Today in history -- 11/24/13 166 BCE: According to secular calculations this date marked “The Origin of Era of the Maccabees.” 1105: Rabbi Nathan ben Yehiel of Rome completes Talmudic dictionary. According to Heinrich Graetz, Ben Yehiel is the only Italian who made a contribution to Jewish literature during this period which was dominated by the Jews of Spain. He published his dictionary under the name Aruch. What this work lacks in originality it makes up for in thoroughness. It became a standard text for Jews studying the Talmud during the Middle Ages. 1632: Birthdate of Baruch Spinoza (known also as Benedict De Spinoza). Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to Sephardic Jews who had fled from the Inquisition in Portugal, Spinoza received a rigorous Jewish education including the study of such “modern” commentators as Maimonides and Ibn Ezra. However his inquiring mind led to learn Latin and to study with so-called free-thinkers. He became a disciple of Descartes and his rationalist philosophic approach to life. Spinoza was a pantheist believing that God was within nature and not above nature with His own divine will. To paraphrase Telushkin, Spinoza did not believe that God created nature, but that God is Nature. In 1656, while still in his twenties, Spinoza was excommunicated (in Hebrew “kerem”) for denying the immortality of the soul and God’s authorship of the Torah. On this latter point, Spinoza was a forerunner of modern Biblical critics. He believed that the Torah had not been written by Moses, but by Ezra the Scribe. The ban from the Jewish community was total. Spinoza spent the rest of his life moving from place to place in Holland studying and developing his philosophical works. At one point he joined a Mennonite sect and changed his name to Benedictus or Benedict. By the time of his death in 1677, Spinoza had developed a philosophy of rational pantheism in which to “know” nature is to know God. Over the centuries, many Jews have expressed their displeasure over Spinoza’s excommunication. In the 1950’s no less a figure than David Ben Gurion tried unsuccessfully to have the ban lifted. From the writings of Spinoza: “As long as a man imagines a thing is impossible, so long will he be unable to do it.” “Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all humankind.” 1884: Birthdate of Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, the second President of Israel. After the death of Chaim Weitzman, Ben-Zvi was elected in 1952. He served until his death in April of 1963. 1898 Simon Guggenheim and Olga Hirsch married today at the Waldorf Astoria; an event they celebration by providing 5,000 poor children with a Thanksgiving Dinner. 1929: Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France during the final years of World War I passed away. He provided the stamina that helped France stay the course and defeat the forces of the Kaiser. For Jews, he will be remembered as a French politician who risked his career to support Emile Zola as he worked to gain justice for Colonel Dreyfus. 1982(8th of Kislev, 5743): Seventy-seven year old Benny Friedman passed away. The University of Michigan football star was considered the first of the great professional passing quarterbacks. After WW II, he served as the Athletic Director and Football Coach for Brandeis University 2008: Sports Illustrated magazine features a “Jewish Triple Header” with stories about Rena Glickman, the Jewish grandmother recognized as the “mother of woman’s judo,” charges of insider trading leveled by the S.E.C. against Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban and plans by Lew Wolff to move the Oakland A’s to Fremont, CA where he has promised Bob Wasserman, the town’s Jewish mayor, he will be building a $500 million baseball stadium using his own money. 2009: The oldest complete Spanish Torah scroll will be up for sale at Sothebys Judaica auction today. The scroll, the only Spanish Torah to include the kabalistic traditions of curved letters, has an estimated worth of $300,000-$500,000. Yitzchok Reisman, a world-renowned sofer (scribe), discovered the 730-year-old scroll about 10 years ago, and was able to date it and identify its origin.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 23:57:33 +0000
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