Eliezer Brodt, and Marc Shapiro’s series of over 130 classes on great rabbinic figures). We also invite you to check out Dr. Shapiro’s upcoming tours to Spain, Italy and Central Europe. Information is available here. Or copy and paste into your browser: http://torahinmotion.org/cart/add/p2767_a2o1?destination=cart.
Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews, covering the period 1000 BCE to 1492 (actually 1497) CE, was for one week (October 5) at the top of the Guardian Bookshop Bestsellers list: a rare achievement for a serious book of Jewish history covering the pre-modern period. It was published in the middle of five one-hour prime-time Sunday evening BBC television presentations, for which Schama was the narrator, recounting his stories from various locations. The first of the five episodes had…
Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism (New Haven, 2013) Eliyahu Stern has set for himself a daunting task and argues his case with conviction. He intends to correct a widespread assumption shared not only by the general public, but by the scholarly community as well. According to this narrative, the Vilna Gaon (hereafter the Gaon) should not be seen as a traditionalist defender of the past, but actually a modern Jew and one…
(MFirstatty@aol.com) The name Chashmonai appears many times in the Babylonian Talmud, but usually the references are vague. The references are either to beit Chashmonai, malkhut Chashmonai, malkhut beit Chashmonai, malkhei beit Chashmonai, or beit dino shel Chashmonai. One time (at Megillah 11a) the reference is to an individual named Chashmonai, but neither his father nor his sons are named. The term Chashmonai (with the spelling חשמוניי) appears two times in the Jerusalem Talmud, once in the second chapter of Taanit…
‘s review of the work which will be followed up by a three-part post by Marc Shapiro Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism. New Haven: Yale University Press 2013, pp. xiv+322.* My father, of blessed memory, was an Orthodox Jew of Lithuanian descent, a “Litvak.” Though he was a businessman all his life, he, like many traditional Litvaks, always kept up his study of classical Jewish texts, both biblical and rabbinic. I remember…
The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a shiur that will be taking place Motzaei Shabbos November 23 at 9PM. The shiur will be given by the noted author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisroel [link]. He has authored many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The subject of the Shiur is על מקורות של מנהג קבלת…
ב”ה The Nazir in New York Josh Rosenfeld I. Mishnat ha-Nazir הוצאת נזר דוד שע”י מכון אריאל ירושלים, 2005 קכ’+36 עמודים הראל כהן וידידיה כהן, עורכים A few years ago, during his daily shiur, R. Herschel Schachter related that he and his wife had met someone called ‘the Nazir’ during a trip to Israel. R. Schachter quoted the Nazir’s regarding the difficulty Moshe had with the division of the land in the matter the daughters of Zelophehad and the Talmudic…
(Offenbacher) Natan Ophir’s book, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: Life, Mission, and Legacy, has just appeared. This is a complete biography of Carlebach’s life (not a hagiography) and is essential for anyone with an interest in Carlebach. The Seforim Blog is happy to include this excerpt from the book, pp. 413-419. 1. Who was Reb Shlomo? Who was Reb Shlomo Carlebach? This question was deliberated in the obituaries after his death. Elli Wohlgelernter of The Jerusalem Post tried to describe Shlomo’s elusive…
On Nov. 24, 2013 at 7:30pm, Dr. Marc Shapiro will deliver a lecture at the home of Shlomo and Hannah Sprecher, 1274 East 23rd Street (between Ave. L & M) in Brooklyn. The title of the lecture is Rabbinic Biographies: Personal Reflections on the Balance Between Reverence and Historical Truth. All Seforim Blog readers (and anyone else) are cordially invited to attend. For those who are interested, Dr. Shapiro will also be speaking at the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn…
סידור רב עמרם גאון, מכון ירושלים, חלק ג סי’ נו-קג, תפילות חול. מרדכי, שבת, על פי כ”י, מכון ירושלים, רצג עמודים ר”י מלוניל על מגילה, יבמות, כתובת, מכון תלמוד הישראלי האמונות והדעות לרבנו סעדיה גאון, עם ביאור דרך אמונה לר’ דוד הנזיר, חלק א, שצב עמודים, כולל מבוא ופתיחה כללית לרס”ג. לוי חן לר’ לוי בן אברהם, מעשה מרכבה, מכ”י, ההדיר והוסיף מבוא והערות חיים קרייסל, האיגוד למדעי היהדות, 330 עמודים , [כרך שלישי מתוך החיבור] [ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים]….
Christian M. Rutishauser’s The Human Condition in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has just been published by Ktav (having earlier appeared in German). Quite apart from Rutishauser’s scholarship, the book is noteworthy in that Rutishauser is a prominent Jesuit priest (see here; for those who don’t know, the University of Scranton is also Jesuit). The Seforim Blog is happy to present the introduction to the book where Rutishauser explains what led him to the Rav. A Catholic Glimpse…
1. The last post dealt with R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and I pick up with him here. Before moving forward, I have to thank R. Moshe Maimon who sent me a PDF of the essay attributed to R. Zevin which I discussed in the last post. It comes from the hebrewbooks.org hard drive that was released some time ago. You can see it here. I also thank R. Eliezer Brodt who pointed out that both R. Zvi Pesah Frank and…
Dear Seforim Blog readers, This past Monday an era ended. As many prominent rabbonim mentioned, during the levaya of Rav Ovadia Yosef, there was the era of Tannaim, the era of Amoraim, Geonim, Rishonim, Achronim and the era of Rav Ovadia Meor Yisroel. Each one of us merited living in his generation. He was the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation (Sukkah 39a), not merely in personal greatness but characteristically as well. He acquired the Torah reaching great heights, nevertheless descended…
Michael K. Silber is the Cardinal Franz Koenig Senior Lecturer in Austrian Studies in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew U. He has taught at Harvard, Stanford and the Central European University and during the 2013-2014 academic year, he is the Jacob Perlow Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Yale. He also serves as the Chair of the Board of the Central Archives of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. His researches focus on the Jews of Central…
אישית . בליל יום הכיפורים תשס”ה, שבאותה שנה חל בשבת, שמעתי באזני מפי הגרי”ש אלישיב זצוק”ל, שענה לשואל אחד שאין לאמרם בשבת, אע”פ שהשואל הסתייע מלוח ארץ ישראל לרי”מ טוקצ’ינסקי שיש לאומרם. אחר כך סיפר השואל לנוכחים שמפרסמים פסקים בשם הרב שאינם נכונים כלל וכלל. לשאלת השואל היה המשך מעניין: ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר. בתפילת שחרית לא נכח הגרי”ש בבית הכנסת, ובהוצאת ספר תורה פתח החזן באמירת ‘שלש-עשרה מידות’. קם אחד המתפללים וגער בו בקול: ‘אתמול קבע הרב שליט”א שאין…