What Do Adon Olam and ס”ט Mean ? [1] by By Marc B. Shapiro ס”ט 1. People often refer to me as a Modern Orthodox intellectual. There are actually quite a number of us out there. If you hear someone using words like “ontological,” “existential,” “mimetic,” and now, “tergiversation”[2] you can assume he in in our club. Also, another telltale sign is that when we give divrei Torah you will hear us refer to Philo, the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha (if we…
In Search of Memory:Towards An Understanding of the BaladhurBy Rabbi Eliezer Brodt In a recent post at the Seforim blog, while reviewing R. Ovadiah Yosef’s recent work, Chazon Ovadia, I wrote as follows: “R’ Ovadiah Yosef is world famous for his unbelievable memory, resulting in a tremendous bekius. I once joked that he must have had someone develop a computer program and attach it to his brain to help him retain so much information and recall it at all times.”…
In response to the recent article by Dr. David Kaufmann in The Forward questioning Bugs Bunny’s purported Jewish identity, Bar Ilan University professor and Jewish Studies Quarterly (new series) co-editor Dr. Elliott Horowitz has written a letter to The Forward, available below to readers of the Seforim blog. (It has not yet appeared in The Forward.) As noted in the letter below, Prof. Elliott Horowitz has written two articles on the very question that Kaufmann discusses. See his “Odd Couples:…
Moritz Steinschneider’s Indecent BurialCharles H. ManekinUniversity of Maryland, College Park / Bar Ilan University Over a century has passed since the death of Moritz Steinschneider, the great orientalist, bibliographer, and historian of Jewish literature and culture. When Steinschneider died in 1907 at the age of 91, he was recognized by many as the greatest Jewish scholar of the previous century. His scholarly output numbered over fourteen hundred publications, ranging from short notices to books of over a thousand pages, a…
How Did Rashi Make a Living?[1] Mayer I. Gruber Professor in the Department of Bible Archaeology and the Ancient Near East Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel It has long been taken for granted that Rashi engaged in viticulture, which is to say, the cultivation of vineyards and the preparation and sale of wine made from the grapes he cultivated.[2] However, in 1978 the question of how Rashi made a living was reopened by Haym Soloveitchik.[3] Indeed, Soloveitchik asserted:…
Most books, and Hebrew books are no exception, contain introductions. The introduction may lay out the author’s vision for the book, or describe the motivation for publication. Additionally, it is not uncommon to find material which has little to nothing to do with the work which follows. One example, is the introduction to the third edition of the work Or Enayim.[1] This work by R. Shlomo b. Abraham Peniel discusses “the fine attributes of the Jews and the good that…
