Talk:Alilot Devarim

"Raphael Kirchheim tentatively identified Palmon with Aaron ben Gershon abu al-Rabi and Joseph with Joseph ibn Shem-Tov."

Hi @GordonGlottal, thank you for your erudite improvements as always. I am struggling to locate the source for the Kirchheim ID. Currently the sources for that section do not mention Shem-Tov that I can determine. Also, I am inclined to treat the modern work by Eric Lawee which is the first source as authoritative. I have left it attributed to him but he tends to believe that ben Meshullam is also fictitious. Can you take a look at that? Andre🚐 17:59, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

That'll clear it up, now, thanks! Andre🚐 19:42, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Hopefully fixed both! Personally, I tend to think that Joseph ben Meshullam is a fake name and that he is not the same as Palmon. The styles are very similar, but I don't agree with the modern consensus that Joseph ben Meshullam has unrealistic insight into Palmon's work. For one example: At the very start of his commentary, Joseph writes that when Palmon introduces himself as "Palmon ben Peleth mibenei veli shem, this means "Palmon ben Peleth, a pseudonym". This is simply incorrect, the term mibeni veli shem means "of those without pedigree" and parallels what Palmon says about his mother's parentage. Of course, the errors could be another part of his style/artifice.

In any case, Lawee is probably correct that "Joseph ben Meshullam" is also a fake name. The introduction and conclusion to the commentary, where he gives it, are heavily stylized. In favor of Graetz is that "Alilo" is marked in the final poem. If the text really references a Joseph [ben Meshullam?] Alilo, then he was obviously the author of both. Everyone has rejected this for 100 years now, but none of the scholars I've read seem to have realized why Schorr and Reggio thought that was his name—I only noticed the markings after seeing them emphasized in Almanzi's fair copy for publication (MS BL Add. 27088). It's very curious! For the moment I don't know how else to explain the markings. But Reggio and Almanzi could certainly over-interpret this stuff. As I've noted at my Rieti sandbox, "Almanzi argues (f. 23r) that רב טוב יפץ forms a semblance of "Rieti" by acrostic, following מעון השאולים for "Moses", and writes that Luzzatto's MS has these letters marked for acrostic, which is not correct: it has them marked for the marginal variant חיים". GordonGlottal (talk) 22:20, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Very interesting and informative. The article looks great. Nice job. Also, if I am reading Zinberg right, he agrees with Graetz.Andre🚐 00:54, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here.No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 talk 01:17, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that 15th-century rationalist satire Alilot Devarim is generally considered a "self-commenting text" written under a pseudonym?

• Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ajs-review/article/abs/philosophy-dogma-and-exegesis-in-medieval-ashkenazic-judaism-the-evidence-of-sefer-hadrat-qodesh/B72F25BCF323D779A59821EA70A907D0, https://doi.org/10.1093%2Foso%2F9780190937836.003.0008

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Lock-Up (art gallery)

Created by AndreJustAndre (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 7 past nominations.

Andre🚐 04:58, 25 July 2025 (UTC).

• Hello @AndreJustAndre:. If I accidentally say something offensive or stir up religious hatred please let me know - if necessary on my talk page or by email. It is not mandatory for DYK but if you have time could you possibly add a bit more context to the first paragraph for readers like me who know almost nothing about Jews.

In the first sentence you say "rationalist" so does that mean the author might have been an atheist, as by definition religion is a matter of faith not reason? If so I guess they did not use their real name as they might have been tortured? But later in the article it says the author might have been a Jew themselves, so is this a sectarian polemic? If the author was a Jew then why would they need to hide behind a pseudonym? Might they have been a rabbi themselves, and was it considered vulgar to write such a book? Or might they have been excommunicated (if there is such a thing in Judeaism) or cut off by a rich patron? Did earlier authors of such books use their real names, and if so had the religious climate changed to be less tolerant?

I don't understand the difference between "homilies" and "interpretations". Are they perhaps the same thing but one word has a positive connotation and the other a negative? Was the author a kind of early populist - were they criticising rabbis for not being able to explain the Talmud properly to ordinary people? Perhaps you can explian more about the interplay with the purported second author. For example was one asking questions or giving examples or disagreeing, and how does that help the reader understand the book? What do modern rabbis and academics and literary critiics think of this book? Is it used in theology courses at universities?

Should and could you put the text in Wikisource?

I am afraid the hook didn't hook me. Without stirring up modern day hatred is it possibly to add more of the "bitter sarcasm" in the hope we can find a better hook? Chidgk1 (talk) 09:29, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

• • Hi, Chidgk1. I am not sure there will be a hook with "bitter sarcasm," as 15th-century manuscripts can be a little dry. We can try to come up with something more interesting. I will have to think about some of your comments or questions. "Rationalist" doesn't mean atheist, and religion is not by definition devoid of reason. Logic and reasoning are a big part of some religions. In Judaism (and not limited to Judaism), the rationalists such as Maimonides and Abraham ibn Ezra focused on the plain meaning of the text and tried to make it all make sense or explain contradictions in religious law and practice or biblical history, while followers of mysticism might emphasize more of the unseen forces, mysteries, double meanings or hidden meanings, magical or numerological formulas and so on. Many rationalist writers were also interested in astronomy, alchemy, what passed for math and science at this time, history, literature, and other things, where you certainly need logic and reason for analysis and interpretation. They probably did believe in the God of Judaism and practice the rituals. There were also rationalists in Islamic and Christian worlds. As far as being tortured, around this time you were likely to be tortured for being Jewish if you were around the Spanish Inquisition. As far as I know no atheists or apostates were tortured by Jews, but they were occasionally ostracized or excommunicated (herem). Part of the context is the relationship between the Ashkenazi world, traditionally more traditionalist, and the Sephardic world which had a flourishing of the humanistic arts before the expulsions. Yes, the author was likely a learned, Jewish writer, probably a scribe and probably a rabbi and maybe even an influential leader of their community. So the satire was pseudonymous probably for reputational reasons and not for fear of retribution per se. "Homilies" in this context implies kind of making up a moral story of your own that is not present in the plain original text. These rationalist thinkers were basically something like textual originalists, who disliked Kabbalah, hidden codes or messages, folk superstitions, popular mythology most of which isn't found in the original texts but came later, considering that all junk. Kabbalah can be heavy on symbolism or things like making magical amulets, the rationalists were more conservative in their thinking. I wouldn't go far as to say they were populists but they did want things to be ordinarily understood and not twisted around or read too much into. As far as the 2nd author, some people think they were one and the same because they had a similar style and the 2nd author basically explains the 1st work, which is why it is "self-commenting." I do not know if this text would be used in a basic introductory theology course, but maybe in an advanced topic about the Maimonidean Controversy. Modern authors like to study these things because lots of people today still are interested in, study, and revere those figures like Maimonides, who the author probably likes, or Rashi, who the author is very critical of, but was very influential and continues to be. This particular work is probably more on the obscure side but is an interesting case to be for being such an early pseudonymous work and for its point of view and its position in time. The text itself is probably only in calligraphic medieval Hebrew on manuscript (vellum?) so I am not really qualified to transcribe it to Wikisource, though I agree it would be interesting to read it. Usually these things are readable if some modern day writer writes a critical edition and includes a translation. Andre🚐 09:48, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

• Checked new enough, long enough, QPQ done, and Earwig shows no copyvio. Is neutral point of view as far as I can tell, which is not very far. Randomly chose a few cites to check: cite 1 good - cite 8 good - cite 13 unable to check as only abstract is outside paywall - cite 19 Google Translate gave up after first few lines so I gave up too - cite 23 I was not sure about this as the link only shows a very small bit of text which seemed to confirm the previous sentence rather than the cited @AndreJustAndre: as the sentence has 6 cites and covers 2 names could you possibly move the cites next to the name they are citing unless they cover both names in which case we probably don't need all 6? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:21, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

• • Thanks for checking that. Perhaps the cites should be bundled but I tend not to do that when I'm working on an article so I can move them around while I am messing with the article structure or so I can easily reuse them to expand it. Also, part of that part of the article was added by User:GordonGlottal (e.g. , including the Hebrew original text of Kirchheim, which is how I think those cites got a little mixed up and I didn't clean them up later, so thanks for catching it. It would appear that a few of those cites mainly just say "the Alilot Devarim of Joseph b. Meshullam (?) who wrote in Italy in 1468" and they do not exactly support that identification as you point out, so I'll move them to a different sentence, rather than remove them because they still might be useful for expanding the article. Lawee does mention the identification but not exactly in the same way. Zinberg does go further into depth about the author. I'll find what he says and get back to you. Andre🚐 06:58, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
• Re finding a hookier hook as I see the book is freely available (although as images as perhaps no one has put it through OCR so presumably not searchable?) if you cannot find a spicy quote yourself might it be worth you asking Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish history or indeed on Hebrew Wikipedia. I am thinking of perhaps a sentence where he insults something which everyone nowadays agrees is bad? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:41, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Yes, there are scans of the manuscripts but translating a work like this is something rather delicate usually done by professionals as a major endeavor and takes time. As mentioned the writing is calligraphic, and it is also an archaic dialect and possibly takes poetic or literary license in ways that are going to be hard for OCR to do (or LLMs). The Hebrew is normally written sans vowels which makes it harder for a non-native speaker let alone one well-versed in the 15th century vocabulary and turn of phrase and constructions. We'll probably have an easier time finding something in one of the English sources already in the article. Zinberg is a good one but it's hard to find online in that volume, but I believe I have a print copy so I will check. There are some examples of customs he ridicules in the Jacob Schachter which an LLM is capable of rendering to English (Google Translate does not, however do such a good job). I can't find an English source for that yet though. Will check ZinbergAndre🚐 08:28, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
• Thanks very much for those detailed explanations and article improvements. I am now happy with everything except the hook. How about the following:
• ALT1 ... that the Book of Accusations excoriates halakhic interpretation, Kabbalah, magic, superstition, the commentary of Rashi, and the Ashkenazi rabbinical tradition of pilpul? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:07, 10 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Thanks Chidgk1, think that works for an ALT1. I am trying to find my copy of Zinberg in my personal library. So far it is evading me but I am 100% sure I have Volume 3 somewhere. Andre🚐 19:34, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR 2ND REVIEWER: as I the reviewer cannot approve my own hook suggestion and don't find the hook suggested by the nominator catchy enough I hope another reviewer can now take a hook look Chidgk1 (talk) 07:15, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Hook says excoriates, article not only says critiques but has a clarification needed tag on it. Also, this needs a lead section and the sentence beginning Cultural needs {{clump}}.--Launchballer 12:48, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I've addressed the lead section and the cite clump. I think excoriates is fair given that Lawee says, "In excoriating Rashi’s Commentary, the resisting readers were not alone. They were joined by another rock-hard rationalist of later medieval times: the author of ‘Alilot devarim." but I've changed the lead to "harshly critiques" because while you could reasonably say he was excoriating all of it, I think it reads better, and I'll use excoriate to refer to Rashi in the body. I think defensible for the hook though. The clarification tag was added by Chidgk1 in this context so I have now removed it. Andre🚐 18:27, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Good enough for me.--Launchballer 10:34, 14 September 2025 (UTC)