نصوص أدبيّة: Yevr. II A 1683

الوصف

Literary work (the writer calls it a "dīwān") that preserves copies of two letters. The first: A letter from a Qaraite authority to David b. Moshe, the Rabbanite judge in Alexandria. In Hebrew. The scribe introduces the letter by explaining that it was a response to the Rabbanite judge's criticism of the matter of "expenses and fines" (? al-kulaf wa-l-maghārim), apparently reviving an ancient controversy, and that the writer did not intend to disparage the Rabbanites but only to urge the addressee to remember that the two sects are a single people. Indeed, the letter does exactly this, and it also contains veiled threats ("if my desire were to take revenge. . .") behind this overture to reconciliation. The next page (the fragment is a bifolium and any number of pages from the original work could be missing here) appears to be the end of the second letter. The second: A letter is from Moshe b. Shemuel ha-Rofe to Yehuda ha-Melammed. Written in metrical Hebrew poetry. There is a postscript in Judaeo-Arabic in which the writer apologizes for two instances of inaccurate vocalization (גחלים and עצי) which were necessary to fit the meter. The scribe adds that the response to this letter from Yehuda ha-Melammed may be found in the last chapter of the volume.