With modern day technology it is now possible to store tremendous amounts of information on hard drives. In the Jewish arena some have begun harnessing this power by placing thousands of seforim on a single hard drive. While there are others, which I hope to discuss at a later date, there is a new such hard drive. This hard drive contains 11,000 seforim and journals. These are searchable to an extent, as I will explain below. This hard drive contains the contents of Copy Corner, which for many years was the place to get reprints of rare and obscure (although important) seforim. Perhaps the greatest feature of the hard drive is the price, while other such hard drives cost in excess of $1,000, this one is $300. The $300 price is really just the cost associated with the drive, and making it searchable.

The hard drive was put together by the person who started HebrewBooks.org, Chaim Rosenberg, which originally was devoted to American seforim and since has moved to encompass a significant amount of other seforim – as the drive is a testament to. Aside from the Copy Corner collection, the drive is heavy in She’elot u’Teshuvot as well as commentaries on the Shulchan Orach, haggadot, and journals. Every book is fully printable and viewable.

Additionally, aside from just viewing a random book, you can also execute searches on all the books. The search process is actually two-step. First you search for a term and it pulls up all the books which contain the term you are looking for, then you search the book, as you would any PDF document for the specific page your term appears. The more expensive hard drives the search function is more streamlined, however, one pays for that ease.

I have been using this for a couple of weeks now, and I am very pleased with the drive. While, it does not encompass everything, that is not it’s mission – yet. The hope is to constantly offer upgrades, again for cost, which will add more content. The viewer actually provides a link for feedback. Further, this hard drive does not require that you install anything on your computer rather it runs fully from the hard drive. This is rather convenient if you use it with more than one computer.

In the end, anyone looking for a fairly low cost method of obtaining a significant reference library this can not be beat. It is available from hebrewbooks.org or emailing directly to oldhebrewbooks -at- aol.com. In New York – Biegelisen, Eichlers, Tuvia’s all have it as does Judaica Plaza in Lakewood.

Kestenbaum has put up their latest catalog for their auction of September 12 2006. It has some rather nice pieces.

Just to highlight one. They have the Siddur by R. Jacob Emden. While this siddur in and of itself is somewhat rare due to the fact R. Emden self-published this, the copy Kestenbaum has is even more unique. This copy contains pages which do not appear in most of the copies. R. Emden disagrees with Maimonides regarding the purpose of circumcision. R. Emden argues, contrary to Maimonides, that circumcision does not reduce sexual excitement in fact it enhances it. In the majority of copies all that appears is “In truth, [Maimonides’] remarks are most astonishing” but nothing about R. Emden’s contrary view. The lot with this book as well as a fuller discussion is number 53.

Second, recently David Assaf published a collection of his articles. While his articles did engender that much notice – his book on the other hand has. Tzemach Atlas of Mentalblog has been following this and has collected various newspaper reviews as well as his own. The book in question deals with various hassidic stories, some of which have been suppressed due the perceived slight on their participants. These include an apostasy of a Rebbe’s son as well as other interesting facts.

R. Landy of the Lower East Side has purchased a significant library and is now selling them. Unfortunately, I have yet to see these in person, however, from what has been related to me via telephone, he has some terrific books. If one wants to go, they should first call him at 917 676 0762. He is located at 264 east broadway C104.

Many of the haggadot that we have mentioned previously as well as many other interesting ones are available for free in there entirety at the JNUL’s site here. All you need is a printer (just make sure to switch to landscape printing for the double paged ones) and you too can have a copy of 1482 haggadah, 1526 Prague haggdah (first fully illustrated haggadah), Venice Ladino haggadah, 1833 English translation, or the 1844 haggadah printed in Calcutta, India to name but a few.

Question: Where can one get out-of-print seforim?

Answer: Some can be purchased via auction. There are a few auction houses that specialize in seforim. Kestenbaum, Baronovitch, Asufa, and Jerusalem Judaica are some.

Then there are dealers and stores. I would always first check Biegeleisen (718) 436-1165 to see if it is truly out-of-print. Then there is Seforim World, which is right next door to Biegeleisen who has out-of-print seforim.

Then there is also Pinters Hebrew Book Store, 4408 14th Avenue (718)-871-2260 who in theory is a repository of seforim people no longer want, however, if you dig one can find some gems there.

I also use Rabbi Eliezer Katzman (718)-851-0490 and R. Wigder in Mount Kisco (914) 242-0324. I have also received via email, a catalog from a dealer in Melbourne Australia, Adir, the catalog has some terrific items, and the contact email is sba-at- sba2-dot-com

One can also try bookfinder which has some Judaica dealers as well as well as Ebay.

The easiest place to get out-of-print seforim is at the library, most major university libraries contain Judaica.

The Baranovitch auction catalog for their Nov. 9th auction is now available online. It has some nice seforim, including one of my favorite, R. Y. Shapotshink’s Shas haGodol s’begolim, the largest Shas ever published. Shapotshink, who was a real character, utilized R. Pinner’s shas and then added notes on the side of the page, creating the largest in size shas ever published. As many of his books, he only published a single volume. In this case, only Berachot was published.

The auction also includes some books with pictures in them. One of the more interesting ones is the Vienna, 1813 edition of the Marsha (R. Shmuel Edels) that contains his “portrait.” R. Edels lived 1555-1631 and there is no known portrait executed during his lifetime. The portrait that appears in the Vienna edition is a product of the artist imagination and probably bears no relationship to what R. Edels actually looked like. In the portrait the Mahrsha appears with long, shoulder length hair, wearing some type of slippers, surrounded by hundreds of books.

At the same time, the Vienna publishers also published an edition of the Rif (R. Yitzhak Alfasi) also with a portrait, which is also a product of the artists imagination.