Divrei Chaim

If for some reason a person cannot light menorah, there is a takanah that he can recite the bracha of she'asah nisim when he sees someon...

The miracle of ner chanukah is that even though there was not enough oil for eight days, it was not an obstacle to lighting.  So too in our ...

Yosef has a dream in which he sees his brothers harvesting sheaves of wheat, "v'hinei kamah alumasi v'gam nitzavah ," and ...

  וַיָּ֥שׇׁב אֶל־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַיֶּ֣לֶד אֵינֶ֔נּוּ וַאֲנִ֖י אָ֥נָה אֲנִי־בָֽא׃ Rashi explains:  אנה אני בא – אנה אברח מצערו של אבא.   ...

19 Kislev is known in Chabad as the Rosh haShana of Chassidus, as it is the day the Alter Rebbe was freed from prison in 1798. The Baal haT...

1) The Midrash writes that Yaakov feared Eisav because Eisav 1) remained in Eretz Yisrael and 2) was able to be mekayein kibud av during Yaa...

A person goes through periods of gadlus ha'mochin and periods of katnus ha'mochin, ups and downs.  קָטֹ֜נְתִּי מִכֹּ֤ל הַחֲסָדִים֙ ו...

The gemara (Menachos 89) derives from the words " mei'erev ad boker " that menorah needs to have 1/2 a lug of oil per ner so t...

At the very end of last week's parsha, when Yaakov was on the road out of Charan, he came to a "machaneh Elokim," an encampmen...

One of my kids asked me whether the "purpose" of the mitzvah of marriage is so that one can fulfill peru u'revu, or whether it...

One of my go-to sites for pandemic information is Kevin Roche's healthy-skeptic site.  He sticks to the data and evidence and avoids th...

At the beginning of the parsha we read that Yaakov took stones and put them around his head as he slept on the road to Charan.   The gemara ...

The Sefas Emes (5650) writes that in the entirety of Vayeitzei there is no parsha break (stuma or petucha).  Yaakov blasted through the 20+ ...

If you have 9 butcher shops selling kosher meat and 1 selling trief, and you bought a piece of meat but are not sure which store you shopped...

Two quick thoughts: 1) The Ritva in his commentary on the Haggadah (on the section where we quote the pasuk . ..v'eitein l'Yitzchak ...

Rashi (25:30) writes that Avraham died 5 years before his expected time so that he should not witness Eisav going off the derech: שאותו היום...

  וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הַקֹּל֙ ק֣וֹל יַעֲקֹ֔ב וְהַיָּדַ֖יִם יְדֵ֥י עֵשָֽׂו If the kol was kol Yaakov but the yadyim indicated that it was Eisav, then ...

 וָאֹמַ֖ר אֶל־אֲדֹנִ֑י אֻלַ֛י לֹא־תֵלֵ֥ךְ הָאִשָּׁ֖ה אַחֲרָֽי׃ Rashi notes that the word  אֻלַ֛י here is  written chaseir, without the vuv, ...

Shitas haRambam (Milah 2:1) is that a katan can do milah.  Where did the Rambam get this from?  R' Chaim Kanievski cites the gemara (A...

Sanhedrin 108b writes that there were 3 different factions involved in building the tower of Bavel.  One group wanted to go upstairs and fig...