Tuesday, January 09, 2007

The Rabbis' Advocate

A new book defending the Jewish oral tradition is now available from Yashar:

The Rabbis' Advocate
Chacham David Nieto and the Second Kuzari

by R. David Nieto, translated by R. Meir Levin

Matteh Dan, or Kuzari Hasheini, is a defense of the Jewish oral tradition against attacks by Karaites and skeptics. Rabbi David Nieto, Chacham of the Sephardic congregation in London in the early eighteenth century, responded to criticisms of the rabbinic tradition by writing this wide-ranging defense of the Talmud and the Oral Law. Matteh Dan is widely considered a classic of Jewish apologetics in the best sense of the term and is still widely studied and quoted, even into our day. Although the field of heresy has unfortunately undergone much growth and development since R. Nieto’s time, his contribution remains important, and his arguments continue to ring true today.

Rabbi Meir Levin has translated this important work into a readable English and added explanatory footnotes to make the book even more accessible. The book comes with rabbinic approbations from R. Mordechai Willig, R. Yisrael Simcha Schorr and R. Moshe Faskowitz.

More about the book here. You can buy the book here. And an excerpt from the book can be downloaded here (PDF).


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