Torah 948 articles

Two basic words appear in our literature to connote freedom. One appears in the Torah and other receives no mention in Tanach proper. It would follow that Chazal describe the essence...

A Jew whose Jewish ancestry goes back many generations can never die without heirs. The reason is that when there are no children the chain of inheritance goes upwards to the...

The Coming Week’s Daf Yomi by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz This essay is based upon the insights and chidushim (original ideas) of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, as published in the Hebrew...

A video I recently received of the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l moves me greatly. In those crazy dollar days, when a daily Sunday saw thousands of people streaming through Crown Heights to...

While the firstborn of a kosher animal is sanctified, and the firstborn of most non-kosher animals have no sanctity whatsoever; the donkey has an intermediate status. It is not sanctified, but...

The Coming Week’s Daf Yomi by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz This essay is based upon the insights and chidushim (original ideas) of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, as published in the Hebrew...

Spiritual metaphysics is never easy to rationalize. Our Western sensibilities may initially recoil at the remarkable notion of tumat leidah, the ritual impurity that commences precisely at the moment a mother...

The firstborn male offspring of any kosher animal (of the category known as B’HEIMA, domesticated animal, as opposed to CHAYA, “wild” animal – specifically, animals fit for the Altar) is sanctified,...

The Coming Week’s Daf Yomi by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz This essay is based upon the insights and chidushim (original ideas) of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, as published in the Hebrew...

A silent response is not always heroic. To wit, consider the following image (which does not require much imagination): A mother, in her dual role as criminologist has determined which child...