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Category: Responsa Literature

Sixty Years Since Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish: A Fire the World Still Needs

Sixty Years Since Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish: A Fire the World Still Needs

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This week marks sixty years since the passing of Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish. He left this world on the 4th of Shevat in 1966, well before I was born, yet his presence has never felt distant to me – because it lived, vividly and lovingly, in my mother’s voice. “Shema b’ni musar avicha, v’al titosh Torat imecha” – “Hear, my child, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the Torah of your mother.” For…

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The Aderet (part 2); Sonya Diskin and R. Yitzhak Yeruham Diskin; Zvi Glatt; and a New Letter from R. Herzog

The Aderet (part 2); Sonya Diskin and R. Yitzhak Yeruham Diskin; Zvi Glatt; and a New Letter from R. Herzog

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1. Regarding R. Kook and the Aderet (R. Eliyahu Rabinowitz-Teomim), we find that R. Kook omitted something that the Aderet wrote. I don’t know if, strictly speaking, we can call this censorship, but R. Kook definitely omitted something that he was not comfortable with. Here is the Aderet speaking about himself in Nefesh David, p. 113, published by a leading student of R. Kook, R. Moshe Zvi Neriah (and printed together with the Aderet’s autobiography, Seder Eliyahu.[1a]). Look at the…

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Book review – Nafshi BiShe’elati: The Halakhot of Mental Health

Book review – Nafshi BiShe’elati: The Halakhot of Mental Health

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T.J. Hooper was a precedent-setting tort case in 1932. Two tugboats, one of which was The T.J. Hooper, were towing barges. During a storm, the barges sank, and their cargoes lost. The owners of the cargo sued the barge owners, who in turn sued the tugboat owners. The barge owners claimed that the tug operators were negligent because they failed to equip their tugs with radios that would have warned them of the bad weather. The tugboat companies defended under…

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Disputatious Divorces: Public Controversies over Gitten and Couple Relations

Disputatious Divorces: Public Controversies over Gitten and Couple Relations

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God said “It is not good that man be alone: I will make him a helper, a counterpart to him. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:18, 24) As a rose among the thorns, so is my beloved among the young women. As an apple tree among the forest trees, so is my beloved among the young men (Song of Songs 2:2,3). A man takes…

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Review of Jay R. Berkovitz’s The Pinkas of Metz

Review of Jay R. Berkovitz’s The Pinkas of Metz

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Jay R. Berkovitz, Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of Metz Rabbinic Court 1771-1789, (2 vol., 222 pp. +1084 pp.), Brill 2014 Jay R. Berkovitz, Law’s Dominion, Jewish Community, Religion and Family in Early Modern Metz,(404 pp.) Brill 2022 A decade ago, Professor Jay Berkovitz, a Professor and Chair of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, published the Pinkas (record book or register) of the Rabbinic Court in Metz. Jews began living in Metz, a town…

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Abraham Rosenberg, R. Chaim Heller, R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach on Conversion, Abortion, Mercy Killings, and new pictures and videos of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

Abraham Rosenberg, R. Chaim Heller, R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach on Conversion, Abortion, Mercy Killings, and new pictures and videos of R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

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1. In my post here I discussed the enigmatic plagiarizer Abraham Rosenberg. As we saw, in 1923 and 1924 Rosenberg published articles on the Jerusalem Talmud in the Orthodox journal Jeschurun, and he later published Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi. In this last work, Rosenberg refers to R. Chaim Heller as his friend. I and so many others assumed that “Rosenberg” was a pseudonym, but Moshe Dembitzer, the expert on everything related to R. Heller, has pointed out to me…

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New Sefer Announcement

New Sefer Announcement

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מודעא לבית ישראל, ביטול מודעה, מודעה רבה, תשובות גדולי ישראל בנדון מצות מכונה בפסח, קיא + שיא עמודים, ע”י, ר’ מרדכי קנאפפלער וישראל טרעס I am very happy to announce the republication of the original seforim published at the beginning of the Machine Matzah Controversy in Galicia in 1859. One sefer, Modah Le’beis Yisroel is a collection of Teshuvot of those who were against Machine Matzah and the other one, Bitul Modah contains the Teshuvot defending Machine Matzah. This volume…

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There is No Bracha on an Eclipse

There is No Bracha on an Eclipse

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Rabbi Michael Broyde is a law professor at Emory University School of Law and the Projects Director in its Center for the Study of Law and Religion. His most recent Torah sefer is entitled “A Concise Code of Jewish Law For Converts”. This letter was written to someone after a shiur in 2017 on why there is no bracha on seeing a solar eclipse. 1. You are correct that I said that I thought there was no bracha on an…

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New book Announcement

New book Announcement

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After being out of print for several years, a new edition of Rav Yehuda Herzl Henkin z”l’s Shu”t Bnei Banim Vol. 1 was just published. The volume remains as relevant, original, and significant as when written, 4 decades ago; and has haskamot from a first-rank lineup of gedolim: R. Gedalia Felder, R. Moshe Feinstein, R. Eliezer Waldenberg, R. Menashe Klein, R. Ovadia Yosef, R. Avram Shapira, and R. Mordechai Eliahu, all ztz”l. The new edition is annotated and punctuated, making…

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‘Yikar Sahaduta Dipum Bidatta’ R. Tzvi Hirsch Levin, the Besamim Rosh and the Chida

‘Yikar Sahaduta Dipum Bidatta’ R. Tzvi Hirsch Levin, the Besamim Rosh and the Chida

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Some of the worst epidemics we have known in our history have indirectly been the catalyst for important contributions by scholars who produced their valuable works under quarantine. Eliezer Brodt has published in these pages considerable lists of such scholarship, from bygone plagues down to the current terrible epidemic, which highlight the vast scope of this literary bounty. I recently came across a very interesting sefer-epidemic connection which I have not seen mentioned yet. This material highlights the contribution of…

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Antoninus, R. Moses Kunitz, and Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan

Antoninus, R. Moses Kunitz, and Iggerot Malkhei Rabbanan

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Returning to our discussion of Antoninus, we now come to a figure we have often dealt with in previous posts, R. Moses Kunitz, who for some reason has become much more controversial in recent years than he was during his lifetime. In his biography of R. Judah ha-Nasi, found at the beginning of the Vilna Mishnayot, R. Kunitz writes as follows: (ומערה היתה פתוחה לפני בית רבי בעיר טבריא שהיתה גדולה מאד והגיע עד בית מלך בעיר רומי כמאמרם (עבודת…

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Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?

Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?

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Though this article deals with a factual question, it often seems to devolve into an ideological one. I therefore wish to state: I have no horse in this fight. I have not taken halakhic positions from Igrot Moshe volumes 7-9. I went into this with a genuinely open mind, and in the course of researching this question, I have taken the affirmative and negative sides of this question at different points. Ever since Igrot Moshe volume 8 was published, and…

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Conservative Conversions, Some Grammatical Points, and a Newly Published Section of a Letter from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Conservative Conversions, Some Grammatical Points, and a Newly Published Section of a Letter from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik

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1. Since I mentioned R. Ovadiah Hoffman in the last post, I would be remiss in not noting that he and his brother, R. Yissachar Dov, recently published volume 4 of Ha-Mashbir, devoted to R. Ovadiah Yosef. It can be purchased here. The volume contains a previously unpublished letter by R. Ovadiah Yosef that I provided, dealing with a rabbi who improperly converted people. It also contains a number of other noteworthy sections, such as R. Ovadiah’s notes to R….

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Gems from Rav Herzog’s Archive (Part 2): Sanhedrin, Dateline, the Rav on Kahane, and More

Gems from Rav Herzog’s Archive (Part 2): Sanhedrin, Dateline, the Rav on Kahane, and More

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EDIT Please see this post for a crucial correction – it is the conclusion of the Rav’s family that the letter in the Herzog Archive about Kahane is a forgery. This post continues from Part 1, here. V Renewal of Sanhedrin Another important file in Rav Herzog’s archive is his file on the renewal of Semicha and the Sanhedrin. Among other letters, the file contains an unpublished letter from Rav Herzog to R’ Yehuda Leib Maimon regarding the issue. R’…

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There is No Bracha on an Eclipse

There is No Bracha on an Eclipse

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Rabbi Michael Broyde is a law professor at Emory University School of Law and the Projects Director in its Center for the Study of Law and Religion. His most recent Torah sefer is entitled “A Concise Code of Jewish Law For Converts”. This letter was written to someone after a shiur on why there is no bracha on seeing a solar eclipse. 1. You are correct that I said that I thought there was no bracha on an eclipse. I…

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