Oils Well That Ends Well: What To Do With Leftover Chanukah Oil

R. Jason Allen
Chanukah, Halacha, Holidays

Shulchan Aruch in Hilchos Chanukah (OC 677:4) cites a din from the Sheiltos that after Chanukah is over, the leftover oil from your menorah that did not completely burn needs to be gathered together and burned in one big fire. The reason, the Mechaber states, is because that leftover oil is "huktzah l'mitzvaso.” Or, since it was set aside for mitzvah use, it then becomes assur b'hanah (forbidden to benefit from), so the only thing to do with it is to burn it off. Maran then concludes with: "if that leftover Chanukah oil became mixed with regular (non-Chanukah) oil, and there isn't 60 times (shishim) the amount of regular oil to mevatel the leftover Chanukah oil, there are those who say that you cannot add the needed amount of regular oil to mevatel the Chanukah oil."...

The Missing Passion Of Chanukah

Devir Kahan
Chanukah, History, Holidays

There is something curiously missing from our telling of the Chanukah story. Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski points out that in the telling of the story of Purim — the other Rabbinically enacted holiday — there is a clear cause and effect; a continuum is very clearly identifiable. In the story of Purim we sinned by partaking in the extravagant feasting and by bowing down to idols. These sins were what allowed the evil forces to gain a foothold against us. This much is clear from Chazal. When we, in turn, fasted, we were led to salvation. There was sin, repentance, salvation — all connected along a clear line...

Amos 4:1-13 — Of Cosmological Sarcasm

Yaacov Bronstein
Amos, Chanukah, Holidays

This piece continues the theme of God’s ultimately futile attempts to distance the nation from sin. However, these attempts are not as those we saw previously in 2:9-12 — the orchestration of religiously encouraging circumstances and developmental experiences — but instead a series of national punishments which had been sent in order to forcibly revert the nation back to God. The retrospective reflection on these failed attempts occupy v6-11, the bulk of the piece. The introductory v1-5 serves to delineate the persisting current state of sin, and the concluding v12-13 imply a disastrous future on an even greater scale. This outline is parallel to the structure of the previously examined 2:6-16, a section with which our current speech bears a significant relationship. Through delineating the key discrepancies between these largely parallel pieces, the singular significances and specific natures of both pieces will be shown...

The Historicity Of The Miracle Of Oil

Devir Kahan
Chanukah, History, Holidays

Did the Chanukah miracle of a small jug of oil lasting for eight days really happen? Or was it a Talmudic invention? While the flagrant nature of these questions is acknowledged, there has been much recent academic and historic literature on the subject, and there does not seem to be a single compendium of all the various information, along with an intellectually honest analysis of the subject and its various conclusions and perspectives. That is what I hope this will be...

Chanukah: Where Are We Running?

Devir Kahan
Holidays, Chanukah

By all accounts, we have no reason to believe that the war of the Chashmonaim had no deaths or losses. Surely, the fact that the Jewish people triumphed in the war is miraculous (although we didn’t actually win the war — we just reclaimed the Beis Hamikdash), but the war itself was not. People were killed. Wives lost their husbands; children lost their fathers. War is never pretty, and neither was the war of Chanukah. Not many people think about this in their celebration of the holiday of Chanukah, though, and neither, seemingly, did those that actually fought in the war...

Parshas Vayeishev: Yehudah, Tamar, & Why We Can’t Benefit From Chanukah Candles

Devir Kahan
Chanukah, Holidays, Parsha

A joke: A scientist is in a room running some tests on a fly he has trapped in a test tube. He plucks one leg off of the fly and tells the fly, "fly". And so the fly does. It buzzes away, and the scientists records the affects of his little experiment on the fly in his notebook. He catches the fly again, plucks off another leg, instructs the fly to fly, and takes note of what happens again. He continues on like this until all six of the fly's legs are gone. With each leg painfully removed, the fly flies, and the scientist takes note. The scientist then removes one wing, tells the fly to fly, and when the fly doesn't take off, he concludes that after six legs and a wing have been removed from a fly, it can no longer hear...

Fowl Play: Is Turkey Kosher?

R. Jason Allen
Halacha, History, Holidays

The Torah, in Parshas Shmini, when informing us of the kashrus status of animals, lists specific types of birds that are not kosher. Ultimately, through derivation of the various “l’mineihu” words found in that section, Chazal (Chullin 63b, Rambam, Ma’achalos Assuros 1:14) identify 24 classes of birds that are not kosher, each one with many species. Any bird that is not from one of these 24 classes is kosher (Rashi, Chullin 61a d”h oaf, Shulchan Aruch YD 82:1). The problem is, however, that we can no longer identify the non-kosher birds that are mentioned...

What "Achdus" Really Means

Devir Kahan
Israel

Given the seemingly ongoing precarious situation in Israel I would like to share some thoughts on the topic of אַחְדוּת/Achdus that I once heard from one of my rebbeim. The value of Achdus is practically undisputed. All agree that the value of unity is intrinsic and important to Judaism. There are, however, two fundamental misunderstandings when it comes to Achdus...

Hashgacha Pratis (Part 4): Rambam’s Overview

Devir Kahan
Hashgacha

Before we begin this installment in our series, I would like to explain our general approach, and give a little bit of an overview for the series so as to better understand what we are doing, and how we are doing it. We have thus far explained the very basic fundamentals of Divine intervention: it applies to homo sapiens only, and not animals, plants, or inanimate objects. We have also seen that one’s Divine protection is commensurate with his or her righteousness and knowledge of God. A more intense study of sources is now needed in order to fully understand and elaborate on these ideas. As such, we shall endeavor to do the following: We shall see Rambam’s approach to Hashgacha Pratis first, and then see Ramban’s fully formulated opinion on the subject as well, based on Rambam. These two sources alone will explain most everything on the subject that we need. We shall then fill in all of the gaps, address additional opinions, seeming contradictions, and closely related topics, and then give an overview and conclusion...

Amos: 3:1-15 — Between Wisdom and Prophecy

Yaacov Bronstein
Amos

This particularly substantial piece contends with what has persisted as an intellectual religious issue: The balance between what we can ascertain based on rational thought, and what lies beyond our rational and observational faculties. Through the employment of this mystery, the Navi in this piece conceptually vindicates his role as a necessary intermediary between the knowable and the unknowable...

Hebrew Isn’t “Sababa”

Eliezer Berger
Israel, Editorial

If you’ve ever tried learning Modern Hebrew, you may have noticed that it isn’t the same as the Hebrew you learn in Tanach or Chazal. In fact, it’s far from being that Hebrew. The vocabulary is partially made up and borrowed from other languages, the grammar is more limited and in some cases innovative, and the pronunciation is supposed to be kind of like Sefaradi for European Ashkenazim...

The Guilt of Deceit

Zach Sterman
Parsha

Parshat Vayetze begins with Yaakov’s journey from his family in Canaan to Lavan’s home in Padan-Aram. This journey brings with it 3 different interactions that collectively beg the question: what was Yaakov’s problem? I will explain...

Your Analogies Are Like Wind

Eliezer Berger

When you’re pondering a subject and considering its properties, there’s a very subtle perceptual difference between intrinsic properties and extrinsic properties. Often, either in an attempt to quickly reach a preconceived metaphor (such as a cryptic statement of Chazal) or because of an impatient impulse to be philosophical, we conclude something that is merely extrinsic. This can be incredibly dangerous to our understanding of the subject matter...

Parshas Vayeitzei: The Stone On The Well

Devir Kahan
Parsha

There is an interesting story in this week’s parsha. We are told  of a group of shepherds who all shared a communal well of water. On top of it they placed a large stone. No single shepherd amongst them could move this rock; it was too heavy for any one person to lift. And then along comes Yaakov who effortlessly slides the rock right off of the well...

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