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...
We're in the eye of a storm once again and it's now happening with such frequency that storm is almost the new balmy. Laugh at us if you must but if excitement means x had a baby girl after 6.9 boys followed by "Wow!that'sjustsomoiredik", and pushing at the boundaries of knowledge is discovering from the reverse phone search at the back of the Shomer Shabbos the name behind the mobile number advertising second hand tin foil dishes and glatt kosher slippers which will cover you toe to ankle so that when in a floor-length housecoat if you stretch your hand to fix that net curtain after an extra-long peep it still won't show even a hint of varicose veins, if that is how excitement is defined then you should appreciate why a tornado once in a while gives us the frisson of cold water to a weary soul . But let's not run away with this one despite the whiff of Salem and McCarthy about it and not to mention Tehran and Raqqa. As this blog has said time and again, ...