Question: 1. If someone buys a house for $200,000, puts down $50,000 in equity, takes out a mortgage for $150,000, and then receives rent on the house for several years, how should he calculate his maaser? (Note: The mortgage payment includes tax, interest, and some repayment of the principal.) 2. If the person subsequently sells…
Question: I am preparing a lease contract to rent out our car. I would like to include a clause stipulating that whenever a payment is late the renter will have to pay interest on the late fees. Does this involve a problem of ribbis or asmachta? Answer: Both issues you mentioned, ribbis and asmachta, are…
Question: When entering into a legal contract while leasing a car, purchasing tiles, or signing bank or insurance documents, what should be the agreed-upon venue for resolving disputes? Answer: You should not agree to resolve your dispute with another Jew in a secular court of law.[1] According to halochoh, the appropriate arena for making any…
Question: My company has the custom of giving staff members a gift before holidays—usually money. I usually put some extra money in the envelope for my personal assistant, and she does not know what is from the company and what is from me. This year I will not be able to give her as much…
Question: Answer: Most parents realize that educating their children is not as simple as finding out where the neighborhood kids go to school, packing lunches, arranging for transportation and meeting the teacher twice a year. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to leave education to the "experts," i.e., the school. Often parents act as if they…
Question: (This is a follow-up question to a question that was previously asked). According to what you are saying, the story about the boy who died trying to fulfill his father's wishes and the disgrace to the teacher of Torah (Kiddushin 39b) seem to be the stimuli that evoked Elisha ben Avuya's initial doubts about…
Question: I am trying to get a true understanding of what happened to "Acher." The Gemoro (Kiddushin 39b) gives two alternatives as to what caused Acher to sin. Either he saw a child fall from the tree while fulfilling the mitzvos of honoring his father and sending away a mother bird or he was overwhelmed…
Question: May I ask a non-Jew in America to file a document for me when it is Motza’ei Shabbos or Motza’ei Yom Tov here (in Eretz Yisroel) and still Shabbos or Yom Tov there? Does it make any difference if it is Yom Tov sheni? What if one or more Jews might be involved in…
Question: We are considering buying a mechanized dishwasher — but I am confused about a Shabbos-related issue. I often see families that are shomrei torah u-mitzvos wetting and brushing down their dirty dishes on Shabbos before placing them in the machine to be washed after Shabbos. Isn't this forbidden because one is preparing on Shabbos…
Question: We have a few questions regarding the proper procedure for Selichos and Shacharis: What is the correct procedure if we don't have a minyan when we finish the first Ashrei? Should we skip any sections of Selichos, or should we stick to the text? Until Selichos began, I don't think we ever had a…