Browsed by
Genre: Article

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos in General & Censorship (Part Three)

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos in General & Censorship (Part Three)

Comments 0 Comment

This post is devoted to discussing comments received regarding parts one (here) and two (here). I will also add in some of the material which I had forgotten to quote [some of which I was reminded of by readers] along with additional material that I have recently uncovered. From the outset, I would like to thank all those people who sent in comments regarding the post. My email address is eliezerbrodt@gmail.com; feel free to send comments. Censorship To begin, a…

Read More Read More

“שוק באשה ערוה”, לאיזה אבר התכוונו חז”ל?

“שוק באשה ערוה”, לאיזה אבר התכוונו חז”ל?

Comments 0 Comment

זה לקוח מהספר “אוצר רש”י” (בערך “שוק”), העומד לצאת בע”ה בקרוב והוא מילון אנציקלופדי המכיל כעשרת אלפים ערכים, הכוללים את הגדרותיו הלשוניות של רש”י במקרא ובתלמוד. הנושא הנידון הוא בירור מיקום אבר השוק באדם (שוק היא לשון נקבה, אך לא נקפיד בכך בהרצאת הדברים), כיצד נוצר הספק בדבר מיקומו וכן כיצד “מטפלים” במשנה ברורה “סורר” הפוסק שזה החלק העליון של הרגל בניגוד לדעת רוב שאר הפוסקים. במילון אבן שושן מגדיר שוק “חלק הרגל הנמצא בין הברך ובין כף הרגל” וזו…

Read More Read More

Rabboni Jesus – Confirmation from the Talmud?

Rabboni Jesus – Confirmation from the Talmud?

Comments 0 Comment

* The exchange one year ago between Pope Francis and Prime Minister Netanyahu over the language spoken by Jesus overshadowed any other news of the pope’s visit to Israel. The pope was right, of course, Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, although Netanyahu could have offered a better rejoinder than his weak “But he knew Hebrew.” He could have said: “But he prayed in Hebrew.” Among the proofs that Aramaic was the spoken language of Jesus’ time and place is the…

Read More Read More

An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey

An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey

Comments 2 comments

sefer, “Berogez Racheim Tizkor” (trans: “In your anger, you shall remember to have mercy”), whose title is based on the verse in Habbakuk 3:2 and traditionally recited each morning during Tahanun, really began as a tweet. In March 2014, I tweeted, “Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” — D Bash (@DBashIdeas) March 5, 2014 The tweet was originally intended as a satire of the many seforim that have been published as halakhic…

Read More Read More

Running on the Inclined Plane of the Altar in the Second Temple

Running on the Inclined Plane of the Altar in the Second Temple

Comments 0 Comment

בראשונה … רצין ועולים בכבש, וכל הקודם את חברו לתוך ארבע אמות זכה We read in the Mishna: [The priests used to compete for the honor of separating and removing ashes from the altar] by sprinting up the ramp. Whoever was the first to reach the top four cubits was entitled to remove the ashes. Mishna Yoma 2:1 One of the first authorities to question the practice described in this mishna was Eliezer ben Samuel of Metz who lived in…

Read More Read More

[1]: א״ל הקב״ה … יודע אני כוונתו של אהרן היאך היתה לטובה On a Short Wedding Wish to the Lichtensteins from the Pen of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

[1]: א״ל הקב״ה … יודע אני כוונתו של אהרן היאך היתה לטובה On a Short Wedding Wish to the Lichtensteins from the Pen of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg

Comments 0 Comment

I Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, zts”l, the late, lamented, “irreplaceable” gedol ha-dor of the Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist communities, has been characterized by those who knew him as a larger-than-life – indeed, angelic – leader whose complete command of every facet of Torah learning was matched only by his sterling character and superlative (almost Hafets Hayyim-like) piety. One of the things that struck me most, however, in listening to and reading several of the eulogies delivered or published after his…

Read More Read More

Notes on RASHI, ArtScroll Censorship, and Emendation of Rabbinic Texts

Notes on RASHI, ArtScroll Censorship, and Emendation of Rabbinic Texts

Comments 4 comments

A new post on the Seforim blog by Professor Marc Shapiro discusses the problem of ArtScroll publishers and the way that it routinely censors rabbinical texts: http://seforimblog.com/2015/06/more-about-rashbam-on-genesis-chapter-1.html Shapiro looks at the issue of RASHBAM’s commentary to Genesis 1, a big problem for Orthodox literalists. Here is a post from Failed Messiah that explains the difficulty: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2014/12/haredi-publisher-artscroll-censors-bible-commentary-of-leading-medieval-rabbi-678.html RASHBAM is the grandson of RASHI and the brother of Rabbenu Tam; a central figure in one of the most illustrious of all the…

Read More Read More

More About Rashbam on Genesis Chapter 1 and Further Comments about ArtScroll

More About Rashbam on Genesis Chapter 1 and Further Comments about ArtScroll

Comments 0 Comment

I had thought that I was done with ArtScroll’s censorship of Rashbam to Genesis chapter 1, but a number of people wanted some explanation about the manuscript of Rashbam’s commentary. This will also give me the opportunity to add some more comments about this distressing episode. In my prior post on the topic, available here, I referred to Rabbenu Tam’s strong words against those who “corrected” the talmudic text based on their understanding. ArtScroll is guilty of violating Rabbenu Tam’s…

Read More Read More

“Be-Esek Atevata”: A Contextual Interpretation of an Elusive Phrase in Akdamut Millin

“Be-Esek Atevata”: A Contextual Interpretation of an Elusive Phrase in Akdamut Millin

Comments 2 comments

A centerpiece of the Ashkenazic liturgy for Shavuot, Akdamut Millin is an artistically sophisticated, epically dramatic, and emotionally charged piyyut. After nearly a millennium, the liturgical-narrative masterpiece of R. Meir ben Yitzhak Sheliah Tzibbur continues to intrigue and to inspire. Towards the middle of the poem, the poet abruptly changes scenes. Speaking in his own voice, he announces that he will now praise God “before empires”: שְׁבַח ריבון עַלְמָא, אֲמִירָא דַכְוָתָא: שְׁפַר עֲלֵיהּ לְחַווּיֵהּ, בְּאַפֵּי מַלְכְּוָתָא: What follows, without warning,…

Read More Read More

Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited

Megilat Rut: The night of Boaz and Rut Revisited

Comments 1 comment

In a well known story of Megilat Rut, Naomi tells Ruth to bathe herself, put on her [best] clothes and go down at night to where Boaz is sleeping. Boaz then will “tell her” what to do. The simple implication of this story is that Ruth would be sent to make a marriage proposal to Boaz who could simply consummate the marriage immediately. It has been already noted that the story of Boaz and Ruth contains many elements of “yibum”…

Read More Read More

An (almost) Unknown Halakhic Work by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and an attempt to answer the question: who punctuated the first edition of the Shulhan Arukh?

An (almost) Unknown Halakhic Work by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and an attempt to answer the question: who punctuated the first edition of the Shulhan Arukh?

Comments 52 comments

database computer programmer in Montreal Quebec. He graduated from McGill University and studied in Lubavitch Yeshivoth in Israel and New York. In 1980, the late Rabbi Yehoshua Mondshine published a manuscript, which was a list of chapters and paragraphs (halakhot and se’fim), selected by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (RSZ), from the Shulhan Arukh (SA) of Rabbi Yosef Karo. (RYK) Figure 1: Part of the list of halakhot prepared by Rabbi Shneur Zalman and the preliminary and concluding notes written…

Read More Read More

The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics

The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist Academics

Comments 18 comments

Assistant Rabbi at Lincoln Square Synagogue and on the Judaic Studies Faculty at SAR High School. This is his second contribution to the Seforim blog. His first essay, on “The Nazir in New York,” is available (here). The last few decades have witnessed the veritable explosion of “new perspectives” and horizons in the academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. From the pioneering work of the late Professor Gershom Scholem, and the establishment of the study of Jewish Mysticism as…

Read More Read More

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two)

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos & Censorship (Part Two)

Comments 0 Comment

This post is devoted to discuss some of the various comments I have received from many different people regarding part one (here). I will also add in some of the material which I had forgotten to quote for part one [some of which I was reminded of by readers] along with additional material that I have recently uncovered. I apologize for the delay in posting this. From the outset, I would like to thank all those people who sent in…

Read More Read More

Mikva Revisited – Understanding Shabbat 13a-b in light of Parshat Metzora

Mikva Revisited – Understanding Shabbat 13a-b in light of Parshat Metzora

Comments 1 comment

(with some additional comments by Marc B. Shapiro) It is well known that when describing the purification of niddah and zava the Torah does not explicitly mention that immersion is required. The present article will briefly examine the proofs given for such an immersion and show a novel understanding of a story brought in the Talmud (Shabbat 13a-b). There are 5 most commonly brought proofs for mikva immersion. Three are brought in Tosafot (Hagiga 11a s.v. lo nitzrecha, Yevamot 47b…

Read More Read More