Browsed by
Genre: Article

Textual Emendations in Minhag Anglia

Textual Emendations in Minhag Anglia

Comments 2 comments

Harry Freedman’s The Talmud: A Biography is published by Bloomsbury Publications. His next book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations will be published by Bloomsbury in 2016 In his book Changing the Immutable Mac Shapiro notes that, for reasons of propriety, the Birnbaum siddur transliterates the words מי רגליים in פטום הקטרת , instead of translating them. Philip Birnbaum was not the only translator to be troubled by these words. In 1890 Rev. Simeon Singer produced a prayer book in…

Read More Read More

A Note Regarding Dayan Simcha Zelig Rieger’s View of Opening a Refrigerator Door on Shabbat

A Note Regarding Dayan Simcha Zelig Rieger’s View of Opening a Refrigerator Door on Shabbat

Comments 0 Comment

Thank you to Rabbi Yaacov Sasson for his comments on footnote 59 of the article “The Use of Electricity on Shabbat and Yom Tov” found in the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, 21:4-47 (Spring 1991) co-written by Rabbi Jachter and myself. It is always nice to have people commenting on articles written more than 25 years ago. Before delving into the halacha, it is worth clarifying some preliminary facts – in particular, whether refrigerators even had automatic lights during…

Read More Read More

Screen for the Spirit, Garment for the Soul

Screen for the Spirit, Garment for the Soul

Comments 0 Comment

Josh Rosenfeld is the Assistant Rabbi at Lincoln Square Synagogue and on the Judaic Studies Faculty at SAR High School. This is his third contribution to the Seforim blog. His first essay, on “The Nazir in New York,” is available here, and his second essay, “The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics,“ is available here. ב״ה אור לנר ג׳, חנוכה ה׳תשע״ו Recent years have witnessed a remarkable trend in the widespread study of Hasidic texts within Orthodox communities that themselves…

Read More Read More

An Obscure Diagram in the Bomberg Shas

An Obscure Diagram in the Bomberg Shas

Comments 20 comments

AUCTION 65: JUNE 25TH, 2015 LOT: 111 (TALMUD, BABYLONIAN). Masechta Sotah. With commentaries by Rashi, Tosaphoth, Maimonides and Rabbeinu Asher. FIRST BOMBERG EDITION .. ……Vinograd, Venice 27; Habermann, Bomberg 22. Daniel Bomberg, Venice: 1520. This Tractate contains the only appearance of a printed text illustration throughout the entire Talmud issued by Bomberg (see f. 43r). The reference to ( see f.43r ) indicates that this singular printed diagram in the Bomberg Shas appears on Daf 43A in Sotah. It is…

Read More Read More

Maimonides and Prophecy, R. Pinhas Lintop, R. José Faur, and More Examples of Censorship

Maimonides and Prophecy, R. Pinhas Lintop, R. José Faur, and More Examples of Censorship

Comments 3 comments

1. In my last post here I discussed whether Maimonides believed that the entire people of Israel experienced prophecy at Mt. Sinai. I neglected to refer to Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 8:3, which states: לפי שנבואת משה רבנו אינה על פי האותות כדי שנערוך אותות זה לאותות זה, אלא בעינינו ראינוה ובאזנינו שמענוה כמו ששמע הוא This is one of those passages that presents problems for the interpreter, since what Maimonides says in the Mishneh Torah, that all Israel experienced prophecy…

Read More Read More

Finders Keepers? The Itinerant History of Strashun Library of Vilna, Pt I

Finders Keepers? The Itinerant History of Strashun Library of Vilna, Pt I

Comments 1 comment

Since the 1990s, the issue of reparation of items looted by the Nazis has become a high-profile issue, with numerous successful attempts at reuniting owners with their stolen possessions. The recent movie, Monuments Men, fictionalized the Allies’ post-war efforts that led to the locating some of these looted treasures. While some of the best-known examples of these recovered treasures are related to art, gold, or Swiss bank accounts, Hebrew books were also part of the Nazi’s appropriation scheme and were…

Read More Read More

נוסח סליחות אשכנזי מודפס ארבע עשרה בלתי ידוע

נוסח סליחות אשכנזי מודפס ארבע עשרה בלתי ידוע

Comments 2 comments

לפי פרופ’ דניאל גולדשמידט ז”ל, יש שלש עשרה נוסחאות מודפסים של סליחות אשכנזים: אשכנז הכללי (פפד’מ), עלזאס, פיורדא-נירנברג, וורמייזא, פלאס, שוואבין-שוויץ, קוילן, אשכנזים שבאיטליה (כל הנ’ל הם שייכים לנוסח אשכנז המערבי), ליטא, פולין, בהמן, פוזנא, ובית כנסת הישן בפראג (ששייכים למנהג המזרחי). , בדרך כלל, אצל אשכנזים, נהוג לומר סליחות שונות בכל יום, ובכל הנוסחאות הנ”ל, יש סדר שונה לכל יום של ימי אלול וימי התשובה, וכן לשחרית, מוסף, ומנחה של יוהכ’פ.[4] כדי להבין את מה שמיוחד בספר סליחות שמצאתי…

Read More Read More

A Note Regarding Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer’s Position on Opening a Refrigerator on Shabbat

A Note Regarding Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer’s Position on Opening a Refrigerator on Shabbat

Comments 1 comment

The purpose of this note is to correct an error that appeared in a widely-read journal nearly 25 years ago; the error is of sufficient consequence that it necessitates a correction, even after so many years. In their article, “The Use of Electricity on Shabbat and Yom Tov”, by Rabbis Michael Broyde and Howard Jachter (Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, No. XXI, Spring 1991), the authors cite Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer, the Dayan of Brisk, as having permitted opening…

Read More Read More

Assorted Comments on R. Jacob Emden, Ashkenazic Views of Sephardic Gedolim, and More

Assorted Comments on R. Jacob Emden, Ashkenazic Views of Sephardic Gedolim, and More

Comments 1 comment

1. Since I have discussed R. Jacob Emden in many posts, let me add the following. If you examine Emden’s Birat Migdal ha-Oz you find that he refers to himself as הסריס. Here is the Berditchev 1836 edition of the work, p. 135a. I think all would agree that this is a strange title to give oneself. In this work, p. 116a, he also calls himself שלו. On p. 44a he refers to himself as שאול. On pp. 101b and…

Read More Read More

עקידת יצחק בראי הלכה

עקידת יצחק בראי הלכה

Comments 0 Comment

הפנימי המתנצנץ ובוער בלב כל נפש ישראל פנימה, ייסודו ומקורו מאותו עמוד לבת אש קודש שיקד והאיר את העולם ואת העולמות כולם, נשגב ונעלם מהשגת אנוש, טמיר ומכוסה אף משרפי מעלה ומלאכי מרום. רשפיה רשפי אש, מעמד העקידה הקדושה שעקד אברהם את יצחק בנו יחידו לה’. מעמד זה כל כולו “לב” – אהבה ויראה, צמאון ודביקות עד כלות הנפש. אך על כל שגבה ורוממותה, עם זאת, חכמי הדורות לא מנעו עצמם להעביר ענין זה בכלי ה”מוח”, ללמוד ולהבין, לבחנה בכור…

Read More Read More

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

Comments 0 Comment

(Rudolph) Klein Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of the Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew [available here]. His book is available online and in bookstores throughout the world. Rabbi Klein published articles in various journals including Jewish Bible Quarterly, Kovetz Hamaor, Kovetz Chitzei Gibborim, and Kovetz Kol HaTorah. He studied at premier Yeshivas including the Mir in Jerusalem and BMG in Lakewood. He was most recently a fellow at the Tikvah Institute for Yeshiva Men (Summer 2015) and…

Read More Read More

Rambam’s Response to the Inclusion of Chicken, Duck and Quail in Qaraite Cuisine

Rambam’s Response to the Inclusion of Chicken, Duck and Quail in Qaraite Cuisine

Comments 57 comments

In “Waiting Six Hours for Dairy- A Rabbanite Response to Qaraism” (here) I posited that Rabbeinu Chananel initiated the practice of waiting six hours between meat and dairy in order to protect Rabbanite values. This association was inspired by Dr. Bernard Revel’s studies of Rabbanite leaders’ efforts to counter sectarian influences during the early Middle Ages , as well as a shiur by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim. I then suggested that Rambam furthered this anti-Qaraite motion by including poultry into the…

Read More Read More

Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

Comments 5 comments

www.booksnthoughts.com People today read Targum Onkelos and search it for derash, halakhah, and homiletical teachings. The following will show that the rabbis in the Talmuds and Midrashim and the Bible commentators who used the Targum before the thirteenth century recognized that the Aramaic translation only contains the Torah’s peshat, its plain meaning, and not sermonic material. It will survey how the pre-thirteenth century rabbis and scholars used Onkelos and how Nachmanides changed the way the Targum was understood. It was…

Read More Read More

R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship

R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship

Comments 0 Comment

end of R. Zevin’s introduction to his Sofrim u-Sefarim we read – In R. Zevin’s footnote we see that one of the works that he wanted to review but didn’t yet get to was R. Ovadia Yosef’s two volumes of Yabia Omer. As someone who enjoys R. Zevin’s pen immensely (both his style and substance, especially the way he analyzes books and their authors) , and as someone that studies from R. Ovadia Yosef’s prolific halakhic literature quite often, I…

Read More Read More