Torah Book Reviews

It’s All the Same to Me Rabbi Moshe Gersht Travel size / 145 pp As readers of this blog know, “self-help” books are not my genre. Nevertheless, I was very intrigued by Rabbi Moshe Gersht’s recent release for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s a self-help book written by a talmid chacham based largely, (but not exclusively!) on Torah sources. Indeed, the weave between the secular sources with the Torah ones is very impressive. Most orthodox rabbis probably wouldn't even attempt a book of that nature due to the apparent, though non-existent, taboo on combining Torah and secular sources into a single book. Second, it is a drastic genre change from his first book (see here for more about that: http://torahbookreviews.blogspot.com/2015/09/succos-inspired-rabbi-moshe-gersht.html ). As such, I wanted to give it a shot and requested a review copy. It’s all the Same to Me is a work on finding internal peace and tranquility. The book opens and spends a few chapters on the conce...

Learn Shabbos...in just 3 minutes a day Rabbi Daniel Braude Adir Press / 630 Pages Rabbi Daniel Braude presents a very user-friendly guide for learning Hilchos Shabbos in a simple manner. The sefer is divided into over 400 sections to allow  the reader to read one section, a page or two, per day. Hence the “3 minutes a day” concept. In impressive breadth, the sefer covers most of the practical questions that arise on Shabbos. This includes everything from preparing for Shabbos on Friday, to all the melachos and their practical ramifications, through to Havdalah and Melaveh Malka. All the rulings cited generally follow Shulchan Aruch, Mishna Berura, and Shemiras Shabbos K’hilchasa, and are of course, normative. Lot’s of great things on medicine, Amira L’akum, Muktza, Bishul, and Borer. All the common questions and more. While this sefer is extremely useful and a blessing to those who will study from it, I would have enjoyed the sefer even more if the author would have expa...