Avodah
- [Avodah] Die! October 22, 2024. I was struck by the grammar of Devarim 32:50, where Hashem tells Moshe Rabenu, "Die on the mountain which you are ascending..." According to my verb lists, the very first word here, "u'moos" , is in the tzivui (imperative, command) tense. Many mitzvos are phrased in the imperative tense, such as "Sh'ma - Listen!". […]
- [Avodah] wine October 21, 2024?The sugar of grape juice can only ferment to 3 or 4% alcohol with wild yeast ? airborne yeast. For grape juice to exceed 4% alcohol, then the winemaker must add yeast. The yeast added to ancient wines produced between 4?11% alcohol. Alcohol kills these yeast cells and prevents levels of alcohol from exceeding ~10%. […]
- [Avodah] Birchat Cohanim October 20, 2024Interesting 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 […]
- [Avodah] Mincha October 16, 2024R' 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 […]
- [Avodah] Mincha October 13, 2024Serendipitously, 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 […]
- [Avodah] Wine October 13, 2024Some 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 […]
- [Avodah] How to commemorate something October 13, 2024. 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 […]
- [Avodah] Wine October 13, 2024RJR 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 […]
- [Avodah] Mincha October 11, 2024This 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 […]
- [Avodah] Mincha October 11, 2024On 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 […]