The Babylonian Talmud (“BT”) clearly held the Earth was flat. R. Azariah de Rossi, in his Me’or Enayim devotes more or less a chapter to understanding the view of the BT on this issue. De Rossi explains that there a various passages in the BT which assume a flat earth. For instance, De Rossi quotes the BT Baba Basra “the world is like an exadera [three sides are closed] and the north side is open. When the sun reaches the…
The JNUL has just put up the first Hebrew bibliography, Siftei Yeshenim. This work is written by R. Shabbtai Bass. R. Shabbtai is perhaps most well known for his commentary on Rashi ‘al haTorah titled Siftei Hakhamim. R. Shabbtai was born in 1641 in Kalisz, Poland. When he was 14, both his parents were killed in a pogrom by the Cossacks. R. Shabbtai went to Prague. It was in Prague where he would gain his last name and begin his…
The post below is a continuation from this prior post. America posed some unique questions regarding marriage and divorce laws. In the early period of American Jewish history, many people were not erudite. In an apparent effort to help with this deficiency, in 1901, R. Dov Baer Abramowitz published his Sefer Ketubah. This book contains tear out, pro forma ketubot. Thus, the Rabbi could just rip one out whenever he needed to. (No. 588). Another work which dealt with marriage…
There are two new list of out-of-print seforim available. The first, is via email, you can request the list from sba-at-sba2.com. The second is mainly a list of German imprints (it includes a couple of books Solomon Schechter owned) and can be viewed here. Additionally, Kestenbaum recently had their latest auction, unfortunately their catalog is no longer available online, but if you previously downloaded the catalog you can see the price results here.
There is a new work in Jewish bibliography focusing on American Jews. This work “Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography” by Yosef Goldman. (It can be obtained by contacting Y. Goldman at ygbooks -at- yahoo.com). As the subtitle states, is much more than a bibliography. This work, is at the very least the starting point for any research on American Jewery, and can be viewed as a history of American Jewry. The book includes a listing…
Mississippi Fred McDowell, has posted re: the Vilna Gaon’s Yerushalmi edition. However, I would like to discuss which edition of the Bavli the Vilna Gaon had. This is a rather important especially in light of the numerous emendations to the text the Vilna Gaon made. As when one is amending something it is important to know what exactly they have amended. Every morning Birkat HaShahar are recited. Among these blessings are three anomalous ones. These there, as opposed to the…
