Divrei Chaim

In addition to athe nnouncement that it was the season to donate shekalim, rosh chodesh adar was the time bais din had to send out warnings ...

The Mishnayos in the beginning of the 4th perek of Eiruvin discuss the halacha if one left the area of his/her techum on Shabbos b'ones ...

R' Haym Soloveitchik made the whole notion of "mimetic tradition" popular in certain circles, yet mimeticism for its own sake ...

Matzas mitzvah must have "shimur l'shem matzah", with various opnions in rishonim from when that shimur must be done. If matza...

Tosfos in Bava Kamma 15 raises the question of why a woman is pasul to be a dayan, as there is no explicit miyut anyway that disqualifies he...

My friend Chaim Markowitz beat me to posting this Shev Shamytza on parshas Terumah - http://nefeshchaim.blogspot.com/2006/02/teruma-i-vayikc...

One of my daughters mentioned on Shabbos that she learned in school that if one does melacha on Shabbos one cannot have benefit from that wo...

When explaining to my daughter (age 8) that people in Brooklyn reside in a borough, not a city, she said, "Just like rabbits live in...

"Im ba'al isha hu v'yatza'ah ishto imo". Rashi asks the obvious question of what the eved's wife should have to do...

Beitzah 16 has a machlokes Bais Shamai and Bais Hillel regarding preparing for Shabbos. When Shamai would shop during the week, if he found ...

Today's daf in Yerushalmi (Kilayim 4) seems to draw a parallel between the halacha of tiltul min hatzad, indirectly moving a muktzeh obj...

Tosfos Pesachim32b asks why 1 stalk of wheat is sufficient to fulfill terumah on an entire haystalk when the Torah uses the term "nesin...

I would never run out of subject matter if I simply devoted this entire blog to refuting the spurious reasoning of certain writers, the tit...

For those learning Yerushalmi yomi, we just crossed the sugya in Kilayim of why the earth was punished for Adam's sin. One opinion says ...

Is there an ethical norm that exists independent of Torah, or is ethical behavior just a side-product of proper observance of the mitzvos? T...

My son has come home from school a few times telling me that his classmates believe evolution is a big hoax and the world cannot be older th...

Chazal darshen on "Borachu Hashem Mal'achav Giburei Cho'ach Osei Devaro Lishmo'a b'Kol Devaro", that this is a ref...

VaYishma Yisro. 1) Chazal and the meforshei chumash debate what drew Yisro to klal Yisrael, but whatever the answer, it is clear from the te...

In the next issue of Kallah Magazine (kallahmagazine.com on the web) I hope to have an article that relates to the personalities of Yosef an...

In yesterday's daf yomi in Yerushalmi (see the link to my BIL's website on the side for more info on Yerushalmi yomi) the gemara cit...