Bible Review

Quoted in Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, “Ben Asher’s ‘Keter Torah’—A Brand Plucked from the Fire,” Sinai 43 (1958), p. 9 (in Hebrew).

English Preface to the Facsimile Edition of Keter Aram Zova (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1976).

The Hebrew word dikduk has come to mean grammar. In Ben Asher’s day it probably still had a denotation closer to that of its root DWK, “examine, detail.”

Soferim 1:10, 12:8–12. See also The Minor Tractates the Talmud, ed. A. Cohen (London: Soncino, 1971), vol. 1, p. 215, n. 44.

See Dotan, “Masorah,” col. 1405; and Eisenstein, “Soferim,” in Ozar Yisrael (in Hebrew).

Writing in France during the 11th century, Solomon ben Isaac (“Rashi”) says in his commentary to this passage in the Talmud that the reader “moves his hand according to the melody. I have seen among readers who come from the land of Israel.” For illustration of the modern Italian style, as well as convincing arguments that the “melody” is actually a chant, see Avigdor Herzog, “Masoretic Accents,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971), vol. 11, cols. 1098–1111.

Hebrew words generally contain two components, root and a grammatical portion. The root, typically three consonants (X-X-X), establishes the semantic field: l-m-d “studying,” g-z-l “stealing,” d-r-sû “searching.” The grammatical portion is a pattern of vowels and certain consonants that fits into the root; for example, XaXXan “one who does,” XaXaX “third-person- masculine, simple past tense.”

See the deposition given by Rabbi Tawwil in 1958, after his immigration to Israel, and the 1976 interview of Mordecai Fahham, in Amnon Shamosh, Ha-Keter: The Story of the Aleppo Codex (Jerusalem: Machon Ben Zvi, 1986), pp. 161–162 and 39–41 (in Hebrew).