Pieces of Sapphire
In this week’s parasha (Shemos 34:1), when Hashem tells Moshe to carve the second luchos, He says “פסל לך – carve for yourself”. The gemara comments on the apparently superfluous “לך – for yourself”...
Category: Mussar
Hardening the Heart vs. Weighing it Down
So, I recently noticed that the translation of Unqelus I am using offers “hardened Par’oh’s heart” and the like regardless of whether the original word ויחזק (Aramaic: ואתקף) or another word built from \חזק\...
Rav Yisrael, Epidemics, and Priorities
On the topic of people insisting on maintaining risky behaviors during the corona pandemic… Too many of us are placing minyan, attending weddings or funerals, and other such mitzvos ahead of safety. Despite the...
Aseres Yemei Teshuvah Reader
There is a new, slightly enlarged, version of my reader for Aseres Yemei Tehuvah for 5781, suitable for putting that wandering mind to work while in shul. Contents: Spiritual Planning………………………………………………………… 1 9/11 and How...
Ideals and Yokes
The question I started with was wondering about the first two paragraphs of Shema. (Which is what Arukh haShulchan Yomi is up to.) The first paragraph is an exercise of accepting ol Malkhus Shamayim,...
Minyan for a Davar sheBiqdushah
There are tefillos including Qaddish, Qedushah, Borkhu, that are labeled a “Davar sheBiqdushah“, literally: “a matter that is in holiness”. The way we usually study the halakhah, it is said that a minyan is...
Shema Yisrael
Also, the titles were added by Rabbi Phillips. I think the second one missed the point. So I changed it here from “PLACING COMMUNITY BEFORE BELIEF IN UNITY” to what you see below. THE...
Sin’as Chinam
To explain: My point is about holding grudges, even if the hatred initially had cause, perhaps even started out with a halachically appropriate one. Should you still hold on to the hatred, because it...
Chessed and Tzenius
There was one movement in the Twentieth Century CE that was definitively established as an Other-Focused Orthodoxy (OFO). From its founding by Sarah Schenirer in 1917 until the late 1990s, the Judaism girls were...