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Hefker is a “term of art” in the Talmud, as we say in the legal world. That means it’s a word with a very precise meaning that may not line up exactly with how it’s used colloquially; not a word to throw around lightly. You mean exactly what it says. For instance, trespassing has a […]

Ah, summer. When perfect strangers start getting very “concerned” about your clothes if you dress in a tznua way (“tznius” is the most common way to say that, but that’s technically the wrong grammatical form – it’s about time I used it correctly on this blog). This happens to both men and women, though it’s

An interesting controversy has hit the media this week that might be confusing to you, if you’re new to the orthodox community. The Israeli wine maker Barkan was outed as moving their Ethiopian-Jewish workers out of the parts of the wine process where they might touch the wine. It turned out this was a requirement

In the interest of safety, I advise all of you to avoid any contact with Rabbi Ephraim Bryks as part of your conversion. There are reports that he may be trying to work with conversion candidates through his privately-created beit din and even runs a mikvah out of his home.  Conversion candidates are at an extreme

Shabbat is over. It’s Saturday night, Motzei Shabbat! You’ve probably eaten 4 meals in the last 25 hours (dinner, maybe breakfast, maybe kiddush at synagogue, lunch, dinner again – we say three meals are halachically required, but your body also counts breakfast and kiddush and any snacks in between.) You look famished. You should eat

If you’re at all like me, you spend a lot of time quietly hoping no one will notice that you’re not singing along.  via GIPHY I’m not good at songs. Or singing. But I could be better, and I’m trying. Really only because now I feel an obligation to teach my children to be the

“B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll be there.”  “B’ezrat Hashem, we’ll see you over Pesach.” “The party will be on Sunday, b’ezrat Hashem.” Gdwilling. That’s all it means.  Literally defined as “with Gd’s help,” b’ezrat Hashem is a common phrase sprinkled in conversation. It can technically be used anywhere in the sentence where an interjection would be appropriate.

Before jumping into the meat of the matter, there’s a big question: are you actually meeting with “the beit din” or just the representative of the beit din? If this is your first meeting, you will almost certainly only meet with one person, the Av Beit Din most likely. And this is what we’re going

The practice of saying the bracha of Modeh Ani when you first awake in the morning is one of the easiest and hardest practices to take on when you’re new to orthodoxy. It’s short, can be sung, and you can literally do it while still laying in your bed (and you generally should). But you

Someone asked this question, and I thought it was an excellent one! The Daf Yomi cycle is approximately 7.5 years. The current cycle was started in 2012 and will end with a Siyum HaShas in January 2020. Then that new cycle will end sometime in 2027.  You can find a convenient Daf Yomi calendar here.