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Genre: Obituary & Tribute

A Tribute to Rav Shlomo Elyashiv, Author of Leshem Shevo v-Achloma: On his Ninetieth Yahrzeit

A Tribute to Rav Shlomo Elyashiv, Author of Leshem Shevo v-Achloma: On his Ninetieth Yahrzeit

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Joey Rosenfeld is a psychotherapist in St. Louis where he moved with his family. He published his first sefer, sc’hok d’yitzchak on the Kabbalistic theme butzina d’kardinusa, or darkened light. He is currently working on a monograph of R. Shlomo Elyashiv and the philosophical and psychoanalytic themes in Leshem Shevo v-Achloma. His first essay at the Seforim Blog, is entitled: “Dorshei Yichudcha: A Portrait of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson,” is available available here. Here is buried Holy anointing oil, the…

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Toil of the Mind and Heart: A Meditation in Memory of Rabbi Yehoshua Mondshine

Toil of the Mind and Heart: A Meditation in Memory of Rabbi Yehoshua Mondshine

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Rabbi Eli Rubin is a writer and editor at Chabad.org, and works to further intercommunal and interdisciplinary study of Chassidism. Many of his articles can be viewed online here . This is his first essay at the Seforim Blog. A new anthology mines the oral teachings of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi for new insight into the historical development of his leadership and the crystallization of his ideology, and also charts the impact of Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin and Rabbi…

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Hot Tears For A Close Friend: Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D

Hot Tears For A Close Friend: Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D

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I shall never forget when I first met Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D three years ago. At the time I had begun preparing a study on the parting of minds in the kollels of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem 150 years ago. I managed to get my hands on a lot of rare sources, but the morass of material only beclouded the depths of the goings-on in the city at the time. The main purpose of my study was to ascertain…

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David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

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Professor David Assaf is the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair of Jewish Studies, the Chair of the Department of Jewish History, and the Director of the Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations, at Tel-Aviv University. A Hebrew version of this essay appeared at the Oneg Shabbat blog (6 October 2015) (http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2015/10/blog-post.html), and was translated by Daniel Tabak of New York, with permission of Professor David Assaf. This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog. Eitam Henkin…

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The Man who Tried to Put it All Together: A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

The Man who Tried to Put it All Together: A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

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Yehudah Mirsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University, and the author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale University Press), available here (link). This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog. Jerusalem of the 1930s was boiled in fury. The inevitability of bitter conflict with the Arabs of Palestine had become too clear to deny, while the fighting among Jews,…

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Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

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Dear Seforim Blog readers, This past Monday an era ended. As many prominent rabbonim mentioned, during the levaya of Rav Ovadia Yosef, there was the era of Tannaim, the era of Amoraim, Geonim, Rishonim, Achronim and the era of Rav Ovadia Meor Yisroel. Each one of us merited living in his generation. He was the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation (Sukkah 39a), not merely in personal greatness but characteristically as well. He acquired the Torah reaching great heights, nevertheless descended…

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“Rabbi David Hoffmann, ZL” by Eliezer M. Lipschuetz – A Translation

“Rabbi David Hoffmann, ZL” by Eliezer M. Lipschuetz – A Translation

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Introduction, Translation, and Notes by David S. Zinberg David S. Zinberg blogs at Realia Judaica. Introduction Rabbi Dr. David Zvi Hoffmann was a unique figure in the history of both German Jewish Orthodoxy and academic Jewish Studies. He was widely regarded by contemporaries as an unequaled master of Halakha and Wissenschaft, and as a major leader in both communities. The biographical essay below by Eliezer Meir Lipschuetz, translated from Hebrew, was attached to the Hebrew translation (by Eliezer Barishansky) of…

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Dovid Bashevkin – Perpetual Prophecy: An Intellectual Tribute to Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin on his 110th Yahrzeit

Dovid Bashevkin – Perpetual Prophecy: An Intellectual Tribute to Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin on his 110th Yahrzeit

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Reb Zadok ha-Kohen Rabinowitz of Lublin (hereafter: “Reb Zadok”) was born in 1823 into a noted rabbinic family. From a young age, we are told, he displayed signs of astonishing genius. While many of these stories are questionable, it is evident that by the time he celebrated his bar mitzvah he was extremely thoroughly familiar with the standard rabbinic corpus and could navigate it easily. By the time he turned twenty he had already written several works on Talmudic law…

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Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet: Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom

Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet: Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom

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For those who have not seen the obituary notice in the New York Times (Aug 14, 2007; B6), the Seforim blog records the passing of Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom, a pulpit rabbi for over fifty years and longtime faculty member at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. He was the author of Luzzatto’s Ethico-Psychological Interpretation of Judaism: A Study in the Religious Philosophy of Samuel David Luzzatto (New York: Yeshiva University, 1965); Tradition in an Age of Reform: The Religious…

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Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for Prof. Mordechai Breuer zt”l

Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for Prof. Mordechai Breuer zt”l

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Professsor Mordechai Breuer passed away on the twelfth of Sivan, 5767. It is a great loss for the world of Jewish scholarship as well as that of Orthodox Jewry. Breuer, born in Frankfurt in 1918, was the great-grandson of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, the grandson of R. Shlomo Zalman Breuer, who succeeded Hirsch as Rav of the Frankfurt separatist community, and the son of Dr. Isaac Breuer, the leading theoretician of the Agudah (although the latter’s philosophy would later diverge…

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Obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l (Dei’ah veDibur)

Obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l (Dei’ah veDibur)

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As a followup to a previous post, here is an excerpt from the obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l, that appeared in Dei’ah veDibur: At the age of 19 he wanted to leave home to study in one of the illustrious yeshivas of Lithuania, but his father felt that given the dearth of rabbonim in Germany communities, before going to yeshiva he should study at a place that provides rabbinical training (smichus). He sent the young man to Beis…

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Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007), the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary

Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007), the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary

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HaRav Yosef Tzvi Dunner, who recently passed away in London at the age of 94, was the scion of a prominent European rabbinical family and father and grandfather of noted British Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abba Dunner and Rabbi Pini Dunner, respectively. In a recent email correspondence with Professor Marc B. Shapiro, author of the landmark biographical study of Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg and several articles related to the leaders of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, he informed me that Rabbi Yosef…

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Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for R. Yosef Buxbaum zt”l

Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for R. Yosef Buxbaum zt”l

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The Torah world lost a very important figure earlier this month, with the passing of R. Yosef Buxbaum at age 62. In fact, I can’t think of anyone, in the entire history of Torah publishing, who achieved as much as he. There is a lot that can be said about Rabbi Buxbaum, but for the purposes of the Seforim blog his relevant achievement is the founding, and directing for many years, of Machon Yerushalayim. While at one time Mossad ha-Rav…

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Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet. Rabbi Prof. Mordechai (ben Shamshon) Breuer (1921-2007)

Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet. Rabbi Prof. Mordechai (ben Shamshon) Breuer (1921-2007)

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Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet. Rabbi Prof. Mordechai (ben Shamshon) Breuer (also here), scion of the prominent German rabbinical family and world expert on Tanakh and on the Aleppo Codex, has passed away in Yerushalayim. (He was a cousin to the noted Jewish Historian, who shares his same name.) An appreciation to Rabbi Breuer and his work appeared in the Orthodox Forum volume, Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations (Jason Aronson, 1996), a project of Yeshiva University. He…

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