Today's Fresh Blogs...

• The Fast of the Ninth of Tevet

  Published: December 21, 2007, 11:42 am

  Tags: Jewish History, Halacha, Fast, History, Medieval, Rav, Tevet

  a Medieval Jew carrying wine for the Sabbath The other day I was reading an article that a good friend sent to me about the fast of the Ninth of Tevet. Although we don’t hold by it these days, according to Prof. Sid (Shnayer) Z. Leiman, “Scroll of Fasts: The Ninth of Tebeth,” Jewish Quarterly Review (n.s.) 74.2 (October 1983):

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• The Halachot of Festivus

  Published: December 23, 2007, 1:20 pm

  Tags: Holidays, Humor, Halacha

  Festivus is celebrated each year on December 23rd. For the uninitiated, Festivus comes from a Seinfeld episode in which George Castanzas father creates a holiday because he is sick and tired of the commercialism of the “holiday season”, you can read more about it here. What started as a sitcom plot point is now celebrated by many

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• Upsherin; It’s Finally Time To Look Like a Boy, Son.

  Published: December 25, 2007, 10:28 pm

  Tags: Torah, Philosophy, Halacha, Custom, Haircut, Halacha, Upsherin, Yosef

  is compared to a tree. The halacha ( Jewish law) is that we may not cut the fruit off of a tree for the first three years of its existence. Thus, we parallel the halacha for a tree’s reaping with the cutting of a young boy’s hair. Sounds nice? Yes, it is very beautiful and I fully support all those who do it. Interestingly enough,

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• The One Thing

  Published: January 16, 2008, 11:52 am

  Tags: Torah, Politics, Philosophy, Halacha

  When I hear someone who expresses an opinion that is to one extreme or the other, I tend to roll my eyes and dismiss it. No matter how important an issue, if you see no room for the other point of view you’re probably being led by an emotional or psychological bias. This is just as true with issues like abortion as it is with anything.

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• Genocide and Jews

  Published: January 9, 2008, 5:09 pm

  Tags: Politics, Community, Israel, Halacha, Darfur, Genocide, Rally

  Last month, there appeared in the Yeshiva University (YU) Commentator an article by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper titled, “Is there a Mitzvah to Prevent Genocide?” The piece talks about different halachic ramifications of allowing a genocide to happen without stepping in and the possibility of going to war over the killing of a community. A

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• Trembling

  Published: January 23, 2008, 5:20 pm

  Tags: Law, Community, Halacha, Movies, Gay, Greenberg, Orthodox, Taboo, Trembling Before God

  I recently came across a review for the 2001 movie, “Trembling Before G-d.” For those of you who are not familiar with it, the movie tells the story of several previously Orthodox Jews who are homosexual, and details their struggles with being gay and Orthodox. Many times, these people were essentially kicked out of their

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• Tu’Bishvat 2008

  Published: January 22, 2008, 9:02 am

  Tags: Torah, Jewish Holidays, 2008, Chicago, Devar, Halacha, Jewish, Torah, Tubishvat

  As I look out the window and see the blustering snow and watch the cold wind it is apparent that winter is upon us. No one would even consider the possibility of planting for spring or summer. This is not an outside time, it is a time to hibernate in our warm homes. Nevertheless in the Jewish Calendar it is Tu Bi'shvat (the New Year of Trees) and

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• Learning About Sex the Yeshiva Way

  Published: January 30, 2008, 10:55 am

  Tags: Community, Education, Halacha, Jewish Life, Yeshiva, Bais Yaakov, Disfunction, Dovid Orlofsky, Jewish Law, Kosher, Sex, Torah

  As secular society becomes more sexually open, the capacity for frum teens to be affected becomes greater. In order to combat this, Yeshivas and Bais Yaakovs have become stricter about the secular influences their students come in contact with. Secular music, entertainment and dress are all taboo, and all because of how they relate to sex.

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• The Wisdom of the Ancient World Gets Some Good Press!

  Published: February 7, 2008, 10:17 am

  Tags: Torah, Tech, That S So Cool, Philosophy, Jewish History, Halacha, Ancient, Classical, Jewish, Knowledge, Math, Middle Ages, Pythagoras, Slate, Sukkah, Talmud

  An article in Slate Magazine from April 10, 1998, by Steven E. Landsburg, discusses the way in which modern economic theory backs up the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud. How I stumbled across this article about a week ago I really don’t remember, but I’ve been thinking about it constantly ever since. I just think this article is

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• Wig Store Banned: This is the stuff Horror movies are made from…

  Published: February 9, 2008, 10:52 pm

  Tags: Law, Community, Philosophy, News, Halacha, Jewish Life, Yeshiva, Ban, Brookly, Sheitle, Wig

  I was doing some “Jewish website web-surfing” and came across an article on Yeshiva World about a sheitle (wig) store being banned for putting up pictures of women. Lets clarify: Pictures of women from the neck up, wearing sheitles. This happened in Brooklyn across from the Yeshivas Chaim Berlin.I can’t believe our world has come

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• The 71 Sided Die

  Published: February 18, 2008, 12:05 am

  Tags: Education, Halacha, Jewneric, Philosophy, Torah

  One idea that is thrown around in Jewish thought is that there are seventy different approaches to learning. “Shivim Panim Latorah” (Bemidbar Rabba 13:15). The phrase in its entirety is, “There are 70 faces to Torah; turn it over and turn it over for everything is found in it.” This claim of 70 valid approaches to

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• The Israeli “Limpieza de Sangre,” or, Are You Jewish Enough to Read This?

  Published: March 4, 2008, 6:23 am

  Tags: Community, Halacha, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Life, Law, News, Philosophy, Conversion, Intermarriage, Israeli Rabbinate, Orthodox, Reform

  What is a Jew? And why does it matter? The number one article emailed over the last day from the NY Times is a piece from the magazine entitled How Do You Prove You're a Jew? written by Gershom Gorenberg. Intrigued by the title, I read on. If you have not yet read this article, I highly recommend reading it, and then coming back here to read

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• Being a Heretic, OR, Holy Unfathomables, Batman

  Published: March 11, 2008, 2:17 pm

  Tags: Education, Halacha, Jewish Life, Parenting, Philosophy, Pregnancy, Torah, Batman, Heretic, Jewish, Jewish Law, Talmud

  This is the fourth in a series of articles promoting the idea that people should feel free to come up with their own ways of interpreting biblical verses and Talmudic reasoning. You don’t have to be right to have an opinion, but you do need an opinion if you want to be right. The 71 Sided Die - Why should you want to have your own

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• Brain Death in Jewish Law: Setting the Record Straight

  Published: March 25, 2008, 11:39 pm

  Tags: Halacha, Torah, Brain Death, Elyashiv, Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi, Soloveichik, Tendler, Brain Death, Elyashiv, Halacha, Moshe Feinstein, Soloveichik, Tendler

  research on Brain Death in Halacha wrong. They misquoted the opinion of Rav Moshe Feinstein. Here’s what they said: … (Rav) Elyashiv has also ruled in the past that brain death does not constitute clinical death according to halacha. In a letter signed by Elyashiv and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ohrbach that appeared in the haredi daily

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• The Incredible Story of “Natan Levy”/AKA Ted Riley Floyd

  Published: April 6, 2008, 12:36 am

  Tags: Halacha, News

  In another proof that real life outdoes film in the sensationalism department, the ultra-orthodox community of Lakewood, NJ was shocked to learn that a member of their community had been exposed as a non-Jewish identity thief from Kansas. The young man, whom they had come to know as “Natan Levy,” was actually Ted Riley Floyd of

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