The words of the twelfth-century translator Judah ibn Tibbon in his ethical will to his son about books are well known:
I have honored you by providing an extensive library for your use, and have thus relieved you of the necessity to borrow books. Most students must bustle about to seek books, often without finding them. But you, thanks be to God, lend and borrow not. Many books, indeed, you own two or three copies. I have besides made for you books on all sciences, hoping that your hand might find them all as a nest.
Maybe less well known is the very next line: “But you, my son, did deceive my hopes. You did not choose to employ your abilities, hiding yourself from all your books, not caring to know them or even their titles.” Ibn Tibbon probably was not the first person to feel that others failed to appreciate their passion for books; he was certainly not the last. While the physicality of the book has gone through many changes, its essential nature as a repository of and vehicle for knowledge and teaching remains, whether the words are written on vellum, paper, or in digital format. That the editors of Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism have seen fit to include a book review section in this journal is testament to the centrality of the book and book learning to our movement and community.
In the continuation of Ibn Tibbon’s ethical will he wrote, “My son, make your books your companions and your garden; and your shelves and bookcases your orchards.” Scholar of medieval Spanish Jewry S. J. Pearce has pointed out that Ibn Tibbon’s statement is actually a modification of an earlier one by Dunash ben Labrat, who wrote, “Let your Garden of Eden be your holy books, and your orchard the Arabs’ books.” Pearce wrote of Ibn Tibbon that,
[f]or his new, non-Arabophone audience, he could not simply quote Dunash but instead had to adapt the epigram in order to speak simultaneously to two audiences: first to the Andalusi audience that would recognize the source of the quotation, and second to the Provençal readers who could read his adaptation without finding themselves alienated by books they could not, and perhaps did not wish to, read.
It is our hope that this book review section will become both a companion to our learning and growth but also a catalyst and maybe even a challenge, helping us to enrich and expand our knowledge and understanding of Jewish learning, texts, and history.
Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky, Ph.D,, is Manager of Enrollment Analytics at St. Francis College and book review editor for this journal.
