Sunday, June 04, 2006

Lag BaOmer Critical Analysis Kefira - Extinguished. sigh.

Three weeks ago I posted about the research of R' Avraham Kosman that pointed in the direction that the ceremonies surrounding Lag Ba'Omer, may in fact, be based on a typographical error...

The article I translated from Makor Rishon (and the posting) were picked up by many serious bloggers, here, here, here, here, and here -- and I think it was a very interesting article to say the least.

What I found surprising was that for the first time ever, I started getting nasty comments by email and in the comment section of my blog that I was attempting to lead people off the derech by posting that piece of "heresy".

It didn't bother me though and I still managed to sleep at night, but apparently the story was alot bigger than I thought.

Poor R' Avraham Kosman.

Apparently, he was bombarded with criticism on the his article and research to the point that he needed a reaction retraction article published in this past week's Makor Rishon. He claimed his words were taken out of context, he didn't mean it, etc., etc.

The most noteworthy comment came from Chagai Segal, the author of the article who stated that before the original article was published, R' Kosman was given the rare opportunity to proofread the article twice before publication. And R' Kosman gave the green light for the article, which was published word-for-word the way R' Kosman saw it.

I don't have the retraction article with me this second (it's not online yet), but I'll translate the highlights of it soon).

Good thing R' Slifkin didn't buckle under -- and that's why I went out and purchased more of his books this past week.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

14 comments:

JoeSettler said...

Hold on. Were the comments worse than from the residents of Manilla?

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Joe: The Manila bloggers were tame compared to what the kan'oim wrote to me...

JoeSettler said...

Hey that would make a great post. I hope you also caught their real email addresses so you can post them too.

orthomom said...

Wow. Nuts. I saw one of the comments acusing you of being the devil, but I didn't even think of the ramifications to the article's author. I would be very interested to see the wording of the retraction. So Jameel, no getting any real work done today, alright? Get right on that translation ASAP, OK?

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Mo4: If it weren't a work day on Sunday...

Pragmatician said...

What a shame again that a nice certainly far from heretic study is being put down like that, next thing you know waiting six hours between meat and milk is MideOraita.

rockofgalilee said...

He should have stuck to his guns and gotten cherem. That's the best way to sell more books.
Everybody boys the cherem books. The more controversial, the better.

FrumGirl said...

Makes you want to ask what happened to the machlokes leshem shamayim. People want to badly to hold onto what they know, they will even stop the truth from being investigated.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that the Lag Baomer article was "truth", dont hate-mail me, thank you!

BrooklynWolf said...

People toss around the term "kfira" or "heresy" all too easily.

It's not like the date of RSBY's yahrtzeit is one of the ikkarei emaunah...

The Wolf

kasamba said...

Well, soon they'll be saying that Medrashim aren't 100%true either!
LOL!

The back of the hill said...

Sounds to me like many Jews are becoming far too Protestant in their attitudes.

Such a hullabaloo over hilula.

Regarding the buying of cherem-books, I must frankly admit that I tried to get my hands on a copy of 'The Making of a Godol' (but did not succeed).

So far have only one Slifkin book - not that interesting, but slightly more readable than Spinoza.

The idea of banning books is much too Roman, and not nearly passably Catholic.

rockofgalilee said...

Maybe we can get an interview with a kanoi so we can hear his side of the story and how he answers our tough charges.

Anybody know someone who goes around threatening people for having alternative views?

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

OK people - I have the article in hand and will be translating it today. Should be published by 8:00 PM EST (sorry for the delay).

Craziest line in it so far: [As a result of the tremendous media explosion of the publication of the original article] "...I was forced to disconnect all my home telephone lines..."

Scraps said...

Hashem yishmor aleinu v'al kol Yisrael.






(I seem to be saying that a lot lately, don't I?)

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