Qitzur Shulchan Arukh – 62:9
ט:צריך למדוד ולשקול בעין יפה, שיהיה עודף על המדה, שנאמר, איפה שלמה וצדק יהיה -לך. מה תלמוד לומר וצדק. אמרה תורה, צדק משלך ותן לו – בבא בתרא פח: חושן משפט סימן רל”א סעיף...
Aspaqlaria Blog
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh – 62:8
ח:כתיב, לא יהיה לך בכיסך אבן ואבן גדולה וקטנה, לא-יהיה לך בביתך איפה ואיפה גדולה וקטנה, אבן שלמה וצדק יהיה-לך, איפה שלמה וצדק יהיה-לך וגו’. ותבת בכיסך וכן תבת בביתך, נראות לכאורה כמיתרות, ודרשו...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh – 62:7
ז: המודד או שוקל חסר לחברו או אפילו לנכרי, עובר בלאו, שנאמר, לא תעשו עול במדה במשקל ובמשורה – ועין לקמן סימן קפ”ב סעיף א’ וסעיף ד’. וענש המדות והמשקלות קשה מאד, שאי אפשר...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh – 62:6
ו: מותר לחנוני לחלק קליות ואגוזים לתינוקות, כדי להרגילם שיקנו ממנו. וכן יכול למכור בזול יותר מהשער, כדי שיקנו ממנו, ואין בני השוק יכולין לעכב עליו A store-owner may give out seeds and nuts...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh 62:5
ה: וכן אסור לערב מעט פרות רעים בהרבה פרות יפים כדי למכרם בחזקת יפים, או לערב משקה רע ביפה. ואם היה טעמו נכר, מתר לערב, כי הלוקח ירגיש Similarly, it is forbidden to mix...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh 62:4
ד: מי שיש לו איזה דבר למכור, אסור לו ליפותו כדי לרמות בו, כגון להשקות בהמה מי סבין שמנפחין וזוקפין שערותיה כדי שתראה שמנה, או לצבוע כלים ישנים כדי שיתראו כחדשים, וכל כיוצא בזה...
9/11 and How to Effect Permanent Change
(Significantly expanded in response to writing on the subject for Yashar, the magazine of The Mussar Institute. -micha) I The most powerful High Holidays experience of my life was eight years ago. A week...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh 62:3
ג: הנושא ונותן באמונה, אינו חושש לאונאה. כיצד. חפץ זה בכך וכך לקחתיו, כך וכך אני רוצה להשתכר בו, אע”פ שהוא נתאנה בלקיחתו, וכל המתאנה אינו רשאי להונות אחרים בשביל זה, מכל מקום זה...
Tanakh and Allegory
Someone on scjm asked the following question: Mainly for those who think some of the tanach is parable Tanach parable or historical? How much is parable & how much is historical? all parable? parable...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh 62:2
ב: כשם שיש אסור אונאה במשא ומתן, כך יש אסור אונאה בשכירות ובקבלנות ובחילוף מטבע Just as there is a prohibition of cheating in buying and selling, so too there is a prohibition of...
Qitzur Shulchan Arukh 62:1
סִימָן סב – הִלְכוֹת מַשָּׂא וּמַתָּן Chapter 62: Laws of Buying and Selling א: צריך לזהר מאד שלא להונות את חברו. וכל המאנה את חברו, בין שהמוכר מאנה את הלוקח, בין שהלוקח מאנה את...
How Should I Respond? — Part II: Email from Agudah
I received the following in my email box. I am heartened to see that we as a community are seeking constructive response. I am writing to friends and supporters of Agudath Israel to call...
How Should I Respond?
When they gossip in Vilna, they desecrate Shabbos in Paris. – Rav Yisrael Salanter Some take Rav Yisrael Salanter’s causality to be metaphysical. I don’t think that fits R’ Yisrael’s general approach to life....
Parashas Matos and Kol Nidre
My neighbor, R’ Eli Radinsky, recently drew the following similarity to my attention. There is an obligation to begin add time to Yom Kippur, an obligation true of Shabbos and every holiday, but happens...
Finding Spirituality
R’ Rich Wolpoe shared with us on Avodah this challenge: My friend’s thesis is that Judaism w/o Qabbalah or Hassidus is mechanical and lifeless. And so he challenged me as follows: To List aspects...
TiDE and Slabodka
(The previous post was off topic, but on the blog. This post is on topic, but posted elsewhere.) Rabbi Rich Wolpoe posted to the Nishma blog an exchange we had by email. Here are...
Natural Morality and Halakhah
What’s the relationship between a human’s intuitive sense of what’s moral and halachic mandate? There is a tendency in some circles to describe the Torah as though halakhah was the sum total of the...
1984, NewSpeak and the Holy Language
A long while back I wrote some thoughts on the dispute between the Ramban and the Rambam about what makes Hebrew the holy language, in the context of a general dispute over the context...
How Great Are Your Works
Not my usual speed for a blog entry, but I saw this and was nispael (awed). It’s a video of what does on within a cell. How much Divine Wisdom there is in just...
Emergency Doors
My current employer is meticulous about hanging mezuzos. He hired a rav who is an expert in this particular mitzvah, and he went around identifying every doorway. (Some of which are non-obvious, like where...
Halakhah and Phenomenology – Chazaqah
At this point we’re so far mid-stream, that unlike the previous post, I’m not going to summarize the basic thesis or even pretend to try to translate terms already used. Instead, I will just...
Aggadic Stories, History and Halakhah
Someone raised on Avodah the following question (see the posts listed here under two different subject lines, “Kinyan on Shabbos??” and “Kinyan on Shabbos? (Har Sinai)” ). The first Shavuos was on a Shabbos....
Of Qorbanos and Flowers
I’m curious to know how many of us who believe we’re supposed to want a restoration of the sacrifices actually anticipate it. I must confess that I’m too 21st cent for that, and generally...
Halakhah and Phenomenology – The Unperceived
Back on April 6th, I posted my previous entry to this series. The notion I’m exploring here is that: (1) Halakhah is about changing the one who performs it (as the Chinukh puts it...
Hod shebiGevurah
Given that we’re a little shy on prophets right now, we have to find G-d’s word as He relays it as the Author of history. Looking at these “coincidences” He allows to crop up....
R’ Moshe Feinstein: Blessing the sun – and a child
The following was outright copied from Da’as Torah, a blog maintained by R’ Daniel Eidensohn (who, among other things, is the compiler of Yad Moshe, the index to Rav Moshe Feinstein’s responsa, “Igros Moshe”)....
Halakhah and Phenomenology – The Actually Perceived
In the previous post, I presented the idea that The Chinukh repeatedly explains various mitzvos by explaining “ha’adam nif’al lefi pe’ulaso — a person is affected according to his action.” Contemporary hashkafos differ over...
Halakhah and Phenomenology – The Very Small, Tastes and Birkhas haChamah
The Chinukh repeatedly explains various mitzvos by explaining “ha’adam nif’al lefi pe’ulaso — a person is affected according to his action.” Contemporary hashkafos differ over what halachic life is supposed to cause, whether the...
Speaking Yiddish
In the US today, when someone needs to pay for a ride to get somewhere, someone in the house may wait by the window to see when it arrives. And then they’ll call out...
Osniel ben Kenaz
אמר רב יהודה אמר רב בשעה שנפטר משה רבינו לגן עדן אמר לו ליהושע שאל ממני כל ספיקות שיש לך אמר לו רבי כלום הנחתיך שעה אחת והלכתי למקום אחר לא כך כתבת בי...
What Exists?
Bishop Berkley said that “reality” is a set of inputs G-d feeds into our souls. In His compassion, he allows us to work together by giving us consistent worldviews with each other. Which is...
“A Greater Obligation”
Just sharing a couple of posts from the blog “A Simple Jew“. A Greater Obligation Footnote in the Artscroll Kitzur Shulchan Aruch: See Mishnah Berura 1:12 and Shaar HaTziyun 26 who cites Chayei Adam...
Different Approaches to Creation
[Modified Feb 6, 2005: References raised on an Avodah discussion added. [Modified Feb 5 2009: References to later essays added. -mi] I know of a number of approaches to evolution vs creation in Jewish...
Infinity and Thought
A little transfinite math as a prelude to the main point: Georg Cantor divided the concept of infinity into a number of subtypes. The number of integers (whole numbers) he called אo (read: alef-null)....
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