GENIZAH (Heb. גְּנִיָזה ;
literally “storing”), a place for storing books or ritual objects which have
become unusable. The genizah was usually a room attached to the synagogue where
books and ritual objects containing the name of God – which cannot be destroyed
according to Jewish law – were buried when they wore out and could no longer be
used in the normal ritual. As a result ancient synagogues can preserve books or
sections thereof of great antiquity. The word is derived from the root גנז from
the Persian ginzakh (“treasury”), the root meanings of which are to “conceal,”
“hide,” or “preserve.” Eventually it became a noun designating a place of
concealment. In Scripture there occur ginzei ha-melekh (“the king’s
treasuries”; Esth. 3:9; 4:7) and beit ginzayya (Ezra 5:17; 6:1; 7:20) with the
sense of a “treasury” or “archive.” In talmudic and midrashic literature,
however, it is used as a nomen actionis (Shab. 16:1; Lev. R. 21:12; Meg. 26b),
as a place for the putting away of all kinds of sacred articles, such as sacred
books no longer usable, as well as the books of Sadducees and heretics, and
other writings of which the sages disapproved but which were not required to be
burned (Mid. 1:6; Shab. 116a); whence the expression sefarim genuzim (“books to
be hidden away”). The expression beit genizah (“storeroom,” Pes. 118a) means a
treasury “powerfully and strongly guarded” (Rashbam, ad loc.). There was an
ancient custom of honoring a dead man by putting holy books next to his coffin
(BK 17a; see also Meg. 26b; MGWJ, 74 (1930), 163). In times of war and forced
conversion, Jews used to hide their books in caves or tombs in order to
preserve them. The letter of *Ḥisdai ibn Shaprut to the king of the Khazars
relates, in the name of the elders (yeshishei ha-dor), that during a period of
forced conversion “the scrolls of the law and holy books” were hidden in a
cave. In 1947 certain scriptural scrolls, books, and fragments were discovered
in a cave at ʿAyn al-Fashkha in the Judean wilderness and later in other caves
in that vicinity. It is probable that the sectarians who lived there hid the
books when compelled to leave (see *Dead Sea Scrolls). There were also genizah
sites between the stone courses of sacred buildings (Shab. 115a), under the
foundation stones of synagogues (as in Mainz), and attics and special cupboards
kept in synagogues. When the cupboards and attics could take no more, the
tattered pages, which, because they contained the Divine Name, were known as
shemot (“names,” i.e., of God), were buried in the cemetery The day on which
the shemot were conveyed from the genizah for burial in “one of the caves on
the slope of Mount Zion” was celebrated in a festive way in Jerusalem, even
during the modern period. The participants in the ceremony would play musical
instruments, sing, dance, and play games “facing one another with drawn swords
in order to magnify the joyousness of the affair” (Yerushalayim (ed. Luncz), 1
(1882), 15–16). There is evidence that a similar custom prevailed in other
areas.
Such genizot existed in a great
number of both Eastern and Western communities. Although they usually contained
only the worn-out remnants of books in daily use such as the Pentateuch and the
prayer book, rare or historically important books and documents were sometimes
hidden among them. In the majority of cases the material of the genizot was so
damaged by dampness and mildew that the collections were of no value for the
purposes of historical research. (Abraham Meier Habermann, “Genizah,” in Encyclopaedia
Judaica, ed. Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum [2d ed.; Detroit: Thomson
Gale, 2007], 7:460)
Further Reading:
John A. Tvedtnes, “Books in the Treasury,” in The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books: “Out of Darkness Unto Light” (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000), 155-66
