Rabbi Hillel Danziger – Ein Yaakov

[Music] Welcome to Inside Arts Scroll, where the books that we read and the people that write them come to life. It's a pleasure to welcome Rabbi Hill Danziger to Arts Scroll Studios. Shalom. Shalom. It's not just a pleasure, it's an honor and it's also many collective years of being a part of the greater arts scroll mishbah. How many years are are you associated with us? Um close to 40 about 40 years. Rabbi Danziger is here really almost like a celebration of one of the most monumental um projects that Arts Scroll has embarked upon and that is the completion of the English Anyakov. Yes. Um, and we're going to delve into what the anacov is. Uh, but before we even talk about what the anyakov is, Rabbi Danzer, how long were you working on this project? Five years. Wow. Five years. Um what we'd like to do and talk a little bit about is the history of the inyak because it's not a new safer and then a little bit about the safer itself and maybe share with the with with the viewers some really interesting things that I learned when I was learning about the enyakov and by going through some some of the parts of the safer itself. So rabbanza talk to us a little bit about who the author was what period of time he lived in. Right. So the author was uh Ryakov Ib Khabib and he was born in 14 55, excuse me, 1445 in uh in Spain and he was uh one of the Spanish exiles in 1492 where he went to Portugal which expelled its Jews only five years after that he suffered a lot. His son the Maralbach as a teenager was actually forcibly baptized in Portugal and they eventually escaped and he moved to Salonica which is Greece but was under Ottoman rule um about a 100 years before that and it continued to be under Ottoman rule till the beginning of the 1900s. So it was really part of Turkey where he was widely recognized for his scholarship and he became a RV and uh he actually met two wealthy philanthropist biblopiles. Now biblophiles back in 1500 meant there weren't many printed works and uh but they had vast libraries which um he availed himself of to composed the enyakov where he collected all the aadists in he the aim was all the agadus in Bavi and Shalami but he had a a thematic considerations he really only used those agitus which fit his thematic arrangement 12 themes um Torahim dined etc things of that nature and um he omitted the ones that didn't really fit that thematic arrangement but he kept the arrangement of the shaspi he he kept the arrangement according to each maka, but sometimes he rearranged some of the material for thematic consistency, but on the whole it follows the the arrangement of the shastavi and uh he really had proposed to write an index um where to find all the gumaras related to the themes. He had the themes subdivided into subcategories. He never lived to do that. actually he never lived to complete the Ayakov either. Uh he only finished through uh Mo the end of Moed. Um the the the rest of it was completed by his son uh Rebl Khabib who was a well well-known and highly uh acclaimed POS as truis Maral Bach. Um it was completed by him without access to his father's notes. And so on the second half of Enyakov, we don't really have the Anyakov's own work. We have the work of his son minus also Yurali on the second half. Uh because uh even even the first half only had the beginning of Moed. Um I don't believe it was complete on Moade and it was hard to come by copies of Yushia in those days. The Marbach sent messengers to try to find copies of Yushia for him to include. it was not included. Um but the uh the Mari the Rabyakov Malib did produce the first half himself and he printed it in 1516 which was really you know not that much after the advent of printing very early. Yeah. Yeah. It's you know in canabula which is means really the cradle of printing is till 1500. This was 16 years later. He also uh composed a work called Hakos means the writer the author where he collects comments from rishonim many rishonim it's hard to say aim because in his days that was just the beginning of the many earlier works and he compiled them and so we have that only on the first half the part that he published but as I mentioned that his son did not have access to his notes for the second half so we don't have the uh the original hakos on that on that section The Hakos in it in and of itself is a repository of of of comments from Rishonim that really would not have really been known until some of them for example the the Rajba the Rajba besides his khadushim on on Gomorrah on Shas wrote perushim on aus and they are quoted extensively by the hakose by Jacob in the Yakov and they weren't really printed as a separate work until the middle 1900s. So for hundreds of years really the access people had to the ram to the rajbas uh perish on on agodus was really from in the main from the enyakov from the hakos in the yakov and when you're saying that there's a a very amazing side benefit almost to the safer enyakov which is that he quotes gumaras and if I'm not mistaken he was considered a great expert into the actual gearsaw of the gumar itself. Correct. That that that is true that that's well he had access to the manuscripts the Spanish manuscripts and they do the the Anyakov is a repository of of old Geros which the Dukes Sofram uses extensively even the site of the Gomorrah you find many times Gears Anyakov um and it's it's it's interesting to see the the some of the older gears u the VNA printers is interesting uh maybe would have made we would have made different decisions, but they decided to quote unquote correct the Anyakov by adjusting the gears he had to fit the gears in the villas, but they left the old reading in parenthesis and they put the new ones in brackets. Um we when we produced aryakov so there was some people the purists among us wanted us to go with the gears of the yakov that's the older gearsa but it was meant to be in part a companion volume to people who are learning dafomi and therefore not to give them well this is not what I learned in the garra the garra says said it differently we generally kept the gearsa in the elucidated part as it is in the vilnas but on top of the page you have the excuse me the original anakov reading in in parenthesis without nudos and it's it's there for anyone who really would like to see it it's really there on top of the page you mentioned previously that like part of the yakov was written by and part by his son the marabak when you were editing it and we and you you were learning it do you see a stylistic difference between the wayakov and his son wrote well uh the short answer is no but that's because when you're reading the the Gammorrah itself the the quotes from the Gomorrah it's really you don't have that much of the individuality of the authors there the indiv individuality is expressed in the Hakos so we don't have Hakos on the second volume that's true there um but the Anyakov itself was as I mentioned earlier he really left out those gamorus that did not fit his thematic outline later About a hundred or so years later, there was Rhuda Ary De Moda who wrote a uh who who wrote a cafer including all the gummoras that the Ayakov had left out and sometime after that in one of the Amsterdam prints they asked his permission and he consented and it was incorporated into the Anyakov. So really the Anyakov as we have it today has no longer follows the thematic filtering of the of the author but it has many more Gmorus too. And the VNA printers on their own supplemented that with other Gumaras that the Habon that he was called Habona the the Udar de Moda who wrote a a perish on the parts on the second half that he he added Habon which is in the style of Hakos. Um, so really now if you look at current editions of Enyakov, it's really hard to tell what was originally there, what was supplemented by the Habona and what was supplemented by the VNA printers. But one thing we know, everything that's there is in the Gummorra or the Rushi. Fascinating. When you said about the 12 categories that he wrote on, I was wondering if that's why it was called Enyakov. It was his name because Yakov had 12. I'm sorry. That is one of the reasons it is the reason he said he called Yakov because Yakov had 12 sons. The question is really what does the what does the word mean? So it's a in in so there's a in the rishonim. So the ibzra and others say that a means that it's like from the from the source of yakov like like something like like mayon something along and and and yakov had 12 sons. uh Targum has that a Yakov is ken like the brus that Yakov gave his sons which could also be um uh you know a a a hint at the 12 sons. Um the uh interestingly it seems that the uh in the one of the primary commentaries on the Enyakov is the Eunyakov Ryakov Raicher who was in from in Prague. He lived um it was about 200 years after the Ayakov that this the was first printed the first kaik in 1516 and this was in about 1713 almost 200 years later there was there was an epidemic in Prague and he was forced to leave in those days that's the way they dealt with epidemics they had to just get out of the cities so that the the pathogens shouldn't spread and uh from person to person and he was without his forum in exile and he was a a a a premier uh shaolumev in chuis and he focused on on shas and postkim and so he said he's not going to leave his he was about a year and a half in exile he's not going to what can he do he doesn't have his forum so he wrote his perish on enyakov he didn't finish it but he wrote his perish on enyakov with no I don't know it you know he might have had access to some maybe he had to take a break from his hikic writing because he didn't have access to enough swarm. It's not clear from his to me from his introduction, but it seems that he did it without access to or at least not many swarm remarkable perish. But there's an interesting uh sequel to the story. He he didn't publish it and he came back to Prague in 17 I think 15 maybe or thereabouts but he was soon uh be took a a position as RV in worms and then from there to Mets uh and he he suffered an eye ailment that made him blind and he did ashman hanfeesh and he writes in his introduction that he uh he attributed it to having written something uh against in a chuva against someone who had uh who had attacked him he said something to the effect that you know some malitza that that he should be blinded for his uh and he regretted it he says doesn't speak that way and brought garus that you don't say such things and he thought that it was a punishment so he turned blind so he did chuva and he he he made a nether doesn't specify what the nether was but he says hashem soon soon soon soon sent him a doctor who was able to cure his eye ailment. And he said then he was he paid back his ne that he paid to Hashem in the time of his of his suffering and he was going to pay he was going to in place of the eyesight that Hashem gave him back. He was going to finish his perish on Yakov which he did. So it from from that expression it would seem that part of his nether might have been at the time when he was blind that he would finish his perish on Enyakov but we're all uh the much uh more illuminated because of it because Ian Yakov is one of the primary perushim on fascinating can we take a step back you know the is a is is a perish it's a commentary on a taggum um and we know there's a lot of very interesting bizarre um very strange agars. Um could could the Rabus commenter explain I know there's different approaches. What is agata? How did it make it into a work of which is what the garra really is? And and what are we supposed to do with it? Okay, that's a very broad question. So the answer I would say you'd have to look in the introduction that we wrote to Medisha and Yakov. And the reason I in the main I would like to refer uh people to that instead of going through it now is because some of these things are very subtle in and people hear things differently and this kind of venue does not allow to you know choose carefully exactly every nuance of what you say. The writing the the medium of writing and printing does and we did and it was very carefully done. Ultimately people have to look at it carefully and really I think consult with their rebayum to to have to to deal with whatever questions they might have on agod in general it has to be done just like you find in the garra that a darian mova you can't do it in in a public setting uh I hope this is a nice informal conversation with you and me but obviously it's not it this is this is in the public domain and uh it's uh it it it has to be done uh carefully but in broadly speaking the there's an interesting it really the question goes back to the ribbud in the kuzari in the third mimer around chapter 68 69 70 in that area. So the the king expresses as people say like there are such strange things in in in aata like h how how how did what are we to make of them? So the the the rabbi says to the king, you know, the the kuser is a is is is a dialogue set as a debate between a rabbi and a king. Really was written by Levy. The the Ramban attributes it to Abuhudy. Some say it really was a dialogue that he just uh that he just recorded several hundred years later. But this the general understanding is that it was written by bhudi. So what we have here in the kuzuri is from levy and he says he tells the melik you're you're you're expressing you're puzzled by how kazal the rabbis of the talmud could say such a thing. He says do you see what they write in their what do you say about what they write in their discourses in the Talmud? He said it is a intellectual rigor that is unmatched. He says it's the same people who wrote the Gmoras on in in the who wrote who said the the their statements in the it's the same people. So you have to say that either they meant certain things that the the surface meaning is may not be exactly what the intended meaning is. it's couched. So this this goes back all the way to the Kuzri is speaking largely about the way they darim in foric purposes but it extends there to aod as well. Uh so in the in the um u in the hakto in yakov and in the haktoma to our medish rabba we we really expand on this at at length. Um there is a an interesting one of the main motherloads of Agadada is the fifth perk of Basra the god of Rabbasina and ours called actually put out a separate we put out a separate pamphlet which is I think very very well received. So the in in there we print at the beginning an interesting uh comment from the Sofur in Torah Moshe in Paris. He says on the the mikila comments makes a comparison between agadada which some say comes from no god to attract it has it attracts people aata and the mun. So says just as in the case of the mun people tasted whatever they wanted to taste. So too is with agadada. People see in agadada different things and each one is almost specific to the person who's seeing it. And the implication is that this was intended by kazal to that what they said could support various meanings and those meanings are are intended. It's uh sometimes it's mystical, sometimes it's inspirational, sometimes the meaning is sermonic, sometimes and it it's it's it's interesting how we have an insight at the beginning. Insights are one of our the greatest our greatest contributions to the to the Anyakov. the insights which are drawn from a vast array of different sources whether it's Bali Museronim Daronimidic sources it's it's very it's a very eclectic array of sources and we have an insight there which draws on this eclectic array of sources to give different ideas about Agadada and why Kazal framed it in these in these ways. Um, one of them is a famous uh comment from Salanter. We quote it from Zachik who says it neighbors Salanter. He says at the time that the Germans uh in in the 1800s took over parts of Europe, conquered parts of Europe forming the German Empire, you would say the German the eagle had one wing in this city, the other wing in another city and its talons were in this city. And if you look at a map of the time, you'd see exactly what they meant that the German Empire took over these things. He says to the people that uh at that time they knew right away what was meant by the metaphor of the eagle. He says today, well, sounds like there was this giant eagle that just spread over Europe. That's he brings from Salanter. There's a he brings a uh we bring there something also from the Radvaz beautiful. The Radvas says that of course there are many hidden meanings but Khazal tried as the Ram says already in his Atoma to Mishnay that uh many of the ideas concepts that Kazal wanted to convey are really not for everyone and they hid it behind uh this veil of of ag so it would not be discovered except by those who were fit to discover it. So the says that's why kazal sprinkled agadas throughout the gummor says instead of having it in one place first of all it gives a people a break from the rigors of of of learning not that agadada is not a study but it's a different type of study correct and also he says it's like a he doesn't use the example this is a modern example uses like a treasure hunt you find a clue here you find a clue here you go into a into a into a an escape room and you have to look for clues and says, "Yeah, you find a little piece of garra here and another piece of gar and a different maka and you find all the different clues and you put them all together then you'll find the key to get out of to to escape to escape from the setting that that the agad was put in and to arrive at the at the at at the intended meaning. Isn't isn't this is I you know this is something that on some level I'm intrigued by because if agatas were supposed to cloak certain meanings um throughout history people have written you know the deeper meaning perhaps the mahar kadoo aas and others and now arch comes along and kind of makes a garamara available to the masses which is fantastic it's a huge benefit and we could learn a gamar in a meaningful way but on some level are they perhaps unsealing something that was meant to be sealed. Well, the parts that were really meant to be sealed because they're beyond us remain sealed. We don't we don't get into those. Uh the parts that were unsealed by giants of our misor like the maral or the raam or the rajbah or any of the others. So once they unseal those particular meanings so that it becomes it's in the public domain and and and we we try to present it. Um I'll just mention that it seems that by collecting all the agitas together the the the the sort of defeated the purpose of the if if the the says of keeping it scattered. It's like having all the clues in the escape room in one spot. All the clues in the same spot. Fantastic. Right. But uh but there is a um a very interesting there in that insight we bring down from the matcher. I say as as I've mentioned that the sources we draw on in that one is is are as eclectic as what is appears throughout the the the 18 volume work. He says he gives a marshall uh a parable of a king who had treasures and when he was due to pass on to the next world he realized that his son was too young to appreciate the treasures. He was afraid that if his son came into possession of these treasures then he would um he would be he could be exploited by by advisers and people would take it and he would fritter it away. So he had an somebody he had an artisan hide them in the palace walls and paint murals over the walls with some just less than perfect paintings in a certain in certain spots. So people wondered they looked that's strange they had a really a first rate artist painted why did he miss that corner or this corner? Okay. The sun grew and he was an a connoisseur of art and he always admired the murals. And one day as an older and developed and sophisticated person, he he looks at one second here. This doesn't make any sense. How did my father the artist who did this how did he not do such how did he paint such seemingly inferior things in this place? It's not the same as the others. And he had somebody break the walls at that point. And that's where he found the gems. He said his father was waiting for something. You see, if Kazal says something that doesn't seem to fit with, this is what Kazal would say. That is exactly the proof that there's something special lying behind there. And that's where Kazal hid those gems. Wonderful. It's amazing. Um there is one many things remain unsealed. uh we bring in in in one of our haktois thelhuda uh writes in his haktoma to the onus. He gives also a parable of a a woman who was uh who was shipwrecked on an island with other passengers. She was expecting a child and she gave birth to a baby boy on the island and they're on this desert this this this this island this uh and not a desert island, an island where they were just shipwrecked. They were and an older man comes to the boy as he gets a little older and he says, "Let me teach you how to read." He gives him he teaches him the alphabet. And the boy is right. Why do I need this for? There's nothing here on the island. There are no books. There's nothing. You're giving me some some needless skill. What do I have to know how to read alphabet? There's nothing there's nothing here that this that this opens for me. He says, "You're right. Nothing here on the island is going to be shown to you because you know how to read. But one day, one day we're going to be rescued and you're going to be be brought back to civilization. And there you're going to find libraries of treasures that will be accessible to you only if you know how to read the books that I'm teaching you now how to read. And says the same thing with a kazal are giving us the tools. Read this, learn it. You don't understand it now. That's okay. One day, Hashem will open your eyes to some of them and you'll be very thankful that Kazal gave us those tools of how to read these things which are not accessible to us as of yet. Very interesting. Uh Rebel, as you were working on this monument, five years of dedication to coming up with some incredible was there like one particular vart a moment that you're like, "Wow, that's incredible. That's amazing." That you could share with us? There is. Um, but I I I would not like to run out of time before I mention something. Uh, sure. Uh, we're here to interview what you have to say. We want to hear. Fine. Yes. Thank you. The the amount of material that we drew on to do our parishov, the team we had working on it. Uh, you see this is not this is inside arts school, not inside. for inside read I recommend highly reading the haktoma of uh Ryakov to the but how this was done this was done with a huge team uh we had one team who took the gammoras which were already translated in the Shottenstein Gomorrah but it was translated in the Shottenstein Gomorrah as a uh way of studying Gomorrah people learn is really aims at a different setting for learning. It's not it's it's lighter. It's still intense in some way, but and it's and it's learning. It's learning different, but it's in a more narrative uh setting. And therefore, the the the translations, the elucidations of the Talmud had to be revised in a more narrative way to be more appealing as a read rather than than a study. uh just as somebody gave an exam says it's something you have to you you want to read in your armchair not at your standard. So that had to be revised. Now we had one team of people working on that. We had another entire team of people working to find material that would be we have certain policies of what we're looking for inspirational uh cmonic uh evenic balm and we had a team that that really went through great lengths and assembled an an immense amount of material. Now I know myself somebody says you find some they say in shamay see here see here nobody's bothering to look he says we had the people whatever they found that they thought was appropriate that might turn into an insight an amplification on the on the gora so they print out the PDFs they annotate which parts they thought would be most uh usable for us it went from there to somebody else who reviewed it and decided what was most useful. It went from there to writers who wrote up the insights. It went from there to people who checked the insights to make sure that everything was accurate and sometimes even again to another editor who who who looked it over at the end. And I would say of the amount of material submitted not even 10% wow found its way into the insights. That's incredible. However, I said we have such we have done so much research. We have we've got so much material even if they're not for insights people might be interested in seeing these things. They will be interested in seeing we have it already. Why not make it available to the public? So we we came up with a separate section called um uh additional references where we give one or two lines what these other pieces we didn't use say. It's not just say I sh see there nobody's going to look. see there where he says something along these lines that might pique someone's interest. Say, "Oh, wait. I'm interested in following that up." So, that section is a is is is a a treasure trove of additional material that we had already discovered and which we incorporated. It doesn't jump out at you when you learn the but if you look at those additional references, you'll see a vast amount of additional material. So fascinating this this entire system you know individually there's no way I could have done it even a fraction of it but a lot of different people we put together a team that was able to produce as you called it a monumental work to get back to your question sure and we'll conclude with this not not that I'm avoiding it uh that was a little that was the inside arts girl story uh I came across um reading once something that Raf Salivic said on a certain gumor in mo and when I saw it I said uh this is going to have to go into the yakov when we get to that gamorra and it did and it's something which you look at a gamorraha and it seems there's nothing remarkable about it it's a straightforward gamora and what Russic did with that gamorraha he just he he he sent it into into the stratosphere The Gmoran says that Rahuna when Rahuna was nifter so they couldn't get his mita is called it beer out of bir out of the out of the doorway the doorway was too narrow so they tried let's say let's take it out there's an opening on the roof let's take it out of there so I think it was who said no we don't do that The direct the way to honor is you have to go through the door. Okay? So you can't get it out the door. So let's move the body into a smaller and move that out of the door. No also it says no is in his first bed. So they had no choice. It says they broke open the doorway and they took it out. Seems to be a very a gumar just was passed right by. But the garb did put it in. Rav Salvage said this I imagine it was 1940 I don't know but it was a hespit he said on Genski who was nif in 1940 and rasalvik said in essence the gummor saying is that a great man an odel is broader than most people can appreciate that's what makes him an odle he said the tendency is when we want to have an appreciation of an audle. So I'll leave out the part about going through the roof. That's a separate he speaks about that. We speak about that. The tendency is to try to cut him down to our size. Let's move him into a smaller bed. We c he can't fit through the doorways of our minds. He's too wide. So we have to the tendency is move him into a smaller bed. Let's keep him. He learned and he mastered this and he memorized this and he was kind and and says no is the of the is in his breadth not in the narrow part that you can appreciate. You have no choice but you have you want to appreciate who he was you have to break open the doorways the narrow confines of your mind and to be able to appreciate the breadth the vastness of what this godle was. That's beautiful. That's really magnificent. And I think on some level that's what happened in your entire monumental work of Enyakov. You took something which was confined if you want to say it that and person would read and maybe that's even a and you broke it open and said broaden yourself and you'll appreciate what's inside of the safer. Yes. Thank you. It it's really eclectic. We're not trying to push one particular as one particular theme one particular way of looking at things. One of our readers early on was he was actually critical of our insights. Uh and he said he wrote me an email and he said, you know, it's really you're just going over the same six themes uh over and over again. U it's just you just say it in different words and it's just come it's getting I said well first of all according I didn't say this but according to the it would be 12 not six. Okay. All right. So we won't quibble over the numbers. I said huge and I said Rabbi so and so by your way of looking at things you could say that all the great restaurants of the world could reduce their menus to one simple cart. We sell we serve fats, carbs and carbohydrates uh carbohydrates and proteins seasoned to taste. There's a billion multi-billion dollar industry. People eat different foods. People like different things. It's true there are many themes that are repetitive. But different things strike different people in different ways at different times. And by drawing on this vast array of sources and presenting it in in this way, I think people will find things that will appeal to them and inspire them and make them better in good times, in not as good times, and at different times in their lives. Amazing. Continued people should purchase this. They should learn it, be inspired by it where they're at. and mer you should continue to uh disseminate such amazing and projects that really help Kali is become closer to Tyra learning you know one individual at a time thank you so just we mentioned in the also we bring down it's a in par that says if you want the rishimo say if you want to know to recognize learn It says because from there you'll get to uh recognize and to emulate his ways. It's not just about learning. It's about being. It's about becoming the type of people wanted us to become. Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming down. This was very enlightening and also very inspiring. Thank you. Appreciate it. [Music]