Michael el Chayil

Let's start with a question: Why are We Allowed to Drink Coffee and Whiskey Made by Non-Jews?  Before you ask,"Why would I think that I shouldn't be able to drink whiskey and coffee made by non-Jews?", I'll tell you. Simple, we all know that Chazal made a decree -- known as בישול עכו''ם/bishul akim -- that particular foods cooked by non-Jews are forbidden.  There are basically two criteria that determines if a dish falls into this category: Is not consumed raw. Fit for a royal banquet. Cooked carrots, therefore, are not a problem since they can be eaten raw (I actually prefer them that way).  Baked beans are find because the are not prestigious enough.  (For great synopsis of the laws, see the article on the Star-K site, FOOD FIT FOR A KING , by Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, shlita.)  There are lots of cool questions and details (baked potatoes are prestigious, does that make even potato chips and issue?) which are for another time.  Clearly, though, bo...

We had our two year old grandson over for the Shabbos morning s'uda yesterday. As fourth of five and with a new baby brother, he doesn't get much individual attention; so we thought it would be nice for him, his parents, his siblings, and us. We were correct; it was a win, win, win, win situation.  I walked him home. He likes to stop at every  garage door, knock, then I have to answer "no one's home", then we move on. Between stops he runs -- zero to sixty in a flash -- much faster than I walk. However, he also falls regularly, so I can still keep up. It reminded me that the mom was constantly ironing knee patches on my jeans growing up. Of course, I haven't had a scraped knee in years. Except last week. I was on the treadmill and lost my footing, being carried off that back. That's not how I scraped my knee. I collected myself, stood on the rails straddling the moving treadmill. "It's not moving that  fast," I reasoned.  (OK, perhaps ...

I do not learn gemara via the daf yomi schedule. The reason is simple, I cannot learn an entire daf of gemara in one day. I am currently learning Bava Metzia and worked out my learning rate: a bit less than a daf per week. I have resigned myself to that fact. There certainly is  an energy to a daily learning program.  How about mishna yomi?  Sigh... I am also just a bit slow for that, as well.  One last chance: halacha yomi! Do be fair, I am also not able to keep up with that program, either. However, I am  able to keep up with daily emails that summarize the daily halacha; whew!  (I recommend that avail yourself of the program:  Daf Halacha | Daf HaYomi B'Halacha Resources .  You can sign up for the daily emails here .) They also send out a question of the month.  Interesting questions one can use to check and deepen his understanding. Here is the question from the  Teves-Shevat bulletin: The   Mishna Berurah (294:§2) writ...

A quick Google search reveals that a smoothie is: A smoothie is a thick beverage made from blended raw fruit or vegetables with other ingredients such as water, ice, or sweeteners. Hmm... raw fruit or vegetables (I would actually include "and/or", but I'm not Google), thick and blended (that is, puréed), raw (that is, not cooked), beverage (so meant to be imbibed, not eaten).  What's the bracha?  I could tell you right now, but where's the fun in that? There are two gemaras in Brachos that have a bearing on this question. One says that the bracha on all fruit juices (save two) is שהכל. (The two exceptions are: grape juice/wine, which is בורא פרי הגפן ; olive juice/oil, which is בורא פרי העץ.) The other gemara says that the bracha on vegetable soup is בורא פרי האדמה. What is the deciding factor? Obviously one talks about fruit and one about vegetables, but that only is not enough of a difference to account for the change in halacha. Let's see what diffe...

Have you ever seriously wondered if Kansas is really  flatter than a pancake?  Perhaps you have thought disdainfully that it's just a thing to say; like, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."  Well, wonder no more... Kansas is much  flatter than a pancake !  How do they determine that?  Well, first you need a baseline.  The baseline of both Kansas and a pancake is flat.  Then you measure difference of every point on the pancake (and Kansas) from its own baseline and determine an average (RMS, actually) deviation from baseline and add 1.0.  Hence, perfectly flat would be 1.0 (which is why we added the 1.0, so that flat would 1.0 and not 0.0; as that just seems wrong.)  When the dust (flour and dirt, respectively) settles, the flatness of a pancake is  0.957, while Kansas is 0.9997. One more thing: It is precisely those deviations from flatness that are the interesting features of Kansas.  The "deviations from flatness" inclu...

One of the most difficult classes I had in graduate school was quantum mechanics. One of the most difficult problems we solved was to construct the complete description of the hydrogen atom. It used all the math we had learned until that time and added more.  It took us three weeks; every class period for three weeks was dedicated to nothing but determining that solution.  (You can check here , if you like, to get a flavor of the complexity.)  About two weeks in, I stopped the professor and asked, "Wait... what are we doing?"  All I saw was three chalkboards filled with equations.  When I looked in my notes, all I saw was page after page of equations. He looked at me a bit quizzically and said, "We're solving the hydrogen atom." I was so mired in the details that I needed a reminder of the big picture. I spent a very nice week working from Boca Raton last week.  (Long story about why and how that worked out; but it did.) The rabbi there likes to present a...

It was a small Shabbos morning s'udo parashas Yisro.  (I know that sounds distressingly like "it was a dark and stormy night"... but what can I do?) I, of course, was pontificating about how it's called the עשרת הדיברות which translates to "The Ten Utterances" and not  "The Ten Commandments". Moreover, the next parasha starts with the conjunctive וְאֵ֨לֶּה֙ הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תָּשִׂ֖ים לִפְנֵיהֶֽם/and these -- in continuation of what was just begun (see Rashi) -- are the statutes you shall place before them (the Jewish people).  So you see clearly  that everything was said at Har Sinai. Furthermore, our sages had to actually forbid public, formal, recitations of the -- ahem -- so-called Ten Commandments because the Christians used that as proof that really those are the important commandments. (They also conveniently ignore the phrase "Who took you out of Mitzrayim", clearly indicating that these laws -- whatever they may be -- were...