz, Netherlands: 2007, pp. 249-259, esp. pp. 253-54. 
[17] Regarding Ketav Yoshor see Pelli, Age, 176-79. See also here and here.

Additional Bibliography:
M. Samet has two articles on the topic, R. Saul Berlin and his Writings, Kiryat Sefer, 43 (1969) 429-41; “Besamim Rosh” of Saul Berlin, Kiryat Sefer 48 (1973) 509-23, neither of which are included in the recent book of Samet’s articles.

To add to Samet’s and Amar’s very comprehensive lists of Achronim who quote BR: (I am sure searches on the various search engines will show even more): Malbim in Artzos Hachaim, 9:41 (in Hameir Learetz); Shut Zecher Yosef,1:32b; Keter Kehunah p. 30; Matzav Hayashar 1:2a; Pischei Olam 2:218,228; Birchat Yitchcak (Eiskson), pp. 6,14,24; Maznei Tzedek, p.26,45,254; R.Yakov Shor, Birchat Yakov, pp.212  Sefer Segulos Yisroel pp.116b; R. Rabinowitz, Afekei Yam 2:14; R. Leiter, Zion Lenefesh Chayah# 43; Shut Sefas Hayam, OC siman 14; R Meir Soleiveitck, Hameir Laretz 45a, 45b, 54b, 55a; Emrei Chaim p.26; R. Sholom Zalman Auerbach, Meorei Eish p. 108 b

In general on BR see: R.Yakov Shor,Eytaim Lebinah (on Sefer Haeytim) p. 256; Pardes Yosef, Vayikrah 220b Pardes Yosef, Shelach p. 517; R.Yakov Chaim Sofer, Menuchas Sholom, 8, pp. 222- 230; Shar Reven p. 54; A. Freimann, HaRosh ; Y. Rafel, Rishonim Veachronim, pp. 123-130; B. Lau, MeMaran Ad Maran, pp.133; S. Agnon, Sefer Sofer Vesipur, pp.337-339.

R. Pinhas Eliyahu Horowitz writes:

ולפעמים תולים דבריהם באילן גדול וכותבים מה שרוצים בשם איזה קדמון אשר לא עלה על לבו… כספר בשמים ראש שחיבר בעל כסא דהרנסא לא הרא”ש וזקני ישראל תופסי התורה יעלו על ראשם… (ספר הברית, עמ’ 232).

The Steipler was of the opinion in regard to the BR that:
שבאמת ניכר מהרבה תשובות שהם מהרא”ש ז”ל רק כנראה שיש שם הרבה תשובות מזויפות שהמעתיק הכניס מעצמו כי ישנם שם דברים מאד מזורים ואיומים  (ארחות רבנו, א, עמ’ רפה)

R Zevin writes in Sofrim Veseforim (Chabad) p.354 :
אלא שבתשובות בשמים ראש המיחוס להרא”ש ושכידוע נמנו וגמרו שמזוייף הוא

R. Yakov Kamenetsky said: “Do you think Just we (he meant people of his own caliber) were fooled? Even R. Akiva Eiger was fooled.” (Making of a Godol, pp.183-184)

About Rav Kook and the BR see: http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/5-2006/Gutel.pdf

R. Avigdor Nebensal writes:

כשמביאם את הבשמים ראש ראוי להזכיר שיש מסתייגים חריפות מהספר הזה (השתנות הטבעים, עמ’ 16).
R Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg writes:
אכן בעיקר הענין אם להביא דברי בשמים ראש בודאי צדק הג”א נבנצל שליט”א שיש להביאו בהסתייגות, ובפרט בענינים אלו שהוחזק למזייף ולמביא עקומות וכוזבות (השתנות הטבעים, עמ’ רסד).



More on Chaim Bloch

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More on Chaim Bloch
By Marc B. Shapiro
In a previous post I mentioned how the non-Jewish Austrian minister Leon Bilinski was descended from the rav of Posen, R. Samuel ben Moses Falkenfeld, the Beit Shmuel Aharon. More information about Bilinski’s Jewish roots is found in Chaim Bloch’s Ve-Da Mah she-Tashiv (New York, 1943), p. 74 n. 1. In general, I have found that when Bloch is reporting about other people’s biographies and history in general, he is very reliable. It is only when he is somehow involved in the story that he is full of lies.1 His Ve-Da Mah she-Tashiv is a good example. Here is the title page.
In this book he makes up an entire story that he was asked by an important Catholic figure to answer questions from the Vatican dealing with Judaism. The whole story is a fiction, as is so much else he writes about himself. As for Bilinski, Bloch tells us that he is in possession of Bilinski’s 1146 page (!) unpublished diary. As Bloch himself notes, he provided various scholars (e.g.., N. M. Gelber) with selections of this diary which they then used in their own works, thus misleading the world. In these selections, Bilinski comes off as a strong anti-Zionist, who even warns Herzl about how the Arabs will never accept a Jewish state in Palestine.2 In an article in the Herzl Year Book, Bloch published what he claimed was an 1893 letter from Herzl and uses this to prove that Herzl was interested in the Jewish problem already in 1893, a year before the 1894 Dreyfus trial which is usually cited as having turned Herzl to Jewish matters.3 Various scholars have cited this letter, as they understandably regard it as significant in understanding Herzl, but of course it is a forgery. Another way Bloch misled scholars, in particular Gelber, is with regard to an anonymous booklet that speaks of a return of the Jews to the Land of Israel and the establishment of a state.4 According to Billinski’s diary, so Bloch tells us, the author of this booklet was Benjamin Disraeli. Bilinski would certainly have been in a position to know this information, and therefore a number of people have been misled by this, thinking the diary authentic
Look how Bloch’s forgeries were able to have such an impact. I think, in the end, this is what gives the forger satisfaction, watching everyone taken in by his creation. In 1948 no one would have believed that Bloch was capable of this. In fact, if not for his blatant forgeries in Dovev Siftei Yeshenim, some people today would still assume that he is reliable. As the Talmud tells us, tafasta merubah lo tafasta! Bloch should have stuck with his smaller forgeries, because when he decided to publish complete volumes of forged material, that’s when people really began to take notice. It is therefore very surprising that no less a scholar than Robert S. Wistrich, who is aware of the accusations of forgery against Bloch, nevertheless cites material from Bloch’s Mi Natan li-Meshisah and states that in his opinion at least some of the material must be considered authentic. Why he thinks this he doesn’t tell us. The truth is that this book, like Dovev Siftei Yeshenim, is full of Bloch’s forgeries, and not only of rabbis but also of political leaders (including summaries of supposed letters from Bismark about Zionism!)5

Just to illustrate that you can’t judge people by appearances, here is a picture of Bloch, which previously appeared in Dr. Shnayer Leiman’s post on the Seforim Blog.6

Throughout Bloch’s various books, he quotes numerous letters from gedolim who were no longer alive, and none of these letters are found in his archives, currently kept at YIVO and the Leo Baeck Institute. In other words, he simply made up these letters, as he did with the entire volumes of anti-Zionist letters of gedolim that he published. The rule is that whenever Bloch cites a previously unpublished letter from someone, either addressed to himself or to another, and the author of the letter is no longer alive, you can assume that the letter is forged. We know this now, after Shmuel Weingarten’s exposé of Dovev Siftei Yeshenim.7 Yet the evidence was there all along, had people paid attention. But people had no reason to assumed that Bloch was not reliable. R. Joseph Elijah Henkin, however, who was involved in a terrible dispute with Bloch, did accuse Bloch of dishonesty, and pointed out that he would attribute quotes to rabbis who were no longer alive so that he couldn’t be contradicted. In the late 1930’s Bloch published a letter from R. Kook. R. Zvi Yehudah Kook was very skeptical of its authenticity and requested that Bloch send him a copy of it. Bloch replied that he was unable to do so since he had lost the original.8 This was Bloch’s pattern, and I assume that all of the many letters he published from leading rabbis and hasidic leaders, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century, are forgeries.9

Here is another example of Bloch’s tendency to fabricate things. It comes from his Heikhal le-Divrei Chazal u-Fitgameihem (New York, 1948), p. 9. Everything he reports here is a fantasy. As with some of his other forgeries, Bloch is obviously motivated here by good intentions, but it is all complete nonsense.

Ve-Da Ma she-Tashiv also contains forged letters. I am certain that the letter of R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski on pp. 52-53 is an example of this. Anyone can look at the style of R. Chaim Ozer’s many letters and see how he consistently used certain formulas in concluding his letters. Nowhere does R. Chaim Ozer conclude a letter with
ונזכה כולנו לראות בישועת עמנו במהרה
He does use the expression
ועיניהם תחזינה בישועת עמנו במהרה

and this is found in a letter that Bloch would have had access to, the letter of R. Chaim Ozer to Agudat ha-Rabbanim about the Louis Epstein proposal.10 I assume he used the concluding portion of this letter to help him create his forgery. But in other areas he wasn’t so careful. For example, in the supposed letter of R. Chaim Ozer to Bloch, he refers to the latter as a צנא מלא ספרא , yet this expression does not appear in R. Chaim Ozer’s other letters (based on Otzar ha-Hokhmah’s database, which only has the first edition of R. Chaim Ozer’s letters, not the expanded Iggerot R. Chaim Ozer.)
We should assume the same for all of the other letters in this book from people who were not alive when the book was written. It is fascinating that on p. 44 n. 1 Bloch refers to the anti-Zionist letters he would later publish in Dovev Siftei Yeshenim. Ve-Da Mah she-Tashiv was published in 1943 and the first volume of Dovev Siftei Yeshenim didn’t appear until 1959, meaning that this forgery was very long in the making, and Bloch was setting the stage for it many years prior.
There is more to say about this book, in particular his argument that there are passages in the Talmud that were inserted by heretics – a viewpoint earlier mentioned by R. Joseph Zvi Duenner, as I have pointed out elsewhere, see here.

I will leave that for another time, but to give you an example of what I am referring to, here is a passage from p. 39 (emphasis in the original):
אופינית היא “המעשיה” בר’ שמעון בן גמליאל “שהיה על גב מעלה בהר הבית וראה נכרית אחת נאה ביותר. אמר: מה רבו מעשיך ד'” (ע”ז כ ע”א) המאמר הזה זיוף  . . . לא יעלה בדעתנו, שר’ שמעון בן גמליאל הביט על אשה, היינו הך, נכרית או ישראלי – לשם יפיה. ומצאתי עוד מאמר בשם רב, שזיופו עומד מחוץ לכל ספק: “בשעה שבקש נבוכדנצר לעשות לאותו צדיק (צדקיהו) כך, נמשכה ערלתו ש’ אמה והיתה מחזרת על כל המסבה כולה שנאמר: שבעת קלון מכבוד, שתה גם אתה והערל” (שבת קמט ע”ב). מלבד הנבול שבמאמר זה, הוא חסר טעם, ולא יתכן, שמפי רב יצאו הדברים.
I don’t know which position is “frummer”? To defend the honor of the sages and therefore deny that these “obscene” passages are authentic, or to defend the Talmud as we have it and thus have to deal with these passages.
Yet whatever the answer to this is, if Bloch were alive today, the haredi world would put him in herem for another reason. Here is what he writes on p. 38, with regard to how to view Aggadah in contrast to the halakhic sections of the Talmud. (What he says is nothing other than the Geonic and Spanish tradition, which is largely unknown in today’s yeshiva world.):
היא אינה נחשבת ליסוד קיומה של היהדות ויש לה אופי של ספר עם . . . לחלק האגדה נכנסו דברי מוסר ודרך ארץ, מליצות ובדיחות, סגולות ורפואות, אזהרות ועצות, פתרון חלומות ואגדות, שלהרבה מהם יש ערך גם מחוץ להיהדות. יתכן שהרבה הושפעו בעלי התלמוד בזה מהעמים שכניהם.
Also interesting is that in Ve-Da Mah she-Tashiv, p. 44 n. 1,  he refers very positively to R. Henkin, something that would later change when their great battle began.
Bloch claimed that he had a close relationship with the great R. Judah Leib Zirelson of Kishinev (Speaking for myself, Zirelson’s greatest achievement had to have been standing up to the extreme anti-Zionist elements in Agudat Israel, led by R. Elhanan Wasserman and R. Aaron Kotler. They wanted the Agudah to officially oppose the creation of a Jewish state. Zirelson, as president of the 1937 Kenesiah Ha-Gedolah in Marienbad, was able to convince the Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah to agree with his own position, which was not to oppose a state but to attempt to bring Torah values into it. See Ha-Pardes, Oct. 1937, p. 8). In this book, Bloch cites a number of things from Zirelson of which, again, I have no doubt that he has made them up. For example, can anyone imagine that Zirelson would offer the following Haskalah-Reformist interpretation that Bloch puts in his mouth (p. 34)?
יתכן שהיתה כוונתו של ר’ שמעון בן יוחאי, בחפשו יסוד במקרא שהנכרים אינם מטמאים באוהל, כדי שלא ימצאו הרומיים תואנות ואמתלאות חדשות על ישראל, ומאימת המלכות הורה כן.
Although I can’t go into it in any detail now, the truth is that we do on occasion find Haskalah-Reformist types of interpretation even in traditional sources,11 but since these are very rare and we have no evidence that Zirelson ever said what is attributed to him, I assume it is another of Bloch’s forgeries. In other words, as he did so often, Bloch attributed his own understanding to one of the great Torah sages.
In chapter fourteen of Ve-Da Mah She-Tashiv, where he stresses the need for honesty in one’s dealings with non-Jews, he claims that Zirelson told him about a Zoharic passage in parashat Lekh Lekha that states:
כל מאן דמשקר בהאי עלמא בערל כמאן דמשקר בשמיה דקוב”ה
This is a beautiful thought. The only problem is that it doesn’t exist anywhere in the Zohar. I am certain that Zirelson would never have misquoted the Zohar and that the mistake is Bloch’s. I assume that the mistake is unintentional, perhaps quoting from memory, since a great forger like Bloch would never have dared falsely attribute anything to the Zohar, the accuracy of which could easily be checked.
Here is the actual Zohar text (vol. 1, p. 93a):
דכל מאן דמשקר בהאי כמאן דמשקר בשמיה דקב”ה
If you examine the entire passage you will find that it has nothing to do with being honest, and the word משקר here does not mean “to lie”, but “to betray”. The text is actually speaking about berit milah and how one is obligated to treat it properly, especially דלא עייל ליה ברשותא אחרא, which certainly refers to refraining from having sex with non-Jewish women. What the text is saying is that if you have illicit sex you betray the mark of the circumcision, and this is like betraying God’s name.
Since I mentioned Haskalah-Reformist interpretations in traditional texts, let me note one of the most famous of these. In Shabbat 140b, R. Papa’s states that if one can drink beer but instead drinks wine, he violates the prohibition on baal tashchit. Maharsha explains that R. Papa said this because he was a beer salesman! What this apparently means is that R. Papa lied about the halakhah in order to drum up more business for himself. How else to interpret Maharsha’s explanation?
ורב פפא לטובת עצמו אמרה שהוא הי’ עושה שכר.
This explanation is, to be sure, quite shocking. If you want to stretch things a bit you can say that according to Maharsha, R. Papa didn’t consciously alter the halakhah to benefit himself, but since he was a beer maker he was unconsciously led to this position, as it would benefit him. This explanation – which could easily have been offered by Jacob Katz – is suggested by the noted Yemenite posek, R. Yitzhak Ratsaby12:
והנה כל העובר ישום וישרוק, היתכן כדבר הזה שרב פפא יפסוק הלכה משום ריוח ממונו?! . . . ובודאי גם לדעת מהרש”א לא יתכן שרב פפא יאמר פסקי הלכה רק מתוך נגיעה, חלילה לו. אלא היה זה כעין “שוחד סמוי”, שלא הרגיש בו הוא עצמו, שמתוך כך בא לידי טעות בהלכה זו. כמו שהכתוב צווח ואומר (שמות כג, ח): “כי השוחד יעוור פקחים ויסלף דברי צדיקים”, ועל דרך שמצינו בכתובות (קט, ב) בגדולי עולם שאמרו על עצמם שהשוחד היטה את ליבם.
I think most people will tell you that this sort of explanation, which points to unconscious factors influencing halakhic decisions, was not how people thought in the days of the Maharsha. I myself do not see this as an anachronistic explanation, as the Talmud, Ketubot 105b, already discusses precisely this sort of unconscious influence.13  I believe that this is also how we are to understand all the discussions about נוגע בדבר, and how it applies even to the greatest tzadikim. It is not that these people will consciously twist the truth, but that unconsciously this is what can happen. Presumably, this is also the meaning of Hullin 49a:  ישמעאל כהנא מסייע כהני

I think this is also how we are to understand R. Moses Isserles, Yoreh Deah 242:36:
תלמיד חכם שאמר דבר הלכה בדבר השייך לדידיה . . . אין שומעין לדידיה דלמא מדמי דברים להדדי שאינן דומים
See also Ritva, Yevamot 77a:
דחיישינן שמא מתוך שנושא ונותן בהלכה כדי לקיים את דבריו אמר בדדמי כסבור שקיבל מרבו
I am not going to analyze the Maharsha in any depth, because either way you explain him, this is the exact sort of explanation that according to the Rav is heretical as it falls under the Rambam’s category of מכחיש מגידה.14 And it is not just the Rav who would be shocked by what Maharsha wrote. R. Yehoshua Heschel of Monistritch15 states:
ועל מאמר המהרש”א הזה צווחי קמאי 
R. Abraham Vengrober16 says concerning the standard explanation of Maharsha (before offering a different understanding of his words):
ופריצי עמנו מצאנו בקעה לדבר סרה על רז”ל . . . גם רבינו המהרש”א ז”ל לא כיוון בזה ח”ו להכוונה אשר העולם סוברים שבשביל זה שהי’ מסחרו שבח את הדבר לטובת עצמו.
R. Samuel Strashun in his commentary to the passage takes strong issue with Maharsha, and R. Hayyim Hezekiah Medini17 is astounded by what Maharsha wrote:
הדבר תמוה לפרש דנחשד רב פפא לדבר שקר חלילה לטובת עצמו.
I assume it is only a matter of time before this explanation of Maharsha is deleted from a future printing.
Here is another example (Ta’anit 14a-14b):
In the time of R. Judah the Prince there was distress. He ordained thirteen fast days and their prayer was not answered. He thought of ordaining additional fasts but R. Ammi said to him, “Did not [the Sages] declare we should not trouble the community unduly.” Said R. Abba the son of R. Hiyya b. Abba, “R. Ammi [in saying this] was studying his own interests.”
  
Rashi explains R. Abba’s declaration:
לעצמו דרש: דלא אמר אלא לפי שהוא לא היה רוצה להתענות
If anyone other than Rashi wrote this, wouldn’t it be regarded as an example of מכחיש מגידה?
Here is another example, from the Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 6:1:
R. Abbahu in the name of R. Yohanan, “It is permitted for a man to teach Greek to his daughter, because such learning is an ornament for her” Simeon bar Ba heard and said, “It is because R. Abbahu wants to teach his daughter such that he has assigned the teaching to R. Yohanan.”
R. Abbahu responded quite sharply to Simeon bar Ba, proclaiming: “May a curse come upon me, if I did not hear it from R Yohanan.” But I am more interested in Simeon bar Ba’s accusation. He assumed that the great R. Abbahu would falsely attribute a halakhic ruling to an earlier sage in order that his daughter would benefit. When Geiger and Graetz said things like this, no one was surprised, and the Orthodox condemned them for these type of interpretations. Yet here you have a Haskalah-Reformist type of interpretation offered by one of the Sages.
Returning to Bloch, another example where he deceived the world is found in his Heikhal le-Divrei Hazal u-Fitgemeihem, pp. 591-592. In line with his apologetic approach to Jewish sources, he claims that he saw an old version of the Passover prayer Shefokh Hamotkha, that went as follows:

שפוך אהבתך על הגוים אשר ידעוך

Even a great scholar such as Naftali Ben-Menachem was taken in by Bloch (and if you search online you will find a number of others who assume that Shefokh Ahavatkha is a real text, rather than another Bloch forgery18). Ben Menachem’s article appears in Mahanayim 80 (1963), and here is the page where he refers to Bloch’s version.

Incidentally, in Heikhal le-Divrei Hazal Bloch claims that he wrote about this version at length in his 1935 book Der Judenhass im Spiegel der Jahrtausende, and also printed a copy of the manuscript there. (In 1935 Bloch was living in Vienna.) Although he mentions this book in a couple of his other writings, there is no evidence that any such book ever appeared. Now we have the internet which allows us to check all the greatest libraries in a minute, yet in a prior era, simply mentioning that he had published such a book and that it contained a copy of the manuscript would have been enough to convince everyone. After all, it was not like people in the United States, England, or Palestine/Israel could easily check the holdings of libraries in Austria and Germany.
Meir Hershkovitz, in his fine book on R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes, also quotes Bloch a number of times. Bloch claimed to have seen unpublished material from Chajes and he included some of it in his Heikhal, but everything he mentions is fraudulent, and some of the comments are really outrageous. For example, on p. 565 he quotes Chajes as saying as follows about Rabbi Akiva19:

ר”ע מבני בניו של סיסרא היה ולמרות קדושת התורה ששלטה בו נשאר בו משהו מאופיו של סיסרא
(Some are probably wondering why I didn’t underline the first part as well, which states that R. Akiva was descended from Sisera. After all, in a few weeks Daf Yomi will reach Sanhedrin 96b and there you find the following, with no mention of R. Akiva: “Descendants of Sisera studied20 Torah in Jerusalem; descendants of Sennacherib taught Torah to the multitude. Who were these? Shemaya and Avtalion. Descendants of Haman studied Torah in Bnei Brak.” Yet numerous texts21 record a version of this passage that identifies R. Akiva as among the descendants of Sisera.)

What motivated Bloch to invent this negative comment about R. Akiva? I think that this too can be attributed to anti-Zionist motivations (an anonymous commenter on Soferim u-Seforim offered a similar explanation; see the link in n. 1). R. Akiva was associated with Bar Kokhba’s rebellion, and in the popular mind at least, this was a matter of pride for twentieth-century Jews. The thrust of the comment attributed to Chajes is to see this “warlike” aspect of R. Akiva as a throwback to Sisera. In other words, this is not something good. We see another example of Bloch’s anti-Zionism in his attempts to argue that a passage in Maimonides’ Letter on Astrology is not authentic. In this passage, Maimonides states that the Temple was destroyed and the Jews exiled because instead of focusing on “the art of military training and conquering lands,” they involved themselves with astrology, thinking it would help them. (Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Sheilat, vol. 2, p. 480) This passage was too “Zionistic” for Bloch, and not surprisingly he argues that it is a forged interpolation. See his article in Ha-Pardes 34 (April 1960), pp. 39-42, where once again it is Bloch who is the forger, citing a supposed letter from a Christian scholar to Dr. [Daviid?] Kaufmann and also telling us about the support he supposedly received from the Tchortkover Rebbe. (This Rebbe, incidentally, happened to be a one of the leading Agudah supporters of settlement in the Land of Israel.) One of Bloch’s major proofs that Maimonides could not have written this passage is his assumption that Maimonides was not impressed with R. Akiva’s support of Bar Kokhba. He bases this argument on Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:3. Yet Maimonides’ viewpoint in this matter is not enough for Bloch, and to achieve his purpose he has to actually find fault with R. Akiva’s character, something Maimonides would never do. Bloch even attacks some modern writers (such as Aaron Zeitlin and Hillel Seidman) who had stressed the contemporary significance of Maimonides’ words. In Bloch’s mind, by doing so they were showing the non-Jews that the Protocols of Elders of Zion were correct, namely, that Jews really did want to conquer the world! Bloch’s Neturei Karta side comes out very well in this article.

As a way of covering himself, so that people will believe the manuscripts of Chajes are authentic, Bloch states that he assumes that the material he is quoting from has survived in Israel, either with the family or at the National Library (Heikhal, pp. 520, 560). Yet in Hershkovitz, this supposition is stated as fact (Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes, p. 438). It is quite surprising that Hershkowitz, who wrote such a comprehensive biography of Chajes, didn’t attempt to track down these manuscripts. Had he done so, he would have realized that they don’t exist.
*    *    *
This is a blog about seforim, but with Dan’s permission, in a future post I am going to write about the various blogs and news sites, both haredi and Modern Orthodox, that focus on Jewish matters (halakhah, hashkafah, etc.). In the last six months I have visited them a good deal, left a number of comments (some quite provocative and opposed to my own outlook [e.g., dealing with sexual abuse, Zionism, Daas Torah, Torah mi-Sinai, etc.], and always under a pseudonym) and gathered the reactions. I also corresponded with people I met on the sites and with various anonymous baalei ha-blogs. I tried to be a bit of a reporter, gathering information, and just like a reporter sometimes has to hide his identify, I felt that in this circumstance it was permissible, especially as almost everyone I was dealing with was also anonymous. We all know that the ability to be anonymous is basic to the internet (and there has been a good deal of discussion recently about whether this is a good idea). I also felt that if I got involved in a debate on a haredi or Modern Orthodox site, my name would be recognizable to some of the people and they might respond differently than if I was some anonymous person.

Most of the information is publicly available (as are my comments), but I won’t cite any names, as I am not interested in individuals but in some of the thought processes that I observed. As always, I will tie this in with seforim, especially the phenomenon of anonymous and pseudonymous (as opposed to pseudepigraphal) seforim and articles, and also discuss the modern anonymous halakhic questions that R. Yuval Sherlow has written about. (He has also published a couple of volumes of his answers to these questions.) How is Judaism perceived and portrayed when people can live in two worlds, the public one and the private anonymous world of the internet? What does it mean when most people who comment about controversial topics choose to do so under a pseudonym? I think that what I found also has implications to an issue I have been concerned with for a long time, namely, the value of private letters and conversations vs. published word in seeking to evaluate the personality of an individual. This directly relates to David Holzer’s book on the Rav and was also a topic that became a dispute between the late Prof. Twersky and myself when writing my dissertation on R. Weinberg–more on that to come.

I mention all this because I have a request: If anyone is aware of a similar study with regard to Christian or political blogs and websites, please let me know. As a friend commented to me when I told him about my project, “we all know that there are registered Democrats on the Upper West Side who secretly vote Republican, but in order not to scandalize their friends, will only post their true opinions anonymously.” Yet has anyone written about this? There are serious methodological issues that must be dealt with in any such inquiry.
*    *    *

My new Torah in Motion class begins this Monday. I invite all who are free on Monday nights at 9PM Eastern to join us. This semester we are covering R. Eliezer Berkovits, R. Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, R. Elijah Benamozegh and R. Joseph Messas. You can sign up for it here
If you want to watch or listen to previous classes, to get a sense of how they work, you can download them here.
Notes
1 For a recent discussion of Bloch, see here which contains a number of informative comments.
2 See Bloch, Mi Natan li-Meshisah Yaakov ve-Yisrael le-Vozezim (Bronx, n.d.), pp. 54ff.
3 “Herzl’s First Years of Struggle: Unknown Episodes and Personal Recollections” Herzl Year Book 3 (1960), pp. 77-90.
4 The booklet is found in N. M. Gelber, Tokhnit ha-Medinah ha-Yehudit le-Lord Beaconsfield (Tel Aviv, 1947),  pp. 35ff. Gelber’s book is devoted to this booklet.
5 “Zionism and its Religious Critics in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna,” in S. Almog, et al., eds., Zionism and Religion (Hanover, 1998), pp. 150, 157 n. 45.
6 See here.
7 Mikhtavim Mezuyafim Neged ha-Tziyonut (Jerusalem, 1981).
8 See Weingarten, Mikhtavim, pp. 164-165. In Ha-Posek 11 (1950), p. 802, Bloch published another letter from R. Kook. It is also found in Heikhal le-Divrei Hazal u-Fitgamehem, p. 614. Again he tells us that he only has a copy of the letter, as the original was lost, and here too the letter in unquestionably a forgery. Bloch had R. Kook sign the letter עבד לעם קדוש , which he knew is found in numerous authentic letters. But the letter also contains the phrase כל יקר ראתה עיני , and this does not appear in any of the almost 2000 letters and responsa of R. Kook, as can be determined from the new database of R. Kook’s writings
9 I don’t know whether this also applies to halakhic writings, e.g., the supposed manuscript from R. Shalom Schwadron that came from Bloch and is published in R. Isaac Liebes, Beit Avi, vol. 3 no. 157. Incidentally, a few responsa after this, in no. 161, Liebes discusses whether a rabbinic organization could publicly advocate the institution of the death penalty, since it might happen that a Jew would also be sentenced to death (sound familiar?). Liebes begins his reply:
לא רק שמותר להתריע בכיוון זה רק מצוה לעורר את דעת העם את חומר הסכנה המרחפת על תושבי הארץ.
During the discussions about the Grossman execution, I looked at some of the haredi websites (until the comments made me sick). What I found interesting was the incredible level of ignorance of most of the writers, all of whom had been in yeshiva and many of whom had studied there for years. They were able to declare that a murderer can’t be executed unless he was observed by two kosher witnesses and was given warning, which they thought settled matters. Had these people known a bit of responsa literature, there would have understood how things worked in the real world, and especially what was done in the days of the rishonim. Do these people think that if a guy stood up in shul and opened fire with a machine gun, killing 20 people, that a Jewish court couldn’t execute him because he was never given a warning? Let’s continue with R. Liebes:
יש כח להבי”ד בזמן שרואין צורך השעה לענוש עונש מות אפילו בכל יום אפילו אם מן התורה פטורין הם כדי שעל ידי זה כל העם ישמעו וייראו ולא יזידון עוד.
As for the possibility that a Jewish man will be executed:
מצוה וחיוב לעורר את דעת הקהל להתריע את בתי המשפט שיראו להעביר בכל המדינה משפט מות ולענוש בכל החומר הרוצחים והפושעים ואת מדינתינו ארצות הברית אשר מאמינה בתנ”ך יכולים לשכנע אותה ולהראות לה עד היכן תוה”ק מקפידה לבער את רשעי הארץ בתור חיוב ומצוה. ומש”כ כת”ר לחשוש דלפעמים ימצא רוצח יהודי א”כ אנחנו נהיה אשמים במיתתו זה אינו כלום . . . מוכח מזה דהמחוייב מיתה עפ“י דין המלכות מותר למסרו להם מטעם דינא דמלכותא. מובן ממילא שכל דברינו מוסבים רק על המדינות שיש להם שוויון הזכויות לכל אזרחיה בלי שום אנטישמיות ושנאת ישראל ולכן אם ח”ו יהודי נתפס באיזה עון ופשע הרי הוא נידון כמו כל אזרחי המדינה.
Many who commented on the various sites were people who never opposed the death penalty before and do not oppose it now, yet they were anti-death penalty in this case because, quite simply, they think the death penalty is just fine except when it is a Jew being executed. They vote for all the right wing candidates and then have the chutzpah to complain when their man actually follows through on his support of capital punishment and doesn’t share their view that a supposed baal teshuvah (whose last meal on earth was a non-kosher chicken sandwich bought from the prison canteen) should not be executed. Some of them cited Sanhedrin 17a, סנהדרי שראו כולן לחובה פוטרין אותו , as if this had any relevance. First of all, this passage only means that he is not executed in the normal fashion, but he can certainly be executed as an emergency measure. In addition, some understand this passage to mean that if on the first day of deliberations all conclude that he is guilty, he is not condemned to death immediately but the case is revisited on the next day. If then, all find him guilty, he is executed. None of the commenters who mentioned this law quoted the view of R. Meir ha-Levi Abulafia (cited in many sources) and the Tosafot Hakhmei Anglia that the meaning of פוטרין אותו is ממהרין אותו להורגו .  This understanding is praised by the Reisher Rav, R. Aharon Lewin, Ha-Derash ve-ha-Iyun, Deut. no. 119:5, and R. Baruch Epstein, Torah Temimah, Ex. 23:2. Epstein is convinced that this understanding is correct because otherwise היש לך חוטא גדול ונשכר מזה .  For more on the subject, see Zorach Warhaftig, “Rov u-Miut be-Veit ha-Din,” in Itamar Warhaftig, ed., Minhah le-Ish (Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 100ff. See also R. Reuven Margaliot, Margaliyot ha-Yam, Sanhedrin 17a, no. 19, who cites the Tashbetz:
שהם ז”ל לא אמרו ב”ד שהסכימו כולם לחובה פטור, חלילה להם שיאמרו ככה, ואם על פי הרוב הורגים כל שכן ע”פ כולם ויותר טוב ויותר משובח הוא שיהיה הפסק דין מוסכם מהכל ולא שיהיה שום חולק.
There is a good deal more to say on this topic, but in the interests of space I will leave it for another time. Suffice it to say that as in all such matters one can find a variety of viewpoints. See e.g., R. Yair Hayyim Bacharach, Havot Yair, no. 146. Some poskim have even ruled that when a murderer has been sentenced to death it is forbidden to try and save him. See R. Nathan Leiter, Tziyun le-Nefesh Hayah, no. 121. (Others disagree, see e.g., Teshuvot Hatam Sofer, vol. 6, no. 14.) Obviously, such a ruling has no relevance to people who oppose the death penalty on principle, but it does speak directly to those who normally support it—as I daresay includes most, if not virtually all of the people who were commenting so outrageously on the haredi sites. Let me close by citing a responsum of R. Meir Zak in Teshuvot Eitan ha-Ezrahi, no. 45. What he said in the seventeenth century, in a case involving a Jewish murderer, is just as relevant today, and it is incredible how this responsum speaks to the Grossman case (he even uses the term “hillul ha-shem”!). Notice how he also includes the manhigei ha-dor in his criticism.
מאחר שניתן ביד גוים ערכאות הם יעשו בו משפט וידינו לא תהיה בו . . . ואפשר שעל נדון דידן נאמר מורידין מאחר שכתב הרב מהר”ד ה”ל האב”ד דק”ק ה”ל שדעתו לעשות כפרה והיה כל ימיו חוטא גדול ופושע, נאמר לישרי’ ביה גודא רבא ואף אם יאמר שרוצה לעשות תשובה ולפי דעתי על אלו אמרו חז”ל אין נחת רוח בתשובתן של רשעים להקב”ה כי ראה עצמו ביד גוים רוצה לרמות אותנו, אבל להפריז ממון לפדות אותו בשביל שאומר שרוצה לעשות תשובה זה הוא חילול השם שיאמרו אין עונש שפיכות דמים אצל יהודים נחשב חטא והיה אם גוי יהרוג ח”ו ליהודי ג”כ לא ידונו לעשות נקמה. ותמיד אני צועק ככרוכיא על מנהיגי הדור שכל גנב או חוטא שבא למאסר עושין השתדלות לפדות אותו ע”י שחדים דבר זה בעו”ה מרבה פשעים וגניבות כל א’ עושה מה שלבו חפץ ורבו פריצי הדור כאלו אנחנו רואים בעו”ה רוב גנבי ישראל ע”כ שלא לתת פרוטה לפוטרו ממות.
Isn’t it amazing that hundreds of years ago he was condemning the leaders who think that every thief or sinner who goes to jail should be the focus of pidyon shevuyim? From this responsum we learn that the warped values we have seen these last few years go back a long time. And what is one to make about his statement that the majority of thieves are Jewish? (using the language of Avodah Zarah 70a). I pray we never reach this point, although we probably have to do keriah over the fact that the Agudah spokesmen have been insistent in letters to the editor and in interviews that Orthodox Jews are not more dishonest than anyone else. In other words, no one, neither Jew nor non-Jew, even assumes anymore that being an Orthodox Jew means that you hold yourself to a high ethical standard. Their goal now is to convince the public that when it comes to obeying the law, Orthodox Jews (and their institutions) are simply no worse than everyone else. If that is not an indictment of our entire educational system, I don’t know what is.
For those interested in pursuing further the topic of Jewish murderers, here is a nineteenth-century responsum by the Moroccan R. Joseph Berdugo (Divrei Yosef no. 381).

10 Le-Dor Aharon (Brooklyn, 1937), p. 36. In this letter R. Chaim Ozer uses the expression והנני חותם בברכה , and this also appears in his supposed letter to Bloch.
11 In my Studies in Maimonides, I tried to show that “academic” interpretations of Maimonides can also be found in the most traditional sources. The same thing can be done with regard to the Talmud, and Prof. Halivni has cited many examples of traditionalists who offered explanations of the sort he focuses on (Higher Criticism). When “academic” explanations are found in rishonim, even the most conservative will be hesitant to attack them. But that was not always the case a few hundred years ago. For example, R. Nissim writes as follows in his commentary on the Rif, Megillah 26a, s.v. zo divrei R. Menahem:
ודאמרינן במעמדות לאו דוקא ומשום אשגרת לישן נקטיה
(This same view is actually advocated by Ramban, as noted in Gilyon ha-Shas, Megillah 26a.) This was too much for R. David Pardo, Mikhtam le-David, Orah Hayyim no. 14:
מלבד הלחץ זה הדחק שסובל הדבר בעצמו לומר דהש”ס וכל הפוס’ מעתיקי הש”ס נקטו באשגרת לישן מלתא דשקרא ממש דבר זר ורחוק.
12 Pa’amei Yaakov, Adar II 5768, p. 108.
13 The Talmud deals there with how even the desire of one of the parties in a dispute to give a gift to a rabbi who will rule on the case impairs his objectivity. This talmudic passage provides all the explanation one needs to understand how so many learned rabbis remained silent as the Tropper scandal played out. If amoraim admitted that they couldn’t properly judge a matter if they had only been offered a gift, certainly one in our day who actually received such a gift is not capable of judging the case of his benefactor. The Steipler refused to take as much as a cigarette from one of his admirers whose case he was to judge, and continued to refuse gifts from this person even after the case was concluded. See Avraham Yeshayahu Kanievsky, Toldot Yaakov (Bnei Brak, 1995), p. 208.
With regard to the more troubling (and I believe rare) circumstance of rabbis who will actually lie to benefit themselves, I have a number of sources on this. For now, let me just cite the words of the Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 314:1:
הכהנים חשודים להטיל מום בבכור אפילו אם הוא חכם ויושב בישיבה
As for the sordid details of the Tropper scandal itself, and those who refused at first to believe what they heard with their own ears (not to mention the Elon scandal as well as others), here is what the hasidic master, R. Meshulam Feivish Heller (died 1794), had to say in an earlier era, a presumably holier era as yet uncontaminated by television and the internet (Yosher Divrei Emet [Jerusalem, 1974]), p. 113:
והלא ידוע ומפורסם שיש בעוה”ר כמה לומדים שהם בעלי ניאוף רח”ל, ובעלי עבירות ידועים.
R. Hayyim Eleazar Shapira, Divrei Torah 5:82, writes about
הרבנים ובפרט האדמורי”ם הגונבים דעת ולבות הבריות, וכל כונתם אך לטובתם, בעצמם בגופם ובשרם וממונם ותאותם.
This is what the Ropshitzer is reported to have said:
דעו כי קודם ביאת המשיח יתרבה כ”כ השקר בעולם עד שרב העיר יסע יחדו עם אשה נכריה בעגלה אחת, ורבים מבני העיר יאמרו אחריו אין קדוש כמוהו.
R. Isaiah Asher Zelig Margulies, Ashrei ha-Ish (Jerusalem, 1927), p. 49, who records the saying, assumes that the Gentile woman spoken of really means “heresy”, but I don’t know why it should not be understood literally. It is not like the Ropshitzer was confronted with many secularly educated rabbis that he would need to make such a statement. (I assume that Margulies was led to his assumption by Maimonides’ famous letter to R. Jonathan of Lunel, where he speaks of non-Torah studies—which for Margulies equals heresy—as being נשים נכריות . See Iggerot ha-Rambam, ed. Sheilat, vol. 2, p. 502.)
Since a concern with kavod is also so often present in the various scandals, the following comment by R. Elimelech of Lizhensk is noteworthy (quoted in Or Elimelekh [Jerusalem, 2003], no. 75):
מצוה עם כבוד גרוע יותר מעבירות ניאוף רח”ל.
14 See the text of the Rav’s lecture here.
15 See R. Aharon Perlow, Margaliyot ha-Shas al Masekhet Shabbat (Jerusalem, 2005), p. 471.
16 Likutei Avraham (Jerusalem, 1976), p. 319.
17 Sedei Hemed, ma’arekhet lamed, kelal 108.
18 See also Alan Brill’s recent post here.
19 For an example of genealogy in the reverse direction – i.e., from righteous to wicked, see Rashi to I Kings 10:1, where it very strangely states that Nebuchanezar was the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This only appears in the later printed editions of Rashi, and is cited in the name of R. Isaac Luria. It is difficult to know what to make of this. I find it hard to believe that the passage ever could have been meant literally, since Solomon lived some three hundred years before Nebuchadnezar. Even legends, if understood literally, have to make chronological sense. Perhaps it means that the origin of the later disaster involving Nebuchadnezar can be traced to Solomon involving himself with foreign women such as the Queen of Sheba. In other words, not that Solomon is the literal father of Nebuchadnezar, but rather he is his “ultimate cause”.
As for the ultimate origin of the notion that Solomon was Nebuchadnezar’s father, I have been unable to find any other source that records that this was stated by R. Isaac Luria. R. Menahem Azariah de Fano (1548-1620), Asarah Ma’amarot (Jerusalem, 2005), pp. 412-413 (Ma’amar Eim Kol Hai 2:23), states that Nebuchadnezar descended from Solomon. Two points are significant here. First, he does not say that Solomon is his father, and second, he does not attribute this to any source, which presumably means that it was a well-known kabbalistic idea. R. Jehiel ben Solomon Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot, year 2935, states that according to a Midrash, Solomon fathered a daughter with the Queen, and Nebuchadnezar was her son. R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, Midbar Kedemot, ma’arekhet yod, no. 47, claims that Nebuchadnezar was descended from this daughter. See also R. Joseph Palache, Yosef et Ehav (n.p., 2005), ma’arekhet bet, no. 17.
20 למדו תורה . This should probably be read as לימדו תורה , “taught Torah”, since in the parallel text in Gittin 57b it has למדו תינוקות, which means “taught children”. See also Dikdukei Soferim, Sanhedrin 96b.
21 To give just one, here is a page from R. Nissim Gaon’s Sefer ha-Mafteah to Berakhot 27b.


Note how Jacob Goldenthal, the editor, assumes that it is actually Haman from whom R. Akiva is descended! Jacob Reifman agreed with this. See Iggeret Bikoret, ed. Ben Menahem (Jerusalem, 1969), p. 17. Louis Finkelstein, Akiba, p. 321 speaks of the R. Akiva-Sisera connection as a “legend widely repeated in medieval works.” He doesn’t seem to realize that the medieval works were citing from their texts of the Talmud. See also Dikdukei Soferim, Sanhedrin 96b, which cites one such manuscript.



Caught in the Act: An Unknown Admission of Plagiarism

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While we have had the opportunity to discuss plagiarism on multiple occasions, it is rare in the Jewish world that a plagiarizer is caught and admits their mistake.  As such I wanted to discuss such an example. 

R. Yosef HaKohen Schwartz (1875-1944) was a veracious reader.  Many of his responsa are devoted to notes on newly printed seforim.  Indeed, the equally well-read bibliophile, R. Reuven Margoliyot, was in the habit of sending his new books for R. Schwartz's comment.  Needless to say, if one wished to pick a person's books to appropriate and remain undetected, it is probably not the best strategy to pick someone who reads much of what is published.  In this instance, however, that appears to be exactly what happened. 

One of R. Schwartz's books is devoted to yarhzeit customs, Moad Kol Hayi (Kisvarda, 1925).  It is a short book, which is made even shorter by the inclusion of a bunch of approbations, a eulogy, and a responsum.  While the book in and of itself is fairly unremarkable, what happened next is.  R. Tzvi Hirsch Friedling, who edited a Polish Torah Journal, Ha-Be'ar, published a work that was broader in scope than Schwartz's but also encompassed the same topic as Schwartz covered – yarhzeit customs.  Specifically, Friedling, some time after 1928 published Hayyim ha-Nitzchim a collection of sources related to funerary customs as well as yarhzeit.  Friedling had published similar likut seforim and, in part recycled some of the approbations he received on a different work, Kiyum ha-Olam, for Hayyim ha-Nitzchim, including an approbation from R. Abraham Isaac Kook. Indeed, we know that Hayyim ha-Nitzchim must have been published after 1928 as the approbations contain dates from 1928.  It is true that there is no date given on the title page, however, as should become apparent, the first edition of Friedling's book must have been published after 1928 and before 1936.

While Friedling readily admits that Hayyim ha-Nitzchim is not an original work, no where does he mention R. Schwartz or Schwartz's work on yahrzeit.  Although Schwartz is not mentioned, there is no doubt that the section of Friedling's book dealing with yarhzeit used Schwartz.  Indeed, as one would expect, Schwartz read Friedling's book and realized that Friedling had "borrowed" material from Schwartz.  In Schwartz's responsa, Va-Yitzbor Yosef, no. 50, Schwartz has a letter to R. Moshe Tzvi Landau discussing Landau's book Shulhan Melachim (Beregovo, 1931).  In his comments on Landau's book, Schwartz discusses  plagiarism in general and notes that he is a victim of plagiarism and specifically that Friedling had used his materials without attribution.  Schwartz writes: You should be aware that there are entire published books that were never written [by the alleged authors], that is, without changing anything except the title [people have plagiarized books] indeed I am not immune to this behavior as one Polish rabbi (and in the approbations he is refered to a Goan and a tzaddik! what a joke) who printed a book under the title "Hayyim ha-Nitzchim", however, it is all mine which he stole from my small, in size, but great in content book "Mo'ad Kol Hayi" which I spent many years gathering and collecting all the laws [that appear in the book], and now from the "well" [this is a play on the word be'er that subltly references Friedling's journal Ha-Be'er] the deer [a play on Friedling's name Tzvi] has drunk without my knowledge, and in doing so has destroyed a world, he [Friedling] failed to give me proper recognition, how terrible it is for a generation to have this happen in their time. יען כי גם ספרים שלמים קובעים בדפוס אשר לא דרו ולא ילדו, ובלי שינוי מעשה  אך בשינוי שם לבד, כאשר עשה אתי עמי רב א' מפולין (ומתארין אותו עוד בההסכמות לגאון וצדיק! אשר הוא לשחוק) כי הדפיס ס' בשם "חיים הנצחיים", וכלו שלי הוא גנוב אתו מספרי קטן הכמות ורב האיכות "מועד כל חי" אשר יגעתי בו הרבה שנים ללקט ולקבץ כל הדינים בזה, ועתה מבא"ר ההוא משקה הצבי שבור העדרים בבלי דעת, ומחריב העולם, ואת מקומי לא הערה, ואוי לדור שכך עלתה בימיו.
 

It seems that Friedling found out that R. Schwartz caught Friedling with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and actually attempted to make amends.  In particular, I am aware of one copy of one edition of what one assumes is a reprint of Hayyim ha-Nitzchim that is at the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University. In that copy, before the section discussing yahrzeit customs the following admission appears:To Admit and Reveal!Because most of the statements that appear in this work were gathered and collected from the work Mo'ad Kol Hayi which was written and published by the esteemed, erudite, and well-known Rabbi Yosef ha-Kohen Schwartz who lives in Grosswarden (and is the author of Tzafnat Panaech, Shu"t Genzei Yosef, and Hadrat Kodesh and previously edited the journal Va-Yelaket Yosef for twenty years).  And because of circumstances [beyond my control??] I forgot to mention this in the introduction of this work as I should have done, and when I publish this work a second time I will/have do so.  The Author  Now, although we don't know the exact date this edition with the admission was published, we do know that it, at the very least, must have been published after 1931 and probably after 1936.  This is so, as Friedling mentions three of Schwartz's other works, the last one, Hadrat Kodesh, was published in 1931 so this admission which makes mention of Hadrat Kodesh was written after that. It is also likely that this admission was published after the appearance of R. Schwartz's Va-Yitzbor Yosef where Friedling is exposed.  Va-Yitzbor Yosef was published in 1936 and therefore it is possible that this version of Hayyim ha-Nitzchim was published some time after that.  But, as with all the editions of Hayyim ha-Nitzchim we don't know for certain exactly when they were published. 

Be that as it may, we do have an example of a full admission of plagiarism, whether intentional or inadvertent based on this little know edition of Hayyim ha-Nitzchim.  In fact, as I mentioned I know of only one copy of this version of Hayyim ha-Nitzchim housed at the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University and have never seen it in any other copies of the book. 

For more on Schwartz's biography, see Naftali ben-Menachem's article on Schwartz in Mi-Safrut Yisrael be-Ungariah pp. 330-70; Y. Y. Cohen, Hakmei Translivania, 237-40.  Both Friedling and Schwartz shared a few common facts.  They both edited journals and it appears that both were killed in the Holocaust.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr. Yair Rosenberg for sending me a scan of the above page, and for Mr. Menachem Butler for his help as well.   



Tevie Kagan: The Enigmatic R. David Lida Part II

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The Enigmatic R. David Lida Part II
by Tevie Kagan
R. David of Lida and Sabbateanism
The case for Sabbatean leanings in R. David ben Aryeh Leib of Lida’s works are somewhat cloudy. The first clear accusation in this regard is from R. Yaakov Emden in his Toras Hakanaos. [1]Specifically, R. Emden, dealt with the conclusion of one of Lida’s poem’s entitled Shir Hillulim, which was printed with his Migdol David. Shir Hillulim was written in honor of a torah dedication in Amsterdam in 1680. It was comprised of verses to be recited by the congregation and cantor. The letters at the end that are enlarged spell out “Tishbi,” and says “Tishbi, he will redeem us.” In traditional Jewish literature, Tishbi (Elijah) is referenced as a forerunner for the messiah. Emden saw this as an allusion to Shabbetai Zevi, as the letters in “Tishbi” form “Shabbetai” when transposed. Emden continues and notes that the letters between the last lines (spelling out “David”) demonstrate that Lida was attempting to equate David with Tishbi, and, consequently, with Shabbetai Zevi.
There are those who argue with Emden’s assertion that Shir Hillulim displays Sabbatean tendencies. Specifically, they note that David de Castro Tartas, who routinely printed prayer books and other works of sabbatean nature, [2]printed Shir Hillulim. Eisner, for example, postulates that Tartas added the problematic lines and that Lida knew nothing about it. [3] However, as Heller [4]points out, it would seem unlikely that a printer would modify such a small work, and that of the chief rabbi, meant for immediate distribution. Even more so, if this were the case, why would Lida use the same printer again, as he did with for his Shomer Shabbos in 1687?
Indeed, it is especially difficult to determine whether a work is Sabbatean in nature.  Within Sabbatean writings there are certain recurring themes. There is often a thematic fixation on the Messiah. The writings often focus on King David, and explain how he did not sin with Bat-Sheba (Samuel II, Chapter 11). They also frequently discuss the concept of “mitzvah ha-ba’ah be-averah,” the notion of reinterpreting biblical figures actions as foreshadowing Shabbetai Zevi’s acts (particularly Esther or King David), and the rabbinic dictum that “greater a sin done for heavens sake than a commandment done other than for the sake of heaven.” Writing about any one of these topics alone does not deem one to be a Sabbatean. However, a recurring reference to these beliefs within ones writings, combined with a less then stellar character, may deem one suspect.  Coupled with actual accusations from one of the foremost experts on Sabbateanism (R. Yaakov Emden), one must be wary and investigate further.
Aside from the obvious reasons for not overtly stating the sabbatean nature of a work, inherent in Sabbateanism is the notion of a “dual nature.”  Scholem describes this dualism as having one side bordering on nihilism and another that is outwardly religious. Elsewhere, [5] Scholem states that “[a] double-faced nature came to be seen as a characteristic trait . . . [to] live in a high tension between outward orthodoxy and inward antinomianism.” This corresponds with the paradox that the followers of Shabbetai Zevi were left with after he apostatized in 1666. This also follows Sabbatean teachings that corrupted the Lurianic doctrine of tikun, using sin as the preferred medium for rectification, as opposed to mitzvoth. Shabbetai Zevi sought to abolish many commandments, stating that since it was the messianic age they no longer were applicable. He instead preached a doctrine of “mitzvah ha-ba’ah be-averah,” asserting that the path to a mitzvah is through a sin.[6] This is one of the many ways that Shabbetai Zevi’s followers attempted to rationalize his apostasy.  They argued that he was merely gathering “sparks” from within the broken shards that reside in the Islamic faith. Shabbetai Zevi advocated certain sins outright, such as eating chelev, the forbidden fat of an animal, and abolishing the fast of the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av”). Thus, it is unsurprising that it is difficult to uncover what truly is a Sabbatean work and what is not.
Migdol David was Lida’s first major work that was disseminated widely. It was written on the book of Ruth and seeks to explain the Davidic lineage. Migdol David does have messianic tones; yet, if the author was truly a Sabbatean, one would expect to find it overflowing with Sabbatean references. Oddly enough, though, through most of the work there are few Sabbatean references.  The ending lines are what lead to its Sabbatean suspicion, as they include the words “שבתי בבית ה'” This verse is in of itself not problematic, but the choice of  “שבתי” would fit with a common trait of Sabbatean writing to identify ones work to those who knew of certain code words. This was a fairly common tactic as can be adduced from Emden’s list in Toras Hakanaos, where many books were banned for similar reasons. [7]
Within Lida’s Sod Hashem, a manual of the rules of milah (circumcision)  with a running commentary called Sharbit Hazahav, there are a couple of problematic themes. While describing the kabalistic reasons behind mila, Lida explains that the foreskin is as an offering to Samael and, because of the phrase “nachash efer lachmo,” the foreskin is placed in dirt. Sabbatean Kabbalah often equates the nachash (snake) with the messiah, as both have the same numerical value. This does not mean that every reference to the nachash is suspect; in this case, though, clearly equating it with Samael and the offering is odd. Slightly more problematic is the quote [8]from R. Yehoshua Heshel from Vilna that discusses the verse: “Abraham was ninety-nine years old and the Lord appeared to him” (Gen. 17:1). He proceeds to give an interpretation explaining its significance within the sefiros of the numbers involved. Now, one would assume this to be the same R. Heshel under which Lida studied. However, it is R. Heshel Zoref[9] (c.1663-1700), the noted Sabbatean Kabbalist, and supposed prophet of the Sabbatean movement in Poland, to whom Lida is referring. Zoref wrote the Sefer Ha-Zoref where, among other things, he proclaimed himself Messiah b. Joseph and Shabbetai Zevi as Messiah b. David. Lida’s quoting of Zoref is not a damning piece of evidence on its own, as it is one isolated quote, and as Naor points out,[10] classic works such as Kav Hayashar contain quotes from Zoref as well.  Still, this does not help Lida,s case.
Quite possibly the most egregious piece of suspect Sabbateanism that Lida published is the homily at the beginning of his Be’er Esek. [11]After discussing the Medrash that the Yalkut Shimoni brings in Samuel (151) that David climbed the olive crop and cried, Lida goes into detail about why David would cry and why these do not suffice as reasons. Lida brings quotes from the Zohar and Peliah that say that David did not sin with Bat-Sheba, but that rather she was prepared for him from the six days of creation and that, indeed, it was a good thing that he had relations with her. David saw himself as Adam, Bat-Sheba as Eve, and Uriah the Hittite as the nachash. By having relations with Bat-Sheba, David rectified the sin of Adam and the act of the Snake having relations with Eve, ultimately bringing death to this world. Next Lida equates David, Adam and Messiah, explaining how David did not sin, but in fact effected a great tikun (rectification). Lida continues in this vein for at least another page and a half, equating his own travails with David being maligned for taking Bat-Sheba and running from Absalom.[12] This work is ostensibly setting out to clear his name of all Sabbatean charges, yet within the work Sabbatean charges are never mentioned, and the work opens with the epitome of a Sabbatean sermon!
Lest one think this is an isolated instance, one has but to look at much of Lida’s Ir David to see this is more the norm than the exception. Ir David was Lida’s magnum opus. He was only able to bring the first third to print, as he states in the introduction. Lida’s son Pesachya ended up printing the entire work in Amsterdam in 1719, through the press run by Solomon Proops.[13] In the introduction Lida discusses the rabbinic claim that when the messiah comes all holidays will be nullified except for Purim. This saying had become a popular adage among the Sabbateans, since Shabbatai Zevi had abolished all holidays (including the 9th of Av), as he believed he was the Messiah. Lida proceeds to expound on a passage (#143) in the Megaleh Amukos (by R. Nathan Nata Shapiro) that the Merkavah Chariot is alluded to in the letters שב”ת implying, therefore, that the redemption is connected to the Jews keeping shabbos. Lida proceeds to equate this using the gematria  שין, בית, תיו and אליהו משיח בן דוד   which equal 496. The equation of these two sets of words is suspect, since a popular “pastime” of Sabbateans was to show that Shabbetai Zevi’s name was numerically similar to the numerical value of the word “messiah.” If we suppose that Lida had a Sabbatean mindset, than one more passage in the introduction is suspect as well. Lida bring uses a statement from R. Isaac Luria, the Ari, that states that all souls stem from the same 248 souls, which are mired in impurities and kelipot, except those of certain individuals, one of them being the messiah. Scholem, in his article on Shabetai Zevi in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, explains how Sabbateans viewed the messiah’s soul within their own kabalistic view:[14]
“He is essentially different from all those souls which play their part in the process of tikkun. In fact, he was never under the authority of the Torah, which is the mystical instrument used by the power of the thoughtful light and the souls connected with it. He represents something utterly new, an authority which is not subject to the laws binding in the state of cosmic and historic exile. He cannot be measured by common concepts of good and evil and must act according to his own law, which may become the utopian law of a world redeemed. Both his history and his special task explain his behavior after he had freed himself from the prison of the kelippah.”
This can be used as a rationale for Shabbetai Zevi’s apostasy, for if his soul was not from among the “regular souls,” it could not be influenced by the impurities inherent in regular souls. Accordingly, he had the ability to save those who needed to be saved. Lida ends with one of his favorite verses, “ושבתי בבית ה'” with, once again, his “favorite letters” standing out. As mentioned previously, all of this is innocuous on its own, but taken within the larger picture, gives one pause.
Within Ir David there are certain recurring pieces. As in his Be’er Esek, the concept that King David didn’t sin with Bat-Sheba is an important and recurrent trope. In part 42,[15] for example, Lida argues that the reason David was perceived to have sinned was to inspire the concept of repentance in individuals. Similarly, the Israelites were perceived to have sinned by the golden calf to inspire repentance among larger groups. In part 54, Lida explains that David came to replace Adam and rectify the snake’s relations with Eve. This discussion continues in part 55 where Lida discusses two interpretations of what happened with the snake and Eve, and how this affects, depending on the interpretation, our interpretation of whether or not David sinned. Lida continues with this theme in part 58, which also combines one of Lida’s favorite aspects of David’s life, that of David being persecuted by Absalom (perhaps a reference to Shabetai Zevi or Sabbateans being persecuted). In part 64 we are reminded that King David knew he was not sinning and that, on the contrary, he was eventually rewarded with a spot in the merkavah with the forefathers. Part 86 continues this theme by asserting that David, Moses, and the Israelites all did not sin because their motivations were right; through this, Lida sets forth the concept of “better a sin done for the sake of heaven than a mitzvah done with the wrong intention.” Finally, part 88 references the Talmud in Shabbos 56 that asserts that anyone who says David sinned is wrong, as well as referencing a passage in the Assarah Maamaros that discusses why David’s name is not invoked in prayer.
 If one views Lida as a Sabbatean, then David is not the one speaking, but rather the Messiah, Shabbetai Zevi.[16] This further complicates much of Lida’s sermons, since this implies that he is no longer merely using Psalms as a springboard for simple rabbinic-homiletic discourse; on the contrary, this gives everything he states a double meaning.
It cannot be disputed that Lida was a great scholar and a prolific author. Whether he plagiarized works or held Sabbatean beliefs remains up for discussion. However, much of his writing lends proof to the fact that he did. Why his works are still in print today, as opposed to the works of other possible Sabbateans, has more to do with the luck that Lida had of being reprinted early on by the Hasidic Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh of Liska (1808-1874) (and why a Hasidic rabbi chose to latch on to such a controversial figure may have to do with the similar ideological mindset of early Hasidism and Sabbateanism).[17]
*The author would like to thank the editors of the seforim blog who make this great forum available. I would like to thank Professor S.Z Leiman for helping me with the idea for this post and guidance throughout, and Efraim Keller at the Habad Library who helped with attaining Eisner’s Toldos of Lida. and Achron Achron Chaviv Eli Meir Cohen who has been a tremendous asset with his wealth of knowledge of everything seforim related especially getting out of print items.
[1] Emden, Toras Hakanaos (Amsterdam, 1752), 71b
[2] See Rosenthaliana Studia– http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/publicaties/treasures/text/t18.html
[3] Eisner, Toldot ha-Goan Rabbi Dovid Lida, pg.12
[4] pg.123
[5] ‘Shabbetai Zevi,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, pg.1251
[6] See Scholem, Mitzvah Habah Beaverah: Mechkarim Umekoros Letoldos Hashabsaut Ugilgoeha (Jerusalem, 1982)
[7] For an examination/explanation of Emden’s list, see S.Z. Leiman, Sefer Hazikaron R. Moshe Lipshitz (New York, 1996)
[8] David Lida, Sod Hashem (Kiryath Joel, 2002), pg. 25
[9] Strashun, Mivhar Kesavim (Jerusalem, 1995), pg.128, n 2
[10] Betzalel Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), pg.43
[11] Aaron Freimann, Sefer Hayovel for Nahum Sokolow (Warsaw, 1904), pg. 464
[12] While this is most probably just a standard writer’s convention, it lends credence to Emden’s contention that Lida may have had some messianic aspirations. See Emden’s Toras Hakanaos, discussing Shir Hillulim.
[13] For more about Solomon Proops, see Richard D. Abraham, “Selomoh Proops, Corrector or Copyist?” Hispanic Review, Vol. 43, No. 3. (Summer, 1975), pp. 317-320; Quaerendo, Volume 37:2 (April, 2007), pg. 96-110; Marvin J Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700
[14] pg. 1242
[15] All numbers refer to the paragraphs assigned in Amsterdam edition.
[16] See Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism, pg. 168, n 16
[17] See Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1967), “Ninth Lecture- Hasidim: The Latest Phase”

 



Tevie Kagan: The Enigmatic R. David Lida

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The Enigmatic R. David Lida
by Tevie Kagan
Tevie Kagan works in the Seforim industry.  This is his first post for the TraditionOnline Seforim blog.
Part I: R. David of Lida and Plagiarism
R. David ben Aryeh Leib of Lida (c.1650-1696) is a fascinating and enigmatic figure. He was the rabbi of multiple communities over the course of his lifetime including Lida, Ostrog, Mainz, and the Ashkenazic community in Amsterdam. He was forced to leave Amsterdam under a cloud of alleged plagiarism and possible Sabbatean beliefs; though he was acquitted of these charges by the council of the four lands (Va’ad Arba Ha-Aratzot), he never recovered from the various accusations. He is not a well-known individual today, yet many of his works survive and are still available in print. This post (the first of two) will present a detailed account of his life and will attempt to see if both the accusations of plagiarism and heretical beliefs have merit.
R. (David) Lida was born in Zwollen, Lithuania into a prominent rabbinical family. His uncle was R. Moshe Rivkes, author of the Be’er Ha-Golah. Other family members that Lida cites within his works include R. Yeshaya Horowitz, author of the Shnei Luchos Habris (Shelah), R. Yosef of Pozna, R. Naftali Hertz of Lemberg, and R. Yaakov Cohen of Frankfurt. He was married to Miriam the daughter of R. Wolf Yuspef of Lvov (Lemberg) and had two sons, Nathan and Pesachya, and two daughters. One of the daughters was married to R. Yerucham b. Menachem, who helped prepare Shomer Shabbos (one of Lida’s early works) for printing, and the other was married to R. Abraham b. Aaron, who helped with the printing of Shomer Shabbos in Amsterdam. In his work Ir David, Lida testifies[1] that his primary teacher was R. Joshua Hoeschel b. Jacob of Cracow (c.1595-1663), who was one of preeminent rabbis of the time.[2]
From 1671 until 1677, R. David was rabbi in Lida. He then served as a rabbi in Ostrog and Mainz, replacing R. Samuel David b Chanoch of Lublin, the author of Divrei Shmuel who had passed away. In 1681, Lida left Mainz and became a rabbi in Amsterdam. After being forced out of Amsterdam, Lida appealed to the council of the four lands. By doing so he succeeded in getting himself reinstated in Amsterdam. However, his position was untenable, so he reached a financial agreement and moved to Lvov, where he lived until his death in 1696.[3]

The following is a list of Lida’s works (with the topic covered in parentheses):
¨ Beer Esek – Frankfurt on the Oder/Lublin, 1684 (apologetic)
¨ Beer Mayim Chaim- lost, never printed (on Code of law)
¨ Chalkei Avanim– Fuerth, 1693 (on Rashi’s commentary on bible) reprinted in Yad Kol Bo under the title Migdol Dovid
¨ Divrei David– Lublin, 1671 (ethics)
¨ Dovev Sifsei Yesheinim- lost, never printed (mishnah)
¨ Ir David– Amsterdam, 1683 (incomplete), 1719 (complete) (Homiletics)
¨ Ir Miklat – Dyhernfurth, 1690 (613 commandments)
¨ Migdol David –Amsterdam,1680 (Ruth)
¨ Pitschei She’arim – Pirush Tefilos- partially printed in Yad Kol Bo (prayer)
¨ Shalsheles Zahav
¨ Shir Hillulim– Amsterdam, 1680 (poem in honor of dedication of a new Torah)
¨ Shomer Shabbos – Amsterdam, 1687 printed with Tikkunei Shabbos, reprinted in Yad Kol Bo, and reprinted separately in Zolkolov, 1804 (laws of Sabbath)
¨ Sod Hashem Sharbit Hazahav– Amsterdam, 1680 (on circumcision)
¨ Tapuchei Zahav kitzur reishis chochma – Fuerth, 1693
¨ Yad Kol Bo- Amsterdam/Frankfurt on the Oder, 1727(Collection)
While in Amsterdam (about 1694), Lida was accused of libel, plagiarism and Sabbatean leanings. Since many of the documents surrounding both controversies no longer exist, we can only attempt to recreate what happened.
Lida is Accused of Libel

R. Yaakov Sasportas (c.1610-1698) has a series of responsa[4] that refer to the libel case. One of the prominent members of the Sephardic congregation, R. Nissan ben Judah Leib, the brother in law of R. Isaac Benjamin Wolf ben Eliezer Ashkenazi (Chief Rabbi in Berlin and the author of the Nachlas Binyomin (Amsterdam, 1682)), claimed that on a trip to Wessel R. Nissan had found defamatory letters about himself and R. Isaac Benjamin Wolf, which R. Nissan alleged were written by Lida. Lida denied having written these letters. R. Nissan submitted copies of the letters to the Sephardic court, presided over by R Yitzchak Abuhav, R Yaakov Sasportas and R Shmuel Deozida. The court requested the original letters, and when they could not be produced, the court decreed that Lida did not write the letters and that he was an upstanding rabbi of the community. The court also demanded that R. Nissan apologize, which he did. Subsequently the Sephardic court sent a letter to both R Wolf Lippman and the Council of the Four Lands requesting they revoke all bans against Lida and to forgive both themselves and Lida. This letter included the signatures of many prominent rabbis of the time, though many of these rabbis may have been influenced by Lida’s famous brother-in-law, Yitzchak b. Abraham of Posnan, who was the first signature on the list.
Additionally, Lida himself wrote a work entitled Beer Esek,[5] in which he attempts to clear his name.The work begins with an introductory homily, after which Lida then proceeds to defend himself from the charges of plagiarism. Lida’s letter ends off with letters and signatures of approbation..
Charges of Plagiarism

Charges of plagiarism hounded Lida regarding many of his works. The first work that this charge was leveled at was Divrei David (Lublin, 1671), an ethical treatise broken up into seven parts, corresponding to the days of the week. On the title page of this work, Lida states that it is culled from the words of Rishonim upon which he added his own additions. The bibliographer, Joseph Zedner (1804-71), in his Catalogue of the Hebrew Books in the Library of the British Museum (London, 1867), was the first to note that the text of the Divrei David is identical to a part of the text of the Sefer Yirah published by Aryeh Judah Loeb ben Aryeh Priluck.
The work itself contains information that is inconsistent with Lida’s biography. For example, the author talks about trips to Israel (nos. 6, 77, and 85), serving as rabbi in Israel (no. 46), and refers to a work that he wrote called Zer Zahav on the Bible (no.72). At the time Divrei David was published Lida was 21 and, as far as we know, never visited Israel, as he never mentions it anywhere else in any of his works. Even more puzzling is that he never authored a work on the Bible called Zer Zahav! Interestingly, Gershom Scholem argues that whoever the author of Divrei David was the author had Sabbatean leanings as there is a possible Shabbati Zevi reference in the beginning of the section on Shabbos.[6] Was this work stolen from a previous work? It would appear so; but, in defense of Lida, he admits that he culled his work from other sources. Nevertheless, this would not account for his borrowing of accounts of positions, travels or works written.
The Sefer Yirah was first published from manuscript in 1724 (Lida had published Divrei David in 1671). The publisher of the Sefer Yirah, Priluck, clearly states on the title page that he found a manuscript and had no idea as to whom was its author. Priluck adds statements and revises the original work where he saw fit. One example is in the “morning half” of the “first day,” where he adds (in the fifth section) that he already printed a prayer book which was grammatically correct. Most of the other additions are merely clarifications of the earlier work [for example, in the “night section” of the first day he clarifies that the Shema referred to is the one said in bed before sleep (Kriat Shema al Ha’Mita)]. Within the section of the fourth day Lida mentions (part 77) that he was in Jerusalem, and he concludes that one should cover their head with a hat when saying grace (birkat ha’mazon); yet this last item is not found in the Priluck version of Sefer Yirah. In total, there are about twenty slight differences, but most are stylistic, with Priluck changing particular words and verses. The Sefer Yirah concludes with a statement that this is where the manuscript ends and that he does not want to add from other sources. The Warsaw edition of 1873 of the Divrei David adds an entire section of good traits (minhagim tovim). Interestingly the most recent reprinting (Brooklyn, 2006 by R. N.M., German) adds 2 more pages of character traits not found in the Warsaw edition. This would not be the only work that would come under suspicion that Lida wrote.
Lida’s most famous work that is under the suspicion of plagiarism is his Migdol David, published in 1680 while Lida was still rabbi in Mainz. The work was published with 17 approbations (haskamot). While some of the approbations do not mention the work Migdol David specifically, by reading them one gets the idea that many felt it was an original work. In his Beer Esek, Lida alludes to R. Nisan’s claim that accused Lida of stealing the work (R. Nisan did so by saying that Lida “wears the talis of another”). Many believe that this work was really a copy of R. Hayim Ben Abraham Ha-Kohen’s (c.1585-1655) [7]Toras Chessed. For instance, R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai, ,writes “truthfully [Migdol David] is the work of R. Hayim Kohen, author of the Tur Barekes…” (Shem ha-Gedolim, Marekhet Seforim, s.v. Migdol David). ,Azulai also cites the Yaavetz (R. Yaakov Emden) and his charge in Toras Hakanaos (see below). The Menachem Tziyon attempts to clear Lida’s name by showing that many great rabbis attested to his kabalistic knowledge, but ultimately he too leans towards the plagiarism charge. [8]

The Yaavetz, in his Toras Hakanaos, lists a group of works that he charged with having Sabbatean leanings and allusions. He includes Lida’s work, not as a potential Sabbatean work,[9] but rather as a plagiarized one, and, more specifically, to support his claim that Lida’s character was suspect, and even possibly Sabbatean. Sabbateans were known to have “double natures,” one being outwardly righteous, while the inner being corrupt and immoral (more about this to come in part 2 of this post, R. David of Lida and Sabbatianism). The Yaavetz shows that Lida took the work but left an allusion to Hayim Kohen’s name in the introduction, which states, “ממקור מיים בריכה העליונה כה”נא רב”א” Lida’s choice of words is suspect, as Lida was neither a Kohen nor named Hayim.
More recently, Marvin Heller[10] has argued that a parable in the introduction to Lida’s work alludes to the fact that it is not an original work. The allegory (from the Zohar) regards a rooster who finds a pearl while searching for food. Startled by the pearl’s beauty, the rooster recoils and wonders what caused the pearl to be hidden. A man, seeing the rooster recoil, stops to see what caused the reaction; when he sees the pearl, he proceeds to give it to the king. As a result, the king honors the rooster. Lida writes: “So to I found in this scroll blossoms and fruit which give forth a brightness, delightful to the sight and desirable to the eye, ‘its fruit is good for food’ (Genesis 2:9)…when this distinguished book comes to the hand of one who appreciates its value … and also who publishes it will be remembered for good before the King, King of the universe” (emphasis added). This choice of language seems to be referring to a publisher not an author. In Lida’s Ir Miklat, in the glosses where Lida mentions “my book Migdol David,”[11] Azulai (in his comments) interjects: “He printed it.” Eisner seeks to defend Lida, even though he had never seen a copy of the rare Migdol David. Eisner argues that since all the charges were found to be groundless in the first case against Lida, so too the plagiarism charges must be false. He attempts to buttress this by showing that Lida had a reputation for being a Kabbalist. In 1681, the notorious anti-Semite Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (ca.1654-1704) visited Amsterdam and wrote about meeting Lida in his Entdecktes Judentum (Frankfurt am Main, 1700). He speaks of Lida and how he was a great scholar and Kabbalist. Interestingly, towards the end of the introduction of Ir David, Lida states that he hopes that this work will be printed without the mistakes and errors that the printers added to his work Migdol David, which he was unable to fix. Is Lida attempting to lay the groundwork for the argument that any troubling pieces within Migdol David are not his, but rather the work of the printers?
Slightly more telling about both of the works that are suspected of being stolen is that Lida references them in his other works very infrequently. In contrast, Ir David is referenced quite frequently within his other writings. When themes or interpretations are referenced in Chalkei Avanim that are supposedly printed in Lida’s other works (specifically Migdol David) he does not give the work’s name, but just the statement “and it is understood.”[12]

Even after his death Lida’s works have encountered problems. His son Pesachya printed a collected volume of his works entitled Yad Kol Bo (Amsterdam 1727) in which was included a work on Psalms called Assarah Hillulim. According to Brill, this was actually written by the Calvinist-Hebraist, Heinrich Jacob van Bashuysen (1679-1750) and published in Sefer Tehilim im Pirush ha-Katzar, Hanau, 1712.[13]
[1] Ir David, First Sermon
[2] See Dembitzer Kelilas Yofi Krakow:1893 pg59a-59b
[3] For the date of Lida’s death, see Solomon Buber, Anshei Shem (Krakow, 1895), where he recreates the correct date based on approbations Lida had given, which are marked after the date on his tombstone.
[4] Ohel Yaakov 75-76
[5] Reprinted in Abraham Eisner, Toledot Hagaon R. David Lida (Breslau,1938) and in Aaron Freimann, Sefer Hayovel for Nahum Sokolow (Warsaw, 1904)
[6] See Warsaw edition that actually puts Lida as author and includes that he wrote Zer Zahav and Bris Yitzchok, which Lida did not.
[7] See Encyclopedia Judaica entry where Scholem states that Lidas plagiarism was well known in Kabalistic circles before H.J.D. Azulai made it public. Scholem offers no source or examples for this statement. Also interesting to note is that whatever Azulai’s thoughts on Lida’s character may have been, he still wrote glosses to Lida’s work Ir Miklat.
[8] See also Ohr Hayim (Hayim Michael), where he unequivocally states that it is a stolen work from R. Hayim Kohen.
[9] Yehuda Liebes, in “Sefer Tzadik Yesod Olam- Mythos Shabetai” (reprinted in On Sabbateanism and its Kabbalah: Collected Essays (Jerusalem, 1995), pg. 303-304, note 22) shows that even Migdol David is not free of possible Sabbatean leanings. These could not have come from R Hayim Kohen as he died before Sabbateanism grew to the movement that it later became.
[10] Marvin J. Heller, David Ben Aryeh Leib of Lida and his Migdol David: Accusations of Plagiarism in Eighteenth Century Amsterdam, Shofar (Jan. 1, 2001) (translation of text is his).
[11] Commandment 190
[12] For examples see Brooklyn edition 2006-pg. 5, fn 1; pg. 8, fn 8.
[13] For more on Bashuysen, see Encyclopaedia Judaica under his name entry. Eisner strongly disagrees and says that it clearly is not a Christian work, and that it includes many ideas from Lidas other works.