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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

Brooking Dissent

So Golders Green can have sit-down restaurants and cafes, schools run by a board of governors rather than a single nepotistic strongman, mixed Tashlich sessions, decent mikvo’os and now even an eiruv and all with a Kedassia hechsher. But as for Stamford Hill it has been decreed that we are to remain forever under the servitude of a cabal of kleptomaniacs who can carry nothing but their own wallets. It’s not as if we in Stamford Hill are incompetent because in many respects we are far more capable than others. Reb Aaron of Satmar will this week lay the foundation stone and attend the opening of a shul, yeshiva and school, the other Satmar recently opened its own mega girl school, Belz has commenced a huge building project, Vizhnitz has in the last few years opened shuls and schools, ditto for Bobov and Ger. Yet in all this time the wretched UOHC has barely managed to refurbish a single mikve after many years as a building site and another mikve remains in a decrepit state after al

Mirvis’s Baptism of Fire

Eiruv is comin’ to town

… and it’s kosher too though I hadn’t realised that Brookside had quite as many rabbis.

Time for Reflection

An anonymous letter apparently posted to members of the breakaway Divrei Chaim minyan(im?)

Headless Kapores

Going, going… …gone! They couldn’t be more daft than we thought, could they? I mean, after a year like this we must by now know the wildest frontiers of their insanity and how could it be otherwise. Well, think again. As the UOHC publishes its annual edict to segregate the public highway and introduces a Challa Burning service which, come on, admit it, it’s what’s really been missing from our lives and something we’ve all been begging for, and as one of their mikves which has now been a building site for about 10 years enters another year still as a building site, and as the police keep digging away at one of their loftiest, those in charge have had some other ideas on their mind. While we’ve been rising early and begging forgiveness, unbeknown to us its entire lay and rabbinic leadership has committed mass hara-kiri. The rabbis got laid and now the lay leadership has joined them in taking a jump. And all for the sake of protecting the modesty of the one who least needs prot