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Ignoring the question of why, there is a practice of using different musical trop when laining the 10 commandments from when studying it. Are there other examples of different trop or pronunciatio...
I am wondering what the range of opinions are, and what the key legal points are, on the question of whether cultivated meat can be kosher. The New York Times (paywalled) just published an article...
I am looking for resources that go through the section (Vayikra 11:1-30) with a fine toothed comb and discuss and explain the inconsistencies in how animals are described/listed. I have assembled a...
I am looking at the geneology of the 12 tribes and I found that Reuvein had son named Palu. Palu had a son named Eli'av and Eli'av had 3 sons, Datan, Aviram and Nemuel (Bamidbar 26:9) וּבְנֵ֣י אֱל...
In the Talmudic discussion of the Sotah ritual, the halacha is derived that, because part of the ritual requires uncovering the woman's hair, the obligation would otherwise be to keep the hair cove...
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...
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...
I believe it was Rav SZA who wrote/said that there are three "threes" (3 things that people do having to do with "3") that are made up. Does anyone know where this is written and/or what they are?
The past few weeks, the phrase "halachta b'drachav" or "Lalechet B'drachav" or "Lalechet b'chol drachav" meaning "walk in His ways" (or "walk in ways that are proper before Him" according to Onkelo...
tl;dr in what sense did "the people" as a collective do/say anything? In the Artscroll A""Z 5b1, the commentary in note 1 points out that "The Jews referred to the manna as..." and later, that "th...
Jacob and his sons, when speaking to Egyptians, consistently refer to God as (ה)אלקים, "the god", and not by his name, יקוק, that distinguishes him from other supposed gods, or other names of his....
I was taught that we shouldn't make an interruption between saying a mitzvah b'racha and taking the action. I don't have a source for this other than that it makes sense; you don't want to risk ma...
I'm trying to understand (the classical Jewish view of) the character of Yaakov. He gets the birthright by exploiting a situation -- he did nothing inherently wrong and WE see him as justified in ...
Do any contemporary rabbis address the permissibility or prohibition of reading the heretical “Me’or Eynayim” by de Rossi?
The Aruch HaShulchan rules on 271:30 that b'dieved, even one who doesn't drink melo lugmav of wine at kiddush is yotzei. Would he also say the same by havdalah?
I had been under the impression that somebody who is not personally obligated in a mitzvah (or maybe specifically a b'racha?) cannot do it on behalf of someone else. This is one of the usual expla...
This d'var torah makes the argument that an orphan can still fulfill the obligation to honor parents, because the sages interpret it more broadly than just your two biological parents. (See the li...
I'm trying to integrate things I (think I) know. Am I right that there's a general religious principle to follow most secular law? The Bible has more than one example of defying a law that contrad...
This question arose at my seder this year and nobody present knew of an answer: The haggadah designates the three matzot for specific purposes: We are to break the middle one (and save the larg...
I found myself wondering about this while clearing the table after the first seder this year (which was also Shabbat). Most of the time, both in my family and in the group of friends I sometimes s...
Each day, we recite the 8 p'sukim from Bamidbar 28 (1-8) which detail the rules of the twice daily Tamid. The Tamid is an Olah but I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the sacrifice. On weekdays, ...
Note -- I know that this is not a fully formed question yet so I welcome any edits. There are "prophecies" and references which we understand to be about the destruction of the two temples and the...
During p'sukei d'zimra on a week day which is Rosh Chodesh, we add in, during the recitation of Korbanot, a paragraph about the sacrifices of Rosh Chodesh. On Shabbat, add in an extra paragraph wi...
At services that include it, we stand for Hallel. I've never learned about it but this makes sense; we're sanctifying God, like in Kedusha for which we also stand. But at every Pesach seder I've b...
The gemara in Bava Metzia 59a make the statement that one should not "whiten his friend's face" (embarrass him). The section states ואל ילבין פני חבירו ברבים מנ"ל מדדרש רבא דדרש רבא מאי דכתיב (...
