While it may sound unromantic, marriage partners are chosen, more often than we might like to admit, for socio-economic reasons. While this need not…
Ketubot 63: Home Sweet Home
In our last post we discussed the challenge of balancing work and family obligations. The Mishnah that discusses the length of a "…
Ketubot 62: Time Together
Finding the proper balance between work and family is a challenge that man has been dealing with since the beginning of time. There never seems to be…
Ketubot 50: Practice Practice Practice
One of the most difficult, yet vital, tasks as we learn, is allotting enough time and effort for review. We all find the new more exciting, and…
Ketubot 49: Family Support
The increasing age for marriage coupled with the high cost of housing has led to a situation of more and more children in their 20's and…
Ketubot 47: The New Family
Our conception of the family unit has undergone revolutionary changes in the last few years. It should come as no surprise that norms of today often…
Ketubot 33: Worse than Death!
"One should be as careful with a light mitzvah as with a heavy mitzvah" (Pirkei Avot 2:1). Not every mitzvah is created equal. While all…
Ketubot 30: In the Hands of Heaven
Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book Outliers, demonstrates how so much of our success is a result of factors beyond our control.…
Ketubot 28: Kids Talk
In our last post we discussed the fickleness of memory and how and when one may write down testimony for future use in a court of…
Ketubot 20: Keeping Memories Alive
Our memories are notoriously fickle and even untrustworthy. Yet we have little choice but to rely on such. It is likely due to the unreliability of…
Ketubot 19: Dying for Lying
It is well known that a Jew must give up his or her life only if asked, or ordered, to violate one of the three cardinal sins of Judaism; idolatry,…
Ketubot 11: It's Great to Be a Jew
A legal system is much more than a collection of laws. It signifies the values a society holds dear. When one studies halacha, one is…
Ketubot 10: Money, Money, Money
Money is a great motivator, impacting so many of the decisions we make. The crucial role money plays in our lives can best be seen by the fact that…
Ketubot 5: Moving Yom Kippur
In our last post we discussed that a betulah should marry on a Wednesday evening so that if it is discovered that the wife is not…
Ketubot 2: We Would Like to Invite You...
Planning a wedding is no easy task. One must pick a date, hall, caterer, band, florist, and on and on it goes. For those living in North America (and…
Some Opening Thoughts on Masechet Ketubot
The Ketuba is one of the best known, but least understood, documents in Judaism. Read at every wedding, many mistakenly believe it is a marriage…
Some Concluding Thoughts on Masechet Yevamot
"Rabbi Elazar said, in the name of Rabbi Chaninah: Torah scholars increase peace in the world, as it says, 'and all your children shall be…
Yevamot 116: One Witness Is Enough
We have previously referred to the special leniency that allows a woman to remarry on the testimony of one witness. This was a most revolutionary…