A day of study for rabbis, Kfar Chabad

00:00 Speaker 1 All right, they gave me a somewhat large and complicated topic: the four species according to Chabad customs. I’ll try to clarify a few things, a few details. Some things are brought in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, which is unquestionably our authority. We’ll go through it little by little. There are things that, over the years... Maybe, since the audience hasn’t quite gathered yet, I’ll tell you a story. A few years ago there was a farbrengen in Jerusalem. There were three baalei teshuvah there who had all studied together at university. One became a Chabad chossid, one became a Breslover, and the third became a Ger chossid. Anyway, at the farbrengen I heard them start talking among themselves about the different Chassidic groups—Breslov, Chabad, Ger—and about the Litvaks. They were saying that Chabad is supposedly known for joy, yet it’s the Breslovers who specifically seek joy; Chabad is specifically about bittul, while others... There were all sorts of arguments, as though Chabad wasn’t quite as original as it seemed, and you could actually see what Chabad stood for among the others. So the Chabad chossid said, “The rabbi of Kfar Chabad is sitting here. Why don’t you ask him? Maybe he’ll explain it to you.” So they asked me. I told them, “Look, fellows, I didn’t go to university, and I never studied science, mathematics, chemistry or physics. I’m a rabbi in an agricultural village. Kfar Chabad grows esrogim, and there are citrus orchards and a few vegetables too. In any case, we grow esrogim, and no one disputes that the esrogim of Kfar Chabad are not grafted. Often my certification appears on the box, on the esrog, and one of the signs of an esrog is that its seeds run lengthwise, not across. Well, we’ll get to that. In short, a person buys

02:37 Speaker 1 the esrog, and throughout Sukkos it remains whole. After the festival he cuts it open and sees that the seeds lie across it, not lengthwise. In earlier years, especially the first years, we got calls like this a number of times: ‘Thieves! Cheats! You’re misleading the public. You write that it isn’t grafted, but I cut open the esrog and its seeds are lying across!’ This was about twenty-five years ago. I’ve now seen this mentioned in one of the books they’re selling here, but I heard it from an agronomist. Agronomists used to visit the area where the esrogim were grown from time to time. I asked one of them why this happens. He explained it to me this way: the trees aren’t grafted, and because they aren’t grafted, they’re very weak. In fact, when you plant a tree, when you plant a cutting, its first three years are orlah. The fourth year is neta revai. At most, it can produce for another three years. It’s already good if it bears fruit for another three years. In other words, four years of fruit after orlah is about the maximum for a tree. After that, it’s better to uproot it, because otherwise it will infect the other trees. You’ll certainly see this in the orchards; they can show you. Now, there’s the flowering season for the esrog trees. Because they’re weak, they can’t do it on their own. There’s also the matter of male and female, and they don’t have the strength to produce seed and pollinate the fruit. So citrus orchards—bitter orange, lemon and the like—are generally planted around esrog trees. They even put beehives there, and the bees carry pollen from the stronger trees to the esrog trees. Sometimes the amount of pollen isn’t balanced, and the esrog receives pollen—that is, a kind of

04:58 Speaker 1 seed, or genes, as they call them today—from the lemon. As a result, its seeds get mixed up and lie across the fruit. On its own, its seeds should have run lengthwise, but here they don’t. He told me, ‘Now look, you’ll see something interesting.’ I had a lemon tree in my yard then. ‘Get up one morning and look at the lemon tree. Suddenly you’ll find that its fruit has the hollows and bumps of an esrog. There’s more: one of the signs of an esrog is its stem. I don’t have a slide to show you, but its stem is recessed. And suddenly you see that your lemon has a recessed stem. How did that happen? The bees carried pollen—the genes—from the lemon to the esrog, and they also carried them from the esrog to the lemon. That’s why a lemon can have hollows and bumps and a recessed stem, while an esrog can turn out smooth or [unclear].’ From this I understood what we rely on: the tree’s roots, the stock it comes from. Why? Because we know the esrog isn’t grafted; it’s an esrog. Over time, things transfer genes back and forth and start confusing matters. In any case, that’s what I told them about the Chassidic groups. There is Chabad Chassidus, with its roots and its essence, and there are other Chassidic groups. Over the past 250 years, things have transferred genes back and forth and become confused. So perhaps in Chabad they began studying nigleh, or similarly, among the Breslovers there was joy, and here [unclear]. But in practice, you can get up in the morning and see that your lemon has every sign of an esrog. Can you make the brachah over it? Not at all. Why not? Because it isn’t an esrog. It may have every sign, but the bees brought those signs over. The original esrog,

07:23 Speaker 1 the one we know comes from the roots or the stock of the Alter Rebbe, of the Baal Shem Tov—that is the esrog. Even if it doesn’t have all the signs, it’s the esrog over which you can make the brachah. A lemon might have every one of those signs, but you can’t make the brachah over it. According to some opinions, you can’t use it even when there’s no alternative. In any case, let’s get to our subject. We have principles. The Alter Rebbe gives a general principle at the beginning of the laws of the four species. He writes as follows... As is known, the Alter Rebbe generally follows the Rambam’s approach to arranging halachos: at the opening of a section, you can learn the general principle and the essential definitions of the law. In section 645, the Alter Rebbe writes something whose source we still don’t know for certain. It’s somewhat in the Tur, but what he says goes beyond what’s written in the Tur. He writes: ‘Beautiful and mehudar.’ What does mehudar mean? ‘Beautiful and mehudar in their appearance and in their growth.’ He adds two things here: their appearance and their growth. As we explained in section 648, since all four species are written in a single verse, we learn from one to another. Therefore, all four species must be beautiful and mehudar in their appearance and in their growth. The Alter Rebbe gives us four words here: beautiful—we’re familiar with hiddur, hiddur, hiddur, but he adds beauty. That means that, as is known, every word of the Alter Rebbe contains layers upon layers of halachos: beautiful, mehudar, in appearance and in growth. We understand growth, but what does ‘in its appearance’ mean? The Alter Rebbe seems to be telling us something new. Some matters relate to how the esrog, or any of the four species, grows, and some relate to its appearance. Rashi explains in Chumash, in Parshas Vayeitzei

09:48 Speaker 1 On verse 16, Rashi explains: “The radiance of his face”—his face. In other words, there is its form as it looks today, its appearance and its parts, and there is also the way it grows. Perhaps we can spell that out a little, to the best of my understanding. It might be simpler to talk about practical halachah, but perhaps we’ll get to that. For example, the Alter Rebbe writes—and he takes this from the Shulchan Aruch; it isn’t brought there, though it is mentioned somewhat in the Tur—let’s take the lulav. The Alter Rebbe explains how a lulav grows. Its leaves emerge in pairs, two by two, two by two. But it isn’t only that they emerge in pairs. We all know what a lulav looks like: two leaves on opposite sides. In addition, each leaf is folded in two. The Alter Rebbe adds that it isn’t merely that two leaves emerge. He adds in section 16: they emerge opposite each other. I don’t know whether many people buying an esrog pay attention to this. Of course, it doesn’t invalidate the lulav. And again, don’t learn halachah from this. But if a Jew in Kfar Chabad, or somewhere else, comes and asks the rabbi, “What is a mehudar lulav?”—after all, the lulavim are kosher, but what makes one mehudar? What should the rabbi tell him? I was once standing by an esrog seller when a Jew came over and said, “Give me a good esrog, a nice esrog.” The seller asked him, “What do you call a beautiful esrog?” “A big esrog.” Ah, try telling him that a big esrog raises many more questions than a small one. He thinks size is what makes an esrog beautiful. But the Chasam Sofer tells us in Sukkah that beauty is not what people generally call beauty. It is

11:48 Speaker 1 the beauty defined by the Torah, because it is the beauty that our Sages established. A great many things in the laws of lulav are based on these words of the Chasam Sofer: what our Sages defined as its beauty is what counts as its beauty. If, for example, a lulav is crooked and you cover it with gold, even though it is adorned, that isn’t its beauty. Its beauty... But what do we understand about this? A lulav has a proper form. The Alter Rebbe tells us that its form is for the two leaves to emerge opposite each other. Then he goes on and adds more, that between... What? So not one above the other. I don’t have a lulav here; they said I’d have one. Just a moment, just a moment, just a moment. But they are opposite each other, you understand? Opposite each other... one emerges directly across from the other. Where is it? That’s “opposite each other.” Yes, at the same height. In any event, it says further that, for example, the form of a lulav—and this isn’t mentioned by many halachic authorities, but it is brought down—has a space of two fingerbreadths between one leaf and the next. That is the form of a lulav. Yes?

13:08 Speaker 2 Between one leaf and the next.

13:09 Speaker 1 Between one leaf and the next, sorry. Between one leaf and the next. We know that the first thing we look at is the middle leaf. Of course, that is important for the lulav; that is where the major disqualifications concerning the lulav’s leaves arise, and we’ll get to that shortly. But what is it called? What? What is the beautiful form of a lulav? This also has practical implications. After all, just as people’s opinions differ and their faces differ, so too no two lulavim are alike. A Jew comes, spends two hours at a lulav dealer looking at different kinds of lulavim, and doesn’t know what to decide. Every lulav has its advantage and its drawback. Nothing in the world is perfect. Which should he prefer? This isn’t a question of whether it’s kosher, of course, but which is preferable in terms of hiddur? We can see here, as we can learn from the Alter Rebbe’s view, that a lulav has a proper form—the form we mentioned. There are several details to this, but if we have time to go through them, I just want to give some examples. There should be two fingerbreadths between the leaves. How much is a fingerbreadth in centimeters? Two... how much? Two fingerbreadths; the width of a thumb is two... a thumb is a fingerbreadth, two centimeters, two and a half centimeters between one leaf and the next. That is called a beautiful lulav. In addition, for example, the lulav is made up of... what do we... It starts with two leaves, two leaves, two leaves, two leaves, until it ends with the middle leaf. In practice, we can define the lulav as having two parts: the spine and the leaves. The spine extends to the point where the upper leaf emerges. That is called the spine. From there, the upper leaf begins and ends at the top. So, in practice? So, in practice? I want to read something to you. In a letter by Reb Jacobson, he wrote that the Frierdiker Rebbe told him to obtain lulavim when the Rebbe arrived in... Russia... in... America. He told me, as the Frierdiker

15:58 Speaker 1 Rebbe described it, to bring him—to bring him a lulav that was “a mitlsten.” What does “a mitlsten” mean? He writes that it means the spine should be in the middle. We’ll soon see what that—apparently—means. No, not a little to the side. That is what he writes. “Unshlossen,” without locks. There are lulavim whose leaves do not lie completely against each other from the point where they emerge from the spine; in our terminology, this is called [unclear]. We’ll see in a moment... “Nit kein dinen,” not thin. “A gleycher,” straight. “Nit kein knepl.” The Rebbe already mentions “knepl” in the customs. But the Rebbe doesn’t mention the other things. The Rebbe mentions that our custom concerns “knepl,” but he writes the other things as the Frierdiker Rebbe... Apparently—

16:58 Speaker 3 Just a moment, I—

16:58 Speaker 1 Just a moment, a moment, a moment, a moment. It’s simply hard for me to explain without a lulav. I know what “without locks” means. What he meant by “a mitlsten”—of course, we’re not talking here about bringing him a lulav right now. He was speaking about what makes a lulav mehudar. I think “a mitlsten” means, as we said earlier, that there should be the same number of leaves on each side. Sometimes, when people need to round out the lulav, they remove leaves. They aren’t particular about it and remove leaves from one side. So sometimes one side ends up with more leaves than the other. The Rebbe wanted the lulav to be even on both sides, with the same number of leaves. What? Exactly, exactly, exactly. In other words, its beauty was as... He doesn’t mention this, but as... It is stated explicitly in the Shulchan Aruch, as we mentioned earlier, that the two leaves should be opposite each other. Perhaps “a mitlsten” means that too; I don’t know. He explains it. Perhaps “a mitlsten” also means that the leaves should emerge, as the Alter Rebbe says, opposite each other. I’ve seen this in many, many lulavim. There are beautiful lulavim, but the leaves don’t emerge at the same height.

18:24 Speaker 3 If the spine is crooked.

18:25 Speaker 1 Wait, wait, we’ll get to a crooked spine. Right now we’re talking about... Yes?

18:30 Speaker 3 Sorry, but very often one can be farther apart on one side than on the other.

18:39 Speaker 1 Where do you see that?

18:40 Speaker 3 On this one.

18:41 Speaker 1 Of course, because there are more leaves!

18:43 Speaker 3 He lifts—

18:43 Speaker 1 Because he lifts them; he raises more of the leaves.

18:47 Speaker 3 Small ones, small ones—in terms of thickness, there are more.

18:48 Speaker 1 I don’t recall such a thing, but in any event, there are lulavim with more leaves on one side. But I think there is something more here. I think he means what the Alter Rebbe says here: that the leaves should be centered, opposite each other. And... he says “unshlossen.” I think “unshlossen” means something I’ve seen in many lulavim, and I’ve personally overlooked it many times. There are lulavim where, at the point where the leaves emerge, there’s a slight bend, and then the leaf starts rising. You see a sort of gap—not that the leaf has been torn away; it bends a little and rises upward. But when you look at it from the side, it looks like a shlos, like a lock. The two leaves... Yes?

19:41 Speaker 3 After that, he wrote about brown.

19:43 Speaker 1 What?

19:43 Speaker 3 After that, he wrote about brown.

19:43 Speaker 1 Afterward, he wrote about warmth too. Look at the end. And another time, he said something different many times: “[unclear].” So I think the meaning is that the lulav should come up straight, without even a slight bend. I’ll pause on this point for a moment, because it also relates to Chabad customs. In the wider world, especially among Polish chassidim, the shaking makes the lulav rustle. Those who are especially particular even choose an open lulav, so that the rustling will be louder. They shake the whole world with that rustling. As I remember it, when I was about seventeen and saw the Rebbe take a lulav—I can’t...—but from what I saw, the Rebbe was never particular about choosing a lulav that would rustle. On the contrary, the lulav was always closed. Over time, after thousands of people had made a blessing over it, it began to open up, but the lulav had been closed. What is more, it had a koreh. Usually, when a lulav is already open and rustles before anyone even takes it on the first day, it has no koreh, no... no heart. From this we saw both a custom and something evident in the form of Chabad practice. Once, perhaps, you can see in a video that at the end of the shaking the Rebbe gives his hand a slight shake. But the main movement, in any case, is as written in the customs: to move it out and bring it back, bring it back and move it out—not to shake the leaves and make them rustle. In any case, that is not written in the customs. In other words, it was not our custom to be particular about an open lulav so that it could rustle. And there is something more here. What is it? What is it about an open lulav?

22:03 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe’s wording—we mentioned here that it should be closed—is that if the lulav opens a little at the side and rises upward, then as it begins to open, the leaves do separate from one another. That is simply what happens: since they move a little apart at their base, they are much farther apart above. The Alter Rebbe uses a very interesting expression, which Rabbi Nechemia grapples with at length. He quotes the Rema, but changes his wording. He writes: “In the latter case, the choicest way to perform the mitzvah is not to take a lulav whose leaves are separated from one another. The choicest way to perform the mitzvah is not to take a lulav whose leaves are separated from one another, even if they have not hardened at all, even if they are still...” In other words—not... Earlier, he spoke about how a lulav opens as it grows, right? It opens and opens, and not only does it open, its leaves also harden. If I now wanted to take those leaves and bring them back together, I couldn’t. Even if I tied them, they wouldn’t stay together. Why? Because they have hardened. If they had remained soft, as he goes on to discuss, it would still be possible to tie them together. But once they have hardened, it is impossible. So here he says, “even if they have not hardened at all. Rather, because they have torn slightly at the point where they join the spine, they have separated slightly from one another.” What do those words mean: “because they have torn slightly at the point where they join the spine, they have separated from one another”? What does “separated at the point where they join the spine” mean? This is the Alter Rebbe’s wording; we have not found it anywhere else. It is based on various earlier halachic authorities. What does “separated from one another” mean? “Torn slightly”—what does “torn slightly at the point where they join” mean?

24:18 Speaker 1 Usually, when someone pulls out a tooth, what does “pulling out” mean? He removes it. It was supposed to be attached, and he pulled it out from the place where it was supposed to be attached. But the question is whether “torn” here means that the half-centimeter where the leaf is attached to the spine has been torn away. He has pulled it from the place where it is supposed to be attached. Is that what “torn” means? Or does “torn” refer to the latter part of the sentence—“torn slightly at the point where they join”—meaning that they are supposed to be joined and pressed together, but have separated a little there? It would not mean that the leaf was uprooted from where it is attached, but that it is no longer pressed against the spine. That is what the wording would mean. There may be a fine point in the wording here; I have seen several later authorities grapple with it. What is the Alter Rebbe’s position? Rabbi Nechemia [?] discusses this subject. It seems possible to infer something from his wording. He writes... Well, perhaps this is not the place. “Torn slightly at the point where they join.” If he meant uprooted, like a tooth being pulled out, he should have written “torn from the point where they join”—uprooted from where they are supposed to be attached. But that is not what he says. He says “torn at the point where they join.” Of course, if they were uprooted, that would happen at the point where they join. Still, one could say he means that, as the lulav grows, before it has opened, the leaves are closely joined and pressed together immediately above the point of attachment, whereas here they have already opened. Now we can understand the basis for what the Rebbe said about it being closed. It may well be connected to this precise wording about its position, yes. Because—

26:26 Speaker 1 if it is closed, but one leaf sticks out a little, then immediately above the point where it is attached it has already separated. Why? Because the beautiful form, the proper appearance of a lulav, is that at its base it is attached and above that it is held closely together. So the question is: what should a Chabad chossid look for? What kind of lulav should he choose? Of course, Maran says it should have a koreh. If I take care to choose a lulav with a koreh, it will also be closed. But in practice, you cannot always find a lulav with a koreh. So what kind of lulav should he look for? Should he seek one that is as closed as possible? The Levush, in fact, writes that a lulav should be shaped like an arrow. [Unclear] does not cite him. The shape of an arrow means one piece, with a pointed tip. In the wider world, people prefer the opposite: an open lulav, so it can rustle. We do not seek that; rustling is not our practice. Just a moment, just a moment—I’m getting sidetracked anyway. Just a moment. The point is that we do not seek a rustle, and the two things may be connected. Since our practice was to take a lulav whose leaves were as closely joined as possible, people did not make it rustle. That is another reason for it. I just want to show how, once you begin to look into it, you see that all the customs of the festival are connected. You have to stop and rack your brains over their roots, and you find that the key to all of them is in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. Why don’t we have it spelled out? Because it was not written down. But those who studied it knew how to read it. In any case.

28:40 Speaker 4 Tomorrow, you.

28:42 Speaker 1 Where? Where? Where? They used to do it over the couscous. In any case, I know. Listen—where, when? After Gimmel Tammuz?

28:52 Speaker 4 No, no.

28:52 Speaker 1 Ah, before Gimmel Tammuz. Before. Ah, in any case, before [unclear], that did not happen. Ah, in any case, were you ever with the Rebbe?

29:03 Speaker 4 If the Rebbe stood in front of me at the end of shiur beis, then the Rebbe spoke only about the last Rebbe.

29:09 Speaker 1 The Rebbe made a blessing over the couscous.

29:10 Speaker 4 And he counted the Omer for each and every person in the country.

29:13 Speaker 1 I thought forgetfulness only came at my age. Look, he is still a young man. In any case, I... I want to... This is where I want to go from. Wait, he has completely confused me now. Ah, what were we discussing? The lulav.

29:31 Speaker 4 It says in the book that this is written there too.

29:34 Speaker 1 It is not written.

29:35 Speaker 4 That he said it should have a koreh.

29:36 Speaker 1 The koreh should be on the other side.

29:38 Speaker 4 The other side.

29:38 Speaker 1 That’s not what he wrote. Wait, I’m getting to that too. Just a moment. Just a moment. In any case, I remember once hearing about Reb Feiglin, a chossid in the yeshiva, who watched the Rebbe make the na’anuim during Hallel. He said he watched the Rebbe make the na’anuim and came away deeply struck. He said he had been with his own Rebbe—I won’t mention his name—one of the great Torah sages. [unclear] Why do we make the—obviously the trees swayed. The whole world is swaying, and the Rebbe, quietly and gently, takes it, brings it back, takes it, brings it back. And here you see how he directs the world: not by force and not with noise. In any case, so, what we were saying—wait, what did you say? What were the questions? I’ve already forgotten. Yes. In any case, in practice—oh, there’s another point here I want to get to, and it has practical halachic implications. Since we said that our custom is not to shake it, and it may be that according to our custom—again, I’m not stating this as fact, only suggesting it—we specifically want a closed lulav, as closed as possible, in keeping with everything written here about the form of a lulav, so that it should not spread apart too much. There is the Canary Island lulav. Everyone knows the question about the Canary Island lulav. Some rabbis have ruled it kosher, including great Torah sages, and some rabbis have disqualified it. The Canary Island lulav has its own structure. Our lulav is stiff, and its leaves are fairly stiff too. And as we said earlier, as we understood from the Shulchan Aruch, as the leaves grow, there is a gap of two fingerbreadths from one leaf to the next. With the Canary Island lulav, first of all, the spine is very soft, very soft; it sways, and the leaves are very close to one another. In fact, at the beginning of its growth, there aren’t two fingerbreadths between one leaf and the next. I didn’t say that two fingerbreadths is

32:03 Speaker 1 indispensable, but in any case, we see another point here. There is a halacha—and I think it’s worth publicizing, because many people make a mistake with this—that the required length of a lulav is four handbreadths. The required length of the other three species is three handbreadths; for the lulav it is four handbreadths. Why is the lulav’s required length four handbreadths? So that its spine extends a handbreadth beyond the other species. And many people—what does that mean? I’ve seen people with long aravos and long hadassim and a comparatively short lulav. The halacha says that the spine of the lulav, even if the aravos—let’s say, for example, as the Alter Rebbe rules in section 650, paragraph 2—the lulav’s spine must be six handbreadths, because its spine must always extend a handbreadth above the hadassim and aravos. By “spine,” I mean up to the point where the middle leaf begins to emerge. The Alter Rebbe adds a word there. The halachic authorities write, “to allow for shaking.” To allow for shaking. Why? So that the lulav itself can be shaken. The Alter Rebbe adds: “for it is what does the shaking.” Not merely to allow for shaking; this spine is what shakes. What does it shake? What does it shake? Presumably the top leaf, or the leaves within that handbreadth, yes? But we have this wording here: the lulav’s spine is what shakes the leaves. The meaning is in the na’anuim. It doesn’t mean that—not only is it not a matter of rustling the leaves, but the person himself sways. When a person shakes, he sways with the—with the lulav. There is a lulav here whose spine shakes the leaves, and that is why the spine must extend a handbreadth. Because that handbreadth—why isn’t the three handbreadths within the bundle enough? There are leaves there too. We won’t go into that, but for now let’s focus on the Alter Rebbe’s

34:28 Speaker 1 wording. That handbreadth is what does the shaking. With a Canary Island lulav like that, I think the spine sways together with the lulav itself. It isn’t that the spine shakes the lulav—the leaves; the leaves sway together with the spine. And as our Sages established the form of the na’anuim, as the Alter Rebbe says, the spine has to shake the leaves. So this can only happen when the spine is stiff and the leaves are, of course, softer. There’s another thing about the lulav that I also want to mention. The halachic authorities say that it should be... As a matter of basic law, I don’t know, but I’ve heard that it was understood that according to the [unclear][?], according to the Geonim, there was a requirement for a lulav to have two, two leaves. Perhaps that is already a definitive ruling. But it has to be straight. In practice, when you look carefully at the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, it does not explicitly say there that a lulav has to be straight. It says that if it is bent, it is not hadar—beautiful—but there is no statement that it has to be straight. Some halachic authorities, and even more so—people hold up the lulav and sight along it like an arrow. But from what I’ve heard, at any rate, from those who were with the Rebbe, the Rebbe never—the Rebbe would take the lulav this way or that, and he could see. In any case, this practice of sighting along the lulav to see whether it is straight—I don’t know. At any rate, it is not mentioned in the Rebbe’s wording. But what? It must not have zigzags or be bent like the letter reish. There’s another thing about lulavim that I wanted to point out. It has become very, very common in recent years in particular, and it’s very hard to find a lulav without it. On the middle—the upper leaves of the lulav, at their ends, there is a sort of zigzag.

37:12 Speaker 5 On the leaves.

37:13 Speaker 1 Huh?

37:13 Speaker 5 On the leaves.

37:14 Speaker 1 At the ends of the leaves, they go this way and that, like—this is not mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch itself, but the Alter Rebbe mentions a lulav that has shriveled. He does not explain what “shriveled” means. In the Ritva on Sukkah there is an explanation of “shriveled”: it means this kind of lulav, whose tip bends somewhat. So that falls under a shriveled lulav, which is not hadar. But this is not mentioned regarding other lulavim. In any case, what you wanted to say—what I wanted to get to for our purposes. What emerges, then, in practice—because everything we’re discussing here concerns hiddurim, ways of enhancing the mitzvah—is which hiddur to prefer over another. So we’ve seen that the lulav should have a straight form and that its leaves should emerge as closely packed together as possible. There’s another point I wanted to raise on this subject, concerning the middle leaf. We know there is a dispute: some disqualify it if the middle leaf is split along most of its length, while others—the Gemara’s second opinion—say that if another lulav is available, one should take another lulav. His wording in the paragraph, in the paragraph, in the paragraph, uh... is: “And some disqualify it even if only a small part of the tiyomes has split. Although the halacha does not follow their opinion, it is nevertheless good to take their opinion into account if possible.” That is his wording: “only a small part of the tiyomes.” How much is a small part of the tiyomes? How complete does the middle leaf of the lulav have to be? At the beginning—at the end of paragraph 10, he says... Let me first introduce something. With a lulav, and with the Four Species, there are principal grounds for disqualification. There are two main ones. One is hadar. There are defects that the Sages determined make it hadar or not hadar. That is a disqualification under Torah law. There are also disqualifications based on “and you shall take,” because taking requires taking something whole. So

39:50 Speaker 1 the lulav has to be whole. The hadas has to be whole. Why? Because “and you shall take” means you must take something whole, not something incomplete. The Rishonim came and said that if the top leaf, which is the principal part of the lulav, splits, then this is not a complete taking. The same is true if it is cut off, and the same if it is split: it is not a complete taking, because a lulav normally has doubled, whole leaves. The doubled leaf is whole; otherwise it is not a complete taking. What does “a complete taking” mean? So you understand why it is not a complete taking. But when is it not a complete taking? When does it fail to be a hiddur? This is worth knowing. In the Tur, at the beginning of siman 649—in the Tur, at the beginning of siman 640—the Alter Rebbe cites, in connection with hadar, with the disqualification of hadar, paragraph 25, he says: “Anything disqualified because—” No. Paragraph 22, sorry: “Nevertheless, even on its tip, a growth does not disqualify it unless it is visible to the eye when one holds it in one’s hand, without having to examine it closely.” When do I say that a growth or a change in appearance disqualifies it on grounds of hadar? Specifically when it is visible to the eye while he holds it in his hand, without having to look closely at it until he sees it. Likewise, no change in appearance disqualifies it unless it is visible to most people at first glance. Here we see a definition of what is meant by these things. A growth—all these things are disqualifying even in the smallest amount. But when is it not hadar? It’s not that I have to look at it with a magnifying glass and see a black spot or a growth, and then it’s no longer hadar. Think about it: what does hadar mean? It has to be beautiful. But if, for example, there is something there—even when you buy a piece of jewelry and there is something in the gold, some, some, some slight irregularity that you have to

42:10 Speaker 1 If you have to look for it with a magnifying glass, would anyone disqualify the piece of jewelry? It may have a slight imperfection, but it is not disqualified. So he defines for us what it means for something not to be hadar. That is the Mabit’s answer. But as the Chayei Adam cites it, the Alter Rebbe goes even further; he is more lenient still. I don’t remember the Mabit’s exact wording at the moment, about having to examine them closely. In other words, you have to make an effort to see the defect. But if you don’t have to make an effort, sometimes you can see it. So I pick it up and look at it, and someone asks me: Why do you have to look at it that way? I see what the Shulchan Aruch says. I don’t see it saying that you have to inspect the esrog for black spots and the like. It doesn’t say that. It says you look at it like this: if you can see it while holding it in your hand, then it is apparent at a glance to most people—apparently even to people who don’t need glasses to see it. But whether most people wear glasses or not, this is a principle in the laws of hadar. Now, Rabbi Akiva Eiger says there is a difference between lekichah tamah, taking something whole, and hadar. Hadar means it has to be beautiful. I understand that. If a defect is something you have to search for with a magnifying glass, it is still called hadar. But lekichah tamah requires something whole. If it is missing even the slightest bit, it is not whole. That is how Rabbi Akiva Eiger rules, and everyone cites him. But they note that the Alter Rebbe’s wording seems to indicate otherwise. He says explicitly—look at the end of section 10—“If it is split in two, it is apparent and visible that the tiyomes is not whole.” He does not say simply that the tiyomes is not whole; he says it is apparent and visible that it is not whole. That is not about what Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows—that this leaf is missing something and is not whole. It has to be apparent and visible. So that would seem to imply… And when he brings the second opinion, which says it is disqualified even if it is split from one end to the other, or [unclear] the leaves, he speaks of an end. He does not say the slightest bit. So what are the measurements here? How much is it? If we read it all as one continuous discussion, we can assume that it is all about a defect that can be apparent and visible. But if it is not apparent and visible, and you need a magnifying glass to search for the split or crack in the lulav, I have found no hint of that in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, or in the Rema’s customs. Just a moment, just a moment. Nor do the Rebbe’s customs say to look for a lulav that is perfectly whole, without any—because that, too, was one of the things people said you had to search very, very carefully for in a lulav. Just a moment, let me finish. Just a moment. Why? Because the implication is that even for lekichah tamah, the lack of wholeness has to be apparent and visible. It is not that, because something is not perfectly whole in the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is therefore not whole for us. Seemingly, there is room to be lenient about searching for lulavim whose very tips are perfectly whole. I don’t know; it depends. But sometimes—and all the later authorities discuss this—what counts as apparent and visible, and what does not? Sometimes the tip of the lulav goes off to one side—

44:07 Speaker 1 and the other goes off to the other side. You look and see a gap between the two tips, even though they run alongside each other. You can even see air between them. I am unsure whether, according to the Alter Rebbe, that is called an apparent and visible lack of wholeness. So there may be room for leniency. Again, that does not seem to be the common view. Far be it from me to introduce new rulings. I am only discussing the subject because I was asked to: how does it appear from the Shulchan Aruch? I am only saying that one should certainly seek out a whole lulav. But sometimes, when you have to decide what to compromise on and which lulav is better to take, its being perfectly whole may not be quite so decisive. Now, this needs to be considered in light of the later authorities. Very often, especially with the lulavim that come today from El Arish and Cairo, there is a black tip at the top. Often that tip is broken, particularly on those that have a korah, the soft covering. When that covering falls off, the tip breaks as well. The later authorities say that this tip is not considered part of the lulav. It is a tip that grows on the lulav, but it is not part of the lulav itself. Since I don’t have much more time, I wanted to make one more observation about the laws of the hadas. There are some very, very interesting points concerning the hadas, too. I hope we can get to the bottom of what the Alter Rebbe meant here. He describes the form of the hadas—and in fact he is the only one who brings all of this together, as others note. What should a hadas look like? Divrei Nechemiah has a lengthy responsum on the subject. One of the things he—

46:20 Speaker 1 writes is: What does “a branch of a thick-leaved tree” mean? In section 646:1, it means that its leaves bend over because they are arranged like a braid—no, that is not quite right. They lie face down. The leaves of a hadas lie face down. Just as we spoke earlier about the shape and appearance of the lulav, let us say a little about the appearance of the hadas. Its leaves lie face down. It is called “a branch of a thick-leaved tree” because its leaves are braided, as it were: they overlap one another like a chain. What does that mean, that its leaves overlap, that they are braided like a chain? What does “overlap like a chain” mean? Arranged like a braid, like a chain. He writes more about it later in section 2. Let me continue. In short, what does “like a chain” mean? Let us start at the beginning. Divrei Nechemiah makes this point as well. There is another question: what is the Alter Rebbe talking about? We don’t have a hadas here to look at. A hadas has many leaves, arranged in tiers. Where must this braid or chain appear? Is he talking about its length, or about the leaves within each tier? After all, a tier has at least three leaves. There is also the Egyptian hadas, which has seven leaves. So when he says they must be like a braid, is he talking about one tier of three? Yes, the leaves could overlap each other within a tier, or one tier could overlap another. Just a moment, just a moment—this is not so simple. Rabbi Nechemiah understands that the Alter Rebbe is not talking about the length at all. He is talking about the leaves across the width, within each tier. The leaves of that tier have to extend across it, forming a tier of three. But does he mean that the same must also be true of all the tiers, so that one reaches the next? That is not what he is talking about, according to Rabbi Nechemiah. Why? He says—

48:44 Speaker 1 “Although the Gemara and Rashi imply that this is one of the defining features of a hadas—that the tiers reach one another and form a chain…” He explains what “chain” means. It does not mean merely that one leaf reaches the next, but that one leaf overlaps the next. That is called a chain. So if there can be a chain across the width, there can also be a chain along the height. But Rabbi Nechemiah concludes that a chain along the height is not required. Why? He says that people do not customarily insist on it. “I searched and labored to understand why,” he says, even though the Gemara seems to imply it. He cites Rabbeinu Yerucham and concludes that the common practice is indeed correct: the Gemara’s description of a chain along the length is only a way to identify a hadas. The Gemara discusses whether the plant is an olive or a plane tree, and gives this identifying feature. But that does not mean—this is a very difficult subject to get into—that every identifying feature is an indispensable requirement. In practical halachah, what makes a hadas kosher? He argues that the chain along its length was given as a way to recognize a hadas: Chazal wanted people to know what a hadas was, so they gave the sign that it looks like a chain. But the Alter Rebbe is talking about a chain across the width. What does it mean for the leaves to cover the stem? It does not mean only that they cover it along its height, so that when you look up the stem there is not a centimeter of wood visible. Rather, the leaves are close to one another, and consequently you do not see—

51:04 Speaker 1 Its leaves need to spread across its width, meaning, like a cluster of three. But if we say that the same thing is required of all the clusters as well—that one must reach the next—he isn’t talking about that. Why? Rabbi Nechemiah explains it this way: “Although the Gemara and Rashi imply that this is one of the defining features of a hadas—that the clusters reach one another and form a chain...” He explains what “chain” means: a cluster of three. So it’s not just that one leaf reaches the next; one leaf overlaps the next. That’s what is called a chain. If there’s a chain across the width, there’s also a chain along the length, but Rabbi Nechemiah concludes that a chain along the length isn’t required. Why? He says that people don’t observe this practice or insist on it. “I searched and labored to understand why,” even though the Gemara seems to imply otherwise. He cites Rabbeinu Yerucham and concludes that the generally accepted view is that the chain along the length mentioned in the Gemara is only a sign by which to identify a hadas. The Gemara discusses whether it’s an olive or a dulba, so it gives this identifying sign. But that isn’t— It’s very hard to get into this subject, but in any case, some things are given as identifying signs, while others are essential requirements. In halachah, what makes a hadas kosher? He argues that this chain along its length was mentioned as an identifying feature, a sign of a hadas. Chazal wanted to establish what a hadas is, so they gave the sign that it looks like a chain. But the Alter Rebbe is talking about a chain across its width. What does it mean that the leaves “cover the wood”? It doesn’t mean that, when you look along its length, not a centimeter of the stem is visible. Rather, the leaves are close to one another, and so you don’t see

53:06 Speaker 1 The tree, across its width. What? Huh? In section one too. In section one too, yes. All right, he says he’s talking about width. What does he mean now? Fine, make a note for yourself in the margin that it isn’t so. In any case, that’s why he concludes as a matter of halachah that what matters here, when we get to the halachah, is the width and not the height. But there’s something even more puzzling here. Let’s just read section two: “They are not called avos unless three leaves emerge from one point of attachment.” That is, three or more leaves emerge close to one another in a single circle, with none lower than another. Even if all three leaves emerge from a single stalk, since they touch one another and stand at the same level in one circle, it is avos. What makes it avos? That they emerge in one circle and touch one another. But didn’t we just say it was like a chain—a chain across the width? What is a chain across the width? Not merely that they touch one another, but that one overlaps the next. Suddenly he says no: they stand in one circle, touching one another. Surely, if you said that “intertwined like a chain” means they overlap, then what does “touching one another” mean? So he considers this again and says it may well mean that they touch one another. They can also stand like this, right? If you pressed them together, they would overlap, but they open up a little, and when you look at them now they aren’t touching one another. In other words, if they were close against the stem, they really would overlap like a chain. But now they don’t. They’ve separated a little, opened up

55:06 Speaker 1 from the lulav. So they no longer overlap. But at the very least, they must touch one another, and that is called avos. Let’s read a little more, another line: “Since they touch one another and stand at the same level in one circle, it is avos. But if two leaves”—we would understand this if two leaves stood at the same level, touching one another, while the third leaf was above them, or if the third emerged below the other two and rose up over them—“it is not avos.” What does it mean that it rises up over the other two? Earlier we said that all three leaves are intertwined. What does “intertwined” mean? We’re not talking here about a grafted esrog. They overlap one another. So what does it mean when he says that the third leaf rises and overlaps— All right, in any case, I don’t want to get into this whole subject right now. We haven’t found such a thing in Shulchan Aruch. Look carefully at what makes it avos here. Is it the stalks, that the stalks all emerge at the same level? What is it? Yes, look closely; this section needs to be studied very carefully. The stalks—what makes the hadas, the lulav, the hadas avos is that the leaves begin together. The three leaves begin together. I don’t mind if the stalks differ. One leaf may have a longer stalk and the other two shorter stalks, but if they begin at the same level, that is called avos.

56:43 Speaker 6 Is the stalk the upper part of the leaf?

56:44 Speaker 1 No. The stalk begins where it connects to the stem; that’s called the stalk. But there’s something else interesting here, and I’m afraid to take it upon myself. What? What? What? What does the sign say? Just a moment, just a moment, just a moment. Give me just a moment. I want to say something here, but I’m afraid to say such a thing. The Alter Rebbe does bring Rashi’s view, and people note that he is the only one who brings Rashi’s view. According to Rashi, what does avos mean? Three leaves emerging from a single stalk. Tosafos says that isn’t common; you don’t commonly find three leaves emerging from one stalk. In other words, three leaves come out of that one stalk. In fact, thank G-d, we have hadassim here. And although Tosafos says it isn’t common, we often see a hadas put out a leaf, and beside it, between that large leaf and the stem, another small leaf emerges, and then another small leaf—even five leaves. But what happens? Hadas sellers want to make the hadassim look good. They clip those leaves off, cut them off, so that the hadas will be attractive and meet the view requiring all the leaves to emerge at the same level. In my opinion, it would be better to leave the leaves on. And not according to R— The Tur also says, “although it isn’t common.” In other words, true avos is three leaves emerging from one stalk. But Tosafos says that isn’t common, so the requirement becomes three leaves whose bases all emerge together, at once. It can certainly happen that three leaves emerge together, but one leaf is longer. Sometimes a leaf is narrower and longer. Here one of the halachic authorities brings

58:44 Speaker 1 [unclear], whose view is that the main thing is where they begin. If the leaves begin at the same level, that is called a dense forest. What does it mean when someone enters—someone gets lost in a dense forest? They tell all those children’s stories: someone got lost in a dense forest and didn’t know how to get out. Why? Because the leaves were dense? No, because the roots in the ground were dense. So he didn’t know how to get out. And the dense growth covers the stem. That’s quite understandable. The stalks cover the stem. So what was I trying to say? It may well be that if a hadas has three leaves emerging from one stalk, it’s better to leave them there. Then he fulfills the rabbinic requirement in the preferred manner, and he no longer needs to check whether two other leaves are at the same level or not. In practice, in practice. I have

59:52 Speaker 7 Ding, ding.

59:53 Speaker 1 Huh? I don’t have it.

59:55 Speaker 7 In practice.

59:57 Speaker 1 Huh?

59:58 Speaker 7 In practice.

1:00:01 Speaker 1 I’ve got some cheeky fellow here. Apparently, the form—what? What is it? Apparently, there are different forms of hadas; again, there are different ways it grows. There’s the original hadas, and there’s a hadas shoteh, a wayward hadas. A hadas shoteh grows too. It doesn’t grow in a madhouse; it grows among the trees, among the... There’s this form of hadas, and that form of hadas, and another form of hadas. What does “interwoven with one another” mean? What does “interwoven with one another” mean? In my humble opinion, when you look at a hadas, particularly the Tzfas-grown variety—they say that “a branch of a dense-leaved tree” refers to [unclear] Tzfas—and with that hadas you can see it when the leaves... Again, I’m not talking about their length; I’m talking about their width. When you look at three leaves touching one another, it looks like this. Let’s start with the leaf facing me. One leaf comes out from beneath the leaf on the right and passes over the leaf on the left. The leaf on the left extends across, coming out from beneath the middle leaf and passing over the other one. In other words, one side is under the next leaf and one side is over a leaf. Right? That is what’s called interweaving, like a Havdalah candle. Apparently that is the original hadas, and that’s what “intertwined with one another, like a braid or like a chain” means. They are both beneath one another and overlapping one another, and that is what “like a chain” means. Where are there hadassim like that? I don’t know; I haven’t seen any. But as far as I recall—I’m not sure—I once saw hadassim like that, I think among the Yemenites. There you really can see one overlapping another, with one side over and one side... But then, in section four— All right,

1:02:24 Speaker 1 we’ll leave that for another time. We’ll leave it as a question.

1:02:33 Speaker 8 A great thank-you to Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi for this in-depth examination of the lulav and hadas. In a few moments we’ll make a sharp turn to the subject of the esrog. It’s worth noting that once, a rosh yeshivah passed before the Rebbe and began offering various acronyms for “esrog.” The Rebbe told him, “We have our own acronym here: ‘Let not the foot of pride come upon me.’ Let not the foot of pride come upon me.”

00:00 Speaker 1 The basic halachic requirements for an esrog, as we know, are that it not be grafted, that it be hadar and not invalid, that it meet the required minimum size, that it have the growth characteristics of an esrog, and that it be permissible to eat. The hiddurim that are not essential to its validity are that it have a pitam, that its upper part be completely free of blemishes, that the pitam line up with the stem, and that the esrog have indentations and bumps rather than being smooth like a lemon. It should be noted that the Rebbe was known to insist every year that the upper part of the esrog be the larger, wider part and the lower part be narrow, as the rabbi explains in connection with the heart. Since we are now moving from the subject of challah to the subject of esrogim, we have invited Rabbi Kalman Natan, the chief supervisor in charge of the esrog department of the Eidah Hachareidis in Jerusalem. He has prepared a special presentation on this subject. I want to quote two or three of the Rebbe’s responses concerning Calabria, so people will know why we insist on Calabrian esrogim. There is a whole history and a great many responses the Rebbe gave over the years, going back to the early 5710s. We know the two main reasons the Rebbe always encouraged the use of Calabrian esrogim: first, the question of grafting, which we are about to hear about, and second, “Italy of Greece”—the esrogim that, according to tradition, Moshe Rabbeinu used. The Baalei Hatosafos are also cited. Rabbi Garlick was here a few minutes ago. It is very interesting that in 5726, Rabbi Beilis Garlick, whose orchard we will visit later, reached a point where, if you can put it that way, he despaired because of the many difficulties in obtaining Calabrian esrogim. As is known, the Calabrian esrog tree differs from other citrus trees: an esrog tree’s lifespan is generally five years. If we subtract the orlah years and account for the other issues, there is almost nothing left. It is a

02:31 Speaker 1 very weak tree, and so it was decided to bring seeds or saplings to Eretz Yisroel. The Rebbe said to bring both saplings and seeds. One of the interesting responses the Rebbe gave Rabbi Garlick at the time was: “[unclear]—a time will come when the Jewish people will need your esrogim.” You are investing in them now, but a time will come when the Jewish people will need your esrogim because of the difficulties in growing esrogim in Italy. Therefore, on the contrary, you should expand as much as possible. As for what you write about the difficulties involved, you should approach the agricultural research institute. You have such an institute, and you must come to them and say that there is no alternative. They have to find a way to grow esrogim in Eretz Yisroel, since Jews must make a blessing over esrogim, as the Alter Rebbe rules in the Shulchan Aruch. The Rebbe then continued to encourage him and wrote: “There is a Jew in Eretz Yisroel named Reb Ber Ludmer[?]. He is a great expert in growing esrogim. He is somewhat related to me, [unclear].” As far as I know, the Rebbe said, the soil in your village, Kfar Chabad, is very suitable for growing esrogim. Without taking any more time, I would like to invite our next speaker, Rabbi Kalman Natan.

04:38 Speaker 2 Greetings and blessings to the distinguished rabbis. The purpose of this presentation is to show the measures taken to ensure kashrus and how to adapt them to large plots, which require stricter instructions than a small plot with a few individual trees. Thirty, forty, fifty, even sixty years ago, people generally grew trees in their yards—ten trees here, twenty trees there. Over the years, they began growing them more commercially, and it became clear that commercial growing presents more problems, because a large plot is more exposed to damage from natural forces. There are also people involved in the agricultural work—the workers, the owner—machinery, and all kinds of other factors. There is more planting and more loss of trees. This created a need to adapt the rules of kashrus to conditions in the field. The presentation I am giving today is not intended to issue halachic rulings. Arriving at a halachic ruling is another matter, for another time. Rather, in accordance with halachic principles, we reached conclusions about how to implement kashrus in the field, beyond the question of what the halachah itself requires. In other words, there are often additional stringencies or solutions meant to prevent us from reaching a situation in which we violate the halachah. Someone who privately grows a few trees at home, if he is familiar with the halachos and with the biology of the tree and so on, may be able to deal with it differently. And if he is not familiar with them, he may simply make mistakes even on a small plot with only a few trees. In any case, our approach to large quantities goes somewhat beyond the strict halachah: we have additional stringencies and safeguards so as not to run into a prohibition or another halachic concern. The hand behind the esrog—what lies behind this esrog? Let us begin with the owners. The owners are the driving force; the nature and success of the kashrus will depend on them. If an owner is committed and has yiras Shamayim, then, with Hashem’s help and siyata diShmaya, by working together with the rabbis and the kashrus supervisors,

07:18 Speaker 2 he will succeed as far as kashrus is concerned, and of course he will have siyata diShmaya with the fruit as well. Right now we are discussing kashrus. So the first and most important factor is the owner. What does the owner want? If he truly wants to benefit the entire Jewish people by providing kosher esrogim, makes every effort to ensure that his esrogim really are kosher, and, while he certainly needs to earn a living, sees his main goal as producing something kosher and benefiting the entire Jewish people, then through that cooperation he will achieve good results in terms of kashrus. The next stage involves the rabbis. When rabbis begin granting kashrus certification, they start by investigating. As I said in the introduction, forty or fifty years ago there were a few trees here and a few there. In Jaffa there were trees tended by Arabs; in Umm al-Fahm, a few Arabs tended some. Over the generations and years, it emerged that some trees had been grafted. Elsewhere, grafting was suddenly introduced. Until then the trees had not been grafted, and now it was discovered that they had. So the process begins with the rabbis. They have to go out and begin checking. We have two possible designations: Is this tree ungrafted? Can someone come and testify that it truly is ungrafted? Or is it enough to say that it is presumed to be ungrafted? That is a question for the rabbis. Since I do not issue halachic rulings, I am only presenting the question that the rabbis responsible for granting certification must decide. Many esrogim on the market are labeled “ungrafted.” Is someone standing behind that word, “ungrafted”? Is it enough to say “presumed to be”? After the rabbis have determined the status of the tree before them, the next stage concerns the esrog grower: the grower’s kashrus. Does he observe Shabbos? Unfortunately, this is very demanding work, with financial rewards attached and many tests, and, G-d forbid,

09:49 Speaker 2 And a person who does not observe Shabbos could very easily violate the prohibitions of Shabbos. If he wants to pick on Sunday morning, as is well known, the trees need to be watered thoroughly the evening or day before picking, or at the time of picking. So he might have to desecrate Shabbos, G-d forbid. We therefore need to be aware that with someone who desecrates Shabbos, we already have a problem. Just as there are issues with milk and Shabbos observance, there are such issues with esrogim too. Next, we need to check whether he is a longtime grower and whether he might have trees that are not approved. If so, they need to be kept separate. There have been cases—I encountered one a few years ago—where we went to inspect a Jewish grower who said he had no other trees. While touring his land, we found a small orchard of other trees. Of course, we disqualified him immediately and did not continue the inspections. There are other cases of trustworthy people we can rely on who grow additional trees without certification alongside their certified trees. But these are exceptional people whom we can trust. Here I’m showing you some of the documents the rabbis issued. This is a very old document recording inspections of a particular person in previous years by rabbis who visited the fields. This is a document for the Shemittah year, a specific document; we have since added more clauses to it. There are additional documents for esrog growers, forms for the growers. After the rabbis completed their inspections and certification was granted, they continued to be involved throughout the years. As you saw from the documents the rabbis issue, problems are brought up from the field, questions are raised, and the rabbis issue their instructions. The next stage is supervision, with supervisors in the field. Their job is to guide and oversee the work in the esrog orchards and nurseries, the sorting and packing facilities, and the marketing and advertising connected with the kosher status of the tree and the esrog. As you can see on the banderole, the—

12:21 Speaker 2 As you can see on the banderole, yes, certification is not given for the esrog’s level of hiddur. Certification is given for the tree: so-and-so’s trees are kosher, supervised from the time of planting, and so on. The fruit itself is not certified for hiddur, but the fruit can also have kashrus issues. If a grower uses certain substances, such as Actimic or Confidor or other such materials, whose effects on the tree last three months, a month, or longer, and someone picks the fruit while it is still toxic, he cannot eat it. If he cannot eat it, he cannot make a blessing over it either. It is not fit to be eaten. And—ah, perhaps we’ll answer the questions at the end. A green esrog? It depends on how green it is. Generally, a green esrog is fit to be eaten. It is, yes, but I’m saying it depends on how green it is. If it is that green—and then there are dark spots, which halachically also disqualify it for a blessing. But if it is green in a way that is acceptable according to halachah, you can cut it open and eat it. There is no problem eating it. What? That is an established presumption. Its status is established, it’s... What? As for the whole subject of grafting, with Hashem’s help, when our righteous Moshiach and Eliyahu Hanavi come, these matters will be clarified. But over the years there have been many surprises concerning grafting. Orchards believed to be kosher were discovered where, over time, the owner had spoiled their status by grafting the trees, and esrogim had already been taken from there, and so on. So what? No, no. When the supervisors investigated and established the status of the trees, those trees retained their established kosher status, and we continue to safeguard it. Certification begins once we have—once it was decided that Calabrian esrogim are kosher, from the moment they were brought to Eretz Yisroel, the certifying authority, let’s say—or whichever certification there was; I don’t know who it was at the beginning or later—stays with that grower, stays

14:46 Speaker 2 with those saplings, and watches over them so there will be no concern that someone might come and graft them or carry out any other action that would invalidate that established status. No.

15:14 Speaker 3 Because he investigated and inquired, so those trees had not been treated, and he could have thought they had not been treated. Now this was just before, but there, in the main area, the saplings were missing.

15:53 Speaker 2 Let’s continue with the role of supervision. As you can see on the banderole, supervision begins with planting. To get to the planting stage, we go back to the mother trees and the process of taking fruit or cuttings from them and planting them. All those steps—from cutting or picking the fruit to the nursery, and from the nursery to the orchard—and all the supervision over the first four years and the subsequent years of growth are closely monitored. A grower cannot plant on his own, move saplings on his own, or make changes in the nursery on his own. Everything is supervised. Every action is documented. If it is a new plot, there is a map for it. If any saplings are changed in the plot, the map is updated again, as we will see later in the presentation. In any case, this is an example of the banderole, which tells you what has been done and what the supervision covers. Supervision extends from planting, from the cutting of the... from picking, packing, and sorting, until the esrog reaches the market. The Eidah Hachareidis does not certify loose fruit circulating in the marketplace. Certification is given for something sealed or for a supervised store. One moment. Let’s move on to the procedures. Since we said that the esrogim’s established status must be protected, we have to protect it from the cutting stage through the separation of terumos and maasros and packing. We have a question: What counts as grafting? If you want to ensure that a tree is not grafted, you need to know what grafting is—how it is defined. The definition of a grafted tree includes every type of grafting, according to the various methods: top grafting, support grafting, bud grafting, tissue culture, or any other action that introduces an additional factor into the tree’s growth. In other words, something else is participating in the tree’s growth. That raises a question for discussion: What about bees that pollinate the fruit? Until now, we have been talking about the tree. Grafting, as we generally understand it, takes place in the tree, or involves something that causes the tree to grow in combination with something else.

18:34 Speaker 4 Why even bees?

18:35 Speaker 2 What?

18:36 Speaker 4 Why even bees?

18:39 Speaker 2 No, the possibilities are endless. There are endless ways to graft. Endless, endless possibilities. On the contrary, grafted trees used to be grown in Eretz Yisroel specifically to improve esrogim. Boruch Hashem, it has been more than ten years since those plots were uprooted. But in any case, they deliberately grafted trees from the outset to improve the existing esrogim and prevent diseases that affect the Calabrian trees, as the Rabbi mentioned, and so on. Those trees live only a few years, so they grafted them to strengthen the trees, extend their lives, and improve them. In any case, there is a question here about grafting and pollination by bees. We have a very interesting picture here. This is a melon that was pollinated by an esrog. If you look at the green melon, it took on the shape of an esrog. Do you see it? A melon is round, and these green melons simply grew after being pollinated by an esrog. What happens... Here is an example of a tree with something like a clementine growing on it. Someone called me over and said, “Come see something amazing.” In the end, it turned out to be an ordinary grafted tree, with a bitter orange or something like that, a type of clementine—that orange-colored fruit. In any case, the question is: What happens when it retains the shape of an esrog? Then we have no problem. We say that we do not even know that pollination took place. If all the esrogim on a particular tree have one shape, but a few have a different shape because of this kind of pollination, or if one does not resemble an esrog at all, and a person has no other esrogim and this is what he has before him—well, that is a question for a halachic authority. Let’s move on to propagating the tree. Propagation is done by taking a branch from the tree, or a fruit from which the seeds are extracted. That branch is a branch that generally has leaves and fruit on it

20:54 Speaker 2 Or secondary branches. What they do here is take it and bury it in the ground. Here’s an example of a branch like that: they removed its leaves and so on, and its thorns, and put it into this bag. Then a very interesting process begins. Until now, this branch was a branch that produced branches, fruit, and leaves. From the moment we put it into the ground, the part below ground changes its nature from a branch—it actually changes in its tissues. The tissues change, roots emerge from the covered part, and this entire branch is now called a root. We know the definition of a sucker in the Mishnah: it emerges from a part that does not see the sun. That part of the branch which does not see the sun changes its nature. There are several questions here. What happens while it is still a branch? We planted it. Let’s set aside for a moment how long it takes to take root and what “taking root” means. Since it still has the potential to produce branches before it produces roots, it may also produce a branch below the surface of the ground. After all, it used to be a branch; it was a branch, and it has not yet completely changed its nature. How do we regard a branch emerging from something that was itself a branch two days ago, or a week ago, and produced there the branch it would have produced had it remained on the tree? To understand the issue, there is a distinction between a seed and a cutting in the ground.

22:46 Speaker 5 Regarding—

22:46 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, certainly. That will be the practical difference. No, no, no, no. Right now we’re—I'll get to the problem in a moment. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. I’ll get to the problem in a moment. I haven’t described the process yet. What happens? We take this branch—leave that aside for a moment—we take this branch and plant it. Let’s say we planted it on 15 Menachem Av. 15 Menachem Av divides the time for us. As we know, we have two weeks for it to take root, and then a month counts as a year, so we gain that year of planting. We gain it now as the first year, and so we planted it. This branch, which was still a branch an hour ago, is in the process of taking root during those two weeks. As we said, its tissues change and it begins to put out roots, but because it was a branch, it still retains the potential to put out branches. For example, if it is a branch that produced fruit: this branch was in the nursery for only a few days or weeks, and it began—the first thing it did was produce a branch with fruit. In other words, those fruits are something rare. Nobody—there are no fruits in the nursery. It is rare, but not surprising, because it was within the branch’s potential. Had it remained on the tree, it would have produced those same leaves and fruits at that time. So what happened? Now the lower part of the branch begins to put out roots, but the potential to put out branches is still hidden within it. What is the halachic status of the branch that emerged? And now we will define it as a sucker. We have another problem: from 15 Menachem Av until 1 Elul, which is the time it takes to root, if we took a bare cutting, it is in the process of taking root. But if we took a sapling—if we took a sapling and say that it had already taken root as a sapling, though it had not yet taken root in the ground—and the definition of taking root is that the plant

24:51 Speaker 2 develops roots and receives its nourishment from the ground, because there is nourishment in the branch itself. That branch can continue living for a certain time even without the ground. Sometimes a branch like that puts out branch after branch without producing roots. Then, after two or three weeks, it dries out. Where did those branches come from? The potential and nourishment stored in that branch produced them, even though it had not taken root. In other words, putting out branches does not show us that this branch has taken root. When do we have evidence that it has taken root? When it puts out roots and those roots draw nourishment from the ground. So now the question is what to do with this sucker: do we call it a sucker or not? First, if it came from a cutting, it emerged before the cutting took root; it emerged through the strength of the original branch. And if it is a small sapling that we moved to the field, then we might say that it has already taken root and I do not need two weeks for it to take root. It would be enough that, by Rosh Chodesh, everything that emerged would count retroactively with the plantings made before 15 Menachem Av. After all, we planted this little sapling four months ago, let’s say. I’m leaving these as halachic questions. Now, what is the difference between a seed and a case where someone took this sap—the branch—and buried it completely? He buried it completely. He did it the day before 15 Menachem Av. Ten days later a branch emerged, but it emerged from a place that does not see the sun. That place had not seen the sun. And when we define a sucker, the sucker emerges from a place that does not see the sun. If it sees the sun—if I have a sapling and it sees the sun—then it is not a sucker. So what is the status of that cutting? Do we accept it and say that this is its natural form,

26:50 Speaker 2 and, halachically speaking, this is the tree? Or let’s examine the difference between it and a seed. A seed—and there is a difference between a seed and, uh, a cutting. In a seed there are two places: one particular, specific place that does not change, from which roots will always emerge, and another place from which the trunk will emerge. With this long branch, I have two meters of branch. Wherever I cut it, every part is a place from which branches, not roots, would emerge. What caused it to put out roots? The very fact that I buried it and changed its entire structure through the water, the darkness, and all the material in the ground changed its structure, and that is what happened there. So there is a distinction. Now, we are not going to issue a halachic ruling, but as for what happens in practice: with a branch like this that we buried completely, I cannot say it is a seed. I can only say that it produced a sucker from a place that does not see the sun. But there is room here for the halachic authorities to rule; there is something to discuss. Now let’s understand: having seen the issue of taking root and some of the problems during the process of taking root, that is the main initial problem with suckers. That is the main problem with suckers at the outset. Either it is primarily a question of taking root, or that cutting produced, through its own strength, the branch that was supposed to emerge. And we are talking about—we are talking about a very narrow time frame. We moved it to the field on 15 Menachem Av, and it emerged by Rosh Chodesh. If we do not take a stringent approach, we will be left with doubts. I did not come to issue a halachic ruling, but someone dealing with these fine points, when he has thousands of dunams of land and all the kashrus requirements, and several cuttings are planted in each hole and so on—from a practical standpoint, he will reach a point where, come Elul, he cannot inspect all the fields, nor can he mark every place

28:59 Speaker 2 where one emerged. So let’s look at the planting techniques. We have two options in the nurseries: there is a small pot, which you can see on the right, and a large pot. In this example, the large pot is not meant for planting; they used it only to get the cuttings to develop roots. Later they will remove these saplings. But those who want to use the large pot—and we’ll discuss that later—plant one or two, and whichever succeeds, they let it develop in the pot. Here is another example. Notice that the saplings protrude above the surface of the soil. That is to avoid a situation where we have to deal with what emerges below ground—what we called a sucker. This is a sapling removed from a pot, or from a shared pot containing many saplings, so we have to remove it. We don’t plant them all together. It is planted with its cluster of roots, and its halachic status is determined on the day of planting, even though it was in the large pot. Yes, yes, but that is not relevant right now to... Yes. No, no, because we said he used the pot only to get them to develop roots, not in order to use the pot itself at this stage. This was just an example from elsewhere to show you the subject of large pots. What? Yes, we will get to the subject of large pots shortly, but this picture happened to show a large pot that was used for a different purpose. This is an example of planting in the field. Generally, when planting in the field, because there are serious problems with mal secco or various other diseases, some growers plant several saplings. Our aim is to limit that number to prevent problems later on. And if you look closely, it emerges very near the surface of the ground. As it begins to grow, they form little trunks to avoid uncertainty about suckers that might emerge from the sides.

31:38 Speaker 2 Or on the surface. Then, during cultivation, they sometimes hoe, raise the soil, lower it, or expose what is underneath. At that point, we may no longer know whether a root had come out there or not. That is why we are careful about these trunks. Here we have an example of a pot planted with one bud facing upward. On the right, you can see that a branch emerged. Can you see it clearly here? On the left you can see—and it emerged at the same time—the root. If time passes and the owner sends workers to hoe there, clean up, and pull weeds, the one on the left, which is attached to the trunk, will be exposed. It may have emerged as a sucker in early—uh, in the month of Sivan, or another month, or, more seriously, at the end of Tishrei. Then it is definitely a sucker. The owner’s cultivation work will expose it. Two months later, the supervisor will come and see that everything looks fine, because he will not be able to tell the difference. Here is another example of a sucker that emerged during the transition period, as it were, around 15 Menachem Av, in Elul, at the beginning of Elul. The branches look the same; it is just that one is classified as a sucker, while the one on the right is the tree itself. More examples. Now, when we uproot the tree—as we discussed at the beginning—the cutting in the middle produces the branches and puts out the roots. And within it, if you look closely, right at the center of the roots, this branch emerged. It had the potential to emerge. True, it was covered, so sunlight did not reach it, but it had that potential. Wait a moment here. That’s it. What? The one coming out on the right is the sucker. If you look closely, the upper branch—the trunk, that is, the central stem, which was a cutting when it was planted—the upper part stayed green, while the lower part turned brown. The tissues changed; everything changes, and then

34:05 Speaker 2 it put out roots there and also produced a green branch within them, which grew upward. That is a definite sucker. Though, all right, one could debate in halachah whether it is a sucker or not. But from our standpoint, from the standpoint of supervision, we cannot go in and examine dozens of saplings to determine whether each one is considered a sucker. And it is quite possible that halachah would rule that it is a sucker. So we treat it as a sucker, even though it actually emerged from the cutting, from the central trunk. It came from the potential of a stem that had been a branch. It did not emerge from the root itself. If that branch had remained on the tree, it would have grown out. Now we took it off, put it in the soil, and it emerged among the roots. The question is: what do we classify it as? Here is a clearer picture of it. This is a very common sight when the nursery was not careful about removing the suckers we discussed and saw earlier. From a distance, a person thinks there are two saplings in front of him. When you expose the soil—notice the brown color around those branches—you come and see that it actually emerged from the same place, from this trunk. Here is an example of another problem. The cutting on the left simply did not produce anything. It was above the soil, but it produced nothing. What grew came from its lower part: a sapling emerged. Again, we have the question of whether it is a sucker or the original tree. In any case, the kashrus supervision disqualifies it and treats it as a sucker. That tree is either moved to a place appropriate for its year—meaning its age is set back a year—or it is uprooted, or it is marked as a tree of a different year in a large area where there are no trees of that year. Here is an even more classic example. These are pots in which several cuttings are grown in order to prevent problems with mal secco and make it easier to deal with

36:28 Speaker 2 mal secco. So there were several stems in this pot. When we come back after a year or two, we see the same number of stems in the pot, but one of them has simply been replaced: one is a sucker. Notice the one farther back in the middle. It looks like a tree like all the others, even better than the one on the right. But what did we actually discover? The one on the right was the original tree, while the one on the left was attached below and emerged from the lower part. Here are more examples. All right, it is hard to see here. Now let’s talk about moving trees with their root balls. The source for this begins in the Mishnah. A tree was uprooted by the wind and moved from one place to another, with its clod of earth still attached. Look here: in this example, they dug around the tree and formed a root ball. They put a little water here, so now it is easier to see. The wind moved it from there. Something moved this tree, and we need to check whether it can continue to live with the clod of earth it has. In other words, can the tree, with its canopy and root system, continue to live with this root ball, or is it too small, so that the tree simply will not recover and will dry out? If we revive it artificially, that does not count, because we are the ones reviving it. But under natural conditions, when it is moved, it received water a week ago and is due to receive water again in another week. During the time in which we move it, it should be able to live without our giving it water in between. It is used to receiving water every week under the same conditions. When it is moved, can it live with this clod of earth? That is where the kashrus committees have to determine what size root ball to require of nurseries. In some places it is eight liters, or five liters—smaller pots. We use a fifty-liter pot. That is what the rabbis established. I do not know how each kashrus committee assesses it.

38:53 Speaker 2 In any case, they decided to avoid any doubts. Since the saplings remain in the nursery for one or two years and keep growing, you cannot... you cannot take a small root ball. You have to move a large tree, so they found that fifty liters is more or less the minimum. That is a question. Now, in earlier days, years ago, they used barrels, especially here in Kfar Chabad, if anyone has seen them. Here we have an example of a barrel with holes. Our requirement is a minimum of three or four holes, each five centimeters by five centimeters. Of course, these metal containers are marked as well. Over the years they switched to sacks—burlap-type sacks, or sacks made of another plastic material. With these sacks, there is a question: do I need to make holes in them? Our kashrus committee requires the same holes as before. We require those holes. But in practice, let’s ask what happens when someone has not made them, and what actually happens in the field. I have checked this a great deal: the roots penetrate the sack everywhere. Not only do they penetrate it, they widen the openings, and even a large root passes through as it grows. Notice these large roots, which have already broken through nowhere near a hole. They widen the opening. The root starts small and widens it further and further, and so on. It would seem that these holes are not needed. Here a large root has penetrated it. What? It is woven plastic, something like a fabric, perhaps. It is not impermeable plastic, because with impermeable plastic, I think the largest size generally used is perhaps eight liters. Usually, above eight liters, or some other size, they switch to sacks like these. But roots really do not penetrate impermeable plastic. It forms a complete barrier. Once we have dealt with size, we come to the question of the holes, and here there may

41:17 Speaker 2 That becomes a question after the fact. Usually, with the kashrus committee, this doesn’t happen, because all the sacks are checked beforehand, before they’re prepared, and at planting time they’re checked again to make sure the hole is really there. But sometimes someone with a private yard or a small operation runs into this problem, and then there’s room to discuss whether it’s all right or not. Then there’s another question... This is a nursery. Maybe you can’t see it well. We’ll see in a moment. Now there’s another question that the kashrus committee, or the rabbis involved, have to consider: the location. Where should this nursery be placed? Usually, with the kashrus committee, we place the nurseries on the plot itself. There are two arrangements: large sacks out in the open, exposed to the air and sun, and sacks inside net-covered greenhouses. So here, too, there’s already a question. Some people are stringent and don’t want to use an esrog that grew under netting. I don’t know; I’ve met a group of people who are particular about this. If the same tree is partly under netting and partly not, perhaps they don’t consider the two parts subject to the same obligations or the same rules that apply to a house. I don’t know their source. But I’ve met people who make that distinction and say, “Don’t pick for me from the part that was covered by netting; keep it separate from the uncovered part.” In short, there’s already room for discussion. What? Yes, yes, over the trees too, and over the... Now, wait: when I talk about large nurseries, that’s a plot of land in every respect. It’s land in every respect; the tree grows under the conditions of the plot. When you move it, you count its years. It’s the same thing. You can even pick fruit from it if you haven’t moved it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This, this... I found this issue with ordinary trees. So there’s room to discuss it here. What happens when you grow plants in pots? And we’re talking

43:26 Speaker 2 about potted plants whose years need to be counted—whether they’re under netting or exposed. And on the plot itself there’s a question of maasros. They might even go further and say—I haven’t looked closely into their reasoning—that there may be a distinction here for the years of orlah as well. I don’t know; some people are particular about it. No, so they... inside a house. That’s the question here: are these greenhouses considered a house or not? All right, I’m not going into... Let’s not get into the halachic question now. We won’t go into the halachah, but I’ve presented the point. The next question is this: when we plant in greenhouses and intend to move the plants, what about the problem of an intervening surface? First of all, there’s the intervening surface of a road. Some hold that a road does not count as an intervening surface. On the kashrus committee, we’re particular: anything that isn’t soil in which people normally grow things counts as an intervening surface. Anything people don’t normally grow things in counts as an intervening surface. Nobody grows anything on a road—even though roads crack and you see weeds there, and sometimes who knows what else. No, we avoid every doubt. In principle, the kashrus committee tries to... Yes, yes. We’ll see; let’s check the... Asphalt. Yes. Or even compacted gravel, no. Because it depends on the material and whether it’s compacted. If it’s like that fine gravel, which stays soft, always soft, even when you compact it, it may support growth. But if it’s like the base they make for a road, where they compact those large stones, then nothing can grow there. In any case, as a matter of principle... What? How? Yes, wait. Yes, yes, yes. It loses, it loses all its years. Yes, yes. No, I’m not going into the halachah. It could be

45:56 Speaker 2 that you’ll sit down, discuss it, and say it’s all right. I’m telling you what the kashrus committee does. The kashrus committee takes every step to avoid any doubt, so that no possible question will come up tomorrow. Everyone knows this, and they feel it in their pocket. Someone who wants to buy a mehudar esrog sometimes pays a hundred dollars or even more, and he wants to avoid every doubt. He won’t pay a hundred dollars—or even five dollars—for an esrog that raises questions. We’re talking about esrogim now. No, I don’t know. I know something about esrogim. No, no... Right now we’re on esrogim, esrogim, esrogim. The approach is to avoid any doubt, or any possibility that someone has a stringency with a basis to it. If we can make things easier for the public and give them the most mehudar product without any questions, that’s the kashrus committee’s approach. So I’m simply presenting the questions that can arise. That’s the issue of an intervening surface. There’s another question about intervening surfaces. When someone moves the seedlings, we’ve arranged for the nursery to be on the plot. That way he doesn’t have to cross a road, or the concrete of a wadi. There may be a wadi, or a kind of bridge—or not a bridge, a crossing made of concrete—or all sorts of surfaces that weren’t there before. Everything stays on the plot. Then we inspect the plot itself and clear away every large stone slab, piece of concrete or metal, and the like. There’s another question: what about plastic sheeting? Pieces of plastic can be lying around. In another six months, that plastic will have crumbled into pieces. But right now I’m moving over it. Is it an intervening surface? That’s a halachic question. What happens after the fact if someone moved a plant and suddenly noticed, “I passed over a piece of plastic”? In a few months, or a few years, that plastic will no longer exist. It doesn’t

47:50 Speaker 2 intervene; it isn’t permanent. That’s a question, but we’re careful about even the smallest piece. That’s separate from the halachic ruling; I’m talking about the issue itself. Oh, there’s a halachic question about that too: what happens if a tree in a perforated pot passes over an intervening surface and the pot becomes, for that time, like an unperforated pot? Does that invalidate it or not? Some opinions say it doesn’t; some opinions say it doesn’t, but others are stringent. I’m giving you the stringent position so that we can avoid every doubt. There are already responsa from rabbis who ruled that it isn’t considered an intervening surface. Some have even ruled that it isn’t an intervening surface when it’s inside a vehicle, or over asphalt, over concrete, or over any kind of intervening surface. Some hold that if it passes over for only a short time, that doesn’t count as an interruption. We don’t follow that practice. That’s why we put the nurseries on the plot and clear the whole area. We don’t grow—we don’t put down mats to prevent weeds in the nursery, and so on. We’re talking about all the esrogim now. Now, another thing—No. Yes, yes, but I’m not getting into what people do elsewhere; I’m talking to you about esrogim right now. Seemingly, everything we’re saying should really be done with every fruit, with pears and in other orchards too. That’s beside the point; right now we’re talking about esrogim. I can’t testify to what they do in a place where I’m not present, but I’m telling you what happens here. Now there’s another matter before the plants are moved from the nursery: the nursery’s ongoing care. That includes keeping the trunk clean and doing whatever is needed to avoid the doubts we saw—as we saw earlier with those cases—so that they don’t recur in the nursery. Those things can happen in a nursery, so the nursery has to be tended. In other words, tend the nursery as though you were tending

49:54 Speaker 2 In the field. Just as in the field you go around pruning the trunks to create a trunk a tefach high—let’s call it a tefach. “Tefach” is easy to say. It could be twenty centimeters or even thirty. The exact height doesn’t matter, as long as the trunk is visible. Usually, when you walk around the field at some distance during the day, a tefach is visible to you. You can see that there’s a trunk a tefach high. But the nursery has to treat these saplings as though they were in the field, since in a year or two, when they’re moved, their years are counted from when they were in the nursery. So they need the same treatment as in the field: removing suckers and forming trunks, to prevent problems and doubts about suckers. As we’ve said, the soil shifts because of various kinds of cultivation, rain, and other natural factors. A sucker may emerge as a sucker and then, a short time later, become exposed for one reason or another. When I come to inspect it, I say, “There’s no sucker here at all.” That’s why we form a small trunk from the outset. Now let’s move on to transporting these saplings. There are several ways to transport them. Here in the picture you can see a tractor with them on its forks. In other words, the saplings appear to be close to the ground. I don’t know whether you can see that clearly. The question is how high the tractor’s forks can be raised while the saplings are still considered connected to the tractor, which is connected to the ground. Generally, up to eighty centimeters. In other words, if they raised them very high—there was plenty of room to raise them further—but we don’t do that anywhere. That’s one method: they’re moved while remaining close to the ground. Another method is that someone simply cut out the bed of his truck and made a kind of mesh, so that the holes in the pots are aligned with the openings toward the ground, and that’s how he transports them. The holes of

52:45 Speaker 2 the pots are aligned with the openings toward the ground as he transports them. Here, this is the method they use for planting. Another method uses pallets. There’s a bit of a problem here: the width of the top board. When you put the sapling on that pallet, you block the holes. That’s a problem. It’s very difficult to work with this and line it up with the holes so the roots can continue to draw nourishment. That’s also why we make three or four holes, but we no longer use this method. Still, someone might encounter it, so he has to check very carefully that nothing is blocking the holes. The fork itself is a piece of metal fifteen centimeters wide—the fork that lifts the... That has to be taken into account too. Now there’s another point here. This is a sapling that grew. It did manage to grow, but it has a small root system. What happened over time was that the grower saw that it had actually stopped growing. In other words, that root system, that soil ball, couldn’t overcome the transition. For this sapling, either its soil ball wasn’t sufficient, or the roots inside it were healthy but still weren’t large enough to support all that growth above ground. That gives us a sense of how large the soil ball needs to be. Generally, we try to let it grow long enough for the roots to fill the ball and draw nourishment from all of it. But here it simply couldn’t keep growing, and they had to uproot the tree: the growth above ground and the roots weren’t in proportion. Here’s another method: workers transporting them by hand. Now, about the soil ball. When we plant, we have to make sure there’s a soil ball and that it won’t fall apart. Then the questions arise: what happens if part

54:58 Speaker 2 of it falls apart? At what point is the soil ball disqualified? That’s a question for experts and rabbis to consider, both in principle and for each particular tree. But if you create a firm soil ball, the question doesn’t arise. You’ve simply moved a soil ball that stays intact, and the plant continues to draw its sustenance as it moves from place to place. Here’s a soil ball that fell apart; something like this is already disqualified. Here too is a soil ball that fell apart and was disqualified. Another way of transporting saplings. This is a disqualified soil ball. Now here you have a larger mass of roots. The roots that were in this soil ball are in the right proportion to the growth above ground. If it hadn’t been disqualified because it fell apart, it would have continued growing there. Sometimes you see that the soil balls aren’t firm enough, so they simply transfer them into the ground without opening the bags. That raises a halachic question: what happens with a pot like this, with sandy soil that doesn’t bind together and will never form a soil ball? In a situation like this, it won’t form one. If we open it, it immediately falls apart. So the plastic holding it together serves as its soil ball, and you really mustn’t remove it. Once you remove it, it’s as though you broke up the soil ball. So you plant it with—with that container. You plant it in the field with the container. Huh? Yes, yes. After all, it has holes. No—yes, you can position it, but it has holes. Once the roots grow out through the holes and take hold in the ground, it’s attached to the ground. Then, if you want, you can go back later and check the situation. Wait a month or two. You can remove that bag; it’s already rooted in the ground itself. When you transferred it, it was acceptable, and now it’s rooted in the ground. Now you can. If you take a hoe and hoe around the tree, you’re also breaking up

57:07 Speaker 2 the soil. We don’t say that the tree has now become detached. The same applies here. So you wait a few months. It takes hold in the ground; it was acceptable when planted and has taken hold in the ground, and then you can remove the plastic. Now, regarding marking the area. Usually, when you see red tape in the field—that’s our practice—the red tape marks off the area. It may mark individual trees that are orlah within an area that isn’t orlah, of course, or, if the entire field is orlah, we mark around it in red. If there’s a problem area next to sections that aren’t orlah, we mark it so there won’t be any confusion. Here’s an orlah field, and look at the quantity of fruit that accumulates during orlah. That quantity can appear even in the second year; we’re not talking about the third year. That should give you an idea of the scale of the problem. A field of esrogim in its second and third years produces enormous quantities of esrogim. That didn’t used to happen, and people didn’t know about it. I remember when I started this work, trees in their third or fourth year produced nothing. Today the problem is more serious. Why? Because I’ve already encountered people around the fields who have no fear of Heaven and steal esrogim, including from the storage sheds. Taking one from a storage shed is bad enough—it’s still stolen, of course, and forbidden—but they also go into the fields. Now, if you haven’t removed the orlah fruit, they’ll pick orlah esrogim, and those esrogim reach the markets. They’re very beautiful esrogim. And on these particular trees there are almost no pests. Since the fruit can’t be used for the mitzvah anyway, nothing seems to get in the way. When the fruit is for the mitzvah, there are obstacles. Esrog growers know how many problems they have with a tree that has to produce fruit for the mitzvah. On a tree producing orlah fruit that can’t be used for the mitzvah, the number of problems is noticeably, much, much smaller.

59:10 Speaker 2 And there are very beautiful esrogim there too, with a beautiful pitam, without anyone tending to it. Once you throw an esrog on the ground, it gets bruised; once it’s bruised, it’s disqualified. What? Yes, yes. Just handling esrogim already disqualifies the... You can see for yourselves what happens when they’re handled too much. Yes, yes, just one small knock against the ground. Pick it up two days later and you’ll see the... After a day, after a little while, you see the mark. It doesn’t hold up. We have other problems too. So we’ve seen that problems can start in the nursery: a field can have suckers and orlah. There are other things that can cause orlah problems. One is a young sapling that was cut down for some reason. Before long, it put out suckers on the right. Here’s a sapling that developed after a tree was uprooted because of mal secco disease. If you look at the shape of the root, a tree has grown from its tip. So if it comes up in exactly the spot where a sapling belongs, and the field isn’t supervised, the worker tends to it and he has a new sapling. The field is two or three years old; the sapling is one year old. It grows quickly, with plenty of water and fertilizer, catches up with all the others, and you never knew you had orlah there. There’s also a problem when the grower cuts back older trees. Here’s an example where it came out all right: renewing the trees. Here it’s already grown from lower down, and now there’s a question of orlah. Here’s another one. This tree has two kinds of branches. The left branch on the large tree grew as a sucker; everyone can see it’s a sucker. No one has any doubt that it’s a sucker. But the right branch grew where it’s exposed to sunlight, and it

1:01:35 Speaker 2 It didn’t grow from a root. The question is when that root became exposed. If it became exposed four years ago, it’s like the tree: it’s already four years old, so what grows from it and is exposed to sunlight after four years is fine. That said, we don’t leave it there, and the kashrus committee can’t leave cases like that. We can’t map thousands of individual cases. We remove it, and the growers remove it too, because it takes strength from the tree. But as a matter of halachah, when examining the question, that root may have become exposed only four months ago. It looks like part of the tree, but it’s a full-fledged sucker even though it’s exposed to sunlight. So here we have a problem: it’s exposed to sunlight and is still a sucker. This is the same picture. To prevent problems in mature plots on a broad scale—this plot is only two years old—we recommend, and press the growers, to develop clearly defined trunks, like this one. You can see the tree standing on a good trunk, and then any sucker that comes out, whether or not it’s been exposed to sunlight, is removed. The whole trunk stays brown, without new growth, and that way we protect ourselves from suckers and the problems they cause. A private individual who wants to get into the complexities can leave one and check it, but he has to be very, very careful. That root may have become exposed only now, while he innocently thinks it’s fine. Here’s an example of mapping. Every sapling in the plot has an address: row three, sapling number eight, and so on. This is at planting time, when there are no problems yet. A year or two has passed. Notice how many new saplings there are here, but every sapling has an address, so we don’t have

1:03:47 Speaker 2 a problem. Some people are particular not to take esrogim from a plot that has both mature trees and trees that are still orlah. Here in Kfar Chabad, boruch Hashem, they don’t do any replacement planting at all, so that question doesn’t arise. But in places where it’s needed, we have a way to overcome the problem. Every sapling has an address; every sapling is marked. As for support stakes, we don’t give it a stake at all. If stakes are already there, we tie it up and cut it back, keeping it small enough that there’s an air gap between the saplings. When you come to inspect it, you see a stunted, small, marked sapling with no fruit on it. That’s to prevent a mishap. There are many waves of flowering during the season, and even a little tree like that can produce a lot of fruit if you leave it. We’ll move on to terumos and maasros, but first I’ll mention a few problems that arise with orlah. So we spoke about the agricultural problems. We already had a case in a young plot, before the support stakes were installed, where a worker plowed it. That’s an agricultural problem compounded by the workers, and the growers know the problem with workers. Some workers are under pressure, afraid of the owner, and so on. We’ve caught several cases where a worker plowed the plot and uprooted a sapling. Since it was a small sapling, he immediately replanted it. That creates a problem, and we try to supervise in places where many non-Jews work. Last week I went to a fifteen-dunam plot where we had planted small saplings before Tu B’Av. Weeds had come up and needed pulling. When you pull weeds, you can uproot a sapling. So I went there for a few hours, watched, and explained to the Thai worker and the other workers how to work, to make sure they were doing it right. Because if he uproots one of these saplings—we’re now in Elul—

1:05:54 Speaker 2 and replants it, nobody will know, and we have an additional year to count here. This is a very common problem. And he feels he has no choice but to replant it. What would the owner say? “Why are you uprooting my saplings?” The support stakes are the poles that hold up the tree. An esrog tree needs support; without it, it falls over, it droops. Let’s see if there are any support stakes here. Not here yet. Well, look, this tree has no stakes, no supports. But let’s see if we have a picture. Here—if you look closely, you can see the posts, though it’s a little hard to make them out. There are upright posts and horizontal poles supporting all these trees. These trees are tied to them even though they’re orlah, because the whole plot is orlah and he throws away all the fruit anyway. But he has already fitted them with support stakes. Otherwise they won’t hold up. Without support, these trees are weak—like lemon trees, and even weaker. Another problem we’ve seen comes in winter, especially in light, sandy soils. There is often erosion from water, and it uproots trees. It can uproot trees here. If a tree is completely uprooted and then replanted, that is certainly no good. But I want to raise a halachic question: What happens to a sapling like this? I’ve seen it happen. The rain and runoff dragged it along within the soil; in other words, it shifted it within the soil. Imagine putting a stick into mud and moving it: everything moves together. Everything moves together. So there was never a moment when it was uprooted; it was never uprooted at all. Now, an esrog tree takes root very easily anywhere. It doesn’t need much firming of the soil or anything. You

1:07:48 Speaker 2 can move it and nothing happens; it keeps growing. You really can shift a little sapling. The question is, what happens in such a case? Has it lost the year it had already counted? It moved from place to place. It didn’t have its root ball with it, it didn’t have its root ball with it, but all that washed-down soil was with it. That wasn’t its own root ball, though. Its root ball had completely broken apart. It remained in the ground, but if you lift it out right away, it’s just mud; when you lift it, its roots are exposed. But while it’s still in the ground, the question is whether that year counts or not. Of course, we on the kashrus committee don’t count it. We don’t deal with a case like that. But anyone who wants to examine the halachah has something to discuss here: what, ostensibly, would the ruling be? This happens a great deal. Trees sometimes shift with the runoff, whether they become detached or remain connected. There’s also a problem in the plots with marking orlah trees. Often the maps have been lost, or there was no map to begin with. Some places don’t work with a map, and then the marking is inaccurate. That, too, is a problem, and it leads to problematic picking, both of orlah fruit and of fourth-year fruit. Let’s move on to terumos and maasros. Usually, someone who knows how to separate maasros does so with tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and so on at home. But when he gets to an esrog, something has to change immediately, because with an esrog there is a restriction: “You shall take for yourselves”—it must be yours, not the Levite’s. Say you’ve picked a hundred very fine esrogim, either yourself or with the owner’s permission, and you come to his storeroom and say, “Listen, I want to separate maasros from them.” Now, what do you do at home? You set aside a cucumber or a tomato. But what will you do here? The maaser rishon belongs to the Levite. So you need to add more. You have to make sure to add another

1:09:58 Speaker 2 roughly fifteen percent, or twelve and a half percent, in extra fruit to the hundred you picked, so that after the separations you’ll still have all the fruit you want. Then you separate the ten percent, which will come out of those extra twelve and a half percent—let’s say they’re unsuitable esrogim—and you’re left with the merchandise you want. If you don’t calculate it correctly, the maaser rishon will be part of the good merchandise, and whoever uses it has a problem: he’s using something that belongs to the Levite. There’s another issue, right? Of course, the produce has to be together when the separations are made; that applies to everything. There’s another issue: both Jews and non-Jews picked in this plot. So the fruit may have different obligations. You have to keep the pickings separate and separate maasros for each picking. You have to take the unsuitable fruit from each group: from the non-Jews’ picking for the non-Jews’ picking, and from the Jews’ for the Jews’. If you want to say that separating from the Jews’ picking covers all of it, fine. But let’s say you want to avoid any doubt: take from each. There are all sorts of small details to pay attention to. There’s also the issue of maaser ani, which, again, you have to give to the poor. You have several options. And ultimately, when it comes time to dispose of the fruit, you have to make sure to destroy the terumah gedolah and terumas maaser. You don’t have to destroy the maaser rishon or maaser ani left among the unsuitable fruit, but you do have to make sure to destroy the other portions. Often people come to the storerooms wanting an esrog to make jam, and someone tells them, “There are esrogim over there on the side,” and they take the terumah gedolah, G-d forbid, or the terumas maaser. So in practice, in the plots and at the growers’ facilities, as soon as the separations are made, those portions must go straight to a disposal place where no one can reach them. That means a deep pit—no one goes down into that pit. To sum up briefly.

1:12:32 Speaker 2 As for the problems, when we come to the market and there is no kashrus certification, a number of questions immediately arise. Could it be poisonous? Is it unfit to eat? And we haven’t even gotten to—what is its established status? All right. Yes, we don’t rule that way. It could be that what is generally ruled is a stringency, perhaps it follows the same ruling, but as a stringency we do not permit the use of Temik, for example, during the three months before Sukkos, because over those three months it dissipates from wherever it was applied, if it was applied there. So when you come to buy—what? All right, but in any case, I’m telling you what we do. As I said in the introduction, we take many steps beyond what halachah requires so that we satisfy all opinions and avoid doubts. After all, someone who has bought such an expensive esrog wants to be free of any doubt. But when you come to the market, you face many questions: its established status, whether it is presumed kosher or not. I have seen many places where there were grafted trees. Apart from large tracts that have since been uprooted, there were very large numbers of grafted trees in Israel until ten years ago. Those who don’t know should know that there were very large tracts. Boruch Hashem, those large tracts have been uprooted. There are still grafted trees in yards and small places. So a person needs to know that his esrog is not grafted, that it has an established status of kashrus, that care was taken to ensure it was not grafted, and that it is not poisonous. There is also the problem of Shabbos desecration. Today, I don’t know whether to say unfortunately or fortunately, most of the workers are non-Jews. So even if the Jewish owner is somewhat G-d-fearing, perhaps he allows the non-Jew to do it. He doesn’t

1:14:41 Speaker 2 tell him, “Go turn on the water.” He tells him, “Listen, we’re picking on Sunday; that’s enough.” He said no—picking on Sunday. The worker went and turned on the water on Shabbos afternoon. We have the problem of grafted trees, as we said. We have the problem of tevel. If a person doesn’t know how to separate maaser properly, he is left with tevel. He has gone through all the other stages, but he has tevel in his hands. There is also the problem of fourth-year fruit. That problem begins at picking. When is the work generally considered complete? What do we see? The worker puts the esrog into a cardboard box lined with foam that has individual compartments. That foam tray, with the esrogim in its compartments, can go straight to market. He doesn’t need to do anything else. That is his final step, so the work is complete at that point. Now, he picked eight esrogim from the first tree, and at the fourth tree, whose fruit is fourth-year fruit, he added another esrog. Perhaps it becomes nullified in the mixture. Now tell him to take out the fourth-year esrog—he can’t find it. He doesn’t remember where it is; it has become mixed in with the others. The question is how you separate maaser from that. That presents a problem. Or perhaps you don’t even know it is fourth-year fruit, and you go ahead and separate maaser instead of checking. We have a serious problem of stolen esrogim. I have been inside the warehouse of respectable people who deal with all sorts of merchants, including merchants who looked like chareidim, and I saw them steal merchandise right under my nose. I saw it. Those people came in suits and sold their merchandise in the markets. They took ten boxes they had paid for and another eight they had not paid for, then ran off and disappeared. So we have the problem of stolen esrogim. Who are we buying from? Of course, to return

1:16:41 Speaker 2 to the main point, the primary problem is orlah, as we discussed. We also have the problem of Shemitah, which we haven’t begun to discuss, and there is much to say about fruit that was guarded or worked during Shemitah. That is the general scope of the problems. Of course, from a presentation of perhaps four hundred pictures and issues, I cut it down as much as I could to give you a general picture. With Hashem’s help, I wish everyone that we should not stumble and that we should merit an esrog whose kashrus is established. Boruch Hashem, you have two large tracts here in Kfar Chabad with esrogim that have an established status of kashrus and are beautiful as well. I don’t think anyone will go wrong. If there are questions.

1:17:25 Speaker 6 Shabbos desecration by a non-Jew?

1:17:28 Speaker 2 I can’t hear.

1:17:29 Speaker 6 Shabbos desecration by a non-Jew?

1:17:32 Speaker 2 Ask a rabbi about that. We’re not going into the halachos; I’m only raising the issue. Nobody wants to receive a hundred-dollar esrog for which Shabbos was desecrated.

1:17:44 Speaker 6 If a non-Jew picked it, what’s the problem?

1:17:45 Speaker 2 What?

1:17:46 Speaker 6 A non-Jew picked it.

1:17:52 Speaker 2 No, the question now concerns maaser. A non-Jew picked esrogim, and a Jew also picked esrogim. The question is which ones you are taking. You want to take the invalid esrogim picked by the non-Jew and use them to separate maaser for esrogim picked by a Jew. The question is whether you can do that.

1:18:12 Speaker 6 Who owns the tract?

1:18:13 Speaker 2 The tract? For now, it doesn’t matter whether it belongs to a Jew. Here the work was completed—a non-Jew finished the work and put the esrogim into the trays. They go straight to market. And a Jew picked esrogim. So the question is whether you can take from those esrogim to separate maaser.

1:18:38 Speaker 7 [unclear]

00:06 Speaker 1 After focusing on the lulav, hadassim, and esrog, we’ll now take a short three- or four-minute break for anyone who hasn’t had a chance to refresh themselves. You’re welcome to have a cup of coffee outside, or drinks and cake at the tables. If anyone has lost a wallet, you can come and claim it, of course by identifying it, as required by halachah. And between one subject and the next, we’re now moving on to the question of the sukkah. I’m reminded of a story... I’m reminded of a story I heard, which I don’t think has been widely publicized yet. It was after a lot of pestering. Last year, at the Kinus Hashluchim, I met Rabbi Sholom Ber Ginsburg. As you know, he served as the Rebbe’s attendant for many years. I said to him, “Rabbi Sholom Ber, I’m heading back, and I want a story.” Usually he doesn’t like telling stories. He’s very modest. But I pressed him, and the way I did it was by telling him a story I’d heard in his name. That annoyed him a little, because whenever people tell a story in his name, he tends to say it isn’t accurate, that it isn’t at all the way he would tell it. So I said, “That’s why I’m asking for a story firsthand, without intermediaries, so I can be as accurate as possible.” It happened to be about Sukkos. He told me, “Listen, one year, in the Rebbe’s early years, the Rebbe had a very small sukkah. The... the Rebbe signaled to me that I was invited to the sukkah that evening to eat with the Rebbetzin. Well, I came into the sukkah after setting the table. The sukkah was very small—he describes it as a meter by a meter. And I’m sitting there. After Kiddush, all I want to do is get out. The Rebbe is standing opposite me, in this meter-by-a-meter space, and the Rebbetzin is there too. I feel terribly uncomfortable. And the Rebbetzin simply says to me, ‘You’ll eat gefilte fish with us.’ So I started blushing. There’s no room. How can I sit here?”

02:52 Speaker 1 “And I start hesitating, and the Rebbe says to me, ‘It’s time you started doing what you’re told to do.’ To listen—to listen and act, or to do what you’re instructed to do.” So what we’re being asked to do right now is move on to the subject of the sukkah. The Chiddushei HaRim has a wonderful insight into the verse “So that your generations may know.” The Chiddushei HaRim asks: Why do we celebrate Sukkos in Tishrei, when the whole matter of being surrounded by the clouds happened in Nissan? He points to the Torah’s words, “So that your generations may know.” When does a Jew come to know? When does a Jew reach that level of the intellect, of genuine knowledge? Or, as explained in Tanya, when does that knowledge connect with the emotions and bring it down into feeling? Precisely through the self-nullification that comes first, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When a Jew passes through those Ten Days of Teshuvah with kabbolas ol, self-nullification, and fear of Heaven, the knowledge he gains is of the most positive kind: it flows directly into the emotions. “So that your generations may know”—when do we receive that knowledge? Precisely after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. One could also say, after the preparations and the purchase of the four species. The Tur says that the word “sukkah” itself alludes to the valid arrangements of its walls: the samech represents four walls, the kaf three walls, and the hei two and a half walls. All of them are thus hinted at in the word “sukkah.” Without going on at length, we have a special guest today: once again, Rabbi Shimon Elharar. I should mention that, as the rabbi of the city of Modi’in, he put a great deal of work into preparing the next lecture, including another presentation that it’s very important for us to be able to see. As the verse says, “seeing the sounds.” So let’s invite Rabbi Shimon Elharar, rabbi of Modi’in, to speak on a very special subject: pergolas. It’s a subject that almost every rabbi in his community

05:36 Speaker 1 encounters. People build pergolas, and there are dozens, even hundreds, of types. We’ll ask Rabbi Elharar to go into detail and explain this complex issue: how to make a pergola, and in what way or form, so that it isn’t invalid but is kosher to the highest standard.

06:01 Speaker 2 Search.

06:01 Speaker 1 It’s coming in now.

06:09 Speaker 2 Go up to the next lectures.

06:10 Speaker 1 No, no, no. We started that here; it doesn’t matter.

06:14 Speaker 2 It didn’t start,

06:50 Speaker 3 Please. Technician, please.

08:16 Speaker 5 No, I don’t know. There’s... this, this, this is a tiny fraction of it. There’s...

08:40 Speaker 4 Okay, so we can’t avoid a five-minute break while we get this set up properly. There’s a slight technical problem. Everyone is welcome to have a drink and get some air for a few minutes.

08:57 Speaker 5 Let’s take the—

09:00 Speaker 4 [unclear]. Bring the sound from [unclear]. I can control you.

09:08 Speaker 5 That was interesting.

09:10 Speaker 4 What did you say?

09:10 Speaker 5 That was interesting. That night at the checkpoint, definitely.

09:27 Speaker 4 Is it here? Is it working? We’re stressing that it’s only for a few moments, no more.

09:42 Speaker 6 Time is running.

14:15 Speaker 7 [unclear], Yom Kippur. Okay, do you have an electrical outlet here? Wait, one second, one second, I’ll be right with you. Okay, dear audience, you can return to your seats. We’re about to begin Rabbi Elharar’s lecture. If anyone is outside, please invite them in.

16:36 Speaker 8 Anyone outside, please come in. So, once again, we invite Rabbi Elharar, rabbi of the city of Modi’in, to lecture on a very current subject: pergolas and all their practical halachic complexities. Could we—could we dim the lights a little? Hello, and blessings to you. Rabbi Amar, our moderator, already mentioned that we’re supposed to talk about pergolas. How did I come to deal with this subject? What does Modi’in have to do with pergolas? The Mishnah says, “From Modi’in and beyond.” There was more concern there with the laws of vessels, consecrated offerings, and ritual purity, preparing things and making them fit for the pilgrims. But in a city with some sixty thousand people and ten thousand new residents a year, many balconies were being built, whether by contractors or privately, and questions kept coming up. Over time, with the encouragement of several distinguished young scholars, I decided to gather the questions that had accumulated and put them into the computer. The first thing to say is that we’re dealing with a situation changing at a very rapid pace. Many people think of the four species, or the various details of the laws of the esrog and lulav and the other species, as very, very specific and very, very complicated. But a sukkah? What’s difficult about a sukkah? As was mentioned earlier regarding the Chida’s words about the word “sukkah,” the Gemara says—things seem straightforward. Yet even with pergolas, things have changed from what they once were; they’ve become something quite different. I should also say at the outset that I certainly don’t presume to issue halachic rulings in this lecture. My teacher and mentor, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, under whose guidance we were privileged to spend more than thirteen years, never shied away from anything new, even before electronic devices emerged, when there was very little discussion of them. I’ve chosen an approach that will make things easier for rabbis. Of course, “Who are kings? The rabbis.” I’ll just try to present things in a way that brings all the points together. Today’s pergolas come in an enormous variety of types, and the first challenge is to sort out

20:58 Speaker 8 which halachic problems face the rabbi and the person who wants to fulfill the mitzvah with a pergola. I hope we can lay things out in an orderly way. First, there’s the matter of intent when making a sukkah. True, the Mishnah says that Beis Shammai hold an old sukkah to be invalid, because it was not made as a sukkah. On the other hand, the halachah follows Beis Hillel, who do not require intent to make it specifically as a sukkah. But a sukkah does have to be made for shade. If, G-d forbid, it was made for something else—for a dwelling or for storage rather than for shade—that makes it invalid under Torah law. Now, our pergola is generally there for use throughout the year. Calling it temporary takes a bit of a stretch, because ultimately it’s built as a substantial structure for year-round use. In many cases, you also don’t know what the person who built the pergola intended. It’s striking: sometimes he tells you, “I made it for decoration,” or “I made it to block the neighbor’s view.” When a contractor builds today—and this is very common where we are in Modi’in—you can see that, if you look into the laws of sukkah a little, there are very many balconies where the basic setup for a sukkah is simple and convenient. That’s one point. Another is a kind of permanently fixed s’chach. Sefer HaAgudah was the first to raise this issue in connection with the views of Tosafos and the Ran: when the covering is permanently attached with screws and nails, does it lose its status as a temporary structure? According to Sefer HaAgudah, cited by the Magen Avraham in section 627, subsection 2, this is definitely a problem. Again, these are concerns under Torah law. Once there’s uncertainty, you’re dealing with uncertainty about a Torah-law requirement. Another point is covering it for a dual purpose, something well known from the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. We’ll discuss

23:58 Speaker 8 We’ll address that, bli neder, and we’ll also try to present solutions. I’ve already had a chance to discuss this with some of the rabbis, and they certainly have comments and points to raise on this issue too. A pergola whose shade exceeds its sunlight, as opposed to pergolas whose sunlight exceeds their shade. Sometimes we’re asked about using the whole thing as a sukkah—the s’chach, the walls, everything. That needs to be addressed separately as well. Then there’s the issue of the decree concerning a roof. The Rashba was asked about a certain sage who came and forbade people to use a structure with planks fixed in place by nails. They thought perhaps the issue was that the nails can become ritually impure, and that was why the sage had forbidden it. The Rashba replied that this was not the reason. “I know that view,” he said, “the view of one of my teachers,” but the problem was that the planks were close enough together to fall under the decree concerning a roof. The Bach’s stringency requiring three tefachim between one plank and the next follows from the preceding discussion. S’chach made of thin slats, the kind called plafonim—we’ll speak a little about that if there’s time. That is already a matter of custom. As the Shulchan Aruch says, the custom is not to make s’chach out of planks. Then there’s supporting s’chach with something that can become ritually impure; the issue of a support and a support for a support; the prohibition against putting up the s’chach before the walls; and painting or wrapping the s’chach. Those are some of the subjects. I had figured that even in Kfar Chabad—baruch Hashem, a wonderful place of Torah—the clock doesn’t always cooperate with the plan. So first I’ll try to cover these basic points. The first subject I want to discuss is the intention when making a sukkah’s s’chach. As we said, it must be made for shade. If it is made as a house, a dwelling, for privacy, or for storage, it is invalid by Torah law. When there is a question of Torah law—say someone is out on a trip and finds

26:54 Speaker 8 a place. Today, baruch Hashem, there are public parks, and the municipalities, particularly under the influence of all the environmental organizations, build beautiful pergolas. A person sees what looks like a ready-made sukkah but doesn’t know whether it was made for shade. That is a doubt concerning Torah law, and in such a case we are stringent. But when we see one at the beach, along a boulevard, or in a public park, it was certainly made for shade and not for other purposes. No, the halachah follows Beis Hillel: for shade. Here, for example, I’ve brought a concrete example. This is a very typical pergola. Of course, there are several things to discuss about it, but right now I’m addressing only the intention in making it. As for the invalidity of s’chach fixed in place with nails, we mentioned what Sefer HaAgudah says in the name of Tosafos: one may not cover a sukkah with planks fixed by nails, even if they are less than four tefachim wide, because they constitute a permanent dwelling. As I said, some halachic authorities adopt this ruling. The Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, by contrast, is lenient here. In fact, we often see people struggling with places exposed to wind. I imagine that around tall buildings, as in some towns—and we have very tall buildings where we are—the winds can be quite something. So it is worth knowing whether a person using planks as s’chach really has to lay them in a temporary fashion, without nails. According to the Agudah, it is invalid by Torah law. Even according to the Agudah, though, if the sunlight exceeds the shade, we have not entered into this problem at all. Many pergolas, even though they have screws and nails, do not reach the point where their shade exceeds their sunlight. In that case, the pergola serves only as a framework. That is easier, and there are many more solutions available. As for Hagahos Maimoniyos—and, with Hashem’s help, I found that Machatzis Hashekel in section 629 quotes the words “Were I not afraid...” He does, in fact, cite Hagahos Maimoniyos as the halachah. Hagahos Maimoniyos not only takes a lenient position against the Agudah, holding that even nails do not make it invalid

29:42 Speaker 8 by depriving it of its temporary character; there is another aspect as well. Consider the well-known story of Rabbeinu Shimon, Rabbeinu Tam’s brother-in-law. He made a sukkah with nails, and Rabbeinu Tam declared it invalid—not because of the nails, but because rain could not get through. He had fitted the beams so closely together that rain would not enter the sukkah. We see that neither Rabbeinu Tam nor his brother-in-law Rabbeinu Shimon held like Sefer HaAgudah. Rather, they held like the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch and others, who did not invalidate it on the grounds that it was permanent. Here we see the position of Hagahos Maimoniyos. I haven’t seen this brought in the books on the subject. Perhaps this book does mention it, but I haven’t seen the books cite the Machatzis Hashekel, and it is very interesting. No, we’re talking about nails—screws, substantial fastenings that, according to the Agudah, Tosafos, and the Ran, make it invalid by Torah law. How? Well, we haven’t discussed that yet. Yes, as far as something that can become ritually impure is concerned, that’s... The question is whether this takes away its temporary character. According to Tosafos and the Ran, as Sefer HaAgudah explains them, it does. Consequently, it is no longer a sukkah. The Gemara says it must be a temporary dwelling, and this is no longer temporary. The concern is that the invalidity becomes a matter of Torah law. The issue of something that can become ritually impure will only be rabbinic. Right now we’re dealing with aspects that make it invalid by Torah law. How? No, we’re talking about all of it—yes, all the s’chach being held up by something permanent. Right, right. It seems the pergola was invented to make us delve a little into the laws of sukkah and discover that, just as with the four species, there are many details. I spared the rabbis from having to look through nearly five hundred and seventy photographs. I selected what was relevant; there’s no need to go through all the variations. More or less, I wanted to concentrate on the problematic issues.

32:35 Speaker 8 And, with Hashem’s help, that gives us a completely different view of the whole subject. But Hagahos Maimoniyos really isn’t mentioned there, surprisingly. The Mishnah Berurah, too, did not quote Sefer HaAgudah in the main text at all. He brought it briefly in Shaar Hatziyun, but this is an invalidity by Torah law. By Torah law. You have to deal with it, and there are solutions, baruch Hashem. We’ll see them shortly. Now, here is an interesting instruction from the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch: “A person fulfills his obligation only with a sukkah made solely for shade, like the Clouds of Glory. But if it was also made as a dwelling—that is, to live in permanently, and not merely to shelter in its shade—or if it was also made for private use, then as long as it was not made solely for shade, it is not a sukkah but a house.” Here, too, we could, G-d forbid, run into the problem of it being considered a house or a dwelling, which would make it invalid by Torah law. Now, for a sukkah that serves two purposes, there are several solutions according to the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. I won’t take you through all the intricate discussions. I’ve seen books that go into them at length. Chelkas Yoav says that if you make a sukkah just before the festival—though this is a sukkah you have all year round; the pergola serves you all year—the solution is to put the s’chach in place before the festival for the sake of the sukkah. It can also be for shade, yes, but Kaf Hachayim says that according to Kabbalah there is an extensive leshem yichud declaration. If we’re going to say leshem yichud, we should certainly make it for the sake of the sukkah. It’s not that we’re looking for something else: we say that someone who made it for shade has, by that very act, made a sukkah too. Here, he puts it up for the sake of a sukkah, knowing that after Sukkos it will no longer serve that purpose. His intention was to put up the s’chach for the sake of a sukkah. Avnei Nezer says to lift the

34:47 Speaker 8 The s’chach. There is—no, we’re talking about a particular situation. The Chelkas Yoav discusses this even before pergolas existed. We need to address the question of how to deal with it. The Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch says that if it was made with a dual intention, that invalidates it. It isn’t a rabbinic disqualification, a decree. As I understand it—and my teachers can correct me—I understand this to be a disqualification because it is a house. That is a Torah-level disqualification: it isn’t a sukkah. So I’m saying that the solution brought by the Chelkas Yoav is to act first on the s’chach. Just as you move the s’chach in the case discussed in the Mishnah, here too you put the s’chach in place, lay it down, or move it—whatever condition the sukkah is in—for the sake of a sukkah alone. Ibn Ezra says that if you’re removing a covering from the pergola anyway, you have some sort of roof. Again, let me say at the outset: pergolas vary enormously. Many mistakes happen when people ask a rabbi a question and assume that, over the telephone, he has seen their pergola. He pictures his own pergola, or his neighbor’s, as exactly what the questioner has, when it may be completely different. We’ll see that it is different. So here he says—he says that if you take the covering, let’s say it’s plastic, and remove it, what are you left with? The wooden beams. He compares this to a case where the very act of removing the covering makes the beams valid. There is no objection here of “make it, and not from something already made.” That objection does not apply either. This fits very well with what the Tur writes in siman 626 in the name of the Baal Ha’ittur. The Baal Ha’ittur introduces a novel point about roof tiles: when you remove the tiles, according to his view, that act fixes the beams for this purpose. If there had been only beams, the structure would have had no roof tiles, and those beams would be invalid by Torah law. After all, you didn’t put them there to provide shade. You put

37:07 Speaker 8 them there as part of a house, as a dwelling. So what does the Baal Ha’ittur hold? When I had roof tiles and removed them, the act of removing the tiles made this a specific act of correction. So that would apply here too—and it would accord with all the views. We would satisfy that stringency as well. We can. Right, right, right, right, right, right, no problem. I’m deliberately not—I want to define each issue within its own area. Here I was addressing how we find a solution according to the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. We’re—yes. That’s a different case. Right. Right. I also want to comment on what the rabbis write in the books. What can I do? They call this “the Rashba’s stringency.” Anyone who looks at the Rashba’s responsum will see that this isn’t what the Rashba said. The Rashba concluded, “Leave the Jewish people as they are.” Don’t create a commotion about it. Find a study day, come and learn more, and try to—leave the Jewish people as they are. But we’re talking now about a questioner who comes to ask how to do it properly from the outset. How? That’s how the Bach understands it. Right. Right, because the beams aren’t four by four. If they were four by four, you wouldn’t need the Rashba. Yes, they aren’t; they’re thin beams, so you join them under the law of lavud, and that is how the Bach understands it. That isn’t agreed upon either, and on that point too—what? Right, Rabbi Akiva Eiger raised an objection to the Bach. Right. I’m not—my teachers and friends, I’d be very happy to. That’s it. Thank G-d, we have a Torah scholar here who also knows the practical side, and he’s pressing me to get through the material. I’ll try to unload the whole truck I brought. There’s a lot of lumber here. There is another issue: the decree concerning ceilings. First, we know the lengthy discussion in Sukkah, page 4: “The Sages prohibited using planks four tefachim wide as s’chach because of the decree concerning ceilings.” Just so we’re clear, up to this point we’ve been dealing with Torah law. Now

39:27 Speaker 8 the prohibition is rabbinic. If we allow these planks as s’chach, a person may say, “What difference is there between using these as s’chach and sitting beneath the beams of my house?” The problem is that even if you turn the planks on their sides, so that they are not four tefachim wide in that direction, they are forbidden. Pergolas very often have very wide beams. They aren’t always laid flat; sometimes they stand on edge. So that is a problem. Thirty-two centimeters, according to Rabbi Chaim Naeh—that already brings you to the issue of their width. So first we have to check whether we have a problem under the decree concerning ceilings. Even if a beam is turned on its side, it has to be narrower than that measurement. The Shulchan Aruch says: “If they are not four tefachim wide, they are valid, but the custom is not to use them as s’chach at all.” That is the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch in siman 629, se’if 18. Now, the Aruch Hashulchan notes that in our time, when ceilings are made of thin planks, one should not use those planks as s’chach because of the decree concerning ceilings. There are differing views—Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, thank G-d. I’m simply noting the various positions, and people can choose. My teacher Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach holds that nowadays, since the practice has changed, the widespread custom in Jerusalem is to use thin boards as s’chach, known as palfonim, which are not even a tefach wide, because ceilings are not made from them and the decree concerning ceilings does not apply to them. I’ve noted the source. Again, even those who use palfonim should pay attention. A very common problem is that sometimes a gap of open air runs the entire length of the sukkah. In that case, although the sukkah is valid, the person sitting—yes, sitting or sleeping—doesn’t... Here, we’ve illustrated it. We have here—so the place where he sits beneath it, no, no... If it runs the entire length of the sukkah, even if it’s less than a tefach wide. Yes. It does not invalidate the sukkah. It does not invalidate the sukkah. One just must not sit there. That is what it says. I mean

42:11 Speaker 8 beneath the—yes. If it were invalid s’chach, it would be possible. We’ll get to that point too, the distinction between invalid s’chach and open air. There is a law concerning a gap of open air that runs the entire length of the sukkah and divides it. We’ll see that in its place. For now, I only came to emphasize the decree concerning ceilings. Sitting beneath a gap of open air that runs across the entire sukkah, too. I tried—I’ll get to that shortly. I brought all the—I hope I didn’t miss anything. Now, here is an example where they did not leave four tefachim. You can see these very, very wide beams, so you have to check not only that he put up mehadrin s’chach, but that the beams are mehadrin too. Now, here is the Rashba’s responsum. I deliberately think it’s worth seeing it inside, because it has many, many implications for the issue of pergolas. The question there was: “A sukkah is made of planks less than four tefachim wide, fastened with iron nails and arranged like the rungs of a ladder. The gaps between the rungs are less than three tefachim, and they cover it with myrtle and willow”—that is, the s’chach—“and they question whether the nails invalidate the s’chach. For I heard that a great scholar who stayed at the home of one of the people of our city instructed them to remove the nails from the s’chach. Tell me his reason: was it because they are susceptible to ritual impurity, and so on?” It appears in siman 13; it appears in the Beis Yosef on siman 629, se’if 8. Eight and nine go together. In his response, the Rashba tells them: “The scholar who forbade it did not forbid it for the reason you suggested. Perhaps he forbade it for the reason given by one of my teachers: since the planks are fixed with nails, all the planks are considered a single wide plank.” That brings it under the decree concerning ceilings. “Others disagreed with him. Leave them to follow their custom, for even if they are not prophets, they are the children of prophets.” So that is how the Rashba ultimately concludes. In many situations, a rabbi also has to know what kind of question he is dealing with.

45:02 Speaker 8 It came to him, whether in the situation as it is or as it ought to be. Someone has a pergola, and you tell him to loosen the boards. If he loosens every piece of wood there, he’ll have to order a whole new pergola. You have to try to see what solution you can find. There were municipal sukkahs. Unfortunately, even there, in a city like Modi’in, I often had to enter an area of doubt. The mayor has already built you a sukkah. Thank you very much. He already feels that he’s... But the sukkah is invalid. “What do you mean, an invalid sukkah?” the mayor says to me. “Rabbi Elharar, be serious. Sixteen thousand shekels—is that normal? And it’s invalid?” All right, you understand? So what can you do? Sometimes you have to find a way to make it kosher; otherwise you lose all the Yiddishkeit, the little that he’s already willing to... Let me just finish the point, if you don’t mind. So the Rashba says this: Regarding that rabbi who forbade it, he forbade it not because it could become ritually impure, but because the nail creates a connection through the principle of lavud. So it’s joined together, and the joined section is four tefachim wide. If it doesn’t reach four tefachim at all, or if the pieces are more than three tefachim apart from one another, then ostensibly... Sorry, what did you say? Ostensibly, the Rashba was saying that the one who forbade it did so because lavud brings it under the decree concerning a roof. How? There are opinions; I’m not... If the issue is that it can become ritually impure, there’s no impurity here. What? The wood is wood; it’s suitable. Why should the nail—why should the nail be considered...? The schach itself rests on the wood. There’s no issue with the schach touching iron. Someone puts wooden slats over an iron sukkah frame, and all the schach rests on the wood, which is just a frame running parallel to the iron bars. It’s exactly the same as when it rests—

47:32 Speaker 8 when it rests on the iron bars, because there are no beams in between to separate them, to support the schach on the beams, and from there... Yes? What? Yes. Yes. Between, between— I didn’t understand, between what? Ah. The problem is that if you put schach directly on something considered a roof, will that help? We’re now treating all the beams as if they join into one board. If we’re going to get analytical, it will go differently: all the beams will join together and cut across the entire sukkah. So what will you say—that you have seven tefachim on the right and left to make a sukkah? That doesn’t work either. You’ll have a sukkah divided in two. Then we come to what it says in Shulchan Aruch, section 632: a sukkah divided by four tefachim of invalid material becomes two sukkahs. So now I no longer have a third wall. You’ve made it more complicated. Better to keep it simple—what... Let me just finish the point. You asked how to understand the Rashba. These beams join to make four tefachim. Does that make it subject to the law of a roof? That’s already a problem. Where do I have connections? Ah. So here there is—I... The Magen Avraham, the Machatzis Hashekel—the Machatzis Hashekel understands that... Please. Yes, the Chayei Adam too. I’ll get to that in a moment; that’s where I’m heading, that’s where I’m heading. But just let me present the... When we ruled it invalid because of lavud, it became subject to the decree concerning a roof. What are we saying? Let’s put something in the middle and create a situation where it doesn’t. Ah. But Rabbi, surely you haven’t overlooked the Machatzis Hashekel. He wanted to develop an approach. Several others understood it this way too. They understood that even if there are seven tefachim, there are four amos of distance between two beams, three or four, together with the nails that made them legally connected. If the combined width reaches four tefachim...

00:07 Speaker 1 The Chayei Adam brings this as well. Others suggest inserting schach between them to separate them, and that settles the matter. By the way, with pergolas this is really not simple, and if that is all we came here for, it is important too. To fulfill the obligation, you would need to do what it says in the Shulchan Aruch: simply insert foliage. Not reeds or other schach for this—just put foliage between them, so that, as it were, you break up the space that gives them the status of lavud. So I’ll close that point. There are two approaches to understanding the stringency known in our books as the Rashba’s stringency. Some understood the beams to be precisely three tefachim apart, with lavud applying, and the Bach’s ruling follows from that. Rabbi Yoel Sirkis, in siman 626, writes that three tefachim involve lavud and are problematic. That whole approach rests on the claim that the questioner was precise in saying specifically three tefachim. According to the Machatzis Hashekel, the Magen Avraham and others, who understood that the nails themselves join the beams, it will not help even if they are more than three tefachim apart. The excellent solution we mentioned is to insert schach between them. That resolves the entire problem. But we’ll bring another idea, with Hashem’s help. Here, for example, is a frame without nails. And of course, several craftsmen—many thanks to them for kindly providing the pictures—because the range really is very large. What not to look at is even more important. There are so many kinds of pergolas today that, really— Now, regarding what supports the schach, and something susceptible to tumah, I’ll say this very briefly. Several later authorities agreed that, ideally, one should take account of the view of the poskim, the Rashba and the Ran, not to support schach with something susceptible to tumah, lest one come to use such things as schach. But where they are not commonly used as schach, or where they are disqualified as schach only by rabbinic law, then in that case

02:52 Speaker 1 there is no problem with what supports the schach. We gave an example in which the pergola’s beams were disqualified. There is reason to argue that they should not be disqualified as supports—not only according to the Shulchan Aruch’s more lenient view, but even according to those who are stringent about placing schach on something disqualified as schach: when the disqualification is rabbinic, we are not concerned about the prohibition involving its support. That covers that point. There are further solutions brought in the Magen Avraham. Perhaps I can ask for one minute of concentration. If you noticed, in the Rashba’s responsum—and I won’t go back to it, so as not to lose time—the beams were joined with nails. What happens if the beams are attached to the building, or they are not brought up to the roof as schach in one assembled frame, but rather I attach them to the roof itself, nail by nail by nail by nail? The Magen Avraham says that in such a case, the stringency of the Rashba’s teachers does not apply. It is straightforward, says the Magen Avraham: we say they combine only when they were joined together before being placed there, unlike when they are already in the wall. If he fastens them to the wall, then you have a good idea for the installation: when he takes each beam and sets it in place one by one, he also resolves the Rashba’s stringency. Well, not necessarily. You’ll see in the pictures what kinds of pergolas there are, so in a moment we’ll... All right, here we come to the practical pictures. Let’s start with the first sukkah, the first pergola. We’ll set out the problems and solutions so we can see exactly what the first problem is. Here we have a pergola fastened with nails. So we’ve already run into the problem of the Rashba’s stringency. There is also the Sefer HaAgudah, which says that a nail takes it out of the category of temporary construction and makes it permanent. There is the Bach’s point that when the gap is less than three tefachim, lavud applies. And there is what we mentioned about the custom recorded in the Shulchan Aruch regarding planks: perhaps in our generation, when planks narrower than four tefachim are also used for building, there is a problem with those too. We said that, first of all, even according to the stringent views, if we add new schach for the sake of the sukkah—a tefach by a tefach of new schach, yes, or one long reed that he takes and renews for that purpose—then he also satisfies the stringency of those views. As we said, according to the Magen Avraham, if he fastens the nails and planks to the roof itself, it is kosher even according to the Rashba’s stringency. These are planks that are less than a tefach wide, so the custom is not a problem. Even if someone argues that each generation has its own circumstances, and that if they are used for building there is a concern that one might use them as schach, we have not found planks less than a tefach wide being used in construction. I didn’t come up with the measure of a tefach; we heard it from my teacher, Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. But someone wrote “five centimeters” in one of the books. I called him. “Where is that written?” He told me, “I don’t want to disagree with the great Torah authorities, but I have seen building planks that are this narrow too.” In my humble opinion, that leaves us with no end to the matter. He saw a plank five centimeters wide too. Here, for example, is a situation where people arrive on an outing, come to a place and try to deal with something like this. The problem with the frame is less serious than the additional problems with the walls. Schach is needed here too. And there is also the question of whether this is made of iron rather than wood. By the way, this is wood painted with an exterior finish; it is not iron. I deliberately looked for examples that could mislead us. It is painted—we’re talking about marine paint. Coating the planks: does that itself pose any kind of problem? Right, the Chayei Adam says to insert schach, as we were just discussing with the solution of inserting kosher schach between

05:30 Speaker 1 In our generation, planks narrower than four tefachim are also used in construction, so perhaps there is a problem with those too. We said that, first of all, even according to the stringent opinions, if you make a new addition to the sechach—a tefach by a tefach of new sechach for the sake of the sukkah, yes, or you take one long pole and reposition it for that purpose—then you also satisfy the stringency of those opinions. The Magen Avraham, we said, holds that if you fasten the planks with nails to the roof itself, it is kosher even according to the Rashba’s stringency. If the planks are less than a tefach wide, the customary restriction is not a problem. Because even today, for someone who argues that every generation has its own circumstances—fine, if people build with them, there is a concern that they might come to use them as sechach. But we have not found planks narrower than a tefach being used in construction. I didn’t come up with that measure of a tefach; we heard it from my teacher, Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. But someone wrote in one of the books on the subject that the limit is five centimeters. I called him. “Where is that written?” He told me, “I don’t want to disagree with the great Torah authorities, but I’ve seen construction planks that narrow.” In my humble opinion, that creates a situation with no end to it. He saw a plank that was five centimeters wide too. Here, for example, is a situation where people arrive on a trip, get to some place, and try to deal with something like this. So the issue with the frame is less problematic than the additional issues with the walls. You also need sechach here. And there is also the question of whether it is made of iron rather than wood. Incidentally, this is wood painted on the outside to look like iron; it isn’t iron. That’s why I deliberately looked for examples that could mislead us. Painted—we’re talking about marine paint. Wrapping the planks, that presents a problem of its own. Right, the Chayei Adam says to insert them—what we were just discussing as well, the suggestion to insert kosher sechach between

08:21 Speaker 1 the planks. And of course, the walls should be put up first. We have another solution here. From what I measured, there was a tefach and a half at the top, where it joins the upper frame. So the upper frame can serve: if there is a tefach along three walls, that already solves the problem of putting up the schach before the walls—provided there is a tefach of width, at a height of ten tefachim, close to the roof, on three sides. These children are on an outing and could eat for seven days without a sukkah; we could also give them the opportunity to have a sukkah. I’m not about to recommend how to turn this into one—I’m not issuing halachic rulings—but we are talking about situations where people have to look for solutions. So here, of course, we again have to check whether there is more shade than sun, if it is intended to provide shade. As for the shade—let’s review what we said about that—it works as shade according to all opinions. Even if you follow the stringent views, you’re fine on that point. As for the frame, we have the problem we noted, and again the earlier problems. Sorry? I can’t hear. Certainly it is permanent. There is no problem with the walls being permanent. But is the schach intended to provide shade or not? There is no dispute about the walls—no, here, here the point is— By the way, there are places where the pieces of wood fit together in a way that actually joins them to— We’ll see that in a moment. Nails, too, are not necessarily present in every pergola. Again, we have the issue raised by the Agudah, and the issue of whether there is a tefach in the frame. There is another problem here. If you noticed, in the middle—some pergolas have a piece of iron or a thick beam in the middle that serves as the central support. If it crosses the sukkah, we run into another problem, and if you sit directly beneath it, that

11:17 Speaker 1 Another problem. Again, of course, we need walls... Where? I’ll get to the slide in a moment and show you exactly. Under the metal beam, when it crosses the sukkah—we’ll get to that sukkah and I’ll talk about it—it divides the sukkah too. The sechach will need to be fixed as we explained in the guidelines above. Here, notice that you can’t see the roof, the sechach, but it’s arranged in squares, one square after another. Each square measures more than seven tefachim across, like a wall, like a wall. That creates a problem. First of all, it doesn’t count—we have a problem with the walls. We need to create walls. As for the roof, we need to determine its status: is there more sunlight than shade? If there’s a roof section that divides the entire sukkah, four tefachim wide along the sukkah, then it cuts across and divides the sukkah. Near a wall, it can be treated as a bent wall, but in the center—I’ll try to get to the canopy in a moment and show you. I’m counting roughly, just by looking: one, two, three, four openings. So if the three spans are each more than four tefachim wide, then, as it says in Shulchan Aruch 632, they divide the sukkah and invalidate it. At the edges, close to the outer sections, you can have a bent wall up to four amos, so there’s no problem. Ah, that’s a philosophical question. Quite right. Our starting point is that the first thing you ask about a pergola is why it was built. If it was built as a place to sleep—look, you can’t sleep here. It isn’t a room. But there are enclosed places where the pergola is simply a room, and now, for Sukkos, he wants to convert it from a room into a sukkah. That’s, that’s—what’s the issue with sitting in it? You don’t sit in a temporary dwelling. Yes, yes, on the contrary, that’s what I’m, that’s what I’m

14:05 Speaker 1 arguing. Oh, you need to do something to it—you need to make—it’s not—the truth is, there is a problem if the entire sukkah is built using forms of doorways. Certainly, if it’s already been made—look, I’ll tell you the truth: when I started looking into this whole subject, let’s put it gently, with a Litvish approach you can make a sukkah out of intricate arguments alone. Do this, add that. There’s a debate about whether two halachic principles can be combined. In the end, we’ll have a sukkah only in our imagination. My aim is to make sure there’s an actual sukkah here. One of the great Rebbes—yes, one of the great Rebbes—because I saw this, and, without making a vow, I really hope to print something very interesting about it too, G-d willing. One of the North African sages wrote about the same idea 950 years ago, in a manuscript that has come down to us: someone who learns the laws of sukkah as received from his teachers, even if he studies them for some time each day, has the sukkah protecting and sheltering him throughout the year. He discusses it at length there. Yes, here too, regarding the seven tefachim, we need to check that they’re actually there. If the opening doesn’t have seven tefachim, there’s no sukkah at all, because there’s no space underneath for you to sit. This is the kind of pergola that’s very common in public parks. It’s well worth giving it some thought. We have... First of all, according to everyone, this is definitely intended for shade—not for storage, not for privacy, and not as a dwelling. True, it’s quite substantial and very sturdy, but it’s meant to provide shade. Now, there are several—I still haven’t found exactly the example I was looking for. I was looking for one where someone had joined the benches a little, made them a bit—but let’s assume, let’s start from the assumption

17:02 Speaker 1 that they qualify as lavud, yes? They’re less than three tefachim from the wall. So we have a case of lavud. Now, as for the problem of... What? Where? Ah, that’s less too. That’s less too. Here I’m deliberately trying to set aside the problem of the walls for now. We have enough of a headache with the sechach. First, let’s check the beams to make sure there’s no problem of gezeiras tikrah. If there is, we’ll have to rely here on pressing circumstances, as we learned from the Ritva and the Biur Halachah. And... if there is such a problem, it will be a rabbinic issue in pressing circumstances, so there may be room to... Again, no one went out and ordered this whole sukkah. With G-d’s help, and without making a vow, I hope we’ll have time to say a few words about the... Sorry? We’re not... For now, we’re asking whether the sections occupied by the beams detract from the sechach supported by them or not. Certainly here there’s more sunlight than shade, not more shade than sunlight. As for the missing walls, we have the issue of putting up the sechach before the walls. Here it’s the same thing: pergolas like these are very common. Now, this is very interesting. Say you take a group of children—imagine a school whose students haven’t had the opportunity to observe Torah and mitzvos—on an outing. The guide, thank G-d, wants to turn this into a sukkah. So the first question is whether he can seat all the children there—or say it’s a bar mitzvah and there are lots of boys—and use them as walls. That would create three walls. And can we also use the existing railing? There’s a dispute about a lattice of horizontal and vertical bars. We need to see whether all the gaps here interfere with having three walls. Once we have three walls, we also need, if we want to resolve

19:35 Speaker 1 the problem of someone sitting there—for example, if there’s another metal bar that creates lavud, then there will be less than three tefachim between the railing and the bench, and between the bench and the third bar. I think that might be the case here. I couldn’t get into the picture and measure it, but if it is, then you already have a railing ten tefachim high.

20:09 Speaker 2 The whole...

20:14 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes, but what are we talking about? Yes. If only we could make this a kosher sukkah. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, as we said, check the bench and seat a person there to serve as a wall. We said that this is in Shulchan Aruch. Add ropes as needed. Here, for example, is what Shulchan Aruch says: “A person may make another person a wall for a sukkah to render it kosher, but on Yom Tov it is forbidden because one may not make a partition.” In our city, Modi’in, there are structures on a very large scale. There are lots of dogs wandering around there. Once, a few teenagers sat down to talk with a nice young man, and he tied a dog on one side; the railing formed the other two walls. So he didn’t need the stringency of adding a tefach alongside two walls, because the dog was tied there. It was just a pergola—the kind of small pergola you see in public parks. He had a sukkah, and they sat and discussed words of Torah. Here’s what Rabbi Hevelin... This is an example of a wall cutting across a sukkah. I’m really running out of time, so I’ll... This metal beam needs to be checked for the four-tefachim problem. Yes. It cuts across the sukkah, making two sukkahs. That’s what I was talking about. So, as for adding a seven-tefachim partition parallel to the beam, there is something you can do. Take a partition—that’s what I’m saying. Take a partition seven tefachim high, and then, at least in the middle of the sukkah, you’ll create the third wall. Here, again, it served as a frame. We’ve gone over the classic problems. The Bach’s stringency applies only when it’s close to the house. On the one hand, the Bach’s stringency doesn’t apply here. Here, put sechach on top of the frame. Now here’s a very interesting sukkah. Some openings here are forbidden, and some are permitted. This is one for intricate analysis. I don’t think anyone... But

22:36 Speaker 1 A person might be stuck somewhere, and even that could be turned into a sukkah. So if there is an area seven tefachim by seven tefachim, one may not sit beneath it. When the boards are joined together with nails, there is a problem of the decree concerning a ceiling according to everyone, because they are fitted tightly together and it does not look temporary at all. If the openings do not measure seven by seven, there is no minimum area for a sukkah. It is a very problematic sukkah. That is the background. When an opening is seven by seven, one can sit in the open areas under the rule of a bent wall, but only next to the outer openings, not the inner openings, which are problematic. We do not apply the rule of a bent wall, or these other rules, once there is a gap of open air. Here we have a sukkah with walls at the top. Those are not walls, so we will have to see what can be done about partitions. Check whether the lower wall is ten tefachim high; if it is, it is valid as a partition. And there is the issue of the s’chach, as we mentioned. Check that the wall is ten tefachim high, or else we have no walls at all. As for the s’chach, here is an example of a gap of three tefachim, which invalidates it if they are three tefachim above the ground. This is an example of the kind of shade structure commonly found on pergolas. Here the s’chach was put up before the walls. We cannot use the allowance I mentioned of one tefach. There is no tefach here. The beams stand in place, resting on something that itself stands. There is no tefach right next to the s’chach. If there really is a gap, then there is also the problem of the s’chach preceding the walls. Check whether the boards are joined with nails, because of the Rashba’s stringent ruling. We suggested solutions to all these issues, and they are illustrated here. This is an example of a frame: if you lift the plastic, then the rule about lifting it into place applies there... That act corrects the disqualification that the beams had.

24:47 Speaker 1 Again, there is the support and the support of the support. That cannot be done here either. Check the boards—he says four, uh, even if they are upright, we said there is a problem with the decree concerning a ceiling. Remove the roof. Here someone advertised this as a kosher sukkah under the supervision of—I don’t know whom. I don’t know; to this day I am looking for the rabbi. This is the Rashba’s stringent ruling. There is a long list here. No, no—I only took the picture so you would know that it is advertised in a brochure as a kosher pergola. So by now we know that, from a halachic standpoint, there are certainly quite a few—there are some problems here, even if you are ordering such an expensive pergola. Incidentally, its price had so many digits that there wasn’t room for them on my computer screen. It is a very expensive sukkah, all designer finishes, and it is called a kosher mehadrin sukkah. So it is a shame that things are this way. It is simply—the previous one, the previous one is, is, is a very expensive sukkah, very expensive. It is just advisable to make it kosher. Yes. Here is a sukkah, and there is absolutely no problem with it. There are no nails here. There is no, there is no problem here. It is a support that—yes, s’chach. I only pointed it out, yes. Here we have a type of pergola that is missing a third wall. We mentioned the problem with the s’chach: put down a thick layer of s’chach. Here is a type of pergola where one piece rests on another, but again we get back into all the problems that—we have not raised anything new here. We have only added that, with one little roof above another, if you already consider it invalid for the reason we mentioned, then its shade exceeds its sun in the square area. That is already like a tree, which—which means making a sukkah beneath a roof. But if you are not concerned about that, then there is no—Here the problem is that there is not even a tefach. I looked for an example like this. Uh, here too there are no walls, there is no—I hope that—

27:13 Speaker 1 This time they simply painted the, the thing. It has nothing to do with the laws of a barrier, but it also cannot become ritually impure. What did the contractor intend? What did the Romanian worker who built it intend? Is this acceptable from the outset? That is the point. Here is an example that is invalid by Torah law, as we noted in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. In fact, it is a ruling from the Mishnah, a Torah-level ruling, when a person builds it—uh, if he builds it in a certain way, uh... But again, when the little roof is put in place, there is the view of the authorities who permit it, and that may help. Here is a shopping mall. Would we actually ask permission, of course, from the authorities, from the owner, from the manager, and be able to work on the roof there and—yes, I mean, beyond the problems, here we see—oh, uh, I am already coming to that slide. Um, again, did you see the roof that was missing there? Whoever remembers that little roof. I wanted to show you: this is the roof of that sukkah, that pergola. Here it is: the wood is wrapped in aluminum foil. And that really is the question, the proper question to ask. With Hashem’s help—and I pray to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—I hope I have given the group something to think about. All in all, I certainly did not come to issue any rulings, G-d forbid. But I want to say that in this area, uh, with Hashem’s help I hope to finish putting together some guidelines, and of course to present them to the great Torah authorities, who have the first say. I am grateful for this wonderful day, which, thank G-d, will be beneficial. That is the answer. Why am I saying this? There are also answers without slides. Just, with your permission, yes. My teachers and gentlemen, if, on the subject of pergolas, there were something you could simply pull off the shelf, I think that one of the very weighty issues in the laws of sukkah is not just the pergola. It is all sorts of new things

30:01 Speaker 1 that people use. And the pergola is certainly a test case. Every year, enormous numbers of unusual designs are added, drawing you into the laws of eiruvin, the laws of utensils, the laws of ritual impurity, and all sorts of complicated matters, each a subject in its own right. With Hashem’s help, just as we enter the sukkah wearing our clothes and shoes and merit a mikveh of purity and the Ushpizin, may Hakadosh Boruch Hu pour down a spirit from on high, and may we merit, with Hashem’s help, the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Thank you very much. Be strong and take heart.

30:48 Speaker 3 A great thank-you to Rabbi Elharar for this wonderful work, which, incidentally, was prepared especially for this study day. We would like to suggest that, with Hashem’s help, Rabbi Elharar also prepare a few pergola designs for us as examples, so that we can say to a contractor, “Here is the pergola I have designed so that we can turn it into a sukkah.” We will go to Minchah, then straight to lunch and the tour.

31:29 Speaker 1 How do you solve the problem of the roof? How do you solve the problem of the roof? How do you solve the problem of that fellow’s roof?

31:33 Speaker 3 No, if the base counts together with it.

31:35 Speaker 1 Exactly, that is what I am saying. That is why you have to put it down.

31:38 Speaker 3 You do not need a nail.

31:39 Speaker 1 No, but then it counts together with it.

31:41 Speaker 3 But it looks nice.

31:43 Speaker 1 Ah, the nail does not prevent it, yes. Thank you. Wow, the sukkah.

31:48 Speaker 3 When someone asked me about a sukkah, I spoke with Rabbi Elharar. I really think it does not matter what you thought. I am saying what the person sees. He does not think the way you do. He does not have to think about it. You have to think about it; you are the one building it.

32:02 Speaker 1 That does not prevent it, brother. It is like—what are those houses he studies? No, it does not prevent it. Obviously, if the, um—

32:11 Speaker 3 What, what is happening?

32:12 Speaker 1 I said, what if—for example, there is a sukkah where someone sleeps, sleeps modestly, or sleeps in the house, sleeps in a storage room. There are contractors who present it that way: “I’ll make you a storage room. Here, you have a storage room.” Yes, let’s make a pergola, but a pergola is meant to provide shade. No, no, it is still, it is still pleasant, yes. You see, it simply does not...

00:00 Speaker 1 The main goal is that I have a diverse community, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi. So I chose a particular approach that can meet a need: the Sephardi public often becomes disconnected from Chabad books and customs because those books do not meet their needs, and they turn to other sources. As a result, even Sephardi halachic rulings change. Stringencies they observed abroad fall away, because the books available to them are only works by halachic authorities who may have come from other countries, where those stringencies were not observed. That is really the main reason I took on this project. I write in simple language, suitable even for people who do not know how to open a Shulchan Aruch. At the same time, Torah scholars can find answers to questions that come up for them in the sources and the range of topics drawn from responsa works. So I generally package it in a way that will be interesting to read. First, I weave appealing sayings into every page so a person will not get bored reading an entire booklet straight through, which could take two or three hours. I slip Chassidic ideas in through the back door, so readers absorb those ideas too. And I also include all the Kiddush texts, all the sayings, everything needed for the holiday. I put them in a separate section, so readers have not only the halachos, but also, for anyone interested, the Kiddush texts or the Yehi Ratzon prayers for Rosh Hashanah, for example, or a Haggadah for Pesach, and things like that. Someone may pick it up for those, but in the process will leaf through the halachos a thousand times and learn them too. Boruch Hashem, it has proved itself. Every booklet is printed in at least

02:13 Speaker 1 ten thousand copies. Eight, ten thousand. Sometimes I do additional printings, and I think this can serve a large, diverse public. I’ll give you an example; you can look at it and study from it. You can make use of it yourselves, too. One of the shluchim told me that before Shabbos Hagadol I gave him ten copies of the Pesach Haggadah, and he said it gave him material for the entire Pesach. He had a sermon for Shabbos Hagadol, stories, parables—he had everything, including material for a class. That is one point. Another point is that I recently wrote a new work on the laws of mourning, published both as a booklet and as a book, because unfortunately that is what is most needed today. These are the “semachos” laws, of course, that a rabbi encounters most often. So I wrote it briefly and concisely, and I also investigated and clarified all the Chabad customs. Of course, I spoke with various people familiar with the Rebbe’s practices, and with Reb Leibel Groner, and clarified Chabad customs as well. I want to tell you that many, many rabbis do not actually know how to rule on various matters that I clarified. Of course, I did not settle everything, because some matters still remain for rabbis to clarify. But I did thorough work concerning Chabad rabbinic practice, and it is written in clear, simple language, covering all the basic halachos. I also included a special booklet with all the prayers and everything recited at memorial gatherings among Sephardim and Ashkenazim—what is said on a yahrzeit and what is said at [unclear], absolutely everything. I have several editions. It is mainly intended for sale, but there is one edition I want to offer you that would be worthwhile for you. My brother and I produced it together in memory of a soldier, and we had substantial help with the

04:12 Speaker 1 costs. So I can offer it at practically no cost, but of course that is for distribution, not for resale. I want to tell you from experience: when I go to a house of mourning or a memorial gathering, I leave one or two copies. Usually people call me asking for more. Even people who know nothing about religious matters have called and thanked me, saying that at last they had seen something organized that contained everything they needed. So anyone who wants it should come to me; I can make an offer. But I can give one copy to everyone. And with Hashem’s help, only happy occasions, only happy occasions. By the way, the pergola was mentioned here. I wrote a special section on pergolas in the laws of sukkah, where I set out all the halachos in which the Alter Rebbe is actually not lenient. It is an unnecessary burden for every rabbi now to go looking for leniencies for things that were not prohibited in the first place according to the Alter Rebbe. And for all the problems that do exist according to the Alter Rebbe, I found solutions. You can look for yourselves. A good and sweet year to everyone.

05:20 Speaker 2 Thank you very much. I want to take this opportunity, of course, to thank everyone who helped make today’s study day a success. First of all, we must mention the Kfar Chabad Committee, under whose auspices we are meeting here today. Also, the Calabria Wineries of Rabbi Nachum Luria, and Pardes Garlick and Noach Pastak[?], Reb Buzi Garlick, under whose sponsorship or with whose participation we are holding today’s study day. One more important announcement: with Hashem’s help, as we promised in the past, after the holidays the Chabad Rabbinical Committee will launch a new project called Beis Midrash Lehora’ah. It will give rabbis who want practical training in order to issue halachic rulings on family purity and the examination of stains an opportunity to do so. The course will begin, with Hashem’s help, in Cheshvan, with approximately twelve classes given by Rabbi Tvardovitz to everyone who registers with the beis din over the next two or three weeks. Afterward, participants will receive practical training with Rabbi Moshe Klein at Rabbi Wosner’s in Bnei Brak. Those who complete the course will be able to acquire the proper practical training to issue halachic rulings on the examination of stains. So again, anyone interested in the first group who already has the background, and for whom it is important to be able to rule on these matters of the utmost importance for his community, can register now. Further details will follow. Without taking more time, I invite Rabbi Levin to come and speak about the laws of lice. With Hashem’s help, after Rabbi Ariel Levin’s lecture, Rabbi Gluckowsky has brought two boxes of esrogim, most of them invalid, so everyone can get a little practical training in how to examine an esrog, and so on. Rabbi Levin, please.

07:29 Speaker 3 With the rabbis’ permission, today we will discuss mats. I have brought several kinds of mats here, and shortly we will go through each one on its own: what are the halachic considerations? I will tell you which ones the Badatz rabbis certified and which ones they did not want to certify. But first, we will briefly cover the general halachic issues relating to s’chach. First, the Shulchan Aruch says that a small mat may not be used for s’chach. Why? Because it is made for lying on, so it can become ritually impure. And if it can become ritually impure, it cannot be used for s’chach. But if it was made for s’chach, it is valid. The Rema adds there that this is not enough. Even if someone made it for s’chach, most of the people in the town must use such mats for s’chach. Otherwise, someone might see it being used and think it was made for lying on and then used as s’chach, not knowing that it was made for s’chach. But an interesting point follows: even if a mat was made for s’chach in a place where most people use mats for lying on, and it was then taken to another place where most people use them for s’chach, it may be used. If it was made for s’chach in a place where most people use mats for lying on, but was taken to a place where most people use them for s’chach, it may be used, because this is only a rabbinic safeguard, and that safeguard does not apply here. There is another ruling that the Raavad brings there: if the mat has a receptacle, then even if it was made for s’chach, it is prohibited, because a receptacle can become ritually impure, so it cannot be used for s’chach. There is also the rule against using boards for s’chach, which the Shulchan Aruch brings: if a board is wide

09:40 Speaker 3 Four tefachim wide—it is forbidden to use it as sechach. There are two reasons for this. One is that it looks like the beams of his house, so a person might sit under the beams of his house. Or because rain does not come through it. Incidentally, the Beis Yosef cites the Rashba, who says that if you take narrow boards and join them with nails so that they become four tefachim wide, the decree against using ceiling boards applies to them too. So the later authorities ask: What makes our mats permissible? They are joined together and are wider than four tefachim. There are several answers—four, actually. One is that they do not look like a single board. They do not look like one large piece; you can see the separate parts. Another answer is that [unclear]. Just an interesting point: the Pri Megadim asks about the reeds we use, for example, the reeds everyone uses without any connections, without mats. Why does the decree against ceiling boards not apply to them? He leaves it unresolved. But the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch also says that everyone uses them—the whole world uses them—so this was never a question. There is another rule, the decree concerning a bundle. It says there that one may not use a bundle. Why? A person might bring a bundle, put it on his roof to dry, and then decide to use it as a sukkah. That would be “you shall make it,” and not something already made. So the She’iltos, the Geonim and the Bach immediately ask: Again, what is the difference between our mat and a bundle? It is joined together too. The answer is that the rule about a bundle applies when it is tied so that you can carry it by the binding. But our mat

11:54 Speaker 3 is not tied for carrying, and even when you want to carry it, you do not carry it by the binding. You roll it up and carry it. So the decree concerning a bundle does not apply. There is another rule about using ropes as sechach. The Shulchan Aruch says that flax ropes are invalid as sechach, while ropes made of rushes or fibers are valid. Three reasons are given for this. The Rambam says it is because their form has been changed. The Raavad gives a different reason: they can be put into pillows and cushions and thereby become susceptible to tumah. Rashi says they are close to becoming susceptible to tumah. This follows Rashi’s position in Shabbos, where he holds that a rope that is spun and twisted is subject to the tumah of woven material. Now, the rope we are discussing is neither spun nor woven, but since it would become susceptible to tumah if it were spun and woven, there is a decree not to use it. According to Rashi, then, a thread that is spun and twisted is susceptible to tumah by Torah law. We also have the rule about supports: one may not support the sechach with something that cannot itself be used as sechach—that is, something that does not grow from the ground, or something that grows from the ground but is susceptible to tumah. But the Biur Halachah, at the beginning of section 631, says that this restriction on supports applies only to things that cannot be used as sechach by Torah law. Things prohibited by a decree may be used as supports. That is the reasoning so far. Sorry—I mean they may be used as supports, as supports. Now we will show you the mats one by one and see what issues each one has. Here we go. That’s good. That’s fine. Here we have a mat that comes from Egypt. From Egypt. Now we’ll explain. This mat is made—what? Yes, I’ll explain everything. This mat is made of thin reeds

15:26 Speaker 3 joined together with threads. These threads are also—here, we can see the threads. All right, all right, that’s fine. The threads here are spun, but they are made from a natural plant.

15:46 Speaker 4 Where are the threads?

15:47 Speaker 3 Here. Yes. Here. From here.

15:56 Speaker 4 There are some inside here.

15:57 Speaker 3 Ah, there’s a thread about every five centimeters holding the mat together. Here at the end we can see the threads.

16:09 Speaker 4 What are the threads?

16:10 Speaker 3 The threads are made from a natural plant.

16:13 Speaker 4 Natural.

16:13 Speaker 3 Natural, but they are twisted, as we can see, and apparently spun as well. Now—they also added, as you can see, a reed every meter. No, the color is just for looks. The reed is there so it won’t be used for lying on. There are reeds here. We—

16:45 Speaker 4 Here, here, here.

16:47 Speaker 3 Here, here. Pieces. Well?

16:52 Speaker 4 Who makes [unclear]? The oversight committee [unclear].

17:01 Speaker 3 Yes.

17:01 Speaker 4 The committee [unclear].

17:04 Speaker 3 They added them here. They added—the person who ordered it added these reeds so it could not be used for lying on. Now, I forgot to mention something interesting earlier, but—

17:23 Speaker 4 Who makes these?

17:24 Speaker 3 I’ll get to that shortly. There is a question: what counts as being made for sechach, and what counts as being made for lying on? Whose intention determines it—the maker’s or the person who ordered it? The Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch says here that it depends on the person who ordered it. Now, in principle, they ordered these specifically. It was a special order made for use in Israel. But let’s look at it from a halachic standpoint. We have no way—no one can really know. They are clearly made there for lying on. People use them for that; Egyptians use them for lying on, and—what? Mainly in mosques. They sit on them. Yes. So there are several questions here. First, it is true that these were ordered for sechach, but the question is: even if they were ordered that way, perhaps the maker made them for sechach. But perhaps he got them from subcontractors who had already made them for lying on. Another thing: they added reeds here, but first of all, we cannot know when they added them. They may have added them after the mat was made. In that case it had already become suitable for lying on, and only afterward did they add the reeds and change that. But that is not—there is another problem: you can lie on it lengthwise, even if not across its width. Why? Along this one-meter section, you can lie lengthwise. And Rabbi [unclear] Pesach[?] is unsure whether, when people stand on sechach, that also gives it the status of something susceptible to tumah. Others hold that it does not, but he holds that it does. Now there is one more thing, which, as we see it, is the most problematic: this thread is apparently spun and certainly twisted. It may be spun. And it holds the mat together; without it, the mat could not hold together. According to

19:34 Speaker 3 Rashi, as we said, the thread’s disqualification is not a decree. It is a matter of Torah law, because it is susceptible to tumah. So the committee did not want to give this mat its approval.

19:52 Speaker 5 According to Rashi’s view.

19:54 Speaker 3 According to Rashi’s view. Yes. Not only that: the Mishnah Berurah also says not to tie it with threads that are susceptible to tumah by Torah law. I’m laying out all the considerations. There are several sides to this. Now I’ll show you—

20:12 Speaker 5 No, because lengthwise.

20:13 Speaker 3 No.

20:14 Speaker 5 Wait, he—

20:17 Speaker 3 Here in Israel they won’t make anything like this. There’s no point. Who would make a mat like this? A mat made in Israel would cost ten times as much. Yes, there is. I’m not saying I—

20:34 Speaker 5 Who ordered the mat here?

20:35 Speaker 3 The person who brought it out ordered it.

20:37 Speaker 5 That’s because, with Hashem’s help.

20:40 Speaker 3 Yes, I want to emphasize that I did not—I didn’t come here—sorry. Yes, but we won’t get into that. I’m not speaking here to say, G-d forbid, whether it is acceptable or not. I have only laid out the considerations and said what the committee did or did not want to do. We have not actually disqualified anything here. I’m saying, each person can work through the arguments for himself.

21:13 Speaker 5 There’s no choice when they’re made in Israel.

21:16 Speaker 3 Mats aren’t made in Israel because the price is so high. These things are made elsewhere—

21:21 Speaker 5 Where they make them in a production run.

21:24 Speaker 3 I haven’t heard of anyone making them in Israel.

21:27 Speaker 5 What?

21:27 Speaker 3 Mats aren’t made in Israel.

21:31 Speaker 5 Yes, but he told you how many you made. No, no, he told you about importing them. But he also gave you a tip on how to export them to Israel. Much more than that.

21:45 Speaker 3 Now we—yes. Turn it over, turn it over. Ah, yes, that’s the side.

22:03 Speaker 5 Turn it over.

22:03 Speaker 3 No, turn it over, turn it over. No, no, no. I want to explain something. I want to show you.

22:11 Speaker 5 Or if it’s like it was before on the phone.

22:23 Speaker 3 This. This is a mat that came from Morocco. Now, I’ll get to it in a moment. First of all, this mat is made from almost the same kind of reeds—maybe a slightly different kind—but this mat was made in Morocco. So again, over there, people use mats for sleeping. That’s clear; everyone knows it. But what did they do here? They placed a special order, as we said earlier, and every meter, instead of using straw, they added these threads, to make it recognizable as a special order. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. Now, that doesn’t mean—never mind if I’m interrupting. They made it... Right. Now our question is this: Nobody actually checked whether they also make things like this there for sleeping. He said... It’s possible, it’s possible. And if so, then it was made for sleeping. It’s also possible they bought some from someone other than this manufacturer. Now, the cords we have here. What? Yes, correct. But I emphasized earlier that if, for example, he placed an order, and the person ordering it had it made for a particular purpose—it doesn’t matter what the manufacturer had in mind. But suppose he bought it from someone who had already made it. If they make these in Morocco for sleeping, say, and this manufacturer didn’t have enough—or I don’t know exactly how it works there. Maybe the agent gets them from different manufacturers. If he got them after they were already made, then what the person placing the order did doesn’t help at all. But they hadn’t made this one already. Yes, I

24:55 Speaker 3 said that, but I’m not sure they don’t also make this particular design for the local market. No, no, no, they didn’t check that. It wasn’t really checked. Now, about the cord here: I think they left it as it is because of the earlier issue—they hadn’t checked and didn’t know what it was. But this cord is apparently different from the previous one, because Rashi says in Shabbos that for a cord to have that status, it must be spun and twisted. A cord made by twisting the fibers directly is not susceptible to tumah. Apparently, this doesn’t look spun; it looks like straw. It’s also heavier. It looks like less-processed straw. Not less processed—it’s roasted straw. That’s the impression it gives. So the reason this s’chach received certification was that they hadn’t checked exactly what people use it for over there. And there was another thing: the rabbis weren’t eager to get into the whole subject of a mat suitable for sleeping. You could find that out, though. I don’t want to get into it, because it’s not... In any case, once you get into the question of a mat suitable for sleeping, it starts becoming a problem. Yes. In any case, with this mat too, if it were arranged with the non-Jewish maker, there would be no problem. In principle, yes, but let’s say nobody would do that under supervision, with someone sitting there and overseeing it. The costs would be so high it wouldn’t be worth doing. Of course it’s skilled work. If the person in charge stood there while they made it—just a moment. In principle,

26:55 Speaker 3 there wouldn’t be a problem. Can you rely on a non-Jew not to make it for that purpose? Well, if he orders it, yes. But if—sorry? For example, the person ordering it sees them making it. It could be arranged, but it isn’t practical. Yes. Now let’s open this one up. Everyone, everyone. Again, you don’t see this every day. Now we have another mat here. This mat is made of strips of wood, slats, joined by spun and twisted cotton thread. Now, there were later authorities who... Spun and twisted—that I can show you. Spinning is what you do, for example, when making a wick from cotton: you pull out the cotton, draw it out and give it a twist. Twisting means twisting strands together. You take two or three and twist them together. You can see it in tzitzis, for example. The tzitzis are twisted twice: four and four, and then those groups of four are twisted together. In any case, some later authorities wanted to say that this s’chach has the status of a board. It’s interesting. Only because the pieces are cut into strips? I don’t know whether it’s because they’re thin, but because they’re strips, they look like boards, and together they form a span of four tefachim. So they didn’t want to approve it because of the issue of boards, but—

29:55 Speaker 6 Because of the Rashba.

29:56 Speaker 3 Yes. The Beis Yosef quotes him. No, this comes from the Rashba, because the Rashba is the one who says that joining them together has that effect. But the Beis Yosef quotes it. The Beis Yosef quotes it. No, but together. We mentioned the Rashba earlier.

30:16 Speaker 6 If each one is separate, then even though they’re joined together, we treat them separately.

30:24 Speaker 3 Most, most of the later authorities didn’t hold that—

30:28 Speaker 6 The Rambam too.

30:30 Speaker 3 No, no, no. The Rashba’s position is about joining them with nails—the Rashba’s position that the Beis Yosef quotes.

30:37 Speaker 6 Yes, but he joins them. What if there are four pieces a short distance apart—

30:40 Speaker 3 No, no, no. The gap could even be a centimeter. But later authorities understand the Rashba to be speaking of a firm connection, one that makes them a single piece four tefachim wide.

30:51 Speaker 6 With nails.

30:52 Speaker 3 Yes, some understood it that way, but others didn’t. Now there’s another issue: why was this made? Was it made for sleeping, or for—

31:06 Speaker 6 Where does it come from in the first place?

31:07 Speaker 3 I think it comes from the East. I don’t know exactly where it comes from. They didn’t fully investigate its origin, because there was already that earlier concern. But it also depends on what it’s made for.

31:24 Speaker 6 I didn’t investigate it.

31:26 Speaker 3 Right. Now, the biggest problem here is the thread. As we said earlier, according to Rashi, if the thread is spun and twisted, it supports the s’chach. But there’s an interesting point: some later authorities held that if we took these wooden strips one by one and laid them on the roof, it would take a long time—an hour, two hours, three hours—but we could lay them there. So the thread doesn’t—

31:49 Speaker 6 The thread isn’t what holds them up.

31:50 Speaker 3 Right. The thread doesn’t hold them up. It only helps me lay them down; it isn’t what keeps them in place. That argument doesn’t apply to the previous two mats.

32:05 Speaker 6 Does that make it inferior?

32:11 Speaker 3 Yes, I’m not—I’m just saying what they said. I’m not—

32:14 Speaker 6 He cites that.

32:16 Speaker 3 Oh, the ends? Right. The previous mats are made of thin reeds that you couldn’t lay down individually. No, no, no, this would catch on the roof more easily than that thin straw, which has nothing to hold it. It’s something like a bundle of hay here; it wouldn’t stay in place. But those are the arguments on each side. In any case, they didn’t want to approve this one either. No. Now open this one. This one is from China. We have a mat here that comes from China. Those of you close by can see it.

33:26 Speaker 6 It has threads; you can see them.

33:27 Speaker 3 Yes. Wait, I’ll explain everything. These are strips of bamboo, joined with a natural fiber—a thread made from a plant. It’s neither spun nor twisted. Yes, yes.

33:49 Speaker 6 Now, it does have the Rashba’s problem.

33:52 Speaker 3 No, it doesn’t have the Rashba’s problem because it’s natural. Ah, yes, yes—it does have the Rashba’s problem we mentioned, that it might be... That’s the Rashba’s position, yes.

34:04 Speaker 6 No, no, no, because there are other mats that are called s’chach, and we call them s’chach. I have a s’chach mat too. I know.

34:14 Speaker 3 Yes.

34:14 Speaker 6 There are places where they make them for playing.

34:17 Speaker 3 Yes, but that depends—it also depends on... No, but it depends on the place.

34:23 Speaker 6 Yes.

34:23 Speaker 3 Now, that doesn’t matter. Earlier we said this is a rabbinic decree. If, let’s say, in China they use this for s’chach, then I can’t use it there because of the decree. But if I bring it here, the decree doesn’t apply here, so it can be used for s’chach.

34:40 Speaker 6 Here there’s only the issue of the thread—

34:42 Speaker 3 There’s the Rashba’s issue, and there’s the question of what they made it for: whether they made it for sleeping or for... I don’t know.

34:52 Speaker 6 I didn’t understand; they didn’t understand.

34:53 Speaker 3 The truth is, this one has no certification. But let’s say it came close—the closest to receiving certification. But—

35:01 Speaker 6 The closest.

35:03 Speaker 3 But in the end, no. Just a moment. Now we—

35:25 Speaker 6 Well, that’s what they do.

35:26 Speaker 3 Yes, now we’ll see. Open this up for me.

35:34 Speaker 6 Now or later?

35:35 Speaker 3 No. Yes. Rain passes through it. Yes. Now—this is very interesting. This mat comes from Africa, from Africa. We won’t name the place, because the manufacturers aren’t so keen for us to know exactly where it comes from. Now, this is the mat that has—yes. Now let’s go through it one by one. It’s made of reeds. No, not bulrushes. They call it papyrus, perhaps, something like that. It’s a plant, reeds that grow along a stream like bulrushes. We’ll see them shortly. They split them and then simply join them together using the agave plant. Yes, now.

37:08 Speaker 7 What? Which plant?

37:10 Speaker 3 The agave plant. Would you like to see it? I’ll show you in a moment. It’s a fiber from a plant. I’ll show you shortly. The issue raised by the Rashba—I can explain it in a moment. Those who held that the Rashba’s concern applies held that it was only with thin pieces cut like boards, but not with natural reeds. They didn’t understand the Rashba’s position as applying to these; they look different.

37:47 Speaker 7 Only when they’re sawn.

37:48 Speaker 3 Yes, extending the prohibition to these would be a major innovation. It’s an interesting point, but—no, they asked a question here, so I answered them. Those who held there was a concern based on the Rashba meant only boards that had been cut, that looked like sawn boards, not natural materials. Here we see—I’ll—

38:19 Speaker 7 Just a moment. Is there a picture showing how they do it?

38:21 Speaker 3 In a moment. We’ll go through them one by one. Here we see how the reeds grow. Next, please. Oh, all right, these aren’t in order. If you can, put them in numerical order. There, that’s it. Here we see the papyrus plant. It grows in gardens in Israel too; it looks a little different there, but this is the plant. Next, please.

38:52 Speaker 7 Is this the plant they work with?

38:53 Speaker 3 Yes.

38:54 Speaker 7 This is the plant they use to tie them together.

38:55 Speaker 3 Here we see them simply stripping it. If you look, they have knives here. They strip it against the knife, and this is what comes out afterward.

39:08 Speaker 7 They make it easier there.

39:10 Speaker 3 What?

39:11 Speaker 7 They make it easier. Wait, is there a mashpia now?

39:16 Speaker 3 No, I visited there once, so it’s not...

39:21 Speaker 7 Like this?

39:22 Speaker 3 That’s how it looks, isn’t it? Next, please; there are more. Here you can see it better: they hold the knives and pull it through. Yes. They’re not combing it; they pull it across the—one layer comes off. Now we can see how they tie it. They take the reeds and lay them on the ground. They have a needle for tying them. They take these fibers, attach a bunch of them to the needle, and push it through. When they run out, they continue with more. Go to the next one and we’ll see. There: he puts it in and pulls it through, puts it in and pulls it through.

40:13 Speaker 7 How much can he do at once?

40:15 Speaker 3 He ties it and finishes that length. When he runs out, he ties on more, continues, and pushes the knot inside the reed.

40:30 Speaker 7 There, there.

40:35 Speaker 3 He has it. When he finishes, he pushes it inside—he pushes the knot inside the reed. We won’t see that here. We need to move on.

40:43 Speaker 7 How does he get it inside the reed?

40:45 Speaker 3 Yes.

40:45 Speaker 7 You can see it from here. We can see it.

40:56 Speaker 3 He pulls it. Yes, that’s how he keeps pulling it through.

41:02 Speaker 7 You can see the fiber passing through from here.

41:09 Speaker 3 Yes, yes, that’s...

41:15 Speaker 7 No, they pull the whole thing through.

41:17 Speaker 3 We’ll talk about that in a moment.

41:19 Speaker 7 Wait, everyone. Come on, come on. There, there.

41:32 Speaker 3 You found the knot. There’s the knot. He pushes it into the reed; he pushes the knot inside the reed.

41:39 Speaker 7 What about the Matali schach?

41:42 Speaker 3 This is it, this is it. Yes. Now. Yes, they’re working—there are four of them, yes.

41:54 Speaker 7 Now they’re doing the treatment.

41:57 Speaker 3 Oh. Now, let’s summarize a little.

42:03 Speaker 7 Everyone, that’s it. Is someone going out to buy rope like that for his houses?

42:14 Speaker 3 Now let’s sum up a little... There’s one more... No, no, we need to sum up this mat. Yes. Now, as we said, the fiber poses no problem, because it’s neither spun nor twisted. The question is: what is this used for in Africa? We were there, and there had been earlier visits too. We went around the area, and they use it for fences and for shade. No, for shade. I took perhaps a hundred photographs, but they disappeared. I wanted to bring them, and it’s a great shame they’re gone, because checking this was one of the most important parts of our trip. But they don’t use it for lying on. It’s also very uncomfortable to lie on; it’s not a soft mat. We went around the gardens there. It’s a fairly basic place, let’s say. There are roadside stalls, and, for example, some people ride bicycles, so there are places like garages where people come to have their bicycles repaired. One of them had this for shade. We also went into homes and checked. One man had a cow, and he’d put it up to shade the cowshed. We didn’t see a single place where it was used for lying on. Now, these are large manufacturers who produce it for Israel. For the local market, people stand by the roadside, make ten mats, and sell them there. We stopped by them, because we were more interested in what the locals use them for. Others may already know what to say and what not to say, but there in the local market we asked them what they’re used for, and they

44:50 Speaker 3 told us: for fences and for the livestock. We asked, “And for lying on?” One man said to me, “Try it.” In other words, if you want to, try it, but it isn’t something commonly done in the area. So this is the mat that the committee did give a hechsher to. But I want to show you something interesting: we have another mat that looks exactly the same, but you have to look at the fibers and what it’s tied with.

45:24 Speaker 8 It’s a different fiber, right?

45:28 Speaker 3 It’s a cord that’s spun and twisted from the same plant, the same material. It comes from those regions. It’s a spun and twisted cord. You can see it.

45:50 Speaker 8 It’s not clear, it’s not clear.

45:52 Speaker 3 Yes. No. At the ends, yes. Now it looks exactly the same, but...

46:07 Speaker 8 Do they make it in those areas?

46:10 Speaker 3 Not in that exact area, but they do make it there, yes. They certainly do. A particular importer brought this one in.

46:16 Speaker 8 An importer.

46:17 Speaker 3 Yes, and he wanted to get a hechsher, but he didn’t pursue it. He didn’t, so...

46:41 Speaker 8 So this one too.

46:43 Speaker 3 It’s very similar.

46:44 Speaker 8 So I understand that when you see this one in the market too...

46:47 Speaker 3 Yes, you have to know what you’re looking at. There was another one that I don’t have here. Actually, I have it in my office but didn’t bring it. Its cord is spun but not twisted. Someone asked whether it could be used, but the rabbis didn’t want people to use cord, even spun cord. They wanted it to be entirely natural. Now I’ll show you something else. This is interesting. These are reeds cut into four or five pieces. Yes, yes, I’ll explain how we move through these. They’re tied with a natural plant fiber. Someone wanted a hechsher for this. At first, the head of the beis din, Rabbi Fisher, z”l, was unsure whether this side constituted a receptacle. He was unsure, but in the end he agreed to give it a hechsher. In practice, though, they never brought it to Israel. It’s very interesting how he—

48:06 Speaker 8 Why didn’t they bring it? Why?

48:07 Speaker 3 They didn’t bring it. No, he did agree. He had thought it might constitute a receptacle. And I brought this one just to show you an example joined with metal wire, which is called a support. Yes, under all the relevant laws, that’s already considered a support.

00:00 Speaker 1 [unclear], we have with us our guest, Rabbi Aryeh Levin, who heads the STaM department at the Tel Aviv Rabbinate and is also the rabbi of North Tel Aviv. He will speak about various sukkahs and their different designs. Incidentally, miniature models of forty-eight types are now at the Temple Institute—all the sukkahs mentioned in the Gemara and throughout the Talmud. Rabbi Aryeh Levin, please. Yasher koach. Good afternoon. With the permission of the distinguished rabbis, the mara d’asra of Kiryat Gat, Rabbi Havlin shlita, and all the rabbis, each according to his standing and honor. Before I begin speaking a little about sukkahs, I want to use this platform, in the presence of the rabbis, to address a painful problem that has been discussed for many years. This mitzvah was like a neglected mitzvah: no kashrus organization and no rabbi addressed the issue. To the credit of the distinguished Rabbi Ginzburg, the rabbi of Omer, and of course Rabbi Havlin alongside him, they raised the issue of kashrus for tzitzis strings. It had been completely unregulated, to the point that Jews were simply wrapping themselves in tallisim and reciting blessings in vain according to all opinions. About a year ago, when I took up my position at the Tel Aviv Religious Council as head of the department for religious articles, not a single organization had received kashrus certification in an orderly way. There was no organized supervision. What’s more, there were factories such as the Tallitnia company, whose tallisim almost every Jew wears. No organization supervised their kashrus, yet they presented themselves as kosher under the certification of the Tel Aviv–Jaffa Rabbinate. Is that correct so far, Rabbi Havlin? When I took up the position, I approached these factories and told them that if they wanted to continue using the Tel Aviv Rabbinate’s certification, they would have to submit to supervision. Remarkably, every one of the factories was willing to accept all the Tel Aviv Rabbinate’s requirements, down to the last detail. That was the first thing we saw: there were people willing to work with us,

03:15 Speaker 1 willing to meet us halfway. I went in to see the chief rabbi, Rabbi Amar shlita, when he began serving as rabbi of Tel Aviv, and said, “Rabbi, I want practical instructions on how to supervise the kashrus of this.” Rabbi Amar told me, “I don’t know the laws of shatnez. Go with the chief supervisor to Rabbi Wosner, and do whatever he instructs you to do.” We went in to see Rabbi Wosner shlita. Rabbi Wosner referred us to the shatnez testing institute in Bnei Brak, to Rabbi Stein, who is a member of the beis din there. We started with shatnez, step by step, putting things in order. First, we check the garment to make sure it is free of any concern of shatnez. Needless to say, Tallitnia does not make tzitzis strings; it makes only tallis garments. Rabbi Wosner therefore sent us to check whether the garment was free of shatnez. An inspector came on behalf of the laboratory. We checked the factories, both Mishkan Hatcheles and Tallitnia, and the garments were kosher to the highest standard as far as shatnez was concerned. We completed the first stage and moved on to the main one: the tzitzis strings. Sometimes we go into shops in Bnei Brak or elsewhere and see tzitzis strings for sale. With every food we put in our mouths, we check: Is it kosher? Whose certification does it have? This Badatz or another Badatz? But when it comes to tzitzis strings, we rely on the label saying they are kosher, that the spinning and twisting were done for the sake of the mitzvah by G-d-fearing Jews. No kashrus organization had certified them. The matter was left completely unregulated, and I find it astonishing that the whole community went along like sheep gone astray, buying tzitzis for their sons and for adults with no kashrus certification whatsoever. I approached the factories and informed them—I have all of this in writing in my office—that this situation could not continue, and that if the production of tzitzis strings was not supervised by a kashrus organization, I would

05:43 Speaker 1 withdraw certification from every tallis factory in the country. This put pressure on the manufacturer of the tzitzis strings, which, incidentally, is not Polgat, as the rabbi mentioned in his letter. Polgat has not made strings for over two years; for the past two years, the tzitzis strings have been made in Italy. The factories I certify do not get them from Polgat; they get them—we will get to every detail the rabbi raised. And I am glad that, boruch Hashem, Rabbi Ginzburg and Rabbi Havlin took it upon themselves to revive this neglected mitzvah; that is to their credit. It prompted us to work on the issue. So we pressed the factories, and that pressure reached the tzitzis manufacturer, a company called Vitalgo[?]. The company is based in Yavne, while production takes place in Italy, in the city of Biella, ninety-two kilometers from Milan. The factory owner came to us. He understood that the issue was the Rabbinate, and we told him, “Listen, under the way you currently manufacture tzitzis strings, no branch will buy tzitzis from you unless you have kashrus certification.” He agreed to accept every kashrus procedure the Rabbinate would impose on him. There is a letter from about seven months ago. Once he undertook that commitment, we began working in the field and studying the entire subject of tzitzis. Rabbi Alteran[?] of the technological institute in Jerusalem wrote a lengthy article about it. Regarding Rabbi Havlin, of course, I stressed that Rabbi Havlin—this was from Rabbi Amar, perhaps. Rabbi Amar then asked me to summarize all of Rabbi Alteran’s[?] opinions for him. We worked on it for over a week. We studied the whole subject in depth: direct action, action through one’s force, action through a secondary force, machine production. What exactly does a Jew have to do? Anyone who wishes can read Rabbi Alteran’s[?] article at length. We summarized all the opinions, the problems, and the solutions. Rabbi Amar was no longer at the Tel Aviv Rabbinate; Rabbi Lau had taken up the position. We then received, in practice, the opinion—the

08:09 Speaker 1 summary of Rabbi Alteran’s[?] opinion—and went ahead with the first production run of tzitzis strings. We trained a mashgiach for the job and taught him all the relevant issues. He went to the factory there and supervised the production of the strings. He was on-site for twelve days while two tons of strings were produced. I should emphasize one more thing: there was a shortage of machine-made strings for two or three months, because we had not yet reached an agreement with the factory on kashrus procedures, so no strings were produced there. There was a shortage in the country, and the competitor who manufactures here in Israel raised his prices during that period. There is another string manufacturer here in Israel, the Strolovitch company, whose machine-made strings have certification from Rabbi Rubin of Rechovot. We did not give up. We trained the mashgiach, and he went there and reported to us what was happening throughout. All the factory owners told us about a Jew named Yo—I can say his name because nobody knows who he is. There is a young man named Yonatan who lives in Milan, a baal teshuvah and a Chabad chossid. For years, they had relied on him—or supposedly relied on him—to say that everything was all right. The factory owner would bring us approvals from Yonatan and rely on his phone calls saying everything was all right. When I sent the mashgiach there, he told me, “You have no idea how little this Yonatan understands about kashrus. And even if he does understand kashrus, he comes in the morning, goes outside, comes back in the afternoon, and turns up in the evening.” A mashgiach for tzitzis strings must be at the factory from the beginning of the workday until its end. The machine has to be switched on every half hour—switched off and back on every half hour—so that the work is done for the sake of the mitzvah. None of these things had been done before. Every half hour—what does that mean? The mashgiach and another Jew who worked there tied the strings called

10:20 Speaker 1 Yes, they studied it beforehand. They learned the trade. What is it? No, Rabbi Polonsk[unclear]. At Strolovitch’s, here in Israel, they went around and studied the matter. I would also be very happy if the rabbi would like to speak with the mashgiach, if the rabbi wants more details about it. So that mashgiach... In any case, the most recent batch, produced right after Pesach, was not sent by the factory owner by ship. It was shipped by air because there was a shortage of tzitzis, and that shipment came by air directly to the factories here in Israel. We still haven’t solved the problem. Several problems have come up. For example, there is old stock with tzitzis strings attached. Merchandise sits in a store for a year, a year and a half, so even if today we produce kosher tzitzis strings, we still haven’t solved the problem of talleisim sitting in stores with old strings. That’s one problem. Another problem is: how can we be sure that the factory owners buy only from this production run and not from others? And the main problem, in practice, is who ties the strings to the garment? There is a company called Art. Art is a company in Yavneh that makes various Judaica items, goblets and so on, and it also makes undershirts with tzitzis strings attached. I approached the factory owner as part of my work to improve the situation with Judaica items here in Israel. By the way, no rabbinate in Israel has a department for Judaica items. To the credit of the Tel Aviv Rabbinate, years ago, together with Rabbi Ehrlich, they established such a department. The rabbinates—I approached the rabbinate. And I approached Art, and they told me there that they buy the strings from the manufacturers: Fruchter, uh, what’s the other one called? Landau, not Strolovitch. Strolovitch is the Badatz; that was fine. Uh, Seibert, Landau, Fruchter—various manufacturers who, in fact, buy the merchandise from the same producer, Vitelgo[unclear], who is the main supplier

12:41 Speaker 1 of all the strings. None of the manufacturers who sell strings make them themselves. They buy from him and just make them into bundles, tie them up, and sell them to consumers or factories. So I asked Art, “Who ties the strings to the garment for you?” The company’s owner, its CEO, a religious Jew named A-Ayal, told me that a Yemenite rabbi provides the kashrus—Rabbi Avni. There is a Yemenite rabbi, just so you have that information, who ties the strings to the garments for Art. I said, “Who is this Yemenite rabbi?” No, not Russians. The rabbi knows they’re Russians. There are... No, not on Shabbos. It’s a shame that—let me set the facts straight. I checked this whole matter and dealt with it, so I can speak plainly. And in that moshav, the rabbi supervises the tying of the strings to the garments. Again, I don’t know where the strings come from. We take no responsibility for where Art gets its strings. With Hashem’s help, once only strings spun under a mashgiach enter the inventory, we will solve part of the main problem. So at Art, Jews tie the strings, but women do too. I asked Rabbi Rosner what he says about that. Rabbi Rosner told me it is kosher, but you cannot label it mehudar. According to halachah, a woman may also tie strings to a garment, but you cannot label that mehudar. The factory owner accepted this: it says “kosher under the supervision” of that rabbi, with no mention whatsoever that it is mehudar. As for Mishkan Hatecheles, there are Jews under Rabbi Bosner’s[unclear] supervision who tie the strings to the garments—religious, G-d-fearing Jews. So at Mishkan Hatecheles, we are, in fact, almost closing the circle. Rabbi, your view. At Mishkan Hatecheles, we are almost closing the circle because they receive only new stock made with the new strings.

14:44 Speaker 1 The people tying them are religious Jews, so I hope that, with Hashem’s help, when the new stock arrives soon, we’ll be able to feel confident that Mishkan Hatecheles is one hundred percent. Excellent. Honored rabbi, excellent points. At Tallitania, we gave an instruction some time ago, when the kashrus certificate was issued: every tallis fitted with the new strings must have a label attached with a copy of the Tel Aviv–Yafo Rabbinate’s kashrus certificate. That way, we supervise both the tying and the strings. That is regarding Tallitania. I’m now trying to arrange the same with Mishkan Hatecheles. There is—what is it? We supervise it. We have someone there, a mashgiach, who comes to check at Mishkan Hatecheles and Tallitania, yes. They do not do the tying at Tallitania itself, just so the rabbi knows. They do not do the tying at Tallitania itself. The tying is done outside the factory, under supervision. I say again, I must emphasize: we are still not at one hundred percent. Please. The factory does not operate twenty-four hours a day. It operates from morning until evening. It operates more than eight hours. It works roughly from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, and when tzitzis strings are being made, he is there all day. He is a working person; I think he is allowed to go eat. In half an hour, he could still put something into the machine. It’s not as though... There is another Jew working there besides him. That same Yonatan whom we did not rely on ties strings there, but there is a mashgiach who sees what he is doing. Yonatan is a Jewish young man. In his letter, the rabbi noted—Rabbi, forgive me, but the rabbi did not check beforehand. The rabbi wrote that the factory operates twenty-four hours a day, and that is simply not so, because he simply comes to Vitelgo[unclear], rents the premises, and takes care of it. All right, that’s enough on that, please. This is very important because the public wants to hear about what happens every day. A company called Seiler[unclear]—we are not familiar with such a thing. What? Please.

17:18 Speaker 1 On the contrary, let’s hear a new idea. Perhaps you can give us another idea for solving the problem. How can I know that the new strings and the people tying them meet the requirements of halachah? We need to distinguish between old stock and new stock, and by attaching... But that isn’t mehadrin; I cannot write “mehadrin.” That is what we emphasized earlier. If a woman ties them, you cannot write “mehadrin.” It is kosher, but not mehudar. Women tie them too. I cannot write “mehudar.” I don’t want to mislead the public. As for machine production itself, whether it is mehudar or not is a question. Rabbi Chaim Nitzan wrote at length that it is not acceptable, and many others wrote against it, but as a matter of halachah, you cannot say it is unacceptable. As for whether it is mehudar, apparently yes. The workers where? At Mishkan Hatecheles, the workers make the garment. Because making a piece of cloth does not need to be done for the sake of the mitzvah. What must be made for the sake of the mitzvah is only the tzitzis strings. The Mechaber rules—it is an explicit halachah in siman 11—that spinning them for the sake of the mitzvah is required at the outset; it is not just a matter of whether they are valid after the fact. If the string is not spun for the sake of the mitzvah, it is invalid according to all opinions. There is no question here of “for its sake” or “not for its sake.” Huh? I’m explaining; I’m responding to the audience. The discussion concerns only machine-made tzitzis. For handmade tzitzis, thank G-d, there are Badatz organizations that provide kashrus certification. If only we could reach that point with machine-made tzitzis too. There is machine production too. They told him that I objected earlier. I know that in Ashdod they produce machine-made tzitzis under the kashrus certification of Rabbi Rubin’s Badatz. The people who tie the tzitzis for Mishkan Hatecheles are G-d-fearing Jews. Now, we don’t have much time. I still need to get to a class in Tel Aviv at seven, but before we begin the presentation, with your permission, I want to discuss a brief halachah concerning Sukkos. With the rabbis’ permission, we would be glad to clarify

19:27 Speaker 1 Let’s work through this halachah together. It’s very common for people to have a small home, or no balcony, so they go outside and build a sukkah in the courtyard of their building, at best, or on the sidewalk. A parking area is better; it’s shared property, so they still have a right to use it. But some people build their sukkah on the sidewalk or in the road, and I want us to examine together whether such a sukkah is kosher. We know that a stolen sukkah is invalid. Rabbi Meir and the Sages disagree about a borrowed sukkah: do we derive from “yours” that it must not be borrowed, or do we follow the Sages, who point to the verse “All citizens of Israel shall dwell in sukkos” and hold that a borrowed sukkah is also kosher? So is a sukkah like this kosher or not? In section 637, the Rema writes that one should not, ideally, set up a sukkah in a public place, but after the fact the sukkah is kosher. Another point that you raised: land cannot be stolen. Land is not subject to theft. But the Achiezer and the Chazon Ish already wrote that although land itself cannot be stolen, its use can be. If you settle down in the middle of the street, you may not be stealing the land, but you are stealing the public’s ability to use it, because people can no longer pass through the street. That does constitute theft, writes the Chazon Ish. So it’s worth knowing the practical halachah; I won’t go into all the details and sources. In practice, if someone can set up a sukkah either in the shared courtyard, in the parking area, or in the street, it is preferable to set it up in the shared courtyard. Of course, the shared courtyard is preferable to the street, where you might be depriving the public of its rights. Another case that could arise, at least in theory: someone asks the municipality for permission. He lives in a secular city, for example, a city like Tel Aviv. Go ahead. Or... [unclear].

21:50 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, yes. [unclear]. Yes. I’m talking about Tel Aviv. The question is how we define Tel Aviv, Rabbi Avi: is it religious or not? Let me put it this way. I want to raise a question: what happens in a city... Can you hear me? What happens in an apartment building? One of the neighbors gets up and says, “Absolutely not. In our building, you can make a sukkah in your own home, but not in the shared courtyard.” Will the sukkah be kosher or not? Do we compel someone to enable the mitzvah of sukkah? In Minchas Chinuch, section 1, it says that we do not compel someone regarding the mitzvah of having children, because it could lead to quarrels. Seemingly, perhaps the same applies to the mitzvah of sukkah: there is no compulsion here, because it could lead to quarrels and the like. But here is something that seemingly needs discussion: suppose someone received permission from the municipality, the authorities, or the neighbors to build a sukkah in the shared courtyard, but they limit the time: “We’ll allow you to set up a sukkah for the first festival day, when the obligation is from the Torah. For the remaining days, you must take it down.” Is there a problem here because it is a sukkah unfit for continued use, or something of that sort? I saw this question in the responsa Zayis Ra’anan, by one of the great rabbis of Warsaw. He discusses a case where a person borrowed a board from a friend for the sukkah walls, but the board was lent to him for only one day, so he would have to dismantle the sukkah the next day. Is there a problem because the sukkah is unfit for continued use? And what if it is schach? The same question would apply to permission someone received to set up a sukkah for one day: would that create a problem or not? I won’t go into the halachic intricacies, because, as we’ve said, we’re short on time. It is considered a sukkah fit for use. With the organizer’s permission, let’s look at the presentation. We’ll go through it, and the rabbis can judge these things for themselves, because we don’t have

24:01 Speaker 1 enough time to explain all the images. Please. This is a sukkah whose schach is too high—a sukkah over twenty amos high. This is the dispute between Rabbi Yehudah and the Sages at the beginning of Tractate Sukkah. Why is it invalid? Because the shade in the sukkah comes from the walls rather than the schach. This sukkah’s walls are too low. A sukkah must have a minimum height of seven tefachim, so this sukkah is also invalid. A sukkah with two walls is invalid. A sukkah with a third wall—but that wall must be at least one tefach wide—is kosher. This sukkah also has three walls: two walls and a third wall one tefach wide. It isn’t right next to the other wall, but the principle of lavud applies. For a gap of less than three tefachim, we apply lavud. As for the size of a tefach, Rabbi Chaim Naeh and the Chazon Ish disagree. A sukkah with almost no schach is, of course, invalid. A sukkah beneath a tree: if its shade comes from the tree, it is invalid. Please change the image for me. A sukkah built in a tree raises a question about Yom Tov: can he climb up into the sukkah or not? In the case of a sukkah built in a tree, it says... In the end, we conclude that the sukkah is kosher. Another sukkah, as we can see. Next. Here again, we see a sukkah where he spread a sheet over it because of the leaves. Leaves were falling into his soup, so he decided to spread a sheet. The question is how far the sheet is from the branches—from the schach—for the sukkah to be kosher or invalid. Here too, we see that he spread a sheet beneath the schach, and... Why can’t I see the next one? Here we see that he trained a grapevine or a gourd over it. The Mishnah in the first chapter says that if a person uses something attached to the ground as schach, the sukkah is invalid. Even if he cu— even if he cuts

27:17 Speaker 1 its connection to the tree, there is still the problem of “make it, and not from something already made.” He has to move all the schach into place again. Here he put bundles of reeds and bundles of, uh, things like that on the sukkah. The sukkah is invalid, and so on. Next, next. Here... There’s a Mishnah about that, where he put one... Go to the next one. Here there are planks, subject to the decree concerning ceilings. If they are more than four tefachim wide, that decree applies. Here he made a sukkah inside a haystack; it is invalid. That’s the case of hollowing out a haystack. Here at the bottom is the matter of lavud, with walls raised above the ground. If it’s... Here it’s lavud at the top: if the gap is four tefachim, the sukkah is invalid. Next. I can’t see the images well.

28:14 Speaker 2 Go back.

28:19 Speaker 1 If... Go back, go back one. One back. Here the problem is that the schach is far from the walls. What’s that? It depends on the distance. It isn’t kosher at every distance. What’s that? You can see where the walls end; there’s an open gap before the schach begins. Is it kosher in every case? Raise your hands, gentlemen, if you want me to move on.

28:54 Speaker 3 Here, here, here, here. Here there are two sukkos [unclear], you see? Here there’s no, no, no, no schach.

29:01 Speaker 1 There’s no schach on the right or the left. No, perhaps the point here is that there’s a problem of open space. If it’s more than four amos, open space is a problem. There’s no schach. No, perhaps we can also apply lavud at the top, up to the walls. The question is how far the principle of a bent wall extends. A bent wall does not apply to open space. It applies to invalid schach, not to open space. There is open space on both sides. Here a bent wall does apply, because there is invalid schach. What’s this? It’s a portico—a sukkah made in a portico. That’s fine. Fine. No, no, here he showed one with a lot of schach, so he can’t see anything. The requirements for a kosher sukkah. Here there aren’t three walls; the sukkah is invalid. Invalid. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, wait, wait, just a moment. Here there is... This sukkah is actually kosher. Notice that it has two walls—effectively, three walls. As you can see, it isn’t entirely diagonal; part of it forms a straight line at the bottom. No, no, no, not nine tefachim, not nine tefachim. Here, here there is a floating roof, and it is invalid. It is kosher, sorry; there is a floating roof, and it is kosher. Chapter two. Tavi, the servant of Rabban Gamliel, sleeping beneath the sukkah. Sleeping beneath a bed. [unclear]. More sunlight than shade. There’s a caption at the top, can you see it? They didn’t manage to photograph the caption. Some caravan, a caravan. Here, the schach provides more shade. Here is a sukkah on a wagon, as Chabad chassidim, boruch Hashem, often make throughout the country. A sukkah on a boat, a sukkah on... on a camel, on trees. Here he made the trees into the walls. In practice, that too is a kosher sukkah. And here we’re back at the beginning. May we all [unclear], and may we merit, with Hashem’s help and in the merit of this, good news. Shalom and blessings. Thank you very much.

32:01 Speaker 4 Thank you, Rabbi Levin. We certainly ended on something much lighter, both emotionally and intellectually. To close the day, let’s invite Rabbi Hecht, the rabbi in the city of Eilat, to conclude this session and today’s study day. Rabbi Hecht, please.

32:36 Speaker 5 Well, I won’t speak at length. I have a flight soon, and I have to make it to the airport. Of course, we should thank everyone who worked on this—the beis din secretariat, Rabbi Lochovsky[?], and all those involved in this full and holy day. Although many issues are still somewhat up in the air, the rabbis certainly have a lot to think about. At the very least, they know they need to settle in their own minds how to rule on the various questions that come up before Pesach and before Sukkos. Take the pergolas we discussed: based on what he heard today, a rabbi needs to think about what he will rule when a question comes to him. What correction is needed? Where can it be fixed, and where can’t it? This question comes up all the time, because people building homes today also build pergolas, thinking they’ll use them on Sukkos. When rabbis tell them they aren’t kosher, they lose all enthusiasm. They don’t make a sukkah at all. We want them to have sukkahs, so we need to look for ways, to try to make it possible for them to use what they have, if we can. If we can’t, we can’t. But if we can, perhaps we should tell them to remove some of the boards overhead, put the walls around it, put some boards around it, and then attach the boards again. In short, we should try to give them practical advice that will let them use it, bringing their whole family into the atmosphere of Sukkos. If I were to tell them, “I’m sorry, you can’t use it. It isn’t kosher, and there’s no way to fix it,” then the whole subject of Sukkos is lost to them. It’s possible that Sukkos itself is lost to them. So that’s the whole issue of what supports the sechach. I can tell you that in our city,

34:47 Speaker 5 Eilat, the hotels are enormous. They build sukkahs—or rather, they don’t exactly build sukkahs. They use areas of the hotel as sukkahs, with all sorts of arrangements they put together, and these are very large areas. The sechach is a serious problem because the winds by the sea are strong. Most, if not all, of the hoteliers, even in the city, say it’s hard to put up sukkahs because there’s no way to keep the sechach in place. It simply won’t stay. So everyone looks for a way to tie the sechach to the recesses or the boards they’ve put overhead. And it’s interesting: you might think these people are somewhat distant, but when you come and point out a problem like this—of course, hotels like these have some form of kashrus supervision—[unclear]. So, in a case like this, the problem I face, and they face, is that they tie it down—let’s say with wire. Once, a tourist in Eilat called me. He had come from Belgium and said, “Listen, Rabbi, I want you to come and look at the sukkah. I came here and paid a lot of money to stay with my family. I asked whether there was a kosher sukkah, and I think this sukkah isn’t kosher.” When I came, the general manager was there. This was a family that came to Eilat often, and they wanted to keep him happy. The manager was there with all the staff, and I saw that everything really was tied with wire. The tourist was certain in his mind that the sukkah was invalid because there was metal there. We know that, after the fact, even if the sechach was attached with something susceptible to ritual impurity, one may sit there even initially. But on the other hand, if I tell him that, he’ll think we’re [unclear]. After all, everyone knows you mustn’t use metal for these things. So you have to tread

36:56 Speaker 5 carefully, tell him that a way can be found, and so on. What we did was approach all the general managers and ask them—this is under the... No, not me personally; our department asked them to buy plastic ties. That may not be the best solution either, but at least when people come, the wires won’t jump out at them. They don’t know that, after the fact, they may sit there even initially. Not everyone knows that. So we need to anticipate these questions and try to address them. The general manager, of course, thinks the entire hotel staff worked hard to make a kosher sukkah. If I come and tell them it’s all wrong, I’ll push him away. He’ll look at religious Jews as who knows what. They really did work on it all day because they wanted the religious tourists to feel they had a sukkah. They bought things, made the mats, did everything they needed to do, and were so pleased with it. To suddenly tell them it’s all wrong—that isn’t good. It’s quite a blow for them. So, as I said, we need to think things through in advance, so that when the question comes, we’ll know what to say. Sometimes what is acceptable after the fact becomes, in cases like these, almost acceptable from the outset. Sometimes we have to live with that too, while trying to improve things. As is known, the Alter Rebbe actually rules that one may sit in a sukkah even initially if the sechach is supported by something susceptible to ritual impurity. We need to work with these rulings and try to help both individual families and public sukkahs do things properly. I wanted to mention one more thing. There’s a video showing lulavim on a table in Gan Eden Hatachton, with the Rebbe looking at them throughout. It isn’t just a short clip where you don’t know what he did in another part. It’s as though he comes out of the room and chooses lulavim. How does he handle them? He counts them, really placing his fingers like this, but the Rebbe didn’t actually pick up a single lulav. He looked, and when he looked, it was always at the top, at the tip, slowly, at the closed part. At the closed part, at the closed part—always at the closed part. That was mainly what he looked at. Well, I may be [unclear] about the closed part. What is there to look at up at the tip? That’s mainly what he’s looking at, right? Possibly. There may be another video. Well, no, I—there may be another one. And I wanted to say that Rabbi Ashkenazi spoke today about the shaking: anyone who watches can see that the Rebbe shakes the lulav. When he makes the movement, he does this. Do you see? You can see his hands doing it, right? He doesn’t do it, huh? But you can see it. Someone pointed that out. Someone here pointed it out, and it’s true, but you need the video for that. Incidentally, there are times when the Rebbe makes the movement like this, and there is a little of the shaking of the... right? There is a little. You can see it clearly in every movement, in every, every one. Yes, in all three, as it were. Mainly, the shaking isn’t [unclear], so we need to make sure not to... That isn’t so important. But there was also the matter of his giving the lulav a little shake when he reached a certain point. You can see it. You can see it in his hands, also in [unclear], and you can see it all the time. About that matter. What? I once saw—this was when I was a bochur—that they brought the Rebbe the lulav at the end of chazaras hashatz, when the Rebbe was about to say Hallel with

38:55 Speaker 5 It’s only a short clip, so you don’t know what he did in another part, but it shows the Rebbe coming out of the room and choosing lulavim. How does he put them down? He counts, actually using his fingers like this, but the Rebbe didn’t pick up a single lulav. He looked—when he looked, it was always at the top, at the tip, slowly, at the closed part. At the closed part, at the closed part—always at the closed part. That was mainly what he looked at. Well, I could be [unclear] about the closed part. What is there to look at up at the tip? That’s mainly what he looks at, right? Could be. There may be another video. Well, no, I mean, there could be another one. And I wanted to say that Rabbi Ashkenazi said today, regarding the shaking: anyone who watches can see that the Rebbe shakes the lulav. When he makes the motions, he does this. Do you see? You can see his hands doing it, right? He doesn’t do it—huh? But you can see it. Someone pointed it out. Someone pointed it out here, and it’s true, but you need the video for that. By the way, there are times when the Rebbe makes the motions like this, and there’s a little bit of shaking of the... Huh? There is a little. You can see it clearly with every motion, every single one. Yes, with all three, so to speak. [unclear] But there’s also this: when he gets to a certain point, he shakes the lulav a little. You can see it. You can see it in his hands in [unclear], and you can see it all the time. Regarding that. What? I once saw—this was when I was a bochur—they brought the Rebbe the lulav at the end of chazaras hashatz, when the Rebbe was about to say Hallel with

40:50 Speaker 5 The lulav. Whenever they brought the lulav back to the Rebbe, he would look at it, adjust the hadassim a little at the top, tighten them and straighten them. So the Rebbe was holding the lulav and looking at it. It was still bent at the top, and then he tilted the lulav a little to straighten the branch. The Rebbe did not notice that he had struck the lulav against the wall in front of him. When he finished looking at it and tightening it, he looked up again and suddenly noticed what had happened. The Rebbe looked at it for several minutes. The chazzan was already at “When Israel went out of Egypt,” and the Rebbe had not yet begun Hallel. Hm? What are you saying? Yes, all right, he had begun. He had begun. The chazzan was already there, and the Rebbe was still looking at it, looking without moving. That was a long time. Some thought the Rebbe would put it down and ask for another one to be brought. But in the end, the Rebbe used that lulav. The fact that it remained bent was something significant to the Rebbe. It may have been that the blow had caused it to open up, but the whole bend had come down, and you could see from the way he looked at it how much attention he gave it. There is something very delicate in this matter, in the bend it got from striking the wall in front of him. And also, as we said today, the Rebbe chiefly looked at the way the esrogim had grown. I heard that as well from my uncle, Rabbi Sholom [unclear], who was also one of those who brought esrogim to the Rebbe. He told me that the Rebbe chiefly looked at how an esrog had grown. That was the Rebbe’s first consideration, and the esrog’s appearance was the first thing in his judgment of which esrog to choose. The Rebbe also chose a number of esrogim himself. In any case, we know that both the lulav and the esrog are mitzvos

42:49 Speaker 5 of very broad significance, connected also with the general flow of blessings for the seventh month, [unclear], matters that affect the entire year. That is why it really matters that everything be as it should. Each person should strengthen this in his own home, each father with his family, and each community rabbi among his congregation, making a real effort to explain and to help people. Sometimes you need to rouse people in the community about these matters too. There is another thing I forgot to mention, something that always upsets me: the sukkos people make with sheets. Almost everyone who does not buy a ready-made sukkah puts up a frame and then hangs sheets from it. We know that any partition that moves in an ordinary wind is not a partition. That is why the Shulchan Aruch says to use rods—to put rods through the sheet so that it will hold. Here in Israel, when I arrived in Eilat, one of the things I began doing was publicizing this very widely in the shuls. I explained why you cannot simply hang a sheet from a frame with a couple of fasteners. People do not even stretch it tightly, so it moves, and they really are not fulfilling the mitzvah. I had remarkable success with this. People told me they had not known, and they changed what they were doing. As for those who use the ready-made sukkos with what seems to be burlap in the middle, that may need some consideration. I do not know what they say in other Chabad communities, whether they use it or not. They—hm? But that is not a stronger fabric. That green material they use is not strong, is it? It is not canvas like the kind used in America, which, when you tie it down, has some body and weight to it. Yes, it could be. But the truth

44:56 Speaker 5 is that I think we need to raise more awareness among the general public, because at least on this issue we should have no difficulty. Today the whole matter has become [unclear]. Someone comes to the rabbinate, we bring the esrogim, and [unclear]. It is difficult for Sephardim too. That is what it has become. We all know that this subject has become very, very difficult. With every detail that Ashkenazim have introduced, people can say that perhaps it does not apply, simply because of differing views on matters where that whole issue is irrelevant. But in any case, this matter too is brought by the Mechaber. No one can get around it. The Mechaber says it as well; there is no difference here between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. A sheet that sways is not a covering. It is not a partition, so this should not be difficult. I think we need to raise more awareness of this among the general public and reinforce the point, so that people’s efforts will not be in vain if they really want to sit in a sukkah and fulfill this mitzvah. That is it. If Hashem wills it and we merit it, we truly want to experience the sukkah. This is the mitzvah with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu will test the nations when Moshiach comes. It will be one of the first things to happen: the nations will come forward wanting a sukkah too. Hakadosh Boruch Hu will say, “I have an easy mitzvah, and it is called sukkah,” and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will bring us back to Him. By the way, here in Eilat we experience this every Sukkos. We Jews face this test every Sukkos that comes around. Sometimes, when it falls a little later in the year, in November, it is quite pleasant. But when it falls in the middle, it is really, really hard. In any case, these are things that will happen with the coming of Moshiach.

46:51 Speaker 5 There is the matter of the ushpizin, which is connected to this. So we hope that this Sukkos—and even before then—we will celebrate together with the Rebbe. Amen, may it be so.

47:12 Speaker 6 Yasher koach, Rabbi Hertz [unclear]. Before we turn to Maariv, first I would like to say that the previous speaker brought up a point that was not exactly on the program: tzitzis. Rabbi, I would like to say a word about the point the previous speaker raised.

47:37 Speaker 7 It was not on the program, but since he mentioned it, I want to say that people should not take what he said at face value. There is also a major dispute on the subject. First, it is impossible for one mashgiach to travel to Italy and supervise the production of tzitzis. When I dealt with it, together with Rabbi Halperin, I asked for, at the very least, supervision of the dyeing, from the point when it first becomes thread; then the spinning; then it goes through an oven and through steam. After that it takes a few days, then it goes through steam, and then it is spun again. There is cutting, a kind of cutting that has to be done straight. It is impossible for one mashgiach to oversee all that. It simply is not possible. So people should not just accept what he said. There is a great deal more to it. We are still discussing this with Rabbi Lau, and we are continuing. I want that to be clear. Since we are speaking about sukkah, let me say something briefly. Mr. Cohen, a”h—I do not know if this was ever discussed at these study days—used to bring up a question concerning the Rebbe: there has to be a tefach of free space at the top of the lulav. There has to be a tefach without rings, from the spine up to the... I will tell you what I did. This was in 5760, I think. The Rebbe took a short lulav, and it was barely a tefach—though it was more than a tefach. But by the time Meir Harlig had given it to people to make the blessings, it had shifted and shifted, until there was no longer a tefach between the spine and the top of the lulav. The Rebbe received it for Hallel. So Rabbi Sholom Cohen, a”h, Gabizon [unclear], and I agreed to watch what the Rebbe would do—whether he would take it as it was. When the Rebbe took it for Hallel, he checked it and made sure to push down the hadassim and everything else, so there would be a tefach from the end of the spine to the hadassim and aravos.

49:49 Speaker 7 All right, that was just a point to note. May Hashem help, and may all the study days be successful. I just want to add one thing in connection with this. We don’t use koishlach, so we don’t have this problem as much. But Jews who use koishlach, those little baskets, put three hadassim on one side. When you look at one, you often see that the hadas and aravah reach very high, because they put them all the way down. Then there’s the problem of leaving a tefach of the lulav’s spine free for shaking. I can tell you, I live in Jerusalem—but not just in Jerusalem; I see this among the wider public: among people who use koishlach, I’ve hardly found one who has that tefach of the spine free for shaking. Yes, but you know how many... No, because they place the koishlach very high, very, very high. Now, I’ve seen that some try to infer that the requirement doesn’t necessarily apply to the spine. We’ve begun to see people even write that, trying to make that distinction—for someone who is certain of it. But in any case, even among us, when people buy a lulav, I always tell the members of my community: when you go to buy a lulav, pay attention to the height of its spine. Sometimes you can buy a lulav that looks long, but its spine is quite short. So when you buy hadassim and aravos, you have to make sure that a tefach of the spine extends above their tops. I’ve seen this with many people. By the way, Rabbi, Rabbi...

51:43 Speaker 7 Rabbi Ashkenazi mentioned the things the Frierdiker Rebbe asked for in a lulav. One of them—it’s also written that he was particular about this—was a lulav of eleven tefachim. Eleven tefachim. No, the lulav itself: eleven tefachim. If we use the standard measure, that’s about eighty-eight centimeters. But it says eleven tefachim. It doesn’t say why, but it does say he was particular about eleven tefachim. No, not a meter and ten—eighty-eight. Another thing I’ve seen in recent years, because of the way homes are built in Israel, is a question that comes up a lot. Many homes today have open balconies. Often, part of a balcony on the floor above also extends outward over them. So when you build a sukkah on your balcony, a section projecting from the floor above you, or even two floors above you, hangs over part of the sukkah. What’s the problem? If you put schach all the way to the edge, the schach underneath that projection is invalid. But you have the principle of dofen akumah, a bent wall: if the distance is less than four amos, you have dofen akumah. Some people, though, say, “I have a ceiling above,” and put schach only as far as the place where that ceiling projects overhead. What are they trying to accomplish? They want to apply both dofen akumah and gud asik mechitzta, extending a wall upward. Many poskim say you can’t combine those two principles. In other words, you can use dofen akumah and you can use gud asik, but to use dofen akumah together with gud asik... Oh, that’s true, but we’re talking about a floor above the ceiling already. So the solution is to

53:56 Speaker 7 put schach all the way to the edge. Or—one person told me that might not be such a good solution, because if you put schach all the way to the edge, someone might sit beneath the invalid schach. So what did he come up with? He put a board up to the point where the roof overhead ends, and continued the schach from there, so people would see where the dofen akumah is and wouldn’t sit beneath that board afterward. This is something very, very common in homes today. Up to the height... It doesn’t matter. Now there’s another thing people ask about. Many build a sukkah with neighbors’ clotheslines above it, and then they ask about lavud, joining gaps of less than three tefachim. In practice, as brought in Shulchan Aruch, we are stringent about this and don’t apply lavud that way—that is, lavud as a stringency. The ropes don’t invalidate the sukkah just because the space between one rope and the next is less than three tefachim. This, too, comes up because of the different ways homes are built today, especially where there are large families. They string clotheslines in all kinds of ways to hang their laundry. It’s another very common occurrence. Now I just wanted to mention one more point about... Yes, but regarding... Yes, but not regarding a rope. I—I know what? I’m looking, but I hadn’t connected it. I hadn’t connected it. Huh? And there’s also the matter of [unclear] from air conditioners that needs to be taken into account. I wanted to mention another point.

56:23 Speaker 7 Regarding a closed lulav with a korah, the sheath around its tip: it’s clear that we saw the Rebbe had lulavim that were closed with a korah. Generally, people who are stringent for themselves don’t take a lulav with a korah. We do take one, but those who don’t give several reasons. First, they don’t want to rely on the presumption that it’s closed. Second, they say there might be a kneppel, a knot, underneath it, and we don’t take a lulav with a kneppel. Then they raise another concern: perhaps it’s dry under the korah. Sometimes, after the korah falls off, you see that the tip is dry. Another reason some give is that some authorities go so far as to invalidate a lulav if the top rises up a little. They say there’s an opinion that views this as a heimnek, a split tip. But that isn’t what the Alter Rebbe seems to mean by heimnek. From the Alter Rebbe it sounds as though heimnek refers to the spine, not to this upper leaf. Still, some are particular that even if the tip rises just a little—even if the korah is what makes it do that—they already invalidate it as a heimnek. But I’m telling you, there’s no indication in the Alter Rebbe that this is considered a heimnek. Besides that, there’s another reason. Sometimes you can see that the lulav’s doubled leaves don’t match completely: one half of a leaf is wider than the other, or shorter. They’re doubled over, but the two halves aren’t exactly the same width or length. They’re folded together and closed, but they don’t match. So

58:32 Speaker 7 some poskim say that if one half extends beyond where it closes against the other half, that invalidates the lulav. That, too, is not what the Alter Rebbe seems to say. From the Alter Rebbe it sounds as though this applies only when it happens to the leaves in that way; if only the uppermost leaf is like that, it doesn’t seem from the Alter Rebbe or the Chazon Ish that it invalidates the lulav. It may perhaps detract somewhat from its hiddur, but the Alter Rebbe doesn’t write at all that it invalidates it. So that’s another reason they say not to take one with a korah: you can’t tell whether it has something like that underneath. But since, according to the Alter Rebbe’s wording, that case doesn’t apply here, and he also doesn’t describe the issue of width and length that way—even if it’s open as we said, you can rely on the presumption that it is closed. Besides, we also heard today from [unclear] the ruling he mentioned about whether it is noticeable and so on. Sometimes it’s only a tiny bit, visible only if you look very closely. In any case, we see that the Rebbe did not rule against this. On the contrary, the Rebbe specifically took one that was closed with a korah. So what remains for us? Only this: I sometimes tell people that when you go to buy lulavim, you should look at the sides. Sometimes you can see near the top, from the side, that there are little knots. You can already see that the leaves on the sides don’t look straight. There’s a pattern of little knots. Don’t take a lulav like that, because you can see that its upper leaves are closed with knots. It isn’t closed straight, and that you can

1:00:22 Speaker 7 Sometimes you can see it. Sometimes you take a little saliva and put it along the sides. That brings it out, so you can see whether it’s all right or not. In any case, it falls off. But after the first day of the Yom Tov, even if it’s slightly open, the whole issue of invalidity is because it has to be taken whole. If the tip was cut off—if the tip was cut off—some say that the issue is hadar, its beauty, rather than taking it whole, so that’s a different question. And even if the tip at the top is dry, the Alter Rebbe does not list that as something that invalidates it. Some poskim do invalidate it, but the Alter Rebbe does not mention it. If the top leaf dries out at the tip and is a little dry, he does not invalidate it on that account. He does not write that it is invalid. I just want to say one more thing about the schach. There are rabbis who give a hechsher to cane schach as well, despite this issue with the strings. They do not necessarily insist on following Rashi’s view on this point. So there are hechsheirim from good, respected rabbis on other kinds of schach too. Generally speaking, we saw that the Rebbe always took green schach, fresh, green schach. That is what we saw. The Rebbe was particular, but certainly not because of the points we discussed. I think that was fairly clear. When Rabbi Lubin spoke, he wanted to give us an understanding of all sides of the questions, not to say that they simply want to be stringent and therefore won’t give a hechsher. But it is clear that one does not necessarily have to insist on Rashi’s view specifically regarding the strings and so on. Nor does it necessarily mean that the whole question hinges on that alone. They may think it does not necessarily indicate what others think it

1:02:03 Speaker 7 indicates. I don’t know all their reasoning either, but it is clear that we saw the Rebbe take green schach. At the same time, as Rabbi Hertz said, we have to realize that circumstances sometimes force a person to do it this way. In your zeal to do everything right, you could bring about a situation in which someone has no sukkah at all. So you always need to know whom you are asking, who is asking the question, and what they need to know. Sometimes you are stringent and, as a result, someone does not sit in a sukkah. As is well known, there is a story about the Baal Shem Tov: he would specifically sit in a sukkah when various questions had been raised about it, to show that one could indeed fulfill the mitzvah with it. So you can be stringent in one area and cause a stringency elsewhere. We’d like to ask Rabbi Halperin to come up here and take this opportunity to make a siyum on the Rambam. Please, come up. Do the siyum on the Rambam, come on. You see, we have a host, as they say. Please, come and say it. And before I finish with this microphone—while they’re handing over a microphone—I want to thank Rabbi Nachman Amar for all the effort he put into organizing these two days. May he have much success in all his communal and personal affairs.

00:01 Huh? I know how to hold them. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A lot, a lot. The Rambam says at the end of Hilchos Melachim: “At that time there will be neither war nor famine, neither jealousy nor rivalry, for goodness will flow abundantly, and all delicacies will be as plentiful as dust. As plentiful as dust. And therefore—no—therefore the Jewish people will be free to devote themselves to Hashem. Therefore the Jewish people will be great sages. They will know hidden matters and attain knowledge of their Creator to the extent of human ability, as it says, ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.’” The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being, and He brings every being into existence. All beings in heaven and earth and everything between them exist only by virtue of the truth of His existence.