Question
My employer holds mandatory weekly meetings at a non-kosher restaurant. The restaurant is cafeteria style and also sells some factory produced items with kosher certification that are intended for carryout but nevertheless ready to eat. Am I permitted to eat these items during the meetings at the same table while everyone else there eats non-kosher food?

Question
I was raised by my father and stepmother, who to me is my mother. My father and stepmother are both Jewish. My biological mother was not Jewish. All my siblings who are the flesh and blood of my stepmother are Jewish and one of them became religious. And the woman I want to marry is Jewish. I was raised fully as a Jew with no hint of any other religion, and I had a bar mitzvah. Everyone who knows me thinks I am Jewish. But Jewish law doesn’t consider me Jewish because my biological mother who died when I was an infant was not. I can easily have a Reformed or Conservative conversion, but I want one that is Orthodox. I want to be just like everyone in my family and community. Is there any way, any loophole, where I can have an orthodox conversion to Judaism but not be fully observant and still be myself thereafter?

Question
Can a Jew recite the blessings if the Hanukkah candles were lit by a non-Jew? (Specifically, a non-Jew lit the shamash, and then a Jew took the shamash from him and lit the Hanukkah candles from it). My point is not whether a non-Jew can light the Hanukkah candles (being in the process of conversion, without blessings or just for fun). My point is whether a Jew can recite the appropriate blessings over such a candle - lit by a Gentile. It seems to me that this is not permitted. (Nor is it about a situation in which, say, a disabled Jew has only a non-Jewish caregiver to assist him, and if that non-Jew doesn't light a candle for him, performing the mitzvah is not possible). Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Question
I am looking for a way to earn some extra money. One of the options I found is mystery shopping. Basically, you enter a store, engage with a salesperson, and pretend you are interested in the merchandise, but in the end, you don’t buy it (or in some cases you do). You subsequently write a report about your interaction that is used by the employer to evaluate that salesperson. It sounds like an easy way to make money, but it seems to conflict with some issues I have learned about Halacha. What do you think?