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German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

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1. I recently published a translation of Hirsch’s famous lecture on Schiller. You can see it here. At first I thought that this lecture remained untranslated into English for so long because of ideological concerns. (I still think that this is the reason it was never translated into Hebrew.) Yet before the article appeared, I was informed that the reason it did not appear in the English translation of the Collected Writings of Hirsch was not due to ideological censorship,…

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Blazing Critics

Blazing Critics

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Recently, the question of how critical a reviewer should be was raised by Pete Wells’ review of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant. In that review, Wells eviscerates everything about the restaurant. For example, he asks Mr. Fieri: “Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?” Needless to say, Mr. Fieri was not pleased and he fired back, alleging…

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Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

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* Abstract Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir of Troyes) is known today primarily for his Biblical commentary, which is often seen as a forerunner to modern academic study of the Bible. Rashbam’s Talmudic commentary, by contrast, is often dismissed as merely a more “prolix” version of his grandfather Rashi, devoid of the critical methods that make his Biblical commentary unique. While a proper study of Rashbam’s Talmudic exegesis has yet to be written, this exploratory essay seeks to demonstrate that…

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Wine Strength and Dilution

Wine Strength and Dilution

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June 2009 Isaiah Cox trained as an historian at Princeton, and conducted postgraduate work in medieval history at King’s College London. He is also a technologist, with over 50 patents pending or issued to date. iwcox@alumni.princeton.edu There is a common understanding among rabbonim that wines in the time of the Gemara were stronger than they are today. This is inferred because we know from the Gemara that wine was customarily diluted by at least three-to-one, and as much as six-to-one,…

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A selection from Strictly Kosher Reading by Yoel Finkelman

A selection from Strictly Kosher Reading by Yoel Finkelman

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’s recent book, Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Literature and the Condition of Contemporary Orthodoxy. Coalescence The first function of Haredi popular literature involves the “coalescence” of the Jewish and the non-Jewish. In defining coalescence, Sylvia Barack Fishman distinguishes it from two other common ways of describing relationships between Judaism and general culture. First, “compartmentalization” involves a situation in which the Jewish tradition holds sway in its own spheres, such as the synagogue or Shabbat table, while non-Jewish culture dominates in…

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Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

Who is Buried in the Vilna Gaon’s Tomb? A Contribution Toward the Identification of the Authentic Grave of the Vilna Gaon

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1. Prologue This essay attempts to identify the authentic grave of the Vilna Gaon (d. 1797).1 As will become apparent, it surely is not the grave that Jewish pilgrims are shown today when they visit Vilna. We shall attempt to identify his authentic grave by applying the biblical rule: על פי שני עדים יקום דבר “a matter is established by the testimony of two witnesses.” We shall cite two different kinds of witnesses. One witness will represent primarily תורה שבכתב,…

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On some new seforim, Copernicus, saying Ledovid , Moses Mendelssohn and other random comments

On some new seforim, Copernicus, saying Ledovid , Moses Mendelssohn and other random comments

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Here is a list of recent seforim and books I have seen around in the past few months. This is not an attempt to list everything or even close to it; rather it’s just a list of seforim and books on many random topics, which I have seen while shopping for seforim. I enumerated a few titles which I have a Table of Contents for. Please feel free to e-mail me for them. 1. רשב”ץ על מסכת ברכות, אהבת שלום,…

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What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor?

What’s Wrong With Wealth and Honor?

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Below, we will present some timely notes regarding an English/Hebrew Machzor for Rosh Hashana which was printed in England in 1807. We will touch upon a variety of issues, and thus first present general backgrounds regarding Hebrew printing in London, the prayer for the state, and Kol Nidrei. Hebrew Typography in London The earliest use of Hebrew typography in England is sometime in the middle to the late 1520s. Of course, at that time, Jews were banned from England and…

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Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt) by Amos Hakham

Introduction to The Song of Songs (An Excerpt) by Amos Hakham

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Amos Hakham passed away on August 2, 2012 at the age of 91. The following is an unofficial translation of an excerpt from the Introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, published in 1973 by Mossad Harav Kook, in the Da’at Mikra series of Bible commentaries. The selection below is an outstanding example of Hakham’s distinct approach, in both his Introduction and commentary, characterized by uncompromising scholarship coupled with faithfulness to tradition. Here and in his other writings,…

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The Book of Disputes between East and West

The Book of Disputes between East and West

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Based primarily on the Margulies Edition with additions from the Appendices of the Miller and Lewin Editions Menahem Av, 5772 Jerusalem After the translation of the text itself, various additional items are added, some of them never before published. Also included is a translated summary of major sections of Margaliot’s introduction, along with comments and updates. Round brackets reflect text found in only certain Hebrew manuscripts as indicated by Margulies in his Hebrew edition. Square brackets contain English insertions of…

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Concerning the Zohar and Other Matters

Concerning the Zohar and Other Matters

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1. In the last issue of Milin Havivin I published an article dealing with the Zohar and the supposed obligation to accept that it was written by R. Shimon ben Yohai. You can see it here. In the article I mentioned authorities who pointed to passages that in their minds were certainly post-Rashbi interpolations. At the end of the article I also published a letter from R. Isaac Herzog in which he briefly deals with the issue of non-literal interpretation…

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Emek ha-Netziv : The Manuscript

Emek ha-Netziv : The Manuscript

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Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl is dean of the Margolin Hebrew Academy/Feinstone Yeshiva of the South in Memphis. The following selection comes from his new book, The Pillar of Volozhin: Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin and the World of Nineteenth-Century Lithuanian Torah Scholarship. The manuscript of ‘Emek ha-Netziv remains in the possession of the Shapira family and there are no additional extant copies. The family are prominent members of a staunchly traditionalist Ḥaredi community in the Geulah neighborhood of Jerusalem….

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Special Summer sale of books

Special Summer sale of books

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This list consists of a few parts. Part two is a special clearance sale from the Mekizei Nirdamim Publishing house. This list includes some very good titles which will not be available much longer. There are a few copies of each title. Part three and four is composed of seforim and books which I came across while hunting for seforim at different places. Most of these titles are very hard to find. Some of the prices are better than others,…

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A Preliminary Review of The New Koren Talmud Bavli: A Goldilocks edition

A Preliminary Review of The New Koren Talmud Bavli: A Goldilocks edition

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Jeremy Brown lives outside of Washington DC. He is the author of New Heavens and a New Earth: The Jewish Reception of Copernican Thought, to be published later this year by Oxford University Press. We are only weeks away from finishing the seven-year cycle of Daf Yomi. Right on cue, publishers are ready to meet the demand of those ready to study Daf Yomi the first time as the cycle begins anew, or perhaps students who wish to learn Talmud…

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