Question
As far as I know a person who is in his shloishim after the loss of a parent even if the shloishim was cut back because of a Yom Tov that occured within the 30 days he is still a chiyuv as far as Davening as a Ba"al Tefillah is concerned. What happens if another person in the minyan has Yahrzeit for a parent, who takes precedence and should be Ba"al Tefillah?

Question
I am a Noahide seeking an answer to the question, when if ever do you take someone off a ventilator? My 43-year-old son suffered a bad stroke this past weekend. The ICU doctors say he will never be able to come off the ventilator. He is not brain dead but has bleeding of the brain causing pressure within his skull. His mother (my ex-wife) wants the ventilator removed which will result in his death. She has the say so in the ICU concerning my son's treatments. Please advise what Hashem would want done in this situation?

Question
What are a husband’s rights when his wife refuses to have sex with him? Is it permitted to have sex with another woman?

Question
I grew up in a shul where aveilim said all the kaddishes required by the nusach Askhenaz sidur. I am now in aveilus and daven at a different shul where this used to be the custom. Someone complained that it was taking too long, so the Rabbi canceled some of the kadishes. My question is: Should I go to two successive minyans in order to "make up" for the canceled kadishes?

Question
I have been to several orthodox weddings lately and noticed that there seem to be a lot of people crashing them. I have not seen this to the same degree at any other weddings. First, a lot of people who are not invited come to the ceremony only. That’s not unusual. But I’ve also seen many more people come to dance and/or socialize, but they don’t eat anything and they view it that they are not stealing food or putting a burden of cost on anyone. For example, one wedding I went to recently had seating room for 120 guests (15 tables of 8 each), but there had to be close to 300 people dancing. I’ve seen others come uninvited and they either share a meal with an invited guest they know or take an empty spot at the meal of a no-show. I’ve seen that happening at the exact tables where I have sat. And there are people who come for the cocktail hour and feel they are not stealing because there is lots of food just being handed out that would otherwise go to waste. Before I became friendly with so many orthodox people, I went to a lot of non-orthodox and non-Jewish weddings where if anyone crashed, it was usually just a single digit number of people. But I’ve never seen anything like what I’ve seen in the orthodox community here. Is there any reason for this?

Question
This is a topic that has gone to the US Supreme Court, and now I am faced with it myself. I have a startup business that I run out of my home making invitations for weddings and other events. I’ve been running it singlehandedly for less than a year. I’ve done it for Jewish and non-Jewish weddings alike and even some intermarriages all without thinking of that as an issue. Now for the first time ever, I got a request for invitations from two Jewish gay men who are planning to marry each other. And this issue has suddenly struck me. Is it permitted for me to take them on as a client?

Question
I read of a custom to bless one’s children on Friday night. Would you please tell me a little more about this practice? Thank you!

Question
From before the time I was born, my father was a very observant religious man. He put on tefillin every day, went to shul regularly, studied Torah, and taught me to be who I am now. He was very kind and scrupulously observed every mitzvah he possibly could. Sadly, my father now has dementia. This has affected his personality. Today, my father rails against the very religious principles he once practiced. And he uses a lot of profanity in reference to the beliefs his demented mind has taken on. He says the most terrible things about G-d, the Torah, and Halacha. Anyone observing Jew would be disgusted by what he’s saying. And he has stopped practicing too. During Shabbos, he turns lights on and off, watches TV, and makes phone calls. We have tried, but we can’t control him. He can be quite combative. If he was still driving, he’d be driving on Shabbos too. If he had access to food of his choice, he’d be eating treif. My father now lives with us because he can no longer live by himself. We have hired part-time care for him so we can have our lives and our sanity. We like to have Shabbos guests. But when we have people over, we can’t stop him from behaving like this at the Shabbos table. Some of our friends understand the nature of his condition, but others cannot comprehend what’s really going on and think he is just a self-hating Jew. They do not realize what he was like in the past before he developed this irreversible condition. We like having Shabbos guests over, but we find him an embarrassment. We don’t want to turn away anyone from our home. And we don’t want to exclude him either. How do you think we should manage this?