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Le-Tacen Olam (לתכן עולם): Establishing the Correct Text in Aleinu

Le-Tacen Olam (לתכן עולם): Establishing the Correct Text in Aleinu

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(mfirstatty@aol.com) The Jewish obligation of עולם תקון (=improving the world) is widely referred to and it is traditionally assumed that the Aleinu prayer is one of the texts upon which this obligation is based. This article will show that a very strong case can be made that the original version of Aleinu read עולם לתכן (=to establish the world under God’s sovereignty), and not עולם לתקן (=to perfect/improve the world under God’s sovereignty ). If so, the concept of עולם…

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R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and the Army, and Joe DiMaggio

R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and the Army, and Joe DiMaggio

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1. There is a lot of talk these days about haredim serving in the army. Understandably, the famous essay of R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin has been cited. In this essay, R. Zevin rejects the notion that yeshiva students shouldn’t have to serve. The essay used to be found at http://www.hebrewbooks.org/32904 but it was removed, together with other “problematic” books. (You can see evidence of it having been on hebrewbooks by this archive.org snapshot of the page.) Here is the essay…

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חכמים הזהרו בציון מקורותיכם – חוסר עיון במקורות ועל ראשי תיבות

חכמים הזהרו בציון מקורותיכם – חוסר עיון במקורות ועל ראשי תיבות

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לאחר שקראתי את הפוסט המעניין מאוד של פרופ’ מרק שפירו, אמרתי כי עכשו הזמן להוסיף עוד משהו בבחינת מעניין לעניין באותו עניין. מה הוא דיבר על דרכם של כותבים בדורנו, אף אני אכתוב על פרט מסויים בדרכם של הכותבים בדורנו. הפרט שאני רוצה להצביע עליו הוא שיש מחברים המציינים את המקור לדבריהם, ואף מפנים את הלומד לעיין באותו מקור, אבל הם עצמם לא עיינו באותו מקור. אילו היו מטריחים עצמם לעשות כן, היו רואים שמקור זה לא היה ולא נברא….

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Rav Shmuel ben Hofni Gaon

Rav Shmuel ben Hofni Gaon

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Rav Shmuel ben Hofni HaKohen, was born into an aristocratic family among the hierarchy of the Pumbadithan Yeshiva in Baghdad. His grandfather, Rav Kohen Zedek ben Yosef was appointed Gaon of Pumbaditha by the Resh Galuta, David b. Zakkai in 926. Rav Sherira, in his renowned epistle to Rav Yaakov b. Nissim of Kairouan states: “there was a disagreement between the Yeshiva’s Rabbis and Rav Mevasser HaKohen ben Rav Kimoi Gaon was appointed Gaon, with David Nasi appointing Rav Kohen…

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What is wrong with Artscroll?

What is wrong with Artscroll?

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A better question would be is what is right? The latest work produced by Artscroll in the Milstein Series is Isaiah . Written by Rabbi Nosson Scherman, the general editor of Artsrtscroll himself, it is the inaugural volume of the interpretation of the Later Prophets. Firstly, one must praise Artscroll for a completely new typesetting of the Rashi, Radak, Metzuadas David and Metzudas Zion. But to what purpose? If was to give us a clear text, has not a clearly…

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Plagiarism, Halakhic Paradox, and the Malbim on Kohelet

Plagiarism, Halakhic Paradox, and the Malbim on Kohelet

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1. A story recently appeared alleging plagiarism in the writings of R. Yonah Metzger. Such accusations are nothing new and the topic of plagiarism in rabbinic history is of great interest to me. Many of the scholars of Jewish bibliography have also written about the phenomenon, and a good deal on the topic has appeared on the Seforim Blog. Suffice it to say that every generation has had problems in this regard, and we see even see apparent instances of…

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The Kabbalat Shabbat Memorandum by Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber

The Kabbalat Shabbat Memorandum by Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber

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acrid debate on women leading the Kabbalat Shabbat service appeared, at first, to be primarily a halachic one. But it soon overflowed into additional areas, revealing it as a clearly political polemic. Indeed, I found the whole discussion which appeared on a whole series of blogs, and a major published article, most astonishing. We are not talking about women reading the Torah and/or having aliyot. The criticisms raised against this practice I can well appreciate, though I disagree with them…

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Partnership Minyanim and More

Partnership Minyanim and More

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1. A few people have wanted me to comment on the recent debate between Rabbis Barry Freundel and Zev Farber about the so-called Partnership Minyanim in which women lead Kabbalat Shabbat. See here. The issue goes back to R. Freundel’s article in Tradition 44:2 (2011) on the topic. I was planning to respond to this article when it first appeared, and even wrote some pages, but I never completed the piece. Since the issue has once again surfaced, now is…

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Deciphering the Talmud: The First English Edition of the Talmud Revisited. Michael Levi Rodkinson: His Translation of the Talmud, and the Ensuing Controversy

Deciphering the Talmud: The First English Edition of the Talmud Revisited. Michael Levi Rodkinson: His Translation of the Talmud, and the Ensuing Controversy

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’s new book, Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden, 2013), the Seforim Blog is happy to present this abridgment of chapter 13. Deciphering the Talmud: The First English Edition of the Talmud Revisited. Michael Levi Rodkinson: His Translation of the Talmud, and the Ensuing Controversy Marvin J. Heller The Talmud, the quintessential Jewish book, is a challenging work. A source of Bible interpretation, halakhah, ethical values, and ontology, often described as a sea, it is…

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Rav Kook’s Missing Student

Rav Kook’s Missing Student

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Recent years have seen a breakthrough regarding the elusive identity of “Monsieur Chouchani,” the mysterious vagabond who in the capacity of mentor, exerted such an incredibly profound effect upon the Nobel-laureate novelist Elie Wiesel as well as the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in the post-war, post-Holocaust years in France. I am referring to the identification of Chouchani as none other than Hillel Pearlman, an early student of Rav Kook in his short-lived Jaffa Yeshivah. Pivotal to the identification (which we shall…

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‘Masa’ot Yerushalayim’ and the ‘Sabba Kaddisha’ R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari

‘Masa’ot Yerushalayim’ and the ‘Sabba Kaddisha’ R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari

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One of the greatest and most unique Torah scholars, Sephardic or otherwise, of the past 100 years was R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari . His life spanned about a century and his prolific rabbinic career included stints in Istanbul, Damascus, Safed and Jerusalem. Besides for being an outstanding scholar with a near-photographic memory he was also extremely diligent and was a prodigious writer of responsa and novellae. Additionally, he was renowned as an independent thinker and outspoken critic of many of…

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Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography

Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography

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Dan Rabinowitz has provided us which a characteristically learned pre-Passover post on the Prague 1526 Haggadah, specifically concerning the illustrations on its borders, and from those borders continues on to the always contentious subject of breasts, a bare set (or rather, two bare sets) of which he claims may be found on the title page of that edition. Indeed, on both the right and left borders of the title page may be found rather curious figures with non-human faces but…

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The Cup for the Visitor: What lies behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu?

The Cup for the Visitor: What lies behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu?

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In this post I would like to deal with tracing the early sources for the Kos Shel Eliyahu. A version of this article was printed last year in Ami Magazine (# 65). 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). One of the memorable parts of the seder night is during Shefoch Chamascha when we open the door for Eliyahu Hanavi to come…

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A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah

A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah

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The Prague 1526 edition of the Haggadah is one of the most important illustrated haggadot ever published. It is perhaps the earliest printed illustrated haggadah for a Jewish audience and served as a model for many subsequent illustrated haggadot. The earliest printed haggadah with illustration was published in 1512 in Latin and for a non-Jewish audience. That haggadah contains six woodcuts, and was intended as a response to the infamous anti-Semite Pfefferkorn’s screeds against Judaism. The woodcut accompanying the first…

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Torah mi-Sinai and More

Torah mi-Sinai and More

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1. Some people have requested that I do more posts on theological matters, as I have done in the past. So let me begin with what I think will be a three-part series on Torah mi-Sinai. In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” was not authentic. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that even in the past everyone had to accept Maimonides’…

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