Michael el Chayil

Before you start to wonder if I was abducted by aliens... No, I am still the guy who gets a haircut when his wife lets him know that he is not welcome in the house until he gets his haircut. It turns out, though, that committing to getting a haircut has serious halachic ramifications. The mishna (Shabbos 9b) starts with: A person may not sit down in front of the barber close to mincha until he davens. Rashi explains that "sit down in front of the barber" means "to get a haircut."  Let's think about that. Rashi did not get paid by the word. Rashi is everyone's rebbi in how to most succinctly explain a topic. We all marvel at how Rashi is able to open up and explain a topic with so few words. Rashi always is either pointing out an essential feature you may have missed or stopping you from heading down the wrong path. I racked my brain trying to figure out what else I could have thought the mishna meant by "sitting down in front of the barber" other t...

I spent the majority of my childhood in the 1960s. They were tumultuous times. I was too young to be an active participant, but I was an observer and I have certainly seen how those events shaped history for decades to come. My wife and I were traveling through Memphis and decided to visit the National Civil Rights Museum , which takes you through the centuries of history and ends at the room in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. It was intense and enlightening on many levels. That Motzei Shabbos we wanted to visit the music district and we happened to get a Lyft driver who was a very nice black lady. She asked us about our stay. I mentioned the visit to the Civil Rights Museum. She asked about my impressions. (My wife was already nervous at that point.) I told her that I grew up in California where the schools were never segregated and how shocked I was by just how bad things had been in the South. I asked her if things are all good now? She said there ...

I was in St. Louis. We had a nice dinner at the local kosher Indian restaurant that was in the neighborhood near the shul. We got to our hotel on the other side of town; apparently השגחה was not operating when I chose the hotel. I got up in the morning to drive to the Agudah to daven k'vasikin alone, and then finish davening with a minyan. They don't have a vasikin minyan; oh well, I guess השגחה was still not operating. I set the destination into my GPS and started driving. Something seemed odd. The night before the GPS had taken us from the restaurant straight to the freeway and the hotel was just a couple of blocks from the exit. That morning, though, the route was along city streets for a while and then to the freeway. I decided to just double check that I had set the destination correctly. I pulled over a couple of intersections before the freeway entrance I was directed to take. Yup... destination correct, so I pushed "continue with trip" on GPS. The route had ch...

This week's parasha is עקב. The word has a few meanings, but in context it means "because of"/"due to"/"as a result of". The first few verses tell us that as a result of harkening to, safeguarding, and performing the משפטים/laws that HaShem has commanded, HaShem will keep the covenant that He made with you, and will show you the kindness He promised to your ancestors. And He will love, bless, and multiply you. And He will bless the fruit of your soil -- grain, wine, and oil. And He will bless your flocks. And He will love you above all other nations. And neither your nor any of your cattle will be sterile nor barren nor ever miscarry. And He will remove all sickness from you. And He will take care of your enemies by giving them the kind of diseases you knew about in Egypt. That is a pretty fair offer, no? One might even say more than fair. Now the more usual word for "because of"/"due to"/"as a result of" would be בגלל or ...

I have done two things this week that were entirely new experiences for me. One, I just completed the topic of הוצאה/moving an object from one domain to another in masechta Shabbos. This time was different, because it is the first time I have learned a gemara by topic instead of by daf. That is, instead of just moving through the gemara page by page, I skipped from the end of 9a to the 11th chapter, הזורק. Now that I have finished the topic, I am going back to 9b. Doesn't sound like a big thing to you? It was very strange for me to leave all those unturned/unlearned pages to jump up to Chap 11. In fact, once I started, it became clear how beneficial this was, as the topics from the first 7.5 daf, which are largely untouched in the intervening pages, are all over the place in the 11th chapter. Why did R' Yehuda do that? No clue. But I do see why that's the way it is learned in kollels. Live and learn. Here's my other new thing: I made a siyum on 8th Av with a chavrusa wh...

We all know that the diaspora thought which we are currently suffering is due, at its core, to שנאת חינם/baseless hatred. We all know, as well, that the way out of this stifling, prolonged diaspora is אהבת חינם/baseless love for each Jew. Wouldn't you think that we should go out of our way to greet each and every Jew we see with enthusiasm? Especially to a Jew who doesn't know about Tisha b'Av. I mean, wouldn't that seem to be a better idea than with the downcast eyes and weak, "Hi... but we don't really greet each other on Tisha b'Av", that halacha requires? A partial answer might be similar to the answer I received many years ago when I first learned about Tisha b'Av. I wanted to know if I could learn Mesillas Yesharim on Tisha b'Av. After all, I reasoned, what better day for character improvement than on Tisha b'Av itself? I was told that no, I could not learn Mesilas Yesharim because it is full of p'sukim and teachings from Chazal; ...