Welcome to the Judaism community on Codidact!
Will you help us build our community of learners? Drop into our study hall, ask questions, help others with answers to their questions, share a d'var torah if you're so inclined, invite your friends, and join us in building this community together. Not an ask-the-rabbi service, just people at all levels learning together.
Posts by Monica Cellio
Sefaria has just announced this year's Powered by Sefaria contest. The goal is to attract projects that are interesting and creative and that make use of Sefaria's library of texts and/or open API...
I asked a question about a passage from Ezekiel, creating the "ezekiel-book-of" tag in the process. (I followed the pattern I saw with other book tags.) I saw that we also have a "prophets" tag, ...
I noticed that Ezekiel 1:16, in describing his vision of something like a heavenly chariot (merkavah), says the words gleaned like tarshish, translated "beryl" by Sefaria and some others: מַרְאֵ...
I know that t'fillin are placed on the weaker arm, which for most people is the left, so that the stronger hand is the one doing the binding. I have heard, but don't remember where, that someone w...
Eventually we want to have integrated chat. We aren't there yet. In the nearer term, we're overhauling the commenting system in a way that will make it easier to have discussion threads on questi...
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 ...
When it comes to the bread, my plain understanding of the Exodus is that the Israelites left Egypt with dough (Exodus 12:34) and later baked it into unleavened bread because it had not risen (Exodu...
Many kids I know (including past-me) think that Eliyahu drinks from the fifth cup at each seder. I've been to several where parents encouraged this belief, perhaps as a way of keeping the kids awa...
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...
Each year my rabbi arranges the sale of chameitz for me (and anybody else who asks), and I know that I could also do this online. Either way, I provide some basic information, like the location of...
I know that there are some customary "categories" of daily contemplation during the Omer -- combinations of Chesed, Hod, etc. I know that each week has one of these as a theme, and then within tha...
When Pesach starts on a Saturday night, I understand that we are forbidden to eat matzah on that Shabbat (because we don't want to diminish the experience at the seder), but that we also aren't all...
At megillah readings, I'm used to people making noise to blot out every mention of Haman's name. Tonight I was at a Chabad reading and they had a different custom: they blotted out the mentions th...
I read a blog post tonight that started out by asking why we don't have a mishkan today -- we had the mishkan in the wilderness before the temple was built, after all, so if we can't have the templ...
I have heard (but have no source) that, to fulfill the obligation of reading the megillah, one must either be physically present for a reading or, if listening by phone, follow along in a kosher sc...
As far as I can tell, the talmud in Bava Kamma 92a is the earliest source for the statement, though its phrasing indicates the principle was known earlier: Rava said to Rabba bar Mari: From wher...
Exodus 21:28-29 (and onward) gives us laws concerning the ox that gores. If it happens once, they kill the ox but do not punish the owner. But if the ox has a pattern of goring and the owner has ...
I saw the following question, asked by David Ziants, on mail-jewish today: In Daf Yomi, have just started chapter 7 of Mesechet Pesachim, and the first Mishneh talks about on how the Korban Pesa...
As noted in this answer, even a sefer torah, if written by a heretic, does not have holy status and needn't be buried. Further, Rambam (Laws of Tefilin, Mezuzah, and Sefer Torah 1:13) writes: י...
While sorting through boxes of books in the attic, I came across a Christian bible written in Hebrew. (Some family member was apparently given it by a missionary when living in Israel and didn't d...
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...
I was thinking about t'rumah, which historically was designated for a kohein but today we destroy, and similarly taking challah, which we burn. Why isn't this a violation of bal tashchit, do not w...
This past year I grew some vegetables for the first time. I don't live in Eretz Yisrael, so I know I don't have to tithe my produce, but it made me wonder: what if I did? How would I go about tha...
