http://www.nachumsegal.com/UploadedImages/stdImage/artscroll%2012309.mp3
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Listen to Nachum Segal and Rabbi Yechiel Spero speak about his new book!
Posted on December 10, 2009 by goldys
The Beit Hamikdash: The Temple and The Holy Mount
Posted on November 30, 2009 by goldys
The Beit HaMikdash. The Holy Temple.
The center of Jewish longing and aspiration.
In this visually stunning, meticulously researched work, the Temple Mount and the Beit HaMikdash — the place where Heaven touches Earth, where mortals can feel eternity — comes to vivid life.
A breathtaking trip through history.
Here, deep beneath the sacred earth, stands the Foundation Stone, where Creation began. Here Abraham bound Isaac upon the altar, and King Solomon built the first Temple. From this mountaintop the magnificent Second Temple cast its light to the world, and it was here that the Roman legions burned and plundered the Temple’s treasures.
Forgotten and neglected by the rest of the world, Jewish eyes and hearts have always turned to this holy mountain.
Now, the Temple Mount comes to life before our eyes.
An important work of scholarship and research.
Rabbi Zalman Menachem Koren brings to this groundbreaking work a profound knowledge of the Mishnah, Talmud, and the classic commentaries, and a deep familiarity with modern archaeological findings. A respected scholar, he has devoted decades to studying the Temple and the Temple Mount.
An heirloom edition, to be treasured by generations.
- Hundreds of magnificent photographs
- Pull out, panoramic diagrams of the Temple from many different perspectives
- Detailed descriptions of the various parts of the Beit HaMikdash: their dimensions, locations, and functions
- History and legends of the Western Wall
- A unique visual tour of the Temple
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Chanukah Gifts from Our Family to Yours: 30% off on all ArtScroll sets, 20% all Artscroll books
Posted on November 30, 2009 by goldys
For the past eleven years, ArtScroll has been offering its family of readers a much-anticipated Chanukah gift: 20% off every one of its books during the annual Chanukah sale. This year, too, every ArtScroll book – over 1,200 titles — is on sale. That’s 20% off all new books – such as the comprehensive and fascinating biography of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Rabbi Yechiel Spero’s newest collection of inspirational stories, and the stunning gift book, The Beit HaMikdash. Kids love books (and parents, remember: kids who love books learn to love reading!), and all ArtScroll children’s books – including new titles like the groundbreaking Search for the Stones and Jumping In, Libby Lazewnik’s latest collection of short stories, as well as perennial favorites such as Shmuel Blitz’s Bedtime Stories – are on sale.
Books make great Chanukah gifts. They’re enduring, they’re always welcome, and, in today’s difficult economy, they’re affordable! There are books for everyone — whether it’s Susie Fishbein’s elegant and bestselling Kosher By Design cookbooks, inspiring works by beloved authors Rabbi Paysach Krohn and Rabbi Yissocher Frand, significant works on halachah or hashkafah, and, of course, ArtScroll’s unsurpassed collection of Torah works in translation – all at 20% off.
For many, this hasn’t been an easy year financially. When things get tough, family helps out – and so this year, for the first time, ArtScroll is offering its family of readers even greater savings on all its many sets of books. During the Chanukah sale, you can get any set of ArtScroll books at 30% off the retail price.
Have you, or someone you know, always longed for the entire 73-volume Schottenstein Talmud? Now is the time, with savings of $900 on the full size Schottenstein Talmud, and $660 on the Daf-Yomi edition. Thirty-percent off the Yad Avraham Mishnah translates into savings of $300 for the entire set. So much wisdom, so many books, and such great savings: $30 on the 5-volume Interlinear Chumash, $45 on the full-size 5-volume Sapirstein Rashi, and $60 on a year’s worth of the 14-volume A Daily Dose of Torah. Five-volume slipcased Machzor sets make a fabulous gift, and 30% off makes a fabulous price. There are Torah commentaries, sets of Pirkei Avos, the Five Megillahs, even a gorgeous, brand new slip-cased set of four of the most popular Kosher By Design cookbooks. So get ready, get sets – and save!
Wishing all our readers a very happy Chanukah.
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The Search for the Stones: A Conversation with “Ari”
Posted on November 9, 2009 by goldys
As I sit on my living room couch enjoying the incredible pictures
in Shaar Press’s newest book for young people, The Search for the Ston
es, I’m struck by the vivid sense of life in each of its full color illustrations. The artistry and brilliance of animator and artist Marc Lumer gives each picture a feeling of motion; it’s almost as if the characters are going to step off the page and sit down right next to me.
And on this stormy Jerusalem day, with my imagination slightly in overdrive because of the deep fog enveloping the city, Ari Goldreich, the young hero of The Search for the Stones, does just that.
He takes a chair, this fictional young man of about ten, with reddish brown hair, a black yarmulke, and a determined chin. We talk of his adventures. They begin in Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, when Ari and his younger sister, Ilana, meet a mysterious man in white. This man will send the Goldreich children on an amazing quest, a quest that will take them through time and space.
“What was the scariest part of the story?” I ask him.
“When I was captured by the evil man in the purple cloak,” Ari answers. “I was all alone in a dark cave. But I deserved it, because I got greedy, and I had to learn something about myself, and about good and evil and the power of teshuvah.”
Actually, learning lessons is what Search for the Stones is all about. Its co-authors, Shmuel Blitz and Miriam Zakon, make clear from the outset that the book is a parable, a moshol brought in the best traditions of chinuch to teach lessons and values. But those lessons – in bitachon, in loyalty and friendship and many other values – are found in a story that will keep young readers, ages 7 – 12, enthralled.
Ari is getting restless. He’s an adventurous young man, and is probably wondering when he can get back into the pages of his book and resume his quest. But I insist on asking one more question.
“What was the most amazing place you visited?”
Ari stops to think. Was it Spain during the days of the Inquisition? Panning for gold nuggets during the Gold Rush? Seeing Jerusalem during the times of the Beis HaMikdash was certainly a thrill, and chasing Nazis in the Brazilian rain forests was an exciting adventure.
Ari smiles. “All of them!!!” he says.
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Meeting Rav Pam’s Challenge: Positive Word Power
Posted on August 27, 2009 by mzjerusalem
A decade ago, at a forum sponsored by the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation, Rav Pam zt’l, venerable rosh yeshiva of Torah Vodaath, made a plea – and issued a challenge. The topic he was speaking about was ona’as devarim – hurtful speech, which, in Rav Pam’s own words “…is comprised of words that cut deeply and cause a great deal of pain, and is the cause of many tragedies.” So much had been done to educate the Jewish world about the dangers of loshon hora, of speaking ill of others. But what about the negative words that one person said not about another, but to another? What about the biting remarks, the criticisms, the insults, which led, Rav Pam said, to broken hearts, broken homes, and broken lives? Then Rav Pam issued the challenge: “Much more needs to be said publicly about the tragedy spawned by ona’as devarim. This concept needs the kind of exposure that has been applied to loshon hora in recent years…”
Positive Word Power, published by ArtScroll/Mesorah in conjunction with the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation, is the answer to Rav Pam’s words. Following the extraordinarily successful format of The Chofetz Chaim: A Lesson a Day on the laws of loshon hora, Positive Word Power focuses on our verbal interactions with people. “Positive Word Power is not about verbal abuse,” says one of the editors who was involved in the multi-year, collaborative effort. “This is about the nuances of conversation, the little differences that can make a big difference. It’s about the small criticisms that we keep repeating.”
Positive Word Power identifies the negative speech patterns that we often tend to follow, and shows us how to replace them with encouraging, affirming ones. Each entry includes a scenario that shows us how to put the positive speech into our real life interactions. “You will find yourself in these scenarios,” says the project’s editorial director. “The scenarios are so believable – you’ll keep saying, ‘hey, that could be me!’”
Rav Pam said, on that historic day: “The result [of refraining from ona’as devarim] would surely be fewer marital problems, less estrangement of children from their parents and fewer dropouts from the yeshivos… powerful words should be written about this topic…” At last, those “powerful words,” and the blessings that refraining from ona’as devarim bring, are available to anyone who can give a few minutes a day to learn “Positive Word Power.”
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“Joy Made Easy”: A Conversation with Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
Posted on August 18, 2009 by mzjerusalem
Good news for Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s thousands of devoted readers: his newest book, Life is Now, has just been released. One of the book’s chapters is titled “Joy Made Easy.” During a recent conversation with Rabbi Pliskin I saw how true those words are. It’s easy to be joyful when you’re talking to this warm, effervescent and ultra-positive personality, author of many bestselling ArtScroll books. Some highlights of the conversation:
On happiness: “People think it’s so hard to be happy. I lead a ‘Joy Club’ in Jerusalem. We meet once a month to talk about happiness, gratitude, kindness. At one of the meetings, someone asked: what happens, a person just lost his job – how can he be happy? The idea is — we’re always in the present moment, and in this moment we can create a moment of joy, whatever the circumstances. In other words, focus on the present – and find the happiness that is in the here and now.”
On his new book, Life is Now: “This is a very important book. It’s teaching the skill of learning joy: to live in the present. Most distress comes from excessive and unnecessary focusing on the past and/or unnecessary and unproductive focusing on what might go wrong in the future. What we’re looking for is a wise balance between past, present, and future.”
On how to be happy: “Life is Now takes the reader through a ‘self-creation workshop.’ We examine the key elements that create us: our self-talk, our self-image, our goals, and our ‘traits & states.’ We see the ten biochemical changes that take place when we feel happy. One chapter is devoted to how to start your own ‘happiness club,’ giving the 9 principles a ‘happiness coach’ must learn to follow. The book gives us practical strategies to help us create a moment of joy right now, things like taking a ‘joy walk’ or even baking ‘joy cookies.’ They sound like small things, but that moment of joy can change our lives.”
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Nachum Segal interviews Leah Jacobs, co-author of Shidduch Secrets
Posted on August 9, 2009 by mzjerusalem
To hear Leah Jacobs, co-author of the classic Shidduch Secrets, talk about her book, the “shidduch crisis,” and how to successfully find your “bashert,” , click here.
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Patent Number 6778950: ArtScroll’s Interlinear Translations
Posted on August 6, 2009 by mzjerusalem
Not far away from such venerable American institutions as the Capitol and the Smithsonian stands the U.S. Patent Office. Here we can find more than 5 million patents, fascinating records of humanity’s imagination and ingenuity. Among them are those that brought light (patent number 12631 — the incandescent light bulb) and knowledge (patent number 3120606 — ENIAC, the world’s first computer) to the world.
And then there is ArtScroll’s unique Interlinear Translation system (patent number 6778950) which brought both light and knowledge to the world in a very different way.
The original ArtScroll translations introduced hundreds of thousands of English speakers to the beautiful and timeless words of Torah and Jewish prayer. Yet one thing was lacking in all translations: they always appeared on the opposite facing page. It was difficult for someone who wanted to follow the translation along, word for word, with the original Hebrew.
The answer to the problem was clear: to place an English language translation immediately beneath the Hebrew words. But that raised another challenge: how to deal with the fact that Hebrew reads from right to left, while English reads in the opposite direction, from left to right? How could the English translation be readable, if you had to read it backwards?
That challenge brought about an innovation so revolutionary that it became the only patented translation system in the world of Jewish publishing. The ArtScroll Interlinear Translations, in the various Schottenstein editions, use an arrow system that guides the eye gently, directing it through the full text in the proper direction. Not sure what a word means in the Chumash or Siddur? Just glance down below and see the translation right there. Want to understand the meaning of an entire phrase or sentence? Your eye moves down to the English and then rapidly, almost unconsciously, follows the arrows to read a flowing, word for word translation, from right to left, from left to right, without interruption.
The Interlinear Translations have revolutionized the way English speakers learn and pray. With the publication of Sefer Devarim, the Schottenstein Interlinear Chumash is now complete, in five volumes. Many other classic works are available in the interlinear format: the Siddur, the Machzor, the Hagaddah, Megillas Esther, Sefer Tehilim, Zemiros, Pirkei Avos, and the Vidui service.
The very best inventions change the way we live. The ArtScroll/Mesorah Interlinear translations have changed the way we read, learn, and pray. And what could be more important than that?
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