Mazal tovs to the Women’s Torah Project on finishing their Torah! “The first Torah written and embellished by an international community of women,” as they say. I’ve written three Torahs at this point, so I know well how nice it feels to finish writing a Torah. The Women’s Torah Project started about ten years ago […]
I’m taking Prof. Steiner’s Intro to Biblical Hebrew class at Yeshiva University this semester, and I like it a whole lot. It’s a standard biblical grammar course, but it’s presented in a way I’ve never heard grammar described, and as a result, I’m finding myself actually rather excited about it. This, you understand, is an […]
Here’s the white space in Kohelet – chapter 3, and the poetry a time for bearing and a time for dying; a time for planting and a time for uprooting…. The repetitive structure of the words is reflected in the structured layout. (Did I show you this one before? Oh well, won’t hurt to see […]
Now all the holidays are safely over (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, COLUMBUS DAY), it’s time to get down to the semester in earnest. What about making this the year you get round to learning safrut? Especially if you’re in NYC and you want to learn it with me, because I’m thinking about taking a few […]
In Little Letters in Eicha, parts one and two, I talked about lamed, ayin, and tet. The little lamed was serving as a reminder-flag, telling you to recall other, relevant, words beginning with lamed. The little ayin had to do with numerical symbolism. The little tet had numerical symbolism and reminder-flagging, all of it connected […]
Rosh Chodesh guest post from MarGavriel In many Jewish communities, part of the blessing for each upcoming month is sung in a tune which is emblematic of that month. In the South German tradition, it is typically the last words of the prayer, beginning with לחיים ולשלום, which are chosen for this purpose. The cantor […]
The Soferet is going to Limmud 30, people! What do you think I should present?
This eBay item makes me want to cry. It’s advertising a “Torah Scroll 400 Years Old Approx 10.8 Feet Long” and you can see from the picture that something’s seriously, seriously wrong. People have been selling pieces of sifrei Torah on eBay for years. They get old sifrei Torah, hack them into pieces, and sell […]
September 28, 2010 – 12:46
ETA: Lethargic_man points out that he too lives in a Jewish neighbourhood, in London, and none of this applies in his neighbourhood. I did not mean to imply that all Jews drink death-defying amounts of carbonated water on festivals, nor that all Jews are so environmentally oblivious that they use plastic for every meal – […]
September 17, 2010 – 14:27
Little Letters in Eicha, part 1 3:36 לעות אדם בריבו אדני לא ראה To subvert a man in his cause, the LORD approveth not. Tzvi Ron in Sefer Katan u-Gadol again (trans. G. Wasserman): “The small ‘ayin in the word לעות (verse 3:36) is explained as a reference to the numerical value of the letter, […]
