Today’s daf continues the Gemara’s discussion of the limits imposed on the sale of sacred items. As we saw yesterday, there’s a hierarchy of holiness surrounding synagogues, beginning with the ground on which a synagogue stands and proceeding right up to the Torah scroll itself, the pinnacle of holy items.
In the midst of a discussion about how many people are called to the Torah for aliyot on various occasions, today’s daf offers a surprising statement that women, as well as men, can be called to the Torah for an aliyah, but then adds an immediate qualifier that effectively prevents
Back in the early 2010s, I used to volunteer my eyesight to a woman who was in her late 80s and increasingly experiencing blindness. During our sessions, she would often say things like, “I wonder how this medicine affects my eyesight,” or “I wonder how memory loss works.” I would
You know you’ve made it onto the broader American food landscape when one of the top five most searched recipes in the United States is a classic Jewish cookie, amiright? According to Google search trends of 2021, the fifth most searched recipe in the entire country was hamantaschen! Hamantaschen are
The Book of Proverbs, which offers a rather eclectic group of pithy maxims and teachings, observations about the world and human nature, and a few longer poems extolling universal virtues, frequently uses the word torah. In the opening verses of the book, which are framed as advice to a youth,
The Book of Proverbs is one of the most quoted books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). Comprising the second book in the Ketuvim (or Writings) section of the Tanakh, Proverbs is full of lines that share wisdom on the importance of centering your life and relationships around morality, personal responsibility
When most people think of Torah, they likely think of the Five Books of Moses (also known as the Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books together form the first and most sacred third of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh. In synagogues throughout the world, they are
In Pirkei Avot, a talmudic sage by the name of Ben Heh Heh taught: “According to the labor is the reward.” (5:23) You might think of this as the Jewish version of the well-known adage, “No pain, no gain.” But is Ben Heh Heh’s version of the teaching true? If