What Was Bothering the Censor?
…you know the Medrash about HaKadosh Baruch Hu looking into the Torah for instructions for creating the world, “like an architect consults a plan? That seemed simple enough. The Christian…
Publish and Perish or Digital death
…more to understand what we read. Therefore the market for the new editions of: Humashim, Mishnayot, Shasim, Turim and Shulkan Aruch etc. is healthy and growing. However the self publishing…
Hebrew printing in Altdorf: A brief Christian-Hebraist Phenomenon
…residence in Muelhausen, Alsace. He studied under R. Meir ben Baruch ha-Levi (c. 1320-1390), Sar Shalom of Neustadt (14th cent.), and R. Samson ben Eleazar. In 1389, Muelhausen was one…
Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?
…the fox being chief among them), but we are only left with three of them. ↑ https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2021/09/a-fox-fable-goes-digital-bialiks-classic-hebrew-story-for-children-finds-new-life-at-the-library-of-congress/ ↑ Eitz Yosef quotes Aruch who translates מוקרה as ‘its neck.’ It should…
The Twice Told Tale of R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz and the Porger
…פירוש on Shuchan Aruch Yoreh Deah, dealing with issues of treifos, basar b’chalav, taaruvos, etc. The sefer was published in 1763, a year before his death in 1764 in Altona,…
Sinful Thoughts: Comments on Sin, Failure, Free Will, and Related Topics Based on David Bashevkin’s new book Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought
…(Rozovsky, Sanhedrin 72b, note 309), Noda B’Yehuda, Tinyana, CM # 60, and Aruch Laner (Sanhedrin 73a). Even more questionable is why eidim zomimin (conspiring/falsified witnesses) are not an example of…
Rav Shmuel Ashkenazi: a Hidden Genius
…Butler, initiated a campaign to raise funds to publish R. Ashkenazi’s letters via the Seforim blog. Baruch HaShem, and thanks to the help of some readers, enough money was raised…
Which Direction is North?, Geographical Mistakes, and our Woke Universities
…Commentary on Psalms (Philadelphia, 2007), pp. 69ff. [34] Mitphahat Sefarim, ch. 4, p. 29 in the Jerusalem, 1995 edition. [35] See e.g., R. Baruch Epstein, Torah Temimah, Numbers ch. 15,…
Rav Kook’s Missing Student
…of Rabbi Zimmerman was actually that of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Halevi Zimmerman, Rabbi of Krementchug. The latter was the father-in-law of Rabbi Baruch Baer Leibowitz (famed student of Rabbi Hayyim…
Apostates and More, Part 1
…R. Baruch Oberlander’s and R. Elchanan Shmotkin’s beautifully produced work on the Rebbe, Early Years (Brooklyn, 2016), pp. 167, 168. Ephraim Deinard, Zikhronot Bat Ami, vol. 2, p. 7, reports,…
Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More
…will find particularly interesting are David Stern, “Rabbinics and Jewish Identity: An American Perspective;” David Shatz, “Nothing but the Tuth? Modern Orthodoxy and the Polemical Uses of History,” Baruch J….
The Proselyte Doth Protest Too Much
…1674 at Strasburg, having formerly borne the name of Baruch as Hazzan at Bruchsal. After having occupied for twenty years the chair of Semitic studies at the University of Leipsic,…
Sixty Years Since Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish: A Fire the World Still Needs
…study his writings – but to recognize how deeply the world still misses him, and how desperately it still needs leaders formed in his image. Yehi zichro baruch, and may…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Some Remarks On Aristotle, Dante Alighieri, Immanuel of Rome, R. Moshe Botarel and Bertrand Russell
…toward Aristotle found in our tradition. R. Moshe Botarel R. Baruch Halevi Epstein makes the odd claim that Aristotle is esteemed by the Kabbalists, citing R. Moshe Botarel as swearing to his great love of…
Marc B. Shapiro – Responses to Comments and Elaborations on Previous Posts II
…following my last post on Rabbis and Communism, so let me add a few further comments. R. Baruch Oberlander called my attention to Likutei Sihot, vol. 33, pp. 248-249. Here…