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...
In a rare act of public rebuke the full-page ad below was published in Hamodia anonymously but obviously by people in the communal educational sphere. The language and tone clearly shows that they had in their sights UOHC’s recent notice on Creationism which reportedly got UOHC into trouble with The Learning Trust for its extreme language. It definitely had many educational heads hopping mad that the UOHC which runs not a single educational institution should be making such crucial decisions without consulting anyone actually running one and is likely to be affected to the tune of millions of pounds. The operative paragraph is translated below and the speeches referred to are a reference to a speech given by the rov of Satmar ‘86’. Notwithstanding the ad, the speech must have been intended for publication as it was delivered at shaleshudes and yet it was fully recorded. Note the defiance in the final words of the translated paragraph calling to abide by the rulings of the rabbonim...