Just in time
Just published, the Drashah le-Pesah (Sermon for Passover, Oratio ad Pascam) of R Eleazar Rokeah of Worms arrived this afternoon. Looks good!
Update: Lots here, of course. For now, just a couple of things. One - the Rokeah says matter-of-factly that Kitniyot are not eaten on Pesah because they contain wheat. Simcha speculates that this is because of crop-rotation.
The introduction discusses the other halakhic works of the Rokeah, especially his Maase Rokeah. Somewhere there I noticed the comment that "today, young men wear rings as jewelry".
The footnotes overflow with information about manuscripts, unpublished medieval works and interesting parallels.
Update: Lots here, of course. For now, just a couple of things. One - the Rokeah says matter-of-factly that Kitniyot are not eaten on Pesah because they contain wheat. Simcha speculates that this is because of crop-rotation.
The introduction discusses the other halakhic works of the Rokeah, especially his Maase Rokeah. Somewhere there I noticed the comment that "today, young men wear rings as jewelry".
The footnotes overflow with information about manuscripts, unpublished medieval works and interesting parallels.
posted by manuscriptboy | 1:19 AM
4 Comments:
If I remember correctly from Simcha Emmanuel's article in Teudah 16 this text of Baal haRokeah includes possibly the earliest reference to the custom of not eating kitniyot, with the previous earliest source being either the Semak or the haggahot of R. Peretz on it.
If I recall Simcha references in his footnotes, at least in the article in Teudah, the book by Lynn white, Jr. _Medieval Technology and Social Change_. I picked it up a few years ago and it is an interesting read but when I came upon her section "The Three-Field Rotation and Improved Nutrition", pp. 69-76, I realized that I really was smart in buying it. When I read Simcha's article it was a true sense of כוונתי לדעת גדולים. According to White legumes just couldn't be grown with any efficiency before the three-field rotation. I was going to blog about it before Pesah but never got around to it. This type of analysis is a bit different from the almost ahistorical analysis by Ta-Shema and Golinkin, neither of them IMHO are able to answer why only in certain places and at a certain time did the prohibition develop.
I just thought the readership would like to know of two reissues published by Mossad haRav Kook and sold at their annual Book Sale:
Haberman's reissue of Rabbinowicz's "Maamar al Hadpassat haTalmud" which - however out dated, as it misses all sorts of publications of and about the talmud since 1960 or so - is an invaluable resource for any talmud study after the invention of the printing press.
David haLivni's PhD dissertation: "Seridim miPerush haRav Elyakim al Massekhet Taanit", which has been out of print for about 30 years, and contains, on top of quotes attributed to R. Elyakim, variae lectiones for Rabbeinu Hannanel and Rabbeinu Gershom printed in the Romm edition of the Talmud.
We are still wating for them to reprint, among others, books by Shraga Abramson and Sefer HaIgunnot and Yichusei Tannaim VaAmoraim.
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