Books That Speak

My husband, Asher, is a bibliomaniac. Yes, it is a real word. Just look it up in the dictionary. As Webster writes, it is “one who has a mania for books.” When we were dating, he tried to warn me, but I had no idea what he meant. I mean, he told me he loved books and had a lot of them. But I also told him I loved books and had a lot of them. To me, “a lot” meant that the entire bookshelf was filled with books, as opposed to pottery, photo albums or knickknacks. To him it meant that floor-to-ceiling bookshelves took up the entire apartment, and that closets and the space under beds were also designated as book storage areas.

But over the years, I have come to understand my husband’s relationship with his books. You see, to him, books are not objects. Books are our connection to our past, our history, our people, our survival and our future. They tell stories, give meaning, provide a foundation, and ground us. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, of righteous memory, would teach of the importance of having a house filled with holy books, a bayit malei sefarim, and he meant it. What greater wallpaper than the words of our ancestors?

Original title page of Emek HaMelech, published in Amsterdam, 1648.

I have witnessed firsthand that books are not only to be read, but that they speak as well. Sometimes very loudly. In our home we are blessed to have Jewish texts that have survived for hundreds of years, some which were smuggled through the Holocaust, others which escaped the fires of the Inquisition, all filled with the writings, notes, wax droppings and fingerprints of generations past.

But we have two books in particular that move me like no others. They are not the rarest nor the most impressive. One is filled with the holing of worms who have tried to eat their way through. But nonetheless, they are my favorites. For these books represent to me how, through all our individual and collective travels in our lives, we will always find our way back home.

My husband found the first book, Emek HaMelech (The Valley of the King), when a library in Israel, after many years, sold its contents. The book is a work of Kabbalah, written by Naftali Bacharach, and is one of the earliest presentations of the teachings of the great Renaissance-era master of Kabbalah, Rabbi Isaac Luria. This book was published in Amsterdam in 1648, the same year as the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland, in which tens of thousands of Jews (half of Poland’s Jewish community) were brutally murdered. In contrast, this was also the time of Descartes, six years before the naming of New York City and six years after Galileo died.

Letter in back of the book Emek HaMelech, dated 1721.

This book had been well preserved, in part thanks to it having been kept for so long in this library. When we first looked at it, we discovered a letter in the back of the book. The letter, handwritten, was dated 1721, and was a dedication that reads:

This book, called Emek HaMelech, was given to me as a gift, on condition that I learn from it and that I remember their names for good things in our holy city of Hebron. May their merit be doubled from Heaven. I write this now here, on the 15th day of the month of Cheshvan, in the year 5482 (1721). And also to remember the name of the honorable and modest woman of valor, the rebbetzin Bila, of whom it is said that she is the daughter of a woman who has happiness from her children.

We took the book to an expert on rabbinic handwriting, and he determined that it matched the writing of David Melamed, who went out together with Rabbi Yisrael Cohen to Holland, Venice, and then, in the year 1721 (when he wrote the inscription) to Germany. They had left from Hebron in 1718 to raise money for the community there.

It was customary to write an inscription at the end of a book when one finished learning it. So the assumption is that he was given the book in Hebron, and it stayed with him throughout all his travels. When he finished reading it, in 1721, he then wrote the dedication in the merit of those for whom he had learned.

Original cover page of Brit Menuchah, published in Amsterdam, 1648.

Ten days after this book came to adorn our shelves, my husband received a call from someone who knew he had a love for these rare texts. He had a book, one that was in terrible condition, eaten by worms, that had been dug out of a genizah, a specially designated place where Jewish books and religious items are buried when they are no longer usable. He found this one text in particular, and thought that my husband would be someone who could appreciate it.

My husband is known as one who is always trying to rescue Jewish books. Sadly, of the relatively few Jewish texts that have survived the wars and pogroms, now many of these Torah works are either being neglected, lost or destroyed. Asher has made it one of his causes to find these texts and give them proper homes. Sometimes we are able to take them in ourselves; other times he finds adoptive parents looking to host and love one of these rare texts.

So, needless to say, when we received the call that there was a book in desperate need of a shelf to stay on, we were interested in seeing what it was. What we found was a book that was barely readable, as worms had worked their way through most of the text. I watched as my husband caringly looked throughout the pages, when suddenly he froze.

Upon looking at the title page, which miraculously hadn’t been damaged, he noticed that the text, called Brit Menuchah (The Covenant of Peace), had also been printed in Amsterdam, and also in 1648. Additionally, this was a work of Kabbalah, which in itself was extremely rare for such printings, and records show that these two books were printed very close together, and may have very well been in the same printing house in Amsterdam.

Dedication on the back of the title page of Brit Menuchah, dated 1721.

Then, on the back of the title page, there was once again a handwritten letter, in a very different script from the first. This letter said:

I have given this book to Rabbi David Melamed from the Holy Land, from the city of Hebron, and today is the Hebrew month of Sivan, 5481 (1721).

What this means is that both of these books, which came into our possession ten days apart from one another, were both printed in Amsterdam in 1648 and somehow made their way to David Melamed around the year 1718, accompanied him on his travels throughout Europe, and then the two books parted ways at some point after 1724 (which was when he returned to Hebron).

Now, according to the stamps and signatures, it appears that the first book had been in Warsaw and Russia before returning to Israel, where it spent many years in a library. The second book was most likely in Morocco until it returned to Israel.

All the indications point to this: these books, printed 363 years ago, in the same city, and owned by the very same person, were separated from one another for at least 250 years, until that amazing day, a few years ago, when we stood in our Jerusalem apartment and reunited them on our shelf.

Pages that have been eaten by worms.

We are not quite sure how we merited to be the recipients of these treasures, or what our connection may have been to its owner. But one more thing that is really unbelievable is that the person who was sent out from Hebron after David Melamed was a man by the name of Yom Tov Crispo. He left Hebron around 1724 and traveled to Italy.

It is hard to know for sure, but our last name is Crispe (originally Crispo)—and my husband’s family is Italian . . .

When the Rebbe would stress that every Jewish family should have a house filled with books, The books themselves—the paper, the binding, the history—are holy it was not solely for the knowledge they contain. While their meaning and teachings are of incredible importance, the books themselves—the paper, the binding, the history—are holy. These books are not just our friends; they are our famiy. For the Jews are the People of the Book.

This very week, we celebrate the importance of Jewish texts and their utmost relevance in our lives. Hei Tevet (the 5th day of the Hebrew month of Tevet), is referred to by Chabad chassidim as Didan Notzach, meaning, “We were victorious!” This is the day when the U.S. court ruled that the Chabad Library belonged to the chassidim, not to one individual person. In large part, the ruling was a result of the testimony of the Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, who stated that just as the Rebbe belongs to his chassidim, so too do the books belong to the chassidim.

Being victorious means learning that true ownership comes not from what you physically have, but from what you internalize and make your own. For the stories that books tell go far beyond what lies in the pages.

Didan Notzach is celebrated through purchasing new books for the family, and increasing in one’s learning of these texts. Needless to say, this is my husband’s favorite day of the year. Now only if we had more wall space . . .