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Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us that the Esrog tree is so sensitive, that following the Shemitta year, and having all the people traveling through the orchard and touching the tree to Pick its fruit, it will not produce fruit again until the third year after Shemitta.
Mei HaShiloach ( מי שילוח, ליקוטי ש״ס, ראש השנה טו ) comments on this that the Esrog which is destined to be held in the human hand for a mitzvah is …
Our Gemara on Amud Beis notes ways in which the Esrog tree is comparable to a fruit tree but also comparable to vegetables, and the implications for laws of tithing. Sod Yesharim (Succos 48) offers a mystical interpretation of this phenomenon.
The Esrog Tree represents a hybrid of qualities. A fruit tree has an advantage in that it is semi permanent and does not wither from season to season, unlike vegetables. Yet vegetables have a quality …
Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us about one sage that rebukes another for questioning the determinations and measures of the Sages. He says:
Rabbi Zeira said to him: Do I not always tell you that you must not take yourself out of the bounds of the halakha? All the measures of the Sages are like this; they are precise and exact. For example, one who immerses himself in a ritual bath containing forty se’a of water is rendered pure, but …
Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us that the fate of the Generation of the Flood came about in response to their behavior:
They sinned with boiling heat, and they were punished with boiling heat; and they were punished with the boiling heat of scalding waters.
What was the sin of boiling heat? Presumably the sin of lust, as is implied from Sanhedrin (108b). Tzidkas HaTzaddik ( צדקת הצדיק ק״ז:א׳ ) makes a point that if you …
Soon after Sukkos, we are given the opportunity to study the lives of the Avos and Imahos. Some Torah readings are immediately accessible to us; others are more complex.
In two consecutive weeks of Torah reading, Sarah Imenu is taken captive by a powerful king. This, after Avraham Avinu portrays the relationship between them as being simply brother and sister. There is, though, a subtle difference between the narratives.
When Sarah is taken by Ph …
Does your soul consent to being born? Does some part of you choose to enter into a particular body and form of existence at a particular time? If we do say that is true, then it makes the world seem a lot more fair. We see a person who appears to have physical deformities or illness and rightfully notice suffering in this world. But, what if the person’s soul CHOSE to occupy that body at that time, for some reason that the …
