Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah

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Midrashic Exegesis and Biblical Interpretation in the Meshekh Hokhmah by Yitshak Cohen In honor of Yitshak Cohen’s just-published book, “Or Sameah” Halakhah u-Mishpat: Mishnato shel Ha-Rav Meir Simhah ha-Kohen al Mishneh Torah le-ha-Rambam, the Seforim Blog is happy to present this post in English, which is taken from a longer article to appear in the Jewish Law Annual. Introduction R. Meir Simhah Hacohen (henceforth: RMS) was born in 1843 in the village of Butrimonys, in the Vilnius district. Gaining renown…

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German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

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German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More Marc B. Shapiro 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…

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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 that Wells…

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Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered

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Rashbam the Talmudist, Reconsidered by David S. Farkas* 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,…

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Wine Strength and Dilution

Wine Strength and Dilution

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Wine Strength and Dilution by Isaiah Cox 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.[1] This is inferred because we know from the Gemara that wine was customarily diluted by at…

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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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The Seforim Blog is happy to present this selection from Yoel Finkelman’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…

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