Aspaqlaria

Keeping Torah and Values in Focus

Aspaqlaria Blog

Science and Halakhah 0

Pesach / Science and Torah

Science and Halakhah

I think many discussions of the gemara about rice not producing chameitz head in the wrong direction. The definition of chameitz isn’t entirely scientific. After all, if you mix wheat flour with 100% apple...

How To Religiously Respond to the Pandemic 0

Theodicy

How To Religiously Respond to the Pandemic

So many others wrote about THE correct way to respond to the CoVID-19 pandemic, how could someone like myself — Micha Shmuel — named for not one but TWO nevi’im not join the fray...

Matis! 0

Yahrzeits

Matis!

40 years ago, parashas Pinechas, my bar mitzvah peshetl at Shabbos lunch was about the contrast between Pinechas’s extremism and that of Shim’on and Leivi. That peshetl was written by a master of thoughts...

Rav Hirsch, Rav Yisrael and Me 0

Dei`os / Ta`amei haMitzvos

Rav Hirsch, Rav Yisrael and Me

I was very “into” Rav Hirsch’s worldview as a bachur. The symbol system explains so much. Don’t mix meat and milk because for an animal, the only creativity is procreativity, it’s in who it...

תפילה לזכות לאור ולאהבה 0

Dei`os / Tefillah

תפילה לזכות לאור ולאהבה

תפילה לזכות לאור ולאהבה רבי אלימלך מליז’ענסק A Prayer to Merit Light and Love by Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717-1787, one of the early rebbes of the Chassidic movement) This prayer, written by the...

0

Theology

Omniscience and Free Will

There is no conflict between Hashem Knowing now what we will choose tomorrow, and our ability to makes that choice freely when tomorrow comes. Hashem does not Know now what will will do tomorrow.

Coping with the Death of an Infant 0

Theodicy

Coping with the Death of an Infant

(This post began life as a comment on an article on Torah Musings, ” When a Baby Dies” by Rabbi Gil Student.) What I held on to through the experience had at least two...