Posts from the “Stop Here Thinkers” Forum

This page collects translations of posts that Rabbi Michael Abraham authored on the “Stop Here Thinkers” forum at BHOL (BeChadrei Charedim). For each thread, only the rabbi’s opening post has been translated; click through to the original discussion to see the full thread.

Posts (94)

1. ‘Tzav Piyus’: Is Loyalty to Identity Circles Conditional on Values?
2. A Fundamental Principle in the Law of Honoring Parents
3. A Good Destruction
4. A Riddle from My Companions
5. A Weekly Sheet on the Hermeneutical Principles: Middah Tovah
6. Academic Bias in ‘Akdamot’
7. An A Fortiori Argument from Frogs
8. An Existential Commandment versus ‘One Who Is Not Commanded and Performs’
9. And He Saw That There Was No Man: On Seeing the Future and Prophecy
10. Another Aspect of the Heter Mechira: How Much Must One Lose to Avoid a Rabbinic Prohibition
11. Are There Editorial Notes in the Main Text of the Gemara?
12. Can a person sue his parents over congenital defects?
13. Can Desecrating the Sabbath Ever Be Permitted?
14. Causing a Secular Jew to Transgress
15. Circumvention in the Laws of Sukkah and the Sabbath/Festival
16. Conspiring Witnesses: Can One Execute by ‘Scriptural Decree’?
17. Cynical Use of Heroes. A Mirror Before Our Eyes.
18. Damage and Theft Involving Forbidden Items
19. Dealing with Missionary Activity and Missionaries
20. Difference between the Heavenly and Earthly Courts Regarding Repentance
21. Do a Kibbutz and a State Have a Religion?
22. Do Those Who Sanctify God’s Name Have a Share in the World to Come?
23. Does Anyone Claim That There Is a ‘Torah View’ in Non-Halakhic Matters?
24. Does Every Verse Necessarily Teach the Opposite of What It Says?
25. Eating Without a Blessing Due to Lack of Cleanliness
26. Esoterica in the Torah – Sorcery, Demons, Idolatry, and the Like
27. Everyone May Compel a Move to Jerusalem
28. Faith That Is Like Heresy: Conceptual Conventionalism
29. General Education and Torah: Between Israel and America
30. Halakhic and Legal Fictions – Classification and Justification
31. Halakhic Stringency Based on Rabbi Yehuda’s Rejected Opinion
32. Headline of the Year: Attempted Murder for the Sake of Heaven
33. How Should One Criticize? On the Right to Moral Criticism
34. Intentions Replace Actions
35. Is Evolution a Falsifiable Theory
36. Is It Permissible to Kill a Thief
37. Is There a Bureaucratic Solution to Problems of Substance
38. Is There a Commandment to Refine One’s Character Traits?
39. Is There a Future for Yesh Atid?
40. Is There a Trend of Moral Progress in the World, and What Is Its Significance?
41. Is There an Obligation to Pay a Thief Who Refurbished the Stolen Property? And More
42. Justice, Kindness, and the Gourd: The Root of Empathy
43. Methodological Paradoxes in Jewish Law
44. Movements and Cults in Judaism
45. Myth and Historical Truth
46. On a Revised Version of the ‘Rule by Philosophers’ Proposal
47. On an External Source of Binding Force and Authority for Morality
48. On Anarchism: The Limits of Democracy
49. On Codes and Paganism (On the Star of David and Other Symbols)
50. On Religious Impotence, Psalms, and the War in Lebanon
51. On Sensational Statistical Results
52. On Surveys (and in the Context of Secular Judaism)
53. On the Nature of Choshen Mishpat
54. On Traitors and Betrayal
55. On Uprooted Laws, or Uprooted Verses
56. On Values and Their Rationalizations
57. Pluralism and Autonomy in Jewish Law – The Incident of Rabbi Yohanan ben HaHoranit
58. Police Deployment on the Sabbath in Bnei Brak
59. Preventing a Stumbling Block – The Zakhor Reading by Torah Scholars Exempt from War
60. Quality Criteria for Torah Scholarship: Justiciability and Academia
61. Quantity and Quality in Human Lives and Mourning: 9/11
62. Rabbenu Hananel on Herod: Can a Beautiful Captive Woman Be a Bondwoman?
63. Rabbi Michael Abraham’s Paradigm for Changing Jewish Law – A Critique
64. Rabbi Yehoshua Yogel Has Passed Away
65. Regarding Dates in a Solar Year
66. Religious Oppression by the State
67. Repentance in the Sugya of the Udder
68. Roi Klein – Is It Permissible to Sacrifice One’s Life to Save Another?
69. Should Questions Without Practical Implications Be Discussed
70. Should the Shufersal chain ‘impose taxes’ on the public?
71. The Art of Shoehorning and Its Sources (for Rabbi Miki)
72. The Author of ‘Tzitz Eliezer,’ of blessed memory
73. The Four Bailees and Their Three Sets of Laws
74. The Great Prayer Experiment
75. The Hazon Ish’s Explanation of Prohibitions Attributed to the Sages
76. The Importance of the Interaction Between Jewish Law and Reality
77. The Meaning of Mythology: Narcissus and Shimon the Righteous
78. The Nature of Unintentional Transgression and Causing a Secular Jew to Sin
79. The Ontological Status of the Laws of Mathematics According to the Chazon Ish
80. The Possibility of External Values
81. The Punishment of an Adult Betrothed Woman Who Committed Adultery
82. The Relativity of Marital Law (as Part of the ‘Legal’ Component of Halakhah)
83. The Sale Permit’s Dependence on the Rabbinate: Legal Fiction to Prevent a Stumbling Block
84. The Toaff Affair: Why One Should Not Publish That Jews Used Christian Blood to Knead Matzot
85. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – Aspects of the Sanctification of God’s Name
86. Thinking Without Words
87. Virtual Course in Proper Writing
88. What Is a Turkey Doing Under the Table: Illness, Coercion, and Sin
89. What Is Leavening?
90. What Is Poetry
91. What Is Ultra-Orthodoxy and the ‘Boundary Line’ Between It and Religious Zionism?
92. Who Has Apportioned of His Wisdom to Those Who Fear Him / to Flesh and Blood
93. Who Has Made Me According to His Will – Rabbi Tau’s Remarks on Women
94. You Have in It Only Its Innovation: Minimizing Contradictions or Innovations?