The Introduction to the sefer Sha’arei Yosher by Rabbi Shimon Yehudah haKohein Shkop zt”l! In just a few pages, Rav Shimon describes nothing less than our purpose in life, what holiness is, the way to happiness, how to be kind, and more.
Interesting new book: The Priceless Treasure of Bircas Kohanim by Naftali Weinberger. (Full disclosure ? R? Weinberger?s father is a friend). On page 153 he recounts the efforts of the GRA and R Chaim Volozhin to reinstitute daily duchening in ashkenaz and the seeming divine intervention (jail and fire in the bet medrash) that were […]
R' Allan Engel wrote: > Serendipitously, I found an answer to this question in my Yom Kippur > machzor yesterday, quoted in the name of R' Chaim, the brother of the > Maharal MiPrag, in his sefer Iggeres HaTiyyul. See also Teshuvos Emunas Shmuel from R' Aaron Samuel Kaidanover. BTW The language of the Rambam […]
Serendipitously, I found an answer to this question in my Yom Kippur machzor yesterday, quoted in the name of R' Chaim, the brother of the Maharal MiPrag, in his sefer Iggeres HaTiyyul. The scan of the page can be found here (lower paragraph): https://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/machzor-why-minchah.jpg G'mar tov to all, ADE On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 at […]
Some of you may know that one of my pet peeves was that I was taught that the reason that wine was watered down in talmudic times was because wine was much stronger back in the day In my Latin lessons at school we learned exactly the same about Roman wines, that it had to […]
. I would like to posit two areas of halacha where, logically, we ought to commemorate a certain thing in a certain way, but we actually commemorate it in a very different - perhaps even diametrically opposite - way. The first is Lechem Mishne. By rights, someone who eats bread on *Erev* Shabbos ought to […]
RJR asked about the wine in Chazal's times, which was said to be too strong and require dilution, and yet we meanwhile know that wine did not have a higher alcohol content back then. Bim'hila, but I think that a common fallacy is behind the question: That dilution was needed because alcohol content was too […]
This morning, at 9:59am EDT, I wrote: > On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 08:38:39AM -0400, Joel Rich wrote: > > How do you think the various prayers got their names? This doesn't > > fully satisfy me. > > I think it's just a time marker. The afternoon Minchah was a daily > mandatory […]
On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 08:38:39AM -0400, Joel Rich wrote: > How do you think the various prayers got their names? This doesn't > fully satisfy me. I think it's just a time marker. The afternoon Minchah was a daily mandatory qorban immediately before the Tamid shel Bein haArbayim. (Just as the morning Minchah […]
In Avodah V42n68, RAMiller wondered why the *chasimah* for "Shofaros" mentioned *t'ruah* but not Shofar. Back in 2016, in a private message related to a M-J V63n3 reply of mine , I noted a Roedelheim-print footnote to the "Areshes..." for "Shofaros" which might be of interest to RAMiller and/or the list -- you can see […]