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14, 19th & 20th C Extraordinary Scholar Librarians In Their Historical Context and the Post-modern Risk of Extinction of the Scholar librarian1 By David B Levy PhD; MLS Values Held Dear by Great Librarians [including Scholarly 20th Century Luminaries]: Reverence, Cherishing, and Love of the Sefer The reverence, respect, and love for Jewish books as the vessels of potential transmission (masorah) of sacred teaching and knowledge, expanding consciousness (mogen gedolut) via a living teacher is found in Jewish law and custom. Abraham ibn Ezra referred to tomes as “sheaths of wisdom.” The Vilna Gaon known as the GRA expresses the attribute of malchut (royalty) in in comparing the 62 tractates of the Babylonian Talmud to the 62 Queens, and the other many 100s of thousands of Rabbinic works to the “maidens who serve the Queens.” The GRA also noted that his sacred tomes where his most precious possessions for just as “his feet allowed him to walk in this world, his books allow him to walk in higher worlds, even outside of history and time.” The higher worlds to which the GRA refers are the Hechalot, the 7 heavens, or palace of Hashem, where according to Rabbinic texts, angelic doorkeepers guard gates, allowing certain priviledged souls who have attainted the highest levels of intellectuality and cognitive knowledge to enter into rooms where the soul is delighted and refressed by angelic discourses of fountains of wisdom. This motif is found in texts such as Rambam’s Moreh Nevukhim chapter 52 Part II linked on our Rambam library guide at: , http://libguides.tourolib.org/rambam and Orhot Tzadikim. Since Kings in antiquity often served as Judges, as did Solomon, the notion of one’s fate and judgment being written in a books is encapsulated in the High Holiday liturgy that on Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur sealed, and on Hoshanah Rabbah G-d’s heavenly court of angels, deliver the verdict of 1 This focus on 19th and 20th century librarians is part of a larger project. which in the big picture is to write a book on the history of Judaica textual collections from antiquity to the middle ages to the present. I have already published on ancient 2nd Temple Hebraica collections at https://sites.google.com/site/mtevansco/elazar- classification relying on hints form Josephus and Talmudic texts, and on medieval Hebraica collections at http://databases.jewishlibraries.org/node/49232 relying on Talmudic and historical texts by scholars of the Middle Ages . The above attachment is merely a small piece (from the 19th and 20th C) of this larger project to a systematische WirkungsGeschichte of the cultural history (Bildungs Roman) of Judaica Librarianship, booklore, and Jewish textual collections from antiquity to the post-modern present. This could be 1 volume or even 7 volumes: I. Jewish textual collections in antiquity drawing on Josephus and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 2. Jewish textual collections in early middle ages drawing on primary Rabbinic texts 3. Jewish textual collections in the Renaissance drawing on Shabbatai Bass’ and other catalogs, the Phenomena of Christian Hebraism, Records of the Inquisition, and transition from ms.and incunabula to the Revolution of Hebrew Printing by Soncino and Bomberg 4. Jewish textual collection in the 19th and 20th centuries and Great scholar librarians (current paper/piece of this puzzle) 5 Post-modern Judaica Librarianship born digital- revolutions in database construction (Bar Ilan, Otzar HaHokmah, Hebrewbooks.org,, Kotar) and digitization of archival primary ms. such as the Cairo Geniza, DSS, and JNUL ketubot collectsion for example 6. The Dangers and risks of post-modern Judaica Librarianship based on Continental Philosophies critique of "techn-crasy" 7. Afterward “once upon a time dear readers….” Proceedings of the 51st Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Charleston, SC – June 19-22, 2016) 1 one’s yearly destiny to “G-d’s archive.” Besides from this book metaphor of providence, Maseket Rosh Hashanah notes there are actually 4 new years- for Kings, for trees, for Grain and of course the new Year. Ibn Ezra understands the importance of the calendar divided into these 4 new years within the context also of the Hebrew birthday corresponding to the Zodiac.2 In a comic vein, on Purim, little children dress up as a Sefer Torah, suggesting that all human beings are texts yearning to be interpreted and indeed cherished like our holy books. It is the love for the ideas in holy books that bring one closer to G-d that partakes of the books potential to foster Amor Intellectus and Amor Deius. The Provencal scholar Rabbi Yehudah ibn Tibbon in the 13th century time of the Rishonim, wrote, “Make books your companions; let your bookshelves be your gardens: bask in their beauty, gather their fruit, pluck their roses, take their spices and myrrh. And when your soul be weary, change from garden to garden, and from prospect to prospect.” The Spanish poet and physician, Rabbi Yehudah HaLevy wrote, ““My pen is my harp and my lyre; my My" נבלי וכנורי בפי עטי / גני ופרדס ספריה :library is my garden and my orchard.3”1 The original line is 2 Astral commentary, of 'Sefer ha-Moladot', which addresses the doctrine of nativities and the system of continuous horoscopy in nativities, and of 'Sefer ha-Tequfah', which is devoted exclusively to continuous horoscopy in nativities. The doctrine of nativities makes predictions about the whole of an individual's subsequent life on the basis of the natal chart, and the system of continuous horoscopy in nativities is concerned with the interval between life and [death] and makes predictions based mainly on anniversary horoscopes, which are juxtaposed with the natal horoscope. To Abraham Ibn Ezra's mind, not only are these two doctrines the core of astrology; they also epitomize the praxis of the astrological metier.́ If the Zodiac is a secret key or Rossetta stone for deciphering G-d as providential shepherd sheperding his flock of angelic hosts whose eyes are the stars which watch and guard meritorious individuals in proportion to the individual’s attainment of intellectual virtue who sailing the sea of heavenly space by the constellations of thought, then this work by ibn Ezra enlightens the “eyes of its pupils” with expanded consciousness, light years and parasangs away of the purpose, function, and secrets of the heavenly bodies. Ibn Ezra rains upon us meteor showers of understanding which Jewish tradition has preserved in understanding works such as the Kail Adon which the GRA notes is an encryption for the planets which in Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer are said to move in the heavens like the hakafot on Simchat Torah and which in Menorat HaMaor are represented in the branches of the menorah thus the makloket between Pharisees and Sadducees in Tosefta Hagigah 3,8) (see: Yalqut Pequdei 40, #419; cf. Midrash Tadshe 11, Bet ha-Midrash 3, p. 175: .The Menorah represents the sun and moon- חמה כנגד חמה ולבנה שבעת נרותיה כנגד ז" כוכבים המשמשין את העולם Its seven lights represent the seven planets which serve the world; See Philo Quis rerum divinarum heres 225 & De vita Mosis 2, 102 & Josephus Antiq. 3, 146)/ Zechariah 4:10- 7 branches~ the eyes of Hashem ranging over the Indeed esoteric mysteries are hinted at in this work . [ מצנפת ציץ ergo like צניף טהור earth… pure diadem on Joshua which in material terms can be found in the mosaics of the Zodiac correlating to the Hebrew months in the synagogues of Tzippori, Bet Alpha, and even the Bialastocker shul of New York! To this highly recommended work, a shooting star across our radar, we wish a welcome, Mazel tov! Ibn Ezra was zokeh to a vision of Providence and Hashgahah Pratit, with his naked eye astronomical observations, that today has been obscured, despite our sophisticated technologies for measuring and scientifically mapping phenomena such as meteor showers, Eagle Nebulae, comets, etc. because ibn Ezra’s gaze was not obscured by the polluted skies of modernity and despite his genius as a polymath preserved the simple childlike faith of the Psalmist. (see Sela, Shlomo (eds. and trans.), Abraham Ibn Ezra on Nativities and Continuous Horoscopy:A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Book of Nativities and the Book of Revolution. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Astrological Writings, Volume 4, Series, Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, NY: Brill, 2014, xiv, 588 pp) 3 See Israel Abrahams, Hebrew Ethical Wills, (Phil, 1926) 1:63-64, n.23 Proceedings of the 51st Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Libraries (Charleston, SC – June 19-22, 2016) 2 harp and my viol are in my pen / its books are my garden and orchard of delight" This is from the poem that's poem #110 in volume 1 of Brody's edition (Diṿan : ṿe-hu sefer kolel kol -- "יונה תקנן" beginning shire Yehudah ha-Leṿi ...ʻim hagahot u-veʼurim ṿe-ʻim mavo me-et Ḥayim Brodi. Berlin : bi-defus Tsevi Hirsh b.R. Yitsḥaḳ Iṭtsḳoṿsḳi, 1896-1930). See p. 166, line 37-8.4 Rabbo Yishaq ben Yosef of Corbeil (d 1280 France) in his Sefer Misvot Qatan composed in 1276-77 in France around 1276 outlines a detailed strategy and plan for the dissemination of his texts by asserting that every community should finance a copy of his halakhic code and keep it so that those who wish to copy or study it will be able to have access on a daily basis.5 He urges that if a Sofer of a community has to stay in another town in order to copy the book, he should be reimbursed for his expenses from the “publc fund” and prescribes the rates.
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