While it is a bit out of season, I wanted to review Elliott Horowitz’s new book Reckless Rites. In this book, subtitled “Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence,” everything is viewed through the prism of the violence inflicted by the Jews upon their enemies at the end of Esther. While arguably, the violence at the end is only a minor part of the story for some that aspect has clouded everything about the Book of Esther and Purim. First…
Rabbi David Feldman, who is well known for his book on issues relating to Jewish law and the beginning of life (abortion, birth control etc.), has now published via Yashar Books, a book on end of life issues and Jewish law. This book covers such topics as reproductive technology, stem cells, organ transplants, suicide, and determining death. Although it covers such weighty topics it is a rather easy read. Rabbi Feldman eschews highly technical discussion and instead has opened the…
While I don’t have the time to go through the entire Dei’ah veDibur article and demonstrate the extant of the copying, I will provide some of the more egreious examples. Here is a quote from the Dei’ah veDibur article (in italics) with the orginal Hebrew intersperced and my commnets in bold. One should remember that the original article was written in first person. The first manuscript that the Romm family obtained was Rabbenu Chananel’s commentary which now appears alongside the…
A new sefer came out titled Ohron shel Chachomim. This work purports to collect the various laws and philosophy one should have for the Rabbis. The first section is just the basic law applicable to a talmid chacham, standing, not addressing by first name etc. In this section there is also a brief discussion about the “laws” of emunat chachmim. We are treated however to such laws as “not only is one obligated to follow the chachamim but also their…
There is a new sefer which offers a translation of Onkelos published by Gefen books. Onkelos, which is considered the authoritative translation of the Torah has, unfortunatly, suffered from the difficulty people have in reading it. Instead, most English speakers rely upon other translation, some which do not follow Onkelos. This has now been remidied by this new book “Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text” by Israel Drazin and Stanley Wagner. The book is very user friendly. It…
I recently finished reading Yitzhak Barzilay’s book on R. Manasseh of Ilya. R. Manasseh was a fascinating character. He was a student of the Vilna Goan, but wrote a pamphlet arguing for reconciliation between Hassidim and non-Hassidim. He wrote another work discussing the trop or cantilation marks and yet another, his mangum opus, on the Talmud. It is the later work that he is most well known for, although not necessarily in a positive way. The Tefferet Yisrael (R. Yisrael…
