He says that he has taken passages on the topic of caring for the dead “from the notebook of R. Judah hasid,” but then he continues, “and you will find proof of his words in Sefer ha-Kavod” (mi-mahberet r. yehudah hasid u-ve-sefer ha-kavod timza re’ayah li-devarav).12 These comments suggest that Judah was writing passages in one “book” with the other “book” in mind; or, we might even think of them as two forms of his short pietist writings that he incorporated into differently named works, some as paragraphs of Sefer Hasidim and the other as paragraphs of Sefer ha-Kavod. The evidence suggests that he wrote some passages more than once and put them into separate works that had different titles.
A third text attributed to R. Judah he-hasid can overlap with Sefer Hasidim or with Sefer ha-Kavod. R. Judah he-hasid’s list of Commands (Zava’ah) is preserved in scores of manuscripts in different combinations of up to seventy short paragraphs.13 The title is often mistranslated as an ethical “will,” but the term refers to a series of discrete religious demands. The text was very popular. In the first edition is an introduction that says Judah was writing his rules for three different audiences: his family, other Jews, and the whole world. The “will” includes: “If there are two weddings the same week, one will become poor or go into exile and die. As to gentiles, they should not make two knights (shenei parashim) on the same day, but don’t tell them or they will be careful to avoid doing it”!14
Sometimes the Zava’ah was copied into codices that also contain parts of Sefer Hasidim.15 The two texts were often cited interchangeably, especially paragraphs of the Zava’ah as “Sefer Hasidim.”16 For example, in MS New York, JTS Mic. 5252 f. 93r: “I found in writing (something) copied from Sefer ha-Hasidim from the Commands of Rabbeinu Juda he-hasid, may his memory be for a blessing, and they are seventy commands” (mazati katuv ve-hu mu‘ataq mi-sefer ha-hasidim mi-zava’avot (?) rabbeinu yehuda [alef at end] hehasid…ve-hem shiv‘im zivuyyim).”17 Both texts have the same attributed author. Both are written in numbered paragraphs and command pietistic behavior. And both were often copied in the same manuscript codex or printed together.
There is also overlap between Sefer ha-Kavod and Judah’s Zava’ah. R. Jacob b. Moses Ha-Levi Mölln (Maharil) refers to seeing Sefer ha-Kavod, and that it included Rabbi Judah’s Zava’ah.18 Consider again the passage on mourning customs that is found in R. Eleazar of Worms’s Sefer ha-Roqeah (par. 316, end) that begins: “Copied from Sefer ha-Kavod written by the great man, R. Judah Hasid m[ay] the m[emory] of the r[ighteous man] (be for a blessing)” (ne’etaq mi-sefer ha-kavod she-yasad he-ish ha-gadol r. yehudah hasid zz” l). The text quoted is a very close version of the first nine paragraphs of Judah he-hasid’s Zava’ah even though it refers to the text as “Sefer ha-Kavod.”19
Apart from the compositions that R. Judah he-hasid wrote more than once, he also wrote multiple versions of short texts on the Divine Unity (shirei ha-yihud), and he wrote more than one commentary on the prayer book.20 Other parallel passages are to be found in other compositions that Judah wrote, such as his writings about nature, Zekher ‘asah le-nifleotav.21
R. Eleazar of Worms’s Fluid Writings
R. Eleazar of Worms also produced more than one edition of some of his many different writings. He wrote several short penitential texts about how to atone for one’s sins, not just one that he revised. This act of recomposing resulted in related penitential texts with different names such as two versions called Hilekhot Teshuvah, and others called Moreh Hata’im, Yoreh Hata’im, and ‘Isqei Teshuvot. They all contain overlapping parallel passages in different sequences as well as unique ones. One composition cannot be reduced to the others as the product of the author’s revision of an original text or of scribal errors. The textual evidence argues for Eleazar of Worms’s composing each of them.22
Overlap also exists in Eleazar’s halakhic writings. He composed a specific halakhic work that he called “Sefer ha-Roqeah,”23 but that title can also refer to a different halakhic text whose modern editor named it “Ma‘aseh Roqeah” (the Work of Roqeah), but medieval authors cited that text simply as “Roqeah.” Eleazar wrote a third legal text that is also sometimes referred to as “Roqeah.”24 Thus, when medieval authors refer to “Sefer ha-Roqeah” or “Roqeah” and the quoted passage is not in “our” Sefer ha-Roqeah, it is not because these authors had passages from a larger Sefer ha-Roqeah in the author’s original unique composition that did not survive, but because the title was applied to related, overlapping, but different texts that the same author composed from hundreds of short text units that he wrote.25
In the case of R. Eleazar of Worms, the title “roqeah” also denotes the author’s name, “Eleazar,” since he explains in the introduction to his Sefer ha-Roqeah that he called the book “Roqeah” after his name “Eleazar,” a numerical equivalent. Each Hebrew word adds up to 308. By doing this, Eleazar in effect equated his name as author with the title or titles of his books. As a result, several books written by the same author could be called by his name-title, regardless of what other titles they might have.
Eleazar’s speculative writings that include Sefer ha-Shem (Book of the [Divine] Name), on God’s mystical names, or his Peirush ‘al Sefer Yezirah (Commentary on the Book of Creation), have those titles, but they are also part of a larger work that Eleazar called Sodei Razayya (Hidden Mysteries). The title “Sode Razayya,” in turn, can refer to a specific work by that name, but it also can refer to the collection of five related works including Sefer ha-Shem and the Peirush ‘al Sefer Yezirah.
Like R. Judah he-hasid, Eleazar also wrote different versions of a commentary on the standard prayer book that includes many Psalms, and he also wrote a commentary on the Book of Psalms. Passages from each “work” were copied into the other. He also wrote over fifty piyyutim.26
Adapting the Works of Others in Ashkenaz and the French Sefer Hasidim
Continuous adaptation was a characteristic feature of Jewish subcultures in medieval Europe, and a northern French Jewish rewriting of Sefer Hasidim can be viewed as part of a broad process of Jewish cultural migration and adaptation. From time to time, a feature of one subculture was brought to another that absorbed and modified it. For example, Ashkenaz imported Iberian quantitative Hebrew poetic meter, and writers such as R. Jacob b. Meir, known as Rabbeinu Tam (d. 1171), adapted it.27 Later, R. Meir b. Barukh (Maharam) of Rothenberg (d. 1293) used it when he wrote his lament on the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1242 and combined it with the genre Judah Halevi had used in his “Odes to Zion” (Shirei Ziyyon).28 A prose example is the early modern Iberian story cycle in Solomon Ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah (The Scepter of Judah) that was transformed into a Yiddish version with an Ashkenazic point of view.29
In addition to Ashkenazic authors adapting Iberian Jewish cultural features, some French Ashkenazic texts show the influence of German Hebrew works. An example of such a text is Huqqei ha-Torah (Rules of the Torah) that describes a Jewish study community or yeshivah-like boarding school. Jewish males are described as studying there during the week and older ones go home to their wives for the Sabbath. The provenance of the text has been proposed in southern France or further north as in the Evreux brothers’ community in Normandy or in Paris.30
Regardless of its social context, some of the ideas found in the text remind us of Sefer Hasidim and some recommended patterns of study found in it. It may be an example of German pietist influence on a French Jewish thinker, even if there was no implementation of its recommended practices, a conclusion that may also be drawn about
