There is a halachic dispute regarding the leftover oil from the Chanukah menorah: 1. Kedusha of the Leftover Oil: One opinion holds that oil left over after the candles have burned for the required half-hour possess no sanctity (kedusha). According...
Dear Rabbi and Shira, Is marriage supposed to be happy or are we all supposed to suffer all the time? We recently had our 2nd child and it has made life...
ASARA B’TEVES IS THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 10 Many people feel that a fast day is a day to sleep and relax. However, a fast day is really a time for retrospecting and doing teshuva. Many different halachos are...
Over the past half century, the Orth- odox community has grown tremendously in its practice of married women covering their hair. At what point must a bride start covering her hair? Historically, Jewish marriage has consisted of two stages —...
Before Yaakov Avinu’s death, Yosef came to visit him with his two sons, Efrayim and Menashe. Yaakov gave them a blessing, and then pronounced, “that forever more, when Jews bless their sons, they will do so by saying,...
Pizza: Hamotzi versus Mezonos. Which bracha? If the dough for the pizza is old fashioned dough, flour and water, it’s going to be a question of hamotzi. If it’s made with a different type of liquid, such as fruit juice,...
Parashat Vayigash features one of the most dramatic stories in the entire Torah – Yosef’s revelation to his brothers. Many years earlier, when Yosef was just seventeen-years-old, his brothers threw him into a pit, with the intention...
This Shabbos, Parshas Vayigash, we read of the emotional moment when Yosef revealed his true identity to his brothers. “Ani Yosef, I am Yosef, ha’od avi chai, is my father still alive? And the...
Do You Know Who I Am? It was the final examination for an introductory Biology course at the university. Like many such freshman courses, it was designed to weed out new students, having over 500 students in the class! The...
In his book, “The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness,” Dr. Jerome Groopman shares the following story: Barbara received another three courses of chemotherapy, but the tumor seemed to shrug off the drugs....