העורך Editor

How Did Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein Celebrate Lag Ba’omer? He DIDN’T!

Check out the short and fascinating account of Lag Ba’omer from a letter written by a student of the Chevron Yeshiva, plus analysis.

A cute quote:

It was an amazing sight, albeit a bit wild and lacking Jewish flavor. In didn’t find favor in my eyes at all, but it was interesting to watch. Mainly it was a Chag for their children who went around with fireworks in their hands and with beaming and shining faces.

The essay is called “Lag B’Omer through the eyes of a Litvak in 1925 – A Static and Evolving Chag“.

If Chazal and Austrian Economics Fit Too Neatly, That Would Be Highly SUSPICIOUS!

I recommend checking out a great article titled “Price-Controls in Jewish Law” (Texas Tech University – Free Market Institute, March 19, 2017) by Michael Makovi here.

Here is the abstract:

Economists generally agree that price controls are almost always self-defeating, generally producing undesirable, perverse consequences and failing to accomplish their intentions. Previous scholarship has explored whether the halakhah (Jewish law) of ona’ah (fraud) constitutes a price control. However, less attention has been paid to the similar law of hayyei nefesh (essential foodstuffs) – also known as hafka’at she’arim (profiteering). Neither has criticism been directed towards arbitrary price controls imposed by the corporate, democratic Jewish community, nor to the Talmud’s restrictions of speculation and middlemen. This essay argues that while the law of ona’ah is not a price control, the hayyei nefesh/hafka’at she’arim ordinance is one. Economic theory demonstrates that like all price controls, the hayyei nefesh/hafka’at she’arim law, corporate communal price controls, and restrictions on speculation and middlemen are all self-defeating because the means conflict with the ends sought. The conflict between religion and science is therefore not limited to cosmology and biology but may include economics as well.

Again, find the whole thing here.

Can We Assume Absence of Custom to Mean a NEGATIVE Custom?

Check out Rabbi Grossman’s recent essay on this.

Some examples he gives:

“We pronounce the last letter of the alphabet just like a samech, and that is meant to be so because it is intentional, and we will not consider any evidence or arguments to the contrary,” “our matza is in the form of crackers, and therefore must be in the form of crackers to the exclusion of all other forms,” or, “the Rosh and Taz did not eat locusts because they did not know which were kosher, and therefore we can never know.”

Find the rest here.