We have discussed the major methods of warming food on Shabbat, in accordance with Sepharadic and Yemenite traditions. How, and why, do the Ashkenazim differ? Primarily, it is over concerns of somehow causing some traces of food to actually cook...
We come home. The food is ready to be served. Kiddush over wine or hard liquor is recited. If kiddush was recited in synagogue, most will forgo saying it again, while others will say it (I do), a practice stemming from a careful reading of the...
The Talmud urges a nap on Shabbat afternoon, as a way of adding further delight to this day of delights. This is not a law, and many choose instead to study Torah, or to go visiting neighbors and friends. In Israel, where there is a six day work...
The evening service of Saturday night is recited with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the day of joy and delight is over. On the other, a new week is beginning, blessed by the Shabbat that preceded it. There is both a feeling of dread, as well as...
A few years ago, a former Facebook friend posted, a few days before Passover, "Just got up off my hands and knees, after cleaning the cracks in the floor tiles with a tooth brush for six hours". I wrote to him "This is a needless stringency,...
The type of stringencies that I was referring to in my last post was those actions that either have no basis in halachah, or that have been, at one time or another, proposed, but were firmly rejected, based on both sources and logic. This must be...
The issue of electricity on Shabbat has been a sticking point between rabbis for well over a century, and continues to raise hackles. Many rabbis take one stance publicly, but privately maintain quite different views. One side of the argument has...
The vast majority of Ashkenazi rabbis continue to see electricity as fire, or at least as much so, that no leniencies are accepted that would not be utilized with actual fire. On the other hand, most do not permit use of electricity on Yom Tov,...
This Thursday, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving; when all Americans are called upon to enter their houses of worship, and give thanks for the abundance that G-d has bestowed upon our country. In practice, few houses of worship have special...
Proclamation of Thanksgiving:Washington, D.C.October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies....
First, I would like to make short shrift of the anti-Thanksgiving argument heard from certain Christian groups, particularly "Hebrew Roots", that the Torah forbids any new holidays. They base this upon the verse "These are the Festivals of the...
I was asked yesterday by one of our members for a recommendation for a good "Sefarad" siddur (prayer book) with English translation. As I use few things with translations, I asked in synagogue this morning (I attend a Sepharadic synagogue, of...
One of the most disturbing things to me is that most people think that a rabbi is a rabbi is a rabbi. How does one become a rabbi? What, if anything, are his power and authority? Do they all study the same things? Is there a central organization...
The introduction of the new smichha in the 14th century meant that for Ashkenazi communities, rabbinical candidates could no longer be self-styled scholars, or of questionable integrity. How was a layman supposed to decide who was and wasn't a...
I have written previously (in my series about Kabbalah) about the rise and development of Hassidism. Here, I wish to concentrate on the new form of leadership which that it gave birth to; the Hassidic Rebbe. The founder of Hassidism, Rabbi Israel...
