Rabbi Roy Feldman

Each Rosh Hashanah, Manhattan Jews face a geographical dilemma: where is the best place to do Tashlich ? Should West Siders head to the Hudson and East Siders go to the East River? Does the Central Park Reservoir count, or even a pond in Central Park? What about one of the many fountains throughout the city? Before ranking Manhattan’s bodies of water, however, it is worth stating that fundamentally, it really does not matter that much. Tashlich is a custom, not a mitzvah obligation. A person who heard the shofar, prayed, ate the festive meals, but never made it to a body of water has not failed to fulfill some essential obligation of Rosh Hashanah. In fact, Tashlich is a somewhat strange custom. Surely nobody believes that our sins are literally sitting in our pockets, waiting to be shaken out into the River. The water does not carry away our transgressions, and reciting the Tashlich liturgy is not a substitute for real teshuva . Tashlich is symbolic. We spend Rosh Hashanah praying, re...

In this series, I will address some halakhic issues that arise when living in Manhattan. They are certainly also relevant in other areas! This is probably the most common Shabbat question for those of us who live in New York City apartment buildings: May I ask the doorman to press the elevator button for me on Shabbat? The starting point is that we generally may not ask a non-Jew to perform prohibited activity for us on Shabbat. This prohibition, known as amira l’nochri , is itself rabbinic. But there is a relevant exception. One may ask a non-Jew to perform an action that is itself prohibited only rabbinically when there is a mitzvah need, some degree of illness or distress, or some other significant need. We call this shvut d’shvut : one rabbinic prohibition layered on top of another. The act itself is only rabbinically prohibited, and asking the non-Jew to do it is another rabbinic prohibition. In certain circumstances, the Sages did not impose both layers of restriction (See Shulch...

Published in The Jewish Press  on December 1, 2023   If a Jew is found who has been killed, he is to be buried exactly how he was found, without shrouds. They do not even remove his shoes . Such is the ruling in the  Shulchan Aruch  ( Yoreh De’ah  364). Unfortunately, the rabbinate of the IDF has had to employ this  halacha  hundreds of times over in the last several weeks. They are situated in Machane Shura, an army base near Ramle, which acts as the central command for the IDF Rabbinate. While the Rabbinate’s most common activities involve ensuring kosher food for the military, enabling Shabbat observance on army bases, and providing spiritual support for soldiers, since this war began their energies as well as those of many reservists have been focused on the unfathomable number of casualties. On our synagogue’s recent mission to Israel, we visited Shura, where a few of their rabbis, led by Rabbis Binyamin Zimmerman and Bentzi Mann, described the en...

Originally published in the KJ Pesach 2021 Bulletin Most people think they know why we eat Maror on Passover. Rabban Gamliel himself tells us in the Haggadah: “What does this bitter herb mean? It is eaten because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors.”  In the Bible, however, bitter herbs are mentioned only in the context of eating them with the Paschal sacrifice (roast lamb) on Matzah. Literally on the eve of the exodus, this surely had nothing to do with commemorating Egyptian bondage. The Ohr Hachayim observed that there is a much simpler explanation for the Maror requirement: it tastes better that way. The Paschal sacrifice, eaten on Matzah with bitter herbs, is meant to be enjoyed, and “it is common for people to eat roast meat with something sharp as this enhances the taste of the meat and enables one to thoroughly enjoy it.” According to this, bitter herbs on the Korban Pesach are analogous to our mustard on pastrami or hot sauce on shawarma. These two ratio...