The Rebbetzin's Husband

I had an entirely different topic on which to post today, but I am so annoyed with the end of the Forward’s latest Agriprocess piece and th...

As always, please read this with a gemara in front of you; it won't make much sense without it. Or you could skip to the less technical ...

[ Warning: If you are on a shul board - particularly mine - you may wish to stop reading here. ] I would guess that most of us don't bel...

[ This week's Haveil Havalim is here . ] Jennifer Finney Boylan, in a New York Times Op-Ed entitled The XY Games (8-3-08), discusses th...

As always, please read with a gemara in front of you. It will just make more sense that way. Gittin 15b The gemara discusses netilat yadayim...

Some ten years ago I visited a good friend in the hospital; she was recovering from a life-threatening operation, and we talked about her tw...

I always feel odd publicizing Tisha b'Av rules and schedules far in advance; it seems so antithetical to our hope that Mashiach will com...

A wise rabbi once advised me that I would have to choose between “rabbinic social work” and a more intellectual rabbinate. The more I see, t...

I'm staying near the Convention Center in Philadelphia for a couple of days, so I walked to Mikveh Israel for shacharis (more appropriat...

I'm away from my home computer – in Philadelphia while my wife, the eponymous Rebbetzin, takes an exam here – and so I can't type in...

I was visiting Frume Sarah’s World when I noticed, in her sidebar, a link to a Blog Rating site . They use the MPAA ratings code to label b...

As always, read with a gemara in front of you. Or, you could just skip it, of course. 7a The gemara’s contention that Gd protects the righte...

Yesterday, I went to Weis to buy challah. When I got to the checkout, though, the cashier made me what you could call a counteroffer ( yes, ...

Running a small Vaad haKashrus (kashrut certification agency - like my own LVKC ) is, generally, un-fun: Your clientele rarely see a signifi...

Since Part I was popular, I thought I would post some of the source material I distributed when I taught a class on the topic of Synagogue ...

All right, I'll put up some notes on Gittin, but most of these are technical and will only be of interest to people who are learning Git...

[ Haveil Havalim is here . The new Kosher Cooking Carnival is here . ] I recently heard about a synagogue that was clamping down on its dres...

The other day I caught a line from Pearl Jam’s “ Wishlist ” – “I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on.” That, combined with som...

בת בבל השדודה אשרי שישלם לך את גמולך שגמלת לנו אשרי שיאחז ונפץ את עולליך אל הסלע I have reached a nadir moment I would have hoped never to r...

I’m not sure whether I will post notes for Gittin; we’ll see. But here’s the end of Sotah, best examined with a gemara in front of you. 49a ...