Orthodox Jews in America reviewed by Marc B. Shapiro This is the first part of a four part post. It begins with a review I was asked to write that in the end was never published. The format of the review was not designed for the arcane stuff and numerous footnotes that are usual fare for the Seforim blog. Yet have no fear, these will return in parts 2-4. Jeffrey S. Gurock, Orthodox Jews in America…
Bein hashemashot: A Reevaluation of the Texts Part II by: Dr. William Gewirtz This is the second of a sequence of posts (the first post can be found here), from a draft of a forthcoming monograph by Dr. William Gewirtz that addresses the period of bein hashemashot. Each post briefly summarizes about 20 pages of the monograph and contains 4 – 6 critical pages from that section as well. The monograph addresses the period of bein hashemashot, the most fundamental…
Some Observations Regarding the Mah Nishtannah[1] by: Mitchell First 1. It is well-known that the Mishnah in the tenth chapter of Pesachim includes a set of mah nishtannah. But if one opens a standard printed Babylonian Talmud (Pes. 116a), one sees four questions[2] in the text of the Mishnah (matzah, maror, roast, and dipping), while if one opens a standard printed Jerusalem Talmud, one sees three (dipping, matzah and roast). Is this an instance of a disagreement between the text…
Seforim For Sale – List One Eliezer Brodt We will be introducing a new feature to the seforim blog. From time to time we will be offering some hard-to-find seforim and academic books for very reasonable prices. Most of the titles mentioned here are out of print and, for some of the listed titles, there are only a few copies available. For example, for-some of the titles there are only 5 copies available for sale while others there are many…
TV Series on the Thirteen Principlesby: Marc B. Shapiro My next post will, God willing, appear after Pesah (in three parts). In the meantime, I wanted to let readers know about the thirteen episodes of a show focusing on the Thirteen Principles. It is called Credo 13 and you can find it here.It appeared on Canadian television and “stars” myself, David Novak. Benjamin Hecht, Shalom Carmy, Eliezer Breitowitz, Mayer Schiller, and Leib Tropper. (If you can’t tolerate, or figure out,…
Kitniyot and Stimulants: Coffee and Marijuana on Passover One of the more interesting customs for Pesach in that of refraining from kitniyot. There is much discussion regarding the origins of this mysterious custom. That is, the exact time this custom began, as well as it initial rationale is cloaked in mystery. That is not to say that numerous reasons haven’t been offered, only that we probably will never know for certain why this was enacted. Moreover, what exactly is encompassed…