A Hand-Drawn Menorah from a Text Annotated by Maimonides Himself

One of the greatest medieval rabbis and theologians, and the leader of Egyptian Jewry, Moses Maimonides authored two major works of talmudic scholarship: an Arabic-language commentary on the Mishnah (the older stratum of the Talmud) and his comprehensive legal code, titled the Mishneh Torah. Manuscripts of both works will be on display next year at an exhibit at the Yeshiva University Museum in New York City. JNS reports:

The exhibition, The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, will run from May 9 until December 31, 2023, at the museum in New York City. It will . . . feature a copy of the Mishneh Torah that was reportedly personally signed by Maimonides. [In addition, a hand-drawn illustration] of the Temple menorah is found in a 12th-century copy of the sage’s commentary on the Mishnah with his handwritten notes in the margins.

The drawing of the Temple menorah shows seven straight, rather than curved, branches. This unique image of the holy gold candelabra may have been drawn by Maimonides himself, according to a press release from the museum.

Read more at JNS

More about: Jewish museums, Manuscripts, Menorah, Moses Maimonides

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society