Sepher Kerithoth [Talmudic methodology]

SAMSON BEN ISAAC OF CHINON.

Constantinople

1515

FIRST EDITION. Opening blank with Hebrew signature "Ya'akov Bernays." Extensive Hebrew (and Greek) marginalia throughout

Vinograd, Const. 79; Yaari, Const. 47; Adams, S-228; Deinard, Atikoth Yehudah, p. 23

THE JACOB BERNAYS COPY WITH HIS MARGINALIA. Sepher Kerithoth is a comprehensive work by a member of the French School of Tosaphists, focusing on Talmudic methodology. The opening four parts deal with the hermeneutic rules which are the basis of Tannaitic halachic derivation, the chronology of the Tanna'im and Amora'im and the principles upon which Halachah is decided when difference of opinion exist. The fifth part is particularly important, devoted to the deduction of new rules applied by the Talmudists in their interpretation of the Bible, and to an extensive elucidation upon the methods and terminology of both parts of the Talmud. ”This portal throws light upon many a knotty passage in the Talmud by clarifying the peculiar expressions and likewise helps to understand the complicated Talmudic discussions by supplying the key to their methods” (M. Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature (1933) Vol. II, p.191). Jacob Bernays (1824-81), eminent philologist and classicist, was the eldest son of Chacham Isaac Bernays of Hamburg (1792-1849), credited with being the founder of neo-Orthodoxy in Germany. (Isaac Bernays exerted a profound and lasting influence upon his disciple Samson Raphael Hirsch.) Together with Zechariah Frankel, Jacob Bernays founded the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary where he taught classics, German literature, Hebrew poetry and Jewish philosophy. These interests are duly reflected in the marginalia of his copy of Sepher Kerithoth. On the front fly, he writes in Hebrew: "At the end of the book you will find two worthy poems which have also been copied at the end of the Cremona edition of She'eloth U'Teshuvoth Maharam MiRothenburg." In his Greek marginalium to the poem which appears on f. 63r, Bernays references Arist[otle], Eth[ica] 6, 3. (See EJ, Vol. IV, col. 673)