MOSES BEN MAIMON (MAIMONIDES/ RaMBa”M).

The Earliest Manuscript Extant With Hagahoth Maimoniyoth. To Date Entirely Unknown and Unrecorded. A Manuscript With an Illustrious French Provenance. Hagahoth Maimoniyoth: This comprehensive compilation of supplements and notes to the Mishneh Torah is one of the most important sources for the Halachic rulings of the great scholars of France and Germany, adapting and thus spreading Maimonides’ work in these lands. Maimonides himself had relied on the traditions of the Spanish School of Decisors. The author, R. Meir Hakohen of Rothenburg was the principle disciple of the MaHRa”M of Rothenburg (R. Meir b. Baruch), the foremost rabbinic personage of his generation. Prof. Havlin has determined This Manuscript to be Earlier than any Other Aschkenazi Manuscript with Hagahoth Maimoniyoth. (cf. Oxford, Neubauer Ms. no.569 and Cambridge Ms.no.13.1). The scribes of both these manuscripts systematically organized the Hagahoth of the Mishneh Torah within “windows,” i.e. within the body of the text. Thus indicating the scribe was copying from an earlier text and therefore able to arrange the construction of the page for the inclusion of the Hagahoth. In the present manuscript the Hagahoth Maimoniyoth are written almost exclusively along the margins. Moreover the unequal distribution of glosses alongside the relevant text indicates the composition of this manuscript at a very early stage, seemingly in the author’s lifetime. Moreover, the date 1170 ascribed to the Cambridge manuscript pre-dates the composition of the Mishneh Torah itself! Allony’s attempted correction (Areshet, III p.410) to the year 1230 pre-dates the composition of the Hagahoth Maimoniyoth and thus is also incorrect. Thus, in all probability, the present manuscript is the earliest containing the Hagahoth. The text of both the Mishneh Torah and the Hagahoth Maimoniyoth is here uncensored. This is especially evident and important in the final section of Hilchoth Melachim where the text (p.163v) contains references to Jesus Christ and Mohammed that does not appear in any other version, printed or manuscript. Similarly in Hilchoth Aiduth (p.145v) the reference to Gentiles as unacceptable as witnesses is unknown in all later editions including the recent Frankel edition of the Mishneh Torah (based on all known manuscript and printed editions). The manuscript contains other variant readings and unknown glosses: Important notes gleaned from the outstanding English Tosafist, Benedict b. Moses of Lincoln (d.1278), on pp.37v and 38r (“R. Berachiah of Nicole”). Notes in another hand signed Yechiel Hakohen are found on pp.26r and 95v, and notes signed Shalom Isaac b. (...?) Samuel are found on p.104r. Further study is clearly an important requirement here. A manuscript from this time-period was offered by Christie’s, Important Hebrew Manuscripts from the Library of the London Beth Din, 23rd June, 1999, lot 2. It has a similar writing style, but a later development. In our manuscript, the letter Shin has a thinner base and the letter Aleph is elongated relative to the width of the letter. Provenance: 1. Mattathias (Treves?). The name Mattathias is written with a distinctive flourish on pp.75r and 95v. According to Dr. Engel, this might indicate the name of the scribe. However, Prof. S.Z. Havlin of the Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, suggests the appearance of Mattathias indicates the name of a former owner. On p.116r there appears a marginal gloss with the acrostic MM”T, or Mattathias b. Joseph b. Yochanan Treves, appointed Chief Rabbi of Paris by Charles V in 1363 (see EJ, XV cols.1376-7). He is repeatedly referred to in this fashion in his commentary to the Semag (British Museum Ms. Margolis 1081). Mattathias Treves is equally renowned as owner of the famed Munich Manuscript of the Talmud (Codex no. 95), the earliest Talmud manuscript extant. (See R.N.N. Rabbinovicz, Dikduei Sofrim, Berachoth; and S. Gottesman, Yeshurun, vol. VI pp.71-88). An illustrious owner, with an obvious fondness for exceptional Manuscripts 2. A later owner, apparently a Karaite from the 18th-century, is found on p.57r. (Additionally, a doodle of the Hebrew alphabet appears on p.62r alongside the date 1767). 3. Yitzhak Hopstein of Simferopol, Crimea (a centre of Karaism); Historian and bibliophile. And by family descent to the present owner. Kestenbaum & Company offers grateful thanks for the valuable research assistance of Dr. Edna Engel of the Paleographical Project of the Jewish National and University Library of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, under the directorship of Prof. Malachi Beit-Arié; Prof. S.Z. Havlin, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan; and the scholarship of Rabbi E. Katzman, New York