The Head Movements of Shema’
Rabbi Bezalel Naor is a multifaceted scholar, recognized as the leading interpreter of R. Kook in the English language. His newest book is The Limit of Intellectual Freedom: The Letters of Rav Kook. It can be purchased from his website, www.orot.com. The most important utterance in Judaism is the Shema’: Shema’ yisrael adonai eloheinu adonai ehad. (Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.) This declaration of the absolute unity of God is the cornerstone of our…
New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 5
Continued from here. The next post (or perhaps the one following) will return to my analysis of R. Kook’s recently published Li-Nevokhei ha-Dor with which this series began. Yet before doing so, there are a number of other points I would like to make and respond to some comments and questions. 1. In previous installments I have mentioned how R. Kook compares the Torah scholars and the masses, and how the masses have elements of natural morality that are not…
The Legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s Death: Truth or Fiction & the Cairo Genizah
A few years ago on the Seforim Blog I dealt with the famous legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s death (link). More recently in Ami Magazine (# 32) I returned to this legend and related topics. This post contains new information as well as corrections that were not included in those earlier articles. R. Yehuda Halevi was born in the year 1075 in Toledo, Spain, and died in 1141. He is famous in Jewish history for being a great paytan, authoring…
Computer Confirmation of “P” – A Biblicist’s Perspective
Joshua Berman is a lecturer in Tanach at Bar-Ilan University and an associate fellow at the Shalem Center. His most recent book, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (Oxford, 2008) was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Scholarship in 2008. Prof. Moshe Koppel—a revered friend and senior colleague—has produced what is for me as a biblicist is a fascinating and exciting study. His demonstrated capacity to tease apart books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel when their…
On the Plagiarism of a Tach-ve-Tat Chronicle
On the Plagiarism of a Tach-ve-Tat Chronicle During this period, between the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av, there is an increased focus upon various historical calamities that befell the Jewish people. Jewish history is unfortunately replete with such examples. Some instances have spawned specific days of commemoration while others have produced whole bodies of literature. And, while the literature surrounding these events is diverse, covering liturgy, poetry, history, we focus on one type: the chronicle. Additionally, our…
Attribution and Misattribution: On Computational Linguistics, Heresy and Journalism
Prof. Moshe Koppel is on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Bar-Ilan University. He has published extensively on authorship attribution, as well as on a diverse array of topics of Jewish and scientific interest. A few days ago, newspaper readers from New Jersey to New Zealand read about new computer software that “sheds light on the authorship of the Bible” . By the time the news circled back to Israel, farteitcht and farbessert, readers of Haaretz were (rather…
Machon Yerushalayim’s Book Week 2011
As previously mentioned there are many book sales this time of year all over Eretz Yisroel, and many publishers release new titles for the occasion. One of the publishing houses that makes a special sale every year is Machon Yerushalayim (MY). This year for the sale MY released many new titles. Over twenty years ago MY released a beautiful new edition of the classic work Minchas Chinuch. Over time this edition has become a bestseller, selling thousands of copies worldwide….
Upcoming Kestenbaum Auction #51 – Alphonse Cassuto Collection Part 2.
Kestenbaum & Co. will be holding an auction this Thursday, June 23. The catalog is available online at the Kestenbaum site (link). This auction includes the second part of the Alfonso Cassuto collection which is heavily focused on books originating or relating to the Iberian Peninsula. One can read more about that collection at the website or see the last auction catalog. In addition, there are a few controversial books of note. First, lot 136 is the exceedingly rare first…
Book Week 2011
Book week has just begin in Eretz Yisrael. As I have written in previous years every year in Israel, around Shavous time, there is a period of about ten days called Shavuah Hasefer – Book Week (see here, here and here). Shavuah HaSefer is a sale which takes place all across the country in stores, malls and special places rented out just for the sale. There are places where strictly “frum” seforim are sold and other places have most of…
Pashkevilin and Benny Brown’s New Book on The Hazon Ish
[cross-posted at the Michtavim blog] Following the internal self-destructive collapse of the proverbial ghetto walls within Jewish communities around the world, the actual walls of Jerusalem continue to be adorned with elaborate pashkevilin, broadsides, and as The Satmar Rebbe, the late Reb Yoel Teitelbaum, zy”a, once allegedly offered a deep philosophical preach: ‘Meah Shearim is sustained by the pashkevilin on her walls.’ Recent scholarship on these broadsides has been offered by Benjamin Brown, “The Socio-Religious Texture of the Meah Shearim…
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Yom Tov Sheni and the Customs With Regard to Travelers
J. Jean Ajdler of Brussels, Belgium, is a civil and structural engineer. He has published articles about medieval Jewish astronomy, the history of the Jewish calendar, and Talmudic metrology, and is the author of Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh al-pi ha-Rambam (Jerusalem: Sifriati, 1996). This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog. Abstract: In ancient times the customs of the communities were extremely variable the one from the other. Each community had its own customs and it was very jealous of…
A Printing Mistake and the Mysterious Origins of Rashbi’s Yahrzeit*
In this post I would like to deal with tracing the early sources for the great celebrations that take place worldwide on Lag Ba-Omer, specifically at the Kever of Rashbi (R. Shimon b. Yochai) in Meron. A few years back on the Seforim Blog I dealt with some of these issues (link). More recently in Ami Magazine (# 22) I returned to some of the topics. This post contains new information and corrections that I have found which were not…
Satmar From As Seen By An Insider: A Review of the New English Biography of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe
I recently bought the new biography of the Satmar Rebbe, called “The Rebbe. The Extraordinary Life & Worldview of Rabbeinu Yoel Teitelbaum. The Satmar Rebbe זי”ע”, by Rabbi Dovid Meisels (Canada 2011, distributed by Israel Book Shop). Rabbi Meisels is related to Rabbi Teitelbaum, and a staunch Satmar chossid, so you can be sure that the views espoused in the book are Satmar’s true opinions. I also recently bought Solomon Poll’s classic study if chassidim in Williamsburg in the 1950’s,…