Fixing a Typesetting Error in Order to Understand The View of the Mishnah Berurah on Women Wearing Tefillin

Fixing a Typesetting Error in Order to Understand The View of the Mishnah Berurah on Women Wearing Tefillin

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Fixing a Typesetting Error in Order to Understand The View of the Mishnah Berurah on Women Wearing Tefillin by Michael J. Broyde mbroyde@emory.edu Please note that this piece isn’t meant to be construed one way or another as the view of the Seforim Blog. While there has been considerable recent discussion regarding women wearing tefillin, I will not review here the general topic but rather focus specifically only the view of the Mishnah Berurah.  I believe the view of the Mishnah Berurah…

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A Mild Case of Plagiarism: R. Abraham Kalmankes’ Ma’ayan Ha-Hokhmah

A Mild Case of Plagiarism: R. Abraham Kalmankes’ Ma’ayan Ha-Hokhmah

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A Mild Case of Plagiarism:  R. Abraham Kalmankes’ Ma’ayan Ha-Hokhmah by Shnayer Leiman 1.  The Accusation. Rabbi Joseph Samuel ben R. Zvi (d. 1703) – more popularly known as ר’ שמואל ר’ חיים ר’ ישעיה’ס – served as a member of the rabbinic court in Cracow for some 26 years, after which he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt in 1689.1 An avid collector of books and manuscripts, he made good use of them in listing in the margins of his copy of the…

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Crafting the Commandments

Crafting the Commandments

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Albert D. Friedberg’s Crafting the Commandments has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present the following excerpt from the book’s conclusion. Scholars have ascribed far too much importance to Maimonides’ enumeration of the commandments and far too little to the motivations that lay behind his appropriation of R. Simlai’s aggadah as the basis for the enumeration and to the significance that Maimonides attached to this aggadah. The proximate reason for creating an enumeration was his need to have…

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New Seforim and books 2014

New Seforim and books 2014

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New Seforim and books 2014 by Eliezer Brodt Although the world, has been shifting more and more to E- books, seforim and books are still being printed in full force in the Jewish world. What follows is a list of new seforim and books I have seen around in the past few months. Some of the titles are brand new others are a bit older. I am well aware that there are new works worth mentioning that are not included….

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Asufah of Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazi

Asufah of Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazi

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New sefer announcement: Asufah of Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazi By Eliezer Brodt   אסופה, ארבעה מאמרים מאוצרות הר”ש אשכנזי שליט”א [‘העלם דבר וטעות סופר’, ‘הגונב מן הספר’, ‘הרמב”ם כמתרגם מלשון התלמוד ללשון המשנה’, ‘מילונות עברית כיצד’?], ערך והשלים והביא לבית הדפוס, יעקב ישראל סטל, בהשתתפות אליעזר יהודה בראדט, כריכה רכה, 166 עמודים. It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of another volume of Rabbi Shmuel Ashkenazi’s work- Asufah. As I have written in the past, we are trying…

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Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll

Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll

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Pursuing the Quest: Selected Writings of Louis Jacobs has just appeared. The Seforim Blog is happy to present the following excerpts from the book. (The Note on Artscroll is part of a longer article.) Tobacco and the Hasidim and a Comment on Artscroll Louis Jacobs References in literature to the use of tobacco by hasidic Jews are numerous [1]. Although there is little direct evidence to indicate how widespread it was, the references suggest it was fairly extensive. Let us…

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