Volume 67, Issue 3  

How many Jewels in a Crown?
by Commentator Staff

 
The figurative bookshelf housing the wide-array of yeshiva’s published Torah literature just became a little more crowded.    Yeshiva College alumnus Chananya Weissman, who is currently a student at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, just published his second book: Sefer Keter Chananya.  The work is a compilation of divrei Torah spanning the entire Chumash and select segments of the Talmud. 

This book – like his first book, Journeys into Limbo – did not materialize overnight, however.  In Weissman’s case, the topics were accrued over five years. 

Before conceiving of the book, Weissman had a vast collection of random notes, emails and thoughts jotted down.  Over time, however, this stack of untapped ideas slowly began to resemble a sefer, and so Keter Chananya was born. Although the divrei torah on the Torah are not all-inclusive, Weissman does include multiple essays on certain sedras, including four on Parshas Bereishis. In his introduction he writes, “I make no effort to concoct a devar torah on every parsha... Publishing a watery devar torah for the sake of symmetry or size would detract from the integrity of the sefer.”

One of the issues addressed in the introduction is that of haskamos (endorsements). Originally, they were published with sefarim so as to obviate the heretical allegations, now however, Weissman feels that they are often used as licenses or hechsherim.  So, Weissman sought out only one haskama, from his rebbe, Rabbi Isaac Elchonon Theological Seminary, Rav Moshe Tendler, and chose only to allude to in passing rather than print it.

The sefer follows the chronological order of the sedras in Chumash and the tractates of the Talmud, for the most part; however, the last two chapters were deliberately jumbled to underscore two points.  The first regards what Weissman considers the Orthodox community’s obsession with yichus. “The whole shidduch scene in general is [messed] up,” commented Weissman. “People pay a great deal of attention as to whether or not someone’s great uncle was a rabbi when what really matters is their middos, not their DNA.”  This leads to his second point: that ba'alei teshuva and converts, who have little or no yichus, suffer at the hands of their fellow Jews – and that this is most evident when it comes to shidduchim.

The ideas expounded upon in the book include some of Weissman’s original thoughts, with acknowledgements to those that he has seen elsewhere. In his introduction, Weissman admits that he is not a “baki batorah,” and that other ideas may contradict his own.

Weissman’s ambition is to spread Torah.  That dream drove him to write Keter Chananya and continues to drive him to go into Jewish education. For this reason, he set the price of Keter Chananya at a mere $6 per copy, enabling it to be purchased easily.  The sefer was published independently and with the author’s own funding, allowing him to monitor the price and proceeds personally. Whereas the original proceeds will cover the overhead, all subsequent profit will be given to tzedaka. Since the cost has yet to be covered, Weissman has not yet decided on the charities he will support.

 Weissman grew up in New York and attended Yeshiva College, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Judaic Studies in 2001. With two years left before his semicha and almost a year left for a Master’s Degree in Jewish Education, he is eagerly anticipating a career in chinuch. 

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