Tree of Grammar

In 1678, while studying at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder, Tobias Cohen — better known as Tuvia ha-Rofeh, or “Tuvia the Doctor” — collaborated with fellow Polish Jew Felix Gabriel ben Moses of Brody to produce this striking ilan. An arboreal visualization of Hebrew grammar, it is marked by rigorous scholarship and unusual visual clarity. It points to the broad use of the “tree” schema in European learning, also used by kabbalists to map the sefirotic order.

Cohen and Gabriel gained admission through a rare act of tolerance by Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, who not only accepted them but provided stipends. In return, they committed to learning German and serving as Hebrew instructors, perhaps even to the elector himself.

The Tree of Grammar that emerged from this setting is precise, colorful, and symmetrical, laying out the structure of Hebrew with almost architectural balance. Unlike ilanot made for mystical contemplation, it belongs to a lesser-known but fascinating lineage of diagrammatic works devoted to grammar and logic.

Cohen would later become a prominent physician and the author of Ma‘aseh Tuvia (1707), a Hebrew survey of the sciences that remained in print for centuries. This artifact preserves a glimpse of his early intellectual world, and the meeting point of Jewish learning and European humanism.