There are many customs associated with Shavout, you can read about some here and here. One, is staying up all night and learning Torah (or at least part). This custom, which began in the 16th century in Safet spread rather quickly throughout the Jewish world. R. Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulkan Orakh lent a spiritual side. R. Karo stayed up all night and was studying with his student R. Shlomo Alkabtz (author of Lecha Dodi) and the following…
There is what appears at first glance to be a technical passage (although some may find it of interest on its own) in the Talmud dealing with the issue of which types of impurity bars one from Torah study. The Talmud states “הזבים והמצורעים ובעולי נדות קורין בתורה ושונין מדרש הלכות והגדות ובעלי קרי אסור בכולן” “A zav, a metzorah, boli niddot, are permitted to read from the Torah, study Midrash, Laws, and ‘agadot, however a ba’al keri can study…
When one discusses the “Jewish” date of the world, the source used is the book Seder Olam. In fact, this is the source where we get to our counting of this being the 5766 year of the world. There was a rather intriguing controversy about whether the edition we have of Seder Olam is a corrupted edition or not. R. Moshe Hagiz, pehaps most well know for his campaign against R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzato, had a very interesting correspondence with…
Menachem Mendel has posted about a very interesting revision to the English Kehati edition of the Mishna.
I have previously briefly mentioned a couple of problems with the new work Kuntress Ha-Teshuvot haHadash, now I would like to give a full review. First, I am no expert in the teshuva literature, that being said I was somewhat disappointed with this book. The book first contains a long introduction into the teshuva literature in general. It discusses such topics as the importance of the literature, the pervasiveness or lack there of, as well as censorship in the teshuvot…
The Vilna edition of the Shas printed by the Romm Press has become the standard edition of the Shas. This Shas had many important additions and corrections that prior ones did not. One of those was the inclusion of the comments of R. Jacob Emden. However, it appears that one comment, a rather important one was left out. R. Emden in Gitten page 60 made a comment regarding the Hassidim, this does not appear in the Vilna Shas. In the…