Review of R. Yosef Engel’s Tiferes Yosef
Review of Tiferes Yosef by Eliezer Brodt Tiferes Yosef, Sefer Shemos, R. Yosef Engel, ed. Friedman, Mochon Ohavei Torah, Monsey, NY, 595 pages, 2007. [845. 426.6152] About four years ago…
Comments on This and That, part 2
…let me mention that for Sefer Hasidim it was important to know what the Song of Songs literally meant, for he declares that all the parts of a woman’s body…
Change Has Come To Modena
…Yechiel Michel Epstein, was first published in Fürth in 1683.[1] It was not truly an abridgement of the Shnai Luchos HaBris, but rather a Sefer which stood on its own….
The Haftarot for Behar and Behukkotai
…haftara list that is brought in Sefer Ha’eshkol,[6] and in R’ Elazar of Worms’s book on haftarot.[7] They are also listed by R’ Ya’akov Hazan in Etz Haim,[8] which serves…
New Book List December 2007
…(Jerusalem, 2007); 269 pages. This sefer is the last will and testament of the Rambam (with nikkud) that he wrote to his son R. Avraham. This work has a lengthy…
Avunculate Marriage in the Bible
…the Hassidei Ashkenaz movement, R. Judah Ha-Hassid, declares that one should not marry his niece, neither sororal nor fraternal (in his ethical will §22 and in Sefer Hassidim §477). However,…
The Head Movements of Shema’
…the Sefer ha-Eshkol of Rabbi Abraham ben Isaac, Av-Beit-Din of Narbonne (d. 1158). See Albeck ed., Sefer ha-Eshkol, p. 14; included in B.M. Lewin ed., Otsar ha-Ge’onim, Vol. I –…
Machon Yerushalayim’s Book Week 2011
…due in a month or two. Another very valuable work just printed is the sefer Shulchan Melachim. This work is based on manuscripts from Rabbi Yitzchak Bueno who was a…
The History behind the Ashkenazi/Sephardi divide concerning lighting Chanukah candles
…practice, the first explicit source for the minhag to have every individual light appears in the writings of Maharil (c. 1365-1427). Both in his responsa[16] and in the Sefer Maharil,[17]…
The Birkhat ha-Mazon as an Early Modern Supplementary Prayerbook
…Nos. 2599 – 2658; C.B. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim. 4 Vols. Tel Aviv: Friedberg, 1951, s.v., Birkhat ha-Mazon; Y. Vinogard, Ozar Sefer ha-Ivri. Jerusalem: Institute for Computerized Bibliography, 1994, s.v.,…
When Rav Kook Was the Kana’i (Zealot) and His Opponent the Melits Yosher (Advocate)
…commandment of tefillin. Historically, there was precedent for a rabbi promoting that specific mitsvah. In the thirteenth century, Rabbi Jacob of Coucy (author of Sefer Mitsvot Gadol or SeMaG), circulating…
R. Yaakov Lipshitz and Heter Mechirah
…shemitah. He said over seventy five! By now that number has certainly doubled. My personal recommendation is if someone is working on a sefer on shemitah, unless it is incredible,…
A review of some Recent Torah Journals
…R. Y. Stal. Another good piece was from R. E. Blumenthal with new information about the Sefer Haterumah. Some other good pieces worth highlighting is one on Sefer Hatagin, on…
The Medical Training and Yet Another (Previously Unknown) Legacy of Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, zt”l
…unfortunately Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski was critically ill. As hashgachah would have it, Menachem had happened upon a little-known precious work from 1997, entitled Sefer Ye’omar le-Yaakov u-le-Yisrael, compiled…
Another Obvious Mistake, More Grammatical Points, Bubbe Mayseh, Apostates and the Zohar
…The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book (Leiden and Boston, 2004), vol. 1, p. 503. [24] See Yitzhak Yudelov, “Al Sefarim, Madpisim, u-Mo”lim,” in Yosef Eliyahu Movshovitz, ed., Ha-Sefer (Jerusalem, 2008), vol….