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Category: Geonim & Rishonim

Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?

Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?

Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism? By Rabbi Akiva Males I – The European Cheder Rebbi and the Ba’alei Tosafos[1] While completing my Kollel studies in the early 2000’s, I took part in a well-run teacher’s training program. During one session, a noted Jewish educator shared the following first-hand experience: In speaking with an old-school European cheder rebbi years earlier, he asked that rebbi how he shared positive reinforcement with his young charges. The rebbi was confused…

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Book Review: ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman

Book Review: ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman

Review of ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman Reviewed by Eliyahu Krakowski   Dr. Marc Herman’s After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines shifting conceptions of Torah she-beʿal peh within the Judeo-Islamic world from the geonic period through the time of Maimonides.[1] Beginning with Rav Saadya Gaon and concluding with the Rambam, Herman traces a gradual reorientation away from the geonic understanding of…

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Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger

Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger

Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger Marc Herman Marc Herman is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and a core member of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. His research focuses on Jewish and Islamic intellectual history in the medieval Mediterranean. He is the coeditor of Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism, and Kabbalah (Brill, 2021) and his monograph, titled After Revelation: The Rabbinic…

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Organizing the Mitzvot and the Sefer Ha-Chinukh

Organizing the Mitzvot and the Sefer Ha-Chinukh

Organizing the Mitzvot and the Sefer Ha-Chinukh Yaakov Taubes Yaakov Taubes is the rabbi at Mount Sinai Jewish Center in Washington Heights, New York. He also serves as an assistant director at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, and is a PhD candidate in Medieval Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies. He can be reached at rabbi@mtsinaishul.com. This article follows from the excellent piece by Eli Genauer about the printing and reorganization…

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Book Announcement: New Work on the Kabbalah of the Ramban

Book Announcement: New Work on the Kabbalah of the Ramban

Book Announcement: New Work on the Kabbalah of the Ramban By Eliezer Brodt פירושי וחיבורי תלמידי הרשב“א על קבלת הרמב“ן, תש“ט עמודים, מוסד הרב קוק One of the most important classical commentaries on the Torah is that of R. Moses Nachmanides, Ramban (See here). In addition to his more straightforward comments, the commentary contains significant kabbalisitic ones as well.  Usually, these will be introduced by ועל דרך האמת. Many skip these parts when learning the work. Almost immediately after the…

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The Breadth of Rabbinic Opinion Regarding Mosaic Authorship of the Torah in the Middle Ages

The Breadth of Rabbinic Opinion Regarding Mosaic Authorship of the Torah in the Middle Ages

The Breadth of Rabbinic Opinion Regarding Mosaic Authorship of the Torah in the Middle Ages By Ben Zion Katz, MD Arguably, Orthodox theology today is much narrower than what was acceptable in the Middle Ages.  For example, ArtScroll is editing Rashbam’s (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, ca 1080 -1174) more radical comments out of their new edition of the Rabbinic Bible (Mikraot Gedolot).[1]   In this paper, I will discuss a dramatic example of Biblical exegesis, which could even be considered…

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