Rashi on Parshat Tetzave writes that the priests were anointed with oil, poured in the shape of the Greek letter כי. One would assume this is referring to letter Χ – 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet which sounds somewhere between English K and H . This letter spelled χῖ in Greek, is usually spelled “Chi” in English and indeed if one wanted to write it in Hebrew, he would probably transcribe it as כי (where Chaf is intended without…
Simchat Torah is not mentioned anywhere in the two Talmuds or Midrashim . In fact we have no proof that in the times of Talmud they used to finish the Torah cycle reading on Simchat Torah. The prevalent minhag in the land of Israel was to read the Torah not in one year but approximately in three . In fact it seems that every synagogue read at its own speed without any established cycle, so speaking of the specific “day”…
as in western culture there is a well-known concept of “Seven Deadly Sins” usually enumerated as: pride, covetousness, lust (understood as illicit sexual desire), envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. In particular this theme is well known through the art of Hieronymus Bosch. Even though there is no clear biblical source for this particular list of sins, in general the number seven plays a major role in the Bible and in particular the concept of some “seven sins” is thought to…
the instructions of how to make anointing oil: וְאַתָּה קַח לְךָ בְּשָׂמִים רֹאשׁ מָר דְּרוֹר חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת וְקִנְּמָן בֶּשֶׂם מַחֲצִיתוֹ חֲמִשִּׁים וּמָאתָיִם וּקְנֵה בֹשֶׂם חֲמִשִּׁים וּמָאתָיִם וְקִדָּה חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת בְּשֶׁקֶל הַקֹּדֶשׁ וְשֶׁמֶן זַיִת הִין All the proportions of the ingredients are clearly explained except the second. Moshe had to take 500 (shekalim ) of Mar Dror. Kinamon (probably cinnamon) “its half, 250”, K’ne – 250 and Kida – 500. The peculiar expression “its half, 250” is explained in the Talmud…
this Parsha (Devarim 6:9) says that since the word Mezuzot is written without the Vav , only one Mezuzah is necessary. It’s generally assumed that Rashi can’t argue with a clear Talmudic statement that every door of the house needs a Mezuzah and therefore he can’t be understood at face value. However the custom in many places in Medieval Europe had always been to only affix one Mezuzah per house . We will now try to examine if indeed there…
In a well known story of Megilat Rut, Naomi tells Ruth to bathe herself, put on her [best] clothes and go down at night to where Boaz is sleeping. Boaz then will “tell her” what to do. The simple implication of this story is that Ruth would be sent to make a marriage proposal to Boaz who could simply consummate the marriage immediately. It has been already noted that the story of Boaz and Ruth contains many elements of “yibum”…
(with some additional comments by Marc B. Shapiro) It is well known that when describing the purification of niddah and zava the Torah does not explicitly mention that immersion is required. The present article will briefly examine the proofs given for such an immersion and show a novel understanding of a story brought in the Talmud (Shabbat 13a-b). There are 5 most commonly brought proofs for mikva immersion. Three are brought in Tosafot (Hagiga 11a s.v. lo nitzrecha, Yevamot 47b…
The following Talmudic passage appears in Sanhedrin 19b (we are using mostly Soncino translation): R. Yossi was asked by his disciples: How could David marry two sisters while they were both living? He answered: He married Michal after the death of Meirav. R. Yehoshua ben Korha said: His marriage to Meirav was contracted in error, as it is said, Deliver me my wife Michal whom I betrothed unto me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. How does this prove…