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Minhag Manhattan: Can the Doorman Press the Elevator Button for Me on Shabbat?

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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...
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Six Hours at the Dealership

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I finished the first draft of my Rosh Hashanah sermon unusually early this year, thanks, improbably enough, to a car dealership.  I had been thinking about the sermon for a while and had the basic ideas in mind, but I had not yet worked out the argument and structure or actually begun writing it. And then, last week I brought my car in for its New York State inspection, an oil change, and a few recall repairs. They told me it would take two and a half hours, so I brought my laptop. There was a waiting area, coffee and snacks, and I figured I would get a little work done. Six hours later, my car was finally ready. And so was the first draft of my sermon. Since then, I have been pondering why I was able to accomplish so much there. There was nothing particularly inspiring about the surroundings. But I couldn't go anywhere. No one was going to knock on my office door. There were none of the many small tasks that would normally compete for attention. I had one large piece of work to do...
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The Trouble With Temimut

If you describe someone in Modern Hebrew as tamim , it is no compliment. It means he is naïve, unsophisticated, maybe little too trusting. If your friend is about to fall for an obvious scam, you might tell him: אל תהיה תמים. Don’t be so gullible. Yet, throughout the Bible, tamim is an extraordinarily positive word. Noach is introduced as: נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו “Noach was a righteous man; he was tamim in his generation.” God tells Avraham: הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים “Walk before Me and be tamim .” Tehillim describes the person worthy of dwelling in God’s presence as: הוֹלֵךְ תָּמִים וּפֹעֵל צֶדֶק “One who walks tamim and acts righteously.” And in Parashat Shoftim , the Torah commands us directly: תָּמִים תִּהְיֶה עִם ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ “You shall be tamim with the Lord your God.” So what exactly is temimut , often translated as “completeness” or “wholeheartedness”? What is this quality that sounds almost insulting to the modern ear, but which the Torah cons...
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Chukim: Particularly Meaningful

Twenty years ago, I was sitting in a college history lecture when my mother called me on my cell phone. I didn’t pick up, but she rang again and again. I eventually left the classroom to take the call. My father had a stroke while eating lunch - likely at Diamond Dairy - and Hatzolah took him to the Roosevelt Hospital Emergency room. I was the only member of the family in Manhattan, so I hopped on the train and went right to be with him. At that time I was not a regular tefillin-wrapper or minyan-goer, but that night I decided I wanted to daven for his health, and the next morning went to the campus Shacharit minyan with my tefillin. I don’t understand how God operates or whether my prayers contributed to my father’s recovery. But I do know that this act of wrapping leather straps around my arm - something that by any account is a chok, a statute that we don’t understand, somehow this act was deeply meaningful to me.   The beginning of our parsha talks about the laws of t...
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Chesed: The Bedrock of Our People

Why did Avraham insist on going back to Ur Kasdim , his birthplace, to find a wife for Yitzchak? After all, both Canaan and Ur Kasdim were full of idol worshippers - so it surely was not for religious reasons. What made one place different from the other? The Malbim offered a profound explanation based on an idea in Derashot HaRan . He noted that idolatry was not necessarily just about theology but about culture and character. The people of Canaan had bad middot , they were violent and vengeful. In contrast, Avraham’s family, though also idolaters, exhibited virtues like kindness, hospitality, and generosity. Avraham understood that the foundation of the Jewish people had to rest on these core values. This is why Eliezer, tasked with finding a wife for Yitzchak, tested Rivka with an act of kindness. When she offered water to him and his camels, she demonstrated her natural generosity and sensitivity. Rivka showed that she embodied the traits necessary to join Avraham’s family and cont...
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Politics and Religion

Our country is more divided than ever. A former president narrowly escaped assassination—a horrific event that, in any other time, would have united the country. Instead, it spurred conspiracy theories and mutual accusations on both sides, deepening our divide. Sadly, the same thing is true in Israel. The unity of the country after October 7 was beautiful and inspiring and short-lived; the country is now deeply divided over the war, over the Haredi draft, and many other issues. How did we arrive at this point, where even tragedy fails to bring us together? In Pirkei Avot, the Mishna contrasts Avraham and Bilam as polar opposites: כָּל מִי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ שְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים הַלָּלוּ, מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ. וּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים אֲחֵרִים, מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע. עַיִן טוֹבָה, וְרוּחַ נְמוּכָה, וְנֶפֶשׁ שְׁפָלָה, מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ. עַיִן רָעָה, וְרוּחַ גְּבוֹהָה, וְנֶפֶשׁ רְחָבָה, מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל בִּלְעָם הָרָשָׁע Whoever possesses t...
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Handled with Holiness

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...
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