Additional Lessons

The Lost Computer File

What's the Ideal Life Style, Working for a Living or Just Learning?

One of the most basic questions is how should we strive to live? The differing approaches to this issue is seen to this day, whether just to learn Torah (as claimed by the Haredim) or to also merge work as an ideal, as proclaimed by the modern-orthodox or religious-Zionists. If one is a millionaire, and doesn't need to work for a living, perhaps nevertheless, he should work, if it's an ideal. This machloket is found already among chazal, but even in the time of R. Shimon Bar Yochai, who had claimed that just Torah is the ideal, he surprisingly & apparently changed his mind, and joined Torah vaAvodah! The Chatam Sofer also differentiates between those living in Israel, where work is a mitzva and holy, as opposed to work in the diaspora.

The Time and Place for Studying Jewish History

Ein Aya Shabat Chapter A Paragraph 69 (p1)

Rav Kook stresses the multiple importance of studying Jewish history, not as trivia or to correct errors but as G-d's appearance which we should emulate and actively participate.

Modernity And Tradition

How do we make kosher cheese?

Question 1: Is there a need for kosher cheese to cost such a premium over non- kosher cheese? Question 2: Do the Conservatives have any basis for their "heter" of permitting all cheeses?

Essentials of Tochachah - admonition

Is there a mitzvah to admonish someone when I know that he will ignore me or if there is a chance he will become my enemy?

The Torah is for all

It does recognize that there are different personality needs and differing societal mores. But the Torah was always the same Torah for all Jews. What was expressly forbidden in the Torah was forbidden to all and what was permitted was also permitted to all.

The True Saga of Charles, the “Kohen”

All his life, even before he was at all observant, Charles had known that he was a kohen. He knew that as a kohen he was entitled to the first aliyah when the Torah is read. When Charles became observant, he began duchening. He then learned about receiving pidyon haben money and began to envision himself wearing kohen’s garb and serving in the Beis HaMikdash. And so, Charles made it his hobby to study the laws that affect kohanim and particularly to know the gifts that they receive. Charles knew about many of the honoraria a kohen receives today, and also began studying about what kohanim will receive when the Beis HaMikdash will be rebuilt. Here are some of the laws he learned