JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

already quotes the *Zohar and the tikkunim, and is familiar
with the homily on Jeremiah 9:22 from the end of the 13th century
and possibly later (preserved in the Berlin Hebr. Ms. 193,
fol. 79–98 and dated by Steinschneider not before 1350; cf. also
HB, 18 (1877), 20). He also copied several passages from Shem
Tov *Ibn Gaon’s work Baddei ha-Aron, which was completed
in 1325. That is the origin of all the passages which are common
to Baruch the Kabbalist’s work, and that of Shem Tov’s
Sefer ha-Emunot. Since Baruch undoubtedly knew Shem Tov
ibn Gaon’s works, there is nothing to uphold Carmoly’s assumption
that Baruch’s book was the one used in the Emunot.
Mafte’aḥ ha-Kabbalah was not a comprehensive work
(Carmoly’s manuscript, which is incomplete, contains only
28 folios) and did not add anything novel to the doctrines of
Kabbalah, only excerpts from other sources in defense of the
Kabbalistic tradition. Moses Botarel relied apparently on this
book when he quoted in length from a spurious work Ḥoshen
ha-Mishpat in his Yeẓirah commentary (to ch. 4, mishnah
4). It is possible, however, that Botarel had in mind Baruch
Togarmi as the author of a Yeẓirah commentary. Botarel also
named Baruch among the authorities who dealt with the technique
of She’elat Ḥalom (“Dream Queries”) and, as a matter of
fact, Baruch’s exposition is still extant in manuscripts (Gaster
603, fol. 9 and in other manuscripts). Apart from this, an
older kabbalist named Baruch, who could not have lived after
1400 since he is already mentioned in manuscripts from
that period, is mentioned occasionally in manuscripts dealing
with practical Kabbalah. In the old Paris manuscript no.
602, he is described as the “father-in-law of the kabbalist Menahem,”
who is himself unknown. In the Gaster manuscript
no. 720, the theurgic use of the so-called shem ha-kanaf, i.e.,
of the mystic “name” Ẓemarkad, was transmitted “from the
tradition of Baruch.” In a work of similar character such as
his Yeẓirah commentary (which is partly preserved in a Jerusalem
manuscript), Botarel attributes a commentary on the
Ḥagigah talmudic tract, particularly its second chapter, to a
kabbalist called Baruch of Narbonne. It is to be assumed that
he means by this the same person, who therefore belongs to
the second half of the 14th century. S. Sachs, who mistakes this
Baruch for the one mentioned above, ascribes Ma’amar ha-
Sekhel (Cremona, 1557), which gives the 613 commandments
a kabbalistic explanation, to him.
BARUCH ASHKENAZI. Baruch Ashkenazi who is called by
Shem Tov *Attia, in the introduction to his commentary on the
Psalms, an “old kabbalist,” is, as clearly shown by his surname,
a third person. There are no further details about him.
Bibliography: Scholem, Mysticism, 127.
[Gershom Scholem]
BARUCH, prominent U.S. family.
Simon (1840–1921)emigrated from his native Posen, Prussia,
to America in 1855. He settled in South Carolina, where his
first employers, impressed with his talents, assisted him in his
studies at the medical colleges of South Carolina and Virginia.
baruch
Baruch received his degree in 1862 and became a surgeon in
Lee’s Confederate Army, serving at the front for three years.
Captured and interned at Fort McHenry, he wrote a book on
military surgery, Two Penetrating Wounds of the Chest, which
remained a standard work through World War I. In 1864 he
was sent to Thomasville, North Carolina, to prepare hospital
facilities for Confederate troops pursuing Sherman. After the
war he lived in South Carolina, where he was elected president
of the State Medical Association (1874) and chairman of the
State Health Board (1880). In 1881 he moved to New York to escape
the turbulence of Reconstruction, occupying the chair of
hydrotherapy at Columbia University’s College of Physicians
and Surgeons. Credited with being the first doctor to successfully
diagnose and remove a ruptured appendix, he also contributed
to the treatment of malaria, childhood diseases, and
typhoid fever. He edited the Journal of Balneology, the Dietetic
and Hygienic Gazette, and Gailland’s Medical Journal.
Simon’s wife, the former ISOBEL WOLFE of Winnsboro,
South Carolina, was a descendant of Isaac Rodriguez
Marques, an early colonial settler. The couple had four sons,
Hartwig, Bernard Mannes, Herman Benjamin, and Sailing
Wolfe (1874–1962). HARTWIG (1868–1953), the eldest, became
a Broadway actor. HERMAN (1872–1953) received a medical
degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1895.
He practiced medicine until 1903, when he joined his brother
Bernard’s Wall Street firm and became a member of the New
York Stock Exchange. In 1918 Herman became a lifetime partner
in H. Hentz and Company. He entered public service in
1943 when he participated in a Brazil conference sponsored
by the board of Economic Warfare. After World War II Herman
served as U.S. ambassador to Portugal (1945–47) and as
ambassador to the Netherlands (1947–49).
Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), stock analyst, self-styled
“speculator,” and statesman, was born in Camden, South Carolina.
He received a B.A. from the City College of New York,
and in 1889 he joined the Wall Street firm of Arthur A. Housman.
Bernard became a partner in 1896, and a member of the
New York Stock Exchange. By 1902, by means of his financial
wizardry and careful market research into raw materials such
as gold, copper, sulfur, and rubber, he had amassed a fortune
of over three million dollars.
Bernard first entered public life in 1916. Then, as a result
of his keen knowledge of the raw materials market, President
Wilson appointed him to the advisory commission of the
Council of National Defense and made him chairman of the
Commission on Raw Materials, Minerals, and Metals. During
World War I he served as chairman of the War Industries
Board with power to virtually mobilize the American wartime
economy. At the war’s end he served on the Supreme Economic
Council at the Conference of Versailles, where he was
President Wilson’s personal economic adviser, and from that
time on his advisory services were sought by every president
of the United States. During World War II President Franklin
Roosevelt named him chairman of a committee to report on
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 183