Yehudo Leib Krinsky
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- Note Yehudo Leib Krinsky should not be confused with Chaim Yehuda Krinsky, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi.
Born in Minsk; son of Rabbi Yitzchok Krinsky.
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[edit] Life
Krinsky was born into an Eastern European rabbinical family. His father, Rabbi Yitzchok Krinsky, died in 1853. He was apparently born in Minsk; the year of his birth is unknown, but his father, Rabbi Isaac Krinsky, died in the autumn of 1853, so this provides us with a terminus ad quem. In his youth, he studied both Torah and secular studies (what B. Z. Eisenstadt calls “hokhmâ”). Later on, he moved to Slutzk, where he went into the timber business, and made a fortune. He became a philanthropist, supporting rabbis and Torah scholars. Later on, he moved (back?) to Minsk, where he began his major work of scholarship, the Mehoqeqei Yehuda. For Krinsky's (apparent) association with the movement known as Haskala, see below.
[edit] Works
Only one work by Krinsky is known, though more might show up in the future. This one work is the five-volume Mehoqeqei Yehuda, a super-commentary on Abraham Ibn `Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch and certain of the Megilloth. (The title, meaning The Lawgivers of Judah, is a reference to Krinsky's first name.) Krinsky worked on the Genesis volume from at least 1903 (the date of the first haskama, or rabbinic letter of approbation) until 1907, when it was published. The volume on Exodus was published in 1910. He continued to work on the remaining three volumes, but for some reason unknown to me, they did not get published until 1928, by which time Krinsky was probably no longer living.
The published Mehoqeqei Yehuda includes the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, the Aramaic text of Targum Onqelos, and the commentaries of RASH"I and Ibn `Ezra. Beneath these sources appear Krinsky's annotations. Krinsky's notes on Ibn `Ezra are divided into two columns. The first column is entitled Yahêl Ôr ("may light shine", an allusion to Krinsky's given name, YeHuda Leib), and it consists of straightforward explanations of Ibn `Ezra's words. The second column is entitled Qarnei Ôr ("beams of light", also a pun on Krinsky's name, based on its value in gematria); it consists of short essays relating to Ibn `Ezra's work. These essays often include quotes from one or more of the following three sources: (1) classical rabbinic literature; (2) other writings by Ibn `Ezra himself; and (3) reactions to Ibn `Ezra by other mediaeval Jewish writers. When the other writers criticize Ibn `Ezra, Krinsky tries to defend him. One of the most valuable aspects of the Qarnei Ôr is the extensive quoting from Ibn `Ezra's other works. The commentary of Ibn `Ezra on the Torah is a very concise and cryptic work; often, paragraphs that Ibn `Ezra has written in other works shed invaluable light on understanding these cryptic interpretations.
[edit] Association with the Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment)
Krinsky's annotations in Mehoqeqei Yehuda make frequent reference to thinkers of the Haskala, such as Heinrich Graetz, S. D. Luzzatto, and especially Moses Mendelssohn. This raises the question of how strong Krinsky's own associations with the Haskala were. The study of Ibn `Ezra's writings was not particularly common among non-haskalic, Haredi Jews of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, for Ibn `Ezra's commentary focusses on Hebrew grammar, and, to a lesser extent, the sciences; most non-haskalic Jews considered each of these fields to be pointless at best, and heretical at worst. (Find source.) Thus, it would be reasonable for us to suspect that Krinsky was adhered to some form of the Haskala.
The haskama (letter of approbation) of Rabbi Eliezer Rabbinowitz, prefixed to the Genesis volume of Mehoqeqei Yehuda, refers to Krinsky as "God-fearing", an epithet that makes it clear that Krinsky was observant of Jewish law (halakha). This would place him firmly in the religious branch of the Haskala, rather than its secular branch. (This is clear also from other evidence, such as Krinsky's choice to publish Mehoqeqei Yehuda in the form of a traditional pentateuch for liturgical use in the synagogue.) And indeed, the haskamoth that Krinsky managed to obtain for his volume on Exodus read almost like a Who's Who of the Religious Haskala. We find Abraham Berliner, A. E. Harkavy, and S. A. Poznanski, among others. (Conspicuously absent are the names of A. A. Kohut and D. Z. Hoffmann. One might have expected a haskama from Solomon Schechter, as well.)
[edit] Criticism of Krinsky by others
The work Mehoqeqei Yehuda has not been received well. The traditional Haredi world seems to have ignored it altogether, whereas the critical world has given it a number of bad reviews. Already in 1907, the year when Krinsky published the first volume, David Hertzog published a harsh review of it in ZDMG. Much later, in 1990, Arye (Leo) Prijs called Krinsky's work misleadingly incomplete, and cited a number of quotes from Hertzog's review, including them in the preface to Prijs's own book on Ibn `Ezra's commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis.
It must be remembered that despite the flaws for which Krinsky's work has been criticized, Mehoqeqei Yehuda remains to this day the only modern complete supercommentary on Ibn `Ezra's Pentateuch commentary. All the other attempts by moderns to produce a supercommentary on Ibn `Ezra's Pentateuch com-mentary have either been woefully minimal (such as Asher Weiser's annotations to the Mosad Ha-Rav Kook edition of Ibn `Ezra's commentary), or covered only a few chapters of Ibn `Ezra's commentary (such as the works by Prijs and Linetsky, each of which covers only the first few chapters of Genesis.)
[edit] External sources
- [1]
- Krinsky, Judah Leib. ca. 1840 - after 1915. Lithuania. Author of a five-volume supercommentary on Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.
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