2019-04-22

It is an amazing but all too common phenomenon that two people can witness the same event and yet “see it” very differently. This is the…

2019-04-18

“Where is Moshe [mentioned] in the Torah?” It is hard to imagine a more—let's be gentle here—superfluous question. A…

2019-04-11

When I ask ba’alei teshuva what the hardest thing for them to give up is, the most common response I receive is "…

2019-04-03

It is an often-cited truism that the Orthodox community, most ironically, tends to place much greater emphasis on kosher food than on kosher money.…

2019-03-27

“Mar Ukva said: I am, with regard to this matter, like vinegar, son of wine, with respect to Father. Father, if he were to eat meat…

2019-03-14

“Because of this the children of Israel, to this day, do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip…

2019-03-07

Rabbinic debates are not for the faint-hearted. They can be most intense, and sadly, can lead to tragic consequences. One of the most famous of…

2019-03-05

In our last post, we spoke about geneivat da’at, generating false goodwill, in the context of gid hanasheh. I imagine very few people…

2019-02-28

One would not normally associate the prohibition to eat the gid hanashe, the sciatic nerve, with issues of business ethics. But  related…

2019-02-21

One of most famous mitzvot of the Torah is that of shiluach haken, the obligation to send away the mother bird before taking her little chicks…

2019-02-13

One of the teachings that is ingrained in us from a young age is that every letter, and surely every verse and story, found in the Torah is of great…

2019-02-08

The least observed of biblical holidays is undoubtedly Rosh Chodesh. As a holiday based in the Temple, with no home or synagogue based rituals,…

2019-02-01

Dan Arielly begins his best-selling book, Predictably Irrational, by noting that for we humans it’s all relative. We do not by evaluate A…

2019-01-25

That the “Orthodox” community is more careful about kosher food than kosher money is sadly obvious, and demonstrated all too often.…

2019-01-17

In the introduction to his responsa, Rav Moshe Feinstein writes that the Sages of each generation are permitted and obligated to issue halachic…

2019-01-13

“And it will be, when the Lord, your G-d, brings you to the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you,…

2019-01-09

In a beautiful teshuva (Orach Chaim 4 #89) written during Chanukah 1960, Rav Moshe Feinstein was asked (by Rabbi Leo Yung, rabbi of the Jewish Centre…

2019-01-07

“It is a sign between Me and the Jewish people that in ‘six days’ G-d created the heavens and the earth” (Shemot 31:17).…

2019-01-02

That one must be Jewish to shecht an animal is not necessarily obvious. One might have argued that as long as the meat is slaughtered…

2018-12-26

When I mention to people that it is likely worse to smoke than to eat pork, I often get strange looks. And usually the more observant the person, the…

2018-12-24

There are few, if any, semicha programs that require their students to learn shechita or safrut, and even fewer that require good…

2018-12-20

One of the questions I am often asked by those of my students who do not keep kosher, is have you really never eaten non-kosher food? I generally…

2018-12-18

Over and over again the Torah warns us not to allow avodah zara, idolatry, in the Land of Israel. Yet, as is often the case, things are not always…

2018-12-13

"It was for this reason that man was first created as one person [Adam]…to teach that no man is the same as another; therefore, every…