scholar, writer, educator, maker
Image: “Arch of Titus” by Nick in exsilio is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 In his long comment on Bereshit 1:31, Radak includes an interesting midrash that he attributes to Bereshit Rabbati. Actually, the reference is itself embedded in an arresting interpretation of this blockbuster pasuk: וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹקים֙ אֶת־כׇּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם…
Filed under: Tanakh Commentary
Tags: Bereshit, Bereshit Rabbati, Radak
This series, the Halakhic Codes of the Rishonim, explores lesser-known sources of halakhah in the chain of transmission that were incorporated into Shulchan ‘Arukh (and therefore current halakhic practice), as well as halakhot and minhag lost to living observance. This is first post in the series. Image: A fragment of Orchot Chayyim (about tum’ah, ritual…
Filed under: Halakhah
Tags: Aharon ha-Kohen of Lunel, exile, French expulsion, Majorca, Orchot Hayyim, Provence, Rishonim, shul, Shulchan 'Arukh, tefillah, Yosef Karo
This is revised with added notes from a short piece I wrote on the well-known Chanukkah piyyut, Ma’oz Tzur, and its cultural contexts, for Shabbat Chanukkah 5779 in a local newsletter. Of the rich tradition of piyyut composed for Chanukkah, today two are customarily used: Ha-Nerot Hallalu and Ma’oz Tzur, which are sung after lighting…
Filed under: Chanukkah, Siddur, Machzor & Piyyut
Tags: Ashkenazi, Crusades, Maharam, Maharil, Maharshal, Massekhet Soferim, medieval, Mordechai, poetry, Tzarfat
When the Shimusha Rabba is mentioned, it’s usually in connection to a rare, alternative form of tefillin. Lesser known is the source for this method, a short halakhic work on tefillin from the period of the Geonim, possibly from the earlier part of the period to which relatively few sources attest. The gaonic-era author is…
Filed under: Halakhah
Tags: Geonim, Machzor Vitry, Rishonim, Rosh, Sefer ha-Ittim, tefillin
Among the contemporaries Rashi cites in his commentaries, Moshe ha-Darshan is quoted a relatively few, yet still significant, number of times: Rashi cites him by name 17 times in his Tanakh commentary and twice in the Talmud commentary. Moshe ha-Darshan was a scholar active in Provence in the first half of the 11th century, in the generation before Rashi’s. Though connected culturally to Tzarfat (northern France) where Rashi lived, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries, Provence was a distinct community. Rashi’s repeated citations of him point to the prominence of Moshe ha-Darshan, whose beit midrash in the city of Narbonne, one of the oldest Jewish Provençal communities, apparently produced works that were influential and well-circulated…
Filed under: Midrash & Aggada, Tanakh Commentary
Tags: Devorah, Menahem b. Saruk, Moshe ha-Darshan, Rashi, Rivka, Tehillim, Ya'akov