Fred

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14h	comment	Why is semicha specifically to ordain a Rabbi to give psak? See Rambam (Hil. Talmud Torah 5:2-4).
23h	revised	Why is semicha specifically to ordain a Rabbi to give psak? title
May 14	revised	Finding Kosher Fruit Flavored Snacks tags
May 14	comment	Finding Kosher Fruit Flavored Snacks Is this what was described on oukosher.org?
May 13	comment	The silence of the Rabbis — Should they have defended Bar Kamtza? Perhaps "the rabbis" should not be viewed as a monolith. The rabbis at the party were silent, but the greatest rabbis of the generation (probably including those whose names are actually recorded in the Talmud) might not even have attended. Consider the b'raisa (Sanhedrin 23a): "כך היו נקיי הדעת שבירושלים עושין ... ולא היו נכנסין בסעודה אלא אם כן יודעין מי מיסב עמהן." Would the greatest sages have therefore attended the party of a wicked person? (Also consider P'sachim 49a, which lambasts Torah scholars who party to excess).
May 13	comment	Do you have to listen to the mikveh lady? @nikmasi Are you talking about a פשוטי כלי עץ stepladder built into the wall, on which גזירת מרחצאות של כלים could apply (YD 198:31)? Otherwise, if she got her hands wet from the mikva before she touched the wall, and she wasn't pressing hard against the wall, is the custom to still be machmir for גזירה שמא לא ירפה as well as treating hadacha as b'dieved?
May 13	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? @msh210 I know, I was using it colloquially.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? (See more discussion on this here).
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? Note that the Rambam in Hil. T'shuva 10:1 writes that "a person should not say, 'I will do the command of the Torah and study its Wisdom... in order that I merit life in Olam Haba'." Perhaps (similar to the distinction made by R' Tzadok MiLublin in Divrei Sof'rim, 4) the Rambam would say that if someone wants Olam Haba as an opportunity to love and cling to HaShem, that intent itself would be a fulfillment of the mitzva of ahavas HaShem. In any case, perhaps R' Chaim would disagree with the Rambam and follow another rishon.
May 12	comment	What do Sephardic sources have to say about women wearing t'filin? Regarding wearing a tallis, see the last paragraph of the footnote on p. 104 of Women & the Mitzvot: Serving the Creator.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? This highlights the importance of performing mitzvos, but it doesn't suggest that this is the ideal intent someone should have when performing the mitzva. I.e. it doesn't suggest that someone who does mitzvos for that purpose is doing them lishmah.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? ... Perhaps a similar machlokes would exist regarding performing mitzvos with the intention that they increase the "extent of the revelation of G-dliness" in the world.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? +1, especially for "the 'fruit' itself includes the ability to do more mitzvos, much like... 'learning in order to perform'"; if done with that intention, it might not be considered al m'nas l'kabeil s'char. \| Aside from that point, it seems that this is related to a key point of disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and R' Chaim Volozhiner on the topic of lishmah in Torah study; R' Chaim wrote that lishmah requires learning simply because that is the mitzvah, and the Alter Rebbe wrote (IIRC) in the Tanya that learning to achieve d'veikus is also considered lishmah.
May 12	comment	Do the Gemara and the Rema prohibit, or encourage, women putting on talit and/or tefillin? See Women & the Mitzvot: Serving the Creator, pp. 95-105, which discusses this at length.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? @msh210 This begs the question of whether someone can do a mitzva lishmah and also have some other specific intention, or whether any other objective detracts from lishmah.
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? @msh210 ...So it's a special case of the generalization described in my comment?
May 12	comment	Korbon tomid whilst Jews were travelling (as opposed to camping) in the desert The gemara (Chagiga 6a-b) describes a machlokes regarding whether the olos brought at Mount Sinai were t'midim. R' Akiva takes the position that the korban hatamid was brought at Mt. Sinai, and that it never ceased being brought from then on. The Ibn Ezra takes a middle position, that the korban hatamid was brought as long as the Jews were encamped at Mt. Sinai, but it was not brought the whole time the Jews were in the desert (Ibn Ezra, Sh'mos 29:42).
May 12	comment	Do the Gemara and the Rema prohibit, or encourage, women putting on talit and/or tefillin? @DoubleAA Are you referring to that targum in general ("Targum Pseudo-Jonathan"), or are you referring to something about the targum on this specific verse?
May 12	comment	Do the Gemara and the Rema prohibit, or encourage, women putting on talit and/or tefillin? @IlyaMelamed The gemara does mention Michal wearing tefillin (not a tallis, if I recall), though the Talmud Yerushalmi maintains that the sages did object to her actions. I don't know of a source for Bruria wearing tefillin, though I've heard a lot of people mention that she did. The Rema did write that a woman who wears a tallis should recite a blessing, but he said that women may not wear tefillin. (The Rema and some other poskim seem to disregard the Targum Yonasan's rationale regarding cross dressing).
May 12	comment	Do a mitzva for mashiach? To clarify: Is your question about whether one's kavana in performing mitzvos should be outcome oriented (in the sense that the merit should bring about a specific outcome) or lishmah?