Tag: person

Yaakov Avinu received word that his brother Eisav was coming to greet him. He understood fully well that this was not to be a warm family reunion. Eisav came accompanied by a band of four hundred armed men, bent on revenge. The Torah says Yaakov was “very frightened,” so he prepared for war.

The inhabitants of Yerushalayim were exceptionally clever. Rabi Chuna said in the name of Rabi Yose, “Wherever this Yerushalmi went in the provinces, they arranged a seat of honor for him to sit upon in order to listen to his wisdom.”

When Rabbi Berel Wein began working for the O.U. kashrus division, he shared an office with Rabbi Alexander Rosenberg a’h, the founder of the kashrus division and its administrator for thirty years.

In addition to karet, there is another type of premature death at the hand of God known as “mita bedei shamayim.”

“Tell Bnei Yisrael, “These are the creatures you should eat.” – Vayikrah 11:2 Chovos Halevovos (Sha’ar Avodas Elokim 3) explains that Hashem created man out...

Question: During Kriat HaTorah, many congregations recite a general prayer for ill people. What is the source of this custom? Also, in many congregations, instead of the gabbai announcing each name, all of the shul’s members are asked to silently say the name of the ill person to themselves while the gabbai remains quiet for several moments. Is this proper?

MK Aryeh Eldad held a meeting with dozens of activists and supporters of the Hatikva Party at its Tel Aviv headquarters on Monday night. MK Eldad represents Hatikva in the National Union Faction.

At least one person has been reported killed and several injured in the collapse of lighting for a stage being assembled at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem for Rememberance Day ceremonies.

Each morning at about 7:10 a.m. my mother, still in her housecoat and slippers, would wake me for school. One wintry Monday morning I opened my eyes to see her leaning over my bed. She was in hat and coat and her hands were cold from the weather outside.

After months and months of rebellion, Pharaoh finally admitted he was wrong. The Dos Zakainim explains that the plague of barad moved Pharaoh more than any other. And it was because of one factor: Moshe had warned him that the hail would kill anything living. Again and again, Moshe cautioned Pharaoh to take his livestock and his slaves inside. Because Pharaoh was repeatedly warned to save the living creatures, he was moved and recognized his error.

Is Halakhic Judaism rational and rooted in reality, or is it a hypothetical construct unconducive to engaging the real world?

At the conclusion of this week’s parshah, the Torah discusses the halachos of one who stole from another. The pasuk says, “veheishiv es hagezeilah asher gazal – and he shall return the stolen object that he stole.” We derive from this that there is a mitzvas assei to return a stolen object.

Like other chassidic dynasties, Bobov was not immune to one day experiencing a schism. When Rabbi Naftali Zvi Halberstam, the fourth Bobover Rebbe, died in 2005, a dispute arose over who would succeed him. Some chassidim sought to appoint his younger half-brother, Rabbi Ben Zion Aryeh Leibish Halberstam, as the next rebbe; and others sought out the fourth rebbe’s sons-in-law: Rabbi Mordechai Dovid Unger as the rebbe, and Rabbi Yehoshua Rubin as the Bobov rav (serving as head of the bet din and as the posek).

Outside the battered wall of the kindergarten, we met with registered nurse Carol Simantov, from Levittown, Pa., who has seen up close the wages of this war. But to my surprise, she harbored no resentment, not even anger. Instead, she spoke wistfully about her friends back inside the Gaza strip, who are suffering under the yoke of the Hamas government.

What's more important - love or money? Let's hear what a 90-year-old woman sitting in front of two elevators in a nursing home had to say. I asked her, "If both elevator doors opened at the same time, and out of one came the richest man in the world, and out of the other came the nicest man in the world, who would you want to marry?" She thought about it for a good while and then answered, "Both of them."

The act of temurah, consecrating another animal in place of an already consecrated animal, incurs the punishment of malkot - lashes. This is somewhat surprising. There is a halachic rule that a prohibition that does not involve an overt act does not incur the punishment of malkot – “lav she’einbBo ma’aseh, ein lokin alav.” Why then does a person incur malkot?

Question: When we pray, are we requesting or demanding that God fulfill our wishes?

Thus far, Romney has received the votes of 494 Republican delegates to Santorum's 251, while Gingrich trails far behind with 131. A candidate needs 1,144 delegates to win the Republican nomination.

The real question is "What is happiness?" We seem to be a very unhappy generation. Even when we say “This makes me happy”, “I am happy”, “I would be happy if you would do this”, “I will be happy to do that”, do we really mean happiness? Do we even know what happiness feels like?

It wasn't a biggie, really, I've been called worse. When my wife heard what Rush had been calling me, she said she wasn't surprised. So maybe it wasn't even such a bad thing that Rush did, maybe he even meant it as a caution, so I would go ahead and mend my loose morals. But here's the funny thing, as soon as news came out that Rush insulted me, people started empathizing with me and writing Rush's advertisers to stop sponsoring him because of what he said about Yanover.

Purim is my favorite holiday, and I love to share the joy. I have spent previous years wandering around my neighborhood in costume. This year, I fully intend to celebrate with full cheer, and I want everyone to know why I plan to spend the day in costume, singing Shoshanat Yaakov at the top of my lungs.

These are excerpts from the sefer Inside Purim, which contains additional answers to the following questions and much more.

Some days you just have to love Israelis, who take time out of their busy schedules to express their love thine enemy thing online.

We are forgetting the lessons of the churban Beit HaMikdash, how we were not finished off by Rome, but destroyed ourselves through mindless hatred and zealotry. We bled each other dry through violence and bigotry until we were weak enough for Rome to come in and step all over our broken bodies. Rome did not defeat us - we defeated ourselves.

‘He Uttered Hashem’s Name In Vain’ (Temurah 3b)

In this concluding column I would like to focus on the big question so many have asked: Since our faith teaches that every person has a soul mate – bashert – designated by Heaven, how is it that so many cannot find their partners?

Dear Dr. Respler: I disagree with the January 27 letter writer, Desperate Single Woman, who wrote that the frum, older singles scene is easier on the men. Well, I am a man who desperately wants to get married and start a family.

When a person is called a gaon, it is because he is a great scholar, a genius in the Torah. But many of our gaonim, besides their greatness and their scholarly acumen, were also gaonim in their deeds. Their kindness towards their fellow man was unsurpassed.

Dear Dr. Respler: I will never forget the following situation that happened to me in high school: Some of the boys picked on a boy who behaved inappropriately, causing the boy to feel terrible about himself. The rosh yeshiva, hearing about the situation, spoke to a few boys separately. I was one of those boys.

A person’s reputation precedes him. A bad reputation prejudices any chance of a successful encounter. Damaging a person’s reputation is tantamount to booby-trapping human relations before they can blossom into happy relationships.