Samuel the Third in the Midst of the Hebrew Creative Activity towards the End of the First Millennium in Eretz Israel

The article serves as a supplement to a recent critical edition: The Yotserot of R. Samuel the Third: A Leading Figure in Jerusalem of the 10th Century (Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata eds., Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem 2014, 1139 pp.). The article includes some new texts in the genre of the author's well-known activity in the field of Yotserot as well as a fragment in the genre of the Azharot. The article deals by way of introduction to the full scale of activity in establishing the newly full-fledged Yotserot genre which was introduced mainly in the middle of the century by Sa‛adia Gaon. In so doing he was able to produce two entirely new sets of Yotserot according to his well-known habits of creating parallel literary oeuvre, one for the general public and one for the elite. In a totally different capacity the article deals with a special liturgical technique established by Samuel to be used in his Ahavot and for his Meʼorot. He basically described his wretched nation as a special two-part construct state embodying a plethora of information and a whole world of sympathy.

Book Review: Rav Sa‘adya Ga’on in the focus of controversies in Baghdad

On the occasion of Professor Joshua Blau’s centenary jubilee, the book Rav Sa‘adya Ga’on in the focus of controversies in Baghdad: Sa'adya’s Sefer Ha-Galuy and Mevasser's two books of critiques on him, by Joshua Blau himself and Joseph Yahalom, was published in 2019 by the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book includes the original Hebrew version of Sefer Ha-Galuy; Sefer Eppiqoros, by Khalaf ibn Sarjadu; The Arabic version (Tafsir) of Sefer Ha-Galuy; and two critical works by by Mevasser ben Nissi Halevi: The Book of Correcting the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva, and The Book of Revealing the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva. I briefly review the content of these works as well as the cultural and historical background, and focus on the reasons for which Rav Sa‘adya composed Sefer Ha-Galuy and the ten benefits he detailed which may be gained from his work. We stress additional insights that the modern reader may find in this work, among them a glimpse into Rav Sa‘adya’s methodology in his Biblical commentary as reflected in his usage of biblical words in Sefer Ha-Galuy. We also discuss the history of the publication of Sefer Ha-Galuy throughout the past century and a half, little by little, until the nearly complete edition by Blau and Yahalom. The newly published translation reads fluently and is enlightening, bringing the reader into the atmosphere of those distant days. The reconstruction of the manuscript from the Geniza fragments is mostly plausible, but seems to be incorrect in a few places. I present here three additional yet unpublished fragments of the Sefer Ha-Galuy that include sections not included in the new printed edition, and suggest that some of the printed sections should be reordered. In addition, considerations regarding the internal coherency of the text, as well as the physical properties of the Geniza fragments, may lead to a slightly different ordering. One of the newly presented fragments reveals that in his commentary on the Sefer Ha-Galuy Rav Sa‘adya aimed at demonstrating the utility of high mathematics to Torah study, thereby emphasizing his own personal virtue as one having extensive knowledge in these fields. Furthermore, one can learn from the new Geniza sections about the proper order in which Rav Sa‘adya mentions the people whom he attacks in this manuscript, including a name that has disappeared so far from the eyes of the researchers, Judah the son of the Exilarch, David Ben Zakkai. The edition is accompanied by brief expansive comments. I illustrate how these may be the basis for further discussions, addressing the calculation of the end-of-days included in Sefer Ha-Galuy, probably as part of Rav Sa‘adya's method of historiography, which divides Jewish history into periods of 500 years.

A She’iltot Rotulus by R. Ephraim Ben Shemarya and the Palestinian Tradition of Sefer haShe’iltot

In this article, I present a rotulus from the Genizah that contains three she’iltot from the beginning of the She’iltot book by R. Ahai. The rotulus is in the handwriting of R. Ephraim Ben Shemarya, the head of the Palestinian community in Fustat during the first half of the eleventh century. The order of the she’iltot in this rotulus diverges from their order in the common edition of the book. I propose that the she’iltot were rearranged thus because this copy was made by R. Ephraim for his sermon at the Ben-Ezra synagogue of the Palestinian community, on the shabbat when the first seder according to the triennial reading cycle of the Torah is read. This seder comprises only the creation story (1:1–2:3), and Ephraim’s copy reorganizes these three she’iltot to fit this seder precisely, using other verses as a source for the commandments, instead of those used in the She’iltot book. It is well-known that in the Ben-Ezra synagogue the reading of the Torah was practiced as a ‘double reading’: every shabbat the parasha (according to the annual cycle) was read from personal codices, and then the seder (according to the triennial cycle) was read from a Torah scroll. Evidence of the double reading practice dates as far as the beginning of the 13th century. In the article I review the various testimonies of the Torah reading practice in the Ben-Ezra synagogue, and the different opinions regarding its origin. If my theory is correct, R. Ephraim’s rotulus is the earliest evidence of reading the Torah according to the triennial cycle in the Ben-Ezra synagogue. Moreover, we can learn from this that during this period the sermon on shabbat was concerned with the seder that was read from the Torah scroll, and not with the Babylonian parasha that was read from codices. This, although the liturgy of the shabbat service was probably accompanying the parasha and not the seder. The assumption that R. Ephraim’s rotulus presents a Palestinian adaptation of the Babylonian She’iltot, which rearranges it according to the triennial reading cycle, is supported by two additional evidences, one external and one internal. Besides R. Ephraim’s rotulus, I present in the article another manuscript of the She’iltot from the Genizah where every she’ilta is titled with the corresponding seder instead of the corresponding parasha as is customary in this book. Furthermore, many of the she’iltot in this manuscript are not associated with the parasha to which they belong in the common book, but with a seder which is located in a different parasha. That is, this manuscript did not just associate the she’iltot with the sedarim, but also rearranged them in a different order. Apparently, R. Ephraim's rotulus also belongs to the same Palestinian tradition of this book. This argument is reinforced by internal evidence: The structure of the she’ilta that deals with shabbat in R. Ephraim’s copy is different from all other manuscripts of the book, but similar to the presentation of this she’ilta in Midrash Tanchuma. In other words, Ephraim copied the she’iltot from a manuscript that belonged to the Palestinian textual tradition of the book, the same tradition which is presented in the Tanchuma. Another evidence in the support of the Palestinian origin of R. Ephraim’s copy is its orthography, which has distinctly Palestinian characteristics. This article thus reveals the Palestinian textual tradition of the She’iltot book to which the rotulus of R. Ephraim Ben Shemarya belongs, as does the other manuscript described above. The she’iltot fragments which are found in Midrash Tanchuma emerge from the same tradition, and apparently this is also the source for the she’iltot that were embedded in other books from the Palestinian tradition as Sefer veHizhir.

A Hebrew Translation of the Letter Alef in the Biblical Dictionary Kitab Jami` al-Alfaz of the Karaite Scholar from the 10th Century David Ben Abraham Al-Fasi, edited by S.L. Skoss

This article presents the Hebrew translation of the introduction and the letter alef of the first Judaeo-Arabic Biblical dictionary extant, the Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāẓ, composed by the Karaite scholar David Ben Abraham al-Fāsī (fl. second half of the 10th century), ably edited by the late S.L. Skoss. The dictionary is quite comprehensive. Even if one does not take the introduction into consideration, the first volume contains no less than 600 pages, the second more than 750. The introduction itself deals intensively with various aspects of the structure of the dictionary. The main part of the dictionary is divided into 22 sections, reflecting the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Every section opens with an introduction characterizing the letter in question. The following main part is theoretically subdivided into 22 subsections, exhibiting the combination of the letter of the section dealt with, with one letter of Hebrew alphabet. Since, however, not every combination is attested, there are in fact, as a rule, less than 22 subsections. Every subsection is introduced by a list of the verses to be dealt with, followed by a thorough lexical and grammatical analysis, which forms the main body of the dictionary. Yet, the correspondence between the examples in the list and the analysis is not always clear. And one wonders what the real function of the list can be. The dictionary is based, in accordance with the period in which it was written, on the bi-radical and mono-radical system. There is no doubt that it is only the tri-radical principle that enables a clear and all-comprising analysis of the Hebrew roots. On the other hand, the bi-radical and mono-radical system does not artificially separate related weak roots. It was because of this relationship that Hebrew grammarians adhered to the bi-radical and mono-radical principle, and it was only through the influence of Arabic, in which the tri-radical structure of the verb is prominent that the tri-radical principle was adopted in Hebrew grammar. Being one of the first Judaeo-Arabic dictionaries, it is not surprising that the structure of subdivisions, containing lexical and grammatical analysis of the material, is sometimes ambiguous, at times because of the conciseness of expression. In the wake of Biblical prose, in which main clauses opening with copulative waw are very frequent, our dictionary tends to introduce main clauses with copulative waw, whereas classical Arabic utilizes fa in this environment. On the other hand, al-Fāsī frequently applies asyndetic clauses, both coordinated and subordinated ones. Like Judaeo-Arabic literature in general, our dictionary too is written in Middle Arabic, in which post-Classical Arabic, Neo-Arabic and also pseudo-corrections alternate. Sometimes al-Fāsī's Arabic is influenced by Hebrew, as when, in the wake of Hebrew hāyā, Arabic kāna governs its predicate with the preposition la. Sometimes the translation of Biblical verses is so literal as to be unintelligible; accordingly, al-Fāsī considers himself obliged to add another translation in a more comprehensible Arabic. On the other hand, al-Fāsī's understanding of Biblical Hebrew is often influenced by Arabic. Thus, when analyzing 'eshekh, he interprets it, as well as the verb shkhkh, by comparing the Hebrew verb shākhan (exhibiting shkh as the first part of its root), yet he attributes to it peculiar meanings of the parallel Arabic sakan, viz, 'to calm down' as well as its late signification ‘to be hidden'.

Conflicts between Jewish Traders in Egypt: On the Background of the Commercial Activities of Abraham Ibn Hayyim in the First Half of the 16th Century

Abraham Ibn Hayyim, of Spanish origin and who probably was an exile from Spain, was a wealthy trader in Egypt in the first half of the 16th century. He was the father-in-law of the last Naggid in Egypt, Isaac Ha-Kohen Sholal (1502-1517, and is known from several Hebrew sources from that time. Several Cairo Genizah documents reveal information about him: in a document from 1525 we see that he and the Naggid were accused of hiding a sum of money owed to the local authorities; this might have been some form of tax evasion, and for this reason he was put in jail together with his son-in-law Isaac ha-Kohen Sholal. From three other Genizah documents published in this article we learn about Abraham’s personal activities in trade. These documents are connected to his conflict with other merchants. Two documents are Jewish court records regarding his claims against his commercial partners, and the third is a claim letter addressed to the Jewish court against another partner. These documents yield information about Abraham Ibn Hayyim's commercial activities in domestic and international trade, as well as about items of commerce: spices, perfumes, clothes, leathers and precious stones, such as rubies which were produced in the Far East.

Christian Books in Jewish Libraries: Fragments of Christian Arabic Writings from the Cairo Genizah

This paper contributes new information about Jewish-Christian contacts in the Islamic world by drawing attention to a small group of Christian Arabic fragments preserved in the Cairo Genizah