Pri Megadim

by R. Gidon Rothstein Jewish Unity and the Oral Law Paragraph sixteen of the first part of Peri Megadim’s Petihah suggests arevut, the principle of Jew’s responsibility for each other, encompasses only the Written Torah. For Jewish practices found only in the Oral Law, perhaps Jews never took on arevut. A clear practical ramification comes when one Jew wants to perform a mitzvah act to ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein We are studying the first part of Peri Megadim’s Petihah Kolelet, where he is laying out the levels of halachah, and we have spent our first few weeks on explicit Torah law. We are about to finish (I should have finished it last time, I didn’t look ahead to see how close we were; my apologies). His second to ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Petiha Kolelet, Part I, Par. 4-7: Setting Our Ground Rules Checking Our Assumptions: How Durable is a Hazaka We pick up with paragraph four of the Petiha Kolelet, where Peri Megadim points out a seeming incongruity in Rambam’s, Laws of Rebellious Ones 7;7. Before executing a ben sorer umoreh, a young teenage boy who has given reason to believe he is entrenched on the ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Starting Part I of the Petihah Kolelet: The Levels of Torah Law Peri Megadim is going to introduce us to the levels of laws in halacha, with examples of why each level has a practical nafka minna, a meaningful difference, what changes if a law is written explicitly in the Torah, for the highest level as an example, as opposed to being ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein I believe in hashgahah peratit, Divine Providence extending to individuals. Complicating matters for me, I accept some version of Rambam’s view of it, where more righteous people earn or enjoy a greater level of such Providence. It means I am rarely confident I have experienced such moments, since I have little reason to think I am righteous enough to ...