מנהג ה‘תשליך‘ מאת ר‘ איתם הנקין הי“ד [הותקן לפרסום מתוך רשימה מכת“י] .מנהג התשליך מוזכר באופן ברור לראשונה בסוף המאה ה-14, בספר המנהגים לרבי יצחק אייזיק טירנא (סוף מנהגי ראש השנה, ד“ה “ושליח צבור“): “ורגילין לילך על הנהר ולומר תשוב תרחמינו וגו‘, ורואים דגים חיים“ בסמוך לו לפניו מוזכר המנהג במהרי“ל (מנהגים, הלכות ראש השנה אות ט‘): “מה שנוהגין לילך בר“ה אחר סעודה אצל ימים ונהרות להשליך במצולות ים כל חטאותינו, משום דאיתא במדרש זכר לעקדה… ומהר“י סג“ל נהג ג“כ…
Pets on Shabbat, Rabbi Morenu, and Epidemics Marc B. Shapiro 1. In my last post here I wrote as follows: R. Yitzhak Nahman Eshkoli calls attention to what he sees as another mistake made by those who published R. Moshe Feinstein’s works.[1] Here is Iggerot Moshe,Orah Hayyim 5, 22:21. According to the text of R. Moshe’s responsum, animals are muktzeh, even those that children play with. This means that R. Moshe held that pets are also muktzeh. Yet in the small…
Towards a Bibliography of Coronavirus-related Articles & Seforim written in the past month (updated) Black Weddings and others Segulot By Eliezer Brodt Introduction When the lockdown began in Israel a few weeks ago, a friend of mine e-mailed me an article about plagues he was about to complete, asking if I had anything to add. Upon checking my collections of material, I found I had nothing special marked down in my indexes about the topic. At the time I had…
The Segulah of Kiddush Levanah By: Eliezer Brodt The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming article of mine on when to say Kiddush Levanah. This is particularly timely, as this it deals with the segulah attributed to this tefiilah, and its possible connection to plagues. סגולת ברכת הלבנה1 בתחילת המאמר הבאתי דברי המגן אברהם בשם מגיד מישרים: “כ‘ המגיד, כשמקדשין הלבנה במוציא שבת תהיה הצלחה. וכשתתכסה ולא תוכלו לברך אותו החדש לא יהיה מוצלח. דוק ותשכח“. והבאתי מה שכתב…
The History behind the Ashkenazi/Sephardi divide concerning lighting Chanukah candles By Zachary Rothblatt Zachary Rothblatt learned in Kerem B’Yavneh, Ner Yisroel, and will be receiving Semicha soon from RIETS. He is finishing a graduate degree in Bible and Talmud at the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies. He is a Judaic studies teacher at the Idea School in Tenafly, New Jersey. One of the most famous halachic debates of Chanukah is the debate concerning how many sets of candles…
Should we celebrate birthdays or not? Is it better to ignore them? By Rav Binyamin Wattenberg This post was originally an answer posted on july 25 2016 on the French website techouvot.com (https://www.techouvot.com/feter_les_anniversaires-vp46393.html). The author agreed to have it translated into English but did not review the translation. The author, Rav Binyamin Wattenberg teaches Talmud in Neuilly sur Seine, France, among other talmudic activities (techouvot.com…) This subject is widely debated in our sefarim. Some are convinced that it is entirely…
