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Of Making Many Books

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay  can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to
82 comments

The Remaking of a Godol

As you read in the weekend press the inevitable hyperbole on the passing of Reb Nosson Tzvi Finkel with tales of him knowing shas by the age of 5 and his teachers being unable to teach him shortly after, consider his school card where in his teens his ambition was still ‘Undecided’. Is this ‘child father of the man’? Born and raised in the USA will unfortunately make it slightly more difficult to deal with that nuisance called history but trust our papers to find a way round it.

Nosson Tzvi Finkel

Here though is an inspiring piece concerning Reb Nosson Tzvi by Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks.

(Credit: On The Main Line)

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Comments

  1. Anonymous13 November, 2011 11:04

    yesterday carlebach evening by a newspaper and caterer shidduch wont bring them great parnoso from SA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous14 November, 2011 00:53

    why is they no Hesped in Stamford Hill only in Golders Green

    ReplyDelete
  3. IfYouTickleUs14 November, 2011 03:01

    Anon, the same reason that there wasn't one for R' M. Y. Lefkowitz which I think was in Sinai. I don't recall there being a reception in SH for R' Nosson Tzvi either on his many visits despite the supposed 100,000 at his funeral.

    Torah 'giants' round here are for newspaper headlines but as far as we are concerned a troika of drug smugglers has far greater pull.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous14 November, 2011 12:27

    Rabbi Roberts spoke in Yiddish for the Stamford hill chevra Rabbi Gurvitz and Rabbi Halpern spoke in English for the GG's

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous16 November, 2011 14:18

    Roberts yiddish
    Gurvits Halpern English.
    Am I missing something!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Moish16 November, 2011 23:16

    Makes perfect sense. Halpern plays to his crowd. Roberts makes a point of doing the opposite.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous17 November, 2011 00:38

    It was strange! And why Gurvitz spoke in English?

    ReplyDelete

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Of Making Many Books

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