Davar Akher

In what might be the most hilarious editing fail of the year, it turns out that the algorithm employed by Inagist (a website that “curates tweets based on popularity in real-time”) is unable to differentiate between the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism and the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. That seems like a pretty easy mistake to make. If you’re a computer.

The upshot of this is that they feature a nice big photo of Australian Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, with the proud declaration that he has just signed the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism, and almost directly underneath it a tweet from @LSHTMPress, to the effect that “we need to understand parasites a lot better to treat them properly”.

At least, I’m assuming that this was an error…

Screenshot:

The Shulchan Arukh (OC 328:14) rules that if a person is sick on Shabbat and needs meat, it is better to slaughter an animal for them than to feed them an animal that wasn’t slaughtered according to the halakha. This, despite the fact that slaughtering an animal on Shabbat is a far graver violation than consuming non-kosher meat.

There are several reasons for this, the one in the Tur being that,by a sick person, Shabbat is like a weekday. The mechaber’s reason, which he mentions in his Bet Yosef (ibid.), is that it is better to commit a one-off violation than it is to commit frequent violations, even when those frequent violations are of a lesser order. Although there were scholars before the Tur who expressed the same halakha (notably the Rosh and the Mordekhai), this particular reason for it is attributed by the Bet Yosef to Rabbeinu Nissim (“the Ran”; Yoma 4b, s.v. וגרסינן), who holds that when eating non-kosher meat one is in violation of the halakha with every olive-sized mouthful.

This should be an ongoing series: books that I add to my collection.

For all I know, I’m the only person who reads these particular posts, but for my own edification, the following are the books that I have acquired since last writing about the state of my library:

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Torah, and Torah-Related:

• The Kedushas Levi of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, disciple of the Maggid and of one of his disciples, Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg;

• The Yismach Moshe of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, great-great-grandfather of the Satmar Rebbe and the rebbe of Ujhely, in Hungary. The Yismach Moshe was a disciple of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak (“the Seer”) of Lublin, himself a disciple of the Maggid and of two of the Maggid’s other disciples: Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg and Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk;

• The Kedushas Yom-Tov of Rabbi Hananiah Yom-Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, the father of the Satmar Rebbe and the rebbe of Sighet, in Hungary;

• Something I had never seen before! Known as HaMe’orot haGedolim, this is structured like a Miqra’ot Gedolot: a passage of text on the upper right-hand side, a number of commentaries around it. This time, however, instead of featuring commentaries on Torah or Nach, it features the Torah with Rashi (and Onkelos) and eleven different super-commentaries on Rashi:

1. Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi (the “Re’em“. His commentary is referred to as “Mizrachi”);
2. Rabbi Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel (the “Maharal“. His commentary is titled “Gur Aryeh”);
3. Rabbi Mordekhai Yoffe (the “Levush“. His commentary is titled “Levush ha’Orah”);
4. Rabbi Shabbetai Bass (the “Siftei Chachamim“, which is the title of his commentary);
5. Rabbi Avraham ben Shlomo haLevi Bukrat (His commentary is titled “Sefer haZikaron”);
6. Rabbi Shlomo Luria (the “Maharshal“. His commentary is titled “Yeriot Shlomo”);
7. Rabbi Moshe Mat, a disciple of the Maharshal. (His commentary is titled “Ho’il Moshe”);
8. Rabbi Yissachar Ber Eilenberg. (His commentary is titled “Tzidah leDerekh”);
9. Rabbi Yaakov Solnik, son of Rabbi Binyamin Solnik. (His commentary is titled “Nachalat Yaakov”);
10. Rabbi David Pardo. (His commentary is titled “Maskil leDavid”);
11. Rabbi Meir Binyamin Menachem Donun. (His commentary is titled “Be’er beSadeh”).

• Rabbi Shaul Lieberman‘s incredible Tosefta and Tosefta kiPheshuta. A critical edition of the Tosefta together with an extensive commentary (and one that demonstrates the author’s truly phenomenal knowledge of the rabbinic literature), the project was unfortunately never finished. It is complete for the first three divisions of the Tosefta (Zeraim, Moed and Nashim), and includes the first tractate of the fourth division (Nezikin [= Bava Kama, Bava Metzia, Bava Batra]), which was published posthumously. Altogether, it runs to twelve impressive volumes;

• A new and updated version of the Shemirat Shabbat keHilkheta, by Rabbi Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth, disciple of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. This is the definitive exposition of Rav Shlomo Zalman’s treatment of Shabbat;

• Rabbi Binyamin Lau, The Sages: Character, Context and Creativity: The Second Temple Period (trans. M. Prawer; Connecticut: Maggid Books, 2010);

• Rabbi Binyamin Lau, The Sages: Character, Context and Creativity: From Yavneh to the Bar Kokhba Revolt (trans. I. Kurshan; Connecticut: Maggid Books, 2011);

• Rav Shlomo Lorincz, In Their Shadow: Wisdom and Guidance of the Gedolim (Vol. I; trans. Y. Rosenblum; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2011). Rav Shlomo Lorincz was an MK for Agudat Yisrael, and a close confidante of Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (the “Chazon Ish“), Rabbi Yitzhak Ze’ev Soloveitchik (the “Brisker Rov“) and Rabbi Elazar Shach. This first volume constitutes brief biographies of, and his reminiscences of, those three individuals;

• Rav Shlomo Lorincz, In Their Shadow: Wisdom and Guidance of the Gedolim (Vol. II; trans. M. Musman; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2011). This volume constitutes brief biographies of, and the authors reminiscences of, Rav Yerucham Levovitz, Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz, Rav Elchanan Wasserman, Rav Yaakov Yechezkiyahu Greenwald (the Pupa Rebbe), Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch, Rav Aharon Rokach (the Belzer Rebbe), Rav Akiva Sofer, Rav Avraham Yaakov Friedman (the Sadigerer Rebbe), Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, Rav Dov Berish Weidenfeld (the Tchebiner Rav) and Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel (the Kopitshnitzer Rebbe);

• Rav Shlomo Lorincz, In Their Shadow: Wisdom and Guidance of the Gedolim (Vol. III; trans. M. Musman; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2011). This volume constitutes brief biographies of, and the authors reminiscences of, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (the Ponevezher Rav), Rav Eliyahu Lopian, Rav Moshe Yechiel Epstein (the Ozhrover Rebbe), Rav Chaim Meir Hager (the Vizhnitzer Rebbe), Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, Rav Yechezkel Abramsky, Rav Yisrael Alter (the Gerrer Rebbe), Rav Yoel Teitelbaum (the Satmar Rebbe), Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam (the Klausenberger Rebbe) and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach;

• Rabbi Dr Tzvi Hersh Weinreb (ed.), Koren Talmud Bavli: Berakhot (Jerusalem: Koren, 2012). I shall write more about this one later!

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Shoah, and Shoah-Related:

• Bartrop, P.R. and S.L. Jacobs (eds.) Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide (London: Routledge, 2011);

• Feller, R. and S. Feller, Silent Witnesses: Civilian Camp Money of World War II (Ohio: BNR Press, 2007);

• Friedländer, S. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997);

• Friedländer, S. Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007);

• Gilbert, M. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (New York: Henry Holt, 1987);

• Gilbert, M. The Macmillan Atlas of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1982);

• Hilberg, R. Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945 (New York: HarperCollins, 1992);

• Hilberg, R. The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a Holocaust Historian (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996);

• Lowy, A. I Am a Survivor (Sydney Jewish Museum, 2011).

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From the library of Heinz Bohm, z”l:

• Aharoni, Y. and M. Avi-Yonah. The Macmillan Bible Atlas (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1976);

• Alcalay, R. The Complete English-Hebrew Dictionary (2 vols; Jerusalem: Massada, 1970);

• Alcalay, R. The Complete Hebrew-English Dictionary (Jerusalem: Massada, 1970);

• Albright, W.F. From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Anchor Books, 1957);

• Amiran, R. Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land: From its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period to the End of the Iron Age (Rutgers University Press, 1970);

• Coggins, R.J. The Cambridge Bible Commentary: The First and Second Books of the Chronicles (Cambridge University Press, 1976);

• Crim, K. (ed.) The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: An Illustrated Encyclopedia: Supplementary Volume (Tennessee: Abingdon, 1976);

• Dawidowicz, L. (ed.) The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (New York: Schocken Books, 1987);

• Heschel, A.J. The Prophets (New York: JPS, 1962);

• Koestler, A. The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage (London: Pan Books, 1977);

• Levi, E. משנה מפורשת: מסכת ברכות (Tel Aviv: Sinai);

• Sadek, V., J. Šedinová and J. Macht. Pražské Ghetto (Prague: Olympia, 1991);

• Salfellner, H. Franz Kafka and Prague (Prague: Vitalis, 2002);

• Schüller, E.L. Hebrew Ballads and Other Poems (trans. and ed. A. Durschlag and J. Litman-Demeestère; Philadelphia: JPS, 1980);

• Simon, S. יהושוע און שופטים (New York: Farlag Matones, 1952);

• Thomas, D.W. (ed.) Archaeology and Old Testament Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967);

• The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, With an English Translation; and with Various Readings and Critical Notes (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1976);

• Hilkhot Talmud Torah, with the glosses of the Raavad and the commentary of the Kesef Mishna (Jerusalem: Eshkol, 1968).

As the days turn to weeks and the weeks to months, I realise that this is the longest I have ever been away from my blog. In truth, I have been very busy.

In addition to everything else (preparing classes, teaching classes, slamming my head repeatedly against the desk, etc), I’ve been setting aside time each day to learn some Mishna. As it is, I’ve now worked through all eleven tractates of the first division, about six or seven times each, and am halfway through Masekhet Shabbat: the first tractate of the second division, “Moed”. My original plan was to then compile a breakdown called Rabbinic Agricultural Law, separated into neat categories, with an appendix noting every halakhic opinion (both stated and inferred), arranged alphabetically in accordance with its source. On closer consideration, I decided that if I were to be omitting the Yerushalmi, the Bavli’s treatment of these passages and their ‘related’ toseftot, the Rambam and all of the various mefarshim on the Mishna (not to mention the various codes, from Or Zarua to the Arukh haShulchan heAtid), then my title might be something of a misnomer.

Settling instead for Tannaitic Agricultural Law, I next demurred at the prospect that I’d need (at the very least) to also cover these tractates in the Tosefta, and any relevant passages in the halakhic midrashim. Not to worry: I shall call it Mishnaic Agricultural Law instead! An excellent idea and an exciting project, were it not for the simple fact that I am almost certainly going to encounter relevant material in the subsequent fifty-two tractates of the Mishna, and so such a project is best left off until I’ve finished the entire corpus.

It was a good idea at the time.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share some excellent Torah resources (some old, some new) that I have discovered online:

• I have long been a great fan of the DAF (“Dafyomi Advancement Forum”). If you click the tab that says “Talmud” in the menu on the left, you can then choose the tractate that you are studying, click on the tab marked “Point by Point Summary”, and then choose a page number. This is the Point by Point Summary of Masekhet Shabbat, by way of an example. If you play around with the site, you will find a number of other useful tools there as well;

• Rav Nissan Kaplan is the mashgiach ruchani at the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. As I’ve had occasion to mention already, his website (incongruously called “Daf Yomi Review“) contains a remarkable collection of mussar schmuessen and halakha shiurim, and more. If that’s your kind of thing of course;

• A friend and old yeshiva colleague of mine is working on a tool for helping people study Daf Yomi. With one cycle coming soon to a conclusion and another one about to begin (not to mention, with ArtScroll’s latest monstrosity soon to hit the virtual shelves), their timing is excellent. Check it out: it’s called The Mercava;

• Mordechai Torczyner, all on his lonesome, has created (and is still creating) a truly remarkable index of topics in the Talmud. It’s called WebShas, and I encourage you to have a look! I typed in “oxen”, on a whim, and it gave me this page on “Zoology“;

• Lastly, although by no means least, I would like to draw your attention to Mi Yodeya. This is an example of a Stack Exchange: a Q&A website, where anybody can ask questions and all can answer them. You can find me there under “Shimon bM”, asking and answering away.

So that’s it, folks. I hope to be able to write again soon – at the very least, in order to report on the new Koren translation of Masekhet Berakhot, about which I have very mixed feelings.

The following is an absolutely incredible example of Nazi propaganda, drawn to my attention recently by a friend:

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The poster was designed by a Norwegian cartoonist named Harald Damsleth, and was produced in 1944. The Dutch writing at the bottom reads, “De USA zullen de Europeesche Kultuur van den ondergang redden”. I am told that this means, “The USA will save the European culture from ruin”. It is hard to see it in the picture, but the writing around the midriff states “JITTERBUG – Triumph of Civilization”. If you click on it, you can zoom in for higher definition. I do not think that the Hebrew writing is actually Hebrew writing, but was unable to find a clearer image than this one. A smaller, albeit colour version can be seen here.

How many anti-American tropes can you spot?

Not so long ago now, I found myself teaching a four-week course on the development of the Kabbalah. Not my area of expertise (an understatement, to say the least), I found it necessary to bury my head in some wonderful literature by the likes of Gershom Scholem and Isaiah Tishby – not to mention getting stuck into some truly fascinating passages from the Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer Bahir, Sefer haZohar, etc. As Rosh haShana was coming up, I also sought to tie in some material each week that pertained to the contributions made by the Kabbalists to the development of this festival and their interpretations of it. In researching that particular component of the topic, I happened to alight upon the following midrash, recorded in a recent acquisition of mine, entitled חגי ישראל:

חכמינו מסבירים: בראש השנה, שהוא יום הדין, מתעוררים הכחות המבקשים להרע לישראל ולהרשיעם בדין. אומר להם הקדוש-ברוך-הוא: לכו והביאו עדים לאשור דבריכם. הולך השטן ומביא את השמש הצופה על כל מעשי האדם, שתבוא ותעיד. רוצה הוא להביא גם אם הלבנה (הירח), שתעיד אף היא, כי צריך שני עדים לאשור דבר. והולכת הלבנה ומתכסית ומסתתרת. ומכיון שהשטן אינו מוצא שני עדים שיאשרו את דבריו, אין טענותיו מתקבלות
- חגי ישראל, p110

Before I translate this midrash, it’s worth noting a curious feature of Rosh haShana, and one that distinguishes it from the other festivals. Hebrew months (which, unlike months in the Gregorian calendar, are not simply divisions of the year) are synodic. That is, they represent the length of time between one new moon and the next. Jewish festivals tend to occur either in the middle of the month, when the moon is at its fullest, or towards the end of the month, as the moon is waning. Pesach occurs on the 15th of Nisan, Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishrei, Sukkot on the 15th of Tishrei, Simchat Torah on the 23rd of Tishrei, Hanukkah on the 25th of Kislev, and Purim on the 14th of Adar. The only other festival to come close to the beginning of the month is Shavuot, which occurs on the 6th of Sivan, at a time when the moon is a sliver. But Rosh haShana, to which the psalmist is traditionally believed to be referring in Psalms 81:4, is the day of the moon’s utter concealment.

I translate the midrash that I quoted above as follows:

Our sages explain: On Rosh haShana, which is the day of judgment, the powers that seek to harm Israel and to cause them mischief in judgment are aroused. The Holy One (blessed is he) says to them, “Go and bring witnesses to confirm your words!” The adversary (the “Satan”) goes and brings the sun, who watches over all the deeds of man, that she might come and bear witness. He also wants to bring the moon, that she might testify as well, for one requires two witnesses to confirm a matter. But the moon goes and conceals herself and hides herself away. Since the adversary cannot find two witnesses who will confirm his words, his claims are not received.

Truly fascinating, and yet – like so many of the midrashim recorded in this excellent book – there is no source! So, guessing that the actual midrash in question most probably quotes Psalms 81:4, I whipped out my copy of Torah haKetuvah vehaMesorah, which was gifted to me by my excellent friend, Rivqa. Under this verse, the following sources are listed:

Babylonian Talmud, Beitzah 16a;
Babylonian Talmud, Rosh haShana 8a, 11a-b, 34a;
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 11b, 96b;
Tosefta, Rosh haShana 1:10;
Mekhilta deRebi Ishmael, Bo 14;
Leviticus Rabba 29:6;
Tanchuma Bo 9;
Pesiqta deRav Qahana 152b, 154a;
Pesiqta Rabbati 40;
Pirqei deRebi Eliezer 7;
Yalqut Shimoni I:177, 210, 645, 646, 782, 860;
Yalqut Shimoni II:278, 419, 436, 534, 831, 923, 1071;
Sheiltot deRav Ahai Gaon Bo 46;
Zohar I:114b;
Zohar II:135b, 184a, 267b;
Zohar III:86a, 98b, 100b, 121b, 231b, 275a.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to declare that every single one of these texts is in my bedroom, and it was with great pleasure that I devoted a full hour to trying to discover which of them contained this particular midrash. Would you believe it? It was the very last one on the list. Rosh haShana may be over for another year, but the midrash in question is so interesting that I thought I would share it. This is how it appears in the Zohar, together with my translation:

ולא עוד אלא שמשא וסיהרא סהדין על בר נש כמה דאוקמוה תקעו בחדש שופר בכסה ליום חגנו מאי בכסה ביומא דסיהרא מתכסת ואמאי מתכסת בגין דכד מטי ראש השנה יתי סמ”אל למתבע דינא לבנוי קמי קדשא בריך הוא והוא ימא לה דיתי סהדין והוא יתי לשמשא עמה אזל לאיתי סיהרא והיא מתכסית באן אתר מתכסת אלא סליקת לההוא אתר דאתמר בה במכוסה ממך אל תחקור לפיסא לה על בנהא

Not only this, but even the sun and the moon testify against a person, as they established: “Blow the shofar at the start of the month, at the concealment, on the day of our festival”. What does “at the concealment” mean? On the day when the moon is concealed. And why is the moon concealed? Because as soon as Rosh haShana arrives, Samael comes to indict his children before the Holy One, blessed is he, and he tells him to bring witnesses, so he brings the sun with him. He goes to bring the moon, but she is hidden. Where is she hidden? She has gone up to that place, of which it is said, “Do not investigate that which is concealed from you”, in order to conciliate him concerning her children.
- Zohar III:275a

In the original version, as you can see, the adversary is Samael and not the Satan, although the role that he plays is the same. If you are interested, the Jewish Encylopedia has an article on him. For my part, I find far more interesting the quote that is employed, concerning the place to which the moon has gone.

במכוסה ממך אל תחקור (“Do not investigate that which is concealed from you”) may appear to be a straight quote from the Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 13a. In fact, in my version of the Zohar al-haTorah (published in three volumes by Mossad haRav Kook), it is Hagigah 13a that is listed as the source. But if you consult this particular source, you will find that the full quote is במופלא ממך אל תדרוש ובמכוסה ממך אל תחקור (“Do not seek out that which is too wondrous for you, nor investigate that which is concealed from you”). Are you curious? It’s not from the Hebrew Bible, but from Ben Sirach 3:21.

Given that a major part of my focus during this course was on the ways in which the “apocryphal” literature resurfaced in the Kabbalah, this was a real find. We witnessed the emergence of the Enoch traditions and their utilisation in the Heikhalot of Rabbi Ishmael, and we considered the possible role of the calendar from Jubilees in the very early mystical literature. It seems a curious feature of the kabbalistic tradition that it came to serve as a storage house (a metaphysical geniza, of sorts) for all that was marginalised and rejected. It is likewise a curious feature of this tradition that it was to internalise the anti-mystical tendencies of halakhic Judaism, even after its normativisation in the 16th century, and to develop a certain anti-mysticism of its own. Before that could happen, and long before the extreme popularisation of the Kabbalah under the aegis of the Hasidic movement, texts like the Zohar were to straddle both worlds.

On the one hand, they serve as a veritable cornucopia of the esoteric and the bizarre. They feature characters and traditions from the farthest flung reaches of unorthodox Jewish thought, and reference on more than one occasion books that are well outside the established rabbinic tradition. On the other hand, however, they are closed books to all save the initiated, amongst whom I cannot even begin to imagine including myself. By closing themselves off from the eyes of outsiders (a tradition that I believe originated with the prophetic guilds, during the movement from prophecy to apocalyptic), they not only internalised the ban on studying mystical matters, but they testified to the need for such a ban in the first place. It is ironic that Ben Sirach’s warning against investigating that which is hidden and obscure (a warning which finds its parallel in Deuteronomy 29:28) should have been utilised in a text that, to all intents and purposes, could have constituted the subject of the warning itself.