Michael el Chayil

It is sort of a joke, but it's a frightening reality for many people: Whoever dies with the most toys wins! Substitute pretty much anything for "toys" and you have the same problem. Here's a good one: Whoever dies with the most "dahf gemara"s wins! How about, "Whoever has the longest seder wins!"? I have a whole TftD on keeping priorities straight. What do Chazal say about it? There is a machlokes between R' Meir and R' Yehuda (Nedarim 9b) regarding how to read a verse in Koheles (5:4) ט֖וֹב אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־תִדֹּ֑ר מִשֶּׁתִּדּ֖וֹר וְלֹ֥א תְשַׁלֵּֽם/It is better not to make a pledge, than to pledge and not pay. The basic issue is that this seems too obvious to mean what is says. This verse comes on the heels of a verse that warns us not to delay making good on our vows. R' Meir reads this as: "If you do  make a pledge, then you need to pay; but it is better not to make that pledge in the first place, as you may come to not pay it....

Even if you have never done it, we all know the concept of cramming for exams. You learn material differently when you are being tested. I know a physician who had an epiphany as he walked out of his first exam in medical school. Up to that point in his life, the routine for classes had been to learn the material, cram for the test, dump all that material out of his brain to make room for the material the next semester, repeat. As he was about to dump out the knowledge he had just gained, he realized, "Oh no! I need this knowledge to be a good physician! People's lives will depend on me retaining this knowledge!" In other words, he then realized that entering the field of medicine meant pop quizzes on life and death matters at any moment. We are all actually in that position. As Rashi brings on our introduction to Noah (B'reishis 6:9), אֵלֶּה תּֽוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק/These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a righteous man. Says Rashi, quoting Chazal: To ...

The following has been written absolutely with the permission of my amazing grandson. In fact, he was touched that I wanted to write about this. I have had the merit this year to have a steady chavrusa with my grandson who is in 8th grade. This is not "intro to gemara" any more. By the time a bachur gets to 8th grade, they are learning topics in depth with Rashi and Tosafos. They learn Bava Kama and one of the first topics they learn is when one ox damages another. Most oxen are tame and they were quite common in ancient cities, and really enabled commerce the way trucks do nowadays. When a normal ox -- תם/innocent -- gores another ox, it is considered an unusual event and is dealt with as such. First, the owner of the ox only pays half the value of the ox he killed; which is know as חצי נזק/half damages. Second, there is a cap on the liability, which is the value of the animal itself. That is know as מגופו/from its own value. The word "גוף", of course, literally me...

There are two words for "fat" in Hebrew: שׁוּמָן/subcutaneous fat, which is the fat just under the skin and is jiggly חֵלֶב/visceral fat, which is the fat around organs and is relatively firm The fat you see in and around you steak is שׁוּמָן/subcutaneous fat. You are never going to see חֵלֶב/visceral fat in your cholent (Ashkenazim, anyway, who make cholent the right way, i.e., with beef.) That is because the חֵלֶב/visceral fat is forbidden under penalty of spiritual excision. חֵלֶב/visceral fat from non-domesticated animals, such as deer, is not forbidden. (If you ever make a venison cholent, please let me know.) Moreover, it is not a Torah prohibition to cook and even eat venison with milk (deer, cow, or otherwise). Of course you know that Chazal forbade it. There is an interesting animal called the כוי/koy (yes... there is no translation) that is an animal that is on the spectrum (oh aren't I so woke!); somewhere between a domesticated animal and a non-domesticated an...

We know that (at least since the second set of tablets) that there is a prohibition to write the תורה שבעל פה/Oral Law. Over the centuries, and always only after careful consideration, parts have been put in written form. Like a life saving surgery, as much is revealed as necessary, but no more. First the mishnayos were committed to writing, then the gemara. Nonetheless, the mishnayos and gemara have been written in a way that learning them really requires a teacher who himself is part of the chain of tradition. Even ArtScroll consulted with sages of our generation on how to handle the translation into English. See their introduction and the הסכמות/approbations. Interestingly, while there has always been a main core of the תורה שבעל פה/Oral Law that everyone knew and passed from generation to generation/rebbi to talmid, there were also lesser known -- thoroughly authentic -- teachings that were known to fewer sages. When a sage said something in beis medrash that had not been ...

It's erev Shabbos. Typical Jewish home.. everyone has lots to do. I think it is pretty common for each of the children to have their own responsibilities Children don't always do everything they are supposed to do. As parents we give them "consequences." This family has a simple rule: If you don't take care of your responsibilities on erev Shabbos, then you don't get dessert Friday night. Perfectly appropriate and effective. One week, Mommy tells the children: You have all been so good the last few months, I want you to have some time on Friday to do what you want. You don't have to do your jobs this week and I'll be sure there is a special dessert. Wow! Everyone runs off to do whatever they like best with all this extra free time. Except one... little Shprintze, who is crying! "But Mommy! I want dessert! How will I have dessert if I don't set the table?!" Mommy is a little surprised and tries to talk to Shprintze, but Shprintze is so cau...

The core of the Oral Law is encoded in the mishnayos collected and culled and edited into their final form by R' Yehuda. Collected, culled, and edited from where? There is a large body of statements that were used as the core curriculum in the ancient yeshivos of Eretz Yisroel. R' Yehuda produced from there the six orders of the mishna that is the official set of statements used by the entire Jewish nation. There are also other collections, authoritative in content, but not as well known nor are well studied. These are known as ברייתות; which literally means "outside teaching", as they are outside the office cannon of mishnayos. The gemara often uses them to clarify and deepen our understanding of a topic. The gemara (Shabbos 6b) is curious about why a ברייתא makes two quite obvious claims in one breath: Were someone to move an object between a private and public domain on Shabbos; if it was by accident, they have to bring a sin offering, but if it was on purpose, the...

Reader Advisory:  The House on the Rock is a very cool site in Wisconsin. Short history: A (in my estimation) brilliant architect found a huge pointy rock and built a house around it. He was also (in everyone's estimation) a bit of a kook. He collected dolls, non-horse merry-go-round critters, old road signs, etc. He also built large room size music boxes. Walking through the attraction feels like walking through the mind of someone a bit off/deranged, but harmless. This TftD feels like that. Feel free to move on. I have started learning masechta Nedarim. I find that each seder (Zerayim, Mo'ed, Nezikin, Nashim, Kodshim, Taharos) has its own way of looking at the world. Within a seder, each masechta has its own personality. Then there's Nedarim, which is just off the charts in its own world. Even the Ran introduced Nedarim by telling us that Nedarim is not written like any other gemara. Speaking of which, why am I quoting the Ran instead of Rashi? Because there is no Rashi ...

Let's be real. I did not grow up frum (understatement of the century). I didn't start learning in earnest till about 30 years ago, and even that has been very part time till just a year ago. Nonetheless, I still look for opportunities to use my background and secular education to have some value add. Here was my recent try. I am learning about mixtures of milk and meat. I just got to the topic (for the last couple of weeks) of drops of milk spattering pot of meat. Very interesting topic. Lots of juicy details, some of which you can find in this TftD . One thing, though... we always look at the pot as if it has absorbed a lot  of food. How much? We are stringent and assume that the pan -- even though it is stainless steel -- has absorbed so much food into its walls that we just bite the bullet and consider them to be entirely food. That means for nullification purposes, we would need the contents to be 60 times the volume of the walls. I've tried the calculation a few times ...

In my youth, I was interested in the field of artificial intelligence as an avocation. I was fascinated by the idea of using computers to understand human reasoning. I dabbled in programming some models using specialized computer languages (most of which are now mostly relegated to footnotes in computer science books). There was an offshoot of that research called "computer/machine learning". Most of what passes for AI nowadays is fancy machine learning with a little bit of artificial intelligence sprinkled in. I bring that up to note, which should be absolutely obvious, that computers do not have free will. Even though Gemini (Google foray into the AI marketplace) will say, "Oh! I am so embarrassed about making that mistake! Thank you for pointing that out to me." She isn't embarrassed and she isn't grateful and she really isn't anything but a feminine sounding voice. (There is a long history of using feminine sounding voices. Google it if you are inter...

Here's the basic halacha: A Jew is prohibited from benefiting from a מלאכה performed on Shabbos; even when done by a non-Jew. Simple. You are in a completely dark room, someone comes in and turns on the light for you -- thus enabling things that were heretofore impossible (reading, for example) -- you have to leave the room. Simple; I mean, you know, more or less simple in the grand scheme of halacha; which is never simple. Check out this TftD for more on that topic, as well as a bonus story! This, however, is simple: It is much worse to benefit from a  מלאכה performed on Shabbos by a Jew, which is an actual violation of Shabbos. That is the bare halacha. Now, of course, is when the fun starts. There is a well known difference in opinion regarding unscrewing plastic bottle caps and breaking the seal on Shabbos. The issues are actually quite interesting and depend on some subtle halachic principles. Not for now. The dayan, R' Fuerst, shlita, is stringent and rules that it is fo...

I eschew cute titles. But if I didn't, I likely would have called this one: Lending a Hand On Shabbos. It turns out that using your hands to move stuff around is more interesting than you would have thought. (I am pretty safe there, even if you never thought about it at all, since anything is more than zero!) Masechta Shabbos does not begin with a listing of the 39 categories of forbidden labor. Neither does it start out by describing the beauty and radiance of Shabbos. It starts with a poor person begging for food and a well-meaning homeowner trying to help him out. The mishna details situations under which one or the other would be guilty of a capital offense, one or the other would cause the other to commit a capital crime, and situations they would just get whipped for rebelling against Chazal. How's that for an attention grabber? Let's start with the bare halacha. The home owner is in a רשות היחיד/private domain, and the poor person is in a רשות הרבים/public domain. N...

Of course I know the dictum of R' Akviva, לעולם יהא אדם רגיל לומר כל דעביד רחמנא לתב עביד/a person should always accustom himself to say that everything HaShem does is for the good. I have even written a TftD about it. I do my best. Still... often it feels like HaShem is giving me challenges to overcome. Of course I get stronger/wiser/better, so the result is good, but the actual challenge feels more like a burden. Take my 50 years in the workforce, for example. It certainly taught me the value of time. It taught me that I needed to keep learning more things if I wanted to stay working and getting raises. I needed to come up with creative ways to make time for learning (around my work schedule), and exercise to stay healthy (around my work schedule), and find ways to eat kosher economically (in the workplace). Many of those skills have transferred to my new workplace and schedule. I still get up early to learn and daven; so now I have more time during the day. I still keep up m...

Last night I merited to make a siyum on Masechta Brachos. I started learning Brachos when I retired from work and started learning in the Peterson Park Kollel. I learn it with Rashi and the Rosh. I do not have a chavrusa, so I am careful to write down thoughts and questions as part of learning. I was told by R'  Siegel , shlita, that when learning without a charvursa, that is imperative; otherwise it is too easy to fool yourself. Honestly, though, I also have the support and encouragement of the entire kollel. Since I have learned the entire masechta there and because I have received so much support and guidance, I asked the Rosh Kolllel, R' Yosef Rachjenbach, shlita, to be allowed to make the siyum at the kollel. The Rosh Kollel not only agreed, but insisted we make the siyum at his home! Synopsis follows. First, the siyum was after the 10:00 PM ma'ariv. That means the siyum started at about 10:20 PM. The only time I remember being up that late and out of the house was las...

This is not going to be exciting, but I've had a grin on my face all morning. I finally had a breakthrough in my understanding of how nullification/ביטול works with חנ''ן/the chunk becomes carrion, and cookware. Just to make this even more tempting, there will be an analogy with database administration. Still here? I've given you fair warning. I completely get that one ounce of milk that falls into less than 60 ounces of ground beef is not nullified. That means that when we cook this, we will now have just under 61 ounces of non-kosher "stuff". The technical term for that non-kosher "stuff" is נבלה/carrion. Why? For a Jew, any animal that is not slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law is considered as if it simply died; no better than roadkill. Next time you are at Jewel and see all that red meat selling for a fraction of the price of kosher meat, just picture them driving along the highway, picking up any animal carcasses they find, cutting them i...

It would be impossible to voluntarily work together on any project for 12 years without developing a close relationship. I have merited to learn the entire tractate Bava Kama of the Babylonian Talmud with a chavrusa. Tonight we had a beautiful סיום/siyum surrounded by family (his family was more than half of the minyan!) and friends. As I was preparing for the סיום/siyum, I began wondering why we make a big deal about a siyum masechta, anyway. Isn't each word of Torah a mitzvah? What is different about completing a masechta than just just learning more words of Torah? On the heels of that thought came an even more basic thought... what is a masechta, anyway? The first mishna in Makkos is a continuation of the last mishna of Sandedrin. (Well... depending on how you number the chapters; which itself is a bit of a wonder.) Most masechtas have a name that tells you about the main topic: Shabbos is about Shabbos, Yoma is about Yom Kippur, Sukkah is about Sukkos, Megilla is about Purim, ...

Have you ever heard the expression, "hoisted by his own petard"? A "petard" is a small bomb or explosive device. The phrase implies that someone is lifted (blown up) by their own invention, thus being hurt by their own creation. I would like to offer a new dimension of the meaning of this expression. But first, of course, the back story. In this week's parasha, קדושים תהיו (I am done with transliteration; for awhile, anyway) we learn that one of the ways that we become holy is to בצדק תשפוט עמיתך/judge (members) of your nation justly. Chazal explain that verse comes to instruct us (in addition to the plain meaning, which is an exhortation to judges) to give everyone the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. All the parasha pages will be replete with inspirational stories of how giving the benefit of the doubt, and even searching for how this or that could go from sin to mitzvah (hmm... my done-ness with transliteration didn't last long). I am not going to ...

I had wanted to write about this a few weeks ago when I heard an(other) incredible shiur from R' Ezriel Cziment, shlita on parasha M'tzorah regarding the mitvah to refrain from Lashon HaRah ... but it was erev Shabbos and I was busy and I ran short of time and I was tired... I know, I know... excuses, excuses. Let me try to redeem myself. This week's parasha (or part of it anyway), K'doshim T'hi'yu (pretty good transliteration, no?) contains, I discovered, the mitzvah itself! (I should have already known that, right? I agree... I'll just keep reading and reviewing till I finally get it!) לֹֽא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ ויקרא יט:טז/You shall not go around as a gossipmonger among your people There is a well known medrash: A peddler went through the streets shouting, “Who wishes to buy an elixir of life?” R' Yannai, who was engrossed in his Torah study, asked to see his wares. The peddler said to him, “For you, I have nothing.” Upon R' Yannai's...

One of my favorite Dogbert lines of all time is, "If it weren't for lack of context, there would be no news." You don't have to know who or what Dogbert is too appreciate that line. There is a conservative Christian speaker who goes around to college campuses to challenge their liberal ideology and is a big supporter of the State of Israel. I saw a clip recently of a college student trying to prove to him how bad the Jews are by quoting statements from the Talmud to him. This speaker just sidestepped the issue by saying that he didn't believe the Talmud had any authenticity, but he loves the Jews. Yay. I think, though, that we need to know the kind of charges that are being leveled and know how to answer them. Not to engage with them, but to quell our own doubts. I don't have any doubts at all that everything we have recorded from Chazal is a precious gem. But to really appreciate a gem you need to know what makes gems beautiful and then examine them. Then ...

Do you know what a חבורה is? Until a few weeks ago, I knew that חבורה translates to "group". I have also heard of people learning in small groups to focus on a topic or sefer, like Mishna Brura. I think that a study group like that is also called a חבורה. So when my grandson asked if I knew what a חבורה was, I said, "Yes". He said, "Great! Then you can teach this to me and help me write it up!" and he handed me a packet of sources. It turns out that in this context, חבורה means that a bachur will delve into one point the gemara is making and research how some rishonim (sages from the time of Rashi and the Rambam) and acharonim (sages from the time of the Vilna Gaon and Chasom Sofer), and even more recent sages analyze and develop the ideas in the gemara. The only thing I could compare it to in my experience was reading science journals as a graduate student. Ah. I acceded to his request (of course... I mean, he is my grandson) with one small change: Not ...

Part of the job of parenting is helping your children with their homework. That job gets rebranded as a perk when you are a grandparent. Extra benefit -- your children/their parents get some relief. Win-win-win situation if there ever was one! I would like to share a bit of what I learned with one of my granddaughters about Shabbos and how we as a nation relate to it, as explained by R' Shimshon Pincus. The foundation of the presentation is that we treat Shabbos as an entity with independent existence, opinions, desires, etc... that is, as a אישיות/personality. We are so used to it that we don't even think about it. We don't receive Pesach or Sukkos or Purim or Chanuka. The time comes for them and we celebrate them with the requisite kiddush or megillah reading and/or appropriate candle lighting. They are deep, meaningful, important, and fun; but they are, when all is said and done, events on the calendar. We also don't really -- and please read the rest of the paragrap...

Is your blood more important than your heart? Would you rather keep your lungs or your skeleton? These, contrary to what teachers often tell students, actually are stupid questions. One without the other is less than useless. Try to separate them and you lose everything. There is one Torah, of course. Even though we have and even use the terms תורה שבכתב/Written Torah and תורה שבעל פה/Oral Torah, one without the other is not Torah at all. As discussed more in this TftD , where you will find some examples. I realized there is another example that goes further to show how they are interconnected and how the combination is much greater than the sum of its parts. We are prohibited by Torah decree to cook meat with milk, to eat meat cooked with milk, and to even benefit from meat cooked with meat. You will find all of this detailed in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, simanin 87 through 97; 11 simanin, 63 s'y'fim. I started learning that section of Shulchan Aruch when I retired, just over...