Genizah

Some people love collecting things. They might even save a newspaper from twenty five years ago, or even worse, hoard all newspapers from the last twenty five years. I personally hate junk and love throwing things out. When I am finished with an article, and at times even before that, I chuck it. My method of immediate disposal works quite well for most things, however, when it comes to religious objects, specifically papers that contain verses or words of Torah, I have a problem. According to Halachah it is forbidden to dispose of such objects in a disrespectful way. Ideally you bury them. However, this option is not so practical. Funerals are expensive, even without the stretch limo. So, when people have a problem with a spiritual matter, they go to their Synagogue. As a result people bring bundles of papers, old newspapers, worn out Kipot, yellow Tzitzit, old records (Elvis was Jewish) and dump them on the most spiritual location in the Synagogue-the Rabbi’s desk. The community no longer has a problem. Now the Rabbi has a problem. What should he do with all these holy (and not so holy) objects? The answer is- Genizah.

The word Genizah appears in the beginning of the sixth chapter of the book of Ezra describing an archive containing records, documents or books. We also find in the Talmud [1]that during the first temple period, the Jewish people had a medical book that listed cures for all ailments. King Chezkia, sensing that the nation was relying on the book and did not turn to God for healing, decided to get rid of the book. So, he “Ganaz” the book, meaning placed it in a good hiding place- without destroying it. This is the foundation for the concept of a Genizah, placing significant items that are no longer in use in a secure place.

However, numerous times throughout our history, the Geniza did not solve the problem. Rabbi Yaakov Reisher, (d. 1730) was asked the following question [2] on the eve of Passover when people clean their houses, they bring all their worn-out holy scriptures to the attic in the synagogue. However there is no longer any room in the attic and big barrels were placed in the cemetery to hold the excess. Unfortunately these papers landed up in the market place and are used as toilet paper! So the questioned was raised if it would be acceptable to burn the papers to avoid the terrible desecration of the Holy Scriptures?

Genizah, it seems, creates lots of problems. Yet one of the greatest Jewish treasures ever found comes from a Genizah, the Cairo Genizah, located in the Ezra Synagogue in Fostat (Old Cairo, Egypt) that was built in 882. German poet, traveler and book dealer Simon von Geldern appears to be the first modern visitor to the Cairo Genizah in 1753. Although he mentioned it in his 1773 book, “The Israelites on Mount Horeb,” von Geldern never truly examined its contents. A little over a century later, in 1864, Jacob Saphir, the scribe of the Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem visited the Genizah, however he was turned away. The importance of the Cairo Genizah became evident in 1896, when two Christian women brought some leaves to Rabbi Solomon Schechter, who at the time was a professor of Talmudic and rabbinical literature at England's Cambridge University. Schechter recognized the leaves as the Hebrew original "Book of Wisdom," ascribed to Ben Sira. The Book of Wisdom became part of the Christian biblical cannon (Ecclesiastes) when translated into Greek. Before its discovery in the Cairo Genizah, no known Hebrew version existed. Some scholars even doubted its existence. Schechter traveled to Cairo where after negotiating the permission of the synagogue authorities to empty the Genizah, extracted thousands of pages from the Genizah and took them to University of Cambridge. In Europe, few items placed in a Genizah would survive more than a few decades to weather changes and moisture. Egypt’s climate on the other hand, was just right for the preservation of these informative documents.

For the student of the Talmud, the book of Ben Sira is quite a perplexing issue. We find the book quoted in the Talmud indicating that the Rabbis viewed the teachings of Ben Sira as valuable. In one instance the quote from the book is prefaced as a canonized text. In tractate Baba Kama 92b the Talmud states: “Raba said to Rabbah the son of Mari: Whence can be derived the popular saying, 'A bad palm will usually make its way to a grove of barren trees'? — He replied: This matter was written in the Pentateuch, repeated in the Prophets, mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa, and also learnt in a Mishnah and taught in a Baraitha: It is stated in the Pentateuch as written, So Esau went unto Ishmael; repeated in the prophets, as written, And there gathered themselves to Jephthah idle men and they went out with him; mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa, as written: Every fowl dwells near its kind and man near his equal.” The last quote is found in the Book of Ben Sira. Clearly it is indeed a valued text.

On the other hand, the Talmud Sanhedrin 100b quotes Rabbi Yosef who identifies the book of Ben Sira as one of the “Sefarim Chitzonim” –external works that should not be read by the committed Jew. This inconsistency has not escaped the notice of great Jewish scholars.

Rabbi Yom-Tov ibn Asevilli (2nd Half 13th cent. – 1st Half 14th century) in his commentary on the Talmud, resolves the inconsistency by stating that the prohibition to learn from Ben Sira is only if one makes the study of the book a permanent activity. On the other hand, it is proper to learn from the wisdom of the text on a temporary basis.

However there is a far more fascinating rabbinic story regarding Ben Sira. This one is not from the Talmud, but rather makes its appearance into the world of Torah in the fifteenth century. Rabbi Jacob Moelin (1365 – 1427) was a Talmudist and a great authority on Jewish law, known for his codification of the customs of the German Jews. In the middle of his work Likutei Maharil he writes as follows: ”Ben Sira was born from the seed of the prophet Yirmiyahu. The daughter of Yirmiyahu was bathing in a tub and conceived from her father’s sperm. Her righteousness was known to all, so it was agreed that she conceived in the bathtub and named the child Ben Zera (son of seed). However as the child grew older he was ashamed from the name and thus it was changed to Ben Sira. The numerical value of Sira is Yirmiyahu.”

This interesting narrative has been quoted quite often regarding a modern day question, namely artificial insemination. Artificial insemination is the oldest [modern] method couples and physicians have tried in their attempts to overcome infertility. Because it is the least invasive, the least dangerous, and the least costly technique available, it is still the first one used today when a couple cannot conceive through sexual intercourse because of sexual dysfunction, insufficient or abnormal sperm, or inadequate motility of the sperm.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986) a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, scholar and posek, who was world-renowned for his expertise in Halachah and was regarded by many as the de facto supreme rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry of North America and the world, cites the Likutei Maharil as a source to permit donor insemination. This story supports Rabbi Feinstein’s Halachic view that unlike sexual intercourse, such a conception does not make a child conceived by a father and daughter a mamzer [illegitimate]; and, since the legend asserts that Ben Sira was the child of Yirmiyahu, the sperm donor is apparently to be considered the legal, as well as the biological, father of the offspring. Other twentieth century Rabbis including Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss, (1902-1989) Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (1915-2006) and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910 -1995) question the legitimacy of Maharil’s tale.

Another interesting document found in the Genizah is a marriage document between a Rabbinic bridegroom and a Karaite bride. Karaite Judaism was a break-off from traditional Rabbinic Judaism that occurred during the eight century in Babylonia. The principle of the movement, established by Annan was "Search thoroughly in the Torah and do not rely on my opinion" and was designed to uphold the Holy Scriptures as the sole source of the law. Maimonidies, as he arrived in Egypt was confronted by wide spread negligence of traditional Rabbinic Judaism due to the strong hold of the Karaite authorities in the region. Maimonidies records that he was eventually successful in uprooting their Karaite practices.

Later Rabbinic authorities prohibit marrying into Karaite families. Nevertheless, one of the discoveries found in the Genizah is a marriage document between a rabbinic groom and a Karaite bride. The document indicates that before Maimonidies’ strong stance against the movement, intermarriages between Rabbinate and Karaite families did take place.

The document itself addresses a few of the differences between the two groups and the need for compromises for such a union to occur. Among the details listed, the husband promising not to compel his future wife to make use of light on Friday eve (the Karaite tradition explains the verse in Exodus. xxxv. 3 to mean that no light must be seen in Jewish habitations even when kindled on the eve of the Sabbath), or to eat the fat covering the rump, which the Rabbinic Jews did not consider prohibited, while the Karaites did. Another stipulation found in the document is that the husband cannot insist upon her profaning the festivals according to the Karaite calendar. The wife on the other hand promises on her side to also observe with her husband the festivals as fixed by the Rabbinate calendar.

Another finding from the Genizah sheds light on a fascinating dispute regarding the Jewish calendar that transpired in the tenth century. In Biblical times Jewish festivals were set by witnesses coming to court and testifying that they saw the new moon. Following the testimony, the court would declare that the new month has begun and messengers would be sent throughout the land to inform the nation regarding the appropriate dates for upcoming holidays. During the fourth century, due to the terrible persecutions suffered at the hands of the Romans, the Rabbis in the land of Israel decided to commit to writing the rules that form the Jewish calendar and they abolished the testimony system. According to Jewish tradition of Gaonic times, it was Hillel II (in the 4th Century C.E.) who fixed the Jewish calendar and established its rules. However there were differences of opinions among the rabbis regarding the rules, and during the tenth century a major controversy erupted due to these variation.

In the year 4681 of the Jewish era (=921 common era) the Rabbis in Babylon anticipated that the upcoming Passover would fall on a Tuesday. They began the process of setting the annual calendar based on this information. At the same time Rabbi Aaron Ben Meir, head of the Yeshiva in Israel, stated that the upcoming holiday of Passover would fall on a Sunday. As soon as the news of Ben Meir’s proclamation reached Babylon, the Exilarch David ben Zakkai, in conjunction with the Geonim of the rabbinic academies and Rabbi Saadia Gaon, addressed an official letter to Ben Meir setting forth in urgent language the validity of the established calendar and warning him against the contemplated change. At the same time the Geonim sent out circular letters to the various Jewish communities, advising them to abide by the Babylon order and not heed Ben Meir. This massive quarrel that sent the Jewish world into turmoil is known to us from several letters found in the Genizah.

Among the thousands of documents and letters found in the Geniza the most prized object is a letter signed by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known as Maimonides or the Rambam. Maimonides was born in Spain shortly before the fanatical Muslim Almohades came to power there. To avoid persecution by the Muslim sect Maimonides fled with his family, first to Morocco, later to Israel, and finally to Egypt. He apparently hoped to continue his studies for several years more, but when his brother David, a jewelry merchant, perished in the Indian Ocean with much of the family's fortune, he had to begin earning money. Maimonides' major contribution to Jewish life remains the Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law. His intention was to compose a book that would guide Jews on how to behave in all situations just by reading the Torah and his code, without having to spend large amounts of time searching through the Talmud. Needless to say, this provocative rationale did not endear Maimonides to many traditional Jews, who feared that people would rely on his code and no longer study the Talmud. Despite sometimes intense opposition, the Mishneh Torah became a standard guide to Jewish practice. It later served as the model for the Shulkhan Arukh, the sixteenth century code of Jewish law that is still regarded as authoritative by Orthodox Jews.

The letter discovered in the Geniza is penned by Maimonides’ personal secretary Mevorkh Ben Nathan. In the letter Maimonides pleads for funds to ransom Jewish captives taken prisoner in November 1168 in Bilbeis, Egypt, by the Crusader king Amalric of Jerusalem in his attack on the town.

Philosophically, Maimonides was a religious rationalist. His damning attacks on people who held ideas he regarded as primitive — those, for example, who understood literally such biblical expressions as “the finger of God” so infuriated his opponents that they proscribed parts of his code and all of The Guide to the Perplexed. Other, more liberal, spirits forbade study of the Guide to anyone not of mature years.

Several years ago during the nineteen nineties, Albert Friedberg, a Jewish businessman from Toronto Canada was attending a conference on Jewish Studies. Professor Neil Danzig, an expert in Geonic literature, was lecturing on the current condition of Genizah research. Dr. Danzig lamented that "although over a century has elapsed since the discovery of this material, (Cairo Genizah) little has been done to bring to light all its hidden treasures." The trove of material was at the time un-catalogued, and only a few experts had any idea of what it contained. Although many scholarly articles had been written over the years, they were all scattered through a multitude of extant and no longer extant journals, and written in many different languages. Much precious material remained abandoned in the boxes and basements of museums and libraries.

Seeing the enormous opportunity for Jewish studies, Mr. Friedberg established “The Friedberg Genizah Project” with the goal of producing a unified catalogue of all Cairo Genizah fragments located around the world. As a result, scholars will be able to use a search engine to collate scattered remnants of documents or books – in all the languages of the Genizah – and be able to view them together, regardless of their actual location. The project also aims to transcribe the content of Genizah fragments to allow scholars to conduct text searches. Several years later Mr. Friedberg elucidated on the significance of the project: "To give you an idea of the immensity of the find, consider that there are some 210,000 Genizah items, representing over 700,000 folios, spread around the world, 140,000 of them in Cambridge, 17,000 in the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and the rest in various other institutions, in such places as Paris, Oxford, Budapest, London, Manchester, St Petersburg, Jerusalem, and Philadelphia. The subjects covered included the Hebrew Bible and its commentaries, the Talmud and its commentaries, midrash, halachah, aggadah, prayer, liturgical poetry, responsa, philosophy, theology, grammar, contracts - commercial and ketubbot - letters, medicine, astronomy, kabbalah, and magic.” Mr. Friedberg continued that, "Having heard of the sorry state of affairs in which this invaluable cultural treasure was found, we decided to bring together a group of leading scholars in the field to co-ordinate work on the Genizah.”

As a result of the “The Friedberg Genizah Project” numerous people, periods and text will come to life for the individual interested in Jewish student.

I am thankful to the Genizah Project for giving me the opportunity to be able to sit by a computer in Memphis TN, and view this most wonderful collection of Jewish treasures.

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[1] Talmud Psachim 56a

[2] Shevut Yaakov 3:10