In this week's Parasha Vayechi, there is a huge gap in the story. Ya'akov says he will tell his children what will happen to them at the end of days. Instead of revealing the plan of the final return to Israel, he blesses them. How can we explain this gap?
Can performing a mitzvah become a liability? What does it mean that I am doing something "bli neder?" "When I attended a Gemara shiur on Nedarim, I got the impression that performing hataras nedarim requires having a talmid chacham deliberate over the specific neder, until he concludes that there are grounds to release the neder. This seems to have no relationship to what we do on Erev Rosh Hashanah." "My friend Billy Nader says bli neder on almost everything. Is this being too frum?"
Before we begin, it is important to note that the word challah was used above to mean
two completely different things – the bread we serve on Shabbos and Yom Tov, and the
consecrated portion that we separate from dough. To avoid confusion, whenever I use the
term "challah" for the rest of the article, I will use it only to mean the consecrated portion.
In modern residences, many rooms are not entered via doors, but through entranceways.
Do these entrances require a mezuzah? In order to answer, we need to explain when a
doorway requires a mezuzah.
If one receives Torah without possessing humility there is a chance that after receiving it he will forget that a great yoke rests upon him to exert himself on behalf of the Torah, to grow and develop in Torah.