9 years ago I published: "God’s Favorite Prayers" - it has been a delicious improvement on all previous theologies of Jewish prayers

"God’s Favorite Prayers" (ISBN 0615509495) is a new published book that unlocks the personalities behind the prayers. Author Tzvee Zahavy introduces readers to the archetypes within Jewish liturgy in this engaging new volume.

"God’s Favorite Prayers" invites the reader into the heart of Jewish spirituality, to learn about its idiom and imagery, its emotions and its great sweeping dramas. The author invites the reader to meet six ideal personalities of Jewish prayer and to get to know some of God's favorite prayers.

According to Zahavy, Jews recite and sing and meditate prayers that derive from six distinct archetypes. He labels those six personalities: the performer, the mystic, the scribe, the priest, the meditator and the celebrity.

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.

Free Passover Books

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

The $9.3 million Talmud - Daniel Bomberg's 16th-century printing sold at Sotheby's New York

The video shows the Bomberg Talmud sold for a bid of $8.1 million. All reports list it as sold at $9.3 million. I suppose there was a 15% commission added on.

The Examiner has a detailed report on the auction.

Art Daily has a version of the story:

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's set a new world auction record for any piece of Judaica today in New York, when one of the finest copies of Daniel Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud sold for $9.3 million (estimate $5/7 million).* The extraordinary volume was purchased by Stephan Loewentheil for the 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop. The Bomberg Talmud led the sale of a selection of extraordinary items from The Valmadonna Trust, which totaled $14.9 million and became the most valuable auction of Judaica ever held.** Together with the auctions of Important Judaica and Israeli & International Art, Sotheby's annual December sales of Judaica and Israeli Art totaled $22.6 million. 

The Talmud, or "Oral Law," is a compendium of hundreds of years of rabbinical discussion and debate which expound upon the laws of the Bible. Daniel Bomberg is responsible for the first complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud (1519-1523), universally recognized not simply as one of the most significant books in the history of Hebrew printing, but as one of the great books of the Western world. The record setting Talmud sold today is one of the finest copies of Bomberg's edition – of which only 14 complete 16th century sets survive. 

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.

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

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

What is Kaddish?

We said Kaddish for our dad this past year. Some writers responded to their year of saying Kaddish by writing books about it. Four good ones are shown above.

We published a popular book about prayer a in July 2011, so we don't feel the need to go ahead and write another one about our Kaddish year.

In fact in that book, we resolved our main understanding of the meaning of the Kaddish. We have not changed our mind. Here is some of what we said in "God's Favorite Prayers" as explained by our archetypal mystic, Hannah, on pages 59-61:

Hannah invites us to examine next the well-known and practiced Kaddish prayer, a second case of the entry level mystic’s prayers.

There are several varieties of Kaddish recited in the synagogue, enough to confuse the beginner. One of them, called the Half (chatzi) Kaddish, because a few sentences are left off of it, is recited by the leader of the services as a framing mechanism to mark the end of each major section of the liturgy. And, coincidentally, the term ‘half’ (chatzi) relates to the Hebrew word for a dividing or framing action.

The second Kaddish variety, called the complete one (shalem), marks the very end of the services proper.

The best-known Kaddish in the synagogue though is the mourner’s Kaddish (yatom), the one that is employed as a mourner’s doxology (i.e., a praise of God). The practice of associating this prayer with a mourner first appears in the thirteenth century. The synagogue authorities endorsed the custom that mourners during the first eleven months after losing a close relative ought to rise and recite a Kaddish on their own. In the case of this Kaddish Yatom, the mourner rises in his place in the synagogue and recites the doxology at a few appointed times in the daily, Sabbath, and festival services.

I ask Hannah, What is it that the prayer tells us? And, in particular, what makes the prayer an apt mystical enactment for the mourner who recites it? She explains that the substance of the prayer is not at all philosophical or deep. It is a litany, as a mystical prayer is wont to be, of the right words of praise of God in the correct order. She shows us the mystical component of the Kaddish, those lines that cite for us the adoration that is recited by the angels in heaven.

Hannah explains then that reciting the Kaddish provides an appropriate vicarious association for the mourner—to stand and recite a prayer on behalf of the departed souls of the dead:

Magnified and sanctified may his great name be in the world he created by his will. May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of all the house of Israel, swiftly and soon—and say: Amen.
May his great name be blessed forever and all time.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted,
raised and honored, uplifted and lauded
be the name of the Holy One, blessed be he,
beyond any blessing, song, praise and consolation
uttered in the world—and say: Amen
May there be great peace from heaven,
and life for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
May he who makes peace in his high places,
make peace for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
(Koren Siddur, p. 178)

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. I ask again, why then is this prayer especially apropos for a mourner? Hannah proposes that it is 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. 

I pressed Hannah on this matter. I asked her to clarify to us what is going on when she recites the Kaddish. Is she addressing God from her pew, using the words authorized by the angels on behalf of the deceased? Or is she imagining her ascent to heaven to plead there for the soul of the departed?

Hannah did not know the origins of the Kaddish as a mystic’s prayer on behalf of the soul. Alan Mintz explained that this association began in the Middle Ages (Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature

In the generations immediately following the First Crusade the ceremony of remembering the dead began to be practiced not only in the case of renowned rabbinical martyrs of public persecution but also simply for all who died natural deaths, entirely irrespective of the conditions of persecution. A bereaved son would recite the Kaddish, an Aramaic doxology, for the memory of his recently departed father or mother, in the conviction that such recitation had the power to save the deceased’s soul from tortures beyond the grave. The practice gained headway in the thirteenth century and by the fifteenth a new custom emerged: the Yorzeit, the recitation of the Kaddish on the anniversary of the death of a relative. And soon there was further established the Yizkor or Hazkarat Neshamot, the Kaddish together with various supplications for the souls of the departed, recited on the Day of Atonement and the last days of the Pilgrimage Festivals. Taken together, this amounts of a kind of cult of the dead that began in medieval Ashkenaz and later spread to all of world Jewry.

Mintz commented further about the deep personal attachment that Jews have to this prayer:

The astounding tenacity of this outlook is observable in the simple sociological fact, known to all, that in the process of secularization, and especially in the acculturation of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to America, the recitation of the mourner’s Kaddish with its attendant rites is the very last particle of tradition to be given up.

Without knowing anything about the historical development of the Kaddish, the entry-level mystic in the synagogue does engage in some prayer, emulating the angels and sending praises and petitions heavenward. She also may practice an intermediate form of mystical prayer, an imagined ascent to stand in another realm and importune her case before the angels and before God....

Talmudic Books for Kindle | The Amazing Kindle Talmud in English | Whence and Wherefore | God's Favorite Prayers

Requested Book Excerpt: The Mindful Meditation of Berkahot Blessings

Here is the much-requested excerpt from my book "God's Favorite Prayers"  ("The Meditator," pages 111-120) wherein I define just how the berakhot (blessings) of rabbinic Judaism constitute a complete system of mindful meditations.

Deborah sits in the synagogue visibly engaged in her prayers. She closes her eyes at times. She sways as she prays, rhythmically and persistently, but slowly, gently and with deliberation.You cannot tell just from these external cues that Deborah is a meditator. To know that, I need to probe and ask her about her innermost thoughts during her time in the synagogue and at many other times when she is out and about throughout the day. During her prayers, you need to know, is Deborah attentively introspective of her own needs and desires and those of her friends and loved ones? Does she see her dreams fulfilled? Is she accepting of her personal and spiritual shortcomings and failures? Is she aware of her own breathing and heartbeat and the air that swirls around her, the heft of her Siddur and the humming of her fellow daveners?Does Deborah recite one-hundred daily blessings with mindful recognition? Does she reach a state of compassion as she says the grace over her meals? 

I might describe the activity of meditation as “study or thinking intently and at length, as for spiritual purposes,” or as “contemplation of spiritual matters.”

But the ancient rabbis did not have a term to describe meditation, so they called the meditative dimension of prayer, “the service of the heart.” To them, that indicated an inner intellectual and emotional activity, which they located in the heart, since they could detect that as the organ which beats slower or faster depending on one’s state of mind. Ancient rabbis had no ideas of brain activity and surely had no devices to monitor it or methods to speak about it.

Today, there are indeed multiple ways that we use the term meditate to describe a person who practices meditation through a variety of activities that we may call meditative. It’s enough to make your head spin. Before I get to what goes on in and around the synagogue, consider for instance those meditators from the 1960s or 70s, who practiced a popular form of Transcendental Meditation (TM), Zen or other related types of meditation. Far outside of establishment places of worship—separate from synagogues and churches—they sought a regimen that would help them achieve a sensation that they could transcend or go beyond themselves. They sought to bend their consciousness by a variety of methods, such as by finding their mantra or via deliberation on gnomic Zen sayings, called koans.

Kindle Edition of the Talmud for Rosh Hashanah

Everything you need to know about the Jewish New Year. Perfect for the High Holidays: Kindle edition of the Talmud Rosh Hashanah. Price: 99 cents.

From the book description:

The New Moon of the Jewish seventh month is a Festival of special solemnity known as Rosh Hashanah, New Year's Day.

This is the eighth treatise of the Babylonian Talmud order Mo'ed. It is composed of four chapters with rules for proclaiming New Moon, for the New Year liturgy and the blowing of the shofar (trumpet). It contains (1) the most important rules concerning the calendar year together with a description of the inauguration of the months by the nasi and ab bet din; (2) laws on the form and use of the shofar and on the service during the Rosh ha-Shanah feast.

Attention Daf Yomi students! Get a Free or 99 Cent English Talmud Berakhot / Berakoth / Berachos

Daily Talmud study is both learning and religious devotion - the fulfillment of the mitzvah of Talmud Torah.

Download for Daf Yomi a Free English Talmud Berakhot / Berakoth / Berachos in one PDF file.

Download for Daf Yomi a Free Two-Column Brilliantly Reformatted English Talmud Berakhot / Berakoth / Berachos in two PDF files.

Purchase for Kindle from Amazon for Daf Yomi a 99 cent English Talmud Berakhot / Berakoth / Berachos.

Free Complete English Talmud | The 36 Volume Complete Kindle Talmud in English | Whence and Wherefore | God's Favorite Prayers | 44 New Talmudic Books for Kindle |

AP: Blackwell Burke Law Firm has Sued ConAgra Foods Over Hebrew National Kosher Claims

The AP reports that the Blackwell Burke Law Firm in Minneapolis has sued ConAgra Foods, owners of Hebrew National Kosher brands.

...ConAgra Foods Inc. says a lawsuit that claims its products aren't really kosher is without merit. The suit claims that ConAgra, based in Omaha, Neb., charges premium prices for Hebrew National meats, which it says aren't really 100 percent kosher...

We do not believe that this suit will last long before being dismissed.

It's quite simple why this matter will go nowhere in the courts.

ConAgra has ordained rabbis or their delegates on the premises. They monitor the production and certify the food as kosher.

According to Jewish religious law, as long as a rabbi declares meat kosher, it is kosher. It is the rabbinic decision that renders the food kosher. There are no percentage analog kosher standards. The status is binary. A food is either kosher or treif as determined by the religious beliefs and practices of Jews according to the laws of the Torah and the rabbinic laws of the Talmud, Codes and Responsa. See our translation of Hullin for many of those Talmud laws, Kosher Talmud: Babylonian Talmud Hullin.

To the best of our knowledge and judgement, that is pure religious practice, based 100% on religious beliefs, a matter that cannot and will not be adjudicated in our government court systems.

We'd guess that the simple and obvious decision to dismiss this case will be one page or less.

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

Talmudic Sexual Practices and Menstruating Women - Kindle English Talmud Niddah

Daf Yomi is studying Niddah now. Today is folio page 17. In the tractate the Talmud deals primarily with sexual practices, mainly taboos, those sexual actions one should not perform. Here is an excerpt about what today we might call modesty practices in sexuality:

R. Simeon b. Yohai observed: There are four [types] which the Holy One, blessed be He, hates, and as for me, I do not love them: The man who enters his house suddenly and much more so [if he so enters] his friend’s house, the man who holds the membrum when he makes water, the man who when naked makes water in front of his bed, and the man who has intercourse in the presence of any living creature. ‘Even,’ said Rab Judah to Samuel, ‘in the presence of mice?’ ‘Shinena,’ the other replied, ‘no; but [the reference is to] a house like that of So and so where they have intercourse in the presence of their men-servants and maidservants. But what was the exposition they made? — Abide ye here with the ass, implies: peoples that are like an ass. Rabbah son of R. Huna used to chase away the wasps from his curtained bed. Abaye drove away the flies. Rabba chased away the mosquitoes...

R. Hisda ruled: A man is forbidden to perform his marital duty in the day-time, for it is said, But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But what is the proof? — Abaye replied: He might observe something repulsive in her and she would thereby become loathsome to him.

R. Huna said, Israel are holy and do not perform their marital duties in the day-time. Raba said, But in a dark house this is permitted; and a scholar may darken a room with his cloak and perform his marital duty...

Come and hear: And the people of the house of Monobaz did three things, and on account of these they were honorably mentioned: They performed their marital duties in the day-time, they examined their beds with cotton, and they observed the rules of uncleanness and cleanness in the case of snow.

Talmudic sex is real sex in the sense that it admits that some people do and some don't. In this example for instance some do have relations in the daytime and are praised. Others do not, based on a biblical verse and some commonplace advice.

Talmudic Books for Kindle

The Kindle Talmud in English

The Introduction to Zev Zahavy's book, "Whence and Wherefore: The Cosmological Destiny of Man Scientifically and Philosophically Considered"

Here is the introduction to the Kindle Edition in honor of Zev Zahavy's recent sheloshim, thirty days since his passing. This book was originally published by my dad in 1978.

Whence and Wherefore by Zev Zahavy
The Cosmological Destiny of Man Scientifically and Philosophically Considered. An Analysis Relating to "In the Centre of Immensities" by Sir Bernard Lovell

Now that man is a bona fide space traveler, it appears to be a propitious time to call for a new chapter in the enduring search for ultimate truths.

The technological record of human progress from the ancient period of a Sumerian bronze age to the current era of complex, multinational, computerized societies is a magnificent tribute to the impressive ingenuity of the human intellect. Man may justifiably take pride in his vast array of technological triumphs.

Certainly, the human specimen has traversed a long, rugged road since the early days of the ox-drawn plow and that prosaic lethargic era when simple mathematics were inscribed in fundamental ideograms upon cuneiform tablets. Today, man spans oceans and continents in a few short hours; communicates with the speed of light; harnesses the nuclear might of the unseen atom; prepares to visit neighboring planets; and charts the course of stellar phenomena at distant outposts of his universe.

Kindle your Daf Yomi Talmud Study for $.99 with the Soncino English Translation of Babylonian Talmud Tractate Temurah

The Soncino Babylonian Talmud tractate Temurah - Kindle Edition is $.99 at Amazon.

The daily study of the Talmud called Daf Yomi starts tractate Temurah on Friday, February 17.

[No Kindle yet? Pick one up at Staples or Target where the touch is $99 this week with a $20 or $10 rebate.]

Babylonian Talmud tractate TEMURAH (Substitution): Sets forth the rules governing the substitution of one offering for another in accordance with the law prescribed in Lev. XXVII, 10. Seven Chapters.

This edition of the classic Soncino English Talmud translation was reformatted by Reuven Brauner.

Brauner's new and excellent Reformatted Soncino Talmud (in PDF) is available free at http://www.halakhah.com/ where it has attracted a record number of hits and downloads.

Get your copy of the new Kindle volume today. Let's make the Talmud a big international best seller.

Updates!
Two more Kindle volumes are available! Kerithoth and Me'ilah

"God's Favorite Prayers" was published by Talmudic Books

From Talmudic Books: "Kosher Talmud: Babylonian Talmud Hullin" - live now and available for ordering

Another new Kindle Edition from Talmudic Books: "Babylonian Talmud Hullin" - live for sale now and available for ordering at Amazon.

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, 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.

The free Kindle book sample (Click on: Send sample now) is quite large because the book itself is over 570 pages in print format.

Here is what one scholarly reviewer said at length in praise of the book:

From Ioudaios Review. Reviewed by: Sigrid Peterson, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

“All may slaughter,” has to be one of the more memorable three-word opening lines ever invented – right up there with “Call me Ishmael.”  While the latter is the opening to Melville’s Moby Dick, the former is less readily identifiable. In fact, the words “All may slaughter” open and form the reiterated recall to the ground theme of Tzvee Zahavy’s modern English translation of Hullin, one of the Tractates of the Babylonian Talmud. On beginning Moby Dick, I am sure I would feel conscientious and obligated and virtuous and bored. Similarly, that was my expectation in opening Hullin on preparing to review it. That expectation has been dispelled by this accessible and fascinating portrayal of the world of the rabbis.

Two Great Blog Reviews of "God's Favorite Prayers"

Dr. Claude Mariottini, professor of Old Testament at the Northern Baptist Seminary, has published a marvelous review my new book on his blog, starting as follows:

My fellow blogger Tzvee Zahavy has written a fascinating book titled God’s Favorite Prayers (Teaneck, NJ: Talmudic Books, 2011). The book deals with Jewish prayers and spirituality...