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@SeforimChatter sent me this interesting English from his copy of Benedetto Frizzi's Pesah Enayim (Livorno, 1878):
"The Pheuix. Revival of scurce and valualbe pieces no Where to be found but in vhe closets of ve curious."
"The Pheuix. Revival of scurce and valualbe pieces no Where to be found but in vhe closets of ve curious."
The reference is to this book from 1708, "The Phenix: or, a REVIVAL of Scarce and Valuable Pieces No where to be found but in the Closets of the Curious" by John Dunton.
It concerns a letter from Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell, printed in this book.
It concerns a letter from Menasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell, printed in this book.
Menasseh included a catalog of his works, requested by Cromwell:
"As to give Satisfaction to your Worship, being desirous to know what Books have been written and printed by me, or else are almost ready for the Press; may you please to take the Names of them in this Catalogue."
"As to give Satisfaction to your Worship, being desirous to know what Books have been written and printed by me, or else are almost ready for the Press; may you please to take the Names of them in this Catalogue."
Here's Menasseh talking about the Khmelnitsky Massacres of 1648-49 (and longer, but those are the canonical dates) in a piece printed six years after they occurred. He puts the number of dead at 180,000 at the hands "of the Cosaques in the late warres."
And here is Dr. Benedetto Frizzi (Benzion Raphael Hakohen Frizzi), whose book started this whole thread.
He was Shadal's childhood doctor. Of him he writes:
He was Shadal's childhood doctor. Of him he writes:
"In the beginning of 1813, I was seized with a heavy sickness, which Dr. Frizzi attributed to too close an application to studies. 1
"My father withdrew me then from the public school, permitting that I should go only to Rabbi Levy to learn Talmud, and making me still read Hebrew works at home." 2
"One of his most favorite books seemed to be “Sepher Habberit,” (by Eliyah Wilna [no relation!) on account of the notions it gives on physical sciences, on geography and natural history, as well as for the amount of Cabbalism wherewith it teems." 3
"I had to peruse it, while I was being initiated into the art of shaping wood with the turning-lathe." 4
There is another reference to Frizzi in this autobiography. Shadal had discovered that the written symbols of the nekudot and te'amim postdated the Talmud. This blew his mind. His father didn't really have an answer, so they asked Dr. Frizzi, who'd been treating Shadal's mother.
"From that period dates the opening of that series of critical researches in which my mind has ever since been engaged." 1
"Reading “Ain Yaacob,” (a compilation of the Haggadistic portion of the Talmud), I noticed, here and there, several passages, suggestive of the idea that in the days of the Talmudists, the Bible had not yet been furnished with either vowel-points or singing accents;" 2
"that it was recited with a kind of chant analogous to that which is now in use, but the chanting had, by no means, determined signs set down, as a guide. I worried my father about it, and he, in March 1814, during my mother's illness, broached the subject to Dr. Frizzi." 3
"The very scholarly physician cited forwith the famous passage in treatise “Nedarim,” p. 37, (which has been explained, as favoring the notion that both vowel-points and singing accents existed as far back as in the time of Ezra.)" 4
But Shadal was only 13 and intimidated:
"I, in my timidity, said nothing, but held to my opinion that the Talmud speaks there of the traditional chantings connected with the recital of the Scriptures, but not at all of written signs." 5
Another part I really look in Shadal's autobiography is the part where he says that he learned through Shas with his father in 15 months:
"On the first June of the same year [1817]I betook myself the task of going through the whole of the Zohar, noting down in my memorandum book the most striking passages and the most decisive traces I could discover of its authenticity." 1
"But I did not proceed very far in my labor; around page 82 I laid down my pen.
An undertaking, however, which had a different issue, was my reading of the Babylonish Talmud." 2
An undertaking, however, which had a different issue, was my reading of the Babylonish Talmud." 2
"I had already perused several treatises of it with my father and others I had studied previously with Rabbi Levy." 3
"But during 1818 and the three months preceding it, I joined my parent in reciting the entire work—not exactly as a critical study, but with the view of forming a general idea of what the Talmud contained, and of what it did not comprise." 4
"My object was, especially, to ascertain whether indications of the existence of vowel points and singing accents are to be met in that work." 5
" For the very same purpose, considering Midrash Rabbot very ancient, I began that year to give serious attention to it, when I got as far as Exodus and I found the singing accent Passek mentioned, I stopped." 6
"I judged at once that the “Rabbot” was a later compilation than the Talmud." 7
"I did not know, however, at that time, to make the proper distinction, which the very learned Zunz drew afterwards. I mean, that the second, fourth and fifth, are posterior to the first and third volumes." 8
