The Strange Shape of the Marcheshet Pan By Eli Genauer “The underlying basis of our work is that pictures are an organic part of the commentary, and it possible that Rashi even allowed himself to limit his explanatory words when a picture was available to the reader. This is in the sense of “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The picture is an integral…
מי כעמך כישראל איסר זלמן ווייסברג, לייקוואוד מסופר[1] שבליל א’ דר”ח חשון תשל”ט הי’ הצייר החבד”י ר’ ברוך נחשון שיחי’ מקרית ארבע ביחידות אצל הרבי מליובאוויטש זצוק”ל ושאל אם יכול להראות להרבי את הציורים פרי מעשה ידיו שהביא עמו מארה”ק. הרבי נענה בחיוב. ולשם כך הכינו תערוכה מציוריו בבנין הצמוד ל770. ביום רביעי ו’ כסלו הלך הרבי בלוויית מזכיריו לראות התערוכה. הרבי עיין בכל הציורים והעיר כו”כ הערות עליהם. כשניגש לציור בה מצוירים תפילין של הקב”ה ושל ישראל, ובתפילין…
Everything is Illuminated: Mining the Art of Illustrated Haggadah Manuscripts for Meaning We have discussed haggadah illustrations in the past (see the links at the end of this post) and we wanted to expand and update upon that discussion for this year. In this post we focus on Hebrew illuminated haggadah manuscripts, and in the follow-up post will turn our attention to printed illustrated haggadot. While there is not as large of a body…
An Obscure Diagram in the Bomberg Shas By Eli Genauer A recent book auction by Kestenbaum featured the following listing: AUCTION 65: JUNE 25TH, 2015LOT: 111 (TALMUD, BABYLONIAN). Masechta Sotah. With commentaries by Rashi, Tosaphoth, Maimonides and Rabbeinu Asher. FIRST BOMBERG EDITION .. ……Vinograd, Venice 27; Habermann, Bomberg 22. Daniel Bomberg, Venice: 1520. This Tractate contains the only appearance of a printed text illustration throughout the entire Talmud issued by Bomberg (see f. 43r). The reference to (…
For contemporary American Jews, it is not an exaggeration to claim the Maxwell House Haggadah, as one of the most commonly used and widely known haggadahs. Even President Obama was aware of this history when he quipped regarding another recent haggadah “does this mean we can no longer use the Maxwell House Haggadah anymore?” The first Maxwell House sponsored haggadah was published in 1932. [1] The Haggadah wasn’t published btwetween 1941 and 1948, but otherwise has been consistently published yearly, if…
Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography By Elliott Horowitz Dan Rabinowitz has provided us which a characteristically learned pre-Passover post on the Prague 1526 Haggadah, specifically concerning the illustrations on its borders, and from those borders continues on to the always contentious subject of breasts, a bare set (or rather, two bare sets) of which he claims may be found on the title page of that edition. Indeed, on both the right and left borders of the title page may be found…
