Michael el Chayil

We live in a world of GUIs -- graphical user interfaces. I grew up in a world of CLIs -- command line interfaces. I like CLIs. You tell the computer what to do; it does it. Simple. GUIs are, well, gooey. The programmer decided the best way for you to accomplish your task, and now it is his way or the highway. Just follow the rules, push the right buttons and you'll be fine. (Let's be honest  -- there are no buttons; just spots on the screen where that same arrogant programmer put a graphic of a button.) Sometimes, though, even that GUI expert has to come down off his high horse and actually explain something. That, I find, is when a lot of problems start. People are so used to "touch and swipe" that they read some of the words. Then when something goes wrong, they exclaim, "Hey! My phone isn't working! Why did it do that?" As bad as it is to skim the words in a pop-up alert, it is nothing compared to skimming a Biur Halacha. I think it is fair to say tha...

When we first moved to Dallas, we told the rabbi, Rabbi Aryeh Rodin, shilta, that we would like to "upgrade" our level of kashrut to the community standards. That is, we felt we were keeping kosher (we were not, of course), but wanted to be sensitive to other people's (in our mind, unnecessary) stringencies. You know, stringencies like looking for a hechsher when the ingredients on the label seemed just fine. Buying kosher cheese, even though we knew it was made with vegetable rennet. You know, stringencies. Rabbi Rodin came over and started by telling us, "There is nothing magic or mystical about kashering. The basic rule is that you get it out the same way it got in. Pots that always used with liquid for cooking, were to be kashered with hot water. Something that was used with dry heat -- like a roasting pan and the oven grates -- had to be kashered with (high) dry heat. Simple. I was very impressed and it changed my perspective on kashrus and the kashrus industry....

Let's take a look at the annual cycle we experience. The Three Weeks culminating in Tisha b'Av itself are accompanied by three special haftaras reminding us of our situation. Following that we have seven Shabbosim of consolation, also with their special haftaras; so special, in fact, that they even override the haftara for Rosh Chodesh Elul. We then have the Days of Awe; ten days of repentance beginning with Rosh HaShanna and concluding with Yom Kippur. Five days later, the season of our joy, Sukkos! Many years ago, I had the merit that R' Matisyahu Soloman, z"tzvk visited me at home; more on that visit in this TftD . I saw a two volume set of מתנת חיים, writings by R' Matisyahu Soloman, z"tzvk  on the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. Of course, I took a set right away. (I already have מתנת חיים on the Pesach Hagadah.) R' Solomon begins by noting that this annual cycle -- suffering and mourning, then consolation, then repentance and forgi...

Nothing can quite make you feel as old as quoting a comic strip that is unknown to your listener. When I spoke to a group of college students, I knew better than to refer to Doonesbury (even though it is still around). I thought I was safe, though, with Dilbert. Nope. Sigh... Anyway,  on strip that is spot has Alice, the female engineer, looking for a better position in the company. The rule in companies, by the way, is that when you want to promote an internal candidate to a new position, you often need to post it, just in case there are better qualified candidates than the one you want to promote. The idea is sound, but when the manager just words the requirements in such a way that only one person fits. In the Dilbert example, Alice reads the job description: near-sighted, has a red pickup truck, and answers to "Bob". Dilbert notes that "they probably have someone in mind"; Alice still contemplates if she could make it work. (I have seen -- and even written -- jo...

Before you start to wonder if I was abducted by aliens... No, I am still the guy who gets a haircut when his wife lets him know that he is not welcome in the house until he gets his haircut. It turns out, though, that committing to getting a haircut has serious halachic ramifications. The mishna (Shabbos 9b) starts with: A person may not sit down in front of the barber close to mincha until he davens. Rashi explains that "sit down in front of the barber" means "to get a haircut."  Let's think about that. Rashi did not get paid by the word. Rashi is everyone's rebbi in how to most succinctly explain a topic. We all marvel at how Rashi is able to open up and explain a topic with so few words. Rashi always is either pointing out an essential feature you may have missed or stopping you from heading down the wrong path. I racked my brain trying to figure out what else I could have thought the mishna meant by "sitting down in front of the barber" other t...

I spent the majority of my childhood in the 1960s. They were tumultuous times. I was too young to be an active participant, but I was an observer and I have certainly seen how those events shaped history for decades to come. My wife and I were traveling through Memphis and decided to visit the National Civil Rights Museum , which takes you through the centuries of history and ends at the room in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. It was intense and enlightening on many levels. That Motzei Shabbos we wanted to visit the music district and we happened to get a Lyft driver who was a very nice black lady. She asked us about our stay. I mentioned the visit to the Civil Rights Museum. She asked about my impressions. (My wife was already nervous at that point.) I told her that I grew up in California where the schools were never segregated and how shocked I was by just how bad things had been in the South. I asked her if things are all good now? She said there ...