A charitable pledge con-stitutes a vow that must be fulfilled. However, like many vows, it can be nullified if proper regret is presented to a religious court, if it is...
I. No Smell After Shabbos ends, we recite havdalah on wine, a special candle and spices for smelling, each item with its own blessing plus a blessing on separation itself marking...
I. The Heretic’s Torah The Gemara (Gittin 45b) says that we must burn a Torah scroll written by a heretic. In contrast, if a gentile wrote a Torah, then we either...
During many eras in Jewish history, Jews converted to other religions, whether due to physical, financial or social pressure or otherwise. Many of these wayward Jews returned to the Jewish...
I. What A Rabbi Does Most of us have been to enough Jewish weddings that we know how they work. We can easily officiate. Even without a big crowd, all a...
Should we be careful to wear tzitzis when praying the evening ma’ariv service? Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (Responsa Ma’amar Mordechai, vol. 2 no. 3) explores this question. I. TZITZIS WHILE DAVENING The argument...
Our time in this world is limited. We strive to do all the good we can and avoid doing wrong. When we sometimes misstep, we try to do teshuvah and...
I. Misleading Messages One of the approaches to respond to the biblical challenge of the age of the universe is the theory that the world was created fully grown, so to...
A child‘s obligation to honor his parents necessarily infringes on that child’s freedom. Choosing a spouse is one of the most important decisions of a person’s life. On the one...
I. Learning Torah All Night It is common practice today for men to stay up all night learning Torah the first night of Shavuos. It is not clear to me when...
