Zutot 2004 (Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture)

Zutot 

Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture Editors: Shlomo Berger Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Michael Brocke Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-Institut an Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany Irene Zwiep Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Advisory Board: Gad Freudenthal (CNRS, Paris) Lewis Glinert (Dartmouth College, Hanover NH) Steven Harvey (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan) Pieter W. van der Horst (Universiteit Utrecht) Yosef Kaplan (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Ada Rapoport-Albert (University College London) Angel Sáenz-Badillos (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) Karel van der Toorn (Universiteit van Amsterdam) Christian Wiese (Universität Erfurt)

VOLUME 

Zutot  Edited by Shlomo Berger Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Michael Brocke Salomon Ludwig Steinheim-Institut an der Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

Irene Zwiep Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

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C

M  L    



Henten, J.W. van, Judas the Maccabee’s Dream ( Macc. :-) and the Egyptian King’s Sickle Sword Jacobson, H., I Enoch . Zellentin, H., How Plutarch Gained his Place in the Tosefta Boustan, R.S., A Hebrew Hymn of Praise for a High-priestly Rabbinic Martyr: A Note on the Relationship between the Synagogue Liturgy and Rabbinic Literary Culture Nikolsky, R., The Rechabites in Ma‘‛aseh Alexandros and in the Medieval Ben Sira

H  D   

Ilan, T., Once Again on Yael and the Aphrodisias Inscription Horst, P.W. van der, The Jews of Ancient Sicily Straten, J. van, Cosmas of Prague and the Western Migration of Jews to Poland

M  R T     

Cohen, M.Z., Maimonides’ Disagreement with ‘The Torah’ in His Interpretation of Job Robinson, J.T., From Digression to Compilation: Samuel ibn Tibbon and Immanuel of Rome on Genesis :, :, and : Fontaine, R., An Unexpected Source of Meir Aldabi’s Shevile Emunah Melamed, A., The Image of the Black in Yohanan Alemanno’s Hai ha‘Olamim: Additional Evidence Arnold, R., Neutral or Natural Relater? Some Remarks on Rabbi Leone da Modena’s Historia de Riti Hebraici



Z  – C

H  

Zwiep, I.E., What’s in a Name? Conceptions of Hebrew as Reflected by the Titles of Hebrew Grammars Pelli, M., ‘Biqqure ha-‘Ittim Are the First Fruits …Which Include Some Nice Things and Matters of Knowledge and Benefit’: The Hebrew Periodical of the Haskalah in Galicia

W O 



Mock, L., The Magic of Halakhah. A Study in the Ritual of Washing Hands in the Morning after Rising as Described in the Shulhan ‘Arukh (OH ) Niederland, D., From Frankfurt to Jerusalem: Horev School. A Special Approach in the Israeli Religious School System



Motifs in Literature

J  M’ D ( M. :-)   E K’ S S

The description of Judas Maccabaeus’ final battle with Nicanor in  Macc.  juxtaposes a blasphemous Nicanor and a pious Judas, confident that he will be victorious with God’s help ( Macc. :-, -, -). Judas encourages his soldiers not only by referring to God’s interventions in earlier battles as exemplified in the Torah and the Prophets (:; cf. :-), but also by reporting a dream (:-). This dream adds a prophetic act to its presentation of the deceased high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah as intercessors for the Jewish people and the Holy City, because Jeremiah extends his right hand and delivers a golden sword to Judas (παραδοῦναι τῷ Ιουδα ῥομφαίαν χρυσῆν) with the following comment: ‘Take this holy sword as a gift from God, and crush the opponents with it’ (Λαβὲ τὴν ἁγίαν ῥομφφαίαν δῶρον παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, δι᾽ἧς θραύσεις τοὺς ὑπεναντίους,  Macc. :, my trans.). Afterwards Judas triumphs over Nicanor and utterly shames him by having his head and right arm cut off. He hangs those from the citadel as an unmistakable public victory sign (:, -). What is the meaning of Jeremiah’s prophetic act? First, the interpretation that might seem obvious at first glance, namely that the act emphasizes that Judas is the Jews’ legitimate military leader, installed by God through Jeremiah, can hardly be accurate. It is strange that such a legitimatisation should come at the end of the book and not in chapter , which reports Judas’ first military actions. The legitimatisation itself would be truncated, because Jeremiah’s symbolic act is not at all elaborated with a focus on Judas’ leadership. One would also expect in line with this reading that the narrative would continue with Judas’ installation or confirmation as ruler of the Jews, but this is missing in the rest of chapter . Second, the act itself seems to be without precedent in Jewish traditions, and, therefore, does not match Judas’ own references to earlier



There is an implicit quotation of Isa. : LXX in  Macc. :, A. van der Kooij, ‘The Use of the Greek Bible in II Maccabees’, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages  () -, p. .  It concerns a so-called dream image appearance, R.K. Gnuse, Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus: A Tradition-Historical Analysis, Leiden , -. S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 8 –15. © 2007 Springer.



J  M’ D ( M. :-)

deliverances by God drawn from the Torah and the Prophets. God’s sword is referred to in Is. : (about God’s punishment of Leviathan and the dragon in the sea), but the content of this passage is rather different from  Macc. . In Is.  it is God who destroys the dragon enemy and the holy sword is not delivered into the hands of a human person. Josh. :-, a passage that briefly reports Joshua’s vision before the capture and destruction of Jericho, also only to a certain extent corresponds to  Macc. :-. It describes a dream appearance to the commander before the victory and also includes a sword, but Joshua sees a human figure, specified as God’s army’s commander, standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand (‫)וחרבו שלופה בידו‬. This passage is similar to  Macc. , but the central act of the handing over of the sword to the commander is absent. If biblical forerunners of Jeremiah’s presentation of the sword to Judas are missing, the motif may derive from an extra-biblical tradition.  In this note I will argue such a tradition existed and circulated in Egypt up to the Maccabaean times. Several bi- or tri-lingual documents from Ptolemaic Egypt transmit a tradition, which was well-known in priestly circles from the Ptolemaic period through documents as well as representations on stelae and temple walls. This tradition was part of a cluster of acts that honoured the Ptolemaic king because of his benefactions in the third and

 Is. :MT: ‫ ;בחרבו‬:LXX: μάχαιραν (LXX apparently has only one anonymous dragon as God’s opponent). Cf. Isa. :; :; Zech. :;  Enoch :, ; :.  Van der Kooij, ‘The Use of the Greek Bible’, f., argues that the motif of Judas’ crushing of his opponents builds on the messianic prophecy of Numb. :b, which shares a future form of θραύω with  Macc. :.  Cf. Ezek. :-; Jdt. :; Test. Levi. :.  R. Doran, Temple Propaganda: The Purpose and Character of  Maccabees, Washington D.C. , ff., notes the older parallels of the Marniptah-stele of the Karnak temple, the Israel stele and the Athribis stele, depicting an Egyptian god who gives a sword to the pharaoh. According to the Marniptah stele the god Ptah appears to Marniptah in a dream before his battle against the Libyans and gives him the sword and tells him to banish the fearful heart from him. These parallels belong to the Egyptian sickle sword traditions discussed below. J.A. Goldstein, II Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, New York , , briefly states that the sword of victory handed by a god to his chosen commander or king is an Egyptian motif, also used by the Ptolemies. O. Keel, ‘Warum Sammlungen altorientalischer Miniaturkunst an einem Biblischen Institut?’, in O. Keel and C. Uehlinger, eds, Altorientalische Miniaturkunst, Mainz , -, p. , briefly suggests (referring to his earlier discussions, see footnotes  and ), that Josh. :- and  Macc. :- are both inspired on the Egyptian iconographical tradition of the handing over of the sickle sword to the pharaoh.



Z  – M  L

second century BCE. It was established by the priests, but perhaps orchestrated by the kings themselves. Priestly assemblies took the decision to honour the king and documented this in decrees that were published on stelae, usually in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic as well as Greek. The most important of these documents are four priestly decrees from Egypt, which have been transmitted in several versions: . The Canopus decree of  BCE in honour of Ptolemy III Euergetes. . The Raphia decree of  BCE commemorating Ptolemy IV Philopator’s victory at the Battle of Raphia. . The Memphis decree of  BCE in honour of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, inscribed on the famous Rosetta Stone. . The Second Philae decree of / BCE, also in honour of Ptolemy V. Building on indigenous Egyptian royal ideology concerning the pharaoh, these four priestly decrees focus on the Ptolemaic king’s benefactions and honour him especially for his military success as well as his protection and restoration of the Egyptian temples. All four decrees commemorate the king’s military victories, and two have been drawn up after an important battle. The Raphia decree commemorates the Battle at Raphia against the Seleucid king Antiochus III (Demotic version ll. -; -; -), and the Rosetta decree commemorates Ptolemy V’s victory over the indigenous rebels from the South in Lycopolis in  BCE (e.g. Greek version ll. -). In conventional formulae the kings are also honoured for their restoration of peace and order (Canopus Greek version l. ;

 References: W. Huss, ‘Die in ptolemäischer Zeit verfassten Synodal-Dekrete der ägyptischen Priester’, ZPE  () -; J.W. van Henten, ‘The Honorary Decree for Simon the Maccabee ( Macc :-) in its Hellenistic Context’, in J.J. Collins and G.E. Sterling, eds, Hellenism in the Land of Israel, Notre Dame, Ind. , -, pp. f.  The king’s restoration and improvement of the temples, and confirmation of temple privileges as well as privileges for other subjects are referred to in Canopus decree, Greek version ll. -; Rosetta decree, Greek version ll. -; -; Raphia decree, Demotic version ll. -; ; Second Philae decree, Hieroglyphic version ll. d-f; Demotic e-b; protection of the temples: Hieroglyphic version l. d; Demotic l. c. Huss, ‘Synodal-Dekrete’, -, offers a survey of these benefactions.  References: J.W. van Henten, ‘Antiochus IV as a Typhonic Figure in Daniel ’, in A.S. van der Woude, ed., The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings, Leuven , , footnotes  and . The first Philae decree and the Sehel stele from  BCE also commemorate the victory at Lycopolis: D.J. Crawford, J. Quaegebeur and W. Clarysse, Studies on Ptolemaic Memphis, Leuven , f., n. . References to military conflicts in the Second Philae decree: Hieroglyphic version ll. d-c; -; Demotic ll. h-d; ff.; cf. Canopus decree, Greek version ll. ; .



J  M’ D ( M. :-)

Rosetta decree, Greek version l. ; cf. Raphia decree, Demotic version l. ). Important for my discussion of  Macc. :- is that three of these priestly decrees include a passage that refers to a very specific act of honouring the king. The priests state that statues of the king and the queen will be set up in all Egyptian temples, making the royal family omnipresent in religious locations. This specific honour is linked up with the description of a traditional scene that depicts a god or several gods handing over a sickle sword of victory, the so-called khepesh sword, to the king (Raphia decree, Demotic version l. ; Rosetta decree, Greek version ll. -; Demotic l. ; Second Philae decree, Hieroglyphic version ll. ce; ab; Demotic ll. f-h; e). According to the Rosetta decree Ptolemy V Epiphanes received a statue in every temple named ‘Ptolemy, protector of Egypt’, with a statue of the temple’s principle god handing the sickle sword over to him standing next to the king’s statue. The Greek version uses the more general phrase ‘weapon of victory’ (ὅπλον νικητικόν, l. ; Elephantine copy l. ) in stead of the khepesh sword. The Raphia decree states that a statue of the city god had to be set up on a platform next to the statue of the king who receives the sword of victory (Demotic version l. ). In some occasions the scene described in these passages (or a variant of it in case of the Raphia decree) is also depicted on the stele with the decree itself. One of the stones with the Raphia decree, from ancient Pithom (Tell el-Maskoutah), represents this scene on the stele: Atum, the principle god of Pithom, accompanied by six local

 Cf. also the φιλάνθρωπα-decrees of the Ptolemaic kings with lists of their benefactions, G. Hölbl, Geschichte des Ptolemäerreiches: Politik, Ideologie und religiöse Kultur von Alexander dem Grossen bis zur römischen Eroberung, Darmstadt , .  Huss, ‘Synodal-Dekrete’, .  Cf. the First Philae decree Hieroglyphic version ll. d-f; Demotic ll. a-c. For references about the khepesh sword, descriptions and a discussion of its functions, see A. Erman and H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der Ägyptischen Sprache,  vols, Leipzig -, III, ; H. Bonnet, Die Waffen der Völker des alten Orients, Leipzig , ff., ff.; O. Keel, Wirkmächtige Siegeszeichen im Alten Testament: Ikonographische Studien zu Jos , -; Ex , -;  Kön , - und  Kön , , Freiburg-Göttingen, -, -; S. Schosske, ‘Krummschwert’, Lexikon der Ägyptologie III () -; H.W. Müller, Der Waffenfund von Balata-Sichem und die Sichelschwerter, München ; I. Cornelius, ‘The Iconography of Divine War in the Pre-Islamic Near East: A Survey’, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages  () -, pp. f., f. and ff.



Z  – M  L

gods, delivers the sickle sword to the king with his right hand.  One of the copies of the Rosetta stele, called the stele of Damanhur or An-Nobairah, combines a scene about Ptolemy V, who stabs an enemy, with the handing over of the sickle sword by a god. According to the Second Philae decree the god Amun delivers a sickle sword of victory to Ptolemy V Epiphanes (Hieroglyphic version ll. c-e; ab; Demotic ll. f-h; e), which is highly appropriate in the context of the decree, for it commemorates Ptolemy’s victory over the rebels from the south (above). The title of the statue to be set up for the king is: ‘Ptolemy, Lord of Victory’ (Second Philae decree, Hieroglyphic version ll. f-a; Demotic ll. cd). How many and which gods are giving the sickle sword to the king in these decrees apparently varies, depending on local traditions. As has been noted already in passing, the depiction of gods handing over a sickle sword to a pharaoh is a traditional scene in Egyptian royal ideology. It is attested in Ancient Egyptian traditions from the New Empire onwards. The scene belongs to the ideology of the triumphant pharaoh and is sometimes combined with another traditional scene showing the pharaoh with a sickle sword in his right hand and keeping a tuft of hair or an outstretched arm of a kneeling captive enemy with his other hand, as it were just before slaughtering the captive person by severing the head from the body. In the Ptolemaic period this scene is de-



H.J. Thissen, Studien zum Raphiadekret, Meisenheim am Glan , f. with Plate

.  The local god Shu, his sister Tephnut and the ancestors of the king stand before Ptolemy, who stabs a prisoner to death. Shu hands over a sword of victory to the king. E.A.T.W. Budge, The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, London , f.; Thissen, Raphiadekret, . The First Philae decree, a modified copy of the Rosetta decree, refers to the images of Ptolemy V as the God Epiphanes and the [god] of the divine circle, who is giving a sickle sword of victory to Ptolemy (Demotic version ll. b-c, Hieroglyphic ll. e-f slightly different).  O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament am Beispiel der Psalmen, Zürich-Köln , -; Keel, Wirkmächtige Siegeszeichen, -, , -; Müller, Waffenfund, - and . Photographs of this scene offers W. Wreszinski, Atlas zur Altaegyptischen Kulturgeschichte, IInd series with Index, Leipzig , . One example is Ramses II’s stele (- B.C.E.) from Beth Shean, J.B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton (second ed.) , n. ; Keel, Wirkmächtige Siegeszeichen,  with illustr. ; O. Keel and C. Uehlinger, Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen, Freiburg , - with illustr. .  Wreszinski, Atlas, no. a (depicting Ramses II’s victory over the Libyans, entrance hall of the temple in Bet el-Wali). For the same scene on scarabees: C. Uehlinger, ‘Die Samm-



J  M’ D ( M. :-)

picted on temple reliefs as well as steles. In fact, one of the priestly decrees not only commemorates a major victory of the king, but also brings a combination of both traditional Egyptian scenes of royal ideology: the god hands the sword over to the king and the king slaughters a kneeling captive with that sword. The relevant passage of this Second Philae decree states: And be set up [an image of] the local god in this temple [giving a (royal?) sickle sword of victory to] the image of the Lord of [victory?] punishing for him a smitten (captive) ... an image of His Majesty (be?) engraved on the stele of (?) this decree [on top of it?]. It is executed slaying an enemy, (while there) is the local (?) god giving to him the royal sickle sword of victory’ (Hieroglyphic version ll. c-e; ab). The Raphia decree also combines the handing over of the sickle sword with the slaughtering of the enemy, but the latter scene has been adapted by the incorporation of Greek motifs. The king rides a horse and pierces his enemy below him with a spear, a forerunner of St. George and the dragon.  Macc. :-, too, combines two related motifs, the handing over of a divine sword and the ritual shaming of the defeated enemy leader. Therefore, the Maccabaean sword seems to be as much a victory symbol

lung ägyptischer Siegamulette (Skarabäensammlung Fouad S. Matouk)’, in Keel and Uehlinger, eds, Altorientalische Miniaturkunst, - illustr. a-b. The scene is also depicted on scarabees and seals from Ancient Israel (th-th Century BCE, Beth Shean, Lakish, Megiddo etc.), Keel, Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik, - with illustr. a-c; Keel, Wirkmächtige Siegeszeichen,  illustr. ; Keel, ‘Warum Sammlungen altorientalischer Miniaturkunst an einem Biblischen Institut?’, ; Keel and Uehlinger, Göttinnen, f. with illustr. a-c; f. with illustr. a-b and .  Front of pylon of the Edfu Temple, exterior Eastern wall of the Isis Temple at Philae. References: D. Wildung, ‘Erschlagen der Feinde’, Lexikon der Ägyptologie II () -, c. ; Müller, Waffenfund, . The king may be accompanied by his Ka and a god, the god of the desert or the principle god of the temple concerned, who sometimes hands over a weapon.  Translation W.M. Müller, The Bilingual Decrees of Philae, Washington , ff. The text is lacunose in several places, but its content is quite certain because of the context and parallel phrases elsewhere in both versions of the document.  The mounted king and the horse are Greek motifs, cf. Thissen, Raphiadekret, ff. For the spearing of the enemy see also the Damanhur or An-Nobairah stele (above with footnote ).



Z  – M  L

as the sickle sword in the Egyptian documents.  Macc. : reports that Nicanor’s head and right arm were cut off, although posthumously. The cutting off of Nicanor’s right arm emphasises his divine punishment, because he had stretched out his right hand against the Temple when he spoke his terrible oath ( Macc. :). But the arm is just one element in Nicanor’s shameful exposition. Is it just a co-incidence that  Maccabees depicts the fates of the triumphant Judas and the defeated Nicanor in a way that is surprisingly similar to the propagandistic depiction of the Ptolemaic king who slaughters a representative of the enemy with the sickle sword? The severing of Nicanor’s head and arm is paralleled by  Macc. :, but the combination with the symbolic transfer of the sword occurs only in  Maccabees. The hypothesis that the handing over of the golden sword in  Maccabees and perhaps also the posthumous shaming of Nicanor are Jewish adaptations of sickle sword traditions from Ptolemaic royal propaganda seems to be supported by other correspondences between data in  Maccabees with elements from Ptolemaic royal ideology: the monthly celebrations of Antiochus IV’s birthday ( Macc. :) are without any parallel in Seleucid sources, but it was a wellestablished tradition to celebrate the birthday of Ptolemaic kings every month. A further parallel is found in the festivals that commemorate Judas’ or the Ptolemaic king’s victory. And last but not least there is the medium of the dream, which is another parallel between  Macc. : and one of the priestly decrees from Ptolemaic Egypt. Judas’ dream is a message from God that he will be victorious. In a similar way the Egyptian gods reveal to Ptolemy IV that he is going to be victorious against Antiochus III, as the Raphia decree states: () Da geschah es, dass die Wohltätigkeit des Königs [Ptolemaios, des Sohnes] () des Ptolemaios und die Königin Berenike, der Götter Wohltäter, Sorge trug für die Angelegenheiten der Götter

 Most sickle swords were made of bronze or copper, but an early group of closely related swords produced in Byblos (?- BCE) and found near Byblos, in Sichem or Abydos (Egypt) have decorations in gold or electrum (gold with silver): electrum inlay on the rib of the blade ending in a lotus flower or uraeus snake, a gold ring that connects grip and blade, a gold button as well as gold nails with rosettes on the grip. There are a few cases of gold sickle swords from the first millennium BCE, cf. Müller, Waffenfund, - and  respectively. I thank Prof. M.S.H.G. Heerma van Voss (Amsterdam) for this reference.  For both parallels see J.W. van Henten, ‘Royal Ideology:  and  Maccabees and Egypt’ (forthcoming).



J  M’ D ( M. :-)

zugleich mit der Fürsorge, die er zu jeder Zeit für ihre Ehre tut, so geschah es, dass [alle] Götter [von Ägypten] mit ihren Göttinnnen vor ihm waren, indem sie ihm () den Weg wiesen, indem sie ihn schirnten zu der Zeit, da er gegen das Gebiet des Assyriers (Syrien) und das Gebiet des Chorlandes (Phönizien) zog. Sie offenbarten es zu ihm und verkündeten ihm und gaben ihm ein Orakel durch Traum, indem sie sagten, dass er seine Feinde besiegen würde, [und dass sie nicht] () von ihm fern sein würden zu irgendeiner Zeit, die er verbringen würde, gegen sein Unheil, (sondern) dass sie bei ihm sein würden als Schutz, um ihn zu bewahren. (Demotic version ll. -, trans. W. Spiegelberg)

Conclusion The dream report in  Macc. :-, part of Judas’ encouragement of his soldiers before the final battle against Nicanor, probably incorporates a reworked Egyptian tradition about the sickle sword of victory. There are no biblical traditions that fully cover Jeremiah’s prophetic act of handing over a divine sword to Judas. The context in  Macc.  implies that the sword does not legitimate Judas’ leadership, but functions as a symbol of victory. The Ptolemaic priestly decrees repeatedly depict a scene in which a god (or several gods) hands over the sickle victory sword to the king. Sometimes this symbolic act is combined with another traditional scene in which the king executes his opponent with the sickle sword by cutting of his head. Both scenes are strikingly similar to  Maccabees’ description of the dream report and Nicanor’s shameful end in chapter . The Egyptian traditions are adapted for a Jewish audience, of course, Jeremiah acts as God’s messenger in stead of an Egyptian god, but the correspondence is still so great that it seems rather probable that  Macc.  is an echo of Ptolemaic traditions about the king and the sickle sword. One can only speculate about the trajectory of Jewish adaptations of these traditions, but, if my assumption of their incorporation is justified, we do know about its implication: this would be an indication that  Maccabees circulated in the Graeco-Egyptian Diaspora during at least one stage of its transmission process. Jan Willem van Henten Universiteit van Amsterdam 

I E .

‘A man will not know his brother, nor a son his father or his mother.’ Unfortunately, the Dead-Sea fragments of Enoch shed no light on these sentences, so we are still in the dark as to the exact wording of the original. Commentators have not noticed that the author here is echoing, if not quoting, a biblical passage. In Deuteronomy : we read: ‘He says of his father and mother: “I do not know them”; his brothers he does not recognize and his children he does not know.’ There is no apparent contextual reason for the echo. One surmises that the quotation or echo was unconscious. The author simply had the biblical verse in his memorybank. Howard Jacobson University of Illinois, Urbana

 

Some late manuscripts add ‘his neighbour and’ before ‘his brother’. I am indebted to Professor G.M. Browne for his assistance with the Ethiopic text.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 16. © 2007 Springer.



H P G  P   T

Some Rabbis knew popular Greek literature as well as their Homer.  Some also knew about the death through entombment of the Egyptian and Hellenistic deity Osiris. Meanwhile, we must be careful not to confuse the few Greco-Roman texts preserved today with the plethora of written and oral traditions that once were circulating – unless the evidence suggests it. I shall argue here that the retellings of Moses’ discovery of Yosef’s bones in Exodus in light of the Osiris myth found in the Tosefta and in the Samaritan text Tevat Marqe (further TM) is based on a source that reads a passage in the Moralia ( A - B ) of Plutarch (ca. ca.  CE). Later rabbinic variants of the myth do not show familiarity with this text. In Gen. :, Yosef receives an oath from the Israelites to take his (embalmed) remains with them upon leaving Egypt. This oath is recalled when Moses takes the bones during the Exodus (Ex. :). The laconic

 My sincere gratitude to Rachel Neis for her invaluable suggestions and corrections, and to Menahem Kister who twice encouraged me to pursue this study. All translations in this paper are my own. Cf. the work of S. Lieberman, D. Daube and H. Fischel. Cf. also J. Levinson, ‘Bodies and Bo(a)rders: Emerging Fictions of Identity in Late Antiquity’, HTR . () - and, ‘The Tragedy of Romance: A Case of Literary Exile’, HTR  () -; and B. Jackson, ‘On the problem of Roman influence on the halakah and normative self-definition in Judaism’, in E.P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. , London , -.  Cf. M. Guedemann, Religionsgeschichtliche Studien, Leipzig , -; B. Heller, ‘Die Sage vom Sarge Yosefs und der Bericht Benjamins von Tudela ueber Daniels schwebenden Sarg’, MGWJ / () -; S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, New York , ff.; idem, Tosefta Kifshuta, New York , VIII, -; G. Mussies, The Interpretatio Judaica of Serapis, Leiden , -. While initially Guedemann and later Mussies draw our attention to Plutarch, Guedemann disregarded the Tosefta material, while Mussies’s broad study relies on Ginzberg, Billerbeck and Kittel for the rabbinic sources.  For further bibliography on this understudied text, cf. A.D. Crown, R. Pummer and A. Tal, eds, A Companion to Samaritan Studies, Tübingen , f. and Z. Ben Hayyim’s introduction in Tibat Marqe, A Collection of Samaritan Midrashim, Jerusalem . Based on the language, the pertinent portion of the text that covers the Exodus has been dated by Ben Hayyim to roughly the same time as the Palestinian Talmud (Cf. ibid., p. v and -). Marqua collected materials from earlier times, he himself lived in the third to fourth centuries, thus more or less contemporary to the time of the Tosefta and the Mekhilta.  For a list of parallels cf. Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshuta, ad loc.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 17–26. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  L

biblical language is embellished in several rabbinic re-imaginings of the incident. Tosefta Sota ., together with its close parallel in the roughly contemporary petichta of Mekhilta Beshallah, is the oldest rabbinic version. The passage under discussion and its larger context are structured almost exactly alike in Tosefta and Mekhilta. Nothing suggests that one text depends on the other; rather, they are probably based on a common source. Since both are written in mishnaic Hebrew and display similar sentence structures while their respective wording is congruent only rarely, I propose a Semitic, most likely an Aramaic source.  I will focus on the following version of the Tosefta from the Venice Manuscript.  Whence did Moses know where Yosef was buried? They said Serah Bat Asher was in that generation And she went and told to Moses: ‘In the river Nile Yosef is buried’ Since Egypt made him spits of metal (‫ )שפודין של מתכת‬and joined them with tin (‫)וחברום בבעץ‬ And Moses went and stood at the river Nile and said: ‘Yosef, Yosef, the hour has come that the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers Israel, For the Shekhinah is waiting for you and Israel is waiting for you And the Clouds of Honour are waiting (‫ )מעוכבין‬for you, If you reveal yourself – good, and if not – we have fulfilled the oath that you made our fathers swear’ The coffin of Yosef floated (‫ )צף‬and Moses took it and went with it. The story is preceded by praise of Moses, and followed by an a minoris ad majus comparison with the iron ax that Elisha let float, and a second version that has Yosef buried in the kings’ tombs. The two competing

 Cf. I. Horowitz, Mechilta d’Rabbi Ismael, Frankfurt am Main  (reprint Jerusalem ) .  Both texts contain small expansions vis-à-vis each. These expansions, however, can all be traced to inner parallelisms and repetitions.  In S. Lieberman, Tosefta al pi Ktav Yad Vina, New York , f.  She had lived from the time of Yosef to the time of Moses. The role of Serah Bat Asher has been treated in depth by J. Heineman, Aggadot ve-Toldotehen, Jerusalem , .  The Mekhilta (ibid.) explicates what follows from the context in the Tosefta: Egypt made him a metal chest and drowned it in the Nile (‫עשו לו מצרים ארון של מתכת ושקעוהו בתוך‬ ‫)נילוס‬.



H P G  P   T

versions are a clear indication that the Tosefta processed material from different sources. Both locations of burial, the royal tombs and the Nile, indeed are no innovations. Kugel proposes that the motifs of the tombs of the kings might have been inspired earlier Greek literature such as the Testament of Simon. The Nile is the very essence of the Egyptian deity Osiris. Accordingly, it has been argued that the many coincidental affinities between Yosef and Osiris might have played a role in the adaptation of the Osiris material to the rabbinic retelling of Exodus. The long list includes their respective affiliation with the royals of Egypt, their association with water and the bull, their respective innocence in the face of charges of adultery, their deception by brothers, and their association with water and agriculture. Mussies has shown that Melito of Sardis similarly connected the two characters in the late second century.  Furthermore, Tertullian euhemeristically claimed that Serapis ‘was formerly called Yosef’ and was deified by the Egyptians. The Egyptians’ deification of Moses is reported explicitly in the story of Artapanus.  The Tosefta’s source might refer to similar traditions. An analysis of Plutarch’s narrative of Osiris’ death at the hands of Typhon (the sequel of which follows below) illuminates how the Tosefta, too, nurtured this proximity between Yosef and Osiris.  Typhon conspires against his brother and sister Isis and Osiris who are the parents of

 J.L. Kugel, In Potiphar’s House. The Interpretative Live of Bibilical Texts, New York , ff.  Cf. Guedemann, ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Studien’, f and Mussies, ‘The Interpretatio Judaica of Serapis’, - for a detailed examination of such parallels. They probably are partly caused by the Egyptian setting of both stories. Concerning the difficulty of speculations about the original relationship between the biblical Yosef cycle, the Exodus, and ancient Egypt, cf. the recent publications of J. Assmann and the criticism they have received. Cf. also I. Pardes, Counter traditions in the Bible: a Feminist Approach, Cambridge, Massachusetts , who argues that Zippora is modeled on Isis; and the work of Rivka Ulmer (Brigitte Kern).  Cf. Mussies, ‘The Interpretatio Judaica of Serapis’, f. The text is preserved only in late Syriac translations, cf. W. Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London , f.  Apology II., dated to  CE. Cf. Mussies, ‘The Interpretatio Judaica of Serapis’, . Cf. also bAvZar a.  Cf. Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica IX, . Cf. also J.J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem. Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, Grand Rapids , - and E. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: the Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, Berkeley  and Diaspora: Jews among Greeks and Romans, Cambridge, Massachusetts .  Greek cited from W. Sieveking, Plutarchi Moralia, vol. .., Leipzig  (repr. ), .



Z  – M  L

Horus. Plotting Osiris’ death he designs a beautiful chest that fits Osiris perfectly. Jesting, he makes Osiris step in it. His conspirators shut the lid, fastening it with external bolts (γόμφοις)  and using molten lead (θερμὸν μόλιβδον). They then carry the chest to the river (ἐπὶ τὸν ποταμὸν ἐξενεγκεῖν). Yosef’s coffin in the Tosefta seems to have been similarly built: Egypt (or: the Egyptians) made him some kind of spits and closed the lid with hot metal. Both coffins end up in the Nile. The level of accuracy suggests the Tosefta’s familiarity with a text akin to Plutarch. It would make perfect sense to posit knowledge of Plutarch text in secondand third-century Palestine, since around this time the popularity of this author peaked. Furthermore, it should have caught the eye of at least some Jewish readers that in the sequel of the very same text ( C-D), Plutarch reports that his anti-hero Typhon allegedly is the father of ‘Hierosolymos and Youdaios’. Even though Plutarch dismisses this attempt to bring Ἰουδαϊκὰ, ‘Jewish matters’, into the history, it would make good sense for Jews in general, and Samaritans as the sons of Yosef in particular, to eliminate any doubt about their origin. As Schäfer has shown, the association of the Jews with Typhon was not uncommon in Greek literature, e.g., in the Egyptian anti-Jewish Exodus version of Manetho.  To place Yosef inside the coffin and to have the Egyptians closing it affiliates their father with Osiris and the Egyptians with Typhon, an inversion of the charge. Nevertheless, the Tosefta alone is too succinct for us to be sure of what it read and we now should turn to the Samaritans. An analysis of the TM will reveal that Plutarch’s story itself may have inspired an author to adapt the Moralia to his version of the Exodus. The TM retells parts of the Pentateuch, stressing narrative rather than exegesis. It expands the biblical account with the following details: . The pillars of cloud and fire prevent the Israelites leaving Sukkot by standing opposite them. This frightens (‫ )ודחלין‬Moses and Aaron and stupefies (‫ )מבלידין‬the elders. They wonder what confuses (‫)עביד סכלות‬

 According to Lidell-Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford , γόμφος can be both ‘a bolt for ship building’ and the ‘cross-ribs of the Egyptian canoes. [In comparison with the nail] they seem to differ in size, γόμφος being the larger one’.  Cf. W.W. Briggs, Ancient Greek Authors, Detroit-London , , also for further bibliography.  P. Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World, Cambridge, MA , -.



H P G  P   T

the congregation who cry out their distress (‫ )נזעק‬to the elders to no avail. . Concluding that there must be a secret involved they question all the tribes (‫ ;)שאלו בכל שבט‬Serah Bat Asher steps forward and shows them the place of Yosef’s burial at Sukkot. . After finding it, ‘Moses opened Yosef’s coffin (‫ ארונו‬...‫ )פתח‬with his right, leaned over (‫ )וגען‬him, and kissed (‫ )ונשק‬him, and wept (‫)ובכי‬. At that moment’, the TM repeats, ‘he wept over him’, (‫)ביתה שהעתה מבכי לה‬ and in a lengthy speech tells him that his spirit can now rest, and that his offspring will carry him away. Beginning from its climax and proceeding in reverse order, we first should examine the biblical basis of the TM, and then analyse its relationship to the Tosefta. ad . The TM’s depiction of Moses’ caressing Yosef’s corpse seems to be partly modeled on Yosef’s own actions in Gen. : (on the other part, cf. below). In the biblical narrative, when Jacob died, ‘Yosef threw himself on his father’s face, wept over him and kissed him’ (‫ויפל יוסף על פני אביו‬ ‫)ויבך עליו וישק לו‬. The following similarities as well as the differences between the TM and Genesis will prove extremely important for the TM’s relationship to Plutarch. Both in Genesis and in the TM, the respective actors, thus Yosef and Moses, seek physical contact with the corpse by leaning over him. Moses kisses Yosef just as Yosef kissed Jacob. Moses weeps just as Yosef wept. But unlike in Genesis, the TM’s Moses does not throw himself upon Yosef, Yosef’s face is not mentioned, and he weeps after kissing him, not before. And of course, there is no coffin in Genesis. ad . Serah Bat Asher and Moses appear in the same function at the very same time both in the TM and the Tosefta. Based on the fact that Serah Bat Asher also figures in this story (and on the assumption that the Samaritans might not have invented traditions of their own), Lieberman claimed that the story in the TM is undoubtedly Jewish in its origins,  a claim to which I will return shortly. In any case, the TM’s and the Tosefta’s close relationship is most evident in this aspect. ad . In the Bible, the pillars of cloud and fire are only mentioned in Ex. :, after Moses took Yosef’s bones and after the Israelites left

 

According to Ben Hayyim’s version of Mss Quf, Ben Hayyim, Tibat Marqe, ff. ‘‫( ’ברור שאגדה זו ביסודה יהודית היא‬Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshuta, ).



Z  – M  L

Sukkot, but not from the point at which the Exodus began. Lieberman suggested that their deferred appearance might have indicated to ancient readers that the pillars of cloud and fire stood still to enforce the Israelites’ fulfillment of their fathers’ oath. The Tosefta’s phrasing of Moses’ summon of Yosef, explicating that ‘the Clouds of Honor are waiting for you’ is close to the detailed story in the TM, hinting again towards a textual connection. In order to clarify the relationship between the rabbinic and the Samaritan texts one needs to examine their respective readings of Plutarch, the third element they share besides those described so far. The reader is now asked to set aside the TM for a moment and consider the following sequel of Plutarch’s story ( D) from the perspective of the author responsible for the material the TM adopted: a second- or third-century Near Eastern intellectual with an intimate knowledge of Genesis, a creative mind and vivid imagination, and a typical Late Antique love for Euhemerism as well as for readings that nowadays would be classified ‘cross-cultural’. As Isis finds Osiris’ coffin, ‘she threw herself on it (περιπεσεῖν) and laments’. Soon thereafter, as Isis finds seclusion, she ‘opened the chest (ἀνοῖξαι τὴν λάρνακα), and put the face on the face, (τῷ προσώπῳ τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπιθεῖσαν) and kissed (or ‘hugged’, ἀσπάσασθαι) him and cried (δακρύειν)’. Our author may have noticed that, just like Isis throws herself upon the coffin, Yosef throws himself on his father. Both heroes approach the deceased’s face. Both kiss. Both cry. In light of these ‘striking parallels’ and the aforementioned affinities between Plutarch’s and the Bible’s hero, what would have been more natural for this author than to reread and retell the entire passage in Plutarch with an eye towards similarities between Isis’ travails and the Exodus? As I will shortly show in some detail, he may have found that in Plutarch there is a Divinity aflame that hovers over a divine pillar at night resembling the biblical nocturnal pillar of fire. He would have noted a strong wind and the drying up of a stream, just like the biblical wind that clears the path through the Sea of Reeds. And he may have found the death of an Egyptian king’s firstborn, similar to the tenth plague that triggers the Exodus in the Bible. These three elements together with the ‘smoking



Ibidem. The Mekhilta sustains Lieberman’s assumption by explicating in the sequel: '‫ר‬ ‫עקיבא אומר אין סוכות אלא ענני כבוד‬, ‘Rabbi Akiva says: Sukkot is but the clouds of glory.’ Cf. also Kugel, In Potiphar’s House, -.



H P G  P   T

gun’ – the fourfold similarity of the heroes’ response to the dead bodies – will have caused this individual some amazement due to the entirely different contexts in which these elements appear in Plutarch and the Exodus. His use of the opening of the coffin as the structural key to its narrative suggests that our author included at least some of the correspondences in imagery and wording when writing his text. Moreover, I will now show that he furthered these similarities by appropriating and recontextualizing other random elements of Plutarch in his retelling of the Exodus. I will comb through the Plutarch story for each detail that he may have found to be already quite similar to the Bible along with the elements adopted in his retelling. . In Plutarch’s story, we learn that Typhon’s deeds were told by the Pans and Satyrs. Plutarch uses this to educate his reader that therefore the sudden confusion (ταραχὰς) and dismay (πτοήσεις) of a crowd are called ‘panic’. . Isis mourns and starts wandering around (πλανωμένην δὲ πάντῃ) in great stupefaction (ἀποροῦσαν), not failing to address anybody (οὐδένα παρελθεῖν ἀπροσαύδητον), even little children (παιδαρίοις). . These tell her that the chest floated seawards and where it was stranded. . For this reason the Egyptians think that little children possess prophetic power (μαντικὴν δύναμιν). The emphasis on the fear (‫)ודחלין‬, stupefaction (‫ )מבלידין‬and confusion (‫ )עביד סכלות‬of both Moses, Aaron and the congregation, their helpless tour inquiring of all (‫ )שאלו בכל‬the tribes separately – all without any basis whatsoever in the Bible – seems to be modeled not only on the main character Isis’ actions () but even on Plutarch’s etymology of the panic of a crowd (). Serah, the ‘child’ of Asher, is the one that reveals the secret to them (), which might reflect the prophetic powers ascribed to children in Plutarch (). . Osiris’ chest was enclosed by heather that grew around it. The king of the country cut it down and used the part that contained the chest as a pillar to support his roof. Isis started socializing with the queen and began nursing her child. At night (νύκτωρ) she burned the mortal parts of the child, turned into a swallow and flew above the pillar (κίονι) until the queen saw her baby on fire (περικαιόμενον) and cried out. 

Z  – M  L

. The goddess then revealed herself, stopped the burning of the child, and cut Osiris’ chest out of the wood. Then she threw (περιπεσεῖν) herself onto the coffin and uttered a dreadful lamentation (κωκῦσαι). . She placed the coffin on a boat and left together with the king’s oldest son. The river sent a bracing wind (πνεῦμα τραχύτερον), whereupon the goddess, angry, dried up its waters (ἀναξηρᾶναι τὸ ῥεῖθρον). In the context of the adaptation, the author may well have associated the biblical pillar of fire at night (‫ )ולילה בעמוד אש‬in Ex. : with the fiery Goddess nocturnally hovering over the pillar that enclosed the other divinity (). In the immediate sequel of the biblical passage retold by the TM, Ex. :, ‘the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind (‫ עזה‬...‫ )ברוח‬all night and made the sea into dry land (‫’)וישם את הים לחרבה‬. This comes very close both in conceptualization and in terminology to the action of the goddess who encounters a strong wind and dries up the stream (). . As Isis found seclusion, she ‘opened the chest (ἀνοῖξαι τὴν λάρνακα), and put the face on the face, (τῷ προσώπῳ τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπιθεῖσαν) and kissed (or ‘hugged’, ἀσπάσασθαι) him and cried (δακρύειν)’. . The oldest son encountered her look and died of fear. . Others say he fell into the sea and drowned. In (), as described above, Isis threw herself upon the coffin just like Yosef did in the Book of Genesis. Like him, she touches the deceased’s face (). Our author was silent about these specific elements even though it is very likely he presupposed their fusion. When describing Moses as opening Yosef’s coffin he relied on Plutarch much more than on Genesis, since the setting and wording corresponds almost exactly to (). Both Isis and Moses open the coffin, an element absent in the Bible. Moses ‘leaned over’ Yosef, kisses him and cries – in Plutarch’s, not the biblical order.

 The following table highlights the three texts’ similarities: Bible: Yosef threw himon face wept self

kissed

Plutarch: Isis threw herself lamented opened it on the coffin

put face on face

kissed him

wept

TM: Moses

leaned kissed over him him

wept

opened Yosef’s coffin

lamented



H P G  P   T

Moses’ elaborate lament might correspond to Isis’ lament in (). The death of the Egyptian king’s firstborn, caused by a deity in (), has affinities to the tenth plague in Ex. . Plutarch’s variant of the drowning in () evokes the eventual drowning of the king in Ex. . The conceptual and terminological similarities between Plutarch and the Bible are indeed remarkable, and all evidence hints towards our author’s intention to leave most of them untouched even though he supplements them at the same time. Only in the climax is one of the initial similarities explicated, Isis’ action towards the dead Osiris in his coffin that so neatly mirrors Yosef’s action towards Jacob. At this point, our author transposes this similarity into the new context of Moses finding Yosef, adds the coffin and perfects it. I would suggest that he expected his audience to know Plutarch’s narrative and let them enjoy completing the missing links fusing the two stories themselves. The necessary obsession with detail for such a narrative strategy is amply illustrated in the rabbinic as well as the Greek literature of his time. I shall now return to the Tosefta and its relationship to the TM and to Plutarch. The aforementioned similarities between the Samaritan and the rabbinic text in terms of exegetical setting and actions – both expound Ex. :-; in both the Clouds of Honour, Moses, and Serah fulfill exactly the same functions; both recall Yosef’s oath; and both present one of the two climaxes of Plutarch’s story – are suggestive of a textual interdependence. Interesting to note, however, is the Tosefta’s focus on a part of Plutarch’s narrative that the TM probably assumes: the corpse’s placement in the coffin. This, together with the TM’s later dating despite its closer proximity to Plutarch, suggest that neither the Tosefta nor the TM should be credited with the original adaptation of the Osiris story. We cannot even be sure if they were aware of the implications of their adaptation, even though I would suggest they were. Instead, we might imagine a shared source that retold the story of Yosef’s bones in light of Plutarch. This source would have adapted Plutarch consciously and carefully. It contained at least the details from the Tosefta and from the TM, the retelling of Osiris’ murder and of Isis’ finding him. Those two scenes are interdependent and undoubtedly the climax of the Osiris myth, another hint towards a single source.



Cf. the work of Graham Anderson and Shadi Bartsch.



Z  – M  L

This source might of course have been not Plutarch but a similar Osiris myth. Plutarch collected older material, and the story of Isis was popular. I think, however, that the peculiarities of Plutarch (compared with, say, the Herodotus version of the myth) suggest that his proximity to the Tevat Marqe/Tosefta version is so precise in emphasis, context, wording and order of events that we would be dealing with a text closely akin to Plutarch. Given Plutarch’s popularity in conjunction with the aforementioned Seth/Jerusalem connection to which he refers, I would still suggest that we should stay with Plutarch or quite accurate retellings of his version as the most probable hypothetical source. If this be the case, we can even date the adapted story between some time after the publication of Plutarch’s account and some time before the Tosefta’s redaction, I would thus propose ca.  to ca.  CE. There is no reason to follow Lieberman’s assumption that the Samaritan narrative is based on a Jewish one rather than vice versa. I have proposed Aramaic as the most probable language of the shared source, and chances are that the story was composed in one of the two cultures that preserved it and would have most interest in telling it. Since the extant Jewish works of the period are written in Hebrew rather than in Aramaic, I would opt for a Samaritan rather than a Jewish origin. Most importantly we can reconstruct some of our author’s motivations in recasting Yosef in Osiris’ image. The figures’ similarities might have played a role. In a Euhemeristic manner, perhaps maybe influenced by the Church Fathers or by texts like Artapanus, he would have identified Yosef with Osiris. He might even have thought that Plutarch really spoke about a Yosef deified by the Egyptians. The greatness of this Egyptian hero and god would have resonated in the ears of a reader who understood the literary references. Furthermore, the association with Osiris would have retaliated for hateful associations of the Jews with Typhon. By adopting Osiris to Yosef, he also managed to ‘domesticate’ the Egyptian myth into a monotheistic, scripture-based narrative. Most importantly, when retelling the Exodus, the similarities between the Bible and Plutarch would have become obvious to him and compelled him to integrate them in his own work. Holger Zellentin Princeton University, New Jersey



A H H  P   H- R M: A N   R   S L  R L C

This paper analyzes a brief hymnic composition that praises R. Ishmael ben Elisha the High Priest for his special abilities to enter the heavenly realm and learn its hidden secrets. This Hebrew hymn expands upon the role that R. Ishmael’s visionary powers and high priestly lineage play within the post-talmudic work The Story of the Ten Martyrs. I show that this composition adopts and adapts the specific language and imagery that are used to describe the redemptive function of the High Priest (kohen gadol) in the earliest extant liturgies for the Day of Atonement from Late Antiquity. In particular, in the Yom Kippur liturgy, the high priestly ritual of communal expiation brings about a state of collective atonement that pre-figures the messianic age. I argue that by appropriating the messianic idiom of the Yom Kippur liturgy the hymn to R. Ishmael underscores the redemptive function of its protagonist’s visionary experience and subsequent martyrdom. In addition, I suggest that the generative role that the synagogue liturgy played in shaping rabbinic martyrological discourse has important implications for our understanding of the relationship between the late antique synagogue and the rabbinic academy. In my view, the social and ideological gap between



I would like to express gratitude to my cherished, new colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Andrea Berlin and Bernard Levinson, for their astute advice on this paper. Their personal warmth and professional support have smoothed the transition to my new academic home. See R. Abusch, ‘Rabbi Ishmael’s Miraculous Conception: Jewish Salvation History in AntiChristian Polemic’, in A.H. Becker and A.Y. Reed, eds, The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Tübingen , -. For the text of the martyrology, I use G. Reeg, ed., Die Geschichte von den Zehn Märtyrern, Tübingen . For my present purposes, I am not concerned with the historicity of rabbinic traditions concerning R. Ishmael’s priestly lineage (e.g., tHal. :; bKet. b; bGit. a; bHul. a). In his encyclopedic study of R. Ishmael, G.G. Porton finds no basis for crediting these traditions (The Traditions of Rabbi Ishmael,  vols, Leiden , :-). But compare M. Hirshman, Torah for the Entire World (Hebrew), Tel Aviv , esp. -. S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 27–34. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  L

these institutions was not as great as many have recently wished to argue. Despite being set during the Roman ‘persecutions’ of the second century CE, The Story of the Ten Martyrs as a literary composition dates to Byzantine-period Palestine (circa sixth to seventh century CE). This work embeds the individual martyrological units of which it is composed within a single, unifying narrative framework. The punishment meted out to the ten martyred sages is not attributed to their individual guilt or even to the immediate political circumstances of the persecution, but is explained as the direct consequence of the crime committed by Yoseph’s brothers when they sold him into slavery (Gen. ). Their deaths are thus understood to serve as expiation for the original national sin committed by the progenitors of the tribes of Israel. As the scion of a high priestly family, R. Ishmael plays a particularly central role in this narrative of communal sin and vicarious atonement. The ideology of self-sacrifice in the martyrology concentrates on the image of the heavenly altar upon which R. Ishmael’s angelic double, the heavenly High Priest Metatron, sacrifices the souls of the righteous martyrs who offer their lives on behalf of their community (Ten Martyrs, I-IX..-). Before proceeding, I cite the R. Ishmael hymn here in full: ‫אשרי עין שראתה כך ואשרי הגבר שזכה לכך תתברך האם שחבלה אותו ואשרי המעים‬ ‫שגדל בהם אשרי דדים שינק מהם אשרי האב שהולידו ולמדו תורה אשרי עין שהציצה‬ ‫בו אשרי זרועות שחבקוהו אשריך ר' ישמעאל שזכית לכך‬ Happy is the eye that has beheld these things! Happy is the man who merited this (vision)! Blessed is the mother who bore him! Happy is the womb in which he grew! Happy are the breasts from which he nursed! Happy the father who begot him and taught him Torah! Happy the eye that has glimpsed him! Happy the arms that



On the social and cultural opposition between the synagogue and the rabbinic academy, see especially O. Irshai, ‘The Priesthood in Jewish Society in Late Antiquity’ (Hebrew), in L. I. Levine, ed., Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine, Jerusalem , - and the literature cited there; also R. Elior, The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism, trans. D. Louvish, , esp. -; J. Yahalom, Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee of Late Antiquity (Hebrew), Tel Aviv , -.  As was already suggested by L. Zunz, Die synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters, second ed., repr., Hildesheim ), - and P. Bloch, ‘Rom und die Mystiker der Merkabah’, in Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage Jakob Guttmanns, Leipzig , -.  Reeg, Geschichte, f.



A H H  P   H- R M

have embraced him! Happy are you, R. Ishmael, that you merited this! The hymn of praise to R. Ishmael is a freestanding unit; it does not form an essential part of the literary fabric of The Story of the Ten Martyrs as this work was transmitted in the medieval manuscript tradition.  The hymn most often appears at the culmination of short collections of loosely related literary traditions concerning R. Ishmael’s apocalyptic visions. The hymn opens by praising R. Ishmael’s ‘eye’ (‫ )עין‬for the heavenly revelations to which it has just been privy. But beyond merely praising R. Ishmael for his visionary powers, the hymn proceeds to honour his parents – and especially his mother – for their role in producing their wondrous child. In particular, the hymn lingers over the various body parts that have nurtured him (viz. womb, breasts, eye, and arms). The repetition of the phrase ‘happy is the eye’ signals a shift in the hymn from R. Ishmael’s active role as visionary to his passive role as the object of his parents’ adoring gaze. I will return to the double usage of this formula below. The hymn to R. Ishmael thus seems to be directly dependent on the story of the martyr’s miraculous conception, which plays a central role in the narrative logic of The Story of the Ten Martyrs. This narrative recounts how R. Ishmael’s mother, the pious wife of Elisha the High Priest, conceived him after having encountered God’s angelic messenger Metatron, who transmits to the child his angelic form and appearance. Later in life, when R. Ishmael and his colleagues are threatened with execution, it



Hebrew text transcribed according to MS NY JTSA ENA . Note that in the manuscript a/- reads ‫ שחבלה אדתו‬rather than ‫שחבלה אותו‬, but this grammatically difficult reading is not supported by the other versions of the hymn. I have, therefore, amended the text.  The hymn is found in only one of the ten recensions of the martyrology, Ten Martyrs, V., -.  MS NY JTSA ENA , a/–; MS Oxford Michael , b/-a/; MS NY Enelow  (JTSA ), b/-; and MS Heb. °  (transcribed in A.M. Habermann, ed., Hadashim gam yeshanim, Jerusalem , ). In these manuscripts as well as in Ten Martyrs, V..–, the hymn is found together (in various combinations and sequences) with the ‘David-Apocalypse’ (cf. P. Schäfer, ed., Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur, Tübingen , §§-) and ‘Aggadat R. Ishmael’ (cf. Synopse, §§-), both of which describe R. Ishmael’s heavenly visions.  The conception narrative appears in the martyrology at Ten Martyrs, I..-; V..-; VII..-; VIII..-. It also circulated apart from the martyrology. For a comprehensive list of citations, see Abusch, ‘Miraculous Conception’, , n. .



Z  – M  L

is these miraculous attributes that permit him unfettered access to heaven, where the role of the rabbinic martyrs in the future redemption of Israel is revealed to him by his angelic counterpart. The hymn to R. Ishmael is, of course, structured around the stereotyped exclamatory expression ‘ashre + X’ (‘Happy is + noun’), which functions in the Hebrew Bible as a standard eulogistic form for praising those whose status, wisdom, or piety is thought to bring reward or wellbeing. In post-biblical literature, this ‘makaristic’ idiom came to serve as a conventional literary expression for honouring rabbinic sages for their piety and learning. In addition to these important rabbinic parallels, the specific idiom used in the hymn to R. Ishmael is also reminiscent of the liturgical adoration offered to the mother of the Messiah in early Christian worship. Thus, the mention of the ‘breasts’ and ‘womb’ of R. Ishmael’s mother bears a striking resemblance to the invocation of various parts of Mary’s body in what is perhaps the earliest of these makarismoi, found already in the NT text of Luke: ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you (Jesus) and the breasts at which you nursed!’. Indeed, it may well be that Jewish and Christian hymns of adoration share a common formal and even conceptual background. Yet, because of the longevity and ubiquity of this idiom of praise, these general parallels do not shed light on the specific claims that the hymn to R. Ishmael seeks to make about its protagonist. Several sources from Byzantine Palestine do, however, illuminate the particular cultural and ideological context out of which the R. Ishmael hymn emerged. The hymn to R. Ishmael exhibits remarkable formal and verbal similarities to the hymn that is recited by the people of Israel in praise of the suffering Messiah Ephraim, who figures centrally in the

 For a useful analysis of the morphology and function this expression, see A.A. Anderson, Psalms -, Grand Rapids, MI , f.  See, e.g., yHag. . (a) and bHag. b, where R. Yohanan ben Zakkai employs this idiom to praise his students for their successful exegesis of Ezekiel’s throne-vision (Ezek.  and ). Also MidProv :; bYoma a.  Luke :: Μακαρία ἡ κοιλία ἣ βαστάσασά σε καῑ μαστοῑ oὓς ἐθήλασας. Cf. Gos. Thom. §.  On the possible Jewish Aramaic background of the Lukan text, see M. Black, ‘The Aramaic Liturgical Poetry of the Jews’, JTS o.s.  () -.



A H H  P   H- R M

narrative of redemption recounted in the late midrashic work Pesiqta Rabbati -. Like a bridegroom adorned with a priestly diadem, like a bride bedecked with her finery (Is. :). This text teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, will put upon Ephraim, our true Messiah, a garment whose splendor will stream forth from world’s end to world’s end. And Israel will make use of this light and say: ‘Happy is the hour in which he was created (‫!)אשרי שעה שבה נברא‬ Happy is the womb whence he came (‫ !)ואשרי הבטן שממנו יצא‬Happy is the generation whose eyes behold him (‫ואשרי הדור שעיניו רואות‬ ‫ !)אותו‬Happy is the eye which yearned for him (‫)ואשרי עין שחבתה לו‬ who opens his lips with blessing and peace, whose speech is pure delight, whose heart meditates in trust and tranquility. Happy is the eye which merits seeing him (‫)אשרי עין שזכתה בו‬, the utterance of whose tongue is pardon and forgiveness for Israel, whose prayer is sweet savour, whose supplication is purity and holiness. Happy are the forebears of the man who merits the goodness of the world (i.e., the Messiah), hidden for eternity’. Like the R. Ishmael hymn, this passage offers praise to the ‘womb’ of Ephraim’s mother (here ‫ בטן‬not ‫)מעים‬. Strictly-speaking, Ephraim is not a martyr, but instead performs his redemptive function through suffering. Nevertheless, like R. Ishmael, Ephraim intercedes on Israel’s behalf by earning their forgiveness from God. Indeed, much like the characterization of martyrdom in The Story of the Ten Martyrs, Pesiqta Rabbati describes the prayers of Ephraim on behalf of the nation in the language of cultic sacrifice. There is, however, a small, but highly significant difference between the two hymns. The hymn to Ephraim repeatedly praises the eyes of the ‘generation’ (‫ )דור‬that has had the great fortune of witnessing the advent of

 For discussion of this series of homilies, see A. Goldberg, Erlösung durch Leiden: Drie rabbinische Homilien über die Trauernden Zions und den leidenden Messias Efraim (PesR ..), Frankfurt .  Pesiq. Rbti , § (R. Ulmer, ed., Pesiqta Rabbati: A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati Based upon All Extant Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps,  vols, Atlanta , , ). I have slightly modified the translation in W.G. Braude, trans., Pesikta Rabbati: Discourses for Feasts, Fasts, and Special Sabbaths,  vols, New Haven , :.



Z  – M  L

this suffering Messiah. Ephraim is throughout the passive object of their expectant gaze. By contrast, we have seen that the hymn to R. Ishmael is inconsistent in the way it deploys this idiom: it begins by praising the martyr’s own eyes for the heavenly visions they have seen (‘Happy is the eye that has beheld these things!’), but later embeds this idiom in the praise of his parents (‘Happy the eye that has glimpsed him! Happy the arms that have embraced him!’). This movement within the hymn creates an odd slippage. Unlike Ephraim, R. Ishmael plays a dual role as both active visionary and passive object of sight. And, in the case of R. Ishmael, it is seemingly his parents – rather than his contemporaries – who are praised for having had the honour of seeing him. I believe that the ‘Praise of the High Priest’ that is contained in the Yom Kippur ‘Avodah service stands behind the ‘praise of the eye’ found in both of these hymns. The Sidre ‘Avodah are tri-partite penitential poems (selihot) that describe the creation of the world, narrate human history from Adam until the investiture of Aaron as High Priest, and culminate with the purification and scapegoat rituals of Yom Kippur described in Lev. . In what appears to be one of the earliest extant ‘Avodah hymns, entitled ’Az be-’ein kol, we find the following unit: ‫מה נצפּן למו‬ ‫נגד בני אדם‬ ‫משה ואהרן‬ ‫כבוד נחלוּ‬ ‫מה חזו עיניהם‬ ‫למי הם מצפים‬

‫אשרי יריאיך‬ ‫פעולת טובתך‬ ‫אשריהם מאד‬ ‫כי אין לחקור‬ ‫אשרי אבותינו‬ ‫ואשרי בניהם‬

Happy are those who fear you! How (much) is in store for them: your beneficence in the full view of men! Most happy are Moses and Aaron, for the glory they have attained is impossible to fathom! Happy are our ancestors (because of) what their eyes beheld! And happy their descendants because of (the one) whom they anticipate (i.e., the Messiah)!



J. Yahalom, ed., Priestly Palestinian Poetry: A Narrative Liturgy for the Day of Atonement, Jerusalem , f., lines - (Hebrew).



A H H  P   H- R M

The hymn situates the high priestly ritual at the intersection of two temporally distinct communities: the ‘ancestors’ who were fortunate enough to witness the solemn actions of the High Priest when the Temple still stood are juxtaposed with later generations of their descendants who, through the hymn’s verbal description of the High Priest, gain a glimpse of the future advent of the messianic age. Like numerous other early Jewish texts, ’Az be-’ein kol reads the high priestly ritual of Yom Kippur through an eschatological lens. The ‘eyes’ of the Temple community – and by extension, the liturgical community – are trained upon the glorious appearance of the High Priest presiding over this ritual of communal expiation. In presenting the Yom Kippur ritual as a pre-figuration of the ultimate purging of Israel’s sins that will accompany the messianic age, the ‘Avodah liturgy sets the annual cultic-ritual activities of the High Priest within a narrative of national redemption. The ‘praise of the eyes’ – already present in ’Az be-’ein kol – gradually came to serve as a central structuring element for the ‘Avodah service. Thus, in later versions of the ‘Avodah, the methodical descriptions of the Yom Kippur ritual are punctuated by the refrain ‘Happy is the eye that has seen all these things’ (‫)אשרי עין ראתה כל אלה‬. And, like the hymn to the Messiah Ephraim, these later forms of the ‘Avodah characterize the community gathered around the sanctuary as the ‘generation’ of the High Priest. It seems that the hymns of praise for R. Ishmael and Ephraim appropriated the ‘praise of the eyes’ from the Sidre ‘Avodah, where this formal element is clearly most at home. In doing so, both compositions sought to associate their respective protagonists with the messianic status of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The creators of the Ephraim hymn carried out this operation in a relatively straight-forward fashion, simply transferring the liturgical praise of the High Priest to this non-priestly Messiah. By contrast, the R. Ishmael hymn adapts the ‘praise of the eyes’ to the complex narrative context of the martyrology: R. Ishmael is thus



Yahalom, Priestly Palestinian Poetry, -. On the eschatological dimension of Yom Kippur in early Jewish sources, see D. Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century, WUNT , Tübingen , -.  D. Goldschmidt, ed., Mahzor la-yamim ha-nora’im: lefi minhage bene Ashkenaz,  vols, Jerusalem , :-.  Goldschmidt, Mahzor, :: ‘His generation saw and rejoiced’ (‫)דורו ראו ושמחו‬. 



Z  – M  L

simultaneously an active visionary and the passive object of his parents’ adoration. But the hymn’s idiosyncratic double use of this idiom does little to obscure its original context. Instead, the awkward repetition of the phrase ‘happy is the eye’ highlights R. Ishmael’s exalted status as a specifically high-priestly martyr. If we are to judge from the hymns to Ephraim and R. Ishmael, it would seem that, at least in some cases, the literary production of the late antique synagogue provided the formal and ideological material for important innovations within rabbinic literary culture. Indeed, the capacious figure of Rabbi Ishmael – priest, rabbi, martyr, and perhaps also quasimessiah – seems to encapsulate the multiple, though not necessarily competing, strands of Byzantine Jewish culture. Ra‘anan S. Boustan University of Minnesota



T R  M‛‘ A    M B S

Ma‘aseh Alexandros is a Hebrew translation of the Greek story of Alexander known as Pseudo-Calisthenes. The text contains many Greek words and exhibits a first hand knowledge of that language; it is therefore established that it was translated directly from the Greek.  Ma‘aseh Alexandros exists in one manuscript, but it is also found as an interpolation in some versions of Sefer Yosippon, which was originally composed in the south of Italy in the year . We do not know when exactly Ma‘aseh Alexandros was inserted into Sefer Yosippon, but this was certainly there before , since in that year Judah Hadassi testifies that he saw an Alexander story in Sefer Yosippon. In Ma‘aseh Alexandros, between the death of Darius and Alexander’s campaign in India, there is a sequence of short episodes describing the travels of Alexander in various legendary places. In one such place he meets people with long necks, in another he sees a hairy man eating a woman and in yet another he finds animals with five legs. The last episode in this sequence is Alexander’s travel into the Land of Darkness. In this land Alexander meets two big birds (‫ )עופות‬who have human faces and speak Greek. The birds tell Alexander to leave this land, since it is the place of the Holy Ones of God (‫ ;)קדושי אלהים‬one bird utters a prophecy concerning Alexander, saying that he will rule the east. Indeed, following this scene Alexander starts his Indian campaign, not before building gates on the border of the Land of Darkness, sealing it away from human reach.

 Ma‘aseh Alexandros was published by D. Flusser, Sefer Yosippon, Jerusalem , I, - (Hebrew). For a discussion of this text see: idem, II, -; idem, ‘Ma‘aseh Alexandros according to Ms. Parma’, Tarbiz  () - (Hebrew). About Alexander stories in Hebrew see W.J. van Bekkum, The Hebrew Alexander Romance According to ms. London, Jews’ College, no. , Leuven , -; idem, ‘Medieval Hebrew versions of the Alexander Romance’, in A.M.T. Welkenhuysen and H. Braet, eds, Mediaeval Antiquity, Leuven , -.  D. Flusser, Yosippon II, ; idem, Ma‘aseh Alexandros, -.  Parma, de Rossi, , probably written in the fourteenth century, cf. D. Flusser, Yosippon II, .  Ibid., -.  Ibid., .

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 35–41. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  L

In this episode of the Land of Darkness we come across the Rechabites. The Rechabites are the descendants of Yonadab son of Rechab. They play a major role in the biblical book of Jeremiah in chapter , where they appear as a pious group that should serve as a model for the Judeans. In post-biblical Jewish sources they are portrayed as mourning for the Temple and in still later sources it is told that they will return together with the Ten Lost Tribes. It is possible that there was a nonrabbinic Jewish text about the Rechabites, which is now lost. We also find a text about the Rechabites embedded in a Christian monastic story from the Byzantine era, The Journey of Zosimos. In Ma‘aseh Alexandros the Rechabites are mentioned in a short sentence introducing Alexander’s journey into the Land of Darkness: it is them that Alexander wants to see ‫ ויחפוץ לבוא שם לראות הדור הנקראים‬,‫ויגע במקום חושך אשר לא יאיר שם השמש‬ ‫ ויתיעץ עם אוהביו לבוא שם עם אלף ושלש מאות גיבורים‬,‫ הם בני יונדב בן רכב‬,‫מקרי‬ and he [= Alexander] arrived at the Place of Darkness, where the sun does not shine; and he wished to go there and see the people who are called makarioi, which are the sons of Yonadab son of Rechab, and he took counsel with his colleagues to go there with  soldiers. The parallel sentence in the Greek text reads: After we have advanced for another two days, we came to a place where the sun does not shine. This is, in fact, the famous Land of the Blessed.

 See N. Epstein and B.Z. Melamed, eds, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon ben-Yochai, Jerusalem ,:, ; Ch.Sh. Horowitz, Sifre Bamidbar, Jerusalem , paragraph ; idem, Sifre Zuta, Jerusalem , paragraph :.  M. Ish-Shalom, Pesikta Rabbati, Tel-Aviv , addendum, section .  The text will be described briefly below, see my discussion in R. Nikolsky, ‘The History of the Rechabites and the Jeremiah Literature’, JSP . () -; idem, The Provenance of The Journey of Zosimos (also known as The History of the Rechabites), PhD dissertation directed by M.E. Stone, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem , - (Hebrew).  R. Stoneman, ed. and trans., The Greek Alexander Romance, Middlesex , ; the parallel Armenian version is translated in A.M. Wolohojian, trans. and intro., The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes, translated from the Armenian version with



T R  M‛‘ A    M B S

The word blessed (μακάριοι), which appears in the Hebrew as ‫מקרי‬, is part of the original Greek, but the Rechabites are only mentioned in the Hebrew text. It is not clear at which stage the Rechabites were inserted into Ma‘aseh Alexandros. They are found in the earliest manuscript of Sefer Yosippon dating from ; they are also found in later versions of Sefer Yosippon and in the single manuscript of Ma‘aseh Alexandros but not in other Hebrew stories about Alexander. As far as I know, the only other instance where the Rechabites are called makarioi is in The Journey of Zosimos mentioned above. In The Journey of Zosimos, a seventh-century monastic story from Palestine,  the monk Zosimos embarks on a journey in search of the makarioi – the Blessed Ones. At the end of his journey he meets a wonderful society living in Edenic conditions. The people tell him that they are the makarioi for whom he was looking, and that they are the Rechabites. There seems to have been a connection between the Greek Journey of Zosimos and the Hebrew Ma‘aseh Alexandros. When considering which of the two texts influenced the other, we may imagine the following possibilities. By the tenth century, The Journey of Zosimos had been circulating in the Byzantine milieu, which included Palestine, Greece and the south of Italy, for at least two centuries. We know that the author of Ma‘aseh Alexandros knew Greek; it is possible, then, that he read The Journey of Zosimos. He learned from The Journey that the makarioi are in fact the Rechabites. He then inserted an extra sentence into his translation of Pseudo-Calisthenes, mentioning that the makarioi, which Alexander visited, are in fact the Rechabites. The translator expected his readers to know who the Rechabites were, since he was writing for a Hebrewknowing Jewish audience who were acquainted with the biblical text. Assuming an influence in the other direction, i.e. of the Hebrew text on the Greek one, is less probable: we would then have to assume that a Greek-writing author of a monastic text, probably a monk himself, knew the Hebrew translation of the Pseudo-Calisthenes, and created a story based on a small addition to the original Greek – this seems less likely. I

an introduction, New York-London , . Ms. A of Pseudo-Calisthenes lacks this paragraph.  Jerusalem º .  For a detailed study of this text see R. Nikolsky, The Provenance.



Z  – M  L

therefore suggest that the Greek monastic text The Journey of Zosimos influenced the Hebrew one.

Later versions of Sefer Yosippon In later versions of Sefer Yosippon the sentence under discussion appears in a slightly altered way. In the first stage of this process the Ten Lost Tribes are added to the text, and said to be living in the vicinity of the Rechabites. The Place of Darkness (‫)מקום חושך‬, which in the original Greek text was called the Land of Darkness, is called here the Mountains of Darkness. The printed edition of Mantova () reads: ‫ והם בני יונדב בן רכב וקצת השבטים‬,‫ויחפוץ לבא שם לראות הדור הנקראים מקרי‬ ‫הדרים יחד אחרי הרי חשך‬ And he wished to go there to see the people which are called makarioi, who are the sons of Yonadab son of Rechab, and some of the Tribes who live beyond the Mountains of Darkness. The person responsible for this version, be it the printer or an earlier redactor, must have thought that the Mountains of Darkness and Land of Darkness are one and the same. In this he was probably influenced by the Talmudic texts about Alexander, where the Land of Darkness is called the Mountains of Darkness: He said to them: ‘I want to go to the country of Africa.’ They said to him: ‘You cannot go there, because the Mountains of Darkness (‫ )הרי חשך‬are in the way.’ He said to them: ‘That will not stop me from going. Was it for that that I asked you? Rather tell me what I am to do.’  The second stage of alteration is in a later printed version of Ma‘aseh Alexandros – Venezia (). In this version the word makarioi (‫)מקרי‬,



bTam b-a; the translation is found in Van Bekkum, A Hebrew Alexander romance, f.  The dwelling of the Ten Lost Tribes beyond the Mountains of Darkness is mentioned in Bamidbar Rabba (D.Z. Vilna, Bamidbar Rabba section ); the vicinity of the Rechabites and the Lost Tribes is mentioned in Pesikta Rabbati (note  above).



T R  M‛‘ A    M B S

which was the original incentive for adding the Rechabites into the Alexander text, is left out altogether. The unique term ‫דור‬, ‘generation’, which means in this context ‘people’, is also omitted. The result is a text mentioning the Rechabites and the Ten Tribes: ‫ויחפוץ ללכת עד מקום בני יונדב בן רכב וקצת השבטים הדרים יחד אחרי הרי חשך‬ And he wished to go to the place of the sons of Yonadab son of Rechab and some of the Tribes who live beyond the Mountains of Darkness. It seems that the basis for identifying the Rechabites with the makarioi was no longer understood by redactors and copyists. At this point the connection between Ma‘aseh Alexandros and The Journey of Zosimos is not longer apparent.

The medieval Ben Sira The term ‫הדור‬, ‘the generation’ which refers to the Rechabites in Ma‘aseh Alexandros, denotes ‘people’, or maybe ‘special sort of people’. The same word refers to the Rechabites in another Hebrew text: the medieval book of Ben Sira. According to Yassif, the editor of the medieval Ben Sira, the text was composed in a Muslim country at the beginning of the tenth century, and was known in Europe in the eleventh. The two versions of the text, A and B belong to French and Italian lines of manuscripts transmission respectively. In Ben Sira the Rechabites appear in a list of people who became immortals. They are referred to as: ‫יונדב בן רכב‬ ‫( ודורו‬Yonadab son of Rechab and his people) in version A of the text and in version B ‫( ודורו של יונדב בן רכב‬and the generation of Yonadab son of Rechab). The uniqueness of the title ‫ דור‬in relation to the Rechabites which is found both in Ma‘aseh Alexandros and in Ben Sira, testifies to a connection between them. I think that Ma‛aseh Alexandros is the original text and that Ben Sira borrowed this term. I also think that version B of

 This meaning of the word is already attested in the biblical text. See the examples in E. Ben-Yehuda, Dictionary of the Hebrew Language.  E. Yassif, The Tales of Ben Sira in the Middle-Ages, Jerusalem ,  (Hebrew).  Yassif, The Tales, .



Z  – M  L

Ben Sira was the first to include them, while version A is a later expansion. At the end of chapter  there is an explanation about each member of this list as to why he or she deserves to be in the list. When it comes to the Rechabites, the text only remarks: ‘this is because Yonadab son of Rechab did all what is written in the book of Jeremiah’ ('‫מפני שכל מה שכתו‬ ‫)בספר ירמיהו קיים יונדב בן רכב‬. In contrast, version A expands this explanation, and tells about the Rechabites’ custom not to drink wine, not to build a house and not to sow; this is done because of their preknowledge about the destruction of the Temple. This tradition about the Rechabites is taken from the Mekhilta. It is my conjecture that the Rechabites were added to the list in version B of Ben Sira under the influence of their role in Ma‘aseh Alexandros. Being a mere addition, the redactor did not have an extensive explanation for including them in the list. Version A then expanded the explanation according to what is said in the Mekhilta.

Conclusions . The Rechabites were inserted by the author or a redactor into Ma‘aseh Alexandros, a Hebrew translation of Pseudo-Calisthenes, by influence of the Palestinian monastic story The Journey of Zosimos. This is inferred from that fact that the Rechabites are called makarioi in The Journey of Zosimos as well as in Ma‘aseh Alexandros. . Redactors of later versions of Ma‘aseh Alexandros did not understand the connection between the Rechabites and makarioi, and eventually did away with the Greek title altogether. At this stage the Land of Darkness was identified with the Mountains of Darkness, which are found in the Alexander tale in the Talmud. The Ten Lost Tribes were also added to Ma‘aseh Alexandros. . The Rechabites were added to the list of immortals in version B (Italian) of the medieval Ben Sira, and from there were taken over to ver-

 

Ibid., . See note  above and its parallels.



T R  M‛‘ A    M B S

sion A (French), where the reason for their inclusion in this list was expanded on the basis of midrashic material. Ronit Nikolsky Rijksuniversiteit Groningen



History and Demography

O A  Y   A I

In  Joyce Reynolds and Robert Tannenbaum published the by-nowfamous Aphrodisias inscription, arguably the most important find in Jewish epigraphy in the last twenty years. The inscription itself is not overtly Jewish. It bears no Jewish symbols and mentions no Jewish institutions such as the synagogue. It was identified primarily as Jewish because of the high concentration of Jewish names mentioned in the list that it records. The concentration, much higher, for example, than that of Jewish names found in the Jewish catacombs of Rome, constitutes over % of the named individuals. However, the publication of a list of Jewish names is hardly an occasion for the scholarly world to go out of its way, praising the find. The reason the Aphrodisias inscription was so strongly praised was because it seemed to solve once and for all a longstanding scholarly debate about the status of a group of people in preand early-Roman antiquity: the god-fearers (theosebeis). In a nutshell, the question of the god-fearers can be formulated as follows. When the Acts of the Apostles describes Paul’s missionary journeys in Asia Minor and Greece, we are informed that he frequented synagogues, which were populated by Jews and god-fearers (phoboumenoi; sebomenoi). The latter easily became converts to Paul’s new religious teachings about Christ. The question that has nagged the scholarly world is, do these descriptions refer to a single group of real people (identical with the theosebeis), who were drawn to Judaism and frequented the synagogues of the Diaspora without actually converting? Or were they merely a literary device employed by the authors of Acts to describe the people who understood the truth of Christianity and converted? The reason why the Aphrodisias inscription seemed to put an end to this debate is the fact that, following the list rich with Jewish names, a

 J. Reynols and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and God-Fearers at Aphrodisias: Greek Inscriptions with Commentary, Cambridge .  For this position see A.T. Kraabel, ‘The Disappearance of the “God-Fearers”’, Numen . () -. For a summary of the debate this article raised see R.S. MacLennan and A.T. Kraabel, ‘The God-Fearers: A Literary Theological Invention’, BAR . () -; R.E. Tannenbaum, ‘Jews and God-Fearers in the Holy City of Aphrodisias’, ibid., ff.; L.H. Feldman, ‘The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers’, ibid., -.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 44–49. © 2007 Springer.



O A  Y   A I

second list of names appears, mentioning not a single Jewish name and headed by the title: ‘and pious god-fearers’ (kai hosoi theosebeis). If we assume (with all scholars) that the first is a list of Jews in some way associated with the synagogue, and that next to them are listed a group of gentile god-fearers, also in some way associated with the synagogue, then we have proof that such a group really did exist in antiquity. Thus it is not surprising that the foremost supporter of the existence of godfearers, Louis Feldman, wrote triumphantly: ‘… the most important conclusion of the Aphrodisias inscriptions is, I believe, that it establishes once and for all that there was a special class, at least at the time of the inscription, known as theosebeis …’ Bernadette Brooten raised another issue associated with the Aphrodisias inscription. Deeply interested in Jewish women leaders in the synagogue, Brooten noticed that the list of Jews in the Aphrodisias inscription was headed by a person named Iael (henceforth: Yael). Rightly, Brooten noted that this was a famous biblical feminine name (Judges :-; :-), and that the person mentioned at the head of the list, bearing the illustrious title ‘prostates’ should be identified as a woman. However, as the editors themselves noted, ‘the lists here [namely in this inscription; T.I.] are otherwise demonstrably and consistently masculine’, and they concluded that ‘we believe the feminine should be rejected in favour of the masculine here’. To this argument Brooten’s response was: ‘This is not a convincing argument against the femininity of Iael. Throughout Western history, women accorded special honor have often been in a minority’. Yet while as a general argument such a claim can be substantiated, in this case it is very weak. In a list of over one hundred names, to



L.H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian, Princeton , .  See her ground breaking book Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogues: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues, Atlanta .  B. Brooten, ‘The Gender of Iael in the Jewish Inscription from Aphrodisias’, in H.W. Atteridge, J.J. Collins, T.H. Tobin, eds, Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Lanham , -, and see also eadem, ‘Iael Prostates in the Jewish Donative Inscription from Aphrodisias’, in A.T. Kraabel, G.W.E. Nickelsburg, N.R. Peterson, eds, The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, Minneapolis , -.  Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Aphrodisias, .  Brooten, ‘The Gender of Iael’, .



Z  – H  D

find only one woman, if she is indeed a woman, and at the very top of the list, requires further explanation. In the short note that follows I will attempt a comprehensive explanation of the inscription, which will justify Brooten’s claim that we should understand Yael as a woman, and at the same time cast some doubt on the smugness of those who consider this inscription as the last word on the issue of the god-fearers. However, in order to do this we should first try to understand what kind of inscription this is, and why it was erected in the first place. Column A of the Aphrodisias text, often considered a separate inscription, begins with an introduction. This is how the editors translated it: With God’s help. The soup kitchen … Below are listed the decany (?‫ )מניין‬of the students of the law, also known as those who continually praise God, erected for the relief of suffering in the community, at their personal expense (this) memorial (building).  According to this interpretation this is not a conventional synagogue inscription, and did not stand in the main community building, but rather commemorated a charitable institution, probably run by the Jewish community, as can be inferred by the names of the donors. After a hefty discussion, the editors decided to translate the strange Greek word patella as ‘soup kitchen’. This would have been a place were the (probably Jewish) poor would have been fed by the community. After this introduction, a list of persons appears. First in the list is Yael, whose name is then followed by the title prostates (leader). She is followed by her son (Josua), who also bears an illustrious title: archon. Then, in a descending order, other important members of the community are mentioned: Theodotus son of Palatinus and his son Hilarianus; Samuel, bearing a title which begins with the letters archid and thus interpreted by the editors as archidecanus (head of the decany), although I consider this an over-interpretation since Samuel is also a proselyte; he is followed by Jose son of Jesous and Benjamin the psalm singer etc. There is little doubt that the names in this inscription appear in order of impor-



Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Aphrodisias, . There is no problem with the gender of this title, see Brooten, ‘The Gender of Iael’, f., n. .  The editors considered this a title, but I am not convinced. 



O A  Y   A I

tance, and placing Yael at the top makes her the most important person in the list. How can this be? Considering the fact that, rather than dealing with a study house or a synagogue, this is a charity institution, catering for the poor, it should come as no surprise that it was dreamed up and managed by a woman. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that Jewish women were often involved in acts of charity, and contemporary rabbinic sources continually stress this fact. Thus in a great many of them we find a woman personally distributing charity, usually in the form of food, to the needy.  Yet rabbinic literature also knows of formal charitable institutions run specifically by the rich women of Jerusalem, as in bKet a and bSan a. Admittedly these two texts, purportedly describing Second Temple Jerusalem, are very late and have a legendary character. However, the fact that such stories could be told means that it made sense to the hearers or readers that rich women were participating in, and ran charitable organizations. I thus suggest that the soup kitchen at Aphrodisias was the personal project of Yael and hence she was its prostates, or head. That she came from a powerful and probably rich family may be indicated by the fact that her son was an archon, a kind of office found in the administration of many Diaspora Jewish communities. Only the wealthy were elected to such offices. In order to set up a soup kitchen one needs funds. The Aphrodisias inscription appears to be the memorial set up to the people Yael approached, and succeeded in persuading to donate to her charitable enterprise. This is certainly true for column A of the Aphrodisias inscription, and probably also for column B. Column B of the inscription was inscribed by another, much neater hand, but lacks the first line, which may have consisted of a completely new introduction, mentioning another institution, yet this I doubt. There is not really enough room for the commemoration of another structure or institution, and the names at the top of column B are as Jewish as those in column A, thus effectively creating a neat continuation between the two. It remains a mystery why it was executed by another hand, but to conclude that the two columns date from



See yTer :, c; yHor : a; bShab b; bTa‘an b; bKet b; bBQ b etc. See e.g. D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe II: The City of Rome, Cambridge , f. 



Z  – H  D

different centuries seems to me going too far. Thus, the interesting feature in column B is the fact that half way through a new title is added, mentioning the god-fearers. I think it is logical to assume that Yael first approached prospective donors in the Jewish community, but in order to finance in full the structure and charity she planned, those donations were not enough. She thus, at a second stage, approached the rich and powerful among the gentiles of Aphrodisias. The occupations listed for god-fearers indicate a higher socio-economic background. They include nine wealthy members of the city council, listed first, followed by two financiers and a purple dealer. It also includes two possible professional athletes and a sculptor. The Jewish list, on the other hand, includes greengrocers and rag-dealers.  This may suggest that Yael approached for donations Jews of lower standing than gentiles. Those who consented to donate, especially those of the city council, were then commemorated beneath the list of their Jewish compatriots. I doubt very much if their donation was a result of their particular attraction to Judaism. A stronger incentive would have been their wish to see their names in writing on the walls of significant buildings in the city. So why the title ‘god-fearers’? It appears to me that Yael wanted to honour these contributors by using a favourable designation to describe them. Theosebes (god-fearer) was a universal positive designation, acceptable to Jews and gentiles alike. Here the words of MacLennan and Kraabel are still relevant: Other texts just as clearly designate gentiles who have never been in contact with Jews at all as theosebeies. In literature and inscriptions theosebeis does not have a single meaning. In the late second century, Melito bishop of Sardis uses theosebes to refer to Christians in general. Sometimes theosebes is used to describe persons who are clearly Jews. In other texts, it just as clearly designates gentiles who were never in contact with Jews. For example, in the first book of his History, Herodotus call Croesus (the sixth century BCE king of Lydia, who had all the gold) theosebes.

  

See Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Aphrodisias, f. For the full list see Reynolds and Tannenbaum, Aphrodisias, -. MacLennan and Kraabel, ‘The God-Fearers’, .



O A  Y   A I

I thus conclude that while the Aphrodisias inscription is a wonderful resource for Jewish life in antiquity, and can also open an important window onto possible (and probably also acceptable) activities for Jewish women in the Diaspora, it is not a good source for the issue of the god-fearers. This must remain an open question, because the Aphrodisias inscription fails to answer it. Tal Ilan Freie Universität Berlin



T J  A S

The evidence for a Jewish presence in Sicily in antiquity is as scarce as the attestation for it is plentiful in the Middle Ages.  Unlike the other large islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Crete and Cyprus,  for Jews in Sicily we do not have any literary evidence before the late sixth century CE (but see the Appendix). We do have, however, some twenty Jewish inscriptions from this island, conveniently collected by David Noy, which make clear that Jews had been present in Sicily well before medieval times. In addition to that, we have a fascinating document in the form of an ancient Jewish amulet, published by Roy Kotansky. Chronologically this material (both inscriptions and amulets) ranges from the third- to the fifth- centuries CE. What can we learn from these scant testimonies? Let us begin with a rapid survey of the inscriptions. From Taormina we have a curious Greek inscription (JIWE ) stating that the day of the sabbath is good or that the sabbath is a good day (hêmera agathê, cf. yom tov). The context and purpose of this inscription is unclear. From Acireale we have a seal with the Greek name Heuresis and a menorah and shofar (JIWE ). JIWE , from Catania, is interesting in that the inscription is bilingual: it is an epitaph with the first line in Hebrew followed by nine lines in Latin. The Hebrew says: Shalom ‘al Yisrael, Amen Amen. Shalom Shmu‘el. The Latin part says that Aurelius Samohil (= Samuel) bought this tomb for himself and his wife Lassia Irene, who died at the age of twenty three. He adds the adjuration that nobody should open the tomb and ‘put someone else’s body on top of our bones’.



For the Middle Ages see the massive collection of documents in S. Simonsohn, The Jews in Sicily,  vols, Leiden -. Still valuable is C. Roth, ‘Jewish Intellectual Life in Medieval Sicily’, JQR  (/) -.  See P.W. van der Horst, ‘The Jews of Ancient Crete’, JJS  () -; and idem, ‘The Jews of Ancient Cyprus’, Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture  () -.  D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe I: Italy (excluding the City of Rome), Spain and Gaul, Cambridge , -; henceforth this book will be referred to as JIWE.  R. Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets. The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper, and Bronze Lamellae I, Opladen , -; henceforth GMA.  A not unusual age at death for a woman; see my Ancient Jewish Epitaphs. An Introductory Survey of a Millennium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy ( BCE- CE), Kampen , Ch.  (‘Age at Death’). S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 50 –56. © 2007 Springer.



T J  A S

This adjuration is solemnized by referring to the victories of the rulers, the honours of the patriarchs (certainly the influential Jewish leaders in Palestine), and the Law which the Lord gave the Jews. JIWE , again from Catania, is a Greek epitaph for two girls, Leontia who died at the age of  and Kalliope who died at the age of eighteen. Two menorahs have been incised on this marble plaque. A menorah is also incised on nr. , again a Greek epitaph from Catania, which is almost impossible to decipher due to damage. Nr.  (Catania) is a marble plaque on which Irenaeus, an elder (presbyteros), states (in Greek) that he has bought the burial place without offending the commandment. Since it is unclear what commandment Irenaeus is referring to, the Jewishness of the inscription is debated (since sometimes entolê is also used for Jesus’ precepts). Another marble plaque from Catania recording the acquisition of a tomb (JIWE , in Greek) likewise says that the owner (again an elder, presbyteros, called Jason) in no way infringed the commandment. JIWE , again from Catania, states that Zosimianus bought this tomb; a menorah is added after the text. From Syracuse there is a Greek epitaph (JIWE ) in which Irene Nymphe (or: Irene the bride) says that no one should open the grave where she lies, but the Jewishness of the inscription is again a matter of some debate. Another Syracusan epitaph in Greek (JIWE ) threatens anyone who opens the tomb with ‘the future’ (to mellêtikon), which most probably refers to the final judgment. The Jewish character is ensured by the closing formula ‘Blessing to the pious here’ (eulogia tois hosiois hôde). JIWE  is a Samaritan inscription from Syracuse. It is written on a marble column in Samaritan Hebrew and cites the text of Num. :: ‘Rise, YHWH, may your enemies be scattered’, a text found more often in Samaritan inscriptions and on amulets. JIWE  (from Noto Vecchio) contains only menorahs as tomb decoration. Nr.  is a Greek epitaph from Acrilla for ‘Jason the child’ (with a menorah). JIWE  is a Hebrew amulet on a gold sheet from Comiso. It is heavily damaged but contains twice the line ‘He shall save by the name that is in the height and He shall spare the lowly’. The often garbled Hebrew suggests that the copyist did not really understand what he was writing. From Sofiana we have Greek epitaphs for Attinis (= Atinius), an elder, with a menorah, and for Judas Sabatias (JIWE  and



R. Pummer, ‘Inscriptions’, in A.D. Crown, ed., The Samaritans, Tübingen , ; R. Pummer, ‘Samaritan Rituals and Customs’, ibid. .



Z  – H  D

). From probably the same place there is a bronze sheet with an amulet text in Greek and transliterated Hebrew containing mostly names of angels, both well-known and unknown (JIWE ). The final items are two epitaphs in Greek, one on a very damaged stone from Agrigento with the word Ioud[aios] in final position (JIWE ), the other (, from Terme Imerese) calling the deceased, Gaius Seius Ptolemaeus, a Samareus, the meaning of which is uncertain: was the man a Samaritan (a member of the Samaritan religious community) or a Samarian (an inhabitant of Samaria)? The amulet from Acre published by Kotansky (GMA ) is a copper tablet found in the early nineteenth century and published several times since. It is usually called ‘the phylactery of Moses’, since the amulet identifies itself as such in the opening lines: ‘A phylactery which Moses used to protect himself in the Holy of Holies (and) to lead him in the glory of the divine’. And in line  it says: ‘A phylactery of Moses (to protect himself) when he went up on Mount Sinai … to receive the amulet’, and this is repeated again in line . The amulet also states three times that whoever carries it will not have to fear sorcerers or binding spells or evil spirits. The protecting charm itself begins with the words, ‘Iaô Sabaôth Adônaie Seilam Ablanathanalba, O world of the world, protect so-and-so, Abrasax’, followed by nomina barbara. This is a familiar mix of Jewish and Greek elements that one finds so often in magical papyri, including those of non-Jewish origin. The surprise comes in lines -, where we find a previously unidentified fragment of Aquila’s translation of Deut. :-: ‘The heaven will be darkened, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth, as fine dew upon the grass, and as gentle

 The same text was published simultaneously as no.  in Kotansky, GMA. Among the well-known names we find the four archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel; among the many unknown we find names such as Delko and Gibitiba.  On this problem see my ‘The Samaritan Diaspora in Antiquity’, in my Essays on the Jewish World of Early Christianity, Fribourg-Göttingen , -.  For publication details see GMA . It is unclear to me why Noy, who knows this amulet (see p. ), did not include this text in JIWE, whereas he did so with GMA no. .  The strange phrase kosme kosmou is probably a wooden translation of the Hebrew words ‘olam le-‘olam.  M. Smith, ‘The Jewish Elements in the Magical Papyri’, in his Studies in the Cult of Yahweh II, Leiden , -.



T J  A S

showers upon the herb, because I have called the name of the Lord’.  The text on the tablet is rather corrupt but according to the careful and convincing study by Kotansky there are several Aquilan elements in these lines (inter alia, the reading ‘will be darkened’), but for our purposes it is unnecessary to go into these details. The important point is that this particular quotation in the amulet’s text is not without its purpose. As Kotansky observes, Deuteronomy  and  preserve the last words of Moses before his death. Both chapters ‘contain poetic compositions that effectively close the whole of the Mosaic Pentateuch’ (). In the verses quoted, ‘Moses sings his song to the whole assembly of Israel, with his own words likened to a divine utterance that even heaven and earth must hear. The words not only represent a distillation of all Moses’ divine teaching as given on Sinai, they serve as a sort of incantation in themselves, for the words appropriately end, “I will proclaim the name of the Lord”. That name, and its proclamation, represents the very essence of the magic “Phylactery of Moses” – it is the “Sabaoth” of the inscribed golden leaf (line ), the Divine Names and Tetragrammaton (lines -, f.) that Moses acquires on his ascent to Sinai.’ () Much more should be said about this curious amulet, but we leave it here in order to return to our main question: what does all this teach us about the Jews of ancient Sicily? To begin with, we can see from the places where the materials were found that in the later Roman Empire Jews lived all over Sicily, although there seems to be a certain concentration of evidence in Catania (JIWE -). Further, in contrast to Crete and Cyprus, all of the evidence is



On Aquila see N. Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context. Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible, Leiden , -. For the sake of comparison I also give Deut. :- according to the NRSV translation of the Masoretic version: ‘Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense like the dew, like gentle rain on grass, like the showers on new growth. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord’. The JPS translation runs as follows: ‘Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; let the earth hear the words I utter! May my discourse come down like the rain, my speech distill like the dew, like showers on young growth, like droplets on the grass. For the name of the Lord I proclaim.’  See for a detailed study of this Aquilan quote cf. Kotansky, GMA -.



Z  – H  D

late: whereas for the other two large islands, Jewish inhabitants are attested as early as the last centuries BCE, for Sicily they are not attested before the third century CE. That is not to say they were not there before; we simply have no evidence, but no evidence does not imply absence. In view of the fact that many other islands in the Mediterranean Sea had Jewish diaspora communities from much earlier times, it is hard to believe they did not exist in Sicily, but we will have to wait for new evidence before we can be sure about that. Thirdly, not surprisingly, the Jews of Sicily spoke Greek, like almost all other diaspora Jews (at least in the West). We saw three inscriptions in Hebrew, but one of them was no more than some stock phrases of a liturgical character (like shalom ‘al Yisra’el) and a greeting; moreover the rest of this inscription was in Latin (JIWE ). The second one was a Samaritan inscription with a biblical quote in Hebrew (JIWE ), but Samaritan inscriptions with such quotes always tend to be in Hebrew so that we cannot use such evidence for determining the spoken language – as a matter of fact, like the Jews, all diaspora Samaritans spoke Greek. The third one is a Hebrew amulet (JIWE ) the text of which is in large parts so unintelligible that its first editor suggests that ‘the copyist did not understand it and copied it purely for magical purposes’. So none of these three inscriptions entitles us to assume that Sicilian Jews knew more than minimal Hebrew. The only Latin inscription (JIWE ) is an exception and as such an indication of an exceptionally high degree of integration into Roman society; even in the city of Rome, Latin inscriptions by Jews are a rarity (although increasing over time). Finally, again not surprisingly, Jews in Sicily tended to indulge in magic, as we also see elsewhere (for instance in Cyprus; see my article mentioned in note ). No synagogues have been excavated in Sicily. Even so, the evidence reviewed suggests that there were Jewish communities with their own organizations. Some of the inscriptions mention elders (presbyteroi), a wellattested designation for dignitaries of Jewish communities (JIWE , , ); they were probably members of a council of elders (gerou-

 See my ‘The Samaritan Languages in the Pre-Islamic Period’, in my Japheth in the Tents of Shem. Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity, Leuven , -.  Noy, JIWE .  See L.V. Rutgers, The Jews of Late Ancient Rome, Leiden , f.



T J  A S

sia). Rabbis are not mentioned at all, but the reference to the honour of the patriarchs in JIWE  suggests that contacts with the Jewish leadership in Palestine were maintained. And the use of Aquila’s Bible translation in the amulet discussed above (GMA ) is at least an indication that this rabbinically inspired Greek version had influence and prestige among (some) Sicilian Jews. Almost the only setting in which they could have heard this version is that of a synagogue service, so this is another indication that there must have been Jewish synagogues in Sicily. In this connection it is to be noticed that JIWE  stresses the importance of the sabbath. Also the frequent occurrence of the menorah as a Jewish symbol is indicative of an outspoken Jewish self-awareness and identity. Another interesting feature of the evidence is the presence of Samaritans. To be sure, the Samareus of JIWE  need not have been a Samaritan at all (see above), but the presence in Syracuse of a marble column with a Samaritan inscription (JIWE ) cannot but indicate that the city harboured a community of Samaritans. We know from a literary source that there was indeed a Samaritan community in Sicily in the sixth century: pope Gregory the Great wrote to the bishops of the islands that the Samaritans there should not be allowed to circumcise their Christian slaves (Epist. .) and that these slaves should be redeemed (Epist. .). The same Gregory also attests to Jewish presence in Sicily by the end of the sixth century: he ordered the bishops to give the Jews of Palermo full indemnification for the damage suffered by the expropriation of the synagogue by Christians (Epist. .). As Salo W. Baron aptly remarks in this context, ‘this protection of Jewish religious institutions, while in keeping with the accepted Roman law, was particularly significant in Italy in so far as there the conflict between Saint Ambrose and the emperor over the illegal expropriation of the synagogue of Callinicum in  had helped create the illusion that the church favored such mob action’.  Be that as it may, these papal documents make clear that by the end of antiquity there must have been sizeable Jewish (and Samaritan) communities in Sicily. And this growth continued in the Middle Ages: in the twelfth cen-



See my Ancient Jewish Epitaphs ; esp. L.I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue. The First Thousand Years, New Haven-London , f.  S.W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews III, New York-Philadelphia , . At pp. - Baron also mentions other letters of pope Gregory concerning things Jewish.



Z  – H  D

tury, Benjamin of Tudela counted some  Jewish families in Palermo.

Appendix: Caecilius of Calacte In the entry on Sicily in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (:), S.J. Sierra mentions the first-century CE Greek orator Caecilius of Calacte (i.e., Kalê Aktê on the north coast of Sicily) as the first Sicilian Jew known to us, although he spent most of his life in Rome. This opinion is also adhered to by Martin Goodman in the revised English edition of Schürer’s History. Actually the only evidence for Caecilius’ Jewishness is a remark to that effect in the muddled entry on this orator in the tenth century Byzantine encyclopedia called the Suda. This is very weak evidence, the more so since all other data about Caecilius, to be found in much earlier and therefore more reliable authors, do not give us the slightest hint of his Jewishness. Also the topics of his books do not suggest in the least that the writer was a Jew. I would therefore submit that, for reasons of methodological strictness, in a study of Sicilian Jews in antiquity Caecilius of Calacte should be left out of account. Pieter W. van der Horst Universiteit van Utrecht



Sefer ha-Massa‘ot  (p.  in Adler’s edition). E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ III, Edinburgh , ff. Cf. also M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism I, Jerusalem , ff., .  The volume edited by N. Bucaria, Ebrei e Sicilia (Palermo ), came to my notice only after the completion of this article. 



C  P   W M  J  P

Introduction The history of the European Jews, and especially that of the Polish and Russian Jews, has been linked to several mass migrations, in particular from western Europe. The migration of western Jews to Poland is the cornerstone of the origin of East European Jewry. In connection with these mass migrations, a report from  by the Czech chronicler Cosmas of Prague is often used as proof of the large scale migration of Jews from Bohemia to Poland. To quote the popular Encyclopaedia of Jewish History: ‘According to the reports of Cosmas of Prague, Jews moved from Bohemia into Poland following Crusader raids.’ To my knowledge, the Polish-Jewish historian I. Schipper was the first one to interpret this report as a first proof of the migration of western Jews from Bohemia to Poland. Schipper’s interpretation has assumed a life of its own, as is shown by the quote in the Encyclopaedia of Jewish History. Who is Cosmas of Prague and how reliable is the man as a chronicler? Cosmas was born around  and died  October . He was deacon of the Church of Prague and as a chronicler he wrote a threevolume work, Cosmae Pragensis Chronica Boemorum, of which only the last volume is important for us. According to Bretholz,  Cosmas did not use older written sources, and found it unnecessary to repeat what others had already written. In general he is a reliable chronicler. Many persons he describes deliver an address. However, it remains unclear how many of these addresses were actually given, and how many of them he

 E.g. M. Balaban, Zur Geschichte der Juden in Polen, Vienna ; R. Mahler History of the Jews in Poland, Merhaviah  (Hebrew); Z. Ankori, ‘Origins and history of Ashkenazi Jewry (th to th centuries)’, in R.M. Goodman, A.G. Motulsky, eds. Genetic Diseases among Ashkenazi Jews, New York , -.  I. Shamir, H. Amir (trans.) Encyclopedia of Jewish History: Events and Eras of the Jewish People, New York , .  I. Schipper, Jewish History (Economic History), Warsaw,  (Yiddish).  B. Bretholz, Die Chronik der Böhmen des Cosmas von Prag, Berlin , XXVIXXXIII.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 57– 63. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – H  D

invented – for him it was just the form in which he cast his story. Registration of dates is his weak point, especially in his first book; in his third book this is not a problem anymore. In this study I will show that Schipper misrepresented the report by Cosmas.

The Cosmas report The above-mentioned Encyclopaedia of Jewish History speaks of ‘reports’; we do, however, only possess Cosmas’ report on this matter. It is an interesting story, not so much because of its content but because of its interpretations. The relevant original Latin text is given below: ‘Delatum est duci Bracizlao, quod quidam ex Iudeuis lapsi fuga, nonnuli furtim divitias suas substraherent partim in Polaniam, partim in Pannoniam.’ ‘It was reported to duke Bracizlaus, that a number of Jews had fled, [and that] some had secretly whisked away their valuables partly to Poland and partly to Pannonia [part of Hungary].’ The report then continues to say, in short, that the duke became enraged and sent his chancellor with some soldiers to take everything away from them. The chancellor ordered the elders of the Jews to assemble and told them that the Jews were to leave as poor as they had come; that they had been baptized (by force in ) because God had wanted it and not by orders of the duke. In the end, the Jews were plundered and were left with only enough to survive. In , the well-known Polish-Jewish historian Ignaz Schipper published a book on the economic history of the Jews: Yidishe geshikhte. In his chapter on the development of the Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe he writes (translated from the Yiddish): ‘As far as the western immigration is concerned, it can be proven for the first time at the end of the eleventh century. The Czech chronicler Cosmas tells us that in Bohemia during , persecutions of Jews took place, because some of the



Ibid, .



C  P   W M  J  P

converts [to Christianity] had returned to the Jewish religion, and because of the persecutions, masses of Jews emigrated, some to Poland, some to Hungary.’

Discussion It is quite clear from the original Latin text that Cosmas does not mention ‘masses of Jews’ at all (quidam ... nonnuli). In addition, Cosmas does not report on emigration from Bohemia, he merely says that some Jews fled. Fleeing is involuntary while emigrating is voluntary, they are two different things. We do not have any proof that the Jews who fled arrived in Poland, as a matter of fact, we do not know where they went to. As far as the second group is concerned, they were caught by the soldiers and ‘stripped bare’ (ut eos a vertice usque ad talos expoliarent – not quoted above). It is not clear on what information Schipper based his conclusion that the report by Cosmas was evidence of ‘western’ immigration. Bohemia is not considered western Europe (unless maybe one lives in the Ural). Moreover, Demetz refers to a story by Salomon Kohn who states that the Jews in Prague (capital of Bohemia) originated in the Slavic East and not in Germany. Beider concludes from onomastic research that during the Middle Ages there was no relationship between German and Czech Jews. He does not know where the Czech (Bohemian and Moravian) Jews originated, the names found do not point to a certain region.  Therefore, the remark by Schipper about ‘western’ immigration is without basis. Schipper is of the opinion that the persecutions of  (two years after the forced conversion) were the result of the Jews reverting to their own religion. According to Aronius it is not clear what caused the incident in . From the speech by the chancellor he concludes that the apostasy was Cosmas’ concern (quod autem iterum relapsi estis in Iudaismum, Cosmas episcopus videat, quid inde agere debeat – not quoted



Schipper, Yidishe geshikhte II, . P. Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold, New York , .  A. Beider, A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names: their Origins, Structure, Pronunciations, and Migrations, Bergenfield, New Jersey , ff.  J. Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden im fränkischen und deutschen Reiche, Berlin , nr. . 



Z  – H  D

above) and that the duke did not care. It should be remembered though that it is unknown whether this speech was given at all. A number of other scholars, too, have recapitulated the story by Cosmas. Dubnow, for example, describes the report in some detail.  He writes (translated from the German): ‘Thus, many conceived a plan to migrate to neighbouring Poland or to the land of the Hungarians. After they had loaded their belongings, they decided to send them ahead, and to arrive at a later date themselves.’ Dubnow’s last sentences on the subject are: ‘This way the Jews of Prague were robbed of all their belongings; they were only left with the barest essentials needed for travelling. It is unknown what has become of them in the end. Despite the confiscation, many seem to have emigrated, while the rest had no choice but to remain in Bohemia.’ Although Dubnow also speaks of a large number of people, he only says that they intended to flee. Were ‘the’ Jews of Prague robbed or just the ones who wanted to flee? The latter possibility makes more sense. Nothing in the Cosmas report points to many Jews who emigrated or who remained. Dubnow’s story is somewhat equivocal: we do not know what really happened, but many may have left and the rest stayed on. Mahler, who does not mention Cosmas by name, writes (translated from the Hebrew): ‘from the end of the eleventh century onward we have direct reports of a Jewish presence in Poland. From  we have such a report: part of the Jews from Bohemia, who during the first crusade in  were forced to convert, fled the country and took their valuables to Poland and Hungary.’ This summary is not correct either. First of all, Cosmas does not say anything about a Jewish presence in Poland. Secondly, Mahler suggests that the Jews who fled were the same as those who tried to smuggle their valuables to Poland and Hungary. Thirdly, Mahler does not inform the reader about what happened to these valuables: they never reached either Poland or Hungary, because these Jews were plundered. He concludes from the foregoing: ‘this report clearly confirms ... that the persecutions of Jews in Germany and Bohemia during the First Crusade brought a wave of Jewish migrants to



S. Dubnow, Jüdische Geschichte in der ersten Hälfte des . Jahrhunderts, , vol. , .  R. Mahler, History of the Jews in Poland, Tel-Aviv ,  (Hebrew).



C  P   W M  J  P

Poland.’ As I have shown, however, the report confirms nothing of the kind. Litman, discussing the work by Schipper, writes about the Cosmas story: ‘Among the first western Jews to emigrate to Poland were those from Bohemia, as attested by the Czech chronicler Cosmas and clearly indicated in other documents.’ What Cosmas wrote we saw. As to the other documents, Litman refers to C. Grünhagen, J. Aronius, and to G. Bondy and F. Dworsky who, in their own way, translated the report by Cosmas. There are no other documents but the report by Cosmas. According to Grünhagen (translated from the German): ‘Because of the oppression in Bohemia, the Jews fled to Poland and Hungary with their riches, something Bretislav tries to prevent.’ It is clear that the information given by Grünhagen does not correspond with the original text. Aronius summarises that (translated from the German): ‘Some of the in  forcibly baptized and again apostate Jews in Bohemia flee and secretly try to take their valuables to Poland or Hungary.’ Aronius too is not quite exact in his translation. He leaves out the word ‘others’, thereby suggesting that the ones who fled were the same as the ones with the valuables. Yet he is correct in writing that the Jews ‘tried’ to get their valuables out of the country. Bondy and Dworsky report the event as follows (translated from the German): ‘In the year  it was reported to duke Bretislaw that several Jews had fled and that others had secretly tried to take their valuables partly to Poland, partly to Hungary.’ This version is the only one that correctly informs the reader of what Cosmas wrote. In addition, neither Grünhagen, nor Aronius nor Bondy and Dworsky say anything about western immigration. A more recent historian, Mark, does not mention Cosmas by name but in view of the date mentioned, i.e. , he must be referring to the same story. He writes (translated from the Yiddish): ‘Within two years following the crusade disaster, the Czech Jews were hit by a second problem. In  the Czech king Bzshetislav robbed the whole Jewish population in



Ibid., f. J. Litman, The Economic Role of Jews in Medieval Poland: The Contribution of Yitzhak Schipper, Lanham, MD , .  C. Grünhagen, Regesten zur schlesischen Geschichte I, Breslau , ; J. Aronius, Regesten, m. ; G. Bondy and F. Dworsky, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien von  bis , Prague , . 



Z  – H  D

his country and took their fortune, their gold, silver and jewels. That incident certainly reinforced the urge felt by the Czech Jews to emigrate, especially to Poland.’ This interpretation does not need additional comment. Summarizing the opinions quoted above, I should add that I agree that Jews may have migrated from Bohemia to Poland; however, it is important that the right sources should be used to prove this, and Cosmas certainly is not the right source on which to build this assumption. The only conclusion that may be drawn from his story is, that in  the Bohemian Jews knew that their coreligionists were living safely in Poland and Hungary. Otherwise it is inexplicable that these Bohemian Jews should want to ship their belongings to those countries. How else would they know that it was safe for them to do so? That the afore-mentioned conclusion may well be correct, is suggested furthermore by the following facts and events: . In the beginning of the eleventh century, in Cracow, there was a regularly functioning bet din (religious court). . In  there was an attack on the town of Przemysl. Before and after the attack, Jewish children as well as adults were living in the town. 

Conclusion The chronicle by Cosmas of Prague does not state that the incident in , which caused some Jews to flee from Bohemia and others to smuggle their belongings to Poland and Hungary, caused the Jews to migrate from Bohemia to Poland. Cosmas does not speak about western Jews migrating to Poland, and it is rather unlikely that the Bohemian Jews originated in the West. The only conclusion that can possibly be drawn, is that in  Jews were safely living in the southern parts of what is now Poland and in Hungary. The quotation from the Encyclopaedia of

 B. Mark, The History of the Jews in Poland (Until the End of the th Century), Warsaw ,  (Yiddish).  I.M. Ta-Shma, ‘On the History of the Jews in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Poland’, Zion  () -.  I. ben Moses, The Light Was Seeded I, Zitomir ,  (Hebrew); J. Brutskus, ‘The First Information about Jews in Poland’, Historishe shriftn fun Yivo  () - (Yiddish).



C  P   W M  J  P

Jewish History shows how Schipper’s faulty interpretation in  even affected the modern coverage of this subject. J. van Straten Bennekom, the Netherlands



Medieval and Renaissance Thought

M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

Maimonides is celebrated in Jewish intellectual history both as a bold innovator and vigorous champion of rabbinic tradition. The tensions implied by this combination emerge in his reading of Job in The Guide of the Perplexed III.-, particularly where he seems to take issue with the Torah itself. Though somewhat of an overstatement, this apparent disagreement reveals much about Maimonides’ endeavour to find his own voice within the Hebrew literary tradition.

Maimonides’ analysis of Job Against the backdrop of his own philosophical discussion of divine providence (Guide III.-), Maimonides opens his analysis of the story of Job by defining it as a ‘parable (mathal, i.e., fictional tale) intended to set forth the opinions of people concerning providence’.  He immediately goes on to say that although this specific story is fictional, it addresses a distressing – and recurring – reality, ‘that a righteous and perfect man … [is] stricken – without his having committed a sin entailing this – with great and consecutive calamities with respect to his fortune, his children and his body’(Guide III., p. ). Within the biblical tale, this account



On Maimonides’ view of Job as fiction, see Sh. Rosenberg, ‘‫’איוב משל היה‬, in D. Rappel, ed., ‫( מחקרים במקרא ובחינוך מוגשים לפרופ' משה ארנד‬Jerusalem ) -; M. Greenberg, '‫איוב‬ ‫ סוגיה בפרשנות ימי הביניים‬:‫'היה או לא היה‬, in M. Fishbane and E. Tov, eds, Sha‘are Talmon. Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon (Winnona Lake, IN ) *-*; A. Nuriel, ‘Maimonides on Parables Not Explicitly Identified as Such’, Da‘at  () - (Hebrew); M. Cohen, ‘A Philosopher’s Peshat Exegesis: Maimonides’ Literary Approach to the Book of Job and Its Place in the History of Biblical Interpretation’, Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies  () - (Hebrew). Although Maimonides draws support from the rabbinic statement ‘Job did not exist and was not created but was a mashal’ (bBB a), that opinion is actually rejected in the Talmud; see M. Cohen, Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor: From Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides to David Kimhi, Leiden , f.; see also below, n. .  English citations of the Guide in this paper are from Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. S. Pines (Chicago ), according to section, chapter and page. Citations of the Judeo-Arabic original are from Moses Maimonides, ‫ דלאלה אלחאירין‬:‫מורה נבוכים‬, S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 66 –78. © 2007 Springer.



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

of Job’s suffering (Job -) sets the stage for the ensuing dialogues with three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, who endeavour to rationalize his predicament (Job -). For Maimonides, each of these fictional characters represents another philosophical view, which he constructs by selecting key verses from their speeches, resulting in the following  four positions: . Job concludes from his suffering that God ignores human affairs, allowing the righteous to suffer the same fate as sinners: ‘It is all one; therefore I say, “He destroys the blameless and the guilty”. When suddenly a scourge brings death, He mocks as the innocent fail’ (Job :-). Unlike their unfortunate companion, the friends each seek a way to preserve the notion of divine providence notwithstanding Job’s suffering. . Eliphaz maintains that God rewards and punishes people according to their actions and thus concludes that Job’s suffering must be deserved: ‘Your wickedness is great and your iniquities have no limit’ (:). To reconcile this argument with Job’s manifest righteousness, Maimonides points to an earlier speech (:-) in which Eliphaz argues that no human being – even the most righteous – can ever be absolutely blameless before God and that ‘the deficiencies for which we deserve punishment … are hidden from our perception’ (Guide III., p. ). . Bildad was willing to accept Job’s innocence by suggesting that his suffering may have been intended to increase his reward in the next world: ‘If you are blameless and upright, He will protect you … Though your beginning be small, in the end you will grow very great’ (:-). . Zophar argues that God’s actions need not conform to human conceptions of justice or reason since they are the product of His unfathomable will: ‘Would you discover the mystery of God? Would

ed. and trans. [Hebrew], J. Qafih, Jerusalem , whose translation I have consulted along with: Maimonides: The Guide of the Perplexed, (Hebrew) trans. M. Schwarz, Jerusalem .  What follows is a summary of Guide III., p. -, as outlined by J. Levinger, ‘Maimonides’ Exegesis of the Book of Job’, in B. Uffenheimer and H. Graf Reventlow, eds, Creative Biblical Exegesis, Sheffield , -.  Biblical references in this paper are from The Holy Scriptures: The New Jewish Publication Society Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text, Philadelphia .



Z  – M  R T

you discover the limit of the Almighty? Higher than the heaven – what can you do? Deeper than Sheol – what can you know?’ (:-). What did Maimonides think of these opinions? To assess Job’s theory, he turned to rabbinic tradition: You know the dictum of the Sages that this opinion of Job’s is most unsound … They say (bBB a): ‘Job denied the resurrection of the dead.’ They also say of him: ‘He began to blaspheme.’ (Guide III., p. ) While the three friends seem to hold the doctrinal high ground, a different portrait emerges from the conclusion of the tale of Job. With the original interlocutors deadlocked, a new character, Elihu, enters the fray and criticizes their failure to discover a true and cogent theory, which he proceeds to impart (Job -), after which Job receives two divine visions (Job -) that inspire his contrite response: ‘I spoke without understanding of things beyond me, which I did not know … Therefore I recant and relent’ (:-). The Lord then turns to Eliphaz: ‘I am incensed at you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right (‫ )נכונה‬as did my servant Job’ (:). Confirming Elihu’s criticism, God repudiates the views of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, but also implies that Job, by contrast, ‘spoke … what is right’, which is at odds with the assessment that ‘this opinion of Job’s is most unsound’. Responding to this anomaly, Maimonides records that ‘the Sages … say, “A man is not to be blamed for [what he does when] suffering,” meaning that he was excused because of his great suffering’ (bBB a; Guide III., p. ). But the great philosopher rejects this solution, insisting on a more rigorous standard: Job’s blasphemy may be excusable, but cannot be deemed correct. Maimonides explains instead that Job is credited for ‘speaking what is right’ because he renounced his erroneous view (ibid.). Maimonides’ debate with the Talmud reveals a fundamental divide between two approaches to the book of Job. The talmudic mitigation of Job’s sinful speech implies that the interlocutors must be evaluated ac-



This explanation is offered by Abraham ibn Ezra in his commentary on : (appearing in the Rabbinic Bible [Miqra’ot Gedolot]), which may have been Maimonides’ source; see below, n. .



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

cording to a religious-moral standard. The French talmudist-exegete Rashbam thus explains that the three friends are blameworthy because they criticized Job (rather than for doctrinal error), whereas Elihu is spared from divine wrath because he consoled the righteous sufferer.  But Maimonides, deeming clarification of the doctrine of providence to be the purpose of Job, assumes that Scripture employs an analytic standard to evaluate the interlocutors. True to this standard, Maimonides deems the opinions of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar incorrect, whereas Elihu is ‘the most perfect among them in knowledge’, having reached the correct view on providence, which is also naturally found in the divine vision (Guide III., p. f.). Guided by his doctrine of esotericism, however, the great philosopher argues that an exposition of this view would be harmful to the uneducated masses, and therefore was concealed by the author of Job. Maimonides likewise offers little more than veiled hints at its content, though it seems reasonable to assume that it matches his own doctrine that ‘providence is consequent upon the intellect’ (Guide III., p. ). On this view, adapted from Greco-Arabic philosophical sources, divine protection extends only to human beings who have attained a measure of intellectual perfection and direct their thoughts toward God: ‘Providence watches over everyone endowed with intellect proportionately to the

 Rashbam evidently took ‫ נכונה‬to mean ethically and religiously appropriate; see M.Z. Segal, ‘‫’איוב‬, Tarbitz  () ; M. Cohen, Review of S. Japhet, ‘The Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job’, AJS Review  () f. Rashbam on Job : appears in the Rabbinic Bible in the final section of Rashi’s commentary on Job (which was completed by Rashbam); see S. Japhet, The Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) on the Book of Job [Hebrew], Jerusalem , f., .  On the concealment strategy Maimonides here attributes to Scripture – and adopts himself, see L.S. Kravitz, ‘Maimonides and Job. An Inquiry as to the Method of the Moreh’, HUCA  () . On his esotericism in general, see Guide, introduction, -, -; L. Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, Glencoe, IL , -. The notion that the author of Job concealed the correct view on providence is dependent on Maimonides’ understanding of this work as fiction (i.e., a mashal); see Cohen, Three Approaches, f.  For a detailed analysis of this Maimonidean doctrine, see Ch. Raffel, ‘Providence as Consequent Upon the Intellect. Maimonides’ Theory of Providence’, AJS Review  () -. On Maimonides’ attribution of this doctrine to Elihu and the divine vision, see Rosenberg, ‘‫’איוב משל היה‬, f.; Raffel, ‘Providence’, -; for an opposing view, see H. Kasher, ‘Job’s Image and Opinions in Moreh Nevukhim’, Da‘at  () - (Hebrew).  Although Maimonides specifically mentions Plato and Alfarabi in connection with this view (see below), it can also be traced to Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias; see Guide III., p. ; Pines, Guide, lxv-lxvii, lxxxix-lxxx.



Z  – M  R T

measure of his intellect. Thus providence watches over an individual endowed with perfect apprehension, whose intellect never ceases from being occupied with God’ (Guide III., p. ). This explains why Maimonides comments on the biblical depiction of Job: ‘The most … extraordinary thing about this story is the fact that knowledge is not attributed in it to Job. He is not said to be wise or comprehending … Only moral virtue and righteousness in action are ascribed to him’ (Guide III., p. ). For the author of the Guide, this implies that he was not subject to God’s protection. Maimonides thus resolves the dilemma posed by Job’s suffering by limiting the applicability of providence considerably. 

Maimonides vs. ‘the Torah’? In aligning his theory with Elihu, Maimonides bolsters its authority in contrast to other views on providence known to him, which he identifies with the other interlocutors: The opinion attributed to Job is in keeping with the opinion of Aristotle; the opinion of Eliphaz is in keeping with the opinion of our Law (‫ ;שריעתנא‬i.e., the Torah); the opinion of Bildad is in keeping with the doctrine of the Mu‘tazila, the opinion of Zophar is in keeping with the opinion of the Ash‘ariyya. (Guide III., p. )



See Laks, ‘Inquiry’, . Later in the Guide he makes this point in connection with the further limitation that even ‘an individual endowed with perfect apprehension … is watched over by providence only during the time when he thinks of God’, but not ‘when he is occupied with something else’. Maimonides thus posits ‘that all … excellent and perfect men whom one of the evils of this world befell, had this evil happen to them during such a time of distraction’. This ultimately enables him to resolve ‘the great doubt that induced the philosophers to deny … divine providence … for their proof … was the fact that excellent and good men experienced great misfortunes’ (Guide III., p. f.).  Arabic ‫ )שריעה( ﺷﺮﻳﻌﺔ‬refers to Islamic canonical law; ‘our sharī‘ah’ thus means Jewish canonical law, rooted in the Torah; see: J.L. Kraemer, ‘Naturalism and Universalism in Maimonides’ Thought’, in: E. Fleischer, et al., eds, Me’ah She‘arim: Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky, Jerusalem , -. Elsewhere Maimonides uses other terms to speak of the Torah (Pentateuch, or Scripture in general): ‘the books of prophecy’ (‫‘ ;)כתב אלנבוה‬the book of God and the books of our prophets’ (‫כתאב אללה‬ ‫‘ ;)וכתב אנביאנא‬the Torah of Moses our master’ (‫ ;תורת משה רבנו‬Hebrew in the Arabic text of the Guide). See below, nn. , , , , . 



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

As the author of the Guide goes on to state, ‘These were the ancient opinions concerning providence’, as he indeed clarified in III., the chapter devoted to this topic. Of particular interest for our purposes is his presentation there of the Torah view, namely that all human circumstances are according to the deserts (‫;אסתחקאק‬ merit, justice) … and that among us only those deserving punishment are punished. This is what is stated literally in the Torah of Moses our Master (‫)נצת בה תורת משה רבנו‬, namely that everything is consequent upon the deserts; and the community of our scholars also speak in accordance with this opinion. For this you will find them saying explicitly: ‘There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity.’ (Guide III., p. ) But this creates an obvious problem: if Eliphaz was scolded by God ‘for not [speaking] … what is right’, how can Maimonides attribute to him ‘the opinion of our Law’ and himself proceed to embrace a different view? Can we conclude from this alignment of the opinions in Job that Maimonides took the liberty of disagreeing with the Torah? A more careful reading of the Guide reveals that such a conclusion is unwarranted. To begin with, we must understand his remark that ‘the opinion of Eliphaz is in keeping with the opinion of our Law’ in light of the above-cited passage from III., where the simple calculus of reward and punishment is said to be ‘stated literally in the Torah of Moses our Master’, and embraced by ‘the community of our scholars’. While these



This convenient correspondence opens Maimonides to the criticism (leveled, e.g., by Gersonides on Job : [commentary, in the Rabbinic Bible]) that he projected philosophical opinions current in his day onto the biblical text.  See above, n. .  ‫ ;ג'מהור אחבארנא‬on this translation, see below, n. .  bShab a. Admittedly, Maimonides simplifies the complex talmudic discussion of this maxim; see Shem Tov ibn Falaquera, '‫ ן‬,‫ שם טוב‬,‫ אפודי‬... ‫ עם שלשה פירושים‬... ‫ספר מורה נבוכים‬ ‫קרשקש‬, Jerusalem , III.a.  In theory, one could suggest that the book of Job dissents from the ‘orthodox’ doctrine of providence expressed in ‘the Torah of Moses’, in other words, that there is an internal contradiction within the Holy Scriptures themselves; see M. Pope, Job, The Anchor Bible series, vol. , New York , LXXVII-LXXVIII. But Maimonides would not have entertained this solution, since he viewed all of Scripture as a harmonious work. Consider, e.g., his interchangeable references to ‘the Torah of Moses’, ‘the books of prophecy’ and ‘the law [‫( ’]שריעה‬above, n. ).



Z  – M  R T

two factors would appear to affirm its validity, a different picture emerges from their juxtaposition in the introduction to the Guide. There Maimonides specifies that this work is not intended for scholars of halakhah, but rather for those who have studied science and philosophy, which prompted them to question the validity of Scripture.  For them the author promises to demonstrate that such ‘perplexities’ result from an incorrect reading of the ‘books of prophecy’ (‫ )כתב אלנבוה‬and ‘the Law’ (‫)אלשריעה‬ according to their ‘external’ (‫ )ט'אהר‬sense, i.e., a literal reading, which he will replace with a different, ‘internal’ (‫ )באטן‬sense as the correct interpretation (Guide, introduction; f.). But those lacking a scientific background – even if well versed in rabbinic literature – would not be disturbed by even the most unreasonable implications of a literal reading of Scripture and Midrash: ‘an ignorant one from among the community of rabbis (‫)ג'מהור אלרבאנין‬ … devoid of any knowledge of the nature of being, does not find impossibilities hard to accept’ (Guide, introduction; f.). Such readers therefore have no need for the re-interpretations offered in the Guide. Indeed, in the spirit of the political philosophy of his day, Maimonides maintained that the literal sense must form the belief system of the general populace, leaving the deeper sense for the scientifically educated elite. Maimonides’ remark that the simple doctrine of just deserts stems from a literal reading of the Torah and is accepted by the ‘community of our scholars’ (‫)ג'מהור אחבארנא‬ thus suggests its incompatibility with



Strauss, Persecution, ff., ff., observes that this remark is intended to exclude the audience of Mishneh Torah, Mainmonides’ great work of halakhah (al-fiqh).  Here Maimonides apparently distinguishes between the Pentateuch and the remainder of Scripture; see above, n. .  Though Pines here renders ‘an ignoramus among the multitude of Rabbanites’, I follow Qafih, ‫מורה נבוכים‬,  (and n. ): ‫הסכל מצבור הרבנים‬. Maimonides here is not referring to the uneducated masses (who would not be reading the Guide), but rather to rabbinic scholars knowledgeable in halakhah, but ignorant of science. (Schwarz, Guide, , likewise takes ‫ רבאנין‬to mean rabbis [‫]רבנים‬, not Rabbanites, i.e., followers of the Rabbis. See also below, n. .)  See S. Klein-Braslavy, King Solomon and Philosophical Esotericism in the Thought of Maimonides, Jerusalem , - (Hebrew).  I have diverged from Pines’ translation here (‘the multitude of our scholars’; compare Strauss, Persecution, : ‘the general run of our scholars’) following Qafih, ‫מורה נבוכים‬, , n. , and Schwarz, Guide, , n.  (who also points out the parallel to ‫ ג'מהור אלרבאנין‬in the introduction to the Guide [above, n. ]). As they observe, Maimonides here does not intend to speak of the masses (generally perceived as ignorant), but rather of the majority (community) of rabbinic scholars.



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

philosophical speculation, which would require a more nuanced theory. And indeed, when first presenting ‘the opinion of our Law’ regarding providence, he announces: I shall let you know about it what has been literally stated in the books of our prophets and is believed by the community of our scholars; I shall also inform you of what is believed by some of our latter-day scholars; and I shall also let you know what I myself believe about this. (Guide III., p. ) For Maimonides, the ‘opinion of our law’ is itself subject to interpretation. After mentioning the opinions of the ‘community of our scholars’ and ‘some of our latter-day scholars’ (see below), he proceeds to his own view: ‘As for my own belief with regard to … divine providence … I rely on … what has clearly appeared as the intention of the book of God and the books of our prophets’ (Guide III., p. ). Maimonides, too, maintains that good and bad befall man according to what is justly deserved (‫)אסתחקאק‬, based on the verse ‘All His ways are just’ (Deut. :). But he revises the condition for such worthiness: instead of a simple calculus of good deeds, intellectual perfection is the vehicle through which man merits divine providence (Guide III., p. ). Having thus reset the parameters of human excellence, he can adduce biblical proofs for his view: With regard to providence watching over excellent ones (‫)אלפצ'לאא‬ and neglecting the ignorant, it is said: ‘He guards the steps of his faithful, but the wicked perish in darkness … (I Sam. :) … The fact that some individuals are preserved from calamities, whereas those befall others, is due … to their perfection and deficiency … With regard to providence watching over the excellent ones it is also said … ‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous’ (Ps. :)



‫ ;נצת בה כתב אנביאינא‬see above, n. . ‫ ;כתאב אללה וכתב אנביאינא‬see above, n. . Maimonides’ language here evokes his hermeneutical axiom – characteristic of the Andalusian peshat tradition - that equates the meaning of a text with its author’s intent (‫ ;)קצד‬see Cohen, Three Approaches, ff.; J. Stern, ‘Philosophy or Exegesis: Some Critical Comments’, in N. Golb, ed., Judaeo-Arabic Studies, Amsterdam , -. This notion has been challenged in modern literary theory, which deems it ‘the intentional fallacy’; see R.W. Stallman, ‘Intentions’, in A. Preminger et al., eds, Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Princeton , -. 



Z  – M  R T

… The [biblical] texts that occur with regard to this notion are so numerous that they cannot be counted. (Guide III., p. f.)  Far from disagreeing with the Torah, Maimonides formulates what he believes to be its correct interpretation. For the great philosopher, a correct interpretation of Scripture must not only address the language of the text, but also conform to the dictates of reason and science. In support of his understanding of the biblical doctrine of providence he thus observes that it matches the theory that Alfarabi attributed to Plato, prompting him to remark: ‘Consider how … the correctness of what all the prophets, may peace be upon them, have said concerning individual providence … follows necessarily from the point of view of speculation (‫ ;נט'ר‬i.e., reason)!’ (Guide III., p. ). Moreover, the deciding factor in favour of Maimonides’ concept of providence is not the numerous verses that express it in his view, but rather the fact that it ‘is less absurd (lit. less disgraceful) than the preceding opinions and nearer than they to intellectual reasoning’ (Guide III., p. ). While he happily exposes the bizarre implications that burden the Mu‘tazilite and Ash‘arite doctrines (III., p. f.), Maimonides does not do so for the popular rabbinic doctrine that he also rejects. But a discerning reader will complete the argument from his analysis of Eliphaz, who is identified with that view because he offers the biting explanation for Job’s suffering, ‘Your wickedness is great and your iniquities have no limit’. Yet in light of Job’s manifest righteousness, Eliphaz had to resort to the sophistry of arguing that his suffering is deserved because of some other ‘deficiencies … hidden from our perception’. The contradiction



I am indebted to Prof. David Shatz for helping to clarify Maimonides’ two-step strategy here. First he defines human excellence mandated by Scripture as intellectual perfection, which stems from his philosophical outlook. After making this assumption, Maimonides can readily find genuine biblical proofs for God’s special providence over the ‘excellent ones’.  As Strauss, Persecution, , notes, the widespread view of providence ‘is based on the literal sense of the Bible’, whereas Maimonides’ opinion ‘is in accordance with the intention of the Bible, i.e., with its hidden or secret meaning. For … [it] brings into harmony the intelligible view with the literal sense of the Bible’.  ‫אקל שנאעה‬. Although Pines translates this expression literally, I follow Schwarz, Guide, , n. , in rendering it contextually. As Schwarz notes throughout his translation (see, e.g., Guide, , nn. , ), Maimonides uses the Arabic term ‫ שנאעה‬in the sense of an absurdity.



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

here is plain: how could imperceptible sins at the same time be great wickedness and limitless iniquity? We can now see what Maimonides accomplished by identifying Eliphaz with ‘the opinion of our Law’. He capitalizes on the book of Job to personify two competing interpretations of Scripture. Though the doctrine of just deserts for good and bad deeds represents a literal reading of the Torah, the Lord Himself reveals that it is inadequate when He scolds Eliphaz, thus rejecting the traditional doctrine that ‘There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity’ along with the Mu‘tazilite and Ash‘arite views on providence. Elihu’s triumphant appearance in the book of Job, according to Maimonides, beckons us to discover a more nuanced interpretation that is ‘less absurd … and nearer than they to intellectual reasoning’.

Implications for Maimonides’ biblical exegesis: Saadia’s precedent Hardly disagreeing with the Torah on the matter of providence, the author of the Guide reinterprets it in accordance with his scientific and philosophical outlook. To a modern ear, perhaps, this would seem to be an artificial distinction. Yet, within Maimonides’ medieval intellectual framework – which accepted the authority of Scripture implicitly – the parameters of biblical interpretation included an endeavour to reconcile God’s revealed word with the world discernable to man through science and reason. Indeed, this endeavour characterizes the venerable Babylonian-Iberian exegetical tradition that permeated the great philosopher’s twelfth-century Andalusian culture. With respect to divine providence



As argued by Benedict de Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. R.H.M. Elwes, New York , -.  Maimonides’ extensive use of Talmud and Midrash to interpret Scripture in the Guide belies his profound debt to the exegetical works of authors such as Saadia, Hayyuj, Ibn Janah, Ibn Chiqitilla and Ibn Bal‘am; see Cohen, Three Approaches, f., n. The many parallels with his older contemporary Abraham ibn Ezra (see, e.g., above, n. ) may suggest influence on Maimonides, but certainly demonstrate their shared intellectual heritage; see I. Twersky, ‘Did R. Abraham ibn Ezra Influence Maimonides?’ [Hebrew], in I. Twersky and J. Harris, eds, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth Century Jewish Polymath, Cambridge, MA , - [Hebrew Section].



Z  – M  R T

and its hermeneutical implications, the precedent of Saadia seems to have been particularly significant for Maimonides. To begin with, Maimonides evidently had Saadia in mind when speaking of ‘some of our latter-day scholars’ who diverged from the view that ‘There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity’, arguing that ‘sometimes misfortunes befall an individual not because of having sinned before, but in order that his reward should be greater’ (Guide III., p. ). Identifying the source of this version of ‘the opinion of our Law’, he comments: ‘Some of the latter-day Geonim, may their memory be blessed, have heard it from the Mu‘tazila and have approved of it and believed it’ (ibid.). Aiming to undercut this view, Maimonides observes that ‘there is no text in the Torah expressing this notion. For you should not be led into error by what is said about “putting to trial” (‫)נסיון‬, as when “God put Abraham to a trial” (Gen. :)’ (ibid.). This pre-emptive rejoinder points to Saadia, who indeed invoked the Mu‘tazilite notion in his Genesis commentary to explain the ‘binding of Isaac’ episode. Although Maimonides rejects Saadia’s opinion, he deemed it important to cite the precedent of an earlier medieval Jewish scholar who recognized the need to draw upon Greco-Arabic philosophy to augment the simple calculus of reward and punishment that emerges from a literal reading of Scripture. Saadia’s Mu‘tazilite solution to the problem of the righteous sufferer plays a prominent role in his commentary on Job. As Maimonides would do two centuries later, Saadia identified the biblical interlocutors with philosophical positions on providence: Job argued that God brings suffering for no reason other than His will alone; Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar adhered to the simple calculus of reward and punishment in this world; Elihu, whose opinion was confirmed in the divine vision to Job, finds what Saadia deems to be the true philosophical explanation for blameless suffering, i.e., that it enhances reward in the world to come.  The strong

 In what follows, I take issue with Pines, Guide, cxxxi-cxxxiv, who minimizes the influence of Saadia (and Jewish philosophers in general) on Maimonides; compare Twersky, ‘Influence’, , f.  He acknowledges a precedent in the rabbinic concept of ‘sufferings of love’ (bBer a; Guide III., p. f.).  See M. Zucker, ed. and (Hebrew) trans., Saadya’s Commentary on Genesis, New York , ff. Maimonides refutes this reading of the ‘binding of Isaac’ episode in Guide III., p. f.  See R. Eisen, The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, New York , -.



M’ D  ‘T T’  H I  J

influence of Saadia’s approach in Maimonides’ Andalusian intellectual milieu is attested, for example, by its adoption in Abraham ibn Ezra’s Job commentary. While Maimonides might be said to have reached a fuller and more nuanced philosophical analysis of the speeches of the five interlocutors, Saadia’s distinctively philosophical hermeneutical model undeniably served as his template. Perhaps the most fundamental expression of Saadia’s influence can be seen in the very axiom of the Guide that Scripture must be interpreted in conformity with reason. While admitting that the biblical text must initially be understood according to its ‘external’ or obvious sense (‫)ט'אהר‬, Saadia boldly argued that if such a reading contradicts sense perception or reason then one must seek an alternative non-literal interpretation to insure that ‘that biblical text be brought into accord with the senses and the intellect’ (‫)עאד ד'לך אלמכתוב אלי מואפקה אלמחסוס ואלמעקול‬. This axiom, which was highly influential in the subsequent tradition,  is evident also in Maimonides’ discussion of providence, which he concludes with the remark: ‘This is the opinion that to my mind corresponds to the intelligible and to the texts of the Law’, as opposed to the other opinions that ‘lead to an absolute confusion and to contesting the intelligible and to opposing what is perceived by the senses’ (Guide III., p. ). Without denying Maimonides’ bold originality in devising a new approach to divine providence within Jewish tradition, we must also acknowledge his debt to Saadia, who created the theoretical framework that made it possible. Unsatisfied with the doctrine of providence emerging from Scripture, Saadia turned to Arabic philosophy for a different



See Abraham ibn Ezra’s epilogue to his Job commentary (printed in the Rabbinic Bible), where he outlines the philosophical views expressed in the book following Saadia’s pattern. See also above, n. .  For a more detailed comparison between Saadia and Maimonides on Job, see Cohen, ‘A Philosopher’s Peshat Exegesis’, -. Here we should mention that both Saadia and Ibn Ezra, like almost all other medieval authors, assumed that Job is a historical work, following the talmudic conclusion on this matter (above, n. ). Maimonides is thus truly original in his reading of this work as a literary fiction.  See Zucker, Saadya’s Commentary,  (Ar.),  (Hebrew); see also R. Brody, ‘The Geonim of Babylonia as Biblical Exegetes’, in M. Sæbø et al., eds, Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation, vol. I/, Göttingen , f.  Echoes of Saadia’s principle reverberated in the writings of Samuel ben Hofni Gaon, Judah ibn Bal‘am, Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra; see Cohen, Three Approaches, -, see also see also P. Fenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn Ezra, Leiden , -.



Z  – M  R T

view, for which he found biblical precedents. It was in this spirit that Maimonides draws upon Greco-Arabic philosophy to devise a theory of providence that harmonizes the text of Scripture with the dictates of reason. For Maimonides, as for Saadia, this agreement confirms that he has accurately ascertained ‘the intention of the book of God and the books of our prophets’. Mordechai Z. Cohen Yeshiva University, New York



I would like to acknowledge Prof. Sol Roth, Prof. David Shatz, Dr. Maier Becker and Dr. Jeremiah Unterman for their insightful comments on this essay.



F D  C: S  T  I  R  G :, :,  :

Immanuel of Rome (c.-before ), the ‘Hebrew Dante’, was a poet and belletrist of the highest order. He was also an exegete, and a very prolific one. According to his own testimony, he wrote commentaries on all ‘twenty-four books’ of the Hebrew Bible. Thirteen of these commentaries survive in manuscript, but only three have been published in full, and none in a proper critical edition. Immanuel’s biblical commentaries are strongly philosophical; as he wrote in his Mahberot, they reveal the ‘hidden secrets’ and ‘marvelous mysteries’ of Scripture. But what they are not is original. In fact, it is becoming more and more evident that Immanuel was, despite his claims of originality, far more compilator than original exegete. In his commentaries, he draws extensively from the writings and commentaries of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries, especially Abraham bar Hiyya, Abraham ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Samuel ibn Tibbon, Jacob Anatoli, Judah ha-Kohen, Moses ibn Tibbon, Zerahyah b. Isaac b. Shealtiel, and Judah Romano. He works with existing commentaries, which he abridges, rearranges, and supplements with relevant exegetical remarks found in exegetical and non-exegetical works. In some instances he provides a source-reference, but in many cases – by far the majority – he does not. Instead, he incorporates excerpted texts into his own running narrative exegesis, harmonizing discontinuities and eliminating infelicities. What is the function of Immanuel’s work as compilator and what is his method? It has been suggested that his work was governed by early Renaissance ideas about compilation and literary authorship, and that his



His commentaries on the following books survive: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Lamentations. For a complete discussion of manuscripts and editions, see D. Goldstein, The Commentary on Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome on Chapters I-X of Genesis: Introduction, Hebrew Text, Notes (PhD Diss., University of London ); idem, ‘Introduction’, in The Book of Proverbs with the Commentary by Immanuel of Rome, Naples ca. , Jerusalem .  See Mahberot, D. Yarden, ed., Jerusalem , ; H. Gollancz, trans., Tophet and Eden, London , .  For research on Immanuel’s sources, see below. S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 79 –95. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  R T

compilations, which involve selection and reorganization, are in fact original compositions, greater than the sum of the parts. To what extent this is true, however, and what its significance is within the larger literary and cultural context, requires first the identification of Immanuel’s sources and careful analysis of his use thereof. Only then can similarities to contemporary Latin work be seriously explored and fully appreciated. The difficult process of identifying and analyzing Immanuel’s sources began in the s, with the work of David Goldstein. It has continued, in subsequent decades, with the theses, dissertations and articles by Israel Ravitzky, Aviezer Ravitzky, Deborah Schechtermann, and Caterina Rigo. What I want to do in the present zuta is to identify and briefly discuss an important source in Immanuel’s commentary on Genesis, which has not been previously identified: Samuel ibn Tibbon’s commentary on Ecclesiastes. In the first chapter of Genesis alone, Immanuel borrows four extended passages from Ibn Tibbon, without any mention of his source or even indication that he himself is not the original author. The first three of these four texts will be presented here. Immanuel will be set up, as it were, face to face with his immediate source; he will be forced to face his unnamed authority. A few remarks will introduce each of the three examples.

Ibn Tibbon on Eccl. : and Immanuel on Gen. : Ibn Tibbon’s commentary on Ecclesiastes includes several exegetical digressions – and digressions within digressions. In these digressions, he explains many verses from other biblical books, sometimes at length. One example is the commentary on Eccl. :: ‘The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continu-



See D. Schechterman, The Philosophy of Immanuel of Rome (PhD Diss., Hebrew University),  (Hebrew).  Cf. n. . See also his article: ‘The Commentary of Judah b. Solomon Hakohen ibn Matqah to Genesis, Psalms and Proverbs’, HUCA  () -.  See I. Ravitzky, Rabbi Immanuel b. Solomon of Rome, Commentary on Song of Songs (MA Thesis, Hebrew University),  (Hebrew); A. Ravitzky, ‘On the Sources of Immanuel of Rome’s Proverbs’ Commentary’, Qiryat Sefer  () - (Hebrew); Schechtermann, The Philosophy of Immanuel of Rome; C. Rigo, Judah Romano’s Commentaries on the Bible: His Philosophical System as Contained in Them and His Sources in Jewish Thought and Christian Scholasticism (PhD Diss., Hebrew University)  (Hebrew).



F D  C

ally, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.’ His commentary on this verse consists of three distinct parts: . An astronomical explanation of the verse itself, in light of Ptolemaic ideas about natural and enforced motion and the movement of the sun along the ecliptic. . An explanation of Gen. :-, which, according to Ibn Tibbon, is related to Eccl. :: both texts explain the influence of celestial movement on the seasons and the influence of the seasons on generation and corruption. . Within the explanation of Gen. :-, Ibn Tibbon also digresses to explain Gen. :, which he discusses in relation to the composition of sublunar beings from the four elements. How does Immanuel make use of Ibn Tibbon’s text? As is often the case with Immanuel, he makes sure not to waste anything from his source. Thus he borrows and anthologizes all three parts of Ibn Tibbon’s commentary, as follows: . Immanuel’s own commentary on Eccl. : begins with an abridged version of Ibn Tibbon’s commentary on the same verse. . Immanuel’s commentary on Gen. :- includes most of Ibn Tibbon’s explanation of the same verses, excluding the digression on Gen. :. . But the digression on Gen. : is not left out from Immanuel’s exegetical work. On the contrary, it was used to introduce his own commentary on the same verse. The digression of Ibn Tibbon and commentary by Immanuel  run as follows:

 For the Hebrew text, see J. Robinson, Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes (PhD Diss., Harvard University ), par. -.  Cf. Immanuel’s commentary on Eccl. :, MS HUC , b-b, with Ibn Tibbon’s commentary, Robinson, ed., par. -, , .  Cf. Immanuel’s commentary on Gen. :-, D. Goldstein, ed., :-:, with Ibn Tibbon, Robinson, ed., par. -, f.  The text of Ibn Tibbon is from Robinson, par. -; the text of Immanuel from Il commento di Emanuele Romano al Capitolo I della Genesi, F. Michelini Tocci, ed., Rome , :-:.



Z  – M  R T

Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Commentary on Eccl. :

[] It is possible to say, as was said by the True Sage in Chapter Thirty of Part II, that ‘earth’ is an equivocal term, referring to all elements in general and to the earthly element [hayesod ha-‘afari] in particular, and that it is used by [Solomon] to refer to all the elements.

It might be suggested that he used [‘earth’ here] as a name for the earthly element, that is, the ‘land’, which he then used in place of everything because most creatures are created from it or thought to be part of it, that is, the ‘land’. As for inanimate substances, there is no man who would doubt that these are created from or are part of it. Plants are also known and recognized to be created from it and dependent upon it for their growth and nutrition. This was given testimony in the Torah when it said: ‘Let the earth give forth grass’ [Gen. :]. As for the ‘living

Immanuel of Rome, Commentary on Gen. : ‘And God said: let the earth give forth grass’ [Gen. :]: Know that when he says ‘let the earth give forth grass’ ‘and the earth brought forth [grass]’ and the like, [earth] is an equivocal term, referring to all the elements in general and to the element earth [yesod he-‘afar] in particular, and it is used here to refer to all the elements. For all created things in the sublunar world are composed of the four elements, and when he says ‘let the earth give forth grass’, it is as if he had said: let these things he mentions be created from the four elements. It might also be suggested that he used [‘earth’] here only as a name for the element earth, that is, the ‘land’, which was used in place of everything because most creatures are created from it or thought to be part of it, that is, the ‘land’. As for inanimate substances, there is no man who would doubt that these are created from or are part of it. Plants are also known and recognized to be created from it and dependent upon it for their growth and nutrition. Thus the Torah said: ‘Let the earth give forth grass’ [Gen. :]. As for the ‘living soul’ [i.e., terrestrial animals], 

F D  C

soul’ [i.e., terrestrial animals], there is testimony in the Torah that it too was created from [the element earth] [see Gen. :], and it is also known that its nutrition comes from it and from what derives from it. Although it seems, according to the simple meaning of the words of Torah, that the birds were created from the water [see Gen. :-], the Sages have already indicated that ‘they were created from reqaq’ [bHull b], and reqaq is a term that refers to mud, which is a mixture of water and earth. In light of this, one cannot escape the fact that [birds] too are created from the ‘earth’. Their place of habitation, moreover, is upon the earth, and their nutrition is gained from that which derives from the earth. [] It remains only to consider the status of fish. For they were related in the Torah to the water because their habitation is in the water [see Gen. :-, , ]. But any individual possessing intelligence knows, by way of intellect, that fins, scales, and bones are not made of water. Notice how large beams are constructed from the ribs of some of the larger fish. Even fools [peta’im], who do not sense the fact [that these substances are not made of water], believe that the nutrition [of fish] comes from the earth

there is testimony in the Torah that it too was created from [the element earth] [see Gen. :], and it is also known that its nutrition comes from it and from what derives from it. Although it seems, according to the simple meaning of the words of Torah, that the birds were created from the water [see Gen. :-], the Sages have already indicated that ‘they were created from reqaq’ [bHull b], and reqaq is a term that refers to mud, which is a mixture of water and earth. In light of this, one cannot escape the fact that [birds] too are created from the ‘earth’. Their place of habitation, moreover, is upon the earth, and their nutrition is gained from that which derives from the earth. It remains only to consider the status of fish. For they were related in the Torah to the water because their habitation is in the water [see Gen. :-, , ]. But any individual possessing intelligence knows, by way of intellect, that fins, scales, and bones are not made of water. Notice how large beams are constructed from the ribs of some of the larger fish. Even fools [tippeshim], who do not sense the fact [that these substances are not made of water], believe that the nutrition [of fish] comes from the 

Z  – M  R T

and what exists upon the earth, as we have mentioned, based upon what is seen by and heard from those who travel by sea. They know from their experience that fish are visible and can be found only close to the shore; they are never far from dry land, as we have mentioned. This is on account of their need to gain nutrition from whatever things of the earth enter into the sea, either by way of the rivers, which flow into the sea, or as a result of rain floods that descend from the mountains or from other places close to the sea. This is the case regardless of whether their nutrition is itself earth or is something created from earth, such as mineral, plant, or animal. [] Moreover, that which is found in the bellies of fish cannot possibly come to be from water only. Nor can the food of all fish derive entirely from other fish. This is impossible with respect to nature; and sound experience affirms that, as is the case with respect to terrestrial animals and birds, things that come to be in most species of this genus do not gain nutrition from their own kind. Thus, to conclude: all creatures get their nutrition from the ‘earth’. And because the matter underlying any creature and the matter of its source of nutrition is indubitably one with respect to

earth and what exists upon the earth, based upon what is seen by and heard from those who travel by sea. They know from their experience that fish are visible and can be found only close to the shore; they are never far from dry land. This is on account of their need to gain nutrition from whatever things of the earth enter into the sea, either by way of the rivers, which flow into the sea, or as a result of rain floods that descend from the mountains or from other places close to the sea. This is the case regardless of whether their nutrition is itself earth or is something created from earth, such as mineral, plant, or animal. Moreover, that which is found in the bellies of fish cannot possibly come to be from water only. For the food of all fish cannot derive entirely from other fish. This is impossible with respect to nature; and sound experience affirms that, as is the case with respect to terrestrial animals and birds, things that come to be in most species of this genus do not gain nutrition from their own kind. Thus, to conclude: all creatures get their nutrition from the ‘earth’. And because the matter underlying any creature and the matter of its source of nutrition is indubitably one with respect to 

F D  C

genus – for the source of nutrition must needs share something with and be like that which it supplies, so that they can become one – it follows clearly that all creatures are created from the ‘earth’ and gain their nutrition from the ‘earth’. This is not the case with respect to the other elements, even water, as we have explained. But what Solomon has mentioned with respect to the rivers [see Eccl. :] is also related to something else, as we are going to explain.

genus – for the source of nutrition must needs share something with and be like that which it supplies, so that they can become one – it follows clearly that all creatures are created from the ‘earth’ and gain their nutrition from the ‘earth’. This is not the case with respect to the other elements, even water, as we have explained. Thus scripture said: ‘Let the earth give forth grass’ ‘let the earth bring forth [grass]’, and this is clear. Let us return now to the explanation of the verse …

Ibn Tibbon on Eccl. : and Immanuel on Gen. : The second example is Ibn Tibbon’s commentary on Eccl. :: ‘A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.’ Like his commentary on Eccl. :, Ibn Tibbon’s explanation of this verse is long and digressive. It begins with several possible explanations of the verse, and ends with a discussion of the ‘work of the beginning’, focusing on the meaning of Gen. :- and Gen. :-: he explains Gen. :- in relation to Aristotelian ideas about celestial influence, and Gen. :- as relating to the active intellect as a giver of human form. This digressive commentary, like the previous example, was easy pickings for Immanuel. Once again, he used the initial commentary on Eccl. : in his own commentary on Ecclesiastes, and excerpted the discussions of Gen. :- and :- into his commentary on Genesis.

 Cf. Immanuel’s commentary on Eccl. :, MS HUC , a-a, with Ibn Tibbon, Robinson, ed., par. -.  Cf. Immanuel on Gen. :- and :-, Tocci, ed., :-:, :-:, with Ibn Tibbon, Robinson, ed., par. -, -.



Z  – M  R T

The commentary on Gen. :- will be sufficient as illustration here. Immanuel begins with a citation from the Guide of the Perplexed, then continues with Ibn Tibbon, as in the translated text below. Note that Immanuel begins with the end of Ibn Tibbon’s paragraph , and ends with the beginning of the same paragraph. Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Commentary on Eccl. : [] To sum up: the generation of all three genera of things that come to be are in need of ‘luminaries’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’. Therefore, [Moses] placed [the suspending of the ‘luminaries’] between [the creation of minerals and plants and the creation of animals]. The dictum of the Sages concerning the verse ‘let there be light’ [Gen. :] serves as testimony to the true reality of this, that is, the true reality that the section on the ‘luminaries’ was designed to draw attention to the intermediaries. They said: ‘These are the same luminaries that were created on the first day, but that He did not suspend until the fourth day’ [see bHag a]. They have revealed with this dictum that the ‘luminaries’ were created on the first day; on the fourth day, in contrast, they were not created but ‘suspended’. It seems to me that [the Sages] understood this from the following verses: ‘Let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heavens’ [Gen. :] and ‘Let

Immanuel of Rome, Commentary on Gen. : ‘Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heavens’ [Gen. :] …

‘These are the same luminaries that were created on the first day, but that He did not suspend until the fourth day’ [see bHag a]. It seems that they understood that the ‘firmament of heavens’ mentioned here is not the celestial body but the firmament created on day two. It seems that [the Sages] understood this from the following verses: ‘Let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heavens’ [Gen. :] and ‘Let them be for 

F D  C

them be for luminaries in the firmament of the heavens’ [Gen. :]. He did not say only ‘Let there be luminaries’, as when he said ‘Let there be light’ [Gen. :] and ‘Let there be a firmament’ [Gen. :]. For then it would have seemed as if he had meant the following: Let the luminaries be created. But it seems that the ‘luminaries’ that were created, and were already, were placed in the ‘firmament of the heavens’, ‘to divide the day from the night’ [Gen. :] and to be ‘signs and seasons and days and years’ [Gen. :]. They were in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ for the sake of [doing] all of these actions, namely, to give light upon the earth and to do all of the other actions that they are known to do by means of giving light upon and ruling over [the earth]. [] This is the final purpose of this description [given by Moses]. For there is an important difference between saying ‘Let there be such and such a thing’ and ‘Let there be such and such a thing in such and such a place designed to do such and such a thing or things’. Similarly, when he says: ‘God made the two great luminaries’ [Gen. :], he seems to add explanation as to how, on the fourth day, God ‘made’ the ‘lumi-

luminaries in the firmament of the heavens’ [Gen. :]. He did not say only ‘Let there be luminaries’, as when he said ‘Let there be light’ [Gen. :] and ‘Let there be a firmament’ [Gen. :]. For then it would have seemed as if he had meant the following: Let the luminaries be created. But it seems that the ‘luminaries’ that were created on the first day, and were already, were placed in the ‘firmament of the heavens’, ‘to divide the day from the night’ [Gen. :] and to be ‘signs and seasons and days and years’ [Gen. :]. They were in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ for the sake of [doing] all of these actions, namely, to give light upon the earth and to do all of the other actions that they are known to do by means of giving light upon and ruling over [the earth].

Similarly, when he says: ‘God made the two great luminaries’ [Gen. :], he seems to add explanation as to how, on the fourth day, God ‘made’ the ‘lumi

Z  – M  R T

naries’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ that had already been created on the first day. That is, [he describes] in what configuration and with which power he had made each of them such that they ‘give light upon the earth’. He said that he had made the bigger of the two ‘great luminaries’ to rule the sublunar world during the day, which is the ‘time’ during which it gives light upon the earth. That is, its main contribution as ruler occurs at the ‘time’ when its light can be seen, namely, when it has risen and emitted its rays wherever in relation to that place it is day. The smaller luminary He made to rule over the sublunar world during the ‘time’ when its light can be seen, wherever in relation to that place it is night, namely, at the time when the light of the sun cannot be seen. The planets, likewise, rule during the night; for it is at that ‘time’ when they can be seen. [] But don’t understand from the phrase ‘God made the two luminaries’ [Gen. :], nor from the statement ‘and God fixed them’ [Gen. :], that He made them for this [purpose] and that His only aim in making them was that they do these works. For this is not how it is. Rather, the purpose [of these verses] is to describe the natures that were es-

naries’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ that had already been created on the first day. That is, [he describes] in what configuration and with which power he had made each of them such that they ‘give light upon the earth’. He said that the bigger of the two ‘great luminaries’ is to rule the sublunar world during the day, which is the ‘time’ during which it gives light upon the earth. That is, its main contribution as ruler occurs at the ‘time’ when its light can be seen, namely, when it has risen and emitted its rays wherever in relation to that place it is day. [The smaller luminary He made to rule over the sublunar world during the ‘time’ when its light can be seen, wherever in relation to that place it is night,] namely, at the time when the light of the planets cannot be seen. The planets, likewise, rule during the night; for it is at that ‘time’ when they can be seen. When he says: ‘God made the two luminaries’ [Gen. :], and ‘and God fixed them’ [Gen. :], this does not mean that they were made for this [purpose] and that His only aim in making them was that they do these things. For this is not how it is. Rather, the purpose [of these verses] is to describe the natures that were es

F D  C

tablished by God within them or the forces that were fixed by God within them so that they could do these ‘works’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ in order ‘to give light upon the earth’. It seems that this is similar to the suspending [of the ‘luminaries’] that was mentioned as having taken place on the fourth day. In this he meant to allude to the fact that their action in the ‘firmament of the heavens’, and their giving of light ‘upon the earth’, was not revealed until there were generated things, namely, plants, that had been generated from the elements, through which the action of the sun could be seen. For everyone knows that the ripening of fruit and production of yield occurs as a result of the sun approaching them; namely, that these processes are consequent upon the proximity [of the sun]. The moon also has utility in this respect. As Scripture says: ‘And from the precious fruits brought forth from the sun, and from the precious fruits put forth by the moon’ [Deut. :]; although in this it indicates that their action is different. [] But it should not be asked, not even according to our interpretation, according to which the generation of minerals is mentioned in a verse of the ‘work of the beginning’, why the genera-

tablished by God within them or the forces that were fixed by God within them so that they could do these ‘works’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’ in order ‘to give light upon the earth’. As for the meaning of the suspending [of the ‘luminaries’] that was mentioned as having taken place on the fourth day, in this he meant to allude to the fact that their action in the ‘firmament of the heavens’, and their giving of light ‘upon the earth’, was not revealed until there were generated things, namely, plants, that had been generated from the elements, through which the action of the sun could be seen. For everyone knows that the ripening of fruit and production of yield occurs as a result of the sun approaching them; namely, that these processes are consequent upon the proximity [of the sun]. The moon also has utility in this respect. As it is written: ‘And from the precious fruits brought forth from the sun, and from the precious fruits put forth by the moon’ [Deut. :].

But it should not be asked, not even according to someone who says that the generation of minerals is mentioned in the ‘work of the beginning’, why the generation of 

Z  – M  R T

tion of the ‘luminaries’ was not mentioned after the minerals. For the action of the sun with respect to [the minerals] is not recognized by the multitude; they do not sense in [the minerals] any creation at all. Instead, it seems to them that [the minerals] are part of the element earth and that they have no creation distinct from the generation of the simple element [earth]. It is possible that, on account of this, Scripture was careful not to ‘say’ the creation of [the minerals] explicitly; [their creation] was mentioned on the same day as the creation of plants. [] To sum up: because the minerals and plants were mentioned together on one day, whatever the reason for this might have been, it was only fitting for him, according to his purpose to both conceal [a secret] and simultaneously allude to [the same secret], to mention the ‘luminaries’ only on the fourth day. For that thing [namely, plants] that can reveal the [physical] effect of the ‘luminaries’ was created on the third day, and because the effect of the ‘luminaries’ was revealed on the third day, he mentioned the suspending of [the ‘luminaries’], that is, the bringing out of their force, on the day after rather than the day before.

the ‘luminaries’ was not mentioned after the minerals. For the action of the sun with respect to [the minerals] is not recognized by the multitude; they do not sense in [the minerals] any creation at all. Instead, it seems to them that [the minerals] are part of the element earth and that they have no creation distinct from the simple element [earth]. It is possible that, on account of this, Scripture was careful not to ‘say’ the creation of [the minerals] explicitly; [their creation] was mentioned on a different day as the creation of plants. To sum up: because the minerals and plants were mentioned together on one day, whatever the reason for this might have been, it was only fitting for him, according to his purpose to both conceal [a secret] and simultaneously allude to [the same secret], to mention the ‘luminaries’ only on the fourth day. For that thing [namely, plants] that can reveal the [physical] effect of the ‘luminaries’ was created on the third day, and because the effect of the ‘luminaries’ was revealed on the third day, he mentioned the suspending of [the ‘luminaries’], that is, the bringing out of their force, on the day after rather than the day before. 

F D  C

In this way, the multitude would not sense the intermediaries or be misled into thinking that [the intermediaries themselves] are the actions or that these actions should be attributed to them. It is not the case that there was any creation proper [on day four] that separated the creation of the plants and the creation of the animals. [] To sum up: the generation of all three genera of things that come to be are in need of ‘luminaries’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’. Therefore, [Moses] placed [the suspending of the ‘luminaries’] between [the creation of minerals and plants and the creation of animals] …

In this way, the multitude would not sense the intermediaries and attribute to them these actions.

It is not the case that there was any creation proper [on day four] that separated the creation of the plants and the creation of the animals. To sum up: the generation of all three genera of things that come to be – namely, mineral, plant, and animal – are in need of ‘luminaries’ in the ‘firmament of the heavens’. Therefore, [Moses] placed [the suspending of the ‘luminaries’] between [the creation of minerals and plants and the creation of animals]. Let us return now to the interpretation of the verse.

Ibn Tibbon on Eccl. : and Immanuel on Gen. : The final example begins with Ibn Tibbon’s commentary on Eccl. :: ‘All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.’ Here Ibn Tibbon explains the verse in light of the meteorological theory of rivers and evaporation. This leads to a discussion of the ‘work of creation’ in general and, in particular, the contribution of the four elements to the creation of sublunar beings. Ibn Tibbon cites and explains several verses from Genesis, including Gen. :.



Z  – M  R T

Immanuel approaches this text using precisely the same method he uses elsewhere. He borrows Ibn Tibbon in his own commentary on Eccl. :, and excerpts Ibn Tibbon’s digressive comments on Genesis into his commentary on the relevant verses in Genesis. Immanuel’s commentary on Gen. :, which reproduces two paragraphs from Ibn Tibbon, reads as follows: Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Commentary on Eccl. : [] … It was said: ‘Let the earth bring forth grass’ [Gen. :], ‘And the earth brought forth’ [Gen. :, :], ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature’ [Gen. :], ‘And the Lord God formed the man [from the dust of the ground]’ [Gen. :]. It did not say: ‘Let the fire bring forth’ or ‘let the air bring forth’. [] I say, furthermore, that this sage [Solomon] has mentioned the ‘abiding’ of these two elements, namely, earth and water, in one state, without excess or deficiency, to indicate the unity of the matter of all things that come to be ‘under the sun’. For the other [elements] were not mentioned because the creation of sublunar creatures, ‘under the sun’, is related to these two [namely, earth and water, rather than air and fire].

Immanuel of Rome, Commentary on Gen. : ‘God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature’ [Gen. :]. Know that when it is said: ‘Let the waters bring forth’ [Gen. :], ‘And the Lord God formed the man [from the dust of the ground]’ [Gen. :], it was not said: ‘Let the fire bring forth’ or ‘let the air bring forth’.

For the creation of sublunar creatures is related to these two [namely, earth and water, rather than air and fire].

 Cf. Immanuel’s commentary on Eccl. :, MS HUC , b-b, with Ibn Tibbon, ed. Robinson, par. -, -.  The text of Ibn Tibbon is from Robinson, par. -; the text of Immanuel is from Tocci, :-:.



F D  C

The multitude recognize that all composite creatures are created from these two, but do not recognize that they are also created from fire and air, even though there is no creature ‘under the sun’ that does not contain fire and air. That these two elements [earth and water] are the principal elements of sublunar existents has also been maintained by the philosophers, for the following reasons: () [earth and water] provide [sublunar existents] with their place of habitation; () through [earth and water], all [sublunar existents] have permanence; and () the existence of [fire and air] can be proved from [earth and water], for [fire and air] are their contraries. [] It was stated explicitly by Aristotle in Meteorology, Book Four, that the dry and the moist are the principles of generation with respect to all material bodies that have thickness [‘obi], and these two qualities correspond with the elements water and earth. The moist provides a composite existent with a cohesive factor and principle of blending, whereas the dry gives it solidity and keeps it from dissolving. He also said there, in another context, that all homoeomorphous substances, such as gold and silver, are composed of earth

The multitude recognize that all composite creatures are created from these two, but do not recognize that they are also created from fire and air, even though there is no creature under the lunar sphere that does not contain fire and air. That these two elements [earth and water] are the principal elements of sublunar existents has also been maintained by the philosophers, for the following reasons: () [earth and water] provide [sublunar existents] with their place of habitation; () through [earth and water], all [sublunar existents] have permanence; and () the existence of [fire and air] can be proved from [earth and water], for [fire and air] are their contraries. It was stated explicitly by Aristotle in Meteorology, Book Four, that the dry and the moist are the principles of generation with respect to all material bodies that have thickness [‘obi], and these two qualities correspond with the elements water and earth. The moist provides a composite existent with a cohesive factor and principle of blending, whereas the dry gives it solidity and keeps it from dissolving. He also said there, in another context, that all homoeomorphous substances, such as gold and silver, are composed of earth and 

Z  – M  R T

and water, as are the homoeomorphous organs in man, such as flesh, bones, veins, and skin, as well as wood, leaves, and bark in plants. To sum up, [earth and water, with the qualities of the moist and the dry,] serve as the matter for composite things subject to generation, whereas [air and fire], namely, the warm and dry and the warm and moist, serve as their agents; they preserve [composite existents] and help and benefit them in a different way; for they are not material [principles]. In similar fashion did the Torah, which was given by God to men, women, and children, relate creation only to [earth and water]. It said: ‘Let the earth bring forth grass’, [Gen. :], ‘And the earth brought forth’ [Gen. :, :], ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature’ [Gen. :], ‘And the Lord God formed the man [from the dust of the ground]’ [Gen. :]. It did not say: ‘Let the fire bring forth’ or ‘let the air bring forth’.

water, as are the homoeomorphous organs in man, such as flesh, bones, veins, and skin, as well as wood, leaves, and bark in plants. To sum up, [earth and water, with the qualities of the moist and the dry,] serve as the matter for composite things subject to generation, whereas [air and fire], namely, the warm and cold, serve as their agents; they preserve [composite existents] and help and benefit them in a different way, which is not material. Thus the Torah, which was given by God to men, women, and children, related creation only to [earth and water]. It said: ‘And the earth brought forth’ [Gen. :, :], ‘Let the earth bring forth grass’ [Gen. :], ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature’ [Gen. :], ‘And the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground’ [Gen. :], and the like.

Conclusions Immanuel of Rome may have been an original poet, but as biblical exegete, he was clearly a derivative thinker. In fact, he was the compilator par excellence: his method was to search, collect, and anthologize; to



F D  C

identify philosophical explications of biblical texts, extract them from their original source, and rearrange them in his own anthology of philosophical exegesis. Immanuel’s commentaries are patchworks of material drawn from other authors. They are based mostly, if not entirely, on unacknowledged secondary references. But the question of his originality can still be posed: In what way did he reshape, modify, even censor his source material? What governed his process of selection? Does the final result, patchwork as it is, still represent his unique philosophical and exegetical vision? The sources identified in this short essay suggest a negative answer: he adds little to the remarks of Ibn Tibbon. But only after a much fuller investigation of Immanuel’s sources and use of sources, when the body of work can be considered as a whole, will it be possible to fully understand and appreciate the work of this philosophical exegetical anthologist. James T. Robinson The University of Chicago, Divinity School



A U S  M A’ S E

The study of medieval Hebrew encyclopaedic writings on philosophy and science has made considerable progress over the past decade. Nonetheless not all texts that belong to this genre have equally received scholarly attention. One text that is still relatively unknown is Shevile Emunah (‘Paths of Faith’) written in  by Meir Aldabi of Toledo, grandson of R. Asher ben Yehiel. Divided into ten netivot, it treats of a wide variety of scientific and religious subjects, such as God and his attributes; creation; astronomy; creation of man and embryology; anatomy; regimen of the body; the soul; religious observances; the Oral Law; reward and punishment; Messianic redemption and the world to come. Steinschneider devoted some space to this work and its sources in the first chapter (Enzyklopedien) of his monumental Hebräische Übersetzungen, focusing primarily on the sources of Aldabi’s ‘investigations concerning the soul’. The author of Shevile Emunah appears to have used a number of sources here, his main source-text, however, being another encyclopaedia, namely Gershom ben Solomon of Arles’ Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim (‘The Gate of Heaven’) written ca . Aldabi borrowed lengthy passages from the books he had at his disposal to such an extent that, according to Steinschneider, ‘[t]he composition exceeds the amount permitted a medieval author without being considered a plagiarist’. This observation, in combination with Steinschneider’s verdict that for his purposes ‘an extended examination dealing with the entire work is not worth the effort’, may have led scholars to believe that Shevile Emuna is a typical epigonic work that is not interest-

 See the volume by S. Harvey, ed., The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopaedias of Science and Philosophy, Dordrecht etc. .  The list is not exhaustive. For more detailed overviews, see Encyclopaedia Judaica, st ed., vol. , f., and Encyclopaedia Judaica nd ed., vol. , f.  M. Steinschneider, Die Hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher, Berlin , §§ -, cf. Ch. Manekin, ‘Steinschneider on the Medieval Hebrew Encyclopaedias: An Annotated Translation from Die Hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters’, Addendum in Harvey, ed., Hebrew Encyclopaedias, -.  For this text, cf. Steinschneider, Hebräische Übersetzungen § , and J. Robinson, ‘Gershom ben Solomon of Arles’ Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim: Its Sources and Use of Sources’, in Harvey, ed., Hebrew Encyclopaedias, -.  Trans. Manekin, ‘Steinschneider’, .

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 96 –100. © 2007 Springer.



A U S  M A’ S E

ing enough for closer study. However, some ten years ago, Dov Schwartz, the first to publish on Shevile Emunah after Steinschneider, emphasized the importance of this and similar texts for the intellectual history of Spanish Jewry during the fourteenth century. He suggested that compilations like Shevile Emunah – compositions that were far less comprehensive than the earlier Hebrew encyclopaedias – were intended for students in the Spanish Talmudic schools to enable them to acquire a minimal amount of philosophic-scientific knowledge. If this assumption is true these texts may thus shed light on the attitude of these students towards philosophy, and enlarge our knowledge concerning the relation between philosophy and religion. Moreover, judging by the number of extant manuscripts and printed editions, the book seems to have enjoyed some popularity also in later times and is thus relevant for our knowledge of the reception of Sephardic medieval learning in Ashkenaz.  That Aldabi should choose to use (or incorporate) passages of Gershom ben Solomon’s Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim in his book is not surprising. This Hebrew encyclopaedia was much more popular and influential than its two predecessors, Judah ben Solomon’s Midrash ha-Hokhmah (‘The Exposition of Science’), the Hebrew version of which dates from ca , and Shemtov Falaquera’s De‘ot ha-Filosofim (‘The Opinions of the Philosophers’), written ca . Whereas the latter was used by Gershom ben Solomon, no evidence of any use by or impact on later authors of the former has come to light yet. It is therefore surprising to find that Meir Aldabi should have taken passages from Midrash ha-Hokhmah. This encyclopaedia provides an overview of philosophy (logic, natural philoso-

 D. Schwartz, ‘Towards the Study of the Sources of R. Meir Aldabi’s Shevile haEmunah’, Sinai  () - (Hebrew). See also idem, ‘Rationalism and Conservatism. The Philosophy of Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth’s Circle’, Da‘at  () - (Hebrew). Schwartz does not make clear whether he holds the work to have been written in Spain, or in Jerusalem, as has been suggested.  Manekin lists ten manuscripts, most of which, however, contain only selected portions of the text, see ‘Steinschneider’, . Vinograd lists  editions that were published before , cf. Y. Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book: Listing of Books Printed in Hebrew Letters since the Beginning of Hebrew Printing circa  through ,  vols, Jerusalem -. Ch.D. Friedberg, Bet Eqed Sefarim III, Tel Aviv ,  lists four more editions for the period -.  However, marginal annotations in one of the manuscripts testify to some interest in the text on the part of a later student, cf. R. Fontaine, ‘Abraham Ibn Daud and the Midrash haHokhmah: a mini-discovery’ Zutot , -.



Z  – M  R T

phy and metaphysics, geometry, astronomy and astrology), and contains some treatises on religious subjects. The quotations in Shevile Emunah concern meteorological issues and are found towards the end of the second netiv that is devoted to a discussion of creation and of the heavenly spheres and the stars. Aldabi writes: ‘Here I saw fit to conclude this netiv by an explanation of how winds, earthquakes, thunder and the rainbow originate on earth.’ What then follows is an almost word-for-word reproduction of the accounts of these meteorological phenomena as presented in Midrash ha-Hokhmah, accounts that go back to Aristotle’s Meteorology, books IIIII. Also the order of topics is that of Judah’s encyclopaedia. However, Aldabi skips over two topics from his source. One concerns Judah’s discussion of the inhabited and uninhabited parts of the world, an omission that can be explained by the fact that Aldabi had discussed the topic of the seven climes in an earlier passage in the second netiv. The absence of the second passage, on the halo, is less easy to explain. Aldabi also omits Judah’s references to other sections of Midrash ha-Hokhmah as well as some sentences that Judah added to the actual theoretical discussion. For example, Judah’s comment that Ibn Rushd made an observation on the occurrence of winds in Spain does not occur in Shevile Emunah, nor does Judah’s statement about an observation by an otherwise unnamed scholar (who in fact appears to be Ibn Sina) on the thunderbolt. For the rest, Aldabi closely follows his source and only deviates from it by inserting an introductory phrase when he turns to a new topic and by slightly changing the word order at rare intervals. This implies that the text of Shevile Emunah is of some relevance for the establishment of the text of this particular portion of the Midrash ha-Hokhmah.

 On the work and its author, see Steinschneider, Hebräische Übersetzungen § ; C. Sirat, ‘Juda b. Salomon ha-Cohen. Philosophe, astronome et peut-être kabbaliste de la première moitié du XIIIe siècle’, Italia  () -, and R. Fontaine, ‘Judah ben Solomon haCohen’s Midrash ha-Hokhmah: Its Sources and Use of Sources’ in Harvey, ed., Hebrew Encyclopaedias, -.  Shevile Emunah, edition Amsterdam , r; ed. Jerusalem ,  nd col. I wish to thank Dr. G. Freudenthal for kindly providing me with copies of the relevant pages of the Jerusalem edition.  Edition Amsterdam r-v; edition Jerusalem ff.  Edition Amsterdam r-v; edition Jerusalem f. This passage does not seem to derive from Midrash ha-Hokhmah.



A U S  M A’ S E

The two editions of Shevile Emunah that I have compared thus far, Amsterdam  and Jerusalem , do not display significant differences among them. However, the older printing appears to be more reliable, since the new publication contains some errors that are not found in the early eighteenth-century edition. The Amsterdam edition in its turn displays some errors in the meteorological section that are not found in any of the extant manuscripts of the MH. The text of the relevant passages in the Amsterdam edition of  does not seem to go back to one of the Midrash ha-Hokhmah manuscripts known to us. We possess two more or less complete manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Mich  (IMHM # ; henceforth: O) and Vatican ebr  (IMHM # ; henceforth: V). In addition, there are seven manuscripts that contain the complete text of the section on natural philosophy. These nine manuscripts can be divided into two families, the two complete manuscripts belonging to the same family. A close comparison between these manuscripts and the Amsterdam edition reveals that the text of the edition is related to the text as presented by this group of manuscripts. This is evidenced among other things by the fact that the edition has the same readings as O and V in passages where Judah inserted an Arabic term in his exposition. In these manuscripts as well as in the edition these terms are often corrupted or lacking altogether. The second group of manuscripts, of which Oxford Poc.  and Oxford Hunt  are the best representatives, has correctly preserved these terms and, in general, presents a better text than O and V. A clear example of an error of O and V and the other manuscripts of the same group is provided by a passage in the section on earthquakes. Following Ibn Sina, albeit without acknowledgement, Judah compares the moving about of wind within the earth that seeks an outlet (which is the cause of earthquakes) to the labour of a woman in childbirth (ukhemo he-harah be-‘et she-teled). However, due to textual corruption the pregnant woman has disappeared from O and V, and as a result the text has become incomprehensible (u- khemo hayah be-‘et she-eleh).  In-

 Two examples taken from the section on winds are: edition Jerusalem  col . line  ‘terahheq’ instead of ‘terahhef’ and ibidem, line  ‘ha-me’azzer’ instead of ‘ha-mefuzar’.  The edition was published by Proops, cf. M. Roest, Catalog der Hebraica und Judaica aus der L. Rosenthal’schen Bibliothek I, Amsterdam  (reprint Amsterdam ) .  Ms Oxford, Hunt  fol. r.  V fol. v.



Z  – M  R T

terestingly, here the two printed texts have a reading that makes sense, but that is nonetheless incorrect (u-khemo ken hayah be-‘et ha-ra‘ash).  Clearly, the reading of O and V has been ‘corrected’ in one of the manuscripts of Shevile Emunah. From many other variant readings, omissions, and the like, it is obvious that the printed editions in the section under consideration present a text that is very close to O, V and to another manuscript of the same family, namely Cambridge Dd . (IMHM # ; henceforth: C). Indeed, where C agrees with V against O, the printed text usually agrees with CV. However, as C and V each manifest errors of their own that do not appear in the printed text of Shevile Emunah, the printed text must ultimately go back to a manuscript of the Midrash ha-Hokhmah that is no longer extant. It thus appears that at least some sections of the Midrash ha-Hokhmah reached a wider audience than has hitherto been assumed. Whether other sections of this encyclopaedia too were copied, or if one wishes, plagiarized, remains to be explored. Likewise, the question of why the author of the Shevile Emunah should have turned to this text for his meteorological information is still open to further research. After all, he could have found relevant material in one of his other sources, Gershom ben Solomon’s Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim, or in Samuel ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Aristotle’s Meteorology, that was Gershom’s main source for his section on meteorological issues. Was it perhaps the concision of Judah’s compilation that dictated this choice? And was Aldabi aware that by copying Midrash ha-Hokhmah he in fact copied Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology, given that Judah’s survey is to a large extent an excerpt of this commentary? These questions can only be answered within the framework of a large-scale examination of Meir Aldabi’s sources and use of sources, an examination that clearly exceeds the boundaries of a zuta. Resianne Fontaine Universiteit van Amsterdam



Edition Jerusalem ,  col.  line .



T I   B  Y A’ H ‘O: A E

Whoever has published a book is acquainted with the frustrating feeling of finding new additional material after the book has gone to press. This is what happened to me concerning my book The Black in Jewish Culture – A History of the Other (Hebrew, Haifa ; English, London and New York ). This book traces the evolvement of the image of the black as the ultimate ‘other’ in the history of Jewish culture since its first formulations in biblical literature, through rabbinic thought and medieval culture until the age of discovery in early modern times, when black slavery was reintroduced to Western Europe. It focuses on the mechanisms by which an ethno-religious minority group, considered by the dominant majority to be the inferior ‘other’, identifies its own inferior ‘other’. In quite a similar way to the antisemitic depictions of the Jew, the black is described as being bestial, ape-like, ugly, cruel and lustful, a slave by nature, the ultimate ‘other’. This description of the black person was typical of the European approach since Hellenistic-Roman times, which also penetrated Jewish sources. At the end of chapter , which deals with the development of the image of the black in medieval Jewish thought, I dealt with some references found in Yohanan Alemanno’s magnum opus Hai ha‘Olamim (The Eternal), composed in Florence during the last decades of the fifteenth century. Hai ha-‘Olamim, still unpublished, is a kind of encyclopaedia of man, tracing the gradual stages of human development from his conception to the fulfillment of his spiritual purpose.  In the anthropological description of human groups living in the remote hot climates of the south, Alemanno brings a stereotypic description of the blacks, which echoes the famous descriptions found in Halevi’s Kuzari I., and Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed III.. However, about ten folio’s later in the same manuscript there is another, much stronger, reference to the image of the black, which rein-



A. Melamed, ‘The Hebrew Encyclopedias of the Renaissance’, S. Harvey, ed., The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy, Dordrecht , -.  A. Melamed, The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture, ch.. S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 101–106. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  R T

forces these stereotypes. This appears in the section which deals with the political government, and describes in detail the just king versus the tyrant. The description of the just king follows directly the Platonic-Averroist model of the philosopher-king, which I dealt with in detail elsewhere. However, what I somehow neglected to notice both when I dealt with the image of the philospher-king in Alemanno and when I dealt with his description of the black, is the connection he creates between the two issues: the tyrant is described as a black man, a description which was aimed to strenghten the impact of his hideousness. My doctoral student Michael Reuveni, who has recently completed a PhD dissertation on this part of Hai ha-‘Olamim brought this to my attention; alas, this was already when both the Hebrew and English versions of my book had gone to the publisher. Thus, I am glad to use this opportunity to fill this lacuna, where two different subjects I dealt with in two different books coalesce. First I will bring parts of the Hebrew text describing the image of the tyrant as a black man, Hai ha-‘Olamim, Ms Mantova , fols bb: ‫ הן כמה אלה לא יראו ולא ימצאו בעולמים אשר היו לפנינו כי במלכים‬:‫ויאמר פקח כח‬ ‫ ולנגח כל‬:‫ ולנצח ברב כחו‬:‫יתקלס ויתרומם ויתנשא מי ומי אשר גבה לבו עד להשחית‬ ‫ שוקיו‬:‫ זרועו כמנור אורגים‬:‫ חזהו ככר נרחב‬:‫ וגויתו דמתה לתמר‬:‫סביביו בחזקת רוחו‬ ‫[ אור פניו‬:] ‫ מראהו שחרחר כבני כושיים‬:‫כשני העמודים אשר הבית נכון עליהם‬ :‫[ אפיו רחבי']ם[ כנחירי הסוסים הרצים‬:] [‫זעופי']ם[ כשר האופי']ם[ והטבחי']ם‬ ‫ לטרוף טרף אדם יאכל כי יבטח על ידו וזרועו‬:‫לבבו יחם בקרבו כלב אריות ונמרים‬ ‫ ובכל אשר יפנה ירשיע‬:‫ והיה איש ריב ומדון את כל אדם‬:‫מושלה לו על כל חפצים‬ ‫ חותר ותופש כל חדרי בטן הגדולה והגבורה והתפארת והנצח תמיד‬: [‫רעים וטובי']ם‬ ‫ נפשו בכפו ישים אלף פעמים ולמשול‬:‫ ולמלאת תאות כבודו ושרירות לבו‬:‫בכל דרכיו‬ ‫ ולשלוט באדירי']ם[ עם אליו יאסוף‬:‫עמים רבים ולאומים לנצח יריב ויעורר מדנים‬ ‫[ ומרי נפש ואהב גזל וחמס חושב לקחת לו‬...] ‫אנשים ריקים ופוחזים וכל איש אשר לו‬ :‫ ושונא מתנות עניים וכל עושי טוב יהדוף מעליו ושונאי בצע לא ידע‬:‫לחם ושמלה‬ ‫ ובוצע בצע ורכיל ומשים מכשול ומעול וחומס ומכה ופוצע וממית וכל‬:‫וכסיל ואויל‬ ‫ וכל אדמוני עם‬:‫[ מעבדיו משרתיו עושי רצונו‬:] ‫אשר לו בנפשו מום רע הוא ידע והיה‬ ‫[ נצב‬:] ‫ צח ואדום על דל שפתים ושער צהוב בו סחוב והשלך עד בין כתפים‬:‫יפה עינים‬ ‫ בקריצת עינים ומלילות‬:‫ יביא אליו לצודד נפשים מן הנשים‬:‫הקומה וארוך השוקים‬ ‫[ כי הלך ילך וטפוף בשוקים וברחובו']ת[ ואצל כל פינה‬:] ‫רגלים או בחזקת ידים‬



A. Melamed, The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Political Thought, Albany , ch. ..



T I   B  Y A’ H -‘O

‫ בפתחי‬:‫יארוב מן החרכים ומן החלונות לחזות בנועם בנות צועדות על שור הארובות‬ ‫ בלכתו הלוך ושוב לפני בתיהן ומשקר‬:‫ יומם יצוה חסדו וחנו עמהן‬:‫שערים ומעל הגגות‬ ‫[ הן אלה קצות דרכי המלכים אשר מלכו בימים הראשונים אשר היו טובים‬...] :‫לעיניהן‬ ‫ כל‬:‫[ כל מושל חנף מקשיב על דבר שקר ושוד ורצוח ונאוף‬:] ‫מאלה ההולכים ורעים‬ ‫ וכל העם מקצה רואה ומשבח את מעשה‬:‫משרתיו ירשיעו את הצדיק ויצדיקו את הרשע‬ ‫ ודבר ה' לחרפה‬:‫[ הרעה כי נורא הוא ותפארת לעושה תהי להם לחכמה‬:] [...] This description of the tyrant is dichotomous to that of the just king, who is described here as follows (fols b-b): ‫ כאשר זה האיש הרועה היה גבר יהיר לו ונוה נאוה‬:‫ומלך מלך בתוכם והיה לראש פינה‬ :‫ נורא ואיום מן הוא נוצר והלאה‬:‫ עם מחשבה עמוקה בכל תושיה‬:‫תהלה בנפש וגויה‬ ‫ מאהבת רגשת‬:‫ איש דגול מרבבה‬:‫גבור ואיש מלחמה ערוך ידו ורגלו בקשת נחושה‬ ‫[ עד כי ברוב טובו נהרו אליו כל הגוים לסור אל משמעתו ולהאמין אל‬...] :‫המון רבה‬ ‫שמועתו בכל נפשם ובכל מאודם יחתרו ויתורו לשרתו ולברכו ולתת כבוד לשמו‬: [...] It is important to note that the good king is described in terms of light and brightness, alluding to his white skin, physical beauty and moral qualities. His many virtues are described as ‫יפה כחמה ונאוה תהלה כלבנה‬ (Songs :); he is ‫ ;איש צח ומליץ יושר בנועם לשונו‬the term ‫ איש צח‬here has an equivocal meaning alluding both to his fair skin (as in Songs :: ‫דודי צח‬ ‫)ואדום‬, and to his fine rhetorical qualities. His ministers and advisers are described likewise as ‫ ויפה אף נעים לדבר צחות‬:‫נחמד להשכיל וטוב למראה‬. The tyrant, on the other hand, is described as ‫אשר גבה לבו עד להשחית ולנצח‬ ‫[ ברוב כחו ולמלאת תאות כבדו ושרירות לבו‬...]. The author uses a phlethora of biblical allusions in order to illustrate his wickedness: he is ‫איש ריב ומדון את‬ ‫( כל אדם‬after Jer. :); ‫( בכל אשר יפנה ירשיע‬ Sam. :). He intentionally uses the image of the black: ‘His looks are black like the children of Cushites’ (‫ )מראהו שחרחר כבני כושיים‬as a rhetorical device to illustrate and strenghten the tyrant’s wickedness. This description is of course metaphoric; it does not relate to a black person in reality but to whatever the black person symbolizes in the authors mind. This is clear not only from the context but also from the terms Alemanno chooses to



This alludes to Gen. : concerning the trees in the garden of Eden. For the combination between beauty and rhetorical qualities see also Songs :: ‫כי קולך ערב ומראיך נאוה‬.



Z  – M  R T

use; ‫( כבני כושיים‬like the childeren of Cushites) itself is based on Amos :, and is used there as a metaphor for the children of Israel;  here it is used as a metaphor for the tyrant. The metaphoric black tyrant is described first of all by his physical characteristics, which is typical of descriptions of the inferior ‘other’ in various cultures. He is a big, extremely tall, wide-chested strong man. This description of his physical strength is intended to emphasize his bestiality and cruelness. Alemanno constructs the black tyrant’s physical strength through a cluster of biblical phrases, combining the description of Goliath in  Sam. : and  Chron. :, concerning his strong arms that are like ‫( מנור אורגים‬a weaver’s beam); and the description of Samson in Judg. :, concerning the ‘black’ tyrant’s strong hips that are like the two pillars Samson caused to collapse: ‫שוקיו כשני העמודים אשר הבית נכון עליהם‬ (the two pillars whereupon the house rested). This combination between Goliath and Samson is intended to strenghten the frightening impression of his physical might. The description of his angry face which resembles that of the ‫ שר האופים והטבחים‬relates to the story of Joseph in Potiphar’s house (Gen. -). The association with Pharaoh’s baker and butcher is intended to highlight the ‘black’ tyrant’s lower class, slave-like origins, and thus explain his bestiality, cruelness and despotic nature. The very fact that he is associated here with slavery, which in itself was traditionally associated with blackness, is intended to emphasize that his ascension to the throne was an act which goes against the basic laws of nature, and thus bound to be disastrous. This is what happens when a slave by nature becomes a ruler. Since Potiphar and his wife were associated in the midrash (Shoher Tov on Ps. :) with blackness and hidiousness, the connection is clear. Further on this ‘black’ tyrant is stereotypically described as having ‘wide nostriles like horses running’ ([‫אפיו רחבי']ם‬ ‫ ;)כנחירי הסוסים הרצים‬and as having a hot disposition (‫ )לבבו יחם בקרבו‬like



Melamed, The Black in Jewish Culture, ch. . Ibid. ch. , , n. . As for tallness as a physical quality which befits a ruler, see A. Melamed, ‘Non-Accidental Accidents – The Meaning of the King’s Accidents in Maimonides’ Parable’, A. Ravitzky, ed., Joseph Baruch Sermoneta Memorial Volume, Jerusalem , -, esp. - (Hebrew).  See another example for the usage of the image of Goliath to describe the frightening black, The Black in Jewish Culture, ff.  Ibid. ch. ,.  Ibid. f.  Ibid. -. 



T I   B  Y A’ H -‘O

predatory animals, such as the lion and the tiger. The comparison with these animals is intended to illustrate his dangerous, wild and bestial nature. The grotesque description of his wide nostrils is typical of the descrptions of the black in this culture. The hot (‫ )חם‬disposition attributed to him is etymologically associated with his dark brown ( ‫)חום‬ skin colour; the hot climate (‫ )חם‬of his original African dwelling, which caused his dark skin and hot disposition according to the medieval theory of climate; and with Ham (‫)חם‬, Noah’s son who according to the midrash became a black man as punishment for his sin against his father. This web of etymological connections appeared at the very same period also in Abravanel’s Commentary on Genesis . The last characteristic related here to the ‘black’ tyrant is his sexual wickedness: ‫לצודד‬ ‫( נפשים מן הנשים‬after Ez. :). This is another stereotypical characteristic traditionally associated with the black, and refers again, like in the case of his physical might, to his bestiality. Alemanno thus managed here to bring together all the stereotypic descriptions of the black in his culture: physical ugliness and strengh; a slave by nature; wicked, cruel and lustful; all in order to elaborate on the true nature of the tyrant. The ‘black’ archetype tyrant is further described as gathering around him ‘every one that was in distress and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented’, ‫אנשים ריקים ופוחזים וכל איש אשר לו נשה ומרי‬ ‫ נפש‬as the biblical narrator ( Sam. :) describes the people gathered around David in his struggle against Saul. As Alemanno’s Florentine contemporary Machiavelli explains in his Discorso :, bringing this very example, this was the most effective way to ensure the success of his attempt to destroy the old political order, and establish his own authority.  These people had nothing to lose since they were rejected by the outgoing regime; and they had everything to gain by associating themselves with the new one. Thus, they were the best possible allies of the new tyrant. The ‘black’ tyrant is using these people not only to establish his regime, but for various personal pleasures also. Here the skin colour component is brought again into the picture, when he specifically uses ‘every one who is rudy and withal of beautiful eyes’ ( Sam. :): white and

    

Ibid. , , . Ibid. -. Ibid. ch. , . Ibid. ch. , . Melamed, The Philosopher-King, f.



Z  – M  R T

ruddy (Songs :) […] ‘and his yellow hair thrown up to his shoulders: erect and long limbed’ (‫ צח ואדום על דל שפתים ושער צהוב‬:‫וכל אדמוני עם יפה עינים‬ ‫ נצב הקומה וארוך השוקים‬:‫)בו סחוב והשלך עד בין כתפים‬. While the tyrant is described as the ultimate ugly and vicious black, his servants are described as the ultimate beautiful, blonde and fair skinned whites. This distinction between the ugly black and the beautiful blond white appears in the very same period – and place – in an iconographic depiction in the so-called Rothschild mahzor produced in Florence in . This dichotomy is used here to elaborate on the inherently un-natural and immoral situation in the eyes of the author, when a slave by nature is the master of those who are natural masters. These beautiful white men are deliberately used by the hedious ‘black’ tyrant as a bait to induce young maidens for his wicked pleasures: ‫[ יביא אליו לצודד‬...] ‫וכל אדמוני עם יפה עינים‬ ‫ בקריצות עינים וכל רגלים או בחזקת ידים‬:‫נפשים מן הנשים‬, and so on and so forth. This stereotypic depiction of the black person, as it evolved in Jewish culture throughout the ages, following the same attitude in the cultures within which it operated, is being thus employed here as a literary device to enhance the negative image of the tyrant. The good king, on the other hand, is described in terms of his whiteness and moral qualities. Racial stereotypes are employed, thus, in order to distinguish between the archetypical good king and the tyrant. Abraham Melamed University of Haifa



Melamed, The Image of the Black, ff. See also, in the same context, the description of the rich person’s wives, ‘Hai ha‘Olamim’, fol. a: ‫ אדמדמות ולבנות‬,‫נשיו וכלותיו הבריאות וטובות‬. 



N  N R? S R  R L  M’ H  R H

In , an English lord, probably Henry Wotton, commissioned Leone da Modena, Rabbi in Venice, to write a description of Jewish practices for King James I of England: The Vita, riti e costumi de gl’Hebrei – in brevissimo compendio ma amplamento raccolti & descritti,  which was finally published in  as Historia de gli riti hebraici by Jacques (Giacomo) Gaffarel(i) in Paris and again in  as Historia de Riti Hebraici, Vita & oßervanze degli Hebrei di questi tempi in Venice. Between the first and the second edition a strange case of self-incrimination occurred: a voluntary declaration to the Inquisition by the author himself. In , there was the intense fear of persecution at the hands of Christian authorities. Accordingly Modena imagined that the Paris publication of his Historia de gli riti would bring the Inquisition down on his head and on other Jews as well, as we read in his autobiographical journal Hayye Yehudah – Life of Judah: ‘Heartbroken, I shouted and tore at my beard until I lost my breath. I said to myself‚ When this book is seen in Rome, it will become a stumbling block for all the Jews and for me, in particular [...] As for me, where could I go? I could not escape to Ferrara or to any other place in Italy’ (fol. b, ). What had happened? A short chronology of the publishing vicissitudes and a comparison of the expressed intentions in Modena’s writings and his actual proceeding in that crucial moment may give an explanation of what Modena intended with his Historia de Riti Hebraici. Different sources can serve us for this aim, such as the preface (‘Proemio’) of the printed versions, the aforementioned autobiography, a manuscript of the Historia entitled Relatione de tutti riti, costumi, e vita degli Hebrei preserved in the Venetian Archives including an autograph



Title from a manuscript copy of the Riti presented by Modena to William Boswell in September , available in St. John’s College Library, Cambridge, L. .  Engl. translation by M.R. Cohen, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi. Leon Modena’s Life of Judah, Princeton .  Archivo di Stato di Venezia (A.S.V.), Sant’Uffizio, busta . S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 107–112. © 2007 Springer.



Z  – M  R T

letter to the ‘Santissimo Tribunale’ and a letter to an English correspondent of Modena. On September , , three years before the printing, Modena penned an Italian epistle to Sir William Boswell, in which he mentions his manuscript and his intention to publish it. The passage reads, in translation, as follows: ‘[...] This book of mine about our Rites I have revised, and a few days ago I gave a copy of it to a gentleman from your country named William Spenser. Moreover, at the request of certain friends and patrons (for I did not care about it myself) I am thinking of publishing it this year, and have the intention of doing so in Paris in order to avoid censorship here &c.’ In his autobiography, Leone da Modena reports the facts about the printing of his book in Paris as follows: ‘After reading it, that Frenchman [J. Gaffarel] asked me to leave it with him and he would print it in France. I agreed, but did not think of editing out the things that the Inquisition in Italy might find unacceptable in a printed book’ (fol. a, ). He continues: ‘Two years later, after I had given up hope that the Frenchman might print it, on the second day of Passover  [April , ], someone brought me a letter from him, in which he told me that he had printed the book in Paris’ (fol. a, ). Just two weeks later, on April , Leone da Modena presented the above mentioned manuscript of his book, including a declaration of his kind intention and obedience in anticipation of censorship or punishment. In this letter to the ‘Santissimo Tribunale’ he feigns surprise at the printing: ‘Questa intendo ultimam[en]te essersi fatta stampar in Parigi col mio nome sotto questo, o altro titolo da un sig[nor]e Francese.’ Concerning the contents of the manuscript given to the Holy Office, Modena is speaking of a copy and suggests that it is a verbatim duplicate – ‘Ho voluto [...] presentar la copia del detto manuscritto che diedi a quel tal s[igno]re, non difforme.’ In reality, the manuscript that he presents to the Tribunal is not an identical one but a changed version of the one printed in Paris. Further, Modena alleges that the manuscript is written

 First published by Cecil Roth, ‘Leone da Modena and his English Correspondents’, The Jewish Historical Society of England, Transactions  () - (with English translation).  ‘[...] Quella mia opera de’ nostri Riti ho meglio rifformata, et alli giorni passati ne diedi copia ad un gentiluomo di là nomato il Signor Guglielmo Spenser, & a preghi d’amici padroni (ch’io non me ne curava) credo quest’ anno darla alla stampa, e penso farlo far in Parigi per fuggir qualche censura di qui &c.’



N  N R?

by himself: ‘Io Leon sopra[scritto] ho presentato la sopra scritta scrittura di mia p[ro]pia mano al Santiss[im]o Tribunale hoggi  Aprile .’ This declaration is also written down in the documents of the Inquisition  – I inspected the manuscript in July : it is written in at least three hands – one possibly Modena’s (the second and fifth part) but the others quite distinct! In the letter to the ‘Santissimo Tribunale’ Modena explains his intention: ‘Descrissi Io [...] una breue relatione de Riti uita, e costume de gl’Hebrej con stil nudo e uia di semplice relatione [...] e con ogni sincerità riuerente, come sempre ho professato’ – that is: ‘I wrote a report [...] in non-rhetorical style and by means of plain report with every sincerity in my customary way.’ In the ‘Proemio’ he states explicitly: ‘che mi sono scordato d’esser Hebreo’ – ‘that I have forgotten to be a Jew.’ That sounds like the best condition for being impartial, but there are many reasons to regard this phrase as a commonplace rhetorical device. Interestingly enough, when the work was translated into English by Edmund Chilmead he mistranslated the phrase as ‘And, in my Writing, I have kept myself exactly to the Truth, remembering myself to be a Jew, and have therefore taken upon Mee (sic) the Person of a Plain, Neutral Relater only’ (Rites, transl. Chilmead [] fol. Cb). The Italian printed version reads: ‘figurandomi semplice, e neutrale relatore’. Here Modena emphasizes his impartiality and neutrality. Therefore in his work he refers to the Jews as ‘they’, not ‘we’. His persistence has to be seen in the context of contemporary religious controversy and polemics. The often hostile attitudes towards Jews and Judaism called for an intellectual response. But whenever a Jew dealt with Jewish religion or rites he was supposed to be partial, biased and one-sided, or – in short – a liar. Even worse, he could risk being blamed for proselytism. For that reason Modena hastens to stress that his intention is to report and not to persuade: ‘Perche hò inteso di riferire, e non di persuadere.’ In all printed versions appears the adjective ‘neutrale’ (neutral). But in the manuscript of the Venetian Archives it is clearly written ‘naturale’ (see

 The two entries read: ‘retrostam scripturam, quam dicit manu sua propria esse scriptam’, respectively: ‘manu sua scriptam et subsriptam affirmans et iurans continere veritatem.’  For the relation between Modena’s Riti and Christian literature, and, above all, to Buxtorf’s Synagoga Judaica see M.R. Cohen, ‘Leone da Modena’s Riti: a Seventeenth-Century Plea For Social Toleration of Jews’, Jewish Social Studies  () -.



Z  – M  R T

illustration below). ‘Natural’ in the sense of genuine, true, unadulterated, corresponding to the aforementioned ‘stil nudo’ (naked style), as a clear opposition to artificially or rhetorically made. The emphasis on nonrhetorical style is in itself one of the most subtle rhetorical devices, that of rendering art to not appear artificial. The difference between the two words is not immense but interesting enough.

On May , , the Inquisitor reached a verdict on the manuscript, and his author was admonished to not print or even circulate it. Apparently not very affected by this, Modena prepared a new edition of his ‘Sefer Riti’, as he calls it in his autobiography: ‘I decided to publish a second edition here in Venice, deleting and adding items as I wished for that purpose’ (Hayye Yehudah, fol. b, ). Also in the ‘Proemio’ he confesses to having omitted some disadvantageous items (‘non niego di hauer procurato di fuggire lo scherno affatto di tante ceremonie’) – contrary to the claimed completeness and his expressed affirmation not to leave out a single bagatelle. On the title-page of that second edition () we read: ‘con licenza de Superiori.’ According to Cecil Roth, Modena did not have any problem getting this permission. However, up to now, I have been unable to find

 ‘[...] Intimandum esse supradicto Leoni Hebreo, ne audeat facere imprimere sup[dict] um librum, nec illius copiam alicui tradere.’ (A.S.V., Sant’Uffizio, b.).  No.  in his booklist (Hayye Yehudah, fol. a, ).  ‘Hò tutte l’obseruanze de gl’ Hebrei d’hoggi descritte [...] e niuna minutia tralasciata.’  ‘Reprenant un peu courage, il demanda la permission d’en donner une seconde édition, à Venise, sous sa propre surveillance, ce qu’il obtint aisément[!]’ (C. Roth, ‘Léon de Modène, ses Riti Ebraici et le Saint-Office à Venise’, Revue des Études Juives  [] -, p. ).



N  N R?

the document relating thereto, neither in the bundles of files of the Holy Office, nor in those of the Riformatori dello studio di Padova. The eagerness with which Modena reached for his goal is admirable. The changes or modifications he made to the printed version of the manuscript are due to his fear of consequences imposed by the Holy Office and give evidence of his wisdom, not his cowardice. He was selfconfident and acted subtly and imperturbably in publishing his apologetic work, referring to and taking advantage of the contemporary rhetorical style. Naturally, he is not absolutely neutral, and it is easy to detect certain pro-Jewish tendencies: Modena presents the Jews as not superstitious, moderate, eager to help their neighbours, particularly the Christians, and some of them (‘alcuni’/‘non pochi’) seem to be nearly enlightened avant la lettre, led by unprejudiced reason. This presentation should have been acceptable for Italian Christians and other gentiles. ‘Its primary goal was,’ according to Mark Cohen, ‘to advance the social integration of Jews into Christian society.’ The particular situation in the Venetian Ghetto where Italian, Ashkenazic (‘Tedeschi’), Levantine, and Sephardic Jews lived side by side is also reflected in Modena’s book with a clear partiality in favour of the Italians. Modena writes pro domo when he puts stress on the exemplary customs and manners of his ‘compatriots’. Not only with regard to their behaviour, open-mindedness and sincerity does he attest them superiority, but even for respecting the pronunciation of Hebrew and knowledge of grammar he grants the first prize to the Italian Jews. This is a further deviation from the alleged impartiality. Whatever had been the ‘real’ intentions of Leone da Modena, his Historia de Riti has the distinction of being the first description of Jewish ritual written by a Jew for a gentile audience in the vernacular  and of becoming ‘a major source of information for Christians about Judaism

 Nor in other sources. Comp. Nino Samaja, ‘Le vicende di un libro. “Storia dei riti hebraici” di Leon Modena’, Rassegna Mensile di Israel  () -.  Cohen, ‘Leone da Modena’s Riti’, -.  ‘[...] ne vi è chi più chiaro, e conforme alle regole della vera Grammatica (detta da essi Dichduch [hebr. diqduq]) favelli, che gl’ Italiani’ (second part, first chapter).  In fact Modena feared that since his manuscript is written in vernacular and not in Latin, it could evoke a further clerical reproach: ‘They [the Christians] will say, “How insolent are they to print in the vernacular, informing the Christians not only of their laws, but also of some matters contrary to our religion and beliefs”.’ (Hayye Yehudah, fol. b, ).



Z  – M  R T

for many generations to come’. The many editions, reprints and translations testify to the enormous public interest caused by Modena’s Riti. That such intellectual intercourse had some influence on the mitigation of the religious controversy is not to be doubted. And it is strange enough that Heinrich Graetz and some other scholars blamed Leone da Modena for having revealed secrets of Judaism and exposed them to Christian ridicule, whereas it is the transparency of his book which makes it a precursor or early witness of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, amongst Italian Jews. Rafael Arnold Universität Paderborn

 H.E. Adelman, ‘L. da Modena, The Autobiography and the Man’, in Cohen, ed., The Autobiography, -, p. .  A translation into English appeared in , into French in , into Dutch in , into Latin in  [into Hebrew in ].



Haskalah

W’   N? C  H  R   T  H G

Starting point: Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev’s Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri In , the Krakow-born maskil Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev (-) published Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri (‘Instruction in the Hebrew Language’), an elaborate grammar of Hebrew that would become one of the most influential manuals of the early nineteenth century. Following current ideology, he had written the book for the ba‘al lashon ‘ivri, the ‘man of Hebrew letters’ who wished not only to read Hebrew, but also to write it correctly. In  folios, Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri taught the aspiring author all there was to know about Hebrew phonology, morphology, and syntax. This emphasis on active competence alongside passive knowledge was in itself nothing new; it was the choice of Hebrew that proved revolutionary. Like all grammarians before him, ben Ze’ev had focussed on the biblical variant. Unlike his predecessors, however, he had not contented himself with merely reproducing the set of abstract roots and patterns that had been reconstructed by the medieval grammarians and handed down by generations of scholars. Instead, he had concentrated upon the language as it had been laid down in one actual, canonical, corpus: the Hebrew Bible, whose idiom was to be the touchstone of all future maskilic compositions. Hence, for example, the unprecedented analysis of biblical word order in the section on how to construct sentences (hibbur ha-mishpatim) where, by comparing German and Hebrew, ben Ze’ev had managed to define the latter as a unique VSO-language (taqdim ha-po‘al, i.e., the Verb precedes [the Subject]). Hence also the section on verbal syntax (shimmush ha-zeman), where he interpreted the ostensibly simple triad

 This zuta is a follow-up on a brief observation I included in my forthcoming article ‘Hebrew or the Holy Tongue? Imitation and Authenticity in Medieval Hebrew Writing’ (n. ) in L. Nauta, Language and Cultural Change. Aspects of the Study and Use of Language: the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Louvain ,  - .  Fols a-b (the Breslau  edition is misnumbered here; the entire section counts  fols).

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 114 –121. © 2007 Springer.



W’   N?

‘avar-hoveh-‘atid (‘past-present-future’) in the light of the much more differentiated German tense system. Hence, too, the resolute dismissal of medieval poetry in favour of biblical prosody, which had recently been reconstructed in Robert Lowth’s De sacra poesi Hebraeorum (). Of course we should not forget that the artificiality of Andalusian Hebrew poetry had been a persistent topos in Jewish poetics ever since Judah haLevi had denounced it as a hybrid mixture of indigenous Hebrew forms and foreign Arabic metres. However, prior to ben Ze’ev authors had merely reiterated the topos as a rhetorical exercise that bore no immediate consequences. By contrast, ben Ze’ev used it as a starting point for formulating a concrete alternative. Henceforth it was the language of the biblical text (i.e. the language of the ancient Hebrew auctores rather than its systematisation by the medieval medaqdeqim) that would serve as the sole, classical, model. Now the question arises as to what extent the title of the grammar, Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri, mirrors this new orientation. It goes without saying that our focal point here will be ben Ze’ev’s use of the term ‘ivri, a term which until then had been conspicuously absent from the titles of Hebrew grammars written in Hebrew. Obviously this first appearance first and for all reflects the book’s bilingual setting, with ‘ivri serving as the natural Hebrew equivalent for the German adjective ‘hebräisch’. But what if we leave aside the immediate historical context and turn to the Hebrew linguistic tradition itself, which had ultimately fostered ben Ze’ev’s ambitious masterpiece? Could that tradition be invoked in order to sanction this unprecedented use of the term, which previous grammarians had always avoided (and, as we shall see, on good grounds)? Or had



Fols a-b, esp. § . Fols a-a.  Judah ha-Levi, Kuzari II.-, a passage which echoes heavily through ben Ze’ev’s discussion.  Witness also the fact that ben Ze’ev’s grammar was influenced by the German (in Hebrew characters) ‘Ammude lashon. Die Elemente der hebräischen Sprache nach logischen Prinzipien entwickelt (Berlin ), in which Joel Bril (-) had applied principles from contemporary German Sprachwissenschaft (notably Johann Chr. Adelung) to biblical Hebrew; cf. I.E. Zwiep, ‘Imagined Speech Communities. Western Ashkenazi Multilingualism as Reflected in Eighteenth-Century Grammars of Hebrew’, in S. Berger, et al., eds, Speaking Jewish – Jewish Speak. Multilingualism in Western Ashkenazic Culture, Studia Rosenthaliana  () -. 



Z  – H

ben Ze’ev made an iconoclastic choice, one that ignored more than eight centuries of linguistic methodology?

Medieval Hebrew grammars and their titles If the pre-modern scholars had been more or less unanimous in thus avoiding the term ‘ivri, they had shown great creativity when it came to prefacing their grammars with adequate titles. A short glance at the medieval linguistic library teaches us that these titles, which range from the sober and straightforward to the playful and imaginative, roughly fall into three categories. First of all we find titles that reflect the author’s methodology, or the genre he had chosen to transmit his linguistic data. This seems to have been the dominant mode in the early centuries of Hebrew grammar, of which only a few illustrations can be given here. For example, various Karaite scholars had written treatises under the title Sefer Diqduq, which conveyed to the reader that in their books they wished to subject the biblical text to ‘minute (linguistic) scrutiny’ (diqduq). When in the early tenth century Saadia Gaon wrote his biblical dictionary, its Hebrew title (viz. Egron, ‘Collection’) mirrored the contemporary Arabic conception of lexicography as an ‘act of gathering and collecting’. In tenth- and eleventh-century al-Andalus, the art of Hebrew grammar had been developed and perfected through a passionate exchange of letters. Works such as Dunash ben Labrat’s Sefer Teshuvot (‘The Book of Refutations’) and later Ibn Janah’s Risâlat al-Tanbîh (‘The Letter of Admonition’) remind us of this collective polemical effort. The talmudic lexicon by Nathan ben Yehiel of Rome (th century) became known as the ‘Arukh, due to the systematic ‘arrangement’ of its entries. And when later scholars began to issue complementary grammars-cum-dictionaries, they were eager to emphasize their ‘comprehensiveness’ by opting for titles like Sefer Mikhlol (by the famous David Qimhi). By contrast, the second category was made up of books whose titles referred not to the books’ form, but to their contents. This appears to have been a rather short-lived tradition, which remained confined to Muslim Spain. As examples one may mention the Arabic studies, by



Cf. M.G. Carter, ‘Arabic Lexicography’, in M.J.L. Young, et al., eds, Religion, Learning and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period, Cambridge , -.



W’   N?

Judah Hayyûj, of the weak and geminative verbs (Kitâb al-Af‘âl Dhawât Hurûf al-Lîn and Kitâb al-Af‘âl Dhawât al-Mithlayn, late th century) and their Hebrew translations, some fifty years later, by Moses ibn Gikatilla. The works of Ibn Gikatilla’s contemporary Judah ibn Bal‘am (wellknown for his Kitâb al-Tajnîs, ‘The Book of Homonyms’) also fall into this class. The third – and by far most productive – category, that of books carrying fancy titles, seems to have arisen only around the middle of the eleventh century. Within this group various strategies, which were not always mutually exclusive, can be distinguished. Initially, Andalusian scholars would adorn their treatises with metaphoric titles that expressed their conceptions of the orderly nature of grammar. Thus, while the manifold order of Hebrew morphology was invoked by Ibn Janah’s ‘Book of the Patterned Flowerbeds’ (Kitâb al-Luma‘), Ibn Ezra recalled its normative balance in ‘The Book of Scales’ (Sefer Moznayyim). Later authors generally chose more abstract imagery, preferring biblical expressions that alluded to the book’s functional qualities. Among the many examples of this strategy we may mention Abraham Bedershi’s dictionary of synonyms Hotam Tokhnit (‘Seal of the Model’, Ezek. :) and Moses ibn Habib’s Marpe’ Lashon (‘Healing of Speech’, based on Prov. :). Less specific titles like Even Bohan (‘Foundation Stone’, Is. :) and Leshon Limmudim (‘Language of Instruction’, Is. :) were even used on more than one occasion. Finally, from the fourteenth century onwards, we witness a tendency among Jewish grammarians working in a Christian environment to explicitly claim their authorship by including a pun on their own names in the titles of their works. Classical examples are Joseph ibn Kaspi’s biblical dictionary Sharshot Kesef (‘Garlands of Silver’, also carrying an echo of Ibn Kaspi’s home-town Argentière) and of course Profiat Duran’s ‘scholastic’ Ma‘aseh Efod of . It is not too difficult to reduce this apparent plethora of possibilities to one simple conclusion: in most titles it is not conceptions of language that

 In  Menachem ben Solomon of Rome completed a comprehensive manual for the study of Hebrew entitled Even Bohan; shortly after , his fellow-townsman Immanuel ben Solomon wrote an equally exhaustive treatise of the same title. Leshon Limmudim appears as the title of grammars by both Solomon ben Abba Mari Yarhi (late th century) and David ben Solomon ibn Yahya (second half of the th century).  Besides referring to the priestly breastplate, the word efod is an acronym of Ani Profiat Duran, which eventually earned Duran the nickname ‘Ephodi’.



Z  – H

are reflected but conceptions of grammar, its methodology, nature, and significance. The books being composed by Jewish authors for a Jewish audience, there was no need to remind the reader that Hebrew was their subject matter. Indeed only a few Jewish grammars written in Arabic were prefaced with titles expressly indicating that al-lugha al-‘ibrâniyya, the Hebrew (and not the Arabic) language, was their object of study. But was it really? For if we turn from the titles of the medieval grammars to their actual contents, we find that the word ‘Hebrew’ is not just missing on the title pages but appears, with a few exceptions, equally absent from the morphological and lexical analyses in the body of the texts. In the following paragraphs I shall argue that this was no mere coincidence but a deliberate, methodological as well as cultural, choice on the part of the early medaqdeqim. A choice that reflected the agenda of the tenth-century ‘School of Cordoba’ and its immediate successors, who developed a highly normative form of Hebrew grammar on the – more ‘creative’ – foundations laid by Saadia Gaon in Abbasid Iraq earlier that century.

Norm and normativism: Hebrew versus leshon ha-qodesh In his Book on the Purity of the Language of the Hebrews, which has come down to us in fragments only, Saadia had offered the first reconstruction of Hebrew morphology ever. What is important for us here, is the choice of Hebrew that had served as the basis of this reconstruction. Writing in the early decades of the tenth century he could choose from three varieties, which were each not entirely uniform. First of all there was the highly stylised language of the Hebrew Bible. Then came its younger ‘contender’ rabbinic Hebrew, which over the years had undergone various degrees of ‘corrective’ influence from the biblical idiom. The final stage was represented by ‘paytanic Hebrew’, the language of contemporary liturgical poetry, which combined a strong biblical orientation with a tendency to create exuberant neologisms, if necessary with the help of rabbinic and even Aramaic expressions.



The work was edited by A. Dothan as The Dawn of Hebrew Linguistics, Jerusalem . See also G. Khan, ‘The Early Eastern Traditions of Hebrew Grammar’, in N. de Lange, ed., Hebrew Scholarship and the Medieval World, Cambridge , ff.



W’   N?

Saadia, however, chose not to limit his analysis to the Hebrew of one single phase or corpus, but instead set out to build a reconstruction based on the totality of biblical, rabbinic and paytanic usage. The result was a kind of universal ‘deep structure’ of Hebrew, a theoretical construct rather than an actual language, which Saadia labelled the ‘pure language’ (Arab. fisâha, Hebr. tzahot). As long as Hebrew authors kept an eye on this abstract matrix and adhered to the rules of analogy, they could elaborate upon this set of general principles and expand the language according to their needs. It may be clear that this definition of tzahot, which did not tie the authors to one limited, canonical, corpus, played a pivotal role in the continuation of Hebrew as a literary language. A few decades later, the Jewish grammarians in Umayyad Cordoba adopted Saadia’s concept of tzahot. They were, however, less liberal in its application. On the one hand they continued Saadia’s conviction that tzahot was an abstract standard and that correct Hebrew should not imitate the language of actual texts but merely abide by grammatical rules. They did not, however, believe that these rules should reflect the totality of Hebrew usage. Instead they focused their attention on one single, historical, manifestation of the language: the language of the Bible which, thanks to its divine origin and primeval beauty, was the only variety of Hebrew that could compete with the classical Arabic of the ‘inimitable’ Qur’an. Henceforth correct Hebrew equalled original Hebrew, or rather, equalled the medieval reconstruction of that original state of the language as it had existed before decline (read: Diaspora) had set in. For indeed the Andalusian Jewish authors showed no inclination to write authentic biblical Hebrew. While they faithfully stuck to the yesodot (‘bases’) and shorashim (‘roots’) which the grammarians had recovered from the language of Scripture, they never imitated its complex verbal syntax, nor did they ever apply the archaic prosody of the Psalms and Proverbs. To employ authentic Hebrew, they believed, had been the prerogative of the only native speakers the language had ever known: the ancient Hebrews who had populated the holy land in biblical times.



This Hebrew expression first appeared in the Hebrew preface, completed , to the Egron, N. Allony, ed., Jerusalem ,  line . It was based on Is. :: ‘… and the tongue of stammerers temaher le-dabber tzahot, will hasten to speak clearly.’



Z  – H

And so the Andalusian grammarians came to differentiate between two kinds of original Hebrew. On the one hand they postulated the existence of a pristine leshon ‘ivrim, i.e. a ‘language of the Hebrews’; on the other they distinguished leshon ha-qodesh, an expression referring not only to the scriptural codification of the original Hebrew  but also to the medieval reconstruction of that scriptural language. What with the pre-historic Hebrew remaining firmly out of reach, the medieval grammarians had to make do with the written, secondary, leshon ha-qodesh. Yet what may have seemed an unfortunate drawback for some turned out a great advantage for all. Being thus exempted from writing authentic Hebrew, medieval Jewish authors were free to transform the abstract leshon haqodesh into a sophisticated and versatile literary medium, which forever could be adapted to the needs of time, place and genre.

And back again: Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev’s Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri If we now return to our starting point, i.e. to Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev’s maskilic grammar of , we may conclude that the occurrence of the word ‘ivri (instead of leshon ha-qodesh) in its title reflects not one but two characteristic shifts. First of all we witness, in a rather oblique way, the transition from Yiddish to German as the Jewish vernacular in the German language area, a transition which began to take shape in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Whereas a Yiddish-speaking author no doubt would have written a manual of loyshen qoydesh/ leshon ha-qodesh, a German-oriented linguist like ben Ze’ev would rather compose a ‘Lehrbuch der hebräischen Sprache’, talmud lashon ‘ivri in Hebrew. The second shift concerned the appreciation of Hebrew as a national literary language. According to ben Ze’ev, Jewish authors

 In M.Sot. VII., leshon ha-qodesh (‘the language of the sanctuary’) was related to the text of the Hebrew Bible as recited in Temple ritual. Already in this classic passage the expression thus refers to Hebrew as a written language as opposed to the vernaculars of contemporary Jews in Palestine.  The most explicit example of this differentiation is found in Ibn Janah’s Sefer haRiqmah, M. Wilensky, ed., and D. Tene, Jerusalem , , where Ibn Janah justified an apparent post-biblical anomaly by postulating a precedent in the usage of the ancient Hebrews. The ‘ivrim appear in a similar, normative, role in Maimonides’ vindication of the same anomaly in his commentary on M.Terumah I.: ‘Those who composed the Mishnah no doubt were Hebrews living in “the glorious land”.’ Throughout such argumentations, the factor ‘land’ (as opposed to ‘exile’) appears of decisive importance.



W’   N?

should no longer write Hebrew according to an abstract matrix that had been created in exile, but start to imitate the language as it had revealed itself in its original guise, in the canonical text of the Hebrew scriptures. With ben Ze’ev’s grammar as their guide, Jewish authors no longer had to hide behind their being ‘in galut’ as the ultimate excuse for linguistic and literary failure. Instead, they could commit themselves to writing authentic Hebrew. Irene E. Zwiep Universiteit van Amsterdam

 In a recent paper presented at the colloquium Ma‘avarim shel yeda‘ ba-tarbut ha-yehudit (World Union of Jewish Studies/The Open University of Israel,  March ), I have tried to show that this turn towards the authentic was in tune with the nascent historicism in later eighteenth-century Jewish thought.



‘B -‘I A  F F … W I S N T  M  K  B’: T H P   H  G

Overall description of the Biqqure ha-‘Ittim Index Project Pursuant to the publication of the Ha-Me’assef Index – Sha‘ar LaHaskalah: An Annotated Index to Ha-Me’assef, the First Hebrew Periodical (-) – in  by Magnes Press, I continued with the indexing project of the early Hebrew Haskalah periodicals. Now, upon completion of this phase, I am presenting the second monograph and Index – a computerized and annotated index to Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, the journal of the Haskalah in Galicia and the Austrian empire that was published in Vienna from  to . The book is titled Biqqure ha-‘Ittim – Biqqure ha-Haskalah [Biqqure ha-‘Ittim – the ‘First Fruits’ of Haskalah]. Biqqure ha-‘Ittim was the second major Hebrew periodical, which was published continuously for several years after the demise of ha-Me’assef. Some critics even considered Biqqure ha-‘Ittim to be a direct continuation of ha-Me’assef, notwithstanding the difference in style and contents. Undoubtedly, the launching of the Viennese journal marks the transition of the centre of Hebrew Haskalah literature from Germany to the Austrian empire. The pages of the new periodical attest to the transition of the ‘centre of gravity’ to Vienna as the maskilim were attempting to establish their own version of the Enlightenment. Having gotten their ideology from Berlin, they endeavoured to translate it to the needs of the new local circumstances. In the s, the journal became the central organ of publication by established Haskalah writers as well as by aspiring writers who were destined to make a name for themselves in years to come. Now, with the assistance of the current Index, it is possible to trace the developmental

 The following article represents a section of the English Abstract of the monograph and index on Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, published by Magunes Press, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim – Biqqure haHaskalah [Biqqure ha-‘Ittim – The ‘First Fruits’ of Haskalah] Jerusalem .  M. Pelli, Sha‘ar la-Haskalah [Gate to Haskalah]: An Annotated Index to ha-Me’assef, the First Hebrew Periodical (-), Jerusalem .  Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, - (-).

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 122 –131. © 2007 Springer.



‘B -‘I A  F F …

processes of these writers and of the Galician school in its formative years. As its name implies, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim represented the ‘first fruits’ harvested by the maskilim in the Austrian empire, ranging from Galicia to Moravia and Italy. Their creative writings, as well as their intellectual and scholarly essays in Judaica and Hebraica and in the general area of the humanities and the sciences, can be found in the journal. Their works covered a diversified range of topics and disciplines such as literature, language, Scripture commentary, history, science, and education. As a scholarly journal, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim published essays on ethics, religion and philosophy as well as learned biographies of past Jewish luminaries, especially in the field of Jewish scholarship. All in all, this periodical facilitates a glimpse into the Hebrew Enlightenment in the Austro-Hungarian empire as the so-called Galician Haskalah was attempting to carry on the tradition established by the German Haskalah. Like its German predecessor, its main goal was to resuscitate the Jewish people by reviving the Hebrew language and its literature and by modernizing and updating Hebrew culture. The Index to Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, which will be published shortly, is an alphabetical author-and-subject index, which covers all articles, essays, biographies, poems, stories, fables, epigrams, news, editorial comments, and announcements included in all sections and departments of the volume journal. This comprehensive list contains cross-references to items reprinted from the first Haskalah journal, ha-Me’assef. In addition, the Index lists all title pages (covers) of the volumes and title pages of sections and departments as well as the publisher’s notices usually printed in German with Hebrew letters. Also, all communal reports, general and practical information and monetary tables, printed in German with Hebrew letters. All articles and items printed in the only German supplement bound with volume five were also included. These German titles, whether in Hebrew characters or in Gothic script, were translated into

 See M. Pelli, The Age of Haskalah, Leiden , ch. , on the Hebrew language in the Haskalah, -, and my article on the revival of Hebrew in the Haskalah, ‘The Revival of Hebrew Began in Haskalah: ha-Me’assef, the First Hebrew Periodical, as a Vehicle for the Renewal of the Language’, Leshonenu la‘Am . () - (Hebrew). See also, idem, The Circle of ha-Me’assef Writers at the Dawn of Haskalah, Israel , ch. , on Hebrew, - (Hebrew).



Z  – H

Hebrew. All materials from the calendar ‘Ittim Mezumanim, published with the first two volumes of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, but omitted from almost all available copies of the journal in research libraries, were also listed. I found these rare copies and incorporated their listings in the Index. Similarly, other omissions from volumes one and two, as discussed in the Introduction, were included in the Index as well. The cross-referenced author-and-subject headings cover such topics as concepts, events and public affairs, institutions and organizations, contemporary and historical personalities and authors, various literary genres and book titles. Also, Judaic subjects, such as Bible, Talmud, Hebrew language and literature, translations, and disciplines in the humanities and in the sciences. Entries within each author and subject heading were also sorted and arranged alphabetically, as customary. Annotations were added to many entries, identifying authors, deciphering initials, and providing cross-references and some bibliographical data. The indexing was done, for the most part, according to the system used by Haifa University Library for its Index to Hebrew Periodicals. As stated in the English abstract to the previous Index on ha-Me’assef, I began to work on the ha-Me’assef Index in the early s, proceeding on and off while continuing to do research on the literature of the Haskalah. Throughout the years, rare volumes of ha-Me’assef were checked in research libraries in Israel, Europe and America, and a complete, updated and annotated working copy of the journal was compiled. Based on this working copy, the Index was keyed into a bi-lingual computer, while a software programme, written especially for this project, expanded, crossreferenced, sorted, and arranged all entries according to our specifications. Needless to say, bibliographical and editorial work and proofreading accompanied each phase of the indexing activities. Since , similar work was done on the Biqqure ha-‘Ittim Index, leading to its completion in . The ‘inventory’ of the Index contained  original entries, which were cross-referenced and expanded in the final run of the software to , items. The final output (prior to final editing) culminated in  doublecolumn, folio-size pages totaling some , words and ,, bytes.



Sha‘ar la-Haskalah, ii.



‘B -‘I A  F F …

Now, upon its publication, the Index should serve as a reliable reference tool for viewing and reviewing the major topics and issues that occupied the minds of the editors and the writers of the journal. Readers may now examine the scope and the character of the material published in the  volumes of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. Likewise, it is now convenient to assess the contribution of participating authors to the Haskalah literature, and to explore various literary genres employed by the authors and editors of the journal. Similarly, the writers’ cultural and intellectual endeavours in various aspects of Judaica, Hebraica, and secular disciplines are now conveniently sorted and arranged. From a literary point of view, the organized literary ‘inventory’ of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, classified according to genres, lists, for example,  poems,  stories,  idylls in prose,  fables,  epigrams,  riddles, as well as  biographies (including items recycled from ha-Me’assef). For the student of Jewish intellectual and social history, religion, education and Jewish life, such categories are also available in the index. Following is an abridged abstract of the Introduction to the Biqqure ha-‘Ittim Index. The analytical Introduction examines the background that led to the publication of Biqqure ha’Itim in Austria and to the transition of the centre of the Haskalah from Germany to Austria. As part of this background, several periodicals that were published elsewhere after ha-Me’assef had been closed have been probed for possible influence on Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. An evaluation of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim and its editors and writers in light of their literary, cultural and intellectual publications on the basis of an analytical study of the Index, is presented in the Introduction.

The transition of the Haskalah from Germany to Austria The Introduction to the Index examines some of the cultural trends that developed among the maskilim in Germany since the demise of ha-Me’assef first in  and then in , relating them to the emergence of the Haskalah in Austria and to the launching of the periodical Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. The folding of ha-Me’assef came as a result of the changes in cultural needs of the intellectual elite among the maskilim who increasingly resorted to the use of German and German culture and literature instead of Hebrew. This trend is documented in the correspondence 

Z  – H

between the first editor of ha-Me’assef, Isaac Euchel, and its last editor, Shalom ha-Kohen, and in the writings of the contemporary maskil Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev, among others. Nevertheless, there were attempts to revive that Hebrew journal. First, in , there was an unsuccessful attempt, as Ha-Kohen prompted Euchel to assume again the editorship of ha-Me’assef. Then, in , ha-Kohen himself launched the new ha-Me’assef, which continued publication for three years, till . Seven years after the closing of the journal, in , there was an attempt to publish selections from ha-Me’assef, a plan that most probably did not materialize. The emergence of the Haskalah in Austria is said to have been a gradual process, following in the footsteps of the Berlin Haskalah, although its course eventually took a somewhat different path. While the early buds of the Haskalah in Austria could be traced to the Tolerance Edict of Joseph II in , other trends facilitated the introduction of the Haskalah to the empire. This writer notes that two institutions which became active in Vienna in these years led to the growing interest in the Haskalah. They were the Hebrew printing presses, which employed Hebrew proofreaders and editors, and the beginning of modern Hebrew schools and the practice of private Hebrew tutoring. Both institutions attracted noted Hebrew writers and educators, the carriers of Hebrew culture, to Vienna. These Hebraists were instrumental in cultivating the Hebrew culture in their new place. Among them were prominent maskilim, such as Shmuel Romanelli, Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev, Shlomo Löwissohn, and Meir Obernik.

 Sh. ha-Kohen, Ktav Yosher: An Epistle of Righteousness, Vienna , f. (Hebrew). Euchel, the first editor of ha-Me’assef, bemoaned in  the changing times in his florid style: ‘I have also tasted the dregs of the cup of reeling [the cup of poison], which came up on the nation of Judea and its enlighteners. The days of love have passed, gone are the days of the covenant between me [or between it, namely the Hebrew language] and the children of Israel [...]. They have run away, and they have gone!’  J. Loeb ben Ze’ev, Otzar ha-Shorashim: [Treasure of Roots] I, Vienna , in the introduction, f. (my pagination) (Hebrew).  M. ha-Levi Letteris, Sefer Mikhteve ‘Ivrit: [Book of Hebrew Writings], Vienna , f. (Hebrew).  Ankündigung für Freunde der hebräichen Litteratur, Berlin , a  page pamphlet bound at the end of volume  of the new ha-Me’assef (), which I found in the State library in Berlin. It was also published as an article, ‘Ankündigung für Freunde der hebräischen Litteratur’, Jedidja , , , -.



‘B -‘I A  F F …

When Shalom ha-Kohen came to Vienna in  at the invitation of Anton Schmid, the publisher of Hebrew books and owner of the printing press, to become a proofreader and editor, he found the ground prepared for launching a journal, following somewhat in the footsteps of ha-Me’assef.

Phenomena of Jewish and Hebrew Periodicals in the early th century While this is the generally accepted overview of the backdrop leading to the appearance of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim, this writer undertook to examine some other phenomena on the Jewish publications scene that he believes have some bearing on the launching of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. The first phenomenon is the publication of several Jewish journals, which attempted to fill the lacuna of the demised Hebrew journal, haMe’assef. In , between the first ha-Me’assef and the renewed one, two Jewish educators, David Fraenkel and Joseph Wolf, published a German periodical, Sulamith. It undertook to promote culture and humanism among the ‘Jewish nation’ and to advocate brotherhood and tolerance. In addition to the bulk of material in German, Sulamith also published poems and articles in Hebrew. Its interest in Hebrew was also manifested in articles in German which were dedicated to leading Haskalah authors such as Naphtali Hirsch Wessely and Judah Loeb ben Ze’ev. In addition, the journal published bi-lingual poems by Shalom ha-Kohen. Sulamith was intended to serve the remnants of the Hebrew maskilim who wished to read a Hebrew periodical or were nostalgic about haMe’assef and its authors. The second German Jewish periodical was Jedidiah, published first in  by Jeremias Heinemann, as a religious, ethical and pedagogic quar-

 On Schmid, see M. ha-Levi Letteris, ‘A Few Words Concerning the History of the Printing Trade’, Biqqurim  () - (Hebrew). Also H.D. Friedberg, The History of Hebrew Printing in those Cities in Europe, Antwerp , - (Hebrew); A. Mayer, Wiens Buchdrucker-Geschichte -, Vienna , -; J. Jacobs and S. Mannheimer, ‘Schmid, Anton von’, Jewish Encyclopdia.com; P. Csendes, ed., Österreichische biographisches Lexikon - X, Vienna , ; R. Julius, ‘Anton von Schmid – Royal Printer and Nobleman’, Jewish Book Annual,  () -.  Sulamith, Herausgegeben von D. Fränkel und Wolf, Leipzig . It was ‘eine Zeitschrift zur Beförderung der Kultur und Humanität unter der jüdischen Nation’.



Z  – H

terly. It, too, carried articles and poems in Hebrew, and was intended as well to serve Hebrew maskilim. Meanwhile in Amsterdam, the Hebrew society ‘Tongeleth’ launched its Hebrew periodical, Biqqure Tongeleth, in , prior to the publication of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. This writer asserts that these three periodicals must have been on the desk of Shalom ha-Kohen and Anton Schmid when they were contemplating their plans to publish a new Hebrew journal in Austria. Unquestionably, the orientation of these periodicals, the nature of the material they published and their contents, and the service that they rendered to the German and Hebrew reading public prompted the publisher and editor to undertake a similar enterprise in Austria. Apparently, the very title of the Amsterdam periodical Biqqure Tongeleth had influenced the editor’s decision to use a similar title for Biqqure ha-‘Ittim.

Announcing the launching of an annual and a calendar In March , Schmid announced that he was going to publish a calendar, titled ‘Ittim Mezumanim, and an annual by the name of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. The simultaneous publication of the annual and the calendar attests to an innovative concept. According to this writer, these two publications were interrelated and interdependent, a view that has not been discussed in any critical writing on Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. To understand this innovative concept, this writer proposes to examine the contemporary phenomenon of Jewish pocket calendars. The contents, style and essence of some calendars were examined while particular attention was given to Joseph Perl’s special calendar, Tzir Ne’eman. It was published in -, with a literary section titled ‘Luah HaLev’. The combination of a calendar and a literary section is said to



Jedidjah, eine religiöse, moralische und pädagogische Zeitschrift I,  (). ‫ ומכתבים אשר נחברו ונאספו יחד על ידי אנשי חברת‬,‫ מאמרים למודים‬,‫ שירים‬,‫ חבור כולל‬,‫בכורי תועלת‬ ‫ אמשטרדם ה' תק"פ‬,‫תועלת‬.  A. Schmid, .‫אנקינדיגונג איינעס פאללשטענדיגען איזראעליטישען קאלענדערס אויף דאז יאהר תקפ"א‬ ‫אונטער דעם טיטעל עתים מזומנים‬.  ...‫ ולוח יונים ורייסען וחגאות שלהם‬,‫לוח על שנת תקע"ד לבריאת עולם לחשבון עם ישראלי עם לוח נוצרי רומא‬ ‫ טארנאפאל תקע"ד‬,‫ונוסף לזה לוח הלב אשר כל קורא בו ימצא מרגוע לנפשו‬. A year later Perl changed the title to ‫ לוח השנה משנת חמשת‬,‫ ציר נאמן לשנת התקע"ה‬:‫ציר נאמן הלוח השני‬ ‫ונוסף לזה לוח‬...‫אלפים תקע"ה לבריאת עולם לחשבון עם ישראל עם לוח נוצרי רומא ולוח יונים ורייסען עם ימי חגיהם‬ ‫ טארנאפאל תקע"ה‬,‫הלב אשר כל קורא בו ימצא מרגוע לנפשו‬. 



‘B -‘I A  F F …

have impacted the editorial decision of the editor and publisher of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim regarding the nature and contents of their envisioned journal. Thus, it is the conclusion of this writer that Biqqure ha-‘Ittim at its inception was planned as an almanac, incorporating data, business and practical information with intellectual and literary material. It was intended to combine literature and commerce, knowledge and practical information. The impact of Perl’s calendar is evident by the similarity in general concept and contents. Additionally, some items in Perl’s calendar and literary supplement, as discussed in the monograph, were emulated in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim and in ‘Ittim Mezumanim. The calendar and the journal supplemented and complemented each other, thus having almanac materials published also in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim. This editorial concept behind the publications lasted for the first two years,  and . After the second year, the calendar ceased publication, while the editorial concept of the journal changed gradually with the replacement of editors following the initial editorship of Shalom haKohen, who was the editor of volumes - (-). Subsequently, Moshe Landau edited volumes - (-); Shlomo Pergamenter – volume  (); Bernard Schlesinger edited volumes - (-); volumes - (-) were edited by Isaac Shmuel Reggio and the last two volumes, volumes - (-), were edited be Judah Jeitteles. Thus, the journal assumed a different editorial course which transformed it into the major Haskalah outlet for creativity and research done by Hebrew writers in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Trends in Belles Lettres and general topics in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim This section in the Introduction presents an overview of several literary genres and forms of literature, and cites some of the central issues and topics discussed in the twelve volumes of Biqqure ha’Itim. The overview is based on the listings in the Index. Some discussion of the literary genres in the early period of the Haskalah may be found in my previously published works. The sum total of the ‘inventory’ of Biqqure ha-‘Ittim attests to the maskilim’s quest for literary forms, linguistic styles and var-



See M. Pelli, Kinds of Genre in Haskalah Literature: Types and Topics, Israel  (Hebrew); idem, The Circle of ha-Me’assef Writers (Hebrew).



Z  – H

ious areas of intellectual pursuit. They endeavored to express themselves in a language that they were trying to revive. They further wished to delineate their experience through the prism of literature and to depict their inner thoughts and feelings about their unique condition as they were trying to resuscitate Hebrew literature and culture. Poetry was the most popular kind of literature published in the journal, as it had been in ha-Me’assef. There were some  poems published in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim as compared to  in ha-Me’assef. One can attribute this apparent increase in poetic output to the inclusion in the journal of a whole book by Luzzatto, Kinnor Na‘im, which contained many poems, as well as the inclination of many young and aspiring writers to express themselves in poetry. Among the sub-categories of poems in the journal were poems devoted to nature, which advocated the ideal of living in the purity of nature. Other poems centred on the changing seasons, mostly spring, a time of renewal, which was chosen as a metaphor for the revival of the people. Several others were religious in tone and faithful in orientation. Some of the poems conveyed hope, while others highlighted sorrow, death, lamentation, and consolation. Dwelling on these themes, a few poets expressed their belief in afterlife. As had been customary in haMe’assef, several maskilim published occasional poems in praise of their rulers and community leaders. Many of the poems were translations and adaptations from the German and from other European languages. Such were the translations from the canonical corpus of German literature by Gessner, Lessing, Kleist, Herder (recycled from ha-Me’assef) as well as others by Bürger, Klopstock and Schiller. In prose, the Index lists some  stories (including the recycled prose from ha-Me’assef),  idylls in prose, and  biblical stories. Another genre in prose published in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim was the Dialogue of the Dead, a genre which had been popular in the previous century and was found also in ha-Me’assef. It was a dialogue taking place in the afterlife

  

See the chapter on poetry in The Circle of ha-Me’assef Writers, -. S.D. Luzzato, ‘Kinnor Na‘im’, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim  ()  (Hebrew). See the chapter on the Dialogues of the Dead in my book Kinds of Genre, -.



‘B -‘I A  F F …

between the Hebrew language and Naphtali Hirsch Wessely. As part of fiction, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim published one satire, by Isaac Erter. Fables constituted another frequent genre in the journal. Sixty six fables were published (including recycled fables from ha-Me’assef), which were classified as Aesopian, narrative fables, rhymed fables, and poetic fables. Some of the fables were adaptations from the writings of Gessner and Lessing (recycled) and Herder. Among some of the other genres published in the journal were riddles, epitaphs, and biographies. Reviewing the Index for outstanding topics which interested the maskilim, one notices the great number of articles in Biqqure ha-‘Ittim on the Hebrew language, about , indicative of the special attention that the maskilim understandably displayed toward that subject. Other major areas of interest included biblical topics and textual interpretation, on which the Index lists  items. Education, a major vehicle for change, has  items, and Jewish history some . In the sciences, the Index listed  articles. Similarly, there were some  items of news and several entries on the Jewish community. All in all, the Index is indicative of the rich contents and diversified subjects of the ‘first fruits’ of the Galician Haskalah. Moshe Pelli University of Central Florida



M. ha-Levi Alter, [‫שיחה בארצות החיים ]שיח מתים בין השפה העבריה ונפתלי הירץ ויזל על מצב השפה‬, Biqqure ha-‘Ittim  () -.  I . Erter, ‘Mozne Mishqal’ [Scale], Biqqure ha-‘Ittim  () - (Hebrew).  See the chapters on the fables in my books Kinds of Genres, -, and The Circle of ha-Me’assef Writers, -.



Within Orthodoxy

T M  H. A S   R  W H   M A R  D   S ‘A (OH )

It is a common opinion that halakhah is a rational process that becomes visible in the (normative) halakhic literature of the rabbis. Magic and superstition are not to be found in halakhic literature and are even oppressed by rabbinic Judaism, in contrast with and in opposition to the more folkloristic lay-Judaism of the common man in his daily life. Magic and the like are more common in other genres of rabbinic literature, like aggadah – the narrative part of the rabbinic literature – and kabbalistic literature, from the ancient period to the pre-modern period. Rabbi Soloveitchik, for example, compares the (halakhic) scholar with a scientist in his methods and aims: ‘He does not search out transcendental, ecstatic paroxysms or frenzied experiences that whisper intonations of another world into his ears. He does not require any miracles or wonder in order to understand the Torah. He approaches the world of Halakhah with his mind and intellect just as cognitive man approaches the natural realm. And since he relies upon his intellect, he places his faith in it and does not suppress any of his psychic faculties in order to merge into some supernal existence. His own personal understanding can resolve the most difficult and complex problems. He pays no heed to any murmurings of [emotional] intuition or other types of mysterious presentiments.’  E. Berkovitz in his ‘The nature and function of Jewish Law’ defines three features of halakhah which are to underscore its rational and utilitarian aim: . feasibility . the fostering of moral and ethical aspects . rationality, the process is ‘guided by common sense, or sevarah’. Furthermore, Berkovitz comments that ‘all interpretation is first of all an activity of the intellect. It is important to note the degree of authority that

 

Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, Philadelphia , . In his Essential Essays on Judaism, Jerusalem , .

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 134–141. © 2007 Springer.



T M  H

the Talmud ascribed to logical thinking ... The principle of the sevarah is effective in every area of Talmudic law ...’ In the last one hundred years, magic has been considered an important subject of scientific research in Jewish studies, much of it focusing on the Talmud. Although in general, the concept of Halakhah and halakhic literature as a rational phenomenon may hold true, attention should be paid to the presence of magical beliefs and practices in normative, legislative, halakhic literature like the Shulhan ‘Arukh of Rabbi Yosef Karo. The magical beliefs and rituals, which are found in the codex of the Shulhan ‘Arukh, are not confined only to the subject of the attitude of halakhah towards magic and superstition, as formulated in the ‘Laws on Magic and Divination’ (YD ). They are scattered around a wide area of subjects, including, for example, the laws on how to behave in the toilet (OH :,), the washing of the hands after the meal (OH :), laws concerning the wearing of clothes (OH :-), the laws on reading the Torah scroll in public (OH :), laws on (presumed) situations which pose a threat to the body (YD :), the laws of Shabbat (OH :) and marital laws (EH :-). This list is by no means exhaustive and many other examples may be cited. In this paper, I will elaborate on the laws of washing the hands after awakening (OH ) and try to show how in the course of time this ritual became more and more invested with magic, and how various medieval rational approaches were ignored by the author of the Shulhan ‘Arukh.

Talmudic sources Two Talmudic sources refer to the ritual of washing the hands after waking up in the morning. The first is bBer b, where the Talmud describes the berakhot a person has to say upon arising in the morning. When someone wakes up, he says: ‘My God, the soul which Thou hast placed in me is pure. Thou hast fashioned it in me, Thou didst breathe it



Ibid., f. Although defining magic is a difficult ask, the ritual bears some clear magical features: time (upon arising in the morning), the existence of a world of invisible spirits, the interaction between the ritual and that world, the insistence on the meticulous performance of the ritual, number (three times), a theory of mechanical transference of the power of the unclean spirit through touching. 



Z  – W O

into me…’, et cetera. And, ‘when he fastens his belt, he should say: “Blessed is He who girds Israel with might”’. The washing of the hands is mentioned as almost the last phase, apparently close to the beginning of the actual praying: ‘When he washes his hands he should say: “Blessed is He who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning the washing of hands”.’ No further details are given on how this washing of the hands should be performed. The second Talmudic source which is referred to is bShab b-a. This cryptic piece of text bears a clear magical context. The text itself is unclear as to whether it refers to the need for washing the hands after sleeping at night. Actually, this connection is made by medieval commentary, in this case Rashi, who sees the presence of an unclean spirit on the hands after sleeping at night as the reason for washing the hands. The text reads: ‘If the hand [be put] to the eye, let it be cut off; the hand to the nose, let it be cut off: the hand to the mouth, let it be cut off; the hand to the ear, let it be cut off; the hand to the vein [opened for blood letting], let it be cut off; the hand to the membrum, let it be cut off; the hand to the anus, let it be cut off; the hand to the vat, let it be cut off: [because] the [unwashed] hand leads to blindness, the hand leads to deafness, the hand causes a polypus.’ The text continues even more cryptically: ‘It was taught, R. Nathan said: It is a free agent, and insists [on remaining on the hands] until one washes his hands three times. R. Yohanan said: Stibium removes [cures] the Princess, stops the tears, and promotes the growth of the eyelashes. It was taught likewise by R. Yose, who said: Stibium removes the Princess, stops the tears, and promotes the growth of the eye-lashes.’ References to a ‘bad spirit’ in the Talmud are not uncommon. Bad spirits are seen as harmful forces which can rest on foods, animals and people and cause different types of illnesses, somatic and psychological.



Translation: Sonciono edition. Apparently the name for the bad spirit that rests on the hands.  See for example bPes b on a dog with rabies that is afflicted with a bad spirit; M. Shab. II: on a person who extinguishes the light because of a bad spirit (in him); bNid a, where peeled garlic, a peeled onion or a peeled egg that were kept over night are considered dangerous to eat because of the bad spirit that rest on them; and bPes a, where drinking water at certain times is considered dangerous because of the bad spirit. See also  Sam. : on the bad spirit that was harassing Saul. The concept of (bad) spirits was common in antiquity among Romans, Greeks and other cultures. 



T M  H

The ritual according to Karo’s text in the Shulhan ‘Arukh I will now present the major points in the way the ritual of washing the hands in the morning should be performed according to the text of the Shulhan ‘Arukh, focussing on the points that have a clear magical character. . The water should be poured on each hand three times to remove the ‘bad spirit’ (ruah ra‘ah – OH :). . It is advisable not to touch parts of the body that have an opening, like noses, ears or eyes (ibid. :-). . Do not touch a vessel with liquids like beer with unclean hands; this leads to the spoiling of the liquid (ibid. :). . Do not wash your hands without a vessel beneath it to collect the (unclean) water after the washing (ibid. :). . Do not use the water after the washing for other uses (ibid. :). . Do not throw the water in the house or places were people pass (ibid. :). . Take the vessel with the water before the washing in your right hand, transfer the vessel now to your left hand and pour water with your left hand first on your right hand (ibid. :). . Do not let your hands be washed by someone who himself did not yet wash his own hands (ibid. :). . The hand washing should preferably be done by active force, i.e. the water should be poured by the person on his hands. If not, the bad



bShab a, following Rashi who states that we are dealing here with ‘the spirit which rests on the hands before washing them’, and ‘that it persists till he washes his hands thoroughly, till he pours water three times on his hands’. The Be’er ha-Golah refers here, wrongly in my opinion, to bShab .  bShab b, as explained by Rashi who states that these cryptic statements refer to ‘in the morning, before somebody washes his hands … because of the bad spirit on the hand (s)’.  bShab a, as Rashi o.l.  Zohar Va-yeshev b.  Ibid., ibid.  Ibid., ibid.  Rabbi Karo in his Bet Yosef refers to Zohar Miqetz b-a, which is quoted also by the Be’er ha-Golah. In the Soncino edition of the Zohar it is not found (vol. , f.).  Ibid., ibid.  Responsum of the Rashba and the Redah, see Be’er ha-Golah.



Z  – W O

spirit is apparently not removed (but his hands are clean for praying).

Sources Rabbi Karo uses a wide range of sources for his text in chapter  of Orah Hayyim: . talmud . his own interpretations as found in his commentary Bet Yosef on the Tur, the codex of Rabenu Asher . medieval commentaries on the relevant talmudic passages . responsa . other medieval halakhic sources and codices . Zohar. His innovation lies in three aspects. First, in the fact that he relates to the different sources in the same manner and gives them all equal halakhic authority by bringing them together in his codex. Second, in the choice he makes not to use other sources that present different views on the matter, as I will show below. And last, in the authority he gives to the Zohar by using it as a halakhic source, incorporated with the other sources.

Two different paradigms: Maimonides and Tosafot At least two different approaches can be traced in medieval commentaries that propose a new paradigm for the way the Talmud deals with



Rabbi Karo’s own view as brought in the Bet Yosef on OH  in the Tur. Responsum of the Rashba, see Be’er ha-Golah.  Two other medieval rational explanations for the hand wash-ritual are almost neglected by Rabbi Karo in his Shulhan ‘Arukh, but he does cite them in his Bet Yosef. The Rosh gives a hygienic reason for washing the hands in the morning before prayer and the reading of the Shema (because while asleep a person touches his whole body and his hands become ‘dirty’), and the Rashba sees it as a symbolic washing for the new state (energy) of a person after waking up from his sleep; secondly, he sees a similarity to the priests in the Temple who wash their hands prior to the Temple service. Rabbi Karo chooses to focus mainly on the ‘bad spirit’ as a model for explanation. 



T M  H

matters of magical beliefs and practices. One source is Tosafot and the other is Maimonides. Rabbi Karo ignores both. Tosafot actually changes Talmudic patterns without stating that the rabbis of the Talmud were wrong and superstitious. In bYoma b, the Talmud declares that a woman may wash one hand and then feed her child a piece of bread with the washed hand, without worrying about the prohibition of washing the body on Yom Kippur. The reason that is given to why a woman has an obligation to wash one hand is because its status is unclean through ‘shibta’, which may lead to a potential dangerous situation. The Talmud does not explain what shibta means. According to Rashi, Shibta is ‘the name of the unclean spirit/demon which rests on unwashed hands in the morning’. By touching the bread, this spirit is transferred to the bread and will cause harm to the child who eats it. Tosafot has a different explanation as to what kind of unclean spirit Shibta may be. However, it ends its commentary with a statement that certain bad spirits do not exist nowadays: ‘and the reason that the masses do not take care in this matter nowadays is because this bad spirit (ruah ra‘ah) does not dwell in these kingdoms, just as we (/they) do not watch out for “uncovering” and for “pairs”’ (‘uncovering’ relates to the drinking of water that remained uncovered overnight which is forbidden by the Talmud because of danger; ‘pairs’ relates to the eating of an even number of items or drinking, like two cups of wine and the like ). Tosafot proposes a new paradigm in which the Talmudic statements are relative to place and time and in fact can be altered. Just as in the time of Tosafot people stopped paying attention to magical beliefs relating to ‘pairs’, uncovered liquids and the ‘Shibta’, Tosafot seems to imply that they could ignore the unclean spirit which rests on the hands after sleeping as well. In fact, the same argument is used by Tosafot for explaining the reason why another magical ritual, that of washing the hands after the meal (mayim aharonim), was not performed in their times. In the Talmud, the reason given for this ritual is the presence of Sodomic salt, a type of salt (apparently containing potassium chloride) that is so strong that it may cause blindness when it comes in contact with the human eye. In Mediterranean culture, salt was a prominent ingredient in meals. The hands had to be washed after the meal lest particles of Sodomic salt

 

M.Ter. :, bAvZar a. bPes. b-a.



Z  – W O

should remain from the salt used during the meal. Tosafot on bHul b states, however, that ‘we, since Sodomic salt is not to be found with us, do not have the custom of mayim ’aharonim (the washing of hands after the meal)’. Rabbi Karo’s text in the Shulhan ‘Arukh ignores Tosafot’s approach in both cases, that of mayim aharonim and that of unclean spirits which may not exist anymore. Both rituals are maintained and sometimes even invested with more magical ritual. Maimonides, in his codex Mishneh Torah, has a completely different approach. He ignores the text from bShab b-a, except for one point, which is not connected to unclean hands and bad spirits. This is not surprising, considering the clear aggadic nature of the text and Maimonides’ known rational approach towards the Talmud. Maimonides does not use the concept of bad spirit in his description of the ritual of hand washing, which he sees as part of the preparations and requirements before prayer: ‘five things may obstruct prayer: the purification of the hands (taharat yadayim), the covering of the nakedness [the genitals], the pureness of the physical place were the praying is performed, things which cause pressure and stress, and intention.’ In the next subparagraph, he deals with the details of this precept of washing the hands – which part of the hand should be washed, how much effort should be put into searching water when one is travelling, and how the hands should be cleaned if water is not available. Maimonides even extends the need for washing prior to praying in the morning to other important body parts: the face and the feet. Elsewhere, he states that someone who only reads the Shema, without praying the ‘Amidah, should nevertheless wash his hands. Still, if water is not found, the hands may be cleaned by wiping them. In this case, fewer efforts have to be made in comparison with actual praying. All this is hardly surprising if we consider Maimonides’ overall attitude towards magic. Magic is forbidden by the Torah not because of its dangerous powers of evil forces, but because it is nonsense and leads to wrong beliefs. Illustrative is Maimonides’ explanation of the ‘bad spirit’ in his Commentary on M.Shab. II:, regarding someone who ‘extinguishes the light because of a bad spirit’. Maimonides explains

    

Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tefillah :. Ibid., :. Ibid., :. Hilkhot Keriat Shema :, compare with Hilkhot Tefillah :. Hilkhot ‘Avodah Zarah :.



T M  H

that in that case, the bad spirit is a kind of depressive mood (melancholia) in which the person is sensitive to light and other people and prefers to sit alone in the dark.

Conclusion By analysing one halakhic topic, i.e. the washing of the hands, we have seen that the halakhic process does not by definition lead to the most rational result. Actually, in this case, a regression may even be seen: in the course of time the details of the ritual became more and more invested with magical power and prescriptions, even when more rational alternatives were present. Further analysis and study of halakhic texts are needed in view of the major influence that these writings have in Jewish tradition. Thorough research on the attitudes towards magic in the Shulhan ‘Arukh should distinguish between the text of Rabbi Karo, the glosses of Rabbi Moses Isserlis (the Rema) and the commentaries on the Shulhan ‘Arukh (such as the Magen Avraham and others). In a further stage, the influence of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and its commentaries on later codices from the orthodox rabbinic world, like the Kitzur Shulhan ‘Arukh, the Mishneh Berurah, and contemporary rabbinic orthodox writings should also be reviewed. L. Mock Universiteit van Amsterdam



Most of the magical beliefs and rituals seem to be copied without any commentary or redefinition into this work of the nineteenth century.  This leading codex was written at the end of the nineteenth century by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan. He ventured no re-evaluation or redefinition of magic. In fact, more material which originally can be found in the super-commentaries on the Shulhan ‘Arukh was added as being binding, or at least endorsed as halakhah. This seems to be the way the orthodox world understands it.  See for example the way Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef deals with this subject in Yalkut Yosef.



F F  J: H S. A S A   I R S S

Introduction Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (-) is a unique figure within Modern German-Jewish orthodoxy. What marks Rabbi Hirsch’s thinking is its attempt to create a harmonious human being – the Jew – whose existence, to use an analogy from chemistry, is closer to a chemical compound as opposed to a physical fusion between two separate and distinct elements: the Jewish and the European. In modern times, according to Hirsch, enlightened liberal European philosophers had propounded the ideals of individual liberty, equality, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Dignity of Man. German writers and poets like Lessing, Goethe, and especially Schiller, had lauded these values and ‘taught Jewish wisdom’, and therefore should be studied and appreciated. He concluded that European culture and Judaism drew closer and that both were no longer separated by the alienation of the pagan and Christian past. Jews could therefore amicably and optimistically live within European culture in all spheres of life, material and spiritual, enjoying a perfect synthesis with their surroundings. This harmonious and unifying conceptualization of the ideal modern Jew fundamentally differed from the primary Jewish ideologies of the time – the Jewish Enlightenment and orthodox Judaism – which believed that Jews inhabited two parallel but irreconcilable systems, namely, Judaism and European humanism and the Enlightenment. Jewish enlightened thinkers thought that both could live in peace with one another; those who nourished orthodox and especially ultra-orthodox world-views regarded secular education and culture as a minor evil fit only for practical needs and livelihood purposes. According to Hirsch, however, Jews

 This article is a short version of a comprehensive one, published in Dor Ledor  (), - (Hebrew). The research was sponsored by the R. Koebner Center for German History, The Hebrew University Jerusalem under the direction of prof. M. Zimmermann.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and I. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2004, 142–152. © 2007 Springer.



F F  J: H S

should judge world cultures according to Jewish values rather than vice versa. The term Torah ‘im Derekh Eretz originated with the Jewish sages. Rabbi Hirsch, however, had a modern way of interpreting it, which relates to an educational philosophy and way of life suitable to the industrial and post-emancipation era. Regarding Torah study, Rabbi Hirsch opposed intensive Talmudic debate. He strongly emphasized the biblical text, which he analyzed using linguistic and grammatical tools. These, he felt, would bestow upon the Jewish commandments a spiritual and philosophical meaning that would appeal to the modern Jewish heart and thought. According to Rabbi Hirsch, derekh eretz had three possible interpretations: . Working and Earning a Living – the rabbinical interpretation – a Torah student must work to support his family for at least some hours a day. . Preparation for civil life in society and the state (Germany): manners and morals, courtesy, honesty, respectable dress, shaven face, styled hair, aesthetic prayer. . The Jew as producer and consumer of European education and culture: Lessing, Goethe and Schiller were the forerunners of a ‘Jewish humanism’, whose heritage was embedded in Jewish education through its close affinity to Judaism. However, European culture should be judged by Torah standards, differentiating between ‘Jewish’ contents and ‘neutral’, ‘clashing’, or wrong thinking such as scientific materialism (Marxism), evolutionary theory (Darwinism) and the geological theories.

The Frankfurt Realschule Rabbi Hirsch sought to apply his philosophy through the auspices of the Reali School in Frankfurt am Main (-). The school taught Jewish and secular subjects, which were recognized by the German authorities

 M. Eliav, ‘Different Approaches to Torah im Derekh Eretz – Ideal and Reality’, in M. Breuer, ed., Torah ‘im Derekh Eretz: the Movement, its People, its Ideas, Ramat-Gan ,  (Hebrew); the article ‘Education to the Youth according to its Ways’, in Rab. S.R. Hirsch, Foundations of Education: Pedagogical Discussions, Tel Aviv ,  (Hebrew); J. Katz, Halacha In Straits: Obstacles to Orthodoxy at its Inception, Jerusalem , - (Hebrew).



Z  – W O

and led to matriculation. Rabbi Hirsch’s vision was seeking an organic unity based on a single Divine creation as the origin of both natural phenomena and human cultural heritage. The Torah, he believed, was the prism through which secular learning refracts, for example by identifying biblical figures in the plays of Schiller and Goethe, or by stressing the religious tolerance of Lessing or Herder’s integration of nationalism and humanism. Hirsch regarded the two related fields of Bible and Hebrew language as extremely important. He saw Bible as the foundation for shaping a worldview of God, the universe, humanity, and Israel, and as the basis for Gemarah study and not vice versa as traditional Jewish education believed. Bible was studied using the scientific apparatus of dictionaries and concordances – a new approach compared to the traditional one. He wished to raise bilingual children capable of writing essays in both Hebrew and German. He saw the roots of Hebrew words as allusions to abstract concepts and ideas about the human and natural world. Accordingly, he felt that the Hebrew language was a language of symbols with embedded ideas that we must interpret. In practice, however, there was a big gap between vision and reality. It seems that the personal example of the teacher whose behaviour, attitude and lifestyle reflected Torah im Derekh Eretz, was what influenced the child, not the study of secular culture from a Jewish standpoint, which was difficult to implement. Often, the secular subject teachers were not even Jewish,  thus ruling out the desired synthesis between Judaism and European culture.

The establishment of Horev school and its development The Horev School was founded in the summer of  by a group of German immigrants. Before immigrating to Israel, most of the founding teachers and parents of the first pupil intake had belonged to ultra-orthodox communities across Germany and were politically and ideologically affiliated with Agudat Yisrael. In its name, ‘Horev’, and its motto, which



E. Stern, People and Directions: Chapters in the History of the Educational Ideal of Torah im Derekh Eretz, Ramat-Gan ,  (Hebrew); M. Breuer, Jüdische Orthodoxie im deutschen Reich -, Frankfurt am Main , ch. -.  M. Breuer, Jewish Orthodoxy in the German Second Reich (-), Jerusalem , ff.



F F  J: H S

encapsulated the educational doctrine of Torah im Derekh Eretz, the school perpetuated the educational ideals of Rabbi Hirsch. One might have expected the children of ultra-orthodox German immigrants to enroll in Agudat Yisrael schools, but this was not the case. The founders of Horev stressed the ‘impossibility of sending their children to existing schools either for ideological reasons or for pedagogical and hygiene reasons’. Classes were initially organised in private homes. Later, they relocated to an apartment in Ethiopia Street, followed by a building in Gan Ha‘ir containing two floors and fourteen classrooms. On the eve of the War of Independence (), a branch of Horev opened on Strauss Street. The rapid increase in physical space was due to an extremely rapid growth in the number of pupils: from  in the summer of  to  by the end of . In those years the school operated in two shifts, and initially the classes could not be conducted in Hebrew, since most of the teachers and pupils were new immigrants. While the school was and remains under Ministry of Education supervision, since its inception to date, it has not affiliated with any official educational stream in an attempt to protect its autonomy, curriculum, teaching methods, teaching appointments and pupil admission policy. It is classed as a ‘Recognized Unofficial School’. Horev School offered a broad general education, including English. Girls studied Jewish subjects (but not Gemarah) – Bible (Torah) Studies, prayer, Jewish Law, Prophets. Boys and girls attended separate classes, though the lessons were held in the same building and there was a common play area. Initially, most children were German and English immigrants from Central and Western Europe, although as noted, there were also locally born children and even the children of haredi parents from Eastern Europe. The distribution of pupils in - was: German %%, other countries (Central Europe + America and Britain) %, locally born children -%. The executive board and teaching staff contained a preponderance of the German-Jewish ‘educated middle class’. Six out of the seven founding members had PhDs, and in , six of the



Beth Sefer Choreb – Jerusalem, ein Bericht, Herausgegeben von Der Palästina - Centrale Der Agudas-Jisroel , s..  Horev School, Annual Report , .



Z  – W O

nine-member executive had PhDs. The teachers were either university graduates or had graduated from Israeli or foreign teaching colleges. Naturally, the school did not just serve the children of immigrants and as time went by the proportion of teachers and pupils of German descent gradually fell. Most of the elementary school teachers had graduated from Beit Yaakov (Ultra Orthodox) teacher training colleges and a significant number of children were immigrants from English speaking countries and France (because of the character of the Old Katamon neighbourhood and the desire to integrate Torah im Derekh Eretz as in the English speaking world, Western countries). However, Horev did display yekke characteristics with regard to perfectionism, critical thinking and the rabbi-doctor ideal: i.e., an individual with a high level of Jewish learning, who has a university degree, and who embodies belief in God and rigorous observance of Torah precepts along with a far-reaching education and critical intellectual curiosity. The following account by a sixth-grade pupil in the early years of the school may illustrate the attempts to implement open-mindedness and Torah ‘im Derekh Eretz in the every day life of the school. ‘Now that Horev has nearly forty pupils, they have bought a nice piece of land nearby for children to relax after lessons … we play mahanayim (a ball game) with the fifth graders nearly every break time – it is a game that needs lots of room. The children who don’t like mahanayim play games they played in heder, because even though most of the children are German, many of them were born in Israel and their parents are from Poland, Rumania, etc., so that before Horev they attended heder …’ They celebrated Rosh Hodesh either with a field trip or by starting school later than usual. In summer, an excursion was organised to Jericho and sites visited by the prophets Eliyahu and Elisha. The children also attended a camp at Kibbutz Hafetz Hayim, where they studied the qinnot (Lamentations) for the Ninth of Av and prayed the morning prayers at . AM. ‘The aim of the camp was to show us what a kibbutz was like and the kind of work people did’.



Letter from Mordechai Breuer to his uncle Yehoshua ( March ), Horev School Archive.  Ibid.



F F  J: H S

Clashes with the ultra-orthodox rabbis of Jerusalem To gain the blessings of the haredi rabbis, negotiations were held between Dr. Yona Cohen, the future principle, Dr. Breuer, and Dr. Eliash, principal of the Frankfurt Reali School, and Rabbi Dushinsky, rabbi of the ‘Ashkenazi town council’. Haredi extremists demanded that Rabbi Dushinsky ostracize Horev. ‘They (Horev’s founders) have failed to adjust to the sublime life of the Land of Israel, which is a Torah life. They have established a secular school and educated their children in the ways of the Germans in Germany, while adopting the teaching methods of the gentiles. They have forsaken the wisdom of our Sages in the Diaspora and Land of Israel … they have introduced new notions into Israel: the chaos mixing of boys and girls together. They call this school ‘Horev’, after the mountain where the Torah of Israel was handed down.’ A pashkevil, a street poster used in haredi circles of Jerusalem, appeared bewailing: ‘What shall we do? Where should we hide our shame? Our brothers of Agudat Yisrael have opened a school called Horev in the Holy City of Jerusalem that spreads destruction in the world. Boys and girls of all ages are learning together in mixed classes … There is other mixing too. There are male and female teachers without any concern for the prohibitions of yihud and the separation of the sexes. It has every mark of an impure school: they write on boards of wickedness and ring bells (Glocke) like churches and study from landkarten called maps.’ The secret negotiations with Rabbi Dushinsky addressed the following issues: tuition language (Hebrew not Yiddish), learning a foreign language (English), general subjects in the school curriculum, teaching girls Oral Law and Bible Studies, accepting haredi pupils born in Israel and not just new immigrants.



‘Not German Immigrants but German Exiles’, Kol Yisrael , ,  Cheshvan, , Oct. , .  M. Friedman, Religion and Society, Jerusalem , .  . Tuition language (Hebrew not Yiddish) – Rabbi Dushinsky agreed that the German immigrants did not know Yiddish and their children could therefore study in Hebrew. . Learning a foreign language (English) – there were anxieties concerning the introduction of a ‘foreign spirit’ into a religious school. However, since English was the official language of the mandate, Rabbi Dushinksy reluctantly accepted its teaching. . General subjects in the school curriculum – Rabbi Dushinksy ruled that subjects could be taught that were needed for day-to-day living and for learning a profession. . Teaching girls Oral Law and Bible Studies – Rabbi Dushinksy resisted this idea, first because of the traditional view which opposes girls learning Torah, and second because of fears regarding the Horev School and the Beit Yaakov schools which had begun to emerge at this time.



Z  – W O

The macro educational policy of Horev Rabbi Hirsch’s disciples and heirs recognised the challenge of transplanting his philosophical and educational legacy to Israel and introduced the new term Torah ‘im Derekh Eretz Yisra’el. Unlike Rabbi Hirsch, who functioned in a middle class, post-emancipation, western European and industrial society, and needed to deal with humanistic German culture and the challenges of the Jewish Reform Movement, his followers in the Land of Israel faced another picture entirely. They confronted a reclusive and separatist haredi society, whose educational path embraced heder, Talmud Torah and yeshivah learning based on traditional, casuistic Talmud study on the one hand, and a pioneering, Zionist and socialist society, whose chief ideals involved developing the land through physical labor in agriculture and the crafts on the other. Moreover, this society was in the process of developing a new Hebrew culture, ‘which, although written in the language of the Torah and prophets, tramples many of the values which form the main tenets of our Torah’. Paradoxically, it was easier for the German haredi community to identify with the humanism of Schiller, Goethe and Lessing than with the emerging Hebrew culture, whose extreme manifestation even tended toward Canaanism. Furthermore, Israel also offered a third alternative in the form of the Mizrahi and Po‘ale ha-Mizrahi movements, with their blend of Torah, nationalism and even socialism – Torah ve-‘Avodah. However, Horev’s founders did not identify with either of these, since they were politically and organizationally aligned with ‘Agudat Yisrael’ in Germany, and because Horev aimed to be stricter than Mizrahi in Jewish religious education and the strict observance of Torah commandments by children, teachers and parents. Compared with the Mizrahi schools, which eventually evolved into the religious state school system, accepting anyone whose parents wished them to have a religious education, even if the child or the parents were not religiously observant, Horev required congruence with its educational approach from parents and pupils (not the other

. Accepting haredi pupils born in Israel and not just new immigrants – this was the most problematic issue of all. The negotiations blew up. Horev School was inaugurated without Rabbi Dushinsky’s blessing. However, the boycott letter stayed in his drawer to prevent a rift within Agudat Yisrael.  Horev School, Jerusalem – Thirtieth Anniversary, Jerusalem , .



F F  J: H S

way round). This meant conformity of religious observance, modest dress, hair covering for mothers and married female teachers, Torah study for the pupils’ fathers, and separate classes for boys and girls. The requirements of the pupils’ parents were all discussed at an interview with Horev’s principal. According to the main paragraph in Horev’s regulations, ‘the school believes that the Jewish People, public, and individuals are subject to the authority of Torah. The school’s function is to instill in pupils a spirit of religious morality and a love of the Torah, to teach them observance of the commandments, offer them a true culture, and train them to help with the project of building the land through sanctification (the purity) of the Holy’. In this way, Horev’s founders sought to apply Rabbi Hirsch’s basic philosophy of examining the values of the surrounding society through the prism of the Torah. The centrality of Torah and the Holy is clear. However, the founders stressed that Horev had a ‘special approach’ to learning Torah, which was different from those of the haredi, national-religious and secular groups, which would ‘correct the mistakes evident in these dominant approaches’. In secular schools, the Bible was taught as an isolated text that reflected the modern, nationalist view which idealized the historical strata of the Hebrew language, the Hebrew calendar, land-related festivals, and the geography, archeology and history of the Land of Israel, where in distant biblical times the Jewish people had enjoyed a sovereign existence based on physical labour, agriculture and craft. Horev’s founders rejected this secularization of Jewish study, labeling it ‘pseudo-Karaite’ since it ignored the traditional commentaries of Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra and separated the Bible from the Talmud. This trend had begun in the Haskalah period and intensified with modern Zionist thinking (e.g., Ben-Gurion’s attitude to the Bible). However, the Horev founders also saw a positive side to this secular approach toward the Bible: namely, that it created a set of values shared by all Jews. They felt that what they termed ‘reclusive’ haredi Judaism was treading the opposite path – neglecting the study of Hebrew, the Bible, and the geography, archeology and history of Israel, while focusing almost entirely on intensive study of the Gemarah. Horev sought



Annual Report, , .



Z  – W O

to steer a ‘golden path’ between the two approaches and explain the commandments (Jewish laws) and prayers in an effort to ‘stop mechanistic prayer and talking in synagogue’. One of Rabbi Hirsch’s main goals for his school had been to prepare Jewish children for integration with middle-class, German industrial society. This involved training for academic and liberal professions, commerce and accountancy. In contrast, in Eretz Yisrael of the s and s, Horev’s founders expected most of the school’s pupils to work in agriculture or handcrafts. They were therefore taught agriculture, physical fitness – had regular exercise classes – and learned crafts: carpentry, metalwork, and bookbinding. To strengthen their connection to the Land of Israel, pupils were taken on field trips and summer camps to Kibbutz Hafetz Hayim to show them kibbutz life. The - Annual Report divides Horev’s curriculum into four spheres: Judaic Studies, Secular Studies, Cultural Activities (singing and painting) and Physical Development (physical exercise, agriculture, handcrafts). Regarding the library, the report documents that it contained books ‘that would bond pupils with the experiences of our land and offer them good translations of works by the best gentile authors’. Regarding the school’s ideological and political identity: the founders were close to Agudat Yisrael circles in Germany, but, as noted above, Horev was in fact practically excommunicated by the Agudat Yisrael rabbis in Israel. The school could not identify with the Mizrahi approach and its founders therefore chose not to align with any established political movement or educational stream. Although as individuals, Horev’s founders were aligned with Agudat Yisrael and Po‘ale Agudat Yisrael, in practice the school was classified as a ‘recognised, unofficial school’, which allowed control over hiring teachers, pupil intake and curriculum content. While the founders identified with the Jewish national home in the Land of Israel and the need to help with ‘building the land’, they refused to identify politically with the Zionist movement and its institutions. Thus, for example, the school’s high school pupils took the mandatory government matriculation examinations rather than those offered by

 

Horev School, Jerusalem – Thirtieth Anniversary, Jerusalem , f. Ibid, .



F F  J: H S

the ha-Va‘ad ha-Le’umi (the autonomous government of the Jews in Eretz Yisrael during the British mandate). Eventually, Horev’s religious emphasis and nationalist inclinations intensified in line with changes in Israel’s religious public after the Six Day War. In recent decades, Horev has been forced to compete with other strictly religious schools – mainly the ‘Noam’ and ‘Tzvia’ school networks of Merkaz Harav (Rabbi Kook’s followers who stressed a synthesis of religion and activist nationalism), which were established following dissatisfaction with the state religious school system. Horev has therefore increased its religious studies element by lengthening the school day and concentrating such classes in the productive morning hours, aspiring to excellence in both secular and Jewish studies, student selection, special programmes, and ‘intensifying the religious educational climate’ in light of the secularization of Israeli society and the media.

To conclude In his educational writings (cf. the anthology The Foundations of Education), Rabbi Hirsch dealt with the problem of exposing youth (boys in the main) to non-Jewish society in a post-emancipatory era. He focused on the education that children receive at home, and on the need for educators (parents and teachers) to show integrity and serve as role models. Rabbi Hirsch favoured teaching children science and European culture, but with boundaries and controls. One might say that this was the tactic Horev School adopted with regard to secular Israeli society, with which it has always had a dual relationship. In a cautious and controlled fashion, the school exposes pupils to science, cultural and artistic achievement in Israel and abroad – achievements? The school has a clear stance on children’s leisure activities and even meets some of these needs, for example by organizing summer camps and offering a wide range of extracurricular afternoon activities. The school also cautions against unrestricted media consumption and mixed-sex social and voluntary activities. Unlike Rabbi Hirsch’s time, however, Horev’s present leadership has no desire to adopt a western lifestyle (dress, leisure culture, and speech), regarding it as superficial, loud, and empty. Of course, the pioneering values and lifestyle of Israel’s pre-State era and early days of the state, which promoted working the land, craftwork, immigrant absorption, 

Z  – W O

volunteerism, self-sacrifice, and developing a Hebrew culture in the arts and literature are also on the wane. ‘We must try to ensure that even in an alien environment they keep faith with their family education and with Torah morality and the commandments. We must try to ensure that they stand firm in the face of an alien lifestyle that tugs at their young lives.’  Today still, this sentiment seems to reflect the educational direction taken by the leadership of Horev schools. Doron Niederland David Yellin College, Jerusalem



‘Educating youth his way’, in S.R. Hirsch, Foundations of Education, Bnei Brak , .

