Menachem Mendel

A number of days ago Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef had some fairly harsh and nasty words to say about Rabbi David Stav.

Earlier today at a conference on Religious Zionism that was sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute, Rabbi Benny Lau is reported to have said the following words in response to Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef’s comments. I am sure that these words were difficult for Rabbi Lau to say.

יש להפסיק לעלות לרגל לרב עובדיה, יש למחות בקול רם! זאת חציית קווים שאי אפשר להבליג עליה! אני צריך לחזור בתשובה, כי שנים רבות לא פתחתי את הפה כשהרב עובדיה גידף וחירף אנשים בציבוריות הישראלית. אני יצרתי לעצמי, איזה שהוא דגם של הפרדה. הייתי מחובר לתורה שלו, לגדלות שלו, לעוצמה שלו, ודווקא בגלל כבודו של הרב עובדיה – אני מתבייש, מתבייש מתבייש..

Making pilgrimages to Rav Ovadiah must stop, a loud protest must be heard! This is a crossing of all lines that is impossible to be restrained about. I have to repent, because for many years I didn’t open my mouth when Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef insulted and defamed public figures in Israel. I made for myself a sort of division. I was connected to his Torah, to his greatness, and especially because of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef’s honor I am embarrassed, embarrassed, embarrassed.

To emphasize how difficult this must have been for Rabbi Lau, I want to remind people that he wrote a book about Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, much of which was made possible by Rabbi Yosef giving Rabbi Lau access to many of his private writings, including journals that he has kept over the years. Rabbi Yosef even wrote the following approbation to Rabbi Lau’s book:

Many of Rabbi Yosef’s books are on my bookshelves and Rabbi Lau’s comments are therefore all the more difficult to hear, but maybe necessary.

June 17th, 2013 | Category: Rabbinic Authority, Religious Zionism | Comments (6)

The NLI has posted online Gershom Scholem’s Card Index of the Zohar.

The catalogue is not a book per se, but personal notes that Scholem took in anticipation of the future writing of a Zohar lexicon. The notes are in the form of white cards, which Scholem stored in impeccable order in a long narrow wooden drawer that fit them perfectly, in his impressive writing desk (which today serves as the Scholem collections librarian’s desk at the National Library). Each card deals with a word from the Zohar and includes citations that include this word in its various senses, with references to the Zohar, clarifications of formulation and important notes on the lexicon of the Zohar.

The notes written on the cards include, first and foremost, the meaning of the word and its various connotations, both in linguistic and Kabbalistic terms, and sometimes also symbolic ones. In addition, the cards contain other usages and explanations that elucidate the origin of the word and it etymological development from the ancient texts (Bible, Talmud and Midrashim) or medieval texts – philosophy and Kabbalah, in particular allusions to the works of Moses de Leon who Scholem, for most of his life, regarded as the author of the Zohar. The notes also contain etymological considerations and parallel words in other languages, as well as reference to usage in later Kabbalistic texts and discussion of these words in works by both early and modern Zohar commentators.

I haven’t been able to get all of the features to work, but this looks like a very nice resource for those who study Kabbalah.

June 17th, 2013 | Category: Kabbalah | Comments (2)

In Musaf Shabbat of Makor Rishon Rabbi Yisrael Rozen of Machon Tzomet writes (Hebrew) about Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth the person and his halakhic legacy.

June 14th, 2013 | Category: Jewish Law, Shabbat | Leave a comment

Apparently, each year schools in Israel belonging to the National-Religious stream (ממלכתי דתי) have one person on whom they focus during the year. Kipa is reporting (Hebrew) that next school year the individual will be Rabbi Hayyim David Halevy. Let’s hope that the learning material to be used will present the richness of his teachings. (HT)

June 13th, 2013 | Category: Jewish Law, Rabbinic Authority, Religion in Israel, Religious Zionism | Comments (1)

Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth z”l, the author of the well-known book on the laws of Shabbat, Shemirat Shabbat Ke-Hilkhatah, has passed away in Jerusalem. His book has been one of the most influential halakhic works published in the past few decades and I am lucky enough to have all three editions, enabling me to see what changes have been made over the years. One of the most well known changes between the first and second editions was the more restrictive ruling in the second edition about using a solar water heater (דוד שמש) on Shabbat. Here, here, and here are discussions (in Hebrew) of some of the differences between the second and third editions. יהי זכרו ברוך.

June 11th, 2013 | Category: In Memoriam, Shabbat | Comments (5)

I came across the following afterward from the first edition of Adin Steinsaltz’s edition of Berakhot that was published in 1967, which I think was the first volume published. I looked for it in subsequent editions, but was unable to find it.

Translation:

The completion of the volume “Berakhot” is a very meaningful stage in this endeavor. With it are concluded years worth of thought, trial, planning, and preparation, and the beginning of the orderly work of publishing the entire Talmud.

At this opportunity it is appropriate to thanks all of those who deserve thanks for making it possible for me and this project to get to this point, firstly, to the Lubavitcher Rebbe on his blessing and advice in the general planning of this tractate.

From all of those who helped by giving of themselves, advice, funding, or encouragement, only a few will be mentioned here because of the shortness of space, but these will be an example for the many thanks for many others.

Thanks are given to the supporters of Oraiyta, the Prime Minister Mr. Levi Eshkol, the faithful friend of this endeavor from the beginning, the Chairman of the Knesset, Mr. Kaddish Luz, and to the rest of the members of the public committee and association for the publication of this Talmud, for their work in organizing the needed resources.

To the Rothschild Foundation that laid the foundation, to Mr. G. Gorwitz, the Ministry of Religion, the Workers Association [Histadrut ha-Ovdim] (through Rabbi Y.Z. Brandwein), the Jerusalem Municipality, the Jewish Agency, and others for their financial support.

to R’ Hanoch Yalon and to Prof. E.Z. Melamed on their advice in the area of vocalization, to my friend Rabbi Y. Bar-Deah and A. Naeh on their help in collecting sources. To Prof. A. Shuluv in the area of zoology, and to Mr. A. Foichtunger in the area of botany, to Dr. S. Shaked in Iranian linguistics, to Mr. D. Zakai in astronomy. To A. Eitan, A. Bar Tov, and M. Goren on their help in collecting graphical material in archaeology. As a tribute to his memory Mr. S. Dickman z”l on work for this tractate in classical linguistics, and wasn’t able to finish it. All of these people helped me with their advice and knowledge, but they clearly have no responsibility for mistakes and errors that are included.

The work of re-typesetting the Talmud has not been done for a number of generations, also the many additions and difficulties in this edition. Thanks to the proofreaders Y. Goldberg, S. Zutrai, and Yehezkel Goldstein.

My thanks are also given to the illustrator B. Shatz for designing the title page, the cover and the symbol, and to Mr. B. Angelhardt on the many illustrations and sketches in the margins, and to Mr. A. Vardi on his advice in the area of graphics.

Lastly, a heartfelt thanks to my dear friend Menachem Halevy from Degania for what I and this endeavor owe him.

Adin Steinsaltz

June 7th, 2013 | Category: Talmud | Comments (4)

Below are some pictures of what is possibly the oldest Sefer Torah. The pictures are from this article from the Huffington Post in Italian and the Ansa news agency. HT to the person who discovered the Sefer Torah, Mauro Perani, who posted a link on Facebook.

June 3rd, 2013 | Category: Manuscripts, Middle Ages | Comments (3)

The part about the yeshiva begins around 1:50-4:00 and picks up again at 6:00. There is English, so don’t worry about the Korean. HT to a friend on FB.

May 26th, 2013 | Category: Talmud, Talmud Study | Leave a comment

Sergey Dolgopolski, the author of What Is Talmud?: The Art of Disagreement, has a new book on the Talmud, The Open Past: Subjectivity and Remembering in the Talmud.

If life in time is imminent and means an always open future, what role remains for the past? If time originates from that relationship to the future, then the past can only be a fictitious beginning, a necessary phantom of a starting point, a retroactively generated chronological period of “before.” Advanced in philosophical thought of the last two centuries, this view of the past permeated the study on the Talmud as well, resulting in application of modern philosophical categories of the “thinking subject”, subjectivity, and time to thinking about thinking displayed in the texts of the Talmud. This book challenges that application. Departing from the hitherto prevalent view of thinking in the Talmud in terms of anonymous thinking subjects, called “redactors” or “designer” of Talmudic discussions, the book reconsiders the modern reduction of the past to a chronological period in time, and reclaims the originary power (and authority) the past exerts in thinking and remembering displayed both in the conversations the characters in the Talmud have, and in the literary design of these conversations. Central for that task of reclaiming the radical role of the past are contrasting medieval notions of the virtual and their modern appropriations, thinking subject among them, which serve as both a bridging point and a demarcation between the practices of thinking of, and remembering, the past in the Talmud vis-a-vis other rhetorical and/or philosophical school and disciplines of thought.

The Open Past suggests the possibility of understanding the conversations and the design of these conversations in the Talmud in terms of thinking in no time. This no time has several layers of meaning. In its weakest formulation, it means “in no single time” in the sense that the Talmudic conversations happen in no historically “real” time. More strongly put, it means, borrowing the language from film theory, that the Talmud requires a never consolidated difference between diegetical time, and the time of montage; which creates a no-one’s time and place that in turn creates time and place for everyone else. Even more strongly, it means that performance of the conversations in the Talmud is constantly driven by, and towards, an always open past — a power of that past is radically different from the power of either futuristic or chronological time.

May 22nd, 2013 | Category: New Books, Talmud, Talmud Study | Leave a comment