Rabbi Meir’s Rhetoric
Rav Meir disagrees with the other sages on a number of topics involving logic. 1- When framing a tenai, a condition on a business dealing, an oath, a pledge or the like, the majority opinion...
Yearly Archive: 2013
Toward a Torah Definition of “Ethics”
A short thought, maybe a conversation starter… There is a paradoxic obligation: it is prohibited to conform in all ways only to the letter of the law. One must stay well within it (lifnim...
The Miracle of Oil
Ask someone why we celebrate Chanukah, and of course the first answer out would be about the miracle of the oil lasting eight days. This allowed the reconsecration of the Beis haMiqdash to be...
Temimus and Deveiqus
The mitzvah of Beris Milah is introduced with the words, “×Ö²× Ö´×™ קֵל ש×ַקַּי, הִתְהַלֵּךְ ×œÖ°×¤Ö¸× Ö·×™ וֶהְיֵה ×ªÖ¸×žÖ´×™× — I am Kel Shakai, walk yourself before Me, and be whole.” To me, this pasuk addresses...
Halakhah and Orthodoxy
(Much of this is a popularization of things already posted in this category, originally posted to Facebook.) As I see it, halachic decision-making involves the weighing of numerous items — the strength of the...
Rav Wolbe’s World part II: Middos
This is the second part of a translation of Rav Shlomo Wolbezt”l‘s contribution to Bishvilei haRefu’ah [In the Paths of Medicine], volume 5, Sivan 5742, “Psychiatria veDat” [Psychiatry and Religion], section beis (pp 60-70)....
Rav Wolbe’s World part I: Yedidus
Rav Shlomo Wolbe was a transitional figure in Jewish thought, presenting pre-Holocaust yeshiva mussar to students steeped in modern Charedi idiom. A German-born, university-educated ba’al teshuvah, he studied in one of the premier East...
Who in his time?
There were two lines from the Shemoneh Esrei of Rosh haShanah that particularly spoke to me this year — “mekhalkeil chaim bechesed – Who sustains the living with lovingkindness”, and the line from Unsaneh...
From Qeren to Shofar
(Updated after Rosh haShanah 5774 with idea from the Tanchuma.) The Ramban, in his Derashah leRosh haShanah, writes that a shofar is a keli, a formal utensil in the halachic sense. For this reason,...
Why are there poor people
The gemara tells a story on Bava Basra 10a: ש×ל ×˜×•×¨× ×•×¡×¨×•×¤×•×¡ הרשע ×ת ר”×¢: ×× ××œ×”×™×›× ×והב ×¢× ×™×™× ×”×•×, ×ž×¤× ×™ מה ××™× ×• ×ž×¤×¨× ×¡×? הל: כדי ×©× ×™×¦×•×œ ×× ×• בהן ×ž×“×™× ×” של ×’×™×”× ×. הל: [×דרבה!] זו...
Kosher, Tahor, Qadosh
The pasuq (still in parashas Re’eih) discusses the various species of kosher and non-kosher mammals (Devarim 14:3-8), marine animals (v. 9-10), and flying creatures (v. 11-20). And the terminology is that this species is tamei,...
Earning one’s livelihood
The pasuq reads: Â ×•Ö¼×‘Ö¸× ×”Ö·×œÖµÖ¼×•Ö´×™ ×›Ö´Ö¼×™ ×ֵין לוֹ חֵלֶק ×•Ö°× Ö·×—Ö²×œÖ¸×” עִמָּךְ, וְהַגֵּר ×•Ö°×”Ö·×™Ö¸Ö¼×ª×•Ö¹× ×•Ö°×”Ö¸×Ö·×œÖ°×žÖ¸× Ö¸×” ×ֲשֶ×ר בִּשְ×עָרֶיךָ, וְ×ָכְלוּ וְשָׂבֵעוּ, לְמַעַן יְבָרֶכְךָ ×” ×ֱלֹקֶיךָ, בְּכָל מַעֲשֵׂה יָדְךָ ×ֲשֶ×ר תַּעֲשֶׂה. {ס} And the Levi, because he doesn’t have a...
Seeing and Listening
Thinking about the title word of yesterday’s parashah, I wondered about the two sensory metaphors we use for learning. Here our parashah opens “re’eih”– see. But usually the Torah uses “shema“, to listen. In fact, shemi’ah appears later in...
So, Should I Believe?
If the topic of how far we can stretch Orthodox believes, and whether Dr Farber’s paper violates those limists bore you, you might want to skip ahead to the subtitle “Toward an Orthodox Epistemology“....
The Limits of Orthodoxy
I feel a need to chime in about the contretemps about Dr Zev Farber’s essay “Avraham Avinu is My Father: Thoughts on Torah, History and Judaism” on thetorah.com. But first I want to lay...
Orthodoxy and Biblical Criticism
This is part two of my reactions to the internet discussions about Dr Zev Farber’s essay “Avraham Avinu is My Father: Thoughts on Torah, History and Judaism” on thetorah.com. In the first part, I...
Ways of Peace
In a comment on my recent post “Infinite Worth“, Raffi asked: Hey – would you elaborate on your intriguing definition of darkhei Shalom as “walking the path of He Who makes peaceâ€? Vav —...
Value and Money
Yerushalmi Mes’ Qiddushin (or, as the Y-mi would itself call it: Meikhas Qiddushin, see here , the section subtitled “Linguistics”, for why I believe the difference in nomenclature is significant) includes three discussions that...
Infinite Worth
I have for a while kept a theory that not only do we aggadically consider human life to be of infinite value but that this notion has halachic import. For example, there is a...
Experimental Evidence of the Efficacy of Hispaalus
Scientific American just (June 24,2013) put up a podcast titled “Teaching People To Be Nice” by Christie Nicholson on their “Mind & Brain :: 60 Second Mind” series. To quote (in full): Can you...
Process and Permanence
When you drop a drop of ink into a cup of water, the ink spirals around in some chaotic pattern and eventually diffuses until the entire liquid is a uniform light blue. Even though...
Qinyan and Ba’alus
(Originally posted Mar 2007, now enlarged.) “Qinyan” is usually translated “acquisition”, and “ba’alus“, “ownership”. I would suggest that neither translation is precise. And this imprecision only leads to difficulties in understanding the law, rather...
