ArchitecTorah — New Review

A Fascinating Book on the Lessons Derived from Architecture in the Bible

By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
Posted on February 13, 2023 on www.sdjewishworld.com

BOCA RATON, Florida — Urim Publications published “ArchitecTorah, Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion” by Joshua Skarf in 2023. It contains 178 short, informative, easy-to-read essays on the 54 weekly portions focusing on Torah topics that reveal hidden information about God and architecture design and theory in his 594-page book.

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TONIGHT: ArchitecTorah – Book Launch

Tonight, February 14, come celebrate the book launch of Urim Publication’s newest book, ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion by Joshua Skarf.

Chapter 274 of Orach Chaim from the new Aruch Hashulchan in English

Click here to read The Laws of Breaking Bread on Shabbat

Was Yosef on the Spectrum – New Review

Fiona Fisher Bullivant
Author & Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Autism & Learning Disabilities)

An incredibly insightful, beautifully written book which not only addresses the question of whether Yosef was on the spectrum, but invites you to be curious about individuals differences.
Samuel J Levine evokes the thought that if individuals differences are understood not only by  themselves but also by others then difference rather than being seen as something of a negative, becomes a positive attribute.

“Joseph, Adversity, and Autism” – new review of Was Yosef on the Spectrum

Adam Read ● ACEs Connection

Here’s an interesting book….

…Not because it has anything to do with what you’re doing today, but precisely because it doesn’t. Sometimes we have to take a trip to somewhere else… a detour… a backroad…. or an excursion to get our minds out of our daily COVID funk to give us a different perspective on life.

I don’t know about your upbringing, but I spent enough time in church to hear the story of Joseph’s coat of colors many times and how his brothers sold him into slavery. Never, though, have I seen this story through the lens that Joseph may have been Autistic until now. This exploration shows how disabilities and diversity can chemically react with the heat of adversity to create the powerful energy that saved two ancient adversarial cultures from starvation and famine.

New 2020 Titles from Urim Publications

Importance of the Community Rabbi – new review

Daniel D. Stuhlman ● AJL News and Reviews

The title of this book suggests that the author is offering a simple book with practical advice for the community or shul rabbi. However, Sperber has put together an in-depth discussion that teaches the reader how to think more deeply about the methods used to issue a halachic ruling.

While there is a tendency toward greater stringency and conservatism, the author talks about sensitivity to the questions and questioner. When new situations occur, the rabbi has to weigh the legal codes of the past with the implications of the facts in front of him. What was once forbidden could now be permitted and what is forbidden to one may be permitted to another.

For example, Sperber considers how to deal with the issue of congregants with hearing problems and the use of hearing aids on Shabbat. Normally, electronic devices such as microphones, phones, screens, etc. are forbidden on Shabbat. However, someone who is hard of hearing would not be able to hear the Torah reading or respond to Shabbat greetings without a hearing aid. Thus, the author guides community rabbis to lead by considering that humanitarian needs may override the rabbinic limitations of mukhsah (items forbidden to touch on Shabbat)….

Was Yosef on the Spectrum? – new review

John Elder Robison

In this fascinating study, law professor and Hebrew scholar Samuel Levine looks at Joseph from the Bible with a fresh perspective. I found his arguments well-reasoned and fascinating, but I also understood some of the pushback the book received. Can any modern-day person bestow an autism diagnosis on someone who lived and died thousands of years ago?

Fascinating and persuasive conjectures about one of the Bible’s most famous men

Kate Gladstone ● 100+ People with Autism to Know

The book fascinated me because I am autistic and Jewish, and because it’s interesting to think about how an autistic person might have appeared to others in the long centuries and millennia before the condition was medically recognized and named.
Although “presumed diagnosis of the dead” is inherently an uncertain endeavor, it is fascinating to see how the author (a Jewish scholar who is also familiar with autism and its sensory/neurological manifestations) finds many commonalities between the Biblical figure of Joseph (as depicted in Scripture and in Hebrew tradition) and modern-day people on the autism spectrum (in terms of shared traits, inclinations, sensitivities, aversions, and so on). Samuel Levine’s book makes me wish that we could go back in time, present the Biblical Joseph with a copy of the book (translated into Hebrew or Egyptian) and ask him if Levine got it right! (I suspect that the answer would be “Yes — is he, too, a dreamer of accurate dreams?” But of course we will never know for sure).
The book may be very encouraging to autistics who are Jews, and to their parents/teachers/fellow congregants/congregational leaders.

Torah of the Mind, Torah of the Heart

Michael A. Shmidman, Editor Emeritus ● Tradition

Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak (Isadore) Twersky zt”l, was justly renowned for his brilliantly insightful, meticulously researched and felicitously formulated scholarly oeuvre, concentrating generally upon medieval Jewish intellectual history and with special attention to the Maimonidean corpus. But the Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University also was the Talner Rebbe of Boston, as comfortable delivering divrei Torah at Shalosh Seudos in the Talner Beis Midrash as he was conducting doctoral seminars on medieval Jewish rabbinic literature in Room G of Widener Library in Harvard Yard.