02.05.2026 –, (1OG) Stresemann Sprache: English
Many will be familiar from shul with Rabbi Ludwig Philippson's translation of the Torah into German. But did you know that the first edition, in 1844, also included a commentary? As the product of someone with a classical nineteenth-century education, it differs in some interesting respects from what one might expect in a chumash commentary today. And one thing Philippson excelled in is finding patterns in what look like arbitrary sequences of actions or descriptions in the Torah.
Join me as I share what I learned from reading my way through this commentary. (Source texts in English and German.)
Michael Grant has spent the last twenty years turning his reading of obscure books into Limmud sessions, and has no intention of stopping now. He has presented at Limmud Conference in the UK and Germany, and also at Day Limmuds in Newcastle upon Tyne and Berlin, the latter of which is where he has for the last ten years lived.