R. Brodt has already discussed the custom of azharot on Shavous, I wanted to discuss another Shavous custom – akdamut. Akdamut is the poem in Aramaic which is said around the time of the reading of the Torah on the first day of Shavuot. This poem, composed by R. Meir ben Isaac who lived in Worms in the 11th century. He was also know as R. Meir Sha”tz (Shiliach Tzibor). The poem itself describes what happens in heaven when the…
The Custom of Azharot on Shavousby R Eliezer Brodt The Yom tov of Shavous called Yom Matan Torahsenu as it is the day we received the Torah thousands of years ago at Har Sinai. It has many minhaghim that we do to remind us of this such as putting up grass and flowers or eating dairy dishes. Another minhag which many Jews have is to say azharot today. In this post I would like to discuss a bit of interesting…
Mossad HaRav Kook has just published the eighth and final volume of Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber‘s Minhagei Yisrael. This final volume includes a complete and comprehensive index of all eight volumes volumes of Minhagei Yisrael. For this reason alone this volume is worthwhile, as anyone who has used the prior volumes knows, at times topics are spread over multiple volumes, sometimes in footnotes, which makes it difficult to locate particular topics. The first index is comprised of multiple indices; Mishna,…
There is a new volume of the journal Or Yisrael (no. 47) out. First, it includes a back and forth on the issue of who wrote the Mekore Minhagim. It also includes an very interesting article discussing whether there is any rhyme or reason to the order of the Mesechtot haShas. Additionally, it includes a couple of articles discussing wheat for Pesach from Arizona(?). On the Pesach front there is also an article on whether one can eat maror on…
Two journals have put out special collections devoted to Pesach. The first, Moriah, has continued their holiday specific journals and collected their third volume of articles devoted to Pesach. Yeshurun, for the first time has also collected choice articles related to a specific holiday and published a volume devoted to Pesach as well. Yeshurun’s effort, being their first, is the focus of this post. This volume is much smaller than their typical volumes. Usually, each volume of Yeshurun is huge…
Ari Kinsberg is one of the great young scholars of American Jewish History (under 40), as he has spent several years researching and editing the two-volume magisterial Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (see Seforim blog reviews here and here). In honor of Purim 5767 [2007], Ari has recently written about Judah Wistinetzky (1844-1908) and the latter’s Ayelet ha-Shahar, given as mishloach manot gift to his friends. For those of us who have not yet seen…
