Free Talmudic Book for Your Kindle: Kosher Talmud by Tzvee Zahavy

For April 9-10 Kosher Talmud is free for your Kindle or Kindle App. Here is the Product Description:

To know what food is kosher, that is, fit to eat according to rabbinic Judaism, you must study the principles set forth in this volume, the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Hullin.

This translation, (approx. 665 pages) adheres closely to the text so that the reader has a sense of the structure and balance of the original. Yet at the same time it conveys the flow of the legal arguments and debates, the dramatic unfolding of events in stories, and the sensitivities to words and language in the exegetical texts.

Its aim is to facilitate a smooth conversation between readers and the text so that, without consulting the original Hebrew and Aramaic version, they can appreciate the substantive meaning and recognize some major aspects of the style of the Talmudic text.

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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Anti-Abortion Activist Lou Engle Hijacks and Twists the Story of Esther

Katie Toth at Religion Dispatches calls her op-ed the Lou Engle's Bizarro Esther recalling the Superman comics Bizarro Superman from the Bizarro world where everything is skewed almost to the opposite of what it should be. She explains:

Lou Engle’s “Esther Call” will be finishing in Dallas, Texas today on Good Friday. The “mass event […] focuses on God's forgiveness for those who have been involved in abortion […and calls on] viewers to pray for an end to the bloodshed of innocent lives.” Along with co-leader Laura Allred, Engle has called on women to repent for the nation’s abortions on behalf of America’s women.

That’s a far cry from the original Esther—a biblical queen who used the power of prayer, fasting, and a ballsy appeal to the king to save the Jews after her stubborn cousin Mordecai nearly got them all massacred.


One video calls on women who have been “hurt” by abortion to come together to “release the pain,” a process through which political change will be possible. At face value, Engle seems to be calling on some conservative Christian reconfiguration of girl power—uniting women so they can refine their political voice.

Problem is, for these Esthers power is only realized through the humiliation of themselves and their peers.

The biblical Esther doesn’t really do any ‘pain-releasing.’ She’s busy using her cleverness, faith, and womanly wile to protect her people after her cousin puts them at risk with his ego (Esther 3:1). Engle’s Esthers, however, will only be able to protect their land once they repent their own failings. 

In other words: Sure! Women can have power to influence national policy… if they start crying about what dirty sinners they are. Engle borrows from rhetoric about women’s power, but tells them to turn that power in on themselves.

This Engle campaign sounds to us like an extreme hijacking of a biblical story which distorts it for aims that are diametrically opposed to the original intents of the narrative.

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The Passover Seder: When we all must become children | Morethodoxy | Jewish Journal

On JewishJournal.com we found an essay by Rabbi Hyim Shafner, "The Passover Seder: When we all must become children" which captured part of what we taught at our Seder this year. He starts off,

“One is obligated to see themselves on the Seder night as if they are actually now leaving Egypt.” -Maimonides

“The child at the Seder asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat leavened or unleavened bread but on this night only unleavened. On all other nights we eat regular vegetables but on this night bitter herbs….”” -The Talmud

If the Passover Seder meal is one of remembering that God redeemed the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery, why not do precisely that? Read the Biblical account of the Exodus (which we do not); ask about slavery and freedom, divinely brought plagues and miracles, nationhood and history. Why all the questions about why this night is different?

Children live in the present, their questions straight forward; they observe and ask, observe and ask. According to some Jewish sources we do strange actions at the Seder meal, like dipping our food, drinking many cups of wine and delaying the meal, precisely so that the children will notice and ask: “Why is this night different?”...

We put it differently at our Seder and a bit more dramatically. When the time came for the four questions I explained that now we all, children and adults, must become meditators, looking closely at our immediate actions and surroundings. (The meditator is one of the six primary archetypes that I develop in my book, God's Favorite Prayers)

And I distributed to the children magnifying glasses and told them that they were all appointed Pesach detectives. But they were so well rehearsed and anxious to recite the four questions that this idea did not get much traction, although the point was made -- and it is obvious. Part of the Seder is reflexive and meditative.

Another part of the Seder is triumphalist and we were not about to avoid that this year. We went with the flow. We gave out "We're number one" foam fingers to the kids and at three occasions we had them wave the cheering fingers in the air. (When we said “at first our forefathers were idolaters..." and shortly thereafter we became monotheists, when we said, "Therefore..." we give praise, and when we greeted Elijah and recited the passage about pouring out wrath...

And do you know what? Triumphalists are childlike in an altogether other way. (The celebrity triumphalist is one of the six primary archetypes that I develop in my book, God's Favorite Prayers).

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Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah - a Star of the Seder

Passover once again. We will soon open our Haggadahs and find the familiar prologue stories to the Maggid section of the Seder. And soon we all will wonder, Who was Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah?

Maggid is literally the "telling" of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the event that we celebrate in our evening of dramatic activity. My teacher Rabbi Soloveitchik always underscored that this is not a mere retelling of a story. The Maggid is an archetypal session of rabbinic Torah study. The major section that we read is a classic rabbinic midrash that expounds upon a few condensed biblical verses. This is the exodus story as told by the rabbis, not by the Torah of Moses. To make the point unmistakably clear, the rabbis go so far as to omit the mention of Moses altogether in the Haggadah.

The rabbis do mention several of their own rabbis by name and top among them is my favorite, Eleazar ben Azariah. He was a second century rabbi in Israel who also held the highest political position in his community.

He teaches (in the name of Ben Zoma, another rabbi) that we recite at the Seder because it provides us with the license for our gathering at home at night to perform all of our Seder rituals. Otherwise, we might still be celebrating our Seder during the day in accord with the practice of the anonymous Sages.

We mention the exodus from Egypt at night.
Said R. Eleazar ben Azariah, ``I am now like a seventy year old and was not worthy [of understanding] that the exodus from Egypt be said at night, until Ben Zoma expounded it:
``As it is stated: `So that you may remember the day on which you left Egypt all the days of your life (Deut. 16:3).'
`` `The days of your life' [would have implied only] the days. `All the days of your life' [includes] the nights.''
 And the sages say, `` `The days of your life' [would have included only] this world. `All the days of your life' [includes] the days of the messiah.''
[M. Ber. 1:5; Sifré, ed. Finkelstein, p. 188; Tos. Zer., Lieberman, p. 4, ls. 40-46 (Mekhilta, Horowitz-Rabin, p. 60 omits attribution to Eleazar)]

Later rabbis delve into the meaning of the cryptic phrase, "I am now like a seventy year old." Some take it to mean that a young Eleazar turned grey overnight to help him gain respect as the new political leader of the Jewish nation, to facilitate his ascent in Israel.

In the narrative of the deposition of Rabban Gamaliel from his position as Patriarch which led to Eleazar's elevation to the post, we have two variants on this element -- the quasi-miracle that Eleazar's hair turned grey.

Yerushalmi Berakhot 4:1 says:

They went and appointed (mynw) R. Eleazar b. Azariah to the academy (yšybh).
He was sixteen years old and all his hair turned grey (ntml' kl r'šw sybyt).

Bavli Berakhot 27b-28a informs us that Eleazar's wife had observed his deficiency:

She said to him, ``You have no white hair.''
On that day he was eighteen years old. A miracle befell him and eighteen rows of his hair turned white.

All this is discussed -- in the context of the exciting agenda of critical and analytical questions that we were asking of our rabbinic sources at the time -- in my doctoral thesis from 1977, which you can now purchase for your Kindle, "Eleazar: Rabbi, Priest, Patriarch" .

Yes, I did my thesis on Eleazar ben Azariah (at a time before I had any white hair). And each year at the Seder I bring a copy of my book on Eleazar to the table and hold it up - to add a personal touch at the outset of our annual Seder dissertation. /reposted/

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iPad Haggadah, Passover and Seder App and online Seders

Update; WSJ has a nice article about online Seders and the digitalization of Judaism: "Matzo Ball Soup, Check. iPad, Check. For Passover, Jews Try Techie Seders"

Now our review.

The Rambam says that it is a mitzvah for every Jew to write a Sefer Torah. To us it seems that there is a mitzvah lately for every Jew to write a Haggadah. We like that idea. And we have a tall pile of different editions of the Haggadah which we draw upon for the Seder.

Oh and by the way just about everyone we know is writing an iPad app or wants to write one. That is an urgent technology mitzvah of its own.

And so now this year David Kraemer, professor at JTS, is the author of a new Haggadah multimedia app for the iPad. The Haggadah includes eloquent introductions and commentary by Kraemer.

Here are some of the excellent additional features of this app. You can toggle between English and Hebrew in the Haggadah text. There is a cute Seder plate page that you can spin around - and see explanations of each item.

There is an oral commentary by Rabbi Irwin Kula, and nu, it could have been better and more insightful but we will take it for now as long as he redoes it for next year with more preparation and depth.

There is an oral commentary  that is a bit hard to find by Sharon Liberman Mintz, curator of Jewish art at The JTS Library, on the artwork. Featured are images of historical Haggadot from the Library’s collection, awesome. If you expand the art images that have a gold magnifying glass icon, you can hear her intelligent explanations.

There is an alternative “Sayder” by Amichai Lau-Lavie, rabbinical student at JTS, which is a bit hokie and uber-current, but we liked it. Your mileage may vary.

There is audio with transliteration of the Seder's most popular songs, very nice.

There are games for children, but we must critique the coloring pages. They seem to us to be too detailed for iPad coloring, even with small fingers. And we know this because? Because we have a three year old grandson who loves to color on our iPad. More user acceptance testing for next year please.

There are really bad jokes, sort of related to the Seder, and some fine recipes, which we have not tried so don't go by our generous opinion, and other features that we would discover if we had more time, we just got the app to evaluate, quite late in the season. 

David Kraemer and his crew have fulfilled with great aplomb the dual mitzvahs of writing a new Haggadah and of writing an iPad app. Bravo. Link.

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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Congratulations to my father's successor Rabbi Schneier on his 50th Year at the Park East Synagogue

Congratulations to my father's successor Rabbi Schneier on his 50th Year at the Park East Synagogue (Congregation Zichron Ephraim)

 Rabbi Fred Hyman, Reuvain Zahavy, Rabbi Zev Zahavy and Rabbi Arthur Schneier.

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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NYMagazine: A Talmudic Discussion of New York Scandals - Astor, Madoff, Spitzer, Weiner

In an issue dedicated to the scandals of New York City, New York Magazine has published a compilation of assessments of various experts of which of the four major scandals of recent times was the worst one.

It seems to us like a Talmudic exercise where the opinions of the twenty five "rabbis" are quoted, among them writers, politicians and others. The result is an aggadic compilation for our times - assessing the worst moral actors of the city in this context, "The last four years brought four first-class New York scandals, each epic, tragic, difficult to forget. But which will we still be talking about 100 years from now? We asked around."

Not to spoil it for anyone, in this NYMagazine Talmudic discourse on Astor, Madoff, Spitzer and Weiner, one gentile and three Jews, the hands down winner appears to be Madoff.

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