Michael el Chayil

I had forgotten to bring my Shabbos tallis back to shul since our return from visiting the grandchildren in Florida (we have children there also, but I only travel for grandchildren).  Being as it was Friday, I decided to drop it off on my way to work... by bike... in my shorts, helmet, and whatnot.  I got there before the throng of after davening learners had left.  They are all my friends, so of course the all gave my (good natured) grief about coming to shul dressed like that.  On the heels of the ribbing we all agreed, of course, that being embarrassed by the way he is dressed is no excuse to miss a minyan. Halacha mandates that (besided t'fillin) a man should wear a tallis gadol and be dressed as one would for a formal meeting (I interpret that to mean as I would dress for a job interview).  Now, no matter how beautiful his suit and hat are, he can certainly wear them into the bathroom.  On the other hand, no matter how chintzy his tallis gadol is, h...

Pretty much, people pouring milk into hot meat stew are not calling the CRC.  The people calling the CRC are more likely to have just stuck a dairy spoon into a meat pot in which they are cooking broccoli.  Let's explore that, shall we?  As usual, we need some background. You know good and well that when you call the rav with that question, his  first question is going to be, "Did you cook anything fleishig in that pot in the last 24 hours?  Did you use that spoon in any hot dairy in the last 24 hours?  Was the broccoli host when you stirred it?"  Why is he asking that?  Heat facilitates transferring taste.  Therefore, if you cooked something in the pot or stirred hot milk with that spoon, then taste has been transferred.  The Torah forbids eating foods that have intermingled taste of milk and meat.  So... when you cooked the broccoli, you caused a transfer of  meat taste from the meat taste absorbed in the pot.  When yo...

When Klal Yisrael first came to Eretz Yisrael (nee K'na'an), Moshe Rabeinu decided that sending spies first was a good idea.  As we all know -- especially as we enter into the dark period of our year known as "the three weeks"; that decision was a disaster.  40 years later, Y'ho'shu'a also decided to send in spies before entering the land.  While everything turned out fine this time, many wonder why he took a chance like that, given the distressing historical precedent four decades earlier.  The Malbim has a lengthy piece on that topic, but the basic answer is that even though the execution was similar (spies were sent both times), the motivation and intent of the operation were completely different.  In a nutshell, the spies that Moshe sent were looking to see if entering the land was a good idea, whereas Y'ho'shu'a's (yikes that's a lot of apostrophes!) spies were looking for the best way to enter. Almost 40 years ago to the day som...

I have learned how to deal with the hordes of hawkers who stand at Thompson Center downtown (Chicago, dude, Chicago) at lunch time; this one for food, this one for Green Peace, this one for... well, you'll see.  I run into them as I am walking to (and sometimes from) mincha.  I don't engage them, but neither do I avoid them.  My only interest is to get to mincha (or back to work); but if they accost me and invade my privacy, I have a ready answer.  To food hawkers I simply query, "Kosher?"  To Green Peace and Save the Children I request, "Please walk with me and explain why this is important."  To which they respond, "I can't."  I then call back, "Ah.  Well if it is not important enough for you to walk a few steps with me, then it's not important enough for me to stop."  The most pointed rejoinder I have received to that is, "Oh yeah!?" That is how I came to have a "conversation" with Planned Parenthood volu...

You should never stick a milchig spoon into a bubbling pot of cholent.  But in case it does happen, you know can always refer to the TftD on that topic understand the issues.  I even covered the case for both s'fardim and ashkenazim.  I only mentioned the case of sticking the same spoon in twice, since that's the case of the Shulchan Aruch.  A chaver of mine noted that two is not just an example, but is the max.  My first thought was that he was mistaken.  Before I replied, though, I decided to investigate further.  I did and I found that my first thought that he was mistaken was actually mistaken.  Hence today's TftD. Where did my mistake start?  The comparison to the t'ruma case.  T'ruma, the mishna tells us is בטל in 100 (not 60).  Suppose you have 100 oz of Kedem grape juice and 10 oz of t'ruma grape juice.  If you drop one oz of t'ruma into the bottle of Kedem, no problem; it's בטל.  Now suppose you dro...

I had a boss who was a fanatical atheist.  He saw it as his life's mission to stomp out religious belief.  He once came running (yes, running) into my "office" (four temporary partitions with a door) with a wild look in his eyes and squealed, "So... you can't eat pork.  Right?"  I affirmed.  "And you can't eat any  amount of pork.  Right?"  I again affirmed, then added, "Of course, if it is less than one part in 60 it is considered nullified and there is no problem eating it."  The gleam went out of his eyes and his whole countenance darkened noticeably.  His plan, he explained with sadness, was to say it was impossible to know if some molecule of pork (there is no such thing, of course, but he was already defeated so why rub it in?) had landed somehow gotten mixed with my food.  "Ah." I said, "No, nullified is nullified pretty much for the reason you said.  Except, of course, there is no such thing as a molecule of por...

I made it to work today in just over 40 minutes of bike travel time (that is, not including time spent waiting for signal lights at intersections).  That's 14.3 mph.  I had mixed feelings on pulling up to the parking garage gate; both exhilaration and trepidation.  Exhilaration at having achieved my best time so far.  Trepidation at the thought of trying to beat or even reproduce that time.  I had the wind at my back, hit several traffic lights just right, and was not blocked by blokes on Divvy bikes.  I wonder if I'll ever again find myself with a confluence of all those external factors  and  feeling physically capable of pushing harder than before. Of course, that's the nature of any endeavor to improve.  Each achievement become the new bar by which future achievements are measured.  It is very difficult, therefore, feel pride in any given achievement; both because it depends on so many external factors and because, frankly, I am no...

One of the favorite proofs used by college students who have had a couple of beers and don't really want to deal with any issues anyway (after all, they are in college, right?) that they can dismiss belief in a  supreme being goes like this: "Well, can your alleged supreme being (I know you  would capitalize that, but I am 19 and more enlightened than you) make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?  Whether he can or can't, I have just proven that there are things beyond his ability.  I have just swept away all religious ignorance with one easy question.  Let's have another beer." As with most things, easy challenges are easily deflected.  The short answer is that he really asked, "Can anything be both perfect and imperfect?"  The answer is "no".  I wrote up a more detailed answer and explanation , but for now I just need one idea: HaShem can't be surprised.  I, on the other hand -- being more imperfect than I really care to admit, a...

I have three children, I was/am a very involved father.  I have survived three teenagers; a fact that I use to explain to coworkers why I am so calm at work.  After all, no matter what happens, no matter how unreasonable people are, it just can't compare to what can happen and how unreasonable a teenager can be.  I therefore had not the smallest reservation about babysitting four of my grandchildren for one Sunday afternoon.  Over the four hours and 47 minutes that I was the lone adult, though, I learned a new level of chaos management.  True enough that I have seen plenty of chaos and unreasonableness with my own children, but I never before experienced the quantity  of chaos and unreasonableness than can be generated by four children from one year to six years old.  I gained new respect for my daughters and a new appreciation for how fragile my veneer of calm really is. There is a mitzvah to love every Jew.  If you really love someone, of cour...

Now that you know much more about wheat and flour than you ever cared to know , here's one reaons that knowledge is important.  Rye bread is actually made from a mixture of rye and wheat flours (1:2.5 in one recipe I saw).  (And therefore?  I hear you wondering...)  Rye and wheat are not generally harvested at the same time of year; moreover, harvests are earlier in the southern part of the country (where it gets warmer sooner) than the north.  (Sigh... and therefore?)  Well, then, a bakery could very well end up making a rye bread dough that is about 30% rye from last year and 70% what from this year.  (Please have mercy... and therefore what, for crying out loud?) So here's what: Challah is a kind of תרומה.  When you have stuff that requires תרומה to be taken, it is considered a forbidden food until you actually separate a small portion as תרומה.  That small portion of תרומה can only be eaten by a Cohein (though we don't do that now-...

I was once listening  to R' Yisrael Belsky, ztz"l, giving a shiur on Iyov and in the middle he asked if anyone knew the two enzymes present in the stomach .  When no one knew, he banged on the table (shtender?  how to tell over mp3) and exclaimed, "Do you you think I just looked that up for this shiur?  I know that because I am interested in understanding as much as I can about the wonders of the Creator!  Why aren't you?"  (The enzymes are pepsin -- to digest proteins -- and gastric lipase -- to digest fats.  Cows and such also have the enzyme renin in their fourth stomach.) That struck a chord in me as there is one area of science that I have always avoided -- botany.  I just couldn't see what was interesting about plants.  Then I started listening to R' Dovid Cohen's excellent shiurim on the CRC web site.  I heard a few on topics I thought would be interesting, found it all interesting, so finally started listening to one that I abs...

Keeping שמיטה  is difficult.  Those farmers in Israel who observe shmita are certainly to be praised.  One of the basic approaches is known as היתר מכירה, literally "permission via sale".  The idea is that only land own by Jews in Eretz Yisrael is subject to the restrictions of the שמיטה year (at least at the Torah level).  The היתר מכירה is executed by selling the farmland to non-Jews for the year (or two, because an early disagreement about to calculate the שמיטה year).  Then it is -- for all practical purposes -- business as usual.  There are a myriad of details regarding the details of farming and distribution needed to properly observe שמיטה even with the היתר מכירה, but that's not the focus of those TftD © (as if anyone cares...).  It is interesting to explore exactly how the היתר מכירה is executed from a halachic perspective. R' Cohen from the CRC has an excellent explanation that breaks the issue down into four simpler iss...

All us male Jews are accustomed to seeing returnees/travelers from Eretz Yisrael lining up after the Torah reading on Mondays and Thursdays to "bentch gomel".  Why on Mondays and Thursdays?  Why isn't there a corresponding line of women on the other side of the m'chitza?  Should women bentch gomel, and if so, when and how?  Enquiring minds want to know, inquiring minds will actually put some effort into discovering the answer.  First, of course, we need some background (the enquirers will likely check out now). The Shulchan Aruch (O.Ch. 219) mandates that who emerges alive from four dangerous situations -- חבוש/imprisonment for a death/life sentence, יסורים/life-threatening illness, ים/crossing the ocean/sea, מדבר/crossing a dangerous wilderness -- is obligated to formally thank HaShem for his miraculous salvation.  (Flying over water falls into the perilous journey category.)  You can remember them by the acronym חיים/life, of co...

I just listened to the third of R' Fuerst's shiurim on preparing from one day of Yom Tov to the next (or from Shabbos to Yom Tov or vice versa... all the same question).  The basics are are well known: it is forbidden to prepare from one day of Yom Tov to the next.  But why? To get to why, let's start with an interesting חידוש of the Chayei Adam: one is permitted to take food out of the freezer on the first day for the second day, but only as long as the food is taken out early in the the day, but not close to sundown.   Hang on there, quicks draw.  If that's called preparing (and there is not apparent reason to think it isn't), then why is it permitted at all?  On the other hand, if that is not  called preparing (we'll need to understand why not), then what difference does it make whether it is early in the day or close to sundown? First let me forestall answering: "Heck!  It's not no work at all and barely takes a few seconds."  That doesn...

"It's not fair!"  If you have ever been around two year olds, you've heard that more times than you can count.  If you've ever been two years old, you've said it more often than you can remember.  If you have the emotional maturity of a two year old, you've thought (and sometimes even said) that embarrassingly often in the last hour.  (Guilty, I am afraid...) But just between you and me, we really do expect that the Creator of the World will treat us fairly; right?  I mean, He surely owes me that!  (Grumble, grumble, ok... fine... He doesn't really owe  me anything, but, ya know... really He should ...)  In point of fact, the Torah does treat us fairly.  The Torah never demands the impossible from us.  Chazal actually have two ways to express this idea. On the one hand, אנוס רחמנא פטריה/the Torah absolves you of punishment for any unavoidable wrongdoing.  For example, Yehuda is having stomach issues and so can't put on תפילין on...

When still in the infant stages of becoming frum (I am now my early 20s; old enough to finally know that I don't know that much), we would occasionally take the children to Chuck E. Cheese.  They didn't eat the pizza (eventually...), but their were loads of games for them to play.  To play the games required token (I may still have some around the house) and some even paid out in tickets.  Those tickets were fungible -- inside the Chuck E. Cheese store, any way; the kids could buy key chains, jacks, stuffed animals, etc. I like that idea as a parable for this world.  Every morning upon leaving beis medrash, there is highly recommended custom to remind ourselves of what we are doing in this world.  Part of that reminder is: We work hard and they (the goyim) work hard.  We get paid and they don't.  The Chafeitz Chaim asks: What do you mean?  They also get paid!  He asks and he answers: True, they get paid for what they produce, but not for th...

Subtitle: The role of observational science in halacha. The task to prove that all odd numbers are prime is given to a group of scientists.  The mathematician says, "3 is prime, 5 is prime; by induction all odd numbers are prime."  The physicist says, "1, 3, 5, 7 are prime.  9 is not prime... hmm... 11, 13 are prime.  Seems that 9 is an outlier/experimental error."  The chemist says, "1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11... all prime, so I guess all odd numbers are prime."  The biologist says, "1 is prime, 2 is prime, 3 is prime, 4 is prime.  What's the question?" I bring this up for a few reasons.  First, a physicist always looks for opportunities to show disdain for the fact that people include biology as science; we look at them as observers and classifiers.  Important, but hardly science.  (I know I'm going to get in trouble for this...)  Secondly, though, look at the way the task was framed: prove all odd numbers are prime.  The task sho...

According to the Torah, forbidden foods are usually nullified in a majority.  If one pound of Oscar Meyer wiener goo gets mixed with one pound, one ounce of  /cRc/בד''ץ all beef hot dog goo, then the whole mess is 100% kosher; דאורייתא, that is.  (Ever looked into how hot dogs are made?  Calling it "goo" is bending over backwards being nice.)  Of course, דרבנן you will need more like 60 times as much kosher as non-kosher.  דרבנן you also can't nullify something that will be kosher soon (such as new wheat in old wheat), nor a piece of something that you would serve to an honored guest (such as a rib steak).  In all those cases Chazal added stringencies to keep us distant from making mistakes. In that vein, they gave us another rule: אין מבטל איסור לכתחילה/do not set out to nullify a forbidden substance.  If it happens, it happens and בטל is בטל; just don't plan ahead to be sloppy with the idea that "oh well, it will be בטל anyway b...

My grandson (a recent nursery school graduate with the certificate signed by more people than signed my Ph.D ) gleefully told me that once someone becomes a Jew he can never go back to being a goy.  He had been learning, of course, about Ruth before Shavuos.  (Sorry about using her goyish name, but I can't figure out a good transliteration of רות -- Rus/Ruhs/Rüs/Rʌs/...)  Since he is not quite five, we haven't taken that deep dive into his ייחוס (or lack thereof; we sometimes refer to it is our yechuss).  I just said, "Yes, honey, I know." One of the problems of the whole story, though, is precisely when did Ruth convert?  It seems hard to imagine that Elimelech or (maybe "all the more so") his wife Naomi would allow their boys to marry non-Jewish girls.  Yet, if Ruth and Orpah did convert before marrying, then how does Naomi have the right to even attempt to send these two Jewish girls back to their family homes and religion of idolatry? ...

My granddaughter started to open an umbrella one Shabbos.  I told her we don't do that on Shabbos and she replied, "It's ok, Zeidy; I use the eiruv."  Very cute; adorable, even... coming from a five year old.  On the other hand, I once saw someone carrying and umbrella outside on Shabbos.  When he saw the look of surprise on my face, he gave me the same response (sans the "Zeidy" approbation), "It's ok; I use the eiruv." I didn't find it cute nor adorable, but perhaps there is a לימד זכות?  Which brings us to the topic du jour. There is a mitzvah, many hold that mitzvah is from the Torah, to judge every Jew favorably, aka: דן לכף זכות.  On the other hand, it is said in the name of R' Yisrael Salant that the first mitzvah is to not be stupid.  When is one obligated to find a לימד זכות and when is one obligated to not be stupid?  And what difference does it make? I started thinking about this after hearing a shiur from R' Dovid ...