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The Story of The Chofetz Chaim
Yisroel Meir Hakohain, a Torah scholar, translated the difficult complex laws into Yiddish, simplifying and explaining them for the common Jew, who is thus opened up to the words of Torah.
- GenresBiography
158 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Nosson Scherman
351 books16 followersNosson Scherman (Hebrew: נתן שרמן, born 1935, Newark, New Jersey) is an American Haredi rabbi best known as the general editor of ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications.
Scherman was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, where his parents ran a small grocery store. He attended public school, but in the afternoons joined a Talmud Torah started in 1942 by Rabbi Shalom Ber Gordon, a shaliach of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn. Rabbi Gordon influenced many of the 200 boys in his afternoon Talmud Torah to enroll in yeshiva, including young Nosson Scherman, who became a dormitory student at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas at around age 10. Afterwards, he studied in Beth Medrash Elyon in Spring Valley, New York
Scherman worked as a rebbi (teacher) for about eight years at Torah VoDaas of Flatbush, later known as Yeshiva Torah Temimah. Afterwards he was a principal at Yeshiva Karlin Stolin of Boro Park for six years. During his tenure as principal, he was recommended to Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, director of a high-end graphics studio in New York named ArtScroll Studios, as someone who could write copy, and they collaborated on a few projects of brochures and journals.
In late 1975, a close friend of Zlotowitz, Rabbi Meir Fogel, died in his sleep, prompting Zlotowitz to want to do something to honor his memory. As Purim was a few months away, he decided to write an English translation and commentary on the Book of Esther, and asked Scherman to write the introduction. The book was completed in honor of the shloshim (the 30-day commemoration of a death) and sold out its first edition of 20,000 copies within two months. With the encouragement of Rabbi Moses Feinstein, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, and other Gedolei Yisrael, the two continued producing commentaries, beginning with a translation and commentary on the rest of the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Ruth), and went on to publish translations and commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, Talmud, Passover Haggadah, siddurs and machzors. The name ArtScroll was chosen for the publishing company to emphasize the visual appeal of the books.
In its first 25 years, ArtScroll produced more than 700 books, including novels, history books, children's books and secular textbooks, and is now one of the largest publishers of Jewish books in the United States.
Selected bibliography:
Zlotowitz and Scherman are the general editors of ArtScroll's Talmud, Stone Chumash, Tanakh, Siddur, and Machzor series. They co-authored Megillas Esther: Illustrated Youth Edition (1988), a pocket-size Mincha/Maariv prayerbook (1991), and Selichos: First Night (1992). They have also produced a host of titles on which Scherman is author and Zlotowitz is editor.
Scherman contributed translations and commentaries for ArtScroll's Stone Chumash, the ArtScroll Siddurim and Machzorim, and the Stone Tanach. He served as general editor of the 73-volume translation Schottenstein edition of the Talmud from 1990 until 2005.
Scherman attributes his strong English language skills to the stronger general-studies departments that yeshivas had when he was a student, and his correspondence with two out-of-town high school classmates, Mendel Weinbach and Nisson Wolpin. He has said: "During the summers we used to write letters. Does anyone correspond today? We wrote to each other – that helped. We tried to outdo each other; we were big-shot teenagers. The only way to learn how to write is to write."
Scherman was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, where his parents ran a small grocery store. He attended public school, but in the afternoons joined a Talmud Torah started in 1942 by Rabbi Shalom Ber Gordon, a shaliach of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn. Rabbi Gordon influenced many of the 200 boys in his afternoon Talmud Torah to enroll in yeshiva, including young Nosson Scherman, who became a dormitory student at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas at around age 10. Afterwards, he studied in Beth Medrash Elyon in Spring Valley, New York
Scherman worked as a rebbi (teacher) for about eight years at Torah VoDaas of Flatbush, later known as Yeshiva Torah Temimah. Afterwards he was a principal at Yeshiva Karlin Stolin of Boro Park for six years. During his tenure as principal, he was recommended to Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, director of a high-end graphics studio in New York named ArtScroll Studios, as someone who could write copy, and they collaborated on a few projects of brochures and journals.
In late 1975, a close friend of Zlotowitz, Rabbi Meir Fogel, died in his sleep, prompting Zlotowitz to want to do something to honor his memory. As Purim was a few months away, he decided to write an English translation and commentary on the Book of Esther, and asked Scherman to write the introduction. The book was completed in honor of the shloshim (the 30-day commemoration of a death) and sold out its first edition of 20,000 copies within two months. With the encouragement of Rabbi Moses Feinstein, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, and other Gedolei Yisrael, the two continued producing commentaries, beginning with a translation and commentary on the rest of the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Ruth), and went on to publish translations and commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, Talmud, Passover Haggadah, siddurs and machzors. The name ArtScroll was chosen for the publishing company to emphasize the visual appeal of the books.
In its first 25 years, ArtScroll produced more than 700 books, including novels, history books, children's books and secular textbooks, and is now one of the largest publishers of Jewish books in the United States.
Selected bibliography:
Zlotowitz and Scherman are the general editors of ArtScroll's Talmud, Stone Chumash, Tanakh, Siddur, and Machzor series. They co-authored Megillas Esther: Illustrated Youth Edition (1988), a pocket-size Mincha/Maariv prayerbook (1991), and Selichos: First Night (1992). They have also produced a host of titles on which Scherman is author and Zlotowitz is editor.
Scherman contributed translations and commentaries for ArtScroll's Stone Chumash, the ArtScroll Siddurim and Machzorim, and the Stone Tanach. He served as general editor of the 73-volume translation Schottenstein edition of the Talmud from 1990 until 2005.
Scherman attributes his strong English language skills to the stronger general-studies departments that yeshivas had when he was a student, and his correspondence with two out-of-town high school classmates, Mendel Weinbach and Nisson Wolpin. He has said: "During the summers we used to write letters. Does anyone correspond today? We wrote to each other – that helped. We tried to outdo each other; we were big-shot teenagers. The only way to learn how to write is to write."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 7, 2021
3.0 out of 5 stars Over the top
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2019
This is the second of these types of books that I have read.
The first was a book about Avraham Ben Avraham. There seems to be quite a bit of overlap between these books.
1. A larger-than-life/ Talmudic genius/ living saint central character that can charm the birds from the trees and whose mouth is a prayer book.
2. The Evil Maskilim are part of the cast of bad guys.
3. A lot of examples of characters that fit the narrative--but may have been completely apocryphal. What biographer could know so much granular detail that it made it to this book? It's as if someone had an omniscient view and could tell you everything that the protagonist did come all the way down to how many squares of toilet paper he used over the course of his life.
And there is nary a footnote in this whole book.
4. Time seems to start (and stop) in Vilnius, Lithuania. You'd almost not realize that there was another three thousand years of Jewish history before that event.
5. There is the long-suffering wife, who taxes herself so that her husband can be a Torah scholar.
The upshot is that the Chofetz Chaim as a boy was a child of a second marriage of a poor family. And as a young man, he tried several other unsuccessful Ventures. Running a store. Being the rabbi of a town. Building a yeshivah.
He finally settled on writing books for a living, and used that plus talks as an income stream.
Along the way, he did a yeoman's work in the codification of the laws of lashon Hara.
What I did learn that I didn't know was about the Mishnah Berurah:
i. It was the Chofetz Chaim's brainchild.
ii. It is commentary on only one section of the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim).
iii. It's 6 volumes long and took 23 years to publish.
There are no footnotes, and no glossary. Each Hebrew word is defined as it appears in the text. But, if you wanted to look up a word because you forgot it ("haskamah," for example) you would not turn directly to a glossary to do so.
Verdict: Recommend at the price of $1.
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2019
This is the second of these types of books that I have read.
The first was a book about Avraham Ben Avraham. There seems to be quite a bit of overlap between these books.
1. A larger-than-life/ Talmudic genius/ living saint central character that can charm the birds from the trees and whose mouth is a prayer book.
2. The Evil Maskilim are part of the cast of bad guys.
3. A lot of examples of characters that fit the narrative--but may have been completely apocryphal. What biographer could know so much granular detail that it made it to this book? It's as if someone had an omniscient view and could tell you everything that the protagonist did come all the way down to how many squares of toilet paper he used over the course of his life.
And there is nary a footnote in this whole book.
4. Time seems to start (and stop) in Vilnius, Lithuania. You'd almost not realize that there was another three thousand years of Jewish history before that event.
5. There is the long-suffering wife, who taxes herself so that her husband can be a Torah scholar.
The upshot is that the Chofetz Chaim as a boy was a child of a second marriage of a poor family. And as a young man, he tried several other unsuccessful Ventures. Running a store. Being the rabbi of a town. Building a yeshivah.
He finally settled on writing books for a living, and used that plus talks as an income stream.
Along the way, he did a yeoman's work in the codification of the laws of lashon Hara.
What I did learn that I didn't know was about the Mishnah Berurah:
i. It was the Chofetz Chaim's brainchild.
ii. It is commentary on only one section of the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim).
iii. It's 6 volumes long and took 23 years to publish.
There are no footnotes, and no glossary. Each Hebrew word is defined as it appears in the text. But, if you wanted to look up a word because you forgot it ("haskamah," for example) you would not turn directly to a glossary to do so.
Verdict: Recommend at the price of $1.
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September 29, 2022I think I will give this book 4 stars because it was a little bit hard to understand. The major question raised by the book was how can someone become so great and never talk about others' bad things? This book relates to my hero's journey because he is jewish like me. This book changed me as a reader because now I like to read. I would recommend this book to my sister to learn new things.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews