Geniza Lab

Responsa by ROSH.

Responsa by ROSH.

Table of contents for a responsa collection

Table of contents for a responsa collection

Table of contents for a responsa collection

Table of contents for a responsa collection

Query and responsum of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder, dated to 1206–7.

Responsa of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder - literary collection

Responsa of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder

Letter with a long rhymed Hebrew opening and later a section in Judaeo-Arabic. The letter was sent to Yaaqov he-haver b. Yosef Av bet din in Aleppo from Meir ha-Kohen b. Pinhas, 11th century. Published in Miriam Frenkel's MA thesis on Aleppo.

Query and responsum of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder.

Query and responsum of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder.

Halakhic works of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov rosh ha-seder. דף טיוטות # יוסף בן יעקב ראש הסדר, נספחות לחיבור # טיוטות של חיבורי הלכה שונים צד ב: שני חלקים, שמאל: מלמעלה למטה פיוט בענייני חיובי פסח. ימין: ביאור הסוגיה בקביעת שעה חמישית. צד א, למטה: פרקים לחיבור הלכתי מתוכנו בהלכות פסח # טיוטות של חיבורי הלכה שונים צד ב: שני חלקים, שמאל: מלמעלה למטה פיוט בענייני חיובי פסח. ימין: ביאור הסוגיה בקביעת שעה חמישית. צד א, למטה: פרקים לחיבור הלכתי מתוכנו בהלכות פסח # טיוטות של חיבורי הלכה שונים

Query and responsum of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder.

Responsa of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder - literary collection

Responsa of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder - literary collection

On recto, Hebrew piyyuṭ. All around it and on verso, Arabic jottings and pen trials.

The last page of a Judaeo-Arabic transcription of Ṣāliḥ b. Naṣrullāh Ibn Sallūm al-Ḥalabī's Arabic translation of Paracelsian works ("The New Chemical Medicine Invented by Paracelsus" + Crollius' Basilica Chymica). This passage is where the theory behind the efficacy of the "weapon salve" is described (it works via the world soul / anima mundi / rūḥ al-ʿālam in the same way that a magnet works on iron, and it is not merely due to the power of suggestion / placebo). This precise passage is quoted and translated in Natalia Bachour's 2019 article "Die Rezeption der Waffensalbe und des sympathetischen Pulvers im Osmanischen Reich des 17. Jahrhunderts." The tapering format of the lines is extremely similar to the copy of the Arabic text in the Library of Congress: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/3125/. On verso there is also a medical recipe in Arabic script using galingale, emblic, elephant fig, Ceylon cinnamon, gum Arabic, and honey (it is not immediately clear if this is part of the same work, al-Kīmiyā' al-Malikiyya).

Letter, first part, flowery, from the Qaraite community of Egypt to that of Damascus. Later than the classical Geniza period.

Literary, or, if a letter, a literary one. Judaeo-Arabic on one side and poetic Hebrew on the other.