Rabbi Michael Broyde is a law professor at Emory University School of Law and the Projects Director in its Center for the Study of Law and Religion. His most recent Torah sefer is entitled “A Concise Code of Jewish Law For Converts”. This letter was written to someone after a shiur on why there is no bracha on seeing a solar eclipse. 1. You are correct that I said that I thought there was no bracha on an eclipse. I…
The purpose of this note is to establish conclusively that Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer, the Dayan of Brisk, never permitted opening a refrigerator on Shabbat when the light inside will go on. I was deeply disappointed to read Rabbi Michael Broyde’s response to my “Note Regarding Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer’s Position on Opening a Refrigerator on Shabbat.” In short, R. Broyde has incorrectly asserted that Rav Simcha Zelig permitted opening a refrigerator on Shabbat when the light inside will go…
My recent post here was more popular than my typical post. I base this statement on the fact that I received more emails from readers than usual and the post was picked up by a variety of different websites. The part dealing with the censorship of Rashbam was translated into Hebrew here (with one of the commenters calling for a herem to be placed on ArtScroll)[ and see also here. ArtScroll has now issued its response. The following has been…
Menachem Lazar is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, studying applied mathematics and materials science. He has previously served as editor of Beit Yitzchak, an annual Talmud publication of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. In a recent essay at the Seforim blog, Yaakov Rosenes provides a fascinating window into some unfortunate trends in the world of Jewish publishing. In particular, Rosenes highlights how technology has impacted not only how seforim are printed today, but also what seforim…
In response to my last post on the Seforim Blog, R. Nathan Kamenetsky sent me a long e-mail. Because of its value to those with an interest in the Lithuanian Torah world, I asked Rabbi Kamenetsky for permission to post it here, and he graciously agreed – Marc Shapiro The central figure, albeit a mostly passive one, in the story I shall tell below is R’ Maisheh Finkel, one of the twin sons who were the youngest children of the…
I am gravely concerned about the future of Jewish Leadership and the survival of traditional Orthodoxy as we know it. I know it in my bones that the whole community is drifting to the right. Moreover, this rightward drift can hardly be said to produce Jewish leaders of vision and consequence. The rabbis returning from the yeshivas, whether in my native England, or from Eretz Yisrael, or even from those iconic colonies like the Five Towns and Pikesville, seem a…
& Samuel Heilman While we hoped our last posting would be our last word on this subject, since the Seforim Blog has posted Rapoport’s rejoinder simultaneously (a courtesy never offered to us), we want to add a brief postscript, which we have been assured by the blog moderators will be the last posting on our book. We are happy Rapoport checked the Paris directory and found the listing of the Engineer Schneerson. Why he failed to note this listing (which…
You might have noticed, and might have even been actively following the very-current and lively-debate about the recent volume by Samuel Heilman & Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010) at the Seforim blog, which began with a review essay (“The Afterlife of Scholarship: A Critical Exploration of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman’s Presentation of the Rebbe’s Life”) by frequent contributor to the Seforim blog, Chaim Rapoport, available here, which…
’s Presentation of the Rebbe’s Life,” the Seforim blog (14 June 2010), available here, of Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), available here, the editors of the Seforim blog are proud to present a response by Samuel Heilman and Menachem Friedman (submitted on Tuesday, 22 June 2010), available here (PDF) with a rejoinder by Chaim Rapoport (submitted on Tuesday, 29 June 2010), available here (PDF).
From time to time I get feed back about some of my previous posts some good some bad – aside from the standard criticism of poor grammar, editing or transliterating, all of which are my fault entirely. The blog does not have a full time editor (its all on a volunteer basis), and the goal of the editors, in general, is to get out posts at high speed with good content (many of which could have been printed in journals)…
In response to Prof. Marc B. Shapiro’s recent comments in, “Thoughts on Confrontation & Sundry Matters Part II,” Prof. David Berger, submitted the following response to readers of the Tradition-Seforim blog. For the recently-published paperback edition of his book on Lubavitch messianism, which follows the Hebrew translation of his book — see David Berger,HaRebbe Melekh HaMashiach, Sah’aruriyyat ha-Adishut, ve-ha-Iyyum al Emunat Yisrael (Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2005) — and which includes a new introduction where he responds to earlier criticisms of…
It has come to my attention that a critique of my article “Halakhah, Hermeneutics and Martyrdom” published by the Jewish Quarterly Review has appeared in the Tradition Seforim blog in Fall of 2008. In principle, I do not respond to blogs, as this would place my time at the mercy of anyone who can type. However, I am preparing my articles for re-publication in 3 volumes by the Littman Library. The articles will be reproduced as originally published. However, I…
In response to the recent post at the Seforim Blog about approbations of Hebrew books, a correction is in order concerning the footnote about the intent of the remarks of Felix Pratensis in his dedication of the Venice 1517 Rabbinic Bible to the Pope. In footnote 3 of the recent post, a conjecture was offered to explain Felix Pratensis’ remarks. In addition, Pratensis claims that this edition was unique as the prior editions “hav[e] almost as many errors as words…
This post is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Chaim Flom, late rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Ohr David in Jerusalem. I first met Rabbi Flom thirty years ago when he became my teacher at the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County (now known as the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy; unfortunately, another one of my teachers from those years also passed away much too young, Rabbi Yaakov Appel). When he first started teaching he was known as Mr. Flom, because he…
a) In a recent post on the Seforim Blog, Rabbi Chaim Rapoport spoke of the extent to which some disciples of the late Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach have gone in order to disassociate their late mentor from the heter mechirah, a procedure that he defended robustly in his work Ma’adanei Eretz. To this end, a censored version of the original work was published (bearing the title Kitvei Ma’adanei Eretz), in which Rabbi Auerbach’s endorsement of the heter mechirah as a…