A Note Regarding R. Menahem de Lonzano
by Jordan S. Penkower
I would like to call attention to the
following points in reference to R. Menahem de Lonzano, as mentioned in Koreh
HaDorot by R. David Conforte.by Jordan S. Penkower
(1) In his recent post on TSB, Eliezer
Brodt, in his review of the new edition of Conforte's Koreh HaDorot (2008), made
the following statement (in the second paragraph):
R. Conforte was born in Salonika around 1617 and died sometime after 1678. Throughout his life he traveled to many places (including Eretz Yisroel), and in KH he describes his meetings with many great personalities, including R. Menachem Lonzano, author of Sheti Yadot,...
This seems to be a "slip of the pen", for it
assumes an impossibilty. Conforte was born in 1617 (or 1618) in Salonika, and
Lonzano died before 1624 (apparently in Eretz Israel; he was buried there at the
foot of the Mount of Olives). Thus, Conforte was still a young lad in Salonika
when Lonzano died elsewhere (apparently in Eretz Israel). In short, these two scholars
never met, and Conforte certainly does not mention any such meeting between
them.
In an interesting turn of events, these two
scholars were, nevertheless, connected; for Conforte married Lonzano's granddaughter, the daughter of Lonzano's son, Adonikam. Conforte mentions his
father-in-law (and the fact that he died young) in Koreh HaDorot, at the end of
his entry on R. Menahem de Lonzano.
(2) In his introduction to the new
edition of Koreh HaDorot, p. 32, R. Bezalel Deblitzki lists as one of the
manuscripts used by Conforte:
When one goes to verify this
assumption, one finds, on p. 76 of the new edition, the following
quote:
ומצאתי כתוב בתחלת ספר אחד מס' שבלי הלקט
מכתיבת יד ה"ר מנחם די לונזאנו ז"ל וז"ל = וזה לשונו
At first glance, one could
possibly understand this statement as R. Deblitzki did, i.e. that Lonzano copied
the whole manuscript of Shibbolei HaLeket.
Nevertheless, a closer look
yields the following interpretation:
Conforte is describing a
manuscript (written by an anonymous scribe) which was in the posession of
Lonzano. At the beginning of this manuscript Lonzano
added a gloss (quoted here at length by Conforte) about the author of the work
and his teachers. Lonzano also mentions in the gloss that Zedekiah HaRofeh (author of Shibbolei HaLeket) wrote another work (=volume two; in manuscript) and that he (Lonzano)
owns a copy. Lonzano further makes an observation at
the end of his gloss concerning the state of the work - that people later
changed the order of the work, just as they did with Sefer Yerei'im.
In short, the
phrase
ומצאתי כתוב.. מכתיבת יד ה"ר מנחם די לונזאנו
ז"ל
refers only to the gloss of
Lonzano - which was subsequently quoted at length by Conforte.
The inserted
phrase: בתחלת ספר אחד מס' שבילי הלקט simply informed the reader what were the contents of the manuscript (Shibbolei HaLeket, volume 1), and where the gloss was
inserted (at the beginning of the manuscript).
I later discovered that
already HID"A (R. Hayyim David Azoulai) correctly interpreted this
passage in Conforte's Koreh HaDorot,
and understood that Lonzano possessed a manuscript copy of Shibbolei
HaLeket. See Azoulai's remarks in Sheim
HaGedolim, s.v. רבינו צדקיה ב"ר אברהם הרופא
וב' ספרים אלו (=שבלי הלקט, על שני חלקיו) היו ביד
מהר"ם די לונזאנו כמו שהביא דבריו בס' קורא הדורות דף כ"א ע"א ע"ש
It should be noted that this
phenomenon, of Lonzano adding glosses in books (manuscripts and
printed) that he owned, can be
documented in many other cases as well.