We read in the Talmud (Baba Metziah 85a): R. Zeira, when he moved to the land of Israel, observed a hundred fasts to forget the teachings of Babylonia, so that they should not disturb him. He fasted another hundred times so that R. Elazar should not die during his years and the responsibilities of the community not fall upon him.He fasted another hundred times so that the fire of Gehenna should have no power over him. Figure 1 From the…
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,…
“If the earlier generations were like angels, we are like humans. But if they were like humans, then we are like donkeys.” (Talmud Shabbat 112b) One of the basic and fundamental tenets of our tradition is respect and deference for the previous generations. Although there are notable exceptions, generally, rabbinic authorities do not override or disagree with the rulings of authorities from a previous class, such as Amoraim disagreeing with Tanaim, Gaonim with Amoraim, Rishonim with Acharonim and so on….
tzviha@gmail.com Qaraites are a Jewish group that began around 760 CE. They rejected the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism and insisted that Jews only observe halacha as expressed in the literal text of the Torah. “Qaraite” means “Scriptualist”. The movement started in Iraq and Persia by Jews who objected to the authority of the leaders of the Babylonian Talmud Academies, the Gaonim. The Gaonim and their successors, the rishonim, are called Rabbanites because of their stance in defending the Talmud and…
Rabbi Helfgot is Chair of the Dept. of Torah SheBaal Peh at SAR High School and rabbi of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Teaneck, NJ. He has served as editor of Or-Hamizrach and associate editor of The Meorot Journal. He has written and edited a number of sefarim and volumes including Divrei Berakha U-Moed: Iyunim Be-Nosei Berakhot U-Moadim (Yeshivat Har Etzion, 2002), Community, Covenant and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Toras HoRav Foundation, 2005), The YCT…
this Parsha (Devarim 6:9) says that since the word Mezuzot is written without the Vav , only one Mezuzah is necessary. It’s generally assumed that Rashi can’t argue with a clear Talmudic statement that every door of the house needs a Mezuzah and therefore he can’t be understood at face value. However the custom in many places in Medieval Europe had always been to only affix one Mezuzah per house . We will now try to examine if indeed there…
This study deals with the war and the seven Canaanite nations. It complements my previous post on Amalek of March 13, 2014, “The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition. “The popular conception in both cases is that the Bible demands their extermination thereby providing a precedent for genocide. The popular reading of the Canaanites filters it through the prism of Deuteronomy. The popular reading of Amalek filters the Torah…
In an earlier post here I discussed ArtScroll’s use of a censored talmudic text. This happens quite a bit and it is not always clear if the translators were aware that they were working with an inauthentic text. However, for many passages there is no question that they realize that what they are translating is not authentic but was added because of fear of non-Jewish reaction. Here is a chart someone drew up showing how the various new Talmud editions…
* Comments on Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History by Marc B. Shapiro (Oxford – Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2015). *Rabbi Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer holds the Ethel and David Resnick Chair of Active Oxygen Chemistry at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel; email: Aryeh.Frimer@biu.ac.il. He has lectured and published widely on various aspects of “Women and Halakha;” see here. His most recent paper is: “Women, Kri’at haTorah and Aliyyot (with an…
psychotherapist in St. Louis where he recently moved with his family. He recently published his first sefer, sc’hok d’yitzchak on the Kabbalistic theme butzina d’kardinusa, or darkened light. More of his writing can be found online at Residual Speech. לאו כל מוחא סביל דא Tasked with the formidable project of recounting Franz Rosenzweig’s life, Emmanuel Levinas apologized in advance for speaking, as well, about Rosenzweig’s opus, The Star of Redemption. The reason for this, Levinas wrote, was not due to…
This post is devoted to discussing comments received regarding parts one (here) and two (here). I will also add in some of the material which I had forgotten to quote [some of which I was reminded of by readers] along with additional material that I have recently uncovered. From the outset, I would like to thank all those people who sent in comments regarding the post. My email address is eliezerbrodt@gmail.com; feel free to send comments. Censorship To begin, a…
* The exchange one year ago between Pope Francis and Prime Minister Netanyahu over the language spoken by Jesus overshadowed any other news of the pope’s visit to Israel. The pope was right, of course, Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, although Netanyahu could have offered a better rejoinder than his weak “But he knew Hebrew.” He could have said: “But he prayed in Hebrew.” Among the proofs that Aramaic was the spoken language of Jesus’ time and place is the…
sefer, “Berogez Racheim Tizkor” (trans: “In your anger, you shall remember to have mercy”), whose title is based on the verse in Habbakuk 3:2 and traditionally recited each morning during Tahanun, really began as a tweet. In March 2014, I tweeted, “Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” Considering writing a sefer entitled “Aveiros K’Hilchisa.” — D Bash (@DBashIdeas) March 5, 2014 The tweet was originally intended as a satire of the many seforim that have been published as halakhic…
בראשונה … רצין ועולים בכבש, וכל הקודם את חברו לתוך ארבע אמות זכה We read in the Mishna: [The priests used to compete for the honor of separating and removing ashes from the altar] by sprinting up the ramp. Whoever was the first to reach the top four cubits was entitled to remove the ashes. Mishna Yoma 2:1 One of the first authorities to question the practice described in this mishna was Eliezer ben Samuel of Metz who lived in…
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