collected, short passages of Sefer Hasidim, and how students wrote down what they heard from him directly, as we learn from his student, R. Isaac b. Moses of Vienna, and from Judah’s son, R. Moses Zaltman, or from what they read. The fact that most of the short manuscripts or parts of longer ones are referred to as liqqutim or yalqutim may but need not mean “miscellany” in the sense of an anthology taken from one or more authors’ writings. It may also refer to scholars and students writing down passages or notes for future reference, regardless of their source.13 Many of the short manuscripts are introduced by the title “liqqutim.”14 The so-called liqqutim of Sefer Hasidim are not taken from the longer manuscripts of Sefer Hasidim but are independent gatherings taken from many hundreds of single paragraphs, some of which also appear, with variants, as parallels in other editions. Any paragraph may contain a better reading than its parallels in other editions, regardless of the date of the manuscript in which it is preserved.
Another sign that editions of Sefer Hasidim were composed in small units of text is found in a report by Judah he-hasid’s son, R. Moses Zaltman, who preserved his father’s comments on the Humash (Pentateuch) that they studied together. In one passage, R. Moses Zaltman reports that just before his father died in 1217 he “wrote two pages of Sefer Hasidim” (katav bet dappim mi-sefer hasidim).15 Groupings of up to a dozen paragraphs, enough text to occupy two pages, are common in parallels between SHP and former JTS Boesky 45; Cambridge Add. 379 and Oxford Add. Fol. 34 (Neubauer 641); and SHB, the editions with the most topically arranged passages.
For the idea of a bi-folio as the meaning of “bet dappim,” compare in Sefer Hasidim: “If a person comes across a bi-folio (shenei dappim), on one page of which there is writing and one that is blank, and he needs the blank page, he should not cut it off.”16
The process of how some of the longer editions of Sefer Hasidim were written from small text units is suggested in a passage in Sefer Hasidim that describes how the Talmud was put together:
If a man has to sell books, he should sell books of Oral Torah rather than books of Written Torah. For books of Oral Torah are like wool and flax that people work and weave. That is why (a tractate of Talmud) is called a masekhta, a term taken from weaving, as in “into the web” (‘im ha-masekhet) (Judges 16:13–14), as is written about Samson. Laws (halakhot) (are combined) into chapters (li-feraqim), and one gathers together everything pertaining to a subject and that is called a tractate (masekhta).17
This passage appears only in SHP 667 and SHB 932 but not in former JTS Boesky 45, 290, even though parallels to SHP 666 and to SHP 668, the passages immediately before and after SHP 667, are found in it. This pattern is another sign that individual paragraphs migrated from one edition to another. The passage refers to the building up of the Talmud text from smaller to larger units. By analogy, Sefer Hasidim is made up of the author’s single paragraphs or groupings of them, many of which he then further combined into topical booklets (mahbarot). This is the case in Parma and former JTS Boesky 45; Cambridge Add. 379 and Oxford Add. Fol. 34 (Neubauer 641); and eventually in SHB.
Paragraphs are indicated by indentations, sometimes with an enlarged initial word or letter, and at times also numbered. In the longer manuscripts we see the product of different combinations of topical booklets. These topical editions, such as the first part of Parma (SHP I) and the first edition in ed. Bologna (SHB I=par. 153 ff.), both of which consist of fourteen topical blocks, are arranged in the same topical order, but the individual parallel paragraphs contained in notebooks on the same topic are arranged in different sequences. Editions of Sefer Hasidim made up of topical notebooks may each be each thought of as a book (sefer) (see below).18
At the beginning of ed. Bologna there is a reference to a book made up of different topical booklets: “And the author of this book (sefer) who composed/compiled in a booklet (be-mahberet) discussions on pietism, humility, and the fear of God” (ba‘al zeh ha-sefer asher hibber divrei ha-hasidut, ve-ha-‘anavah, veha-yir’ah kol ehad ve-ehad be-mahberet).19 Writing short passages and then copying them into topical booklets and then combining those into a book is what characterizes SHB, SHP, and the other three manuscripts mentioned earlier.
The passage just quoted is found at the beginning of Sefer ha-Hasidut, the separate work that eventually became the beginning of SHB (see Chapter 2). A reference to a topical notebook, like those found in some Sefer Hasidim editions, is found in R. Eleazar of Worms’s Sefer ha-Roqeah. After discussing several customs connected with the dead, R. Eleazar of Worms says that they are “from R. Judah hasid’s notebook” (mi-mahberet r. yehudah hasid), and this suggests that Judah himself wrote a topical mahberet on the subject of the dead, one of the fourteen topics arranged as a book in SHP and former JTS Boesky 45, in Cambridge Add. 379 and Oxford Add. Fol. 34 (Neubauer 641), and three different times in SHB.20 Elsewhere, “sefer” is also found as a large unit of text. For example, SHP 721 has a title in the middle of the section on books: “I found this in another book” (zeh mazati be-sefer aher), and the last part of SHB begins “This is copied from another Sefer Hasidim” (zeh hu‘ataq mi-sefer hasidim aher).
The independence of the single paragraph as the unit of composition, regardless of how such short units were combined in different editions, is also seen in how stories are placed one after the other on related themes but without any literary connection. Rearrange the order or remove one and nothing would be missed. Consider the following three exempla from a section in SHP on prayer (391–585) and note how disjunctive they are despite their overlapping themes. These are three of four paragraphs that appear in the same sequence in both SHP and former JTS Boesky 45 and SHB with significant variations between each parallel paragraph:
SHP 463, former JTS Boesky 45, 196, and SHB 781
It once happened that people were protesting (in the synagogue when the Torah was being read), and the protester would not allow the Torah scroll to be returned to its place in the ark. It was a fast day, and someone said, “Say the Prayer [i.e., Shemoneh ‘esreh] seated or else the proper time for praying the afternoon service will pass. But do not walk out on the Torah scroll, (as it is said), ‘And they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed’ (Isa. 1:28).” But he made a mistake (when he was reciting the Prayer), which proves that if he had so desired he could have prayed the Prayer standing. And (the verse) “And they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed” (Isa. 1:28) applies only to when the Torah is actually being read. A man should not leave the synagogue until the entire Prayer is completed, unless he must relieve himself or throw up.
SHP 464, former JTS Boesky 45, 196, and SHB 782
A story about an old woman who used to come early to pray (in the synagogue) and (who did other) good deeds. After she died, she appeared in a dream to the good men. They said to her, “What (is it like) in that world?” She said to them, “They are judging me [SHB: hitting me] harshly. When the other righteous men and women are happy and at peace, they chase me away.” (They said, “What did you do wrong?”) She said, “When I was alive, I used to leave the synagogue during the Qedushah prayer. I did not wait until (everyone else) left the synagogue.”
SHP 465, former JTS Boesky 45, 196, SHB 783
There once was a woman who went out of the synagogue before the community finished praying. She sent her maid to her husband to bring her the house key. When (her husband) left the synagogue, he asked his wife, “Why was it necessary for you to have the keys (then)”?
She said, (“I needed them) because gentile women were coming to exchange some pawns that are needed in the house of frivolity” [SHB: prayer] [i.e., church vessels].
Her
