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Ask Rabbi Mendel
Not a search engine, not a chatbot, and not a form that disappears into an inbox nobody opens. Write your question below and Rabbi Mendel reads it himself.
These are real shapes of real questions. If yours looks like one of them, you are in exactly the right place.
Rabbi Mendel Weinfeld reads it himself. It is not a shared inbox, it does not go to a call center, and it is not answered by a machine.
Yes. What you write is not published, not shared, and not used as an example in a class. If you would rather not put it in writing at all, call 408-910-2034 and ask the same question out loud.
No. The most common questions a rabbi gets are the ones people assume everyone else already knows: what a bracha is, why Shabbat starts at a different time every week, whether you can say Kaddish if you cannot read Hebrew, what to do at a funeral. Not knowing something is not a character flaw.
No to both. People with no Jewish background at all ask questions here, as do people who have not been in a synagogue since childhood, and people who are not Jewish and are asking because of a friend, a spouse or a book. All of it is welcome.
Usually within a day or two. Longer over Shabbat, a festival, or the weeks around the High Holidays. If your question is urgent — a death, a hospital, a funeral, something that cannot wait — please call rather than write.
No. Asking a question does not add you to a mailing list, and you will not be asked for money. If you would like the weekly email you can choose that separately.
Yes, and for some questions that is much better. You can book a time to sit down with the Rabbi or the Rebbetzin — in person, or by phone if that is easier — and nothing about it is formal.