JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

irkat ha-torah
This was also the version commonly used in the Babylonian rite,
in which the penultimate sentence, “And let them be blotted
out,” was replaced by a petition to cut off all enemies, “may all
the enemies of your people and their opponents be speedily cut
off.” Other variants reflect a longer, more elaborated request for
obliteration of enemies. The language of the benediction clearly
demonstrates that it was directed, not at non-Jews in general,
but rather specifically aimed against external persecutors of
the Jews and against Jewish separatists who posed a danger to
Judaism’s internal cohesion. Nonetheless, as early as the first
centuries C.E. we find church fathers voicing the claim that the
Jews curse the Christians in their prayers. Such contentions,
alongside censorship of siddurim, wrought significant changes
in the wording of the benediction during the Middle Ages.
Also contributing to this modificatory process were shifts in
the social environment of the Jews and in their worldview.
Without exception, the word noẓerim was expunged from
all Jewish prayer rites, and in many, substitutions were made
for minim (heretics) and meshummadim (apostates), as in the
accepted opening in the Ashkenazi rite: “may the slanderers
(malshinim) have no hope.” Some Reform prayer books omit
this benediction entirely.
Bibliography: G. Alon, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic
Age (70–640 C.E.) (1980), 288–307; I. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy:
A Comprehensive History. tr. R.P. Scheindlein (1993), 31–34, 45–46;
E. Fleischer. “Le-Kadmoniyyut Tefillot ha-Ḥovah be-Yisrael,” in: Tarbiz,
59 (1990), 435–37; D. Flusser, “Mikat ma’asei ha-Torah’ u-Virkat
ha-Minim.” in: Tarbiz, 61 (1992), 333–74; J. Heinemann, Prayer in the
Talmud: Forms and Patterns (1977), 225–26; W. Horbury. “The Benediction
of the ‘Minim’ and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy,” in:
Journal of Theological Studies, 33:1 (1982), 19–61; R. Kimelman. “Birkat
Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Prayer in
Late Antiquity,” in: E.P. Sanders (ed.), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition,
vol. 2 (1981), 226–44; J.J. Petuchowski, Prayerbook Reform in
Europe (1968), 223–25; S. Schechter, “Genizah Specimens,” in: JQR,
10 (1898), 657.
[Uri Ehrlich(2nd ed.)]
BIRKAT HA-TORAH (Heb. הרֹ ָותַה
ּ תַ ּכְ רִ ּב), the blessing over
the Law. The study of the Law was always regarded as a foremost
religious duty and hence had to be preceded by a formula
of benediction. This requirement applies both to the liturgical
reading of the Torah and to ordinary study. Various
formulas are given in the Talmud (Ber. 11a–b) in the name of
several rabbis and all have been integrated into the traditional
liturgy. These benedictions were instituted in talmudic times
based upon Deuteronomy 32:3 (see TJ, Meg. 4:1, 74d) and by
a fortiori inference from the duty to recite Grace after Meals
(TJ, Ber. 7:11a; TJ, Meg. loc. cit.). Three blessings over the Law
are pronounced at the beginning of the daily morning prayer.
The first praises God for granting Israel the privilege and the
duty of studying Torah; the second is a prayer that the study
of Torah may be pleasant and that it should be cultivated
by one’s offspring and the whole house of Israel; the third is
identical to the benediction recited before the Reading of the
Law in the synagogue service: “Who has chosen us from all
nations and hast given us Thy Law.” They are followed by selections
from Scripture (Num. 6:24–27), the Mishnah (Pe’ah
1:1) and the Talmud (Shab. 127a), recited in symbolic fulfillment
of the duty to study Torah. Jacob b. Asher interpreted
the words “Torah of truth” to refer to the written Torah, and
the words “everlasting life” to refer to the oral tradition. These
benedictions contain 40 words, said to symbolize the 40 days
Moses spent on Mount Sinai (Tur OH 139). The benedictions
over the Law have uniform wording in all modern rituals, including
that of Reform Judaism. Only the Reconstructionist
trend, which repudiates the notion of the election of Israel,
has changed the wording of the middle part of the benediction
to read “who hast brought us close to Thy service” instead
of “who hast chosen us.”
Bibliography: ET, 4 (1952), 615–31; J. Heinemann, Ha-Tefillah…
(1964), 105–8; E. Levy, Yesodot ha-Tefillah (19522), 130, 315–6;
Hertz, Prayer, 12–17, 190–3; E. Munk, World of Prayer (1961), 41–49,
174–5.
BIRKENTHAL (Brezhover), DOV BER (Ber of Bolechow;
1723–1805), Hebrew writer and memoirist. Born in Bolechow,
Birkenthal adopted a German name in accordance with the
decree of Joseph II in 1772, when the city passed from Polish
to Austrian rule. He received a traditional Jewish education,
but his father, who was a wine dealer and had contact
with Polish and Hungarian nobles and priests, agreed to engage
a non-Jewish tutor – an unusual step for the time – who
taught him Polish, Latin, German, and French. Birkenthal
took over his father’s business and became the leader of the
Bolechow community. In the debate with the followers of
Jacob *Frank, which was held in the main church of Lemberg
in 1759, Birkenthal served as interpreter and adviser to
R. Ḥayyim b. Simḥah ha-Kohen Rapoport, the chief rabbi of
Lemberg. His main literary work, Imrei Binah, is a study of
false-Messiah movements in Jewish history, and the debate
with the Frankists occupies a central position in it. The work
was discovered in 1910, long after his death, and published
by A.J. Brawer in Ha-Shilo’aḥ (vols. 33 and 38). A manuscript
of his memoirs was discovered in Jews’ College, London, in
1912 and was published – with introduction – in 1922 in Berlin
by M. Wischnitzer. It was published in Yiddish (Ber Bolekhovers
Zikhroynes) and in English translation (The Memoirs
of Ber of Bolechow) in the same year. These two works
contain valuable information for the study of Jewish history
in Galicia in the 18th century, not only for the Frankist movement
but also for the history of the Council of the Lands, the
Jewish census in Poland (1764), and for Jewish economic history
of that period.
Bibliography: Zinberg, Sifrut, 5 (1959), 109–11; Wischnitzer,
in: JQR, 12 (1921/22), 1–24; Balaban, in: Festschrift… S. Poznański
(1927), 25ff.
[Abraham J. Brawer]
BIRMINGHAM, city in Alabama, U.S. The city grew from
the intersection of two railroads in 1871, and the discovery of
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