ArtScroll and More by Marc B. Shapiro Continued from here. 1. As mentioned, I believe that on occasion ArtScroll is unaware that the text it is explaining is a censored text. Sometimes it might even be an internally censored text (i.e., censored by Jews so as to avoid difficulties with the non-Jewish authorities). This same problem is often found with aharonim. How about with rishonim? For example, was Rashi ever misled by an internally censored text? I would hesitate to say…
By Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz Rabbi Yitzchok Oratz, a musmach of Beth Medrash Govoha, is the Rabbi and Director of the Monmouth Torah Links community in Marlboro, NJ. אהרן יצחק הלוי ארץ כי הוא ידע יצרנו: הערות והארות, ציונים ומראה מקומות, על עניניבחירה, חטא, ותשובה. מיוסד על ספר “ברגז רחם תזכור” להרב דוד אליקים בשבקין. Introduction In wrath, remember mercy. For He knows our nature . . . God knows the nature of every generation, Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin has written a Sefer uniquely appropriate for the nature…
וְהָאֱמֶת וְהַשָּׁלוֹם אֱהָבוּ; On Changing the Immutable by Marc B. Shapiro By Yitzchok Stroh Professor Marc Shapiro’s latest work, Changing the Immutable, contains considerable interesting and pertinent information for the student of Jewish history. As stated on the cover, the author attempts to reveal how the (Jewish) orthodox ‘establishment’ silences both past and present dissenting voices through “Orthodox Judaism Rewriting Its History.” I don’t intend this to be a review of the entire work (that would take a lot more time…
The History and Dating of Onkelos By Israel Drazin The Babylonian Talmud has the earliest report of the authorship and date of Targum Onkelos. It states that an individual named Onkelos composed the translation in the first third of the second century CE. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have generally rejected this recollection and dated the Targum, or its final redaction, in the third century CE. I will show that the proper date is more likely the late fourth or…
Rabbi Zeira – Forgetting the Teachings of Babylon By Chaim Katz We read in the Talmud (Baba Metziah 85a): R. Zeira, when he moved to the land of Israel, observed a hundred fasts to forget the teachings of Babylonia, [1] so that they should not disturb him. He fasted another hundred times so that R. Elazar should not die during his years and the responsibilities of the community not fall upon him.He fasted another hundred times so that the fire…
The Man who Tried to Put it All Together: A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit By Yehudah Mirsky Yehudah Mirsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University, and the author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale University Press), available here (link). This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog. Jerusalem of the 1930s was boiled in fury….