AskMoses.com is a "hot line" website for people with questions about or related to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 or who have a moral dilemma they wish to solve through Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

. It offers live chatting

Internet Relay Chat

Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...

 and a database of questions that have been asked. The advice is given from a strictly religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 point of view, as the website's goal is to educate people in Judaism. Questions are answered by employees of Chabad of California.

30% of visitors to the site are non-Jewish. The website does not operate on the Sabbath.
Many of the writings of Rabbi Simon Jacobson

Simon Jacobson

Simon Jacobson is the author of Toward a Meaningful Life , founder of and publisher of the Yiddish English weekly, The Algemeiner Journal.-Life and career:...

 are syndicated on the site. and Chabad.org

Chabad.org

Chabad.org is the flagship website of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. It serves not just its own members but Jews worldwide in general. It was one of the first Jewish internet sites and the first and largest virtual congregation.-History:...

 

Live Chat

Once the user comes onto the site's home page, they can log into the Java

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

-based chat room. The chat time is limited by the scholar answering the question. The process is anonymous and free of charge. The director of the website is Rabbi Simcha Backman.

AskMoses.com provides "24/6" service, meaning scholars are available for chatting 24 hours a day, but take the Sabbath

Shabbat

Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

 off. Assistance is available in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

Knowledgebase

In addition to live advice, AskMoses.com provides a database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 of answered questions on common topics relevant to Judaism, such as God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

, Jewish philosophy

Jewish philosophy

Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...

, Jewish holiday

Jewish holiday

Jewish holidays are days observed by Jews as holy or secular commemorations of important events in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov or chag or ta'anit...

s and the like.

External links

• AskMoses.com
• AskMoses' YouTube Channel
• AskMoses.com surpasses 1 million chat sessions Los Angeles Times
  Los Angeles Times
  The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
  
  Accessed 11 January 2010