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 husband said to her, “You have sinned because you left the synagogue (during the service). Besides, you sent for the keys in order to give the pawns to (the Christian women) who would then go to their house of frivolity [SHB: prayer], [i.e., church]. Look how you have replaced the holy (synagogue) with an abomination” [SHB: impure, i.e., church]!
No effort was made to connect these paragraphs. They function as separate texts that are related thematically to women and/or prayer, like three research notes that are put into the same file for future reference.
Linguistic Independence of Single Paragraphs
Although it is sometimes assumed that the language of SHB tends to be smoother and reworked compared to the language of parallel passages in SHP, linguistic evidence actually supports the independence of individual paragraphs, wherever they may be found, as being more or less awkward or reworked. Moreover, the linguistic independence of individual paragraphs applies to all parallels in the twelve editions of Sefer Hasidim, not just to SHP compared to SHB. A single paragraph in any edition can have an earlier linguistic form than any of the other parallels of that passage found anywhere else. This is another reason why all parallel passages need to be compared.
Simha Kogut demonstrated this in his detailed comparative study of the language of SHP and SHB (actually SHM 2).21 His linguistic analysis of a sample of parallel passages in both printed editions showed that a single passage found in either one could be linguistically earlier than the parallel passage in the other. The textual quality of individual parallels varies, showing omissions by scribes based on similar phrase endings (homoioteleuta) in both directions, and there are variant readings due to scribal errors when any two or more text parallels are compared.22
Kogut’s findings support the approach taken here that Sefer Hasidim was composed in single or small groups of paragraph units that the author at first and then others combined differently in various short and long editions. Because paragraphs were combined more than once, we see variance in the sequencing of parallel passages in the different editions.
It is also sometimes claimed that Parma is closer to Mittelhochdeutsch and is therefore earlier than SHB. But it is not the case that the convoluted Hebrew found in many Sefer Hasidim passages, in SHB as well as SHP and in other manuscripts, derive from contemporary medieval German syntax. There were no written prose models of medieval German available even to hear, only poetry, and everyday spoken medieval German or proto-Yiddish that Jews could hear and speak would not be convoluted but relatively clear and linear. The complicated Hebrew syntax of Sefer Hasidim is due to Judah’s attempt to create a new form of narrative Hebrew from earlier Hebrew models, not from contemporary German patterns. Any parallel paragraph in any edition of Sefer Hasidim can be more or less awkward than its parallel elsewhere.23
Single Paragraphs of Sefer Hasidim Circulate in Other Texts
Examples of Scholem’s and Dan’s impression that most of Sefer Hasidim is made up of relatively disjunctive passages are short quotations from Sefer Hasidim found in Judah’s other writings and in the works by other authors. In such cases, single paragraphs stand out as independently produced texts. For example, Dan cited Sefer Hasidim passages found in different texts as in Oxford Opp. 540 (Neubauer 1567) and Oxford Opp. 111 (Neubauer 1566). They are traditions that were not only composed but also transmitted singly. A story in Sefer Hasidim also appears in the thirteenth-century Hebrew story cycle of ninety-nine stories, and there are other such brief Sefer Hasidim parallels in other Hebrew compositions.24