From: "Seth Mandel" To: mesorah@aishdas.org Subject: Source materials for our discussion Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 19:35:19 -0000 With many thanks to R. Micha and R. Herschel Ainspan, we now have posted on the web the 16 pages of texts that I plan to use b'n in our discussions of the rishonim on the rules of sh'va and some related issues. For those who find it more convenient to have a hard copy in their hands and cannot print out a copy from the scanned web pages, R. Michael Poppers has graciously agreed to fax them copies, and you may turn to him (MPoppers@kayescholer.com) at your convenience. We will not be starting the discussion until next week, but I know that the temptation to look will be too strong to resist for some of the devoted linguistic irregulars here (it would be for me, and I selected the materials with that in mind). So let me just briefly tell you what is there: The first file is Aharon Dotan's edition of Sefer Diqduqei HaT'amim, which is attributed to R. Aharon ben Asher himself. The past page of that file is parts of Sefer Diqduqei HaT'amim from the Leningrad Codex. Many of the earliest Codices of the T'NaKh written in accordance with the Masorah append sections of the Sefer Diqduqei HaT'amim to the end, after the Masorah G'dola. It is even possible that the Keter, the Allepo Codex, had some at the end (but unfortunately the end is lost and we do not know and cannot find out). This codex is written in the characteristic hand of the earliest manuscripts (although it cannot compare to the beauty of the Keter), and the page is important for our purposes because 1) it has niqqud, which Dotan does not; 2) it contains one of the most telling sections, that we shall discuss first; and 3) it shows any naysayers and nitpickers and CQs that mss from not long after the time of Aharon ben Asher attributed the work to him, thus eliminating most doubt. The other file is, as you can see, from Mahberet haTijan. All of you know that Tijan is the plural of Taj, and Taj in Arabic means crown, and is the term used by the Teimanim to refer to their miqra'ot g'dolot. So translated, the book means something like "Handbook for the T'NaKh." It is an early work and is based on materials that go back to the times of the ba 'alei masorah themselves (probably a translation of a very early work called Hidayat alQari, "Directions for Reading." We shall discuss all of these issues a little more in detail b'n during the posts themselves; this is just to let you know what you are looking at. This is extraordinarily interesting material, as authentic as can be, yet known by few; I expect we shall have very entertaining discussions about it. Enjoy! Seth Mandel