Today’s daf addresses the question of whether buying and selling is allowed on hol hamoed. Here’s the first mishnah: One may not purchase houses, slaves and cattle (on the intermediate days of a festival) except for the needs of the festival, or for the needs of the seller who does
Americans struggle to understand the nature of Catholicism. In the U.S. context, religion is often understood as a strictly private affair. On Sundays, we go to church (or at least we once did, before many people stopped going to church at all). Such attendance, of course, is an optional dimension of
When preparing a homily on today’s reading (1 Cor. 12:12-31) from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, it is tempting to focus on the spiritual gifts due to their popularity in some Christian circles. But if we do, we will be missing an important idea that Paul develops in today’
Photo: Shutterstock. By Maggie Ulmer – People come to faith in all kinds of ways. God will use anything and everything if it permits him access to the human heart. I know of a young man raised in a Christian family who adopted the moral and ethical frameworks of Christianity,
“I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse.” Spencer W. Kimball made that declaration when he had been president of the Church for less than fourteen weeks. He was speaking to the Regional Representatives of the
Try to come up with the most Jewish spice out there and you might have some trouble answering. But ask Ori Zohar and Ethan Frisch, the founders of the single-origin spice company Burlap & Barrel, and you’ll quickly get a list of spices with a robust claim to the title.
As a young adult of nineteen—just a few years older than the high school students I teach—Augustine had his first conversion on his pilgrimage towards Christianity. As Augustine recounts in his Confessions, the catalyst for his first conversion was, famously, his reading of Cicero’s Hortensius. A pagan’s apologia for philosophy
Honeysuckle symbolizes the bonds of love. Jesus’ commandment to love one another carries with it the expectation that his disciples will show reciprocity toward each other when feeling and expressing love for each other. They will help each other by behaving in the same way or by giving each other