Or 17107

From the archives of Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor (HED): multiple, disparate Jewish topics contained in single units.

Or 17107 (1): Recto: Passover and the paschal offering in Egypt. Verso: in Judeo-Arabic, Bar Mitzvah, a young man’s assumption of religious obligations such as the donning of tefillin, and the meaning of his father’s blessing: … she-peṭarani me-‘onsho shel zeh / שפטרני מענשו של זה = … Who has exempted me from the punishment of this one’.

Or 17107 (2): Dated: Sunday, first day of the month of Tamuz 5655 [Anno Mundi = 23 June 1895 CE]. [1] folio 1r – mid folio 2r: sermon on divine expectation, sin, and repentance; from the work Ketonet Pasim / כתונת פסים, citing the work Erets Ḥemda / ארץ חמדה, and with original content by HED (signified by עש”יר); [2] mid folio 2r – mid 2v: word-study on the time-related terms ‘et / עת and zeman / זמן, from the periodical Yeshurun / ישורון year 5624 [Anno Mundi = 1863/4 CE]; [3] mid folio 2v – 3r: word-study on terms related to the interrogative “Where?”, Hebrew איה (אי) איפה (איפו אפוא) = ’a-ye, ’e, ’efoh, from loc. cited: [4] folio 3v: word-study on terms related to the interrogative “Why?”, Hebrew madua‘ / מדוע and lamah / למה, from loc. cited; [5] begins bottom 3v, but the rest is lost: word-study on terms related to miracles: ot / אות, mofet / מופת, and nes / נס.

Or 17107 (3): Recto: [1] word-study on terms for ‘friends’: dodim / דודים, re‘im / רעים, mere‘im / מרעים, from ha-Me’asef / המאסף, year 17, section 41. [2] In Exodus 15:21, where Miriam leads the women in the Song at the Sea, why is a masculine pronoun used: ‘Miriam responded to them’ [masculine]? From ibid. section 11, volume 2. [3] Meaning, in Deuteronomy 8:9, of eating bread in a state of poverty, from ibid. issue 6, section 86. [4] Extracting ethics from the story of the penitent Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya / רבי אלעזר בן דורדיא, Babylonian Talmud ‘Avodah Zarah 17a. Note at end: until here copied in my new notebook. [5] Riddle: what is permitted on a festival but not afterwards? [6] Brief homily on Queen Vashti’s refusal to appear before King Ahasuerus (Esther 1:12). Verso: [7] Sermon for Purim, on the threat of Jewish extinction in Esther 3:13, followed by the passage in Babylonian Talmud Shabat 133b that the fulfilment of the Torah’s commandments should be done in a beautiful manner, followed by the body of the sermon, opening with a phrase that embodies an acrostic of the Tetragrammaton: ‘The matter is known, and the concept is well known’ / ידוע הדבר ומפורסם הענין.

Or 17107 (4): Recto: commentary on Song of Songs. Verso: insights into the central prayer of Judaism, the ‘18 Benedictions’ (shemoneh ‘esreh / שמונה עשרה).

Or 17107 (5): From a larger collection of short Torah and ethical insights, one sheet, containing items 86 – 122.

Or 17107 (6): Excerpts from Devir / דביר volume 1, published in the year [5604 Anno Mundi = 1844 CE] (corrected from HED’s ‘5644’), by the writer Mordechai Aaron Ginzburg [Vilna Maskil, 1795 – 1846]: [1] recto and beginning of verso: word-study on terms meaning “with”: ‘im / עם and ’et / את, with 7 case-studies. [2] most of verso: 10 ethical parables.

Or 17107 (7): 22 numbered items (plus the number 23, left blank), ranging in content from word-studies, ethical poems, riddles, parables, fables and stories, and analysis of Scripture and Talmud – copied from the periodical Kokheve Yitsḥaḳ / כוכבי יצחק, years 5611 – 5629 [Anno Mundi = 1850/1 - 1868/70 CE]. [See next item, MS Or 17107 (8).]

Or 17107 (8): Gleanings from the periodical Kokheve Yitsḥaḳ / כוכבי יצחק: word-studies, analysis of divine names, philosophical speculations, ethical parable. [See previous item, MS Or 17107 (7).]

Or 17107 (9): Many but not all of these items are relevant to the Days of Awe. Recto: ‘Pleasant gleanings from Hebrew periodicals and other books’: 7 numbered items: [1] On Psalm 144:8, ‘Whose mouths speak vanity, and whose right hand is a right hand of falseness’, from Ha-Tsefira / הצפירה year 6, no. 7, p. 53. [2] Why King David begins Psalms with ‘Happy is the man’, from the column Yarkete Levanon / ירכתי לבנון in the periodical ha-Levanon / הלבנון, year 15(?). [3] on Job 2:10, ‘We accept the good … and as for the bad …’, from op. cit. [4] On the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, ‘For You hear the sound of the shofar, You hearken to the trilled blast, and there in none like You’, from op. cit., no. 46, year 15. [5] The meaning of the “tashlikh” / תשליך practice on the day of Rosh Hashanah, ibid. no. 47 (referenced but not copied). [6] ‘For you will not go out in a rush, and you will not go fleeing’ (Isaiah 52:12), from ha-Levanon / הלבנון, no. 24, year 17. Recto – top verso: [7] Semantic range of the term P-T-Ḥ = “opening”, copied from the introduction to the work Mishkan Daṿid / משכן דוד, quoted in the work Maśa Ḳadim / משא קדים, p. 192. Verso: [A] On the prohibition against following the majority for bad, Exodus 23:2, from Yalḳuṭ ha-ro‘im / ילקוט הרועים, p. 43. [B] On Isaiah 26:17, ‘As a pregnant woman who draws close to giving birth begins to shout in her birth-pangs, so were we before You, O Lord’, from No‘am megadim / נועם מגדים. [C] A sermon for Yom Kipur that coincides with the Sabbath, from the work No‘am megadim / נועם מגדים.

Or 17107 (10): Recto: columns A – C, wise sayings of the philosophers, Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. Recto column D – verso mid column C, discussion of Habakuk 3:8-11, from the work Ot le-ṭovah / אות לטובה. Verson bottom column C – top column D, homily on Proverbs 17:28, ‘Even a fool, keeping silent, will be thought wise’. Verso column D: Homily on Babylonian Talmud Soṭah 13b on Deuteronomy 3:26, ‘The Lord said: Enough to you’.

Or 17107 (11): [1] End of discussion of ‘discreet fund’ in the Jerusalem Temple, from Keneset ha-Gedolah / כנסת הגדולה, vol. 4, year 5651 [Anno Mundi = 1900/1 CE, page 96, section 3]. [2] Word-study, relation between the roots Hebrew Ḥ-S-R, S-R-Ḥ, and S-Ḥ-R / חסר, סרח, סחר, ibid. p. 49 (224). [3]. Word-study, the two vocalizations for the Hebrew word for small, root Ḳ-Ṭ-N / קטן: ḳaṭon or ḳaṭan, ibid. p. 52 (227). [4] Sermon by HED (עשי”ר): God cherishes human participation in perfecting the creation, thus tasking the people of Israel with building His sanctuary and with removing the foreskin.

Or 17107 (12): 9 numbered items (plus the number 10, left blank), on scriptural verses and Talmudic passages, copied from ha-Tsofeh / הצופה, supplement to the periodical ha-Magid / המגיד, year 13.

Or 17107 (13): Exegesis of biblical and Rabbinic texts, copied from the work Shemen ha-mor / שמן המור [published Warsaw 1890; by Rabbi Abraham Bär Flahm, latter 19th century].

Or 17107 (14): Folio 1: [1] Sermon for Rosh Hashanah, taken from Malbim on Numbers, Pericope Be-Ha‘alotekha / בהעלותך, on the trumpets discussed in 10:1-10. [2] Folio 2 recto: Malbim on the beginning of the book of Ruth: the famine; midrash on Naomi’s bereavement. [3] Folio 2 verso: 70 terms used for the People of Israel; Terms used for the Torah.

Or 17107 (15): 2 items copied from the work Boḥen tsadiḳ / בוחן צדיק [by the maskil Joseph Perl]: Recto: in praise of Judah ha-Levi's work Kuzari; Verso: ‘Letter of a man from India to his king, who had sent him to contemplate the deeds and nomoi of the Nation of England’.

Or 17107 (16): Exegesis of biblical and Rabbinic texts, copied from two related works: [1] Recto and verso through mid column C: Gleanings from the work Emunat Ḥakhamim / אמונת חכמים by Rabbi Avi ‘Ad Sar Shalom Basilea / הר’ אבי עד שר שלום באזילה of sainted memory, consisting of 20 numbered items. [2] Verso mid column C and column D: from the work Avneṭ bad / אבנט בד, an introduction to the previous work, by Rabbi Dov Berish Torsh.

Or 17107 (17): From a collection of sermons and homiletical items: three folios, paginated (in Hebrew alphanumeric designation) 21-22; 23-24; and 25-26 respectively, from a larger grouping. [1] Folio 1r = HED’s page 21: end of item by Rabbi Sadqa Hussein (Tsadḳa Ḥussein) the First (1699 – 1772), on I Samuel 14, Saul’s adjuration of the people to not eat. [2] Folio 1v = HED’s page 22: item by the above-mentioned Rabbi Sadqa Hussein the First on Genesis 48:5-9, the connection between Rachel’s sudden death and Jacob’s blessing Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Menashe. [3] Folios 2 & 3 = HED’s pages 23-26, sermon; epigraph: Genesis 24:1, ‘Abraham was old [or: an elder], getting on in days’: lemma: Leviticus Rabbah 11:8, on goodness of being an ‘elder’ in the sense of a wise person, regardless of one’s age; opening of the body of the sermon: acrostic imbedding the Tetragrammaton in a topical phrase: Let the elders listen and let the youths understand’ / ישמעו הזקנים ויבינו הנערים; HED brings multiple interpretations, plus his own gloss (bottom of folio 3r = HED’s page 25). As indicated by the catchword at the bottom of folio 3v, HED continues with additional interpretations, not preserved in the present fragment.

Or 17107 (18): 2 series of numbered extracts, 20 items in each, consisting of homilies on various Jewish themes such as the Sabbath, biblical verses, Rabbinic passages, etc., from the Hasidic work Bene Yiśaśkhar / בני יששכר: series 1, folios 1 – 3; and series 2, folios 4 and 5.

Or 17107 (19): 2 sides of fragment of printed page. Recto: fragment of letter no. 95 by Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein of Kolomaya to Rephael of Baghdad, dated Thursday, 4 Tishri 5651 [Anno Mundi = 18 September 1890 CE], outlining a pietistic regimen. Verso: fragment of liturgical poem, a pizmon / פזמון for the festival of Sukkot, אשרי בוטח בי”י והיה י”י מבטחו, the acrostic of which spells Aaron Azriel (Aharon ‘Azri’el), be strong! / אהרן עזריאל חזק.

[End]