A handwritten letter by a Jewish luminary of the 18th century, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, also known as the Ramchal, hit the auction block earlier this year. The event grabbed headlines both because of the nearly $400,000 US sale price, but also because, until recently, many believed that the letter was safely among the hundreds of other handwritten pages that make up the Ramchal collection at The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS).

JTS had quietly sold off a number of valuable books and manuscripts from their collection in private sales a decade ago. Over the years, scholars have decried the transfer of these texts to private collections, as they see treasures of the Jewish past finding their way under the auctioneer's gavel.

On today’s episode of Not in Heaven, Rabba Dr. Yedida Eisenstat helps make sense of the recent sales, and ther co-Rabbi podcasters discuss how libraries balance evolving financial constraints with being guardians of a common heritage.

Then, with the holiday of Purim on the horizon, the rabbis look at Jewish material culture: the newest Rabbi runway, the hottest lookbook of Kosher couture, the Instagram account known as @rabbinicfitcheck. How do you dress for a bris, funeral, and a wedding all in one day? Rabbis from around the world are posting their outfits. We discuss.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

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