מאמר שנת היובל של המלבים

In honour of his upcoming Yahrtzeit - (first day of Rosh HaShanah)

Go to HaLevanon and search for שנת היובל. It's an article (written in very heavy Melitzah) describing describing his difficulties as Chief Rabbi of Bucharest (he was thrown into jail and only released thanks to the efforts of Moses Monetefiore).

See Heichel HaBesht for an article on his relationship with the Chassidim. The standard work on Malbim is Noah H Rosenbloom, "Malbim: Exegesis, Philosophy, Science and Mysticism in the Writings of Rabbi Meir Lebush Malbim ( In Hebrew)". See Sefer Hamalbim - A. Surasky (on Otzar Hachcoma) for hagiography and some minor works of Malbim (commentary on Rambam Deot Re:Health and Poem). More recently, see Yaakov Heller, "New Documents on the Malbim Affair and his Struggle with the Maskilim," The History of the Jews in Romania: The Nineteenth Century (Tel Aviv, 2005), 2:231-258 (M. Butler told me of this source - I don't have it).

In defense of Artscroll - on the translation of Shir HaShirim

A good while back, my friend S. had a post entitled "Revising Shir HaShirim" in which he wrote:

How then could they [Artscroll -W.] say that because Chazal and the meforshim take Shir Ha-shirim to be an allegory that "the literal meaning of the words is so far from their meaning that it is false"? Uhm, en mikra yotzi me-dei peshuto anyone?

In their defense, I found the following statement in Rav Poalim, V 1 YD, 56:

The rest of the Teshuva - it concerns a translation of the Idros into Arabic - is also very much worth seeing.

[R' Baruch Epstein writes in his Gishmei Bracha - that the reason it is called Shir HaShirim is because all of the other Shirim (eg Az Yoshir) have both in inner (holy) and outer (plain) meaning whereas Shir HaShirim cannot possibly be understood except according to its "inner" meaning so it is therefore greater then the other Shirim.]

An answer to my questions Re: Oz V' Hadar?

See me earlier post . This excerpt from R' Y. S. Spiegel's article in Yerushaseinu is a partial answer (I hope he expands on this sometime.)

On Otzar Yisroel

I just saw the part of Prof. Y. S. Spiegel's article in the new Yerushaseinu relating to Otzar Yisroel. He decries the tendency to judge books by their author as opposed to what is written in them. I must say that there is one piece in Otzar Yisroel that almost justifies those who condemn it. I refer to the disgraceful entry on Ramchal where it is written - "לולא תעה בנסתרות כי אז היה למשורר גדול" (and cf. the hesped for Shadal in the next entry - but written by a different author). Otzar Yisroel was a collaborative effort (like JE - R' Eisenstein contributed there but decided to make his own because he felt that it was insufficient.) R' Chaim Hirschenson wrote many of the Halacha related articles and those are of course excellent. But it is clear that some more editorial oversight was in order.

Unfortunately, Menachem Butler's AJhistory blog in no longer online as he had a lot of information on R' Eisenstein.

(He mentions in the article the Beis Vaad that S. discussed in this post.)

A very good description of R' Zevin's literary legacy

A feminist interpretation of Chazal - from the mother of R' Yisroel Salanter - and on the Aderet

The Aderet has a fascinating sefer, Zachor L' Dovid which gathers together many different sources on a various subjects. For instance, he has a list of all the places where Rabbonim cite Torah explanations that they heard in dreams. In another section, he records all the places where women are cited as being knowledgeable in Torah learning (somewhat similar to the list cited in Mekor Baruch and discussed by D. Rabinowitz in Tradition). In this list, the Aderet records the following interpretation that he heard in the name of R' Yisroel Salanter's mother [the wife of the R' Ze'ev Wolf ben Aryeh Lippa - author of the commentary Ben-Aryeh in the back of the Vilna Shas]:

יומא פו:- שאלה אשה חכמה את ר' אליעזר מאחר שמעשה העגל שוין מפני מה אין מיתתן שוה אמר לה אין חכמה לאשה אלא בפלך וכן הוא אומר (שמות לה) וכל אשה חכמת לב בידיה טוו

should be understood in light of R' Eliezer's statement here-

כתובות פו: - המושיב את אשתו חנוונית או שמינה אפוטרופיא הרי זה משביעה כל זמן שירצה ר' אליעזר אומר אפילו על פילכה ועל עיסתה

(I must confess that I don't quite see the connection? - W.)

R' Eliezer was, of course, the one who forbade teaching torah to women -כאילו מלמדה תיפלות. See Meir Hershkowitz - Al Chinuch HaBanos in Ohr HaMizrach (two parts - maybe online?) for an interesting discussion of all the relevant passages.

See this post (and the comment by Ari Kahn there) for another interesting example of the Aderet's creativity. Today I happened to see another sefer by the Aderet written when he was about 13-14 years old (!!!)together with his twin brother entitled Sheves Achim. The Sefer belongs to the genre of the Kellalim seforim (as are many of the Aderets Seforim) and is exceedingly impressive. In the back, is a small kuntres Yair Nesiv with notes on ShuT Chavas Yair 94 which also discusses different Kellalim (that Teshuva is a portion of the CY's larger work Mar Keshisha described by David Kaufmann as:

the manuscript of Mar Keshisha, which is a dictionary of the terminology and methodology of the Talmud, in the widest sense of the word. It can be boldly averred that seldom has a collection of material for any branch of knowledge been attempted in such magnitude, and with such comprehensive observation of all facts connected there with as in this one.)

(There seems to be a recent BA thesis on the CY with the provocative title -

Joseph Scherban, "Rabbi Yair Chaim Bachrach: The Life and Thought of a 17th century Jewish Skeptic," (BA thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2008), under the tutelage of Prof. David B. Ruderman

R' Kook's quasi-biography of his great father-in-law is available online here. There is a famous story (see Moadei HaReiyah) according to which an American priest was so very taken by the descripton of the Aderet in Adar Yakar that he converted to Judaism and moved to Israel with the special intent of translating the sefer so it be more widely know.

There is an excellent bibliography of all of the Aderet's seforim (piblished and not yet (I hope!) published) in the introduction to Sheves Achim. The seforim are published by R' Yaakov Hille's Ahavas Shalom and they are doing a fanstastic job (like all of their work). יישר חילם לאורייתא

[and see this thread- http://www.bhol.co.il/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=1&topic_id=2424718&forum_id=19616]