Michael el Chayil

Again, based on what I heard from R' Cziment's amazing chumash shiurim; available on TorahAnyTime . Some review: Yosef HaTzadik was sold into slavery and purchased in Mitzrayim by Potiphar, an important official in Paroh's government. Potiphar's wife was, to say the least, quite smitten with Yosef. (In modern parlance, we'd call her a cougar.) Yosef HaTzadik, all of 17, abandoned and sold into slavery by his family, was able to resist her quite considerable charms. You know the rest of the story. From whence did Yosef derive the strength to overcome that challenge? Let's ask a little more pointedly: How did Yosef HaTzadik even have the will to seek a solution to his predicament? It was a monumental task and he overcame and, yes, the journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step -- but before taking that step is the decision to go on the journey. The medrash says that Potiphar had a very special residence. It had once been the palace of Paroh himself. When? I

I think the following incident sums up all that needs to be said about the Reform Jewish Religion. A boy -- we'll call him Bruce -- was giving his Bar Mitzvah speech. "My Torah portion," said Bruce, "describes how are ancestor Jacob cunningly swindled his own brother, Esau, out of his blessings. I am so embarrassed to be his descendant." The rabbi put his arm around the bar mitzvah boy and said, "Bruce... I know you and I know your family. You are certainly not a descendant of Jacob, you are a descendant of Esau." (Yes, true story.) What follows is once again some of my gleanings from R' Cziment's amazing chumash shiur. But, let's ask ourselves... why did Yaakov have to fool Yitzchak with the whole charade? In fact, the targum Onkelos reveals to us that Rivka set the whole thing up because she had received a prophetic directive that this was the appropriate course of action. The question, therefore, is better stated as: Why did Yitzchak n

Consider, please, verses 26 and 27 from T'hillim, chapter 18: עִם-חָסִיד תִּתְחַסָּד;    עִם-גְּבַר תָּמִים, תִּתַּמָּם. עִם-נָבָר תִּתְבָּרָר;    וְעִם-עִקֵּשׁ, תִּתְפַּתָּל.  These verses speak to the basic/fundamental manner with which HaShem interacts with His creation. In broad strokes we say מידה כנגד מידה/measure for measure. Here, however, Dovid HaMelech drills down a bit and gives us four approaches (rough/free translation): עִם-חָסִיד תִּתְחַסָּד -- with the pious/devout, You act devoutly עִם-גְּבַר תָּמִים, תִּתַּמָּם -- with the innocent/whole-hearted, You act with simplicity (no hidden agenda) עִם-נָבָר תִּתְבָּרָר -- with the honest/trustworthy, You act in faithfulness וְעִם-עִקֵּשׁ, תִּתְפַּתָּל -- but with the crooked/perverse, You act as if everything is happenstance It is striking that Dovid HaMelech decided to break down the positive conduct into three distinct channels, where as the all who act as if there is no one running the show are lumped together and tr

Sefer Shmiras HaLashon says there are seven main terrible midos that bring a person to say לשון הרע, and they can be remembered with the simple and pithy acronym: כל גיהנם/All Hell. Let's take them one at a time. The first three -- כ עס/Anger, ל יצנות/Derision/Mocking, and ג אווה/Pride and Arrogance -- don't really need any elucidation. They are the triumvirate of bad midos, so you can just add לשון הרע to the list of despicable crimes that they encourage. Next on the list and basically two sides of the same coin are י יאוש/Despair and ה פקר/Neglected. Both of these lead one to remove any thought of constraining one's speech. One side of the coin is, "There are so many ways to get caught in the trap of speaking לשון הרע, I just know that I won't be able to avoid it; so why even try?" The other side says, "I really don't see anyone at all being careful with there speech. It must be one of those extra credit, super-frum things! That certainly isn't

Imagine this: one day a wealthy person (see how inclusive and diverse I am being?!) comes to you and announces, "I am going to give you 1,000$ a day." He hand you the cash, and walks off. You have never seen him before, you have no idea what this is about, and you certainly have no idea how long this will continue. What you do know is that you have 1,000$ cash money in your hand. As this continues for a few days and then weeks, you come to rely on that money. You still have no idea how long it will continue, but it sure is nice. A foolish person just spends the money like there is no tomorrow; each and every day. A somewhat smarter/more conservative person uses some now and saves some. He (that is not non-inclusive; English uses the male pronoun to also mean "unknown/irrelevant gender") lives within a budget, but certainly appreciates the daily gift. What would a wise person do? The wise person would, upon his benefactor's arrival, ask how he should best utili

There is an old Dilbert strip where the pointy haired manager notes in a group meeting that a full 40% of sick time off is occurring on Mondays and Fridays and he wants people to stop using their sick time to get three day weekends. The joke, of course, is that assuming that people get sick on random days of the work week and given there are five days in work week, then one fifth would occur on any given day and 2/5, aka 40%, is the number you would expect.) A lot of השגחה פרטית/Divine Providence stories, unfortunately, sound a lot like that Dilbert. "Oh my gosh... I never carry change and as I was dropping the kinderlach off at school, little Shloimy said he need a quarter for the pushka. I was about to say that I didn't have any change... but then I looked down in the cup holder and there were three quarters! Just enough for each of my yiddishe kinder for the puske. And the only reason my coffee cup was not covering them is because that morning I had a tickle in my throat a

A couple of weeks after I successfully completed (for the first time!) my century ride, I was asked by one of my sponsors, "So, what's your next project?" I answered, "To complete the ride again next year, and also... tomorrow morning's ride." I wasn't "just being me." The century ride is certainly the highlight of the year for bike riding, but I wouldn't be able to do that ride without my daily (of course except on Shabbos) rides. Moreover, the daily rides are really the main thing; I do the daily rides to maintain my health. (Well... at my age, to do what I can do slow the decline.) That thought got me thinking about how this daily physical activity punctuated with periodic/annual "all out" events mirrors our spiritual existence. Why would I think that? In the introduction to the Mishna Brura you will find an explanation of why it is that an essentially spiritual and eternal being -- our nefesh -- requires nourishment from food,

It is never fun to have a fly buzzing around. Even worse when you are sitting down to a meal. Bad enough at a picnic, even worse in the house. Bad enough during the week, but on Shabbos... What makes things worse on Shabbos? Two issues -- trapping and muktzeh. We are not even going to talk about killing it, that would be forbidden even on Yom Tov since flies are annoying and disgusting, but not dangerous. Lets take the issues one at a time. Flies are muktzeh on Shabbos just like all animals. Pets can be taken for walks because of the prohibition to cause needless suffering to an animal. Flies; sure, just try getting a leash on one of those puppies. This, obviously, is a rabbinic injunction. What about trapping? Flies are certainly not a species that trapped for its skin (ewww), nor does it produce anything of particular value (such as venom); therefore trapping them is also forbidden by rabbinic -- and not Torah -- injunction. Forbidden is forbidden, of course; and as R' Fuerst is

There is just no good English translation for כלי -- you can try utensil, apparatus, implement, tool, gizzy, thing-a-ma-bob... they are all correct in the right context, somewhat misleading in the wrong context. The gemara even uses it to mean "clothing." So let's just leave it alone. When it comes to the requirement for טבילה, the rules seem straightforward enough: The Torah requires that when a Jew acquires a metal כלי from a non-Jew -- that is, ownership is transferred from the non-Jew to the Jew -- then the Jew needs to immerse that כלי in a kosher mikveh before he uses it. Chazal added glass כלים and some stringencies about the mikveh. Simple enough. There are two details that make things a bit more interesting. One, "use" means "for its intended purpose", but has nothing to do with contact. For example, If it starts hailing as you are walking to your car with your newly purchased (from a non-Jew) griddle pan to your car, you are certainly allowed

Of course one is not allowed to learn Torah in any depth on Tisha b'Av -- even to say verses of Torah, except for those specifically allowed, is forbidden. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 554:1,2,3) gives clear and strict guidelines about what and how to learn. On the other hand, of course one is allowed to say all the usual parts of davening on Tisha b'Av, as clearly stated in syef 4. Verses from all over Tanach, of course, are ubiquitous in davening. So why are we allowed to say them? They are part of davening, and davening is different; it just is. So what about saying T'hillim? The Mishna Brura (sk 6) notes that there is a custom to say t'hillim at mincha. How are we allowed to do that, you ask. The Mishna Brura says "Even though learning Torah is forbidden all day, צריך לומר/one must say that framing the recital of t'hillim as a form of petition is different." Really? Here is a rule, if you ever hear me say, "well... צריך לומר/one must say"

This is just too, too delicious. Just a simple exchange between a gadol b'yisrael and his grandson -- also a talmid chacham of no small measure. There are now (as of this writing) four volumes of מסורת משה -- halachic questions and discussions between R' Moshe Feinstein, ztz''l, and a grandson, R' Mordechai Tendler. Each night, the introduction explains, R' Tendler would record discussions/questions/interesting exchanges he had had that day with his zeidy. There are, apparently, many years worth of notebooks. They were originally intended as simply notes for himself. At some point, though, several of the other grandsons/grandsons-in-law wanted to arrange and edit those notes into a sefer. They consulted with R' Dovid Feinstein, ztz''l and he told them that he thought it would be a wonderful idea -- on one condition: They needed to have R' Shmuel Fuerst, shilta, review everything before it was published. R' Fuerst agreed and makes sure that al

I urge you in all seriousness to listen and/or watch the shiur (available on TorahAnytime.org) entitled:  Driving Halacha & Hashkafa; given by R' Shraga Kallus. Doesn't sound so interesting? Let me motivate you. Let's start back a few years ago, when R' Fuerst was still giving his Monday night shiurim to בעל הבתים/non-rabaim/regular Joes. We had just learned that one may not turn over a Jew to the government authorities if said authority would impose a harsher punishment than the Torah. To do so is a horrendous crime and the perpetrator is known as a מוֹסֵר and/or מַלשִׁין -- an informer. Klal Yisrael has suffered terribly  from informants throughout this long, bitter diaspora. So much so, that their deeds engendered the one addition to our shmone esrei prayer; an entire dedicated to their eradication. Imagine our shock, therefore, when R' Fuerst further informed us that it is an obligation to call the police if you see a Jew speeding through our neighborhood an

There is a well known dictum in Jewish law -- דינא דמלכותא דינא/the law of the land is the law. According to Shmuel this is a Torah directive; but everyone agrees that at the very least, דינא דמלכותא דינא. There are two important caveats, though: It cannot be a law that contradicts halacha. (Yes, I know that is a bit circular, since I just said that  דינא דמלכותא דינא is halacha. Don't make me come over there and slap you; you know what I mean.) It has to make sense; not something arbitrary, like eating fish on Friday. The implications are enormous -- it means that if the land has a rule that makes sense and is not otherwise covered by halacha (there; happy?), then violating that law becomes a violation of halacha; perhaps even a Torah violation. For example: the law of the land (in the US) is that you much drive on the right hand side of the road. Another one: while driving a motor vehicle, you must stop before the intersection when the signal is red, and you may not proceed thro

The most difficult day of the year (I believe there is no argument about this) is the ninth of Av. Bad enough the fast and and all the historical disasters associated with this day. There is more: On verse four of chapter three of Koheles -- ...a time to cry, a time to rejoice... -- Rashi comments on "a time to cry": this is Tisha b'Av. Not "such as Tisha b'Av", but, "this is Tisha b'Av." We are so lost in sorrow that we don't even greet each other. At the last meal before the fast -- even if we sit together -- there is no zimun. Tisha b'Av is all loneliness and sorrow. At the other end of the emotional and philosophical spectrum -- and nearly as far away in the year a can be -- is our seder. Pesach is the holiday when no Jew is alone. More than any other festival -- men, women, and children are all together. Special songs that are particularly fun for the children are placed at the end of the seder. We all spend weeks in preparation f

Historical note for context: This event happened in 2020, just as shuls were starting to open for socially distant and masked davening.   When we first started "sheltering in" (nice, parve term for trying not to die and take others with us during this pandemic), I brought my shtender home. I literally cried as I walked with it out of the beis medrash that I had called home nearly every morning for three hours of davening, learning, and imbibing the ru'ach of the camaraderie of those whose sole focus is to daven in the best way possible. Then came the time, Baruch HaShem, to return to davening together in my beloved beis medrash. (Lest you think the term "beloved" is overly dramatic, please note that I have davened there every morning that I am in town -- save a few weeks during chemotherapy and one Shabbos when I overslept -- since parshas Sh'lach of 1994. I have spent as many waking/productive hours there and nearly any other location.) One problem -- my w

...and, honestly, what is so special about אִסְרוּ חַג anyway ; isn't just the day after the Yom Tov?! Here's the back story: Of course I know that we don't say tachanun from Rosh Chodesh Sivan until after Shavuos; the Rema says so right there in 494:3 (see Mishna Brura there for more explanation). The question is, of course: why not? Obviously we don't say tachanun on Rosh Chodesh Sivan; we never say tachanun on any rosh chodesh.. Natch for the two days of Shavuos itself. Then there is the three days before Shavuos when we are all busy preparing to receive the Torah, know as (appropriately enough) שלושת ימי הגבלה . That leaves the day after Rosh Chodesh Sivan... why don't we say tachanun then? So I approached a good friend, a talmid  chacham with whom I have had the merit to discuss many interesting halachic issues. I presented my case and asked, "Why don't we say tachanun on the day after Rosh Chodesh Sivan?" I was not disappointed. He replied wit

R' Ezriel Cziment gives an incredible chumash shiur on Thursday nights; there is a dial in number and also a WhatApp group to which the shiur is posted. Listening to the shiur Friday morning has become a fixed part of my schedule. The shiur is 30 minutes, delves into one or two topics from the parsha and develops a whole new understanding of those topics. Also, R' Cziment always includes illustrative stories, making them great for the Shabbos table. (Let me know if you want the dial-in information or to be included in the WhatsApp distribution.) In the shir on parshas Shlach, R' Cziment brought a story from the sefer Meishiv Nefesh, written some 500 years ago, give or take. The author of that sefer needed to see the local ruler about some pressing issue. It seems that in that country, Jews were required to wear some sort of badge identifying themselves as such. While the Meishiv Nefesh was waiting for his audience, a priest walked over to him and said, "Do you know why

Sweet smelling spices have a starring role in the havdala ceremony. True, if you do not have spices, you can still fulfill your halachic obligations via a vis the havdala ceremony; but you'd miss them. After all, they rejuvenate us after the departure of our נשמה יתירה/"extra soul". (Interestingly, Google translates נשמה יתירה as "excessive soul"... how can soul be excessive?!)  The reason I keep using the term "havdala ceremony" is because I want to go through each step, which includes the bracha at the end. It is that bracha that is actually called "havadala"; it is the reason for the ceremony, so we commonly just call the entire ceremony havdala. That is similar to the fact that we call the kiddush ceremony simply "kiddush", even though the ceremony includes a bracha on wine. Interestingly, that is also why we call the bread we eat on Shabbos "challah". The custom, as brought by the Rema in Shulchan Aruch, was to specif

Every holiday has it unique obligations and a corresponding "personality" that reflect a deeper truth being exercised and brought the forefront of our attention. Pesach has matzah and the seder. Sukkos has, well, the sukkah. Chanuka has the menorah and dreidel. Purim has the megillah, s'uda, and getting so drunk that you can't tell the difference between blessed is Mordechai and cursed is Haman. Rosh HaShannah has shofar and ... what did you say? You want to go back to "getting so drunk..."? Sure. Of course I didn't need that dramatic opening. We all know that the requirement to get drunk on Purim stands out as an extraordinarily strange obligation. Before addressing the drinking issue itself, though, we need to clarify what Chazal want us to achieve. First let's try it at face value: you are taking a walk in your neighborhood and see Hitler -- may his memory and legacy be erased forever -- on one side of the street and are overwhelmed by revulsion a

At the conclusion of every Shabbos, during the havdala ceremony, we quote a statement from Megilas Esther (8:14): לַיְּהוּדִ֕ים הָֽיְתָ֥ה אוֹרָ֖ה וְשִׂמְחָ֑ה וְשָׂשׂ֖ן וִיקָֽר /The Jews had light and joy, gladness and honor! Chazal reveal to us what Esther and Mordechai meant to convey: אוֹרָ֖ה/light means Torah שִׂמְחָ֑ה /joy means Yom Tov שָׂשׂ֖ן/gladness means circumcision יקָֽר /honor mean t'fillin I heard a beautiful shiur by R' Noach Light of the East Boca Kehilla in Boca Raton (via TorahAnytime , natch). The S'fas Emes asks two questions on this verse and it's explanation. First: If that's what they meant, then why didn't they just say that? After all, Mordechai was a member of the Men of the Great Assembly and therefore technically he was Chazal. That's the first question of the S'fas Emes and it is certainly a strong question. None the less, I am guessing the interested reader already some thoughts about a reasonable explanation or two. The sec

It was just a few short years ago (pre-pandemic, since last year has been anything but short), we were spending a Shabbos with our grandchildren and their parents in Florida. Friday night and we are all at the table. Finished with Kiddush and Motzi, then the younger children get dessert and up to bed. Perfect. One glitch -- the nine year old boy (oldest of younger children) is back downstairs? "Someone," he says eyeing his older brother, "didn't turn the light off in our room." Of course, at this point it doesn't really matter how/who/when/why the light was turned on. On the other hand, this is also not the time for a mussar shmuz on that particular topic. What to do? In that case, the light was part of a ceiling fan and the fan was off. I was therefore able to drape a blanket over the fan blades far enough from the bulbs to avoid a fire hazard, but close enough to darken the room sufficiently for the two boys to sleep. But nowadays we have -- tada -- LED li

Here's the sitch, as they say: Two people have a yarhtzeit for a parent and want to daven from the amud. No problem, just make two minyanim; happens all the time. Of course you need the resources to do that. Again, no problem. We have 20. 10 stay in the main beis medrash and start davening ma'ariv. 10 join together in a side room. Just before ברכו, one -- we'll call him Yaakov -- says, "Oh, I only daven after nightfall, but I'll stay and learn so y'all can still daven." Whoops. Short background/introduction before continuing the narrative: As both the Mishna Brura and R' Moshe pasken, unless you have 10 actually davening, it's not called תפילה בציבור (see Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:28 for detailed explanation). Having 10 adult Jewish men in the room, a majority of whom are davening (some say you need seven, aka "recognizable majority") allows one to say דברים שבקדושה, such as קדיש and ברכו ... and even קדושה, but it still doesn't have

We recently acquired a new oven -- combination of stimulus check and spending much less money on travel this year. It is a double oven, so we now have a milchig and fleishig oven. Interestingly, when we went to Abt to look for ovens and noted that we were only interested in ovens with Shabbos mode, their search page has a check box specifically for that feature. We've had the oven for a few months and it is quite nice. One of my jobs on Friday afternoon is to set the oven before leaving for Shul. I set the top oven at 170 degrees to keep our challos warm and set the cook time to turn off the oven a few minutes after צאת הכוכבים/halachic nightfall. I set the bottom oven -- with soup/main/kugel/veggies/etc -- to 215 degrees to keep everything piping hot for the meal, and the cook time to turn off 10 minutes after the top oven. That gives me time to say קריאת שמע, then pull the challos from the (now off) top oven with plenty of time to welcome the Shabbos, say kiddush and motzi -- and

We prepare for davening each morning by reciting the several chapters from T'hillim; Dovid HaMelech's opus to express all possible feelings in any situation. On Shabbos, when we have more time, we recite a few more, but everyday we finish with the last six chapters. And we end with a redoubled recitation of the last verse, the crescendo of the entire Book of T'hilim: כֹּל הַנְּשָׁמָה, תְּהַלֵּל יָהּ, הַלְלוּ-יָהּ Let every soul praise HaShem; Praise Ye, the L-ord! Inspiring, no? How about this? The medrash understands this statement of Dovid HaMelech to have a deeper undercurrent: Don't read נשמה/soul, rather נשימה/breath -- with every נשימה and נשימה praise HaShem! Even more inspiring, no? The Vilna Gaon (brought in the introduction to his commentary on Mishlei) says that you cannot really understand the depth of the secrets of Torah without clearing understanding פשט/the simple, surface meaning. Ok, what is the simple meaning of breathing? I say an article from the Ne

Here are two halachic issues about which you may or may not care: If one intends to put on Rashi t'fillin and after he made the bracha realizes that he accidentally put on Rabeinu Tam t'fillin, then he should just remove them an put on his Rashi t'fillin without making a new bracha. If one accidentally says ותן טל ומטר לברכה instead of ותן ברכה at the wrong time of year on Shabbos, when he shouldn't be saying either and then corrects his שבת שמונה עשרה by adding adding the appropriate Shabbos insertion, then one need not repeat שמונה עשרה. Perhaps you would like a skosh more explanation of #2. In fact, perhaps you are wondering what's the חידוש of #1. Perfectly reasonable thoughts, which we shall address one at at time, in order, בעזרת השם. The interesting factor in #1 is that we pasken that Rabeinu Tam t'fillin are pasul. Certainly if one made a bracha and then put on t'fillin that were, in fact, devoid of any parchments, one would certainly need to make a