“Tanna devei Eliyahu, the school of Eliyahu, taught: Kol hashoneh, all who study (and review) halachot every day are guaranteed that they…
Daf Yomi, Football and New Year's
There is something surreal about 92,000 people gathering at a football stadium on New Year’s Day to make a siyum on the entire Talmud. That…
Nidah 30: The Lord is Against Me
“And it does not leave the womb before it is made to take an oath…and what is the oath one is made to take? Be righteous and do not be…
Nidah 30: In Utero
Being pregnant with one’s first child is the best of times. One imagines a talmid chacham, a nuclear physicist, a Nobel laureate, an…
Niddah 31: A Great Mitzva
In our last post, we discussed that seven days after giving birth to a boy and 14 after a girl, the newborn mother purifies herself in a mikvah. Any…
Niddah 31: The Joy of Being Jewish
Death, as we have often noted, is the primary source of tumah, impurity, with a corpse classified as avi avot hatumah, the grandfather of tumah.…
Niddah 2: Shammai and Hillel
It is hard to imagine more influential institutions of Jewish learning than those of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. These two great schools set in…
Niddah: Blood and Water
“And you shall live by them” (Vayikra 18:5). The mitzvot of the Torah are meant to enhance life, adding meaning and sanctity to our…
Masechet Kelim: Time for New Dishes
Seder Taharot opens with masechet Kelim, vessels, which at 30 chapters and 254 mishnayot is far and away the largest of the 63 tractates of the…
An Introduction to Seder Taharot
Jewish law is generally divided into three distinct areas: issur v’heter, ritual law; dinei mammonot, monetary law; and tumah v…