Book Review: Rav Sa‘adya Ga’on in the focus of controversies in Baghdad

Abstract

On the occasion of Professor Joshua Blau’s centenary jubilee, the book Rav Sa‘adya Ga’on in the focus of controversies in Baghdad: Sa'adya’s Sefer Ha-Galuy and Mevasser's two books of critiques on him, by Joshua Blau himself and Joseph Yahalom, was published in 2019 by the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book includes the original Hebrew version of Sefer Ha-Galuy; Sefer Eppiqoros, by Khalaf ibn Sarjadu; The Arabic version (Tafsir) of Sefer Ha-Galuy; and two critical works by by Mevasser ben Nissi Halevi: The Book of Correcting the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva, and The Book of Revealing the Errors Found in the Writings of the Fayyumite Rosh Yeshiva. I briefly review the content of these works as well as the cultural and historical background, and focus on the reasons for which Rav Sa‘adya composed Sefer Ha-Galuy and the ten benefits he detailed which may be gained from his work. We stress additional insights that the modern reader may find in this work, among them a glimpse into Rav Sa‘adya’s methodology in his Biblical commentary as reflected in his usage of biblical words in Sefer Ha-Galuy. We also discuss the history of the publication of Sefer Ha-Galuy throughout the past century and a half, little by little, until the nearly complete edition by Blau and Yahalom. The newly published translation reads fluently and is enlightening, bringing the reader into the atmosphere of those distant days. The reconstruction of the manuscript from the Geniza fragments is mostly plausible, but seems to be incorrect in a few places. I present here three additional yet unpublished fragments of the Sefer Ha-Galuy that include sections not included in the new printed edition, and suggest that some of the printed sections should be reordered. In addition, considerations regarding the internal coherency of the text, as well as the physical properties of the Geniza fragments, may lead to a slightly different ordering. One of the newly presented fragments reveals that in his commentary on the Sefer Ha-Galuy Rav Sa‘adya aimed at demonstrating the utility of high mathematics to Torah study, thereby emphasizing his own personal virtue as one having extensive knowledge in these fields. Furthermore, one can learn from the new Geniza sections about the proper order in which Rav Sa‘adya mentions the people whom he attacks in this manuscript, including a name that has disappeared so far from the eyes of the researchers, Judah the son of the Exilarch, David Ben Zakkai. The edition is accompanied by brief expansive comments. I illustrate how these may be the basis for further discussions, addressing the calculation of the end-of-days included in Sefer Ha-Galuy, probably as part of Rav Sa‘adya's method of historiography, which divides Jewish history into periods of 500 years.