The Search For Brak

            Some years ago, I happened upon an article in the Jewish Daily Forward[1] entitled "With Frog In Throat". It was a review of an 1813 Haggadah printed in an obscure language known as “French”. Among other items of interest, the reviewer notes that in the passage מעשה ברבי אליעזר ורבי יהושע ורבי אלעזר בן עזריה ורבי עקיבא ורבי טרפון שהיו מסובין בבני ברק, "Bnei Brak" is translated as “enfans de Beraq” (“the children of Brak”), a “howler”, as the article notes. Bnei Brak, of course, is the name of a town first mentioned in Joshua 19 and repeatedly referred to in the Talmud, and to translate it literally as “the children of Brak” makes as much sense as saying “Aish Hatorah has branches in the angels and big water.[2]”

            I had a hunch that this wouldn’t be the only appearance of these “Sons Of Brak”, and set out to find them elsewhere. It didn’t take long.

Of No House

            In the 1870’s, the Alexanders, a family printing house in London, published "The הגדה של פסח containing the Ceremonies and Thankfgiving, Which are ufed and read By all Families, in every House of the Israelites, on the Two firft Nights of PASSOVER, Faithfully Translated from the Original Hebrew, To which is added several Commentary Explanations thereon."

            They deal with the "Bnei Brak" passage in a very puzzling manner, translating it as "the children of Berak" but then adding a footnote: “the name of a place inhabited by Profelytes, defcended from Haman" (cf. Sanhedrin 96b). Well, which one is it?

            These fellows do not get the benefit of our doubt. According to Encylopedia Judaica, they perpetrated other "slovenly" translations of the Siddur and Pentateuch, and publicly ridiculed the Chief Rabbi of England after he refused to buy their scribblings. The Alexanders’ dishonor will be their own. Let us wafte no more time with thefe guys, and move on.

The Assimilated

            In 1882, the missionary meshumad Paul Hershon published "Treasures of the Talmud", a collection of Talmudic passages translated and arranged by topic, with a haskamah and introductory preface from the "Rev H D M Paul Spence, Vicar of St Pancras, Hon Canon of Gloucester, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol," kinaynhorah.

            Both Spence and Hershon wrote prefaces to the book, and a quick skimming thereof made it obvious to me that these people had no respect or understanding of the Talmud they had plundered for profit.[3] The typical Christian impulse drives them to warp the text to promote baseless theories. After learning that the Amora Rav Samla’i was a closet Christian and other such inane “novelties”, I had very low expectations.

            It was little surprise when I came upon this beauty (p. 120, from Semachos 2:5): "Another boy of the children of Berak (תינוק אחד מבני ברק) happened to break a glass on the Sabbath day... Rabbi Akiva, being asked, decided...."   Hershon, the big "expert" in Talmud, forgot that Rabbi Akiva was the rabbi of Bnei Brak (Sanhedrin 32b), as well as the above-mentioned passage in the Haggadah, and the verse in Joshua 19 identifying Bnei Brak as a town conquered by the Israelites.

The Wrath Of Kohler

            Vayter. In the 1890's, a chap calling himself Michael Levi Rodkinson began to publish a "New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud" featuring an original English translation and "Revised and Corrected by The Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise, President Hebrew Union College.”[4] Wise enthusiastically recommended the work, writing that the translation is "correct and almost literal." Rodkinson hopped around America, picking up positive recommendations of himself and his project from such personalities as Benjamin Szold, Marcus Jastrow, and Kaufmann Kohler,[5] as well as schnorring funds for future volumes.

            Immediately upon publication of the first volume, Tractate Shabbos, it was recognized as a monumental tour de farce. A very disappointed Kohler published a scathing letter in the American Hebrew, writing that “both text and translation are utterly defective and unreliable... Obviously the translator (and there are different hands easily discerned in the book) lacks the very rudiments of grammar... there is neither system nor method in his translation or presenting of the subject under discussion... the vandalism perpetrated upon the text is unparalleled. He mutilates and murders the finest passages without the least cause... In one word, the work is a disgrace to Jewish scholarship in America and it is a sin to encourage or support it.”

            The Jewish Chronicle of London put it thus: “Mr. Michael L. Rodkinson continues his ridiculous “New Edition”... the copper plates of Tract Rosh Hashanah were stolen and only a few copies remained... O that the thief had done his work more thoroughly! The book is a pretentious piece of ignorance and humbug...” And so on.

            Well, waddaya know. In Kohler’s angry letter he points out that "The Palestinian town 'Bnei B’rak', known to every child that learns the Pesach Haggada, is translated in Synopsis p xxxii as 'the children of Barak'." Certainly an embarrassing error, which also lends some irony to Wise's statement that the translation is "almost literal".

Yet Rodkinson was unfazed - even fazers the likes of Kohler and J.D. Eisenstein (who methodically tore his work to pieces in his אוצר זכרונותי) had no effect on him. In reply he wrote in the American Hebrew, "I respectfully beg to confirm such rendition, for in the Haggada where we find 'B'Bnei Brak' it is synonymous with 'Etzel Bnei Brak', and we have all reason to believe that R Tarfon, R Joshua etc. had a hearty meal at the expense of the children of Barak."

            Here Rodkinson exposes the fact that he is not familiar with his own "work", for the term "the children of Barak" is, as Kohler noted, found only in the Synopsis in the beginning the volume: "...incidents occurring in the bath-house of the children of Barak." Yet later in the Gemara text itself (Shabbos 40a), his translation of that very passage reads, "It happened in the bath-house of Bene Berag [sic]." If he really thought Bnei Brak meant the "children of Barak", he should have given this translation in the text itself. This supports the assertions of Kohler and JD Eisenstien that Rodkinson didn't do the translation himself.[6]

I’M A DOKTOR, NOT A RABBI

            This Rodkinson fellow was quite a character. Born in Poland as Michoel Frumkin, he is said to have married and abandoned two wives there, changed his name, and moved to Germany, where he managed to find trouble too, publishing books about the Ba’al Shem Tov full of made up stories, and finding some time on the side to assist the notorious anti-Semite August Rohling in his libel suit against Josef Samuel Bloch by providing him with translations of Talmudic passages. Leaving Europe, (Eisenstien says he “ran away”, but doesn’t explain from what) he arrived in New York where he began his Talmud project. Scholarly resistance was futile, and in New York, unapologetic to the end, our intrepid voyager finished his days pursuing his defiant enterprise.

            Interestingly, he was referred to in the press as “Dr. Rodkinson,” “Rabbi Rodkinson,” and “Mr. Rodkinson,” but I have not found evidence that he was any of these.

Conundrum

            After seeing all the above, it would seem that the translation of the words “בני ברק” as anything other than the city name could serve as a shibboleth of sorts to weed out inept translators.

There’s just one little itty bitty problem, and that is that one of the people who does just that, is none other than R’ Yitzchak Abarbanel.

As is fairly well known, in the Haggadah passage מעשה בר' עקיבא, Abarbanel in his commentary called זבח פסח does not interpret בני ברק as the name of the city, but adopts the seemingly awkward interpretation that it refers to “כלים”, an ambiguous term that can refer to articles of clothing, furniture, vessels or implements.[7]

            Now Abarbanel was no slouch, and we can’t smugly mock him as we did to all the other fellows. We need to wipe the smirk off our face and try to understand why Abarbanel didn’t simply say that R’ Eliezer, R’ Yehoshua, R’ Elazar Ben Azarya, R’ Akiva, and R’ Tarfon were having their Pesach Seder in the city of Bnei Brak?

            -  Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi, a respected 16th century authority[8], has this take: “Abarbanel found it difficult that a place should have a two-word name, and therefore explained בני ברק to mean כלים... it is astonishing that he forgot... the verse (in Joshua) which explicitly names Bnei Brak, as well as the Gemara (in Sanhedrin): ‘After Rabbi Akiva to Bnei Brak’.” Needless to say, later commentators find it impossible to swallow such an accusation, and reject the notion that Abarbanel's interpretation of בני ברק could be due to such an elementary error.

            -  A recently printed Haggadah entitled Beyad Rama tries his hand at solving the puzzle: “I’ve read that Abarbanel translates בני ברק ‘fine silk’, i.e. the Rabbis were wearing clothes of fine silk... I would suggest that Abarbanel was bothered by a question: what difference does it make where they were? He therefore translated בני ברק as clothes of fine silk.”[9]

It seems unrealistic that Abarbanel would adopt such a convoluted reading over such a question. Furthermore, it isn't clear why a description of their wardrobe is any more relevant than their location. R’ Eliyahu Hakohen of Izmir[10], in an earlier work, anticipates this objection and posits that we are being taught here one should use one's finest wares on Pesach.

However, the very idea that the locale needn't be mentioned is problematic. Many similar passages in the Talmud record the places where they happened. See, for example, Tosefta to Pesachim, ch. 10: מעשה ברבן גמליאל וזקנים שהיו מסובין בבית ביתוס בן זונין בלוד והיו עוסקין בהלכות הפסח כל הלילה. Are we to assume that Lod, too, isn't the name of a city here?

            -  Another reason suggested for this unusual reading of בני ברק is based on a halachic puzzle.

            R’ Eliezer’s opinion is that one is halachically required to stay in one’s hometown for Yom Tov, based on the verse ושמחת אתה וביתך (Sukkah 37b). If so, asks R Tzvi Hirsch Chajes (חי' מהר"ץ חיות, סנהדרין לב:), how could he have attended a seder in Bnei Brak as recorded in the Haggadah, since R Eliezer himself lived in Lod?!

            It has been suggested that this question led Abarbanel to conclude that this episode must have taken place in Lod, and therefore the words בני ברק meant something else.

A Fistful Of Data

It is important to know that  most  so-called  Abarbanel  Haggadas  only  have  a  very  abridged  version  of  his  lengthy  commentary. In  order  to  properly  consider  the  above  suggestions  we  must  see  the  original  text  in  its  entirety.  The text  of  the  זבח  פסח  on  the  passage  מעשה  ברבי כו' reads:

 אמנם קשה להבין הלשון שהיו מסובין בבני ברק יש מפרשים שהיו נסמכין לאכול את הפסח עם תלמידיהם שנקראו ״בנים״ בעיר אחת שמה ברק אבל זה בלתי מתישב אצלי אם בעבור מילת מסובין שהיה ראוי לומר שהיו נסמכין בבתי בניהם או תלמידיהם בברק לא שיאמר מסובין בבני ברק. ועוד חמשת החכמים האלה היו מתאכסנים עם בני אותה העיר לאכול ימי החג הנה א"כ לא היו כולם באגודה אחת בבית אחת מספרין ביציאת מצרים כל אותו הלילה לשיצטרכו התלמידים לומר עליהם יחד הגיע זמן קריאת שמע. ועוד שאם הם היו אוכלים בבתי תלמידיהם היאך יאמר עד שבאו תלמידיהם, הלא היו חכמים בבתי התלמידים ומאין באו עוד קשה שר׳ אלעזר בן עזריה היה עשיר וגדול הדור ונשיא בישראל ואיך יהיה נסמך על שלחן תלמידיו לאכול הפסח: וכל זה מוכח שבני ברק אינם אנשי או תלמידי עיר ברק, אבל הם כלים יפים שהיו מסובין עליהם בליל הפסה כדת וכהלכה, ולפי שאמר למעלה והלילה הזה כולנו מסובין סיפר כאן שחמשה גאוני עולם הללו היו אוכלים יהד בליל ההגדה מסובין על כלים יפים מבריקים בזוהרם חור כרפס ותכלת ואולי יתחברו בבית הנשיא ר׳ אלעזר בן עזריה, ושם שמו לפניהם לכבוד ולתפארת חכלים ההם שנקראי ״בני ברק״, כי בנים יאמר על כל דבר בנין ומעשה, כמו בין לילה היה ובין לילה אבד, עד שהסעיף יקרא בן, כמו ועל בן אמצת לך, בן פורת יוסף שפירשו המדקדקים לשון סעיף פורה וגידול, והברק יאמר על מראה המשי המבריק לעינים, כי על הכלים ההם היו מסובין.

It is difficult to understand the expression שהיו מסובין בבני ברק. Some explain that they were guests of their students, who can be called ‘children’, in a city called ‘Brak”. This does not seem correct to me, for if so it should say “They were guests (נסמכין).. in Brak (בברק)... Moreover, if these five sages were guests of students [plural], then they were not all together in one place... Furthermore, R Elazar ben Azaryah was a wealthy man, the Gadol Hador and the Nasi, why would he be a guest of his students? And how could it say ‘until their students arrived’ if they were in their students’ homes? Therefore it is clear that בני ברק are not people from Brak, rather they are beautiful כלים... perhaps they in fact were all gathered at the home of R Elazar Ben Azaryah and there they placed before the Rabbis... these כלים called “בני ברק”, as בני can refer to anything built (בנין) or crafted, and ברק refers to a silken shine, and the Rabbis were seated at (reclining on?) those כלים.

As you can see, Abarbanel considers an alternative and quite convoluted interpretation of בני ברק and discusses it at length, while not even mentioning the city of Bnei Brak. This makes it a bit harder to accept all the elaborate theories given for rejecting the simplest interpretation of them all. Abarbanel wasn’t trying to economize on ink here. If he had considered the possibility that בני ברק was the city name but had a reason to reject that interpretation, wouldn’t he have told us? And his opening sentence,  “It is difficult to understand the expression שהיו מסובין בבני ברק”, sounds as if he had no idea at all how to translate it.

            It seems logical to me that we should consider this question unresolved for the moment. Better a good question that a bad answer. If anyone has a better explanation, please let me know. Let’s see what’s out there.

---

[1] April 10, 2009, “On Language”.

[2] LA and Miami.

[3] Spence: "It contains comments, many of them untrue and mischievous, but embedded in these, the patient scholar will find many a gem...  Hershon: "its moral poverty detracts from its charms... a work that loses its spell in proportion as it becomes fairly known..." עפרא לפומייהו.

[4] The famous Reform agitator. As Yonah Landau notes with the dispassionate objectivity typical of historians, Wise “died in Cincinnati in the year 1900, not a moment too soon.” (Rav Hakollel, New York, Hamatik, 2011 p. 57)

[5]Reform scholar and successor to Wise as president of Hebrew Union.

[6] Eisenstien claims that he hired students to translate for him and then after some time dismissed them without pay, claiming that their work was unsatisfactory. Then he would find another group of students and pull the same scam on them, and  thus cheated his way to a free translation.

I have also noticed that throughout his Talmud there are six different spellings for ברק: brak berak barak beraq braq berag.

[7] I will leave כלים untranslated throughout this article because it can mean many things, and I’m not sure what Abarbanel meant here. We shall transcribe the text of Abarbanel’s commentary below and leave it to the reader to decide. It is clear from the original text that he did not interpret it to mean clothing in this context, contrary to what the author of Beyad Ramah read (see below).

[8] Author of מעשי השם and יוסף לקח.

[9] See note 7 above

[10] In his work אזור אליהו. He is better known as the author of שבט מוסר.