New seforim, books and some random comments

By: Eliezer
Brodt

Here is a list of some new seforim and books printed in the past few months.

I am enjoying this edition so far and think it is full of very useful information. It has a few parts including an in-depth running commentary of the entire work and a collection of material from other places where the Gaon writes similar ideas. It also includes a photocopy of one of the earlier manuscripts of the work. Just to point out some minor issues with the sefer. It does not say who put it out, I am not sure the point in this modesty it’s well known what the Chida writes about such a practice. In the beginning of the work where he talks about the various editions of the sefer a reference should have been made to Yeshayahu Vinograd’s Otzar Sifrei Hagra where he lists over hundred editions of the letter of the Gra.

Of interest to bibliographers on the subject is what R’ Moshe Sternbuch writes:

ובמשפחתו יש דעה גם שכתבו באידיש ותורגם

He has a few pages about the Gra’s trip to Eretz Yisroel and why he did not end up going. I do not expect him to quote the discussion of Aryeh Morgenstern in his various works such as in The Goan of Vilna and his Messianic Vision. However I would have thought he would quote some of the sources found in Eliach’s Hagaon.

The ‘author’ writes (p. 205):

והנה מפורסם דהגר”א לא לקח יותר מכדי פרנסתו ופרנסת אנשי ביתו, ואדרבה אפילו לבני ביתו  לא היה כל צרכם… כידוע חי הגר”א בדחקות עצומה… (שם, עמ’ קכז)

I am not sure where he gets this from but Shaul Stampfer in his work Families, Rabbis and Education (pp. 327-328) and more recently Eliyah Stern in his work The Genius (pp. 30-31) based on manuscripts printed by Yisroel Klausner and other sources prove that this is not true at all.

Stamfer writes: “The Gaon certainly did not live in poverty… the Gaon did not have the highest income of the individuals on the Vilna community payroll. However his income was near the top and it was several times the salary of minor communal functionaries…”

Another interesting discussion of his is about how the Gra writes about dealing with children:

ועל הקללה ושבועה וכזב תכי אותם במכות אכזריות… (עמ’ קח) שתכי את בנינו מכות אכזריות (עמ’ רכב)

 The last two words are only found in some versions of the manuscripts. The Author collects some sources on this subject of hitting children and even points to the Gra elsewhere which appears to contradict this. In an appendix he quotes at length the opinion of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky pro such methods. I think he should have included many more sources on such an important topic [I hope to return to this in the future] especially what R’ Wolbe writes in his letters (Igrot Ukesavim, p. 121) against such methods. Another important source he should have quoted is from the Menucha Ukedusha (from a talmid of R’ Chaim Volzhiner, which he quotes elsewhere) who writes that one should certainly not hit children after the age of thirteen (p.136). See here.

One last point related to this edition where the Gra writes about learning tanach

ושילמדו מקדם כל החומש שיהיו רגילים כמעט בעל פה…

The author brings a Teshuvah from R’ Wosner which I do not think is like the Gra at all. The author has an appendix about this, much can be added to this but here to he should have quoted the previously quoted work Menucha Ukedusha.

Of course there is much to say about such a sefer as it’s full of hundreds upon hundreds of pesakim. It appears to be the first of a few volumes. The haskamah of R’ Dovid Cohen is nice where he writes

ספר זה נדיר הוא ככמעט מיוחד במינו, אע”פ שמצינו יומן מהגאון האדר”ת זצ”ל, וגם אוטו-ביגרפיה (שיש מערערים אם הו מזויף מתוכו) של הגאון רב יעקב עמדין זצ”ל במסורת משה נמצאים חידושים נפלאים להלכה וגם מצר מתוכו כו”כ השקפות של מרן זצ”ל… ומודה להם על התענוג הרוחני שהרגשתי שקשה לתאר הטעם להזולת ורק יכולים לומר לו טעם וראה…

Just to point out a few things of interest: he has a lengthy piece where Rav Moshe said a certain piece in the Ramban’s work on chumash has additions not from him, that are kefirah [Korach, 17:6] (pp. 522-523), another piece of Rav Moshe about the manuscript of R’ Yehudah Hachassid Al Hatorah (p. 552), that R’ Reuven Margolis came to hear Rav Moshe Say a shiur in Yerushlayim (p. 501). Anyone reading this work is sure to find many more things of great interest.

After being out of print for years this classic is back in print.

A PDF of this article is available upon request.

The Challenge of Received Tradition: Dilemmas of Interpretation in Radak’s Biblical Commentaries, by Naomi Grunhaus, Oxford University Press, 2012. Dialogue, volume 3

Rabbi Chaim Rapoport, The Afterlife of Scholarship, A critical review of The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman