Two Notes on the Commentary on the Torah of R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid

Abstract

This chapter assesses R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid's Commentary on the Torah (1976). R. Yehudah claimed that several verses were written after the time of Moses. R. Moshe Feinstein, the leading halakhic decisor (posek) of the time, had apparently been shown an advance copy of choice sections of the book and declared the statement of non-Mosaic authorship to be heretical. As it was inconceivable that R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid was a heretic, the work was clearly a forgery, or certain passages had been cunningly inserted into his blameless composition to better infiltrate the bastions of the faithful. That the composition is that of R. Yehudah he-Ḥasid there can be little question; there are too many citations from this commentary, specifically attributed to him, in medieval writings to leave room for doubt. Yet it is equally true that the work does attribute several verses of the Pentateuch to later writers.