וַיֹּ�מֶר הָמָן, לַמֶּלֶךְ �ֲחַש�ְוֵרוֹש�--יֶש�ְנוֹ עַ�-�ֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּי� And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered and separate among the peoples... (Esther 3:8) D...

According to David Pouge writing here, Twitter is "just another Internet time drain." I suspected as much, which is why I stayed away from it and its older cousins like FaceBook and MySpace. (I already have too many Internet time drains, e.g. (a) this blog, (b)responding to obnoxious comments from m...

In an online discussion, someone lamented the fact that National Public Radio ran a long story about sexual abuse among Chasidim (or perhaps “Ultra-Orthodox” in general; the reporter was inconsistent). He wrote that NPR’s story seemed to imply that abuse was perhaps more common amo...

by Steve Brizel What Yisro Heard The Nesivos Shalom, as elucidated by R. Yitzchak Adlerstein, explains what motivated Yisro: link R. Asher Brander, based upon a comment of Rashi, exhorts us to emulate Yisro and always place our heads over our hearts, in our search for truth: link Yisro the “Outsid...

Notes from Limmud 2008 Seduction and Recognition in the Story of Judah and Tamar Rachel Adelman When the Talmud discusses what you can translate into Aramaic, it explicitly says you can translate this story... but the fact it needs to say so speaks volumes! What was the idea that motivated Tamar? Th...

R' Nasan Enshin is a kannoi (he doesn't vote in the elections etc.) who writes a weekly column in the Mishpacha magazine in Hebrew. This week he made the following point. He said that in the past Rishonim held points of view that today are considered heretical. He gave the example that a few (his la...

Subscribe to the Daily Daf Yomi Summary here. We now have a “less than ten minute� audio summary as well. The Gemora (Bava Kamma 16) cites a braisa: The spine of a deceased person becomes a snake after seven years, if he does not bow down for the modim prayer. Tosfos explains that this is measur...

Day 18 of the Gaza War, Tuesday, January 13, 2009 -- Daily sticky post, constantly updated. More liveblogging at IsraellyCool and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/muqata Keyword #GazaWar Note: Using the "Refresh" (F5 key) command in your Web Browser will show you the latest updates -- Refresh on an ...

Chanukah started off with a big BANG! The Shabbos before was snowy but inside was warm with friendship  and fun at the Langsners, just a few minutes away in Bayswater. Besides for a nice midnight wake-up on Shabbos morning (Shaina thought it was so fun to wake up in the middle of the night), we had...

After much deliberation, I decided to remove all of the comments from my post on Rabbi Cunun's heretical statement. Several of the commenters, including myself, made comments that shouldn't have been made. Since some of these inappropriate comments were made in the midst of valuable comments - and h...