A Review of Yosef Ofer’s “The Mesora on Scriptures and its methods”

A scribe’s work is centered around the scripture’s text, and in the course writing a Torah Scroll, every word is accorded a great amount of importance and holiness. I spend a lot of time with the Torah’s text and I have therefore developed a great deal of interest around the development of our Mesora - tradition - of the accepted Torah text. 

After some research, it became clear that to understand how our text became universally accepted by communities around the world, the best course of action was to study the 10th century Tiberian Masoretes. While some scholars like Prof. Emanuel Tov go further back all the way to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are much older, the Tiberian Mesora was the point of harmonization of the text and we have many resources to study it today, more than ever before. 

Yosef Ofer’s The Mesora on Scripture and Its Methods was translated from Hebrew in 2018 and it is a great study.  It’s a detailed, balanced and informative account that is surprising easy to read, occasionally delving into intricate grammatical minutiae. Ofer is a student of Rabbi Mordechai Breuer Z"L, a leading expert of the Mesora and Aleppo Codex, and I always prefer to learn from professors who have a religious background and reverence to the text, so Ofer's book is a great choice.

Although the study of Talmud and scripture is widespread in religious communities today, the study of the development of our holy text has almost become taboo, and most institutions will stick to the story that the text as we have it is immaculate and that’s the end of the discussion. 

The basic description of the work of the Masoretes goes heads on against this assumption, as their occupation was precisely determining the most accurate text according to their traditions and manuscripts, and there were differences in the texts used around the communities at that time. The work of the Masoretes was the attempt to harmonize and define the ultimate text, culminating in the writing of the Aleppo Codex by Ben Asher, the definitive Codex endorsed by Maimonides. 

While we may have the impression that the Tiberian Mesora is not really necessary for the study of scripture today, the truth is that many commentaries often refer to it. Rashi, as pointed out by Ofer in pages 248-250, occasionally mentions the “Mesora Gedola” when giving an explanation to a verse, the Radak often mentions the Masoretes - and most students will not understand the reference unless they know the basics of the Tiberian Mesora. 

I found very interesting Ofer’s discussion about the alternative Mesora - the Babylonian Mesora studied in the Yeshivot in Bavel around the 9/10th century. The cantillation signs created by the Tiberian Masoretes differ greatly from their Babylonian counterparts, both in form and usage. The Babylonian Mesora fell in disuse, even though it was the tradition used in the circles that created the Talmud - the academies of Sura and Nahardea. The differences in question are rather minor although still significant - plene and defective spellings, arrangements of the two songs of the Torah (Shirat Hayam and Haazinu) and kri/ktiv special words, which are written but pronounced differently. 

The Tiberian cantillation signs became the norm, even if the actual way of pronouncing them differ from community to community - Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Yemenite ways of reading are all unique. See below the cantillation names in Hebrew; I wish Ofer would have spent some time going through them and their terminology.

(It's worthwhile to note that the Vilna Gaon frequently used the names of the Tiberian cantillation signs in order to find meaning in the text - see here one of my original posts on this and the ensuring discussion in the great parshablog).

Ofer notes that the Masoretes did not explore the topic of open and closed passages, which is subject to many discussions (Rambam vs Rosh, for example) and have serious Halachic ramifications. Clearly, the Masoretes specialized in the correct spelling of the words exclusively, ignoring open/closed passages and also any attempts to explain why letters were spelled plene or defective. The goal was solely to preserve the correct text, nothing else. 

And this approach did not sit well with Ibn Ezra, who openly criticized the Masoretes’ focus and resistance to elucidate the text according to their notes as mentioned in the book. 

Ofer did not speak about the debate whether Ben Asher, the most famous masorete, was a Rabbinic or Karaite Jew. I find this discussion pertinent in the context of the religious implications of the Masoretic text, and I assume he did not discuss this topic because we lack evidence to make a credible analysis, however there's academic research on this topic (see here a great resource from Prof Geoffrey Kahn) and the overall interchange between Rabbinical and Karaite communities. It's very interesting that both Rabbinic and Karaite communities adopted the Tiberiam Mesora unconditionally, even though the two sects were in constant disputes.

Ofer mentions briefly the influence of Rabbi Meir Aboulafia, who’s opinion impacted the texts currently used by Sephardim and Ashkenazi Torah Scrolls. However I wish this would be developed further, as Aboulafia was single-handedly responsible for the unified, common text of Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities - no small feat considering that the Ashkenazi communities were far away from him and very fragmented. He lived not long after Ben Asher in the 11th century and I would assume his impact on the text is relevant to the understanding of the spread of the Masoretic text. 

I like how Ofer teaches the reader like a student, first by going through examples and then by leaving open questions about the theme explored. It feels like a real lecture, and now I know how to read masoretic notes and abbreviations thanks to his exercises. 

Now I’m looking for a study of the post Masoretic text and how it was kept, and this will require a study of Rabbi Meir Aboulafia, Rabbi di Lonzano and the Minchat Shai - they are the Halachic reference for the text we use today. Professor Ofer has another book on the Minchat Shai so I hope to have a chance to study it soon and continue in the quest to understand not only how the Masoretic text was set but also how it came all the way down to our hands today. For the topic of the Tiberian Mesora in itself, Yosef Ofer's work is very thorough and a real gem.