Questions

Dear Rabbi, Since HaShem forbids the making of graven images why did He command the design of the Cherubim in the holy of holies and why is it permissible to use a lion of judah motif on the aron kodesh?

Must I wait to until after Yom Kippur to put up the Sukkah, or can I put it up any time after Rosh Hashana? Thank you.

Dear Rabbi, I am currently in a relationship with a girl who is Jewish although does have a tattoo. while talk of marriage is a ways a way, I cannot help but think of the prohibition of being burried in a Jewish cemetary with a tattoo. What is the exact halacha behind it, and if we did get married would it be unethical to ask her to get the tattoo removed?

What is your intrepertation of Zechariah 14? And what is your undeerstanding of the time this is to take place? Thank you E J Snyder

How can I go to Israel and get into a program to convert to Orthodox judaism? Who do I contact? Where do I go? Cost is no issue.

I want to make a talit with the tzitzith with a thread of blue - what is the blue thread made from?

I just saw your site and had to ask an ethical question dating from two incidents in WWII. I have never had an answer to this question: A German POW in an American POW camp was informing to his American captors. This was discovered by his fellow inmates and he was beaten to death. Later some of these inmates were tried and executed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the same time in a German POW camp, Barth, a malcontented US soldier told the Camp Commander, he would inform the Germans about the camp radio. The Camp Commander told his the penalty was death. He was followed around the camp from then on, but wisely never said a word. My question could the Camp Commander be tried and executed by the Germans for this act? What ethical delimna is this? Thank you.

was rivka 3 or 14 years old when she was married and what is the maximum age for a girl to be considered a betula and a naara

If a widowed woman remarries, who would she be buried next to after her death...her first husband or the second husband? A friend told me he heard from a posek that her second husband and her are buried adjacent to each other, and she is prohibited from being buried next to her first husband. If this is the halacha, I am looking for the source. I do know (but I can use a source here, too) she is prohibited from observing the yahrtzeit of her first husband once she remarries, so, kal vachomer, a prohibition to be buried next to her first husband would make sense. BTW, the woman made a promise to her husband before he died to be buried next to him, so it appears she made a neder, which begs the question of how one handles a neder if the vow is a violation of halacha.