[TEN PEARLS] “I noticed a lot of inaccuracies in this regard in all the
Torah scrolls that I saw, and the masoretes, experts on the text,
who describe these inconsistencies, disagree about the rules concerning open
and closed sections and poetic texts. So, I decided to write out all the open
and closed sections of the Torah and the rules for writing down verses, so that everyone can correct
the texts accordingly. The codex which we used in these
works is the codex known in Egypt, which includes 24 books,
so the entire Hebrew Bible; the codex was in Jerusalem for a long time ... and was used for editing the scrolls. Everyone relies on it, as it
was edited by Ben-Asher, who studied it carefully for many
years and edited it many times. And I relied on it for the Torah Scroll which I wrote according
to the rules laid out in it.” This is a loosely translated
quotation from Mishneh Torah by our great teacher Maimonides. Today we will talk about this manuscript on which the great Maimonides relied. This manuscript is now
called the Aleppo Codex. The Hebrew name is Keter Aram Zovah, after the place where this manuscript
spent the longest period of time – six centuries. I have no doubt that the
Aleppo Codex represents, so to speak, the fate
of the Jewish people. Everything is very similar, is it not? It was created in the Holy Land and spent a long time in Jerusalem. Later, its enemies banished
it from Jerusalem. It ended up in the diaspora and
spent about a thousand years there. Later, by right or wrong, after being
subjected to terrible persecution and losing part of its text, it was illegally brought
back to the Holy Land, to the newly formed State of Israel. And now here it is, in the State
of Israel, highly esteemed, some of his pages still wandering
around the world God knows where. We hope that maybe our people
will find, say, the lost tribes. So, we can hope that these missing
pages, which we will talk about later, will find their way back
to the main codex too. This is a fascinating book story. Let us now have a closer look at it. This is a manuscript of the Bible, the complete Hebrew Bible, 24 books, which Maimonides himself considered the
most ancient and most accurate version. What do we know about it today? It has no colophon with
the information we need. And we do not know whether it
ever had one for that matter. What we do know is that this manuscript
had a dedicatory inscription. Since the XV century,
many people who saw this dedicatory inscription have quoted it. I will mention those who are
especially interesting to us. For example, Russian researchers and
collectors who did not just see it but copied this dedicatory
inscription for their own records. Firstly, it was Abraham Firkovich, whom we have already encountered
in the previous episode. There was also a keeper
of Hebrew manuscripts, the one who described the Firkovich
collection, Abraham Harkavy. He came to Aleppo more than
once and copied and clarified this dedicatory inscription several times. And the last researcher
– not a Russian one – worth mentioning in this context is
biblical scholar Umberto Cassuto. Cassuto came from Jerusalem
in late 1943–early 1944, gained access to this
manuscript and copied this dedicatory inscription carefully
and precisely, correcting errors. In fact, he was the last
one of the researchers to see the complete manuscript. What can we learn from
this dedicatory inscription? It can be easily dated, based on the historical
situation it describes. There is a certain Jew
named Simha ben Ovadya if I am not mistaken, from Basra, who dedicates this manuscript
to the Karaite community of the holy city of Jerusalem
and gives it to two sages of this community for safekeeping. Just a minute, I will
tell you their names. These were brothers Yehoshiyahu
and Hezkiyahu, sons of Simha. These two venerable sages led the
Karaite community of Jerusalem until the mid-XI century. This gives us at least an
accurate upper limit – the middle of the XI century. However, there is one
more important thing. This dedicatory inscription indicates
who transcribed this manuscript. That was the scribe Shlomo Ben Buya’a. We know this scribe very well. I personally know him very well because I described other manuscripts
that he transcribed. He is primarily famous for transcribing the so-called Leningrad Pentateuch. This is the world's oldest
dated manuscript of the Torah, that is, the Hebrew Pentateuch. It was transcribed in 929. In fact, there were a
lot of doubts at first. Can we trust this dedicatory inscription? The period of time between the date when
Shlomo Ben Buya’a completed his work and the date when the dedicatory
inscription was written, reaches at least a hundred years. We have a manuscript from 929. You would think they
should be easy to compare. But the sizes of these
manuscripts are different. Therefore, although the letters
in them are very similar, this is not a sufficient
argument to conclude with certainty that
the scribe is the same. However, we made this conclusion. We did so based on the paleographic
and codicological techniques that he used, in particular
the way he filled out the line. He used all sorts of tricks. I will probably show them to you later, when we look at individual
lines to be filled out, the techniques he invented himself. We see them both in the Aleppo
Codex and in the Leningrad Pentateuch. And this certainly proves
that it was the same scribe, the same hand, the same technique. The scribe is important of course. But what is more important
for this manuscript is that it was edited by the very last masoret, the very last expert on the Hebrew text, the one who gave the text its final shape. I mean the last representative of the
Ben-Asher family, Aharon Ben-Asher. Aharon Ben-Asher lived in Tiberias in the first half of the X century. In Tiberias, Shlomo Ben Buya’a
also copied manuscripts. Therefore, with a certain degree of
uncertainty, we can say that, probably, the Aleppo Codex was also transcribed
in Tiberias and then brought to Jerusalem. We do not know precisely
when it was transcribed. Well, let us assume that in 929 the scribe transcribed the
Pentateuch as a “warm-up.” And after the Pentateuch,
he sat down to transcribe the complete Jewish text and
spent at least a year on it. Therefore, this manuscript
is usually dated around 930. I would like to show
you right away the page where we can see the work of this proofreader and editor, Aharon Ben-Asher. This is a Biblical text. Look at the third column, the bottom
line, the ninth line from the bottom. Look here (reads in Hebrew): “Bivnotсhem.” The first word on this line. Look, on the line above, the word
also begins with the letter tav. What interests us here is the letter tav. On the line above, the letter tav
appears two, even three, times. You can also see it higher on the page. Tav is always quite narrow. However, in this particular
word, it is very wide, although this is also the
beginning of the line. This is not typical at all. It was the wrong thing to do. But we know how it happened. The small letters between the
columns give us a prompt. The letter lamed appears there. It is an abbreviated Aramaic word "leyta". There is a circle above
this word indicating that the letter lamed refers
specifically to it. And the letter khet,
“khaser”, appears below. I mean, short spelling of
the letter is required here. Apparently, the scribe made a mistake – he used full spelling of the letter
vav and wrote tav after it. That was wrong. And editor Aharon Ben-Asher corrected it: he lengthened the letter tav,
slightly erased it in the middle. And now we have the
correct short spelling, exactly as he thought it should be. We can clearly see his work here. By the way, at the end of the line,
you can see these graphic fillings, all sorts of techniques that he applied. And in the right column, we see
different checkmarks that he used. He created several systems to make
the line look more or less even. This work, which is immensely important
for medieval study of the biblical text, was done by the most outstanding expert. Everybody wondered why we decided that Maimonides, the great Maimonides,
used this particular manuscript. This is a very good question. The researchers claimed they
could prove that wasn’t true. They pointed at how the famous
song of Moses was written, Shirat Moshe or as it is
called in the Jewish tradition by its first word, Ha'azinu. This song, this poetic text
is written in a certain way – in two columns, not in three as it should
be, with a certain number of lines. In the Aleppo Codex, this song was supposed to
fit into 67 lines and so it did. However, Maimonides in the
Mishneh Torah writes that this song should be
transcribed in 70 lines. If he writes about 70 lines
and here we have 67 lines, it means he used some other manuscript. This is quite logical but misleading. This is an incredible story that has
always surprised and amused me. You see, if we turn to the actual surviving oldest
manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah, we will see that in fact
he has 67 lines there. For instance, the most famous manuscript
of the Mishneh Torah is kept in Oxford. I was there a month ago and had the
opportunity to check it out for myself. In this manuscript, which he signed to
indicate that he edited and checked it, 67 lines are mentioned. And when the Mishneh Torah was first
transcribed and later published in Europe, in the Ashkenazi lands, they switched to the long-established Ashkenazi tradition and assigned the words to our great
Maimonides that he never actually said. They changed it to 70 lines. Now it is transcribed in 70 lines, at
least by the Ashkenaz communitites. This is a really amazing story. They saw what was correct
according to the Aleppo Codex and what Maimonides wrote. But this did not bother them, they
did not follow Maimonides’ instructions, they did it the way they found convenient. That is it. I have always found it amazing. So, what do we know now or what
have we already managed to prove? Based on this dedicatory
inscription and comparing its text with various other data and
other manuscripts, and, by the way, with other manuscripts of
the masora too, that is, the text that Aharon Ben-Asher
edited or corrected, we proved that this
is a biblical manuscript that was transcribed in the first half
of the X century, most likely in Tiberias, in any case, in the Holy Land, which was later captured
during the Crusader period. It was purchased – this
is the part we know – at the very end of the XI century by Jews from Fustat, the city of Cairo, taken to Egypt and kept there. It was in Egypt that Maimonides
could and did use it. Later, for a reason unknown to us, in 1345, if I’m not mistaken... No, excuse me, in 1375, a distant relative of Maimonides (grandson of his great-grandson) went to Aleppo and for some reason
took this manuscript with him. He brought it to Aleppo. And so, it was there from
the late XIV century and gradually turned into not just the most important
biblical text for verification but into some kind of precious gem. That is, the community believed that
the manuscript was protecting it. And while it was in Aleppo, it kept the
Jews of Aleppo out of harm’s way. So, the manuscript stayed
there, and, in fact, the Jews of Aleppo faced
no danger until 1947. What happened in 1947? We know what: the proposal to establish
the Jewish state was proclaimed. The common people in Muslim countries
were not enthusiastic about that. And in fact, pogroms began everywhere. Then came the infamous pogrom
on the night of November 29, 1947, in Aleppo (Haleb in Arabic). The pogrom was a peculiar one,
by our Russian standards. It was peculiar in a sense
that nobody was murdered, that is, they never touched people. But they tried to set fire
to all the synagogues. As far as I know, they did not loot homes, they plundered public
property, shops for example. And the biggest fire broke out
in the synagogue in Aleppo, where our manuscript was kept
with great honor in an iron chest. Moreover, it was not just kept there – all sorts of precautions were used
so that it could not be stolen. For example, there were
two locks and two keys. These keys were traditionally
kept in different families, so that no one could, God
forbid, come alone and open it. It took two people to open this chest. The chest was forced open. To cut a long story short,
something happened there and this manuscript either
burned or disappeared. That was the first guess. Then it gradually became clear that this manuscript was hidden somewhere. That is, Jews managed to
take it out of the synagogue, or maybe the robbers did
not pay attention to it – they were busy unscrewing silver
items from different places. The point stands – the
manuscript was out there. The members of the Jewish
community were hiding it both from robbers and
from the authorities. Actually, the authorities considered
this manuscript to be some kind of a valuable cultural artefact and taking it out of the country was
prohibited under penalty of death. So, for ten years this manuscript
was hidden in different places. By the way, we are unaware of its
whereabouts during certain periods. Anyway, during these ten years, many
Israeli scholars wanted to find it. Biblical scholars were interested in it and so was the second president
of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who was an Orientalist himself and studied the history of Jewish
communities in the Middle East. He went to great lengths to
have this manuscript found and somehow brought to Israel. This is a long, almost detective story. It was transported by a merchant
who was allowed to enter Syria. If he can be believed, he was hiding
it inside the washing machine, covered with some bags of
onions, dirty laundry, etc. Eventually, he managed to bring
the manuscript to Turkey. After that, the Mossad ran the operation to illegally bring it from
Turkey to the Holy Land. On January 23, 1958, this magnificent Aleppo Codex
was put on the table of the country's president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. The director of the Institute for the
Study of Jewish Communities in the East (now called the Ben-Zvi Institute) was present when it happened. He was a famous researcher and also a collector
of Hebrew manuscripts. His name was Meir Bnayahu. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2009. I knew him personally. I wish I could ask him one question. Just think about it. They waited for this manuscript
for such a long time. Finally, they got it. Here it is, in front of them. Both of them are scholars: the president
is a scientist and Meir Bnayahu, expert on manuscripts, is even more so. How could they possibly not
record its physical condition: how many pages were missing, at
least how many pages they received. They never did it. All sorts of rumors started from there. Approximately 40% of the text
is missing in the manuscript. Now it contains 295 pages. It is missing almost
the entire Pentateuch. If I am not mistaken, this manuscript begins with the
28th chapter of Deuteronomy, this is practically the very end. The last part is missing – The Books
of Chronicles, Daniel, Ezra, etc. It is logical to assume that the
manuscript got into some plight, fire, I do not know, pogrom,
or simply fell apart– the manuscript had no proper binding. The first pages could disappear, the first piece could go missing
and so could the last ones. But significant parts of
the text are also missing in six other places of the
manuscript, in the middle of it. I will not list all of them. But I can say that parts of the text
in the Book of Jeremiah are missing. From the minor prophets, the Books of Obadiah, Jonah,
Haggai are completely missing. The Book of Ecclesiastes
is completely missing, so is the Book of Lamentations
and part of the Song of Songs. You see, these are
completely different pieces. The pieces from different parts of
this manuscript are not there. Another idea was that
part of it burned in a fire. This was widely discussed at first. But contemporary restorers clearly see
that there are no charred pages anywhere, so it definitely was not in the fire. If the color changes around
the edges, this is, of course, remnants of fungus or
a sign of an old age, but there is no way it
could be related to the fire. This manuscript never burned. And so the members of the community say, “We have no idea, we handed the
manuscript over to this very merchant who took it out of the
country, it was complete. You stole part of the text in Israel.” Israeli researchers say, of course,
that they received it like this. Some of its pages are
definitely out there somewhere. For example, one page of it “emerged” when the position of the director of the
National Library of Israel belonged to my colleague and friend, now
deceased, Malachi Beit-Arie. He wrote that one page was
donated to the National Library. And this page is now kept
together with the manuscript. By the way, this manuscript is
assigned to the Ben-Zvi Institute. But, in fact, it is kept in the
Israel Museum, in Jerusalem in the famous Shrine of
the Book (Heikhal HaSefer). And it is exhibited there,
its copy, of course. But there is always an open
original page in this copy. If you get to Jerusalem or live there, I highly recommend you go
and see this manuscript. This codex is a very serious document. This is its story in a nutshell. Much of the text has been lost. Therefore, for example, serious scientific editions of the
Biblical text cannot fully rely on it. The masora did not fully
survive, in any case, the Pentateuch did not, and
this is a very important part. There is still hope that someday
these pages will be found. As, from time to time,
something like this emerges. But all researchers are divided
into those who are interested in what we have at our disposal today, and the ones who wonder where
the rest of the pages might be. Today we are talking about
the pages available to us. Look here, for example. This is the last page of the Pentateuch. The way it is transcribed
is very important. That is exactly how the manuscripts
were transcribed later. I mean, the last column
could not be interrupted. Therefore, the text was written like
this, one or two words at a time, but until the very end. The whole system was developed. Further on, the number of verses
in the Pentateuch is indicated. Let us look, for example,
at this page as well. Can we show it in close-up? Right, its edge. This little sign over here, that
looks like a little vignette, is a very original designation of
the middle or end of the notebook. I do not remember exactly now. But in any case, this suggests that either the scribe put those
signs or the editor himself, Aharon Ben-Asher, noted parts of
the text that were important to him. Let us look at a few more pages. This page, for example. Here on top, we see the words that
were very often written in codices, that is, in crowns – such
codices were called crowns – that this codex is dedicated to the Lord. “Kodesh le-Adonai, lo imacher”. “Let it not be sold,” so
it should not be sold. These are the phrases that
were written on certain pages. But here it is written,
for example, on top. And also, “Ve-lo yigael”. ”And it will not be purchased,” will not
be transferred to some other community. As you see, it did not work
for the Aleppo community. The codex was transferred after all. And thank God, I would say. Now in Jerusalem, it is not an amulet of the Jewish community
of Haleb, or Aleppo (this city had different
names), or Aram Zovah. It is an amulet that protects
the entire Jewish people, the Holy Land, the State
of Israel, if you will. I would like to show you one more thing. I am sentimental about it because
I described this page myself. This is a page from the Incunable, which is now kept in the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York. This is, actually, the Pentateuch, which was transcribed in Hijar in 1490. Not transcribed, sorry,
published by Eliezer Alantansi. What is of interest for us here? Not that this is a publication
of Eliezer Alantansi, although he was a major pioneering
printer, of course. What is important for us is that it belonged to a man called
Yishai ben Amram ha-Cohen, who lived in Kurdistan and was a scribe. We know the manuscripts that
he transcribed in the 1560s. So he took his printed copy of the
Pentateuch, went with it to Aleppo, sat down and began to compare
this text with that masora and with the type of text that he saw. And he made notes in several places. Look here. “Sheli. Ani ha-eved ha-tzair
be-Israel ha-katan, Yishai ben Amram... higahti oto al ha-keter she-hegiho Ben-Asher, zichrono li-vracha”. This is a very important
confirmation for us. And on the left side, you can see
the same phrase in the margins. “Mugah al ha-keter she-hegiho
Ben-Asher zichrono li-vracha”. That is another confirmation
from the XVI century that they were firmly convinced that Ben-Asher
was the one who edited this manuscript. This is really very important. Amazingly this copy has
survived to this day. In 2016, UNESCO recognized
the Aleppo Codex as belonging to the World Cultural
and Natural Heritage. No doubt this manuscript
deserves this status. It is a really magnificent Biblical pearl. [TEN PEARLS] [More videos on our channel
"Ideas Without Borders Beit Avi Chai Project]
