Browsed by
Language: English

The Vilna Gaon, Part 1: How Modern Was He?

The Vilna Gaon, Part 1: How Modern Was He?

Comments 1 comment

Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism (New Haven, 2013) Eliyahu Stern has set for himself a daunting task and argues his case with conviction. He intends to correct a widespread assumption shared not only by the general public, but by the scholarly community as well. According to this narrative, the Vilna Gaon (hereafter the Gaon) should not be seen as a traditionalist defender of the past, but actually a modern Jew and one…

Read More Read More

The Identity and Meaning of Chashmonai

The Identity and Meaning of Chashmonai

Comments 1 comment

(MFirstatty@aol.com) The name Chashmonai appears many times in the Babylonian Talmud, but usually the references are vague. The references are either to beit Chashmonai, malkhut Chashmonai, malkhut beit Chashmonai, malkhei beit Chashmonai, or beit dino shel Chashmonai. One time (at Megillah 11a) the reference is to an individual named Chashmonai, but neither his father nor his sons are named. The term Chashmonai (with the spelling חשמוניי) appears two times in the Jerusalem Talmud, once in the second chapter of Taanit…

Read More Read More

Lawrence Kaplan’s review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius

Lawrence Kaplan’s review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius

Comments 0 Comment

‘s review of the work which will be followed up by a three-part post by Marc Shapiro Eliyahu Stern, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism. New Haven: Yale University Press 2013, pp. xiv+322.* My father, of blessed memory, was an Orthodox Jew of Lithuanian descent, a “Litvak.” Though he was a businessman all his life, he, like many traditional Litvaks, always kept up his study of classical Jewish texts, both biblical and rabbinic. I remember…

Read More Read More

Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber shiur in Flatbush, November 23

Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber shiur in Flatbush, November 23

Comments 0 Comment

The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a shiur that will be taking place Motzaei Shabbos November 23 at 9PM. The shiur will be given by the noted author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisroel [link]. He has authored many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The subject of the Shiur is על מקורות של מנהג קבלת…

Read More Read More

The Nazir in New York

The Nazir in New York

Comments 0 Comment

ב”ה The Nazir in New York Josh Rosenfeld I. Mishnat ha-Nazir הוצאת נזר דוד שע”י מכון אריאל ירושלים, 2005 קכ’+36 עמודים הראל כהן וידידיה כהן, עורכים A few years ago, during his daily shiur, R. Herschel Schachter related that he and his wife had met someone called ‘the Nazir’ during a trip to Israel. R. Schachter quoted the Nazir’s regarding the difficulty Moshe had with the division of the land in the matter the daughters of Zelophehad and the Talmudic…

Read More Read More

Who was Reb Shlomo?

Who was Reb Shlomo?

Comments 0 Comment

(Offenbacher) Natan Ophir’s book, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: Life, Mission, and Legacy, has just appeared. This is a complete biography of Carlebach’s life (not a hagiography) and is essential for anyone with an interest in Carlebach. The Seforim Blog is happy to include this excerpt from the book, pp. 413-419. 1. Who was Reb Shlomo? Who was Reb Shlomo Carlebach? This question was deliberated in the obituaries after his death. Elli Wohlgelernter of The Jerusalem Post tried to describe Shlomo’s elusive…

Read More Read More

Special Lecture by Dr. Marc Shapiro

Special Lecture by Dr. Marc Shapiro

Comments 0 Comment

On Nov. 24, 2013 at 7:30pm, Dr. Marc Shapiro will deliver a lecture at the home of Shlomo and Hannah Sprecher, 1274 East 23rd Street (between Ave. L & M) in Brooklyn. The title of the lecture is Rabbinic Biographies: Personal Reflections on the Balance Between Reverence and Historical Truth. All Seforim Blog readers (and anyone else) are cordially invited to attend. For those who are interested, Dr. Shapiro will also be speaking at the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn…

Read More Read More

New Seforim

New Seforim

Comments 0 Comment

סידור רב עמרם גאון, מכון ירושלים, חלק ג סי’ נו-קג, תפילות חול. מרדכי, שבת, על פי כ”י, מכון ירושלים, רצג עמודים ר”י מלוניל על מגילה, יבמות, כתובת, מכון תלמוד הישראלי האמונות והדעות לרבנו סעדיה גאון, עם ביאור דרך אמונה לר’ דוד הנזיר, חלק א, שצב עמודים, כולל מבוא ופתיחה כללית לרס”ג. לוי חן לר’ לוי בן אברהם, מעשה מרכבה, מכ”י, ההדיר והוסיף מבוא והערות חיים קרייסל, האיגוד למדעי היהדות, 330 עמודים , [כרך שלישי מתוך החיבור] [ניתן לקבל תוכן העניינים]….

Read More Read More

Christian M. Rutishauser on Being Drawn to the Rav

Christian M. Rutishauser on Being Drawn to the Rav

Comments 0 Comment

Christian M. Rutishauser’s The Human Condition in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has just been published by Ktav (having earlier appeared in German). Quite apart from Rutishauser’s scholarship, the book is noteworthy in that Rutishauser is a prominent Jesuit priest (see here; for those who don’t know, the University of Scranton is also Jesuit). The Seforim Blog is happy to present the introduction to the book where Rutishauser explains what led him to the Rav. A Catholic Glimpse…

Read More Read More

R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Kitniyot, R. Judah Mintz, and More

R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Kitniyot, R. Judah Mintz, and More

Comments 0 Comment

1. The last post dealt with R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin and I pick up with him here. Before moving forward, I have to thank R. Moshe Maimon who sent me a PDF of the essay attributed to R. Zevin which I discussed in the last post. It comes from the hebrewbooks.org hard drive that was released some time ago. You can see it here. I also thank R. Eliezer Brodt who pointed out that both R. Zvi Pesah Frank and…

Read More Read More

Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

Rav Ovadia Yosef, ZT”L

Comments 1 comment

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…

Read More Read More

Soloveitchick’s Act of Selfless Heroism, 1785

Soloveitchick’s Act of Selfless Heroism, 1785

Comments 0 Comment

Michael K. Silber is the Cardinal Franz Koenig Senior Lecturer in Austrian Studies in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew U. He has taught at Harvard, Stanford and the Central European University and during the 2013-2014 academic year, he is the Jacob Perlow Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Yale. He also serves as the Chair of the Board of the Central Archives of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. His researches focus on the Jews of Central…

Read More Read More

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

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

Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

A New Work about the Ramban’s Additions to his Commentary on the Torah

A New Work about the Ramban’s Additions to his Commentary on the Torah

Comments 2 comments

תוספות רמב”ן לפירושו לתורה, שנכתבו בארץ ישראל, יוסף עופר, יהונתן יעקבס, מכללה הרצוג, והאיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות, 718 עמודים In this post I would like to explain what this work is about. One of the most important Rishonim was Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman, famously known as Ramban. Ramban was famous for numerous reasons and has been the subject of numerous works and articles. This year alone two important works were written about him, one from Dr. Shalem Yahalom called Bein…

Read More Read More

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

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

Comments 5 comments

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…

Read More Read More