Two Rabbis, Three Opinions Episode 19
Now on Spotify. Does everyone need a hashkafa? Can’t my avodas Hashem focus exclusively on living according to the dictates of halacha? And if I think that I do need some sort of hashkafic...
Category: General
Tzav – The Import of the Ashes
An interesting Midrash is cited by Rav Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer (1880-1933), a great-grandson of the Chasam Sofer who served as the av beis din of Cracow before World War II. The Midrash is found...
The Moetzes At A Crossroads
The kol korei by the American Agudah Moetzes regarding the WZO election has the makings of a huge make-it-or-break-it gamble. The guy in the street is not being asked whether he is with the...
Parshas Ki Sisa – Wealth Recycles
A famous palindromic word in the Torah is venasnu, in the second pasuk in the parsha. It means “and each man must give,” in the context of contributing the machatzis hashekel, which the Torah...
Yisro — Iron and Irony
I’ve long fixated on a phrase Yisro uses. When he rejoins Moshe and joins Klal Yisrael, he declares why, although he had been a guru in countless cults, he came to the conclusion that...
Vo’eira – The Seed’s Decay is All We See
It’s all too easy to disassociate the beginning of a parsha from the end of the preceding one. But Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in LaTorah UlaMoadim, sees Hashem’s declaration at the opening of Vo’eira...
Conversion Conundrums – Response to Rabbi Michael Broyde
I thank Rabbi Michael Broyde for his illuminating response to my recent article about geirus standards. It seems that my article sparked serious interest and provoked much thought, which is of course a good...
Shemos – Nameless
While parshas Shemos (“Names”) does begin with names, those of the shevatim, and introduces the naming of Moshe, it is ironic that, when the parsha’s narrative begins, anonymity seems the rule. “A man went...
Conversion Subversion
Geirus – conversion to Judaism – is one of the weightiest institutions there can be. Geirus impacts not only the personal halachic status of those who undergo it, but the status (and marriageability) of...
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