Introducing Hoffman’s Fallacy

The Biblical Allusion to the Prohibition Against Eating Matza on Passover Eve

Exodus 12:18, with its unusual language describing how the main commandment of the fifteenth of the month Nisan is to be observed “on the fourteenth of the month in the evening… ,” thus connecting the holy day to the previous day, teaches us that because the unique commandment of the day is specifically to eat matza, we are obligated to do the opposite, i.e. to not eat matza, on the preceding day, and, paradoxically, that same connection between the days means that the unique commandment of the holy day, to eat matza, may be observed already before the conclusion of the previous day. Continue reading →

Half Hallel is Like a Half Thank-You

When the new holidays of Iyar roll around, we understandably find some of our Jewish brethren who have their doubts about the propriety of saying the full hallel with a blessing as part of the prayer service. After all, for centuries the explicit halacha was that on only 18 days of the year (or 21 … Continue reading →

A Biblical Source for Rebecca’s Age Upon Her Marriage to Isaac

בפרשתנו יש בסיס לשיטת הסדר עולם (שלא כדעת רש׳׳י) שרבקה אמנו נישאה ליצחק בגיל 14. יעקב אמר ש״אלכה ואראנו בטרם אמות,״ ואז היה בן ק׳׳ל, ואילו יוסף היה בן ל׳׳ט. למה ליה ליעקב להוסיף שהוא חש למותו? אלא כמאמר חז׳׳ל על החלטת יצחק לברך את עשָו דווקא לפני מותו: “אמר רבי יהושע בן קרחה: אם … Continue reading →

The Flower Fallacy in Halacha

Question: May I sit in shul with my legs crossed? Answer: The mashgiah told us about the innocent avreich who, one Friday afternoon, came home from Yeshiva and presented his beaming wife with a bouquet of flowers, and without missing a beat said to her, “the rabbi told me to buy you flowers.”  Why is … Continue reading →

The Pareto Distribution and Jewish Scholarship

From Wikipedia: The Pareto distribution, named after the Italian civil engineer, economist, and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, is a power-law probability distribution that is used in description of social, scientific, geophysical, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena. Originally applied to describing the distribution of wealth in a society, fitting the trend that a large … Continue reading →

Letter to a Friend: What Makes One a Poseq

  Dear ***** Recently your brought up an issue on which I had commented some years ago. I would like to bring a fundamental distinction to your attention: I believe that the Rabbi in question, whose Jewish politics and associations place him well to our right, despite his years of experience at the pulpit and … Continue reading →

Parasha Notes: Wayeilech 5780

The commandment of Haqhel, to assemble the entire nation for the reading of the Torah, shows the dangerous fallacy of some popular new stringencies. First, some background regarding another well-known Torah reading, Zachor, from an article I wrote earlier: “It is also a positive commandment to constantly remember their evil deeds and their ambush of … Continue reading →

Two New Halachic Fallacies Defined

It’s time to add two more halachic fallacies to our ongoing list. Remember, ideally, these types of arguments should not be made when trying to arrive at the true halacha. 1. Lagur Mip’nei Ish (Fearing a Man): Moses himself instructed the judges he appointed to “fear no man” (Deuteronomy 1:17), and this rule is based … Continue reading →

Concerning Yoreh De’ah 214

Dear *****, Thank you for sharing that recording with me. I thought I would try to condense my response for future reference. Yoreh De’ah 214 begins with: Matters that are permissible, and those who know that they are permissible treated them as prohibited: it is as though they have accepted [those prohibitions] as [sacred] vows, … Continue reading →