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Rebbe Yehuda Hanasi said:…One should be as careful with a light mitzvah as with a heavy mitzvah (Avot 2:1). While (it is generally assumed…
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One of the beautiful things about learning Daf Yomi is seeing the enormously wide range of rabbinic thought, something that is often not possible in…
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“New moons You have given to Your people, a time of atonement for all your generations.” It is this phrase that serves as the…
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The story is told that when the Vilna Gaon was a little boy, he wanted to learn masechet Shavuot[1] in the weeks before the holiday of…
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“A song to David; G-d, who will live in Your tent, who shall dwell on your holy mountain? He [who] speaks truth in his heart” (Tehillim…
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“’And now let Me go, so that I may destroy them and make you a great nation’ (Shemot 32:10). Rav Abahu said: If the verse had not…
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Almost by definition, news—at least most of it—is of the less-positive variety, often causing us to think the world is a lot worse than…
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“Rava said: How foolish are the rest of the people who stand before a sefer Torah, but do not stand before a great person!” (…
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The Torah takes justice very seriously: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot” (Shemot 21:24).…
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When I first started learning Gemara – and as we prepared for tests – we were told not to worry if we got the names of the rabbis wrong.…
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“And you shall do to them as they sought to do to others” (Devarim 19:19). Edim zomimim, plotting witnesses, are punished…
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“The witnesses do not become zomimim, ‘plotting witnesses’, unless they falsify themselves” (Makkot 5a). The law of…
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In the standard editions of the Talmud Bavli in vogue today, there are 63 tractates of Mishna, 37 of which have a corresponding Gemara. The…
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The Torah talks very little – actually, not at all (at least explicitly)– about the coming of the Mashiach, the Messianic Era, or the…
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One of the philosophical debates between the Greeks and Jews concerned the eternity of the world. The Greeks believed that the world has existed from…
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“Stay far away from a lie” (Shemot 23:7). Unlike the other mitzvot in the Torah where we are just told not to do something, when it comes…
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The Jewish people have long been accused of being robbers and thieves. The importance of countering this accusation was so crucial that it…
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The last chapter of masechet Sanhedrin is like no other in the Talmud. Almost devoid of legal discussion, it contains some 23 double-sided pages of…
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“Every argument that is for [the sake of] heaven's name is destined to endure. And if it is not for [the sake of] heaven's name,…
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“Do not profane your daughter and make her a harlot” (Vayikra 19:28). One has to wonder exactly whom the Torah is addressing. What kind…
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“The entire house of Israel is commanded to sanctify the Name” (Laws of the Fundamentals of Torah, 5:1). The language is striking,…
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“And you shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your possessions” (Devarim 6:5). Clearly, if…
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Fundamental to Jewish theology is the belief that both the Written Law and the Oral Law were given by G-d at Sinai. While the finite Written Law, i.e…
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Man finds it difficult to admit wrongdoing. Doing so creates cognitive dissonance. Being that we are basically good people – there are few who…