''Me'am Lo'ez'' (), initiated by Rabbi Yaakov Culi in 1730, is a widely studied commentary on the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Judaeo-Spanish. It is perhaps the best known publication in that language.

History

''Me'Am Lo'ez'' marked one of the first major printings of Judaeo-Spanish text in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, many

Sephardi Jews Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

settled in the Ottoman Empire. These Jews bought with them their customs, culture and Judaeo-Spanish language. Hebrew remained the language of ritual, prayer and scholarship, but its comprehension by the Jewish masses had decreased. As time passed, many community leaders became concerned about the intellectual gap between the Jewish masses and their cultural leadership. This led several Jewish scholars to conclude that, in order to bring Judaism to the Jewish masses in the western Ottoman Empire, it should be done in their own language, Judaeo-Spanish, as educated men could read it, and it was written in

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

. This major initiative was launched in 1730 with the printing of the first volume of ''Me'Am Lo'ez'', which was to be a thorough commentary on the Bible in Judaeo-Spanish. The printing of Me'Am Lo'ez marked the emergence of large scale printing activity in Judaeo-Spanish in the western Ottoman Empire in general and in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in particular.

Content

In Rabbi Culi's time, many individuals in Turkey were not sufficiently fluent in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

to study the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

and its commentaries in the original. Rabbi Culi thus undertook the "colossal task" of writing a

compendium A compendium ( compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a specific ...

of the major fields of Torah study. The commentary was to be user-friendly and was thus written in Judaeo-Spanish, the Jewish language spoken by the Sephardic Jews in Turkey, as most Sephardic Jews could no longer read Hebrew. The title of the work comes from the first line of Psalm 114, where "Me'am Lo'ez" means "strange language". The book was divided according to the

weekly Torah portion The weekly Torah portion refers to a lectionary custom in Judaism in which a portion of the Torah (or Pentateuch) is read during Jewish prayer services on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The full name, ''Parashat HaShavua'' (), is popularly abbre ...

('' Parashat hashevua''); Rabbi Culi explains each chapter in detail according to the

Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...

and

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, as well as discussing the relevant ''

Halacha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mi ...

'' as based on the ''Shulchan Aruch'' and '' Mishneh Torah''. In his introduction Rabbi Culi personally guarantees that "everyone who reads the ''Me'am Loez'' every day will be able to answer in Heaven that he has learned the ''whole'' Torah, because all aspects of the Torah are covered on it".

Authorship

While Rabbi Culi died only two years later after completing the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

and 2/3 of Exodus, due to its mass popularity—and the extensive notes already written by Rabbi Culi—a decision was taken to complete the commentaries. Rabbi Yitzhak Magriso completed Exodus, and wrote the commentary on the books of Leviticus and

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

Deuteronomy Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...

was done by Rabbi Yitzhak Bechor Agruiti. The commentary on

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

was written by Rabbi Rachamim Menachem Mitrani. The Book of Esther was done by Rabbi Raphael Chiyya Pontremoli. Rabbi translated the works into Hebrew, although greatly deviated from the originals on their Nach commentaries and the book of Avoth. He also continued the Meam Loez work in Hebrew on many of the books of Nach that the sages before him did not write.

Translations

The ''Me'am Loez'' quickly became extremely popular in the Jewish communities of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, Spain,

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

and

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. With the decline of Judaeo-Spanish after the Holocaust, various

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

s were produced, and the work can still be found in many Orthodox

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

s to this day. In 1967, a Hebrew translation, ''Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez'', was produced by Rabbi Shmuel Kravitzer. The first English translation, the ''Torah Anthology'', was written (primarily) by Rabbi

Aryeh Kaplan Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan (; October 23, 1934 – January 28, 1983) was an American Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator best known for his The Living Torah and Nach, Living Torah edition of the Torah and extensive Kabbalah, ...

. This translation made use of both Yerushalmi's Hebrew translation as well as Judaeo-Spanish manuscripts—which Kaplan checked against Yerushalmi's translation. The resulting work introduced Me'am Lo'ez to the broader

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

world. In 1964, Gonzalo Maeso and Pascual Recuero, two

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

scholars, from the University of Granada produced a modern Spanish printing. Their printing received criticism for the authors lack of knowledge in Turkish and Judaeo-Spanish, resulting "in an edition filled with inaccuracies".
Salvaremos el Meam Loez del olvido
' , Karen Gerson Sarhon, Institut Sepharade Europeen. In 2000, Pilar Romeu published a critical edition of the indexes with a concordance and analysis. Another Spanish scholar, Rosa Asenjo, published a translation of the

Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...

(''Šir ha-širim'') volume authored by Hayim Y. Šakí (Constantinople, 1899).Asenjo, Rosa: El Meam loez de Cantar de los Cantares (Šir ha-širim) de Hayim Y. Šakí (Constantinopla, 1899) (Barcelona: Tirocinio, 2003).

External links

Moznaim Publishing - ''Meam Loez''
* by Rabbi

Jacob Culi's Hebrew Introduction to ''Me'Am Lo'Ez''

''Me-am lo'ez'': Commentary on the book of Ruth
courtesy

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

''Me-am lo'ez Turkish Translation by Gökhan Duran''

References

{{Authority control 1730 non-fiction books 18th-century Judaism Hebrew Bible studies Sephardi Jewish culture in Turkey Judaeo-Spanish literature Sifrei Kodesh Biblical commentaries