I just noticed
this rather comical attempt to disprove" R' Yaakov Emden's authorship of
Megillas Sefer . Its an interesting cultural artifact, if nothing else. I wonder if Dr. Schacter will refer to it in his upcoming long awaited critical edition of Megillas Sefer.
Shnayer Z. Leiman devoted the final shabbes shiur of last summer to debunking of several of the points as noted in the volume. Jacob J. Schacter will, indeed, be discussing this small volume in his upcoming edition of Megillat Sefer.
ReplyDeleteHave you found any of the related works by the same author on Rav Yaakov Emden??
I read the work. While it's over the top in many places (in addition to being longwinded and repetitive) his central point seems like a good one. If his facts are true.
ReplyDeleteAccording to him, the work was first (partially) published in a journal 34 years after the author died, from a manuscript of uncertain provenance (not that of the author) provided by an anonymous person. That does not sound very confidence inspiring, especially considering that the work is rather sensational.
That's even befoe you get to the fact that some maskilim of that era were not above forging rabbinic works to advance their agenda, e.g. Besamim Rosh.
OTOH, the fact that the work was never fully published for another 87 years after that point argues for its authenticity, since you would think if someone forged it, he would have tried to have it published far sooner.
I'm interested to hear the counterarguments to this author's points.
MB: "Have you found any of the related works by the same author on Rav Yaakov Emden??"
ReplyDeleteYou won't. This author is not a "scholar" but a TC who came to this issue tangentially. He is an opponent of the practices of toanim and ZABLA bais dins these day, and someone attempted to justify them by showing that the Chacham Tzvi had done the same, as per the work Megilas Sefer. So he decided to investigate the reliability of the work.
You don't need any. R Yaakov Emden's style is distinct. Anyone familiar with his writing can tell he write it.
ReplyDeleteThis besides the many correlations between accounts in Megillas Sefer and other writings of RYE, that there is no"agenda" in MS (as cf. to Besamim Rosh which does have one), etc. Though I am very curious as to what Prof. Leiman had to say.
There was also some article in he Bobover Kerem Shlomo on this but I haven;t seen it.
There is a longer discussion at the end of this thread - http://www.bhol.co.il/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=8&topic_id=2355593&forum_id=19616
"You don't need any. R Yaakov Emden's style is distinct. Anyone familiar with his writing can tell he write it."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds dubious. This type of logic makes more sense if there was some anonymous work and the question was who wrote it. But here the question is whether someone deliberately faked it. If his style is so distinct, it would make it easier to fake, not harder.
In addition, there's no doubt that "a" work Megilas Sefer existed at one time, authored by RYE. He himself references it elsewhere. What this author is suggesting is that the anonymous author of the copied manuscript added in sections of his own.
Correlations don't prove anything at all, if a) some of the sections are genuine, and b) the sections that were added in are based on things RYE wrote elsewhere.
Re agenda: it's hard to say without reading the work. Gestetner says the critical things RYE said about contemporary society and its leadership generally echoed maskilic criticisms. I haven't seen the entire work and can't judge on that.
>That's even befoe you get to the fact that some maskilim of that era were not above forging rabbinic works to advance their agenda, e.g. Besamim Rosh.
ReplyDeleteThat's of an earlier era, but even so, there's enough material in it that makes it unquestionably an artifact of RYE's time. If so, then it would have to an Eybeschutz partisan, not a maskil, who forged it. But not just that, he'd have to be someone who was ridiculously knowledgable about RYE's family, for instance. Getting back to the maskil theory, it's hard to argue that MS doesn't make RYE look bad. What would be the motive of a maskil to make him look bad?
Is the autograph of Megillas
Sefer not extant?
S. the theory is that RYE did write MS (hence knowledge of his family, etc.) but Kahana interpolated maskilic pieces (supporting secular studies or criticizing certain practices).
ReplyDeleteWe know however of RYE's interest in secular subject and the other stuff from many unimpeachable sources.
Further, RYE's style is really impossible to forge. It isn't just certain idiosyncratic phrases which would make it easy to forge, but his mastery of the art of double and triple entendre, a certain something of style that would make any forgery easy to detect.
Finally, the author is really just saying "I don't like it", it must be forged by the evil maskilim, I haven't sen any coherent argument.
No autograph copy of MS exists.
Ok, I see I have to read it, and also brush up on my History of Megillas Sefer. The fact that it was partially published in Hameassef argues all the more for it's authenticity. Hameassef also had published the Mendelssohn-Emden correspondence. I suppose depending on one's point of view Emden looked bad, or Mendelssohn, but clearly Hameassef didn't see it as M. looking bad. Furthermore, he himself had supplied them with the correspondence to publish (which of course leads one to wonder what exactly he was thinking).
ReplyDeleteIf they published it to show RYE looking bad, how and why (albeit in a later issue) where they trying to show RYE as open to secular issues and a critic of certain things, ie, something they'd see as good?
W: S. the theory is that RYE did write MS (hence knowledge of his family, etc.) but Kahana interpolated maskilic pieces (supporting secular studies or criticizing certain practices)."
ReplyDeleteNot precisely. Kahana was much later, and published the edition in 1897. What Kahana published largely follows the version of the earlier manuscript.
The suggestion is that the anonymous writer of the manuscript is the one who (partially) forged it.
BTW, thanks for the link to the message board. I see that someone there made the same basic arguments as I've made here.
S: "If they published it to show RYE looking bad, how and why (albeit in a later issue) where they trying to show RYE as open to secular issues and a critic of certain things, ie, something they'd see as good?"
Hameassef only published excerpts, and their excerpts did not contain the more outrageous material.
"What would be the motive of a maskil to make him look bad?"
Maskilim wanted to make rabbonim in general look bad - or at least less than great - so as to point to the need for a more enlighted approach such as they were advocating, and to level the playing field in terms of the maskilim vs. rabbis debate. A better question to ask is "What would be the motive of RYE to make himself look bad?"
"If they published it to show RYE looking bad, how and why (albeit in a later issue) where they trying to show RYE as open to secular issues and a critic of certain things, ie, something they'd see as good?"
You're looking at things in an overly black-and-white manner. Most people don't adhere so rigidly to "so-and-so is good/bad" motifs, let alone periodicals.
>Maskilim wanted to make rabbonim in general look bad - or at least less than great - so as to point to the need for a more enlighted approach such as they were advocating, and to level the playing field in terms of the maskilim vs. rabbis debate.
ReplyDeleteThat's not exactly correct. Maskilim also wanted to make rabbonim into maskilim, and that's why there's a Maskilic shalsheles ha-kabbalah. True, there were maskilim who were wholly anti-rabbinic too (generally those were or became the radical reformers) but their interest was in painting all rabbis as always unenlightened.
But here we're not just talking about RYE complaining about being impotent (I assume) but also about a strong desire to know secular things, criticize minhagim, etc. This is something which is good for Haskalah. How does a maskil who is trying to play him as a "bad" rabbi also present him as a "good" rabbi at the same time?
>A better question to ask is "What would be the motive of RYE to make himself look bad?"
This is indeed a question which anyone who's read it asks. Another good question is, does it make him look bad?
S: "That's not exactly correct. Maskilim also wanted to make rabbonim into maskilim, and that's why there's a Maskilic shalsheles ha-kabbalah. True, there were maskilim who were wholly anti-rabbinic too (generally those were or became the radical reformers) but their interest was in painting all rabbis as always unenlightened.
ReplyDeleteBut here we're not just talking about RYE complaining about being impotent (I assume) but also about a strong desire to know secular things, criticize minhagim, etc. This is something which is good for Haskalah. How does a maskil who is trying to play him as a "bad" rabbi also present him as a "good" rabbi at the same time?"
Both things serve their interests. The general gist of it is:
a) Rabbis are only human and have human failings, just as you and I. Therefore their position on religious issues should not carry undue weight just because of their standing.
b) Even among rabbis themselves, there are at least some who agree with many of our positions.
I don't see these as being contradictory. And in any event, you can't make a "shtickel torah" out of the motivations of people and assume that everything they do is perfectly coordinated and fine tuned. It's not like the guy was forging two different documents and could go with a different motif for each one. He had one opportunity and different approaches crept in. Possibly the use of both made each one slightly less effective. Based on my experience with people this is perfectly normal human behaviour.
"Another good question is, does it make him look bad?"
I'm not sure I understand your question. I was responding to your statement. You said: "Getting back to the maskil theory, it's hard to argue that MS doesn't make RYE look bad." You seem to be changing your mind here, which is fine, but you need to be more clear if this is the case.
I simply disagree. I don't think you can undermine the authority of a rabbi by painting him as a deeply flawed human being and simultaneously use him to prop up your own views. Anti-maskilic readers would just say "Fine, so the Yaavetz wasn't a malach, but the Noda Beyahuda was."
ReplyDeleteThat said, you're right that you can't necessarily expect everything to fit into neat boxes.
With my last statement, I'm not changing my mind, but I'm wondering if our *opinion* is the only valid way to interpret it. Others might say that it humanizes him in a very sympathetic way, or conversely they might see him as even more heroic having triumphed over very adverse circumstances and personal issues. I'm just saying that there might be other ways of interpreting the picture presented in MS.
I glanced a bit at the 1937 bio of RYE by a guy named Cohen, which makes him out to be virtually insane and obsessed with sex. It's heavily based on the MS.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that he observed some contradictions between MS and what RYE writes elsewhere. For example, RYE wrote in a letter to Mendelson that he was completely ignorant of German, while in MS he claimed to know it. (In addition, he describes himself doing things in MS which contradict his own halachic rulings elsewhere.)
I don't think you can disprove his authorship based on this type of discrepancy. But if the claims of authenticity are being based in part on the "many correlations between accounts in Megillas Sefer and other writings of RYE", then to the extent that there are also discrepancies, they lessen the strength of this claim.
One other semi-interesting observation:
ReplyDeleteChazal write that Iyov didn't look at single girls for fear that they would later marry someone else and he would retain memories of them. RYE, in his commentary there, asks why Chazal weren't worried about this when saying a person has to look at a woman before marrying her - maybe she'll end up marrying someone else. And he answers that if he decides not to marry her he obviously didn't like her, so he's not lkely to think about her afterwards.
This raises the obvious question: what happens if SHE decides not to marry HIM? I've seen some discussion of this question, but at any rate RYE himself didn't bother to address it, and didn't seem to give much thought to the notion that a guy would meet up with a girl and have the shidduch not work out and keep her memory in his mind later.
Striking thing in this context, is that according to MS (per Cohen's work) RYE himself was in precisely this situation. Apparently RYE describes himself in this work as having fallen in love with a girl as a teenager, and she reciprocating his feelings, but the shidduch not working out because his father felt he could do better yichus-wise. He later met up with this person again - she was helpful to him and his family when he moved back to Emden, and Cohen claims that he retained latent feelings for this girl years later (to the point that he attributes his impotence at the time to these feelings) and at any rate, he certainly - if the manuscript is to be believed - wrote movingly about it 50 years later.
Personally, I find the juxtaposition slightly odd.
One other semi-interesting observation:
ReplyDeleteChazal write that Iyov didn't look at single girls for fear that they would later marry someone else and he would retain memories of them. RYE, in his commentary there, asks why Chazal weren't worried about this when saying a person has to look at a woman before marrying her - maybe she'll end up marrying someone else. And he answers that if he decides not to marry her he obviously didn't like her, so he's not lkely to think about her afterwards.
This raises the obvious question: what happens if SHE decides not to marry HIM? I've seen some discussion of this question, but at any rate RYE himself didn't bother to address it, and didn't seem to give much thought to the notion that a guy would meet up with a girl and have the shidduch not work out and keep her memory in his mind later.
Striking thing in this context, is that according to MS (per Cohen's work) RYE himself was in precisely this situation. Apparently RYE describes himself in this work as having fallen in love with a girl as a teenager, and she reciprocating his feelings, but the shidduch not working out because his father felt he could do better yichus-wise. He later met up with this person again - she was helpful to him and his family when he moved back to Emden, and Cohen claims that he retained latent feelings for this girl years later (to the point that he attributes his impotence at the time to these feelings) and at any rate, he certainly - if the manuscript is to be believed - wrote movingly about it 50 years later.
You can't build too much on things of this sort, but I find the juxtaposition slightly odd.
>I glanced a bit at the 1937 bio of RYE by a guy named Cohen, which makes him out to be virtually insane and obsessed with sex. It's heavily based on the MS.
ReplyDeleteIt's been observed that Mortimer Cohen's book, perhaps, says more about Mortimer Cohen than RYE (which is not to say that it isn't true that RYE might have had some sexual issues, or at least was more open than average it). As for the contradiction about German, RYE meant that he couldn't compose a letter appropriate for petitioning the government in German.
I take it you haven't read Schacter's dissertation on RYE, which at the very least is worth reading. If you're interested, email me.
Getting back to the issue of forgery itself ultimately you can probably raise it about pretty much any text (at least if its not an autograph, although that wouldn't stop some people). At a certain point it becomes paranoia. I guess to the extent that it can stimulate some deeper analysis of a text it's not a bad thing, but what's to stop anyone from claiming anything is a forgery?
S: "As for the contradiction about German, RYE meant that he couldn't compose a letter appropriate for petitioning the government in German."
ReplyDeleteCohen claims (page 289) that RYE said he was "entirely ignorant" of the language.
"I take it you haven't read Schacter's dissertation on RYE, which at the very least is worth reading. If you're interested, email me."
I'm interested. Fotheringay.Phipps@gmail.com.
(I did read R' Schacter's intro to the MY edition of Mor U'Ktziya. He used MS a lot, but stayed away from any controversial stuff.)
"Getting back to the issue of forgery itself ultimately you can probably raise it about pretty much any text (at least if its not an autograph, although that wouldn't stop some people)."
Most seforim are published in the lifetime of their authors. Even the ones that aren't are generally published by children or students of the author. And even if that's not the case, you at least have a known person with a plausible story of how he came by the manuscript.
Here the whole work is based on an anonymously published manuscript, written by an unknown person, published 34 years after the death of the putative author. I think that's shaky. Call me paranoid if you wish.
And when you add that this manuscript is perhaps the most remarkable work of its sort, and completely unique in world history, with some startling assertions, I think that creates a pretty high bar to cross, which this fails by a wide margin.
None of this means that the work is definitely doctored. But it's certainly not reliable either. You can still call me paranoid. :)
BTW,the Bobover article I mention earlier is actually in Eitz Chaim V. 8 and is by Goldstein who published R Yaakov Emden's notes to Meor Einayim and is a big boki in his RYE. I haven't seen it yet but it should not be hard to find.
ReplyDeleteMarc Shapiro told me about it and it sounds like he makes the same arguments S. and I did earlier - all of the "strange" parts of Megilas Sefer have parallels, and Megilas Sefer enlightens us about other things in Emden's writings that only Emden would know to write about.
Other similar works of RYE (such as Igeres Purim (I will scan the exerpt now maybe) have not been published until today. the circumstances of its publication are not that strange at all.
Chayei Yehuda is the same kind of work as MS.
BTW, see Seder Eliyahu http://ishimshitos.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-love-story.html
ReplyDeletealso similar to MS
>Cohen claims (page 289) that RYE said he was "entirely ignorant" of the language.
ReplyDeleteThat's not necessarily a contradiction. I could see some guy in Kiryas Joel feeling "entirely ignorant" of English, and at other times that he knows it. As for RYE's actual knowledge, based on the evidence as he interprets it, Schacter writes that he "lacked a fluency and proficiency" in German, but that doesn't mean that in another context he could have considered himself to know it. Although I haven't seen the letter in the original in a long time, I have a feeling that Cohen didn't translate properly, but even if not he was surely being incomplete, because Schacter writes that in the letter he wrote that he did not send a German letter to the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin because "I do not know how to speak, organize and compose in German." To me this seems clear that he means in an appropriate way.
>(I did read R' Schacter's intro to the MY edition of Mor U'Ktziya. He used MS a lot, but stayed away from any controversial stuff.)
In various lectures I've heard, R. Schacter seems to be conflicted about MS concerning how to present it without causing a detraction from the kavod of RYE, particularly as it will be read by readers who will not be able or willing to keep in mind RYE's greateness. It seems that he originally wanted to translate it as well, but decided that he just can't in good conscious make it available to an ignorant popular audience (actually, I'm not entirely sure what audience he had in mind - in one lecture he seems to have mentioned non-religious Jews).
But here you can see a short piece he recently did translate:
http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/cannon-fire-over-sarajevo-and-sin-in-ansbach-a-passage-from-rabbi-jacob-emdens-18th-century-memoir
Actually, perhaps it's not the translation which is recent but the publication, which raises the interesting possibility that he may have already translated MS, or part of it. If so, I'd love to hack his computer. ;-)
>Most seforim are published in the lifetime of their authors. Even the ones that aren't are generally published by children or students of the author. And even if that's not the case, you at least have a known person with a plausible story of how he came by the manuscript.
While I agree that the provenance is important, the uniqueness and strangeness of it would be a bigger problem if the person wasn't unique and strange himself. It's not as if someone reading MS think "RYE, we hardly knew ye!" Actually, it fits well with the RYE we know from what is unquestionably him.
In addition to Chayei Yehuda, there are works which others don't like. Since I've been into Ma'agal Tov recently, while no one can reasonably say that they Chida doesn't come across like a wonderful, saintly and learned person in it, it's full of things which aren't PC today. Indeed, someone saw it on my bookshelf and he remarked that Rabbi X bemoaned the fact that it was translated into English. He couldn't give me a clear reason, but I have a general idea. Here it's not the same as Schacter's worry that it makes the Chida look bad, but probably that it makes the Chida interested in things like zoos and talking with gentile women and visiting non-Jewish libraries. In short, not things which typically make it into things which are approvingly rendered into English, which itself is a highly interesting topic, since it isn't as if Hebrew - even in archaic and rabbinic style - is inaccessible to the Israeli hamon am.
Wolf: "all of the "strange" parts of Megilas Sefer have parallels"
ReplyDelete"have parallels" doesn't mean a whole lot. You can find "parallels" to all sorts of things.
"and Megilas Sefer enlightens us about other things in Emden's writings that only Emden would know to write about"
Well they "enlighten" you if you believe they're true. Otherwise they just "elaborate on". So your reasoning is circular here.
"Chayei Yehuda is the same kind of work as MS"
In what sense?
"BTW, see Seder Eliyahu"
Same comment. That work has its human interest angle, but nothing shocking, at least in the parts that you quoted.
S: "While I agree that the provenance is important, the uniqueness and strangeness of it would be a bigger problem if the person wasn't unique and strange himself. It's not as if someone reading MS think "RYE, we hardly knew ye!" Actually, it fits well with the RYE we know from what is unquestionably him."
Problem is that a whole lot of what "we know" about RYE, is based on the MS itself, which has been around for some time by now. Most everything you're read about RYE in scholarly circles has been heavily based on it.
I've not read his stuff about RY Eibshutz, but reading his other seforim, he does not come accross as particularly hotheaded, or as an arrogant hypocrite either, FTM. Or obsessed with sex.
Again, the notion is not that someone blindly made up random stuff about RYE and stuck them into his MS. The notion is that that person read through RYE's works and expanded on small bits of information contained there in a manner that suited him. So for example, if RYE had some heated halachic exchange with the Knesses Yechezkal, this author had him mock him as an ignorant and senile fool. You can say "well there's some parallel here to the t'shuvos where he uses sharp language", but this is meaningless if the author already knew these t'shuvos. And if the sense you get from these t'shuvos was that RYE may have sharply disagreed with the KY but considered him a legitimate TC nonetheless, then this argues against the authenticity, not for it.
"Since I've been into Ma'agal Tov recently, while no one can reasonably say that they Chida doesn't come across like a wonderful, saintly and learned person in it, it's full of things which aren't PC today."
The difference between "jerk" and "non-PC" is enormous. You can't gloss over that.
BTW, I got your email with the link to the file. Thanks. Unfortunately, my company's network blocks that site. :(
>Problem is that a whole lot of what "we know" about RYE, is based on the MS itself, which has been around for some time by now. Most everything you're read about RYE in scholarly circles has been heavily based on it.
ReplyDeleteThere's an abundance of other material by and about him. If you hadn't even read the Schacter dissertation then how could you say that "most everything [I've] read about RYE in scholarly circles has been heavily based on it?" What have you read besides Mortimer Cohen?
>I've not read his stuff about RY Eibshutz, but reading his other seforim, he does not come accross as particularly hotheaded, or as an arrogant hypocrite either, FTM. Or obsessed with sex.
There aren't too many other rabbis who wrote so openly about sex eg in their edition of the siddur. What about the highly prurient allegations he made about RYE? His view of pilagshus? I'm not saying he was obsessed with sex, but it's not like outside of MS RYE was from the prudes, and the other opinion is only formed from MS. And, of course, it is acknowledged that Cohen is over the top.
What you're saying now is that the allegation is that someone subtly enhanced the RYE we know and can document from a difficult person to a jerk (or whatever worse term than difficult you may choose), kind of like Time magazine making OJ look a little blacker. Isn't that just in the eye of the beholder? Some might feel that the RYE outside of MS is already not exactly a sweetheart.
>The difference between "jerk" and "non-PC" is enormous. You can't gloss over that.
Interesting; but I don't think it should be too surprising if it turned out that one of the great rabbis of all time was a jerk, which is not to say RYE was a jerk, but even if that's your conclusion, I don't imagine it's like finding out that Santa isn't real. It happens.
>BTW, I got your email with the link to the file. Thanks. Unfortunately, my company's network blocks that site. :(
I assume you can download it at home? Is there another way I can upload it? It's too large for me to send via email.
S: "If you hadn't even read the Schacter dissertation then how could you say that "most everything [I've] read about RYE in scholarly circles has been heavily based on it?""
ReplyDeleteBecause it's been pretty much accepted as true and a candid autobiography, and in that capacity it heavily influenced people's interpretations of RYE's personality.
In light of that, I think you need to look at the details instead of just saying it fits in with our understanding of his personality.
"There aren't too many other rabbis who wrote so openly about sex eg in their edition of the siddur."
Actually all of rabbinic literature is full of open writing about sex. It's all over the place. Bible, Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, everywhere. I'm not sure what you could possibly mean with this.
"What about the highly prurient allegations he made about RYE?"
I think he made all sorts of allegations about RYE, not just highly prurient ones. And it appears to be an accepted fact that the Sabbatean movement was highly licentious throughout its history and at that time. It's completely natural that RYE accusing RYE of being a Sabbatean would accuse him of doing those things which stereotypified the movement and were among the most outrageous aspects of it.
"His view of pilagshus?"
The Ramban shared this view, as did others.
"What you're saying now is that the allegation is that someone subtly enhanced the RYE we know and can document from a difficult person to a jerk (or whatever worse term than difficult you may choose), kind of like Time magazine making OJ look a little blacker. Isn't that just in the eye of the beholder? Some might feel that the RYE outside of MS is already not exactly a sweetheart."
That's undoubtedly true. But what's it to me? From my perspective, there's a huge difference between a person who went a little over the top in an ideological dispute and a guy who called respectable rabbis ignorant fools because of personal reasons (just to pick one example). The former is par for the course. The latter is not. If you think there's no difference, I can't argue with you. It's a subjective judgment.
"Interesting; but I don't think it should be too surprising if it turned out that one of the great rabbis of all time was a jerk, which is not to say RYE was a jerk, but even if that's your conclusion, I don't imagine it's like finding out that Santa isn't real. It happens."
I'm not saying I would decide he was a jerk either. But he certainly comes off in that light, from the excerpts of MS that I've seen. If it should turn out to be accurate, then perhaps I would have to take a closer look and see if perhaps it might be viewed in some other light. My point though is that since the provenance of the manuscript is so shaky, it can't be relied on for what I consider to be such sensational content.
"Is there another way I can upload it?"
I don't know, maybe there's some other website that has it. If not, not. Thanks again for trying.
FP, I am having difficulty following your argumentation. Have you read a significant amount of RYE's writings. There is not that much that is new or sensational in MS. I really don;t get as to why you are so convinced its a forgery.
ReplyDeleteIf you can point to a specific passage that you think implausible it will make it easier to debate. What do you find so strange?
Dr. Schachter also has a great article on R' Yaakov Emden's motivation for writing MS that is worth reading.
RYE's strong protest against the Zohar for stating that masturbation is the greatest sin conceivable is all of a piece with his unique attitude on sexual issues.
ReplyDeleteI too would like to have a link to the Schachter dissertation
ReplyDeleteyoinecohen at gmail dot com
Try this link - http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Byx6sZjO1KzmNWZhZDUxYTktZGIxZi00MzNkLWIyNWYtM2RiMjgwNTgzYTVj&hl=en
ReplyDeleteFP - "I've not read his stuff about RY Eibshutz, but reading his other seforim, he does not come accross as particularly hotheaded, or as an arrogant hypocrite either, FTM. Or obsessed with sex."
ReplyDeleteRYE wrote that a gentile prostitute said a woman is more satisfied in intercourse with a circumsized man than non-circumsized. This was in one of his other books, not the MS. I'm not in a position to judge whether this statement makes him "obsessed" or not, but suffice to say its not just the MS where he makes such eyebrow raising statements.
Agav, the "contradictions" you and the writer point to in order to establish the claim of forgery are not that much different than the "contradictions" DH proponents use to establish the documentary hypothesis.
DF
That passage was censored from the Siddur.
ReplyDeleteCorrect.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I came across a statement in his Haghos to shas that struck me as being very sexual in nature. I was foolish enough not to jot it down immedeiately [or when able] and now I cant remember where or what it was.
DF
DF: "I'm not in a position to judge whether this statement makes him "obsessed" or not, but suffice to say its not just the MS where he makes such eyebrow raising statements."
ReplyDeleteRabbinic literature is full of this type of stuff. The rabbis were not prudes when it came to the practical aspects of how sexual material related to religion.
The Bais Yosef writes that he asked (older, IIRC) women how the depth to which they could insert their fingers during bedikos compared to the depth of a penis during sex.
This type of stuff is all over the place.
"Agav, the "contradictions" you and the writer point to in order to establish the claim of forgery are not that much different than the "contradictions" DH proponents use to establish the documentary hypothesis."
I've repeatedly said that these contradictions are not conclusive. But they weigh more heavily here considering the provenance of the work.
There is one in today's daf (Sanhedrin 74b) that seems to be of the same sort.
ReplyDeleteFP - according to you, mimoh nafshoch. If sexual discussions are routine in rabbinic literature, then there's no reason to claim the MS is forged, for everything else in the book is really not that scandalous. Even Gestetner only really gets worked up about the supposed nivul peh, as he calls it. [To the extent he think pettiness and name-calling cannot possibly come from the pen of a learned rabbi, he simply underscores the fact that he's not a scholar, and isnt really that well-versed in this field. There other rabbinic memoirs out there that contain such unflattering passages. It's human.] And if it's not routine, then it underscores the authenticity of the MS, because we do find other such non-routine discussions precisely in RYE's works.
ReplyDeleteThere are gradations in sexual discussion. When you have a Talmud that touches all the shores of human thought, you are bound to have discussions that focus on the sexual life. RYE's frank statements, in the MS and elsewhere, are fairly unique. He was a unique individual.
I'm sure youre not paranoid, but I have to agree with S. If you want to claim the MS [all or part] is forged, then you can make the same claim for every single book in the library.
Wolf - you mean the Esther gemara (Sisera, not so much.) I see your point, though it is prompted by the Gemara in question.
DF
"Even Gestetner only really gets worked up about the supposed nivul peh, as he calls it."
ReplyDeleteNot true.
"[To the extent he think pettiness and name-calling cannot possibly come from the pen of a learned rabbi, he simply underscores the fact that he's not a scholar, and isnt really that well-versed in this field. There other rabbinic memoirs out there that contain such unflattering passages. It's human.]"
He discusses this and correctly distinguishes between heated exchanges and personal snootery.
DF,
ReplyDeleteI was actually referring to the hagaah on המשהה בתו בוגרת
on 76b
"He discusses this and correctly distinguishes between heated exchanges and personal snootery."
ReplyDeleteIf so, it's a distinction that exists only in theory, not in fact.
Wolf - that comment, indeed, could well be analyzed by armchair shrinks!
DF