Michael el Chayil

Let's do a quick rundown on מוקצה. The word מוקצה, of course, basically mean "set aside". There are things we set aside on Shabbos (and Yom Tov) because Shabbos is really, really important and violations are really, really bad. (That is my high level, executive summary of the Mishna Brura's introduction to siman 308.) Doing melacha on Shabbos is really bad. Also, Shabbos should be really, really special. (Yikes... talk about ירידת הדורות!) Since every Jew knows that, things that would bring one to violate the Shabbos or cheapen it's sanctity, are not at the forefront of our minds. There are, to one level or another, מוקצה. Because over our history, there have been times when Klal Yisrael is not as careful with Shabbos as they should be, Chazal have baked some basic principles into practical halacha. There are essentially four levels of מוקצה: Holy Writ and food -- Not set aside at all, you can move them just cuz. Utensils whose main use is permitted on Shabbos; sp

Yesterday was the observance of the fast of Tisha b'Av, pushed off to the 10th of Av because the 9th of Av fell on a Shabbos this year. In Chicago this year, we had no need for Tisha b'Av programming. We got two hours of programming that nobody asked for -- the levaya of R' Yaakov Rajchenbach, may the memory of this righteous person be a blessing. It was a personal tragedy for me; I counted him as a friend and neighbor. I honestly cannot remember him in any way but with that big, sincere, and heartfelt smile. It was a tragedy for Chicago, as there was not a Jewish organization of any importance that did not look to him for counsel. (Counsel first, money second.) For the entire Jewish world for all the reasons discussed in the speeches from his children; and more. I will not try to summarize words that are already only a brief insight into the life of a giant of a human being; though I do encourage you to seek and absorb the recordings if you were not zoche to be there. I wi

Consider, if you will, the numbers six, eight, and nine. Two are divisible by two, two by three, two are consecutive, two have only one number in their set of prime factors. Only one of those facts is known because they are part of a well known group that is famous/distinguished by precisely that fact: six and eight are both even numbers, and all even numbers are divisible by two. (In fact, the even club is pretty non-discriminating -- if you are divisible by two, you are in; it doesn't care about your shady past.) Still reading? Here's the point: by just reading that list of facts, there was no way for you to know which were happenstance and which was/were associated with an underlying principle. Once I started the statement with "Only one of those facts is known because...", you pretty much understood where I was going. Had I said, "six and eight are even", you also would have known they were even, but -- again -- you wouldn't have a basis for believin