My hands trembled and my heart started beating quicker as the minutes grew closer…
I wasn’t trembling because I was afraid to speak at the Links Grief Summit that evening. I don't have a fear of public speaking. My trembling was about feeling into the enormous pain of loss present in the communal heart of those engaging in the summit.
In some shape or form, everyone who participated in this event had experienced the sting of loss - …
The Gemara on Amud Aleph uses an interesting phrase, הריני כפרת משכבו let me be an atonement for his resting place. Rashi (here and Kiddushin 31b) explains that the suffering of a son or Talmid could somehow achieve a penance or forgiveness for the father or master. Indeed the halakha is (Ramban Shaar Hagemul 41, Kiddushin 31b, Shulkhan Arukh YD 240:9) that one says this phrase about a deceased father or mother when repeating Torah …
Our Gemara on Amud Beis mentions a structure known as כילת חתנים, literally the canopy bed of the grooms. Bach ( או״ח שטו:ו) describes this structure as a temporary and only made in honor of the chosson.
This concept of a canopy for the Chosson is elaborated upon by Ben Yehoyada Pesachim 86b. A man must make a home for his wife so that she becomes attached to him. I know it’s unpopular and not PC to discuss male and female …
Gemara on Amud Aleph discusses non-kosher fish and various physical signs. Two of them that are most famously known as they are explicitly mentioned in the pasuk, are not having fins or scales.
The Shalah (של״ה, תורה שבכתב, ויקרא, דרך חיים שמיני ה) offers an explanation for why these species are not kosher. Most are familiar with the obvious concept that the non-kosher beasts and birds are predators as opposed to th …
Our Gemara discusses the various spaces that can be accounted for within the schach, that are legally kosher but not actual Schach. They are: under 3 tefachim of blank space (lavood), under four tefachim of space used by material that ordinarily is not kosher for Schach, and up to four amos contiguous from any wall of material not ordinarily kosher for Schach. The Gemara describes the latter as “Dofan Akuma”, a bent wall. That is, leg …
Our Gemara on Amud Aleph describes another invalid scenario of תעשה ולא מן העשוי: If there was a large pile of hay in a field and then one hollowed out a living space, “igloo style” inside the pile, it would not be kosher as a Succah. Even though the material is all kosher and the size is correct, since he hollowed out the internal space, the roofing Schach only came into being inadvertently.
Noam Elimelech (Bereishis Va …
