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Jacob’s Dream: Reproducing a Talismanic Illustrated Title Page

Jacob’s Dream: Reproducing a Talismanic Illustrated Title Page

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‘s personal collection, and the rest are courtesy of the internet.) One of the earliest examples of Jewish art are the biblical paintings at the Dura Europos Synagogue, completed in 244-5 C.E. Among those images is that of Jacob’s dream. The importance of the Dura Europos iconography in the development of Jewish art is hard to overestimate. “The iconographic formulas, seen for the first time in the Dura synagogue would recur both in Jewish art and Christian art, in widely…

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Pandemic Bibliopenia: A Preliminary Report of Disease Eradication

Pandemic Bibliopenia: A Preliminary Report of Disease Eradication

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The number of seforim written during, about or related to the Covid 19 pandemic continues to grow at breakneck speed. What has largely gone unnoticed among the other unprecedented aspects of this pandemic, is that since the development of the printing press, we have not seen so much quality rabbinic literature produced in the midst of a pandemic. In fact, if anything, a diminution in the quantity and quality of literature was more the norm during previous pandemics. This literature…

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The Significance of Avraham Avinu’s Performance of the Mitzvot

The Significance of Avraham Avinu’s Performance of the Mitzvot

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Perfection for a Jew can only be realized through the performance of the mitzvot [commandments] of the Torah, which were given from G-d to Moshe on Sinai [Matan Torah]. Since man is finite, his thinking and understanding is limited and constrained to factors of time and space. Man is not capable, and it is beyond his intellectual reach, to calculate a finite system that can relate to the infinite ruchaniyut world—existence beyond time and space. Man needed a revelation from…

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Rabbi Steinman and the Messiah, part 1

Rabbi Steinman and the Messiah, part 1

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Since in a recent post I discussed Maimonides and the Principle of the Messiah, let me add one more thing. Yet before doing so, I need to make a few preliminary comments. Many readers know about the Peleg, which has caused all sorts of problems in Jerusalem. After the passing of R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the simmering dispute in the Lithuanian world broke out into the open, and a minority of the Lithuanian community refused to accept the leadership of…

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What Became of Tychsen?: The Non-Jewish ‘Rabbi’ and his “Congregation” of Jewish Medical Students

What Became of Tychsen?: The Non-Jewish ‘Rabbi’ and his “Congregation” of Jewish Medical Students

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This essay was inspired by two recent Seforim blog posts, one on Professor Shnayer Leiman’s contributions, and the other on a topic related to R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz. In November 16, 2006 an article by Dr. Shnayer Leiman appeared in the newly formed Seforim Blog entitled, “Two Cases of Non-Jews with Rabbinic Ordination: One Real and One Imaginary.” The “real” ordination was bestowed upon Olaf Gerhard Tychsen (1734-1815). In 1759, Tychsen received the title of Haver, a lower form of rabbinic…

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Parshanut in English: Rabbinic Bible Commentary in Translation

Parshanut in English: Rabbinic Bible Commentary in Translation

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The following revises, expands upon and updates my previous effort on this forum. Originally it was meant as a ten year retrospective, to see not only which works were completed in that time span but also which commentators were first touched upon. Of course, in the course of my research, I found several errors of mine from the earlier edition, and many items I had neglected to include, or was not even aware of before. Technical difficulties have delayed its…

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Kol Nidrei, Choirs, and Beethoven: The Eternity of the Jewish Musical Tradition

Kol Nidrei, Choirs, and Beethoven: The Eternity of the Jewish Musical Tradition

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‘s post from 2018. On April 23, 1902, the cornerstone to the Taharat Ha-Kodesh synagogue was laid, and on Rosh Ha-Shana the next year, September 7, 1903, the synagogue was officially opened. The synagogue building was on one of Vilna’s largest boulevards and constructed in a neo-Moorish architectural style, capped with a blue cupola that was visible for blocks. There was a recessed entry with three large arches and two columns. The interior housed an impressive ark, located in a…

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The Twice Told Tale of R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz and the Porger

The Twice Told Tale of R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz and the Porger

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Moshe Haberman currently lives in Los Angeles and is a businessman. Originally from New York, he learned in Brisk and publishes the Torah journal Chitzei Giborim. Introduction The only Halachic sefer published in the lifetime of R’ Yonasan Eybeshuts was the ספר כרתי ופלתי which is a פירוש on Shuchan Aruch Yoreh Deah, dealing with issues of treifos, basar b’chalav, taaruvos, etc. The sefer was published in 1763, a year before his death in 1764 in Altona, which at that…

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Romm Press, Haggadah Art, Controversial Books, and other Bibliographical Historica

Romm Press, Haggadah Art, Controversial Books, and other Bibliographical Historica

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Legacy Judaica’s fall auction is next week, September 13, and we wanted to highlight some bibliographical historica. Lot 95 is Elbona shel Torah, (Berlin, 1929), by R. Shmuel Shraga Feigneshon, known as Safan ha-Sofer. He helmed the operations of the Romm Press in Vilna. During his 55-year tenure, he oversaw the publication of the monumental Vilna Shas, among numerous other canonical works that became the model for all subsequent editions. He wrote a history of the press which first appeared…

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“Did The Bach Really Draw a Cow?” Eruvin 20 b – Hagahot HaBach on Rashi “הא אתמר עלה”

“Did The Bach Really Draw a Cow?” Eruvin 20 b – Hagahot HaBach on Rashi “הא אתמר עלה”

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The diagram in the first edition of the Bach (1824) is much more accurate than how it is depicted in later editions, especially the Vilna Shas. The Bach’s picture features a long feeding trough, (an אבוס), whereas Vilna and others show it looking more like something attached to the animal. The Zhitomir Shas compounds the error by leaving out an essential characteristic of the situation under discussion. The new editions of the Talmud get it much better. The one diagram…

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R. Ahron Soloveichik: “In Defense of My Brother”

R. Ahron Soloveichik: “In Defense of My Brother”

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In his recent post here Professor Shnayer Leiman showed how almost magically, things from the past, thought to be lost, can be brought back to life as it were. I recently had the same experience. In my Torah in Motion class a couple of weeks ago (see here) I was discussing the Jewish Observer “eulogy” for R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. I mentioned R. Moshe Tendler’s strong response in the Algemeiner Journal (see here), and I further noted that R. Ahron…

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In Praise of Ephemera: A Picture Postcard from Vilna Reveals its Secrets More than One Hundred Years after its Original Publication

In Praise of Ephemera: A Picture Postcard from Vilna Reveals its Secrets More than One Hundred Years after its Original Publication

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I belong to a small group of inveterate collectors of Jewish ephemera. We collect artifacts that many others consider of little or no significance, such as postage stamps; coins and medallions; old posters, broadsides, and newspaper clippings; outdated New Years cards; wine-stained Passover Haggadot; Jewish ornaments, objects (e.g., Chanukkah dreidels) and artwork of a previous generation; photographs and postcards; and the like. The items we collect – all of Jewish interest – take up much space in our homes; they…

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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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Post-Mosaic Additions to the Torah?

Post-Mosaic Additions to the Torah?

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H. J. Zimmels published the two passages from R. Avigdor just mentioned,[1] but there is another comment that appears as a note to R. Avigdor’s manuscript. It has recently been published by Miriam Weitman,[2] and states: וישם את אפרים לפני מנשה פי’ לא על יעקב אמ’, אל’ משה רבינ’ שם ראש דגל אפרי’ לפני מנשה בעבור שיעקב אמ’ ואחיו הקטן יגדל ממנו, ויהושע או אנשי כנסת הגדול’ כתבו, דאי משה כתבו אם היה לו [צ”ל היה לו לומר] אני שמתי…

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