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Forgive my ignorance; I am not Jewish but interested in Judaism, and know a bit of Biblical Hebrew. I'm confused about the term Baal Shem. I'm assuming Shem refers to God's name, as in HaShem. But...
Some say the legal mother is the birth mother. Targum Yonatan says that Dinah, Jacob's daughter, was conceived in Rachel's womb, and Joseph in Leah’s womb, but that God switched the embryos so Rac...
There are fast days through the year which commemorate the process leading to the destruction of the temple. The way I learned them, there was a date marking the beginning of the siege, one for the...
This "extra maror" is known as "chazeret", and it's not always a different food than the maror; I've definitely seen instances where both the chazeret and the maror on the seder plate were lettuce....
Some seder plates (or layout instructions in haggadot) use two bitter herbs (I'm used to seeing horseradish and endive), one labelled maror and one labelled chazeret. Others have only a single spa...
Someone at my seder asked about the ordering in Dayeinu, specifically that "had God not given us Shabbat..." comes before "had God not give us the Torah..." -- but wasn't Shabbat given at Sinai, as...
Hmm. One decision branch is whether to look for people like me, intellectually curious non-Jews. The upside is that someone intellectually curious may contribute good questions, and there may be a...
Rashi there (Tehillim 71:9) understands "eit ziknah" not as a chronological age but "If I have aged with sins, meaning, I have sinned exceedingly." So the speaker is asking for Hashem not to aband...
During the Slichot that are said leading up the Yamim Noraim, there's a section where the Aron is opened and some verses are said, the first few responsively. These are said responsively: שמע קו...
Our community is small. More than "people in general", I think we need to reach people who want to help us build this community. People who, beyond looking for answers to specific questions, want...
Occasionally, I find myself using my phone as a siddur (prayer book), particularly when davening (praying) at a Sephardi shul as an Ashkenazi. (They don't always have Ashkenazi siddurim so it's mor...
The child of a Jewish woman is a Jew. Is this status transmitted through birth or through parentage (genetics)? Specifically, if a Jewish woman acts as a surrogate for two non-Jews, what is the s...
The understanding I have is that every word in the Torah (5 books) is important and what is related there is essential to building a Jewish world-view. Therefore, the stories and laws are to be por...
If I handle food that is patently unkosher, and it gets on my hands, do my hands have a status of "treif" that might impact my handling of certain things? Assuming I rinse them with water (whcih m...
Vayikra 24:10 and on tells of an episode with a blasphemer. The torah tells us that he was the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man. From a Rashi comment there I found my way to Vayikra ...
In Gan Eden, Adam and Chava were unclothed. I recall reading that, had they not eaten of the Eitz HaDa'at, moshiach would have come and ushered in the messianic era (I'm not sure of a source for th...
Starting at the beginning, since I don't read Hebrew, how accurate is the translation "Why are you differing with Rabbi Eliezer, as the halakha is in accordance with his opinion in every place that...
For various of the ten plagues, God tells Moses or Aaron to do something to bring the plague on Egypt: Take your wand and tip your hand over the waters of Egypt… and they will be blood. Blood wi...
To my reading, the discussion that follows makes it clear that the rabbis were wrong to excommunicate Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Eliezer's excommunication is followed by various disasters, including the...
I can't answer this, but at least I can reply with another question, which might affect the answer. What form does the reward take? Is there an idea in Judaism that humans improve their well-bein...
The context here is the aftermath of the debate about the oven of Akhnai. What did Rabbi Eliezer do that was worthy of ostracism? Dissent, by itself, must have happened many times without discipl...
The first 2 verses of Parshat Vay'chi present me with a question, so I'm soliciting any help on this. Here they are, for convenience's sake (from Sefaria): וַיְחִ֤י יַעֲקֹב֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם ...
There is a conept that there is a s'char mitzvah, a reward for doing a mitzvah, and an oneish/punishment for "sinning". But there is also an idea that a child, under the age of bar/bat mitzvah who ...
I think I remember hearing that there is a particular prayer to be said when seeing a place where there was formerly a shul. Can anyone confirm this? Could you tell me what the prayer says? (I am m...
