Michael el Chayil

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Thought for the Day: While We are Living, We are Always in the Middle of the Story, and We Can't Know What is Good Until the End

Here are some seemingly good things: Having the flight attendant tell you minutes before take off that you can move all the way up to the middle of the plane and have a whole row to yourself. Your flight arrives 30 minutes early (and you were much closer to the front of the plane), so you can make mincha and not miss a kaddish. Having a choice of kosher snacks and beverages on a flight and getting two of the chocolate quinoa ones. (Chocolate makes it delicious and quinoa makes it a healthy snack choice; win-win.) Here are some seemingly bad things: Flight delayed by two hours while sitting on the runway. Being suddenly wrenched awake from a deep and peaceful sleep by a blaring horn. Having a kidney stone that is in the upper 20th percentile of size and being hospitalized out of town on the day of your return flight. Let's start with that last one. I don't want to get into that game of "what hurts more, kidney stones or childbirth?" I also want to keep this TftD SFG (s...

Thought for the Day: No, You May Not Eat Grape Jelly During the Nine Days; Yes, You Should be VERY Wary of Getting a P'sak Halacha from AI

The OU has a very nice program called Halacha Yomi that consists of a daily (except legal holidays) email that covers a broad range of halachic topics. ( More about this program and to subscribe here. ) In a recent Halachi Yom, the topic of food made with even small amounts of meat or wine was discussed. My wife and I read and discuss them in the morning during breakfast. After reading/learning through the email, my wife asked, "So what about grape jelly?" Hmmm... good question. I never thought about it, nor had I seen it discussed. I decided to do some research. In the old days, I would have just Googled for any references to grape jelly, nine days, Tisha b'Av, etc. Then I would have perused the hits until I found something relevant/interesting. I like to do research before talking with the dayan so I don't waste his time. Now we have AI, so that saves me time also, right? Well... Let me walk you through my journey. I decided to start my research be looking for the b...

Thought for the Day: ספק דרבנן לקולא -- What Kind of Doubt/Uncertainty/Inconclusiveness Leads to a Leniency?

Everyone loves a good leniency. There is a famous dictum that applies to all areas of halacha: ספק דרבנן לקולא, ספק דאורייתא לחומרא/Where an irresolvable doubt is present: with regard to Rabbinic decrees, we rule leniently; with regard to Torah prohibition, we rule stringently. A famous example that comes up annually is respect to counting the Omer when one has definitely missed a day. On the one hand, it might be that the counting of each and every day is the fulfillment of a Torah requirement; therefore, we continue to count the rest of the days. On the other hand, it might not be a mitzvah at all once a day has been missed, in which case it would be innappropriate to make a bracha. Since (nearly) all brachos are mandated by Rabbinic decree, one does not make the bracha before counting the days of the Omer after the missed day. So far, so good. Boringly straightforward at this point in my learning. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned (Yoreh Dea 92:7) that one can be lenient...

Thought for the Day: We Are All in This Together, Baruch HaShem

There is very little rhyme or reason for how a topic for a TftD gets chosen. Basically, I learn something, think, "Oh, cool!" and then write it up.... as soon as I have time, which has been quite limited recently. As a consequence, I have a growing backlog of "oh cool" thoughts that I am itching to publish. That being the case, I may as well choose one that goes together with the epoch in which we once again find ourselves—the Three Weeks—which began with the fast of שבעה עשר בתמוז and culminates with the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple, may it be rebuilt soon and in our lifetime, on תשעה באב. I was discussing a question on Chumash this last week, and of course we looked at the רש''י on that verse. After realizing that I had fully understood what רש''י was saying, I commented that someday I need to actually learn רש''י and not just read it every week. The expression "I saw an interesting רש''י this week" is ju...

Thought for the Day: How/Why "Great Monetary Loss" and "Pressing Circumstances" Is a Thing in Halacha

I am a physicist by predilection and training. I made a living programming computers for decades. I feel I can make the following statement as a domain expert in the area of reality: There is no physical law, nor is there any computer instruction that ends with "except in cases of great monetary loss or pressing circumstances." When I had cancer, not a single doctor—and I was very fortunate to have had two Jewish, Torah-observant doctors managing my case—said that I needed chemotherapy... unless that would cause me to incur a great monetary loss or if it was just too much pressure. (It was, in fact, both; in spades.) This has nothing to do with anything, but my grammar checker didn't like that last parenthetical statement. So I asked Gemini about it, and I got the following response: This statement is an idiomatic construction used to confirm that something possesses two distinct qualities or characteristics simultaneously, and to an extreme or significant degree. "I...

Thought for the Day: Gerim are Produced by Their Nation, Not Mined from Them

I am currently saying kaddish for my mother-in-law, a"h. I have also organized learning mishnayos as an elevation for her neshama. I feel honored to be able to do this; she was important in our lives, and the way she reared my wife prepared her to be able to grow into a fully Torah-observant bas yisrael. I also learn mishnayos for the yahrtzeit of my father, a"h, and my father-in-law, a"h. Again, it is a zchus for me, and I do not take that lightly. I do neither of those things for my mother. No complaints, just saying. For whatever reason (likely because I am in the middle of doing so much for our Jewish parents right now), though, I decided to ask R' Fuerst this year if I should be doing any of those things for my own mother. I started with, "I haven't been saying kaddish for my mother on her yahrtzeit; should I be?" (My follow-up question would have been, "Jewish or Goyish calendar?") The dayan answered, "It's a free country....