Sefer Ha-Hayim Blog
Sunday, July 31, 2005
 
R. Daniel Feldman on the Bestseller List
My wife brought to my attention that R. Daniel Z. Feldman's The Right and the Good made it to the Country Yossi Magazine bestseller list for two months in a row.

Check out no. 11:


Check out no. 19:

Wednesday, July 20, 2005
 
The Bach on Belief
As I review the galleys for R. Elijah J. Schochet's biography of the Bach, Rabbi Joel Sirkes: His Life, Works and Times (Expanded Edition) (should be in stores before the High Holidays), I came across the following interesting passage on page 50:
Religion was in many respects a simple matter for Joel Sirkes. His problems of philosophy and faith were few, if any at all. Rabbi Joel was a determined antagonist of all philosophic study, equating it with heresy. He regarded faith in the existence of God as an obvious self-evident truth, apparent to anyone by the power of logic as well as the testimony of tradition.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005
 
New Issue of Newsletter Online
Volume 1 number 6 of the "Sefer Ha-Hayim" Newsletter is now available online (click here).

Monday, July 11, 2005
 
Rabbi Slifkin in the News
From the New Jersey Jewish News:
An animal-loving rabbi seeks to reconcile science and Torah

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Rabbi Natan Slifkin uncoiled the python wrapped around his arm, and placed it carefully on a countertop far away from the audience — but close enough so that he had their attention.

The snake, he explained, is associated in the Torah with black magic, in part for the zig-zagging way it moves. "Moving in sideways manner, according to [Samson Raphael] Hirsch, is sorcery, which is not a Jewish idea. God wants a person to accomplish certain things in life to have gifts bestowed on them. Magic is a roundabout way of getting to a goal. God has a map charted out for you. Magic is sidestepping the stages God has set out for you."

And so Slifkin pursued his own goal, combining zoology and Jewish learning, in a day of Zoo Torah at the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange on Sunday, June 26.
Continued here.


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