Category: Machshava/Jewish Thought

(How) Should the Documentary Hypothesis Be Taught in Modern Orthodox High Schools?

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper Posted on April 17, 2019

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Don’t Talk While You’re Eating?

Rabbi Avram Schwartz (Posted on April 15, 2019)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (1915-2006) was a rav and dayyan in Jerusalem, a member of the Chief Rabbinical Court in Israel, and the informal halakhic authority of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The author of the 21-volume set of responsa, Tzitz Eliezer, he remains a widely respected posek, one of the leading voices of the previous generation.…

Tehillim Chapters 9-10: Acrostics and Our Relationship with God

by Rabbi Hayyim Angel Posted on April 3, 2019

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Mishloah Manot, Cultivating Friendship, and the Absence of a Brakha

Rabbi Avram Schwartz (Posted on March 18, 2019)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884-1966) was the last rector of the Neo-Orthdox Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. In his youth in Lithuania, he had been considered an illui, a young genius, and studied under Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel at Yeshivat Kenesset Yisrael Slobodka.…

Abortion in Halakha: A Study Guide

Rabbi Dov Linzer (Posted on February 7, 2019)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

Halakhic Parameters of Abortion: A Study Guide Guided Questions for Chavruta Learning Sources 1-7 were covered in the previous sheet.  Look at sources 8-12.  Do they indicate that a fetus has the legal status / protections of a human life or not? …

Partnering With God

by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on January 24, 2019

How many commandments were given at Mt. Sinai?  The answer, surprisingly, is not 10.  The Torah speaks of the aseret ha’devarim, the Ten Utterances, not the Ten Commandments.  When one gets down to counting the commandments, she finds that the first of the utterances, “I am the Lord your God,” is not exactly a commandment, and that some, like “You shall have no other gods before me; you shall not bow down to them nor shall you worship them,” actually contain 3 commandments, if not more.…

Birkat HaMazon and the Oral Torah

by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on August 2, 2018

Sefat Emet teaches that those who were to enter the Land of Israel would be the beginning of the Oral Torah – the taking of the Divine word and interpreting it and applying it to the lived reality of their lives. …

Rachel’s Cry: Single Women and Pru U’rvu

Rabbi David Bigman (Posted on May 2, 2018)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

To read this teshuva in hebrew click here: Should community resources be allocated to help an older single woman become pregnant using artificial insemination?[1] Rav Shlomo Aviner addresses this question as follows: Question: A single woman, about forty years old, who realistically doesn’t expect to marry and wishes, with all her soul, to have a child to love and devote herself  to – is she permitted halakhically to use artificial insemination to bear a child?…

Rachel’s Cry: Single Women and Pru U’rvu (Hebrew)

Rabbi David Bigman (Posted on April 19, 2018)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

To read this teshuva in english click here:…

May A Single Man Fulfill The Mitzvah Of Pru U’rvu (procreation)? (Hebrew)

Rabbanit Dr. Michal Tikochinsky (Posted on March 8, 2018)
From the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies

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Ancient History: What is the Point of Learning Other People’s Stories?

by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff Posted on August 3, 2017

  Judaism today sees itself as a civilization that honors history above most things. And the history that we venerate is almost always our own. The Torah, however, in various places emphasizes the importance of knowing other people’s histories. This actually appears odd to us (as well as to early sages) precisely because knowing the history of ancient peoples, particularly those that have disappeared in the wake of our arrival on the scene, seems irrelevant to identity formation which, for us, is history’s primary purpose.…

Slow Down, Change Ahead: Is Gradualism a Jewish Value?

by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff Posted on August 3, 2017

  Gradualism has become one of the loadstone values of Orthodox Judaism. However, the classical sources as well as the modern reflect a variety of attitudes towards this value. Some consider gradualism to be a value in itself, but most consider it to be simply the most efficacious way of getting things done.…