By Rabbi Juan Mejia (RS ’09), Coordinator for the American Southwest, Be’chol Lashon 

Elijah Benamozegh, Israel and Humanity (1863), translated by Maxwell Luria (Paulist Press, 1995)

Israel and Humanity is the magnum opus of Italian rabbi and polymath Elijah Benamozegh. Born in the cosmopolitan city of Livorno in Italy in the early nineteenth century (only one year before 91�첥´s founder Rabbi Sabato Morais was born in the same city), Rabbi Benamozegh was a distinguished community leader, printer, kabbalist, and public intellectual both in Jewish and non-Jewish circles. In his erudite but extremely approachable and poetic treatise, Israel and Humanity, Benamozegh presents a bold and refreshing view of Judaism vis-a-vis other religions (with special emphasis on Christianity). Instead of falling into apologetics and triumphalism, Benamozegh is willing to delve deep and shine a light on the strengths and beauty of other religions, while extolling Judaism´s gifts.

Basing himself on kabbalistic and midrashic sources, he posits the existence of a primal universal religion which he calls “Hebraism.” Given that all world religions stem from this common proto-religion, there can be a fruitful dialogue between the faiths enabled by their shared parentage. The mission of Judaism is to be the preeminent guardian of this shared background; through its particularism, it is tasked with reminding the world of the universal and primordial truths that we all share. Benamozegh follows this exercise in the fields of theology, religious anthropology, and jurisprudence, articulating—for the first time—a revolutionary inclusive rereading of the Noahide covenant that expands to embrace the sincere practitioners of other world faiths.

Benamozegh’s book is not a critical or historical account of the development of religions, but rather a bold religious humanistic re-mapping of the relationship between Judaism and other faiths, between Jews and Gentiles. By mining deep into the Jewish sources, he emerges with a theory that eschews both the triumphalist vision of the fundamentalist and the relativistic skepticism of the Modern age. It is a refreshing forgotten classic for anyone interested in interfaith dialogue or those of us who wonder about the specific worth and mission of Judaism in an increasingly universalistic worldview.

Beginning with Siddur Sim Shalom, Conservative prayer books began including a slightly different version of the much-loved Sabbath evening hymn Yedid Nefesh. The changes, though mostly slight, caused—and sometimes still cause—confusion, disrupting those who learned the traditionally printed version of this hymn with different grammatical forms and a few different words. What caused the change and why was it deemed sufficiently important that it should supersede the better-known version?

Before answering these questions directly, it is important to note that different versions of the “same” text, common as they are, almost always make sense independently, such that the non-original version can be used without noticing any “mistakes.” This is the case with the non-original but “traditional” version of Yedid Nefesh. For example, the latter version appears in a form that adopts the standards of biblical grammar, which is perfectly correct on its own terms, and it replaces a phrase that originally read “shifhat olam” (eternal handmaiden) with “simhat olam” (eternal joy), both of which make sense in context. But, in fact, the poem was originally written using the grammar of rabbinic Hebrew, so these changes, amongst others, distort the original meaning of the poem. How do we know this?

Because the autograph (that is, in the hand of the author) copy of the song is preserved in manuscript, a manuscript found in the Rare Book Room of the Library of 91�첥 (see illustration). From this original copy, we know what the author intended, so the corrections found in our prayer books are not arbitrary. When a poet writes a poem, he or she composes the language of that poem in a very precise way. If we know what that poet wrote, we should respect her or his handiwork. Thus, changes of this kind in our prayer book are not an expression of pedantic scholarship; they are our way of respecting the poet’s creation—a creation the original of which you see before you. When our Rare Book Room reopens in the fall of 2019, please come by to see it in person!

By Dr. Aryeh Wineman, 91�첥 Alumnus (RS ’59)

Letters of Light: Passages from Ma’or va-shemesh by Aryeh Wineman (Pickwick Publications, 2015)

Letters of Light consists of over ninety excerpts translated from Ma’or va-shemesh, a classic Hasidic collection of homilies on the Torah-readings of the year composed by Kalonymus Kalman Epstein of Krakow, who died just short of two centuries ago. While written in a world very different from our own, the work, in some respects, remarkably addresses our own time and the quest for greater depth and spirituality that we witness in many quarters today.

In addition to the innovative quality of the preacher’s interpretation of the Torah-text, Ma’or va-shemesh points to a profound innerness Epstein claimed to find in the Torah as it speaks to the deepest level of a person’s psyche. This remarkable preacher and commentator was attuned to the overtones and allusions in the Torah-text. He viewed its more conventional reading as a garment covering the Torah’s deeper character and considered the Torah’s very letters as reflecting a light that transcends the more limited meaning of the words they comprise.

The teacher and preacher (and community organizer) in Krakow viewed the role both of community and of the individual in a way that might well speak to our contemporary reality. He recognized, for example, that a thousand people can pray together in a huge hall and yet the prayer of each person is different. The homilist’s ear perceived the uniqueness of every person and the consequential uniqueness of each person’s conception of God, which reflects the deepest aspect of the self. He envisioned a true community within which each member is like a star “that shines by its own light.”

His is a voice from the past that, in some significant respects, resonates with our own, recognizing and accommodating the demands both of community and of our own soulfulness.

Take a look at these pages from a volume in our collection () that includes the Pentateuch and Psalms, along with Masoretic notes and a grammatical introduction. It will not surprise you to learn that it was written in Yemen in 1325. Locating the manuscript in this time and place doesn’t surprise, because, stylistically speaking, it is so similar to Islamic art of the same period. As you may know, Muslims overwhelmingly avoided representation of living creatures in their art (the same cannot be said of Jews, who habitually ignored the second commandment), preferring to create their “images” with the words of scripture (in their case, the Quran). Here, the Hebrew scribe does the same thing, using the words of his scripture to create a beautiful (and very “Islamic”) “carpet page.”

Now, this is of course evidence of cultural influence—a phenomenon we have seen before. But it is more than that as well, for this Hebrew scribe, along with the Muslim artists he emulates, understands that true beauty is embodied in the words of God. It is the gift of God’s revealed word (as each religion understands it) that is beautiful, so the beauty of the word deserves to be beautified through beautiful and intricate creations that employ the words themselves. If only we understood the importance of this nexus, we would never again create a mundane, unbeautified book! To accomplish this, the student and the scholar need the brilliance of the artist, whose art can enrich all our hearts.