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

(BERLIN, SAUL).

Chevrath Chinuch Ne’arim

Berlin

1793

FIRST EDITION, Title in typographical border. Copy of “Yechezkel Feivel,” possibly famed “Vilna Maggid,” (1755-1833), author of Toldoth Adam, biography of R. Zalman Volozhin. On final blank, scholarly maginal note

Vinograd, Berlin 416

Saul Berlin maintained he copied the 392 responsa recorded here from an Italian manuscript attributed to Rabbenu Asher ben Yechiel, with Berlin adding only notes, which he entitled “Kasa de-Harsena” (A Cup of Small Fish). However, the content was of a surprisingly liberal tendency, bordering on antinomianism. Today it is widely thought that the entire work was fictitious and conformed to Berlin’s hidden agenda: the promotion of Haskalah (Aufklaerung or Enlightenment). Nonetheless, no less a Halachic authority than R. Akiva Eger quotes from Besamim Rosh, responsum no. 89, regarding the question whether women are obligated to pray the Mussaf (Additional) Prayer. See Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia, 2002), pp. 335-340. Concerning alleged Maskilic, though decidedly Orthodox, tendencies of the Vilna Maggid, see Edward Breuer, The Haskalah in Vilna: R. Yehezkel Feivel's Toldot Adam, in: Torah u-Madda Journal (1997) pp. 15-40