English Translation of Maimonides ‘Hilkhot Shabbat’

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Moznaim Publishers of Jerusalem which, in the last few years, published various parts of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah in English translation recently published an additional volume – the 16th in the series- containing the first  15 of the Rambam’s 30 chapters on Hilkhot Shabbat.

The new volume – like the earlier tomes- features, in addition to the vocalized Hebrew text and the precise English translation, an extensive English commentary, which offers source references, explanations, clarifications as well as alternative views and interpretations, culled from the writings of early and later rabbinic authorities.

The translation and the commentary, which is accompanied by illustrative diagrams, are the work of Rabbi Eliyahu Touger who prepared most of Moznaim’s English Mishneh Torah editions which have appeared so far. He is also the author of the excellent English translation of Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried’s Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, put out by Moznaim some time ago.

Rabbi Tougher accomplished his task in an admirable manner. His translation is very readable and the commentary – which reveals the author’s wide erudition and considered judgment – is lucid and easy to understand throughout even where it deals with diffiuclt and intricate subject matters.

Following is an observation on a variant reading in Maimonides’ text before us.

In chapter 12, Halakha 3 we read in the English translation: “Should a fire break out on the Sabbath… It is only the threat of loss of life, and not monetary loss, that supersedes the Sabbath prohibitions. Therefore all people should leave [the area of the blaze] so they do not die. They should let the fire continue to burn even if it consumes the entire city.”

Rabbi Touger in his commentary, refers to the Rema (Sh. A. Orah Hayyim 334) who asserts that nowadays this law should not be applied for reasons stated by him there. A fire should not be allowed to continue to burn, but must be extinguished.

Comparing Rabbi Touger’s just quoted translation with the Hebrew text in the volume, one will be surprised to detect that they do not correspond. The Hebrew text says that the fire should be permitted to burn even if it consumes one’s entire apartment (Kol Dirato Kula). There is no mention of “The entire city”! Obviously we have here variant readings. Rabbi Touger’s text differed from that used by the publisher. How did these variant readings come about?

The first printed edition of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (Rome, circa 1480) has the following text: “… even if it consumes Kol HaMedina Kula,” which should be translated “even if it consumes the entire city” as Maimonides generally used the noun Medina in the sense of city, and not country.

This reading could not be maintained for long. It laid Jews open to the charge that they did not care for the property of their neighbors. The reading was changed into “even if it consumes one’s apartment.”

Rabbi Tougher while working on the translation, had in front of him a Mishneh Torah edition with the original reading. He couldn’t know that the publisher would make use of a different edition and thus did not expand on the variant reading in his excellent commentary.

Recent Reprints of Rare Books

R. Shmuel Zarza was a 14th century Spanish Jewish scholar. He composed a philosophical commentary on the Torah, called Mekor Hayyim (Fountain of Life). in which he explained the views of R. Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides (in his Guide of the Perplexed), and mentioned those of other Jewish thinkers. The commentary was printed in Mantua in 1559.

It has now been reprinted by R. Chaim Elezar Reich, the Boro Park publisher of rare books. Other rare books put out recently by Reich include Rabbi Josef Samegah’s novellae Porat Yosef, which was originally published in Venice in 1590. R. Samegah, who was rabbi in Salonica, and served later as Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva in Venice.

The Jewish Press, Friday, Sept. 4, 1992 p. 40