Question My brother and I are baalei teshuvah and we have a very interesting question to ask the rov. Before my father married our mother, he was engaged to a non-Jew. When his fiancée discovered that my father was Jewish, she got cold feet. Although he was able to convince her to go ahead with the wedding, she insisted that before they married, he first had to get baptized, Rachmana litzlan. My father very much wanted to marry this woman and he agreed. On the day the baptism

Question I have seen that people are very lenient regarding eating meat at a siyum during the Nine Days, and that even people who were not directly connected to the learning eat meat. I would like to know the parameters of this leniency. For example, if someone made a siyum in a restaurant, may everyone in the restaurant eat meat, even if they had no connection whatsoever to the siyum? On a similar note, I have been learning Sefer Yehoshua with a chavrusa once a week for over

Question Every day, I catch Mincha at a shtiebel. There are a lot of minyanim going on simultaneously, and each minyan can hear what is going on in the other one. I have the following questions: 1. If I hear the minyan next door reciting Kaddish or Kedusha, but I have already started Shemoneh Esrei by saying “Hashem sefosai tiftoch,” can I answer Kaddish or Kedusha and then go back to my Shemoneh Esrei, or is it forbidden for me to answer? 2. If after reciting “Hashem sefosai

Question My son is seven years old and is highly active. We were a little surprised on Purim when he decided to dress up like Robin Hood, who was famous for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When he started stealing candies from the local grocery store and distributing them to his friends, we retroactively understood why he had chosen that particular costume. We are doing everything possible to direct our son on the right path and to channel his energy into more

Question I am in the process of building a moshav called “The Shteitel” right outside of Yerushalayim, next to the neighborhood of Kochav Hashachar. The moshav will, be’ezras Hashem, have a kollel, and our goal is for English-speaking Jews to settle and live a simpler and more Torahdike life, like we once had in the shtetel. I would like to ask the rov for advice on how we can set up “The Shteitel” and its kollel in a way that will facilitate maximum growth in avodas Hashem f

Question I am the gabbai of my local minyan, and I really connect to the tefillah of Tachanun. When we skip it, I feel like I am missing an important part of the davening, but of course I bow my head to the halachic ruling. If there is a baal bris or a chosson davening in our minyan on a weekday, they let me know beforehand. Right after Shemoneh Esrei, I give a klopp on the bimah, and everyone knows that this means we will not be reciting Tachanun that day. Once we get to Siv

Question I often find myself coming late to tefillah and, as a result, I have to skip most of Pesukei Dezimra. How much effort should I spend reciting Pesukei Dezimra in full? Thank you. Yanky Rav Auerbach The Mishnah in Brachos (30b) notes that the Chassidim Harishonim would spend an hour preparing before and after each of the three tefillos, and then spend an hour davening, nine hours in total. Even though nine hours is a significant amount of time spent davening, the Gema

Rav Shimon Bar Yochai and the Baal Shem of Michelstadt Question I was recently in Germany to daven by the kever of the Baal Shem of Michelstadt. I got there late at night, and since I had not davened Maariv, I davened Maariv right next to the kever. Afterwards, I thought that perhaps it was not right to daven so close to the kever. After further introspection, I came to the conclusion that since so many people daven tefillos by Rav Shimon Bar Yochai’s kever on Lag Ba’omer, th

We are a group of 15 Persian bnei Torah from the Tila Shul in Los Angeles who came to Eretz Yisroel to learn in Rabbi Travis’ kollel for a week, specifically to study the sugya of uvdin dechol b’iyun . We have a number of questions about the sugya that we would like to ask Rav Auerbach. Traveling in a Luxury Railroad Car on Shabbos Question We studied a teshuvah from the Chasam Sofer (6:97), who rules that riding on a train is uvdin dechol , because it takes a person

Question I was recently learning the Gemara in Shabbos 146b, which states that the Torah forbids shaking off a garment on Shabbos . While Rashi explains that this is referring to removing dust, Tosafos explains that the Gemara is referring to shaking off dew. When one shakes off this dew, it is as though one has cleaned the garment on Shabbos . I have a few questions to ask Rav Auerbach about how to apply this Gemara as far as halacha lemaaseh is concerned. I am not re

Six-Man Second Day Shacharis Minyan Question I have been part of a Pesach program at the Nir Etzion kibbutz in Israel. While most of the participants speak English, they live in Israel and keep one day of Yom Tov . There are six of us in the hotel who keep two days, and we are still in the hotel for the last day of Yom Tov . I would like to know if I can ask four Israelis who already davened the weekday Shacharis to join with us to make a second-day minyan . Ari G. Rav Za

Question I live in Beit Shemesh, and boruch Hashem many miracles have taken place during the current war, though last week a great tragedy took place in our community. Our shul took a direct hit from a missile, and nine people were killed, including three children from the Bitton family. All of us are trying to figure out how to do teshuvah , and I was wondering if we should consider the fact that some of the casualties took place in a bomb shelter in a shul . It also seems