A Legend Dispelled

The 9^th of Shevat marks the yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu Nissim of Gerona (the Ran), author of a seminal halachic commentary on Rabbeinu Alfasi, and of chiddushim on much of the Talmud. In the early twentieth century, more than 600 years after his passing in 5136/1376, an ancient sefer Torah was discovered, purported to be the handiwork of the Ran. Scholars pointed to it as a source of important halachic information, but suspicions arose that it might be a forgery. A recent discovery supports their contention.

Several years ago, in the course of an interview with the Hebrew-language Kolmus, Professor Shlomo Zalman Havlin mentioned in passing that a sefer Torah had been found in the Israel’s National Library, purported to have been written by none other than the Ran, Rabbeinu Nissim himself. In that interview, Professor Havlin recounted the history of the sefer Torah.

“One of the rabbanim of Tiveria, Rabbi Yichye Dahan, was on a trip to Brazil where he met a person whom he described as an elderly gentleman from the Jewish exile of Spain,” began Professor Havlin. “The man related that his family had an ancient sefer Torah from about 700 years ago that had belonged to the Ran, Rabbeinu Nissim ben Rav Reuven Gerondi, one of the Rishonim upon whose rulings we rely in many areas of halachah. Rabbi Dahan acquired the sefer from this man and brought it to Tiveria. He tried to sell it but was unsuccessful.

“There is uncertainty as to what happened to the sefer Torah after that. In the book The History of Houses of Prayer in Israel, Shmuel Krauss writes that he saw it in Tiveria in 5694 [1934]. Another article about it appeared in the Israeli daily Haaretz on Erev Pesach 5696 [1936], written by Rabbi Baruch Toledano, brother of Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Toledano, a rabbi in Alexandria and Tel Aviv and later Minister of Religious Affairs. But the fate of the sefer Torah after Rabbi Dahan’s death in 5723 [1963] was unknown, and Otzar HaGedolim surmised that it had been burned by the Arabs during the war.