Common Sense Halakha

In this season (not series!) finale of Common Sense Halakha, Rav Elisha walks us through the pragmatics of the Para Aduma, the Red Heifer, about which we'll read this Shabbat.Source sheet available at www.sefaria.org/sheets/470200--------------------------------https://eng.beithillel.org.il/parshat-chukat-living-death-mortality-loss-guilt/https://www.academia.edu/15427253/_Wise_Hukkim_and_the_Byzantine_Sermonic_Ideology_of_a_Divine_Fiat_in_Curtis_Hutt_Halla_Kim_and_Berel_Lerner_eds_Jewish_Religious_and_Philosophical_Ethics_Routledgehttps://www.thetorah.com/article/red-heifer-a-soap-ritualDr. Weinstein's additions to the discussion not addressed in the two pieces by Rav Elisha are that while fat is a potential part of soapmaking, the ash alone from the burning of the wood, mixed with water, would produce an alkaline cleaning solution. Rav Elisha objects that we simply did not have the technology to burn bone to ash as Dr. Weinstein suggests, in the Biblical era. Given that cedarwood, which isn't necessarily the only wood involved, burns at 200C, and bone at 800C, and the reality that this conflagration happened outside means that there was certainly drippings of fat (which begins to melt around 40-60C) in addition to the ashes from the wood.

In this episode, Rav Elisha teaches us about the reason why electric chanukiot aren't generally permitted; and why sometimes, they are.http://www.sefaria.org/sheets/454488

On this episode, Rav Elisha teaches us about the commonly misunderstood prohibition on wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/422530

In our premiere episode, Rav Elisha teaches us how to understand the ban of kitniot as fundamentally tied to the reasoning behind chametz. Join us in this hour long investigation into what's really going on behind the scenes. קטניות 1.5 - c (2).docx