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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 ...
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...
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...
This is a strange fact pattern that I thought of and I will explain my premises as I move through it, but the bottom line is whether a person can use suicide as a halachically acceptable behavior: ...
We have a second day of yom tov outside of Israel because the delay (or the deception) allowed for uncertainty about the date of Rosh Chodesh, therefore, the certainty regarding the date of the hol...
Throughout Yom Kippur everyone says viduy (confession) numerous times. In the shuls that I have davened at (and I think most shuls), when everyone says it together during chazaras hashatz, there i...
Starting with what I think I understand, my doubtless oversimplified picture of the world was that processes set in motion before the Sabbath could be allowed to continue. For example, I thought it...
The torah records many places where God speaks to Moshe telling him to speak to others, generally to relay instructions. The common structure is: ... וידבר יי אל ... לאמר: ךבר But sometimes ...
The Mah Tovu statement of Bil'am's, though intended as a curse was actually praise, and attested to (via Bava Batra 60a) the modesty of the children of Israel. They did not construct their tents in...
Numbers 20:13 (with my own, loose translation): הֵמָּה מֵי מְרִיבָה אֲשֶׁר רָבוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת ה׳ This was the Fight Water: the Jews fought God The word "רָבוּ" ("fought") has its str...
It's academic now that US citizens are no longer allowed to travel to North Korea, but I'm still curious. This is one of the things I've talked to Monica about, and she was sure it was "problematic...
In Vayikra chapter 20 the torah gives a long list of forbidden relations. Almost all of them are of the form "if a man (lies with, takes)..." or, in one case, "if a woman..." (third person). In V...
At the beginning of Sh'lach L'cha the torah lists the twelve scouts and their tribes. In general these names follow the pattern "from the tribe of (tribe), (somebody) ben (somebody)", with (genera...
Bottom line question is why is a Sukkah different from a Matzah in terms of (not) requiring (expressed) kavannah in its creation? A Sukkah (according to the ruling of Beit Hillel on Mas Sukkah 9a)...
Is searching for/burning chameitz a distinct obligation or just an adjunct – a way to prepare for pesach? If I kept my house striclty kosher for pesach all year round (not actually that tough as I...
During Rosh Hashana davening, there's a piyut (liturgical poem) that appears before Untaneh Tokef, that begins "מלך עליון" (Melech Elyon). The commentary by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, in the Koren ...
In the Viduy (confessions) that we say as part of the Yom Kippur prayers, there's a section where we list a whole bunch of sins, saying "Al chet..." (for the sin...) before each one. Two of the sec...
This is a research-methods question with a concrete example. I'm interested in the answer to the concrete example, but what I really want to know is: how could I look this up myself? There are so...
I was talking with a US rabbi from a liberal movement who left a congregation after 30 years. He told me that he needed to disengage from his now-former congregants, out of deference to the new ra...
I've read a lot about lashon hara from the perspective of (not) speaking it. My question is from the other side: what are one's obligations, both halacha and ethically (per Judaism), upon witnessin...
In Ki Tetzeh it says (Devarim 23:8-9): "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land. Children born to them may be admitted into the congregation of the LORD in the third g...
Berachot 10b.5-7 teaches:1 מַאי ״וְהַטּוֹב בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי״? ... רַבִּי לֵוִי אָמַר: שֶׁגָּנַז סֵפֶר רְפוּאוֹת. תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: שִׁשָּׁה דְבָרִים עָשָׂה חִזְקִיָּהוּ הַמֶּלֶךְ, עַל שְׁלֹשָׁ...
The weekday amida has thirteen request benedictions in the middle, according to the usual count. Some of these end, after their respective requests, with "כי אתה…", "for you are…". Here's the rund...
