THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
28 Friday, March 21, 1980
The more extensive a
man's knowledge of what
has been done, the greater
will be his power of know-
ing what to do.
—Benjamin Disraeli
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`Lost' 15th Century Talmud Is Published
NEW YORK — An im-
portant work of 15th Cen-
tury scholarship will be-
come available for the first
time this spring. Almost
500 years after the compila-,
tion of the material, the
Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America will pub-
lish an edition of the
Babylonian Talmud long
thought to have been lost.
Seminary Chancellor
Gerson D. Cohen and Prof.
Haim Z. Dimitrovsky, com-
piler and editor of the work,
have presented an early
copy of the new edition to
Israeli President Yitzhak
Navon at her Jerusalem re-
sidence.
Through detective work
and incredible scholarship,
Dr. Dimitrovsky, a Talmud
scholar who holds the Judge
Abraham Lieberman Chair
in Talmudic Exegesis in the
seminary faculty, has lo-
cated 550 pages of the lost
volumes — and continues to
identify additional leaves
each week. His search takes
him far afield, and brings
him photographs of single
pages or fragments of pages
of unidentified Hebrew
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works from all corners of the
world.
The Talmud in which
Dr. Dimitrovsky is in-
terested is a project
started in Guadalajara in
1482. When the Jews
were expelled from Spain
10 years later, the prin-
ters continued their work
in Faro, Portugal. In
1497, when the Inquisi-
tion became effective in
that country too, the
Jews were driven. into
exile. Under these cir-
cumstances, it is not sur-
prising that their pro-
posed edition of the
Babylonian Talmud
completely disappeared.
For almost 500 years,
knowledge of this edition of
the Talmud had been based
wholly on rumor. There was
an oral tradition that such a
work had been compiled,
and that it differed from edi-
tions of the Babylonian
Talmud that had come down
to us in many important re-
spects.
In the 19th Century,
Jewish bibliographers tried
to identify old leaves and
sections of texts as belong-
ing to this tradition. Schol-
ars could not agree on the
identification of the frag-
ments and the Spanish text
was once more relegated to
the domain of rumor.
There it rested for an-
other three-quarters of a
century, until Dr. Dimit-
rovsky chanced upon a page
of Talmud in the seminary
library. A Talmud page
among the thousands of un-
catalogued fragments in the
seminary's manuscript col-
lections is not an unusual
find, but upon examination
the professor realized that
this particular fragment
contained variant readings
not found in any known
Talmud text.
Dr. Dimitrovsky em-
barked upon a hunt
which took him to other
repositories of Hebrew
manuscripts. He
searched through the col-
lections of materials from
the Cairo Geniza housed
at the Vatican, Cam-
bridge University and the
Bodleian at Oxford. He
examined odd pages and
fragments in Israel and in
private collections.
While examining a 16th
Century book in the semi-
nary library, he noticed,
through a tear in the cover,
that the binding had been
stiffened with a dozen or so
printed pages, glued to-
gether and covered with
cloth. Carefully removing
the pages, he found them to
be leaves from the Spanish
Talmud, and contemporary
bindings became a new and
fruitful place to search.
Dr. Dimitrovsky deduced
that Jewish printers, expel-
led from Portugal, had
taken all their possessions
— including the unbound
pages of the new Talmud —
to their havens of refuge in
Italy, Turkey, North Africa,
and even Holland and
Palestine. Despairing of
ever producing the Talmud
on which they had been
working for more than 15
years, the printers had used
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Shown is a facsimile page from the "lost" Spanish
Talmud, one of 550 such pages identified by Prof.
Haim Z. Dimitrovsky and published, with his com-
mentary by the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America.
the precious paper on which printed in the early 16th
it had been printed for stif- Century, and this proved a
fening the bindings of other rich source for the pages he
volumes.
was seeking. These, added
Working
this to other fragments, enabled
on
hypothesis, the professor him to identify pages from
asked colleagues all over' many sources as belonging
the world to examine the to the "lost" Spanish edi-
bindings of Hebrew books tion.
Baghdad Rabbi Played Vital
Role for the Jews of Iraq
By RABBI MARC ANGEL
American Sephardi Federation
NEW YORK — Most
Jews have at least a vague
awareness of the tremen-
dous role the Jews of Iraq
have played in Jewish his-
tory. Going back to Babylo-
nian days, we know of the
major centers of rabbinic
learning and of the de-
velopment of the
authoritative Babylonian
Talmud.
In a later period, most
Jews have heard of the
Gaonim who were the lead-
ing rabbinic authorities for
most of the world's Jews for
several centuries. The re-
sponsa and commentaries of
the Gaonim are still studied
with deep respect today.
It is not generally known,
however, that Jewish schol-
arship and rabbinic learn-
ing continued to flourish in
Iraq until our own day,.
Baghdad was an important
center of Jewish life and
could boast of many schol-
ars and authors.
One of the leading rab-
bis of Baghdad in recent
times was Yosef Hayyim
ben Eliyahu Al-Hakam
(1835-1909). Born in
Baghdad, he studied with
the rabbis of his city. In
1859 he became the
preacher of the commu-
nity, a post which his
father had held before
him. Rabbi Yosef Hayyim
was well known as a
halakhic authority and
the author of numerous
responsa.
All in all he wrote about
60 works on different as-
pects ofJewish learning, al-
though not all of these have
been published. His most
famous work is the "Ben Ish
Hai" which combines moral
lessons based on the Torah
portions of the week and
Halakha. His kabalistic
orientation clearly man-
ifests itself in his writing•
He also authored volumes of
commentaries to the ag-
gadic sections of the
Babylonian Talmud, and
was the author of numerous
poems and songs.
O•e of his interesting
volumes is a small book
entitled "Mashal Venims-
hal," in which he presents
various moral lessons
through stories and para-
bles. Because he was a
gifted storyteller, he was
able to reach the hearts as
well as the minds of his
people.
Washing Hands
Religious Tenet
By RABBI SAMUEL FOX
(Copyright 1980, JTA, Inc.)
It is necessary to use
a
vessel when washing one's
hands for religious purposes
in Judaism.
Some claim that this is
the reason that the benedic-
tion is recited at washing-_
the hands is "Al N'tilal
Yadaym' (i.e., on taking
something like a vessel (to
wash) for the hands).
One of the reasons given
is that "human action" is
necessary in order to obtain
spiritual purification. "Tak-
ing" a vessel and "pouring
it" over one's hands involves
human action.
The implication is that it
lies within human power to
bring about spiritual purifi-
cation. Man is not only
capable of doing so, he is
mandated to do so.