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| Shem haGedolim by R. Chaim David Azulai, known as the Chida (1724-1806). |
Introduction
This article—based extensively on the research by Dr Oded Cohen[1]—examines the challenges facing editors of religious Jewish texts. It deals with two very different editors and separated by six hundred years, yet who faced similar tasks and scrutiny.
The first editor is the Maskil of the Enlightenment movement, Isaac Benjacob (1801-1863), who edited the Shem haGedolim of the R. Chaim David Azulai, known as the Chida (1724-1806).
The second is Maimonides, who—though not an editor of the Babylonian Talmud in the conventional sense—systematically distilled its legal rulings into his Mishneh Torah, the ground-breaking code that stripped away dialectical debate in favour of a clear, authoritative Halachic structure.
Background to Chida and Shem haGedolim
It is difficult to define the Chida because he was an unusually multifaceted rabbi. He was not just a bibliographer and cataloguer, but a Halachist, producing works like Shaar Yosef, Birkei Yosef and Machzik Beracha. He was also a mystic having studied Kabbalah with R. Shalom Sharabi (Rashash) and R. Chaim Ibn Attar (Or haChaim).
He had a particular fascination for books and old manuscripts, visiting libraries around the world. He gathered information about every sefer or Jewish book he could find and catalogued them all in his Shem haGedolim, with a brief description of their authors and contents. Chida’s work is a bio-bibliography, since it includes both biographical sketches and bibliographical entries.
Shem haGedolim contains over 3,000 listings, encompassing a broad spectrum of titles—from well-known works to obscure books and manuscripts—making it an indispensable resource for anyone exploring the rich and intricate world of Torah literature. Originally, Shem haGedolim comprised five sections and was published by Chida himself between 1774 and 1801. It was divided in two main sections; one dealing with biographies of rabbis from the time of the Gaonim, and the other a detailed bibliography of all known rabbinic works. The Chida composed much of his Shem haGedolim while in a quarantine camp in Livorno, Italy.
The versions of Shem haGedolim most commonly encountered today stem from the Vilnius edition of 1853, prepared by Isaac Benjacob. While widely circulated, Benjacob’s edition does not represent a faithful reproduction of the Chida’s original work. Benjacob significantly edited—and in some cases, restructured—the material, resulting in a version that reflects his editorial hand as much as the Chida’s own.
In 1863, Isaac Benjacob published his own updated bibliographic compendium of Jewish literature, titled Otzar haSefarim (‘Treasury of Books’). This ambitious work aimed to catalogue the entirety of Jewish texts known up to his time. Unsurprisingly, Benjacob drew extensively from the Chida’s Shem haGedolim, incorporating much of its material into his own compilation.
Some excerpts from Shem haGedolim
What follows is an example of the Chida’s writing style and
his ability to briefly share bibliographical information. In the entry on R.
Ya’akov ben Asher (1269-1343), known as Baal haTurim, he writes that:
1) “Rabbenu Ya’akov wrote glosses on the Torah. And according to what he wrote in his introduction, what we have in hand is not the entire work” (Chida, Shem haGedolim, 1774:37a).
The Chida’s catalogue was clearly a work in progress because twelve years later, in 1786, he adds more details after his discovery of a fuller version of the Baal haTurim’s glosses, in his latest edition:
2) “I wrote in the [earlier] printed volume…that from “[the Baal haTurim’s] introduction it is apparent that we do not have the entire work, and I was correct. The complete work is in the city of Mantua and it is a large work of over 300 folios” (Chida, Shem haGedolim, 1786:38b).
The Chida had made this discovery on a journey to Mantua in around 1776 where he also located some rare and unknown books. Then, later in 1801, on acquiring additional information on the Baal haTurim, the Chida informs his readers in another of his works, Kikar laAden, that he encountered new data concerning this work, which he recently found in Sefer Me’orei Or, by Aaron Worms, which was published in 1791:
3) “I, the poor person [this is how Chida refers to himself], wrote…that there was a book of Torah glosses that was printed in the mentioned work…And he wrote in Sefer Me’orei Or on the Talmud, that he has a manuscript of this work in his possession…” (Chida, Kikar laAden, 1801:204b).
In this manner, the Chida revised his entry on the Baal haTurim no fewer than three times, reflecting his ongoing engagement with new sources and his commitment to accuracy in documenting Torah scholarship.
Benjacobs editorial changes to Shem haGedolim
In the process of some considerable editing, Isaac Benjacob combines all three of the abovementioned examples into one single entry in his new version. He changes the wording of the Chida so that it flows consistently as if the Chida himself had made one single entry. Also, as mentioned, the Chida’s original work was in five parts. Benjacob amalgamated them all into just two sections, Ma’arechet Gedolim (dealing with authors) and Ma’arechet Sefarim (dealing with titles). Instead of five volumes with 3,106 paragraphs, we now have one volume with just 2,291 paragraphs.
Another excerpt from Shem haGedolim
It is interesting to trace another example of the Chida’s progression of discovery as he uncovers fresh information and corrects himself:
In an entry concerning the book Shulchan Atzei Shittim, by R. Shlomo Chelm, the Chida records information he had heard about but it remained unverified:
“Shulhan atzei shittim, by the gaon Rabbi Shlomo, the author of Mirkevet ha-mishneh, on the laws of Shabbat. I heard that this was a summary of later innovative comments that was published. However, I have not seen it. He wrote Asarah shulhanot on the four volumes of the Tur” (Chida, Shem haGedolim, 1786).
Then, when new information became available at a later stage, he corrects himself:
“See what I, the young one, wrote in…and it [the newly published book] has been [subsequently been] acquired by me. I saw that there is a different order and language and innovative laws, and it has no relationship with the Shulhan Arukh…” (Chida, Kikar laAden, 1801:208a).
In this instance too, Isaac Benjacob combines both these sources in the Chida into one user friendly version.
Benjacob’s editorial reach
Benjacob’s editorial creativity certainly presents an updated, easier to read and more holistic version of Chida’s Shem haGedolim. However—and this is not something abundantly clear when readers pick up Benjacob’s modified edition:
“Benjacob took great liberties…changing the intentions of the author. One of the liberties he took was creating a certain hierarchy of importance to the various parts of Hida’s work” (Cohen 2013:80).
Isaac Benjacob, a member of the Haskalah—the Jewish Enlightenment—approached editing with a commitment to academic rigor, historical accuracy, and bibliographic precision. His work reflected the movement’s broader emphasis on critical scholarship and the demystification of tradition. In contrast, the Chida’s Shem haGedolim was not merely a catalogue of texts; it was a spiritual and educational project. The Chida aimed to inspire and edify his readers, especially younger generations, weaving moral lessons and mystical reflections into his entries. For the Chida, bibliography was a form of Torah teaching; for Benjacob, it was a scholarly discipline. Both approaches fall under the realm of 'paratexts'—the subtle, often overlooked elements that shape and frame the interpretation of written texts.
In Benjacob’s edition, he made a distinction between pure bibliographical information—such as names, dates, titles, and factual data—as opposed to moral and mystical anecdotal material. This was not just a stylistic choice but a theological one as he was subtly reshaping the boundaries of Jewish knowledge. It represented a shift from experiential to empirical knowledge.
To achieve this, Benjacob employed typographic conventions to differentiate factual content from secondary or associative material. Pure bibliographical data was presented in square Hebrew letters, while the associative discussions were printed in Rashi script.
“A significant portion of the anecdotes and stories that Benjacob printed in Rashi letters deal with mysticism and Kabbalah” (Cohen 2013:84).
One of the most striking examples of Benjacob’s editorial intervention is his reworking of the Chida’s entry on the Zohar. Influenced by the modern Haskalah movement—alongside several traditional rabbis who shared similar views—Benjacob rejected the notion that the Zohar was authored by R. Shimon bar Yochai in the second century CE. Instead, he asserted that it was the creation of the thirteenth-century Spanish Kabbalists, and intentionally crafted to appear ancient. Reflecting this position, Benjacob printed the entire entry on the Zohar in Rashi script, subtly signalling its distinction from the Chida’s original intention (Ma'arechet Sefarim, 41)!
Separating facts from ‘facts’
This distinction in script become all the more interesting because the Chida himself professed a commitment to presenting factual data. However, he seems to have been pressured by his readers into providing ancillary and inspirational information.
In the entry on the Lurianic Kabbalist, R. Chaim Vital, he adds a detailed hagiographical account about how he had used sacred names to shorten his travelling time to Damascus, where he sees his teacher, the Ari Zal, in a dream. His teacher then explains that had he unblocked a certain stream that had been closed by King Hezekiah, the Messiah would have come:
“Even though I wrote there that because of something that happened, he went to Damascus, many asked me, pleading with me, that I write about this event, even though I do not want to report events, nevertheless, given their request, I will reveal what I received from my elder rabbis in the holy city of Jerusalem…” (Chida, Shem haGedolim, 1786:30b).
Benjacob, as to be expected, recorded this event in Rashi script, to minimise its importance. But, the Chida wrote that the main purpose of his work was “for the attention of the youth” (Chida, Vaad laChachamim, 1798:71b) who study in the yeshivot.
“Therefore, we can say that when Hida diverged from his regular practice and included anecdotes in the biographical-bibliographical entries, he saw them as sources of important information that were no less important than the ‘classical’ bibliographical data” (Cohen 2013:83).
Chida seems to have been conscious of the tensions between factual and inspirational or didactic writing and he makes the point that when he branches out into anecdotes, he only does so “in a whisper”:
“This will sort out in clear order for the youths what I know and will reveal as a whisper in their ears: that they should learn the character of our rabbis, the holy authors of blessed memory” (Chida, Shem haGedolim, 1786:Title page).
This is why Chida, from time to time, slips in mystical biographical and hagiographical information like the following account concerning R. Eliyahu, the Av Beit Din of Chelm:
“I heard…of the great wonders performed by the great sage, Morenu ha-Rav Eliyahu, who…[used] the powers of true, practical Kabbalah in times of an emergency or of danger. I saw in the Sefer She’elat ya’avetz… who heard from his father… about the one [supernatural being] created by Morenu ha-Rav Eliyahu…using the Sefer ha-Yetzirah. He saw him walk and grow very large. And he was afraid he would destroy the world, so he removed the name of God from his forehead, voiding him and returning him to be dust.
Although the Chida explicitly stated that he included inspirational anecdotes “for the youths” and “in a whisper,” the deeper reality is more complex. Despite his reputation as an exceptional bibliographer—especially for his time—he remained, at heart, a Kabbalist. This means that many of the stories and mystical reflections he recorded were not merely pedagogical or moral encouragements. What some modern readers might categorize as ‘inspirational’ may well have been, in the Chida’s own view, factual biography rooted in truth. His understanding of reality was shaped by a worldview in which mystical experiences were intrinsically part of the historical record.
Benjacob deletes material
Benjacob not only recorded what he viewed as a ‘secondary’ or ‘inferior’ stratum of information in Rashi script to delineate it from ‘factual’ biographical data, but he also occasionally deleted entire sections of the Chida’s writing. Again, these sections usually dealt with mystical and Kabbalistic material:
“His editing took this information from the cultural milieu of Hida and brought it into the cultural sphere of modern, rational bibliography” (Cohen 2013:86-7).
It can be argued that Benjacob went too far and overstepped his role as an editor. He introduced a hierarchy of value that was foreign to the Chida’s original vision, and imposed a modern, rationalist framework onto a work that was deeply shaped by Kabbalistic sensibilities. In doing so, he did not merely edit the text; he reinterpreted its epistemology:
“[Benjacob] is an outstanding example of an editor who treats the work as his own” (Cohen 2013:85).
Maimonides as a Talmudic ‘editor’
Having explored the nineteenth-century editorial contributions of Isaac Benjacob, we now turn to a brief comparison with the editorial approach of Maimonides in the twelfth century. Though separated by centuries and context, both figures engaged deeply with the transmission of Jewish texts—Benjacob as a bibliographer and compiler, and Maimonides as a codifier and systematiser—each shaping the contours of Torah literature in their respective eras.
In his monumental Mishneh Torah, Maimonides distilled and reorganised the legal rulings of the Babylonian Talmud into a systematic code, offering unprecedented clarity and structure to centuries of rabbinic discourse. In his Introduction to Mishneh Torah, Maimonides famously asserted that one need not study the Gemara to determine Halakha, as he had already extracted and codified its essential rulings.
This editorial feat was so comprehensive that the views expressed in Mishneh Torah are often treated as Maimonides’ personal positions. Yet this assumption becomes complicated when juxtaposed with his later philosophical writings, particularly Moreh Nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed), where he often diverges from his earlier formulations. This tension presents a theological conundrum for readers seeking consistency across his corpus.
However, if Mishneh Torah is read as Maimonides intended—as a concise, authoritative summary of Talmudic law rather than a personal manifesto—then the apparent contradictions with his philosophical works become less problematic. The Mishneh Torah code reflects editorial precision more than ideological commitment. In this light, Maimonides emerges as an editor par excellence—so effective that his redaction is often mistaken for original thought.
Comparing editorial methodologies, one might say that Isaac
Benjacob, in his reworking of Shem haGedolim, went too far in reshaping
the author’s intent, while Maimonides, in his restraint, perhaps did not go far
enough in distinguishing his editorial voice from his personal and philosophical
one.
Further Reading
Kotzk
Blog: 198) WERE THE EDITORS OF THE BAVLI MORE POWERFUL THAN ITS WRITERS?
[1]
Cohen, O., 2013, The freedom of editing: Isaac Benjacob’s re-editing of Hida’s
Shem Ha-Gedolim, Zutot, 71-87.
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