Benefitting From Chillul Shabbat Many living on the east coast ask about their watching on Motzaei Shabbat, a baseball game being played on Shabbat on

Megillat Esther Not surprisingly, our guide to political involvement in a non-Jewish government is Megillat Esther. It teaches us when to include ourselves and when

A Beautiful Inquiry On Sunday, I received a beautiful halachic inquiry from a woman who converted through the rabbanut-recognized GPS system that morning. She counted

The 12 Lines It is well-known that a get (Jewish divorce document) is always 12 lines long. Rav Melech Schachter even told me that a

Marijuana Versus Alcohol Whenever someone asks a rabbi about the halachic priority of marijuana use, he cites Rav Moshe Feinstein (Teshuvot Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah

 Chizkuni’s Explanation of Jewish Suffering The Chizkuni to Devarim 4:32 makes a powerful insight. If one wonders, he writes, why the Jewish people are subject

Few Excuses There are precious few valid excuses to miss the upcoming NORPAC in-person mission to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 10. It is the

Submitting Torah Observance to a Test The Torah (Devarim 6:16) presents a fascinating prohibition to refrain from testing Hashem. Ramban (to Devarim 6:16) explains that

Small Numbers of Jews Judaism has the lowest number of adherents of all the world’s major religions (see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations). Our numbers are dramatically

Just as one cannot learn to drive, swim or perform surgery from reading a book, conversion candidates cannot understand how to experience Yom Tov by

Keil Kana Describing Hashem as a “Keil Kana—a jealous God” in Parshat Ki Tisa (Shemot 34:14), seems unflattering. Avot 4:21 states that jealousy, (unbridled) desire

Why does the halacha devote so much attention to the “small” issues? It is understandable to focus much energy on resolving matters of life and