The halachic system, like all legal systems, is on based on verifiable actions. What one may think when signing a contract is of little bearing;…

While the Jerusalem Talmud rules that one makes a bracha upon construction of a sukkah (Sukkah 1:2), our practice is not to do so, seeing…

In 1878, Yehuda Leib Gordon published a poem, Kotzo shel yud, in which he pokes fun at the technicalities of halacha. In his poem, a…

The Gemara derives the minimum height of a sukkah from two separate and very distinct sources. In fact, the first “source” is no source…

We eat matza on Pesach to commemorate the matza eaten by our ancestors as slaves in Egypt and as newly freed people. The blowing of the shofar on…

Masechet Sukkah holds a special place in my heart, being the first tractate I learned cover to cover. Its topics are interesting, wide-ranging,…