Olive Seedlings - שתילי זיתים

The Alter of Novhardok (R' Yosef Yozel Hurwitz, d.1919) used to say: מדת הישיבה אינה נמדדת כמה טובים וכמה רעים בתוכה, אלא מהו המכונה...

The concept of Moshiach ben Yosef (literally, "the anointed son of Joseph"), while not a major concept, is well-established in J...

הנך רואה כי כל רודפי הפשט... הפך דעת רבותינו נפלו במהמורות השבושים, והאמת בפי רבותינו "So you see that all [the commentaries] that ...

Recently, one of my chavrusos  raised a question that seemed like a really difficult problem. Towards the end of Deuteronomy (31:2, 34:7) t...

On the festival of Shavuos we celebrate the event of Matan Torah  - the Giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. This was the foundational event o...

Just finished studying with my Torah Mate . We recently began studying Chumash Devarim with Rashi and Gur Aryeh (the Maharal's super-...

The basic traditional Jewish understanding of the purpose of human existence in this world is for us (as individuals and as a group) to bri...

Why does the Hagada begin the narrative of יציאת מצרים (the Exodus from Egypt) with the shameful statement that “in the beginning our anc...

It is customary to sing Shoshanas Yaakov  after the reading of the Megillas Esther , both at night and by day. While we tend to think of it...

The following question was once posed in an on-line discussion I participated in, to which I wrote the following answer. I have rewritten th...

This topic came up recently in a conversation with a friend, in which I laid out my thoughts on the role of these arguments vis-à-vis  David...

I made this several years ago for my students when we were studying Mesechta Megilla, 22b. It started off as a simple set of stick figure i...

Most people are aware of the current controversies surrounding the behavior of certain ostensible members of the chareidi community in Isra...

Recently, while learning with my chavrusa (t/y Torah Mates ), we looked up the famous story of the Talmudic sages Rav Yochanan and Reish Lak...

I just read the article, The Kavod of a Bas Yisroel , by Rabbi Yair Hoffman in which, in my opinion, he fundamentally misses the point. Gran...

If you are about my age, this diagram may be familiar to you. It used to be found in many Chabad publications, and I assume that it was orig...

An Index for the Talmud, After 1,500 Years - NYTimes.com Just came across this. The hyperbole in the article - and also from the pub...

A fellow from Jerusalem just came to my door raising money for his family. He was a very friendly, talkative fellow. After I gave him my - u...

A friend recently asked me if I had any sources for the custom of playing with a dreidel on Chanuka and what it means. I responded: See ...

I have chosen to name this blog "Olive Seedlings" based upon the midrash in Bamidbar Raba 8:9 which interprets Psalms 128 as ref...