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Handwashing In Judaism
Jewish law and custom prescribe ritual hand washing in a number of situations. This practice is generally known by the Hebrew term (), which literally means ''taking up of the hands''. The Talmud used the requirement of washing the hands in Leviticus 15:11 ''"The person who is touched by one who has a discharge without rinsing his hands in water must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening"'' as a hint for general hand-washing law, using ''asmachta'' (a Biblical hint, rather than an explicit requirement). Occasions for hand washing Before eating bread Halakha requires the hands to be washed before eating a meal containing bread. This washing was initially known as ''mayim rishonim'' (first waters) but is now commonly known simply as ''netilat yadayim'' (hand washing).'' Berachot'' 53b This only applies to bread made from one of the five chief grains (wheat, cultivated barley, spelt, wild barley, and oats). The washing is performed by po ...
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Shabbat (Talmud)
:''This is about part of the Talmud; for the Jewish day of rest, see Shabbat.'' Shabbat ( he, שַׁבָּת, lit. "Sabbath") is the first tractate of ''Seder Moed'' ("Order of Appointed Times") of the Mishnah and of the Talmud. The tractate deals with the laws and practices regarding observing the Jewish Sabbath (''Shabbat'' in Hebrew). The tractate focuses primarily on the categories and types of activities prohibited on the Sabbath according to interpretations of many verses in the Torah, notably and . The Mishnah and Talmud go to great lengths to carefully define and precisely determine the observance of the Sabbath. The tractate is thus one of the longest in terms of chapters in the Mishnah, and folio pages in the Talmud. It comprises 24 chapters and has a Gemara – rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah – in both the Babylonian Talmud and all but the last four chapters of the Jerusalem Talmud. There is a Tosefta of 18 chapters on this tractate. As its nam ...
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Jewish Holidays
Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstream Rabbinic Judaism. Karaite Judaism#The calendar, Karaite Jews and Samaritans#Samaritanism, Samaritans also observe the biblical festivals, but not in an identical fashion and not always at exactly the same time. throughout the Hebrew calendar. They include religious, cultural and national elements, derived from three sources: biblical '' mitzvot'' ("commandments"), rabbinic mandates, and the history of Judaism and the State of Israel. Jewish holidays occur on the same dates every year in the Hebrew calendar, but the dates vary in the Gregorian. This is because the Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar (based on the cycles of both the sun and moon), whereas the Gregorian is a solar calendar. General concepts Groupings Certain term ...
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Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stories describing the creation of the heaven and earth in six days and the redemption from slavery and The Exodus from Egypt, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Since the Jewish religious calendar counts days from sunset to sunset, Shabbat begins in the evening of what on the civil calendar is Friday. Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honour the day. Judaism's traditional position is that the unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution. Variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions. According to ''halakha ...
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Haggadah
The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each Jew to tell their children the story from the Book of Exodus about God bringing the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. History Authorship According to Jewish tradition, the Haggadah was compiled during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, although the exact date is unknown. It could not have been written earlier than the time of Judah bar Ilai (circa 170 CE), who is the latest tanna to be quoted therein. Abba Arika and Samuel of Nehardea (circa 230 CE) argued on the compilation of the Haggadah, and hence it had not been completed as of then. Based on a Talmudic statement, it was completed by the time of "Rav Nachman". There is a dispute, however, to which Rav Nachman the Talmud was referring: Acc ...
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Homer (unit)
A ''homer'' ( he, חמר ''ḥămōr'', plural חמרם ''ḥomārim''; also ''kōr'') is a biblical unit of volume used for liquids and dry goods. One ''homer'' is equal to 10 '' baths'', or what was also equivalent to 30 '' seahs''; each ''seah'' being the equivalent in volume to six ''kabs'', and each ''kab'' equivalent in volume to 24 medium-sized eggs. One ''homer'' equals 220 litre or 220 dm3. Lawrence Boadt notes the word ''homer'' comes from the Hebrew for an "ass." "It is one ass-load."The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy, Printice Hall, 1990 ISMN 0-12-614934, p. 327 The ''homer'' should not be confused with the ''omer Omer may refer to: __NOTOC__ * Omer (unit), an ancient unit of measure used in the era of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem * The Counting of the Omer (''sefirat ha'omer''), a 49 day period in the Jewish calendar * Omer (Book of Mormon), a Jaredite ...'', which is a much smaller unit of dry measure. References Obsolete un ...
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Maharal Of Prague
Judah Loew ben Bezalel (; between 1512 and 1526 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew ( Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew acronym of "''Moreinu ha-Rav Loew''", 'Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew'), was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia. Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, Loew is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his work ''Gur Aryeh al HaTorah'', a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a 19th-century legend that he created the Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay. Early life Loew was probably born in Poznań, Poland,—though Perels lists the birth town mistakenly as Worms in the Holy Roman Empire—to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. Perels c ...
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Yaakov Emden
Jacob Emden, also known as Ya'avetz (June 4, 1697 April 19, 1776), was a leading German rabbi and talmudist who championed Orthodox Judaism in the face of the growing influence of the Sabbatean movement. He was acclaimed in all circles for his extensive knowledge. Emden was the son of the hakham Tzvi Ashkenazi, and a descendant of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chełm. He lived most his life in Altona (now a part of Hamburg, Germany), where he held no official rabbinic position and earned a living by printing books. His son was Meshullam Solomon, rabbi of the Hambro Synagogue in London who claimed authority as Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1765 to 1780. The acronym Ya'avetz (also written Yaavetz) stands for the words Yaakov (Emden) ben Tzvi (his father's name) (Hebrew: יעקב (עמדין) בן צבי - יעב"ץ). Seven of his 31 works were published posthumously. Biography Jacob Emden (born Ashkenazi) was the 5th of his father's 15 children. Until the age of seventee ...
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Tosafot
The Tosafot, Tosafos or Tosfot ( he, תוספות) are medieval commentaries on the Talmud. They take the form of critical and explanatory glosses, printed, in almost all Talmud editions, on the outer margin and opposite Rashi's notes. The authors of the Tosafot are known as Tosafists ( ''Ba'ale haTosafot''); for a listing see ''List of Tosafists''. Meaning of name The word ''tosafot'' literally means "additions". The reason for the title is a matter of dispute among modern scholars. Many of them, including Heinrich Graetz, think the glosses are so-called as additions to Rashi's commentary on the Talmud. In fact, the period of the Tosafot began immediately after Rashi had written his commentary; the first tosafists were Rashi's sons-in-law and grandsons, and the Tosafot consist mainly of strictures on Rashi's commentary. Others, especially Isaac Hirsch Weiss, object that many tosafot — particularly those of Isaiah di Trani — have no reference to Rashi. Weiss, fol ...
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Rishonim
''Rishonim'' (; he, ; sing. he, , ''Rishon'', "the first ones") were the leading rabbis and ''poskim'' who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, , "Set Table", a common printed code of Jewish law, 1563 CE) and following the ''Geonim'' (589-1038 CE). Rabbinic scholars subsequent to the ''Shulchan Aruch'' are generally known as ''acharonim'' ("the latter ones"). The distinction between the ''rishonim'' and the ''geonim'' is meaningful historically; in ''halakha'' (Jewish Law) the distinction is less important. According to a widely held view in Orthodox Judaism, the acharonim generally cannot dispute the rulings of rabbis of previous eras unless they find support from other rabbis in previous eras. On the other hand, this view is not formally a part of ''halakha'' itself, and according to some rabbis is a violation of the halakhic system.See Kesef Mishna (Maamrim 2:2), Kovetz Igros Chazon Ish (2:26) ...
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Sodom And Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah () were two legendary biblical cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin (see Genesis 19:1–28). They are mentioned frequently in the prophets and the New Testament as symbols of human wickedness and divine retribution, and the Quran also contains a version of the story about the two cities. The legend of their destruction may have originated as an attempt to explain the remains of third-millennium Bronze Age cities in the region, and subsequent Late Bronze Age collapse. Etymology The etymology of the names ''Sodom'' and ''Gomorrah'' is uncertain, and scholars disagree about them. They are known in Hebrew as hbo, , Səḏōm, label=none and hbo, , 'Ămōrā, label=none. In the Septuagint, these became grc, Σόδομα, Sódoma, label=none and grc, Γόμορρᾰ, Gómorrha, label=none; the Hebrew ghayn was absorbed by ayin sometime after the Septuagin ...
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Birkat Hamazon
Birkat Hamazon ( he, בִּרְכַּת הַמָּזוׂן, The Blessing of the Food), known in English as the Grace After Meals ( yi, ; translit. ''bentschen'' or "to bless", Yinglish: Bentsching), is a set of Hebrew blessings that Jewish law prescribes following a meal that includes at least a kezayit (olive-sized) piece of bread. It is a understood as a Biblical Commandment based on Deuteronomy 8:10. Birkat Hamazon is recited after a meal containing bread or similar foods that is made from the five grains, with the exception of bread that comes as a dessert (''pas haba'ah b'kisanin'') and food that does not possess the form or appearance of bread (''torisa d'nahama''), in which case a blessing that summarizes the first three blessings (''birkat me'ein shalosh'') is recited instead. It is a matter of rabbinic dispute whether ''birkat hamazon'' must be said after eating certain other bread-like foods such as pizza. Except in teaching situations, ''Birkat hamazon'' is typi ...
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