Rambam Bekius

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/18/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we learned through another shiur from The Kuntress (Sevaros b'Mishneh Torah le'ha'Rambam) on a major problem with the berachos we make on matzah, maror, and the korban Pesach - namely, they violate the Rambam's own rules about how to formulate our berachos on...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/17/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we learned through a shiur from The Kuntress (Sevaros b'Mishneh Torah le'ha'Rambam) on the bizarre conclusion of the Rambam's Nusach ha'Haggadah, in which he implies that we might think we SHOULDN'T read the hagadah or do any of the mitzvos on the s...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/16/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we finished Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah Chapter 8, in which the Rambam walks us through the rest of the seder and assorted other halachos. As I mentioned last time, our priority was to note differences between Ch8 and Ch7, differences between the Rambam's seder and our (A...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/15/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we began Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah Chapter 8, in which the Rambam walks us through the seder. Our priority was to note differences between Ch8 and Ch7, differences between the Rambam's seder and our (Ashkenazic) seder, and to raise whatever other questions or problems w...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/11/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we finished Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah Perek 7. We began by looking up the pesukim cited as the source for the obligation to "see/show oneself as having left Egypt." We then read the halachos of the four cups, the obligation to recline, the mitzvah of charoses, and...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Because we've been talking about the erroneous printed editions of the Mishneh Torah, I decided to read an excerpt from an English translation of R' Qafih's Introduction to the Mishneh Torah. I recommend reading this introduction in its entirety, which is why I recorded this pre-shiur discussion. See below for the link. ----...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/10/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we continued learning through the halachos of the seder, raising questions, giving answers, and making observations (and jokes). ---------- מקורות: רמב"ם - משנה תורה, ספר זמנים, הלכות חמץ ומצה ז:ד-ו דברים כו:א-י ירמיהו ב:יג ---------- Bekius Disclaimer: Note that this is a...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/9/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we began the halachos of Sipur Yetzias Mitzrayim. Now that we're here, we're going to slow down and think more into what we read. There are lots of questions and problems, some of which will be answered this year, and some of which will be left for future sedarim/gene...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/8/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued through Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah, touching upon the critical halachos in Chapter 5 and 6 so that we could make it to the halachos of the seder with plenty of time. And guess what? We made it! Tomorrow (בג"ה) we will begin Chapter 7 and proceed at a much m...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/4/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued through Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah, covering the topics of bal yiraei and bal yimatzei. Reminder: we're sticking to the "roshei perakim" and skipping over (no pun intended) the details, so that we can get to chapters 7 and 8 and focus on them in-d...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/3/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued through Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah, covering the topics of tashbisu (a.k.a. bitul chametz) and bedikah. Reminder: we're sticking to the "roshei perakim" and skipping over (no pun intended) the details, so that we can get to chapters 7 and 8 and fo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/2/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we began Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah. The Rambam says at the end of the minyan ha'mitzvos in the introduction to the Mishneh Torah (and elsewhere) that each mitzvah has klalim, pratim, and dikdukim. We intend to do all of the klalim, some of the pratim, and none of the d...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (3/1/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we began Hilchos Pesach in preparation for the upcoming chag. Because we know that there's no way we'll make it through all of the halachos in all eight chapters of Hilchos Chametz u'Matzah in the 13 sessions we have in march, we've decided to do an overview...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/24/21 at YBT) was our last Rambam Bekius chavurah before Purim. Seeing as how we finished the Hilchos Megilah section of Hilchos Megilah v'Chanukah last time, we decided to do a shiur on megilah from Sevaros b'Mishneh Torah le'ha'Rambam, by the Baal ha'Kuntress. Although the shiur focused on megil...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/23/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we concluded Hilchos Megilah! We began with the remaining halachos of Mikra Megilah, then read the halachos about the Ymei ha'Purim, mishteh, mishloach manos, matanos la'evyonim, and the Rambam's concluding statements. ---------- מקורות: רמב"ם - משנה תורה:...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/18/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued in the halachos of Purim, making our way through the laws of megilah reading. My lazy title of this shiur is due to the fact that we covered a variety of topics under that heading which didn't easily lend themselves to a more specific theme. ---------- מקורות...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/17/21 at YBT) we began our Rambam Bekius chavurah with an addendum to the halachos we learned yesterday about tefilin, mezuzos, and sifrei Torah written by heretics. ---------- מקורות: רמב"ם - משנה תורה: ספר אהבה, הלכות תפילין ומזוזה וספר תורה א:יג רמב"ם - משנה תורה: ספר המדע, הלכות תשובה ג:ז,ט רמב"ם - משנה...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/17/21 at YBT), in the second part of our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued in the halachos of Purim, focusing on the times established by Chazal for the reading of the megilah. We definitely faced some difficulties in understanding the structure of these times as presented by the Rambam, but we eventually solved the pr...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/16/21 at YBT), in the second half of our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we began the halachos of Purim, starting with the Rambam's introduction of the mitzvah of krias ha'megilah, along with certain related sources - including one from Hilchos Nachalos, of all places! ---------- מקורות: רמב"ם - משנה תורה: הקדמה, מ...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/16/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we completed Chapter 6 of Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah. The last two halachos dealt with the halachos of destroying Kisvei ha'Kodesh, which involves distinctions between who wrote the text, as well as the halachos about names in specific parts of Tanaach which appear to b...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/15/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we took up a side-quest: to defend the Rambam against a charge leveled by the Riaz (R' Yeshaya Acharon di'Trani). The Rambam famously held that one who believes that Hashem has a body or an appearance qualifies as a "min" (heretic). The Riaz, like the Raavad,...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/11/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued learning the Rambam's presentation of the halachos of "destroying that upon which the Name of Hashem is proclaimed." We covered the detailed halachos of erasing Hashem's name, dwelling for a while on what we mean when we describe things as &quot...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Note: I realize I made a mistake in this shiur when I said that the halacha of destroying the altar isn't mentioned in this perek. It is, as we'll  see tomorrow. This afternoon (2/9/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we began a new mitzvah - one which is presented by the Rambam VERY differently in the Sefer ha'Mitzvos...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/8/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we concluded Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah Chapter 5. The penultimate halacha in the chapter deals with relatively unknown and difficult to understand form of chilul ha'shem and kidush ha'shem. The last halacha is what many think of as the ONLY form of chilul ha's...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (2/4/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we continued in Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah Chapter 5. After a brief review of what we covered yesterday we moved on to the halachos of mesirah (i.e. giving up a Jewish person to be killed or raped), followed by the halachos about when we are and aren't permitted to viola...