English – Page 36 – The Seforim Blog

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

October 25, 2015 Reuven Chaim Comments 0 Comment

(Rudolph) Klein Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of the Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew [available here]. His book is available online and in bookstores throughout the world. Rabbi Klein published articles in various journals including Jewish Bible Quarterly, Kovetz Hamaor, Kovetz Chitzei Gibborim, and Kovetz Kol HaTorah. He studied at premier Yeshivas including the Mir in Jerusalem and BMG in Lakewood. He was most recently a fellow at the Tikvah Institute for Yeshiva Men (Summer 2015) and…

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Rambam’s Response to the Inclusion of Chicken, Duck and Quail in Qaraite Cuisine

October 22, 2015 Tzvi H. Adams Comments 57 comments

In “Waiting Six Hours for Dairy- A Rabbanite Response to Qaraism” (here) I posited that Rabbeinu Chananel initiated the practice of waiting six hours between meat and dairy in order to protect Rabbanite values. This association was inspired by Dr. Bernard Revel’s studies of Rabbanite leaders’ efforts to counter sectarian influences during the early Middle Ages , as well as a shiur by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim. I then suggested that Rambam furthered this anti-Qaraite motion by including poultry into the…

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Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

October 20, 2015 Israel Drazin Comments 5 comments

www.booksnthoughts.com People today read Targum Onkelos and search it for derash, halakhah, and homiletical teachings. The following will show that the rabbis in the Talmuds and Midrashim and the Bible commentators who used the Targum before the thirteenth century recognized that the Aramaic translation only contains the Torah’s peshat, its plain meaning, and not sermonic material. It will survey how the pre-thirteenth century rabbis and scholars used Onkelos and how Nachmanides changed the way the Targum was understood. It was…

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R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship

October 15, 2015 Jacob D. Comments 0 Comment

end of R. Zevin’s introduction to his Sofrim u-Sefarim we read – In R. Zevin’s footnote we see that one of the works that he wanted to review but didn’t yet get to was R. Ovadia Yosef’s two volumes of Yabia Omer. As someone who enjoys R. Zevin’s pen immensely (both his style and substance, especially the way he analyzes books and their authors) , and as someone that studies from R. Ovadia Yosef’s prolific halakhic literature quite often, I…

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Announcement of new works of Rishonim

October 13, 2015 Eliezer Brodt Comments 15 comments

מגנזי אירופה, כרך ראשון, ההדיר והוסיף מבואות: שמחה עמנואל, הוצאת מקיצי נרדמים, 512 עמודים. I am very happy to announce the publication of an important work which I have been eagerly waiting for, Professor Simcha Emanuel of the Hebrew University’s Talmud department’s volume of texts from the “European Genizah” (volume one). This volume was just printed by Mekitzei Nirdamim and is being sold by Magnes Press. New texts from Rishonim are high up on my list of favorite publications, all…

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Please note

October 12, 2015 Dan Rabinowitz Comments 0 Comment

The Seforim Blog is proud to provide a platform for freewheeling debate in a productive spirit. We do not moderate comments, because there has been no need. While tongues sometimes get sharp, we believe that overall the mood in the comments section has been in the spirit of comaraderie, with our readers and commenters sharing the bonds of a common interest and love of Jewish learning. Recently, to our dismay, the comments section has been transformed to something else. We…

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Review of James A. Diamond, “Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon” (2014) by Menachem Kellner

October 9, 2015 Menachem Kellner Comments 0 Comment

is Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Jewish Thought at Shalem College, Jerusalem, and the Wolfson Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa, where, among many other posts, he served as Dean of Students and Chair of the Department of Maritime Civilizations, and founding director of Be-Zavta, a program in Jewish enrichment. His most recent book is Menachem Kellner: Jewish Universalism, edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron Hughes in Brill’s Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers, and…

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R. Yitchak Al-fasi’s Anti-Qaraite Legislative Activity

October 4, 2015 Tzvi H. Adams Comments 52 comments

R. Yitchak Al-fasi (1013 – 1103) lived in North Africa and Spain during the Golden Age of Qaraism. It is quite natural that we find many instances of anti-Qaraite legislation in his writings. Below are four such cases: 1) R. Al-fasi had the shofar blown on Shabbos Rosh HaShanah in his beth din in Fez, Morocco. (See discussion here: here). This ruling and practice baffled many later authorities as it seems to contradict the Talmud Rosh HaShanna 29b. R. Zerachiah…

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The Torah’s Jewish Sense of an Ending: A Yasher Koyach to Moses

October 1, 2015 James A. Diamond Comments 0 Comment

James A. Diamond, Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Waterloo. He is currently a Fellow of the Jewish Philosophical Theology Project sponsored by the Herzl Institute in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation. His latest book is Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon, published by Cambridge University Press (http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/maimonides-and-shaping-jewish-canon). This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog. Every year, the joy I experience on Simchat Torah, is somewhat diminished by the apparent dismal…

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What Did the Willows Ever Do to Deserve Such a Beating? An Original Explanation for a Perplexing Custom

September 30, 2015 Steven Weiner Comments 6 comments

Steven had the privilege and good fortune of learning from Rav Aharon Lichtenstein ztz”l and Rav Yaakov Meidan Shlit”a at Yeshivat Har Etzion (1982-83) and prior to that from Rav Yisroel Mendel Kaplan ztz”l and other Rabbeim at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia. He is currently working on a series of essays on the theme of Shivat Tzion and its contemporary resonance. Introduction The seventh day of Sukkot – the day we now call הושענא רבה – has no special…

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Lithuanian Government Announces Construction of a $25,000,000 Convention Center in the Center of Vilna’s Oldest Jewish Cemetery

September 13, 2015 Shnayer Leiman Comments 0 Comment

According to Russian statistics, Vilna had close to 200,000 inhabitants just prior to World War I, roughly forty percent of whom were Jewish, more than thirty percent were Polish, and about twenty percent were Russian and the rest consisted of small Lithuanian, Byelorussian, German and Tartar minorities. In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was convened by the winning parties of World War I. Its purpose was to map the future of postwar Europe. When the status of Vilna came up…

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ArtScroll and More

September 10, 2015 Marc B. Shapiro Comments 0 Comment

Continued from here. 1. As mentioned, I believe that on occasion ArtScroll is unaware that the text it is explaining is a censored text. Sometimes it might even be an internally censored text (i.e., censored by Jews so as to avoid difficulties with the non-Jewish authorities). This same problem is often found with aharonim. How about with rishonim? For example, was Rashi ever misled by an internally censored text? I would hesitate to say so but this is exactly what…

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Review of Dovid Bashevkin’s Sefer Berogez Racheim Tizkor

September 7, 2015 Yitzchok Oratz Comments 1 comment

Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz, a musmach of Beth Medrash Govoha, is the Rabbi and Director of the Monmouth Torah Links community in Marlboro, NJ. אהרן יצחק הלוי ארץ כי הוא ידע יצרנו: הערות והארות, ציונים ומראה מקומות, על עניניבחירה, חטא, ותשובה. מיוסד על ספר “ברגז רחם תזכור” להרב דוד אליקים בשבקין. Introduction In wrath, remember mercy. For He knows our nature . . . God knows the nature of every generation, Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin has written a Sefer uniquely appropriate for…

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וְהָאֱמֶת וְהַשָּׁלוֹם אֱהָבוּ; On Changing the Immutable by Marc B. Shapiro

August 31, 2015 Yitzchok Stroh Comments 0 Comment

Professor Marc Shapiro’s latest work, Changing the Immutable, contains considerable interesting and pertinent information for the student of Jewish history. As stated on the cover, the author attempts to reveal how the (Jewish) orthodox ‘establishment’ silences both past and present dissenting voices through “Orthodox Judaism Rewriting Its History.” I don’t intend this to be a review of the entire work (that would take a lot more time and space), however I did want to share some of my frustration here,…

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The History and Dating of Onkelos

August 27, 2015 Israel Drazin Comments 19 comments

The Babylonian Talmud has the earliest report of the authorship and date of Targum Onkelos. It states that an individual named Onkelos composed the translation in the first third of the second century CE. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have generally rejected this recollection and dated the Targum, or its final redaction, in the third century CE. I will show that the proper date is more likely the late fourth or early fifth century CE. This dating is supported by…

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