On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana: Part 2

On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana: Part 2

By Avi Grossman

Continued from here

The Truth About The Beth Yosef’s Position

A while ago I received this from a disputant (I have not edited any of his writing):

In the Shulkhan Arukh (chapter 426 paragraph 3) it was ruled that one has to wait till seven days have passed, and the Rema did not override the halachik ruling of the Mechaber (the Shulkhan Arukh). Therefore this is the basic core law for Sepharadim and Ashkenasim alike. However, there is an Ashkenasi minhag to make the Kiddush Levana blessing after only three days. This minhag being based on the Gr”A (the Gaon miVilna) as brought down by the Mishna Brura in se’if katan (clause) 20. This minhag has on what to be based, however less than three days, is not the minhag at all. Nevertheless, if bedi’avad (if someone has not done according to the aforementioned minhag, and already has done otherwise i.e. less than three days), if the person made the blessing of Kiddush Levana, Rav Nevensal writes (in his commentary on the Mishna Brura in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach) that he accomplished the mitzva of Kiddush Levana and his blessing was not a brakha levatala, ( a blessing in vain.) This is also understood from the Shar haTziyun.

I have omitted his subsequent attack on my credentials and character. I also believe, that he has made a number of errors:

1. The Beth Yosef’s actual opinion is not as he represented it. 2. His method of discerning the Rema’s opinion is faulty. 3. He does not allow for the numerous times wherein the halacha and the common practice simply do not follow either the Rema or the Beth Yosef.[1] 4. Especially in Israel, there are many groups, usually those associated with Religious Zionism and inspired by the teachings of the Vilna Gaon, that seek to reintroduce the ancients’ practices as described by Hazal, and do not automatically accept later positions that contradict the classic understanding of Hazal. There are too many aspects of Jewish law that are also not even covered by the rulings of the Beth Yosef and the Rema.

I would now like to attempt to show what the Beth Yosef believed. Rabbi Yosef Karo was aware that the halacha, as stated by the Talmud and understood by the rishonim, was thatbirkat hal’vana should ideally be recited on the first of the month. In his commentary to Maimonides’s explicit ruling that birkat hal’vana be recited on Rosh Hodesh, he even cites the source for this rule. Moreover, Maimonides formulation is taken verbatim from the Yerushalmi in Berachoth 9:2, which also clearly means that the time for the blessing is Rosh Hodesh. The Beth Yosef then has much to say (a few paragraphs’ worth) about the Tur’s formulation of the relevant halachot, and finishes with one line about a much later, kabbalistic, non-talmudic opinion that the blessing should be delayed until seven days after the molad. It is impossible to properly understand his intent in the Shulhan Aruch before reading his longer dissertations in the Beth Yosef, and when we analyze the style he used to present many other halachot in the Shulhan Aruch, we see that when Rabbi Karo actually subscribes to a (usually kabbalistic) position that was explicated later in history as opposed to an earlier explicated halacha, he simply records that later opinion without mentioning the earlier differing opinions, or he may make mention of them and then dismiss them.

In order to see this most clearly one should read the actual text of the Shulhan Aruch as Rabbi Karo himself wrote it, without the interjections of the Rema. A good example is the laws of t’filln. In Orah Hayim 31:2 he writes straight out that it is forbidden to wear t’fillin on Hol Hamoed. This is the kabbalistic opinion, and he does not mention at all the opinion prevalent among the rishonim that t’fililn are meant to be worn on Hol Hamoed, because he dismissed it, and one cannot claim that he was honestly unaware of such an opinion, because in both his commentary to the Tur and the Mishneh Torah, he wrote about that opinion and its sources in the Talmud, and even explained why he rejected it despite the fact that it had been the near universal practice for centuries before him. (See here for more examples.)

However, with regards to the blessing on the new moon, Orah Hayim 426:1, he first states the straight halacha as recorded by the Talmud and the early commentators that “one who sees the moon in its renewal blesses…” and as he wrote in his earlier works, this was always understood to be ideally at the very beginning of the month. It is only in 426:2 that he brings the custom to wait until Saturday night, and in 426:4 he mentions to wait until after seven days. These three rules are all in conflict with each other. Which is it? The first of the month? Saturday night a few days in to the month, or a week after the beginning of the month?

The answer is that he presents the straight law as understood and received by generations, and then alternate practices that each have their own merit, but which do not and cannot trump the original rule. This is made clear when you also read what he wrote in 426:3, before mentioning the seven-day rule: the last time for saying the blessing is the fifteenth of the month. This shows that in 426:1 and 3 he defines the blessing’s set time as ordained by the sages and as to be followed, and only at the end does he mention an optional practice that does not readily fit the enactment. More importantly, if you look even more closely at the exact wording of the Shulhan Aruch you see that 426:2 and 426:4 are not discussing the precise ordained time for the blessing, but rather different issues entirely.

For our reference, here is the full text of Orah Hayim 426 without the Rema and further commentaries:

. א. הרואה לבנה בחדושה מברך אשר במאמרו ברא שחקים וכו‘.

ב. אין מברכין על הירח אלאבמוצאי שבת כשהוא מבושם ובגדיו נאים ומיישר רגליו ותולה עיניו ומברך ואומר שלש פעמים סימן טוב תהיה לכל ישראל ברוך יוצרך וכו’.

ג. עד אימתי מברכין עליה עד ט“ז מיום המולד ולא ט“ז בכלל.

ד. אין מברכין עליה עד שיעברו שבעת ימים עליה.

A. One who sees the moon in its renewal blesses, “…Who hast through His speech created the heavens…”

B. We do not recite the blessing upon the moon unless it is the night after the Sabbath, when the reciter is perfumed and his clothes nice. He should raise his eyes high and stand straight, and bless. He should recite three times, “a good omen, blessed be, etc.”

C. Until when may he recite the blessing? Up until but not including the 16th day from the molad.

D. We do not recite the blessing upon [the moon] until seven days have passed on it.

And now for a brief point about an expression used here twice, which I emboldened in both the Hebrew and English. Our heroes have said the following, each in its own context:

אין שמחה אלא בבשר ויין

אין שמחה אלא תורה

אין שמחה כהתרת ספקות

אין שמחה גדולה ומפוארת לפני הקב״ה אלא לשמח לב עניים

Literally translated, each of these begins with “happiness is nothing but”, and each end differently. Respectively: meat and wine, Torah, resolution of doubts, and gladdening the hearts of the poor. How can these all be true? How can there be four ultimate forms of happiness? The answer is that this is the sages’ way of saying that with regard to a particular situation, there is something that can give someone the best feeling. When it comes to celebrating on a festival, the best way is to have a meal with meat and wine. With regards to achieving a sublime intellectual high, there is nothing like Torah study. With regards to feeling the joy of relief, there is nothing like resolving lingering doubts. With regards to doing something good for others, there is nothing greater than picking up those who are down. There is no contradiction.

Now, we can fully understand how to read the four rules of the Shulhan Aruch: The first rule tells us to say the blessing on the moon, and as we saw before, the running assumption of the rishonim and logic is that the first time is right at the beginning of the month. So too, the fact that the Shulhan Aruch places this chapter within the laws of Rosh Hodesh and then says in the third rule that there is a deadline, the assumption, and the only way the first rule can be understood, is that one may start to do recite birkat hal’vana when the month starts. Also, the Shulhan Aruch uses the same exact language as the Yerushalmi and Maimonides did to describe saying the blessing at the first sighting of the new moon, and the Shulhan Aruch has already shown us elsewhere that he knows the implication of using that language. The first and third rules thus form a pair, defining when to say this blessing. The second rule, which mentions Saturday night, is not contradictory, nor does it modify the objective time for saying the blessing. Rather, from the facts that a. it begins with that rabbinical term of speech “ein… ella…” and b. it then explains that it is so that he will be in a proper state of dress, it is telling us the proper mode of reciting this blessing. Dress nicely, smell good, stand straight, and take a good look at the moon. Consider this: Saturday night is not objectively the best time for saying this blessing which should be timed with the new moon regardless of the day of the week, as Rabbeinu Yona pointed out above, but rather it happens to be the time when one is still clean and wearing his Sabbath clothes, implying that if it were Saturday night and he were filthy, he gains nothing by reciting the blessing then, but if it were, say, Thursday night and he has just dressed up in a tuxedo in order to go meet an important personage, he should say the blessing on the moon if the opportunity presents itself. The subsequent gloss of the Rema also shows that this statement of the Beth Yosef is not a hard and fast rule about the timing of blessing. The way the third rule is introduced, it is Rabbi Karo’s way of saying “the best way to perform this commandment, the most gevaldikke way, is to do it like this…” More so, we can now understand why for many authorities (including Maimonides and the Vilna Gaon) the entire discussion of birkat hal’vana in Massechet Sof’rim did not enter their halachic calculus. In the context of the chapters preceding it, Massechet Sof’rim is not making a straightforward halachic statement about the halachic timing of the blessing, but rather about the manner in which it was ritually performed. Finally, the fourth rule also begins with that terminology, “ein… ad…” (the ad replaces ella because ella is used to describe things not defined by time, like gladdening and eating, whereas ad describes a period of time) because, once again, it is Rabbi Karo’s way of saying, “al pi qabbala, the most awesome way to perform this commandment for those who are mystically inclined and on a high enough level is to…”

Therefore, Rabbi Yosef Karo did not rule against saying the blessing on the new moon on Rosh Hodesh, nor did he rule that it may only be recited after seven days from the molad. It is clear that our master’s writings mean that the blessing was meant to be said on Rosh Hodesh, and that there are two conflicting middat-hasidut practices to delay it, and most of the time it is impossible to satisfy both if understood literally, and, as I have shown, the first of those practices is less about when to say the blessing and more about how to say the blessing, and the second is not halacha for the masses. I have written this to defend what he really said, and how his words have been twisted by those who came later, because there is a common claim made that his opinion was to delay the blessing until seven days have passed from the molad under all circumstances, and does not allow for other opinions. The writer above also claimed that this is also the implicit opinion of the Rema (!) and therefore should also be the default practice of all Jews, Ashkenazim and Sephardim alike, to wait until at least a week from the molad in order to recite birkat hal’vana. If our master, the Beth Yosef, had meant as that writer says, he should have written 426:1 thusly:

הרואה הלבנה אחר שעברו עליה שבעה ימים מברך וכו׳ “One who sees the moon after seven days have passed over it blesses…” thereby combining both 426:1 and 4:26:4 in order to accurately reflect such a purported view, and then we would still be left with the superficial problem of 426:2 adding the practice to wait until Saturday night. But the Beth Yosef did not write the halacha like that because he actually understood the rules as I have presented them here, namely, that he ruled like Maimonides and the sages of old, that the true time for saying birkat hal’vanna is on Rosh Hodesh or as early in the month as possible, and that the seven-day rule is, like he implied in the Beth Yosef, a practice of those who live according to esoteric and uncommon kabbalistic ideas.

Four years after I first wrote this response, I discovered that Rabbi Moshe Elharar of Shlomi in the Northern Galilee has made this point, and has a video online where he declares as much. Seehere . He maintains that the practice of Moroccan Jewry is and always to recite birkat hal’vana on Rosh Hodesh, if possible.

I also discovered in recent months that there is a school of kabbalistic thought, the Arizal among them, that maintains that al pi qabbala, birkat hal’vana should of course be said on Rosh Hodesh. Indeed, there is a host of modern-day kabbalists and Hasidic rebbes who advocate and maintain this practice. Rabbi Raphael Aharon, a prominent scholar and mekubal from the nearby settlement of Adam has an entire siddur dedicated to birkat hal’vana, Siddur Sim Shalom, and many of these points can be found in his accompanying essays.

Waiting For Exactly Seven 24-Hour Days?

If one were to adopt the mystical practice mentioned by Rabbi Karo, namely to wait seven days to recite birkat hal’vana, Rabbi Karo has already stated that those seven days are a colloquial seven days. This is also the case with regard to many other realms of halacha which deal with groups of days. He dismissed the notion that the final time for the blessing should be calculated me’et l’et, to the second, minute, chelek, or hour. However, just like the Pri M’gadim unilaterally declared that the Rema calculates the first time for the blessing exactly 72 hours after the average molad even though the Rema never even hinted at such a thing (see above), the calendar makers have taken a further step and decided that those seven days mentioned by Rabbi Karo should also be calculated by adding exactly 168 hours from the time of the molad. We can see what may have influenced the Pri M’gadim to make such a claim within the Rema’s opinion, but there is no reason whatsoever for any of us to then extend a possible stringency within the Rema’s opinion to the opinion of the Beth Yosef.

A relevant recent example was Iyar 5775. The announced average molad was early Sunday morning on the 30th of Nisan (April 19, 2015), 1hour, 27 minutes, and 4 chalakim after midnight (6),[2] while the actual molad was a few hours earlier, at 8:57pm Motza’ei Shabbat (April 18, 2015) (7).[3] According to the traditional understanding of the Beth Yosef’s kabbalistic opinions, birkat hal’vana should have been recited the next Motza’ei Shabbat (the night of April 25), the beginning of the 7th of Iyar. Both moladot had occurred on a halachic Sunday, and this Motza’ei Shabbat was already a full week later than both, and it was also a night when many baalei batim would be in attendance at the synagogues, and the moon was clearly at least half full, yet the calendars declared that the it was too early for birkat hal’vana! By their calculations, despite the fact that the moon was already well into its eighth day, the earliest time for birkat hal’vana would only be sometime after midnight, a full 168 hours after the average molad, and at a time shortly after the moon would set that night. Instead, everyone was to have to wait for Sunday night, when attendance in the synagogue would be much less and the chances of cooperative weather would be diminished, thus depriving many unwitting people of the chance to recite the blessing that month.

The calendar makers grossly misrepresent the Beth Yosef’s opinion, and thereby cause many unwitting Jews to miss the proper times for reciting this blessing.

Additional Considerations

In a lecture recently uploaded to yutorah.org, R’ Schachter mentioned the opinion of the P’ri M’gadim (Yoreh Deah 15:2) regarding the eight- day waiting period between an animal’s birth and it becoming fit for sacrifice: the period is calculated as exactly 7 times 24 hours (me’et l’et) after the moment of its birth. R’ Schachter further mentioned that Rabbi Akiva Eiger (ad loc.) takes the P’ri Mgadim to task for this claim, as it contradicts the plain meaning of the relevant Talmudic sources which assume that the eight days are calculated according to the general rule of miqztath hayom k’chullo, that a part of the day is considered the entire day, just like with all the other similar calculations demanded by halacha. This is entirely analogous to he P’ri M’gadim’s opinion regarding birkat hal’vana, which would similarly be rejected by Rabbi Akiva Eiger.

In another lecture, available here, R’ Schachter discussed the issue of two-day Rosh Hodesh in Temple times: On which day of Rosh Hodesh were the additional sacrifices offered? While there is a Talmudic source that assumes that the sacrifices were only brought on one day of Rosh Hodesh, there is also Biblical evidence that even before the Temple was built, Rosh Hodesh was sometimes observed as two days, and even today, it is observed that way about half the time. At about six minutes in, R’ Schachter mentions an answer offered by Rabbi Soloveichik: In Numbers 28, we are bidden to offer the offering of the Sabbath, “olath shabbath b’shabbatto,” which literally means, “the Sabbath burnt offering on its Sabbath,” but which is rendered by Onqelos, “alath shabba tith’aveid b’shabba,” the Sabbath burnt offering should be made on the Sabbath.

Onqelos’s addition clarifies the meaning. However, in the subsequent paragraph describing the Rosh Hodesh offering, we read, “zoth olath hodesh b’hodsho,” literally “this is the [Rosh] Hodesh burnt offering on its Hodesh,” and we would expect Onqelos to render this along the same lines as shabbath b’shabbatto, but he does not. Instead, he abandons a literal translation with a one-word addition, and gives an explanation (which, by the way, is common. Whenever an anthropomorphism is used with regards to God, or whenever the halacha does not fit the literal translation, Onqelos does not translate literally): “da ‘alath reish yarha b’ithkhadathutheh,” which in Hebrew would be “zoth olath rosh yarei’ah b’hiddusho,” or “this is the New Moon burnt offering at the time of [the moon’s] renewal.” Rabbi Soloveichik offered that even if Rosh Hodesh were a two-day event, the special sacrifice of the beginning of the month should only be offered on the day of the renewal, that is, on the day of the two-day Rosh Hodesh that is observed as the renewal of the moon.

Thus, when the Shulhan Aruch (Orah Hayim 426:1) says hal’vana b’hiddusha, “the moon (this time described in the feminine form, l’vana, as opposed to the masculine hodesh, yarei’ah, yarha, or molad) in its renewal,” he means it as Rambam and Rashi meant it, on the first day of the month. The hiddush of the moon is by definition Rosh Hodesh.

It should not come as a surprise then that the Hafetz Hayim himself also was aware of this important halacha, and endorsed it. He held that me’iqqar hadin, according to the letter of the law, birkat hal’vana is to be said on Rosh Hodesh, and that although there are other practices to delay the recitation, none of them override the letter of the law. In Mishna B’rura, 426:20, he responds to the Shulhan Aruch’s proposition that we should wait for seven days to pass over the new moon before reciting the blessing, and mentions that “most Aharonim held that it is sufficient for the moon to be three days old for the blessing to be recited,” and for good measure he adds the P’ri M’gadim’s condition that those three days are calculated as exactly three time 24 hours, and then suggests that there is a way to maybe delay the recitation just a little bit more in order to also recite it on Saturday night. But then, he says something that only someone aware of the letter of the law will fully understand: “And some Aharonim, including the Vilna Gaon, are lenient even in this regard, [i.e., waiting about three days for birkat hal’vana], and they hold that it is not worthwhile to delay the commandment in any event, and therefore, one who practices like that certainly has on whom to rely, especially during the winter and the rainy season; certainly someone punctilious and quick to sanctify [the new moon] is praiseworthy.” Here, in no uncertain terms, the Hafetz Hayim champions those who would say birkat hal’vana at the very first opportunity. When, based on all of the available halachic sources, would that be, if not on Rosh Hodesh itself? Indeed, the primary source for this Gloss is the Magen Avraham ad loc., and there the Magen Avraham, explicitly mentions that the primary law is that the blessing is to be recited on Rosh Hodesh.

As an aside, I would like to dispute what R’ Schachter says in the first five minutes, namely why a particular day is Rosh Hodesh. As far as I understood, there are two reasons: when the Sanhedrin is functioning properly, a day is considered Rosh Hodesh when the court declares it to be Rosh Hodesh based on the testimony of valid witnesses who spotted the new moon, and when the Sanhedrin is not functioning, our set calendar considers only themoladoth of each Tishrei to determine days of weeks for Rosh Hashana, and once a particular year’s length is known, the first days of each month are then determined based upon alternating 30-day and 29-day months, with certain exceptions. Most importantly, the moladoth of the months that are not Tishrei have absolutely no bearing on when the individual rashei hodashim are celebrated, and I believe that the misconception was fostered by the new practice of announcing the molad each month, which leads people to believe that it somehow has weight in determining Rosh Hodesh. On the contrary, announcing the molad seems to be a very recent practice,[4] and one that I would argue the Beth Yosef and others would oppose, because it could lead the masses to think that the molad actually matters month to month. For example, many believe (mistakenly) that we announce the molad precisely because it is forbidden to recite birkat hal’vana either 72 or 168 hours have elapsed from that time. Some of the classical decisors may have tolerated this new practice, but they would certainly believe that if, for example, no one had a calendar to reference during the service, the announcing of the molad could be skipped.

* * * * *

Recently, I discovered the life and work of the prolific and tragic Rabbi Moshe Levi, a prize student of Rabbi Meir Mazuz. Lo and behold, in his treatise on the blessings, Birkat Hashem, he lists the prominent authorities, down to the Magen Avraham, who ruled that according to the straight letter of the law, birkat hal’vana should be said on Rosh Hodesh, and he himself rules that way.

This highlights an argument that is applicable elsewhere. It is well- known that the ideal time for the morning prayer is right at sunrise, which is when the morning sacrificial service is supposed to start in the Temple, and this was the practice of the wathiqin of Jerusalem. However, in Orah Hayim 281, the Rema mentions that the practice on Sabbath morning is to arrive at the synagogue later than on weekdays. It cannot mean that people show up later than they would on weekdays just to make sure that the amida prayer still starts at sunrise, because that would entail somehow abridging the recitation of all of the liturgy that precedes the amida, but that is not possible, because the practice is also to recite more psalms before the reading of the sh’ma and to recite a longer version of the blessings that accompany the sh’ma. The Rema is plainly stating that on the Sabbath, the morning service is delayed, and he even cites the explanation that it is based on what sounds like a d’rasha, that the verse that describes the Sabbath offering says that it is offered by day and not by morning. It must be said that the teaching in question is not a true d’rasha. It is not brought by Hazal, it is not followed by the halacha, as even on the Sabbath the morning lamb was offered at sunrise, and even in context, it is referring to the additional lambs brought after the morning lamb. Now, can one reasonably claim that because “the Minhag” is to pray later Sabbath morning, it is therefore wrong for some of us to pray at sunrise? After all, the Rema is fairly clear that that is the minhag. Of course it cannot be, but I dread the day someone will say that. This point was made implicitly by the Mishna B’rura, who pointed out that the assumption of Rashi was that in Talmudic times, the Sabbath morning service was also at sunrise. By giving this veiled reference, he is respectfully disagreeing with the practice endorsed by the Rema. Just because there is a practice to delay the performance of the commandment, it does not mean that the letter of the law may not be followed.

Similarly, there is a practice to delay the evening service the night of Pentecost. Now, it must be said the very idea postdates the Shulhan Aruch and the Rema, but the letter of the law is and always was that any Sabbath or festival can be accepted before the holy day officially starts, and that is considered a very meritorious deed. Can one reasonably claim that because “the Minhag” is to pray later Pentecost evening, it is therefore wrong for some of us to pray before nightfall? After all, the Mishna B’rura is fairly clear that that is “the Minhag.” Of course it cannot be, but I dread the day someone will say that. Just because there is a practice to delay the performance of the commandment, it does not mean that the letter of the law may not be followed. A few years ago I wrote about my surprise that Rav Aviner ruled that it is forbidden for Ashkenazim to begin the prayers before nightfall on Pentecost, thus ruling that that which the Rema did and the rest of the Ashkenazim did for centuries was against halacha.

Lastly, we come to the issue of birkat hal’vana, which, according to the letter of the law, should be on Rosh Hodesh. Can one reasonably claim that because “the Minhag” is to recite it some days later, it is therefore wrong for some us to say it earlier? After all, the printed calendar is fairly clear that that is the“ minhag.” Of course it cannot be, but as punishment for my “sins,” I heard many times from those who should have known better that it may not be said earlier, despite the fact that it only takes a few hours of research to find that the letter of the law’s practice is actually endorsed by the sages, and Rashi, and Maimonides, and the Shulhan Aruch, and the Vilna Gaon, and the Mishna B’rura. Just because there is a practice to delay the performance of the commandment, it does not mean that the letter of the law may not be followed. On the contrary, the punctilious seek to perform commandments as soon as possible.

*****

I welcome any further insights on this matter. I hope and pray that reinstitution of the Sanhedrin and the adjustable calendar will lead to many more Jews seeking to find the appearance of the new moon as soon as possible, which in turn will lead to them understanding why the sages ordained a blessing on the phenomenon in the first place.

I would like to thank Rabbi Mordechai Rabinovitch and Rabbi David Bar Hayim for instigating the research that led to this work, Rabbi Herschel Schachter for his feedback on the first draft and Rabbi Moshe Zuriel for his warm encouragement and approbation.

[1] How many of us start to perform forbidden labors after Shabbat but before 72 minutes after sunset? Both the Rema and the Shulhan Aruch summarily prohibit such activity.

[2] Jerusalem Solar Time. According to Jerusalem Daylight Saving Time, it was 2:06am.

[3] 9:57pm according to Daylight Saving Time.

[4] For a comprehensive background to the minhag, see here.

Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?

Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe? By: Moshe Schorr[1] Though this article deals with a factual question, it often seems to devolve into an ideological one. I therefore wish to state: I have no horse in this fight. I have not taken halakhic positions from Igrot Moshe volumes 7-9. I went into this with a genuinely open mind, and in the course of researching this question, I have taken the affirmative and negative sides of this question at different points. Ever since Igrot Moshe volume 8 was published, and to a lesser degree volume 7, people have cast aspersions or directly accused it of being a forgery. The claim, generally, has been some variation of direct accusation or insinuation that somebody, usually either one of the Tendlers or R. Shabtai Rappaport, inserted his own teshuvot into the volume. Volume 9 is, as they say, ‘right out’. Some even call these volumes ‘Igrot Moshe David’. As an example, Hirhurim several years ago published this quote from R. J.D. Bleich, though the comment thread is likely a better example. Given the overwhelming consensus among latter-day authorities affirming the prohibition against drinking wine touched by a Sabbath-violator, Iggerot Moshe‘s position is surprising, to say the least. Moreover, the thesis developed in that responsum stands in sharp contradiction to Iggerot Moshe‘s earlier-cited multiple statements affirming the prohibition. Perplexed by Rabbi Feinstein’s surprising volte face, Rabbi Genut turned to a long-time, but unnamed, disciple of Rabbi Feinstein for clarification. Rabbi Genut quotes the disciple’s reply in which the latter writes that “it is known to me that many of the responsa [included in the posthumously-published eighth volume of Iggerot Moshe] were not before the eyes of my master and teacher… and there is also doubt with regard to many responsa in the seventh volume.” The counterclaim, presented by the editors in the introduction to volume 8, is that the editors did exactly what their job entails: editing. While they added references, the teshuvot are by R. Moshe Feinstein. I decided to test this. So the first thing I did was use an dataset given to me by Michael Pitkowsky, giving the dates, by year, of each teshuvah in volumes 1-8 of Igrot Moshe. This immediately yielded a stark result.

The spike in output in 1980-1981 is shocking. It is reminiscent of Barry Bonds’ late career.[2] It looks like a steroid year spike — how does a man in his eighties suddenly have more productivity than ever before? This, the first thing I saw, made me extremely suspicious. For comparison,Hatam Sofer’s chart looks like this:

I have published more on this at HaMapah, but suffice it to say: we expect to see a good deal of statistical noise in the amount of output,[3] though we do not expect to see changes that drastic, certainly not massive increases from authors in failing health. This gave me the impetus to take the analysis a step further. So Avi Shmidman and I applied authorship analysis to it.[4] Let me give a brief explanation of the algorithm. We are trying to look at the differentiability of the two classes. So, we take the 250 most common words, and then we look at the ability of a fairly standard model to separate the two classes. We expect to see some flukes or minor differences, so we’ll remove the most useful features — the words that are most predictive, and re-run. We will repeat this process ten times, removing three words each time. Different authors will have very substantially different linguistic usage — how often etc., so even after removing ,’הוא’, ‘אבל‘ do you use the word the 30 most predictive words out of the 250 we’ll start with, it’ll be easily differentiated. However, with the same author, by this point the flukes should be gone, and we’ll lose any meaningful ability to differentiate the two classes. After the ten rounds we will be barely better than random guessing. (You’ll see at one point 58% accuracy — don’t be impressed — coin tossing is 50% accurate.) Let’s start with our null hypothesis. Nobody, as far as I am aware, believes that the authors of Igrot Moshe and Minhat Yitzchak were one and the same. When running them against each other (IM vol. 6 vs Minhat Yitzchak), we get a final round accuracy of 97%. As we would expect. Now if we look at Igrot Moshe until we get to our “steroid spike”, if we compare the 60s and 70s to the 50s, we can get a sort of parallel null hypothesis.

So then we can just turn to our suspicious sets, and see where they fall.

Igrot Moshe volume 6, being the most recent undisputed volume, is the natural choice to benchmark here in terms of volumes. So let’s look at the three disputed volumes against volume six, and for good measure, let’s look at our “steroid spike” in 1980-1981 against the 60s and 70s.

The results are pretty clear. Bupkis. Nada. Zilch. None of the potential ways to slice and dice any of the potential forgeries turn up anything at all. And for the icing on the cake, most people who’ve learned Igrot Moshe would probably tell you that his prewar stuff is pretty different. Let’s compare the 20s against the 60s & 70s (the gray line).

So we see that not only are the differences between the new volumes and volume six minimal to the point of nonexistence, they’re far less differentiable than parts of his own corpus which are otherwise not under any suspicion are.

Let’s look at one last thing. Let’s look at our top ten features in favor of volume 9 over volume 6 when we tell them apart:

ע“א .1 ע“ב .2 ולכן .3 תמה .4 רש“י .5 בעניין .6 לו .7 התוספות .8 חייב .9 ד“ה .10

— markers 1, 2, and 10 — ע”א, ע”ב, ד”ה We generally consider to be markers of a good editor, and people pay good money for the expanded references in Mossad HaRav Kook editions. Numbers 5 and 8 are also components of references, as is 4, generally. So I’d like to suggest the following: the late volumes of Igrot Moshe bear substantial marks of editing. Having seen those, and generally getting a whiff of a difference, people justifiably viewed the late volumes of Igrot Moshe as tampered with, as fake even, with good reason, despite it just being editing. This isn’t without precedent. The common reyd, that the Terumat HaDeshen made up his own questions, has been disproven.[5] It seems to be from a similar reason – ‘good’ editing (as it was then considered) – stripping ‘unnecessary’ detail from the questions. So too here. The editor’s changes might be more immediately visible, but the consistent usage of simple function words – how often do you use function words etc. — belies the true nature of the ,אני, הוא, זה like author. Given the preponderance of evidence that the later Igrot Moshe volumes are real (and spectacular), I think we can put the various theories of alternative authorship to rest. The claims of the editors — that the latest teshuvot were dictated[6] — explains the ‘steroid spike’, and all available evidence supports their central contention, that they didn’t change the actual content. In short: it’s legit. [1] Software by Avi and Shaltiel Shmidman. Data from Michael Pitkowsky. Algorithm as described in Koppel et al. (see below, footnote 4). With thanks to Elli Fischer. [2] * [3] To clarify: I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just it’ll fluctuate a lot without an actual cause or real reason. [4] Koppel, Schler, Bonchek-Dokow: “Measuring Differentiability: Unmasking Pseudonymous Authors,” Journal of Machine Learning Research 8 (2007) 1261-1276. [5] J. Freiman, Leket Yosher, Berlin ed. p. XIV. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=8860&st=&pgnum=1 0 [6] See volume 8, p. 3 in the introduction.

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This is just a test post. Another Obvious Mistake, More Grammatical Points, Bubbe Mayseh, Apostates and the Zohar

Another Obvious Mistake, More Grammatical Points, Bubbe Mayse, Apostates and the Zohar

Marc B. Shapiro 1. In my last post here I gave an example of an obvious error in a recent book focusing on the letters of R. Kook. I found another example of an obvious error in R. Dov Eliach’s new book, Be-Sod Siah. This is quite an interesting volume as it contains interviews with a number of leading haredi rabbis. I could have an entire post on the material in this book, but let me just call attention to a couple of things related to R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg before dealing with the error. One of the rabbis interviewed is the late R. Moshe Shapiro. In discussing R. Weinberg, he states (pp. 126-127): דוגמא לתלמיד שהסבא הרבה להשקיע בו לפי טיבו וכישרונותיו – הג“ר יחיאל יעקב ויינברג בעל ה“שרידי אש“. עלוי וכוח גדול, שהיה מה שנקרא “אאוט–סיידר” – חריג ויוצא דופן באופיו, שבקלות היה יכול להחליק ולמצוא עצמו בין ה“משכילים“. ובזכות חכמתו ויגיעתו של הסבא הוא נשאר בבחינת “שלומי אמוני ישראל“. R. Shapiro tells us that R. Weinberg was an “outsider” and that he could have easily gone the way of Haskalah. It is fascinating that a haredi figure says this, because this is precisely the sort of comment that I think might have angered R. Weinberg’s now deceased right-wing students. Yet I have to say that R. Shapiro is exactly correct in his description. I don’t know if his knowledge of R. Weinberg’s life comes from my book or from R. Nathan Kamenetsky’s Making of a Godol – I only spoke to R. Shapiro once, and it was not about R. Weinberg – but he obviously knew something about the ups and downs of R. Weinberg’s life. Here is p. 273 in the book, which includes a picture of R. Weinberg.

Not noted by Eliach is that this picture comes from my post here, where I published it for the first time (and thanked the person who gave it to me). I realize that once the picture is on the internet it is there for anyone to use it, but it would still be nice if people would acknowledge where it came from. Eliach also includes a lengthy interview with R. Bezalel Rakow of Gateshead which understandably has a good deal about R. Weinberg. (I have previously discussed R. Rakow here and here.) What I find fascinating is how people like Eliach simply can’t get a handle on R. Weinberg. On the one hand, they know that he was a great scholar and posek. On the other hand, they know that his views were not in line with the haredi world. Eliach asks R. Rakow the following (p. 274): בשורה התחתונה – שאלתי את הרב ראקוב – האם הרב ויינברג מוגדר על ידכם כמנהיג תורני חרדי? Eliach wants to know if R. Rakow regards R. Weinberg as a haredi Torah leader. R. Rakow responds very diplomatically: בודאי! הגאון הרב ויינברג היה ירא וחרד לדבר ה‘. איש ההלכה הצרופה שחרד על כל סעיף בשלחן ערוך! R. Rakow knew perfectly well that he was dodging the question, and if the definition of haredi is one who is completely halakhically observant, then R. Soloveitchik and R. Lichtenstein (and endless others) should also be regarded as haredi leaders. Only in the continuation of the interview does R. Rakow acknowledge that R. Weinberg’s views were not all in line with the haredi approach (p. 276): ועדיין ניתן לומר, שאי אלה ממחשבותיו לא עלו בקנה אחד עם הדרך המקובלת לנו מרבותינו. Now for the obvious mistake in Eliach’s book. Here is pp. 66-67.

He begins by mentioning that in his book on the Vilna Gaon he told a story that before World War II, R. Aaron Kotler was not sure where he should go, Eretz Yisrael or the United States. He therefore performed the goral ha-Gra and Exodus 4:27 came up: “And the Lord said to Aaron: ‘Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.’” He understood this to refer to R. Moses Feinstein, who at the time was living in the spiritual wilderness of New York. Eliach states that it has been established that this story is not correct, and he cites the grandsons of R. Kotler who told him that their grandfather was never in doubt about where he was to go. They also pointed out that there is no way that the name “Moses” could have been seen as a reference to R. Moses Feinstein who was not well-known at that time. So far so good (and these points are so obvious that one wonders how Eliach fell for a typical yeshiva bubbe mayse[1]). However, Eliach continues, and it must be that he is citing something that he was told by one of the current Kotlers, but he has completely mangled it. He writes: אם היה מקום ,הרילסיפור שהפוסק היותר ידוע בימים ההם באמריקה, היה הג“ר יוסף רוזין, נשיא “אגודת הרבנים דארצות הברית וקנדה“, ומחבר ספרי “נזר הקודש“. Eliach tells us that if the story is true, it would have been with reference to R. Joseph Rosen, who was the most well-known posek in America at the time, the honorary president of Agudat ha-Rabbonim, and the author of the books entitled Nezer ha- Kodesh. The first thing to ask is how could the goral ha-Gra performed by R. Kotler have anything to do with R. Joseph Rosen when the verse that came up mentioned “Moses”? How Eliach did not see this is beyond me. Furthermore, R. Joseph Rosen not only was not a well-known posek, he was not even a little-known posek. He was also not the president of Agudat ha-Rabbonim, and he never wrote a book called Nezer ha-Kodesh. The only thing of interest, and accurate, in Eliach’s discussion is that he somehow got a copy of the document appointing Rosen rabbi of Passaic, New Jersey, and he includes a picture of this in the book. Here is what happened: Eliach was told that if the story of R. Aaron Kotler performing goral ha-Gra had any truth to it, the “Moses” referred to would have been R. Moses Rosen, who indeed was a great rav, author of Nezer ha-Kodesh, and served for a time as president of Agudat ha-Rabbonim.[2] R. Rosen is most famous for being the rabbi of Chweidan, Lithuania, where the Hazon Ish’s wife was from and where the Hazon Ish lived after getting married. R. Rosen and the Hazon Ish became close, and supposedly it was R. Rosen who first told R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski about the unknown genius, R. Abraham Isaiah Karelitz.[3] The Hazon Ish also proofread the volume of Nezer ha-Kodesh on Zevahim. This was published in Vilna in 1929 when R. Rosen was already living in the United States.[4] While R. Rosen is famous for his connection to the Hazon Ish, not so well known is that he was also a Zionist.[5] 3. My last post here gave examples of grammatical mistakes in the ArtScroll and Koren siddurim, which are the most popular in the English-speaking world. I received a lot of feedback about this, and I did not realize that so many people are interested in the often arcane points of grammar. (While I myself am quite interested in this, I am hardly an expert.) Here are a couple of more examples (and interested readers should consult the comments to the last post for additional instances). which comes from Psalms ,עיני כל אליך In Ashrei we read is with the accent on עיניThe correct way to read .145:15 This word is commonly mispronounced, and .נ not on the ,ע the neither ArtScroll nor Koren place the accent where it should be.[5a] I found another mistake in the ArtScroll Machzor for Rosh ha- Shanah and Yom Kippur. In the prayer of the chazzan before Some versions have the .הפך [נא] לנו ולכל ישראל Musaf, he says In both cases, since this is an imperative .הפוך first word as Yet in the .ה there needs to be ahataf patah under the and the accent ה ArtScroll Machzor there is a patah under the After] . הis mistakenly put on the first syllable, the הפך in writing this I checked the second edition of the Machzor and was happy to see that it has been corrected. This shows that any errors we point out are valuable, as ArtScroll is prepared to correct them in future editions.]

Btzalel Shandelman wrote to me about ArtScroll’s comment on Genesis 39:8, which explains why there is a pesik following .וימאן the word

The adverb adamantly is suggested by the staccato and emphatic Masoretic cantillation of this word: the shalsheles, followed by a psik [disjunction], both of which set off the word and enhance the absoluteness of its implication. It indicates that Joseph’s refusal was constant, categorical, and definite. He repulsed her with absolute firmness. Haamek Davar notes that the Torah gives no reason for his rejection; his sense of right and wrong was so clear that he did not even consider her pleadings. To her, however, he gave an explanation, trying to convince her to stop pestering him.

Shandelman correctly points out that this explanation is based on a mistake, as the vertical line found in the Torah after is not a real pesik, as a pesik can never follow וימאן word a shalshelet in the Torah (or the other sixteen biblical books that use the Torah’s system of cantillation). The reason for this is that a pesik is only found after conjunctive te’amim, and in the Torah shalshelet is always disjunctive. So why is there a vertical line after shalshelet if it is not a pesik? Joshua R. Jacobson explains:

,(ספרי אמ“ת) In the te’amim of the three books the shalshelet sign can serve as both a conjunctive and a disjunctive accent. To distinguish one from the other, a vertical line was added after the disjunctive shalshelet. Even though in the twenty-one books the shalshelet sign has only one use – as a disjunctive accent – nevertheless, the Masoretes retained the vertical line. . . . The vertical line after the shalshelet word is not a pasek: it does not indicate an extra pause.[6]

Another way to put this is that in the Torah the vertical line that always follows the shalshelet is not a separate symbol, but rather part of the shalshelet. Nevertheless, pre-modern Hebrew texts that deal with masoretic matters seem to have no other way to refer to the vertical line, so it is called a pesik even by those who recognize that it does not function as a pesik. Thus, in the Masorah Gedolah to Lev. 8:23 it states: ז‘ מלין בטעמא מרעימין ומפסיקין .is another word for shalshelet מרעים Returning to the example noted by Shandelman, I replied to him that the mistake is not that of ArtScroll. Although it is not clear in the excerpt printed above, the comment about a pesik following the shalshelet has its origin in R. Naphtali Zvi Judah Berlin’s Ha’amek Davar.[7] This is actually a common mistake, as the rules of trop are not well known. Unless someone has studied these rules, he will have no reason to assume that a vertical line is not a real pesik. The next step is to offer explanations of verses based on this assumption that the vertical line represents a realpesik after the shalshelet. I don’t think that any of the following explanations are based on the mere appearance of the vertical line. Rather, the authors assume that it is a real pesik and one can therefore base interpretations on it. R. Tuviah ben Eliezer (12th century) writes:[8] וימאן מיאון אחר מיאון הרבה פעמים דכתיב בפסיק ובשלשלת Solomon Buber, the editor of the text, explains R. Tuviah’s words: דורש הטעמים, כי על וימאן הוא שלשלת ואח“כ הוא בפסיק R. Yeruham Levovitz stated as follows:[9] ועל כן תיכף ל“וימאן” יש פסיק, כי הופסק אצלו כל הענין אף טרם ניתח העולה על הרוח, אף טרם נתן כל טעם וביאור על המיאון, כי טרם כל וכל הוא ממאן על הדבר וחסל! והטעמים והביאורים יתן אחרי כן, וזהו אמרו אחרי הפסיק: ואומר אל אשת אדוניו וגו‘. R. Samuel Borenstein writes:[10] וימאן מוטעם בשלשלת ופסיק, כדי להפרידו בפ“ע, והיינו שהמיאון לא הי‘ מחמת הטעם אלא מצד עצם הנפש למעלה מהטעם. R. Shlomo Zvi Schueck leaves no question that in his mind the vertical line is a real pesik.[11] ואמרתי לשחכז “דרשו זאת מן הטעם שלשלת העומדת על תיבת וימאן אם רצו להודיע בטעם שלשלת להפסיק שם בדיבור למה בחרו בניגון זה דוקא, הא כמה טעמים מפסיקין הם? ועוד הא אחר תיבת וימאן הוא עומד הקו פסיק, ולמה לן תרי מפסיקין כאן? R. Shlomo Amar writes:[12] תיבת “וימאן” הכתובה בפסוק מוטעמת בטעם שלשלת, ומיד לאחריה מופיע טעם פסק. ונראה דזה בא ללמד, שיוסף הצדיק מיאן במיאון אדיר וחזק. וגם מיאונו היה פסוק וחתוך. I would only add that it is very difficult to say about so that they are wrong,ועפר אני תחת רגליהם ,many great sages about the function of the pesik following a shalshelet. What I have written is based on the standard works on the topic. However, if anyone knows of an authentic tradition in which there is a pesik after shalshelet, please let me know.

Finally, as I am writing this post not long after Hanukkah, here is an example of a translation where ArtScroll gets it right and pretty much everyone else I have checked gets it wrong (though we can understand why they intentionally get it wrong). In Maoz Tzur we read: לעת תכין מטבח מצר המנבח אז אגמור בשיר מזמור חנכת המזבח ArtScroll translates: When you will have prepared the slaughter for the blaspheming[13] foe, Then I shall complete with a song of hymn the dedication of the Altar.[14] Here is Koren’s translation of the first line:

When you silence the loud-mouthed foe.

This a much more comfortable rendering, and if you examine other siddurim you will find similar “softer” translations. Given the choice between “slaughter” and “silence,” most people will pick the latter. Yet unfortunately for them, the text does not say “silence.” It says “slaughter,” and the ,הכינו לבניו מטבח:are based on Isaiah 14:21 תכין מטבח words “Prepare ye slaughter for his children.” Koren’s translation is thus a politically correct distortion of the text’s meaning. This is not a matter that started with Koren. For a long time now, translators have been afraid that if people knew what the text actually said that they would not want to sing the song. Yet how can you have Hanukkah without Maoz Tzur? It is even recited publicly at the White House Hanukkah party. (It is amazing to me that no one has yet made an issue of publicly singing these politically incorrect words.) So, a little bit of creative “translating” was thought necessary. Isn’t it interesting that ArtScroll – which has shown us many times that it has no difficulty censoring and distorting texts it finds problematic – has the courage to give us the correct, uncensored translation? Interestingly, R. Joseph Hertz in his siddur, p. 950 in the note, tells us what the words mean. Yet was uncomfortable with he changed it תכין מטבחthis, and therefore instead of This is not a version attested to in any old .תשבית מטבח to text. It was simply made up by Hertz or perhaps suggested by an unnamed collaborator on his siddur commentary. Hertz writes: “By a slight change, this is now ‘when Thou shalt cause all slaughter to cease, and the blaspheming foe, I will complete, etc.’”[15] 4. Since I have been discussing the ArtScroll and Koren siddurim, it is only right for me to mention that there is a new siddur on the market. The new RCA siddur, called Siddur Avodat Halev, has just appeared. For decades, Modern Orthodox synagogues had to make do with the RCA ArtScroll siddur. However, other than including the prayer for the State of Israel, there was nothing in that siddur that made it a good fit with Modern Orthodox synagogues. The new RCA siddur, which will come to be the standard at hundreds of synagogues for decades to come (especially as the RCA ArtScroll siddur is no longer being sold), is a siddur that the Modern Orthodox community can embrace. The commentary and essays – including essays by R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, R. Aharon Lichtenstein, and R. Yehudah Amital – include both traditional learning and historical scholarship, something that is not found in any siddur on the market. There is also an attention to the role of women that is welcome.[16] Relevant to my last post, this siddur tells The siddur .ד with a kamatz under the מודה אני women to say also offers the option of women forming amezuman and Of particular importance is the .חברותי נברך reciting inclusion of prayers for Yom Ha-Atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim. In the instructions before Tahanun, we are informed that Tahanun is omitted on these two days. For Hallel, readers are given the option of reciting with a berakhah or without. I will return to discuss this siddur in a future post, as there is something in it that will be of particular interest to Seforim Blog readers. Excursus Earlier in this post I used the expression bubbe mayse. The origin of these words is not “grandmother’s tale,” although that is what is commonly thought. Bubbe mayse is a later corruption of what was originally Bove mayse. I can do no better than quote from the Wikepedia entry here. The Bovo-Bukh (“Bovo book”; also known as Baba Buch, etc.; written in ,( בָּבָא– ,בּוּך בּוֹבוֹ–בּוּך :Yiddish 1507–1508 by Elia Levita, was the most popular chivalric romance in Yiddish. It was first printed in 1541, being the first non-religious book to be printed in Yiddish. For five centuries, it endured at least 40 editions. It is written in ottava rima and, according to Sol Liptzin, is “generally regarded as the most outstanding poetic work in Old Yiddish”. [Liptzin, 1972, 5, 7] The theme derives from the Anglo-Norman romance of Bevis of Hampton, by way of an Italian poem that had modified the name Bevis of Hampton to Buovo d’Antona and had, itself, been through at least thirty editions at the time of translation and adaptation into Yiddish. The central theme is the love of Bovo and Druziane. [Liptzin, 1972, 6], [Gottheil] The story “had no basis in Jewish reality”, but compared to other chivalric romances it “tone[s] down the Christian symbols of his original” and “substitute[s] Jewish customs, Jewish values and Jewish traits of character here and there…” [Liptzin, 1972, 8] The character was also popular in Russian folk culture as “Prince Bova”. The Bovo-Bukh later became known in the late 18th century as Bove-mayse “Bove’s tale”. This name was corrupted into bube mayse “grandmother’s tale”, meaning “old wives’ tale”. [Liptzin, 1972, 7] Here is the title page of the Bovo Bukh. R. Elijah Levita (1469-1549), who thought it worth his time to produce Yiddish romances – in addition to the Bovo Bukh he published Paris and Vienna – is also the well-known author of, among other works, the Tishbi, the Hebrew dictionary that is still used today.[17] It was recently reprinted by Yeshivat Kise Rahamim together with comments by later authors including R. Meir Mazuz. Here is the title page.

At the end of the volume, there is a collection of critical comments on the Tishbi by R. Solomon Zvi Schueck, and responses to R. Schueck by R. Aryeh Mazuz. Interestingly, there were two printings of the Kise Rahamim edition of the Tishbi. The one intended for sale in certain haredi neighborhoods did not include the comments of R. Schueck, as he is persona non grata among extremist haredim. Regarding the two editions, see Dan Rabinowitz’s earlier Seforim Blog post here. For more on Levita, who even has a street named after him in Tel Aviv, see the Seforim Blog post by Dan Yardeni here. It is also worth noting that former British Prime Minister David Cameron is descended from Levita. See here. I would be remiss in not mentioning that two grandsons of Levita also played a role in Jewish history. One was named Vittorio Eliano (which means “from the house of Elijah”), and the other was his brother Giovanni Battista. They were both apostates. Eliano became a priest as did Battista, who was actually a Jesuit.[18] Battista testified before the Inquisition in Venice and stated that “the Talmud teaches them [Jews] that it is legitimate to orally swear false oaths, even if they do not come from the heart, along with hundreds of thousands of other things which are injurious to Christianity.”[19] During the great sixteenth-century dispute in Venice between two Christian printers of Hebrew books – a dispute that also involved R. Meir Katzenellenbogen and R. Moses Isserles – both Christian sides denounced the other to Rome “for producing works which contained matter offensive to the Holy Catholic Faith.”[20] Eliano and Battista ended up giving testimony about supposedly blasphemous material in the Talmud, which in turn led to the Talmud being burned in Rome, in the Campo de Fiori, on September 9, 1553. Soon after that the Talmud was burned in Venice and in other places in Italy, and the work itself became an illegal text.[21] In 2011 the following plaque was placed on the ground in the Campo de Fiori in commemoration of the burning of the Talmud. Although the Talmud was illegal, the Zohar was not. It was none other than the apostate Eliano who had a central role in the second printing of the Zohar in Cremona in 1559-1560, as he was a proof reader.[22] (The first printing was in Mantua in 1558-1560.) This edition “was the preferred of the two editions by eastern European kabbalists.”[23] Contrary to what appears in many books, the Cremona Zohar was published by Jews (although the actual printing was done by a non-Jew, which was standard practice in Italy).[24] Here is the title page of the Cremona Zohar. You can see at the bottom the statement that the publication was approved by the Inquisition. Here is the last page of the Cremona Zohar. You can see that Eliano is mentioned as one of the two people who prepared the text for publication. הבחור כמר“ ויטוריי אלי“אנו נכדו של ראש המדקדקים הח“ר אליהו המדקדק סג“ל זצ“ל You can also see the actual Latin approval from the Inquisition. הבחורSeeing how Eliano made sure that he was referred to as one who did not know better would assume that he was ,כמ“ר Jewish. Meir Benayahu chalks this up to one of the paradoxes of Jewish Italy:[25] משומד שמשתבח במלאכת קודש זו ומזכיר שמו בנוסח רבני ועולה על כך שייקרא בתואר “כמ“ר” (בקולופון הזוהר), הוא מן הנפלאות שרק הפאראדוכסים המצויים אצל יהודי איטליה יכולים להסבירם. Graetz,[26] followed by others, states that Eliano wrote the following Hebrew introduction to the Cremona Zohar.

Graetz does not tell us how he knows that Eliano wrote the introduction, and I find it difficult to believe that this is the case. As we can see from the last page of the Cremona edition (printed above), a Jew was also involved with preparing the text for publication. So why not assume, with Isaiah Tishby,[27] that the Jew wrote the introduction, which is a typical pious introduction that one would expect for the Zohar? In fact, there is evidence that Eliano did not write it. Avraham Yaari called attention to the fact that in the introduction it subtly tells us that there are printing errors because the book was also prepared for publication on Shabbat, a time when Jewish proofreaders would not be able to examine it.[28] וחסרון חלוף או השמטת אות יוכל להמנות על היות דבר הדפוס נחוץ לכל שומרי שבת כהלכתה וד“ל. here means something along the lines of נחוץThe word “harried”. (See I. Sam. 21:9, for the use of the word in the Bible, which has a different meaning than in modern Hebrew.) He is saying that the reason there are mistakes in the text is due to the problems confronted by shomer Shabbat proofreaders (who do not work on Shabbat). In other words, the mistakes in the text are due to the one who did work on Shabbat. Such a line, criticizing the proofreader who worked on Shabbat, could not have been written by the apostate Eliano. On the contrary, it must be seen as directed against Eliano. This is an important point which I have not seen anyone make. There is another point which no one has made, and that is that on the second line of the introduction the author left an allusion to Eliano: ואותיות ידועות לפי צורך המקום א“לינו Another book Eliano was involved with was Hizkuni,[29] printed in Cremona in 1559.[30] Here is the last page of the book which states: הוגה ברוב העיון ע“י הבחור ויטוריו אליאנו נכד ראש המדקדקים הח“ר אליהו בחור אשכנזי סג“ל זצ“ל While on the topic of apostates and the Zohar, here is another interesting point. The Soncino Press of London published a translation of the Zohar. For some of this translation they had the assistance of Paul Levertoff. Here is the title page of one of the volumes. What makes this so significant is that Levertoff, who began life as a Habad Hasid and later studied in Volozhin, was an apostate.[31] If you search on the internet you will find that Levertoff continues to have a real influence among Messianic Jews. I find it astounding that the Soncino Press, which was identified with British Orthodoxy, chose to collaborate on the Zohar translation with an apostate, especially an apostate who was a “true believer,” not simply an opportunist like Daniel Chwolson. Supposedly, late in life Chwolson was asked what he came to believe that led him to adopt Christianity. He replied: “I believed that it was better to be a professor in St. Petersburg than a melamed in Anatevka [insert whatever shtetl name you wish].” He also famously said about himself, punning on the words from the Yom Kippur liturgy,[32] “Ve- Akhshav she-Notzarti [= converted to Christianity] ke-Ilu lo Notzarti.”[33]

______

[1] See Excursus. [2] See Ha-Pardes (January 1953), p. 52. [3] Shlomo Kohen, Pe’er ha-Dor, vol. 1, p. 191. As far I as I know, the report in Asher Rand, Toldot Anshei Shem (New York, 1950), p. 62, that R. Rosen and the Hazon Ish established a yeshiva together, is without foundation. [4] Orhot Rabbenu (2014 edition), vol. 5, p. 138. This source does not mention which volume of Nezer ha-Kodesh it was, but the volume on Zevahim was the only one printed in Vilna. Since R. Rosen was living in the United States, this explains why it would have been much more convenient for for the Hazon Ish to do the proofreading. According to Cohen, Pe’er ha-Dor, vol. 1, p. 270, some of the material in the book in brackets is from the Hazon Ish. Cohen also states regarding these comments:

רובן פותחות ב“ ”מיהו ולפעמים צויין בראשי–תיבות שור“ (שוב ראיתי). כששאלו אותו, איך זה תואם את האמת, השיב החזון–איש באירוניה: לא “שוב ראיתי“, כי אם “שוב וראה“. .see pp. 84, 86 שו”ר see pp. 69, 82, 88. For מיהו For [5] See Entzyklopedia shel ha-Tziyonut ha-Datit, vol. 5, cols. 597-598. is not to be read with full stress עיני 5a] It could be that] but only a partial stress, with the real accent on ,ע on the is joined to עיני in the Aleppo Codex) כל the connected word of נ with a makef). Yet there certainly is no accent on the כל See R. Yedidyah Solomon Norzi,Ma’amar ha-Ma’arikh in .עיני Norzi, Ha-Nosafot le-Minhat Shai, ed. Zvi Betser (Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 97ff. [6] Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Art of Cantillation (Philadelphia, 2002), p. 105 n. 14, 107. See also ibid., p. 233 n. 2, and Mordechai Breuer, Ṭaʻamei ha-Miḳra be- Khaf-Alef Sefarim u-ve-Sifrei Alef-Mem-Taṿ (Jerusalem, 1982), p. 19. [7] See the Jerusalem, 2005 edition, p. 534.

ומשום הכי איתא פסיק, כדי שלא נפרש דמשום הכי מיאן בשביל “ויאמר וגו‘”, אבל הפסיק מלמד שהמיאון היה בפני עצמו.

This comment was not part of the original commentary but was added later by the Netziv. In this edition, the editors have inserted the comment in the text of Ha’amek Davar, but inside brackets that look like this {} to show that it is a later addition. [8] Lekah Tov, ed. Buber, p. 198.

[9] Da’at Torah: Bereshit (Jerusalem, n.d.), p. 230. [10] Shem mi-Shemuel (Jerusalem, 1992), parashat Va-Yeshev, p. 69. [11] Torah Shelemah (Satmar, 1909), vol. 1, p. 179a. [12] Birkat Eliyahu (Jerusalem, 2007), vol. 1, p. 260. which literally means “bark” (see Isaiah ,נבח The word [13] 56:10, Eruvin 86a), had an anti-Christian connotation in medieval Hebrew. See Eli Yassif, ed. Sefer ha-Zikhronot (Tel Aviv, 2001), p. 404 n. 87; Daniel Goldschmidt and Avraham Frankel, eds., Leket Piyutei Selihot me-et Paytanei Ashkenaz ve-Tzarfat (Jerusalem, 1993), vol. 1, p. 398. Thus, in Maoz Tzur the “blaspheming foe” refers to the Christians. R. Shlomo Fisher, Derashot Beit Yishai (Jerusalem, 2004), p. 234 writes: ויבואר ע“פ כל זה, דברי הפייטן בזמר לחנוכה, תכון בית לתפלתי ושם תודה נזבח. לעת תכין מטבח מצר המנבח. דהיינו טביחת היצה“ר This would make a very nice derashah on Hanukkah, and had Hertz known of it, he could have offered this perspective in his commentary and kept the original version of the song. Yet in its historical context, this is hardly what the author is referring to. Similarly, R. Raymond Apple is not correct when he writes that the words refer to “the defeat of Gog and Magog who will attempt to overcome Israel before the coming of the Messiah.” See here. When Maoz Tzur speaks of the destruction of the “barking [i.e., blaspheming] foe,” it is referring to a real flesh and blood enemy of the Jewish people, which in the medieval Ashkenazic context means the Christian world. The word “barking” is used in this song as throughout pre-modern Jewish literature dogs were portrayed in a negative way. See also here. [14] I do not know why ArtScroll capitalizes “Altar”. R. Meir Mazuz recently commented that while Maoz Tzur is a wonderful song, “it contains small [grammatical] errors, as is the practice with the Ashkenazim who do not know Hebrew well.” Bayit Ne’eman, no. 139 (30 Kislev 5779), p. 1 n. 1. One לצר It should say .לעת תכין מטבח מצר המנבח example he gives is :He adds .המנבח מאיפה אני לומד את זה? מפסוק בישעיה “הכינו לבניו מטבח בעוון אבותם” (י“ד כ“א), לא מבניו אלא לבניו. Regarding Hanukkah, I recently found that R. Naphtali Zvi Judah Berlin suggests the possibility that when the Maccabees entered the Temple they did not light the menorah, as we are accustomed to think, but rather only lit one candle. See Ha’amek She’alah, Va-Yishlah, no. 24, p. 173: ולכאורה הי‘ אפשר לומר שלא היו מדליקים אז במנורה כלל . . . וא“כ הי‘ מקום לומר שלא השתמשו באותם שמונה ימים במנורה כלל משום שלא הי‘ להם, והדליקו באותו פך הטהור, או בכלי גללים וכלי אבנים וכלי אדמה, וא“כ לא הי‘ אלא נר א‘ כדי לקיים להעלות נר תמיד Also of interest is R. Joseph Messas, Otzar ha-Mikhtavim, vol. 2, no. 1305, who cites midrashic sources that there will not be a menorah in the future Temple.

I have vocalized the title of the Netziv’s book as Ha’amek She’alah, which is how scholars have been accustomed to write it, based on Isaiah 7:11 where these words appear. However, Gil S. Perl argues that the correct pronunciation is Ha’amek She’elah. As he puts it, if the pronunciation in Isaiah was intended, “the title would mean ‘sink to the depths,’ the ‘depths’ (from the word she’ol) being a reference to the netherworld or Hell—a rather strange title for a work of halakhic commentary.” Perl therefore suggest that the Netziv “intended his title as a play on those words from Isaiah pronounced Ha’amek She’alah, meaning ‘delve into the question’ or perhaps ‘delve into the She’ilta.’” See Perl, The Pillar of Volozhin (Boston, 2012), pp. 17-18, n. 37. [15] Regarding how Maoz Tzur appears in British siddurim, see John D. Rayner, “Liturgical Emendation: The Case of the Ma’oz Tzur,” available here. [16] For more on the new RCA siddur and women, see the anonymous post here. [17] The Tishbi was first printed in Isny, Germany in 1541. It is one of the first Jewish books to cite biblical passages by chapter. As most people know, the chapters are a Christian innovation. According to Abraham Berliner, the first Jewish scholar to publish a book using the chapter divisions was R. Isaac Nathan, who published a biblical concordance between 1437 and 1448. See Berliner, Ketavim Nivharim (Jerusalem, 1969), vol. 2, p. 134. On this page Berliner also writes:

החלוקה לפרקים של כל ספרי המקרא נתקבלה ונתפשטה רק עם הדפסת המהדורה השניה של המקראות הגדולות (ויניציא רפ“ד). Yet the first edition of the Mikraot Gedolot, published in Venice, 1518, is on Otzar ha-Hokhmah, and you can see that it too has the chapter divisions. [18] See Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden (Leipzig, 1907), vol. 9, p. 320; Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 6, col. 615; Meir Benayahu, Ha-Defus ha-Ivri bi-Kremona (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 95ff.. For sections of an autobiography written by Battista, in which he describes his apostasy, see Isaiah Sonne, Mi-Paʾulo ha-Reviʻi ad Piyus ha-Hamishi (Jerusalem, 1954), pp. 150-155. [19] See Amnon Roz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century, trans. Jackie Feldman (Philadelphia, 1007), pp. 42-43. [20] Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (Philadelphia, 1946), p. 291. [21] See Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy, p. 292. For detailed discussion of this matter, which shows all the other factors that were present, see Kenneth Stow, “The Burning of the Talmud in 1553, in the Light of Sixteenth Century Catholic Attitudes Toward the Talmud,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 34 (1972), pp. 435-459. [22] Regarding Allessandro Franceschi, another sixteenth- century Italian apostate who supported the printing of the Zohar, see Yaakob Dweck, The Scandal of Kabbalah (Princeton, 2011), pp. 166-167. [23] Marvin J. Heller,The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book (Leiden and Boston, 2004), vol. 1, p. 503. [24] See Yitzhak Yudelov, “Al Sefarim, Madpisim, u-Mo”lim,” in Yosef Eliyahu Movshovitz, ed., Ha-Sefer (Jerusalem, 2008), vol. 2, p. 557 n. 22. [25] Ha-Defus bi-Kremona, p. 97. [26] Geschichte, vol. 9, p. 345. [27] “Ha-Pulmus al Sefer ha-Zohar,” Perakim 1 (1967-1968), p. 147 n. 54. [28] Mehkerei Sefer (Jerusalem, 1958), pp. 170-171. Yaari also mentions other Hebrew books that were printed on Shabbat. is to be pronounced, see my חזקוני Regarding how [29] post here. [30] For other examples of Hebrew books whose printing Eliano was involved with, see the index of both Roz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text and Benayahu, Ha-Defus ha- Ivri bi-Kremona. [31] See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah as a Missionizing Tactic,” Kabbalah 27 (2012), pp. 269-320. On p. 272, Wolfson states that Levertoff received semikhah from R. Naphtali Zvi Judah Berlin. He provides no evidence for this assertion so I cannot judge its accuracy. As far as I have been able to determine, Levertoff never received semikhah. [32] The passage originates in the Talmud, Berakhot 17a, where it is attributed to Rava, and Yoma 87b, where it is attributed to R. Hamnuna. [33] See Zvi Hirsch Masliansky, Memoirs, trans. Isaac Schwartz and Zviah Nardi (Jerusalem, 2009), p. 138. Two Jewish Temples in Egypt

Two Jewish Temples in Egypt

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of the newly-released work God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press, 2018). His book follows the narrative of Tanakh and focuses on the stories concerning Avodah Zarah using both traditional and academic sources. It also includes an encyclopedia of all the different types of idolatry mentioned in the Bible.

Rabbi Klein studied for over a decade at the premier institutes of the Hareidi world, including Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood and Yeshivas Mir in Jerusalem. He authored many articles both in English and Hebrew, and his first book Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew (Mosaica Press, 2014) became an instant classic. His weekly articles on synonyms in the Hebrew language are published in the Jewish Press and Ohrnet. Rabbi Klein lives with his family in Beitar Illit, Israel and can be reached via email to: [email protected] In this article, we will discuss two different temples which the Jews built in Egypt: the temple at Elephantine, and Chonyo’s Temple. After providing the reader with the historical background to both temples, we will analyze the nature of the worship which took place there, as well as their possible Halachic legitimacy.

The Temple at Elephantine

Ancient ,יב) papyri found on the Egyptian island Elephantine Yev in Aramaic) reveal the forgotten story of a Jewish Temple that was built there. According to those documents, Jews living in Egypt when it was still an independent state built a Temple for Hashem at Elephantine. This occurred after the destruction of the First Temple, but before the construction of the Second Temple. Later, when the Persians conquered Egypt, they destroyed most of its temples,[1] but allowed the Jewish Temple at Elephantine to remain. Sometime afterwards, the priests of the Egyptian deity Khnum and the local Persian rulers colluded against the Jewish community at Elephantine, destroying their Temple and taking the Temple’s gold and silver for themselves. The Jewish priests of the Elephantine temple, led by a priest named Jedaniah, sent letters appealing to the Persian-appointed Jewish governor of Judah and the Cuthean governate of Samaria to intervene on their behalf, and lobby the Persians for the restoration of their temple. In these letters, the priests of Elephantine repeatedly mentioned that they wished to resume sacrificing meal- offerings, burnt-offerings, and incense (which as we will see seems to be Halachicly problematic). It seems that the Second Temple in Jerusalem had already been built by this time; as the Elephantine priests mentioned in their letter that they had also written to Yochanan, the Kohen Gadol in Jerusalem, but had not received a reply. The Elephantine Temple was eventually rebuilt, but the Jewish community at Elephantine did not last much longer.[2]

Were the Jews at Elephantine Loyal to Halachah?

The academic consensus views the Jews at Elephantine as practitioners of a syncretistic mixture of Judaism and Egyptian/Aramean idolatrous cults.[3] This comes as no surprise, because Jeremiah (Chapter 44) already mentioned that the Jews who remained in Judah after the destruction of the First Temple and the subsequent assassination of Gedaliah (the Babylonian-appointed Jewish governor over what remained of Judah) migrated to Egypt, where they engaged in idol worship.[4] As such, the deviant practices of these wayward Jews does not warrant any attempt at justification.[5] However, some scholars have called this picture into question. In the Ancient Levant, it was standard practice for people to bear personal names that refer to their gods. Such references to deities within a person’s name is known as a theophoric element. Accordingly, if the Jewish community at Elephantine was truly syncretistic, then we would expect the Jews of that community to incorporate the names of foreign gods into their personal names. But the evidence shows that they did not. Partially because of this lack of idolatrous theophoric elements, some scholars argue that the Jewish community at Elephantine was not idolatrous—rather they remained wholly devoted to Hashem. These scholars explain away alleged allusions to foreign gods at Elephantine as the assimilation of various pagan religious concepts into their brand Judaism, as opposed to the outright acceptance of pagan deities.[6] Similarly, the Jews at Elephantine may have used Aramean phraseology to refer to Jewish ideas, but they did not adopt Aramean religion.[7] According to this approach, we must seek out the Halachic justification for offering sacrifices at the temple in Elephantine, a practice which seems to defy the Torah’s ban on sacrifices outside of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Assuming that the Elephantine Jews were basically loyal to normative Judaism, how did they justify building a temple, complete with sacrifices? As mentioned previously, it seems that those Jews who built the Temple at Elephantine only did so after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. Based on this, R. Ephraim Dov ha-Kohen Lapp (1859–1925) proposes that they followed a minority Halachic opinion which maintains that when the First Temple was destroyed, the site in Jerusalem lost it holy status, thus legitimizing the use of private altars.[8] Accordingly, the Temple at Elephantine had the Halachic status of a legitimate private altar. As a result of this status, the Jews at Elephantine only offered voluntary, votive sacrifices such as meal-offerings, burnt-offerings, and incense (as opposed to obligatory sacrifices, like sin-offerings or guilt-offerings). This is, in fact, in accordance with the Mishnah[9] that limits the permissible sacrifices at legitimate private altars to exactly such offerings.[10]

Private Altars in the Second Temple Period

Nonetheless, the issue that remains unresolved is why this temple was not discontinued or dismantled upon the construction of the Second Temple. We can possibly resolve this question by comparing the issue of the temple at Elephantine to the issue of private altars in the Kingdom of Judah. As evident in the Book of Kings, private altars existed in the Kingdom of Judah throughout the First Temple period. There was no systematic campaign to destroy them until Hezekiah came along. This begs the question: Why did righteous kings of Judah, such as Asa and Jehoshaphat allow these private altars to remain, if sacrifices were only allowed at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem? R. Moshe Sofer (1762–1839) answers that many of the private altars in question were built before the prohibition of private altars came into effect (i.e. before the Temple in Jerusalem was built). Therefore, since these private altars were built legitimately, they maintained a certain degree of holiness. Consequently, it was actually forbidden to destroy them, and this prohibition remained in effect even once using them for ritual purposes became prohibited (i.e., when the Temple was later built). For this reason, even the “good” kings of Judah did not remove the private altars.[11] Based on this understanding, we can conjecture that a similar approach may have taken hold at the temple in Elephantine. If that temple was originally built at a time when private altars were permitted (because the First Temple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed), then perhaps some Jews attached a certain degree of holiness to the temple, and refused to dismantle it after the Second Temple in Jerusalem was built. Nonetheless, even if they were justified in allowing the temple at Elephantine to remain standing, there does not seem to be any justification for continuing to offer sacrifices outside of Jerusalem once the Second Temple was built. The House of Chonyo

The Mishnah[12] mentions another Jewish temple in Egypt—the House of Chonyo (Onias). Chonyo was the son[13] of Shimon the Just, a righteous Kohen Gadol in the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Before his death, Shimon the Just said that his son Chonyo should succeed him as Kohen Gadol. The Talmud[14] offers two Tannaic accounts of how Chonyo’s temple came about. According to R. Meir, Chonyo’s older brother Shimi became jealous that their father chose Chonyo to succeed him, so he tricked Chonyo into making a mockery of the Temple rituals and angering the other Kohanim. Shimi gave Chonyo “instructions” for his inaugural service by telling him that he was expected to wear a leather blouse and a special belt. When Chonyo came to the altar wearing those “feminine” articles of clothing, Shimi insinuated to the other Kohanim that Chonyo wore those clothes in order to fulfill a promise to his “lover”.[15] This raised their ire and they chased him to the Egyptian city of Alexandria,[16] where he established an idolatrous temple. According to R. Yehudah, the story unfolds differently. Although Shimon the Just advised that his son Chonyo should become the next Kohen Gadol, Chonyo deferred that honor, allowing his older brother Shimi to be appointed instead. Nonetheless, Chonyo became jealous of his older brother, so he devised a plan to embarrass him and deprive him of his office. Chonyo gave Shimi “instructions” for his inaugural service by telling him that he was expected to wear a leather blouse and a special belt. When Shimi came to the altar wearing those “feminine” articles of clothes, Chonyo insinuated to the other Kohanim that Shimi wore those clothes in order to fulfill a promise to his “lover”. When the other Kohanim found out the truth, i.e. that Chonyo had tricked Shimi by giving him incorrect instructions for his inaugural service, they chased Chonyo to Alexandria, where he established a temple for Hashem.[17] The Talmud concludes this second account by relating that Chonyo justified the establishment of his temple by citing the words of Isaiah,[18] On that day, there will be an altar for Hashem inside the Land of Egypt, and a single-stone altar to Hashem next to its border (Isa. 19:19).

Josephus’ Account of the Chonyo Story

Josephus offers a third account of how Chonyo’s temple was established. After the death of Alexander the Great, Greek holdings in the Middle East were divided between the Seleucid kingdom in Syria and the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt. A flashpoint of contention between these two rival kingdoms was the Holy Land, and different groups of Jews took different sides in the conflict. When the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes, led his army to Jerusalem, he violated the Holy Temple and halted the offering of daily sacrifices for three and a half years. Chonyo, who was the Kohen Gadol in Jerusalem, was a supporter of the rival Ptolemaic kingdom. When the Seleucids came to Jerusalem, he fled to Egypt. In Egypt, Ptolemy granted Chonyo permission to establish a Jewish community in the district of Heliopolis. There,[19] Chonyo built a city resembling Jerusalem, along with a temple that resembled the one in Jerusalem. Centuries later, Chonyos’ temple met its eventual demise at the hands of the Romans. After they destroyed the Second Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans ordered the closure of Chonyo’s temple in Egypt, and eventually its destruction.[20] Josephus seems to attribute noble intentions to Ptolemy. He was said to have sponsored the establishment of a Jewish temple in Egypt so that the Jews there would have the opportunity to worship Hashem (and would be more willing to help Ptolemy battle the Seleucids). However, in explaining Chonyo’s rationale for building the temple in Egypt, Josephus reports that Chonyo built it in order to compete with the Temple in Jerusalem and draw Jews away from worshipping Hashem properly. Chonyo had a bone to pick with the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem on account of their rejection of him, which forced him to flee to Egypt. Josephus also reports that Chonyo rationalized his building of a temple on foreign soil[22] by citing Isaiah’s above-mentioned prophecy.[22]

Chonyo’s Temple in Halacha

As we have seen above, whether or not Chonyo’s temple was idolatrous remains a matter of contention. According to Josephus and R. Meir, Chonyo sought to worship something other than Hashem. On the other hand, according to R. Yehuda, Chonyo’s temple was established for the sake of Hashem. If we follow the first view, then there can be no justification for what Chonyo did and the establishment of his idolatrous temple in Egypt. However, if he sought to worship Hashem, then from a Halachic perspective, there may be two ways of looking at Chonyo’s temple: Either his temple was a place of forbidden worship (albeit not quite idolatry in the classical sense of worshipping a foreign deity), or it might have been a completely legitimate place of worship. Maimonides[23] follows R. Yehuda’s version of events, and explains that Chonyo’s temple was not idolatrous, per se, even though it violated the ban on sacrifices outside of the Temple in Jerusalem. In other words, the practices at Chonyo’s temple reflected an illegitimate way of worshipping Hashem. Maimonides also notes that many local Egyptians—known as Copts—became involved in Chonyo’s temple, and were thus drawn to worshipping Hashem. The Tosafists[24] disagree with Maimonides’ premise that Chonyo’s temple violated Halacha. Instead, they explain that Chonyo avoided the prohibition of offering sacrifices outside of the Temple in Jerusalem by only offering sacrifices belonging to non-Jews. According to this approach, there was nothing technically wrong with Chonyo’s temple and the services there.

Gentiles Sacrifices outside of Jerusalem

Nonetheless, the commentators grapple over reconciling the Tosafists’ explanation with the opinion of the Tannaic sage R. Yose who maintains that the prohibition of offering sacrifices outside of Temple even extends to sacrifices of non-Jews.[25] R. Avrohom Chaim Schor (1560–1632)[26] explains that the dispute about whether Chonyo’s temple was legitimate or not centers around whether or not one accepts R. Yose’s view. In other words, R. Meir accepted R. Yose’s view that even a non- Jew’s sacrifices may only be offered in the Holy Temple. As a result of that, R. Meir understood that Chonyo’s temple must have been illegitimate, so he branded the temple idolatrous. In contrast, R. Yehuda rejected R. Yose’s opinion, so he reasoned that there could be Halachic justification for Chonyo’s temple. Because of this, R. Yehuda asserted that Chonyo’s was not idolatrous, but reflected the genuine worship of Hashem, albeit—as the Tosafists explain—specifically for gentiles. Alternatively, R. Schor proposes that although R. Yose forbids offering the sacrifices of gentiles outside of the Temple in Jerusalem, this prohibition only applies to Jewish priests. Accordingly, R. Yehuda believed that Chonyo and the Jewish priests at his temple did not actually participate in the ritual offerings there. Rather, they offered instructions for the attending gentiles to properly offer sacrifices to Hashem. In this way, no one at Chonyo’s Jewish-run temple ever violated the prohibition against offering sacrifices outside of the Temple in Jerusalem, because they themselves never engaged in such actions, they only helped the gentiles do so.[27] Others suggest that even R. Yose differentiates between two different types of sacrifices offered by a non-Jew. If a non-Jew consecrated a sacrifice to be brought in the Temple in Jerusalem,[28] then R. Yose would say that this sacrifice may not be offered outside of the Temple in Jerusalem. However, if a non-Jew consecrated a sacrifice without specific intent that it should be offered in Jerusalem, then his offering may Halachically be brought elsewhere. According to this, all opinions agree that a Jew may offer a gentile’s sacrifice outside of the Temple in Jerusalem provided that the gentile did not initially consecrate the sacrifice with intent to bring to Jerusalem.[29] With this in mind, we may justify the services at Chonyo’s temple by explaining that they only offered the sacrifices of non-Jews that were consecrated without specific intent to be offered in Jerusalem. R. Yehonassan Eyebschuetz (1690–1764) proposes another answer: the Tosafists’ discussion reflects the rejected opinion of the Amoraic sage R. Yitzchok.[30] R. Yitzchok understood that the prohibition of sacrificing outside of the Temple does not apply outside of the Holy Land, thus justifying the existence of Chonyo’s temple which stood in Egypt.[31] R. Lapp extends this logic to also justify the continued existence of the Jewish temple at Elephantine (mentioned above), even after the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. He argues that in accordance with R. Yitzchok, the entire prohibition of sacrifices outside of the Temple only applies in the Holy Land, not in Egypt.[32]

Egyptian Temples and Eradication of the Idolatrous Inclination In short, there were two Jewish Temples in Egypt that coexisted with the Second Temple in Jerusalem: the Jewish Temple at Elephantine and Chonyo’s Temple in Alexandria/Heliopolis. We have shown that it is unclear whether or not these temples were idolatrous. If the two Jewish Temples in Egypt were non-idolatrous, then there may be some Halachic justification for their existence. This, of course, also does not hamper our understanding of the Talmudic assertion that the idolatrous inclination was abolished with the beginning of the Second Temple Era. However, if these Jewish Temples in Egypt were indeed idolatrous, then they pose a challenge to the Talmudic assertions regarding the elimination of the idolatrous inclination.[33] We shall resolve this difficulty by addressing each temple separately. The Elephantine Temple seems to have predated the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and thus the eradication of the idolatrous inclination. As such, the Temple existed before the sages removed the idolatrous inclination. It is not a stretch of the imagination to postulate that even if the idolatrous inclination suddenly ceased to exist, those who already engaged in systematic idolatry beforehand would continue to do so simply out of habit. Once the Elephantine Temple had already been functioning for some time, it would not simply shut down operations overnight because the sages rid the Jews of the idolatrous inclination. There was too much at stake for the priests and other functionaries who profited from the temple. Regarding Chonyo’s Temple—which certainly did not predate the construction of the Second Temple—even if it was idolatrous, we can argue that it was not the drive for committing idolatry which led to its establishment. Rather, Chonyo’s own ego and pursuit of honor led him to establish a new Temple in Egypt. Those who participated in his cult were merely supporting characters in Chonyo’s own private scheme. In other words, the existence of Chonyo’s idolatrous temple does not contradict the Talmudic statement that the sages had removed the idolatrous inclination, because the idolatrous inclination was not what drove Chonyo’s temple. To recap, the Idolatrous inclination was not in play at these two temples. At Elephantine, it was the priests’ greed which motivated their continued idol worship and at Chonyo’s temple, it was a personality cult intended to elevate Chonyo which sponsored idolatry.

[1] This is a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jer. 43:12–13), which foresaw that Babylon’s Persian successors would overrun Egypt, and destroy the Egyptian places of idol worship. All source I have encountered assume that the establishment of the Jewish community in Elephantine occured after the destruction of the First Temple. However, Rabbi Moshe Leib Haberman (editor-in-chief of Kovetz Chitzei Gibborim) calls this assumption into question, because he notes that from the Elephantine Papyri themselves, one only sees that the Jewish settlement there predated Cambyses, but it is unknown by how much.

[2] B. Porten & A. Yardeni (eds.), Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1986), pgs. 62-64, 68-78 and B. Porten The Elephantine Papyri in English (Brill, 1996) pgs. 135–137; 139–151. [3] M. H. Silverman, “The Religion of the Elephantine Jews—A New Approach,” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, חלק .vol ו I division A (World Union of Jewish Studies, 1973), pg. 377. Texts found amongst the Elephantine Papyri invoke the name of a goddess Anat-Yahu. Some scholars argue that the composite name of this goddess implies a syncretistic merge of the Canaanite goddess Anat with Hashem (“Yahu”, makes up the first three-fourths of His name). Others argue that Anat-Yahu is wholly an Aramean creation, rather than a composite of Canaanite-Jewish conception. Aramean religion had a god named Ashim-Bethel and his consort was named Anat-Bethel. These scholars argue that idolatrous Jews, under Aramean influence, began to confuse Bethel with Hashem, eventually equating the two gods, so that Anat-Bethel was synonymous to them with Anat-Yahu. See K. Van der Toorn, “Anat-Yahu, Some Other Deities, and the Jews of Elephantine,” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions vol. 39:1 (1992), pgs. 80–101 and M. E. Mondriaan, “Anat-Yahu and the Jews at Elephantine,” Journal for Semitics vol. 22:2 (2013), pgs. 537–552. [4] J. M. P. Smith, “The Jewish Temple at Elephantine,” The Biblical World vol. 31:6 (1908), pgs. 453–454 also favors identifying the founders of the Jewish colony at Elephantine with the Jews who ignored Jeremiah’s call to remain in Babylonian-occupied Judah, and instead fled to Egypt. [5] C. Cornell, “Cult Statuary in the Judean Temple at Yeb,” Journal for the Study of Judaism vol. 47 (2016), pgs. 291–309 is a bit more generous in his assessment of the Jewish community at Elephantine. He submits that the Jews there worshipped the One Hashem, but that their temple held multiple images/idols which purported to depict Him in various hypostases. Still, this development represents a significant deviation from standard Judaism and if he is correct, we need not concern ourselves with seeking any justification for their practices. The fact that these Jews self-identified as Judean has no bearing on our discussion because it was/is common practice for deviant sects to claim to be Jewish. [6] Silverman 1973:383. [7] A similar approach argues that seemingly idolatrous elements of the Jewish presence at Elephantine do not represent their theological outlook, but rather reflect attempts to evoke Persian sympathy for their cause by implying to the Persians that their religion have shared components. In other words, when the Jews at Elephantine implied things which seem idolatrous, they were simply doing so for political expediency, but they did not actually believe/practice יהו those deviant facets. See T. Bolin, “The Temple of at Elephantine and Persian Religious Policy” in D. Edelman (ed.), The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms (Kok Pharos, 1995), pgs. 127–142. [8] Maimonides (Laws of Beis ha-Bechirah 6:15) rules that the Temple’s site became permanently holy when King Solomon sanctified it. However, Raavad (there), disagrees and accepts the opinion that once the Temple was destroyed, the site was no longer holy, until it was re-consecrated upon the construction of the Second Temple (see below). [9] Megillah 1:10. [10] Zivchei Efrayim Al Meseches Zevachim (Piotrków, 1922), pg. 6. [11] Responsa Chasam Sofer (Orach Chaim §32). See also R.C. Klein, God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press, 2018), pgs. 28–32. [12] Menachos 13:10. [13] In Antiquities, Josephus attributes the temple in Egypt to a later Chonyo, who was not the son of Shimon the Just. Nonetheless, some scholars claim that Josephus purposely attributed the establishment of the temple in Egypt to a later Chonyo who had never served as Kohen Gadol in Jerusalem in order to delegitimize its religious value. See J. E. Taylor, “A Second Temple in Egypt: the Evidence for the Zadokite Temple of Onias,” Journal for the Study of Judaism vol. 29:3 (1998), pgs. 297–321. Interestingly, R. Yisroel Lipschitz (1782–1860) in Tiferes Yisroel (Menachos 13:10, Boaz §2) writes that the Chonyo in discussion was not literally a son of Shimon the Just, but rather a grandson of Shimon the Just (a son of Shimon’s son Chonyo), accepting Josephus’s account and adjusting his understanding of the Talmud accordingly. [14] TB Menachos 109b. [15] R. Gershom and Rashi explain that this “lover” was his wife. Maimonides (in his commentary to the Mishnah Menachos 13:10) writes that this “lover” was an alleged mistress. [16] TB Yoma 38a and JT Shekalim 5:1 relate that the House of Garmu did not wish to reveal the secrets behind making the shew-bread and the House of Avtinas did not wish to reveal the secrets behind making the incense for the Temple. In response, artisans from Alexandria were imported to try and mimic those secret recipes, but they were unsuccessful in exactly copying what those families had been able to make. Both R. Yosef Shaul Nathansohn (1808–1875) in Divrei Shaul (to TB Yoma 38a) and R. Shalom Massas (1909–2003) in ve-Cham ha-Shemesh (Jerusalem, 2003) pp. 326–327 independently draw an explicit connection these Alexandrian artisans to Chonyo’s Temple in Alexandria, although no other authorities do so. The notion of Alexandrian artisans being unable to exactly replicate something from Jerusalem is also found in Targum to Est. 1, which relates that Achashverosh wished to create a replica of King Solomon’s famed throne, and employed Alexandrian artisans to do so—but to no avail. That story must have transpired before the establishment of Chonyo’s Temple in Alexandria because Achashverosh lived before the construction of the Second Temple. In light of this, we may suggest that Alexandrian artisans were employed in all cases simply because Greek Alexandria was a center of knowledge in its time, so the most knowledgeable craftspeople lived there. [17] The Jerusalem Talmud (JT Yoma 6:3) slightly differs in its retelling of this discussion. Whilst in the Babylonian Talmud, the names of the two rival sons of Shimon the Just are Chonyo and Shimi, in the Jerusalem Talmud, they are Nechunyon and Shimon. However, R. Tanchum ha-Yerushalmi (a 13th century Egyptian Rabbi) writes that Chonyo had two names, Chonyo and Nechunyo; see B. Toledano (ed.), ha-Madrich ha-Maspik (Tel Aviv, 1961), pg. 154. Furthermore, according to the Babylonian Talmud, R. Meir believed that Chonyo was the victim of Shimi’s deceit and ended up establishing a temple for idolatry, while R. Yehuda believed that Chonyo tricked Shimi, and ended up fleeing for fear of Kohanic retribution and established a temple for Hashem. The Jerusalem Talmud echoes the dispute in the Babylonian Talmud regarding the story of Chonyo, but differs in the conclusions. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, R. Meir understood that Chonyo’s Temple was for Hashem, while R. Yehuda understood that it was for idolatry. See also Piskei ha-Rid (to TB Menachos 109b) who copies the entire story as related by R. Meir, but concludes that Chonyo’s intent was to establish a temple for Hashem—not for idolatry—in line with the Jerusalem Talmud. [18] See Isa. 19:18 which calls this Egyptian place Ir ha-Heres עיר) ,ההרס the city of destruction), which the Talmud (TB Menachos 110a) translates as Karta קרתא)de-Beis Shemesh ,דבית שמש city of the House of the Sun, i.e. Heliopolis). Indeed, deviant versions of the Bible (such as the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scroll 1QIsa3) insert this tradition into the text and read Ir ha-Cheres עיר) ,החרס the city of the sun), instead of Ir ha-Heres. [19] As we saw above, the Talmud locates Chonyo’s temple at Alexandria, which is quite distant from Heliopolis. We can reconcile this discrepancy between the Talmud and Josephus by noting that the term “Alexandria of Egypt” used by the Talmud does not necessarily refer just to the Egyptian city of Alexandria, but to the entirety of Egypt; see R. Ulmer, Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), pg. 210 and A. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights (Tubingen: Mohr, 1985), pg. 347. R. Last, “Onias IV and the ἀδέσποτος ἱερός: Placing Antiquities 13.62–72 into the Context of Ptolemaic Land Tenure,” Journal for the Study of Judaism vol. 41 (2010), pgs. 494–516 makes the case that Ptolemey originally granted Chonyo land in Alexandria for the construction of the temple, but Chonyo later appropriated other, ownerless lands near Heliopolis upon which he built his temple. [20] Josephus concludes with a note that Chonyo’s temple lasted 343 years, although some argue that this figure is exaggerated by close to a century; see S. G. Rosenberg, “Onias, Temple of.,” Encyclopedia Judaica 2nd ed. vol. 15 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), pg. 432. R. Yisroel Lipschitz writes in Tiferes Yisroel (Menachos 13:10, Yachin§57) that Chonyo’s temple lasted close to 250 years. [21] Ibn Yachya in Shalsheles ha-Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1962), pg. 49 writes that after Chonyo built his temple in Egypt, he later built another temple at Mount Gerizim with the help of the Samaritans. An observation of noted Bible scholar Emanuel Tov accentuates the affinity between these two renegade Jewish cults (i.e. the Alexandrian/Egyptian sect and the Samaritans). Tov categorizes witnesses of textual variations in the Torah by essentially dividing them into two blocks: The Masoretic Text (which Tov admits was the original) and the Septuagint/Samaritan block (which was derived from the MT, but splinters off into other directions). By using this mode of classification, Tov recognizes a certain shared affinity, or perhaps even correspondence, between these non-mainstream Jewish sects which existed in the Second Temple period. See E. Tov, “The Development of the Text of the Torah in Two Major Text Blocks,” Textus vol. 26 (2016), pgs. 1–27. [22] The War of the Jews (Book I, Chapter 1 and Book VII, Chapter 10) and Antiquities of the Jews (Book XII, Chapter 9 and Book XIII, Chapter 3). [23] In his commentary to the Mishnah Menachos 13:10. [24] To TB Menachos 109b. [25] Cited in TB Zevachim 45a. [26] Tzon Kodashim to TB Menachos 109b. [27] This explanation is also proposed by Sfas Emes (to TB Menachos 109b). [28] The Mishnah (Shekalim 1:5) rules that the Temple can only accept from non-Jews votive sacrifices, but not what are otherwise considered obligatory offerings. [29] See Mikdash David (Kodshim §27:9), written by R. David Rappaport (1890–1941), Even ha-Azel (Laws of Maaseh ha-Korbanos 19:7), by R. Isser Zalman Meltzer (1870–1953), and Sefer ha-Mitzvos le-Rasag vol. 2 (Warsaw, 1914), pg. 233b, by R. Yerucham Fishel Perlow (1846–1934). [30] See TB Megilla 10a. [31] Yaaros Dvash (vol. 1, drush #9). [32] Zivchei Efrayim Al Meseches Zevachim (Piotrków, 1922), pgs. 5–7. [33] For a fuller discussion of this Talmudic assertion, see R.C. Klein, God versus Gods: Judasim in the Age of Idolatry (Mosaica Press, 2018), pp. 244–276.

On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana: Part 1

On the Times Commonly Presented for Birkat HaL’vana: Part 1 Avi Grossman

Abstract

Typical Jewish calendars list two particular z’manim for “the first time that one may begin to recite kiddush l’vana (or birkat hal’vana).” The first is referred to as minhag yerushalayim or minhag haperushim, or simply “the three-day minhag,” and the second time, to wait for seven days to pass from the start of the lunar month to recite the blessing, is attributed to the Shulhan Aruch. These two times are calculated as exactly either 72 hours or 168 hours after the average molad of each Hebrew month. These positions do not truly reflect those of our sages, nor of the Rishonim, and nor of the Shulhan Aruch. The usual shul calendars, like the Ittim L’vina calendar and the Tukachinsky calendar, mislead the public with regards to when the earliest time for saying the blessing really is. The issue is based on a number of fallacious calculations, including misapplying a chumra of the Pri M’gadim regarding an opinion of the Rema to an opinion of the Shulhan Aruch, and assuming that the Shulhan Aruch completely dismissed the halacha as described by the Talmud in favor of a later, kabbalistic opinion. The purpose of this article is to argue for a reevaluation as to how the typical calendars present these issues to the laymen and to call for a more accurate presentation of the z’manim as understood by Rishonim like Maimonides.

Introduction

If you take a look at the usual Jewish calendars, you will find that every month two particular z’manim are presented for “the first time that one may begin to recite kiddush l’vana (or birkat hal’vana).” The first is based on the writings of the Vilna Gaon, and referred to as minhag yerushalayim or minhag haperushim, or simply “the three-day minhag,” and the second is attributed to Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Beth Yosef and the Shulhan Aruch, who was usually referred to by the name of his former work. The Shulhan Aruch makes mention of waiting for seven days to pass (ostensibly from the start of the lunar month) to recite the blessing. These two times are calculated as follows: exactly 72 hours (3 times 24 hours) or 168 hours (7 times 24 hours) after the average molad of each Hebrew month, the molad that is announced in the synagogue before each Rosh Hodesh and used to calculate when each Tishrei is to start, thereby making it the basis for our set calendar.

It is my goal to show that these positions do not truly reflect those of our sages, nor of the Rishonim, and that Beth Yosef himself actually held like the majority of Rishonim, while his seven-day minhag is also misrepresented in the printed calendars. The usual shul calendars, like the Ittim L’vina calendar and the Tukachinsky calendar, mislead the public with regards to when the earliest time for saying the blessing really is. I have tried to speak to the publishers about this issue, but to no avail.

Talmud And Rishonim: Birkat Hal’vana Ideally On Rosh Hodesh Rabbi David Bar Hayim maintains that the monthly recitation of birkat hal’vana should, in accordance with the plain meaning of the Talmud and the opinion of the rishonim, ideally be on Rosh Hodesh, and in the event that that cannot be done, as soon as possible thereafter. See here. His first proofs are the most elegant.

“Whoever recites the b’rakha over the new moon at the proper time (bizmano) welcomes, as it were, the presence of the Sh’khina” (Sanhedrin 42a). What does bizmano mean if not that one should strive to recite this b’rakha at the earliest opportunity? In a number of manuscripts we find a variant reading – “Whoever recites the b’rakha for Rosh Hodhesh…” – which leaves no room for doubt as to R. Yohanan’s intention.

It should also be noted that throughout the rest of the Talmud, “z’mano” of the new moon is the night it is supposed to be sighted, i.e., the first night of the month. He also points out that The Talmud Y’rushalmi (B’rakhoth 9:2) speaks plainly of reciting the b’rakha at the time of the moon’s reappearance (HaRo’e eth HaL’vana b’hidhusha). This is also the very deliberate wording of both Halakhoth G’dholoth and Riph (Chap 9 43b). This expression can only be understood as explained above.

This is also the language utilized by Maimonides and the Shulhan Aruch, and will become crucial when we seek to understand the opinion of the Beth Yosef. Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, the math professor turned Rosh Yeshiva, also told me that such is the halacha, and it is proper to make others aware of this. There is a group called the Israeli New Moon Society that keeps track of the sightings of the new moon and publishes online guides for amateurs who wish to spot the new moon. The society enjoys Rabbi Rabinovitch’s support, and he used the society’s founder’s diagrams in his own commentary on Maimonides’s Hilchot Kiddush HaHodesh.

This position should come as a surprise to many. In America, the prevailing practice is to wait specifically for after the Sabbath, while here in Israel most are used to hearing about the three-day or seven-day customs.

We should begin our discussion with the relevant Talmudic sources, YT Berachot 9:2 and BT Sanhedrin 42-43, which state that one has until the sixteenth of the month to recite birkat hal’vana. The running assumption of the rishonim and logic is that the assumed first time to recite the blessing is right at the beginning of the month, similar to the obvious point that if one were told to perform a commandment in the morning and that he had until 9am, then it would be understood that he can start doing it when the morning starts. After all, is he supposed to do it before the morning, while it is still the preceding night? This position is explicit in Rashi’s comments to the gemara, the Meiri’s explanation thereof, and in Maimonides’s codification of the law (Berachot, 10:16-17), but is also the only way to understand the halacha unless other considerations are introduced. A simple reading of the both Talmudim indicate without a doubt that the blessing is to be recited on Rosh Hodesh. Rabbi Kappah, in his commentary to the Mishneh Torah (ibid.), writes that this is and always was the Yemenite practice. Note also that this halacha makes no mention of the molad or of any calculation concerning the first time for reciting this blessing, because as one of the birkot har’iya, it only depends on seeing something.

I believe that Hazal instituted this blessing specifically for the first sighting of the moon because, once upon a time, the Jewish people joyously anticipated the first sighting of the moon. The Mishna in Rosh Hashana (chapter 2) describes how the Sanhedrin actually wanted to encourage competition among potential witnesses! Jewish life once revolved around the calendar, which itself was not predetermined. Thus, every month, Jews throughout ancient Israel and the Diaspora were involved in keeping track of the sighting of the new moon, as it affected when the holidays would be. Imagine not knowing during the first of week of Elul if the first of Tishrei was going to be on Thursday or perhaps on Friday some weeks later. It can have a major effect on everyone’s holiday plans.

However, most of the calendars do not take into account when the actual first sighting of the moon will be every month. Instead, they follow a different interpretation of a view cited in the Beth Yosef, thus presenting a first time for birkat hal’vana that is sometimes as many as three days after the actual first opportunity.

Massechet Sof’rim And Rabbeinu Yona: Other Considerations

Rabbeinu Yona (attached to the Rif’s rulings at the very end of the fourth chapter of BT Berachot, page 21a in the Vilna printing, and cited by the Beth Yosef to Tur Orah Hayim 426, “garsinan b’masechet sof’rim;”) describes three ways to understand what Massechet Sof’rim meant by not reciting the blessing “ad shetitbassem.” Evidently, his version of Sof’rim was different from ours, in which the first line of chapter 20 begins with “ad motza’ei shabbat, k’shehu m’vusam.” This verb, titbassem, is from the root b-s-m, and like most future tense forms with the prefix tau but no suffix, it can either have a second-person masculine singular subject (in this case, the one reciting the blessing), or a feminine third-person singular subject (the moon). Rabbeinu Yona rejects the interpretation that it means to wait until Motzaei Shabbat, when we recite the blessing over the besamim, because Saturday night and Sunday have nothing to do with Rosh Hodesh more than other days of the week. Our Rosh Hodesh is actually distributed perfectly evenly among the days of the week. That is, one out of every seven days that we observe as Rosh Hodesh is a Sunday, and waiting for Saturday night every month can often considerably delay the blessing. What if Rosh Hodesh was Monday? Why wait practically a whole week to recite birkat hal’vana? The idea does not fit with the typical halachic principle of trying to perform a religious function as soon as possible.

Rabbeinu Yona does not then entertain the reading of Sof’rim we possess, which offers a different connection between the root b-s-m and Motza’ei Shabbat, but instead offers his own interpretation: that the moon should look like a “canopy.” If only about a 90 degree arc is visible, it is a stretch to say that it looks canopy-like, but if it is closer to 180 degrees, then it looks like what he is describing. This opinion was apparently not accepted by any subsequent scholars, because it finds no mention in subsequent literature. Lastly, Rabbeinu Yona offers his own mentor’s understanding, and this is the basis for all later misunderstandings: titbassem refers to the light of the moon being significantly “sweet,” a state that it only achieves “two to (or ‘or’) three days” into the new lunar cycle. He uses intentionally vague language, because no two months are the same. By the time the moon becomes visible for the first time, it could be that the molad itself was anywhere from approximately twelve hours to 48 hours before that, and each month has its own set of astronomical conditions that affect this.[1] The possibilities are endless, and there is no objective rule for determining how much time the moon takes each month to get to the stage Rabbeinu Yona’s mentor describes, and that is why he used the vague terminology “two to three days.” More importantly, the “two to three days” statement is just an example of how long it takes, but the underlying rule is when the light becomes “sweet.”

I will give an analogy.

Rubin wished to buy a silver goblet from Simon. Simon asked Rubin for $200 in exchange for the goblet. Rubin, searching through his wallet, realized he had not the cash, but he needed the goblet very soon. Turning to Simon, he said, “Right now, it is about 9:30 Wednesday morning. I need this goblet at lunch today, and if you give me two to three days to come up with the cash, I would be grateful.” Simon agreed, because he knew that Rubin was going to go back to his own business selling tomatoes and shoes, and that sometimes he did not work Fridays, and the odds were good that Rubin would have enough left after sales and buying his children snacks to pay Simon. Now, we would all consider it perfectly reasonable for Rubin to come back to Simon Thursday night at 8pm, or Friday morning at 10am, or right before Shabbat, or even right after Shabbat, because in languages like 13th-century Rabbinic Hebrew and Modern Hebrew and English, “two to three days” or “two or three days” allow for all of those possibilities. The halacha also allows for that. Thursday evening is at the end of two business days, right before Shabbat is at the end of three, and right after Shabbat is the end of the third day from when Rubin asked for more time. But all can be described as having as taken place “two to three days” from when Rubin made his request.

Back to the moon: it seems that in every subsequent work you can find (with the very important and critical exception of the Beth Yosef), the opinion of Rabbeinu Yona’s mentor is referred to as “Rabbeinu Yona’s opinion,” even though he offered one that actually differed from that of his mentor, and it is inaccurately reported as “waiting for three days after the molad,” taking out the critical “two or/to.” Even later, it is further transformed into waiting until after three full days have passed, i.e., at least 72 hours. This evolution is clear from reading the sources as they appear in the halachic record in chronological order. This is unfortunate and also illogical, because we saw above that the whole idea of “two to three days” is only offered as a way to describe how long it may take the light of the moon to become “sweet.” It could actually vary, because the sweetness is the point.

A typical example was Rosh Hodesh Adar 5777, when both the mean molad and the actual molad happened early Sunday morning, e.g. between 4 am and 9 am, the moon was not visible Sunday night, nor visible all Monday during the day, but Monday night, after sunset, which is halachically Tuesday, the new moon became visible to most people, assuming cooperative weather conditions. Thus, it takes “two to three days,” i.e., a vague window of 26 to 72 hours, for the new moon to show up after the molad. In our case, it took most of Sunday, all of Monday, and just the beginning of Tuesday, about 40 hours later, for the moon to reappear. Rabbi Rabinovitch’s son, Rabbi Mordechai Rabinovitch, pointed this out to me some years ago. The idea that miktzat hayom k’chullo, that a part of the day is considered a full halachic day, is well grounded in halacha. To sum up, Rabbeinu Yona did not mean “three days, in every single situation, no matter what,” and even if he had said that the underlying rule is to wait three days from the beginning of the cycle, why did later authorities add that “at least” modifier?

The Beth Yosef and others who came after Rabbeinu Yona mentioned that the new lunar cycle officially starts with the molad. Now, the molad as discussed by the authorities is just an average; the actual conjunction is usually a few hours before or after it. It takes some time after the actual conjunction for the new moon to become visible. Enough time has to elapse from the conjunction for the moon to be both objectively large enough to actually be seen and far enough from the sun’s location in the sky for it not to be out shone. The first time any moon is visible is usually after sunset the day after the actual molad, and sometimes only after the sunset two days after the molad. In practice, it is usually impossible to see the new moon on the halachic day of the molad or on the halachic day after the molad. Only on the third day, which starts at sundown concluding the second day, is the new moon visible.[2]

This is the first premise of the misunderstanding: the actual first sighting of the new moon will, in the overwhelming majority of cases, satisfy Rabbeinu Yona’s rule as actually stated, but if one were to decide to wait to recite the blessing the maximum interpretation of “three days” from the molad, and only decide to use the mean molad, which has no actually bearing on the reality of the moon’s visibility, then he would wait 72 hours from that molad, and in the vast majority of months the end of that 72 hour period will either greatly precede the next possible citing of the moon or just miss that sighting. Because the new moon is visible for a few minutes to an hour and a half or so after the sunset, if those 72 hours do not terminate around then, one will have to wait for the next night to recite the blessing. In our example above, such a person would wait until Wednesday morning between 4am and 9am to recite the blessing, when the moon by definition is not visible due to its proximity to the sun, and then be forced to wait even longer, until Wednesday night, which is halachically Thursday, in order to recite the blessing “at the first opportunity”! Thus, he has delayed the recitation two full days! It gets more extreme, when for some reason, the calendar invokes the (not so talmudic) rule that the blessing not be recited on Friday night even when it is the “first opportunity,” pushing off the blessing to Saturday night, three days after the true first opportunity.[3]

Why would anyone do such a thing? Who would read Rabbeinu Yona such a way and then rule that normative practice should follow it? The Beth Yosef himself does not subscribe to Rabbeinu Yona’s rule to begin with.

The answer is the Pri M’gadim, but first some more background. The Last Time For Birkat Hal’vana

According to BT Sanhedrin (ibid.), the last opportunity for the birkat hal’vana is the 16th of the month. Now, the Gemara is speaking quite generally. It assumes that a month is 30 days long, thus making the 16th night the beginning of the second half of the month, and usually marking the point that the moon is beginning to wane. Indeed, in deficient, 29-day months, it makes sense that the last opportunity should be the night of the 15th. The Beth Yosef (ibid., “uma shekathav rabbeinu w’hanei shisha asar”) makes note of this and other similar issues, and then notes that there are more exact ways of determining the midpoint of the lunar month.

That is, the Talmud gave a very imprecise sign for determining when the moon is no longer waxing, but leaves room for more precise calculations. The Tur, (ibid.) for example, mentions that the true last time for the blessing is exactly half the time between the average moladoth, what the pos’kim call me’et l’et (literally, “from time to time”), and often meant to mean exactly 24 hours after a certain event. In this case, it means exactly half the time between the moladoth,[4] which, as pointed out by many commentators, can actually fallout before or after the 16th (or 15th) night of the month. This is the opinion adopted by the Rema (Orah Hayim 426:3) for determining the final time for the blessing. The Beth Yosef (ibid.) mentions an even more exact determination of the middle of the lunar month: the lunar eclipse, which by definition occurs at the exact midpoint of the month.

Presumably, in a month absent a lunar eclipse, the midpoint of the month could be calculated by studying the actual moladoth before and after that month, and there are now many free computer programs that can easily do this. The Shulhan Aruch thus rules that one can stick with the most inexact calculation (Orah Hayim 426:3), but the Pri M’gadim (Eshel Avraham 13 to Orah Hayim 426) declares that just like we, the Ashkenazim, follow the Rema, who said that the yard stick for measuring the last time of the blessing is me’et l’et, exactly half the time between the average moladot, so too, with regards to the first time of the blessing, the practice is to wait three days me’et l’et, exactly 72 hours, from the molad, before reciting the blessing!

The Pri M’gadim makes no explanation as to why that should be so, and it is especially hard to justify his claim, as the first time for saying the blessing should strictly depend on the first sighting of the moon, whereas the final time for the blessing should depend on when the moon is full. Further, the Rema himself made no actual mention of when he believes to be the first time for the recitation of Birkat Hal’vana, and without this interjection of the Pri M’gadim, one would figure that the Rema holds like the implication of the Talmud above, that the ideal time for the blessing is on Rosh Hodesh, or at least perhaps when Rabbeinu Yona says it should be.

Despite this, the Pri M’gadim’s opinion is mentioned by the Mishna Berura (426:20), and that has ended the discussion for the calendar printers, despite the fact that it was clear for millennia before the Pri M’gadim, who was born in 1727, that the first opportunity for the recitation of this blessing should not be delayed. After all, how many of us ever delay the blessing over seeing the ocean or lightning? Further, one cannot derive that there is a both a rule as to how luminous the moon needs to be and about how Saturday night is ideal because they are mutually exclusive, alternate readings of the same line in Sof’rim. The whole idea that the authorities ever accepted that the moon needs to be a minimum size was never fully accepted, and even if there were those who subscribed to Rabbeinu Yona’s vague position, none of them before the Pri M’gadim assigned a strictly quantifiable time period to that standard.

We now need to address the following questions: 1. If it is clear from the Gemara and Rishonim that the blessing should be recited as soon as possible during the lunar month, why did Rabbeinu Yona’s novel opinion gain so much support? 2. Why has this opinion of the Pri M’gadim become so popular? Does it not misunderstand an opinion that itself should be discounted?

In Maaseh Rav 159, it is recorded in the name of the Vilna Gaon (who was a contemporary of the Pri M’gadim) that birkat hal’vana should not be postponed until seven days after (the start of the month), nor until Saturday night, but rather “we sanctify immediately after 3 days from the molad.” This seems to be an endorsement of Rabbeinu Yona’s position and the source for minhag yerushalyim, but as we have just argued, it would be a stretch to say that it could only be understood as the Pri M’gadim did. It would seem to make more sense to interpret this as Rabbeinu Yona himself wrote, “2 or 3 days” which allows for periods of time much shorter than the maximum 72 hours.

We have thus shown that with regards to general Ashkenazic practice, the calendars present a time for birkat hal’vana that has little basis in the oldest sources. I have not found a single work that takes up the problem of the Pri M’gadim declaring what the Rema’s position is with regard to the first time of birkat hal’vana, and the contemporary scholars familiar with the matter all hold like the simple understanding of the gemara according to Maimonides, namely that birkat hal’vana should be recited as soon as the new moon can be seen, with no consideration of how much time that actually takes after the molad. It would seem that the calendars, if they were to be honest, would notify their readers of when the moon is first technically visible each month, as per the Israeli New Moon Society’s charts, which usually satisfy Rabbeinu Yona’s and anyone who subscribes to his position’s conditions, and then to present the Pri M’gadim’s position, and refer to it as such.

To be continued in part 2.

[1] See this chart. Notice that no two months share a percent illumination, nor location in the sky, and each has its own level of difficulty being spotted. When two days are shown consecutively, it is because the first day’s conditions were not sufficient for most to have actually enjoyed or even seen the light of the moon. [2] As pointed out on the last page of the linked file in note 1, Maimonides did feel that there was a mathematical formula for determining minimal visibility. [3] The Mishna Berurah (426:12 and Sha’ar Hatziyun ad loc) mentions that based on Kabbala, birkat hal’vana should not be said on Friday night, probably lest reciters come to dance, However, the way the halacha stood for millennia never included this novel rule, and the prohibition against dancing on the Sabbath and Festivals is itself a Rabbinic “fence” around a Biblical prohibition, and there is a Talmudic rule that we do not make “decrees to protect decrees.” More so, even though there are still some lone holdouts who maintain that this prohibition against dancing is still in force, most communities follow the opinion of the Tosafists (Beitza 30a) that nowadays there is no such prohibition. Thus, the almost universal custom of hakafot on Simchat Torah, which, if not for the Tosafists’ leniency, would be rabbinically forbidden. [4] 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 chalakim. Each chelek is 3 and 1/3 seconds, so 793 chalakim equals 2643 and 1/3 seconds, or about 44 minutes. The half way point between the moladot would therefore be 14 days, 18 hours and 22 minutes or so after the first molad.