JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

en-asher, aaron ben moses
Law from them as we do from the Torah”) and to vocalization,
opinions rooted in Karaite thought. It appears from the
parallel ideas and style used in the Maḥberet Ben-Asher (see
below), from the “Wine Song” written by his father, and from
the list which his father appended to the codex of the Prophets
(kept in the Karaite synagogue, Cairo), which he wrote
“827 years after the destruction of the Second Temple” (i.e.,
in 895), that his father, Moses Ben-Asher, was also a Karaite,
and it is probable that Karaism was a family tradition. (Note,
however, that Dotan (Sinai, 41 (1957), 280ff.) and M. Zucker
(Tarbiz, 27 (1957/58), 61ff.) hold that Aaron Ben-Asher and his
family were not Karaites.) It is noteworthy that the founder of
the family, “Asher the Great Sage,” apparently lived in the first
half of the eighth century and was a contemporary of Anan,
a precursor of Karaism.
Ben-Asher rapidly gained fame as the most authoritative
of the Tiberias masoretes, and in 989, the scribe of the abovementioned
manuscript of the Former Prophets vouched for
the care with which his copy was written by the fact that he
had vocalized and added the masorah “from the books that
were [vocalized] by Aaron ben Moses Ben-Asher.” Maimonides,
by accepting the views of Ben-Asher (though only in
regard to open and closed sections), helped establish and
spread his authority. Referring to a Bible manuscript then
in Egypt, he writes: “All relied on it, since it was corrected
by Ben-Asher and was worked on (ve-dikdek bo) by him for
many years, and was proofread many times in accordance
with the masorah, and I based myself on this manuscript in
the Sefer Torah that I wrote” (Yad, Maim. Sefer Torah, 8:4). It
is generally agreed that the codex used by Maimonides is that
formerly in Aleppo.
Proof for this is adduced from Saadiah b. David Al-
Adni, who wrote in his commentary on the Yad (ibid.):
“The Codex that the Gaon [i.e., Maimonides] used is in Zoba,
called Aleppo, and is called the Keter… and at the end is
written, ‘I Aaron Ben-Asher proofread it… I saw and read
it’” (Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms. Hunt. 372, fol. 138b; cf.
P. Kahle, The Cairo Genizah (1947), 58). However, Cassuto,
who studied the Keter in Aleppo, was doubtful. An attempt
was made to refute these doubts by M. Goshen-Gottstein (Textus,
1 (1960), 1ff.), but A. Dotan further supported Cassuto’s
position (Tarbiz, 34 (1964/65), 136ff.) It now appears likely
that it was Ben-Asher who vocalized and added the masorah
to the Keter of Aleppo, despite the fact that the note in
the manuscript was written after his death. The masorah has
been vocalized and added by “the lord of scribes, the father of
wise men and the first of teachers… the unique Rabbi Aaron
ben Rabbi Asher, may his soul be bound up in the bond of
eternal life” (the latter being an epithet applied to a person
who has died)
The tradition of Ben-Asher is the one accepted in the
Jewish Bible, but this does not mean that the version of the
Bible found in the common editions is exactly the same as
that which Ben-Asher produced. The differences between the
printed editions and the various manuscripts assumed to be
written in the Ben-Asher tradition are mainly in the placing
of the accents, especially the use of the meteg, different uses of
the sheva and ḥataf in certain grammatical forms, all differences
that are unimportant for the average reader. These
differences developed over the years, usually as a result of
grammatical assumptions that were not always correct. Furthermore,
certain divergences in vocalization and masorah
are found even in manuscripts that are accepted as Ben-Asher
codices. This fact, combined with the evidence of Mishael b.
Uzziel in his Kitab al-Khulaf, indicates that Ben-Asher used
different systems of vocalization at different times in specific
words. It may be said, therefore, that different Ben-Asher
manuscripts reveal a continual development in his method
of vocalization.
Ben-Asher was one of the first to lay the foundations
of Hebrew grammar. His Sefer Dikdukei ha-Te’amim (or the
Maḥberet Ben-Asher, as David *Kimḥi called it in his commentary
on Judg. 6:19) is a collection of grammatical rules and
masoretic information. Grammatical principles were not at
that time considered worthy of independent study. The value
of this work is that the grammatical rules presented by Ben-
Asher reveal the linguistic background of vocalization. The
book was first published in Biblia Rabbinica edited by Pratensis,
the format later called Mikra’ot Gedolot (1516–18), and
again in 1879 by S.I. Baer and Strack, who edited the material
according to topics, in a manner different from that in the
first edition. Until recently all studies relating to Ben-Asher’s
system of grammar and masorah were based on this edition.
A. Dotan’s edition (1967), which includes a commentary and
studies on the content of the book, changed the previous conception
of Dikdukei ha-Te’amim as it had been understood for
90 years. Many of the phonological and morphological topics
which had been commonly attributed to Dikdukei ha-Te’amim
are not included. The main theme discussed in the book is the
relationship of the biblical accents to the rules of vocalization
and pronunciation. The sheva and its pronunciation play a
major part in this work.
Except for certain parts, including masoretic lists, the
book is written in a rhymed poetic style, using paytanic language.
It can be assumed that the parts not written in this
style were not by Ben-Asher. The language of the book shows
a certain Arabic influence, particularly with regard to grammatical
terms. Even in its more limited form Dikdukei ha-
Te’amim is important not only for showing how the different
vocalizers determined the correct vocalization, but also for a
clearer understanding of the grammatical world of the later
masoretes, who laid the foundations for Hebrew grammar in
later generations.
Bibliography: Fuerst, Karaeertum, 1 (1862), 112; Graetz,
in: MGWJ, 20 (1871), 1–12, 49–59; Bacher, in: ZAW, 15 (1895), 293–304;
Mann, Egypt, 2 (1922), 43–49; P. Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, 1
(1927); idem, in: VT, 1 (1951), 161–8; idem, in: Donum Natalicium H.S.
Nyberg (1955), 161–70; L. Lipschuetz, Der Bibeltext der Tiberischen
Masoretenschule (1937); K. Levy, Zur masoretischen Grammatik (1936);
Teicher, in: JJS, 2 (1950/51), 17–25; S. Pinsker, Likkutei Kadmoniyyot
320 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3