Seforim Sale
While hunting for seforim and books I recently came across the following excellent titles for sale, from an old library. Most of these titles are very hard to find. Some of the prices are better than others, but all in all I think they are fair. Almost all the books are in great shape. The sale prices are only for the next three days. After that they might not be available. There is only one copy of most of these…
A review of some Recent Torah Journals
In this post I would like to focus on some recent Torah Journals that have come out in the past few weeks. In the future I hope to return to this topic of these Journals with a more in-depth look at their goals and the history of early Journals in general in relationship to this. As many of these journals have only been distributed this week I am just offering some quick remarks on them. In general different people like…
Seforim Blog Pesach Roundup
Here’s a roundup of Pesach and Haggadah-themed posts at the Seforim Blog. I. Racy Title Pages Update II 12.01.2005. Discusses the title page of the Prague Haggadah of 1526. This particular Haggadah used an illustration of a nude woman in the Haggadah’s quotation of Ezekiel 16:7 (“I cause you to increase, even as the growth of the field. And you did increase and grow up, and you became beautiful: you breasts grew, and your hair has grown; yet you were…
New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 4
Continued from here. Returning to the issue of creation, I found an interesting comment in R. Hayyim Hirschensohn’s commentary on Rashi, Nimukei Rashi. For those who are unaware of this commentary, I recommend that you examine it. You can order a bound copy (even soft-cover) very cheaply at hebrewbooks.org. I think that this is one of Hirschenson’s greatest works. In his comment to Gen. 1:13 Hirschensohn writes that belief in eternity (which here apparently means eternal matter in the Platonic…
The Date of the Exodus: A Guide to the Orthodox Perplexed
A pdf of this post can be downloaded here, or viewed here.The Exodus is arguably the fundamental event of our religion. The Sabbath is premised upon it, as are many of the other commandments and holidays. Yet if one would ask a typical observant Jew “in what century did this Exodus occur?,” most would respond with a puzzled look. The purpose of this article is to rectify this situation. Admittedly, the date of the Exodus and the identity of the…
Rav Shmuel Ashkenazi, a contemporary Maecenas of the world of seforim.
A few years ago I began fundraising to print seforim of Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazi. I am happy to announce that finally two volumes were just printed volume one is being sold in stores now and volume two will be released to be sold in stores before Shavos. In earlier posts I have put up some chapters of these new works. In one post I described Rabbi Shmuel Askenazi as follows: One of the hidden giants of the seforim world both…
Using a Colophon to Find a Shidduch: on Ella the Zetser.
There has been much talk lately about the so called Shidduch crisis. Various initiatives have been proposed to address this problem, all of which are well meaning and well thought out. Many might be surprised to learn that an interesting approach was suggested by a 12 year old girl in the town of Frankfurt on Oder way back in 1699. This approach was based on a Pasuk in Yirmiyahu which deals with Messianic times. We are all familiar with the…
The Origin of Ta‘anit Esther
The origin of this fast has always been a mystery. A fast on the 13th of Adar is not mentioned in the Megillah. Nor is such a fast mentioned in Tannaitic or Amoraic literature. Megillat Ta‘anit, compiled in the first century C.E., includes the 13th of Adar as a day upon which Jews were prohibited from fasting. A widespread view today is that the fast arose as a post-Talmudic custom intended to commemorate the three days of fasting initiated by…
New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 3
Continued from here. As I have dealt in this post with Maimonides and the Genesis story, it is as good a time as any to mention what I believe it to be an error that is repeated very often. I saw it most recently in Nathan Aviezer’s article “When Torah and Science Collide” (Tradition, Fall 2009). He writes as follows: Did God create the universe? Seemingly a simple question, with the answer given in the very first verse of the…
International Book Week 2011
This week is the International book week in Jerusalem at Binyanei Ha’uma. Here is a list for some of the new titles for sale. Besides for these new titles there many other great discounts, for example Bialik is having some nice sales on some classic books much cheaper than their normal sale prices. הספרייה הלאומית בעקבות הבעל שם טוב: מאתיים וחמישים שנה למותו של הבעש”ט, מאתיים שנה למות ר’ נחמן מברסלב, תערוכה מאוצרות הספרייה הלאומית קטלוג אוצרות- אסתר ליבס תש”ע….
Upcoming Auction
Kestenbaum & Co. will be holding an auction next Thursday, Feb. 24th. On its site, it provides some highlights, and I wanted to point out a few others. Additionally, one can download the entire catalog by visiting the site. The first edition of R. Yosef Albo’s Sefer ha-Ikarim, Soncino 1485, being an incunabula is of course of note (lot 7). But, the colophon of this work is especially noteworthy. The colophon ends with “Ki mi-Tzion teitze Torah u-devar Hashem mi-Soncino.”…
New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 2
Continued from here. I must now deal with R. Joseph Ibn Caspi, who is often described as holding a view similar to what we have seen already, but more radical in that he saw it as a general principle of interpretation. I refer to the notion that the Torah incorporates all sorts of untruths because these were what people believed at the time. It is said that this is how Ibn Caspi understands the rabbinic phrase “The Torah speaks in…
Tu Be-Shevat and Sabbatianism
For those interested in a potential link between sabbatianism and Tu be-Shevat, see our early post on the subject here. For other customs that may have sabbatian origins see here.
Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past
The well known “coat of arms” of the priestly Rapaport family first appeared as a colophon at the end of Avraham Menachem Rapa of Porto’s Mincha Belulah (Verona, 1594), fol. 207b, readily at HebrewBooks.org (here). Instead of a motto, a banner proclaimed the author’s name above and below the shield which featured a pair of hands raised in priestly benediction in the upper half, while below was depicted a crow (Rabe in German) on a branch, a reference to the…