Page 241 - גנזי קדם ז

A Unique and Early Use of Micrographic Carpet Page Format 11*

single leaf, for use in the contemplative life of its owner. I will begin this paper
by describing the leaf, after which I will analyze its micrography. I will then
suggest a possible reconstruction of its development.

The Cairo Genizah manuscript leaf under discussion, housed in the library
of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, shelfmark ENA 2630.1,
contains two very different textual items on either side, namely, a midrashic
extract and the aforementioned carpet page, written on a sheet of parchment
now measuring 186 x 155 mm. The side displayed as the verso in the JTS
Genizah volume, ENA 2630,4contains 25 lines of a unit ofmidrash on Psalm 7,
written entirely in Hebrew in an Oriental square hand (figure 1,5 and transcribed
in Appendix 1 below). The unit may be found in a version of M id ra sh Tehillim
which differs from the printed one,6 but is known from other exemplars of the

4 Although I will conclude below that the midrash was copied before the carpet page, it is
always possible that the copyist wanted the blank leaf to function as the outside surface,
hence, the recto. Only the recto is labeled in the volume, which reads 1V: “V,” there, stands
for “vellum,” the material substrate supporting the writing, not “verso.”

5 Images of ENA 2360.1r & v supplied courtesy of the library of the Jewish Theological
Seminary.

6 ENA 2360 contains slightly more text than that published by S. A. Wertheimer, Bate
midrashot (Jerusalem 1952) [Hebrew], vol. 2, pp. 295-296 (cf. Midrash Tehillim, ed. S.
Buber, pp. 69-70). Wertheimer’s orthography is different, and his text begins withthe phrase
davar aher. Both texts, however, share several unique readings, including an expansion
unknown in other witnesses:‫ כיוצא בו על דברי כוש זא ]שאול[ וכי כושי היה שאול אלא‬,‫מכל הנשים‬
‫( מה כושית זו‬I cite Wertheimer’stranscription, p. 296, lines 2-3). M. B. Lerner has suggested
(in a personal communication) that Wertheimer, who sold many Genizah fragments and
other items to E. N. Adler, published the text of this fragment before selling it to him, and
he is undoubtedly correct. Wertheimer supplied the first line (beginning davar aher) from
the printed edition, because it is virtually illegible in this fragment, and omitted a few lines
at the end for the same reason (as it was obvious that they differed from the printed edition
available to him, he did not attempt to fill them in). The orthographic differences are a
result of Wertheimer’s policy of silent correction to regularize the spelling (his text may be
compared with the transcription in Appendix 1, below). Although the section quoted here
is located in the middle of the printed midrash, and integrated into the collection by the
formula davar aher (“another/alternative item/textual unit”), it is not so introduced here
(pace Wertheimer), for it is possible to make out the first word, ‫שביון‬. This suggests that
it was considered an independent textual unit, or even that a more expansive anthological
midrashic context was not envisaged by the copyist. It should also be noted that, although