רפאל נתן נטע רבינוביץ

Rav Refael Natan Nota Rabinovicz (5595/1835–24 Kislev 5649/1888) gave the learning world one of the great tools it possesses: the Dikdukei Sofrim, the monumental record of the manuscript readings of the Talmud Bavli. Born in Novo-Zhagory in Lita to a distinguished family of small means, he was raised on the Torah of Rav Yosef Padwa of Vilkomir, whose household took him in at thirteen; in Keidan, where he married, he was known as the iluy of Keidan.

His path announced itself early: coming upon a decayed manuscript of the responsa of the Maharam of Rothenburg in Vilna, he copied and prepared it for press in three months, and printed it in Lemberg in 5620/1860 with the haskamot of Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson — who, it is told, would rise for the young scholar when he entered. In Vienna he learned of the Munich manuscript — the only complete manuscript of the whole Talmud Bavli in the world — and went to see it; from that meeting his life’s work was born. Between 5627/1867 and 5646/1886 he brought out fifteen volumes of the Dikdukei Sofrim, collating the Munich codex and the manuscripts and early printings of Europe’s libraries against the standard text, masechta by masechta; a sixteenth volume appeared after his passing. His introduction, the famous essay on the printings of the Talmud, remains the foundational history of the subject.

The work was not meant to bring chiddushim, only the exact words of the Gemara as the rishonim had them — and precisely so it became indispensable: wherever a sugya turns on a girsa, the Dikdukei Sofrim is opened to this day. He was niftar of pneumonia in Kiev on 24 Kislev 5649 (1888).