Michael el Chayil

If you have already heard of תדיר ושאינו תדיר תדיר קודם -- frequent and not frequent, frequent first -- and are surprised by the title, you are welcome to skip to the end, but please hear me out. If you are not so familiar with the topic, let's start with a short introduction. In those cases where two obligations come up for a single event, this rule determines which comes first. For example, in bentching there are additions for both Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh. On Shabbos Rosh Chodesh, you will perforce say one before the other; halacha neither requires nor even condones speaking different things out of both sides of your mouth. The rule of תדיר ושאינו תדיר תדיר קודם tells you to say the addition for Shabbos first, and then the addition for Rosh Chodesh. This also comes up in the chapter of psalms we say after morning prayers. The extra psalm for Rosh Chodesh -- which is said 18-ish times a year -- comes after the daily psalm -- which is said 52-ish times a year. What about לדוד/Psal...

Sundown is still a bit late for R' Schwimmer's Friday night chumash shiur at the Tessler home, but we are getting close. We are also between Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur, which is an excellent time for some honest and significant soul searching. That being the case, R' Schwimmer graciously agreed to give a short shiur last Friday night on Shabbos Shuva. If you were there, you may want to just move on, as my summary is not going to approach the inspiration you have already received. If you were not there, then I hope this sparks your interest enough to make going to the shiur a regular part of your winter Shabbos evenings. The shiur started with two questions on the time in which we now find ourselves. One is something I have contemplated for years and I believe is a relatively famous topic. Namely, why do we have the Day of Judgement first and then 10 days later the Day of Atonement. Any reasonable person would much rather work out a deal before going to court. Going to co...

I am not known for being subtle. That also means that subtle messages often pass me by, way under my radar. When I hear the same message -- nearly word for word -- from two different shiurim one right after the other, even I sometimes notice. There is a mitzvah to do תשובה. That means to confess your past bad deeds, regret them, abandon them, and accept with full sincerity to never repeat them. What would you say is the main part of that? I would think that abandoning one's bad ways, regretting them, and accepting never to do them again. After all, if we don't change, have we done תשובה? If I don't regret the sins, have I really changed? Confession? Pshaw... there is a religion that has little booths for confession.  They are sort of like telephone booths, but more dark and cramped, and only for extremely local calls; through a little opening to an adjoining booth. You tell the priest, whom you can't see and you hope he doesn't recognize your voice, all the bad thin...

Funny story. For years we have not eaten grapes on ראש השנה. (Funny story within funny story, I couldn't decide how many "n"'s and whether to put an "h" at the end of the transliteration of ראש השנה; so I punted and decided to just leave it in the original.) We didn't eat grapes, because I had been told that the Vilna Gaon (I'll leave that one alone) said we shouldn't eat grapes on ראש השנה. Why not? It's a secret 😉; you know, kabala stuff. (No final "h", one "l"; sigh...) I thought this was well known. After all, if I -- who did not grow up in the Orthodox Jewish tradition -- know something, then everyone must know it. Fine, fine, that is getting less true as I get older, but still. Anyway... We are, בעזרת השם , having guests for the first day of ראש השנה and they wanted to bring a Waldorf Salad -- which happens to include grapes and walnuts. (My wife knew that, not me.) Of course, we all knew that the walnuts would have...

I have been giving a weekly shiur on Sefer Chafeitz Chaim for some time. Just last night, we finished the sefer. Minutes after the shiur  concluded, I received two different emails inviting me to online presentations about the Chafeitz Chaim, whose yarhtzeit is today, 24 Elul. Amazing coincidence, no? The last syef, 15, of the last siman, 9, of Hilchos רכילות, which follows a slightly larger section on Hilchos לשון הרע, begins with an all too common scenario that the Chafeitz Chaim uses to demonstrate just have fast and how deeply a relatively parve situation can dive into the murky waters of רכילות ולשון הרע. Near the end of that example, the saintly Chafeitz Chaim explains how one should act in that situation. Then, for the last paragraph, the closing thought and message, that same saintly Chafetz Chaim seems to take a sharp left turn. ודע/Now know that everything we have written in this sefer regarding the great care one must take to stay away from the sin of לשון הרע is re...

Have I mentioned how fortunate I feel to be learning in the Peterson Park Kollel? The mishna in Avos (4:2) says it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox. Besides all the talmidei chachamim who learn full time, there are lots of ba'alei batim (talmidei chachamim in their own rights) who spend a portion of their day in the kollel. In the mashal, I am barely the tip of the tail of the lion; and I feel very fortunate to be there. As one of those ba'alei batim was leaving, he left me with a question: Why don't we say thank you to HaShem on Rosh HaShannah for everything that He has done for us since last Rosh HaShannah! I had an inkling of an answer, but the question was so good that I just wanted to enjoy it for a while. I thanked him as he was running out and then I spent some time contemplating that apparent gaping omission. The truth is, the Mishna Brura, siman 112, addresses that question from a different angle. In shmone esrei, we are allowed (and encour...

We live in a world of GUIs -- graphical user interfaces. I grew up in a world of CLIs -- command line interfaces. I like CLIs. You tell the computer what to do; it does it. Simple. GUIs are, well, gooey. The programmer decided the best way for you to accomplish your task, and now it is his way or the highway. Just follow the rules, push the right buttons and you'll be fine. (Let's be honest  -- there are no buttons; just spots on the screen where that same arrogant programmer put a graphic of a button.) Sometimes, though, even that GUI expert has to come down off his high horse and actually explain something. That, I find, is when a lot of problems start. People are so used to "touch and swipe" that they read some of the words. Then when something goes wrong, they exclaim, "Hey! My phone isn't working! Why did it do that?" As bad as it is to skim the words in a pop-up alert, it is nothing compared to skimming a Biur Halacha. I think it is fair to say tha...

When we first moved to Dallas, we told the rabbi, Rabbi Aryeh Rodin, shilta, that we would like to "upgrade" our level of kashrut to the community standards. That is, we felt we were keeping kosher (we were not, of course), but wanted to be sensitive to other people's (in our mind, unnecessary) stringencies. You know, stringencies like looking for a hechsher when the ingredients on the label seemed just fine. Buying kosher cheese, even though we knew it was made with vegetable rennet. You know, stringencies. Rabbi Rodin came over and started by telling us, "There is nothing magic or mystical about kashering. The basic rule is that you get it out the same way it got in. Pots that always used with liquid for cooking, were to be kashered with hot water. Something that was used with dry heat -- like a roasting pan and the oven grates -- had to be kashered with (high) dry heat. Simple. I was very impressed and it changed my perspective on kashrus and the kashrus industry....

Let's take a look at the annual cycle we experience. The Three Weeks culminating in Tisha b'Av itself are accompanied by three special haftaras reminding us of our situation. Following that we have seven Shabbosim of consolation, also with their special haftaras; so special, in fact, that they even override the haftara for Rosh Chodesh Elul. We then have the Days of Awe; ten days of repentance beginning with Rosh HaShanna and concluding with Yom Kippur. Five days later, the season of our joy, Sukkos! Many years ago, I had the merit that R' Matisyahu Soloman, z"tzvk visited me at home; more on that visit in this TftD . I saw a two volume set of מתנת חיים, writings by R' Matisyahu Soloman, z"tzvk  on the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. Of course, I took a set right away. (I already have מתנת חיים on the Pesach Hagadah.) R' Solomon begins by noting that this annual cycle -- suffering and mourning, then consolation, then repentance and forgi...

Nothing can quite make you feel as old as quoting a comic strip that is unknown to your listener. When I spoke to a group of college students, I knew better than to refer to Doonesbury (even though it is still around). I thought I was safe, though, with Dilbert. Nope. Sigh... Anyway,  on strip that is spot has Alice, the female engineer, looking for a better position in the company. The rule in companies, by the way, is that when you want to promote an internal candidate to a new position, you often need to post it, just in case there are better qualified candidates than the one you want to promote. The idea is sound, but when the manager just words the requirements in such a way that only one person fits. In the Dilbert example, Alice reads the job description: near-sighted, has a red pickup truck, and answers to "Bob". Dilbert notes that "they probably have someone in mind"; Alice still contemplates if she could make it work. (I have seen -- and even written -- jo...