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Category: Rabbinic Biography & Personalities

Yehuda Azoulay’s Maran: The Life and Scholarship of Hacham Ovadia Yosef

Yehuda Azoulay’s Maran: The Life and Scholarship of Hacham Ovadia Yosef

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’s Maran: The Life and Scholarship of Hacham Ovadia Yosef has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this excerpt. Chapter 17: Back to Jerusalem In 1958, Hacham Ovadia was invited to serve as a judge on the Jerusalem bet din, beside Rabbi Waldenberg and Rabbi Qafih. His gratitude for being able to move back to Jerusalem is displayed in his third volume of Yabia Omer, published in 1960, and his joy and satisfaction at serving on this…

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Book Review: Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s Minchat Aviv

Book Review: Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s Minchat Aviv

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Minchat Aviv: Studies in Talmudic Topics (Hebrew) HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein Editor: Rav Elyakim Krumbein Jerusalem: Maggid Books and Yeshivat Har Etzion, 2014 xvi + 659 pages; source and subject indexes Available here. A person must exert considerable effort before producing words of Torah and wisdom. Toiling in Torah can be compared to toil in working the land: one must plow and sow, irrigate and fertilize, hoe and aerate, develop and cultivate, harvest and gather. Only after one completes all these…

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The Creative Craftsman: Adorning The Torah, One Crown At A Time

The Creative Craftsman: Adorning The Torah, One Crown At A Time

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received her M.A. in Bible from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. Based in Chicago, she is a Judaic Studies teacher, tutor, writer, and lecturer and can be reached at oliviafried-at-gmail-dot-com. It’s not surprising that there are many overlooked biblical commentators. However, R’ Zalman Sorotzkin’s is one who ought to be rescued from relative obscurity. Sorotzkin’s biography and tumultuous history helped shape his unique outlook upon Tanakh. His vision and appreciation for cultural context allows readers access to…

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Book Excerpt: Turning Judaism Outward by Chaim Miller

Book Excerpt: Turning Judaism Outward by Chaim Miller

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’s Turning Judaism Outward, a comprehensive biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, has recently appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this excerpt from pages 98-103 Some truly fascinating insights into Menachem Mendel’s inner life have surfaced recently in his correspondence with Rayatz, first published in 2010.73 The Sixth and future Seventh Rebbes were in very close contact during this period; between 1929 until 1932 alone, Rayatz penned some seventy-two letters to his son-in-law and daughter. In contrast to Reb…

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The Vilna Gaon, part 3 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius) by Marc B. Shapiro

The Vilna Gaon, part 3 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius) by Marc B. Shapiro

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In honor of Sean Penn and Mark Wahlberg, who understand what pidyon shevuyim is all about. Continued from here.Returning to R. Sternbuch’s Ta’am ve-Da’at, vol. 1, earlier in this book, p. 88, we find the following passage. שמעתי ממרן הגריז”ס זצ”ל (הגאב”ד דבריסק) שאברהם אבינו לא היה עצבני וחושש ומפחד שהולך לשחוט בנו יחידו, אלא היה לו הלילה שלפני העקדה ככל הלילות, ולא נתרגש מצווי זה וקם בבוקר לקיים המצוה כשם שמקיימים כל מצוה, והשכים כזריזין שמקדימים למצוות, ושש ושמח…

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The Vilna Gaon, part 2 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius)

The Vilna Gaon, part 2 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius)

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Continued from here. Another reference by the Gaon to the Guide – in this case it is only attributed to him – is found in his comment to Bava Kamma 92b (commenting on (בירא דשתית מיניה לא תשדי בי קלא, which has been published in a number of different sources, most conveniently in the commentary Anaf Yosef to Ein Yaakov, Bava Kamma 92b. The Gaon quoted the Guide as saying that if you find one good thing in a book…

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The Vilna Gaon, Part 1: How Modern Was He?

The Vilna Gaon, Part 1: How Modern Was He?

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Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism (New Haven, 2013) Eliyahu Stern has set for himself a daunting task and argues his case with conviction. He intends to correct a widespread assumption shared not only by the general public, but by the scholarly community as well. According to this narrative, the Vilna Gaon (hereafter the Gaon) should not be seen as a traditionalist defender of the past, but actually a modern Jew and one…

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Lawrence Kaplan’s review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius

Lawrence Kaplan’s review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius

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‘s review of the work which will be followed up by a three-part post by Marc Shapiro Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism. New Haven: Yale University Press 2013, pp. xiv+322.* My father, of blessed memory, was an Orthodox Jew of Lithuanian descent, a “Litvak.” Though he was a businessman all his life, he, like many traditional Litvaks, always kept up his study of classical Jewish texts, both biblical and rabbinic. I remember…

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Who was Reb Shlomo?

Who was Reb Shlomo?

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(Offenbacher) Natan Ophir’s book, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: Life, Mission, and Legacy, has just appeared. This is a complete biography of Carlebach’s life (not a hagiography) and is essential for anyone with an interest in Carlebach. The Seforim Blog is happy to include this excerpt from the book, pp. 413-419. 1. Who was Reb Shlomo? Who was Reb Shlomo Carlebach? This question was deliberated in the obituaries after his death. Elli Wohlgelernter of The Jerusalem Post tried to describe Shlomo’s elusive…

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Special Lecture by Dr. Marc Shapiro

Special Lecture by Dr. Marc Shapiro

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On Nov. 24, 2013 at 7:30pm, Dr. Marc Shapiro will deliver a lecture at the home of Shlomo and Hannah Sprecher, 1274 East 23rd Street (between Ave. L & M) in Brooklyn. The title of the lecture is Rabbinic Biographies: Personal Reflections on the Balance Between Reverence and Historical Truth. All Seforim Blog readers (and anyone else) are cordially invited to attend. For those who are interested, Dr. Shapiro will also be speaking at the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn…

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R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Kitniyot, R. Judah Mintz, and More

R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Kitniyot, R. Judah Mintz, and More

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1. The last post dealt with R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and I pick up with him here. Before moving forward, I have to thank R. Moshe Maimon who sent me a PDF of the essay attributed to R. Zevin which I discussed in the last post. It comes from the hebrewbooks.org hard drive that was released some time ago. You can see it here. I also thank R. Eliezer Brodt who pointed out that both R. Zvi Pesah Frank and…

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Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

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Dear Seforim Blog readers, This past Monday an era ended. As many prominent rabbonim mentioned, during the levaya of Rav Ovadia Yosef, there was the era of Tannaim, the era of Amoraim, Geonim, Rishonim, Achronim and the era of Rav Ovadia Meor Yisroel. Each one of us merited living in his generation. He was the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation (Sukkah 39a), not merely in personal greatness but characteristically as well. He acquired the Torah reaching great heights, nevertheless descended…

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Soloveitchick’s Act of Selfless Heroism, 1785

Soloveitchick’s Act of Selfless Heroism, 1785

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Michael K. Silber is the Cardinal Franz Koenig Senior Lecturer in Austrian Studies in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew U. He has taught at Harvard, Stanford and the Central European University and during the 2013-2014 academic year, he is the Jacob Perlow Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Yale. He also serves as the Chair of the Board of the Central Archives of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. His researches focus on the Jews of Central…

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R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and the Army, and Joe DiMaggio

R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and the Army, and Joe DiMaggio

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1. There is a lot of talk these days about haredim serving in the army. Understandably, the famous essay of R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin has been cited. In this essay, R. Zevin rejects the notion that yeshiva students shouldn’t have to serve. The essay used to be found at http://www.hebrewbooks.org/32904 but it was removed, together with other “problematic” books. (You can see evidence of it having been on hebrewbooks by this archive.org snapshot of the page.) Here is the essay…

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