Coffee with Sforno

☕ Sforno, rooted in traditional Jewish learning and teeming with new humanist ideas, brought his day and age to bear on ancient truths. He shows us how we can do the same in his famous commentaries.

Hello! A warm welcome to new subscribers, and a warm welcome back to current subscribers. You’re reading Stories from Jewish History, a weekly newsletter exploring famous and lesser-known Jewish figures, events, and artifacts. We’re still hanging out in Italy, right on the borderline between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. There’s a lot of good stuff going down in Italy c. 1500 and we are here for it.

An autograph copy of several of Sforno’s works, including the philosophical treatise Or Amim (“Light of the Nations”). This is his handwriting! You can see the annotations and corrections added to the text by Sforno himself. Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, no shelf mark (film number: F 53308).

In this issue:

• Sforno: What We Know

• Sforno as Tanach Commentator

• Sforno’s Philosophy and Outlook

• Sforno Reads

• Jewish Learning Resource of the Week

• Sforno on Twitter

• Next Week

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Sforno: What We Know

We have a relatively generous amount of documentation about the life of R. Ovadia ben Yaakov Sforno: the further up we move in history, the more evidence survives, especially for prominent elites like Sforno. Here around the year 1500, we have letters, autograph manuscripts, plentiful municipal archival documents, and even a diploma and a last will and testament. And yet, even a lot is a little for the premodern era; it’s so fortunate to have the data, but it often tells us much less than we want. And such is the case with Sforno. For instance, we don’t even know how to pronounce his name.¹ (Tradition, and yet another brand of kosher wine, vote for the spelling I’m employing here.)

You may have noticed that many dates I give are approximate, marked by “c.” for Latin circa, “around.” It is often the case that those dates that you’ll find as definite on sites like Wikipedia are in reality approximations, if not all-out guesses that have been repeated by generations of scholars. For Jews, dates of death, being ritually significant, are better preserved than dates of birth, but even here there are many unknowns. Mythical numbers sometimes figure in, such as the idea that Rashi was born just as Rabbenu Gershom passed away. Often, our best indicators are colophons, “signatures” identifying the scribe (sometimes also the author) of a manuscript, which sometimes provide the date of completion along with the age of the author. But colophons are rare, and Sforno doesn’t leave us this data. We can only say that Sforno was born, we think, around 1475, in Cesena in northern Italy, and died about 1550.

Cesena, Italy

Hailing from a well-heeled, well-educated family, Sforno was trained in traditional Talmud study as well as humanist favorites such as mathematics, philosophy, and philology (which we now call linguistics). He received medial training in an Italian university as well, and his doctorate in artibus et medicina (arts and medicine) has surfaced, dated 1501.² Sforno is then attested at Rome, apparently leaving in 1527, when it was sacked by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Thereafter he settled in Bologna, becoming active in communal affairs and heading the yeshiva there.

In 2017, Sforno’s will, found in the State Archive of Bologna, was first published.³ It offers more details about Sforno's marriages and descendants, but is particularly illuminating about his great wealth, banking activities, and associates, which include a cross-section of Italian high society. We already knew that Sforno was a Hebrew tutor to the famed German humanist Johannes Reuchlin, but this document evidences his wide social reach. In addition, it includes numerous details about Sforno's real estate holdings (bequeathed to his four grandsons, with the proviso that Sforno's wife continue to live there). This means that you can today visit the Sforno house in Bologna. (I couldn’t find a photo with reuse permissions; there’s a wider-angle image here.)

Sforno as Tanach Commentator

From a manuscript containing Sforno’s commentary on Yonah (Jonah). BNF Ms. hebr. 276.

Sforno is best known for his commentary on the Torah and many parts of Neviim and Ketuvim, especially the commentary on Shir ha-Shirim. He also wrote a programmatic introduction to his Tanach commentaries, titled Kavanot ha-Torah (“Intentions of the Torah”). It explores the structure of the Torah and taamei ha-mitzvot, the reasons behind the commandments. Of these, Sforno is particularly interested in the reasons for the korbanot (sacrificial offerings). His commentaries enjoyed good circulation, most being printed in the decades following his death. They entered Mikraot Gedolot (the “Rabbinic Bible,” or Tanach with multiple commentaries on the page) starting with what’s known as the Seventh Rabbinic Bible, a lux edition also titled Kehilot Moshe and published in Amsterdam in 1724-28. There they have remained firmly ensconced.

Sforno’s comment on Shemot 19:5 is emblematic of his spiritual-ethical searching in the text as well as his humanistic ideas. The pasuk (verse) reads:

וִהְיִ֨יתֶם לִ֤י סְגֻלָּה֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים כִּי־לִ֖י כׇּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

…You shall be My treasured possession (segula) among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine. [JPS translation, slightly modified.]⁴

Shemot 19:5

Sforno first gives his attention to the binding nature of this covenant and the “informed consent” with which the Jewish people accepted it upon themselves. Then he comments on chosen-ness:

והייתם לי סגלה מכל העמים. אף על פי שכל המין האנושי יקר אצלי מכל יתר הנמצאים השפלים, כי הוא לבדו המכוון בהם, כאמרם ז"ל (אבות) חביב אדם שנברא בצלם מכל מקום אתם תהיו לי סגולה מכלם:

כי לי כל הארץ. וההבדל ביניכם בפחות ויתר הוא, כי אמנם לי כל הארץ וחסידי אומות העולם יקרים אצלי בלי ספק:

You shall be My treasured possession (segula). Although all the human species is dear to Me compared to other living beings, since it alone posses intention, as they of blessed memory said [Pirkei Avot 3:14], “Beloved is man for he was created in the [Divine] image”—nevertheless, you shall be My treasured possession among all.

For all the earth is Mine. The differences among you are lesser or greater [in degree]; insofar as the entire earth is Mine, the righteous of all the nations of the world are dear to Me without a doubt.

Seforno on Shemot 19:5

Sforno emphasizes that all human beings are made in the Divine image, pointedly citing Pirkei Avot (on which he also wrote a commentary) in support of the universality of human dignity and value. Sforno closes by elevating the significance of righteousness, from whomever it comes.

Sforno’s Philosophy and Outlook

The philosophical themes that Sforno returns to in his prose works are interwoven throughout his Tanach commentary. In this sense, his work as a commentator is a chief conduit of his philosophy. These themes, clearly inflected by the intellectual currents of humanist Italy, include human potential and self-realization and the power and limits of human reason.

This latter theme emerges in full in Sforno’s philosophical treatise, Or Amim (“Light of the Nations”), which he subsequently translated into Latin. There he uses Aristotelian methodology to argue against Aristotelianism, the great intellectual movement of the high and late Middle Ages. This unusual exercise remains of interest to us today: Aristotelianism may seem quaint as an ideology in the twenty-first century, but we’re struggling with our own epistemological disagreements nowadays. As we try to agree on how we generate facts and what counts as standards of evidence in light of our subjectivity, we can look to a work like Or Amim to show us how one system of meaning is eclipsed by another, and how to carry forward its treasures while being open to future possibilities.

Sforno Reads

• Sforno on Tanach, along with Pirkei Avot, is on Al HaTorah. It’s also available on Sefaria, but the English translation there is poor. Happily, many of Sforno’s writings previously in manuscript are available in this Mosad ha-Rav Kook volume. You can also access the editio princeps (that’s a fancy way of saying, the foundational printed text) of Or Amim, printed in Sforno’s lifetime (in Bologna, 1537), here on HebrewBooks.org.

• For an accessible overview of Sforno’s thought, see Hayyim J. Angel, “Text and Historical Motivations behind the Commentary of Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno on the Torah,” Jewish Bible Quarterly 42, no. 2 (2014): 73–82.

Jewish Learning Resource of the Week

I’d used Scribd years ago and thought of it as a dodgy site for bootleg book PDFs, so I was floored when it was recommended to me and I paid it another visit. It’s matured into a totally legit book subscription site (well, members can upload stuff, so you’ll still find some bootlegs). Of potential interest to you, dear readers, it has purchased the libraries of several key academic publishers of Jewish studies. Today I’m sharing the lists I’ve made of Jewish-focused reads, which I hope will be of use not only to Scribd subscribers but also as reading lists for all. If you’re interested in subscribing, you can use this invite link and we both get some free months.

Sforno on Twitter

Ugh, these don’t seem to be embedding properly…I’m guessing it’s something with the Twitter API…but the link will take you there.

https://twitter.com/tamar_marvin/status/1650291609102065667?s=20

Next Week

Next coffee date is a big one…we’re going to spend some time with Maran Yosef Karo/ha-Mechaber, who single-handedly created the dividing line between Rishonim and Acharonim.

1. For the problematics of figuring this out, see the excellent blog post by Fred Macdowell, “How Is Sforno’s Name Really Pronounced?,” On the Main Line (blog), December 8, 2011.

2. First documented in 1962 by Vittore Colorni, “Spigolature su Obadià Sforno: La sua laurea a Ferrara e la quasi ignota edizione della sua opera Or ’Amim nella versione Latina,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 28, no. 3/4 (1962): 78–88.

3. Andrew Berns, “Ovadiah Sforno’s Last Will and Testament,” Journal of Jewish Studies 68, no. 1 (2017): 1–33.

4. Immediately following it, in Shemot 19:6, is “but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ).