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ב"ה Why do we keep kosher? Why so many "don'ts" on Shabbat? What is the deeper significance of the Tallit? Why do Chassidic Jews wear those long black coats? 61 items in this section Show all Sort By: Everything you need to know about the daily practice of studying three Jewish texts: Chumash, Tehillim, and Tanya. Could it be true, I wondered, that there really is no mitzvah to help people? I tried to consider how what I already knew (or thought I knew) fit in with the speaker’s narrative.
The Talmud relates that when Abba Chilkiyah and his wife davened for rain, the rain came from the direction near which Abba Chilkiyah’s wife was standing first. Abba Chilkiyah explained that this is because when his wife gave tzedakah to the poor she gave them food, whereas he, Abba Chilkiyah, only gave money. Many tzedakah and chesed organizations today, like Abba Chilkiyah’s wife, give food directly to the needy.
“‘Miss Eliza Bennett,’ said Miss Bingley, ‘despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.’ ‘I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,’ cried Elizabeth.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 1.
I recently attended a talk given by a prominent speaker at a Jewish elementary school. The thesis of the talk was that when people refer to mundane actions as mitzvot, they are speaking imprecisely. It is true, he conceded, that something like helping an elderly person cross the street might be a nice thing to do. It might even seem as if it should be a mitzvah—one of the 613 commandments communicated by G‑d to the Jewish People at Sinai. But is it in the Torah? Is it codified in Jewish law?
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