Upcoming Auction
…Mikra’ot Gedolot (lot 53). This edition as well as the “first” is discussed by Prof. Penkower in this post. Then we have a perennial favorite, R. Shmuel Arcivolti’s Ma’ayan Ganim…
Lighting Shabbat Candles in Jerusalem 40 Minutes Before Sunset
…Tukatzinsky was married to the granddaughter of the venerable R. Shmuel Salant, the last undisputed chief rabbi of Jerusalem in whose court the dispute was adjudicated. [13] The length of the…
New Writings from R. Kook and Assorted Comments, part 2
…one article has appeared: Hanan Gafni, “R. Shmuel Moshe Rubenstein, ha-Hoker ha-Rabani mi-Shavli (1870-1943),” Moreshet Yisrael 5 (2008), pp. 139-158. To give an example, not mentioned by Gafni, of how…
An enigmatic Pseudo-Shklov edition of Barukh She’amar
…Hirsch Goldwurm, ed., The Rishonim (Brooklyn, 1982), p. 147. [3] The Encyclopedia of Jewish life Before and During the Holocaust, editor in chief, Shmuel Spector; consulting editor, Geoffrey Wigoder; foreword…
Apostomos Now: Contemporary Conjectures on a Classic Conundrum
…upon the altar. A passage in bYevamot 16b describes: And Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said Rabbi Yonatan said: What is which is written: “The adversary has spread out his hand…
Book Announcements: Five recent works
…שמואל שפיגל This volume was just published by Professor Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, of Bar-Ilan University’s Talmud department, for the first time from manuscript on Massekhes Avos. This is the fifth…
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions
…shaped like an “L” that opens to the Reshut ha-Rabim at both ends. Indeed, both Rav and Shmuel agree that this mavoy is open on both ends to the Reshut ha-Rabim,…
Rav Gorelick, the Rav, and Revision by Omission
…example, see the journal U’lYishrei Lev, volume 11, published in honor of the marriage of a son of Rav Shmuel Yeshaya Keller (son of the late Rav Chaim Dov Keller),…
An (almost) Unknown Halakhic Work by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and an attempt to answer the question: who punctuated the first edition of the Shulhan Arukh?
…in The Literature of the Sages, Oral Torah, Halakha, Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud, External Tractates (Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum Ad Novum Testamentum) Fortress Pr; 1987 Part 1 Shmuel Safarai ed, p 352. …
Book Announcement: The Lost Library by Dan Rabinowitz
…told by R’ Moshe Shmukler in his fascinating book, Moshe Shmuel ve-Doro, combines the idea of the voracious reader and a comprehensive library: ר’ חיים עוזר… מלבד בקיאותו הגדולה בתלמוד…
Tzevi Hirsch of Nadworna’s Sefer Alpha Beta
…to the kabbalistic custom of arising at the middle of the night to recite prayers and lamentations over the destruction of the Temple. (Aaron Wertheim (Author), Shmuel Himelstein (Translator), Law…
Cemeteries and Response to Criticism
…can confirm this.) It is worth noting that R. Yitzhak Kaduri paid the grave in Jerusalem no mind, and even joked about it.[4] R. Shmuel Eliyahu has stated that while…
Plagiarism, Citation, and Redemption
…words of the historian Shmuel Feiner the “most famous, up-to-date book on the Hebrew bookshelf at the end of the eighteenth century,” And then, a year after it was published a Rabbi…
Parchments Burning, Letters Soaring, and Books Lost and Found: S.Y. Agnon’s Library Fire 100 Years Later
…and some of which I had bought with money set aside for my daily bread,” Shmuel Yosef Agnon reported 42 years later in his famous Nobel Prize banquet speech. The…
The Legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s Death: Truth or Fiction?
…reliable sefer at all (Mivchar Kitavim, pp. 215-216). R. Shmuel David (ShaDaL) Luzzatto in his collection of poems from R. Yehuda Halevi, Besulas Bas Yehuda (Prague, 1840), also questions the…