What's Bothering Artscroll?

R. Azariah De' Rossi in - or out of - Artscroll

2008-05-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from a review by Zvi Zohar of Artscroll's Aleppo; City of Scholars by David Sutton (link):

Censorship and 'Correction' of 'Improper' Sources Cited in Previous Editions

Not only does Rabbi Sutton ignore academic literature and conceal his use of non-religious sources, he also censors 'improper' sources mentioned in previous editions of LiKedoshim Asher Ba'Aretz. For example: both previous editions quote in full the short work Zichron Divrei Aret"z, by Rabbi Abraham Dayan, which first appeared in 1850.42 In that composition, Rabbi Dayan included a variety of anecdotal information that had reached him regarding the city of Aleppo and the Jews within it, from antiquity until his own times.43 Inter alia, Dayan relates that one elderly scholar told him of a tradition according to which, in each one of the old city's gates was preserved a wondrous ancient object. Thus, in one of the gates there was the tooth of an ancient fish, two feet long, in another gate 'the nail of one of the giants, as [large as] a pillow and a duvet', and in a third gate, a jug of sand from the river Sambatyon. Rabbi Dayan knew that some people tend to discount the factuality of information such as this, and so he wrote:

And as I have seen some persons, wise in their own eyes, who say that “the world goes according to its ways”,44 and they believe nothing unless they see it with their own eyes or unless it's written in the books of Hamirs,45 therefore I shall transcribe for them here what was written in the book of Me’or Eynayim by dei Rossi on p. 88, in the name of the head of the Christian scholars,46 book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the giants' body. That [scholar reported that] he saw the tooth of a man which, if cut according to the measurement of our teeth, could be divided into one hundred [of our] teeth.

In other words, in order to put an end to these skeptics' criticism, Rabbi Dayan reveals that he read Azariah dei Rossi's Me’or Eynayim, and that the author quoted there information from the book of a very major Christian scholar. This Christian scholar reported that he saw a huge human tooth, and this finding verifies the fact that giants existed in the past. From this, the above-mentioned skeptics may conclude, that there is no reason to doubt the report about the giant's nail found in one of the gates of the City of Aleppo.

Let us now see, how the paragraph quoted above is paraphrased in Aleppo:

I have seen some people, convinced of their own intelligence, who think that nothing exists beyond nature and don't believe what they haven't seen with their own eyes or in secular sources. Therefore, for these skeptics I cite a book which quotes secular sources concerning the existence of ancient giants. He writes of scientific finds of the teeth of giants that are one hundred times the size of average human teeth.47

The contrast between this "translation" and the original text is striking! The title Me’or Eynayim has been exorcised and it is now cited anonymously as "a book", and the information dei Rossi attributed to “the head of the Christian' scholars” is now attributed to "secular sources". Furthermore, while that Christian scholar reported [one!] giant tooth that he saw with his own eyes, in Aleppo's rewriting this report became "scientific finds" of "teeth of giants" [=many teeth of many giants].

In order to explain this amazing transformation we should recall, that the book of Me’or Eynayim raised a huge debate when it was published, for the writer was of independent critical thought and dared to raise difficult questions regarding various traditions found in Rabbinical literature. The Rabbis of Venice imposed a ban (herem) upon ownership of the book and upon reading it, and the same was done by Rabbis in other towns in Italy, as well as by the Rabbis of Safed. The Mahara"l of Prague attacked Azariah dei Rossi and Me’or Eynayim in his book Be'er haGola.48

The fact that Rabbi Abraham Dayan, son of the most aristocratic Jewish family in Aleppo and author of several 'kosher' religious books, read Me'or Eynayim, treated it as a reliable source and attributed credibility to information quoted in it in the name of a major Christian scholar – does not at all cohere with the portrait of the characteristics of the Aleppo community and its scholars, which Rabbi Sutton would like to cultivate among his readers. Based on his (not unfounded) confidence that nobody within the English speaking Aleppan community would be likely to discover the change, Sutton permitted himself to 'purify' the original text by Abraham Dayan – a text that neither David Zion Laniado nor Mordechai Attiah had thought to change. Furthermore, knowing that English readers in the early 21st century attribute credibility to scientific findings, Sutton decided to write that in this anonymous text there are "scientific finds of the teeth of giants" – even though all that really appears there is the testimony of one man who saw one tooth.

But this Ultra-Orthodox censorship led the writers of the book to a place where they would surely be surprised to find themselves. For who is this Christian scholar, whose words they converted to "scientific finds"? If one reads the text of Me'or Eynayim one finds that Rabbi Azariah dei Rossi is citing none other than … Augustine of Hippo! Indeed, in his City of God, book 15 chapter 9, Augustine seeks to confirm belief in the veracity of the Bible's reports about the bodily measurements and the life spans attributed by the Bible to pre-diluvian humans. He testifies that on the sea shore by Utica (a city sited in what today is Northern Tunisia) he saw the molar of a human being, apparently one of the giants of yore, that was one hundred times larger than one of 'our' teeth. The bottom line is, then, that the Syrian community inBrooklyn and elsewhere were treated, thanks to Sutton's efforts at censorship, to a text in which the words of St. Augustine in his book 'City of God' were raised to the level of "scientific finds" with an Ultra-Orthodox "hechsher" from Artscroll Publishing! To which we can only say: "this is 'Torah' and this is its reward."

42 The work was published in Livorno in 1850, together with other works by the author: Holech Tamim and Poel Tzedek.

43 This is how Yaron Harel summarizes the contents of this work: 'a random enumeration of various historical events which took place in Aleppo, as traditionally told in the city. Beginning with legends about the city's conquest by Yoab ben Seruyah, and ending with events which took place in the author's times' (Yaron Harel, ibid n. 19, p. 48).

44 Hebrew: Olam ke-Minhago Noheg, i.e., reality follows the laws of nature (and thus, such anecdotes are suspect).

45 The books of Hamirs = the books of Homerus = books considered to be credible by the educated world.

46 Examining the source in the Me’or Eynayim (Mantova 1674 p. 88) reveals that Rabbi Dayan omitted one word here, maybe because it seemed unclear to him. And here is the original text: "the head of the Christians' scholars wrote in his City in book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the body of giants, that he saw the tooth of a man which if cut to the size of our teeth, would be divided into one hundred teeth." For further identification of this source, see text below.

47 P. 11.

48 See Joseph Dan, ROSSI, Azariah, in: Encyclopedia Judaica (1973) 14:315-31, and see also the editor/translator's introduction in Light of the Eyes, Azariah de´ Rossi; Translated from the Hebrew, with an introduction by Joanna Weinberg, Yale University press, 2001.

Please see my prior post 'What would R' Azaryah surely have resented? The portrayal of a controversial rabbi by Artscroll.,' which is probably the first and last time that the name of R. Azaryah de' Rossi will be mentioned in an Artscroll publication. De' Rossi's work Me'or 'Enayim was not only cited by obscure (at least outside of Aleppo) rabbinic figures like Abraham Dayan, but he was also cited by the author of Minhas Shai on the Bible - a massoretic commentary with accepted halakhic authority - by R. Yaakov Emden, by a Lithuanian roshei yeshiva such as Netziv, by modern scholarly rabbis like Menachem Kasher, whose works are considered very valuable and certainly acceptable in the faithful communities which Artscroll hopes to shape the religious thinking of.

Read the rest of Zohar's review (in English translation, as linked above, or in the Hebrew original). It includes such chestnuts as the fact that the book reproduces a photograph from an out-of-print work on Aleppan Jewry from 1910 - by a Jewish Christian missionary without explaining who he is; the book helpfully misspells his name, ve-ha-mevin yavin. Incidentally, this Joseph Segall was allowed by the communal leaders to photograph a page of the Aleppo Codex, which is wonderful because it meant that the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy from the Codex was preserved (see its image here); but also not so wonderful, since it may well be that the reason why after this point the Aleppan rabbis and communal leaders steadfastly refused to allow the entire codex to be photographed by anyone, was because of the Segall incident - a consequence that proved most unfortunate, since a lot of the Codex is now missing, unphotographed).

Can a woman be מדקדק?

2008-03-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 61.24

צריך לקרות קריאת שמע בטעמים כמו שהם בתורה. הגה: אבל לא נהגו כן במדינות אלו, ומ"מ יד המדקדקים מחמירים בכך

One must recite the Kerias Shema with cantillation, as the Torah is read. Rema's addendum: But this isn't customary in our [Ashkenazi] countries. Nevertheless, the grammatically-inclined are stringent in this matter.

Here is a typical example of Kerias Shema as found in Artscroll siddurim ("Everyone should have a copy").

(click above to enlarge or click here)

But here is the Kerias Shema as found in the Artscroll Ohel Sarah Woman's Siddur, where the cantillation is not included "for the convenience of those who recite in the manner it is read from the Torah":

Interestingly enough, in the Artscroll "chinuch edition" siddur (Chaim Shlomo) for schoolchildren the cantillation is present (without the note explaining why there is cantillation).

Hat tip goes to Moshi.

Hebrew Artscroll gemaras as more revealing than English gemaras?

2007-11-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

Menachem Mendel posts on a comparison between Artscroll's English and Hebrew Talmud's treatment of an issue possibly affecting the text of the Torah.

He finds that the notes in the Hebrew version is a serious attempt to discuss the issue, while the English version simply ignores it.

This dovetails with my observation that Artscroll sometimes attempts to hide things, as it were, in English, but not in Hebrew. This example is even more radical, because it seems to mean that the kind of discussions differ in the two versions.

I'm not certain what to make of it. I recall Nosson Scherman noting that Artscroll has made sure that major university libraries have copies of the English Shas, so that readers at universities have an authentic translation to look at (presumably Soncino, Steinsaltz, Blackman, Herbert Danby etc are not authentic). He even cited R. Chaim Kanievsky, saying that he compared the project to R. Yisrael Salanter's never-realized German Talmud translation. It could be that since Artscroll knows that at least part of its English audience is not, shall we say, initiates, it is more reluctant to discuss such things. But more confident about doing so in Hebrew.

"While the Artscroll English Talmud is an important work, it seems that it intentionally avoids confronting problematic passages in the Talmud, at least in this one instance. Are English-readers unable to confront difficult Gemara texts while Hebrew readers can? Ironically, the Artscroll web site says that their edition of the Talmud is for the “intellectually adventurous”, I guess just not too adventurous."

What would R' Azaryah surely have resented? The portrayal of a controversial rabbi by Artscroll.

2007-10-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

From The Early Acharonim:

R' Azaryah min HaAdomim
(de Rossi)

b. Mantua, Italy, c. 5271/1511
d. Bologna (?) Italy, 5338/1578

According to an old tradition, the family de Rossi was brought to Italy by Titus after his victory over Jerusalem.

R' Azaryah combined Talmudic erudition with a great proficiency in the Latin and Greek classics, as well as in the writings of medieval Christian scholars. In his works he draws upon Jewish, Christian, and secular sources. De Rossi resided in Bologna and Ferrara, and was present in Ferrara during the terrible earthquake on 17 Kislev (Nov. 18) 5331/ 1570. He and his family narrowly escaped death during that catastrophe, and he devoted a section of his Meor Einayim to a narration of it.

R' Azaryah is known for his controversial work Meor Einayim (Mantua, 5333-35/1573-75). This sefer is divided into three parts: I. Kol Elokim, a report on the earthquake which hit Ferrara in 5331/ 1570, including an essay on the natural and supernatural causes of natural catastrophes; II. Hadras Zekeinim - a translation (the first in Hebrew) of the epistle of Aristeas which contains the narrative about the Septuagint (translation of the Torah into Greek by seventy two sages in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus [3476 3515/285246 B.C.E.]), a partial description of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the answers given by the Sages to some philosophical questions; III. Imrei Binah - the most extensive part of this work. It contains an examination of the writings of Philo, a Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria in the first century C.E.; a comparison of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Bible) in its prevalent version with the reports about it in the Talmud; inquiries into the Talmudic chronology of the first and second Temples, comparing the traditional dates with those given by secular writers; inquiries into the calendar systems in use among Jews in the Talmudic era, i.e., the Seleucid calendar (minyan shtaros) and the now-prevalent custom of dating events from Creation; a dissertation on the priestly vestments as described in the works of Philo, Josephus Flavius, the Epistle of Aristeas and Christian writers; and comments on some wondrous aggados in the Talmud and midrashim.

De Rossi's inquiries led to many conclusions which contradict the tradition of the Tannaim and Amoraim; he maintained that this was permissible in the realm of history and other areas not pertaining to halachah. R' Azaryah's views raised a great furor in the Italian community of his day, and two prominent rabbis - R' Moshe Provencal of Mantua and R' Yitzchak Finzi of Pesaro - wrote letters protesting the author's views, and refuting his assertions. R' Moshe Provencal's criticism reached R' Azaryah while the book was yet in proof form, so he printed it and his rejoinder as an appendix to the book. Various local batei din banned the book, some restricting the ban to people under the age of twenty-five, while others prohibited even having the book in one's house. Some of the extant copies of the Meor Einayim have written dispensations by local batei din attached to them, allowing the owner to keep the book.

News of the controversial sefer even reached Eretz Yisrael, and *Chida reports that in Safed a general ban (cherem) against it was drawn up and was to be signed br R' Yosef Caro, but he died before signing it. The *Maharal of Prague, upon reading this sefer, was outraged that the rabbis of Italy had allowed its publication, and he wrote a lengthy critique of the sefer in his Be'er HaGolah. Nevertheless, some later sages, among them Chasam Sofer, and two of Maharal's pupils, *R' David Ganz Tzemach David) and *R' Yom Tov Lipman Heller, cite Meor Einayim, if only to refute its views. R' Azaryah later wrote another work, Matzreif LaKessef (Edinburgh, 5614/1854), defending his views.

Meor Einayim regained popularity in modern days, when the Maskilim misrepresented R' Azaryah as a progressive Jew, a denomination R' Azaryah would surely have resented.

Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, incidentally, makes the following claim (Zakhor, pp. 74-75)

The fact that, in 1794, the Me'or 'Einayim was reprinted in Berlin by the Maskilim, the proponents of Jewish enlightenment, should not mislead us in this respect. By that time the general revolution that is modern critical historiography was about to burst forth in Germany. The Historisches Journal had already appeared in Göttingen for more than two decades, Barthold Niebuhr was eighteen years old, and Leopold Von Ranke would be born a year later. The modern Jewish historian is not the heir of Azariah de' Rossi, but of these men and others.

More controversial rabbis to come...

When Rav Elyashiv says to print something, Artscroll prints it

2007-09-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

But doesn't necessarily translate it...

This note appears at the beginning of the haskama (rabbinic approbation) section of some volumes of their Schottenstein Talmud translation (this is from Babba Metziah).

As you can see, Artscroll quotes R. Eliashiv saying that "Because of the times we live in it is a great mitzvah to proceed with this project." Indeed, from the verbatim Hebrew text of his message, which he requested be inserted, the last five words say this.

But that's five words out of thirty three. What do the other 85% of the words mean?

Well, if you can understand Hebrew, you know. So there is it. But what if you can't?

I find this interesting because it seems to sort of typify the approach one sometimes finds in Artscroll publications. The Hebrew text is the Hebrew text; they aren't going to tamper with the text. It's there for you to see, and very literally, המבין יבין. But much of the audience of these publications cannot understand much Hebrew, or any, and in that case abridgments must suffice.

Before I translate the words (noting that most of this audience doesn't need the translation and already sees what I'm getting at) I'd like to point out that Artscroll doesn't translate any of the haskamos that appear in these books. While it certainly would be useful if they did, it doesn't seem like any sort of big deal that they don't. It seems like this is common practice in English books that are accompanied by Hebrew haskamos. Surely sometimes haskamos are not as unqualified or praising as one would like, and therefore authors and publishers often would like readers to look at the names rather than the content of the approbations, and that's true across the board. So nothing funny here, or at least nothing funnier than usual.

What's interesting is that while R. Elyashiv does commend the work (Talmud translation)--"because of the times we live in it is a great mitzvah to proceed with this project"--he also explains what sort of times he is referring to.

"Since we live in a breached generation with many translations by lightweights who put their hands on the holiness of the Talmud and the Oral Law, I think there is no es la'asos le-Hashem₁ greater than this, and it's a great mitzvah to proceed with this project."

In other words, the complete context of R. Eliashiv's strong suggestion that Artscroll go ahead with their project to translate the Talmud is that this is something that is necessitated by other, bad translations of the Talmud. (I am sure he had in mind the Steinsaltz edition; I am less certain if he also meant the older Soncino or academic editions like Neusner's. That would be a question of whether it was on the Rav's radar or not, and I am in no position to speculate about that.)

All in all, most interesting. As I said, it's right there, black on gray. Obviously a sizable portion of the buying public knows exactly what it said. But many don't, and won't. It's understandable why they don't translate large haskamos (R. Aharon Schechter, rosh yeshiva Yeshivas Chaim Berlin wrote a particularly long one, for example). But this is less than 35 words. I suppose that the editors didn't necessarily want to make a big deal about the fact that R. Elyashiv gave what amounts to very qualified support for their work. No big deal, but interesting, and the wise will understand.

₁ The reference is to Psalm 119:126:

קכו עֵת לַעֲשׂוֹת לַיקוָק הֵפֵרוּ תּוֹרָתֶךָ 126 It is time for the LORD to work; they have made void Thy law.

Rabbinically this verse is given as justification for--at times--'making void Thy law,' that is, to violate halakhah because "It is time" to do the Lord's work, that is, to repair a breach, to safeguard the Torah, sometimes the time gives no other choice than to breach it.

In this case, R. Elyashiv is asserting that in this time a translations of the Talmud [like Artscroll's]--which normally, in other times, is undesirable at best, if not forbidden--is necessary and a great mitzvah.

No hint of textual criticism of the Bible in Artscroll's siddur; Psalm 34, shabbat davening's missing (?) vav.

2007-08-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

Alphabetical acrostics are not an uncommon form of Biblical poetry. In this form each stanza begins with a letter of the aleph beis (alphabet), either in descending or ascending order. There are many such examples, including what is perhaps the most famous one*, Psalm 145, beginning אֲרומִמְךָ אֱלוהַי הַמֶּלֶךְ. The next verse begins with a בְּכָל יום אֲבָרְכֶךָּ; ב, and then a ג and so forth. Other examples include each chapter in Lamentations.

Another example from Psalms is Psalm 34.

As it happens, sometimes these poems are imperfect. That is, the precise order of the alphabet is not completely followed (see Lamentations 4:15-17, where נ ס פ ע is the order rather than נ ס ע פ (the equivalent** of M N P O rather than M N O P in the Latin alphabet). Or an expected verse is entirely missing (see: No nun--in ashrei).

Psalm 34 is interesting because the ו vav verse seems to be missing, but as the ו is the conjuctive in Hebrew, the ה verse naturally contains a word beginning with ו.

The entire verse (Psalm 34:6 reads הִבִּיטוּ אֵלָיו וְנָהָרו וּפְנֵיהֶם אַל יֶחְפָּרוּ They looked unto Him, and were radiant; and their faces shall never be abashed (JPS 1917). I only highlighted the ו in red to show that there is a ו in this verse; if you read on it will become clear why I point this our. However, the next verse (34:7) begins with a ז zayin. Thus, either we are missing the ו or somehow, for some reason, this verse is meant to be split in half and that way nothing is missing.

That is kind of weak, because not only does it involve splitting a verse into two it also ignores the mode of poetry used in this Psalm, parallelism. As the name implies, parallelism simply means that one stanza contains an essential idea stated two different ways or that the second part completes the thought begun in the first. Thus, Psalm 34:1 begins I will bless the LORD at all times and then His praise shall continually be in my mouth. The essential idea given in two forms. The second verse begins My soul shall glory in the LORD and then it is restated as the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad and so it continues.

Although the identification of this chief form of Biblical poetry is attributed to British bishop Robert Lowth's 1753 workLectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, the phenomenon was of course noticed and remarked upon (albeit not systematically) by earlier exegetes. By the 19th century this feature was accepted as a given and it still is seen as such, although it has been subject to modification and even attack in modern scholarship. The reality of parallelism was accepted by modern Jewish exegetes, with the notable exception of Malbim. Central to his system of close reading of the Bible was the idea that there is no such thing as style choices in the language of the Bible; thus, there aren't really any synonyms--all similar words mean subtly different things. Similarly, parallelism isn't correct because the same essential idea could never be restated. That would be superfluous. Rather, a new idea is contained in what we see as restatement. Be that as it may, I think it's fair to say that even among Orthodox Jews Malbim's position about this is not regarded as authoritative and many will agree that there is parallelism in biblical poetry.

If you're still reading, then we now come to the point of this post. In the Artscroll commentary on the siddur*** we find the following comment on Psalm 34 (which is part of the liturgy for shabbos morning): "...David composed this beautiful and profound hymn. Its verses begin according to the letters of the Alef-Beis, to show that we are to praise God with our every faculty, and to acknowledge that whatever He created--from aleph to tav--is for the good."

In their commentary to the aforementioned אַשְׁרֵי prayer we find the following: "Beginning with the word אֲרומִמְךָ, the initials of the respective verses follow the order of the Aleph-Beis. According to Abudraham the Aleph-Beis structure symbolizes that we praise God with every sound available to the organs of speech. Midrash Tadshei records that the Psalmists and Sages used the Aleph-Beis formula in chapters they wanted people to follow more easily or memorize."

As noted in my Ashrei post **** the missing nun is explained as absent due to a specific reason in the Talmud; conversely, a nun verse is found in a Dead Sea Scroll psalter (perhaps an artificial one, perhaps the original one). Artscroll notes this in the commentary: "No verse in Ashrei begins with a נ, because in the context of this verse that speaks of God supporting the fallen, the letter נ can be taken as an allusion to נְפִילָה, Israel's future downfall, ח"ו, and the Psalmist refused to use a letter that could suggest such tragedy. Nevertheless, knowing that downfalls would take place, the Psalmist comforted Israel by saying God supports the fallen ones (i.e., the next verse--MFM). This is an implied guarantee that even when a dreaded downfall happens, the people can look forward to His support." Artscroll then attributes this explanation to the Talmud, Berachos 4b.

However, there is no Talmudic explanation for a missing vav verse in Psalm 34. Artscroll therefore does not mention it. In fact, Artscroll doesn't believe there is a missing vav verse. It prints this psalm the following way (I used red where bolded in their text):

אברכה את-יהוה בכל-עת; תמיד, תהלתו בפי
ביהוה, תתהלל נפשי; ישמעו ענוים וישמחו
גדלו ליהוה אתי; ונרוממה שמו יחדו
דרשתי את-יהוה וענני; ומכל-מגורותי הצילני
הביטו אליו ונהרו;
ופניהם, אל-יחפרו
זה עני קרא, ויהוה שמע; ומכל-צרותיו, הושיעו

As you can see, the editors chose to separate verse 6, הביטו אליו ונהרו; ופניהם, אל-יחפרו, into two lines--the only verse so separated--bolding the first letter of the second half of the verse, creating a vav verse, as it were. Obviously Artscroll could not go so far as to truly create a new verse, so the comma is found after the first part and a period only after the second. Technically the entirety of the verse is preserved. But now parallelism is lacking only in these two lines. And even if you choose not to accept that there is any such thing as parallelism in Biblical poetry, following Malbim, it certainly is curious that the acrostic was meant to include one complete verse as two distinct stanzas.

In my opinion the more likely explanation is that there is a vav verse missing, just as there is a nun verse missing in Ashrei. However, lacking an explanation from the Talmud Artscroll will not even draw attention to the missing vav verse! Instead, through creative formatting it appears that nothing is amiss. In the Birnbaum edition its absence is noted without ceremony, introducing neither Biblical textual criticism nor a new formatting that runs contrary to the idea of parallelism of the masoretic separation of the verses.

Paranthetically, I might add that the final verse of Psalm 34, after the ת verse, begins with a פ and may be an appendix of sorts or--and this is completely ad-hoc and discard it if you like--maybe there was some doubt as to whether this was the missing vav verse (itself missing its vav!) and was therefore appended to the end of the Psalm.

* Due to its prominence as the core of the אַשְׁרֵי prayer of the Jewish liturgy, recited three times each day.
** I don't mean a letter by letter correspondence; I simply thought that M through P provides a good English example, with some equivalence (e.g., נ and N).
*** As it happens, I've used the Artscroll Rosh Hashanah machzor, since I had it on hand. But the commentary for the parts of tefillah that are the same as the shabbos liturgy is the same here as in their siddur.
**** Interestingly enough, and I'm sure there is some reason for this, my post on the missing nun in Ashrei is probably the single most searched post I have ever done. For whatever reason a lot of people out there are looking for info about that missing nun!

EDIT: this post got lengthier than I intended, and in its wordiness I forgot to mention a point that I had planned to make; Mivami reminded me; the occasional lack of order in the alphabetical acrostics, like my example of Lamentations 4, may not be a corruption of the text. There is ample evidence (in the form of Semitic abecedaries) which indicate that at first the precise order of the Aleph Beis was not entirely stable. If so, a chapter like Lamentations 4 might have had verses in the order of נ ס פ ע rather than נ ס ע פ simply because the former was an acceptable alternative order at that time. This wouldn't be very unlike what one does with the final forms of the kaph, mem, nun, tsadei and peh letters in Hebrew. Is it appropriate to give them after the initial form or list them after the entire alphabet? The choice is entirely up to you, although conceivably in the future there will be some rigid convention which no one would dream of breaching.

Artscroll: one should not be dogmatic.

2007-07-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

משנה עדיות א''ד

ולמה מזכירין דברי שמאי והלל לבטלן ללמד לדורות הבאין שלא יהא אדם עומד על דברו

“And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel to nullify them? To teach future generations that a person should not stand by his words--”

note 2. (Schottenstein ed.) reads:

I.e. one should not be dogmatic, which is a serious character flaw and a great impediment to arriving at the truth (Tiferes Yisrael).

Wow!

(Actually, the Tiferes Yisrael (יכין) says here להיות (רעכטהאבריש) שהוא חסרון גדול בנפש האדם ומניעה גדולה מלבוא אל האמת .

רעכטהאבריש , rechthaberisch means all-knowing or overly opinionated.)

Interview with Nosson Scherman

2007-06-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

'Our Goal Is To Increase Torah Learning' By: Elliot Resnick, Jewish Press Staff Reporter Wednesday, June 6, 2007

An Interview With ArtScroll's Rabbi Nosson Scherman

ArtScroll, an imprint of Mesorah Publications, is a phenomenal success story. In almost every Jewish home and synagogue one can find ArtScroll’s biographies, Jewish law books, and translations and elucidations of Jewish classics.

According to Rabbi Nosson Scherman, ArtScroll’s general editor alongside Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, ArtScroll has published more than 800,000 siddurim, 400,000 chumashim, and 2,000,000 volumes of Talmud.

In 2004, ArtScroll completed its 73-volume translation and elucidation of the Babylonian Talmud – a project that cost an estimated $21 million.

The Jewish Press recently spoke with Rabbi Scherman about ArtScroll’s accomplishments and some of the criticisms that trail almost every successful endeavor.

The Jewish Press: How do you explain ArtScroll’s success?

Rabbi Scherman: Since the end of World War II, you have had a couple of generations of men and women who went through yeshivas and Bais Yaakovs. They are people who want to learn (as well as many baalei teshuvah who are interested in Yiddishkeit), but English is their first language. Even if they can open a sefer and learn it, it’s an effort. They can’t curl up with it and read it easily.

But here you have something in their own language with a pleasant style and attractive graphics. A lot of serious, curious and sincere people have felt that here finally is a way that enables them to learn.

ArtScroll recently began translating and elucidating Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud), which used to be a closed book to most people. What made you decide to undertake the project?

Yerushalmi is very hard to learn. But Yerushalmi is also one of the classics of Torah Yiddishkeit. To say that it’s important is an understatement.

Since we had people talented enough, we felt it was our responsibility to do it. The work is difficult mainly because there’s no Rashi, who is the key to everything. Anyone who worked on the ArtScroll Talmud Bavli will tell you that they went away from it with a much greater appreciation of Rashi than they ever had before.

The first ArtScroll Yerushalmi volume in Hebrew, Maseches Shevi’is [next year is a shmittah year], has recently been published. This is very important because the Yerushalmi Shevi’is is the basis for the laws of shmittah. There is no Talmud Bavli on Maseches Shevi’is.

Does ArtScroll commission projects or do people simply submit manuscripts unsolicited?

Both. When people come to us with a manuscript, if we feel it has merit and will serve the public, then we’ll accept it.

There are books that we did because we felt they were important and we were counseled by gedolim to do them. Divrei HaYamim is probably the best example. We were urged by Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky and Rav Mordechai Gifter, zt"l, to do it because there’s no really good commentary on Divrei HaYamim in any language that discusses the differences between the accounts in Divrei HaYamim and Shmuel and Melachim. And there are many variations.

How did ArtScroll begin?

ArtScroll began in late 1975, when a young man
in his 30’s, a rebbe [teacher] in Toras Emes, Rabbi Mair Fogel, passed away in his sleep. Rabbi Zlotowitz was a close friend of his and wanted to do something in his memory. Since Purim was just a couple of months away, he decided to do a translation and commentary on Megillas Esther and finish it at the shloshim. I was a yeshiva principal – at Yeshiva Karlin Stolin Boro Park – at the time; he asked me if I would edit the work and write an introduction. (We had become acquainted over the years when I helped him with copy for brochures and journals.)

It was supposed to be a one-shot thing, a one volume tribute, period, because Rabbi Zlotowitz had a business and I was a yeshiva principal. But that Megillas Esther turned out to be amazingly popular. I think over 20,000 copies were sold in just a couple of months, from the time of publication until Purim.

And then, roshei yeshiva urged us to continue. So we both continued part time. And then we started doing it full time, and then time and a half.

Where did the name ArtScroll come from?

From Rabbi Zlotowitz’s business, his studio – ArtScroll studios – which did brochures, scrolls used for awards and invitations. "ArtScroll" – because they were artistic scrolls, very beautiful, colorful, with calligraphy. The name stuck.

Some people claim that ArtScroll does not quote rabbis from certain camps in their works. For instance, I’ve heard complaints in Chabad circles that the Lubavitcher Rebbeisn’t quoted. The same could probably be said about Rav Kook. How do you respond?

Authors will quote, first of all, classic sources, which almost by definition excludes almost anybody in the 20th century. My commentary on Chumash relies mostly on classic sources, and some moderns. Rav Soloveitchik is quoted there, as are Rav Kotler, Rav Feinstein and Rav Schorr. But if it’s my commentary, then I’m going to write it according to what I learned and my style of learning and how I understand it, and I’ll quote my teachers.

There are a lot of great men who are not quoted. Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski was the gadol hador and I don’t think he’s quoted anywhere in the Chumash or Tanach. Neither is the Satmar Rav. The idea is that the person who’s learning it should understand the content. It’s not a question of trying to include as many names as you can for the sake of popularity. It’s a matter of trying to clarify the material.

How do you respond to critics who accuse ArtScroll biographies of whitewashing history by characterizing great rabbis as saints without faults?

Our goal is to increase Torah learning and yiras shamayim. If somebody can be inspired by a gadol b’yisrael, then let him be inspired. Is it necessary to say that he had shortcomings? Does that help you become a better person? What about lashon hara? You know in today’s world, lashon hara is a mitzvah. Character assassination sells papers. That’s not what Klal Yisrael is all about.

Isn’t it a form of sheker (falsehood), though,
to write a biography and knowingly exclude material?

Why is it sheker to omit lashon hara? It’s not. People say, "Well, why don’t you say that this or that gadol had certain serious character flaws?" So you’re not saying it. Is that sheker? It’s not sheker. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky once said in a "shmuess" that if you go over to somebody and say, "You know you have a long ugly nose," that doesn’t make you an ish emes [man of truth]. That makes you a rasha [wicked person].

How do you respond to the claim that ArtScroll gemaras make learning too easy?

Well, history answers that. There are thousands upon thousands of people who, if not for ArtScroll, would not have opened a gemara in years. That’s number one.

Number two, there are countless people that come over and tell me they started out using the English side and they ended up learning the Hebrew side.

Now another thing – the notes on the English side refer people to other sources. Rav Elyashiv, shlita, has gone through the notes in several of the Hebrew volumes and he says he finds them invaluable. If somebody is serious about learning, then it’s not going to take away from his effort. It will increase his effort. It will enable him to focus his efforts better and go on to explore the sources we offer for further research.

Rabbi Dr. Marcus Lehman’s books [first published in Germany in the 19th century] are saturated with Jewish themes and values. Some of ArtScroll’s books, on the other hand, sometimes seem almost accidentally Jewish. The characters, names and some other details might be Jewish, but otherwise the story seems largely secular. Can you comment?

There’s a shortage of writers. The Orthodox Jewish public is not that big, the well-educated people are not that many and of the ones who are, how many of them are interested in writing books? Lehman was an exception to the rule. He did marvelous things, but how many Marcus Lehmans were there?

That being said, many of our novels have a real solid Jewish content. What you say is true. Some of them are really good yarns, good stories that have Jewish characters, but, by and large, I think most of them have Jewish themes and Jewish values.

Some companies are $10 million companies, others, $100 million. Is there a number one can pin on ArtScroll?

No, I can’t give you a number on that. But I can say that people think that ArtScroll is a gold mine. It’s not. We have to go out and raise money. It’s very very far from a gold mine. Some books sell very well, but the profits from those books subsidize the other books.

Primarily, though, major works like the Talmud, Ramban, Divrei HaYamim etc. cannot be funded by the market.

It’s no different than a yeshiva, or, l’havdil, Harvard or a symphony orchestra that has to raise money in addition to tuition and ticket sales.

No ifs, ands or buts: Valuable witness to American Hebrew pronunciation in the Schottenstein shas, concering the קָמַץ kamatz.

2007-05-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting series of notes in the commentary to the Schottenstein Edition of Nedarim vol. I (37b3) concerning matters of vocalization and cantillation.

Note 27 discusses the function of the matres lectiones, the Hebrew consonants which double as long vowels (א, ה, ו, י). An example given is how a ו shows the חולם is to be pronounced in a word (חוֹלָם; with an"o" as in "home"), for without it the word חם is ambiguous.

Artscroll gives a delicious example of American Ashkenazic Hebrew (I don't know if the term exists, but the concept surely does). It's explanation of how a קָמַץ (qomats) sounds is '"u" as in "but."'

This is completely correct in that it is precisely how many (by no means all) American Ashkenazim pronounce the קָמַץ. But this is not exactly the way this vowel was pronounced by the various Ashkenazic ethnic groups. Putting aside what has survived as the Chassidic pronunciation (oo as in boot; a normal sound shift), this "u" as in "but" most closely resembles--but is not identical with--the German "o." Other pronunciations of the were קָמַץ essentially variations on this theme, some more pronounced, some less, some closer to "o" as in "home" and some almost like "aw" (as in "shucks!"). Then there is, of course, the Temani pronunciation of the קָמַץ which famously resembles the Ashkenazic, each being me'id on the other. And last but not least, the affectation of some yeshivishe pronunciations which simply can't be produced in any notation I am familiar with.

In short, probably most קָמַץ-pronouncers today do say it like "but," myself included. בָּט this is under the influence of American English phonemes, just as the German Jews sounded theirs under the influence of the German "o."

It is noteworthy, by the way, that in Artscroll's serious scholarly work like the Schottenstein it eschews nonsense like it's constructed Hebrew pronunciation.

Surely a historian of 20th-21st century American Jewry will one day use this valuable footnote to reconstruct the Ashkenazic Hebrew, although he or she will obviously have to be sure about how precisely "but" was pronounced in American English.

Jihad in the Rosh Hashanah Machzor

2007-05-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

XGH posts about the Sufi Islamic influences on R. Bahya ibn Paquda's חובת הלבבות Chovas Ha-levavos (Duties of the Heart).

XGH reports that every time his "chavrutah tells me that everytime the Choyvos Halevovos brings down a story of a 'chasid' (which he does many times), he's actually talking about a Sufi pious man, and not a Jew."

Every Rosh Hashana as I recite Tashlich I notice anew a passage in Artscroll's Tashlich commentary (of course, if I learned Chovas Ha-levavos more then it wouldn't take Tashlich for me to notice it):

Chovas HaLevovos (Shaar Yichud HaMa'aseh 5) tells of the pious man who went out to greet the troops returning from the battlefront. He said to them, 'You are returning from a minor skirmish to enter into the major battle--man's lifelong struggle with his Evil Inclination.

And I think, al tiqreh "skirmish," "battle" or struggle," elah "jihad."

Two versions of a hadith (of three possible kinds: marfu`, a Prophetic saying, mawquf, a Companion-saying or maqtu`, a Tabi`i, or later-saying):

Some troops came back from an expedition and went to see the Messenger of Allah MHMD sallallahu `alayhi wa-Sallam. He said: "You have come for the best, from the smaller jihad (al-jihad al-asghar) to the greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar)." Someone said, "What is the greater jihad?" He said: "The servant's struggle against his lust"(mujahadat al-`abdi hawah).
The Prophet MHMD upon him and his Family and Companions blessings and peace returned from one his expeditions and said: "You have come for the best. You have come from the smaller jihad to the greater jihad." They said, "What is the greater jihad, Messenger of Allah?" He said: "The servant's struggle against his lust.

link

Nu, so Was hat dem Judentume aus Mohammed aufgenommen? Wink, wink.

Hm. This is a Chovas Ha-levavos post and not really an Artscroll post.

Yiyshar kohakhah, Artscroll.

2007-04-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

Perusing The Early Acharonim by R. Hersh Goldwurm z'l I learned that Dinim de Sehita y Bedica was written by R. Menasseh Ben Israel.

Artscroll on the Golem of Prague

2007-03-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

There is a tradition which has not been established, that in the face of these threats, Maharal created a Golem, a humanoid figure formed from mud and brought to life by secret prayers and Kabbalistic sayings.

link

Or, if you like

The illustrious Maharal of Prague is best known as the creator of the famous Golem, but that was hardly his greatest accomplishment. He composed an enormous body of dazzling literature that forms the essence of much Torah thought to this day.

link

A King Jamesism in Artscroll's Esther

2007-03-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

Artscroll consistently translates סריס (eunuch) as chamberlain, following the JPS as it is wont to do, which followed most English Bibles in rendering סריס as chamberlain after the King James. 14th century English Bible translator John Wycliffe translates as "onest seruant."

(The Latin Vulgate translates as eunuchi; the Greek LXX as ευνονχω.)

Artscroll's leaders of Jewry in the Stone Chumash

2007-01-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

Artscroll's Stone Chumash contains a fascinating bibliography (pp. 1297-1303 in my edition). Although I did not count the sources apart from the first page (37) and another one at random (41), I average that to some 280 sources are cited in the commentary of this work. However, a good deal are the names of individual Talmudic tractates or sages, which means that the number of unique sources are less--I think we can agree that "Babba Kamma" or "Rabbi Akiva" perhaps should be combined under "Talmud Bavli," as it does for the Yerushalmi--so perhaps there are some 250 sources.

Still, the bibliography spans all periods and types of traditional sources: everything from midrashic collections to ge'onic works, from peshat oriented rishonim to kabbalistic rishonim; from homiletical commentaries to philological ones; from the Vilna Gaon to Chassidic rebbes; from modern traditionalist commentaries like Ha-kesav ve Ha-kabbalah and Netziv to R. David Zvi Hoffmann; from 20th century Litvishe roshei yeshivot to freelance 20th century talmidei chachamim. I would not be the first to notice that R. Kook, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Nehama Leibowitz are absent, but this is unsurprising. R. JB Soloveitchik is included. There's no Benno Jacob and there's no S.R. Driver, but that is to be expected.

What's interesting about the bibliography is that Artscroll chose to write a short bio for each one. These are informative, largely accurate, but sometimes interesting in ways that they probably didn't intend.

For example, from these bios we learn that some (mostly) 20th century rabbis were "leaders," while, by omission, others are not.

- Chazon Ish "was acknowledged as a foremost leader of Jewry"
- Chofetz* Chaim "acknowledged as a foremost leader of Jewry" *an unusual departure from Artscroll's transliteration scheme
- R. Moshe Feinstein "a foremost leader of Jewry"
- R. Yaakov Kamenetzky "a foremost thinker and leader of Jewry"
- R. Aharon Kotler "a foremost leader and proponder of the primacy of Torah"
- Pachad Yitzchak (R. Yitzchak Hutner) "a foremost thinker and leader of Jewry"
- R. JB Soloveitchik "an original Talmudic scholar, thinker and leader"

These leaders are: not Chassidic and never "freelance" talmidei chachamim.

Interestingly enough this designation is left off of 'canonical gedolim,' like R. Eliyahu Dessler and most surprisingly, R. Gedaliah Schorr (although it does note that he was called "the first American-trained gadol").

I left off those who are "leading Torah scholars," as many, like R. Shlomo Kluger are called, or those called leaders with qualifiers, like geographic boundaries, such as the Chasam Sofer "acknowledged leader of Hungarian Jewry," R. Samson Raphael Hirsch "great leader of modern German-Jewish Orthodox," Imrei Emes "foremost leader of Polish Jewry," K'sav Sofer "leader of non-Chassidic Hungarian Orthodoxy in the middle decades of the nineteenth century,"

I think it's important not to read so much into who is not called a leader as to who is. The reason why is because it's pretty much clear that these bios were not written juxtaposed one next to the other (which is partly why its so fascinating--it almost seems like a window into Artscroll's corporate subconscious). Thus, I can not detect a hint of disrespect when R. Gedaliah Schorr is not noted as a leader of Jewry. In fact, there really is no disrespect in any of the bios, including R. Soloveitchik's (it is not a repeat of the Jewish Observer fiasco). To the extent that A. is guilty of omissions by not finding even one comment to cite in the name of R. Kook or the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I would note that the Satmar Rav and R. Shach are also absent--not that I think that R. Kook is going to make it out of Shaar Press. But I digress.

Also of note is that the bibliography cites Alexander Kohut's Aruch Hashalem (see comments in post below) and R. Wolf Heidenheim. Now, I know that there is nothing wrong with R. Wolf Heidenheim, but let's just say that there is a reason why Reform Judaism and Its Pioneers by Emanuel Schreiber (1892) mentions him as a moderate early Reformer of the second stage, of the generation following Mendelssohn. This is not to endorse this book's depiction of him, only to note that qualitatively there is no difference between citing Wolf Heidenheim and Moses Mendelssohn in the sense that certainly the former was not "frummer" than the latter. Both were modern, religious men of the Haskalah, in the positive sense which R. Jacob Emden called Mendelssohn a maskil (see R. Dr. JJ Schachter's PhD dissertation on R. Emden for more info). Except for one thing: only one of these two men became a symbol.

Artscroll on etymology, Paradise and the late dating of biblical books

2007-01-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Talmud Bavli Chagiga 14b

ארבעה נכנסו לפרדס

There were FOUR who ENTERED THE sublime ORCHARD[18]

[18]...[Accordingly one could also translate this sentence: There were four who entered Paradise. Indeed, the English word "Paradise" derives from a Greek word meaning both orchard and Paradise which in turn derives from the Hebrew pardeis.]

The above translation and note are from Artscroll's Schottenstein Talmud.

Now, it is true that the Schottenstein edition does not claim to be a scientific text. It is for this reason that I wouldn't harp on all the specifics of the note. For example, I won't fault it for noting that the English word paradise come from Greek, even though English did not come from Greek and therefore did not borrow this word from Greek; most English words which ultimately have an ancient Greek origin received it via an intermediary language, like Old French, which in turn received the word from Latin, which in turn received it from Greek. Thus, Latin received the Greek παραδεισος, paradeisos, as paradisus, and Old French had it from Latin as paradis etc.

I also will not fault Artscroll for describing the Greek word to mean orchard and Paradise; it certainly did not mean the latter in ancient Greek (the Septuagint translators used the word in the sense of Paradise). Whether orchard is the best meaning of παραδεισος, paradeisos is questionable.

These sort of generalizations are understandable. What I do not understand is where Artscroll got the idea that the Greek received it from the Hebrew פרדס. In fact, the best explanation is that Greek received it via the Persians. The OED notes that the Greeks received the word from "the Old Iranian base of Avestan pairidaeza- enclosure."

Given its long history with the Persians, and the relatively later encounter with the Jews, how and why would Greek have gotten the word from Hebrew rather than the Old Iranian? And why doesn't Artscroll cite any source for this assertion?

It occurred to me that it might have something to do with the location of the three places in Tanakh that pardes occurs: Nehemia 2:8, Ecclesiastes 2:5 and Songs 4:13. The first book was obviously written after the exile. Jews could certainly then have received a loanword from Persian. The other two books are traditionally ascribed to Solomon, who lived 500 years earlier. While it is not impossible for an Old Iranian word to end up in the vocabulary of a Judean Israelite of 3000 years ago, it is certainly less comfortable to a traditionalist sensibility than the idea that it is a native Hebrew word after all, especially coupled with the non-traditionalist view of the dating of all three books as post-Exilic.

So, am I proposing that Artscroll simply made up the assertion in note 18? Lacking a source, either traditional or modern, that seems to be the inescapable conslusion. As to the why, my guess is only that: a guess.

Do Artscroll transliterations work?

2006-10-31T06:15:00.000-08:00

In the introduction of many Artscroll products the following is written, or something similar:

Transliteration presents a problem in all works of this sort. Ashkenazi, pure Sephardi, current Israeli, and generally accepted scholarly useages frequently diverge, and such familiar names as Isaac, Jacob, and Moses differs from them all. We have adopted a cross between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi transliterations, using Sephardi vowel and Ashkenazi pronunciations. Thus: Akeidas Yitzchak, rather than Akeidat Izhak or Akeidas Yitzchok. True, this blend may require some adjustment on the part of many readers, but it has proven successful.

Preface, pg xiv, Scherman, Nosson, 1993, Stone Edition Chumash (Brooklyn, New York, Mesorah Publicaitons, Ltd.)

What is Ashkenazi? While in general Jewish Hebrew pronunciation can be broken down into three major families (West, East and Yemenite) there is such divergences within each of these major families that its difficult to understand what was meant by Ashkenazi. My best guess is that it means the non-Chassidic American yeshiva dialect which developed in the 20th century. As for pure Sephardi, that seems meant to be juxtaposed against current Israeli since, at least in the popular conception, Israeli Hebrew is basically identical to the way Hebrew was pronounced by Middle Eastern Jews, popularly called Sephardim. And what are Ashkenazi pronunciations? I am pretty sure they mean Ashkenazi consonants.

Anecdotally I have heard people claim that they've heard people read Hebrew, while serving as shliach tzibur for example, with Artscroll havara, pronunciation. It sounds unbelievable to me, but the truth is that Artscroll has enabled Jews and non-Jews who knew very little about Judaism to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and encounter many classical texts and interpretations. Since I do not dispute the testimony of those who say they've heard people read Hebrew as per Artscroll transliteration, it seems they learned through this method which "has proven successful."

I don't know what yardstick was used to prove that it is successful (sales?). But given that Artscroll didn't experiment with a variety of methods at the outset it seems that it was an editorial decision from the start (the explanatory paragraph notwithstanding, I don't believe Artscroll ever contemplated either using Izhak or Yiṣḥāq instead of something more like Yitzchok or Yitzchak). The only explanation I can think of is that Artscroll didn't want to disenfranchise an entire market, people for whom standard Hebrew is Israeli pronunciation or a Sephardic variety, and certainly they wouldn't disenfranchise their own base. Thus, the compromise.

The Artscroll invention of a new way to read Hebrew has been criticized, and on good grounds if it is indeed propagating an artificial literary Hebrew among people, both for not being true to its own purported goal of representing Jewish tradition (ie, hypocricy) and for the misdeed itself.

However it is interesting to note that where it really counts, Artscroll's line of transliterated siddurim, prayer books, they use an entirely different transliteration method, as depicted below (click to enlarge):

While I can't imagine that the above transliteration scheme is not confusing, both to layman and to scholar--they simply invented a transliteration scheme that is neither intuitive nor scholarly--it very nearly does reproduce what I have called the non-Chassidic American yeshiva dialect which developed in the 20th century. Not only are קמצין rendered with /o/, but even the חולם, rendered with an /o/ as well gets some kind of diacritic which either means that it is supposed to be pronounced /oy/ or as the long /o/ of 'home.' If the latter, then Artscroll has, for some reason, chosen to use the non-Chassidic American dialect which developed in the 20th century, but not the yeshiva dialect. It is the one used in many American day schools as well as in many American Beis Yaakov schools (incidentally, the phenomenon of the two ways to pronounce Hebrew as taught to brothers and sisters needs some exploration!).

Paranthetically, Steg notes that "Whether they meant it too or not, Artscrollese is very similar to the Pre-Ashkenazic dialect." That statement needs some qualification, but it is indeed the case that the the proto-Ashkenazic pronunciation had some similarities to its Eastern sister dialect particularly in the area of vowels. It seems, from the evidence of early Ashkenazic manuscripts which confusingly mix qomatz and patahs liberally, like their Eastern counterparts, that the adoption of the Tiberian distinction between /o/ and /a/ came at a later stage.

There's even a Wiki entry on Artscroll transliteration.

What do you say?

2006-08-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Artscroll Gemara (Gittin 55b-56a in English)

When the Rav isn't the Rav

2006-07-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

This advertisement appeared in Yated Ne'eman last week.

Why is there only one word in Hebrew in this ad (רע 'ב)?

To avoid ambiguity, I suppose. Without it it would have read "Every volume contains the complete Rav commentary in Hebrew."

;)

When the lights dimmed

2006-06-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

In 'Reb Moshe: The Life and Ideals of HaGaon Rabbi Moshe Feinsten,' (New York: 1986) by R. Shimon Finkelman the following appears on page 258:

In the beis midrash at the Yeshiva of Staten Island, boys and young men were fervently reciting tehillim, imploring Hashem to spare him. At 9:50 p.m. the light fixture over his seat near the Aron HaKodesh flickered and went out. Then it glowed for a moment and went out again.
Reb Moshe was gone and the light went dark.

A reliable person told me the following:

A[nother reliable person] was a bachur in MTJ at that time. The Mashgiach called him out of the Tehillim group and told him that Rav Moshe had just passed on and that he should go to the basement and pull the fuse that powered the lamp over the shtender (which apparently was on a different fuse than the lights in the Beis Medrash) as a way to break the news to the Talmidim gently. [He] did so.

Artscroll Rashi on tikkunei soferim, 'scribal emendations.'

2006-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

The following interesting thing was brought to my attention by a friend, concerning a famous, controversial Rashi text.

רשי בראשית פרק יח פסוק כב דה ואברהם עודנו

והלא לא הלך לעמוד לפניו אלא הקב"ה בא אאצלו ואמר לו זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה והיה לן לכתוב וה עודנו עומד לפני אברהם אלא תיקון סופרים הוא זה אשר הפכוהו ז"ל לכתוב כן

Here is a translation:

"while Abraham remained standing before the Lord"

But is it not so that he [Avraham] did not go to stand before Him? Rather, it was G-d who came to him and said to him, "The wailing concerning Sedom and Amorah is so great," and it should have been written: "G-d was still standing near Avraham,"but, it is a tikkun soferim [an emendation of the Scribes) which our Sages of blessed memory reversed writing it thus.

The background: In rabbinic literature there are references to tikkunei soferim, lit. emendations of the Scribes, in the Torah text. Most of these instances concern expressions which would be disrespectful to God. So there are tikkunei soferim, which employ euphemism (kinoy hakatuv). Thus, in this case, really God was "standing" before Abhraham, but the verse has it the other way out of respect for God.

There are two views in classical Jewish sources for what tikkunei soferim mean. One is that the original reading is the euphemism and that no one ever tampered with these texts, deliberately altering them. The other is more literal to the meaning of the words and is that scribes actually changed these texts. We are talking about very slight alterations.

Now it happens to be that not all Rashi texts have the part I highlighted with red, which is the more literal view of what tikkun soferim in rabbinic literature mean. Thus, it is not inherently misleading to print a Rashi text without it, as does, e.g. the Stone Chumash. However, in a critical edition it doesn't make sense to exclude it.

The Saperstein Rashi edition claims to include all alternate texts*. It does't include this one. My friend even wrote to the elucidator of this edition who claimed that he had never heard of the alternate girsa! Which seems unlikely, as it is very well known and the author of this edition happens to be very conscientous, using multiple sources which would have referenced this text.

*Edit: a commenter pointed out that the Saperstein does not claim to do this. This is true. It was a slip of the keyboard on my part, a mistake. In addition, the idea that any edition claims to include "all alternate texts" is well nigh absurd, since such a task is well nigh impossible. Nevertheless, the main thrust of this post remains valid. This is a very well known variant reading of Rashi. It is highly unlikely, in my opinion, that the elucidator really never heard about it until my friend brought it to his attention. If so, it seems that there was an editorial decision to exclude this reading in this edition.

Edit ii: Thanks to LkwdGuy for bringing these to my attention, via the JNUL exhibition on Rashi:

From 1482, doesn't have the reading:

From 1487, has the reading:

From 1490, has the reading:

In short, it is a well known variant reading in Rashi. The elucidator never heard of it?

Artscroll advertising blitz in Israel

2006-05-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Artscroll Advertising Heavily in Eretz Yisroel
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Artscroll is launching a sales campaign in Israel for all of its books through heavy advertising in the press, in botei knesses and via direct mail. The company has already distributed over 120,000 brochures in the form of newspaper inserts in the Hebrew editions of Yated Ne'eman and Hamodia as well as samples in botei knesses. The company plans to focus its marketing efforts on the Schottenstein Edition of the gemora, considered the Jewish publishing project on the largest scale (over 15 years and running), with the greatest investment (total cost of over $20 million) and the highest demand (about 20,000 copies of each volume are sold) ever. The new Compact Size Edition is a precise replica of the Full Size Edition designed to make available a more lighter, portable version to complement the home edition.

The new entirely Hebrew siddur, Ner Naftoli, is also being heavily marketed. Sales have been brisk in Chutz La'aretz and now an Israeli edition has been published based on the halochos and customs practiced in Eretz Yisroel.

To promote sales, 1,000 copies of the siddur have been distributed for free at selected locations around the country, including 150 at the Kosel Maarovi, 70 at Beis Knesses Itzkovitz in Bnei Brak and dozens at Beis Haknesses Hagodol. The advertising account has been handed over to Chen Advertising, which has worked with Artscroll for years. According to Chen Advertising some $150,000 will be invested in advertising over the coming months.

from Dei'ah Vedibur

The heroic Hertz Chumash

2006-05-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

A few years ago there was article article by Ami Eden in The Forward about new Torah translations.

The piece quoted Artscroll general editor R. Nosson Scherman on the archaic Hertz Chumash, the one Chumash that could be found in many, if not most, English speaking Orthodox, Conservative and Reform synagogues for decades.

"The Hertz was a masterpiece in its time, a piece of literature. What he did was heroic," said ArtScroll's Rabbi Scherman. "He was trying to convince people that the Chumash was worthwhile. He would quote Shakespeare, church fathers and other Christian sources. Nowadays, people are offended by that. Now you have people with a yeshiva education. They want to know what the Chumash means to Jews, what the traditional sources have to say."

Essentially, R. Sherman says that quoting Shakespeare, church fathers and other Christian sources in the service of promoting Torah is heroic, albeit offensive to people nowadays.

This is a very frank quotation. Would that I could have heard the entire conversation, but this is all I've got. It's an interesting admission of the point of view of R. Sherman, who authors most of the Overviews [sic] in Artscroll books, a POV which is so very different from the output of Artscroll's press. One thing to consider is to what extent Artscroll itself hasn't contributed to the idea that this approach is offensive, as well as yeshiva education.

That said, it should be pointed out that the Hertz Chumash was an apologetic commentary that used modern scholarship rather than engaged in it (discussed here).

Did Rashi mean Canaanite?

2006-05-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

Devarim 3:9

:צידנים יקראו לחרמון שרין והאמרי יקראו−לו שניר

"Sidonians would refer to Hermon as Sirion, and the Amorites would call it Senir" (Artscroll)

On this verse, Rashi comments:

:שניר − הוא שלג בלשון אשכנז [שנעע] ובלשן כנען

Rashi explained that senir, שניר means שלג, snow, in the languages of Ashkenaz and Canaan.

Although Biblical Ashkenaz wasn't Germany, it is obvious that לשון אשכנז means German, for in Rashi's day Germany was called Ashkenaz. As discussed here, in Rashi's time Canaan reffered to the Slavic and Baltic territories. So Rashi is saying that Biblical "senir" is similar to the old German and Slavic words for snow, which Rashi transliterates as שנעע, s-n-'-' (roughly, snow).

How does Artscroll translate the words "לשן כנען"?

Canaanite. Rashi is saying that "senir" is "snow" in the German and Canaanite language.

How did Rashi know the Canaanite language? What was the Canaanite language?

The answer to the second question is, roughly Biblical Hebrew (see Isa. 19:18 שפת כנען and related commentaries, also see related). If so, that certainly answers the first question, since Rashi did know Biblical Hebrew! But that isn't what Rashi is talking about at all. It would be like assuming that ancient Italians spoke Pig Latin.

The Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi translatesmore or less correctly (even if using 19th century lingo) as "Slavish," citing Abraham Berliner (1833-195) who published the first critical edition of Rashi in 1866. Who is responsible for the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi? Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg. Who is Rabbi A.J. Rosenberg? He has worked extensively for Artscroll, putting out many editions of their Yad Avrohom Mishnayos.

If an Artscroll associated rabbinic scholar plainly knew how to translate לשן כנען then why the error in Artscroll's edition? Clearly this isn't esoteric maskilische knowledge.

For what its worth, the same error can be found in the Metsudah Chumash with Rashi.

So here's the question: why did Artscroll get it wrong? Metsudah is a solitary enterprise, although I assume R. Avrohom Davis has his works peer reviewed. Artscroll is a huge company with dozens of writers. Is it simply a case of one hand not knowing what the other's doing? After all, in addition to being an entity, Artscroll is also composed of hired writers of varying ability and quality. Is the sort of maskilische knowledge and source that A. isn't desirous to incorporate or cite? As will be shown in future posts, A. has an uneven record on this regard.

What's Bothering Artscroll?

2006-05-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

On my main blog, On the Main Line, there is a sidebar marked "On Artscroll," which links to many posts I made about Mesorah Publication's Artscroll series. Clearly this publishing giant is something I am interested in, and in due time I will explain why. But I felt the time has come to deal with subjects like the ones I dealt with at Main Line in a totally separate blog. And here it is, with the very unwieldy URL elucidation-not-translation.blogspot.com:

What's Bothering Artscroll?

I ask this question not in the sense of "What is their problem?" but in the sense of the well known question "What's bothering Rashi?" The premise behind the question is as follows: Rashi's commentaries on the Torah and Talmud contain deep insights. To really grasp them one should understand why Rashi said what he did. Sometimes Rashi asks a question, but sometimes he just makes a comment. When he comments, the punctilious student will want to know what question is underlying that comment. What was bothering Rashi, so to speak.

As Richard Elliott Friedman puts it:

Torah is not to be read. It is to be studied. And at various times during one's studies, one needs a teacher. Studying the Torah with Rashi's commentaries is a joy because he shows what questions one can ask of a text. Look here! Is this a contradiction? Look here! This can have two opposite meanings. Which is right? Why does the Torah not tell us this piece of information that we need to understand the text? Why does it give us this fact that seems to be of no significance at first glance?

Thus far Rashi. While the truth is the world can always use people dedicated to exploring What's Bothering Rashi, this blog will try to explore the Artscroll world by asking the question, What's Bothering Artscroll?

I hope to explore a wide range of Artscroll materials, from meforshim on Chumash to siddurim to biographies to children's books to promotional literature--even to cookbooks, although that may be pushing it!

But the emphasis will be mainly on the Stone Chumash which is unique in that since it is an anthology of comments rather than a primarily original work one can legitimately wonder why this or that comment was chosen, out of all the possible ones. It will also focus on the Schottenstein Talmud edition (which is never called a translation by Artscroll...).

In 1969 Harry Orlinsky published 'Notes on the new translation of the Torah', a fascinating book which is a "systematic account of the labors and reasoning of the committee that translated The Torah" (the 1962 JPS edition). Such a work should be required of anyone who translates (or annotates and elucidates) but as it can't be required and as Artscroll has never published such a work, we'll be exploring the Artscroll giant right here!

!בתאבון

2006-05-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Overviews, elucidations and annotations

2006-05-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

What's Bothering Artscroll?

R. Azariah De' Rossi in - or out of - Artscroll

Can a woman be מדקדק?

Hebrew Artscroll gemaras as more revealing than English gemaras?

What would R' Azaryah surely have resented? The portrayal of a controversial rabbi by Artscroll.

When Rav Elyashiv says to print something, Artscroll prints it

No hint of textual criticism of the Bible in Artscroll's siddur; Psalm 34, shabbat davening's missing (?) vav.

Artscroll: one should not be dogmatic.

Interview with Nosson Scherman

No ifs, ands or buts: Valuable witness to American Hebrew pronunciation in the Schottenstein shas, concering the קָמַץ kamatz.

Jihad in the Rosh Hashanah Machzor

Yiyshar kohakhah, Artscroll.

Artscroll on the Golem of Prague

A King Jamesism in Artscroll's Esther

Artscroll's leaders of Jewry in the Stone Chumash

Artscroll on etymology, Paradise and the late dating of biblical books

Do Artscroll transliterations work?

When the Rav isn't the Rav

When the lights dimmed

Artscroll Rashi on tikkunei soferim, 'scribal emendations.'

Artscroll advertising blitz in Israel

Artscroll Advertising Heavily in Eretz Yisroelby Yated Ne'eman Staff

The heroic Hertz Chumash

Did Rashi mean Canaanite?

What's Bothering Artscroll?

Overviews, elucidations and annotations

Artscroll Advertising Heavily in Eretz Yisroel
by Yated Ne'eman Staff