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

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

Hot Tears For A Close Friend: Rabbi Eitam Henkin HY”D by Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber translated by Daniel Tabak 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…

Read More Read More

David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

David Assaf – A Farewell to Eitam Henkin

A Farewell to Eitam Henkin by David Assaf 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…

Read More Read More

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible

Avunculate Marriage in the Bible By Reuven Chaim (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)…

Read More Read More

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

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

Rambam’s Response to the Inclusion of Chicken, Duck and Quail in Qaraite Cuisine By Tzvi H. Adams 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[1], as well as a shiur by Rabbi…

Read More Read More

Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash

Nachmanides Introduced the Notion that Targum Onkelos Contains Derash By Israel Drazin 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…

Read More Read More

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

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

R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship by Jacob D. At the end of R. Zevin’s introduction to his Sofrim u-Sefarim [1] 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…

Read More Read More