Eruv Tavshilin: A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation?

Eruv Tavshilin: A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation?

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Eruv Tavshilin:  A Scribal Error or Deliberate Reformation? by: Dan Rabinowitz The Washington Haggadah was written by the scribe Joel ben Simon, and is currently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and is available online in a beautiful digital copy. Joel produced the Haggadah in the late 15th century. As so much of the core Hebraica collection at the Library of Congress, the manuscript was sold by Efraim Deinard to the Library probably around 1916. (Deinard was one of…

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Lectures on Hagadah Shel Pesach and about Hagaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky ZTZ”L’s Seforim

Lectures on Hagadah Shel Pesach and about Hagaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky ZTZ”L’s Seforim

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Lectures on Hagadah Shel Pesach and about Hagaon Rav Chaim Kanievsky ZTZ”l’s Seforim By Eliezer Brodt Earlier this week I had a conversation with Rabbi Moshe Schwed of All Daf, about the Hagadah. Topics included: how many Hagadas there are in existence, various works on the development on the Pesach Seder, and seforim devoted to the Halachos of the Seder, by Rishonim and Achronim. It concluded with a short discussion about illustrated Hagadas and the reasons behind them, available here. It…

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Kitniyot and Mechirat Chametz: Paradoxical Approaches to the Chametz Prohibition

Kitniyot and Mechirat Chametz: Paradoxical Approaches to the Chametz Prohibition

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“Contemporary Rabbis don’t bother to interrogate the sources of law and custom; instead, their purpose is to traffic in chumrot and create new prohibitions. They are unable to appreciate their hypocrisy … on the one hand, they roar like a lion against those who are open to change and the reformists, that one cannot alter an iota from what the kadmonim imposed, while on the other hand, casually discard the kadmonim whenever the achronim create new chumrot and they fight…

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Some Notes on Verifying the Authenticity of the Alleged Rav Yisrael Salanter Photographs

Some Notes on Verifying the Authenticity of the Alleged Rav Yisrael Salanter Photographs

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Some Notes on Verifying the Authenticity of the Alleged Rav Yisrael Salanter Photographs By Shnayer Leiman There are some who claim that the photographs of R. Yisrael Salanter’s sons can be  used for the likeness of their father, since we have testimony that the sons looked almost exactly like their father. Let us examine the evidence. 1. Aside from the 3 published photographs of R. Yisrael’s son R. Yitzchak (see “The Recently Published Photographs of R. Yisrael Salanter”), the only other extant sketch…

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The Recently Published Photographs of Rav Yisrael Salanter: Real or Imaginary?

The Recently Published Photographs of Rav Yisrael Salanter: Real or Imaginary?

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The Recently Published Photographs of Rav Yisrael Salanter: Real or Imaginary? By Shnayer Leiman As early as 2006, and continuing through 2022, a flurry of photographs, purporting to bear the likeness of Rav Yisrael Salanter, have either appeared in print or have been posted on the Internet (see below, section II). While the publication of these photos certainly attests to his abiding influence well into the 21st century, their authenticity seems less than certain, and demands investigation. At the very…

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New Seforim Lists & Book Sale

New Seforim Lists & Book Sale

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New Seforim Lists & Book Sale By Eliezer Brodt This is a new series which I hope to post monthly. The post (and series) hopes to serve a few purposes. It has a list of about one hundred items. The first section lists some new interesting seforim and thereby making the Seforim Blog readership aware of their recent publication. Second, to make these works available for purchase for those interested. Third, the second part of the list are some harder…

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