Nidah
Nidah 73: The Last Word
“Tanna devei Eliyahu, the school of Eliyahu, taught: Kol hashoneh, all who study (and review) halachot every day are guaranteed that they are destined for the World-to-Come, as it is stated: ‘His ways, halikhot, are eternal’ (Habakkuk 3:6). Do not read the verse as halikhot; rather, read it as halakhot” (Nidah 73a).
With no Tanna by...
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Daf Yomi, Football and New Year's
There is something surreal about 92,000 people gathering at a football stadium on New Year’s Day to make a siyum on the entire Talmud. That thousands should gather in a football stadium on New Year's is not at all surprising. Growing up it was the only time I might have watched college football. Between The Rose Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, The Cotton Bowl, The Orange Bowl (am I forgetting any?) there was little else to watch on...
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Nidah 30: The Lord is Against Me
“And it does not leave the womb before it is made to take an oath…and what is the oath one is made to take? Be righteous and do not be wicked” (Nidah 30b).
As He was set to destroy Sedom, G-d—talking to Himself—muses that He is choosing Avraham to bring His message to the world because, “I know that he will command his children and his household to follow in the path of G-d, to do righteousness and justice...
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Nidah 30: In Utero
Being pregnant with one’s first child is the best of times. One imagines a talmid chacham, a nuclear physicist, a Nobel laureate, an Olympic athlete and a great philanthropist all wrapped in one. It is only when one gives birth and begins to raise a child that one realizes that is not exactly how it works out.
It is not only the expectations of the parents that change with birth. The baby, too, undergoes a great awakening....
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Niddah 31: A Great Mitzva
In our last post, we discussed that seven days after giving birth to a boy and 14 after a girl, the newborn mother purifies herself in a mikvah. Any bleeding over the next 33 days for a boy and 66 for a girl is considered dam tohar, blood of purity, and does not render her a nidah. Yet while the mother is no longer considered tameh regarding her status as a nidah, with regards to entering the Temple...
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