Yair Hoffman

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By Rabbi Yair Hoffman Join our WhatsApp group Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email This article was written on a flight to California for a levaya. The solemn journey has occasioned reflection not only upon the niftar alav hashalom, but also upon certain realities happening now in California. California has been much in the news […]

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman Join our WhatsApp group Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email Today, the 19th of Taives, is the yahrteit of Rav Aryeh Leib HaKohen Heller, whose three major seforim entirely redefined what it means to understand a sugya, to analyze halacha, and to think with conceptual integrity. His seforim have prompted the […]

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman Join our WhatsApp group Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email Today, the 20th of Teves, marks the yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon—the Rambam—who passed away in 1204 CE. Jews around the world should pause to reflect upon him, as his brilliance continues to illuminate Torah life eight centuries later. This […]

Recently, this author came across a mechaneches in California with the title of “Director of Student Success.” The benefits of such a position are abundantly clear and every yeshiva high school should perhaps consider creating such a position—along with clear goals and a metric to analyze its success. When a student is struggling—academically, socially or emotionally—there should be someone whose entire job is to make sure that that student does not fall through the cracks.

Rav Schneur Kotler, zt”l, the illustrious rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, once cited a remarkable teaching from the Amudei Ohr—the sefer of responsa authored by the gaon Rav Yechiel Heller, zt”l (1814–1862), Rav of Suvalk, and one of the great Lithuanian poskim of the 19th century.

Gaza's future must be built on truth. And the truth is that the Jews were there first, returned again and again, and were expelled each time by force. A just and durable peace requires something more than concrete and a Board of Peace. It requires honesty about what Gaza is, what it was, and what - with courage and vision - it could yet become.

If Mashiach came tomorrow morning, could you tell a Kohen how to slaughter a korban? Could you identify a disqualifying blemish? Could you explain the five halachos l'Moshe m'Sinai that can invalidate shechitah before the knife is even drawn?

J Street pressures Israel during wartime, legitimizes narratives weaponized against Israel internationally, and helps fracture bipartisan support for the Jewish state. And Sebastien Levi responds in the JPost by scolding the ambassador who critiicized it. Opinion.

Every product purchased from Judea and Samaria, every order placed, every investment made, is a direct repudiation of a boycott built on the premise that Jews are trespassers in their own homeland.