“ASHER BEN YECHIEL” (RO”SH) (Pseudo). Besamim Rosh [responsa]

Saul Berlin maintained he had copied the 392 responsa recorded here from an Italian manuscript purported to be by the RO”SH, with Berlin only adding notes. However, the content was of a surprisingly liberal tendency, bordering on antinomianism. The suspicion that the entire work was fictitious and Berlin’s purpose was merely to foment dissension was widely vocalized. A campaign seeking to brand Saul an atheist was refuted by his father, R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin, who even attempted to establish the genuineness of the manuscript. This copy contains extremely important marginal notes in the hand of R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin on f.20r with additional unpublished material concerning his famous responsum regarding shaving on Chol Ha’moed, published in Binyan Ariel, part II f.30 by his brother, Saul Loewenstamm (See Lot 87). The notation is entitled Mussar Av (“A Fathers Chastisement”), and criticizes his son, Saul Berlin on his rendering of the point of Jewish law at issue, beginning his note; Lo Kein Beni…” (“It is not so, my son…”). In all probability, the present copy belonged to the author himself. This is especially likely, as the note written by his father R. Tzvi Hirsch Berlin is addressed to him. Another copy of the Besamim Rosh belonging to Tzvi Hirsch Berlin, is presently in St. Petersburg (see Weiner, Kehilath Moses, no. 1796). See M. Carmilly-Weinberger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History (1977) pp. 159-60.