A fragment of a piyyut by Qilliri for Yom Kippur from the Collection of Yeshiva University
Shulamith Berger, Joseph Ginsberg, and Aaron Koller1
Yeshiva University owns two Geniza fragments. The first, published back in 1906 by Siegmund Fraenkel, is a section of Saadia’s commentary on Isaiah.2 The second is a fragment of a piyyut by El‘azar Qilliri. Although the piyyut is well known and has been published with a full critical apparatus and commentary, the YU fragment has flown under the radar.3 As we will see, though, our little fragment has its own stories to tell.
The two fragments were part of the archive of Rabbi Dr. Louis Lewin (1868 in Znin, Posen – 1941 in Bene Berak, Mandatory Palestine), who was married to Fraenkel’s sister Meta. Lewin was a professional rabbi in various German-speaking communities in Eastern Europe, eventually Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). He also had a PhD from Heidelberg; his doctorate on the second-century Rabbi Simeon b. Yoḥai was allegedly the first Jewish biography accepted as a doctoral dissertation at a German university.4 It is possible that the two Geniza fragments came to Lewin through his wife, who perhaps inherited them from her unmarried brother when he passed away in 1909.5
Throughout his rabbinic career Lewin contributed historical pieces on Eastern European Jewry to learned journals, encyclopedias, and other publications.6 For this research, Lewin spent a lot of time in various archives of the Posen and Silesian Jewish communities and often commissioned copies of archival documents, in addition to other manuscripts he collected.
Lewin’s cousin Morris Alexander was married to Solomon Schechter’s daughter; while a student Lewin also attended the lectures of Moritz Steinschneider. Both Schechter and Steinschneider served as models whom Lewin emulated in his own cataloguing and preservation of old materials. In the late 1930s, Lewin’s son Daniel brought the collection to London, where it survived the Blitz and the Second World War. After the war, Yeshiva University professor, Isaac Lewin, became aware of it in London and brought it to the attention of university president Samuel Belkin. (We have been unable to puzzle out the relationship between Isaac Lewin and Louis Lewin, if there was one.) In 1948, YU purchased the archive, which numbered 443 manuscripts.
The piyyut fragment is #76 in Lewin’s own hand-written catalogue, where he identifies as the poem le-yoshev tehillot.7 He then notes, “but very different from those in the German-Polish rite.”8
Photo of the entry for our fragment in Lewin’s catalogue
Michael Rand (of blessed memory) and Shulamit Elitzur do not include the YU fragment in their critical edition.9 The YU fragment measures roughly 18 x 13 cm and is written on paper. The writing is clear and entirely legible, and seems to belong to the eleventh century.10
It is a late section of a poem that sometimes circulated independently under the name ליושב תהלות, לרוכב ערבות, קדוש וברוך. This is, in turn, part of the Qillirian qedushta entitled “Shoshan ‘emeq,” which Rand and Elitzur suggest may be a qedushta for the musaf prayer of Yom Kippur.11 (Incidentally, it is this poem that Abraham Ibn Ezra uses as 'Exhibit A' of all that is wrong with the language of piyyut in his screed against it.)12 One oddity is that the verso is blank; since the poem is well-known, we know that the scribe still had more to write. There is no obvious material reason why he couldn’t have written on the back of the page.
YU 296/1 fragment (courtesy of the Mendel Gottesman Library of Yeshiva University)
As noted, the identification of the poem was already made by Lewin, who also noted that its text differed from that current in Germany and Poland. Some years ago, Berger made notes regarding the textual variants utilizing the apparatus in Goldschmidt’s edition.
After we jointly studied the fragment in the Fall of 2023, Ginsberg quickly identified a possible join in the Adler collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS ENA 3444.8).13 Based on photos, he noted that the paper and handwriting looked identical, and that the JTS fragment’s verso leaves off exactly where the YU fragment begins, which is easy to tell since the poem is an alphabetical acrostic: the JTS fragment ends with the lamed verse, and the YU fragment begins with mem.14 Further research showed that the sizes of the papers match as well. Although the two fragments now live only three miles apart in northern Manhattan, library regulations preclude them being inspected side-by-side. A visit to the JTS library with photos of the YU fragment in hand left little doubt, though. There are also differences: the YU fragment is in worse shape than the page in JTS, and the YU fragment is a bit darker. Importantly, the YU fragment also has what appears to be a cut-out in the bottom left corner.
ENA 3444 8 recto (courtesy of The Jewish Theological Seminary)
ENA 3444 8 verso (courtesy of The Jewish Theological Seminary)
Reading the two together allowed us to note that on the recto of ENA 3444/8, the scribe writes the text continuously, not inserting line breaks for stanzas or the refrain. In the middle of the verso, however, he starts to break off a line before the refrain, setting the two words ליושב תהלות alone on a line. He does this for the last three stanzas of the verso, and this then continues onto the YU fragment, where every fifth line contains ליושב תהלות by itself.
This does deepen the mystery of the blank verso, though, since the JTS fragment is written on both sides. It is possible that the page had already ripped in antiquity, leading the scribe to give up and start over. But this cannot be proven.
It also thickens the plot regarding how the fragment wound up in the possession of Dr. Lewin. Intriguingly, the Saadia fragment acquired from Lewin also appears to have been owned by Adler at one point: when Fraenkel published it in 1906, he thanked Elkan Adler in London for making it possible for him to do so. It is not impossible that Adler gave these two fragments to Fraenkel (or directly to Lewin) at some point; although we have not been able to trace any direct contact between them otherwise, Adler is known to have traveled frequently in Germany and been generous with the manuscripts in his possession.
The lines on the YU fragment correspond to the text on pp. 390-392 in Rand and Elitzur’s edition. There is no reading here that is unattested in any of the manuscripts utilized by Rand and Elitzur, although no other manuscript matches the text of this page in its entirety.
JTSA MS ENA 3444 8 (cf. Rand and Elitzur, pp. 386–390)
ובכן אראלים יקדשוך
ועמך יברכוך
אמצי שחקים ממעל וכל צבא מעל
אומרים קדוש אמוני אהבה צמחי
רבב]ה אומרים ברוך בכתי מלאכים
[ש]מו ממליכים אומרים קדוש בני
בחו]רי ברית לזוכר הברית אומרים
[ברו]ך ליושב תהלות לרוכב ערבות
קדוש וברוך גבורי כוח לאמיץ ושגיא
כוח] אומ' קדוש גדול צדקה לנחשבה
בצד]קה אומ' ברוך דמות ארבעה
[פני]ם לכל צד פונים אומ' קדוש דגלי
נצו?]רה לעמם בצרה אומ' ברוך.
ליושב תהלות המון צבא מעלה
לשוכן מעלה אומ' קדוש הולכי
ברוך תמים להצור תמם אומ' ברוך
ורצים ושבים ועם צור מקשיבים
אומ' קדוש וחוכי ישועות וקווי סליחות
אומ' ברוך ליושב תהלות זמירותם
רבות זכי שמי שפרה ערבות ואו' קדוש
זרע מטע אמת לאל אלוהים אמת או'[ ברוך
חשמלים עזים לעושה חזיזים ואומ[' קדוש
חומם ונושאים למעלה נשיאים אומ[' ברוך
ליושב תהלות
טפסרי מרומים לרם על רמים אומ' [קדוש
טובו אוהליו ליונקיו ועולליו אומ' ברוך
ידודון הולכים כורעים ובורכים אומ' ק[דוש
יושב אוהל ומשכן לשוכן בתוכם או[מ' ברוך
ליושב תהלות
כתי המונים חיות ואופנים אומ' קד[וש
כתר נותנים בני איתנים אומ' ברוך
להקים שביבים אש להבים אומ' קדוש
למענו גוי חד לשם אל מיוחד אומ' ברוך
[ליו]שב תהלות
YU MS 296/1 (cf. Rand and Elitzur, pp. 390–392)
מסו]ככים מעופפים בכנפיהם מעופפים או' קדו[ש
מנצ]חים תמיד בכל יום תמיד אומ' ברוך
נור]אים בנפלאות בצדק נוראות אומ' קדוש
נדי]בי עמך מסלסלים לשמך אומ' ברוך
ליושב תהלות
סר]פים עומדים משתחוים ומודים או' קדוש
סול]די בחילה לנורא עלילה אומ' ברוך
עיני]ם מלאים כתרשיש ממולאים אומ' קדוש
עוני]ם במקהלות בלחש וקולות אומ' ברוך
ליושב תהלות
פניה]ם כבזק לא[די]ר וחזק אומ' קדוש
פדוי]י זרוע מחוזק לגואלם חזק אומ' ברוך
צבא]ות שמים לרוכב שמים אומ' קדוש
צא]ן קדשים ומטע קדושים אומ' ברוך
ליושב תהלות
קלי]ם לצורם קרובים ליוצרם אומ' קדוש
קהל]ות יעקב בלא לב עקוב אומ' ברוך
רגלי]הם מעוגל כאופן וגלגל אומ' קד[וש
רצ]ונם לבוראם לרם אשר בראם א[ומ' ברוך
ליושב תהלות;
Since Rand and Elitzur provide a full critical apparatus, this will not be duplicated here. The most substantial difference of the reading here from the base text of Rand and Elitzur is in lines 41–42, where their text reads, פניהם כברקים מאירים / ופז בגד פאורים // פדויי בזרוע חזק / לגואלם חזק. The reading attested here is esthetically preferable, since it shows variation חזק / מחוזק, instead of the repetition of חזק. Each of the individual readings of our fragment is attested in at least one other manuscript.
Other variants of note include the question of the second- or third-person pronouns in line 34 (עמך and לשמך in our fragment; עמו and לשמו in others); קרובים in line 46, where most MSS read קוראים; and רגליהם מעוגל כאופן וגלגל in line 48, where other MSS read רגליהם כעגל ואופן מתגלגל.
Although our fragment lives a solitary life now, nestled in the Rare Book Room on the fourth floor of the Gottesman Library in Washington Heights, it has been through a lot: after centuries in the Geniza in Cairo, it has passed through the hands of various owners, been folded, torn, and cut, and parts of its story have been lost as it was separated from its former textual family. We are glad to digitally reintroduce it to at least one of its siblings.
The fragments rejoined: JTS ENA 3444/8 on the right, YU 296/1 on the left, as they originally were joined.
Footnotes
1 We are grateful to Richard Steiner, Shalom Holtz, Ben Outhwaite, and Mordecai Schwartz for their comments on earlier drafts, and especially to Rebecca Jefferson for sharing her detailed knowledge of the collectors and scholars of a century ago and her textual insights and suggestions.
2 Siegmund Fraenkel, “Geniza-Fragment,” in Festschrift zu ehren des Dr. A. Harkavy aus anlass seines 20. November 1905 vollendeten siebzigsten Lebenjahres: Gewidmet von Freunden und Verehrern (e. Baron David v. Günzburg and Isaak Markon; St. Petersburg: H. Itzkowski, 1908), 91–94. Fraenkel, who was Jewish and a student of Nöldeke’s, is best known for his Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen (Leiden: Brill, 1886).
3 Both fragments are available digitally on the Friedberg Geniza Project; Benjamin Richler drew the attention of Reuven Rubelow to the YU holdings back in 2007.
4 For Lewin’s biography we have relied upon a typescript written by his son, Dr. Daniel Lewin, Louis Lewin, 1868 – 1941: In Memoriam (Montreal, 1968), in the Jewish Public Library of Montreal (we are grateful to Sam Pappas for making a copy for us) and Daniel Lewin, A Jewish Genealogy: The Lewin-Steinberger Saga (Great Neck: Creative Type [distributed by Heirloom Books], 1993). Dr. Daniel Lewin Rabbi Dr. Daniel Lewin (d. 1997) graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary and was a rabbi in Cornwall, Ontario, Ste. Agathe, Quebec, and then Montreal. Also very helpful has been Marlene Schiffman, “Sources for Central and Eastern European Jewish History: The Louis Lewin Collection at Yeshiva University,” Judaica Librarianship 11.1–2 (2002–2003), 7–26.
5 Our thanks to Rebecca Jefferson for this suggestion.
6 A bibliography of “Yehudah Lewin’s Writings on the History of the Jews in Poland and Silesia,” numbering 34 items – mostly in German, a few in Hebrew – was published by Y. Halperin in Ḳiryat Sefer 19 (1943), 114–116.
7 The YU archive also contains an envelope with Lewin’s address in Kempen Posen on it, in which the fragment was at some point stored (it is labeled “Handschrift Nr. 76”). It is not known if the manuscript came to him in this envelope.
8 For the liturgical use of the piyyut, see Israel Davidson, אוצר השירה והפיוט (New York: Jewish Theological Seminar, 1924–1933), 1.261, noting use in the traditions of Rome, Poland, and Germany. The beginning of שושן עמק is printed in Philip Birbaum, High Holyday Prayer Book (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1988), 765, but Shalom Holtz pointed out to us that all that survives of the part discussed here is the line ליושב תהלות לרוכב ערבות קדוש וברוך (p. 789), interrupted by various interpolations.
9 Shulamit Elitzur and Michael Rand, פיוטים ליום הכיפורים: רבי אלעזר בירבי קליר (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2021).
10 Our thanks to Drs. Ben Outhwaite, Amir Ashur, Oded Zinger, and Ezra Chwat for their paleographic judgments and insights.
11 Rand and Elitzur, pp. 332-437. See the earlier edition in Daniel Goldschmidt, מחזור לימים נוראים (Jerusalem: Ḳoren, 1970), 2.386–387.
12 See Ibn Ezra’s commentary to Qohelet 5:1
13 This fragment was utilized by Rand and Elitzur in their edition.
14 In the FGP, the sides of the JTS fragment are mislabeled, recto for verso and vice versa.
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