Talk:Modern Jewish historiography/Archives/2023/December

Weinberg and DYK
It was noted on an offwiki post that it wasn't clear that the ban of the rabbis was effective in limiting publication and that the imprimatur was needed form Marco Marini. See here on Weinberg p. 503 (p.11 on Jstor) and dei Rossi as pertaining to the DYK factoid, namely, that Rossi had to obtain imprimatur from Marco Marini, and that the ban from the rabbis was effective in limiting Me'or Einyanim. De' Rossi describes the struggles he underwent to uphol certain of his opinions as expressed in the Me'or Enayim, a unique copy of the work, dated 28 Elul 5334 (Septembe 1574) belonging to the Mellman collection. In the final pages, he tells how he went to Venice to argue his case with ce tain Rabbis of the Community who had charged him wit heresy. They insisted that he should include in his book t ' hasaga ' of Moses Provenzali, a critique of De' Rossi's chronological ideas in which the Mosaic origin of the ' baharad ' reckoning was proved. De' Rossi complied with their request, but with a compromise, because he also included his own response (' Teshuva ') to Provenzali's cri tique. The Rabbis also insisted that he erase three passages from Chapter 20 which dealt with the question of the hyperbole in Rabbinic writings. In their view, certain passages in the Talmud and the Zohar could not be dismissed as mere exaggerations for didactic purposes as De' Rossi would have it. Thus, the Zohar statement in connection with Er, ' Anyone who spills his seed to no purpose does not deserve to see the Divine Presence ' is to be understood literally26. Similarly, the Talmudic passage, ' He who takes delight in the Sabbath will be given an unbounded heritage27 and the description of Elijah being smitten with 'sixty flaming lashes'28 could not be interpreted as examples of hyperbole by means of which the Rabbis encouraged the performance of a precept or accentuated the gravity of a sin. De' Rossi yielded to the Rabbis' demands. But although Rabbis like Judah Moscato defended his cause and Abraham Coen Porto repealed the veto he had publicly placed on the book, the force of the decree passed by the Rabbis of Venice, Pesaro, Ancona, Pa dua, Verona, Ferrara and Siena on the fourth of Nisan 1574 to the effect that written permission must be obtained before the book could be read, held sway. Indeed, on the fly-leaf of Dato, Rabbi Abraham Graziano the owner, wrote a note in 1595, permitting a certain Isaiah of Sezze to read the Me'or Enayim, but counselled him to be judicious in his reading30. Moreover, Kaufmann demonstrated that the ban was still being enforced in 1635 31. But the decree of 1574 might not have been the sole reason for the control held over poten tial readers of the Me or Enayim. The text of a ' hascama ' (authorization) passed by a synod of Rabbis in 1581 was recently discovered by Meir Benayahu. It included the rene wal of the ' hascama ' of 1554 which decreed that no new book might be published without the permission of thre Rabbis and the heads of the local community 32. A more stringent clause was added in this 1584 ' hascama ' which stated that no Jew could buy a Hebrew book unless permission was first obtained from three Rabbis officiating in the town in which the book had been published. Such a decree could have indeed been aimed at the prevention of the dissemination of controversial literature such as the Me'or Enayim of Azariah De' Rossi. .... He turned to members of the Church who were n only ready to help him financially but also displayed a genuine interest in scholarship. The names of Marco Marini, Giacomo Boncompagno and Julius Sanctorius, Cardinal of Santa Severina are associated with learning and especially with Hebrew scholarship. Don Marco Marini who eulogized De' Rossi in a poem of 1573 was justly called the « Priscian of the Hebrew language » by the J was the ratification of Marco Marini, teacher of Hebrew and Latin in Venice, which was required in order to give the ' imprimatur ' to the Me'or Enayim. Marini later became the Hebrew teacher of Giacomo Boncompagno. It was Gia como Boncompagno who requested De' Rossi's translation of the thirty fifth chapter of the Me'or Enayim into Italian. The Cardinal of Santa Severina who later became ' Iudex Sacrae Inquisitionis ' was renowned for his kindness and justice34. He was interested in Hebrew and later became th Revisor of Hebrew book together with M Andre🚐 06:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)