Which Rainbow?
An interesting tidbit from the Seforno on Ber’ 9:13 “vehaysa le’os beris”: Seforno is saying that the rainbow that the sign of the covenant with Noach, which Chazal talk about being a symbol of...
Just another WordPress site Blog
Interview: Widen Your Tent
Here is an interview I had with Rabbi Doron Kornbluth about my book, Widen Your Tent, Rabbi Shimon Shkop, and the topic of the book — Rav Shimon’s worldview as he describes it in...
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...
Mysticism and Rationalism
A lot has been said on-line about Mystical (e.g. Qabbalah) and Rationalist (e.g. the Rambam) approaches to Judaism. In this post, I aspire to propose clear definitions of these terms. Because much of the...
Why Parashas Balaq?
The first is comprised of his final speeches preparing us for “real life” after the Exodus, a world where things can go wrong. The second, included in our parashah, is about how Hashem is...