Skip to main content

Three Weeks… and Tisha b’Av FAQ

image

As I keep saying, this blog is NOT a place to cover basic Judaism – try Judaism 101 for that! – but there are some things I will do here.

Two years ago, I noticed I was getting a lot of people looking for information about Tisha b’Av. 

People now have this amazing resource called Google that lets them ask embarrassing halachic questions (“are computers allowed on tisha b'av?”) in the total privacy of their home… and then lets me find out about it through my handy blog statistics reporting service that tells me how you-all wound up on my site.

So I broke down two years ago and put up a Tisha b’Av FAQ that goes beyond the usual to answer some of those secret halachic questions, and I updated it last year to include even MORE of the questions you may be thinking but afraid to ask a real rabbi.

Of course, if you’re NOT embarrassed, there’s an easier way!

Feel free to email me (remove all the x's or the address won't work) your questions, and I will – if I think they’re relevant to more than just you – omit your personal details and discreetly add them to the FAQ.

My father, who taught real estate and mortgage broker courses, used to have a sweatshirt that his students bought him that said, “I’m not a lawyer.”  I need one that says “I’m not a rabbi.”  Not even a velveteen rabbi (and frankly, I read her blog often, but “playing with the real rabbis” sound like less than a delightful experience).

So you can ask, and I can answer… but bear in mind that anything I say is a guideline and/or purely anecdotal in nature.  Okay?  Okay!  Bring on the questions!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a