Commentators:R. Yosef Kara's Commentary on Neviim Rishonim/1

R. Yosef Kara's Commentary on Neviim Rishonim

Introduction

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The Kirchheim MS

R. Yosef Kara's Commentary on Neviim Rishonim is one of several important Northern French Peshat commentaries,¹ from which only a single textual witness survived until modern times.² In this particular case, the Kirchheim manuscript went missing during the Shoah and its whereabouts are currently unknown.³ Fortunately, S. Eppenstein transcribed much of the manuscript before it was lost, thus preserving its content for posterity.⁴ This AlHaTorah.org edition is primarily based on Eppenstein's edition with, however, some important improvements as detailed in the following sections.

Restoring Missing Chapters from the Commentary

MS Kirchheim was missing the early chapters of Sefer Yehoshua and, as a result, Eppenstein's edition of the commentary began in the middle of Yehoshua 8:13. Recently, though, we discovered evidence that two of the missing Yehoshua chapters of R. Yosef Kara's commentary survived by being incorporated in a commentary on the Haftarot found in MS Cincinnati JCF 1 (one of these two chapters was also preserved in four other related manuscripts⁵). The evidence for the identification of R. Yosef Kara as the author of these chapters consists of three main parts:

1. Context of the Cincinnati MS

There are dozens of manuscripts in which Rashi's Torah Commentary is followed by a Haftarot commentary collated from Rashi's assorted commentaries on the books of Neviim.  In MS Cincinnati JCF 1, however, Rashi's Torah Commentary is followed by a very different Haftarot Commentary.  In fact, the Cincinnati Haftarot Commentary would be more aptly described as a conflation of two disparate commentarial endeavors:
 

• The initial part, which constitutes the bulk of the work, contains a commentary on 45 Haftarot, including the Haftarot for forty⁶ (of the fifty-four) Parshiyot followed by the Haftarot for the Shabbatot of Rosh Chodesh, Machar Chodesh, Shekalim, Zakhor, and Parah.⁷  The commentary on all of the Haftarot in this first section with but two exceptions⁸ is not derived from the known commentaries of Rashi and R. Yosef Kara but rather constitutes a new (anonymous) commentary.⁹

• The second section contains a commentary on a total of 23 Haftarot, which include Haftarot for most of the days of the festivals of Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh HaShanah, Yom HaKippurim, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah,¹⁰ as well as the Haftarot for nine¹¹ of the Parshiyot missing in the first section, and the Haftarot for Tish'a BeAv and Shabbat HaGadol.  A full 21 of these 23 Haftarot can readily be shown to be lifted almost verbatim¹² from the commentaries of Rashi, R. Yosef Kara, and the Commentary attributed to R. Yosef Kara on Shemuel.¹³ 

The remaining two Haftarot from the second section of the Cincinnati MS are both from the beginning of Yehoshua (Chapter 1 which is read on Simchat Torah and Chapter 5 which is read on the first day of Pesach), where we possess the commentary of Rashi, but not that of R. Yosef Kara.  Since Rashi's commentary has next to no correlation with these chapters of the Cincinnati MS commentary, it can be ruled out as the source, leaving R. Yosef Kara's lost commentary on the early chapters of Yehoshua as the most likely candidate to be the origin from which this commentary is derived. This hypothesis can be confirmed to a reasonable degree of probability by an analysis of the content and language of the Cincinnati MS commentary on these chapters of Yehoshua.

2.  Content Parallels

There are five interpretations found in the Cincinnati commentary on these chapters of Yehoshua which closely match interpretations found elsewhere in R. Yosef Kara's extant commentaries. Click here for the Table containing these. While one of these interpretations can be found also in Rashi,¹⁴ at least three of the other four parallels are distinctive interpretations of R. Yosef Kara which differ from those of other Northern French commentators. These thus lend considerable support to the possibility that these chapters of the Cincinnati commentary were compiled from the commentary of R. Yosef Kara.

3.  Distinctive Linguistic Markers

Additional evidence can be adduced from an examination of the distinctive formulations and phraseology used in the Cincinnati commentary, virtually all of which find parallels in the writings of R. Yosef Kara, and many of which are unique to him. Perhaps the most blatant example may be found at the end of the interpretation of Yehoshua 5:9: "ופשוטו של דבר ויישובו כתבתי, ולא תסור ממנו ימין ושמאל". This strong language is indicative of a commentator of significant stature, possessing a considerable amount of self-confidence, enough to command the reader to adhere to his interpretation. Almost identical formulae can, in fact, be found in at least four other places throughout R. Yosef Kara's literary oeuvre: Shemuel I 1:3 ("ומפתרון זה אל תט ימין ושמאל"), Yeshayahu 8:18 ("ומן הפתרון הזה לא תטה ימין ושמאל"), Yeshayahu 11:11 ("ומן הדרך הזה ומן הפתרון הזה אל תט ימין ושמאל"), Kohelet 10:10 ("ומפתרון זה לא תסור ימין ושמאל"). The phrase is not known from any other commentators.

Other examples are: Add Whole List.

Textual Improvements Enabled by New MSS Findings

Since Eppenstein's edition was based on a sole surviving textual witness, it had little recourse in cases where the Kirchheim MS had lacunae or was corrupted. The Cincinnati MS and its parallel MSS now provide additional information and insights which allow us to improve our version of the text of R. Yosef Kara's commentary on both Shemuel I 1 (the Haftarah read on Rosh HaShanah Day 1) and Melakhim II 10 (the Haftarah read on Parashat Shekalim).

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¹ Cf. Rashbam's Torah Commentary, R. Yosef Bekhor Shor's Torah Commentary, and R. Eliezer of Beaugency's commentaries on Yeshayahu, Yechezkel, and Terei Asar.

² Our study of Tanakh and Parshanut would be immeasurably poorer if not for our good fortune that these lone manuscripts managed to survive. At the same time, one cannot help but lament that other commentaries were completely lost. Examples of this latter category include much of R. Yosef Kara's Torah Commentary, Rashbam's commentaries on Neviim, and R. Eliezer of Beaugency's Torah Commentary. All we currently possess from these are a few of the commentator's own cross-references and scant secondhand citations. Recently recovered commentaries such as parts of R. Yosef Kara's Torah commentary, reconstructed portions of the missing chapters of Rashbam's Torah Commentary, and much of Rashbam's Tehillim Commentary, give hope though that perhaps some day some of the lost commentaries will yet be recovered.

³ Interestingly, the Breslau MS which contained the lone witness of Rashbam's Torah Commentary met a similar fate.

⁴ Eppenstein's editions of the first five parts (Yehoshua, Shofetim, Samuel I and II, and Melakhim I) of the commentary were published piecemeal in issues 4-13 of Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur between 1906-1920. The final part (Melakhim II) was published only posthumously from Eppenstein's transcription (together with the previously published parts) in 1972. While these editions salvaged much of the commentary's content, the current inaccessability of the original manuscript makes it difficult to correct mistakes Eppenstein may have made or to evaluate the quality of his editions.

⁵ These are: MS Breslau 11, Prague F6, Hamburg 32, and St. Petersburg I.21.

⁶ This count includes the commentary on the Haftarah of "דרשו ה' בהמצאו" which follows a note in the MS that the interpretation of "עניה סערה" (the Haftarah of Reeh) can be found earlier (in the commentary on the overlapping Haftarah of Parashat Noach). The section of "דרשו ה' בהמצאו" immediately follows the section of "עניה סערה" in the book of Yeshayahu, and the French custom (see Machzor Vitri p. 223) was to read part of it on Parashat Reeh (since "עניה סערה" is much shorter than the desired 21 verses usually mandated for a Haftarah). The full Haftarah of "דרשו ה' בהמצאו" was also read as the Haftarah for either Parashat Vayelekh or Tzom Gedaliah (see R. Tam in Machzor Vitri pp. 223-224 and Tosafot Megillah 31b s.v. "ראש חדש".).

⁷ A commentary on Parashat HaChodesh is missing in the Cincinnati MS (for either inadvertent or unknown reasons) but does appear in the parallel commentary in MS Breslau 11. Its character is similar to that of the other members of the "Arba Parshiyot" (i.e. it is not lifted from Rashi or R. Yosef Kara).

⁸ Vayetze (the bulk of which parallels the Haftarah for Shabbat Shuvah and is duplicated in the second section of the MS) and Rosh Chodesh (found near the end of this section).

⁹ This commentary is in the process of being published as part of ALHATORAH.ORG's online Mikraot Gedolot, and parts of it are already available there.

¹⁰ There are three Haftarot missing in the Cincinnati MS (for either inadvertent or unknown reasons) which do appear in the parallel commentary in MS Breslau 11. They are the Haftarot for the second day of Pesach, Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach, and the first day of Shavuot (and the commentary on each of these is drawn from either Rashi or R. Yosef Kara). A commentary on the Haftarah for Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot does not appear in any of the manuscripts (reason unknown). [The Haftarot for Shabbatot of Chanukkah overlap with those of Behaalotekha and Vayakhel.]

¹¹ Together with the forty Haftarot found in the first section of the commentary, this totals 49 (of 54) Haftarot. Three of the five missing Parshiyot overlap with other Haftarot and thus are in fact found in the MS. These are: Ki Tetze (its Haftarah overlaps with Noach), Pekudei (its Haftarah overlaps with the second day of Sukkot), and VeZot HaBerakhah (its Haftarah is that of Simchat Torah). The remaining two are Metzora and Emor, and it is unclear why these (and, particularly, Emor) are missing from the Cincinnati MS. A commentary on these two does appear in the parallel Breslau 11 MS, and it is possible that one or both were inadvertently omitted in the Cincinnati MS.

¹² This is in stark contrast to the earlier (and larger) portion of MS Cincinnati's Haftarot commentary which does not copy wholesale from the commentaries of Rashi and R. Yosef Kara, and only occasionally contains parallel content. It appears likely that the first section of the commentary formed the original creative layer of the commentary, and that the second section came about at a later stage and was possibly from a different author who lifted from existing commentaries in order to fill in the Haftarot missing in the initial layer.

¹³ Fifteen of these twenty-one are taken from Rashi, five from R. Yosef Kara, and one from the Commentary attributed to R. Yosef Kara.  [In the Haftarah for Rosh Hashanah Day 1, only the first chapter is taken from R. Yosef Kara.]

¹⁴ R. Yosef Kara's commentary frequently incorporates large swathes of Rashi's commentary.