Nissim Black - Eight Flames

Morality vs Ritual in Judaism (2-minute video) / Judaism on One Foot

Pray Like You Mean It, Class 19: Return of the Judges

What is Holiness? A Jewish View

Student CONFRONTS Rabbi Mollot, see how he responds!

Hindu belief of the diminishing lifespan of man

"The Sutyoog (1st age) is said to have lasted during a period of 1,728,000 years; when virtue and truth prevailed, and man lived 100,000 years. The Tritayoog (2nd age) is a period of 1,296,000 years; three parts of the creation, during that time, obeyed the word of God, and the life of man was 10,000 years. The Dwapuryoog (3rd age) is a period of 864,000 years; during which half of the creation was wicked, and man only lived 1000 years. - The Kulyoog (4th age) is a period of 432,000 years. Men, in this period, became sinful; only one quarter of the human race followed the dictates of God, and the life of man was curtailed to 100 years. According to the Hindoo account, in the present year (1015 of the Hijra), 4684 years of the Kulyoog have elapsed."
          -Mahomed Kasim Ferishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power in India, Introductory Chapter on the Hindoos, p. liv

Giant Humans of the Past

"We also know that the rulers of Asia were engaged in very remote eras in executing great national works, such as tanks and canals requiring extensive excavations. In the fourteenth century of our era, (in the year 1360,) the removal of soil necessary for such under takings brought to light geological facts... The historian Ferishta, relates that fifty thousand labourers were employed in cutting through a mound... and in this mound were found the bones of elephants and men... The gigantic dimensions attributed to the human bones show them to have belonged to some of the larger pachydermata."
          -Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, Ch. II: Oriental Cosmogony, p. 8

Rebuking without Anger

Mesilath Yesharim, Ch. 11

"Even for the sake of fulfilling a mitzvah (commandment), our Sages of blessed memory have cautioned us not to get angry; even a rabbi with his student or a father with his son. Of course this does not mean that they should not rebuke them. Let them rebuke them, time and time again, but without anger, in order to guide them along the right path, and any anger they express should be only facial rather than [true] anger of the heart."

Who is a "Talmid Chacham" (Torah scholar)?

Mishnah Berurah 575:3

Only if one can ask him a halachic (legal) question in his area of study, and he can answer, then he is considered a talmid chacham.

Chiel built Yericho, sons died

מלכים א' ט"ז ל"ד

רש"י שם

 תלמוד ירושלמי מסכת סנהדרין פ"י ה"ב ופני משה שם

Omri's daugher married Yehoshaphat or Yehoram?

מלכים א' טו:כב -- I Kings 16:22

Rashi, ad loc

Seder Olam Rabah, Ch. 17 -- סדר עולם רבה פי"ז

Comments of Vilna Gaon, ad loc -- באור והגהות הגר"א שם

Meir Ayin, ad loc מאיר עין שם

Love without reproof?

(שני לוחות הברית, פר' וירא)

"Any love that does not have reproof with it is not love."

Opportunity for charity precedes judgment

(שני לוחות הברית, פרשת וירא)

When in Rome...?

בראשית רבה סי' מ"ח סט"ז

Midrash B'Reshis Rabah 48:16: "When you come to a city, behave according to the local etiquette. [From where do we learn this?] Since there is no eating and drinking in heaven, when Moshe went up to heaven [to retrieve the Torah], he did not eat, as it says... 'I did not eat bread nor did I drink water' (Deut. 9:9). But below (on earth), where there is eating and drinking, [it says,] 'And [Avraham] stood over [the angels] under the tree and they ate.'

Night is ideal time for Torah study

(ברית אברהם פ"ב)

Fear of God more valuable than Torah study

(ברית אברהם פ"ב)

"Chozer MiTeshuvah" -- a cute turn of phrase

:מס' ברית אברהם לר' אברהם הורוויץ, פ"א

Why did God accept Menasheh's repentance but not Elisha ben Avuyah?

From Sheney Luchoth haBerith (Shla"h), Masecheth Rosh haShanah

Bringing Children to Synagogue on Rosh haHashanah

Mishnah Berurah to Orach Chayim 587, note 16

"People should not bring their children with them [to the synagogue] because of this reason (to hear the shofar blasts without interruption). It is preferable that [the children] be with their mothers in the women's section of the synagogue, for women are not obligated, strictly speaking, in hearing the shofar. Nevertheless, it is a mitzvah [for a father] to bring [to synagogue] children who have reached the age of chinuch (training), and to keep them with him, and to impress upon them to hear the shofar blasts and not distract the congregation."

Was the Civil War about Slavery?

There continues to be much debate over whether the Civil War was fought OVER slavery, or whether slavery was merely a side-issue.

Currently reading Judaism and its History by Abraham Geiger, a book published in Europe contemporaneously with the American Civil War, in which Geiger, a German Jew, writes:

"[For Jews, the] question [of slavery] was settled thousands of years ago, [a question] that in our day marks its bloody traces upon a whole continent, and rends it to pieces..."

Sounds like even in its time it was understood even among European nations that the Civil War centered around slavery. Yet a few lines later, Geiger writes:

"The struggle which has burst forth has nothing whatever to do with the nature of slavery, whether or not it should be permitted to exist; it is true, one section has repudiated it for itself, but has hitherto found it altogether right to preserve it as a constitutional institution in the other."

Sounds like slavery was NOT the central issue of the Civil War, if an issue at all. Don't these two statements (in the same paragraph!) appear contradictory?

I'm not certain, but I think the synthesis is that Geiger makes the point that while the war was fought over whether slavery was to continue as a reality in the United States at all, this was for economic or social but not moral reasons. If it was morally abhorred, Geiger points out that the states that allowed it would never have tolerated it elsewhere. The original divide of slave versus non-slave states was an economic one, not a moral one. Lincoln merely opined that the country must be all one way or all the other, and the South went to war to keep their slaves. That does not mean that the Union was morally opposed to slavery, or that that moral opposition was at the heart of the conflict.

Not sure, what are your thoughts?