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Posts by Monica Cellio
I've heard (but don't remember where) that the music that is prohibited during the three weeks is one or both of: music with instruments, recorded music. I've heard conflicting things about a cape...
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...
This doesn't strictly answer your question, but I think the background information and context will be helpful. The halacha (Jewish law) is that we can violate any torah law to save a human life e...
Din Online, one of the many "ask a rabbi" services online, wrote in an answer that usage of this phrase is custom but there's no law that formalizes it. They add that it is usually used for someon...
I know that if one designates something for the temple (an offering or a donation), it can't be taken back -- it's committed. Is this a general principle of designating things, or is it specific t...
A few years ago, on the fall equinox, I noticed that the day was longer than 12 hours according to the (secular) sunrise/sunset times. Curious, I did some investigation. One reason for the differ...
Sorry about the confusion! We imported a small number of questions and answers from Mi Yodeya. If any of those had been written by you, then they would have been assigned to a "holding" account o...
Years ago, in a year when US Independence Day fell on Shabbat, I was away at a kallah, a week-long retreat for people from many communities with study, social activities, and, of course, davening. ...
suppose that a new chazzan like me were to come to your regular minyan to daven: what would you like such a chazzan to know? What general advice would you give to such a chazzan? Meta-advice: par...
In the book of D'varim I've been noticing a lot more uses of אנכי instead of אני. Both words mean "I". I've heard that אנכי is more formal, and I know it begins the revelation at Sinai, though in...
What was life like for Jews in [region] during [time period/historical event]? These should be on-topic so long as Judaism is a core part of the question. Some examples: Were Jews living in al...
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...
Ploni is the child of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. The father is ill and Ploni would like to say Mi Sheberach for him in a minyan. How should Ploni form the name for a non-Jewish rela...
I was recently doing some baking, and it led to a household discussion: what makes bread bread, as opposed to mezunot? I wondered if it might be about ingredients. Bread, fundamentally, is made o...
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...
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 ...
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...
After the Akeidah, Avraham returns home and then the torah tells us, in Bereishit 22:20: "Avraham was told, 'Milkah too has borne sons to your brother Nachor (etc)'". The torah does not always rec...
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 placement of this text suggests "praise, not request" to me too. In fact, we ask for rain separately in the ninth blessing, which makes it seem even clearer that this mention is not a request ...
Efrayim and Manashe both have different trope from the other ten, by the way. With Manashe there are extra words that the trope has to account for, but it's interesting that Efrayim, without that ...
We weren't able to solve the problem directly (something something Javascript is single-threaded something), but there is now a preference to disable auto-saving, which is a work-around. Go to you...
Shemot 12:15 tells us: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread". But our tradition (I don't know the source, sorry) is that we are required to eat matzah only at the seder(s). Otherwise, the c...
According to Ibn Ezra on Devarim 21:15, שניאה is an adjective while שנואה is a noun. When the verse says: If a man has two wives, one a loved one and the other a hated one Ibn Ezra is saying...
Consider a cabin that has one large room with a loft extending over part of that room. A half-height wall at the front of the loft separates it from the rest of the cabin, so there is a single com...
