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| An early manuscript of Moshe haGoleh's Kabbalistic work, Shoshan Sodot. |
Introduction
This article ꟷ based extensively on the research by Professor Eric Lawee[1] ꟷ examines a little-known and somewhat neglected exegete and commentator, R. Moshe ben Yakov (1448-1520) who compiled a super-commentary (i.e., a commentary on a commentary) based on R. Avraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164) who had preceded him by almost four centuries. Moshe ben Yakov is also known as Moshe haGoleh (the ‘exile’) miKiev.[2]
Very few have ever heard of Moshe haGoleh, nor of the commentary he authored on Ibn Ezra entitled Otzar Nechmad, but he had some interesting things to say about Ibn Ezra and his relationship to Halacha, and to his 'opponent' Rashi. Moshe haGoleh also shed some light on the existence of diverse Rashi manuscripts. Additionally, he embarked upon a mission to convert Karaites to Rabbinic Judaism. Surprisingly, although Moshe haGoleh was an outspoken supporter of the rationalist Torah commentary of Ibn Ezra and engaged in the sciences and astronomy, he personally remained a Kabbalist. As an exegete, he was able to maintain a level-headed and even critical approach towards his ‘rabbi,’ Ibn Ezra. He is the only known Kabbalist to have written a super-commentary on Ibn Ezra. Yet, he remains:
“aware of the unbridgeable gulf that sometimes separated his hero’s teachings from the “masters of truth” [I.e., Kabbalah]” (Lawee 2025:2, footnote 3).
It seems that Moshe haGoleh, the ‘exile’ of Kiev, sees no
problem in living his life in extreme spiritual and intellectual tension
somewhere between rationalism and mysticism.
Background
Moshe haGoleh was born in Shadov, in northern Lithuania, in
1448. As a young boy, he moved to Constantinople where he later married the
daughter of his teacher, R. Avraham Sarfati. While in Constantinople, he also
made contact with Karaite Jews (i.e., Jews who rejected the oral rabbinic tradition)
and studied astronomy under the Karaite sage, Eliyahu Bashyatchi. In
Constantinople at that time, the Rabbanites and Karaites had close associations
with each other (as they did in the time of Maimonides). The main rabbi of
Constantinople was R. Mordechai Khomatiano (or Comtino in Hebrew) and he taught
classes to both Rabbanites and Karaites, including Eliyahu Bashyatchi.
Converter of Karaites
In 1472, Moshe haGoleh returned to Lithuania, and it seems he attracted a substantial number of disciples. However, the Constantinople spirit of tolerance and acceptance of Karaites must have dissipated because he went on a campaign to convert the Karaites to Rabbanites. In fact, he became polemically anti-Karaite, which created some concern within the Karaite community. In earlier times of Jewish history, it seems that the Karaites may have even made up the majority of the Jewish nation [see Kotzk Blog: 063) How the Karaites (unwittingly) Changed the Face of Judaism Forever].
Moshe haGoleh proceeded to ‘emend’ a fourteenth-century Karaite text, Gan Eden, by inserting 240 hasagot or critiques in the margins of the text. Moshe haGoleh’s former Karaite teacher of astronomy, Bashyatchi, did not withhold a counter-attack, by referring to his ex-student as being ugly, with “bruise upon bruise, white-eyed, with yellowish hair…an ugly bit of creation.”[3] This polemic was unfortunate because, at some stage, Moshe haGoleh fell victim to the slave trade and was taken off to Crimea where both Crimean Rabbanites and Karaites worked together to secure his release.
While in Kaffa, which was home to Europe’s biggest slave
market of the Black Sea slave trade, Moshe haGoleh completed his major
writings. He also gathered together the various and diverse Rabbanite
communities in the region that included Byzantine, East European, Spanish,
Persian and Italian Jews, and formed what became known as the Krimchaks.
They even produced their own prayer nusach or customs, known as the ‘Kaffa’
prayer rite.
The Kabbalist
Notwithstanding his rich and diverse associations, Moshe haGoleh was predominantly a Kabbalist:
“As a Kabbalist, Moses was obviously free of the tendency of some of Ibn Ezra’s admirers to disparage Kabbalah. Where one ardent Ibn Ezra devotee, Zechariah ben Moses of Crete, who predates Moses by half a century, excoriated Naḥmanides for the infiltration of Kabbalah into his Bible commentary, Moses’s kabbalistic work contains theosophical interpretations influenced by Naḥmanides’ school” (Lawee 2025: 25).
Moshe haGoleh produced his Shoshan Sodot (Lily[4]
of Secrets) over fifteen years. The work deals with 656 Kabbalistic
‘secrets’. It was first thought that the author of this work was alternately Nachmanides,
or his grandson or a student of his, or perhaps even the Ramah. Today, the
consensus is that it was Moshe haGoleh.[5] This
work survives in about twenty manuscripts and has been printed several times.
He also wrote a commentary on Sefer Yetzirah entitled Otzar Hashem. Not
only was he a Kabbalist but a prodigious mystical writer as well.
Moshe ha Goleh defends Ibn Ezra’s adherence to rabbinic
Judaism
All of Moshe haGoleh’s Kabbalistic activity seems entirely out of step with his Otzar Nechmad, which is his super-commentary on Ibn Ezra’s rationalist Torah commentary. Otzar Nechmad is a large work with 430 folio pages. Moshe haGoleh proclaims that one of the main reasons why he wrote his Otzar Nechmad was to defend Ibn Ezra from his detractors who claimed that he had gone beyond the bounds of rabbinic Judaism. He was determined to set the record straight and wrote that he would not allow Ibn Ezra to be categorised as one of the:
“deniers [koferim] of [rabbinic] tradition, may God forgive them [i.e., those who claimed he was a denier]” (Otzar Nechmad 2r).
Moshe haGoleh again expressed his support for Ibn Ezra even more sharply when he wrote:
“May a curse ꟷ like a consuming fire ꟷ come upon the haters who say that he [Ibn Ezra] denied the received tradition” (Otzar Nechmad 2v).
Lawee interjects at this stage and points out that the truth is that while Ibn Ezra openly claimed to represent the rabbinic position:
“[i]n practice, however, he did
not always stick to this principle, raising the question of how much his
departures from halakhic midrash[6]
occurred by inadvertence and how much by design” (Lawee 2025:10).
Ibn Ezra confronts Rashi
While Ibn Ezra offered a Torah commentary based on rules of grammar and the pshat or plain and literal meaning of the text, Rashi offered the exact opposite. Although Rashi claimed to expound on the pshat, in reality, however, he simply offered a selected anthology of Midrashic interpretations. Ibn Ezra proclaimed that Rashi only addressed the pshat “one in a thousand times.”[7] Rashi is described by Lawee as “Judaism’s most influential purveyor of midrash” (2025:9) whereas Moshe haGoleh referred to Ibn Ezra as the “father of the pshat interpreters,” so it would be interesting to see how Moshe haGoleh viewed Rashi whose adherence to rabbinic tradition is unquestionable:
“Perhaps the most striking role assigned to Rashi in Oṣar Neḥmad is that of the unnamed target of interpretations of Ibn Ezra” (Lawee 2025:9).
Moshe haGoleh regarded Ibn Ezra’s role as one to primarily undermine Rashi as the major Torah exegete, even if he (Ibn Ezra) had nothing to add or contribute to Rashi’s particular commentary in any given instance. In other words, a large component of Ibn Ezra’s material was simply to present a ‘contra Rashi’ position. As an aside, Maimonides allegedly told his son Avraham ben haRambam, that he should rather study Torah with Ibn Ezra’s rationalist commentary rather than Rashi’s midrashic-based commentary. Ibn Ezra had been raised in Spain in the al-Andalus (Andalusia which was southern, Moorish and Muslim Spain) where he was exposed to philosophy and pshat:
“They used the plain-sense interpretive method long cultivated in al-Andalus, the warp and the woof of which (as Ibn Ezra cast them) were grammar and reasonability” (Lawee 2025:10).
In effect, Ibn Ezra was intent on ‘converting’ European Jews to what he saw as the more enlightened Andalusian ways (Lawee 2025:10). But, to do so, Ibn Ezra had first to cross a huge hurdle, and that was the overwhelming love of, and respect directed towards, the northern French commentator, Rashi. This may explain why Ibn Ezra had to make a concerted effort to use every opportunity to go contra Rashi, even without naming him.
Ibn Ezra claimed that while the Talmudic rabbis did indeed engage in ‘midrashic’ activity such as drush, they nevertheless upheld the notion of pshat ꟷ the plain meaning of a Torah text ꟷ as the superior methodology. However, Ibn Ezra continues, it was only the “later generations” (read Rashi) that made Midrash the essential approach to Torah study. This was the approach he criticised.
Ibn Ezra only mentions Rashi by name about a dozen times. For the most part, Ibn Ezra presents a passive aggressive stand, sometimes not saying anything, and sometimes hardly making any contribution, as long as the inference that emerges is seen to be contra Rashi. Ibn Ezra knew full well that he was no longer in Muslim Spain. He was now writing in foreign Christian territory, in Europe, where Rashi was untouchable. For this reason, Ibn Ezra rarely referenced Rashi directly. However, his readers should not be misled by his sparse references to Rashi, because:
“Rashi did indeed stand at the center of Ibn Ezra’s consciousness, but remained in the shadows in his exegetical expressions” (Lawee 2025:11).
Moshe haGoleh was alive to this subtle and passive exegetic
aggression, and read between the tense lines of Ibn Ezra’s commentaries that
contrasted with Rashi. Ibn Eza was consumed by Rashi. There are many examples
in Ibn Ezra’s commentary where he doesn’t contribute anything, other than
simply throwing a stick in Rashi’s wheel. Let us look briefly at some examples
of this phenomenon:
1) Rashi comments on Genesis 1:10 where G-d is said to call the gathering together of the waters of creation, “seas.” Rashi raises an objection and rhetorically asks why this gathering of water was called “seas” in the plural, and not just great “sea” in the singular:
קרא ימים. וַהֲלֹא יָם אֶחָד הוּא? אֶלָּא אֵינוֹ דוֹמֶה טַעַם דָּג הָעוֹלֶה מִן הַיָּם בְּעַכּוֹ לְטַעַם דָּג הָעוֹלֶה מִן הַיָּם בְּאַסְפַּמְיָא
His Midrashic answer was that while the waters did indeed constitute a single entity, the flavour of a fish in Acre is different from the flavour of the same type of fish in Aspamia (Bereishit Rabbah 5:8).
Ibn Ezra is not satisfied with this Midrashic interpretation of the different tastes of fish and suggests rather benignly that the word “seas” is used simply because it does not have a name. Moshe haGoleh insists that Ibn Ezra is not even trying to interpret the question of the plural appellation for the primordial deep ꟷ rather, he is bent on taking a polemical jab against Rashi (Otzar Nechmad 16v):
“From it, readers learn nothing
regarding the substance of Ibn Ezra’s interpretation, only that it aimed to
refute Rashi” (Lawee 2025:12).
2) According to Moshe haGoleh, another example of Ibn Ezra interpreting neither here nor there, only with his silent intent on refuting Rashi, can be seen in Exodus 18:13. The verse states that Moshe, before he received Jethro’s advice to appoint judges, himself sat in judgement, on “the next day.”
וַיְהִי֙ מִֽמׇּחֳרָ֔ת
וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב מֹשֶׁ֖ה לִשְׁפֹּ֣ט אֶת־הָעָ֑ם
“The next day, Moshe sat to judge the people” (Exodus 18:13).
Rashi, again citing a Midrash, comments:
מוֹצָאֵי
יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים הָיָה, כָּךְ שָׁנִינוּ בְּסִפְרֵי
“This was the day after Yom Kippur…”
Ibn Ezra disagrees with Rashi and counters that it was the day after Jethro’s arrival. He adds nothing else nor any argument to back his terse statement. For Moshe haGoleh, this was simply another instance of Ibn Ezra establishing his silent and subtle yet pervasive contra-Rashi position (Otzar Nechmad 110v).
3) Another example is Exodus 19:2 where the Children of Israel are camped in the wilderness preparing for the Sinai event:
וַיִּסְע֣וּ מֵרְפִידִ֗ים וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ מִדְבַּ֣ר סִינַ֔י וַֽיַּחֲנ֖וּ בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר וַיִּֽחַן־שָׁ֥ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נֶ֥גֶד הָהָֽר׃
“And they journeyed (plural) from Refidim and they came (plural) to the wilderness of Sinai and they camped (plural) in the wilderness. And Israel camped (singular) in front of the mountain” (Exodus 19:2).
This verse changes the word “(they) camped” from the plural to the singular, “he camped.” Rashi, again citing a Midrash, comments as follows:
כְּאִישׁ אֶחָד בְּלֵב אֶחָד, אֲבָל שְׁאָר כָּל הַחֲנִיּוֹת בְּתַרְעוֹמוֹת וּבְמַחֲלֹקֶת
“[Here, at Sinai, they camped with unity] like one man with one heart, but all other encampments were with murmuring and dissension (Mechilta).
Ibn
Ezra does not seem concerned with the lofty exegeses of Rashi. Instead, he
suggests that there were two groups of people, the nation and the leaders. The
leaders camped closer to the mountain. Ibn Ezra, however, does not solve the
problem of the change from plural to singular (as the leaders, although fewer
in number, were still technically a group to be referred to in the plural).
Here, once more, Moshe haGoleh can find no justification for this comment of
Ibn Ezra and concludes that since it offers no real contribution, it is just
another example of Ibn Ezra acting contra Rashi, to undermine his unattested
authority.
Did
Ibn Ezra deviate from the rabbinic tradition?
Moshe haGoleh, as noted, was a great admirer of Ibn Ezra, but he kept an open mind. One area, however, where Moshe haGoleh seemed to rely more on Rashi than on Ibn Ezra, was when it came to Halacha (religious law). He didn’t appear to trust Ibn Ezra’s interpretation of Halacha. Ibn Ezra had indeed been accused on several occasions of being a heretic.
One example of the charge of heresy can be found in the writings of the unknown author of Avat Nefesh [Desire of the Soul]. This unknown rabbi was also a devotee of Ibn Ezra but he wrote that sometimes his master had deviated from “our early rabbinic sages” and that his writings “uproot the words of tradition.”
Moshe
haGoleh similarly questioned Ibn Ezra’s fidelity to rabbinic tradition, in one
case stating that Ibn Ezra’s interpretation “is contrary to the rabbinic
sages.” He succinctly added immediately, “see Rashi [instead]” (Otzar
Nechmad, 206r,207r). Some went so far as to declare that Ibn Ezra harboured
a secret hatred towards the rabbinic sages!
Different
Rashi texts
In one case, Moshe haGoleh notices that Ibn Ezra criticises Rashi for a comment that does not even appear to be in Rashi’s commentary. Moshe haGoleh’s response is to suggest that Ibn Ezra had a different version or ‘edition’ of Rashi’s commentary:
“This dictum is not one Rashi pronounced and it does not appear in any versions in our possession… perhaps it was a different Rabbi Solomon [Rashi]” (Otzar Nechmad 107v).
In another case, Moshe haGoleh suggests that:
“[P]erhaps the version [of Rashi’s commentary] in Ibn Ezra’s possession was erroneous” (Otzar Nechmad 85v).
[For
more on the different editions of the Rashi commentary, see Kotzk Blog: 213) AND WHAT
DOES RASHI SAY?].
A
mind of his own
Surprisingly, although Moshe haGoleh was an outspoken supporter of Ibn Ezra, on many occasions he chose Rashi’s interpretations over that of his hero:
“Even where Ibn Ezra criticizes Rashi expressly and no issue of textual confusion arises, Moses [i.e., Moshe haGoleh] judges on the merits… In short, where he thought Ibn Ezra was right, he said so, but if he found that Ibn Ezra’s reading did not withstand scrutiny and Rashi got the better of the argument, he also said so…” (Lawee 2025:19, 21).
Analysis
We live in a world where being a follower of a great rabbinic sage is often expected to be an all-or-nothing commitment. One chooses one’s rabbi or is born into a family associated with a particular rabbinic school, and one is expected to slavishly follow the dictates of the leadership as that is what sets one aside from the inferior ‘other.’ This unwavering loyalty to only one rabbi is often expressed with partial disdain for the ‘other’ by statements like, “אשרינו מה טוב חלקינו, we rejoice, how happy is our lot [as opposed to ‘their’ lot]”.
In Moshe haGoleh, however, we see that it is possible to be a disciple of a sage and still maintain a critical (and ‘critical’ does not mean to ‘criticise’) and level-headed approach. Sometimes, a devotee of a rationalist Ibn Ezra can read a mystico-midrashic Rashi. Echoing the words of the anonymous author of Avat Nefesh who, like Moshe haGoleh was also a balanced devotee of Ibn Ezra:
“[even though] the sage, Ibn Ezra, is beloved to us,
truth is dearer yet” (Avat Nefesh, 6).
Further Reading
Kotzk Blog: 158) IBN EZRA
QUOTES KARAITE COMMENTATORS SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES:
Kotzk Blog: 094) WHY DID IBN
EZRA'S SON CONVERT TO ISLAM?
Kotzk Blog: 184) IBN EZRA’S
‘SECRET’ THAT IS ‘NOT FOR AVERAGE PEOPLE’:
For
more on the ‘reconciliation’ between mysticism and rationalism, see Kotzk Blog: 501) Were some
early Spanish Kabbalists defending a Maimonidean position?
I thank Dr Avi Harel for sharing the following sources with me:
אברהם אפשטיין, "רבי משה הגולה מקיוב בן יעקב בן משה", האשכול, שנה ראשונה קראקא תרנ"ח, עמ' 146 – 151
הרב נפתלי יעקב הכהן, "משה הגולה מקיוב (השני)", אוצר הגדולים אלופי יעקב, חיפה, תשכ"ז–תש"ל, חלק ז, עמודים לח-לט, באתר היברובוקס
אברהם אליהו הרכבי, גלות כיוב וליטא א, חדשים גם ישנים, א עמ' 6 - 11, באתר אוצר החכמה
הרב חיים ליברמן, אהל רח"ל, חלק א עמ' 93 – 104, באתר היברובוקס
מידע על משה הגולה מקיוב בקטלוג הספרייה הלאומית
משה הגולה מקיוב, דף שער בספרייה הלאומית
[1]
Lawee, E., 2005, ‘A Devotee of Abraham ibn Ezra Reads Rashi: The Case of Moses
ben Jacob ‘the Exile’ of Kiev’, European Journal of Jewish Studies, 1-26.
[2]
Moshe ben Yakov is alternately known as ‘Moshe haGoleh (the ‘exile’) and ‘Moshe
the Second.’ This is to distinguish himself from an earlier twelfth-century
‘Moshe of Kiev,’ who was a student of Rabeinu Tam.
[3]
Mann, J., 1935, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, vol.
2, Karaitica, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1165, 1168.
[4]
Shoshan can mean either a rose or a lily.
[5]
See Manuscript
of the Early Kabbalistic Book 'Shoshan Sodot' with Changes and Additions Beyond
the Printed Version - Winner'S Auctions.
[6]
Technically, Halachic Midrash is the process of identifying the
traditionally received 613 commandments with sources in the Torah, and adducing
these sources as proofs of their authenticity. In general terms, Halachic
Midrash is non-Aggadic Midrash, which incorporates works like Mishna,
parts of Sifre and Sifra, and in other scattered sources throughout
the two Talmudim.
[7]
Abraham ibn Ezra, “Safah Berurah,” edited by M. Wilensky, Devir 2
(1924): 288.
Super interesting thanks for the article
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