Common Sense Halakha – Details, episodes & analysis

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Common Sense Halakha

Rav Dr. Elisha Ancselovits

Religion & Spirituality

History

Frequency: 1 episode/112d. Total Eps: 4

The Jewish legal tradition stretches back thousands of years and is full of rich and deep insights into human behavior. Insights that our modern abstract formalist method of learning have prevented us from seeing. Join Rav Elisha Ancselovits in uncovering the pragmatic wisdom of our ancient traditions. While everything is translated into English, there is a presumption of familiarity with certain concepts. If you know what Torah, Talmud, and Halakha mean, you're probably fine.

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Data updated on 04/07/2026

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You Don't Understand Para Aduma? It's Common Sense!

Season 1 · Episode 4

Thursday, March 9, 2023 • Duration 41:38

In this season (not series!) finale of Common Sense Halakha, Rav Elisha walks us through the pragmatics of the Para Aduma, the Red Heifer, about which we'll read this Shabbat.

Source sheet available at www.sefaria.org/sheets/470200

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https://eng.beithillel.org.il/parshat-chukat-living-death-mortality-loss-guilt/

https://www.academia.edu/15427253/_Wise_Hukkim_and_the_Byzantine_Sermonic_Ideology_of_a_Divine_Fiat_in_Curtis_Hutt_Halla_Kim_and_Berel_Lerner_eds_Jewish_Religious_and_Philosophical_Ethics_Routledge

https://www.thetorah.com/article/red-heifer-a-soap-ritual

Dr. Weinstein's additions to the discussion not addressed in the two pieces by Rav Elisha are that while fat is a potential part of soapmaking, the ash alone from the burning of the wood, mixed with water, would produce an alkaline cleaning solution. Rav Elisha objects that we simply did not have the technology to burn bone to ash as Dr. Weinstein suggests, in the Biblical era. Given that cedarwood, which isn't necessarily the only wood involved, burns at 200C, and bone at 800C, and the reality that this conflagration happened outside means that there was certainly drippings of fat (which begins to melt around 40-60C) in addition to the ashes from the wood.

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You Don't Understand Chanukah Lights? It's Common Sense!

Season 1 · Episode 3

Tuesday, December 20, 2022 • Duration 28:36

In this episode, Rav Elisha teaches us about the reason why electric chanukiot aren't generally permitted; and why sometimes, they are.

http://www.sefaria.org/sheets/454488

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You Don't Understand Leather Shoes? It's Common Sense!

Season 1 · Episode 2

Thursday, August 4, 2022 • Duration 19:51

On this episode, Rav Elisha teaches us about the commonly misunderstood prohibition on wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av.

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/422530 <- in Hebrew and English

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You Don't Understand Kitniot? It's Common Sense!

Season 1 · Episode 1

Wednesday, April 6, 2022 • Duration 01:06:32

In our premiere episode, Rav Elisha teaches us how to understand the ban of kitniot as fundamentally tied to the reasoning behind chametz. Join us in this hour long investigation into what's really going on behind the scenes.

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/473986?lang=bi

*Despite or because of the academic scholarly debates over which specific poor people are called gerim in various Biblical books (see, for instance, Rolf Rendtorff, “The Ger in the Priestly Laws of the Pentateuch,” in Mark G. Brett, ed. Ethnicity and the Bible [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002], 85-86 and Clyde M. Woods and Justin Rogers, Leviticus and Numbers [Joplin MO: College Press, 2006],125 fns. 73-74), ger is best translated in the broadest sense of non-citizen – a term that covers peasant field workers, urban proletariats, and foreigner (Cf. Phillip Sigal, The Emergence of Contemporary Judaism, Volume 1 - The Foundations of Judaism from Biblical origins to the Sixth Century AD: Part 1 - From the Origins to the Separation of Christianity [Pittsburgh PA: Pickwick Press, 1980], 77; Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah [Philadelphia PA: Westminster Press, 1987], 50; and Ebbe Egede Knudsen, “Amorite Grammar: A Comparative Statement,” in Alan S. Kaye ed. Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau, Volume One [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991], 866). In Exodus/Shemot 20:9 and Deuteronomy/Devarim 5:13, moreover, ger unmistakably refers to persons who show up at the city gates for work – such as rural peasants coming to the city as day laborers or as not-monied and non-citizen urban proletariats – persons did not own a house and rights in the city (as did the citizens [Leviticus 25:29-30]).

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Common Sense Halakha – Details, episodes & analysis

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Common Sense Halakha – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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