Reflecting on When the Arukh haShulhan on Orach Chaim was Actually Written

Reflecting on When the Arukh haShulhan on Orach Chaim was Actually Written: Citations of the Mishnah Berurah in the Arukh haShulhan

Michael J. Broyde & Shlomo C. Pill

Rabbi Michael Broyde is a Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law and the Projects Director at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Pill is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish, Islamic, and American Law and Religion at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and a Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. They are writing a work titled “Setting the Table: An Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Rabbi Yechiel Mikhel Epstein’s Arukh Hashulchan” (Academic Studies Press, forthcoming 2020).

We post this now to note our celebration of the publication of תערוך לפני שלחן: חייו, זמנו ומפעלו של הרי”מ עפשטיין בעל ערוך Set a Table Before Me:The Life, Time, and Work of“) השלחן Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein, Author of the Arukh HaShulchan” .הי”ד ,see here) (Maggid Press, 2019), by Rabbi Eitam Henkin) Like many others, we were deeply saddened by his and his wife Naamah’s murder on October 1, 2015. We draw some small comfort in seeing that the fruits of his labors still are appearing. in his recently published הי”ד According to Rabbi Eitam Henkin book on the life and works of Rabbi Yechiel Mikhel Epstein, the first volume of the Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim covering chapters 1-241 was published in 1903; the second volume addressing chapters 242-428 was published in 1907; and the third volume covering chapters 429-697 was published right after Rabbi Epstein’s death in 1909.[1] Others confirm these publication dates.[2]

The Mishnah Berurah, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan’s commentary on the Orach Chaim section of the Shulchan Arukh was published in six parts, with each appearing at different times over twenty- three-year period. Volume one was published in 1884, volume three in 1891, volume two appeared in 1895, volume four in 1898, volume five was published in 1902, and volume six in 1907.

We suspect that while the first volume of the Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim did not appear until 1903, Rabbi Epstein wrote this work some time before this, and its publication and was delayed for economic and government censorship reasons. Rabbi Eitam Henkin notes (in the above biography) that Rabbi Epstein made mention of the very difficult time he had finding the funds to publish his work. Rabbi Epstein himself wrote in an 1886 letter, “to my great distress, I am unable to publish [the next installment of the Arukh Hashulchan] due to the lack of funding . . . publishing is exceedingly expensive.”[3] The high cost of publishing and limited funding actually led to Rabbi Epstein’s initially publishing the Arukh Hashulchan in numerous short pamphlets, each covering just a few of the Shulchan Arukh’s topic headings, rather than in larger volumes. Eventually, as funds became available, these pamphlets were combined into larger volumes, organized around the “four-pillars” framework ofhalakhah used by other rabbinic jurists since Rabbi Karo.[4] Likewise, Rabbi Henkin uncovered correspondence in which Rabbi Epstein bemoaned that long-before completed manuscripts of the Arukh Hashulchan were languishing in St. Petersburg awaiting review and approval by Russian government censors.[5]

Appreciating the realities of the funding- and censorship- related delays with which Rabbi Epstein had to contend helps rectify what Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan described as Rabbi Epstein’s furiously productive writing schedule with the nearly four decade span between when he began writing the Arukh Hashulchan in 1870 and the publication of the final volume ofArukh Hashulchan: Orach Chaim in 1909 (and other volumes considerably after his death by his daughter[6]). Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan described his grandfather’s process as follows:

My grandfather sat each day in the room designated as the local rabbinic courtroom together with his two rabbinic judge colleagues from morning until night, save for two hours in the afternoons . . . He sat at his table with a chair next to him upon which he kept four books related to the topic he was currently dealing with: a volume of Maimonides’Mishnah Torah, a volume of the Arbah Turim, the Shulchan Arukh, and a small edition of the Talmud. And thus, looking here and there, he wrote his book, Arukh Hashulchan, page after page. Occasionally, he would get up and take out another book to look at . . . This book, the Arukh Hashulchan, which is foremost in its genre, was printed directly from the first draft manuscripts, exactly as they were initially produced by the author . . . without edits, erasures, or rewrites.[7]

Even if somewhat hyperbolic in its recollection, the pace of work described by Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan certainly does not suggest that the writing of the Arukh Hashulchan would have taken more than thirty years. It is likely that the text of Rabbi Epstein’s monumental restatement of halakhah was written and prepared long before it finally appeared in print.[8]

So, when was the Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim actually written? We suspect it was written after 1891 and before 1895.

As noted, the first volume of theMishnah Berurah was published in 1884, and the Arukh Hashulchan cites it thirteen times. Mishnah Berurah volume three was published seven years’ later in 1891 and is also cited by theArukh Hashulchan—in this case, twelve times. The Arukh Hashulchan cites none of the other four volumes of the Mishnah Berurah, however, which indicates that Rabbi Epstein did not have them. That would indicate that Rabbi Epstein had completed his manuscript of Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim before the 1895 when the next installment of the Mishnah Berurah appeared. We see in Rabbi Eitam Henkin’s work (p. 312) that he proposes a similar observation, and we are gratified that he shares this inference. While over a decade would pass before theArukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim was fully published, and while by this time the Mishnah Berurah, too, was in print in its entirety, Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan’s account of Rabbi Epstein’s writing process suggests that once written, theArukh Hashulchan manuscripts were not significantly revisited or edited by Rabbi Epstein. It is not surprising, then, that the Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim does not include references to sections of the Mishnah Berurah that appeared only after 1895.

We are aware of 36 (or 37, if one counts the double reference in number 5, below) references to the Mishnah Berurah in the Arukh Hashulchan[9] none of which are particularly important to the work, and only in one of them (319:22) does the Arukh Hashulchan seem to be actually reacting to something that the Mishnah Berurah directly cited in his own name. The citations to the Mishnah Berurah in the Arukh Hashulchan themselves generally look like (to quote Rabbi Bar-Ilan) “another book to look at.” Furthermore, it only looks like he did so in certain areas deeply and other areas much less. There are six quoted in hilkhot tzitizit, one in hilkhot tefillin, two in hilkhot shema, four citations over three simanim in hilkhot tefilla, and then occasional references scattered throughout hilkhot Shabbat. This sparse citing suggests that the Arukh Hashulchan neither studied theMishnah Berurah, nor is responding to it systemically. So to, the only explanation for the lack of citation to volumes two, four, five and six is that Rabbi Epstein did not have them at the time he was producing his manuscript of the Arukh Hashulchan on Orach Chaim. (We see that Rabbi Eitam Henkin, in his work makes a similar observation on pages 311-313.)

Below is a list of all the cases we are aware of in which the Arukh Hashulchan actually has and cites and quotes this Mishnah Berurah.

1. Arukh HaShulchan 10:4 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 10 s.v. veyesh lah. 2. Arukh HaShulchan 10:7 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 10 s.v. ela im ken. 3. Arukh HaShulchan 10:8 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 10 s.v. veain lah kenafot. 4. Arukh HaShulchan 11:8 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 11 s.v. vehu. 5. Arukh HaShulchan 11:22 contains a reference to both Mishnah Berurah 11:27 and 11:29 and the Biur Halakhah, which explains this. 6. Arukh HaShulchan 12:4 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 12 s.v. im nepseku. 7. Arukh HaShulchan 14:5 contains two references to Biur Halakhah 14 s.v. hetil yisrael. 8. Arukh HaShulchan 25:23 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 25 s.v. vehakhi nohug. 9. Arukh HaShulchan 25:26 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 44. 10. Arukh HaShulchan 62:3 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 62 s.v. yachol lekrotah bekhol lashon. 11. Arukh HaShulchan 76:21 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah s.v. kara bemakom. 12. Arukh HaShulchan 76:4 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 77:8. 13. Arukh HaShulchan 79:11 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 5. 14. Arukh HaShulchan 79:17 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 79:29 or Biur Halakhah s.v. aval chalul. 15. Arukh HaShulchan 87:7 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 9. 16. Arukh HaShulchan 89:23 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 89:22. 17. Arukh HaShulchan 89:24 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 89:24 and Biur Halakhah s.v. vekhen okhlin umashkin. 18. Arukh HaShulchan 91:3 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 91 s.v. hoyil vekhisah. 19. Arukh HaShulchan 91:4 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 91 s.v. yatza. 20. Arukh HaShulchan 245:8 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 245:23. 21. Arukh HaShulchan 247:13 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 247:18. 22. Arukh HaShulchan 262:4 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 262:12. 23. Arukh HaShulchan 263:19 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 263:49. 24. Arukh HaShulchan 268:6 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 268 s.v. veshelo bekavanah. 25. Arukh HaShulchan 271:30 contains a reference to Biur Halakhah s.v. vehu rubo. 26. Arukh HaShulchan 275:2 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah 275 s.v. leor haner. 27. Arukh HaShulchan 301:122 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 301:176–177. 28. Arukh HaShulchan 302:32 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 303:87-88. 29. Arukh HaShulchan 302:9 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 301:2, 10, 11 and Biur Halakhah s.v. shaveh aleha. 30. Arukh HaShulchan 306:22 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 306:16 and Biur Halakhah s.v. beketav shelahem. 31. Arukh HaShulchan 319:19 contains a reference to Biur Halakhah 319 s.v. le’ekhol meyad. 32. Arukh HaShulchan 319:22 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 319:21 and Biur Halakhah s.v. beshinui. 33. Arukh HaShulchan 321:10 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 321:37–38. 34. Arukh HaShulchan 328:39 contains a reference to Mishnah Berurah 328:145. 35. Arukh HaShulchan 330:7 contains a reference toBiur Halakhah s.v. kol sheloshah yamim. 36. Arukh HaShulchan 336:21 contains a reference to Biur Halakhah 336 s.v. mutar lelakh.

A question that can only be speculated about is whether the Arukh HaShulchan is ever responding without citation to the Mishnah Berurah (for example, in the case of married women and hair covering in the synagogue in Orach Chayim 75). Rabbi Eitam Henkin (p. 314) quotes the famous observation of this father, Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin in Shut Benai Banim 2:18 that there are countless times where the Aruch HaShulchan is responding, without citing, the Mishnah Berurah. Rabbi Eitam Henkin then provides a list of such possible cases.

[1] See Rabbi Eitam Henkin, Ta’arokh Lifanai Shulchan: Chayo Zemano U’mepa’alo Shel Harav Yechiel Mikhel Epstein Baal Arukh Hashulchan, pp. 245-246.

[2] See as well the following article by Rabbi Eitam Henkin where he makes this claim as well:

ספרי ערוך השלחן – סדר כתיבתם והדפסתם’, חצי גבורים – פליטת‘ סופרים, ז (תשע”ד), עמ’ תקטו-תקלו

Copies of the first editions can be found in the Hebrew University Library.

[3] Kitvei Ha-Arukh Hashulchan, no. 104.

[4] See Rabbi Eitam Henkin’s book at pages 234–235.

[5] See Kitvei Ha-Arukh Hashulchan, no. 56.

[6] See Printing of the Arukh HaShulhan: The Missing Line About Rabbi Epstein’s Daughter for more on the posthumous publication of volumes.

[7] Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, From Volozhin to Jerusalem 269-271 (1939-1940) [Hebrew]. at pages תערוך לפני שלחן See Rabbi Eitam Henkin’s work [8] 229–257 for a detailed discussion of the publication difficulties and schedule of the Arukh HaShulchan.

[9] Twice Arukh Hashulchan refers to the work by its formal name, Mishnah Berurah, and all the remaining times by an .המ”ב or מ”ב acronym

Special book offer: Besamim Rosh

Special book offer: Besamim Rosh

By Eliezer Brodt

One of the most famous forgeries in Jewish literature is the Shu”t Besamim Rosh. This work was brought to print by Saul Berlin in 1793. Shortly after it was detected as a forgery.

Over the years the Seforim Blog has featured many essays about this work (here, here, here, here, here, here). For a valuable post about the subject see here.

For some very recent work on the BR see the three-part series by Rabbi Chaim Tessler, (PDF’s available upon request). On the BR’s famous teshuvah about Suicide see Eliezer Sariel, A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground,Studies in Judaism, Humanities, and the Social Sciences, 2018 pp. 91-103.

Its worth seeing this interesting piece by R’ Mattityahu Strashun about the BR:

R’ Strashun concludes this lengthy discussion, stating that he heard that: “the great critic Dr. Zunz, wrote a special article on the Besamim Rosh and who is like him in such things, but the work did not reach me yet.” This essay of Zunz was recently translated into Hebrew in Avraham Frankel: Rites of Synagogue Liturgy, Jerusalem 2016, pp.256-258.

In an earlier post we wrote:

In 1984, the BR was reprinted … This edition, edited by R. Reuven Amar and includes an extensive introduction, Kuntres Yafe le-Besamim, about BR. Additionally, commentary on the BR by various rabbis is included. The text of this edition is a photo-mechanical reproduction of the first edition. This edition contains two approbations, one from R. Ovadiah Yosef, who in his responsa accepts that BR is a product of R. Saul Berlin, but R. Yosef holds that doesn’t diminish the BR’s value. The second approbation is from R. Benyamin Silber. But, R. Silber provides notes in the back of this edition and explains that he holds the BR is a forgery and that he remains unconvinced of Amar’s arguments to the contrary.[1]

For many years this 1984 version of the BR has been almost impossible to find. A few weeks ago, a very limited run of the 1984 BR edition was reprinted and is available exclusively via Mizrahi Books.

Mention the Seforim Blog & the price is $22. Postage is $4 for one volume, and just $1 for each additional copy and naturally it can be picked up at the store as well. International postage is available at cost, contact Israel Mizrahi for an exact quote (call 347.492.6508). Payment can be made via paypal, credit card over the phone, check, or money order (if sending money, the address is 3114 Quentin Rd, Brooklyn, NY 11234). Contact info and PayPal is to [email protected]. It can also be ordered online here. [1] To add to Samet’s and Amar’s very comprehensive lists of acharonim who quote the BR, see Eliezer Brodt, Yeshurun 24 (2011), pp. 426-427. See also Eliezer Brodt, Besamim Rosh in Galicia (forthcoming) IYH.

The Haftarot for Behar and Behukkotai

The Haftarot for Behar and Behukkotai[1]

By Eli Duker

The old Babylonian practice was to read Jeremiah 16:19 as the haftara for Parashat Behar and Ezekiel 34 forParashat Behukkotai, and this is attested to in most of the relevant Cairo Geniza fragments. One of them, Cambridge T-S B15.4, aside from also indicating this, is written in the Oriental Hebrew script and vocalized with the Babylonian supralinear system, indicating its antiquity. Moreover, these haftarot are listed by R’ Shlomo ben Natan,[2] and their verses are the basis for the Zulatot in the Piyutim of R’ Shmuel ben Hoshana[3] written for these Parshiyot.[4]

It would seem that Jeremiah 16:19 was chosen for Behar because the prophet’s pronouncements of “Cursed is the man who relies on people” and “Blessed is the man who relies on Hashem” echo the blessing, mentioned in Parashat Behar, that is given to the sixth year of the Sabbatical cycle in anticipation of the Sabbatical year.

It is not clear to me why Ezekiel 34 was chosen as the haftara for Behukkotai, but it may be that its metaphor of a shepherd tending his flock (34:12) brought up immediate associations with the commandment to tithe the flocks and herds elaborated on in the Parsha.[5]

However, in Europe a new haftara beginning with Jeremiah 32:6 appears for Behar quite early on. Meanwhile, the original haftara for that parasha was “moved” to Behukkotai. These haftarot appear in R’ Shmuel Hanagid’s haftara list that is brought in Sefer Ha’eshkol,[6] and in R’ Elazar of Worms’s book on haftarot.[7] They are also listed by R’ Ya’akov Hazan in Etz Haim,[8] which serves as an account of the practices of Anglo Jewry on the eve of the Expulsion.

Abudarham lists only these haftarot for these two parashiyot,[9] and they are also the only haftarot in all of the Ashkenazic Humashim and haftara books in manuscript that I have come across,[10] excepting one[11] that reversed the two haftarot, placing Jeremiah 16:19 with Behar and Jeremiah 32:6 with Behukkotai. Moreover, they are the haftarot in the only humash[12] in our possession that is beyond a doubt from pre- expulsion Spain,[13] and all subsequent humashim that follow the Ashkenazic and Sephardic practices.

It is impossible to determine exactly why communities chose to change the practice regarding the haftarot for Behar and Behukkotai, or when and where this began to take place.

Nonetheless, Jeremiah 32:6 is an exceptionally appropriate haftara for Parshat Behar, as it describes how Jeremiah performed the commandment of redeeming the land formerly owned by a relative, a central part of the parasha.

As it is such an obvious fit, why did the Babylonians not choose it themselves? I believe that this is due to the fact that the old Babylonian practice was to read Jeremiah 32 as the haftara for Va’ethannan, beginning with 32:16. Later on, when communities that read the Torah according to the Babylonian annual cycle adopted the practice of reading “Nahamu”[14] (Isaiah 40:1) on the Sabbath following Tish’a B’av, when Parshat Va’ethannan is always read, Va’ethannan’s original haftara became “available” and thus was deemed very appropriate for Behar, while Behar’s originalhaftara was “moved” to Behukkotai.[15] The new haftarah for Behar – and the moving of its old one to Behukkotai – were accepted more than any other “new” haftara practice.[16] Only the Italian and Yemenite rites, most conservative regarding retention of Babylonian haftarot, read the two hafarot as they were originally read.[17]

The practice in Poznań, interestingly enough, was to retain Jeremiah 32:6 as the haftara of Behar, while retaining the old Ezekiel 34 as the haftara for Behukkotai.[18]

Bibliography of Printed Works

Avraham ben Yitzhak of Narbonne. ”Sefer Ha’eshkol” Eds. Shalom and Hanokh Albeck. Jerusalem: Wagshal, 1984.

Azulai, Menahem. “Lifuyutam shel Yehudei Bavel -Kit’ei Geniza)” (Azulai, Ada. trans.) Jerusalem: Azulai, 2010.

Beukum, Walter Jaques van. “Hebrew Poetry from Late Antiquity – liturgical poems from Yehudah” Leiden: Brill, 1998.

Biton, Eliyahu. “Or Yahudut Luv” Biriah: Yeshivat Beit Yosef, 1982.

“Sefer Nahalat Avot -Minhagei Yehudei Luv” Biria: Biton, 2007.

“B’rocho L’Mnachem – essays contributed in honor of Rabbi Menachem H. Eichenstein” Ed. Norman Paris. St Louis: United Orthodox Jewish Community – Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, 1955

David Berabi Yosef Berabi David Ben Abduraham. “Abduraham Hashalem” Jerusalem: Osha, 1963.

Elazar of Worms. “Peirush Al Hahaftarot” Warsaw: Zisberg, 1875.

Ginzburg, Christian D. “The Massorah” Jerusalem: Makor, 1971.

“Hamisha Humshei Torah: Im haftarot Vihamesh Megilot” Eliezer ben Avraham Alaatansi, 1486.

“Humash Lima’an Shmo Be’ahava” publisher and date of publication unknown.

“Sefer Vayikra, Hamisha Humshei Torah Im Peirush Rashi,” V’im Da’at Mikra” Ed. Menahem Bula. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1991.

Jacob ben Jehuda Hazan of London. “The Etz Chaim” ed. Israel Brodie. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1962

“Machzor LiYamim Noraim” ed. Daniel Goldschmidt. Jerusalem: Koren, 1970.

Shlomo ben Natan. “Shlomo Ben Nattan Siddur Al Pi Hage’onim- Chibro Rabbenu Shlomo B’rabi Nattan.” Ed. Shmuel Chagai. Jerusalem: 1995.

Shmuel ben Hoshana, “The Yostserot of R Samuel the Third.” Edited by Joseph Yahalom and Noaya Katsumata. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhak Ben-Zvi, 2014.

Simha of Vitry. “Mahzor Vitry.” Edited by Arye Goldschmidt. Jerusalem: Makhon Otzar Haposkim, 2009.

Talmudic Encyclopedia, Edited by Meyer Berlin (Bar-Ilan) and Shlolmo Yosef Zevin. Jerusalem: Talmudic Encyclopedia Publishing, 1961.

Zeruk, Refael. “Luah Dinim Uminhagim Kehilot Yotzei Luv” Bat- Yam: Ginzei Refael, 2008

[1] I would like to thank Rabbi Avi Grossman for editing both the original Hebrew version article as well as my English translation. I would also like to thank my son Moshe Duker for assisting me in looking up haftarot in printed humashim.

[2] Shlomo Ben Nattan, Siddur Al Pi Hageonim, p. 201.

[3] “The Yotserot of R Samuel the Third.” Vol. 1, pp. 519, 528-259.

[4] In Fried’s list of haftarot that appears as an appendix to Volume X of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, Isaiah 1:19 is brought as an alternate haftara for Parashat Behukkotai.This was based on Zulay’s understanding in Zur Liturgie der babylonischen Juden, regarding a piyut composed by “Yehuda” for Im“ Behukotai” with verses beginning with Isaiah 1:21 Zulay believed Yehuda to be Babylonian, that that was the haftara for this Parsha. However, evidence brought by van Bekkum in his introduction to “Hebrew Poetry from Late Antiquity: Liturgical Poems of Yehudah” shows that Yehuda was a Palestinian Paytan. In addition, Isaiah 1:24 was the haftara for Sedra “Im Behukkotai” in the Palestinian triennial cycle of Torah readings. See Ofer, Hahatfarot“ Al Pi Haminhag Hatlat -Shenati” (here). I would like to thank Prof. Yosef Yahalom for directing me to van Bekkum’s work.

[5] See Daat Mikra, Vayikra Vol. 1, pp. 323-324. The other reasons given there seem less convincing, as this is not a haftara of rebuke.

[6] Albeck Edition, p. 181.

[7] “Peirush Al Hahaftarot”. p. 8. The haftara for Behar is missing in the Ginsburg-Moscow Ms.of Mahzor Vitry while it lists Jeremiah 16:19 as thehaftara for Behokkotai. See Goldschhmidt edition, Vol.2, p. 579.

[8] Vol. 1, p. 54.

[9] P. 303.

[10] Mss. Breslau 9: Cambridge St. Johns A1: Vatican EBR 13 14 15 16: Parma 1885 2046 2148 2818: 3083 3085: British Library 9401 9403:

[11] Ms. Vatican EBR 20.

[12] Printed in Hijar in 1486. Another humash with the same haftarot for these parashiyot is believed to have been printed in Spain as well. See the National Library of Israel website: here.

[13] The practice in Saragosa was to read the original Babylonian haftarot. See “The Massorah,” Vol. 2b, p. 486.

[14] The practice of reading Nahamu on the Sabbath following Tisha B’Av was much more prevalent than the practice of reading special haftarot in subsequent weeks. Rambam (Tefilla 13:19) writes that Nahamu was the “practice of the people,’ (Nahagu Haam) while he describes the practice of reading the other six haftarot of Consolation as a local custom.The Italian practice is to only read haftarot of Consolation for the remainder of Av, but this is not directly related to my main thesis, as Italians read Jeremiah 16:19 for Behar.

[15] Parshat Behar plays a unique role in the Ashkenazic liturgy for the Omer period. In the Western rite, R. Baruch of Mainz’s “Aharei Nimkar Geula Tihyeh Lo” is the zulat for that Sabbath, while in Eastern Ashkenaz the Geula “Yakush Ma’yano” is said. Both of these piyutim beseech Hashem, as our “close relative”, to perform the “commandment”of redeeming us. No other piyutim from the Omer liturgy are connected to the weekly parashiyot. However, in spite of the strong connection that Ashkenazic Jewry felt to the redemption commandments listed in Behar, is is unlikely that it is the reason for their choice of haftara, which appeared on the scene quite early, before the composition of these piyutim.

It is also worth noting that there has been a historical trend to eliminate haftarot of rebuke from the book of Ezekiel, but that doesn’t seem to be relevant to thehaftara of Behukkotai as it is not a haftara of rebuke. See note 4. [16] Unlike the old haftarot for Shemot (Ezekiel 16)and Bo (Isaiah 19) that were retained in some Spanish and Babylonian communities up to the present day. See the list in TE, pp. 703-706.

[17] Humash L’maan Sh’mo B’Ahava claims that Libyan communities read Jeremiah 16:19 for Parashat Behar. No other sources back up this claim, and Luah Dinim U’Minhagim Yotzei Luv (2008, pp. 137-138) lists the “standard” haftarot for these parashiyot.

[18] See Mirsky, Shmuel K, in Pinkas“ Bet Haknesset D’K”K Pozna” in “B’rcho L’Menachem” p 262. The Poznan community preserved various customs with an Italian connection that either disappeared from the rest of Ashkenaz, or never got there in the first place.

For instance, they read Dirshu (Isaiah 55:6) as the haftara for the Sabbath between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in years when there was a Sabbath between Yom Kippur and Sukkot long after that practice disappeared from the rest of Ashkenaz. See Mirsky, p. 264. Moreover, during Minha of Yom Kippur they recited the kiklars of “Emunat Om Noteret” and “Efa’er L’Malki Bakodesh. The Kiklars come from the Kalirian kedushta “Odecha Bekol Areiv”, which is recited as the kedushta for Yom Kippur Minha in the Roman community. In Poznan they were inserted into the non- Kalirian Kedushta “Eitan Hikkir Emunatekha” which was recited in all Ashkenaz. (In Nusach Polin only the Koteret is inserted.) See Mirsky, p. 270, and Goldschmidt in the introduction to Mahzor L’yamim Nora’im, Vol. 2, pp. 45-46. I would like to thank Dr. Gabriel Wasserman for pointing this out to me. Message from Professor Haym Soloveitchik

In the newly-published issue of the Jewish Quartlerly Review (Spring 109:2), there is an exchange between Robert Brody and Haym Soloveitchik on the “Third Yeshivah of Bavel” (https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40354). Professor Soloveitchik’s reply is in two parts: Part I in JQR and the continuation–Part II– on his website.. At the conclusion of his reply in JQR, he refers the readers to Part II on his website: “Those interested in my replies to all of Brody’s other objections can turn to my website, haym.soloveitchik.org- , and click on Reply to Brody, Part II.” There is a typographical error in the name of the website. There is no period between and. The correct address is: .

Three new Books

By Eliezer Brodt

In this post I would like to briefly describe three new works, which are hot off the press. For a short time, copies of these three works can be purchased through me for a special price. Part of the proceeds will be going to support the efforts of the Seforim Blog. Contact me at [email protected] for more information.

The first title is printed by the World Congress of Jewish Studies:

פירוש רש”י לספר משלי, ההדירה והוסיפה מבוא והערות ליסה פרדמן

Lisa Fredman’s, Rashi’s Commentary on the Book of Proverbs is a critical edition of Rashi on Mishlei based on numerous manuscripts. It includes a very extensive introduction and many valuable notes throughout the volume. Critical editions of Rashi are always welcome and very important, sadly not enough of them exist. One section in the introduction which I found interesting relates to Rashi and his responding to Christians and Christianity specifically in his work on Mishlei.

Here is the table of contents for this work: מגנזי אירופה כרך שני ההדיר והוסיף מבואות, שמחה עמנואל, 408 עמודים

The Second volume which I am very happy to announce is the publication of an important work which I have been eagerly waiting for, Professor Simcha Emanuel of the Hebrew University’s Talmud department’s volume of texts from the “European Genizah”, volume two. This volume was just printed by Mekitzei Nirdamim and is being sold byMagnes Press. [Volume one was mentioned earlier on the blog here]. For a sample chapter e mail me at [email protected].

Professor Emanuel is considered one of the today’s greatest experts in Rishonic literature. He has produced numerous special works [such as this recent work, this, this and my favorite] and articles of both texts and material about them for quite some time. [Many of which are available here] All of which are of very high quality, showing an incredible breadth and depth in the material at hand. One area of specialty of his is finding long-lost works; this new volume continues this trend. It includes numerous newly discovered texts of Rishonim, with introductions and background of their importance and proof of identification. Some of the discoveries are simply put remarkable detective work, how he pieces together the various pieces of the puzzle.

The author writes in the abstract of the book as follows:

The purpose of this volume, like its predecessor, is to uncover fragments of important Hebrew works hidden in the “European Genizah”. Thousands of pages of Hebrew manuscripts have been discovered in this “Genizah”, which is scattered in hundreds of libraries and archives throughout Europe and even beyond. In the late medieval and early modern eras, these pages were used to bind books and as folders of archival documents. In the first volume of this series, I published eleven new works from the “European Genizah”, prefacing them with a wide-ranging introduction about the nature of this “Genizah”. Nine additional works are published in the present volume.

The works published herein are from a variety of genres: Biblical exegesis, Talmud commentary, halakhic literature, and liturgical interpretation. They appear in this volume in chronological order, from earliest to latest. The most significant of the works is also the work whose discovery required more effort than all of the others; it appears in the first chapter of the book. This work was written — I wish to argue — in ninth or tenth-century Palestine. It reveals valuable information on the history of halakhah in Palestine of that era, and also teaches a great deal about how Palestinian Traditions made their way to the European continent. This work still requires a great deal of study, and I hope that others come along to add to my words. The fragments published here were identified in the collections of fourteen archives and libraries. These institutions, located throughout Europe, aptly reflect the dispersal of the European Geniza.

Here are the Table of Contents of this special work:

The third work is also printed by the World Congress of Jewish Studies.

שולמית אליצור, סוד משלשי קודש: הקדושתא מראשיתה ועד ימי רבי אלעזר בירבי קליר

This work Sod Meshalleshei Qodesh is written by Professor Shulamit Elizur (see here), one of the worlds leading experts on piyut. Some have claimed this work will change the study of piyut completely. In an interview published in Ami Magazine and reprinted with updates on the Seforim Blog (here) Elizur was asked:

Which sefer do you consider your biggest accomplishment— your magnum opus?”

She replied:

“The one I’m in the middle of writing right now. It’s a sefer on the history of the kedushta, which are the piyutim composed to be recited right before Kedushah. There are many chiddushim in that sefer and also things about Rabbi Elazar Hakalir that I discovered.”

This book is now out and is over one thousand pages!.

The following is the abstract of the book translated into English for the readers of the Seforim Blog by Dr. Gabriel Wasserman (and is not found in the actual book). This will give one a good idea of what the purpose of this work is:

Sod Meshalleshei Qodesh: The Qedushta From its Origins until the Time of Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir

A qedushta is a series of piyyutim for the ‘Amida prayer, which is expanded in honor of the recitation of the Qedusha, and includes many complex components. Its origins are in the Land of Israel, in the fourth or fifth century. We first see it as a constructed composition with set, complex, rules in the work of the poet Yannai, who lived in the mid-sixth century, the teacher of Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir (who is known popularly as “the Qallir”). The qedushta, as it appears in the hundreds of compositions by Yannai and his followers, conceals many secrets: mysterious strings of biblical verses accompany its first components; a fixed biblical verse concludes the third component, followed by the strange words “El Na”; then comes a fourth component, whose structure is free, and always concludes, for some reason, with the word “Qadosh”; the fifth component in Yannai’s compositions is the ‘asiriya, a poem constructed of a truncated alphabetical acrostic from only aleph to yud, followed by a prayer beginning “El Na Le‘olam Tu‘aratz” – and it is unclear why this prayer appears here; then there is a group of poems called rahitim, which are written, for some reason, in unique, stereotypical structures. These are only a fraction of the various strange features of the qedushta’ot of Yannai and the other poets. The discussions in the book are dedicated to suggesting solutions to all these questions, and to others, and involve uncovering fragments of qedushta’ot that preceded Yannai; by examining these texts, they excavate the literary remains to construct a model of the gradual development of the qedushta over time, from its origins until it reached its complex structure in the days of Yannai and Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir.

The first section of the book, which is the largest, is devoted to this development of the qedushta, in all its elements, including those that follow the recitation of Qedusha. Naturally, this section deals with the piyyutim mostly from a structural point of view, for only such an analysis can enable a comprehensive look at the development of the genre. However, as a base for these structural analyses, this section contains the texts of many piyyutim, mostly pre-classical (from the period before Yannai, when the poets did not yet use rhyme). Alongside them are printed classical rhyming piyyutim, too, from the period of Yannai and his colleagues, and, in a few instances, even piyyutim from later periods.

The second section of the book focuses on one single poet: Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir, the most prolific of the classical poets in the Land of Israel, whose poems reached Europe, and some of them are recited in Ashkenazic and Italian synagogues through today. The qedushta’ot of Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir are varied in both their structures and their styles, much more than those of Yannai; this section is devoted to an analysis of these compositions, and an attempt to map out which ones are earlier and which later. On the basis of precise structural analysis, the section builds a higher level of analysis – stylistic; and thus we see the picture of the great poet’s literary journey. It becomes clear that when he was started out, he was heavily influenced by the work of Yannai, and slowly he created new ways for himself: at first he went in the direction of obscurity and difficulty, which he gradually made more and more obscure; but then, in a later, more mature phase, he turned to pure lyrical song, which today’s reader, too, will find sweet.

The third section leaves aside the structural analyses, and suggests directions for further research. This section is short, and contains only first steps towards new directions in piyyut analysis. It focuses primarily on content, and ways that the qedushta’ot are organized, but it moves on to questions of how the qedushta is constructed as a complete composition, and points out various difficulties that the poets needed to overcome, and analyzes at length their literary solutions to these problems. Yannai stands at the center of the discussion in this section, but there are also notes about other poets. Most of the suggested directions for further research are new, and we hope that they will lead to further productive scholarship, and make it possible to study the piyyutim from angles that have hitherto been less examined.

Throughout the book, phenomena are demonstrated by means of the texts of piyyutim. More than 250 piyyutim are printed in the book, of which about 130 are being printed for the first time. Most of these piyyutim are from the earlier periods of piyyut, and their publication in this volume reveals the full contribution of these layers of the genre to our understanding of the history of theqedushta . Even the piyyutim that have already been printed elsewhere often were published in out-of-the-way publications, some of them with no vowels or commentary. It goes without saying that for this volume, these texts were all printed anew straight from the manuscripts. When pieces from Yannai’s work are cited to exemplify some point, an attempt has been made, inasmuch as possible, to use pieces that have not been included in the existing publications of his work, and thus the volume contributes a great amount of new material to the corpus of Yannai’s piyyutim. The volume as a whole is based on examination of hundreds of manuscripts, mostly from the Cairo Geniza, and these provide a wide, firm textual basis to the analysis.

The book is intended first and foremost for scholars, but it will also enable people interested in piyyut and its history from outside the world of academia to gain exposure to a great corpus of early piyyutim, among which are several stunningly beautiful gems, which are being published here for the first time.

For the Hebrew abstract email me at [email protected]

Here is the table of contents:

Rabbi Joseph Hertz, Women and Mitzvot, Antoninus, the New RCA Siddur, and Rabbis who Apostatized, Part 1

Rabbi Joseph Hertz, Women and Mitzvot, Antoninus, the New RCA Siddur, and Rabbis who Apostatized, Part 1

Marc B. Shapiro

1. In my last post here, in discussing R. Joseph Hertz’s suggested alternative text for Maoz Tzur, I wrote that this suggestion “was simply made up by Hertz or perhaps suggested by an unnamed collaborator on his siddur commentary.” At least one person wondered if I had anything in mind when I wrote about “an unnamed collaborator.” Indeed, these words were chosen deliberately. I do not know anything specifically about collaborators on the siddur commentary. However, we do know about the collaborators on his famous Torah commentary. This Chumash used to be found in every Modern Orthodox synagogue, and now, just like the Birnbaum siddur, it is missing from most of these synagogues.[1]

When it comes to what I will describe about the Hertz Chumash, it is possible that we are dealing with a great injustice. At the very least, it was a great misunderstanding between Hertz and his collaborators. Here are the Hebrew and English title pages of the Hertz Chumash.

The English title page refers to the Chumash as edited by Hertz. The Hebrew title page, which most people don’t even bother looking at, even if they understand Hebrew, refers to a commentary that is the work of a group of Torah scholars headed by Hertz. These are quite different formulations. Most people who have used the Hertz Chumash, even those who have used it for many years, will not know anything about this group of Torah scholars. Indeed, when people quote from this Chumash, Hertz is given exclusive credit for everything in it. Thus, when citing this Chumash’s commentary, people will say, “Hertz writes.” Yet is this correct?

If we turn to the Chumash’s preface, we learn that Hertz was assisted by J. Abelson, A. Cohen, G. Friedlander and S. Frampton. The first three individuals prepared the commentary to sections of the Torah (the exact sections are listed), and Frampton prepared the commentary to the Haftorahs. Hertz writes: “In placing their respective manuscripts at my disposal, they allowed me the widest editorial discretion. I have condensed or enlarged, re-cast or re-written at will, myself supplying the Additional Notes as well as nearly all the introductory and concluding comments to the various sections.” We see from this that Hertz had an important role, not just as editor, but in contributing content to the Chumash. Yet the commentary itself was not the product of Hertz. He was simply the editor of the material provided by the men mentioned above. In this role, he performed the regular task of an editor who takes texts and condenses and enlarges, re-casts or re-writes, but this editorial involvement does not make the editor the author.

We therefore have to wonder why it is that the men who labored so hard in creating the commentary are given no recognition, apart from the mention of their names in the preface which virtually no one bothers to read. As I already noted, the commentary to the Chumash is universally understood to have been written by Hertz when in fact most of it – other than the “introductory and concluding comments to the various sections” – is not his at all.

Now that the facts have been laid out, I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that Abelson, Cohen, and Frampton were not at all happy when the Chumash appeared and they were given no recognition for their labors on the title page. (Friedlander was no longer alive.) They thought that on the title page, following the mention of Hertz as the editor, it should have said something like, “With the collaboration of the Revs. Dr. A. Cohen, Dr. J. Abelson, the Rev. S. Frampton and the late Rev. G. Friedlander.” Hertz responded to their complaint that it had already been established at the initial stages of the planning of the Chumash that the contributors’ names would not appear on the title page.[2] In fact, this a major reason for R. Salis Daiches[3] withdrawing from collaboration on the project. (Obviously, Abelson, Cohen, and Frampton had a different understanding of how Hertz was supposed to acknowledge their work.) Daiches was also unhappy with Hertz’s “editorial policy of extensively rewriting and revising the installments submitted to him by the various annotators.”[4] Hertz later implausibly claimed that his revisions were “an incredible amount of labor, easily ten times the amount of my collaborators.”[5]

Another matter that must be noted is that in the preface found in the first volume of the first edition of the Chumash—it originally appeared in five volumes—Hertz writes that he supplied “nearly all the Additional Notes.” Yet in the one volume edition this sentence has been changed and the word “nearly” has been deleted, making Hertz the only author. Harvey Meirovich has called attention to this, and shows that the Notes dealing with evolution and sacrifices came from R. Isidore Epstein.[6]

I do not know why the following paragraph, which explains the method of the commentary and appeared in the preface to volume 1 of the first edition, was deleted from the preface of the one volume Chumash. This is exactly the sort of explanation of the commentary that the reader would find helpful.

Method of Interpretation: A word must be added as to the method chosen for leading the reader into what the Jewish Mystics called the Garden of Scriptural Truth. The exposition of the plain, natural sense of the Sacred Text must remain the first and foremost aim in a Jewish commentary. But this is not its only purpose and function. The greatest care must be taken not to lose sight of the allegorical teaching and larger meaning of the Scriptural narrative; of its application to the everyday problems of human existence; as well as of its eternal power in the life of Israel and Humanity. In this way alone can the commentator hope not merely to increase the knowledge of the reader, but to deepen his Faith in God, the Torah and Israel.

Also of interest is that the first edition of the Hertz Chumash includes maps which are not found in the one volume edition.

2. In my post here I mentioned that R. Shmuel Wosner defends שלא עשני עבד and שלא עשני גוי the practice of women saying R. Yehudah .שפחה and גויה instead of substituting the words Tesner agrees with R. Wosner and adds the following: If a this would only mean that she שלא עשני גויה woman would say does not want to be a non-Jewish woman. However, she might still prefer to be a non-Jewish man instead of a Jewish woman. it might only mean that she does not שפחה Also, if she said want to be a female maidservant, as this has two negative things, namely, that she is both a woman and enslaved.

שאין רצונה להיות שפחה, שיש בזה תרתי לריעותא, גם אשה וגם משעובדת

However, it might imply that if she could get rid of one of these negative things, i.e., the female, and be a male slave, that this might be acceptable to her. In order to prevent these misunderstandings, R. Tesner says that she must keep the .עבד and גוי standard text which includes women as part of This way she is thanking God that she is not a non-Jew, male or female, and that she is not a slave, male or female.[7]

There is no question in my mind that R. Tesner’s approach is somewhat convoluted and would never represent the thinking of any woman who recited the prayer. I only mention it because R. Tesner takes it for granted that it is better to be born as a Jewish man than a Jewish woman. Yet he also sees as obvious that it is still better to be a free Jewish woman than a male slave.

With regard to this latter point, it is of interest that R. Joseph Teomim states that there are a few things in which a male slave has an advantage over a woman:

עבד חשוב לענין קצת דברים . . . במקצת דברים עדיף מאשה

One of the things he mentions is that a male slave is circumcised, and circumcision is a great mitzvah given to men that women do not have the opportunity to fulfill.[8] This perspective is obviously very different than the outlook advocated by various kiruv speakers that while women are created perfect, men are created defective and thus need a berit milah to get them up to the level of women.[9] I have no doubt that if this argument was first made by someone who identified with Open Orthodoxy, that it would have been regarded as blasphemous for denigrating the commandment of circumcision.

Regarding women not having the opportunity to fulfill the great mitzvah of circumcision (and other mitzvot), I was surprised to find that R. Leon Modena, who was quite “modern” for his time, explains that this is because they do not rank very high in God’s eyes, which is another way of saying that women are simply unworthy of these mitzvot. Here are his misogynistic words:[10]

ומצינו שלא החשיב השי”ת בתורתו הנשים בשום אופן, ולא נתן להן .אפי’ אות ברית במילה, ולא רוב מצוות עשה

Apart from circumcision, it is a popularkiruv perspective that in general women are created with more spiritual perfection, and thus do not need all the mitzvot of men. R. Meir Mazuz attacks this position which he sees as absurd.[11]

דוגמא אחת מהסילופים: המקשים מצביעים על ברכת “שלא עשני אשה”, והמתרצים מתפלפלים להוכיח שהאשה איננה צריכה כל כך סייגים וגדרים, כי מטבעה דיה במספר מועט של מצוות, ולכן היא מברכת בשמחה רבה “שעשני כרצונו” – שהקב”ה ברא אותה תמימה ושלימה שאיננה צריכה כל כך מצוות, והאיש מברך “שלא עשני אשה” – הוא על דרך שמברכין על ואילו [ellipses in original] . . . הרעה כשם שמברכין על הטובה היה כדבריהם, למה מברכין הנשים ברכת “שעשני כרצונו” בלי שם ומלכות . . . והאנשים מברכים “שלא עשני אשה” בשם ומלכות, ואדרבא איפכא מסתברא?! ובטור א”ח (סימן מ”ו) כתב שנהגו הנשים לברך שעשני כרצונו, ואפשר שנהגו כן כמי שמצדיק עליו את הדין על הרעה . . . ולדעת המתרצים הנ”ל אפשר לומר ג”כ שהגוים עדיפי מישראל, שאינם .צריכים לתרי”ג מצוות רק לשבע דוקא, אתמהה

To R. Mazuz’s words I would only add that if people find it problematic to say that men are created more perfect than women, why do they not find it also problematic to say that women are created more perfect than men? Should I have been offended when a woman once said to me that she is exempt from a number of mitzvot because women are on a higher spiritual level than men, as they are naturally more connected to God, while men can only achieve this connection through mitzvot? I am sure she would have been offended if someone said to her that women are on a lower spiritual level than men, as they are naturally less connected to God, and the evidence of this is that do not have as many mitzvot as men.[12] And what about Torah study? Can we say that men are only commanded to study Torah because they are not at the same spiritual level as women? This would be a complete inversion of the value traditionally assigned to Torah study.[13]

Yisrael Ben Reuven’s book, Male and Female He Created Them (Southfield, 1995), devotes a good deal of discussion to the kiruv perspective. On pp. 132, 133, he writes:

A number of recent books in English propose this idea of women’s spiritual superiority over men, and reportedly, the idea is taught as well in numerous schools for women. The reader should note that none of the books in question offer a classical source for the idea, and none of several teachers of the idea have been able to supply a source when interviewed by this author and numerous individuals known by the author. . . . [T]he teaching contradicts a principle from the Gemara that commandments are placed on a person as a result of his having spirituality (as opposed to his lacking it).

I believe that Ben Reuven is correct in noting that attributing this notion to the Maharal is a mistake. Yet I disagree with his discussion of the view of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, as Hirsch indeed suggests that women are not commanded in the positive time-bound commandments because they do not need them, for they, by nature, have “greater fervour and more faithful enthusiasm for their God-serving calling.” Contrary to Ben Reuven, doesn’t this mean that they are created with a superior innate spirituality? Men, on the other hand, according to Hirsch, can only reach their spiritual potential through the mitzvot. Hirsch includes circumcision as one of the commandments that men need because they are by nature on a lower spiritual plane then women.[14]

R. Zvi Yehudah Kook also thinks that women are inherently spiritually superior to men. The problem is that men don’t realize this. However, R. Zvi Yehudah claims that in Messianic days when men will understand the truth, they will no longer as they ,שלא עשני אשה be able to able to make the blessing will see that women are superior to them.[15]

במצב העכשווי האיש יותר חזק בגופו, ומתוך כך בפרקטיקה האנושית. הוא אקטיבי יותר בכל החיים המעשיים. יש הרגשה שהוא תופס יותר מקום. הרגשה זו היא לפי המדריגה האנושית, והברכות נקבעו על פי ההרגשה האנושית היחסית. זאת התפיסה האנושית הרגילה, והברכה מתייחסת למציאות זו. משום כך אומר האיש כהרגשתו “שלא עשני אשה”, שהרי זו האמת היחסית, והאשה מברכת “שעשני כרצונו”. אך, כאמור, זו תפיסה אנושית חלקית, וההרגשה היא רק עניין יחסי של מצב עכשווי .נתון, אמת נוכחית לעומת זאת, ההשקפה האלהית, האמת המוחלטת, אינה ענין של הרגשה חולפת, אלא האמת הנצחית מראשיתה ועד סופה. לעתיד לבוא, כאשר גם האדם יכיר את האמת, ויהיה כולו מבחינת “הטוב והמטיב”, לא יוכל לברך “שלא עשני אשה”, שהרי אז יכיר שבניינה של האשה יותר רם, .יותר אלהי ופחות אנושי, ממצבו הוא

For virtually all, the approaches suggested by Hirsch and R. Zvi Yehudah Kook in which women are created more perfect than men would have been inconceivable in pre-modern times. One possible exception, and the only exception I know of, was the sixteenth-century R. Gedaliah Ibn Yahya, author of Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah. He actually enumerates numerous ways in which women are superior to men. He also claims that women are not intellectually inferior to men, and they can thus understand all the wisdoms of the world. In the sixteenth century, this was a very radical position.[16]

Regarding women, R. Yonason Rosman called my attention to the following. The ArtScroll Chumash, p. 1086 (beginning of parashat Nitzavim) states:

On the last day of his life, Moses gathered together every member of the Jewish people, from the most exalted to the lowliest, old and young, men and women, and initiated them for the last time into the covenant of God. What was new about this covenant was the concept responsibility for one another, under which every ערבות of Jew is obligated to help others observe the Torah and to restrain them from violating it. This is why Moses began by enumerating all the different strata of people who stood before him, and why he said (v. 28) that God would not hold them responsible for sins that had been done secretly, but that they would be liable for transgressions committed openly (Or HaChaim).

According to the ArtScroll summary, R. Hayyim Ben Attar, the author of Or ha-Hayyim, states that women are obligated But is this really what he says? Here is his .ערבות in commentary to Deuteronomy 29:9: R. Hayyim ben Attar actually says the exact opposite of what appears in the ArtScroll summary, in that he states that women and they are grouped together with ,ערבות are not obligated in children and proselytes. R. Ben Attar tells us that children are not obligated because they do not have the requisite understanding for such an obligation. Proselytes are not obligated because it is not their place to be rebuking, and thus exercising authority over, those who were born Jewish.[17] Why are women not obligated? R. Ben Attar writes:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה והנשים כמו כן הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל

The sentence is ambiguous, and it all depends on where you put the comma. Here is one way to read the sentence:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה והנשים כמו כן, הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל the ,והנשים כמו כן If you place the comma after the words sentence seemingly means that women are just like children in not having the requisite understanding of the various sins to R. Yaakov Hayyim Sofer finds it .ערבות be obligated in incomprehensible that R. Ben Attar would say that women’s level of understanding is comparable to that of children.[18] He therefore explains that when R. Ben Attar he only means to say that the law for ,והנשים כמו כן says women is like the law for children, but not that the reason is the same. so אינם בני דעה You can also place the comma after the words that one reads the sentence this way:

ואין הם נתפסים על אחרים שהטף אינם בני דעה, והנשים כמו כן הגרים גם כן אין להם להשתרר על ישראל

Now the sentence means that children do not have the requisite and women are like ,ערבות understanding to be obligated in proselytes in that it is not their place to be rebuking, and thus exercising authority over, Jewish men. Although this is how R. Avraham Sorotzkin understands the Or ha-Hayyim,[19] I find it difficult as the second half of the sentence does not read well this way. 3. In my post here I referred to Nero and Antoninus and their supposed conversions to Judaism. The Talmud,Gittin 56a, indeed states that Nero converted, and it adds that R. Meir was descended from him. Soncino’s note to the passage reads: “This story may be an echo of the legend that Nero who had committed suicide was still alive and that he would return to reign (v. JE IX, 225).” The Koren Talmud’s note, which is a translation of what appears in Steinsaltz, states that the talmudic story cannot be referring to the famous Nero: “The Roman emperor Nero was killed under strange circumstances and after his death rumors circulated that he was not actually killed but had taken refuge elsewhere.” The note continues that even though Nero is referred to in the passage the story actually refers to נירון קיסר, in Gittin 56a as another person who was an officer in the Roman army in the campaign against Judea. This person’s name was also Nero, and since he was from the larger Caesar family, he too was called Nero Caesar. This explanation apparently first appears in Seder ha-Dorot.[20]

Graetz thought that the story of Nero converting was part of a rabbinic polemic against Christianity, while Bacher “attributed the origin of the legend to the view which considers the power of Judaism to be so great, that even its greatest enemies become converts either themselves, or, at any rate, their descendants.”[21]

Let me offer another way of explaining the story of Nero’s conversion, which I have not seen anyone else suggest. Josephus tells us that the Jews put up a wall in the Temple to prevent King Agrippa from viewing the sacrificial service. This upset both Agrippa and the Procurator, Festus, and Festus ordered that the wall be torn down. The Jews decided to go over Festus’ head and turned to Nero. Nero’s wife, Poppaea Sabina, pleaded their case, and as a favor to his wife, Nero ordered that the wall should stay.

Why would Poppaea plead the case of the Jews? Josephus tells us that she was a “God-fearer.”[22] Whatever the exact connotations of this term, which has been greatly discussed, she was clearly a sympathizer of the Jews. Josephus tells us that on another occasion she helped secure the release of some Jews who had been placed in prison in Rome. He also tells us that that Poppaea gave him many presents.[23] Could it be that originally the story about the conversion of Nero was said about his wife, and that in the hundreds of years before it was recorded in the Talmud, it was transferred to Nero himself?

As for the Emperor Antoninus, who was friends with R. Judah ha-Nasi, we do not know who this refers to as the title Antoninus was used for various emperors.[24] However, I want to call attention to a different point. In Sefer Yuhasin ha- Shalem, ed. Filipowski, p. 115, in listing the talmudic sages, R. Abraham Zacut includes a “Rabbi Antoninus”. Where does he get such a name? As he indicates, it comes from Mekhilta de- Rabbi Yishmael, and there are actually two separate references there to R. Antoninus.[25] The first reads:[26]

א”ר אנטונינוס למלך שהוא דן על הכימה [הבימה]

The second reads:[27]

’ר’ אנטונינוס אומר ג’ היו והוסיף עליהם עוד אחד והיו ד…

R. Antoninus is being cited as the source for halakhic teachings. Yet the text is corrupt, as was already pointed out by the Vilna Gaon. He emended both passages so that while Antoninus is mentioned, he is not identified as a rabbi.[28]Thus, in the first passage the Vilna Gaon emended it to read:

אמר רבי אנטונינוס המלך שהוא דן על הכימה [הבימה]

The second passage he emended to read:

רבי אומר ג’ היו הוסיף עליהם עוד אחד והיו ד’ הוסיף אנטונינוס ’עוד אחד והיו ה

While the Vilna Gaon may have only sensed intuitively that the text was corrupt, manuscript evidence exists that offers versions similar to or identical with that suggested by the Vilna Gaon.[29]

As for the conversion of Antoninus, R. Solomon Judah Rapoport argues that this is a late, and non-historical, aggadah.[30] He points to a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 1:11, which shows that it was not clear whether Antoninus converted.

אית מילין דאמרין דאתגייר אנטונינוס ואית מילין אמרין דלא אתגייר אנטונינוס

Nevertheless, despite these words, the continuation of this talmudic passage records that he did in fact convert. This is also the conclusion in the Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 10:5. However, the matter is still not clear, since regarding the Megillah text the Leiden manuscript has a different version which leaves the matter of Antoninus’ conversion undecided.[31] Furthermore, as Shaye J. D. Cohen writes, “the Bavli clearly implies that Antoninus was not a convert, unlike the Roman dignitary Qetia who was.”[32] Cohen also calls attention to Yalkut Shimoni: Isaiah, no. 429, which states that Antoninus was one of the tzadikei umot ha-olam, that is, not a convert.

R. David Zvi Hoffmann examined the various aggadot regarding R. Judah ha-Nasi and Antoninus. With regard to most of them he concludes that they arose in Babylonia long after the events described, and that “it is difficult to find a historical core to them.”[33]He does not tell us whether he regards these stories as simply legends that arose from the people or if they should be seen as didactic tales no different than the numerous other aggadot that describe actions and dialogues of various biblical figures, matters that were also never intended to be taken as historical. R. Hoffmann also discusses how the notion of Antoninus actually converting to Judaism developed from earlier sources that only regard him as a “God fearer.”[34]

Regarding referring to people as rabbis when they do not deserve the title, such as Rabbi Antoninus, here is another interesting example that I believe was pointed out to me many years ago by Prof. Shnayer Leiman. When R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz’s Luhot Edut was reprinted in 1966, the publisher helpfully added an index of names at the back. What seems to have happened is that he went through the index putting “Ha- Rav” before all the names, and mistakenly added this title before Shabbetai Zvi’s name.

When the book was reprinted again by Copy Corner in the 1990s, .שר”י they fixed this mistake and added It is interesting that in Solomon Zeitlin’s review of Gershom Scholem’s biography of Shabbetai Zvi, he criticizes Scholem for referring to Nathan of Gaza as “Rabbi Nathan.”[35] Had Scholem wished to defend himself from an Orthodox perspective, he could have pointed to the fact that decades after Nathan’s death (and also after Shabbetai Zvi’s death), one of the leading rabbis in Salonika, R. Solomon ben Joseph Amarillo הרב הקדוש מהר”ר died 1722), refers to Nathan as) R. Joseph Molho (1692-1768), another נתן [36].אשכנזי ז”ל הרב נתן leading rabbi in Salonika, refers to Nathan as .This positive reference to Nathan is found in R [ז”ל.[37 Molho’s response to R. Solomon ben Isaac Amarillo, who also referred to Nathan this way.[38] In his famous work, Shulhan וכן קבלו מהרב :Gavoah, R. Molho refers to Nathan as follows I was surprised to see that [נתן אשכנזי ז”ל המקובל האלהי.[39 in the new edition of Shulhan Gavoah (Jerusalem, 1993), this appears without any censorship, which presumably means that the editor did not know who R. Nathan Ashkenazi is. One final example: The famed R. Moses Zacuto (c. 1620-1697) refers to [הרב המופלא כמהר”ר נתן הידוע זלה”ה.[Nathan as 40

Those who are interested in rabbinic history are familiar with R. Naphtali Yaakov Kohn’s nine volume Otzar ha-Gedolim. In vol. 4, p. 125, we find an entry for none other than the notorious Spanish apostate, Joshua Lorki, and his name is .שר”י ימ”ש followed by Why is such a person included in a book of gedolim“ ”? The author explains that before he apostatized, he was a rabbi. (I do not believe this is correct. I have never before seen him described as a rabbi and know of no evidence to support such an assumption.) One can easily understand that even if someone was a rabbi, if he later converted, or became a Reform rabbi for that matter, including him in a book of “gedolim” is not going to sit well with many. This is so even though most of the rabbis included in the book are far from what one can consider “gedolim” in the way the term is used today.

Kohn did not print any letters or haskamot in the first four volumes of his work. These first appear in volume 5, and are from such varied figures as R. Joel Teitelbaum and the Chief Rabbis of Haifa. Kohn also includes a four-page letter from R. Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Klausenberger Rebbe. R. Halberstam saw the entry for Lorki and was very upset. He writes that just as no one would dream of including Dathan and Abiram among the great Jewish leaders, all the more so one should not include Lorki among the rabbis of Jewish history. should אותו האיש ימ”ש שר”י He further asks, rhetorically, if also be included because he was a student of R. Joshua ben Perahiah?

R. Halberstam is even upset that the book includes an entry for Lorki’s father, and unfairly wonders what type of man he must have been if his son turned out this way. (I say “unfairly” since there are many examples of pious people whose children ended up very differently.) Finally, R. Halberstam makes the following strong point to Kohn: If you are going to sayyemah shemoafter someone’s name, then it has to actually mean something. By including an entry for Lorki in the book, not only are you not blotting out his name, but you are doing the exact opposite by preserving his name for all to see.

ובאמת שאצל המומר לורקי כתב כת”ה בתר שמו ימ”ש שר”י. אבל זה לא רק להלכה אלא גם למעשה ואם אומרים ימח שמו א”כ איך חוקקים שמו ?להזכירו בזכרון קדוש אחרי שבע מאות שנים

Kohn thought that it was OK to include an entry for Lorki because he was a rabbi before he apostatized. With this logic it would be OK to also study the Torah works of rabbis who later apostatized, since these works were written before their apostasy. (In part 2 of this post I will deal with rabbis who published seforim and then apostatized.) 5. In my last post here, I wrote that the new RCA siddur will come to be the standard siddur at hundreds of synagogues for decades to come. This was a reasonable conclusion to reach, since ArtScroll is no longer allowed to sell the RCA ArtScroll siddur which has become the standard at Modern Orthodox synagogues. Thus, when these synagogues need to purchase new siddurim – and these siddurim must have the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF – they would naturally buy the new RCA siddur. Yet it seems that I was mistaken, as I did not anticipate ArtScroll’s response to its anticipated enormous loss of revenue. Here is the ad that many of you have already seen. ArtScroll is continuing to sell the RCA siddur, minus the name “RCA” on the cover and Rabbi Saul Berman’s introductory essay. Instead of being the RCA edition, this siddur is now called the “Synagogue Edition.” This is designed to ensure that Modern Orthodox synagogues, when they need to buy new siddurim, continue purchasing the ones congregants are used to.

This move by ArtScroll is obviously a serious threat to the success of the new RCA siddur, as the typical Modern Orthodox synagogue will probably find it easier just to buy the new “Synagogue Edition.” It is going to take a lot of effort from the RCA to ensure that the new siddur becomes accepted across America, and only time will tell who will win the battle for the loyalty of the Modern Orthodox synagogues. I don’t know the details of ArtScroll’s contract with the RCA, so I can’t say if what ArtScroll has done is illegal. It certainly appears unethical.

When the original ArtScroll siddur appeared some thirty-five years ago, it immediately caught on, so much so that today it is hard to find an English-speaking Orthodox home that does not have an ArtScroll siddur. This is an enormous historical achievement. However, there was an obvious lack in that the classic ArtScroll siddur did not include the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF. This meant that it could never be adopted as the siddur for Modern Orthodox synagogues. There were many people who were upset with ArtScroll for not including these prayers. Would it have been so difficult for ArtScroll to have included them with the note that “Some congregations recite these prayers”? In a siddur that found room to include Gott fun Avrohom at Havdalah, for the tiny population of ArtScroll siddur-users that says it, why could it not include prayers recited by many thousands every Shabbat? They could also have put these prayers in the back of the siddur, with the Yotzerot that today hardly anyone says. These steps would have made for an inclusive siddur, and there never would have been a need for the RCA ArtScroll Siddur.

We were led to believe that as a matter of principle, as dictated by ArtScroll’s gedolim, the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF could not be included. It was thus a surprise that ArtScroll agreed to include these prayers in the RCA edition of the ArtScroll Siddur. The RCA recognized that everyone was moving over from Birnbaum to ArtScroll, and therefore it made sense to produce a Religious Zionist version of ArtScroll. How was ArtScroll able to include the religiously objectionable prayers? Obviously, the reason was money, but there was also deniability, as people could say that it wasn’t actually an ArtScroll siddur. Rather, it was an RCA siddur using the text of ArtScroll, so in this way ArtScroll wasn’t implicated as a partner in religious Zionism and its objectionable prayers.

With the publication of the new “Synagogue Edition” siddur, we now have a situation where ArtScroll itself is publishing a siddur with the prayers for the State of Israel and the IDF. In other words, ArtScroll is publishing a Religious Zionist text. This is definitely news. You can be as cynical as you wish in explaining why when it comes to making lots of money from Modern Orthodox synagogues, Daas Torah can be pushed aside, but it is significant that a so-called haredi publishing house has broken with haredi standards in such a significant way. Nevertheless, I hope that Modern Orthodox synagogues will realize that there is a great difference between the old RCA ArtScroll siddur, which is just the standard ArtScroll siddur with a few extra pages, and the new RCA Siddur which, in its ideological outlook and historical sophistication, is a siddur perfectly suited for today’s Modern Orthodox community.

6. Rabbi Pini Dunner recently publishedMavericks, Mystics and False Messiahs, and I know readers of the Seforim Blog will find it a wonderful read. If you have ever watched any of Dunner’s videos, you know that no one can tell a story like him. The figures and events he discusses (Samuel Falk, Emden- Eybeschuetz dispute, ClevesGet, Lord George Gordon, R. Yudel Rosenberg, Ignatz Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln) are ones that are perfectly suited for his skill in this area. Readers should not go to this book looking for new discoveries of the sort that he has spoken about in some of his online lectures. Some people will have even read the published works upon which the chapters are based (e.g., Scholem, Leiman, Wasserstein). These sources are discussed in the concluding chapter which is itself fascinating, especially for those who love books. I heartily recommend the book even for those who know the original sources, because no one can bring a story to life quite like Dunner.

There is one thing, however, that I wish had been explained by Dunner. In the longest chapter of the book, dealing with the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute, there are lengthy dialogues recorded between different people. We also read about when individuals smiled, when they gasped, when they turned pale, when their voice was shaky, when tears flowed down their cheeks, when they sat upright in bed, etc. Occasionally, we find this also in other chapters. Since all this is made up by Dunner (and with regard to the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute could even be the beginnings of a movie storyline), it would have been helpful for some discussion as to why he decided to spice up the book this way. The most we get is that in the concluding chapter (p. 172), Dunner tells us that portions of the book “have been written in a style that has much more in common with dramatic fiction than with non-fiction history, including details of private conversations, and descriptive elements that may cause readers to wonder about their accuracy.” Yet the reader is never told why Dunner sometimes adopts this approach and at other times he sticks to the facts.

The chapter on the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute includes as part of the story the legendary account of how R. Emden, on his deathbead, said, “Barukh haba, my revered father, barukh haba, Rabbi Yonatan.”[41] This was understood to mean that he was finally reconciled with his longtime adversary, and explains why they were buried in the same row. Unless one reads the concluding chapter of the book, which deals with the sources, the reader will have no way of knowing that there is no historical basis for this tale. It is attributed in the original source to R. Abraham Shalom Halberstam of Stropkov (1857-1940), though he presumably was repeating a tradition he had heard. The story was obviously invented to create a posthumous peace between the two great rabbis.

I realize that what I have described is part of the liberties taken by any good storyteller. However, anyone who reads the book will wonder why the Emden-Eybeschuetz chapter in particular, which freely mixes fact with fiction, is written in such a different style than the other chapters, which stick much more closely to what the evidence tells us. Dunner has shown that he can be both expert storyteller and historian, but speaking as a fellow historian, my preference would have been not to mix these genres in one book.

[1] Regarding the Hertz Chumash, see the articles by Mitchell First here, and Yosef Lindell here.

[2] See Harvey Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism: The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch (New York and Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 187-189.

[3] Unlike the other contributors, Daiches was actually a rabbi (something not so common in Britain at the time). He received semikhah from the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin as well as from his father, the great R. Israel Hayyim Daiches, R. Solomon Cohen of Vilna, and R. Ezekiel Lifshitz of Kalisz. See Hannah Holtschneider, “Salis Daiches – Towards a Portrait of a Scottish Rabbi,” Jewish Culture and History 16 (2015), p. 4. Holtschneider’s biography of Daiches will be out later this year. See here. The famous author David Daiches was his son, and his book Two Worlds (Edinburgh, 1997) has a lot about Salis Daiches. Here are some passages that I think readers will find of interest, as it speaks to the differences between what it meant to be an Orthodox rabbi in Britain a century ago vs. today.

Pp. 29-30: The electric radiator – which did, I suppose, make some difference, though memory links it only with extreme cold – could be switched on and off on the sabbath, as the electric light also could, in accordance with a decision of my father’s which differentiated his position sharply from that of my grandfather, patriarchal rabbi of an orthodox Jewish congregation in Leeds, who would have been shocked if he had known how cavalierly we treated electricity. Gas light or heat, which required the striking of a match, was another matter that was clearly prohibited. But electricity was a phenomenon unrecognized by the Talmud, and my father felt free to make his own interpretation of the nature of the act of switching on the electric light or heat. He decided that it was not technically ‘kindling a fire’, which a biblical injunction prohibits in the home on the sabbath.”

Pp. 81-82: “For years we travelled with our own meat dishes (for we could not eat off the meat dishes of a non-Jewish house) and Mother had supplies of meat sent out by post from the Edinburgh Jewish butcher. Packing a trunk full of dishes was an arduous business, and eventually Mother gave it up and we went vegetarian throughout August – which was no hardship for Mother could do marvelous things with fish (the term vegetarian in our family meant simply eating no meat but did not exclude fish). Slowly and gradually, and I am sure never consciously on my parents’ part, we relaxed a bit in the matter of diet. When she was first married Mother baked all her own bread, but ceased to do this after her illness in 1919. And on holiday one found oneself going a little further than one would have done in the city. In Edinburgh, we usually ate bread from the Jewish bakery, but occasionally we would get a loaf from a non-Jewish shop. Cakes and biscuits we regularly got from non-Jewish sources. But though Mother would buy ordinary cakes from a non-Jewish baker, she would always make her own pastry, for pastry from a gentile shop was liable to have been made with lard. On holiday, however, pastries started to creep in among the cakes bought for tea, and nobody raised the question of what they were made with.” I am certain that Daiches is mistaken in his last sentence, and that his father confirmed with the bakery that there were no non-kosher ingredients in these pastries.

Pp. 92: “At home we always covered our heads to pray, and to say grace before and after meals, but we were never expected to keep our heads covered continually. My father wore a black skull cap when receiving members of his congregation in his study, but as the years went by he developed the habit of keeping it in his pocket throughout much of the day and diving hastily for it when the bell rang. In his father’s presence he wore it continually.”

Pp. 174, 176: The rabbi did not believe in a literal personal Messiah; he believed in historical movements, in progress, in amelioration, and in the acceleration of movement in the right direction by the actions of individuals. . . . The Messiah was not a person, but a historical ideal. God, the rabbi was in the habit of telling his congregation, works in history.”

Pp. 175-176: “The priestly benediction recited on High Festivals, when all the Cohens assembled to bless the congregation in the old biblical words of benediction, had been abolished by the rabbi in his Sunderland synagogue and he would not allow it in Edinburgh either.”

[4] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, p. 31.

[5] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, p. 33.

[6] Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism, pp. 41ff.

[7] Siah Tefilah (Ofakim, 2003), p. 361.

[8] Mishbetzot Zahav, Orah Hayyim 46:4.

[9] See Excursus which will be in part 2 of this post.

[10] Magen ve-Herev, ed Simonsohn (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 47. [11] See his derashah in R. Rephael Kadir Tsaban, Nefesh Hayah (Bnei Brak, 2007), vol. 2, pp. 269-270.

[12] See e.g, Derashot Rabbi Yehoshua Ibn Shuaib (Cracow, 1573), p. 48a:

כי נשמתן של ישראל הן קדושות יותר מן האומות ומן העבדים הכנעניים הפחותים ואפילו מן הנשים ואם הם שייכי במצות והן מזרע ישראל אין .נשמתן כנשמת הזכר השייך בתור’ ובכל המצות עשה ולא תעשה

[13] R. Shlomo Aviner, in discussing this matter, does not go so far as to say that men are obligated in Torah study because they are not at the same spiritual level of women. However, he comes close, and he is led to this approach because of his understanding of Torah study as leading to devekut, a position which is at odds with the Lithuanian perspective on Torah study. See Aviner, Bat Melekh (Jerusalem, 2013), p. 104:

?שאלה: מדוע האשה, שניחנה בבינה יתרה, אינה מחוייבת בלימוד תורה

תשובה:האיש, שאין בו בינה יתרה, דווקא הוא צריך להרבות בלימוד, אך האשה, שיש לה בינה יתרה, מבינה גם ללא הלימוד הרצוף והממושך. המהר”ל מסביר, שמי שיש לו נטיה טבעית לדבר, הוא משיגו בנקל. ללא נטיב טבעית יש צורך בעמל רב. לאשה באופן טבעי יש נטיה, שהאיש צריך לעמול עליה קשה (מהר”ל, דרוש על התורה עמ’ כז-כח). אלא, עמל לימוד התורה אינו איסוף ידיעות, בעומק הנפש, ודבקות בתורה. האיש הוא קשה עורף, מתקשה לשמוע לכן יש להכותו בגידים (שמות רבה כח ב. רש”י, שמות יט ג), בשוט השכלי של הלימוד. מי שניחן בנטיה טבעית לתורה אינו זקוק ל”גידים” כדי שתחול בו אותה תמורה פנימית, והיא מגיע אליו ביתר קלות . . . זו נטיה עמוקה באישיות האשה, לכן היא מגיעה לדבקות וקישור והתמלאות בתורה בנתיבים שונים מן האיש. האיש מגיע לדבקות זו בנתיב הלימודי, והאשה בנתיב ספיגת הדברים מן .החיים

See here from a Chabad site where we are told that “the female child inherently carries a higher degree of holiness, due to her own biological, life creating capability.” Would anyone today write the same sort of comment, but instead state that the male child has a higher degree of holiness? Faced with a situation where many people believe that women are regarded as inferior in traditional Judaism, defenders of Judaism are often led to offer apologetic answers that argue the reverse, namely, that it is actually women who are more special, spiritual, holy, etc. than men.

In my experience, men never seem to be offended when they hear this. One haredi friend explained to me that this is because the men do not believe it to be true, and thus no reason to be offended if it makes the women feel better. This is a cynical answer, but can anyone come up with a better reason? Imagine the scenario: A Shabbat meal with many guests and the father offers a devar Torah whose upshot is that men are more holy and spiritual than women. This will not go over well and the women (and some men also) will be offended. Yet if the message of the devar Torah is that women are more holy and spiritual, no one will take offense. Why not? And my more basic question is, why we can’t just say that men and women are equally holy and spiritual (albeit with different roles)? Why do people feel a need to say that one is more special than the other?

All this is in the realm of Jewish thought. However, when it comes to explaining halakhic matters in which women might be portrayed in a way that they would take offense at, here too new approaches must be offered. For example, can anyone imagine explaining to modern women why they cannot perform shechitah by telling them what R. Joseph Messas quotes from manuscript from the nineteenth-century R. Jacob Almadyoni (spelling?) of Tlemcen, Mayim Hayyim, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah no. 1?

אין להניח הנשים לשחוט ואפי’ בדיעבד ראוי להחמיר שאף המכשירין יודו האידנא שאין דעת נשי דידן מכוונות כדעת נשי דידהו. ואם על נשיהם אמרו אין חכמה לאשה אלא בפלך [יומא דף ס”ו ע”ב], קו”ח לנשי דידן

[14] See Hirsch’s commentary to Lev. 23:43, and regarding women and circumcision, see also Hirsch to Gen. 17:15. The most comprehensive discussion of Hirsch’s view of women and Judaism is found in Ephraim Chamiel, The Middle Way (Brighton, MA, 2014), vol. 2, pp. 152ff. On p. 153 he titles the section of a chapter: “Revolution: Women are Superior to Men.” Hirsch obviously opposed the notion found in R. David Abudarham that the reason women are not obligated in positive time-bound commandments is because they are “enslaved” to their husband to do his will, and if they were busy performing these commandments they could not serve him properly and this would create marital discord. See Abudarham ha-Shalem (Jerusalem, 1963), p. 25:

והטעם שנפטרו הנשים מהמצות עשה שהזמן גרמא לפי שהאשה משועבדת לבעלה לעשות צרכיו. ואם היתה מחוייבת במצות עשה שהזמן גרמא אפשר שבשעת עשיית המצוה יצוה אותה הבעל לעשות מצותו ואם תעשה מצות הבורא ותניח מצותו אוי לה מבעלה ואם תעשה מצותו ותניח מצות הבורא אוי לה מיוצרה לפיכך פטרה הבורא ממצותיו כדי להיות לה שלום עם .בעלה

)The common pronunciation of Abudarham as “Abudraham” is a mistake. See here.(

The same reason is offered by R. Jacob Anatoli, Malmad ha- Talmidim (Lyck, 1866), pp. 15b-16a:

לפי שהנקיבה היא לעזר הזכר ואל אישה תשוקתה והוא ימשל בה להנהיגה ולהדריכה בדרכיו ולעשות מעשה על פיו והיותה על הדרך הזה הוא גם כן סבה שהיא פטורה מכל מצות עשה שהזמן גרמא כי אלו היתה טרודה לעשות המצות בזמן היה הבעל בלא עזר בזמנים ההם והיתה קטטה נופלת .ביניהם ותסור הממשלה המכוונת שהיא לתועלתו ולתועלתה

R. Ahron Soloveichik adopted an approach similar to that of Hirsch. He claimed that Judaism “recognizes the feminine gender as possessing an innate, unique spiritual blessing as compared with the male gender. . . [T]he woman has innate spiritual advantage as compared with men.”Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind(Jerusalem, 1991), p. 93.

[15] Itturei Kohanim, no. 167 (5759), 4-5; R. Aviner, Panim el Panim (Jerusalem, 2008), p. 194. Significantly, R. Zvi שלא עשני Yehudah’s explanation acknowledges that the blessing implies male superiority. While this was a common אשה understanding in pre-modern times, in recent generations this interpretation was usually rejected. Yet R. Zvi Yehudah claims that the blessing’s formulation was a concession to human feelings. Does this then mean that if a contemporary man recognizes the superiority of women, or even just that they are equal to men, that according to R. Zvi Yehudah he can stop saying this blessing?

[16] See Avraham Grossman “Ma’alot ha-Nashim ve-Adifutan be- Hibur shel R. Gedaliah Ibn Yahya,” Zion 72 (2007), pp. 37-61.

[17] R. Simhah Bunim Lieberman raises a strong objection to Or ha-Hayyim‘s position. See Bi-Shvilei Orayta al Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh la-Zeh, p. 124:

אבל האמת דעצם דברי האור החיים צ”ע, דאטו מוכיח יש בו שררה, וכי מצאנו איסור לגר להוכיח ישראל שחטא

[18] Edut be-Yaakov, vol. 2, p. 164.

[19] See R. Avraham Sorotzkin, Rinat Yitzhak, Deut. 29:10.

[20] R. Yehiel Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot (Bnei Brak, 2003), vol. 1, p. 251.

[21] Naomi G. Cohen, “Rabbi Meir, A Descendant of Anatolian Proselytes,” Journal of Jewish Studies 23 (1972), pp. 54-55. Cohen also provides the Graetz reference.

[22] Antiquities 20.8.11.

[23] Life of Flavius Josephus, ch. 3. See A. Andrew Das, Solving the Romans Debate (Minneapolis, 2007), pp. 77ff.; Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1993), p. 351.

[24] R. Maimon ben Joseph (the father of Maimonides), Iggeret ha-Nehamah, trans. Binyamin Klar (Jerusalem, 2007), p. 38, states:

וכבר אמר פעם אחת אחד ממלכי רומי – קללה תבוא על כולם, חוץ מאחד רם המעלה המובדל מהם, הוא אנטונינוס שהיה בדורו של רבנו הקדוש .ע”ה

[25] R. Yehiel Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot, vol. 2, p. 138, has a version of the Mekhilta that reads Antigonos, and he therefore identifies a “Rabbi Antigonos”.

[26] Beshalah, hakdamah. In the edition with the Netziv’s commentary it is on p. 79.

[27] Beshalah, parashah 1. In the edition with the Netziv’s commentary it is on p. 111.

[28] Surprisingly, Abraham Joshua Heschel did not take note of the Vilna Gaon’s emendation, and cited one of the Mekhilta texts as is. See Torah min ha-Shamayim be-Aspaklaryah shel ha- Dorot (London and New York, 1962), p. 183 n. 3.

[29] See the Horovitz-Rabin edition of the Mekhilta, pp. 82, 89.

[30] See Rapoport, Erekh Milin (Prague, 1852), p. 270.

[31] See the comprehensive discussion in Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Conversion of Antoninus,” in Peter Schäfer, ed.,The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (Tübingen, 1978), pp. 141-171.

[32] “The Conversion of Antoninus,” pp. 164-165.

[33] “Die Aggadot von Antoninus in Midrash und Talmud,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 19 (1892), p. 46.

[34] “Die Aggadot von Antoninus in Midrash und Talmud,” pp. 51-52. [35] See Jewish Quarterly Review 49 (1958), p. 153.

[36] Penei Shlomo (Salonika, 1717), p. 43d.

[37] Ohel Yosef (Salonika, 1756), no. 14 (p. 13a).

[38] Devar Moshe (Salonika, 1750), vol. 3, no. 11 (p. 8a). The three sources just cited are mentioned by Meir Benayahu, Ha- Tenuah ha-Shabta’it be-Yavan (Jerusalem, 1978), pp. 191, 274-275.

[39] Shulhan Gavoah (Salonika, 1756), Orah Hayyim, vol. 2, Hilkhot Yom ha-Kippurim 620 (p. 68a). He also refers to Nathan this way ibid., Hilkhot Rosh ha-Shanah 584 (p. 35a).

[40] See Benayahu, Ha-Tenuah ha-Shabta’it be Yavan, p. 119. For sources regarding Zacuto, see Gershom Scholem, Mehkerei Shabtaut, ed. Yehuda Liebes (Tel Aviv, 1991), p. 528; Bezalel Naor, Post Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, 1999), p. 176 n. 8.

[41] The source of the story for Dunner is David Ginz, Gedulat Yehonatan, vol. 2, p. 286. Abraham Hayyim Simhah Bunim Michaelson, Ohel Avraham (Petrokov, 1911), p. 28b, also heard the story from R. Halberstam, but in his version R. Emden .ברוך הבא אבא ,states simply