#halacha
Breaking News: Halachic Prenup Backed By Major Haredi Rabbis
Jew in the City was founded in order to break down stereotypes about the Orthodox community and publicize all the positive news about religious Jews that rarely makes the news. But about a year ago I realized that some of the negative ideas people have about our community aren’t based on “bad apples” or misconceptions. They’re based on real problems which WE need to fix. We can’t just make the Orthodox world LOOK good, we have to make sure the Orthodox world IS good.
Now it’s kind of hard to tackle communal-wide problems (especially when you’re trying to run and grow an organization!), but then I heard that for one of the issues which has gotten worse in the last year, there is a (nearly) foolproof solution! I am speaking about the agunah crisis…
Read more:http://jewinthecity.com/2015/03/historic-backing-of-halachic-prenup-by-haredi-rabbis/#ixzz3VzLilCaN
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today i learnt that there’s this drash in chagiga 16a which says there are three things that if looked at will harm your eyesight: a rainbow, the nasi [prince], hands of kohanim when they do birkat kohanim when the temple stood
(because all of these three things have some kind of concentrated godliness: rainbow since yechezkel 1:28 compares how hashem looks to one, nasi bc num 27:20 refers to hashem putting her splendour on one, hands of kohanim because HASHEM WOULD BE ON THEIR HANDS)
and then the halacha (Mishna Brura on Orach Chaim 128:23) says. well. still don’t STARE at the hands of the kohanim during birkat kohanim in this time, because it distracts them and you. but logically since theyre not in the temple, a little peeking couldnt do any harm!
and THEN the MB continues… that… we’re nowadays accustomed not to do any peeking at all, because of zecher lamikdash [remembering the Temple]! i’m.. wow. not looking at the space where God is not.
A new Sefer is out! Sefer Emek HaSufganim:Iyunim & Biurim B'Inyan Minhag Achilas Sufganim B'Yemei Chanuka (insights & annotations on the custom of eating Sufganim (donuts) during the days of Chanuka)
(The famous sufganiyot of Pizza Uri, Jerusalem)
This 410 page sefer (without the appendices) discusses every detail of our beloved Chanuka minhag of eating Sufganiyot (or Sufganim in Loshon HaKodesh; from the Greek word for ‘sponge’). It brings no less than eleven reasons for eating Sufganiyot and discusses questions like “what brocha to make on it?” If one should take off challah from its dough, if one is obligated to use olive oil and if so, if one did not use oilive oil; did one still fulfill his obligation? Is there at all an obligation on every Jew to eat Sufganiyot?
Is one yotzei by just dipping the sufganiya in olive oil or does it have to be fried in olive oil? What is the proper time to eat it? Should one be mevater on eating them if one doesn’t do it purely for the sake of the minhag but rather just for pleasure? And much, much more.
The big annual Jumblr debate finally solved: Latkes or Sufganiyot:
What is preferable? Sufganiyot or latkes?
Sefer Emek HaSufganim states: it is preferable to eat Sufganiyot. if for whatever reason it is not possible to eat both [latkes AND Sufganiyot), eating sufganiyot has the preference because of the words of HaRav Maimon -father of the Rambam- who wrote ופשט המנהג לעשות סופגנין, בערבי[ת] אלספינג’, והם הצפיחיות בדבש ובתרגום 'האיסקריטין’, והוא מנהג הקדמונים משום שהם קלויים בשמן זכר לברכתו )
[And the meaning of the minhag to make sufganin is, in [Biblical] Hebrew אלספינג’ ( … ) and this is the custom of those long before us because they [are] fried in oil [as a] remembrance for His blessing.] dds
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