The Seforim Blog – Page 37 – All about Seforim – New and Old, and Jewish Bibliography

An Obscure Diagram in the Bomberg Shas

December 9, 2015 Eli Genauer Comments 20 comments

AUCTION 65: JUNE 25TH, 2015 LOT: 111 (TALMUD, BABYLONIAN). Masechta Sotah. With commentaries by Rashi, Tosaphoth, Maimonides and Rabbeinu Asher. FIRST BOMBERG EDITION .. ……Vinograd, Venice 27; Habermann, Bomberg 22. Daniel Bomberg, Venice: 1520. This Tractate contains the only appearance of a printed text illustration throughout the entire Talmud issued by Bomberg (see f. 43r). The reference to ( see f.43r ) indicates that this singular printed diagram in the Bomberg Shas appears on Daf 43A in Sotah. It is…

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Lunch and Learn with Rav Yechiel Goldhaber on Thursday 12/3/15 at 1:00 PM

December 2, 2015 Dan Rabinowitz Comments 0 Comment

The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a “Lunch and Learn” that will be taking place Thursday, December 3 from 1:00 – 2:00 PM. The shiur will be given by the noted scholar and author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisrael (link). He has written many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The Shiur will take place…

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Announcement – Lecture by Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber at the Sprecher home

November 25, 2015 Dan Rabinowitz Comments 0 Comment

The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a shiur that will be taking place Sunday November 29 at 8:00 PM. The shiur will be given by the noted scholar and author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisroel (link). He has authored many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The subject of the Shiur is על חרדים ויום…

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Maimonides and Prophecy, R. Pinhas Lintop, R. José Faur, and More Examples of Censorship

November 22, 2015 Marc B. Shapiro Comments 3 comments

1. In my last post here I discussed whether Maimonides believed that the entire people of Israel experienced prophecy at Mt. Sinai. I neglected to refer to Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 8:3, which states: לפי שנבואת משה רבנו אינה על פי האותות כדי שנערוך אותות זה לאותות זה, אלא בעינינו ראינוה ובאזנינו שמענוה כמו ששמע הוא This is one of those passages that presents problems for the interpreter, since what Maimonides says in the Mishneh Torah, that all Israel experienced prophecy…

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Finders Keepers? The Itinerant History of Strashun Library of Vilna, Pt I

November 16, 2015 Dan Rabinowitz Comments 1 comment

Since the 1990s, the issue of reparation of items looted by the Nazis has become a high-profile issue, with numerous successful attempts at reuniting owners with their stolen possessions. The recent movie, Monuments Men, fictionalized the Allies’ post-war efforts that led to the locating some of these looted treasures. While some of the best-known examples of these recovered treasures are related to art, gold, or Swiss bank accounts, Hebrew books were also part of the Nazi’s appropriation scheme and were…

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נוסח סליחות אשכנזי מודפס ארבע עשרה בלתי ידוע

November 8, 2015 David Roth Comments 2 comments

לפי פרופ’ דניאל גולדשמידט ז”ל, יש שלש עשרה נוסחאות מודפסים של סליחות אשכנזים: אשכנז הכללי (פפד’מ), עלזאס, פיורדא-נירנברג, וורמייזא, פלאס, שוואבין-שוויץ, קוילן, אשכנזים שבאיטליה (כל הנ’ל הם שייכים לנוסח אשכנז המערבי), ליטא, פולין, בהמן, פוזנא, ובית כנסת הישן בפראג (ששייכים למנהג המזרחי). , בדרך כלל, אצל אשכנזים, נהוג לומר סליחות שונות בכל יום, ובכל הנוסחאות הנ”ל, יש סדר שונה לכל יום של ימי אלול וימי התשובה, וכן לשחרית, מוסף, ומנחה של יוהכ’פ.[4] כדי להבין את מה שמיוחד בספר סליחות שמצאתי…

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A Note Regarding Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer’s Position on Opening a Refrigerator on Shabbat

November 5, 2015 Yaacov Sasson Comments 1 comment

The purpose of this note is to correct an error that appeared in a widely-read journal nearly 25 years ago; the error is of sufficient consequence that it necessitates a correction, even after so many years. In their article, “The Use of Electricity on Shabbat and Yom Tov”, by Rabbis Michael Broyde and Howard Jachter (Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, No. XXI, Spring 1991), the authors cite Rav Simcha Zelig Reguer, the Dayan of Brisk, as having permitted opening…

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Assorted Comments on R. Jacob Emden, Ashkenazic Views of Sephardic Gedolim, and More

November 2, 2015 Marc B. Shapiro Comments 1 comment

1. Since I have discussed R. Jacob Emden in many posts, let me add the following. If you examine Emden’s Birat Migdal ha-Oz you find that he refers to himself as הסריס. Here is the Berditchev 1836 edition of the work, p. 135a. I think all would agree that this is a strange title to give oneself. In this work, p. 116a, he also calls himself שלו. On p. 44a he refers to himself as שאול. On pp. 101b and…

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עקידת יצחק בראי הלכה

October 30, 2015 Yechiel Goldhaber Comments 0 Comment

הפנימי המתנצנץ ובוער בלב כל נפש ישראל פנימה, ייסודו ומקורו מאותו עמוד לבת אש קודש שיקד והאיר את העולם ואת העולמות כולם, נשגב ונעלם מהשגת אנוש, טמיר ומכוסה אף משרפי מעלה ומלאכי מרום. רשפיה רשפי אש, מעמד העקידה הקדושה שעקד אברהם את יצחק בנו יחידו לה’. מעמד זה כל כולו “לב” – אהבה ויראה, צמאון ודביקות עד כלות הנפש. אך על כל שגבה ורוממותה, עם זאת, חכמי הדורות לא מנעו עצמם להעביר ענין זה בכלי ה”מוח”, ללמוד ולהבין, לבחנה בכור…

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Hot Tears For A Close Friend: Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D

October 28, 2015 Yechiel Goldhaber Comments 25 comments

I shall never forget when I first met Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D three years ago. At the time I had begun preparing a study on the parting of minds in the kollels of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem 150 years ago. I managed to get my hands on a lot of rare sources, but the morass of material only beclouded the depths of the goings-on in the city at the time. The main purpose of my study was to ascertain…

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David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

October 26, 2015 David Assaf Comments 1 comment

Professor David Assaf is the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair of Jewish Studies, the Chair of the Department of Jewish History, and the Director of the Institute for the History of Polish Jewry and Israel-Poland Relations, at Tel-Aviv University. A Hebrew version of this essay appeared at the Oneg Shabbat blog (6 October 2015) (http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2015/10/blog-post.html), and was translated by Daniel Tabak of New York, with permission of Professor David Assaf. This is his first contribution to the Seforim blog. Eitam Henkin…

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Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

October 25, 2015 Reuven Chaim Comments 0 Comment

(Rudolph) Klein Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is the author of the Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew [available here]. His book is available online and in bookstores throughout the world. Rabbi Klein published articles in various journals including Jewish Bible Quarterly, Kovetz Hamaor, Kovetz Chitzei Gibborim, and Kovetz Kol HaTorah. He studied at premier Yeshivas including the Mir in Jerusalem and BMG in Lakewood. He was most recently a fellow at the Tikvah Institute for Yeshiva Men (Summer 2015) and…

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Rambam’s Response to the Inclusion of Chicken, Duck and Quail in Qaraite Cuisine

October 22, 2015 Tzvi H. Adams Comments 57 comments

In “Waiting Six Hours for Dairy- A Rabbanite Response to Qaraism” (here) I posited that Rabbeinu Chananel initiated the practice of waiting six hours between meat and dairy in order to protect Rabbanite values. This association was inspired by Dr. Bernard Revel’s studies of Rabbanite leaders’ efforts to counter sectarian influences during the early Middle Ages , as well as a shiur by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim. I then suggested that Rambam furthered this anti-Qaraite motion by including poultry into the…

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Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

October 20, 2015 Israel Drazin Comments 5 comments

www.booksnthoughts.com People today read Targum Onkelos and search it for derash, halakhah, and homiletical teachings. The following will show that the rabbis in the Talmuds and Midrashim and the Bible commentators who used the Targum before the thirteenth century recognized that the Aramaic translation only contains the Torah’s peshat, its plain meaning, and not sermonic material. It will survey how the pre-thirteenth century rabbis and scholars used Onkelos and how Nachmanides changed the way the Targum was understood. It was…

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R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship

October 15, 2015 Jacob D. Comments 0 Comment

end of R. Zevin’s introduction to his Sofrim u-Sefarim we read – In R. Zevin’s footnote we see that one of the works that he wanted to review but didn’t yet get to was R. Ovadia Yosef’s two volumes of Yabia Omer. As someone who enjoys R. Zevin’s pen immensely (both his style and substance, especially the way he analyzes books and their authors) , and as someone that studies from R. Ovadia Yosef’s prolific halakhic literature quite often, I…

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