Michael el Chayil

I closed my Facebook account yesterday. I had very little reason for it in the first place, mostly as a venue to distribute TftD sort of passively-aggressively. However, two things tilted the scales in favor of breaking off relations; both regarding the reaction I saw to the horrifying events in Pittsburgh this last Shabbos, May HaShem extract vengeance for the innocent victims. One reaction was people barely referencing the event itself, but using the opportunity of a juicy news story to further their political agenda. Folks from all ends of the political spectrum (unfortunately, in America today politics only has "ends" with no meeting ground for meaningful discussion) used the event that way. I was sickened by that. I also, though, saw that a rav had posted a video of another rav commenting on the event. The posting rav strongly disagreed with the message in the video, which he stated while still keeping a respectful and professional demeanor. A comment on the post, though...

Shabbos candles and Chanuka candles are both נר מצוה/mitzvah candles. Being a נר מצוה, one is not allowed to use it to light an ordinary candle; nor even a match with the intent to light another נר מצוה. What about lighting one נר מצוה directly from another? Of course there are opinions all over the place. However, when the halachic dust has settled we are left with the following: You are allowed to light one Shabbos candle from another, but one may not light one Chanuka candle from another. The correct response to that p'sak halacha is: Huh!? I know that is the correct response, as the Biur Halacha (263:1, d.h. שתי פתילות) asks the question in a surprised tone of writing. (Albeit more eloquently than simply, "huh!?") Of course on Chanuka, we have a halachic basis for how many candles we light each night: The number of candles one lights corresponds to the number of days we are into the Chanuka celebration; one candle on the first night, two on the second, three on th...

In 1889, a natural philosopher by the name of August Weismann performed the paradigm stupid and wasteful experiment in an era and stupid and wasteful experiments. I say an "era and stupid and wasteful experiments" because the scientific method was only beginning to be developed. Most of those experiments did not record enough about the procedure to render them reproducible even by themselves, let alone another experimenter. Their data was therefore useless as a basis for drawing any meaningful conclusions. August Weismann, though, stands above the crowd and designing and executing a particularly stupid and wasteful experiment. What did he do? He cut the tails off five generations of mice in an attempt to disprove Lamarckism  -- a notion (I refuse to give it the title "theory", "hypothesis", or even "conjecture") that acquired traits can be inherited. In Weismann's own words: "901 young were produced by five generations of artificially ...

I was talking to a cardiac/thoracic surgeon recently. I mentioned that I had worked in a radiation oncology department as a physicist doing treatment planning. I wanted to be empathetic to the stress he must feel and said I had woken up a few times at night worried that I had made a mistake. He gave me sort of a blank stare and said, "I don't make mistakes." Ah. Well, I do  make mistakes. I know that other people also make mistakes. How do I know? There is a whole body of Jewish law on what to do when one has omitted a necessary insertion. For example, forgetting "r'tzei" in bentching on Shabbos. The truth is, though, I know people who need the opposite. They so rarely eat bread during the week that "r'tzei" seems like an integral part of bentching. For those people, I offer another halacha: when bentching during the week, you should first take all knives off the table. (Yes, even butter/table knives.) On Shabbos, though, those can remain ...

The parasha of Noach start by telling us (B'reishis 6:9): These are the generations of Noach; Noach was perfectly righteous in his generation. Rashi chooses to explain the simple meaning of the verse by taking some of the words out of context and fooling with the punctuation (Rashi is quoting a Chazal, so he is on solid ground, of course): "These are the generations of Noach: Noach." -- to tell us the main generations/progeny of a person is his good deeds. Without doubt an important and insightful exegesis by our Sages, of blessed memory. However, Rashi (as the rav himself says several times) is to explain the simple/apparent meaning of the verses. How does this qualify for "simple/apparent" meaning? I know that is a good question, because the Gur Aryeh asks it. I know the Gur Aryeh asks the question because a friend made that the cornerstone of his speech at sheva brachos for a mutual friend of ours last night. I was really looking forward to hearing the answ...

Catchy title, no? If you were a physicist, you'd be deeply amused by my wittiness. If you are not, you can at least be amused at how witty I think I am being. Here is the core issue: We humans are the unique beings in Creation who have unencumbered free will. That is, in fact, what the Torah means when it says that man was created in the image of his Creator. (I am oversimplifying a bit; but really just a bit.) The question is whether we can each make our own decisions independently, or do they need to mesh together? I should note at this point that free will is not anarchy; if I decide to jump up, I am going to follow a relatively ballistic trajectory until I land. I can't decide at the apex of my trajectory to change directions or just hover; my trajectory is a consequence of -- and therefore an integral part of  -- my initial decision. The most dramatic way to phrase this question is: If Bob murders George, has Bob's free will choice of murder just interfered with G...

I know this may come as somewhat of a shock, but the singing ("nigun", for my FFT [frum from Tuesday] friends) part of the worship service is not really my "thing". Baruch HaShem, the Aguda accommodates even recalcitrant misnagdim such as I and provides a plethora of divrei Torah -- in English, Hebrew, and even Yiddiush available to be studied during permissible intervals. Such as extended chazanus for Lecha Dodi. (One might argue that I seem to consider any singing -- especially responsive -- as extended chazanus. One might be correct.) I usually read something from the Business Halacha Institute, which has a nice story to go along with an interesting monetary issue. I learn something and I also have a ready discussion for the Friday night table. This Friday night, though, a young man walked around distributing copies of the CRC Kosher Consumer, Sukkos Edition. As this has never happened before, I figured that HaShem was sending me a message and so I better read ...