Family Purity, Part 5: Harchakot (Distancing), Part 1
The source and reason for the harchakot (the separations a husband and wife keep while she is niddah), and the first of them: light-headed talk, smelling her perfume,…
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Family Purity, Part 6: Harchakot (2): The Table, the Beds and Sitting Together
The second class on the harchakot: eating at the same table with a heker, not eating from the same plate, the rules of sitting and lying on each…
Family Purity, Part 7: The Hefsek Tahara (Getting Clean)
How a woman begins the process of becoming tehorah: waiting the five days, the bath and the hefsek tahara bedika, white clothing and sheets, the moch dachuk, what…
Family Purity, Part 1: Niddah, Zavah and Hargasha
How any blood from the womb makes a woman a niddah, the Torah's distinction between niddah and zavah, and what a hargasha is: why women today don't feel…
Family Purity, Part 4: Vestot (The Expected Days of the Period)
The halachot of vestot: separating close to the expected period, when the onah begins, the Or Zarua chumra, veset kavua and veset she'eino kavua, the three days a…
Family Purity, Part 2: Stains (Ketamim) and the Questions We Ask
Rabbi Shay Tahan goes through the list in Darkei Tahara of what must be asked before a stain (ketem) makes a woman tameh: sensation, how clean the cloth…
Family Purity, Part 3: Stains (Ketamim)
Rabbi Shay Tahan explains the three levels of cleanness of a cloth (checked, unchecked and dirty), the size of a stain and the penny measure, stains on colored…
Parashat Chayei Sarah: Twenty Elephants, Showing a Wife Her True Value
Eliezer seems to make every beginner's mistake when he comes to take Rivka for Yitzchak, and Avraham pays full price for Me'arat HaMachpelah. When you are acquiring a…
Parashat Vayera: Sensitivity in Other People’s Marriages
Hakadosh Baruch Hu changed Sarah's words so as not to put one negative thought in Avraham's mind, and the malachim went out of their way to add love…
Parashat Noach: Knowing Your Strength and Staying Away from the Society
Was Noach a real tzaddik or not so much? The Siftei Chachamim explains why Noach stayed home while Avraham went out to the people, and why 120 years…