“Ask Rabbi Google”!! ??
When Rav Yisreal Gustman Zts”l eulogized Harav Moshe Feinstein Zts”l beside his grave at Har Menuchot he mourned the loss of the last real Talmid Hacham, i.e. the last Rav whose knew all of the Torah and Shas Poskim, Rishonim and Ahronim, Midrash and Aggadata, Mussar and Hashkafa. But to comfort the mourners and the holy Niftar, Rav Gustman said something new. He said that today although no individual is likely to approach Rav Moshe in his breadth of knowledge…
The Yeshivah and the Academy: How We Can Learn from One Another in Biblical Scholarship
’s latest book, Peshat Isn’t so Simple, has just been published. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this excerpt. The Yeshivah and the Academy: How We Can Learn from One Another in Biblical Scholarship I The study of Tanakh is an awesome undertaking, given its infinite depth. This chapter will explore the approaches of the yeshivah and the academy to Tanakh study. We will define the yeshivah broadly to include any traditional religious Jewish setting, be it the synagogue,…
Book Excerpt: Turning Judaism Outward by Chaim Miller
’s Turning Judaism Outward, a comprehensive biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, has recently appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present this excerpt from pages 98-103 Some truly fascinating insights into Menachem Mendel’s inner life have surfaced recently in his correspondence with Rayatz, first published in 2010.73 The Sixth and future Seventh Rebbes were in very close contact during this period; between 1929 until 1932 alone, Rayatz penned some seventy-two letters to his son-in-law and daughter. In contrast to Reb…
What is Bothering the Aruch Hashulchan? Women Wearing Tefillin
mbroyde@emory.edu Please note that this piece isn’t meant to be construed one way or another as the view of the Seforim Blog. Introduction In our previous article, we focused on the view of the Mishnah Berurah concerning women wearing tefillin. In this article, we focus on the Aruch Hashulchan, whose approach is also complex, reflecting the complexity of the area. The Aruch Hashulchan (OC 38:6) states: נשים ועבדים פטורים מתפילין מפני שהיא מצות עשה שהזמן גרמא דשבת ויו”ט פטור מתפילין…
Demythologising the Rabbinic Aggadah: Menahem Meiri
Many of the mediaeval Jewish teachers, partly in defence of the Talmud against attack by the Karaites, partly because of their own rationalistic stance, engaged in what Marc Saperstein in a fine study has called ‘decoding the Rabbis’. That is to say, passages, especially in the Talmudic Aggadah, which seemed to them offensive to reason and general religious sensibilities, these teachers interpreted in the light of their own philosophical views, treating the Talmudic Aggadah as if it were a code…
When was the Afar of the Para Adumah lost?
Publish and Perish or Digital death
About the author: Yaakov Rosenes made Aliya from Canada after graduating from Trent Univ. and U of I Chicago Circle. In the 70’s he held various research and administrative positions at Yad HaRav Herzog, Feldheim publishers, and Machon Yerushalayim. In the 1980’s he founded the Judaica Archival Project, a Preservation and Access program for Rabbinics at JNUL. Since the 1990’s the Project has offered bibliographic and book-finding services at www.virtualgeula.com. Introduction: Since the advent of the Internet, the nature of…
Assorted Comments
1. In this post I mentioned the strange comment of R. Shabbetai Bass in his Siftei Hakhamim, Exodus 33:13, Moses thought that God was joking with him. A few readers emailed me that in the new Mikraot Gedolot Ha-Maor this passage has been deleted, i.e., censored. Here is how the passage looks in the first edition of Siftei Hakhamim, published in R. Bass’ lifetime.. Here is the passage as it appears in the censored Mikraot Gedolot Ha-Maor. Fortunately, the new…
The Pew Report and the Orthodox Community (and Other Assorted Comments), part 1
1. Here is a short piece I wrote a right after the appearance of the Pew Report. (The endnote is not part of the original article.) There has been a great deal of discussion in the wake of the recent release of the Pew Research Center’s “Portrait of Jewish Americans.” Some have focused on the report’s evidence of increasing intermarriage and lack of any Jewish connection of many in the younger generation. Others have zeroed in on some of the…
Tracing the history of eating milchigs on Shavuos
In this post I would like to deal with tracing the early sources for the minhag of eating milchigs on Shavuos. A version of this article was printed last year in the Ami Magazine (# 119). This post contains a few corrections and additions to that version. A much more expanded version of this article will appear in Hebrew shortly (IY”H). Eating the vast array of customary dairy delicacies on Shavuos including, of course, cheesecake, is a minhag that very…
Fixing a Typesetting Error in Order to Understand The View of the Mishnah Berurah on Women Wearing Tefillin
A Mild Case of Plagiarism: R. Abraham Kalmankes’ Ma’ayan Ha-Hokhmah
1. The Accusation. Rabbi Joseph Samuel ben R. Zvi (d. 1703) – more popularly known as ר’ שמואל ר’ חיים ר’ ישעיה’ס – served as a member of the rabbinic court in Cracow for some 26 years, after which he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt in 1689.1 An avid collector of books and manuscripts, he made good use of them in listing in the margins of his copy of the Talmud variant readings, emendations, and annotations to the text…
Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll
has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present the following excerpts from the book. (The Note on Artscroll is part of a longer article.) Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll Louis Jacobs References in literature to the use of tobacco by hasidic Jews are numerous . Although there is little direct evidence to indicate how widespread it was, the references suggest it was fairly extensive. Let us examine some of these. In his autobiography Solomon…
Ha-Osek be-Mitzvah Patur min ha-Mitzvah: The Case of Prayer and Torah Study
has just published a new book, On the Relationship of Mitzvot Between Man and His Neighbor and Man and His Maker. The Seforim Blog is happy to present chapter 4 from the book. Ha-Osek be-Mitzvah Patur min ha-Mitzvah: The Case of Prayer and Torah Study Daniel Sperber We find in Sefer ha-Rokeah, section 369 ad fin., that a person who is sitting in the synagogue, wrapped in his talit and with his tefillin on his head and is reciting liturgical…