Nathaniel Helfgot has posted at Text and Texture on Women, Communal Leadership, and Modern Orthodoxy. Many people who oppose women in positions of communal leadership cite a statement of the Rambam in Hilkhot Melakhim 1:5. Helfgot’s comments on the reception of this Rambam are worth quoting.
In this context, I would also add a [...]
There are two new books on conversion, the first which has already succeeded in causing quite a controversy.
1. Sifrut Ha-Shu”t: Ha-Giyyur Be-Rei Ha-Dorot
2. Zera Yisrael (See here, here, and here for some info about the controversy. Thanks to MB for the heads up via Facebook.)
On the Main Line has posted some very interesting sources about the way in which some Jewish travelers ate kosher food on their journeys. I would add the following from this exhibit (see under “Jews and the Liquor Trade”),
By the end of the eighteenth century about 80 percent of rural Jews in Poland-Lithuania were [...]
It seems that Otzar ha-Hochma knows no rest. It was apparently a typo. See here for a previous round of criticism.
Part I, Part II
Found throughout the literature which discusses whether a blessing is recited over the lighting of shabbat candles, there are a number of “phantom sources,” sources which aren’t found in the extant literature. The first example of a “phantom sources” is from Abraham ha-Yarhi’s Sefer Ha-Manhig. In Yitzhak Rafael’s edition this [...]
See here for part I.
In the literature of the Geonic period one finds sources which discuss the two central questions which the Talmud does not address, whether lighting shabbat candles is kabbalat shabbat and if one recites a blessing over their lighting. In Halakhot Gedolot there is a clear statement that lighting shabbat candles [...]
There is a disagreement among scholars as to the author(s) of the Geonic work Halakhot Gedolot. See this post for a discussion of the question. I just saw this in a flyer from Mechon Yerushalayim, so I guess that we know to some extent how they answer the question.
I have been teaching a course in which we are examining two different questions relating to the lighting of shabbat candles, whether a blessing is required and if the lighting of shabbat candles is considered kabbalat shabbat, i.e. if lighting shabbat candles initiates the accepting upon oneself of shabbat prohibitions. I won’t be going [...]
For over one hundred years scholars have been arguing about the different recensions of the Geonic work Halakhot Gedolot. Robert Brody described the problematic textual situation.
The textual situation is very complicated and has yet to be explored in the requisite depth. The only version available for several centuries was the editio princeps (Venice 1548), [...]
R. Shelomo Toledono (his dissertation on R. Betzalel Ashkenazi is available to download from here) has authored a number of books and articles which discuss the difference in customs among Sepharadim and their relationship to R. Yosef Karo. Much of his work is devoted to defending the customs from North Africa against R. Ovadiah [...]
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