2. Hayim Naḥman Bialik initiated this one-sided version of literary history in his essays on “Mendele's nusaḥ.” See Frieden, Ken, “‘Nusaḥ Mendele’ be-mabat bikoreti,” Dappim le-meḥkar be-sifrut 14–15 (2006): 89–103Google Scholar.

3. In English, an outstanding literary history along these lines can be found in Alter's, RobertThe Invention of Hebrew Prose: Modern Fiction and the Language of Realism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988)Google Scholar, especially chap. 1, “From Pastiche to Nusakh.” On “folk Hebrew” (‘Ivrit ‘amamit), Aharon Ben-Or (Orinovski) writes that “Perl points to it as a symbol of barbarism and ignorance, and we value it as the beginning of popular Hebrew, alive and natural.” See Ben-Or, Aharon (Orinovski), Toldot ha-sifrut ha-’Ivrit ha-ḥadasha (Tel Aviv: Yizreel, 1966), 1:77Google Scholar; cf. Frieden, Ken, “Joseph Perl's Escape from Biblical Epigonism through Parody of Hasidic Writing,” AJS Review 29, no. 2 (2005): 265–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Chaim Rabin, for instance, notes that the language of the Haskalah was not as biblical as the maskilim claimed: “The ability to express nineteenth-century thought in Biblical Hebrew had been built up in a long process, going back to the early middle ages, in which each generation benefited from the discoveries of its predecessors. This process included the creation of compounds and new idioms to express concepts not found in the Bible, as well as changes in the meaning of Biblical words, which were thus fitted to fill gaps in the semantic spectrum. While the forms of the words were Biblical, the syntax of haskalah literature—except for the Biblical idiomatic phrases—is that of a European language.” See Rabin, Chaim, “The Continuum of Modern Literary Hebrew,” in The Great Transition: The Recovery of the Lost Centers of Modern Hebrew Literature, ed. Abramson, Glenda and Parfitt, Tudor (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985), 18Google Scholar.

5. See, e.g., Mahler, Raphael, Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, trans. Orenstein, Eugene, Klein, Aaron, and Klein, Jenny Machlowitz (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1985)Google Scholar; the Yiddish and (expanded) Hebrew originals were published in 1942 and 1961; see also Wilensky, Mordecai, Ḥasidim u-mitnagdim: le-toldot ha-pulmus she-beineihem ba-shanim 1772–1815 (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970), vols. 1–2Google Scholar. Another representative earlier work is Avraham Rubinstein's introduction to his edition of Perl's, Joseph‘Al mahut kat ha-ḥasidim/Uiber [sic] das Wesen der Sekte Chassidim (Jerusalem: Israeli Academy, 1977)Google Scholar. Among excellent current books on the ideology of the Haskalah, see Sinkoff, Nancy, Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands (Providence, RI: Brown University Judaic Studies, 2004)Google Scholar; and Feiner, Shmuel, Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness, trans. Naor, Chaya and Silverston, Sondra (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002)Google Scholar; Feiner's Hebrew original was published in 1990.

6. Numerous scholars—such as Israel Weinlös, Shmuel Werses, Khone Shmeruk, Dan Miron, Gershon Shaked, Moshe Pelli, Yehuda Friedlander, Jeremy Dauber, and Jonatan Meir—have written about Enlightenment satire in Hebrew and Yiddish prose, including studies of Aharon Halle-Wolfsohn, Joseph Perl, I. B. Levinsohn, S. Y. Abramovitsh, and others.

7. See Pelli, Moshe, “The Literary Genre of the Travelogue in Hebrew Haskalah Literature: Shmuel Romanelli's Masa Ba'rav,” Modern Judaism 11, no. 2 (1991): 241–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For an overview of sea travel narratives in Hebrew and Yiddish, see Rebecca Wolpe, “The Sea Voyage Narrative as an Educational Tool in the Early Haskalah” (master's thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006); in Hebrew, see her article “Gilta et America,” special issue, Davka: ’ereẓ Yiddish ve-tarbuta, no. 1 (July 2006): 30–31.

9. See, e.g., Bloom, Harold, The Anxiety of Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and idem, A Map of Misreading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).

10. See Perl, Joseph, Megale temirin (Vienna: Anton Strauss, 1819)Google Scholar, introduction by Perl's fictional persona Ovadia ben Pesaḥaya, 2b and letter 78; idem, ‘Al mahut kat ha-ḥasidim, ed. Avraham Rubinstein (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1977), 77; idem, Boḥen ẓadik (Prague: Landau, 1838), 24; and see also Perl's unpublished introduction to the Yiddish version of Megale temirin, “Yosef Perls hakdome tsum ‘Megale temirin,’” YIVO bleter 13 (1930): 566–76.

11. Hutcheon, Linda, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (New York: Methuen, 1985), 32Google Scholar.

12. On R. Nahman and the maskilim of Uman, see Liberman's, Haim article in Yiddish and Hebrew, respectively: “R. Nakhman Bratslaver un di Umaner maskilim,” YIVO Bleter 29 (1947): 201–19Google Scholar; and “R. Naḥman mi-Breslav u-maskilei Uman,” in Ohel Raḥel (New York: Liberman, 1984), 310–28. Mendel Piekarz continues in the direction suggested by Liberman's analysis in Ḥasidut Breslav: perakim be-ḥayei meḥolelah, bi-khetaveiha u-vi-sefiḥeiha, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1995), chap. 2. See also Feiner, Shmuel, “Be-'emunah bilvad! Ha-pulmus shel reb Nathan mi-Nemirov neged ha-ateizm ve-ha-haskalah,” in Meḥkerei ḥasidut, vol. 15 of Meḥkerei Yerushalaim be-maḥshevet yisra'el, ed. Etkes, Immanuel, Assaf, David and Dan, Joseph (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1999)Google Scholar, esp. 93–97. Other pertinent primary texts may be found in Gottlober's, AvrahamZikhronot u-maor (first published 1933), ed. Hurvitz, Shmuel Ha-Levi (Jerusalem: Ḥasidei Breslov, 1987)Google Scholar, sec. “Sippurim nifla'im,” 8. Cited and discussed by Liberman, “R. Nakhman Bratslaver un di Umaner maskilim”; Piekarz, Ḥasidut Breslav; and Feiner, “Be-’emunah bilvad!” All translations in this article are my own.

13. Hazan, Avrham, Kokhevei ’or (first published 1933), ed. Hurvitz, Shmuel Ha-Levi (Jerusalem: Ḥasidei Breslov, 1987)Google Scholar, sec. “Sippurim nifla'im,” 8. Cited and discussed by Liberman, “R. Nakhman Bratslaver un di Umaner maskilim”; Piekarz, Ḥasidut Breslav; and Feiner, “Be-’emunah bilvad!” All translations in this article are my own.

14. The only known copy of Hurwitz's translation is in the YIVO Library at the Center for Jewish History, New York. It is listed in the catalog as Horvits, Haikil, Tsafnat pa'neah (Berdichev: Bak, 1817), 3 volsGoogle Scholar.; however, the YIVO copy is missing the beginning of pt. 1 and all of pt. 2. (An unrelated work that bears the same title—published in Lemberg, 1857—is in the collection of the British Museum.) Reyzn, Zalman describes this rare book in his article “Campes ‘Antdekung fun America’ in Yiddish (bibliografishe notitsn),” YIVO bleter 5 (1933): 29–40Google Scholar. Zinberg, Israel quotes two passages from the beginning and end of Ẓafnat pa‘aneaḥ in his Di geshikhte fun der literatur bay Yidn (Buenos Aires: Alveltlekher Yiddisher kultur-kongres, 1968), 8:253–56Google Scholar. Using sophisticated methods of literary analysis, Lerner, R. astutely analyzes the language of Hurwitz's book in his “Tsu der geshikhte fun der literarisher sprakh onheyb 19-tn yorhundert (di shprakh fun H. Hurvitz's ‘Tsofnas paneyekh’),” Afn shprakhfront 3 (1939): 165–90Google Scholar.

15. Reyzn, “Campes ‘Antdekung fun America,’” 33, based on the memoirs of a Russian aristocrat (see the Russian Evreiskaia entsiklopediia: svod znanii o evreistve i ego kulture v proshlom i nastoiashchem [St. Petersburg: Obshchestva Dlia Nauchnykh Evreiskikh Izdanii i Izd-vo Brokgauz-Efron, 1906–13], 6:848). Reyzn suggests, however, that the Russian memoirist confused Hebrew with Yiddish, and that it was Haikl Hurwitz (not his son) who had drafted his Yiddish translation by 1810. Another possibility is that there was a mix-up with the Hebrew translation Meẓiat ha-areẓ ha-ḥadasha, trans. Moses Mendelssohn-Frankfurt (Altona: Bonn, 1807 [5567]).

16. Sefer ‘Alim le-trufa: mikhtevei Moharnat (New York: Ḥasidei Breslov, 1976), 16, letter 11, dated Friday, Parshat Va-yigash (December 24, 1824). According to David Assaf, the letters from 1836–45 were edited by R. Nahman of Tcherin, while the letters from 1822–34 were edited by R. Nahman of Tulchin; they were first published in 1893 and 1896, respectively. See Assaf, David, Breslov: bibliografiya mu‘eret (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000), 68Google Scholar, entry 228.

17. Landkarte (map) was confused with kronikes (chronicles) in the first edition of Sippurei ma‘asiot, and Perl mocked this both in Megale temirin and in his posthumously published Ma‘asiot ve-iggerot mi-ẓadikim amitiyim u-me-anshei shlomeinu, ed. Khone Shmeruk and Shmuel Werses (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1970), 162 n. See Shmeruk, Khone, “Dvarim kehaviatam u-dvarim she-bedimion bi-‘Megaleh temirin' shel Yosef Perl,” in the collection of Shmeruk's essays, Ha-kri'a la-nav'i: meḥkerei historia ve-sifrut, ed. Bartal, Israel (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 1999), 144–55Google Scholar.

18. On p. 58a of the manuscript, an editor has excised the following sentences from R. Nathan's letter:

“Please, my son, make an effort to send me one pidele with the cuttings that are used to seal a letter without a candle. And also the seal prepared with the ball because it is very necessary to me, and the main thing is for you—for the letters that I send you, so that I won't need to light a candle each time. For it is my intention always to seal the letters please hurry in this” (58a, manuscript letter 4, dated Sunday, Parshat Vayera, 1840; in the printed ‘Alim le-trufa, this letter would fall between letters 268 and 269, p. 229).

I am grateful to Zvi Mark for loaning me a microfilm of a little-known manuscript of the letters, which is held by the Russian National Library (formerly the M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library) in St. Petersburg. Israel Zinberg discusses this manuscript in Di geshikhte fun der literatur bay Yidn, 8:247–49, first appendix. Taking a more favorable view than Shimon Dubnov, Zinberg refers to R. Nathan's “flowing Hebrew” (248).

19. See the letter of Monday, Parshat Shemot, 1841, from Teplik, manuscript p. 59b, letter 14.

20. In the manuscript of R. Nathan's correspondence, p. 63a at the end of letter 3, dated Wednesday, the 36th day of the Counting of the Omer (May 12), 1841. This letter was omitted by the editor (R. Nahman of Tcherin) between letters 323 and 324 in ‘Alim le-trufa, 271.

21. Shmuel Feiner, “Be-’emunah bilvad!” 89–124. In selecting examples from R. Nathan's Likutei halakhot, Feiner builds upon Margolin's, Ron “Ha-'emunah ve-ha-kefirah be-torata shel ḥasidut Breslov ‘al pi ha-sefer Likutei halakhot le-R. Nathan Sternharz” (master's thesis, University of Haifa, 1991)Google Scholar.

22. Romanelli, Shmuel of Mantua, Masa ba-‘arav (Berlin: Ḥevrat ḥinukh ne'arim, 1792)Google Scholar. In English, see Travail in an Arab Land, trans. Yedida K. Stillman and Norman A. Stillman (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). Romanelli's title plays on the similarity between the word mas'a (with final ’Aleph, “burden” or “travail”) and mas‘a (with final ‘Ayin, “journey”), as noted by the Stillmans in their introduction.

23. On Romanelli, see Moshe Pelli, “Literary Genre of the Travelogue,” 241–60.

24. For accounts of this school, see Gutmann, Joseph, “Geschichte der Knabenschule der jüdischen Gemeinde in Berlin,” in Festschrift zur Feier des hundertjährigen Bestehens der Knabenschule der jüdischen Gemeinde in Berlin (Berlin, 1926)Google Scholar; and Dietrich, Peter and Lohmann, Uta, “‘Daß die Kinder aller Confessionen sich kennen, ertragen und lieben lernen’: Die jüdische Freischule in Berlin zwischen 1778 und 1825,” in Dialog zwischen den Kulturen: Erziehungshistorische und religionspädagogische Gesichtspunkte interkultureller Bildung, ed. Lohmann, Ingrid and Weiße, Wolfram (Münster and New York: Waxmann, 1994), 37–47Google Scholar. Initiated by Moses Mendelssohn and his disciples, the Knabenschule came under the influence of Philanthropism at the start of the nineteenth century.

25. Sternharz, R. Nathan, Likutei halakhot, pt. 3: ‘Oraḥ ḥayim, Hilkhot Pesaḥ, halakhah 7, sec. 4 (Zholkva: Saul Meyerhoffer, 1848)Google Scholar, third numbering in 3:11b–12a. Piekarz, Mendel refers to this passage in “R. Nathan mi-Nemirov be-’aspeklariat sifro ‘Likutei halakhot,’” Ẓion 69 (2004): 203–40Google Scholar; the discussion of Ḥevrat ḥinukh ne'arim occurs on p. 221. Thanks to Jonatan Meir for drawing my attention to this reference to the Berlin Jewish school. Liberman cites pertinent passages from Likutei halakhot in his “R. Nakhman Bratslaver un di Umaner maskilim.”

26. From about 1780 to 1820, the press called Ḥevrat ḥinukh ne'arim (Society for Education of Youth) published dozens of books in Hebrew and a smaller number in German. As Zohar Shavit points out, however, there was a far greater supply of than demand for Hebrew books in Berlin at this time. See Shavit, Zohar, “From Friedländer's Lesebuch to the Jewish Campe: The Beginning of Hebrew Children's Literature in Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 33 (1988): 385–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar. After citing data on the number of pupils who attended the Berlin Jewish school, she refers to “the incredible discrepancy between the number of books and the number of their readers” (388).

27. R. Nathan's first account of R. Nahman's pilgrimage was published in a supplementary text consisting of twelve double-sided sheets, numbered separately, that was included under the running head “Sippurei ma’asiot” in Sippurei ma‘asiot (Osterha or Mohilev?: n.p., 1815). Entitled “Seder ha-nesi‘ah shelo le-'ereẓ yisra'el” (4b to 12b), this narrative forms the second part of the book that has frequently been reprinted as Shivḥei ha-Ran. Shivḥei ha-Ran was not, however, used as the title of a self-contained book until 1864. See Scholem, Gershom, Kuntras eileh ha-shemot: Sifrei Moharan z”l mi-Breslav ve-sifrei talmidav ve-talmidei talmidav (Jerusalem, 1928), 34Google Scholar; and Assaf, Breslov, 16. Nevertheless, Assaf points out that the title on the first page of Magid siḥot (Zholkva, 1850) is “Shivḥei ha-Ran” (15). “Seder ha-nesi'ah shelo le-'ereẓ yisra'el” was printed under the title Mase‘ot ha-yam (Warsaw: Lebenzohn, 1850). In his memoirs, Avraham Gottlober mentions an edition from Yosefov, 1846, and the database of the Jewish National and University Library also lists an edition of Mase‘ot ha-yam (Yosefov: Shapiro, 1846), but this copy of the book has apparently been lost. The title page of the 1846 edition of Mase‘ot ha-yam is reproduced by Liberman in Ohel Raḥel, 188.

28. Levine, Hillel, “Bein ḥasidut le-haskalah: ‘al pulmus anti-ḥasidi musve,” in Prakim be-toledot ha-ḥevra ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim u-va-‘et ha-ḥadasha, ed. Etkes, I. and Salmon, Y. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980), 182–91Google Scholar, esp. 187. See also Hillel Levine, “Menahem Mendel Lefin: A Case Study of Judaism and Modernization” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1974). In Ḥeshbon nefesh, Lefin includes some very specific responses to hasidic texts, such as his implicit rejection of the notion of the Jewish nefesh elohit, which is presented by Shneor Zalman of Lyadi in the early chapters of his Tania, first published as Sefer likutei amarim (Slavita, 1796), 4–7. Lefin substitutes a universalist distinction between the nefesh behemit and the nefesh sikhlit (cf. Levine, “Bein ḥasidut le-haskalah: ‘al pulmus anti-ḥasidi musve,” 188).

29. See Bartal, Israel, “Mordechai Aaron Günzburg: A Lithuanian Maskil Faces Modernity,” in From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750–1870, ed. Malino, Frances and Sorkin, David (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 126–47Google Scholar; and Shavit, Zohar, “Literary Interference between German and Jewish-Hebrew Children's Literature during the Enlightenment: The Case of Campe,” in Children's Literature, ed. Shavit, Zohar, special issue, Poetics Today 13, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 41–61Google Scholar. A translation of Campe's Die Entdeckung von Amerika was one of the earliest sea narratives in Hebrew: Meẓiat ha-areẓ ha-ḥadasha, trans. Moses Mendelssohn-Frankfurt (Altona: Bonn, 1807 [5567]); an anonymous review of this volume was published in Ha-me'asef (Kislev, 1810): 97–101. In the background are sea travel narratives in Yiddish prose, as analyzed by Garrett, Leah in “The Jewish Robinson Crusoe,” Comparative Literature 54 (2002): 215–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, Journeys beyond the Pale: Yiddish Travel Writing in the Modern World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003). See also Roskies, David G., “The Genres of Yiddish Popular Literature 1790–1860,” in Working Papers in Yiddish and East European Jewish Studies (New York: YIVO, 1975), 18–22Google Scholar. Roskies calls sea adventure “the main area of maskilic contribution to Yiddish popular literature before Ayzik-Meyer Dik” (18).

30. According to Maximillian E. Novak, as many as 100 editions of Robinson Crusoe appeared around 1800. See his “‘Looking with Wonder upon the Sea’: Defoe's Maritime Fictions, Robinson Crusoe, and ‘The Curious Age We Live In,” in Sustaining Literature: Essays on Literature, History, and Culture, 1500–1800, ed. Greg Clingham (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2007), 177.

31. See Weiss, Joseph, Meḥkarim be-ḥasidut Breslav, ed. Piekarz, Mendel (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1974), 239–40Google Scholar.

32. R. Nahman, Sippurei ma‘asiot, tale 2, “The King and the Emperor.”

33. Sternharz, R. Nathan, Yemei Moharnat, pt. 1, ed. R. Nahman of Tcherin (Lemberg, 1876)Google Scholar, and 2nd ed. (Lemberg, 1903); the description of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land was included in the subsequent edition, Yemei Moharnat, pt. 2, ed. Israel Heilprin (Jerusalem, 1904). The only detailed study of this book I have seen is by Moseley, Marcus, Being for Myself Alone: Origins of Jewish Autobiography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 312–32Google Scholar, which was based on his “Jewish Autobiography in Eastern Europe: The Pre-History of a Literary Genre” (PhD diss., Trinity College, Oxford, 1990), 398–426. Since Moseley wrote his chapter on R. Nathan, manuscripts in the Schocken Library have come to light that may contribute to a new understanding of this posthumously published book.

34. Because the initial pages are missing from the only known copy of the earliest edition of this book, it is especially difficult to date. Moreover, there is no absolute certainty that the author was Lefin. Sinkoff argues convincingly in favor of this attribution in Out of the Shtetl, chap. 4: “Evidence pointing to Lefin's hand in Oniyyah so‘arah was its (probable) publication in Zolkiew, where Masa‘ot hayam and Di genarte velt first appeared, its joint publication with one of the travelogues from Masa‘ot hayam in the Vilna 1823 edition of that same title, its use of Slavic words in the Yiddish translation, and its being translated from the same source as those in Masa‘ot hayam” (195–96 n. 106). Rebecca Wolpe notes that many of the terms that are explained in parentheses in Mase‘ot ha-yam and ’Onia so‘ara are similar, “reinforcing the theory that this work also may be attributed to Lefin” (“The Sea Voyage Narrative,” 79).

35. Alternatively, “Jerusalem Tale.” See Ma‘aseh Yerusalmi, ed. Yehuda Leib Zlotnik (Jerusalem: Israeli Institute of Folklore, 1947). In English, see “Tale of a Jerusalemite,” trans. Stern, David and Weinstein, Avi, in Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, ed. Stern, David and Mirsky, Mark Jay (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 121–42Google Scholar. The editors wisely conclude their collection with a translation of R. Nahman's “dream texts”—which were referred to as sippurim ḥadashim when they were first published in Ḥayei Moharan (1874).

36. In English, there are several commentaries that emphasize the allegorical interpretations. See Nahman of Bratslav, The Tales, ed. Arnold Band (New York: Paulist Press, 1978); and idem, Rabbi Nachman's Stories, trans. Aryeh Kaplan (Jerusalem: Breslov Research Institute, 1983).

37. For a discussion of the emergence of modern literary Yiddish around 1800, see Kerler, Dov-Ber, The Origins of Modern Literary Yiddish (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

38. Two autograph manuscripts from the Schocken Library show that when R. Nathan composed the first part of his memoir Yemei Nathan (published in 1876 as Yemei Moharnat), he used the same minimal punctuation. Because the published versions of Breslav writings often omit, alter, or expand the original punctuation markings, it is difficult to rely on them; in any case, it is clear that R. Nathan moved easily between run-on sentences and a choppy style consisting of short phrases.

39. I thank Jonatan Meir for drawing my attention to this “Note” on punctuation, which I have quoted and translated in full in appendix I of this article. See Lefin, Mendel, Mod‘a le-vina, pt. 1 (Berlin: Ḥevrat ḥinukh ne'arim, 1789)Google Scholar, “He‘ara,” placed at the end of the volume following the segment from Sefer refu'at ha-‘am, unnumbered, prior to the table of contents. In Divrei ẓadikim, I. B. Levinsohn spoofs a hasid's naive perception of maskilic books, including short lines and unfamiliar punctuation marks that he calls pintelekh. See Gilgulav shel Megale sod: kuntras divrei ẓadikim le-Ribal ve-Yosef Perl, ed. Jonatan Meir (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2004), 73–74. and Meir's footnote 105.

40. See Unger, Menashe, “Yiddishe verter in Shivḥei ha-Besht,” Yiddishe shprakh 21 (1961): 65–73Google Scholar.

41. Glinert, Lewis, “The Hasidic Tale and the Sociolinguistic Modernization of the Jews of Eastern Europe,” sec. 4, in Studies in Jewish Narrative: Ma‘aseh sippur, Presented to Yoav Elstein, ed. Lipsker, Avidov and Kushelevsky, Rella (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2006), xxiGoogle Scholar.

42. Yehaya Rabinovitz touches on Nathan's, R. style in one chapter entitled “Darko shel Rebbe Naḥman mi-Breslav ’el sippurei-ma‘asiot shelo,” in Shoreshim ve-megamot (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1967), 163–218Google Scholar.

43. Sippurei ma‘asiot, second preface to the second edition, 2b. No publication data are available for this edition, which was published in about 1850. See also more recent editions, such as Sippurei ma‘asiot (Jerusalem: Hasidei Breslov, 1979), xiv.

44. Cf. Glinert, “Hasidic Tale,” xxiii.

45. Cf. Frieden, “Joseph Perl's Escape,” 269.

46. Cf. Werses, Shmuel, “Mi-lashon el lashon be-‘Sippurei ma‘asiot’ shel R. Naḥman mi-Breslav (be-‘ekeivot kri'a ḥozeret be-‘Ma‘ase be-ḥakham ve-tam'),” Ḥulyot 9 (2005): 9–46, esp. 41–43Google Scholar; see also Cunz, Martin, Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman von Brazlaw ins Land Israel (1798–1799): Geschichte, Hermeneutik, Texte (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 186–87Google Scholar.

47. Werses points out numerous calques from Yiddish in tale 9 (“Of the Sophisticate and the Simple Man”) in his “Mi-lashon el lashon be-‘Sippurei ma‘asiot' shel R. Naḥman mi-Breslav,” esp. 35–37.

48. Ibid., 29.

49. For a general discussion of this phenomenon, see Nobel, Shmuel, “Yiddish in a Hebreyishn levush,” YIVO bleter 41 (1958): 158–75Google Scholar.

50. Cf. Kalmanovitsh's, Zelig discussion of Yiddishized Hebrew, as parodied by Perl, contained in Yosef Perl's Yiddishe ksavim, ed. Vaynlez, Israel (Vilna: YIVO, 1937), c–ciGoogle Scholar. See also Werses's, Shmuel many relevant chapters and articles in his Sippur ve-shoresho: ‘iyunim be-hitpatḥut ha-proza ha-‘Ivrit (Ramat-Gan: Massada, 1971)Google Scholar; idem, Mi-lashon el lashon: yeẓirot ve-gilguleihen be-sifruteinu (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996); and idem, ‘Hakiẓa ‘ami’: sifrut ha-haskala be-'idan ha-modernizaẓia (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001). See also “Mi-lashon el lashon: samemenei ha-nusaḥ be-Yiddish shel ‘Megale temirin’ me'et Yosef Perl,” Ḥulyot 3 (1996): 80.

51. See Likutei Moharan (Jerusalem: Hasidei Breslov, 1988), pt. 2, sec. 78.

52. For an important prior analysis of this text, comparing it to the account in Ḥayei Moharan, see Rappoport, Ada, “Shnei mekorot le-te'ur nesi’ato shel R. Naḥman mi-Breslav le-'ereẓ-yisra'el,” Kiryat sefer 46 (1971): 147–53Google Scholar. See also Cunz, Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman. Cunz rightly observes that the four storm descriptions “are central to the literary structure” of Shivḥei ha-Ran, and that the mortal danger presented by these storms sets the overarching narrative tone (291). His analysis is also useful for its juxtaposition of the parallel passages in Shivḥei ha-Ran and Ḥayei Moharan.

53. Sippurei ma‘asiot (Ostraha or Mohilev?: n.p., 1815), appended section with new numbering and subheading, “Seder ha-n'si‘a shelo le-'ereẓ yisra'el,” 5a; in the modern edition Sefer Shivḥei ha-Ran (Jerusalem: Agudat “Meshekh ha-naḥal,” 1981), 22, sec. 9. I have preserved the original punctuation, which does not distinguish between commas and periods.

54. One of the few studies of R. Nathan's style can be found in Rabinovitch's, Isaiah “Darko shel R. Naḥman mi-Breslov el Sippurei-ma‘asiot shelo,” in Shoreshim u-magamot: le-beḥinat mekoroteiha shel ha-bikoret ha-ḥadasha ve-‘iyunim be-darka shel ha-sifrut ha-‘Ivrit” (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1967), chap. 6Google Scholar. Rabinovitch notes an “internal tension that does not tolerate any punctuation marks” in R. Nathan's narrative voice (165). His commentary is more expressive in the Yiddish version of this essay, “Reb Nakhman Braslavers veg tsu zayne sippurey mayses,” Di goldene keyt 69–70 (1970): 175–76: “Here the narrative style is dynamic, artistic: it is so taut that it does not have any intervening pauses, just as if it were rushing to reach the fateful fact that ‘he [R. Nahman] wanted to see something and saw absolutely nothing.’”

55. Cohen, Tova notes this parodic echo in her article, “Ha-ḥasidut ve-'ereẓ yisra'el–aspekt nosaf shel ha-satira bi-‘Megale temirin,'” Tarbiẓ 48 (1978–79): 339Google Scholar. See also Bartal's, Israel discussion of Perl's views of the hasidic settlers in Palestine in Kozak ve-Bedoui: “‘Am” ve-“’areẓ” be-le'umiut ha-Yehudit (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘oved, 2007), 45–47Google Scholar.

56. Perl, Joseph, Megale temirin (Vienna: Strauss, 1819), 53aGoogle Scholar.

57. Cohen, “Ha-ḥasidut ve-’ereẓ yisra'el,” 337. Other instances of this kind of parody in Megale temirin are cited by Tova Cohen (ibid., 336–38).

58. Perl, Ma‘asiot ve-iggerot mi-ẓadikim amitiyim u-me-anshei shlomeinu, 99.

59. Lefin uses the phrase “yordei ha-yam… be-‘oniyot” on the title page of Mase‘ot ha-yam (1818). The 1823 edition of Onia so‘ara (Vilna: Menaḥem Mann, 1823)—which includes one of the two accounts in Mase‘ot ha-yam—contains a translator's note that refers to the psalm, and the 1859 edition quotes two lines from Psalm 107 on the verso of the title page. See Sinkoff, Nancy, “Strategy and Ruse in the Haskalah of Mendel Lefin of Satanow,” in New Perspectives on the Haskalah, ed. Feiner, Shmuel and Sorkin, David (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), 94–95Google Scholar.

60. The translation is my own, influenced by Fisch's, Harold rendering in The Holy Scriptures (Jerusalem: Koren, 1983)Google Scholar.

61. Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28.

62. Ezekiel 1:1.

63. See Scholem, Gershom, “Merkaba Mysticism,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 11:1386–89Google Scholar.

64. Ezekiel 1:4.

65. As Dan, Joseph writes in Ha-sippur ha-ḥasidi (Jerusalem: Keter, 1975), 187Google Scholar, “Bratslav hasidim saw in this journey, in every single chapter of it, a hidden mystical meaning.”

66. Shivḥei ha-Ran, 9b in the 1815 edition (sec. 21 in editions after 1850). Waters reaching “the heart of the heavens” is an interesting transformation of the expected flames and smoke (from a ritual sacrifice) that reach the heavens.

67. Ibid.

68. Lefin, Mendel, Sefer mase‘ot ha-yam (Zholkva: Gerson Letteres, 1818), 1aGoogle Scholar; and Mase‘ot ha-yam (Lemberg: D. H. Schrenzel, 1859), 3.

69. See, e.g., Ya‘ari's, Avraham anthologies: Mase‘ot ’ereẓ yisra'el (Tel Aviv: Ha-histadrut ha-Ẓionit, 1946), 229Google Scholar; and Iggerot ’ereẓ yisra'el (Ramat-Gan: Massada, 1971), 113, 228, 232.

70. Sinkoff, “Strategy and Ruse,” 95. See also Nancy Sinkoff's “Tradition and Transition: Mendel Lefin of Satanów and the Beginnings of the Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, 1749–1826” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1996), 156–69; cf. Cunz, Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman, 212–13.

71. Sinkoff, “Strategy and Ruse,” 96.

72. Ibid., 97.

73. Pertinent to this allegorical bent is Nahman's, R. interpretation of the verse, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2), in Likutei Moharan, teaching 73 (Jerusalem: Ḥasidei Breslov, 1988), 89aGoogle Scholar.

74. Sinkoff, “Strategy and Ruse,” 90.

75. Ibid.

76. Joseph Perl Archive, Jewish National and University Library, folder 124, lines 1–2; underlining in the original. I thank Jonatan Meir and Avraham Weizal for their help in deciphering Lefin's handwriting. A facsimile, a transcription, and a translation of the manuscript are contained in appendix II and appendix III of this article.

77. Judaica databases—such as the Bar-Ilan University Responsa Project and DBS Torah Treasures: The Computerized Torah Library—facilitate tracing intertextual connections of this kind. It is, however, always necessary to check the passages that have been found in more reliable print editions.

78. B. Berakhot 10a.

79. Commentary on Genesis 18:22; see Ḥumash mikra'ot gedolot, Bereishit (New York: Gross, 1983), 219.

80. Perush ‘al Mishlei le-rabbenu Yona Gerondi, ed. Avraham Löwenthal (Berlin: Poppelauer, 1910), 70.

81. Commentary on Deuteronomy 11:13; see Rabbenu Baḥye: Bi'ur ‘al ha-Torah, ed. Haim Dov Chavel (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-rav Kook, 1991), 3:314.

82. Mendel Lefin, “Translator's Introduction to Mase‘ot ha-yam,” manuscript at the Joseph Perl Archive, Jewish National and University Library, folder 124. See appendix II and appendix III at the end of this article.

83. In Out of the Shtetl, Sinkoff briefly discusses Lefin's quotations from “the classical sayings of the Rabbinic Sages.” She writes that his citations “not only gave Lefin's work a traditional imprimatur, but also expressed his ardent belief that there was nothing incompatible between a rationalized, renewed Judaism and the universal values common to all men” (165).

84. Lefin, Mendel, “Essai d'un plan de réforme ayant pour objet d’éclairer la nation juive en Pologne et de redresser par là ses moeurs,” in Materiały do dziejów sejmu czteroletniego, ed. Eisenbach, Artur et al. (Warsaw: Instytut historii Polskiej akademii Nauk, 1969), 6:411, nos. 20–22Google Scholar. See the analysis by Gelber, N. M., “Mendel Lefin-Satanover ve-haẓa'otav le-tikun oraḥ-ḥaim shel yehudei Polin bifnei ha-seym ha-gadol (1788–1792),” in The Abraham Weiss Jubilee Volume (New York: Abraham Weiss Jubilee Committee, 1964), 271–84Google Scholar, followed by a translation into Hebrew (287–301) and facsimiles from Hebrew and French memoranda (285–86, 302–305) connected to Lefin's appearance before the Polish council that had been established to consider issues regarding the Jewish community.

85. Italics added to indicate two quotations from Psalms. From the appended section of Sippurei ma‘asiot, “Seder ha-nesi‘ah shelo le-'ereẓ yisra'el” (1815, new numbering, 6b), and Sefer Shivḥei ha-Ran (Jerusalem: Meshekh ha-Naḥal, 1981), 30. Compare the descriptions of sea voyages in Sippurei ma‘asiot, tale 2 and tale 10; and see also Likutei Moharan, 12d.

Lacking sufficient storm terminology in Hebrew beyond the words ruaḥ sa‘ara, R. Nathan and R. Nahman have recourse to the word firtina. In modern Turkish, this word means “storm, gale, tempest, hurricane”; it could be etymologically related to the Greek word φουρτούνα, meaning “storm, rough sea.” In one of R. Nahman's tales, the Hebrew text uses a rare meaning of a Yiddish word when a storm is called an umpit (Sippurei ma‘asiot, 1815, 48a). See Groyser verterbukh fun der Yiddisher shprakh, ed. Yudl Mark (New York and Jerusalem: Yiddish Dictionary Committee, 1971), 3:1263, definition 6.

86. As Martin Cunz points out, R. Nahman's words—as conveyed in R. Nathan's Hebrew rendering—also draws phrases from Gen. 42:15 (“And in this you shall be tested [ובזאת תבחנו]”) and Jonah 1:12 (“the sea will be quiet before you [וישתק הים מעליכם]”). See Cunz, Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman, 310.

87. Cf. Zeitlin, Hillel, ’Oro shel Mashiaḥ be-torat ha-Breslavi, in Rabbi Naḥman mi-Breslav: ẓa‘ar ha-‘olam ve-kisufei Mashiaḥ,” ed. Meir, Jonatan (Jerusalem: Orna Hass, 2006), 76–77 nGoogle Scholar. See also Cunz, Die Fahrt des Rabbi Nachman, 214.

88. Sefer Mishlei Shlomo (Tarnopol, 1814).

89. See Reyzn, Zalman, Fun Mendelssohn biz Mendele (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1923), 154–56Google Scholar. Reyzn's discussion includes both an appreciation of Lefin's Bible translations into Yiddish (157–59) and excerpts from Feder's satire (152–53). Cf. Gottlober, Avraham-Ber, Zikaronot ve-masa‘;ot, ed. Goldberg, Reuven (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1976), 1:250–51, 2:10–11, 204Google Scholar.

90. The first publication of ’Onia so‘ara (Zholkva?: n.p., 1815?) was bilingual, and there seems also to have been a Yiddish-only edition (no extant copy is known). Lefin's next Bible translation was not published posthumously until half a century later: Lefin, Menahem Mendel, Sefer Kohelet (Odessa: Belinson, 1873)Google Scholar. For a thorough discussion of Lefin's art of translation from Hebrew to Yiddish, see Gruschka, Roland, Übersetzungswissenschaftliche Aspekte von Mendel Lefin Satanowers Bibelübersetzungen (Hamburg: Buske, 2006)Google Scholar. An earlier study by Simha Katz, “Tirgumei Tanakh mi'et Menaḥem Mendel mi-Satanov,” including fragments from Lefin's incomplete translations from Lamentations, Psalms, and Job, was published in Kiryat sefer 16 (1939–40): 114–33.

91. Sefer Yemei Moharnat (1876), pt. 1 (New York: Rozenfeld, 1970), 12.

92. Shavit, “From Friedländer's Lesebuch to the Jewish Campe,” 405–406; see also Ofek, Uriel, Sifrut-yeledim ha-‘ivrit—ha-hatḥalot (Tel Aviv: Porter Institute, 1979), esp. 87–92Google Scholar; cf. Wolpe, “The Sea Voyage Narrative,” 19–23.

93. See Bartal, “Mordechai Aaron Günzburg,” 136.

94. Cited by Bartal, ibid., 132. I have modified the translation slightly from Mordechai Aaron Günzburg, Aviezer (Vilna, 1863), 66. See also Marcus Moseley's discussion of Günzburg in chap. 6 of Being for Myself Alone.

95. See Zinberg, Israel, A History of Jewish Literature, vol. 6 (pt. 7) of The German-Polish Cultural Center, trans. and ed. Martin, Bernard (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1975), 278Google Scholar.

96. Klausner, Joseph, Historia shel ha-sifrut ha-ḥadasha (Jerusalem: Aḥiasaf, 1952), vol. 1, chap. 4 on Lefin, 224–53Google Scholar; and Klausner's, essay “Meḥkarim be-toldot ha-sifrut ha-‘Ivrit ha-ḥadasha: le-hishtalsheluto shel signon-ha-Mishna be-sifrut ha-ḥadasha,” Kitvei ha-Universita ha-‘Ivrit be-Yerushalaim: Mada‘ei ha-Yahadut,” vol. 1 of Yedi‘ot ha-makhon le-mada‘ei ha-Yahadut (Jerusalem: Ha-madpis, 1926), 163–78Google Scholar. For another appreciation of Lefin's Hebrew contribution, see Lachover, Fishl, Toldot ha-sifrut ha-‘Ivrit ha-ḥadasha (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1936), 87–91Google Scholar. Dauber, Jeremy also mentions the mishnaic aspect of Lefin's style in Antonio's Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 217Google Scholar.

97. Campe, J. H., Sammlung interessanter und durchgängig zweckmäßig abgefaßter Reisebeschreibungen für die Jugend, pt. 9 (Braunschweig: Schulbuchhandlung, 1791)Google Scholar.

98. Keate, George, An Account of the Pelew Islands in the Western Part of the Pacific Ocean, and the Shipwreck of the Antelope, East-India Packet, There (London, 1788)Google Scholar.

99. See Shavit, “Literary Interference,” 41–61. One early adaptation she does not mention is Historie fun den zeefahrer Robinzohn (Frankfurt d-Oder: Elsner, 1813), written in German with Hebrew characters.

100. See Shavit, “Literary Interference”; and Bartal, “Mordechai Aaron Günzburg,” 142. Shavit refers to Hebrew translations by Moshe Mendelssohn-Frankfurt (1807), Hermann Bernard (Hirsch Baer Hurwitz. 1810; no extant copy known; see n. 15 herein), Mordechai Aharon Günzburg (1823), and David Zamosc (1824).

101. See Shavit, “Literary Interference,” 42ff. She writes that “the close relations between the Jewish Haskalah and German Enlightenment movements made German children's literature during the Enlightenment an ideal, if not the most desirable, model for imitation” (44–45).

102. Bartal, “Mordechai Aaron Günzburg,” 143.

103. Of the many works on this subject, see, e.g.: Edwards, Philip, The Story of the Voyage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Adams, Percy G., Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983)Google Scholar.

104. See Adams, Percy G., Travelers and Travel Liars, 1660–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

105. Ibid., 172.

106. Captain Henry Wilson collaborated with George Keate (1729–97), who wrote the story of the Antelope in 1788. See Smith, Bernard, European Vision and the South Pacific 1768–1850: A Study in the History of Art and Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 96–99Google Scholar.

107. Ibid., 99.

108. Campe, Reisebeschreibungen, pt. 9, p. 1; all translations are my own.

109. Ibid., 2.

110. Joseph Perl Archive, Jewish National and University Library, folder 124, lines 30–31.

111. Ibid., lines 27–28. Cf. Zalman, Eliahu ben Shlomo, Eliahu Raba (Prague: Sommer, 1812)Google Scholar, chap. 10. After quoting Lefin's phrase in “The Sea Voyage Narrative,” Rebecca Wolpe comments, “It is clear that Lefin sought to combine traditional Jewish attitudes and the praise of G-d with Enlightenment concepts of morality and universalism” (74).

112. Mendel Lefin, “Translator's Introduction to Mase‘ot ha-yam,” manuscript at the Joseph Perl Archive, Jewish National and University Library, folder 124, line 36. See appendix II and appendix III at the end of this article.

113. Lefin, Mendel, Sefer mase‘ot ha-yam (Zholkva: Gerson Letteres, 1818), 1aGoogle Scholar. This work contains Lefin's adaptations of travel narratives by Captains Wilson and Hemskirk. There are few substantive differences between the original 1818 edition and the reprint Mase‘ot ha-yam (Lemberg: D. H. Schrenzel, 1859); quotations are cited from the first edition by page and side a or b. Unfortunately, pages 36b–52a are missing from the only known extant copy of the 1818 edition, which is in the collection of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. While the account of Captain Hemskirk's expedition is included, the account of Captain Wilson's journey is not included in the 1823 and 1825 editions of Onia so‘ara.

114. Lefin, Sefer mase‘ot ha-yam, 1a.

115. In “Strategy and Ruse,” Sinkoff writes: “Throughout the nineteenth century, east European maskilim answered Naphtali Herz Wessely's clarion call in Divrei shalom ve'emet (1782) that ‘the forms of the lands and the oceans (geography)’ should be an obligatory element of the secular curriculum” (89).

116. See “Mikhtavim shonim,” Ha-me'asef 5 (1789): 136–44.

117. Campe, Reisebeschreibungen, pt. 9, p. 13.

118. Lefin, Mase‘ot ha-yam, p. 1b. Writing for a readership not limited to youth, Lefin excises Campe's patronizing addresses to his young audience. For example, Lefin omits another long digression by Campe on Providence (die Vorsehung; Campe, Reisebeschreibungen, pt. 9, pp. 29–30). According to Campe, it was no coincidence that Captain Wilson brought aboard a Malaysian servant; nor was it an accident that, about a year earlier, another Malaysian had arrived at the island as the result of a different shipwreck. By these means, God enabled the British to communicate with the islanders with the help of interpreters. Campe comments, “Thus Providence guides the events of the world and the fate of people through its invisible hand, so that in the end everything leads to some intended, beneficial goal.… It is well for us that, in our own blindness toward what the future will bring, our fate stands under such a wise and well-meaning direction” (30). Although he does repeatedly affirm the role of providence, Lefin omits this passage.

119. Campe, Reisebeschreibungen, pt. 9, p. 81.

120. Lefin, Mase‘ot ha-yam, chap. 5, p. 11b.

121. When the British are preparing to leave, one of the sailors decides that he wants to remain on the island. Captain Wilson gives him advice before they depart, including this sentence: “In particular he recommended to him not to give up his religious practices, and also to celebrate a Sabbath [Sabbat] or a Sunday” (Campe, Reisebeschreibungen, pt. 9, p. 222). Lefin omits this sentence (Mase‘ot ha-yam, chap. 15, p. 31b).

122. As noted by Rebecca Wolpe in “The Sea Voyage Narrative,” 75–76.

123. Campe, J. H., Sammlung interessanter und durchgängig zweckmäßig abgefaßter Reisebeschreibungen für die Jugend, pt. 5 (Braunschweig: Schulbuchhandlung, 1788), 13Google Scholar. The first narrative, “Wilhelm Isbrand Bonteku's merkwürdige Abentheuer auf einer Reise aus Holland nach Ostindien,” is found on pp. 12–58.

124. ‘Onia so‘ara (Vilna: Menahem Mann, 1823), 2. The title page is missing from the only extant copy of the bilingual edition; it is sometimes cited as having been published in Zholkva in 1815, but the date is not known.

125. Numbers 17:27.

126. Lefin was not the first Hebrew-language travel writer to incorporate this phrase in the description of a storm at sea. A precursor was Simha ben Yehoshua of Założce. See Ya'ari, Avraham, Mase‘ot ’ereẓ yisra'el (Tel Aviv: Ha-Histadrut ha-Ẓionit, 1946), 395Google Scholar.

127. For an excellent discussion of this passage and tale, see Mark, Zvi, Mistika ve-shiga‘on be-yeẓirat R. Naḥman mi-Breslav (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 2003), 359fGoogle Scholar.

128. Lefin, Mendel, “Mikhtavim shonim,” Ha-me'asef 5 (1789): 83Google Scholar. Reprinted verbatim in Lefin's, Mod‘a le-vina (Berlin: Ḥevrat Ḥinukh Ne‘arim, 1789)Google Scholar, “’Igeret ha-ḥokhma,” sec. 15, 2b. Original punctuation retained, in which the colon (:) is often used to end a paragraph and the bullet (•) is often used for a period. Hebrew printers employed by both maskilic authors and hasidic authors commonly used the bullet where European languages used periods.

129. Lefin, R. Nahman, and R. Nathan could have received the modified version of this phrase from many sources, such as Rabbenu Baḥye (commentary on Deuteronomy 10:18), or from the traditional Ashkenazic Moẓei Shabbat prayers, as Zvi Mark pointed out to me.

130. Lefin, Mendel, “Mikhtavim shonim,” Ha-me'asef 5 (1789): 136–38Google Scholar.

131. In the second appendix to his Ḥasidut Breslav, Mendel Piekarz compares similar passages in works by R. Nathan and argues that he did write Kin'at H’ ẓeva'ot.

132. Feiner, “Be-emunah bilvad!” 107; see also Ron Margolin's thesis on Likutei halakhot (“Ha-'emunah ve-ha-kfirah be-torata shel ḥasidut Breslov”) and Hillel Levine's dissertation (“Menahem Mendel Lefin”).

133. Feiner, “Be-emunah bilvad!” 107.

134. Cited by Feiner, ibid.

135. Ibid., 108. Perl created the Israelitische Freischule under the influence of the Jüdische Freischule in Berlin. His admiration for the Berlin Haskalah was so great that, in his fiction, he sometimes refers to his home town Tarnopol as “Berlain.” Sinkoff discusses Perl's activities, including his creation of the Israelite Free School in Tarnopol—the first modern Jewish school in Galicia—in her book Out of the Shtetl, 225–37. According to some scholars, Lefin was more critical than Perl of the Berlin Haskalah and Ha-me'asef; nevertheless, he did publish in that journal and at the Ḥinukh Ne'arim Press in 1789.

136. Sefer ‘alim le-trufa: mikhtevei Moharnat (New York: Ḥasidei Breslov, 1976), 176, letter of Wednesday, the 25th day of the counting the Omer (April 27, 1836). The manuscript version (11b) shows no significant passages that were excised from this letter.

137. Ibid.

138. Cf. Mark, Zvi, “‘Al maẓavei katnut ve-gadlut be-haguto shel R. Naḥman mi-Breslav,” Da‘at (Winter 2001): 45–80Google Scholar.

139. ‘Onia so‘ara (Vilna: Menahem Mann, 1823).

140. More nevukhim, pt. 1, trans. Mendel Lefin (Zholkva: Saul Meyerhoffer, 1829); the same publisher printed R. Nathan's Likutei halakhot in 1848!

141. Mase‘ot ha-yam (Lemberg: Schrenzel, 1859). The title page of the 1818 edition does not include this line, however, which suggests that it was added by the publisher.

142. Cf. Gelber's, N. M. essay on “Mendel Satanower,” in Aus zwei Jahrhunderten: Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte der Juden (Vienna: Löwit, 1924), 49Google Scholar.

143. In “The Sea Voyage Narrative,” Rebecca Wolpe refers to Lefin's “somewhat universalist attitude.” She cites his quotation in his unpublished introduction to Mase‘ot ha-yam, “whether slave or servant, the holy spirit rests on him in accordance with his deeds [מעשיו בין עבד ובין שפחה רוח ה’ שורה עליו לפי].” She then comments, “It is clear that Lefin sought to combine traditional Jewish attitudes and the praise of G-d with Enlightenment concepts of morality and universalism” (74).

144. Liberman argues that it is more accurate to speak of “folk Hebrew” than of “hasidic Hebrew.” See his article (in Yiddish and Hebrew) “R. Nakhman Bratslaver un di Umaner maskilim,” 219.

145. Rina Ben Shahar has shown how twentieth-century Hebrew drama developed with the help of translations from English and French. See ‫her book Ha-lashon ba-drama ha-‘Ivrit: ha-dialog ba-maḥaze ha-‘Ivri ha-mekori ve-ha-meturgam mi-Anglit u-mi-Ẓarfatit, 1948–1975 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1996).‬

146. This transcription preserves Lefin's original punctuation; all footnotes and the translation have been provided by Ken Frieden. Although this is not a poetic text, to facilitate comparison with the facsimile in appendix II, we have retained the original line breaks in Lefin's manuscript. Thanks to the Department of Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library for granting permission to publish this important text; thanks to Jonatan Meir and Avraham Weizal for their assistance in deciphering Lefin's handwriting.

147. ברכות י, ע”א; ספורנו על בראשית יח, כב; ר' יונה גרונדי על משלי יד, לב; רבינו בחיי, ביאור על התורה, בעריכת חיים דוב שוול (ירושלים: מוסד הרב קוק, תשנ”א), כרך ג, עמ' 314.

148. תהילים קכה, א.

149. קהלת ז, ב.

150. פרקי אבות ד, א.

151. אליהו רבה, פרק 10.

152. יומא לח ע”ב.

153. מגילה ו ע”ב.

154. מסכת תמיד לב ע”א.

155. משלי כד, טז.

156. תהילים לב, י.

157. Lefin's quotations and allusions seem designed to indicate that this translated book of sea adventure is compatible with pious beliefs and suitable for traditional Jewish readers. Lefin goes beyond the typical maskilic shibutz (insertion of biblical quotations) by extending his quotations into postbiblical sources such as Mishnah (’Avot), Gemara (B. Berakhot, B. Yoma, B. Megilla, B. Tamid), and medieval commentaries (Seforno, Yona Gerondi, Rabbenu Bahye). In the notes that follow, all talmudic citations refer to the Babylonian Talmud.

158. B. Berakhot 10a and medieval commentators: Seforno, commentary on Genesis 18:22, in Humash mikra'ot gedolot; Gerondi, R. Yona, commentary on Proverbs 14:32; Rabbenu Bahye: Bi'ur ‘al ha-Torah, ed. Shevel, Haim Dov (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-rav Kook, 1991), 3:314Google Scholar.

159. Psalm 125:1.

160. [“…than to go to a house of feasting.”] Ecclesiastes 7:2.

161. M. ’Avot 4:1.

162. Zalman, Eliahu ben Shlomo, Eliahu Raba (Prague: Sommer, 1812), chap. 10Google Scholar.

163. B. Yoma’ 38b.

164. B. Megillah 6b.

165. B. Tamid 32a.

166. Proverbs 24:16.

167. Psalm 32:10.