Additionally, a discussion regarding the Gra’s (and his followers) opinion and the underpinnings of that opinion. Including, the rejection of the notion that legal precedent has the power to determine issues of Jewish law. That notion, the lack of binding precedent, is necessary to overturn the long-accepted practice of using 600,000 people to define reshut HaRabbim.
The JNUL has an excellent site regarding the history of the Shmitta controversy. They have the materials divided by year and the materials contain broadsides and other important but difficult to obtain materials. The site is here.
For those interested in the topic of the permissibility of praying to angels and the controversy surrounding this topic see the post on Machnesi Rachamim and Plagiarism which has been updated a bit and now includes some interesting scans. One scan in particular, the title page, is a case of a very elaborate and somewhat unique illustrated title page. In the next couple of days I hope to return to this topic and debunk a popular explanation regarding a well-known…
This post is an excerpt of a chapter from his upcoming book on the halachos and minhagim of Rosh HaShana. The post below deals with the statement, whose source is from R. Yosef Karo’s maggid, (known as Mishna), to refrain from eating meat on Rosh HaShana. This statement appears to be contrary to an (actual) Mishna in Chulin. R. Brodt hopes to have this book available for next year Rosh HaShana. אי-אכילת בשר בראש-השנה א. א. כשם שלכמה מן הראשונים…
As a somewhat belated followup to an earlier discussion at my AJHistory blog (z”l), I would like to add the following to the list of interesting-academic-footnotes:There is something reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges in the seemingly infinite series of translations represented in [Azariah] de Rossi’s Hebrew translations of the Latin translation of the Greek account of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, made only more dizzying by Joanna Weinberg’s English translation of de Rossi’s Hebrew translation of the Latin…
ס”ט 1. People often refer to me as a Modern Orthodox intellectual. There are actually quite a number of us out there. If you hear someone using words like “ontological,” “existential,” “mimetic,” and now, “tergiversation” you can assume he in in our club. Also, another telltale sign is that when we give divrei Torah you will hear us refer to Philo, the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha (if we are confident that we can pronounce the word properly ), Shadal, or Cassutto. Of…
In a recent post at the Seforim blog, while reviewing R. Ovadiah Yosef’s recent work, Chazon Ovadia, I wrote as follows: “R’ Ovadiah Yosef is world famous for his unbelievable memory, resulting in a tremendous bekius. I once joked that he must have had someone develop a computer program and attach it to his brain to help him retain so much information and recall it at all times.” To this, one anonymous commenter wrote as follows: “Actually, there is a…
* Commentaries are arranged in chronological order, and then by book. For space and simplicity sake, works are identified only by their author’s and translator’s names or publishers; for further bibliographical information, copy and paste the call numbers into the JTS online catalog under “Search: Call Number begins with…” Items not (yet?) found in the JTS Library do not have call numbers associated with them and contain instead only basic bibliographic information. Only significantly lengthy (more than a chapter or…
The Targum Yonason is a fairly standard commentary on the Torah (we are only discussing the Torah one). Now, as most are aware, in fact this is not from Yonason but instead is more correctly called Targum Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Targum). In academic circles it is referred to as Pseudo-Jonathon. In all likelihood, the original name was in fact Targum Yerushalmi but was abbreviated as ת”י and thus mistakenly expanded to be תרגום יונתן and not the correct תרגום ירושלמי. Various…
There is a discussion on the always-wonderful-blog On The Main Line regarding a portrait attributed to Rashi. Someone MENACHEM BUTLER raised the well-known collection of famous Rabbinic personalities which appeared on an edition of the Shulhan Arukh. The edition to which they are referring to is the Shulhan Arukh printed in Mantua in 1721-23. This edition includes the standard commentaries as well as the commentary of R. Gur Areyeh Finzi (d. 1753). On the title page Finzi (or the printer)…
In a follow-up to Professor Carmi Horowitz’s recent post at the Seforim blog, I wanted to discuss, in a bit more detail, the new reprint of the Midrash Lekah Tov and further bolster Prof. Horowitz’s conclusion that this new reprint falls short of expectations as well as the Makhon who did this. In the world of Hebrew books there are many books published almost daily, while there is much quantity should not be mistaken for quality. In truth this is…
* Two new works have recently appeared on the market: a new edition of Midrash Lekah Tov and a new edition of the Perush on Sefer Yezirah of R. Yehudah b. Barzilai Barceloni. The following is based on an initial perusal of the two works. I have not read through the entire volumes. I. The new edition of Lekah Tov consists of three volumes published by Zikhron Aharon Jerusalem with a forward by Yonatan Blier. The first volume is on…
has written a letter to The Forward, available below to readers of the Seforim blog. (It has not yet appeared in The Forward.) As noted in the letter below, Prof. Elliott Horowitz has written two articles on the very question that Kaufmann discusses. See his “Odd Couples: The Eagle and the Hare, the Lion and the Unicorn” Jewish Studies Quarterly 11:3 (August 2004): 243-258, and “The People of the Image,” The New Republic 223:13 (September 25, 2000): 41-49. This is…
From last year (with a small update) at the Seforim blog, Dan Rabinowitz’s “The Custom of Reciting l’Dovid HaShem Ori.”
For those who have not seen the obituary notice in the New York Times (Aug 14, 2007; B6), the Seforim blog records the passing of Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom, a pulpit rabbi for over fifty years and longtime faculty member at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. He was the author of Luzzatto’s Ethico-Psychological Interpretation of Judaism: A Study in the Religious Philosophy of Samuel David Luzzatto (New York: Yeshiva University, 1965); Tradition in an Age of Reform: The Religious…