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...
"44 years", they marvelled, just as they did last year and just as they will keep doing year after year with incremented numbers while measuring their own life by her death. But 44 years it is and still it feels like this. Still it hurts and still the ground is cold. This morning AL, now with a white beard, recalled how as a kid on his bike at the corner in Clapton Common he heard the news. BS namechecked her and wanted to know if it was only that one name. PF stroked his unfurled almost navel length beard, fresh and untangled after the mikveh, as he told of the photo he has of my mum with myself and my siblings. Forty four years. Others commented on the freshness of the croissant sandwiches while the shy boy stood quietly at the side eyeing the food but too timid to approach the adult table where death was being served up with Scotch. Less shy were the drinkers sipping Lechaim from sample-size cups. In some shuls they wish you a long life but here they're more conc...