Adapted from a shiur by Rav Daniel Dombroff Is Boeing liable for the doomed 737 Max? The world’s largest aircraft manufacturer was in crisis. The 737, Boeing’s workhorse aircraft, had been selling briskly since 1967. The company was working on a fourth-generation model, the 737 Max, which would increase fuel efficiency and range while reducing noise. Meanwhile, … [Read more...]
Grave Sin: The Hatching of a Cemetery Plot
As heard from Rav Dovid Shlomo Englander The tomb of the unknown Four men have been arraigned in Yerushalayim’s Magistrates’ Court on charges of desecration of graves and fraud. The defendants stand accused of robbing decades-old graves in order to resell the plots to foreigners at prices up to $25,000. The shocking allegations present us with an important Halachic … [Read more...]
A Tale of Two Citgos: Oil Change in Venezuela
Adapted from a shiur by Rav Daniel Dombroff Whose oil is it? Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world, estimated in 2017 at 300 million barrels. But its people are starving. No war or natural disaster brought what was once the fourth-richest country on Earth to its knees. The crisis resulted almost entirely from choices and policy … [Read more...]
Scroll Call: May One Hear the Megilla by Electronic Means?
Adapted from a shiur by Rav Eliezer Gewirtzman Answering the call One Purim some years ago, I was about to begin the Megilla reading when a man approached and placed a cell phone on the bima. He explained that his father lived in a place with no Megilla reading; could he listen to ours by phone? The Halachot Ketanot (2:276) discusses the case of a man reading the Megilla … [Read more...]
Digging for Din: May We Learn Halacha from Archeology?
Torah amid the ruins The archeology world was recently excited by the discovery of a marked “Beka” (Mahatzit HaShekel) weight in a dig at the Kotel. A small stone bearing an inscription that archeologists identified as the word “Beka”—written backwards—was unearthed in Kotel excavations at Robinson’s Arch five years ago. Nobody got excited at the time, because nobody … [Read more...]