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Everywhere that the term חנם appears, as far as I can tell, it always means "without personal benefit": a שומר חנם (Bava Metzia 7:8) watches an object without receiving anything in return; a Jewish...
Should we have a policy in place regarding trivia or riddle questions? Things like: There are exactly nine women in Tanach about whom the passuk relates their deaths. Who are they? What is the lon...
There are many medicines which are permitted to be used on Shabbos in various situations. However, some of them have letters written or engraved on them. Is it permitted to take these pills on Shab...
There is a popular mnemonic to remember this (a brief search for its origin was not successful): מש"ה מוציא וכל"ב מכניס Moshe “takes out” but Kalev “brings in” That is, if the prefix is one of th...
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Prayer and the Priestly Blessing, 5 שמונה דברים, צריך המתפלל להיזהר בהן ולעשותן; ואם היה דחוק, או נאנס, או שעבר ולא עשה אותן--אינן מעכבין. ואלו הן--עמידה, ונוכח המקדש, ותי...
On Mi Yodeya, questions about the State/Land of Israel that aren't clearly about Judaism are considered out of scope. Should that be the case here, or should questions about Israel be ipso facto on...
There's a few different permutations of these types of questions, so I'll put each one in its own category. What unites them all is that they require knowledge of something outside of Judaism; in y...
Last week I took a class on priorities in triage -- one ventilator, two people who will die without it, who gets it? We reviewed sources in talmud and later commentaries, some of which I remember ...
Rabbi Dessler in Michtav M'Eliyahu explains that "free will" is manifested by the "point of choice". Rabbi Isbee of Ner Yisrael has said that only two entities in this world exhibit free choice, Ha...
Suppose Reuven is ordained as a Rabbi (receives semicha). His teacher, Rabbi Yaakov, decides that he is learned enough and of the right character to serve as a Rabbinic authority and proclaims that...
Avodah Zarah 6a.16-6b.1: והתניא: אמר רבי נתן, ״מנין שלא יושיט אדם כוס של יין לנזיר ואבר מן החי לבני נח? ת"ל (ויקרא יט, יד) ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול.״ It was taught in a Braisa: R' Nassan said, "Fro...
In an apparently-open letter dated October 3, 1984, R' Moshe Feinstein urged Jews in the United States to vote as a means of expressing hakaras hatov (appreciation) for the democratic system in the...
In Kuntresei Shiurim Bava Basra Kuntres 9 Shiur 1 § 4 by Rav Gustman, he brings a couple of sources related to your question. First, he brings the Yad Ramah Bava Basra 26a § 107 by Rav Meir HaLevi ...
I found it. עיון יעקב סוטה יז. ד"ה איש ואשה זו שכינה ביניהם - ועי"ל זכו שיש שלום ביניהם שכינה ביניהם כי שם ה' שלום. ועליהם נאמר (איוב ה:כד) וידעת כי שלום אהלך ופקדת נוך ולא תחטא ולהכי שמו של הקב"...
The issue is not that the priest is impure as much as the food is impure. Even a pure priest cannot eat impure holy food from Israel, but any priest can benefit from it (either by burning it for wa...
A bunch of posts in the Divrei Torah category are tagged "dvar-torah". Taggedness with this tag is wholly duplicative of category membership, so I recommend detagging (perhaps it would be easier se...
If one had placed a bouquet of flowers in a vase prior to Shabbat, is it considered muktzah? In what scenario would it be permissible to move it on Shabbat?
An expansion that fits the letters and appears in halachic literature is: Kevod Moreinu, R' Note that כמו"ר, kevod moreinu verabbeinu, also appears in halachic literature. Edit: thanks to Ro...
I bought a package of frozen salmon filet pieces in Israel; they'd been imported from Poland. The package reads, in part: מטעמי הכשרות חובה לשטוף את העור או להסירו לפני השימוש. In my own tra...
The Pri Chadash to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 670:1 s.v. ומקשו quotes the gemarra in the second chapter of Shabbos and the first chapter in Yoma as a counterargument against this Beis Yosef. It say...
Rav Hirsch points out that Yaakov knew that Lavan was a trickster and was going to attempt to avoid paying him anything. He had worked forteen years for his wives and children without getting anyth...
2: Given the size of our population and the maturity of our community, I recommend avoiding premature optimization of the rules. There needs to be some mechanism for segregating non-sincere content...
Rabbi Feinstein's responsum forbids any Christian music of a religious character, even if it's not part of liturgy. Handel's Messiah is obviously included (the comment is wrong on this; he explicit...
The Nephilim are named only in two verses in the Bible, in Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33. Numbers 13:33 says that the Anakim come from the Nephilim, but different translations render this in a vari...
