RABBI BOYARSKI AND STRANGE MENTAL ASSOCIATIO​NS

Third installment in a series written for Felix and Adam. It is late, and I am slightly beyond reason at this point.

I had been deep in conversation with a pipe smoker wearing a kilt when the chicken man walked into the tobacco store. Within mere moments I could feel my eye-lids grow heavy, as a bone-crushing ennui gripped me. The chicken man has that effect. He was trying to tell me a lange eingewikkelte meise about a relative who passed away while simultaneously referring to an English scholar of chassidismus.
As well as a chabadnik, whose connection with the foregoing escaped me.
Four months previously the conversation involved a masechte nobody ever reads, and kabalah.
Those of you who know him, know the effect.

[Kilt: an eccentric Keltic garment, both très geshmak and butch. Lange eingewikkelte meise: a long complicated story. Lang, lange: long. Eingewikkelte: tzerdraite. Meise: a story, a narrative example. Chassidismus: a version of Judaism from Eastern Europe that stresses faith, joy, and sincerity over scholarship and rigour. It provided an alternative to the intelektiwelische drang of the famous Yeshivos, and was consequently much opposed by the brilliant lights of Lithuanian Judaism, and especially by academies such as Volozhin, Slobodka, Ponevetch, and Mir. At the beginning, the contra-Chassidics were identified with the Gaon of Vilna (Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer), today it is perhaps best to think of Soloveitchik and Brisk as holding such simplicity at bay. Chabad: the Lubavitcher Chassidim, who among other things give much credence to a book that I find impossible to read without fury (Tanya, more commonly known as Likutei Amarim, by Rabbi Shneuer Zalman), but whose many shluchim do much good, even among the Gentiles. Masechte: a tractate of Talmud. One cannot really study Talmud without also going through the Shulchan Aruch ('the well-arranged table', by Yosef Karo) and without having at least a passing familiarity with the Arba Turim of Yakov ben Asher. Kabalah: sheer nonsense, and consequently popular among celebrities.]


The only thing that helps is a massive injection of cortisone, or ingestion of something rich and sweet.
Neither was available. The tobacconist that serves tasty cups of crème caramel, bread pudding, or sweet noodle kugel doesn't exist yet.
And I wouldn't trust any of those people to rip off my shirt and slam a long needle directly through my sternum.

Tzimmes, or noodle kugel? That is the question.
The first does not seem particularly appetizing, even if it is sweet. It requires the company of a plate of brisket, and some fairly mediocre wine.
Whereas a refined pipe smoker like myself would be more inclined towards a dry sherry, and a book about something obscure.

Imagine then, a serving of Kugel, the sherry, a volume of dikdukei soferim, or maybe a Tikkun.


JERUSALEM KUGEL

Half a pound fine or medium noodles.
Half a cup sugar.
Quarter cup oil.
One teaspoon ground pepper.
Quarter teaspoon salt.
Three eggs, slightly beaten.

Preheat your oven at 350 degrees.
Cook the noodles till tender in a large pot of salted water. Drain and cool.
Heat the oil and carefully add the half of the sugar. When the sugar turns colour (caramelizes), remove from heat and stir to keep it from burning, then promptly add the noodles, remaining sugar, salt, and pepper, and mix together. When it is cold enough, mix in the eggs. Gloop it all into a greased pyrex dish, and place it in the oven for an hour or so, till gilded and crisped on top.

The amount of pepper can be increased. Raisins can be added but are not orthodox. Note that perfect caramel is a beautiful ruddy hue, whereas anything noticeably darker verges on burnt. Let it sit for while before serving.


Instead, you might prefer something a little more old-fashioned, perhaps with a bit of Amontillado, and a nice article about literary archeology.


APPLE SAUCE NOODLE KUGEL

Half a pound fine or medium noodles.
Half a cup sugar.
Two cups (1 pint) sour cream.
Two cups (16 fl.oz) applesauce.
Quarter cup raisins.
Pinches cinnamon, dry ginger, ground cardamom, salt.
4 eggs, slightly beaten.
Butter.

Cook the noodles till tender in a large pot of salted water. Drain and cool.
Mix all ingredients together. Gloop it all into a greased pyrex dish. Dot with butter.
place it in the oven for an hour or so.
Three hundred and fifty degrees.


You could also read The Lonely Man of Faith, by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik while pensively eating your kugeln.
Which is highly recommended.


In any case, either of these kiglech, with or without the sherry, should inculcate a nice Litvishe attitude - more than sufficient to counter the absurd amateurish baalshemism of the chicken man, and in keeping with the spare persevering scholarship of both Rabbi Shmuel Shlomo Boyarksi and Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, who were mentioned in the previous post.
The kugel yerushalmi would probably have even been something that both men had tasted numerous times.

The wine, not so much.

While not yayin nesech, it is stam yainom, and hence something with which neither of those gentlemen would have had much truck.
Rav Breuer because he was a sincere and erliche mentsh, rav Boyarski because as a sofer he had to adhere rigorously to the full set of rules that dictate a clean and trustworthy life. Both were choshuve leite, a chezkas kashrus pre-empts their consuming such a product.
I myself, as mamesh a gontseh goy, have a chezkas of lo kashrus entirely when it comes to food and drink.
As you might have noticed from some of my other food posts.
Though not so much an epicurean as an apikoros.

[Yayin nesech: wine that has been poured for an idol (such as arguably communion wine may be), as was common among the heathens. Stam Yainom: wine handled or made by an idolator or someone who holds by idolatry. Erliche: honest, and by extension upright, sincere, and reliable. Mentsh: human being, but more usually person in the most positive sense. Sofer: a scribe, more specifically a scribe producing religious texts, whose personal conduct, sincerity, and adherence to the rules has to be beyond reproach, in order that the products of his hand can be considered kosher. Choshuve: proper and reliable, respectable. Leite: people. Chezkas Kashrus: one of my favourite concepts, being that there is a presumption of correctness and reliability to a person, organization, or thing, based on what is known. Such as, for instance, the talmid muvak of a respected rabbi might have, or a pipe manufactured by Dunhill prior to the eighties (examine the date marking on the bottom of the shank). Mamesh: a gevaldike virt that serves to emphasize - certainly, completely, entirely, all together, how can you possibly doubt what I say? Gontseh: another gevaldikeit, meaning entirely, all of. Goy: nation, but also a masculine Gentile. Lo: no, not, none. Apikoros: better than a shaigetz, if married to your daughter. But still not quite our kind dearie.]


FINAL NOTE: there is no real connection between a kugel (or kigl) and either gentleman named above. But ever since Rabbi Boyarski was mentioned, I have had Yerushalmi kugel on my mind. A bee in the bonnet, if you will.
No, I cannot explain that. Perhaps it's because it is quintessentially Ashkenazi, perhaps the place name connection.
But perhaps this Thanksgiving you should prepare a kugel as one of the dishes?
It would be far better than that weird candied yam muck.
A bit of ginger is an excellent addition.
Good for your digestion.
Takeh.


[Boyarski: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.]

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RABBI BOYARSKI, RABBI BREUER, AND THE ELEVATION OF TEXTS

This post is for Adam, who may never read it, and Felix, who probably will.
Part two of a piece inspired by mention of a rabbi who lived in Jerusalem.

[Part one may be found here: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2011/11/rabbi-boyarski-segueing-sideways-or-why.html . ]


The Rabbi in question, Samuel Solomon Boyarski, moved to Jerusalem in 1857 with his second wife and the two sons of his deceased first wife.
He died in 1888 or afterwards.
Not much is known about him, and alas, I shall not contribute in any significant way to what little is available on the internet.

What we do know is that he was a prodigy, and spent most of his life studying. And it is in part because of his labours that the pool of our knowledge has increased. In Jerusalem, Rabbi Boyarski worked as a sofer, over his lifetime completing a set of scrolls for the entire Tanach. It was while writing the portions Tehilim ('psalms), Mishlei, ('proverbs'), and Iyov ('Job') that he studied the notations made by Moishe Yehoshue Kimchi in the margins of a printed Tanach belonging to Rav Solem Schachne Yellin - Kimchi having spent some considerable time in Aleppo carefully examining one of the oldest extant Hebrew bibles, known as the Aleppo Codex.

[Sofer: a scribe, more particularly a scribe who writes Toratos, Megillos, y otros. Tanach: standard acronym for the Bible - Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim.]


KETER ARAM TZOVA

The Aleppo Codex was likely created by Shlomo ben Abuya and Aharon ben Asher in the tenth century C.E., and is considered the most accurate extant copy of the entire Bible. For a while it was in Jerusalem, then ended up in Cairo where the Rambam inspected it. The Rambam's descendants are reputed to have taken it to Aleppo in Syria by the end of the thirteen hundreds, where it remained for the next six centuries.
Along with the Codex Cairensis and the Leningrad Codex, it is one of the primary source-examples for the Biblical text, particularly as regards the correct pronunciation of Hebrew.

[Keter Aram Tzova: The Crown of Aleppo, that being the Hebrew name for the Aleppo Codex. Aram Tzova: Aleppo, which is part of the area anciently known as Aram, where the Akkadians dwelt. The kingdom of Tzova is at one end, the Yoke of Aram (Padan Aram) at the other. In between is Aram Naharain: Aram of the two rivers (the Euphrates and the Tigris). Aram Tzova is mentioned in psalm 60, as one of the enemies of King David. Shlomo ben Abuya, Aharon ben Asher: two masoretes (Baalei Mesora), of whom the latter is the most famous, being both a member of an esteemed Masoretic family as well as the redactor who added sound to the vowelless text enscribed by Shlomo ben Abuya. The Rambam: Rabbi Moses ben Maimon of Cordova (1135 - 1204), one of the most famous of scholars of mediaeval Jewry, and a source for much authoritative commentary on a vast wealth of subjects Talmudic, Biblical, and philosophical. The French monks burned copies of his books, considering such depth and breadth threatening to their primitive creed. Codex Cairensis: the oldest complete text of Neviim ('prophets'), vowelized by Moishe ben Asher of Tiberias (Tveriya, one of the four main cities of the Jewish population that had remained in the Holy Land continuously even since the Roman excesses) over eleven centuries ago. Leningrad Codex: the oldest complete manuscript of the Bible in Hebrew with the masoretic text and Tiberian nikkud.]


The Rambam was probably one of the first great scholars to hold it in high esteem, Rashash Boyarski based the paragraph and poetic breaks in his megillos upon it, and, in our century, Rabbi Mordechai Breuer indirectly based his work upon it.

[Megillos: Scrolls. Most commonly the five scrolls of the Torah (chomeish megillos) are meant, though all other books of the Bible are also im gonzen megillos.]


In the late sixties, a century after Rashash Boyarski had examined Moishe Kimchi's meticulous notes, Rav Breuer become an editor for Da'as Mikra, a project intended to provide a modern commentary that was true to tradition. Rabbi Breuer was tasked with assuring the accuracy of the text's spelling, vowelization, and cantilation. His relevant expertise for the task was that he was an acknowledged expert in his field, having carefully proofread an edition of the Bible a decade previously.

[Da'as Mikra: two words - da'as, meaning knowledge, and mikra, meaning that which is read. Hence knowledge of the correct reading as it relates to the Biblical text, which without the input of the Masoretes we would be in the dark about. Quite different from Da'as Toireh, which is the rather simple-minded faith that the rabbonim know everything better. Some do, by no means all, and those that do by no means everything. Unless they have the depth and breadth of a Rambam, than whom there are none.]


The stumbling block with which he was presented, however, was in some ways typical of the academic milieu: specifically, that although the Aleppo Codex would have been, should have been, a primary source for textual correctness, the Hebrew University's Mifal Ha Mikra project jealously guarded the document and refused research access. With that door closed, Rav Breuer availed himself of the only other sources available to him, namely other manuscripts of a lesser age and provenance, comparing these word by word and paragraph by paragraph, deciding between variants in the manuscripts on the assumption that they derived from the same original source document.

[Mifal ha Mikra: not, as you might expect , a serious competitor of Mifal Ha Payus (long suspected of having a monopoly on dreidlech), but 'The Work of What is Read'. Mifal in modern Hebrew means a manufactory, sometimes a workshop. Mikra often is applied specifically to the reading of scripture, and hence indicates in this context the correct pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew and deduction of meanings.]


Luck was with him. Despite being barred from the Crown of Northern Aram itself, he managed to get a hold of the Bible with Moishe Kimchi's marginal annotations, and also, both remarkably and inexplicably, photocopies of the Aleppo Codex. These confirmed (with only two exceptions) that his assumptions were correct.
In other words, there was a direct correlation between the other manuscripts and the Aleppo Codex.


Rav Breuer is rightly considered one of the greatest scholars of the modern era. But the field in which he labored coincides most marvelously with that of the scribe, whose attention to detail and correct materials mirrors, AND overlaps, his focus on the correct reading.


For some reason the tools and trade of soferim, scarce changed over centuries, always remind me of two other subjects - not the pitch black ink of text, but the sea snail exuded indigo blue of techeiles, of which the method of manufacture has reputedly been rediscovered (after an interval of over ten centuries), and the oak bug crimson used ritually, sheni tolaas, traded extensively throughout all the lands of the ancient near-east, at great price. Ink, like rare dyes, has always been precious. As witness the worth of the Keter Aram Tzova, as well as Rav Breuer's magnum opus, the Keter Aram Tzova ve ha Nusach Hamekubal Shel Mikra.
To name but two examples.


Tomorrow: an entirely irrelevant recipe for a dish that Eastern Europeans invented in the Holy City.
Somehow, I'll connect it to all of this. Not quite sure how.
Stay tuned. Everything at some point involves food.


[Boyarski: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.]

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RABBI BOYARSKI: SEGUEING SIDEWAYS, OR WHY EVERYTHING EVENTUALLY BRINGS UP EVERYTHING ELSE

This post is for Adam, who may never read it, and Felix, who probably will.
Yesterday evening, at the only public place in downtown San Francisco where you may smoke indoors, I spoke with a gentleman who was here for a convention. San Francisco over the years has hosted many such - the geologists came to town after several months of whacking rocks in the desert with their small hammers, and went giddy at suddenly being surrounded by people again. The dentists have been here, various other branches of medicine, and of course scientific geeks of all kinds.
Such things up the average intelligence level, if only for a few days.

My conversational partner was in town for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Bible scholars in San Francisco. It's a miracle.

Among many other things, we discussed Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (whom I mentioned because Dovbear is now rereading (and citing) Rabbeinu Sforno's perush ha Torah, which I first encountered in 2004), Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the documentary hypothesis, and the masoretes.

[Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno: A famous Italian exegete from Bologna (though born in Cesena), whose writings are still consulted to this day. His commentary on Pirkei Avos ('The Chapters of the Fathers') has a favoured place in my library. Dovbear: a well-known and well-regarded Jewish blogger, whom I read on a daily basis - the readers who leave comments on his posts are a very interesting lot, and one can find both thoughts better expressed than one could do oneself, as well as ideas that will repulse and offend. Plus humour, wit, and eloquence. If you have never visited him, you may find the link to his blog to the right on this page. Ibn Ezra: A great twelfth century Jewish scholar from Spain, whose scriptural commentary is clear and clean. Often, like Sforno, it contrasts with or outright negates the mefarshus of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki), which too often seeks to clean up loose ends and answer questions of only dubious import - though Rashi's Talmudic expositoria is quite otherwise and almost beyond compare.]


Which, almost automatically brings three great codices to mind, namely the Codex Cairensis, the Leningrad Codex, and the Aleppo Codex.
All three were carefully enscribed nearly a thousand years ago, and are the best examples of what the Masoretes have wrought.

[Masoretes: Baalei ha mesorah: The masters of the tradition. Scholar-scribes who focused on the grammar, cantilation, punctuation, and correct pronunciation of the Biblical texts, producing what is now the standard ketiv menukad of the text. Most notable among them was the Ben Asher family, although Ben Naftali is held in scarcely less esteem. Masorah (tradition) is often applied to the fully vowelized written language, and must be distinguished from the text in a Sefer Torah (a Torah Scroll), which must always be written according to specific rules, and significantly, lacks vowel markings.]


In the same way that scribes have elevated the texts, the texts have molded and marked the scribes.
And, in connection with the last named document (the Aleppo Codex), mention must be made of a man whose name is known because of it.


RASHASH BOYARSKI

It is perhaps primarily because of the Aleppo Codex that a Lithuanian rabbi who had moved to Jerusalem in 1857 is best known.
Rabbi Boyarski (Rashash Boyarski, after his two given names: Samuel Solomon) tasked an associate (Moishe Yehoshue Kimchi) to carefully copy the manuscript, and subsequently wrote in detail about the codex in his book 'Ammudei Shesh'. At that time the famous codex was still complete, and was safeguarded by the Jewish community of Aleppo, in whose pssession it had been for centuries, after passing through a thousand hands since it was written. Maimonides examined it, and wrote the Hilchos Sefer Torah in his Mishneh Torah based upon that study, detailing the precise rules for writing Torah scrolls. In 1949 the book was damaged in the Syrian anti-Jewish pogrom which dispersed the Allepan community, and when it was brought to Israel in 1958 a large part of it was missing, presumed lost.

[Aleppo: A town in Northern Syria probably best known for a mild, sweet, and fragrant chilipepper - the 'ful halabi'. Boyarski: regionomen signifying a native or inhabitant of Boyarka, a town near Kiev in the Ukraine (which is where my grandfather was stationed in World War One, when he was with the American Red Cross contingent aiding the Russians - he and several other American officers fled south into Persia when Russia collapsed). The name probably derives from an old Slavic term for great, rich, noble - alternatively, valiant, fierce, bold. It being remembered, of course, that the Kievan oblast is the heart of the Rus frontier, contested for centuries by Varangians, Turks, Bulgars, and Ruthenians. There was much scope for both greatness and ferocity there. Ammudei Shesh: Pillars of marble. The title of Rabbi Boyarski's magnum opus, dealing with a number of different subjects more or less related to the sacrifices and services in the Beis HaMikdash (the Holy Temple which was destroyed, first by the Babylonians, then by the Romans). The name is taken from Shir Ha Shirim asher liShlomo (The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's - the astute reader will naturally notice the titular felicity, given the custom of coinciding one's own name with a scriptural phrase recalling, however distantly, the same), verse 5:15 "shokav amudei shesh meyusadim al-adneifaz mareihu kalvanon bachur ka'arazom" ('his legs are as pillars of marble set on bases of finest gold'), which is taken to metaphorically indicate the righteous who are occupied with the law and with instruction - a young scholar strong as the cedars, an elderly scholar whitened by age and compassion for the house of Israel. Maimonides: Rabbi Moishe ben Maimon of Cordova (1135 - 1204), who fled the insanity of the Almohades in Spain, eventually ending up as physician to the Caliph in Egypt. One of the most famous of Jewish scholars, whose works are an endless sea of brilliance - mi Moishe ad Moishe, lo kam ki Moishe ('from Moses to Moses, there is none like Moses'). Syrian: The modern term for a native of a country to the north of the Holy Land, though in Ottoman times the term Syria encompassed a much larger region, including Lebanon and most of Jordan and Israel. Israel: Jacob and his descendants, as well as the only democracy in the Middle East.]


RABBI SHMUEL SHLOMO BEN MOISHE MEIR BOYARSKI

The son of Moishe Meir Boyarski was born in 1820 or thereabouts in Grodno, which a generation before had been taken by Russia after several centuries of Lithuanian rule. The city is outside Lithuania proper, in Black Ruthenia (part of White Russia - Bellorus). Like many cities and towns in that area it was ethnically mixed - Poles, Litvaks, Russians, and Jews of all stripes. His first wife, the daughter of Rabbi Zev Wolf of Bialystok, died young, leaving him with two sons, Avigdor (named after his great grandfather) and Zev Wolf (probably named after his father in law).
His second wife was the daughter of Rav Baruch of Kovno, who graciously supported him so that he could devote himself to study.

[I have not been able to ascertain who Rav Baruch was, as there were several rabbonim named Baruch associated with Kovno (Kaunas): Baruch Levi Horowitz, Baruch Dov Leibowitz, Baruch Horowitz, Baruch Ber Leibowitz, inter alia.
Kovno, which had at one point been a center of Torah learning, has not been particularly noteworth since Prince Nikolai Nikolaievich expelled all Jewish residents in May 1915, following which the good Christians of the town looted everything, and destroyed what they could. After the Russians lost the town, some of the Jews returned. In World War Two, the Germans established a ghetto which held as many as forty thousand people at one point. Due to the efficiency of the Germans and the fervent Christianity of the Lithuanians, approximately five hundred people survived. It is a beautiful city that reeks of death, and which you have no reason to visit. ]


In 1857, Rabbi Boyarski with his wife and kinderlech moved to Jerusalem, where due to the generosity of his brother Yisroel Chayim (deceased 1888) he could continue to devote himself to his studies. At that time Zionism had not yet become a significant movement, and the Jewish population of the Holy Land live in what has since been referred to as the Yishuv ha-Yashan ('the old settlement), consisting mainly of Yerushalayim, Tzfat, Tveriya, and Hevron, with minor Jewish populations elsewhere. Despite the efforts of the Romans and later the Christian conquerors of the Midlle-Ages, there have always been descendants of Jacob in the land - both those who never left, and generation after generation of those who came back.

It can be assumed that Rav Boyarski was influenced by the thoughts of his first father in law, author of among other things a work on the laws of temple service (Aggudas Ezov - the Congregation of Hyssop), and at that time many of the scholars resident in the Holy Land were rediscovering, or re-examing, the details of ritual life that had over centuries been somewhat obscured, and in some cases, reviving them.
As a sofer, no doubt Rav Boyarski was aware of what characteristics applied to correct ink ( - it is black, it is permanent, it does not fade, and cannot be erased - ), and which recipes for compounding yielded a suitable product, as well as what surfaces are acceptable for a kosher scroll (carefully cured parchment), and how the letters should be formed. A focus on such minutiae underscores an approach to ritualia that is normative in such diverse things as constructing the tefillin, and, in the last part of the nineteenth century, a type of blue dye which had been lost since ancient times.

[Kinderlech: children (Yiddish). Sofer: a scribe, specifically a scribe who writes kosher scrolls, such as the Torah, the book of Esther, and sometimes the entire Tanach ('Torah, Neviim, Ketubim - the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings). Kosher: ritually acceptable, and by extension both clean and correct. As far as meat is concerned that means certain animals only, slaughtered (schechted) in a certain way and with clean internal organs, as far as practices go it implies both halachically ('legally') correct AND with a presumption of ethics, and as far as objects are concerned made correctly and with the proper attention to details. Torah Scroll: Sefer Torah, written with a quill and oak gall ink on cured parchment or hide from a kosher animal, containing exactly 304,805 letters in Ksav Ashuri (Assyrian Script), copied from another Torah Scroll. Tefillin: Phylacteries, also called 'totafos'. Square boxes containing a roll of scripture affixed to the head and weaker arm with straps ('retzuos') tied a particular way. Concerning the order in which the four passages from scripture contained in the shel rosh (the phylactery on the head) are placed, the two variations are according to Rashi (rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak) and Rabbeinu Tam (Yakov ben Meir, "our righteous rabbi", Rashi's son in law). Hence the practice among some people to wear both sets.]


While there is NO indication that the ancient dye preoccupied Rabbi Boyarski, it is a sufficiently interesting subject that it deserves mention in greater detail.
That will be the subject of the next post along with some totally immaterial discussion of other colours and a kugel, which, bezras Hashem, will be finished within several hours.


[Boyarski: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.]

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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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