"And you shall take for yourself on the first day pri etz hadar, a beautiful fruit tree, kapot temarim, branches of date palms, …
My first introduction to the writings of Rabbi Soloveitchik was in yeshiva in Israel when I read Rabbi Abraham Besdin's Reflections of…
Considering that one is supposed to live in one’s sukkah as one lives in one’s home one need spend very little time in the sukkah. One…
"Rabbi Yossi Haglilee used to say: One who is involved in a mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah" (Sukkah 26a). A mitzvah is entitled to…
One of the basic requirements of a sukkah is that the s'chach provide more shade than sun. This requirement, however, is more…
As important as classroom education may be, informal education is often more valuable. "The service of Torah is greater than the study thereof…
"For G-d is bringing you to a good land...a land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates; a land of olive oil and date honey" (…
The halachic system, like all legal systems, is on based on verifiable actions. What one may think when signing a contract is of little bearing;…
While the Jerusalem Talmud rules that one makes a bracha upon construction of a sukkah (Sukkah 1:2), our practice is not to do so, seeing…
In 1878, Yehuda Leib Gordon published a poem, Kotzo shel yud, in which he pokes fun at the technicalities of halacha. In his poem, a…
The Gemara derives the minimum height of a sukkah from two separate and very distinct sources. In fact, the first “source” is no source…
We eat matza on Pesach to commemorate the matza eaten by our ancestors as slaves in Egypt and as newly freed people. The blowing of the shofar on…
Masechet Sukkah holds a special place in my heart, being the first tractate I learned cover to cover. Its topics are interesting, wide-ranging,…
Masechet Yoma deals almost exclusively with mitzvoth between man and G-d. Most of the tractate painstakingly records the intricate details of the…
“Our Sages compared the (positive) mitzvoth in the Torah to the limbs of the body and (the negative) to the days of the year” (Makkot 23b…
One of the most challenging roles for a parent or teacher is to figure out how to administer discipline that it fair, effective, and meaningful. The…
Thanks to Rabbi Jonathan Ziring for his help with this Daily Daf and with countless other divrei Torah. After seven chapters detailing the Temple…
"Any Torah scholar whose inside is not like his outside [whose piety does not match their learning] is no Torah scholar" (…
Torah reading as we know it today is a rabbinic innovation, beginning with Moshe Rabbeinu who--in his rabbinic role (as opposed to his role …
The ritual of the sa'ar la-azazel is a most incomprehensible one. Howcan atonement of the Jewish people be in any way connected…
"Some of the nobility of Jerusalem would escort him to the first booth" (Yoma 66b). The "temple" ritual was not complete until…
"Everybody is eligible to walk it, but the kohanim made a permanent rule not to let an Israelite walk it" (Yoma 66a). The …
One of great and tragic figures in our Talmudic corpus is that of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus. Hailed by his teacher, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zackai, as a…
For years, one of the most anticipated dates on the Jewish calendar was Rabbi Soloveitchik’s annual teshuva derasha given during the aseret…