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Category: Parshanut & Bible Commentary

The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition

The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition

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This study of Amalek deals with seven questions. 1. Is the battle against Amalek primarily ethnic or ethical? 2. What is the difference in reading the biblical data starting with Exodus and Deuteronomy or starting with I Samuel 15? 3. What is the evidence that the Bible already seeks ethical justification for punishing Amalek? 4. How does post-biblical literature in general and rabbinic literature in particular further the transformation of Amalek into an ethical category? 5. How is the “Sennacherib…

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A New Work about the Ramban’s Additions to his Commentary on the Torah

A New Work about the Ramban’s Additions to his Commentary on the Torah

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תוספות רמב”ן לפירושו לתורה, שנכתבו בארץ ישראל, יוסף עופר, יהונתן יעקבס, מכללה הרצוג, והאיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות, 718 עמודים In this post I would like to explain what this work is about. One of the most important Rishonim was Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman, famously known as Ramban. Ramban was famous for numerous reasons and has been the subject of numerous works and articles. This year alone two important works were written about him, one from Dr. Shalem Yahalom called Bein…

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Plagiarism, Halakhic Paradox, and the Malbim on Kohelet

Plagiarism, Halakhic Paradox, and the Malbim on Kohelet

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1. A story recently appeared alleging plagiarism in the writings of R. Yonah Metzger. Such accusations are nothing new and the topic of plagiarism in rabbinic history is of great interest to me. Many of the scholars of Jewish bibliography have also written about the phenomenon, and a good deal on the topic has appeared on the Seforim Blog. Suffice it to say that every generation has had problems in this regard, and we see even see apparent instances of…

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Torah mi-Sinai and More

Torah mi-Sinai and More

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1. Some people have requested that I do more posts on theological matters, as I have done in the past. So let me begin with what I think will be a three-part series on Torah mi-Sinai. In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” was not authentic. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that even in the past everyone had to accept Maimonides’…

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Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

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In honor of Yitshak Cohen’s just-published book, “Or Sameah” Halakhah u-Mishpat: Mishnato shel Ha-Rav Meir Simhah ha-Kohen al Mishneh Torah le-ha-Rambam, the Seforim Blog is happy to present this post in English, which is taken from a longer article to appear in the Jewish Law Annual. Introduction R. Meir Simhah Hacohen (henceforth: RMS) was born in 1843 in the village of Butrimonys, in the Vilnius district. Gaining renown as one of his generation’s leading scholars, in 1888 he was appointed…

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Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt) by Amos Hakham

Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt) by Amos Hakham

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Amos Hakham passed away on August 2, 2012 at the age of 91. The following is an unofficial translation of an excerpt from the Introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, published in 1973 by Mossad Harav Kook, in the Da’at Mikra series of Bible commentaries. The selection below is an outstanding example of Hakham’s distinct approach, in both his Introduction and commentary, characterized by uncompromising scholarship coupled with faithfulness to tradition. Here and in his other writings,…

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The Proselyte Doth Protest Too Much

The Proselyte Doth Protest Too Much

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I recently acquired an early edition of Abarvanel’s Peirush Al Neviim Rishonim. It was printed in Leipzig in 1686. It was only the second edition of this commentary, following the first edition printed in Pesaro in 1511 by Gershom Soncino. The publisher of this edition was Mauritium Georgium Weidmannum. The editors were Friedrich Albrecht Christiani, an apostate, and August Pfeiffer, a German Lutheran theologian. It was printed primarily for a Christian reading audience for reasons we shall discuss. F. A….

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Between the lines of the Bible by Yitzchak Etshalom – book review

Between the lines of the Bible by Yitzchak Etshalom – book review

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Ben Zion Katz is the author of the forthcoming book A Journey Through Torah: A Critique of the Documentary Hypothesis (Urim Publications, Fall 2012) Between the lines of the Bible: Exodus: A study from the new school of Orthodox Torah Commentary, by Yitzchak Etshalom (Urim/OU Press, NY 2012) is a thought-provoking look at the second book of the Torah. One can tell that its author, a Rabbi and Tanakh educator in North America, is a dynamic teacher, because the book…

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Was Avraham a Lamdan?

Was Avraham a Lamdan?

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I would like to thank Eliezer Brodt for reviewing this article and discussing it with me, and my father for editing this article. Some time ago there was a discussion in cyberspace regarding whether the Avos kept all of the mitzvos. The discussion was started when a video on Youtube made fun of the idea, and a response to the video was published on the Hirhurim blog (here), as well as counter-response (here). I’d like to discuss some of the…

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Comments on This and That, part 2

Comments on This and That, part 2

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Continued from here. Barth’s opinion was shared by R. Joseph Hertz, who referred to Song of Songs as a “collection of ancient lyrics of the spring-time and youthful love.” Some might regard this as a radical, even un-Orthodox opinion, but from Avot de-Rabbi Natan 1:4, we see that the early Jewish leaders did not regard the Song of Songs (and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs) as anything special. Originally, it is said, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes were suppressed, for since…

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Comments on This and That, part 1

Comments on This and That, part 1

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1. In this post I referred to R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s Nimukei Rashi, and stated that I thought it was one of his best works. This led to some correspondence with readers regarding the commentary. I have no doubt that I could devote ten posts to Hirschensohn, but then what would happen to everything else I want to discuss? But there are people who want me to call attention to some more interesting comments from Hirschensohn. I know that among them…

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Using the works of Shadal and R. N. H. Wessely

Using the works of Shadal and R. N. H. Wessely

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This post is a continuation of my review of Rabbi Posen’s Parshegen, here. Many thanks to S. of On the Main Line for help with certain points. In the beginning of Parshegen, when listing the important works on Targum Onkelos (TO), Rabbi Posen notes that one of the most crucial works ever written on the topic is Shadal’s Ohev Ger (Vienna 1830; rpt. Cracow 1895). He mentions in a footnote that today most Charedi works on TO do not use…

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Elliott Horowitz – “”Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids…’ Reading Esther before Bed”

Elliott Horowitz – “”Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids…’ Reading Esther before Bed”

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teaches at Bar Ilan University and is co-editor of Jewish Quarterly Review. This is his fourth contribution to the Seforim blog. We hope that you enjoy. “”Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids…’: Reading Esther before Bed” Elliott Horowitz “The problem of selecting Bible stories for the early grades is an especially difficult one,” wrote Emanuel Gamoran in his introduction to the first volume of Lenore Cohen’s Bible Tales for Very Young Children (2 vols, 1934-36),…

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Review: Macsanyuh Shel Torah

Review: Macsanyuh Shel Torah

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Me’achsanya Shel ha-Torah, Rabbi Moshe Hubner, ed., New York, 2008, 297 pp. As mentioned in the past, there is an austounding amount of seforim being published. One genre, that is bursting at the seams, is sefarim on Chumash. There are seforim printed from famous people; some are still with us, while others have been gone for many years. These seforim focus on all kinds of topics: mussar, machashavah, pshat, kabbalah, d’rush, and halachah. In truth, it is virtually impossible to…

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