Free Download of the Soncino Talmud in English Online at Halakhah.com: 25,000+ satisfied customers a month

The Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation is online - at a site that is not anti-Semitic or polemical.

Download the Talmud in English free at http://www.halakhah.com/ - 25,000+ downloads each month! 300,000+ each year.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, GLOSSARY AND INDICES UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF RABBI DR. I. EPSTEIN B.A., Ph.D., D. Lit. FOREWORD BY THE VERY REV. THE LATE CHIEF RABBI DR. J. H. HERTZ. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. THE SONCINO PRESS, LONDON.

Contains the Sedarim (orders, or major divisions) and tractates (books) of the Babylonian Talmud, as translated and organized for publication by the Soncino Press in 1935 - 1948.

The site has the entire Soncino Talmud edition in PDF format and  about 8050 pages on line in browser compatible HTML format, comprising 1460 files — of the Soncino Talmud.

Please add a link to the site http://www.halakhah.com on your web site or blog.

Highlights:

• A newly formatted 2-column PDF version of the Soncino Talmud at Halakhah.com.
• A Kindle edition of the Soncino Talmud available from Amazon.com: The Kindle Soncino Talmud in English

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Free Kinnos Kinnot Lamentations Elucidations for Tisha B'Av

Reuven Brauner wrote to us from Raanana, Israel about his publication on the lamentations (Hebrew: kinnot or kinnos) for Tisha B'Av, "Key Notes for Kinnos." The work is available in PDF format for free downloading at http://www.halakhah.com/:

The Tisha B'Av poems of lament, the Kinnos, like all our Piyyutim and Selichos, were written in a poetic language and style containing hinted references to verses in Tanach, stories in the Talmud and Midrashim, and other historical incidents like the Crusades. They are difficult to comprehend and appreciate by even the most knowledgeable modern speaker or student of Hebrew, not to mention those who are not fluent in the Holy Tongue.

What chance is there for most of us to fully understand the depths of their messages of sadness and despair, prayer and hope?

In a modest attempt to rectify a part of this problem, I have selected a few key words and phrases from each Kinnoh and provided a flash of information regarding their definitions and references in hope that the reader will be able obtain a measure of meaning from and appreciation for what he or she is reading during the services of this day of fasting and repentance.

This work I call A Few Key Notes on Kinnos. It has been designed to be used as a sort of quick reference guide and companion volume in conjunction with a proper Sefer Kinnos.

I have also added some brief prefatory remarks regarding the authors of the various Kinnos, and some other background material of interest.

The information in this monograph is based primarily on the work on the Kinnos of the great liturgical researcher and scholar, the late Dr. Daniel Goldschmidt, his footnotes and comments, which was published by Mossad Harav Kook and which I highly recommend.

44 Talmudic Books for Kindle | The Amazing 36 Volume Kindle Talmud in English | Cosmology and Religion meet in Whence and Wherefore | God's Favorite Prayers

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Summer Sale -- We Reduced Prices on Our Talmudic Books

Summer Sale. Wow. Our Talmudic Kindle Book Prices are Reduced!

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Kosher Talmud: Hullin $.99

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God's Favorite Prayers $2.99

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Define Judaism: Ten Seminars $2.99

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God Bless You: The Origins of Jewish Prayers and Blessings $2.99

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Eleazar: Rabbi, Priest, Patriarch $2.99

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Kosher Prayers: Talmud Yerushalmi Berakhot $2.99

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Rashi: The Greatest Exegete $.99

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Six People You Meet in Synagogue $.99

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Whence and Wherefore $2.99

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The Talmud is Not Like a TV Series

The Forward's comparison of the Talmud to the TV series Arrested Development is a flop.

Simply put - I don't know what Ezra Glinter is talking about in his column when he says that the Talmud's, "discussions wander into areas that are only tangentially related." It's important to know what that means because that is one basis for his comparison between the Talmud and the TV series. The Talmud that I know does not wander tangentially.

The other point Glinter makes is that the TV series and the Talmud have recurring interrelated tropes:

...putting those pieces together is not so different — in a way — from connecting the parts of “Arrested Development” on the basis of recurring jokes. James Joyce famously remarked of “Ulysses” that “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” And in fact, both the Talmud and “Arrested Development” are similar in this respect to “Ulysses,” with its immense web of internal references and allusions.

I'm thinking why not throw in Superman comic books, Golf Digest Magazine and the Wall Street Journal? Lots of interrelated tropes in those works. 

Bottom line, if you don't pay any attention to the contents of the TV series, of James Joyce and of the Talmud, and if you have imbibed a large quantity of alcohol or some chemical substance, then the comparisons at the Forward make perfect sense. Otherwise, not really. The Talmud is not a stream of consciousness about Dublin Ireland on June 16, 1904. The Talmud is not a comedy about a fictitious Bluth family from Newport Beach, California. Content does matter when you make comparisons, even attempted comical comparisons.

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Book of Ruth - Free for Shavuot

From our collaborator Reuven Brauner:

Hi Everyone,

Shavuos is coming up and that means Sefer Ruth.

In order to facilitate your learning of this important work, traditionally read on Chag Matan Torah, I have included the link to my Hadgashas Hane’emar version on halakhah.com which should make this book’s understanding easier, quicker and, maybe even, more fun.

Please feel free to copy it, print it out and pass it on to all your friends. Enjoy.

Happy Rosh Chodesh, have a Good Shabbos and Good Yom Tov

Check Out - Talmudic Books
See the Kindle Talmud in English
Ponder the Questions of Whence and Wherefore
God's Favorite Prayers

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Holiday Promotion: Free Kindle Talmudic Books for Shavuot and Mother's Day

Click and Enjoy Your Kindle Free Talmudic Books for Shavuot and Mother's Day

Check Out All the Other Talmudic Books
See the 36 Volume Kindle Talmud in English
Ponder the Questions of Whence and Wherefore
Experience God's Favorite Prayers

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Happy Mishna Day

On this day in history the first Mishna was printed. Joshua Solomon ben Israel Nathan Soncino, the first member of the distinguished family of printers, completed publication of the work in 1492.

From Ha`aretz by David B. Green:

On May 8, 1492, Joshua Solomon ben Israel Nathan Soncino completed publication of what is believed to be the first printed edition of the Mishna. The text is accompanied by Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishna, in Hebrew translation.

Joshua Solomon Soncino (died 1493) was the first member of the distinguished Soncino family of printers to publish a book, a tractate of the Talmud (Berakhot), which he created in 1484. (Johannes Gutenberg had produced his first block-printed Bible in 1455.) The family took its name from the Italian town of Soncino, in northern Italy, east of Milan, where it lived for some time, but it could trace its origins to a German Jew called Moses of Speyer, in the 14th century.

The family moved its press around frequently, depending on the political situation it encountered, so that Soncino was just one of its homes. For example, Joshua Solomon Soncino was based in Soncino from 1483 to 1488 and in Naples from 1490 to 1492, when the Mishna was published. That year, many Jews expelled from Spain found a refuge in Naples, whereas by 1495, Naples was under French control, and things were far less comfortable for Jews. By 1510, Spain had conquered the city, and began expelling the Jews outright. By then, however, the Soncino press was operating out of Pesaro, to the southeast, on the Adriatic coast.

The most prolific and accomplished member of the family was Gershom ben Moses Soncino (died in 1534), the nephew of Joshua Solomon. He set up a press in Thessaloniki in 1527, and another in Istanbul three years later. Gershom published more than 100 different volumes, branching out from Hebrew into Greek, Latin and Italian. The last book produced by the family was issued in Cairo in 1557.

The Mishna comprises part of the book we know today as the Talmud. It is a collection of rabbinic commentaries and explications of the commandments as delineated in the Torah, and was redacted (edited) early in the 3rd century C.E., by Rabbi Judah Hanasi. Its six “orders” break down into 63 tractates that organize the commandments according to topic, for example Sabbath or the laws related to sacrifices in the Temple.

During the three centuries that followed the completion of the Mishna, the rabbis supplemented the Mishnaic text with additional commentaries. These commentaries constitute the Gemara. Together the Mishna and the Gemara make up the Talmud, which was edited into two versions, the Jerusalem -- or Palestinian -- Talmud, finalized around the year 400, and the more definitive Babylonian Talmud, completed about a century later.

The 1492 Soncino Mishna also contained the commentary of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, who lived 1135 to 1204. The Rambam’s Commentary on the Mishna was composed in Judeo-Arabic, and finished in 1168. In it, he takes into account not only the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, but also the Tosefta and midrashic works.

The Soncino Naples edition of the Mishna was followed by a Prague version, edited by Yom Tov Lipman Heller, with his own commentaries, in 1614-17. But the basis for most Mishnaic study today is the Romm publishing house edition, published in Vilna in 13 volumes in 1908.

Check Out Talmudic Books
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Ponder Whence and Wherefore
Experience God's Favorite Prayers

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Announcing a new Edition of Shoroshim by Reuven Brauner

BIGGEST HEBREW VERB BOOK

Shoroshim by Reuven Brauner may be the most comprehensive list of Hebrew Verb roots ever published with close to 3300 entries. The verb roots are presented with definitions, synonyms and derivative meanings in thesaurus form, laid out in a clear, delightful and aesthetic manner.

SMART

More than a conventional dictionary or lexicon, Shoroshim links different Hebrew word roots and shows how they derive from a "common" root form, often not obvious at first glance.

CLEAR

Unlike ordinary dictionaries which are cluttered with permutations and combinations of grammatical forms for the same root, Shoroshim efficiently cuts right to the root.

Shoroshim provides easy guidelines to assist in the often complex and frustrating effort to determine a verb root.

DEEP

Shoroshim covers all periods in the development of the Hebrew language, from the Biblical period through modern Hebrew. Shoroshim includes a large number of obscure and obsolete roots, particularly helpful to the scholar and academic.

FUN AND EASY

Shoroshim is fun and easy to use, an indispensable quick reference source for all students and translators of Hebrew.

EXCLUSIVE AND FREE

Shoroshim is a seminal unique work, available only from Talmudic Books at Halakhah.com. Please visit to peruse and download the work.

Enjoy and B'Hatzlahah!

Talmudic Books for Kindle on the Talmud, Bible, Kabbalah and Prayer
The Kindle Edition of the Classic Soncino Talmud in English

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Is the author and spiritual seeker Paulo Coelho Jewish?

No Paulo Coelho is not a Jew. He was brought up Catholic and attended a Jesuit school in Brazil. Coelho is not a big fan of any organized religion. He speaks with lyrical disdain and disparagement in his books about the wisdom and ritual of religions.

His current publication, Manuscript Found in Accra, is set in Jerusalem before a battle. The people in the book gather to ask about life so that they can learn enough to save "the soul of Jerusalem." The publisher tells us:

July 14, 1099. Jerusalem awaits the invasion of the crusaders who have surrounded the city’s gates. There, inside the ancient city’s walls, men and women of every age and every faith have gathered to hear the wise words of a mysterious man known only as the Copt. He has summoned the townspeople to address their fears with truth:

“Tomorrow, harmony will become discord. Joy will be replaced by grief. Peace will give way to war. . . . None of us can know what tomorrow will hold, because each day has its good and its bad moments. So, when you ask your questions, forget about the troops outside and the fear inside. Our task is not to leave a record of what happened on this date for those who will inherit the Earth; history will take care of that. Therefore, we will speak about our daily lives, about the difficulties we have had to face.”

The people begin with questions about defeat, struggle, and the nature of their enemies; they contemplate the will to change and the virtues of loyalty and solitude; and they ultimately turn to questions of beauty, love, wisdom, sex, elegance, and what the future holds. “What is success?” poses the Copt. “It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.” ...

Now, these many centuries later, the wise man’s answers are a record of the human values that have endured throughout time. And, in Paulo Coelho’s hands, The Manuscript Found in Accra reveals that who we are, what we fear, and what we hope for the future come from the knowledge and belief that can be found within us, and not from the adversity that surrounds us.

This book is new age in every respect that we can think of especially in the way that it wanders through spiritual landscapes and themes without a care for a conventional framework of organization or presentation.

One passage struck us because it sounded like the utter opposite of the philosophy of life and values that we heard espoused at Yeshiva University by our teacher the Rav, Rabbi Soloveitchik and by his followers.

We will cite Coelho's passage and leave it without explanation; and we wish that understanding will flow to those who understand:

Beauty is present in all creation, but the dangerous fact is that, because we human beings are often cut off from the Divine Energy, we allow ourselves to be influenced by what other people think... And we become ugly and embittered.

At that moment, we can draw comfort from so-called wisdom, an accumulation of ideas put together by people wishing to define the world instead of respecting the mystery of life. This "wisdom" consists of all the unnecessary rules, regulation, and measurements intended to establish a standard of behavior. 

According to that false wisdom, we should not be concerned about beauty because it is superficial and ephemeral. 

That isn't true. All the beings created under the sun, from birds to mountains, from flowers to rivers, reflect the miracle of creation. 

If we resist the temptation to allow other people to define who we are, then we will gradually be able to let the sun inside our own soul shine forth... (pp. 60-61)

Back in 2011 we wrote about his previous book Aleph saying that the book... will greatly entertain the spiritual seeker. By that we mean if you are open to the concepts of past lives and the mystical energies of the universe, this book will speak to you. But even if you are such a seeker, you may feel, as we do, that at times the book overdoes some of its themes.

Within the story Coelho provides some gems of writing. We identified with his metaphor of the Chinese bamboo plant since we had spent several years putting down the roots of our latest book. And now, that book (God's Favorite Prayers) has sprouted up boldly after its publication.

Coelho explains that the Chinese Bamboo first, “...spends 5 years as a little shoot, using that time to develop its complex root system. And then from one moment to the next, it puts on a spurt and grows up to 25 meters high.”

Within the narrative Coelho casts in what can be wonderful observations, if they resonate for you. On the life-value of mistakes he tells us, “...only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risk and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely”.

He does get this inspiring exhortation partly right. We'd say to seek out people who are afraid to make mistakes -- that is a human trait -- but who nevertheless go ahead and make them. And he does need to differentiate and specify what he means by "mistakes". He surely means the worthy and meaty and bold and creative mistakes, not the foolish ones. And then of course, we all need to know some definition of the notion of "transform" -- but we never do get that from most of those who throw out the idea. We just know that they mean that transformation is something good and different and fresh and original.

It's all in a narrative that is highly intuitive and new age. And we get it and we like it. We also like the title.

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Is Jonathan Krohn Jewish?

No and yes. According to the Times, the young (former) conservative is being brought up as a Christian. So no, definitely Jonathan Krohn is not Jewish by religion.

Update: At 17, Krohn was doing teshuvah - repenting his conservatism - i.e., he adopted liberal ideas and went to study philosophy at NYU. MSNBC reported in the video clip below, wherein Lawrence O'Donnell lauded him for converting to the "bright side".

Update 2: The Times reported on Krohn: "The Growing Pains of Jonathan Krohn" (4/28/2013)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As to his religion, according to the Times, Jonathan Krohn's mother was Jewish before she converted to Christianity. According to Jewish law, Jonathan is a Jew. Appropriately, the Times is silent on the issue of whether his Baptist parents gave him a bris. It seems the young Christian conservative did not have a bar mitzvah but he did get a present,

He received a computer from his maternal grandfather for his 13th birthday. “In the Jewish culture in which my mom was raised, 13 is a big deal,” he said. “But since I’m a Jewish Christian, I don’t do a bar mitzvah.” (Decades ago, his mother became a Baptist.)

Even in parentheses, the fact that the boy has a Jewish mother, makes him a (latent) member of the tribe. In 2009 we said: We do envy this young man who has concluded at such an early age that the world is precisely the way it should be, that progress is not needed, that government ought to be curtailed and that Rush Limbaugh is NOT a big fat idiot. We wish we had learned all that by the time we were 14. Even now we are struggling to rid ourselves of the desire for progress and the esteem with which we hold those who dedicate their lives to public service in the quest for better government and leadership in our country. //reposted from 3/8/09 because this little feller is finally talking a bit of sense//

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Update: Rabbi Michael Broyde is Sinking Fast

Yet another update 4/25/2013: 

The Jewish Channel's Steven I. Weiss reports that it turns out that Broyde himself (posing as David Weissman) circulated the story that he was being considered as a candidate for the British Chief Rabbi post. And so it was Broyde who called Broyde "the finest mind of his generation" in the name of Norman Lamm in a claim to a reporter at The Times of Israel on 8/8/2012. More on all of this here.

Isn't that nice. But we wonder now. Why stop there if you are making all of this up? Why not have Rabbi Lamm call you, "The Greatest Jew Since Moshe Rabbenu"? Or why not have the Lubavitcher Rebbe call out from his grave and proclaim that you indeed are the Messiah and that he is but your humble servant?

On our 4/15/2013 update we said:

We wrote about a book by Michael Broyde in 2011 and reposted it in 2012.

Due to the recent revelations about Broyde, we repost our review again. In 2011 in short we concluded that Broyde's book called "Innovation in Jewish Law" is not about any innovation and not about any Jewish law. It is about the atrophy of a prayer and discusses the customs and regulations for that prayer. Accordingly we thought that the title was misleading. Nevertheless, at the time, we politely complimented the book as "learned." Here is our 2012 post...

The Times of Israel reported (8/8/12) that Rabbi Michael Broyde "emerges as frontrunner for British chief rabbi post."

A "source close to the search process" supplied information on the process to the TOI including this tidbit, "There has also been strong lobbying for Broyde by the chancellor of Yeshiva University, Norman Lamm, who in a letter called Broyde 'the finest mind of his generation,' says the source."

Not knowing this reputation, we commented on a book by Broyde on 2/20/2011 on this blog. We found the book filled with imprecisions of language and analysis and overstatements of broad conclusions drawn from a non-representative sample of religious liturgical regulations (called by the author "laws"). We were not overly impressed with the work for these additional reasons that we gave back in 2011....

The author of Innovation in Jewish Law: A Case Study of Chiddush in Havineinu has wonderful credentials as the publisher tells us:

Michael Broyde is a Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law and a Senior Fellow and a Project Director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He was the founding Rabbi of the Young Israel of Toco Hills in Atlanta, GA, and serves as a rabbinical judge (dayan) at the Beth Din of America, the largest Jewish law court in America. Rabbi Broyde received advanced rabbinical (dayanut) ordination at Yeshiva University and a Juris Doctor from New York University, and has published more than seventy five articles and three books on various aspects of Jewish law, ethics and religion.

The book he published has a stated agenda:

Havineinu, an abridged version of the daily prayer (Shemoneh Esreh), was once a useful, well known prayer said in pressing situations. Because it is brief, it is an ideal prayer for dangerous situations where one's ability to pray or concentrate on the longer text of the daily prayer is compromised.

Yet, over the last several hundred years, the recitation of Havineinu has functionally ceased. This book addresses the legal analysis used to explain that change. This shift in perspective has been gradual, yet the resulting profound change in the interpretation of halachic texts has had a direct influence on the understanding and practice of Jewish law. This book examines the sources and processes that have shaped the contours of Havineinu over time, exemplifying the subtle changes that occur in the development of halacha as a result of chiddush -- innovation.

We have had the book since November, when we read it, nearly four months, and now without much enthusiasm, offer a few observations on it, not all that positive.

Over all, the author is an expert in his fields of general American law and Talmudic learning. He commands and controls the texts and concepts of each of these distinct areas of learning. And he demonstrates an inquisitive mind that seeks to state and resolve problems within the areas of his expertise.

His goal here is to, "Trace the development of the halacha in on particular are: the recitation of the abstract, abridged for of Shemoneh Esreh commonly referred to in the rabbinic literature as Havineinu. (page 5)." He notes that this is an example in, "a relatively small, self-contained area of Jewish law, affording readers an opportunity to not only immerse themselves in study, but also to encounter the relevant sources with a degree of confidence and even mastery... there are many aspects relevant to Havineinu that could not be fully addressed in this book, and these omissions should not be viewed as oversights." But why omit them? We are not told.

It would be useful to learn about how laws develop and change over time, especially if the subject matter were major, central religious practices affecting economy, society or religion. Our teacher, Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik engaged in such work and produced important studies on the intersection of laws of religion and the economics of wine production and on the practices that governed money lending in the middle ages. (See his influential books Halakha, Economy and Self-Image, Jerusalem 1985, Responsa as an Historical Source, Jerusalem 1990, and Principles and Pressures: Jewish Trade in Gentile Wine in the Middle Ages, Tel Aviv, 2003.)

But this study does not explore such a case. It looks at the atrophy of a short religious prayer and concludes that such a "process is gradual; decisors of Jewish law examined the sources and interpreted them in light of their times and challenges (p. 7)."

The author hopes, "that readers will come away with a newfound understanding of and appreciation for the mechanisms of analysis, interpretation, and change that are central to the methodology of Jewish law."

And then he adds, "In truth, the journey of chiddush cannot be described. It must be experienced. Thus, we embark."

What follows in this book though is not an experiential journey. It is a learned review of ancient, medieval and modern sources on the subject of the recitation of the prayer in question with many intermediate conclusions and observations about the practice of reciting or not  reciting this prayer.

The final conclusion of the book is, "Sometimes technology and sociology change, and thus applying the basic principles formed in the Talmud to a later time requires innovative application of the halachic texts." We confess to not understanding this statement. Next, "Prayer in an ancient, dangerous, and bookless society is quite different from prayer in a modern, safe, and text-rich place." We do understand this obvious point, and it is obvious. And next, "As we observed earlier, the needs of a situation often call for revisiting the corpus of Jewish law texts..."  We do not follow, once again. And then, "...honestly analysing and interpreting the sources, and perhaps reviving a dormant line of thinking within the tradition -- an opinion or opinions that may once again prove relevant." Missing here is the description of the thinking -- the abstraction of concepts and any account of actual judicial, legal or liturgical creativity, i.e., ideas.

And the last point, "That is the essence of innovation in Jewish law."

We disagree with the basic premises, methods and resultant conclusions of this study. The author has used a coarse category in his analysis -- "innovation" -- when he should have been refining a variety of movements within the legal discussions, mainly justifications and textual manipulations in this case for accounting for the atrophy of a secondary liturgical practice, in no way innovative in any constructive sense, not generative of any idea or concept -- hence not worthy as we see it of the title description "innovation".

Innovations of significance do appear in Jewish law, especially in its intersection with Jewish-Gentile relations, in its control of marital and internal social conventions, and, hardly ever studied, its profound and long standing influence over the individual psyche of every Jew.

This exceedingly learned book is not about any of these, nor does it articulate a theory of any transportability for the study of other cases. It examines the presumptive demise of one short prayer from the practices of Jewish life and does not explain at the end why that matters, if at all it does.

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Free Download of Reuven Brauner's Revised Version of Pirkei Avos from Talmudic Books

Free: Updated, revised version of Pirkei Avos with the complete Hebrew text of the Perek and Reuven Brauner's translation. He says, "I added footnotes based on the commentary of Prof. Hanoch Albeck in his commentary on Mishna, which I found succinct and enlightening."

The new Pirkei Avos is now more useful and user-friendly, and looks wonderful when printed out. Nice for these days between Pesach and Shavuous, too. Great to read to the kids at the Shabbos table.

Talmudic Books
Kindle Talmud in English

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Introduction to Judaism - Online Course

Open publication
Introduction to Judaism
Online Course Guide
Professor Tzvee Zahavy

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Talmudic Chaos v. Halakhic Linearity in the Logic of Judaism

In 2011 we published an article, "In Search Of The Logic Of Judaism: From Talmudic Chaos To Halakhic Linearity," which you can download and read from the link here.   

We used mathematical ideas to differentiate the linear organization of the halakhah from non-linear thinking of the Talmud. Our abstract says: 

In this paper we examine some common views of scholars concerning the idea of the halakhah in Judaism. We then explain why their methods failed to account for the main philological and historical evidence regarding the term from the Talmudic texts. Then we suggest as a heuristic explanation that the logic of the Talmud defies linearity and can be discussed productively using chaos theory.

The authors in this volume cover varied topics with sophistication and erudition. The publisher's page provides details about the book, as copied below. 

Schumann, Andrew, Tzvee Zahavy, Avi Sion, Aviram Ravitsky, Stefan Goltzberg,  Judaic Logic

Title:	Judaic Logic
Series:	Judaism in Context 8
Publisher:	Gorgias Press
ISBN:	978-1-61719-194-7
Language:	English
Format:	Hardback, Black, 6 x 9 in

1. Introduction, Andrew Schumann
2. In Search of The Logic of Judaism: From Talmudic Chaos To Halakhic Linearity, Tzvee Zahavy
3. Maimonides’ Use of Logic In The Guide of The Perplexed, Joseph A. Buijs
4. Structure And Sources of The Hebrew Commentary on Petrus Hispanus's Summulae Logicales By Hezekiah Bar Halafta, Alias Bonenfant De Millau, Mauro Zonta
5. Aristotelian Logic and Talmudic Methodology: The Commentaries on the 13 Hermeneutic Principles and Their Application of Logic, Aviram Ravitsky
6. A Fortiori Reasoning In Judaic Logic, Avi Sion
7. The A Fortiori Argument In The Talmud, Stefan Goltzberg
8. Sense In Making: Hermeneutical Practices of The Babylonian Talmud Against The Background of Medieval And Contemporary Views, Sergey Dolgopolski
9. Judaic Syllogistics: The Baba Qama From The Logical Point Of View, Andrew Schumann
10. Symbolic Computation And Digital Philosophy In Early Ashkenazic Kabbalah, Yoel Matveyev 

The Publisher's Description of the book tells us: 

Judaism differs considerably from other theistic religions. One of the main features is that Jewish religious laws are not dogmatic but based on specific legal reasoning. This reasoning was developed by the first Judaic commentators of the Bible for inferring Judaic laws from the Pentateuch. The book is about Judaic reasoning from the standpoint of modern logic. Its first goal is to define Judaic logic. This logic was aimed to be a methodology for deducing religious laws. The idea that this methodology can be viewed as original logic that is not less deductive than Aristotle’s logic did not emerge until the Late Middle Ages. At that time Medieval Hebrew works about Judaic reasoning were influenced by Arabo-Islamic philosophy as well as by Latin Scholastic logic. In this volume we discuss different forms of influence of the Aristotelian logic on developing the Talmudic methodology. Then we aim to sketch semantics for the Judaic reasoning, explicating Talmudic case study and Rabbinic situation analysis to develop general approaches to formalizing Judaic logic. This consideration of Judaic logic has relevance for modern logic and analytic philosophy and may be compared with the contribution made by the formalization of Ancient Greek logical systems to 20th-century logic and language philosophy.

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On my father's Yahrzeit my thoughts on his immortal soul

At the breakfast at the Park East Synagogue this morning in honor of my dad's yahrzeit I spoke briefly about the dimensions of the immortality of his soul. I explained that by observing the mourning customs and reciting Kaddish for the soul of the departed, we seek immortality on its behalf in heaven above and on earth as part of the eternal Jewish people. Last month I summarized my thoughts on this process as follows below.

Is the Jewish soul immortal? Yes, tradition teaches us that if the proper procedures are followed, the Jewish soul is immortal. And the immortality is redundant. The soul of a departed loved one lives on in a vertical immortality in heaven and in a horizontal immortality as part of the collective of the Jewish people.

To guarantee the duplex immortality of a soul, a mourner must say the Kaddish prayer for eleven months in the synagogue. As an agent on behalf of our father's soul, we are completing that process this week for the recitation of the Kaddish for our dad, who passed away last year.

We previously wrote in our book, God's Favorite Prayers, about the connection between the vertical immortality of the soul and the recitation of the mourner's Kaddish.

This lilting and poetic passage does have a certain unique cadence, yet it seems to us in its words to be no more than a standard glorification of God, nothing about death or dying or the deceased. Why then is this prayer especially apropos for a mourner? Because reciting this heavenly angelic Aramaic praise is the epitome of a mystic’s liturgy. It is a stand-in enactment by the mourner on behalf of the departed loved one. The mourner stands in place in the synagogue and recites the words.

But acting in the mode of the mystic archetype, the mourner advances to the next level of mystical prayer. She is not just addressing God with the outpourings of her personal anxiety and vexation, but imagining that she is standing aloft in heaven, representing the soul of her beloved departed, knocking on heaven’s door to seek entry for that spirit into a secure, eternal place close to the divine light and near the warmth of God.

Now to add some new thoughts on that the other horizontal dimension of the immortality of the Jewish soul, we ask why the requirement to recite the Kaddish for eleven months in the synagogue? Why the obligation on the mourner to lead the services in the public in the community?

To present adequate answers to these questions we will need to write a book. For now let us advance the main thesis.

The Jewish soul achieves a horizontal immortality, going forward eternally through time into the future, by its membership in the people of Israel. One might think that the membership of the soul of the departed Jew after his death in the community of Israel is a certainty, a given, automatic, and nothing need be done further to solidify that.

But that is not how it works. To secure a place for a departed soul in the community of Israel, we Orthodox believe that we must recite the daily Kaddish in the synagogue for eleven months. By doing that, we firmly embed the soul of the departed in our community. And as long as that community, that people endures, that soul will have a horizontal immortality as part of the collective body of Israel.

It's been both an onerous obligation and a privilege for us to have that obligation over the past eleven months to recite Kaddish in public on behalf of our dad. And in a few days we will rest from that daily recitation of Kaddish, certain in the continuous duplex immortal life of our father's dear soul, in the eternity of heaven and in the everlasting perpetuation of the Jewish people on earth.

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Understand how to have compassion on yourself via an essay by Tzvee Zahavy, "A Pragmatic Study of Kol Nidre: Law and Compassion"

Just in time for Yom Kippur....Wait. It's not Yom Kippur. It's springtime.

We don't believe that you need to wait until the autumn to atone, repent, turn over a new leaf or clean up your act.

Call it what you may, April is a good month for cleaning out the garage of your soul.

And you can do that via compassion. There is nothing legal or magical about compassion. Release all those vows, those bad habits, bad emotions, bad relationships. So you did some stupid and mean things over the past six months. You are human. Let the bad vows go. Nullify them. Have compassion on yourself and then move on.

And so we're happy to announce the publication of Pragmatic Studies in Judaism with an essay by Tzvee Zahavy, "A Pragmatic Study of Kol Nidre: Law and Compassion".

This book is the first attempt to apply formal pragmatics to Judaic studies as a discipline as well as within the broader discipline of cultural studies.

This paper is a study of the Kol Nidre service using the methods of pragmatics. We show how that service uses legal texts to create liturgy that is designed to be an effective and powerful technology of the sacred for the creation and delivery of compassion.

We use pragmatics to examine the context of the liturgy and determine its meaning. We explain the status of the involved worshippers and overcome the ambiguity of the meaning of the prayer by paying special attention to the manner, time and place of its recitation.

The ambiguity in the case of the Kol Nidre is whether it is a legal utterance, a magical utterance or a pure liturgical utterance of compassion. We review several previous explanations of the prayer and conclude that with a pragmatic contextual elucidation of the Kol Nidre.

Download and read our paper here.

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Free Passover Seder Haggadah Online Download

Here are several of the best places you can go online to download a Passover Haggadah for your Seder.

• The Jewish Agency Haggadah Links
• About.com Online Haggadah Links
• Wikisource Hebrew Haggadah Page
• The Union Haggadah (CCAR Classical Reform)
• Haggadah According to the Rite of Yemen: with the Arabic-Hebrew
• The Kol Menachem Haggadah: Nusach Haarizal, by Chaim Miller

We give Chabad credit for a great resource if you want a wide selection of Hebrew Haggadahs.  
Download Hebrew Haggadahs here.

Library Makes 1,000 Rare Haggadahs Available Online

An illustration of King David praising G-d in a rare Haggadah published in 1710 in Frankfurt am Maine, Germany

By Dovid Zaklikowski

The central Chabad-Lubavitch library in New York made 1,000 Passover Haggadahs, many of them rare, available on the Internet for browsing by the public. The Agudas Chasidei Chabad Library has one of the largest collections of the Passover orders of service in the world.

Housed at the Lubavitch World Headquarters, the library's Haggadah collection began years ago with a nucleus of some 400 volumes purchased on behalf of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, by renowned collector and bibliographer Shmuel Wiener in 1924.

The posting at ChabadLibraryBooks.com represents close to half of the library's total Haggadah collection and is part of chief librarian Rabbi Sholom Ber Levine's goal of making the library more accessible to the public. All told, the library possesses more than 2,200 editions of the Haggadah. Although the rarest of the books, all handwritten, are not yet available, Levine is looking for ways to post them next year. Hebrew Books, directed by Chaim Rosenberg, collaborated on the project.

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See the 36 Volume Kindle Talmud in English
Ponder the Questions of Whence and Wherefore
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Free Passover Books

This one is $.99 the rest are free for Passover from Talmudic Books - Soncino Babylonian Talmud Pesahim

Babylonian Talmud Pesahim deals with regulations for the Passover holiday, prohibitions of leavened food and prescriptions for the Paschal lamb. It is the third treatise of the order Mo'ed. It is divided into ten chapters.

Chapter ten deals with the Seder meal eaten on the evening of Passover; the four cups of wine, and the benedictions pronounced over them; the questions of the son and the father's answers and instructions; other benedictions and the Hallel.

From Talmudic Books special free for Passover by Reuven Brauner:

In preparation for Pesach- Laws of the Red Cow

For Pesach and particularly Seder Night- Laws of Korban Pesach

And for the days of Sefiras Ha’Omer - Pirkei Avos Synthesized

Not to mention the entire Reformatted Soncino Talmud and lots more goodies, at: Halakhah.com

and our Kindle books at Amazon: Talmudic Books for Kindle on the Talmud, Bible, Kabbalah and Prayer and  The Kindle Edition of the Classic Soncino Talmud in English

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The Sarajevo Haggadah -- the most Expensive Haggadah in the World

We have posted here about all of the free Haggadahs for Passover Seders that are available on the Internet. That led us to consider asking -- what is the most expensive Haggadah in the world?

The answer is -- the rare illuminated Sarajevo Haggadah which also is said to be one of the most beautiful manuscripts and one of the most valuable books in existence.

Our facsimile of The Sarajevo Haggadah that we bought a while back is awesome.

If you are at all interested in this Haggadah, you must read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.

Wikipedia explains:

The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah which accompanies the Passover Seder. It is the oldest Sephardic Haggadah in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. The Haggadah is presently owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, where it is on permanent display.

The Sarajevo Haggadah is handwritten on bleached calfskin and illuminated in copper and gold. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through the death of Moses. Its pages are stained with wine, evidence that it was used at many Passover Seders. It is considered to be the most beautiful illuminated Jewish manuscript in existence and one of the most valuable books in the world. In 1991 it was appraised at US $700 million....more...

You can view quite a few pages from the Sarajevo Haggadah here.  

Or you can purchase a facsimile edition of your own here: The Sarajevo Haggadah  or see this web site here.


More posts about the Haggadah...

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Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's Haggadah for the Passover Seder by Rabbi M. Genack

Rabbi Menahem Genack published, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening: The Passover Haggadah: With a Commentary Based on the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. A Haggadah in English and Hebrew (2009).

We think it's a great book and happily added it both to our collection of Haggadahs and to our library of works about the teachings of my teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It is a handsome and professional volume, clearly written and packed with content based on the Rav's torah teachings.

Genack was known as one of the best students in the class when I was in the Rav's shiur back in college and in rabbinical school. He's pursued a career of Jewish service and teaching and continues over the decades to shine as an exemplary disciple of the Rav.

Like most books that present the Rav's torah, this one approaches the task with great reverence and nostalgia. Those are great characteristics for me and for the other several thousand students who personally sat at the feet of the Rav and gave themselves over to him as his uncritical disciples. Genack writes his condensed accounts of the Rav's lectures with the clarity that I need to hear again the Rav speaking. He was a charismatic teacher with a wealth of learning that he imparted in many ways.

In his public talks, the Rav emphasized the experiential side of Orthodox Judaism. He often spoke poetically, I think to prove two important points.

First, he wanted to prove a personal point, to show the world that he was not a cold Litvak, not just a product of the Lithuanian Yeshivas who valued only factual erudition and cold logic.

Second, he had a program in his work, to create and express a form of Orthodox Judaism that was on par with the other great religions of the world. For him that meant in his time and place and out of his training in Europe that he had to demonstrate the validity and fecundity of Orthodox Jewish religious experience. He believed that he was the Jewish Rudolph Otto or William James and that from his teachings the world would see that Orthodoxy stands proudly next to any form of the esteemed Protestant religions of the Old or New World.

The Rav had another mission in his teaching and preaching. That was to transmit the Brisker Torah, the innovative conceptual insights of his own and his family's heritage of learning. So the Rav sought to investigate the phenomenology of Orthodox Judaism, to seek out and abstract the core idea from each performance of the numerous commandments and from each recitation of the many prayers.

Rabbi Genack succeeds in presenting all sides of the Rav in his publication, though he does so without the kind of self consciousness that I have just evoked above.

But now for the other question. How does this book play in Peoria? How will people who were not long-time students of the Rav react to this book? This book is not for the ordinary Jew who never studied with the Rav and it's not for the non-Jewish scholar or layperson. A Reform or Conservative or even an Orthodox Jew who never knew the Rav would need much more translated from the insider's notes and nostalgia of this book to the vocabulary and syntax or religious discourse in its more common and less private forms.

All told, this is a very good work in its genre. //repost from 2009//

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