Category Archives: Uncategorized

(IsraelNN.com) For the first time in over 70 years, two rabbinical students were ordained at a German seminary that was closed by the Nazis in 1938. Zsolt Balla and Avraham Radbil received their ordination at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin on Tuesday.

 See here for the full story

Fascinating story of how two Melbourne Jews got together to allow a community to perform a very rare mitzvah. Read the whole story in this article and see the attached photo and video links.

There is a young man Michael Makovi (age 22), a talmid in Yeshivas Machon Meir who recently began blogging. He has many thoughtful comments and great scholarly insight that should be publicised to the broader public. Please follow along, his blog can be found here .

In particular see his post on Saving Gentiles on the Shabbat, it is the most thorough collection of sources on this topic I have seen to date.

By Tzvi Freeman

(The Rebbe's response to a girl who wanted to leave her school for what she thought to be a better one:)

You have to begin with the knowledge that there is nothing perfect in this world. Our job is not to hunt down perfection and live within it. It is to take whatever broken pieces we have found and sew them together as best we can.

"In the early 1980s I spoke to the Rav about how the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l viewed adoptions. The Rebbe generally opposed adoption within his community because he considered the Issur Yichud DeOraita (prohibition for Jews of opposite gender to be in seclusion) to be applicable in the relationship between an adoptive mother and her adopted son of bar mitzvah age. He considered the Issur Yichud DeRabbanan to be applicable between an adoptive father and his adopted daughter above age twelve. I know from many prior conversations with him that the Rav differed on this matter and considered the functional parent child relationship to be sufficient to eliminate the Issur Yichud, despite the absence of biological relationship

As we spoke further of this debate, the Rav asked me, “What do you think the Rebbe does when there is a family in his community whom he himself thinks ought to adopt children?” I had no answer. The Rav broke into a broad smile and said. ‘Then he sends them to me to paskehn the she’elah!” What an extraordinary picture the Rav provided us with, of two giants, understanding that their opposite positions were both Divrei Elokim Chayim [the words of the living God], who were able to use the position they personally rejected to serve the emotional needs of people for whom they cared as a shepherd care for his flock.

Thus the Rav not only understood well the existence of legitimate diversity in halachic decision making, but was committed to upholding the responsibility of decision making being based in the local rabbi, not in some central institution or person. Even when he personally did not agree, he understood that the decision should be made by the shepherd who loved and cared for his flock."

 Source: Master of Generations: Reflections on Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B soloveitchik Pg 63

Q: The Zohar says that one should not touch his beard (Naso 130), Should one be strict in this regard?

A: According to the Zohar. Rav Kook said that Torah scholars should not trim or round-off their beard. Rav Chaim of Volozhin was asked about this and he said: "Look in my Zohar." The students looked there and next to "One should not touch his beard" was his emendation "with a razor," i.e. one should not touch his beard in the forbidden manner – with a razor (Igrot Re'eiyah vol. 2, p. 101).

Source: Parsha Sheet of R'Shlomo Aviner (Parashat Vayera 5769)  

Evanston, IL — Three Toronto residents were among 56 Rabbis, executive directors of Shuls, and other Jewish leaders who honed their business skills earlier this month at an intensive, invitation-only, four-day program at Northwestern University’s prestigious Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill.

See link here

"Haredim want secular higher education, but are hampered by a lack of basic math and English skills, according to a new study.

Fifty-seven percent of 148 haredi men surveyed in a study conducted by researchers at the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies said that they had looked into attaining a college degree, and another 15% said they had received advice about the possibility of pursuing studies in a college or some other institute of higher education."

See the rest of the article here: