The Publications Institute of Jerusalem’s Yeshiva Ahavat Shalom, which is headed by the Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Hillel, has developed in recent years into a major publisher of rabbinic books. Some time ago, it presented the Torah world with Rabbi Betzaelel Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin.
The edition, which is based on a manuscript in Rabbi’s Ashkenazi’s own hand that was preserved in the Russian State library in Moscow, was edited and prepared for print by Rabbi Elazar Hurvitz.
Reproduced in the two volumes before us are also fragments, apparently from the Cairo Genizah featuring remnants of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Shevuot, which seemingly has been lost, as well as a number of pages of novellae on Tractate Ketubbot and Tracate Shevuot authored by Rabbi Chaim Havraya, who was a student of Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi at his Yeshiva in Cairo. The Genizah fragments were discovered by Rabbi Hurvitz in the Firkowitch Collection of the Saltykov- Schedrin Library in St. Petersburg. The writings of Rabbi Hayyim Havraya were found in the bindings of an old book.
Rabbi E. Hurvitz, a native of Jerusalem and a long time faculty member of New York’s Yeshiva University, is a very prolific author and editor of writings by early rabbinic authorities.
Only a few of his numerous publications can be mentioned here:
Sefer HaMenuha, a commentary on Maimonides Mishna Torah by the thirteenth century scholar, Manoach of Narbonne, based on a manuscript in the Moscow Library. Part 1 deals with the laws of the reading of the Shema, prayers and benedictions (Mossad Harv Kook, Jerusalem, 1970).
The sensational Misnheh Torah of Maimonides, a Facsimile of an unknown Edition printed in Spain before the Exiles and reconstruction from Fragments found in the Cairo Genizah, in ancient Bindings and rare Editions, with variants from the first printed editions of the Mishneh Torah” was published in1985 by the Cairo Genizah Institute of Yeshiva University in commemoration of the 850th birthday of Maimonides.
The Sefer Zikaron in memory of Rabbi Moshe Swift, published by Moriah (Jerusalem, 1986), features a lengthy study on the basis of manuscripts, by Rabbi Hurwitz concerning an unknown 17th century rabbinic dispute about the rabbinically prohibited marriage of a couple where both the husband and wife were influential court Jews in Germany.
Teshuvot HaGeonim which includes, in addition to Geonic Responsa, responsa and decisions by the sages of Provence, is based on manuscripts and on Cairo Genizah fragments (New York, 1995).
Several years ago, Rabbi Hurvitz published from manuscript in New York’s HaEmek, a commentary on the Haggadah and the laws of the Seder night by a medieval rabbi.
Rabbi Hurvitz wrote the introduction and was the editor of the late Manfred R. Lehmann’s critical edition of Rashi’s commentary on the Torah based on a Yemenite manuscript from around 1440 and on medieval fragments from Germany, Spain Provence and Italy.
In the introduction to his edition of the Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin, Rabbi Hurvitz writes that for over 40 years, since he stated working on the collection of microfilms from Russia in the Hebrew Department of New York University — which was head by the late professor Abraham I Kasch and the late librarian, Dr. Moshe Lutzky — he has advocated the filming and dissemination of Hebrew manuscripts found in Russian libraries, in order to save them for our people. He has also endeavored to publish scholarly editions of some of the manuscripts. Here Rabbi Hurvitz names a number of books based on manuscripts in Russian libraries, which he himself has edited and published or which were edited and published by his students under his guidance. The books listed include Sefer HaMenuha and Tshuvot HaGeonim mentioned above.
To be continued
The Jewish Press, Friday, December 26, 2003
Continued from last week
Rabbi Elazar Hurvitz’s widespread literary activities include the edition of the Ohel Hayyim series, descriptive catalogs of the Hebrew manuscripts and early Hebrew printed books in the possession of the Manfred and Anne Lehmann family.
He has has also been recognized with thanks by Yeshayahu Vinograd in his preface to Otzar Sifrei HaGra for his notes on the section “Redemption, Immigration to the Land of Israel and Settlement of the Land of Israel.” Vinograd points out that it is Rabbi Hurvitz who prepared for print all the important works appearing in the Land of Israel between 1947 and 1958 that focused on the Gaon of Vilna’s views regarding the redemption of the Jewish people and on the Aliyah of the Gaon’s students to the Holy Land.
In the long introduction to his recently published edition of Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin, Rabbi Hurvits writers, inter alia, about the peregrinations of the manuscript of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s work on Hullin.
Rabbi Ashkenazi wrote his work on Hullin when he served as Rosh Yeshiva in Cairo. The historian Joseph Sambari, who lived in Egypt mentions Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi’s works on the Talmud, among them the Shitah Mekubetzet on Tractate Hullin. In his chronicle Divrei Yosef, Rabbi Hurvitz surmises that Sambar saw these works in the library of Rabbi Abraham Iscandari who headed a Yeshiva in Egypt. David Conforte, a contemporary of Sambari, studied for some time in Rabbi Abraham Iscandari’s Yeshiva in his Kore HaDorot he writes about Rabbi Ashkenazi’s works, stressing that he saw his Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Ketubbot when he was studying at Rabbi Iscandari’s Yeshiva.
The manuscript of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Hullin, was seemingly brought from Egypt to the Land of Israel by Rabbi Hayyim Yehuda Gomez Patto, who had spent some time in Egypt as an emissary of the Jewish community of Hebron. Rabbi Hayyim Yosef Dovid Azulai mentions and quotes Rabbi Ashkenazi’s manuscript on Hullin in his Shem HaGedolim and Birkei Yosef. Rabbi Hurvitz conjectures that R. Azulai must have seen the manuscript in the house of R. Gomez Patto, who was his relative and friend.
From Rabbi Gomez Patto the manuscript passed to his son-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Jacob Meyuhas, a son of Rabbi Abraham Meyuhas, author of Sefer Haaretz. Like his father-in-law, he also was an emissary of the Hebron Jewish community. At the beginning of the Hullin manuscript there is a note of his indicating that he received the work from his father-in-law. Rabbi Joseph Jacob Meyuhas died in Jerusalem in 1824.
Some years later the manuscript came into the possession of Nahman Nathan Coronel, a native of Amsterdam who had settled in the land of Israel in 1830. Coronel collected manuscripts, some of which he published, In 1854 he published in Vienna, his Beit Natan, which includes, mainly variant readings of Tractate Berakhot based on an old manuscript. He took the Hullin manuscript to Vienna and sold it there to Shlmo Zalman Kohav Tov Stern. The latter who worked in a printing press in Vienna and published early Hebrew works such as Yesod Mora by Abrahm Ibn Ezra and Meir’s commentary on Avot with scholarly additions of his own, planned to print the Hullin manuscript. Vienna’s rabbi Rabbi Elezar Lazar_ Horowitz issued a call to his coreligionists to help Shlomo Zalman Kokhav Tov Stern, and the printing press where he was employed, to publish Rabbi Ashkenazi’s manuscript. The manuscript was not printed, probably because of lack of funds
We next find the manuscript offered for sale by Ephraim Moses Pinner of Berlin, who was chiefly known for his plan to translate the Talmud into German. Only one tractate, Berakhot appeared in his translation. Rabbi Moses Sofer, who initially supported the plan, later opposed it strongly.
The Baron Guenzburg family apparently bought the manuscript from Pinner. It eventually landed in the famous St. Petersburg collection of Baron David Guenzburg who was a well known scholar. After the Russian Revolution, the Community authorities nationalized the collection and incorporated it in the Leni State Library (today the Russian State Library) in Moscow.
To be Continued.
The Jewish Press, Friday, January 2, 2004
Continued from last week
During its peregrinations, the manuscript was severely damaged.. Rabbi Rabbi Yaakov Hillel Moshe writes in his English and Hebrew prefaces that in order to publish the most accurate possible text of the water-stained and worm eaten surviving parts of the manuscripts, he sent to Moscow the finest scholars of Ahavat Shalom Publications Institute to compare and emend their own copies on the basis of the original manuscript “taking care not to lose a single word of the author’s sacred writings.”
At the beginning of the first volume “Special thanks” are expressed “to the State Library in Moscow, to the library administrator and to the librarians who graciously allowed unlimited use of the original manuscript of Betzalel Ashkenazi, Guenzburg No. 964 and provided unstinting assistance.”
In his long introduction Rabbi Elazar Hurvitz describes Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi’s works on the Talmud. He divides them into three categories: 1) Selections from the writings of of the Tosafists and other Rishonim (early authorities) arranged according to the text of the Talmud ; 2) Discussions of the text of the Gemara and its commentators, incorporating quotations from the early commentaries; 3) Notes on the text of the Gemara written (by Rabbi Ashkenazi) in the margins of printed editions of the Talmud and Maimondes’ Mishneh Torah.
Rabbi Hurvitz calls works of the first category “Shittah Mekubetzet — HaLikutim: and works of the second category — “Shittah Mekubetzet HaHiddushim.”
The purpose of Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi in compiling Shitah Mekubbetzet – HaLikkutim is amply demonstrated by a manuscript of Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Bava Kamma in the possession of Mosad Harav Kook. The manuscript contains many additions in the margins of the pages in Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi’s own hand. All of these additions are quotations from books which seemingly reached Rabbi Ashkenazi’s own views and novellae which he developed while explaining the Gemara or when discussing the views of the early authorities. Works of the second category are the Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin.
Writing specifically about the Shita Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin, Rabbi Hurvitz states that in most chapters Rabbi B. Ashkenazi discusses at length Rashi’s commentary explaining almost every word, with the aim of defending Rashi’s views and reading of the Talmudic texts against the criticism of the Tosafists and other early authorities. Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi is full of praise for Rashi, calling him in the Shitah Mekubbetzel on Hullin and in other works of his, ” the father of Israel” and using other appellations of distinction.
In order to ascertain the accurate reading of the Gemara, especially to prove the correctness of Rashi’s interpretations- which is based on accurate readings of the texts — Rabbi Ashkenazi cites readings found in Talmudic manuscripts or in other old books. There are instances when Rabbi Ashkenazi states, in defense of Rashi, that a certain interpretation for which Rashi was criticized is not found at all in any reliable version of Rashi’s commentary. It had been erroneously ascribed to Rashi by the printer.
In a separate chapter of the introduction, Rabbi Hurvitz names the early commentaries (in manuscript form and in print) that Rabbi Ashkenazi used in writing his work on Tractate Hullin.
To be concluded
The Jewish Press, Friday, January 9, 2004
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the volumes that present us with Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzel on Tractate Hullin also contain fragments apparently from the Cairo Genizah, of his Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Shevuot which was seemingly lost.
These fragments were discovered by Rabbi Elazar Hurvitz in the Firkowitch Collection of the Saltykov -Schedrin Library in St. Petersburg.
Discussing Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Shevuot, Rabbi Hurvitz informs us in his introduction that a manuscript of this Shitah Mekubbetzet apparently in Rabbi Ashkenazi’s own hand, had been in the possession of the 18th century Kabbalist Rabbi Gedaliah Hayon, the founder and head of Jerusalem’s Yeshiva of Kabbalists, Beth El.
This manuscript, as well as other manuscripts, passed from him to his son-in-law, the well known Kabbalist Rabbi Shalom Sharabi. The next owner of the Shitah Mekubbetzet manuscript was Rabbi Shalom Sharabi’s grandson, the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem who had been given the title of Hakham Bashi, Rabbi Hayyim Abraham Gagin. His library, containing thousands of books and hundreds of manuscripts was one of the most important in the Land of Israel. He left the library to his son, Rabbi Shlom Moses Hai Gagin (d. 1883) who in turn bequeathed it to his son, Rabbi Isaac Gagin.
Rabbi Isaac Gagin is the last person known to have been in possession of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Shevuot. A large number of his books were sold during the first World War. After his death the collection disintegrated. About 70 manuscripts which were worm-eaten and had suffered other damage in the basement where they had been stored, were bought by a dealer of old books from Amsterdam, when he visited Jerusalem.
The fate of the Shitah Mekubbezet manuscript is not known.
Rabbi Hayyim Joseph David Azulai (Hida) writes in Shem HaGedolim that he saw Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shittah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Shevuot in manuscript. According to Rabbi Hurvitz, R. Azulai who was associated with the Beth El Yeshiva must have seen the manuscript in the library of that Yeshiva.
R. Azulai quotes the Shita Mekubbetzet manuscript in his responses Hayyim Sha’al as well as in his Shaar Yosef (novellae on Tractate Horayot). From the quotations we can see — state Rabbi Hurvitz– that Rabbi Ashkenazi’s work on tractate Shevuot was a Shitah Mekubbetzet of Likkutim, featuring only quotations from early authorities without any discussion of their views.
The fragments which were discovered in St. Petersburg and are printed in the volumes before us also contain quotations from early commentators without any additions by Rabbi Ashkenazi.
In his introduction, Rabbi Hurvitz also discusses the pages of novellae on Tractates Shevuot and Ketubbot which were discovered in the binding of an old book and have been included in the volumes before us. All the pages on Ketuvot as well as some pages of Shevuot are in the hands of Rabbi Hayyim Havraya, a dedicated student of Rabbi Ashkenazi at his Yeshiva in Cairo who wrote down the lectures of his teacher. The last chapter of the introduction is devoted to Rabbi Hayyim Havraya and his books.
In the preface to his edition of Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Tractate Hullin, Rabbi Hurvitz writes as they were preparing the work for print, the Ofeq Institute, at the initiative of Rabbi Avraham Shoshana, published an annotated edition of a third of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah Mekubbetzet on Hullin. Rabbi Hurvitz wishes the Ofeq Institute success in putting out the other parts of the work, stressing “we have the same aim,” namely to restore Rabbi Ashkenazi’s Shitah on Hullin to its rightful owners— the students of the Torah.
The Ofeq Institute which is based in Euclid, Ohio published the first part of the annotated edition of Shitah Mekubbetzet on Hullin in 1998. Last year after Rabbi Hurvitz’ edition had appeared, it published in two volumes an edition of the entire Shitah on that tractate accompanied by notes and source references. Both the edition of 1998 and the later edition were edited by Rabbi Avraham Shoshana who is the founder and head of the Ofeq Institute. Rabbi Shoshana and the Ofeq Institute are well known for their excellent editions of Torah literature.
We will review the Ofeq Institute’s edition of Rabbi Ashkenazi’s work on Tractate Hullin in one of the forthcoming issues of this paper.
The Jewish Press Friday, January 16, 2004