My daughter will be turning 1 next week and we are planning a small party in her honor at our apartment. A week ago my step-uncle had a major stroke and went into a coma. The doctors only gave him few days and he died this morning. My problem is we are planning the party next Sunday and the funeral will be either tomorrow or Monday (they are flying the body back to NY from Florida) so I won't know till later this evening. Is it still okay to have my child's birthday party even though my aunt and her son's (does her son's need to sit shiva if the man that passed away was their step dad?) will be sitting shiva? Thank you for reading my question. Sincerely, Brenda Fishman P.S. Please do not put on the web my full name. Thank you.

Hello, Can ou look at the Jewish calendar for 2007 and tell me if it is permissable to hold a wedding on Aril 21st, since it is between Passover and Sahvuos. thank you would a reform Rabbi have a different outlook than your opinion? thank you

Hi there! I have two very similar questions to ask. 1. May a Bar Mitvah boy kiss and hug his mother when she is a Niddah? If he is not allowed, then should he be notified when she is off-limits? 2. May a father kiss and hug his teenage daughter, who being unmarried has never been to the Mikvah? If he is not allowed, then could a father recommed that his unmarried daughter visit a Mikvah so that he will be able to kiss and hug her without violating Jewish Law? Thank you, Ari

why were sacrifices made to god instead of praying?

A question about the problems with statements, within the Torah, that are of questionable nature from a scientific standpoint. This one, presented to me, by a guy, who is an atheist, who means well but who must've gotten this off the internet to assuage his atheism, by finding errors. I realize it's not wise to argue minutia, but rather to study, and learn rather than merely look for errors. However, if it isn't indiscrete, I wonder how you would point out the holes in these, Torah passages and the criticisms, he presents. He is a reasonable man, and I wanted to present something of a scholarly answer which I myself do have at my comman. Rabbits do not chew their cud LEV 11:6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. 'Gerah', the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does *not* mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated 'chew the cud' in the KJV is more exactly 'bring up the cud'. Rabbits do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that's that. Rabbits do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it. Insects do NOT have four feet LEV 11:21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; LEV 11:22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. LEV 11:23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you. Snails do not melt PSA 58:8 As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Fowl from waters or ground? Since I'm not a scholar, I don't bother with things I haven't the study to confront, nor do such things bother nor concern me.... but I wanted to provide a cogent, sensible, anwer to such a question Mark