Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
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- Chemdat Yamim
- Ein Ayah
Ein Ayah: Concealed ideals are apt to come through hidden causes. It is well-known that social interactions impact on a person’s spirit both for good and for bad. It is a new idea that other living things also impact a human’s behavior when they are in his proximity.
To understand this, we must realize that even when man influences man, it is not just by means of the visible actions and words they interchange, but by a spiritual process through which someone good improves the spiritual environment around him. Likewise someone evil casts shadows of evil on those around him. This type of spiritual impact can be accomplished even by an animal, especially those with an inclination toward a relationship with mankind; the dog is unique in this regard. A dog has a lowly spirit, and a vicious dog is antithetical to kindness. Therefore, a vicious dog impacts a house spiritually, holding back the light of kindness.
This type of relationship with a dog, with its unseen impact, is unnatural to Jews. Our nation has always been hesitant to raise dogs and even put restrictions on it (see Bava Kama 79b). However, due to the level of connection between humans and dogs, which finds expression in a Jewish home as well, they can impact on a Jewish home. We should be careful about this impact, as is hinted by the fact that a foreign (Greek) name of a dog is found in the pasuk.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
