Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Shabbat and Holidays
- Jewish Holidays
The Jewish summer is divided into three distinct periods of time. The first one in which we are now engaged is from Shavuot to the seventeenth of Tammuz. This is usually the most pleasant time of the summer, weather wise and mood wise. It still has the anticipation and excitement of summer plans present and the chance to wind down and appreciate life and its blessings in spite of its problems and disappointments. It is the season for weddings, family visits and trips and vacations. This first enjoyable part of the summer reaches an almost abrupt ending with the advent of the seventeenth of Tammuz and the period of mourning for the destruction of the Temples and the Jewish exile. In the Ashkenazic world no weddings are then solemnized until after Tisha B’Av and enjoyable occasions and trips are minimized. The Sephardim begin their period of commemoration mourning on Rosh Chodesh Av or on the week in which Tisha B’Av itself falls. In any event this second period of the summer is the low point of the season for Jews, heavy with memory, angst and an aching sadness. This period of time does allow us to assess what we do have and the progress that we and civilization have made over the past nineteen hundred and thirty eight years since the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem but it also poignantly points out to us the distance in the road that we have yet to travel to make good that loss. The final period of the summer from after Tisha B’Av until Rosh Hashana is already a busy period of time. Elul marks the beginning of the season of the High Holy Days, schools reopen (hopefully on time this year) and the pace of life picks up in anticipation of the great and holy days that lie immediately before us. The end of summer brings with it a sadness related to departing time coupled with a heightened anticipation of the new year and its potential blessings and accomplishments. The knowledge that the great holidays are just beyond the horizon is the true comfort for the otherwise sad departure of summer, its warmth, beauty and relaxed mood. The Jewish calendar of the year is truly a work of Divine genius. It is meant to give humans the greatest benefits of bounty, pleasantness, anticipation and meaning. I think that it certainly accomplishes that goal in a most efficient and wise manner. It is a further example of how the Torah is the book of human guidance and challenge.
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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
