Browsed by
Category: Shabbat & Eruv

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More

Comments 48 comments

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More Marc B. Shapiro For a long time, I have had an interest in Saul Lieberman. It has been almost twenty years since my book Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox appeared.[1] I have also dealt with Lieberman in many Seforim Blog posts. A few years ago, I did a series of eighteen classes on Lieberman on Torah in Motion. You can watch the classes on…

Read More Read More

Eruv Tavshilin: A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation?

Eruv Tavshilin: A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation?

Comments 1 comment

Eruv Tavshilin:  A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation? by: Dan Rabinowitz The Washington Haggadah was written by the scribe Joel ben Simon, and is currently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and is available online in a beautiful digital copy. Joel produced the Haggadah in the late 15th century. As so much of the core Hebraica collection at the Library of Congress, the manuscript was sold by Efraim Deinard to the Library probably around 1916. (Deinard was one of…

Read More Read More

Depression Angles

Depression Angles

Comments 21 comments

Depression Angles By William Gewirtz Introduction: Depression angles measure the level of darkness or illumination prior to sunrise and, in a parallel fashion, after sunset. There are two halakhic disagreements that might appear to relate to the use of depression angles. First, there is a long-standing argument about what defines the transition from one day to the next and what is (merely) an indicator that the transition has occurred. Some consider the appearance of three stars as the basis of…

Read More Read More

Pets on Shabbat, Rabbi Morenu, and Epidemics

Pets on Shabbat, Rabbi Morenu, and Epidemics

Comments 26 comments

Pets on Shabbat, Rabbi Morenu, and Epidemics Marc B. Shapiro 1. In my last post here I wrote as follows: R. Yitzhak Nahman Eshkoli calls attention to what he sees as another mistake made by those who published R. Moshe Feinstein’s works.[1] Here is Iggerot Moshe,Orah Hayyim 5, 22:21. According to the text of R. Moshe’s responsum, animals are muktzeh, even those that children play with. This means that R. Moshe held that pets are also muktzeh. Yet in the small…

Read More Read More

Lighting Shabbat Candles in Jerusalem 40 Minutes Before Sunset

Lighting Shabbat Candles in Jerusalem 40 Minutes Before Sunset

Comments 5 comments

Lighting Shabbat Candles in Jerusalem 40 Minutes Before Sunset By William Gewirtz Introduction There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a visit to Jerusalem by R. Yoel Teitelbaum in which he is driven to the Kotel on Friday afternoon well after the customary time to light Shabbat candles in Jerusalem, 40 minutes before sunset. As his car was being stoned, he suggested that instead of adding 40 minutes to the Friday night pre-Shabbat period, it would be more appropriate that…

Read More Read More

China and the Answer to the Last Quiz

China and the Answer to the Last Quiz

Comments 18 comments

China and the Answer to the Last Quiz Marc B. Shapiro I recently returned from China and one of my friends asked me if during my time there I found anything of relevance to the Seforim Blog. He did not mean the comment seriously, but in fact I did find something. Whenever I am in synagogues I make a point of examining their collection of books, as you never know what you might come across. In Beijing I was at…

Read More Read More

image_pdfimage_print