Torah Convention - month of Nissan 5772 - Kfar Chabad

00:03 Speaker 1 He’s supposed to arrive later.

00:05 Speaker 2 Huh?

00:06 Speaker 1 He was supposed to arrive. In the meantime.

00:10 Speaker 2 Just kidding, Ofer. We’re starting...

00:20 Speaker 1 All right.

00:23 Speaker 2 We’ll begin with a blessing. Blessings to those joining this bein hazmanim class. It’s a particularly important time for yeshivah students: a bochur is tested on his diligence and his connection to Torah. During bein hazmanim, there’s no set schedule, no mashgichim, no supervision—and still, they sit and learn. That’s a sign that you’re using your time as you should, as befits a Tamim. Sometimes [unclear]. Since this is a Torah class, and I’ve been working on the siddur this past week, I wanted to say something about the siddur and the Alter Rebbe’s text. On the first day of Pesach, we began saying “morid hatal.” In winter we say “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem,” and from Pesach through the summer we say “morid hatal.” That’s only in Nusach Sefard, the Alter Rebbe’s text. In Nusach Ashkenaz, they say “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem” in winter, but in summer they say nothing there. They go straight from “rav lehoshia” to “mechalkel chayim bechesed,” without inserting “morid hatal.” Why do we say “morid hatal”? Perhaps we won’t go into that just yet. The Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch gives a reason in parentheses, and that, too, seemingly needs explanation. For now, let’s focus on the Alter Rebbe’s text. Saying “morid hatal” follows Nusach Sefard. But the Alter Rebbe’s text has a distinctive feature: hatal is vowelized with a kamatz, not a patach. In modern Hebrew pronunciation there’s no difference, but in Ashkenazi pronunciation you hear the difference: we say “morid hatol,” while many others say “morid hatal.” Why did the Alter Rebbe change it? What is the difference between “morid hatol” and “morid

03:07 Speaker 2 hatal”? Let’s also return to the question we mentioned earlier: why say “morid hatal” at all? The Alter Rebbe brings an explanation—it’s actually in Tosafos in Berachos, but the Alter Rebbe discusses it at greater length. In winter, one must say “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem.” What happens if someone mistakenly omits it? According to the Rema, if he said neither that nor any other mention in this blessing, he must repeat the prayer. But according to the Beis Yosef, if he said “morid hatal,” he does not have to repeat it. Even in winter, when one should say “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem,” mentioning dew counts as a mention, so he need not repeat the prayer. In Nusach Ashkenaz, where “morid hatal” is not said, someone who omits “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem” must repeat the prayer. But someone accustomed to saying “morid hatal” throughout the summer might, if he forgets “mashiv haruach” in winter, say “morid hatal” out of habit. Then he need not repeat it. That’s why, when someone asks us, “After Shemini Atzeres, after Sukkos, I forgot to say ‘mashiv haruach umorid hageshem’ and just said ‘morid hatal,’” the answer is that he does not have to repeat the prayer. Someone who davens Nusach Ashkenaz is not accustomed to saying “morid hatal.” If he forgets “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem,” he has said nothing there and must daven again. The Alter Rebbe says:

05:01 Speaker 2 Why, really, do we say “morid hatal” in summer? He explains: if a person forgets to say “morid hageshem” in winter, but is accustomed to saying “morid hatal” all summer, he will say “morid hatal” automatically and will not have to repeat the prayer. So they established the practice of saying “morid hatal” all summer, so that if he forgets “morid hageshem” in winter, he will not have to repeat the prayer. But this reason needs a great deal of clarification. We’re not talking about people who don’t hear what they’re saying, don’t look in the siddur, and don’t daven from a siddur. The idea is that if a person forgets “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem,” habit will prompt him to say “morid hatal,” so he won’t have to repeat the prayer. Instead of all these provisions, wouldn’t it be better to tell him to look in the siddur and think about what he’s saying before he davens? Then he won’t make the mistake in the first place. We don’t find such a practice elsewhere. There are various required additions, such as Yaaleh Veyavo and Retzei in Birchas Hamazon, yet they never instituted an addition to say routinely so that, if someone forgets the required one, he won’t have to repeat Birchas Hamazon. The halachah is that you must make the required mention; if you omit it, you must repeat it. Why, then, institute saying “morid hatal” throughout the summer just so that, if someone forgets “morid hageshem,” he’ll have said “morid hatal” and won’t have to repeat the prayer? That reasoning seems very difficult. We’re talking about people who daven—especially Shemoneh Esrei—with kavana.

06:58 Speaker 2 They daven with kavana, so they know whether it’s summer or winter. What is the point of this practice? Why do we mention “morid hatal”? The Shulchan Aruch gives two explanations. What is the significance of saying “morid hatal”? In section 114, paragraph 6, the Alter Rebbe writes: “During the rainy season, if he did not say ‘morid hageshem,’ he must repeat the prayer—provided he did not mention dew. But if he mentioned dew, he does not repeat it, for dew is never withheld.” Dew isn’t like rain. Rain falls in the rainy season, not in summer. So what is there to request when it comes to dew? Dew is never withheld; it always comes. “Nevertheless, mentioning it is praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, just as mentioning rain is, for just as rain gives life to the world, so does dew,” coming from the Divine attributes of might and kindness, and so on.

08:15 Speaker 2 The holy Zohar says that although dew is never withheld and is always present, it must nevertheless be mentioned so that it should be a blessing. Why? Because dew brings blessing to fruit and crops, just as rain does. So we mention dew just as we mention rain. [unclear] In other words, when we say “morid hatal,” what do we mean? That He brings down dew. Why mention it? Because dew brings blessing to the world, and through it the crops are blessed. The Alter Rebbe then adds in parentheses: “And according to Kabbalah, [unclear].” There is another aspect to dew: the Sages call it “tal dechiya,” the dew of resurrection. Dew is connected with the resurrection of the dead, and that is why we mention it. Looking at these two reasons, perhaps we can understand the difference in the vowelization of “morid hatal.” In fact, there is a dispute between [unclear] and the Rosh at the beginning of Tractate Taanis about this. When we say—earlier we said that in winter one must say “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem.” There is another point I didn’t mention before. We explained the difference in the vowelization of “morid hatol” and “morid hatal.” The same applies to “mashiv haruach umorid hageshem.” In many prayer texts, geshem is vowelized with a kamatz. In ours, it is vowelized not with a kamatz but with a segol. Again, what difference does a kamatz or a segol make? The rule in vowelization is this: when we say “morid hatal,” a kamatz creates something like a pause, as though the thought has ended, or belongs with what was said before and is not connected to what comes afterward. When we say it with the vowelization

10:55 Speaker 2 It is not with a patach or a segol or anything like that, so it is not a break. On the contrary, it continues what you are going to say afterward. In other words, when we say in davening, “You revive the dead; You are mighty to save; You cause the dew to descend; You sustain the living with kindness”—at first glance, when we say “revive the dead,” we are speaking about reviving the dead. Then we say, “You cause the dew to descend; You sustain the living with kindness.” What does “sustain the living” mean? In the winter we say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall; You sustain the living.” From what appears to be the Rebbe’s view—I do not want to go into it at length right now, because Rabbi Moses does understand this to be the Rebbe’s meaning at the beginning of Taanis—the intent is that when you say “You sustain the living,” you are praising Hakadosh Boruch Hu for bringing life into the world. How does He bring life? In many ways, in every way. According to the Rebbe’s explanation of “You sustain the living,” when we say, “You cause the rain to fall; You sustain the living,” we do not mean to praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu now for life in the world in general. Rather, “You sustain the living” has something to do with the rain. As Rabbi Moses said, rain brings life into the world: through rain, the crops are blessed, and the crops bring life into the world. So we say, “You cause the rain to fall; You sustain the living.” Apparently, the meaning is this: these are not two separate things, “You cause the rain to fall” and “You sustain the living.” Rather, through the rain, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sustains the living. And since He sustains the living through rain, that is what we are praising Hakadosh Boruch Hu for now: through rain, He sustains the living. Now,

12:41 Speaker 2 when we say, “You cause the dew to descend; You sustain the living,” what does that mean? Does it mean the same thing—that just as the Alter Rebbe said rain brings life into the world, dew also brings life into the world? Is that the case here too? Does dew, like rain, sustain the living? Or is “You cause the dew to descend” one praise, and “You sustain the living” another? I think that, in my opinion, this is what the change in vocalization here is about. It depends on whether we follow the Shulchan Aruch or the siddur. According to the Shulchan Aruch, it seems the Alter Rebbe held that the praise in “You cause the dew to descend” is that dew blesses the crops. And so, when we say that the crops are blessed, the meaning of “You cause the dew to descend; You sustain the living” is that through dew He sustains the living and brings life into the world, since the crops are blessed through dew. But if we say “morid hatal” with a kamatz, that means “You cause the dew to descend” is not connected to “You sustain the living.” If so, what does “You cause the dew to descend” mean? We say, “You are mighty to save”—don’t tell me—“You revive the dead; You cause the dew to descend,” “You are mighty to save; You cause the dew to descend.” In other words, “You cause the dew to descend” refers back to what came before: He revives the dead and causes the dew to descend, meaning the dew of resurrection. So we have two interpretations of “You cause the dew to descend.” Does it refer to what was said before, to the resurrection of the dead, or to what we say afterward, “You sustain the living”—that He brings life through the crops? That means there is a basic, fundamental difference here in the meaning of the words, with a practical difference in halachah that we will mention shortly. Whether the intent is... What is going on with the bochurim?

14:34 Speaker 2 Is there something they wanted? Whether the intent is—did you give everyone one, or is there something? Whether the intent is—I am not used to bochurim anymore; I am simply used to younger people, so now it fits better. Whether the intent of “You cause the dew to descend” is the dew of resurrection, or whether it refers to the dew that brings blessing to the crops. So according to the siddur, the meaning of “You cause the dew to descend” is the dew of resurrection, not the blessing of the crops. According to the Shulchan Aruch, “You cause the dew to descend” means that the crops are blessed through it, and then it is “morid hatal,” not “morid hatal.” The same applies to “You cause the rain to fall.” Here too, the question is whether “You cause the rain to fall” is connected to “You sustain the living.” Granted, rain is not connected to the resurrection of the dead, but the question is whether “You cause the rain to fall” and “You sustain the living” are two kinds of praise—He causes rain to fall, and He brings life into the world generally—or whether the meaning is that through causing rain to fall, He sustains the living. In other words, our intent now is not to praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu for sustaining the living in every aspect of life in the world, but to praise Him for causing rain to fall, because rain sustains the living.

16:15 Speaker 2 What practical difference is there between these two interpretations? A major one in halachah. It is like this: A person is davening in the winter, when he is supposed to say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall,” but out of habit he says, “You cause the dew to descend.” He then says, “You sustain the living with kindness; You revive the dead with abundant mercy.” Suddenly he remembers that he did not say, “You cause the rain to fall.” What should he do? Does he have to go back and say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall; You sustain the living with kindness,” or can he just continue? Or should he say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall,” right where he is when he remembers? This is a big question, and in practice it happens to many, many people who are davening and are not yet used to saying, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall.” As soon as they begin “You sustain the living,” they remember they did not say it. Now he is in the middle of the blessing. What should he do? Must he go back to the beginning of the blessing and say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall; You sustain the living with kindness”? Or should he leave “You cause the dew to descend” as it is and just say, “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall”? Or should he say nothing at all because he already said, “You cause the dew to descend”? So we will look at the Alter Rebbe’s position—I am going to digress here. It appears that if he said, “You cause the dew to descend,” according to the custom of those who say it, he does not need to say anything else. It is enough that he mentioned dew. Why? Because he has already praised Hakadosh Boruch Hu for dew. Granted, ideally he should praise Him for rain, but if he did not, dew is also a praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is the praise in dew? What are you praising Hakadosh Boruch Hu for?

18:12 Speaker 2 You are praising Him for bringing rain down and thereby sustaining the living, bringing the blessing of nature into the world. It is the same praise. The praise for dew is the same as the praise for rain. Granted, ideally one must mention rain, but once he has said, “You cause the dew to descend,” he has praised Hakadosh Boruch Hu for the same thing. That is how it appears in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch: praising Him for dew is the same praise as praising Him for rain. They said that ideally one should praise Him for rain because the primary blessing comes with rain. But when he says “dew” instead of “rain,” it is not as though he mentioned Sukkos instead of Pesach on Yom Tov—a completely different subject. He mentioned the same thing, because both dew and rain bring life into the world. Ideally he should mention rain, but after the fact, if he did not mention rain but did mention dew, that is also good. Where do we see that dew, too, is in fact a praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Not merely after the fact—it would actually have been appropriate to praise Him for dew in the first place. But what? A preference was made. You cannot praise Him for both dew and rain, so rain was preferred. If that approach is correct, we can understand what we asked earlier. Something like this happened to me today. I davened this morning, and suddenly, after davening, I saw that I had put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. I had made the blessing, and I realized my mistake: instead of davening in Rashi tefillin, I had davened in Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. Then I remembered a story I once heard in cheder from [?], the father of the chozer Reb Yoel Kahn, that Rabbeinu Tam came before the Heavenly Court and argued, saying

19:58 Speaker 2 To Hakadosh Boruch Hu: What is lacking in his tefillin, that no blessing is made over them? A blessing is never made over his tefillin. So he was promised by the Heavenly Court that every Jew, at some point in his life, would mistakenly make a blessing over Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. Each person would have such an experience in his lifetime: he would make a blessing over Rabbeinu Tam tefillin in the first place. And that really does happen to almost everyone. It is not as though he merely made a mistake. From the outset, through Divine Providence, things are arranged so that a person will mistakenly make a blessing over Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, and will also have made a blessing over them during his lifetime. I think this approach applies here too, with “morid hatal”; it is the same idea. When a person says “morid hatal” instead of “mashiv haruach,” it does not mean that he made a mistake and mentioned something out of place. Dew, too, is a mention of Hashem’s praise. It is just that rain was preferred. So this may well explain this approach and what this practice is saying: Why did they say to mention “morid hatal” all summer? So that if he makes a mistake in winter and does not mention rain, he will at least mention dew. It is not that they came along and instituted a rule for people who make mistakes, for those who do not look in the siddur when they daven. This is an institution from the outset for those who will make mistakes—on the contrary, so that when a person does make a mistake, he will have said something. We prefer to tell him to say “tal” all summer so that, if in winter he does not praise Hashem by mentioning rain, he will praise Him by mentioning dew, because dew is the same kind of praise as rain. In other words, this is a positive approach, not a negative one. According to this, then, we can understand a little better the reasoning behind saying “tal” throughout

21:33 Speaker 2 the summer: if he makes a mistake in winter and does not say “geshem,” he will say “tal.” It is not simply that, if he makes a mistake, it is not so bad because he will say “tal.” So according to this, both dew and rain are indeed connected with the blessing of rain. It depends on whether, when I say “morid hatal,” I mean the blessing of “Who revives the dead”—that He brings life to the world—or whether I mean the actual revival of the dead. When you look at it, it is very interesting. In the prayer for dew we say—and this is true in every version of the text—well, there are two points to note. One point: in the prayer for rain we say “mashiv haruach umorid hagasham,” not “morid hageshem.” That is how it is vowelized here in the siddur: “mashiv haruach umorid hagasham,” unlike the way we say it throughout the winter. Here the Alter Rebbe’s vowelization, too, is “hagasham.” This reinforces what we said earlier: Why do we say “morid hageshem,” with a segol and not a kamatz? Because “morid hageshem” does not stand alone; it leads into what follows: “He brings down the rain, sustaining the living.” In other words, we are explaining what the rain does: through it, He sustains the living. But here, when we pause, we say, “He causes the wind to blow and brings down the rain—for blessing and not for a curse.” We are interrupting between “brings down the rain” and “sustaining the living,” saying “for blessing and not for a curse” in between. So here the vowelization is “hagasham,” not “hageshem.” But in the prayer we say throughout the year, “He brings down the rain, sustaining the living” runs together. So there the vowelization is indeed with a segol, not a kamatz. But here, in the prayer for dew, we say, “May it come from heaven in longed-for droplets; all the pleasant blades of grass yearn for it.” What

23:26 Speaker 2 does “all the pleasant blades of grass yearn for it” mean? In fact, this prayer contains both interpretations of “morid hatal” that the Alter Rebbe brings. Does “morid hatal” refer to resurrection, or does it refer to the blessing that dew brings to the crops? When we say, “All the pleasant blades of grass yearn for it,” we mean the crops: all the pleasant blades of grass yearn for the dew. And afterward we say, “Dew to revive those engraved in the rocks.” What does “to revive those engraved in the rocks” mean? It refers to those who will rise at the resurrection of the dead. So, in fact, we mention both aspects of dew here: the dew that benefits crops and the dew of the resurrection of the dead. But it is very strange that we first mention “all the pleasant blades of grass” and only afterward say “dew to revive those engraved in the rocks.” First we mention the dew for crops, and then the dew of the resurrection of the dead. Seemingly, given the order of the prayer, we should first mention “dew to revive those engraved in the rocks,” which relates to “You revive the dead; You are mighty to save,” and only afterward “all the pleasant blades of grass yearn for it,” which relates to “sustaining the living.” Perhaps they were not so particular about the order here, since the phrases are not adjacent: we do, after all, interrupt between this and “sustaining the living.” But however that may be, it seems that this is what the issue depends on: Is the vowelization “morid hageshem” or “morid hagasham”? We see here the question of how to understand “morid hatal”: what is the blessing referring to—rain or dew? We mentioned earlier that, according to the plain meaning, according to the view of Rabbeinu Yonah’s students and the Shulchan Aruch, at any rate, “He brings down the rain” means that the rain

25:21 Speaker 2 “sustains the living.” “He brings down the rain” forms one unit with “sustaining the living”: the latter explains the former. That is the point. If I vowelize it “morid hageshem,” with a segol, it is “He brings down the rain, sustaining the living.” But if I say “morid hagasham, mechalkel chayim,” it seems that bringing down the rain and sustaining the living are two separate things; we do not mean to explain that the rain is connected to “sustaining the living.” What practical difference does this make? A very, very significant difference in several details. As we mentioned earlier, suppose a person said “morid hatal” and then continued, “He sustains the living with kindness, revives the dead,” before remembering that he had not said “morid hageshem.” What should he do? We said earlier that, since he said “morid hatal,” he does not need to mention rain afterward. What does that depend on? There is a line of reasoning here that he does not need to mention rain at all. Why? Because, as we said earlier, he mentioned dew, and dew is the same kind of praise as rain. But there is also room to say that he should nevertheless mention rain. If so, what should he do? Should he go back to “sustaining the living,” or say it where he is now? Should he say “morid hageshem” there, or even insert it after “You revive the dead; You are mighty to save”? He suddenly remembers that he did not say “morid hageshem.” Should he say it next to “You revive the dead,” or does he have to go back? And in the case of someone who davens according to Nusach Ashkenaz, where dew is not mentioned at all, must he go back and say “morid hageshem”? In fact, the Rosh writes that “morid hageshem” has no fixed location within the blessing. That is the Rosh’s view. Earlier we mentioned Rabbeinu—

27:06 Speaker 2 that the Rambam appears to hold otherwise. The Rosh disagrees with the Rambam and says that he should mention it wherever he can within the blessing. But the Rambam does not appear to say that, and this is also what appears earlier in section 4 of the Shulchan Aruch. The two points are connected: the proper place for “morid hageshem” is before “sustaining the living,” because “sustaining the living” explains “morid hageshem.” So now, we discussed a case where, during the rainy season, a person mistakenly said “morid hatal” instead, continued with “sustaining the living,” and then remembered that he had not mentioned rain. We said earlier that the Shulchan Aruch does seem to indicate that he has fulfilled his obligation with “morid hatal.” But what happens in the opposite case? That is the case we face now. We have begun saying “morid hatal.” A Jew may forget that it is already after the first day of Pesach. He davens Maariv, and in the morning he says, “He causes the wind to blow and brings down the rain, sustaining the living,” and then remembers that he did not say “morid hatal.” What do we do? What must he do? What? What? Go back to the beginning of the blessing. Where does he go back to? Why must he go back? Because he said something that is a curse: in summer, “He causes the wind to blow and brings down the rain” is a sign of a curse. But where must he go back to? Does he have to go back and say, “You are mighty forever, Hashem; You revive the dead, You are mighty to save,” mentioning Hashem’s Name again, and then say, “You revive the dead, You are mighty to save, You bring down the dew, You sustain the living”? Or is it enough for him to say—after all, he said, “He causes the wind to blow and brings down the rain, sustaining the living”—just “You bring down the dew, You sustain the living”? Why must he go back to “You are mighty” and mention Hashem’s Name again? It should be enough to say, “You bring down the dew, You sustain the living.” So what do we do? Seemingly, this

29:12 Speaker 2 It seems the same, similar to what we have here. If we say “Who causes the dew to descend,” or “Who causes the dew to descend.” If we say “Who causes the dew to descend,” meaning that He sustains life through the dew, then he has to correct the curse he said. So it should be enough for him to say now, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life,” where before he said, “Who causes the rain to descend, Who sustains life.” What was the curse he uttered? It was as though Hakadosh Boruch Hu now sustains life in the world during the summer through rain, and that is a sign of a curse. Rain is a sign of a curse in the summer. So what should he say? “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life.” Right? It should be enough for him to correct himself and say that now. What was the curse he said before? “Who causes the rain to descend, Who sustains life.” So it should be enough for him to correct himself and say, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life.” He does not need to go all the way back to the beginning of the blessing, to “You are mighty.” But if I say that “Who causes the dew to descend” and “Who sustains life” are two separate things, then, seemingly, even if he now says, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life,” he has not corrected the curse he said earlier: “Who causes the rain to descend, Who sustains life.” Because there, in “Who causes the rain to descend, Who sustains life,” that was the curse he said: that life is sustained through rain. But what will he correct now? He will say, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life”? Then he has not corrected anything. What is the remedy? To go back to the beginning of the blessing, because his whole blessing was not said properly, and start again from the beginning. Don’t tell me that the whole blessing is a curse and he has no other option. He does have an option: to say, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life.” So it turns out that now he will not say “Who causes the dew to descend” as we always do in our text, but will say, “Who causes the dew to descend, Who sustains life,”

30:48 Speaker 2 as though he is now correcting the curse he said: life in the world will not come through rain, but through dew. So it depends on how we understand it—whether we follow the siddur or the Shulchan Aruch.

31:03 Speaker 13 Sephardim always say “the dew.”

31:05 Speaker 2 Huh?

31:05 Speaker 13 Sephardim always—

31:06 Speaker 2 I’m saying, that’s what I said. Sephardim always say, “Who causes the dew to descend,” so they can correct themselves. With us, since we say, “Who causes the dew to descend,” it turns out that he cannot correct himself. Can you send how it’s possible to— I’m here at— all right, at— at an American bank. All right, I’ll try. With the permission of the local rabbinic authority and the people studying here, who are wise rabbis, I want to ask a question already recorded by the Rishonim. There is a halachic answer to it, several halachic answers, and an answer from a mussar perspective. In the early years, the Rebbe brought the answer found in mussar several times, the answer written in [unclear]. In later years, the Rebbe gave an answer to this question according to Chassidus. I want to distinguish a little between the answers to this question—a question that has probably bothered many of you. We have just come from Pesach and performed many mitzvos, and for every mitzvah we recite a blessing over the mitzvah. Already in the days of the Geonim and the Rishonim, people asked the rabbis a simple question: Why don’t we recite a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah? A person puts tzedakah in a charity box, or a poor person comes to ask him for tzedakah, and he fulfills a mitzvah from the Torah. “You shall surely open your hand”; “You shall surely give.” He fulfills a mitzvah from the Torah, one of the Torah’s mitzvos that we can fulfill even today, a mitzvah that is not dependent on a particular time. More than that, the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that today, at the end of the footsteps of Moshiach, the mitzvah associated with “the fallen sukkah of Dovid” is also the mitzvah of tzedakah. And some people don’t know this: when the Rebbe distributed dollars, the whole purpose was to encourage the person who came in to give tzedakah. The Frierdiker Rebbe distributed [unclear] in later years. When the Rebbe distributed dollars every Sunday—and before that, the Rebbe gave children nickels and dimes—it was all to encourage Jews, to accustom Jewish hands to give

34:44 Speaker 2 tzedakah and fulfill the mitzvah. If it is such an important mitzvah, why don’t we recite a blessing over it? This has probably bothered some of you already. Perhaps you can give the answers. If someone knows, perhaps there is an answer. Why don’t we recite a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah? They asked this in the days of the Geonim; they asked the Geonim. In the days of the Rishonim, they asked the Rishonim. Who wants to suggest an idea? Why don’t we recite a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah? I think that if someone sitting here suggests an idea, we will find that it has, in fact, already been said. Once the Rishonim wrote down the ideas, anyone can arrive at them if the question has ever bothered him. Who can tell me the answer? Anyone else? Who has thought about this before? Why don’t we recite a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah? Mendel. Shuki. Why don’t we recite a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah?

35:29 Speaker 19 Chassidus—that has to do with character traits.

35:31 Speaker 2 Chassidus, so that has to do with character traits. There is the answer the rabbi mentioned. In fact, anyone who opens the book Shaarei Tzedakah and looks in the index will find the answer there. The Rebbe mentioned it several times, already during 5711. Because the mitzvah of tzedakah is very dear to the Rebbe, over the years the Rebbe often raised the question of why we don’t recite a blessing over tzedakah, in one form or another, beginning in the first year of his leadership, 5711. The Rebbe raised it then: Why don’t we recite a blessing over tzedakah? And the Rebbe said what is written in mussar works. Today we have the source for it: it is written in Bnei Yissaschar, citing Reb Bunim of Pshischa. The Rebbe calls it a lighthearted explanation: If people began reciting a blessing over tzedakah, a person who wanted to recite the blessing would say, “Wait, I have to make a blessing.” To make the blessing, he would need to put on a hat and jacket; he would need to put on socks. Wait, he isn’t—he needs to go to the mikveh again. For such an important mitzvah, he would go to the mikveh. Once, the Rebbe elaborated on this: in the mikveh he would then start drying between his toes, because that was when the whole subject of the sicha with Menachem Malter [unclear] about the mitzvah of [unclear] came up, as a result of this saying that the Rebbe said on the thirteenth. And in the end, what would happen to the poor person? Something would happen to the poor person. The Rebbe once connected this to the well-known story about the Berditchever. Once the Berditchever went to slaughter a chicken. He went to slaughter a chicken. What does a shochet do before slaughtering? He recites a blessing. So he began reciting it: “Blessed...” He cried out the blessing. When he opened his eyes, he was astonished: Where was the chicken? The chicken had run away. So it is the same when a person makes a blessing over tzedakah. What

37:13 Speaker 2 would happen to the poor person? He might run away, or something else might happen. There is the terrible story of Nachum Ish Gamzu recorded in the Shulchan Aruch. The Rebbe never... The Rebbe would always say, “As is known from the story of Nachum Ish Gamzu.” Many of you have learned Tractate Taanis, where the Gemara relates that Nachum Ish Gamzu was once in a dilapidated house, a house that was constantly on the verge of collapse. The people were frightened for him. He lay there without hands, Heaven forbid, without legs, Heaven forbid, and blind. He lay there; they could only carry him on a stretcher. He was lying in the house while the roof was about to collapse. So his students asked him, “We want to move you, to take you out of danger in this house.” “And what will you do afterward?” “Then we’ll take the furniture out of the house.” He said, “First take the furniture out of the house, and afterward take me out.” They asked him why. He said, “As long as I am in the house, it will not collapse. Once you take me out, it will collapse. So first take out all the furniture, and only at the end take me out of the house.” He could not see, no. And when they took him out of the house, the house really did collapse. They said to him, “But tell us, our teacher, if you are such a great tzaddik, how did it happen that you have no hands, no legs, and no eyesight?” He answered them, “I brought it upon myself.” That is what he said. “I brought these things upon myself. Once I was going to my father-in-law’s house”—he was apparently going to perform an act of kindness. He was leading three donkeys: one loaded with water, one loaded with bread, and the third loaded with sweets. He was going to his father-in-law’s house when a poor man came and said to him, “Rabbi, sustain me.” He saw a poor man walking along like that.

38:47 Speaker 2 With rugelach and other tasty things. “G-give me some.” He told him, “Wait, I’ll give you some, but let me just unload the donkey first, and then I’ll give you what you want.” By the time he finished unloading everything from the donkey, that poor man had breathed his last and died. Rabbi Akiva ben Gamliel[?] reacted and said, “May my eyes, which had no pity on your eyes, go blind. May my legs, which had no pity on your legs, be cut off. May my hands, which did not...” He cursed himself, and what he said came to pass; he was left with his limbs cut off. That is how the Gemara tells the story. So the Rebbe also connected this to the fact that one does not make a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah: don’t delay, but give immediately. That is one reason. The Rebbe calls it an explanation in the spirit of a witticism, or a moral teaching. We don’t make a blessing so that nothing happens to the poor person while we wait—to give right away, to hurry in giving tzedakah. But there are other reasons given in halachah. There is the well-known reason the Rebbe repeated many times. Rabbi Eliyahu also mentioned it during a yechidus with the Rebbe. The Rebbe himself mentioned the Rashba’s reason several times. It appears in a responsum of the Rashba. There are several ways to understand it, but the reason is this: Why don’t we make a blessing over the mitzvah of tzedakah? Because you might make the blessing, but whether you can give depends on the poor person’s decision. What if the poor person does not want to accept it? Let’s picture it simply. A poor person comes and asks for tzedakah, and you want to give him ten shekels. He says, “Listen, if you give me a thousand shekels, I’ll take it from you. I won’t take ten shekels.” What will you do? You’ve made the blessing, but you don’t have a thousand shekels to give

40:27 Speaker 2 him. What happens? You won’t be able to give it, and it will be a blessing in vain. That is one interpretation, one way some of the later authorities understand the plain meaning of the Rashba. The Rebbe of Mezhibuzh does not understand the Rashba that way. But according to this explanation, there is a concern that someone will make a blessing over tzedakah and, in the end, the poor person will not want to accept it, leaving him with a blessing in vain. That is why the Men of the Great Assembly did not institute one—those who instituted the blessings, or King David, depending on which blessings we mean. [unclear]. In any case, Chazal, who instituted the blessings, did not institute a blessing over tzedakah, because you could make the blessing and it depends on the poor person’s decision. That is written in the Rashba. If there’s time—and actually, it wasn’t planned that I would speak; it’s only because the other rabbis are delayed—I’ll share a little of a topic I was studying today.

41:24 Speaker 20 Rabbi, couldn’t you make the blessing afterward, after the mitzvah, as with washing hands?

41:28 Speaker 2 Yes. I was going to say—the question you’re asking appears in the Meiri, in Rabbi Michael. That question about this approach is raised there too. I was going to mention it, but first I want to say that a rabbi may arrive and we’ll stop talking. If there’s time, we’ll discuss the Rashba further and the different ways to understand him on this issue. The Rebbe of Mezhibuzh understands the Rashba differently. But let’s set aside the Rashba’s reason for a moment, although it is a reason the Rebbe mentioned often. As I said, Rabbi Eliyahu also mentioned it during his yechidus with the Rebbe; I think Yehuda Alfir[?] mentioned it to the Rebbe as well. The point is that if it depends on whether the poor person accepts it, you cannot make a blessing. There are different ways to understand the Rashba’s reason, and we’ll come back to that shortly. Another reason appears in halachah. Tzedakah arises from something being lacking for someone else. A person stands next to you and says, “Do me a favor. I have nothing to eat at home; give me money for food. I need something for medical treatment, or I need to marry off my son. Give me money.” He is asking you because he has a problem. And you stand there and say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to give tzedakah.” You are blessing Hashem over another person’s misfortune. Every act of giving tzedakah is connected to a lack. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world in such a way that “the needy will never cease from the land.” In other words, what enables you to fulfill this mitzvah? It isn’t like a lulav or a sukkah. All right, if the rabbi arrives, I’ll finish speaking. You’ll let me know, all right? I said I was only speaking to

43:06 Speaker 2 [unclear]. In other words, you stand up to bless Hashem, but what gave rise to your blessing? The recipient’s need. Chazal did not institute a blessing over something that involves a misfortune, because it comes about as a result of the recipient’s misfortune. That is why Chazal did not institute a blessing over it. For other mitzvos that do not arise from a recipient’s misfortune, Chazal instituted a blessing. But when you perform a mitzvah by meeting someone else’s need—doing him an act of kindness, giving him tzedakah—Chazal did not institute a blessing. In a subtle sense, it is somewhat like a mitzvah performed through a transgression, over which we do not make a blessing. According to those commentators, there is a certain drawback inherent in the mitzvah of tzedakah: the person needs your tzedakah, and you bless Hashem—“Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe,” for the opportunity to give tzedakah. That is another explanation. Why don’t we make a blessing over tzedakah? We’ll compare the different explanations. Another question people ask is this: All of that applies when you give tzedakah to a poor person. Then you have the Rashba’s reason, or the reason about misfortune. But what if I go over to a wall in the shul where there’s a tzedakah box, or I have a tzedakah box on the wall at home, and I put a coin in it? Later a poor person takes it, or I pass it on to a tzedakah collector. Here you cannot give the reason that the recipient might not want to accept it. Why not? Have you ever seen a box that doesn’t want to accept a coin? Sometimes, when the collectors need to empty the box, you try to put a coin in

44:53 Speaker 2 and it falls right back out because the box is full. But usually there’s room in the box. So why don’t we make a blessing? Another answer is that we do not make a blessing over a mitzvah that is not yet complete. When you put money in the box, the mitzvah is not yet complete. By the way—what? It hasn’t reached the poor person yet. By the way, the Rebbe once used this to explain a practice of his. The Rebbe told the story many times: when he saw a poor person or a tzedakah box, he would give even at night. Moreover, in later years, when the Rebbe began giving dollars to the mitzvah-tank activists at the end of every farbrengen, someone asked, “But aren’t we supposed to refrain from giving tzedakah at night?” The answer was, “What am I giving now? They’ll give it out tomorrow.” Later, he wanted them to give it out right away; the Rebbe very much favored giving immediately. The Rebbe would tell a story about a Jew who once saw the Frierdiker Rebbe giving tzedakah at night. The man told him that according to Kabbalah, one must not give tzedakah at night. Why? Kabbalah gives a reason: it could provide sustenance to the external forces. The left side holds sway at night. So the Frierdiker Rebbe told him that apparently that Jew—

46:06 Speaker 21 Even during the day.

46:06 Speaker 2 Even during the day he gives. The Rebbe told that story many times. Yes, so one should give... The Rebbe explained several distinctions and circumstances in which it is permissible to give tzedakah at night. One should not initiate giving tzedakah, but one may put money in a box because the mitzvah is only completed tomorrow. And if I come to you at night to ask for tzedakah, halachah obligates you to give me something. You cannot take into account the Kabbalistic instruction not to give. That instruction concerns someone who goes looking for a poor person at night to give him tzedakah; that is what one should not do. The Rebbe discusses several distinctions here. Now, why, then, don’t we make a blessing when putting tzedakah in a box? Because the mitzvah is not yet complete. That is another reason given. There is another reason given for why we don’t—yes?

46:46 Speaker 21 Nowadays there are various Purim tzedakah boxes where the money is given at that very moment.

46:50 Speaker 2 But at the very same moment? You mean the exact same moment?

46:52 Speaker 21 Just before that moment.

46:53 Speaker 2 Ah, just before—so I give, and the act of giving is completed. Then we really do need the other explanations; the other explanations would still apply. That’s what I’m saying. But there’s another reason given. What?

47:04 Speaker 21 And maaser? You do make a blessing over that, don’t you?

47:09 Speaker 2 You make a blessing over separating terumah. Over giving terumah—are you asking about maaser on money? You don’t make a blessing over that.

47:15 Speaker 21 Why not?

47:16 Speaker 2 It’s the same reason regarding tzedakah. [unclear] I mean, look at the Rebbe’s reason; see how it covers every possibility. It’s one answer that takes a different approach, one that has to account for all the possibilities. It’s also a different kind of answer from all the others, as I’ll analyze shortly. Now, wait—there’s another reason cited in someone’s name. I think it’s written in the Rokeach or the Ittur. We’ll look at the sources and open them up a little more. It says there that the reason we don’t make a blessing over tzedakah is that we can’t say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us.” The plain meaning—one explanation Rashi gives of the wording instituted by the Men of the Great Assembly, or Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura—is that “Who has sanctified us with His commandments” means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu set us apart from all the nations and commanded us to perform a particular mitzvah. He set us apart from the nations and commanded us to put on tefillin, to make a sukkah, to sit in a sukkah, to wear tzitzis, to wrap ourselves in tzitzis. With tzedakah, we can’t say that He sanctified us with this mitzvah, because, as Rashi writes, the Jewish people are not set apart through the mitzvah of tzedakah. There’s actually a dispute in Rashi, and already among the Geonim: Are the descendants of Noach commanded to give tzedakah or not? When Avraham Avinu gave tzedakah and instructed his children to do so, did that obligate the descendants of Noach before Matan Torah, or was it a special mitzvah for Avraham Avinu and his children? That’s a dispute in Rashi. So according to those views in Rashi that non-Jews are also obligated in tzedakah in certain circumstances, there are certainly infinitely more details and dimensions to a Jew’s tzedakah. But the very fact that there are views, or grounds to say, that non-Jews too are obligated in the mitzvah of tzedakah means that we can’t say, “Who has sanctified us with this mitzvah and commanded us to give tzedakah.” Why? Because it isn’t something that sets us apart. Those are some of the explanations given.

49:00 Speaker 22 Do we make a blessing over the recitation of Shema? Like with many mitzvos.

49:03 Speaker 2 We don’t make a blessing over Shema. That’s written explicitly. We don’t make a blessing over the recitation of Shema. There’s no blessing, “Blessed are You, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to recite Shema.” This is written in the Pesach Haggadah, regarding the Exodus from Egypt. We don’t make a blessing over Shema, and we don’t make a blessing over the mitzvah of Birchas Hamazon. We don’t say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning the recitation of Shema.” We don’t make a mitzvah blessing over Shema, but that’s for other reasons. These are mitzvos that themselves consist of speech, so there’s no separate blessing over them. But tzedakah is a mitzvah involving an action. Yes, let’s go through some more reasons. The Meiri in Megillah collects several reasons—more reasons why we don’t make a blessing over tzedakah. Let me pull up the Meiri for a moment. The Or Zarua, too, one of the early Rishonim, asks why we don’t make a blessing over tzedakah. Let me give the Meiri’s answer and then the opposite answer from the Or Zarua. The Meiri says that the mitzvah of tzedakah is not an obligation that always rests on a person. It’s a mitzvah that applies only sometimes. For example, someone might live in a town full of wealthy people, with no one in need around him. Or, in the future, “there will be no needy person among you.” That passage speaks of two different periods: in the same parsha it says, “There will be no needy person among you,” and also, “The needy will never cease.” It depends on the period. So if we live in a time when there are no needy people among us, there will be no mitzvah of tzedakah. That’s why we can’t say “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us” over tzedakah. That’s what the Meiri says in Megillah. The Or Zarua says exactly the opposite: the mitzvah of tzedakah is so constant that it’s even more constant than Torah study. We do make a blessing over Torah study, because there is a distinction between the obligation to study Torah by day and by night. But tzedakah applies at all times. At every moment a person has—

50:50 Speaker 2 —the obligation. I’ll quote his wording: “These mitzvos are ones in which a person is always obligated, with no times when he is exempt from them, such as believing in our G-d, fearing Him, loving Him, heeding His voice, cleaving to Him, not worshipping idols, visiting the sick, comforting mourners, and giving tzedakah.” It’s a mitzvah that a person is obligated in all the time. Since he’s always obligated in it, you can’t come along and say he should make a blessing over it. What would you be making a blessing for? Has some new obligation suddenly taken effect? A person is commanded to give tzedakah all the time. It’s a somewhat opposite approach, but according to both of them, there’s something about tzedakah that rules out a blessing. According to the Or Zarua, there’s nothing new here that would call for a blessing; according to the Meiri, it’s exactly the opposite, because the mitzvah doesn’t always apply to a person. That’s one explanation given in the Meiri.

51:33 Speaker 23 A practical difference between them would be that tzedakah has a positive commandment and a prohibition. The positive commandment applies to you at every moment; the prohibition—

51:39 Speaker 2 “You may not ignore it.”

51:40 Speaker 23 “Do not harden your heart”—that doesn’t apply at every moment. That’s the practical difference between the Meiri and the Or Zarua.

51:48 Speaker 2 Right, but I thought he was saying—

51:50 Speaker 23 —that it applies to you at every moment. And that really is the straightforward reading. That’s how he puts it when discussing the Rambam in Hilchos Matnos Aniyim. He says the positive commandment applies to you at every moment, while “Do not harden your heart” applies only when the person approaches you. So that’s the practical difference, and the positive commandment applies at every moment. That’s why the Maggid says—

52:06 Speaker 2 That’s why the Or Zarua says.

52:08 Speaker 23 The Or Zarua: it’s a constant mitzvah.

52:09 Speaker 2 And you can’t make a blessing over it. Nothing new has arisen. “Do not harden your heart”—

52:11 Speaker 23 You make a blessing over a positive commandment, not over a prohibition.

52:14 Speaker 2 Yes. I was thinking of something else. I thought perhaps the difference between the Meiri and the Or Zarua is that tzedakah takes many forms. Sometimes people say that if someone doesn’t have his wallet, he can’t give tzedakah. But you can also comfort a person with words. Even smiling at someone who looks a bit down and asking, “How are you?”—like Yosef asked the chief cupbearer—that’s tzedakah too. So that too is a positive commandment from the Torah, “You shall surely open your hand,” and comforting someone with words is also from the Torah. So if you don’t give him—how does the Torah put it? You don’t give him... Huh?

52:47 Speaker 23 “Love your fellow as yourself.”

52:47 Speaker 2 With a yud.

52:48 Speaker 23 Eleven.

52:48 Speaker 2 Yes. So there are different forms of tzedakah. That wasn’t the point. The Meiri was talking about tzedakah in the sense of actually giving money. Sometimes that applies and sometimes it doesn’t, so it isn’t a mitzvah that always obligates you. But doing someone a kindness—even a person who lives in a town where everyone is wealthy—the very act of caring for another person is a constant mitzvah.

53:04 Speaker 23 That’s what the Gemara says. The distinction between tzedakah—

53:06 Speaker 2 Tzedakah with one’s own person.

53:07 Speaker 23 With one’s own person.

53:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

53:09 Speaker 23 Tzedakah on Shabbos. You see that often, too.

53:12 Speaker 2 Giving food.

53:14 Speaker 23 Yes.

53:14 Speaker 2 So—

53:15 Speaker 23 What, in light of what came out, they say [unclear] the Sadducee.

53:22 Speaker 2 There’s another reason in the Meiri. Before I saw it there, when this question came up—why don’t we make a blessing over tzedakah?—I would sometimes hear people say, “Because it has no fixed measure.” I found a source for that. The Meiri says: “In my view there is another reason: not to make a blessing over something that has no set limit, but is left to each person’s discretion. A mitzvah that has no fixed measure cannot have a blessing.” That’s what he says, in those words. Now we need to understand why, but this is the Meiri’s wording: “Not to make a blessing over something that has no set limit, but is left to each person’s discretion.” One person can give ten shekels, another can give a thousand, another can give a single coin, another can give a smile, and another can give his whole soul. That’s exactly the story we just heard about Rabbi Shimon HaTzaddik: he gave tzedakah wholeheartedly, with his whole heart, body, soul, and wealth, without any personal interest. So there are endless possible measures. We don’t make a blessing over something so unlimited. I’d heard this reason from people many times, and suddenly I see it in the Meiri. But it’s worth asking what it actually means. Can someone explain? So what if there’s no set limit? It’s an unlimited mitzvah. Why not make a blessing over it? You’re about to perform the mitzvah—make a blessing. Why not? How is that a reason not to make one?

54:41 Speaker 24 The Rashba says we don’t make a blessing over telling the story on Pesach night because it has no fixed limit. It doesn’t matter how much you say.

54:45 Speaker 2 He connects the two—the Meiri connects them: “For this reason we do not make a blessing over the Haggadah on Pesach night, because recounting the Exodus from Egypt has no fixed limit.” But what does that mean? The source is in the Rosh. The source is in the Rosh. Yes, in the Rosh—but there it makes a lot of sense. Why? Because you can’t make a blessing: as soon as you said “a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt” in Kiddush, you already fulfilled the mitzvah. If you say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to recount the Exodus from Egypt,” there’s nothing left for you to do after the blessing, because you’ve already recounted it.

55:12 Speaker 24 “And you shall tell your son.” To fulfill “And you shall tell your son.”

55:15 Speaker 2 So fulfill it, and then say a word: “We were slaves.” That’s it. What? Why?

55:19 Speaker 24 That’s the reason—

55:20 Speaker 2 So why don’t we make a bracha? Why would it make sense not to? If the mitzvah has no set limit, why not make a bracha? What’s the reasoning? Just the opposite: it’s a mitzvah without a set limit. You can fulfill it in a minute, or you can spend a whole night fulfilling it. So why? It has no fixed measure, and therefore we don’t make a bracha. But Torah study is also among the things that have no fixed measure. So why do we make a bracha on that?

55:41 Speaker 24 Every minute of Torah study is something new. It’s, it’s—

55:43 Speaker 2 Now you’re saying something else. You’re giving the answer that it’s renewed: Torah study is renewed all the time, whereas here it’s an ongoing obligation. But that isn’t this answer. “It is not limited, but is up to each person as he wishes.” What does that mean? This explanation of the Meiri seems hard to understand. “I have another reason,” he says, but he doesn’t explain it. What does he mean? If we analyze all the reasons, we’ll see something interesting. Almost all of them point to some shortcoming in the mitzvah of tzedakah that explains why we don’t make a bracha on it. Think about all the reasons we’ve mentioned so far: each suggests some shortcoming in the mitzvah of tzedakah. And that’s very puzzling, because it’s the loftiest mitzvah. The Rebbe always cites in the maamarim that when the Jerusalem Talmud says simply “mitzvah,” what does it mean? Tzedakah. That’s why, when speaking of the three pillars of the world, we say Torah, prayer and mitzvos, or Torah, prayer and tzedakah—because tzedakah encompasses all the mitzvos. “Sow for yourselves in tzedakah.” The Alter Rebbe says several times in Tanya that all the mitzvos are tzedakah. It’s the most all-encompassing mitzvah, the one that most represents them all. Yet when I look at all the reasons given according to the revealed dimension of Torah or according to ethical teachings, we really should make a bracha on tzedakah. It’s just that there’s some shortcoming: perhaps the poor person won’t want to accept it, making your bracha a bracha in vain. But that means that if I could compel the poor person—not just physically compel him, but make him willing to accept it—I would have to make a bracha. If putting the money into the tzedakah box completed the mitzvah, I would have to make a bracha. It’s just that, in reality—

57:23 Speaker 2 There’s some shortcoming in this mitzvah compared with other mitzvos. Perhaps nothing new happens in it; or, on the contrary, it isn’t an obligatory mitzvah. What other reasons did we mention? They all point to some deficiency in tzedakah compared with the other mitzvos a person is obligated to fulfill. But this is the loftiest mitzvah! Anyone who reads Igeres Hakodesh—almost all of the Alter Rebbe’s Igeres Hakodesh—sees that it makes clear that the greatest virtue belongs to tzedakah. So why don’t we make a bracha on this mitzvah? Or rather, let’s put it the way the Rebbe often puts questions about other subjects, as in the sicha about Pesach: How can it be that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created this mitzvah this way, and created us and the poor person this way, so that although it is such a lofty mitzvah, and according to all these explanations we really ought to make a bracha on it, we don’t? There is another explanation in Maor VaShemesh: a person doesn’t perform the mitzvah of tzedakah with joy. Some part of him isn’t happy about the mitzvah. Because the very act of taking a thousand shekels of my own and giving it to a poor person causes... it causes—

58:36 Speaker 25 Let the Rabbi continue. Let the Rabbi continue, come on.

58:40 Speaker 2 It causes most, most—With honor, I greet the esteemed Rabbi Yaakov Yosef shlita, the distinguished Torah scholar. May Hashem grant him many years in his position. I don’t want to impose on the Rabbi; the Rabbi will speak.

58:52 Speaker 25 Please finish your remarks in an orderly fashion, within the time.

58:55 Speaker 2 Okay, I’ll finish quickly. Yes, so it says that most people don’t perform the mitzvah of tzedakah with complete joy, because they’re giving what they have to someone else. All the explanations we’ve discussed point to some shortcoming in the mitzvah of tzedakah. But the Rebbe gives an explanation along these lines. It’s based on Chassidus, but perhaps it’s also hinted at in the Meiri. The Rebbe says it’s similar to what the Alter Rebbe writes in Torah Or: Why don’t we make a bracha on the head tefillin? Some of the Rishonim held that a bracha should be made on them, and some people follow that practice today. Others don’t make a bracha on the head tefillin. Everyone makes a bracha on the arm tefillin. The Alter Rebbe says in Torah Or, page 52b, second column, that the arm tefillin draw down a bounded G-dly revelation, one that can be expressed in letters and words. The head tefillin draw down such a lofty revelation that, according to those who hold that no bracha is made on them—

59:49 Speaker 25 Rabbeinu Tam as well.

59:50 Speaker 2 Rabbeinu Tam as well. The Rebbe once said this in yechidus to—I think it was the Rebbe of Nadvorna zt”l, who recently passed away. The Rebbe once told him in yechidus what is written about Rabbeinu Tam. The Rebbe says [unclear]. Later the Rebbe repeated it once in [unclear]: according to Chassidus, the reason we don’t make a bracha on tzedakah is that the mitzvah of tzedakah brings such an all-encompassing, lofty light that it cannot be expressed in a bracha. Perhaps that is what the Meiri means: “I have another reason not to make a bracha on something that is not limited, but is up to each person as he wishes.” Perhaps that is the meaning. There’s more that could be said about the Rashba, including several other positive approaches. But out of respect for the esteemed Torah scholar, I’ll finish here.

1:00:33 Speaker 3 The Gemara in Bava Metzia tells us that [unclear].

1:00:37 Speaker 2 I invite—We are all honored to hear Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, who took the trouble to come here. May Hashem bless him for coming to this Torah gathering to spread Torah, and may he continue in his work of spreading Torah. May Hashem bless him with physical health, abundant light, and miracles upon miracles beyond the natural order, so that he won’t need miracles within the natural order. May Hashem grant him many years in his position, and may he see, together with us, the coming of the righteous Redeemer very soon indeed.

1:01:03 Speaker 3 Amen.

1:01:04 Speaker 2 I’m honored to invite him to offer a blessing.

1:01:15 Speaker 4 With your permission.

1:01:16 Speaker 3 Thank you.

1:01:21 Speaker 4 No, no. With the permission of the distinguished rabbis and Torah scholars, I’ll speak about a subject with many applications: chazakah, an established presumption. The Gemara in Yevamos, page 64, discusses a katlanis, a woman whose husbands have died. But the Gemara emphasizes that the disagreement between Rabbeinu HaKadosh and his father, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, is not limited to that case. It concerns the entire subject of chazakah. We know—we read in the Torah two months ago—“But if it was a goring ox from yesterday and the day before.” An ox that has not been established as dangerous pays half the damages; one that has been established as dangerous pays the full damages. The question is whether that takes effect on the fourth occasion or already on the third. How do we interpret “if it was a goring ox from yesterday”? Does “yesterday” and “the day before” establish it only for the fourth occasion, or already for the third? According to Rabbeinu HaKadosh, it pays full damages on the third occasion. He disagrees with his father, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. But the Gemara there concludes, and rules as halachah, that in the case of an ox it pays full damages only on the fourth occasion. As a general rule, a son is indeed commanded to honor his father. If his father says something—say, “Look, I think they’ll bomb Persia tomorrow”—and the son thinks otherwise, he may not contradict him. He may not say, “No, that can’t be.” His father said what he said, and in everyday matters we may not contradict our fathers. But when it comes to Torah, the Torah is written as a Torah of truth. There is no such restriction. If your father says something and you think otherwise, you not only have the right but the duty to speak up and state the truth. The Torah is a Torah of truth. So in several places in the Talmud we find disagreements between Rabbeinu HaKadosh and his father, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, and this is one example. As I said, the Gemara rules on this case. But in other areas there are exceptions where a chazakah is established after two occurrences. So on the third occasion we already determine

1:03:48 Speaker 4 that a pattern has been established. The Gemara’s example there is a woman who married, and after some time her husband passed away. She married a second man, and after some time he too passed away. Now a match is proposed to a third man. They tell him, “Look, she’s a wonderful woman, and wealthy. She inherited from the first husband and from the second.” So what do they advise this man? The Gemara rules stringently here because lives are at stake. A pattern is therefore established not only after three times, but even after two, and she should not marry a third man. That is the ruling of the poskim. It is ruled this way in the Rambam and in Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer, section 9. Why? Because here, as we said, we are concerned that what happened to them may happen to him too. What has been will be again. We saw an allusion to this in Chumash Bereishis, Parshas Vayeishev. Yaakov... It says there that Er, Yehudah’s firstborn, died; then Onan died. It was Shelah’s turn to perform yibbum, but Yehudah did not want to give him to Tamar, his daughter-in-law. Instead, he told her, “Remain a widow in your father’s house.” Why did he not want to? Because he said, “Lest he too die like his brothers.” Yehudah did not know that Er and Onan had died because of their sins, so he feared it might happen to Shelah too. You see that after just two times we are already concerned that the same thing will happen again; a pattern has been established. So in practical halachah, we say the same thing: we tell that man it is not worth walking into a dangerous situation, lest, G-d forbid, some tragedy befall him too. The same applies to circumcision. A baby was born, they circumcised him, and he passed away afterward. Then his brother was born; he too was circumcised and passed away afterward. Now the mother has given birth to a third son. Should they perform the bris today, on the eighth day? Here too, we do not circumcise this baby, lest he too die

1:06:02 Speaker 4 like his brothers. That is despite the fact that it happened only twice, not three times. But as we said, where lives are at stake, we take the concern seriously. We therefore wait until the child grows and becomes stronger; only then can he be circumcised and brought into the covenant of Avraham Avinu. The Maharsham draws a conclusion from this in his Daas Torah, Orach Chaim, section 677. His example is a pregnant woman who fasted on Yom Kippur and miscarried, then fasted again and miscarried again. Now she comes to ask, on the eve of Yom Kippur, whether she should fast. The rabbi compares this to the two examples, the woman whose husbands died and the circumcision. Just as in those cases a pattern is established after two times, so that we prevent the man from marrying that woman, here too we prevent this woman from fasting. We are concerned that she might miscarry. It does not have to happen three times; twice is enough. The Maharsham rules that she should be told not to fast, but to eat and drink on Yom Kippur. In other matters, though, throughout almost the entire Torah, we rule that a pattern is established after three times. The first examples the Gemara gives are an ox that gores, or menstrual cycles; there is also a person who spoiled a dish, and an informer. Maran gives the example of an informer in Choshen Mishpat, section 388. A person slipped up and informed on a Jew, putting either his person or his property in danger. Once, you might forgive him or punish him in some way. Twice—well. But if it has happened three times, Maran writes, quoting the Rosh, then even though we do not have a Sanhedrin today, Torah scholars look for a way to remove him from the world. This man is considered a pursuer, so we cannot leave him in place and wait for him to go on informing on Jews, G-d forbid. In such a case, steps must be taken to remove him from the world. They tell a story that people came to the Vilna Gaon and said there was a Jewish informer walking the streets who had informed several times. So he

1:08:22 Speaker 4 told them, “Bring him here.” There, in the Vilna Gaon’s home, they strangled him, and the chevra kadisha took him away and dealt with him. In other words, even though we do not adjudicate capital cases now—if someone desecrates Shabbos, we have no authority to execute him; that requires a Sanhedrin, and we have no Sanhedrin—we do have that authority in the case of a pursuer, even today. “If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.” “If a thief is found breaking in and is struck and dies, there is no bloodguilt for him.” This applied not only in the past; it applies now too. Those who remember will recall that a few years ago there was the so-called Dromi Law. There was debate even among religious people, but they asked the leading Torah authorities of the generation. They said yes, the lawmakers should vote for it, and that is what happened. All the religious members of the Knesset voted in favor of the law. You might ask: Why, when there is no Sanhedrin today? But as we said, “If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.” This does not require a ruling by a beis din; the Torah permits us to defend ourselves. So in the case of an informer as well, he can be killed. Here, however, you cannot treat two times as enough; it takes three. It is true that you want to protect yourself, and this would seem to be a matter of saving lives. But there is also the question of saving life on the other side: if we kill the informer, perhaps we have not judged the situation accurately enough. So there too, a pattern is established only after three times. The Gemara in Bava Kama, page 23, also gives an example of a goat that entered a garden and caused damage. Its owners paid. It entered and caused damage a second time, and its owners paid. If it enters and causes damage a third time, the garden owner is permitted to call the shochet and have the goat slaughtered immediately. When the goat’s owner comes at night, he will not have to pay; he can take some of the meat. He may ask, “Who gave you permission to slaughter my goat?” Again, after three times a pattern is established: what has happened will happen again. Presumably the goat will do

1:10:28 Speaker 4 it again. Its owners have established that they do not guard it properly, so here too a pattern is established after three times. After three times, he has permission to have it slaughtered. Not after twice, but, as we said, after the third time. In Orach Chaim, section 301, subsection 25, there is also a discussion of carrying an amulet where there is no eruv. I am in Tel Aviv or somewhere else that is a public domain under Torah law, with no eruv. According to halachah, if it is a proven amulet—either the person who makes them or the amulet itself has been proven effective—I may carry it. Again, even if this amulet healed someone twice, I still may not carry it. Halachah requires that it have healed at least three times; only then may it be carried on Shabbos. It becomes like part of the person’s clothing, and that is why there is room to be lenient. In Yoreh Deah, section 84, too, there is the concept of an established pattern. Some vegetables are known to have worms. We may not eat them until we check them. Someone checks and tells you, “Everything is fine,” and I rely on him. A single witness is believed in matters of what is permitted and forbidden. Even if we caught him once failing to check properly—he said, “I checked,” but I see there are still worms—you could say he happened to be tired and did not see well. But if it happens three times, we disqualify him and no longer rely on him. There is no difference in this halachah between a man and a woman. We rely on a mother too. She checks for worms; we eat the food, and there is no problem. Or take the cook in the yeshivah dining room. Again, she checked. She is a G-d-fearing woman, and we rely on her. Even if something happened once, it is not so terrible. You say it was a mistake; you can fine her, you can do

1:12:36 Speaker 4 Other things, but she still retains our trust. But if what happened has happened three times, she is no longer trusted. You can give her other jobs in the kitchen, washing the dishes, but she can no longer be trusted to check the rice or leafy vegetables and the like. We are concerned that what happened before will happen again. This woman has established a record of not checking properly, so we do not rely on her. The same applies to other things. In Yoreh De’ah, section 279, Maran writes about a person who checks or proofreads. He always proofreads, and we rely on him: the mezuzah is kosher, the tefillin are kosher, everything is fine. Even if it happens once that he says a mezuzah is kosher, and you check it and find a mistake, you do not automatically disqualify him. But if it happens three times, then, as we said about someone who checks for worms, we can no longer rely on the proofreader either. He can write megillos; he can do other work, but not proofreading. There is concern that the mistake he made will happen again, whether because he cannot see well or for some other reason. The reason does not matter to us: three times establishes a pattern, and we do not rely on him. The same law applies to a kashrus supervisor. If this supervisor slipped up once, you can penalize him, but you do not disqualify him. If we caught him three times being careless, doing what he does, doing foolish things, then in such a case he, too, is no longer trusted, and we do not rely on him at all. It makes no difference whether he supervises a place that needs a full-time supervisor or one where it is enough for a supervisor to come and go. Either way, he did not carry out his job faithfully, so we do not rely on him. That is why we have a problem with the certification

1:14:45 Speaker 4 of the Rabbinate. The Rabbinate issues certificates throughout the country, and sometimes even abroad, for certain factories. The question is whether we can rely on them. If it is water, I have no questions. Water is permitted according to the law; even with Rabbinate certification, it is permitted. Why? Because it would have been permitted to drink the water without the Rabbinate as well. There is no problem there. But when something needs kosher certification, that is a more serious matter. We do not rely on it. “Everything came to be through His word.”

1:15:22 Speaker 5 Amen.

1:15:22 Speaker 4 What does that have to do with him?

1:15:23 Speaker 5 How soon, for example, is action taken?

1:15:26 Speaker 4 You have to look into the matter and see what happened. Let us say, let us say that this shochet who made the mistake had an eye infection and did not realize it. Boruch Hashem, he has now recovered. You can see that this was certainly an unintentional mistake. Welcome! Sometimes you have an explanation for what happened. He had an infection, and now, boruch Hashem, he has recovered. So sometimes we may be able to find grounds to allow him to continue, with a warning and so on. But there are cases where you see that things are not working, and then you apply the principle: what happened before will happen again. You see, there is a general dispute over whether a pattern is established after two times or three. So we take the lenient approach. According to Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, we do not dismiss this shochet the first time; we only suspend him for a month as a penalty. But after three times that we found the shochet’s knife defective, we can no longer turn a blind eye and say he has repented. Fine, he has repented, and Heaven will forgive him, but we cannot. We have no authority to forgive him, so he needs to be given another job, one that does not involve preparing the knives or shechitah. That carries a great deal of responsibility. A friend told me that many years ago he met a shochet from the Rabbinate. The shochet was elderly. My friend checked his knife and told him, “There is a nick.” The shochet checked it and said, “No, there is no nick at all.” Why? Because, owing to his age, his fingernail could no longer feel it.

1:17:17 Speaker 6 The nail itself was worn down.

1:17:18 Speaker 4 The man who inspected it was clever. He said, “Listen, hold it up to the light.” The shochet held it up to the light and said, “You’re right, there is a nick.” The nick was so deep that it was visible, yet he had not felt it with his fingernail. That is how far it went. Unfortunately, some frozen meat certified kosher by the Rabbinate contains forbidden fat, and it is labeled kosher under Rabbinate supervision. How do I know this? I am not revealing some secret that the security services told me. No. There is a booklet published in Jerusalem by the Chief Rabbinate, and on page eighty-four, for fourteen years now, they have written: anyone who buys kosher beef must check whether it contains forbidden fat. Well, I want you to raise a finger: anyone here who knows how to remove forbidden fat, raise a finger. I do not see a single finger. So whom are they writing this for? Whom are they warning to check for forbidden fat? Are they warning people on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv, telling them to check? Pity the dough whose baker testifies against it. The Rabbinate itself writes that meat containing forbidden fat is being marketed with its seal. I have been shouting about this for years. I was sure they would correct it. It still has not been corrected. I received this booklet a month ago—a new booklet, page 2b—and there, too, they repeat the warning. What do you want? They are G-d-fearing people; they warn us to be careful. Well, “You shall surely rebuke your fellow.” Righteous people and chassidim. No doubt they have an honored place in the highest Gan Eden, but not in this world. In this world, the Rabbinate is not reliable. That is one example. There are many more. Anyone who goes to restaurants or hotels can walk into the kitchen and see what happens there.

1:19:27 Speaker 4 You do not need to hear any story or ruling from me. You can see all the mistakes, all the problems, with your own eyes. It is just that those things are not written down here. The example of the forbidden fat is something the Rabbinate itself writes about. Pity the dough whose baker testifies against it. Perhaps there are a few individual rabbis who are G-d-fearing and still do their jobs, but as a rule, generally speaking, the Rabbinate, as I said, went bankrupt long ago. That is why we have our own rabbis, the rabbis of the Chabad committee. They are responsible for the shechitah. There are several things for which they bear direct responsibility. When they are directly responsible, they tell you, “This meat is fine; there is no problem. You can take this meat and eat it.” But to make a blanket statement—there are many fools. You ask one of them, and he has studied Chullin 10 and knows the Gemara. That fool tells you, “It says that one witness is believed in matters of prohibition. So what do you want? The Rabbinate’s rabbi has a beard too; he too is one witness who is believed in matters of prohibition.” I know that rabbi has a beard, but I do not accept a kosher certification because of his beard. He has a beard too, and that is why we must be very careful. Boruch Hashem, you are G-d-fearing. You have merited to be in a place devoted to Torah study. Explain these things at home, to your family as well. A mother is not always aware of them. People think that a Badatz certification is better, but the Rabbinate’s is kosher after the fact—it is not so terrible. Tell me, is there permission to eat forbidden fat after the fact? Is there any halachic authority who permitted that? No authority in the world has permitted it or ever will. This is something that, G-d forbid, carries not only a Torah prohibition but also the punishment of kares. It is that serious. So everyone should explain this, and even if

1:21:28 Speaker 4 Suppose I find myself as a guest somewhere that has only a rabbinate kosher certification. I can’t say, “For the sake of peace, I’ll eat pork.” Pork is prohibited by a negative commandment; eating cheilev, forbidden fat, carries the penalty of kareis. Cheilev is far more severe. And if they cook that meat there, the utensils are also presumed to be non-kosher. So those utensils must be kashered if I want to cook glatt kosher meat in them another day. This problem comes up a great deal in banquet halls, restaurants and the like. Often they also host events for nonobservant people, for whom regular kosher meat is enough. Now I want to hold my son’s wedding there tomorrow, and I want to bring in glatt kosher meat. So they bring in a mashgiach, who stands there from morning until evening to make sure that only products with the Badatz certification enter. They tell you, “There’s a mashgiach here; everything’s fine.” Go to the mashgiach and ask him, “Did you kasher the utensils?” He’ll tell you, “No, why would I? They weren’t non-kosher; they were kosher.” That’s what he’ll say. But meat under that certification can contain cheilev. If so, the hall needs a thorough kashering. If the utensils were not kashered there, then even if I cooked glatt kosher meat, that meat is forbidden to eat. This is very common. Many of our weddings, weddings of Torah-observant Jews, are held in all sorts of halls, and sometimes people don’t realize how serious the problem is. They think glatt kosher meat is a matter of hiddur: “I’m being stringent. Yesterday they weren’t stringent, but the meat was kosher.” That’s what they think. It isn’t so. According to halachah, those utensils need to be kashered. If they weren’t kashered, I won’t eat. I can have a banana there, or kosher Coca-Cola certified by Rabbi Landau. Why do you need a chicken leg? Have a drink; there’s no problem. But

1:23:37 Speaker 4 eating harissa salad, mayonnaise salad, fish, meat—anything prepared in those utensils—we have no grounds to permit it. Now, if I want to hold a wedding there tomorrow, there’s no problem: I bring in a team of mashgichim and we kasher the utensils. Kashering can work for pots or forks, for cutlery, but what about the white porcelain-coated earthenware plates? We read a month ago that earthenware “in which it was cooked shall be broken.” There is no way to kasher the plates. We would have to buy new ones. Will the hall owner agree to buy them? I don’t know. It’s a difficult business. In any case, a G-d-fearing, Torah-observant person must be very careful about these things. It makes no difference to me where the hall is—in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa or elsewhere. This is a general problem everywhere. There are a few halls that do not allow regular kosher meat in, only glatt kosher meat. Let’s say they served glatt kosher meat there last night under the Yoreh De’ah certification, Beis Yosef, or some other certification. I don’t eat it; I eat only meat with Chabad certification. Even so, the utensils there do not need to be kashered. Both sets of supervisors are fine. Thank you. There is a difference in the hiddurim. Rabbi Landau’s certification follows certain additional standards, and that’s why I insist on it. Why not? By all means, insist on it. But that does not mean the utensils need to be kashered. It’s different in a place that also brings in regular kosher meat. As I said, the issue with that certification is not merely that they are less stringent: the meat can contain cheilev, and that renders the utensils non-kosher too. That is the distinction. I think that here, in the Kfar Chabad hall, it’s inconceivable that they would serve regular kosher meat. Even if a nonobservant person came and said, “I want

1:25:52 Speaker 4 regular kosher meat; that’s enough for me,” they wouldn’t allow it here. Here the meat is always glatt kosher, so we don’t have that problem in this venue. But when a person goes to halls outside Kfar Chabad, to other places, he has to pay attention. And as I said, this is not a stringency but a matter of halachah. So even in pressing circumstances, even for young children—even when feeding a child below bar mitzvah age—there is no room to be lenient about things that are forbidden by halachah itself. So far we’ve discussed this according to the plain meaning of the halachah. I’ll now turn to what the kabbalists say. If a woman’s husband has passed away and someone is now considering marrying her, it’s true that she is permitted to marry, according to both Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi. But a tikkun for a widow must be performed. Without it, there is still a danger, even after only one husband has died. So they should tell the man who wants to marry her to seek guidance on performing this tikkun. It isn’t difficult; it’s a simple matter. He studies Torah in memory of her previous husband, gives tzedakah, lights candles and so on, and that provides grounds to permit the marriage. All this applies when one husband has died. If two have died, we cannot permit him to marry her, even if he performs the tikkun for a widow. There is a well-known account told by the Chida. They were sitting in the beis midrash—at the time he was studying in Jerusalem, before he left for Italy, and he studied there with the Rashash. A man came into the beis midrash, very frightened. He said that he had married such a woman, and that at night, in a dream, both men had come to him. The first husband was a Torah scholar, and the second was an am ha’aretz. In the dream, that am ha’aretz shouted at him, “Why did you take my wife?” The scholar didn’t shout, but his face showed his anger. The man was terribly frightened and asked what to do. The Rashash told him, “Perform the tikkun for a widow.” The man left. After he had gone, the Chida said, “I fear for him.” And so it was. After

1:28:01 Speaker 4 a few days, that man passed away. In other words, the tikkun for a widow can help when one husband has died. But if it has happened twice, then, as we said, she is considered a katlanis, and there is greater cause for concern. The reason, according to the kabbalists, is based on words of the Zohar that they cite. In the future there will be the Resurrection of the Dead. A woman was married to one man, he died, and she married a second man. What will happen in the future? She returns to the first husband. She returns to the first, and it pains him to see her go and marry another man, as though she were betraying him. So he will speak against her in Heaven until he causes the second man to die. That is why, without the tikkun for a widow, we are concerned even when one husband has died; when two have died, we are more concerned. But there are some exceptions. Suppose the husbands were elderly: she married, her husband died at ninety, and the second died at ninety-five. What do you expect—that they should live to 120? Nothing less will do? So in that case there are grounds for leniency, as the halachic authorities rule. There is, however, a disagreement about how to define “elderly.” There are the views of the Chida and the Vilna Gaon. Most halachic authorities say that a person is considered elderly from the age of sixty, as the Mishnah says in Pirkei Avos, chapter 5: “At sixty, old age.” But others disagree: some say seventy and some say eighty. Again, if only one husband has died, there is certainly no problem; the tikkun for a widow will help. After the death of a second husband, one must ask a halachic authority whether there is any basis to permit the marriage. There is also a difference between a man who died a natural death and one who, G-d forbid, was killed. If he was killed, who says it was due to the woman’s mazal? Something else may have caused it. He may have been killed in an accident or in some other way, so the halachic authorities have also considered grounds for leniency in that case. All this concerns a widow. But as for a divorced woman who was divorced twice,

1:30:10 Speaker 4 Three, four, not twenty. She’s divorced; that’s not relevant here, so that concern doesn’t apply. Of course, you need to know why she got divorced. If there’s some particular problem that would be the same with him, then why should he marry her? But generally, if he has looked into it and knows exactly what happened, we don’t have these concerns with a divorced woman—only with a widow, as we said. That is what the Gemara forbade, and in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch, we are careful about these matters. Danger is treated more stringently than a prohibition. So, as we said, even two instances establish a pattern. That is what we need to be concerned about. The same applies to public representatives everywhere. Sometimes a public representative may not be a great scholar or a towering genius, but he is G-d-fearing, does his work faithfully, serves the public, and listens to the sages in everything. Then election day comes, and he wants to be a council member and wants us to vote for him. Why not? There’s no problem with that, even if he once made a mistake, had one slip-up—“He is merciful and forgives sin.” But if it happened three times, the rabbis need to flag him, so to speak. It is no longer permissible to elect that person or put him forward for the same position, even if rabbis who don’t know him have given their approval. We must be careful. The same rules we discussed regarding someone who checks mezuzos or checks produce for insects also apply to public representatives, local council members, city council members, Knesset members—all of them. Here too, we need to see whom we are dealing with. G-d-fearing people, wise and discerning, capable people who despise ill-gotten gain—those are people we can appoint. But once a person has stumbled three times, we say that what was will be again, and therefore

1:32:17 Speaker 4 there is no permission to vote for those people. Sometimes it’s only a council member or a member of the village committee, or something similar. In any case, the higher the position, the more careful we need to be, even if others were mistaken about him. The rabbis need to be very careful about these things. Forty-eight years ago, the Rebbe spoke out forcefully. The Knesset had failed on the question of “Who is a Jew,” and the Rebbe insisted that another clause be added to the Law of Return on this issue. Some Knesset members at the time did try, but they did not succeed. Unfortunately, there were Knesset members, including religious ones, who did not care about the issue. The Rebbe spoke out against those members as well, because they did not do what was needed to pass the law. At the time, those people—those wicked people—argued against the Rebbe: “All told, there’s one case a year.” Back then, almost all the new immigrants from Russia were Jews. Perhaps one non-Jew, or someone of partial Jewish descent, would arrive. “You’re making all this commotion over one person?” So they ignored the Rebbe and did not amend the law. But the Rebbe saw with ruach hakodesh, and he said so. He did not just see it; he said it: “A day will come.” Sadly, today half a million Russian non-Jews have come to Israel and are assimilating among us. Today, ten percent of marriages in Israel are mixed marriages. Some are done under the guise of a fraudulent conversion, and some without one. Either way, the statistics show that, unfortunately, mixed marriages exist in Israel too. The Rebbe tried to prevent these things, but sadly, ordinary people did not understand how serious the problem was at the time. So today we are reaping the bitter fruit of those people’s actions. At the time,

1:34:31 Speaker 4 the Rebbe said it was forbidden to vote for those people for the Knesset, forbidden to elect them, because they had obstructed the law. But what can we do? Not all the innocent people understood that the Rebbe could see far ahead. The Rebbe did not see only what was happening at that moment or what would happen an hour later. He saw far ahead; he had a watchful eye. He knew, and he dreaded what might, G-d forbid, happen here in Eretz Yisroel. “What we feared has come upon us.” It is a shame, a shame that we have reached this point, and still none of the religious Knesset members seem to care. I haven’t heard of anyone now proposing a “Who is a Jew” bill. All the religious parties, thank G-d, are in the coalition, enjoying the benefits of power. Good for them—why not? They deserve it. But they also need to fix this, to do this work. Unfortunately, the law is still wide open on this issue. Every year, several thousand more people come from Russia, including several thousand non-Jews about whom there is not even a suggestion that they are Jewish. By all accounts, they are non-Jews, and they are given everything they need: an absorption package, an apartment, and other things. And what will their children do? They go to our schools and marry our daughters. That, unfortunately, is what is happening in the Rebbe’s own place. As we said, the practical implication is that someone who wants to vote in an election should first ask his rabbi. He should tell him whom he wants to vote for. His rabbi knows the people and knows whether they are G-d-fearing and upright—perhaps among the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim. Why not? But I haven’t seen thirty-six tzaddikim in the Knesset. I haven’t met them there. There was no Chofetz Chaim there, or anyone like him. In any case, if a person asks and his—his rabbi tells him, “You must not vote for these people,” then he certainly must not vote for them. And if he goes against

1:36:36 Speaker 4 his rabbi’s instruction, that person bears responsibility for everything the elected official does. In such a case, there can be an agent for a transgression. Whatever that Knesset member does, the voter might say, “There is no agent for a transgression. I sent you to act for my benefit, not to my detriment.” But everything the Gemara says in Kiddushin, page 43, applies to a person who has not established a pattern of doing this. The Rema says in Choshen Mishpat that if a person has done such a thing three times and established a pattern, then there can be an agent for a transgression. If I vote for him now, whatever he does is as though I did it. Here too, the concept of an established pattern applies. Those are the Rema’s words there, and the other poskim agreed. I’m moving to another subject that was also discussed in connection with the Rema’s words. We know that before every Shemitah year, there is a fierce debate: Is the Rabbinate’s heter mechirah worthless, or is it valid after the fact? You’re familiar with it; you heard the debate before Shemitah in 5767. Some rabbis say that, after the fact, it is valid. The Chazon Ish says no: the person selling is acting as an agent, and since there is no agent for a transgression, the agency is void. So even after the fact, the sale does not take effect retroactively. The great Rabbi Zevin, one of the Chabad rabbis and the editor of the Talmudic Encyclopedia, was a towering genius. He argued that after the fact, it is valid. This was his argument: the Rema says three times. The first sale, in 5649, was disputed. The next sale, in 5656, was disputed. But once the Rabbinate had made the sale three times, a pattern had been established. Consequently, there can be an agent for a transgression. The agency did not lapse, and after the fact, the sale is valid. That is Rabbi Zevin’s argument. But in reality, that argument does not hold. It is a fine argument in halachah, but not in practice. The reason is this: if the same chief rabbi had made the sale three

1:39:05 Speaker 4 times, the argument would indeed be correct. That is what the Rema said. But look at what actually happened from 5649 until today: no chief rabbi served for twenty-one years, through three successive Shemitah years, and made the sale three times. Each made it once or twice. That is what happened. So if a previous chief rabbi did it, that has nothing to do with me. Here we have a new person, a new person. Once again, the rule that there is no agent for a transgression applies. The Chazon Ish’s argument still stands. So Rabbi Zevin’s argument is correct in theory. But when you check what happened in practice, you see that if there had been rabbis who made the sale three times and a fourth Shemitah came along, we could rely on Rabbi Zevin’s argument. But as I said, no chief rabbi had the opportunity to make the sale four times, to serve so many years in a row.

1:40:13 Speaker 7 Sorry—four times are needed.

1:40:15 Speaker 4 Well, three times establishes a precedent. The fourth time, we could say it is valid after the fact. That is the argument, and it is a very sound one. If there were a chief rabbi like that, then Rabbi Zevin’s argument would be correct. It is a brilliant idea. He took the idea from there and applied it to this matter. But since 5649, when they began the sale, until today—almost 120 years—there has not yet been such a chief rabbi. Perhaps there will be one. May they live long and carry out the sale, and then perhaps it will at least be valid after the fact. But so far that has not happened. So we really do have a problem: the Chazon Ish’s argument is sound. That is why we are very careful about shemitah as well. We are now at the end of Nissan, the month of Geulah. We hope that the Rebbe, who devoted himself to the Geulah of the Jewish people during his lifetime, will bring it about in practice, in actual fact, today as well. Then we will not need most of what I have said; we will be able to erase it all. Whether it is the problem of milk or other problems, Moshiach will perfect the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty. May it all happen speedily in our days, very soon indeed. Amen and amen. I thank the rabbis who invited me to come and share words of Torah, the words of the living G-d. Fortunate are you, sitting in the tent of Torah and studying Torah even during bein hazmanim.

1:42:02 Speaker 7 Say whatever you like.

1:42:05 Speaker 8 Gentlemen, all of us—the residents of Kfar Chabad, and especially the young men who regularly attend the bein hazmanim yeshivah here—thank Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Yaakov Chai Yosef, for taking the trouble to come and give us this special shiur. At the same time, we all wish him a complete recovery.

1:42:33 Speaker 7 Amen.

1:42:33 Speaker 8 May all the things that are not good, and all those troubles, disappear as though they had never been. This is for Yaakov Chai ben Margalit.

1:42:45 Speaker 7 Thank you.

1:42:46 Speaker 8 At the same time, we wanted to present the Rabbi with a small gift in appreciation of his taking the trouble to come to us. A Chitas, which is known to provide protection and deliverance, and to help in every way, with Hashem’s help. May we hear only good news from now on.

1:43:08 Speaker 7 Amen.

1:43:08 Speaker 8 And once again, thank you, Rabbi.

1:43:10 Speaker 7 Thank you. Yasher koach! Thank you. Be blessed. Amen.

1:50:16 Speaker 9 My driver is supposed to bring the book. This is [unclear] Cohen[?]. This one is mine; that one belongs to Reb Yosef Cohen.

1:50:21 Speaker 10 To get hold of it.

1:50:22 Speaker 9 You can’t get it anymore.

1:50:23 Speaker 10 No, it’s [unclear]. I think you’ve long since...

1:50:35 Speaker 9 On the way.

1:50:36 Speaker 10 You don’t want to...

1:50:37 Speaker 9 In a moment, you’ll... You’re stuck here with [unclear].

1:50:42 Speaker 10 Yes, yes.

1:50:42 Speaker 9 One moment. Can this hat be moved from here? Wow. Is someone sitting here?

1:50:55 Speaker 10 Yes.

1:51:08 Speaker 9 Just put it somewhere... Surely there’s a place. This is a book of ours that we wrote. [unclear].

1:51:21 Speaker 10 In a moment, in a moment.

1:51:24 Speaker 9 Is there an introduction, or shall we begin now?

1:51:26 Speaker 10 No, I’ll just say a few words. We welcome Rabbi She’ar Yashuv Cohen. The Rabbi has been Chief Rabbi of Haifa and has served in the rabbinate for decades. What is it—fifty years? Sixty years? Perhaps even longer. He was the senior member of the Chief Rabbinate Council. We know that the Rabbi made a great effort for our sake, coming here from Haifa to take part in our Torah gathering. His connection with the Rebbe is well known. When I announced here that the Rabbi would be coming to the bein hazmanim yeshivah, everyone’s first reaction was great excitement. After that, many residents of Kfar Chabad felt they had to mention the fact that the Rabbi had been with the Rebbe. Everyone knows and recounts the story of the priestly blessing—the conversation the Rabbi had with the Rebbe about the priestly blessing, when the Rebbe asked the Rabbi, shlita, to bless him with the priestly blessing as a kohen. There was also an exchange of letters about it. So we will surely hear about the priestly blessing in the coming shiur, and about the commandment incumbent on every kohen, which is recited every day. The Alter Rebbe writes in Shulchan Aruch: “Yasher koach to the people of Eretz Yisroel, who raise their hands to bless the people every day.” The Alter Rebbe expressed his view on this matter. So, with Hashem’s help, we will hear about it in the coming shiur. Please. Yasher koach. “A man’s steps are established by Hashem, but how can a person understand his path?” Rabbi [unclear], we met unexpectedly at the guesthouse of Kibbutz Lavi, and I was impressed by the book he gave me. It is a book in which [unclear], love, wisdom, and many years of experience come together. I also saw the fine things people had written about it, and I found a great deal in it myself.

1:53:58 Speaker 10 I came to Kfar Chabad today, and this shiur is a continuation of that. So, by Divine Providence, thank G-d, we are here. I will open in the manner of our Sages. The Gemara says, at the end of Berachos, that when our Sages entered the vineyard at Yavneh, they all began by expounding on the honor due their hosts. Rabbi Yehudah, who was the first to speak on every occasion, began by expounding on the honor of Torah. The plain meaning is that he... There are places where there is no need to make a distinction: honoring the hosts and honoring Torah are the same thing. When you go anywhere, as Chabad people do, to bring the word of Hashem there and draw those who are distant closer, you cannot always say praiseworthy things about your hosts. That is where Rabbi Yehudah’s innovation is needed. So, thank G-d, here honoring our hosts is honoring Torah. I wanted to speak about a matter that, thank G-d, I had the great privilege both to discuss and to receive a letter about from the Rebbe—may his merit protect us. That matter is the priestly blessing every day, which to us is a matter of course. When we came to Haifa about thirty-six years ago, I discovered that the custom there was to recite the priestly blessing only at Musaf on Shabbos. Not during the week, not even at Shacharis. In Jerusalem, where I came from, we recited it every day: all the Ashkenazim, Perushim, chassidim—everyone. Sephardim throughout the world recite it every day. I could not understand what had happened here. They told me they had followed the custom of the Galilee. What is the custom of the Galilee? The custom of Tiberias. The students of the Baal Shem Tov who came from Tiberias instituted the blessing at Musaf. In my humble opinion, after asking people familiar with the history, it is a mistake to say that they instituted it only at Musaf. Before that, it was not recited even at Musaf; they instituted it at Musaf. They did not have the power to institute any more than that. Senior rabbis in Haifa nearly forty years ago also said that Rabbi Kaniel, z"l, who had been the rabbi of Haifa before we entered the rabbinate, had tried to reinstate the priestly blessing but had not succeeded.

1:56:11 Speaker 10 It is also well known, as mentioned by the later authorities, that several great rabbis tried to reinstate the daily priestly blessing among Ashkenazim outside Eretz Yisroel, but did not succeed. They said that Heaven was preventing it. The two great rabbis, I think, were the author of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe—may his merit protect us—and the Gaon of Vilna. Both wanted to reinstate it, but did not succeed. In one case a fire broke out; in the other, he traveled to Eretz Yisroel. There were reasons. In any event, thank G-d, in Haifa today we kohanim go up to bless the people every day. About thirty years ago, I think, we wrote a letter to the rabbis of Haifa. Of course, I cannot read the whole letter. In the book we published, Siach Kohen, there are some forty pages on this subject. I would like to present the foundations. The basis of the halachah is that there is a positive commandment to bless the Jewish people every day. I emphasize the words “every day.” It seems to be explicit in Rambam and is agreed upon by most of our early authorities. In Rambam’s Sefer Hamitzvos, it is positive commandment 26. In the sequence of commandments given to the kohanim in the Beis Hamikdash, the preceding commandments are number 24, to sanctify their hands and feet whenever they need to enter the Sanctuary, and number 25, to kindle the lamps. Number 27, which follows it, is to place the showbread before Hashem continually. All these are practices observed regularly, every day. As for the priestly blessing, Rambam states it without qualification: he does not use the words “in the Beis Hamikdash.” With the others he says “in the Beis Hamikdash”; here he does not specify. According to some versions of his words, the time when it applies is not specified either—whether nowadays or only when the Beis Hamikdash stood. Let us read the wording of Sefer Hamitzvos, commandment 26: “It is that He commanded the kohanim to bless the Jewish people, as He, may He be exalted, said: ‘Thus shall you bless the children of Israel.’ The laws of this commandment have already been explained in the last chapter of Megillah and Taanis, in the seventh chapter of Sotah, and elsewhere.” There is a version in which two words are added after “the Jewish people”: “every day.” That is the wording in the edition of Sefer Hamitzvos published by the great scholar...

1:58:35 Speaker 10 Rabbi Chaim Heller z"l, and also the edition of the gaon Rabbi Yosef Kapach z"l. In that book he is still called “shlita”—may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing—and he himself translated it from Arabic. The book was written in Arabic. And in the count of mitzvos at the beginning of Hilchos Tefillah, too, look at the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Tefillah Uvirkas Kohanim: “It includes two positive mitzvos: one, to serve Hashem every day through prayer; the second, for the kohanim to bless the Jewish people every day.” It explicitly says every day, without limiting it to a place. When discussing whether this refers to Jerusalem or to the Temple Mount, the Beis Hamikdash, the Rambam says it must be done outside the Beis Hamikdash as well, every day. In chapter 14, halachah 3, he writes: “How is the raising of the hands performed outside the Beis Hamikdash?” And then, in halachah 9: “How is the raising of the hands performed in the Beis Hamikdash?” In other words, he distinguishes between outside the Beis Hamikdash and the Beis Hamikdash—what he also calls “the provinces.” Elsewhere it says: “In the Beis Hamikdash, the kohanim recite the priestly blessing once a day, after the morning daily offering. In the provinces, they recite it after every prayer except Minchah.” Obviously not Maariv either. That is clear; it is not a time for the Temple service. So the Rambam’s view apparently is that it must be done every day. Now, according to the Mishnah and Gemara in Taanis 26a, Rabbi Meir’s opinion, on a straightforward reading of the Mishnah, is that on Yom Kippur it is done four times a day: Shacharis, Mussaf, Minchah, and Neilah. That is what he says. The Sages—Rabbi Yehudah—hold that Shacharis and Mussaf have the raising of the hands, while Minchah and Neilah do not. It is a dispute. Rabbi Yosi’s opinion is that Neilah has the raising of the hands, but Minchah does not, because of intoxication and as a decree on account of the rest of the year. At any rate, we have before us an explicit ruling that the raising of the hands is performed every day, at every prayer except Minchah, which is exempt because of the concern about intoxication. One may not perform the Temple service while intoxicated. Maariv is not during the day, of course. In any case, we learn this

2:01:01 Speaker 10 from the Sifrei. Rabbi Yonasan says: “For Hashem your G-d has chosen him from all your tribes to stand and serve in the name of Hashem, he and his sons, all the days.” “All the days.” It equates his sons with him: just as he raises his hands in blessing, so do his sons. The Malbim says that “he and his sons” means their service is the same, and there is no distinction between times, for the verse says “all the days.” So this requires a little examination. I do not want to go on at length, of course. I know how much time I have; one could talk about this for hours. There is just an old question here: What does “every day” mean? In the Beis Hamikdash there was a mitzvah every day; outside it, after every prayer, at the final blessing of Shemoneh Esrei, before Sim Shalom, the kohanim recite the priestly blessing. In any case, that excludes Minchah and Maariv, as we have already clarified. According to the Mishnah Berurah and the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch—siman 64, ah, sorry, siman 128, se’if 3; Mishnah Berurah, se’if katan 11—there is a positive obligation to fulfill this positive mitzvah at least once every day. Each time a kohen blesses at the different prayers, he fulfills it. The question is this: He can fulfill a positive mitzvah, even with a blessing, several times in one day. If he does not bless at least once a day, he has failed to fulfill a positive mitzvah. This is almost explicit in a passage in Rosh Hashanah. The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah 28b asks: “From where do we know that a kohen who ascends the platform may not say, ‘Since the Torah gave me permission to bless the Jewish people, I will add a blessing of my own’?” The Gemara says: “It is different here, for if another congregation happens to come along, he blesses them again; the entire day is its time.” That is the Gemara’s wording. So it is explicit: “The entire day is its time.” A kohen can recite the blessing all day. Tosafos there say [unclear] that the kohanim can also bless one congregation several times, if someone comes to add something. So Tosafos say that once he has gone up one time

2:03:15 Speaker 10 during the day, he no longer transgresses the positive commandment. But each time he goes up at another prayer, he fulfills another positive mitzvah. And so, how can one neglect a positive mitzvah that one has the opportunity to fulfill? The Chinuch, too, in mitzvah 378, writes that “the kohanim were commanded to bless the Jewish people every day.” And the heading in the edition of the Minchas Chinuch—and there is also an edition by Rabbi Chavel z"l—says that this mitzvah applies everywhere and at all times. Everywhere and at all times, it applies to kohanim, for they are commanded to bless the Jewish people at Shacharis, Mussaf, and Neilah; they are obligated to bless them. In any case, it follows that even today, if a kohen did not go up even once during the day, he has failed to fulfill a positive mitzvah. As a matter of practical halachah, most halachic authorities rule that he transgresses only if he was called and did not respond. That is why we have the custom of calling out “Kohanim.” If there is more than one kohen, then the chazzan goes on to “Our G-d and G-d of our fathers,” or someone in the congregation calls out. There are different customs. This counts as calling them, and we learn it from the words “say to them”—“say to them.” It follows from this—I simply want to be brief. I have many sources here. The Beis Yosef, in Orach Chaim, siman 128, quotes one of the Rishonim, Rabbeinu Manoach: “When we say that a kohen does not transgress if he is not told to bless, that means he does not transgress three positive commandments. But he does transgress the one positive commandment of ‘Thus shall you bless.’ For the kohanim are commanded to bless the Jewish people, whether they are told to or not.” The Beis Yosef says: “That does not appear to be the opinion of the halachic authorities.” He cites Rabbeinu Manoach and disagrees with him: most authorities say that as long as a kohen is not told to go up, he does not transgress. If he was not called, [unclear]. The Shulchan Aruch says: “Any kohen who does not ascend the platform, although he has failed to fulfill one positive mitzvah, transgresses three positive commandments if he was

2:05:26 Speaker 10 in the synagogue when they called out ‘Kohanim’ and he did not go up, or if he was told to go up or to wash his hands and did not.” It also says there, in se’if 3: “If he went up once during the day, he no longer transgresses.” So the dispute concerns one positive mitzvah or three, but he certainly fails to fulfill one positive mitzvah. The question is—the majority of halachic authorities do not say that. They say that if he was not told, he does not transgress at all. If he is in the synagogue, it is considered that he was told, because they called out “Kohanim.” In any case, it is proper for the congregation to call him so that he can fulfill a positive mitzvah. The words of the Beis Yosef in siman 128 are very well known. He wrote... Sorry.

2:06:12 Speaker 11 When do they call out “Kohanim”?

2:06:14 Speaker 10 And “say to them.” The Torah says “say to them.” First of all—

2:06:19 Speaker 11 When do they say it?

2:06:20 Speaker 10 “And Hashem spoke to Moshe.”

2:06:23 Speaker 11 But they have to stand up first.

2:06:25 Speaker 10 “Speak...” [unclear] “Say to them,” that they should announce “Kohanim,” that they should call them. This is explained throughout the Rishonim. The Agur writes in the name of Maharil: Why do the kohanim not raise their hands every day? This is outside the Land of Israel. It is a positive mitzvah. He says that the kohanim have the custom of immersing beforehand—people ordinarily immerse before prayers anyway. But, he says, because of this, it is hard for them to immerse every day in the winter. That is what he says. The Beis Yosef cites it. That is why the custom arose to do it specifically on Yom Tov, and also because of the need to take time off from work. People have to go to work. When a kohen is not called, he does not transgress, says the Beis Yosef. Then he writes about Maharil and the Agur: He strained to justify the custom of his community, but his explanation is insufficient. As for the custom of immersing beforehand, that is a stringency that leads to a leniency: they insist on immersing, and because of that they fail to fulfill a positive mitzvah. Thirteen. And the Beis Yosef says at the end—we mentioned this—credit is due to all the people of the Land of Israel, and throughout the kingdom of Egypt, as apparently was the case in his time, who raise their hands every day and do not immerse for the priestly blessing. The Rema, in Darkei Moshe and also in his glosses, argues in defense of the Ashkenazi custom outside the Land of Israel not to go up every day. He writes as follows: Because of the people’s work in these countries, the kohanim and the people are preoccupied with earning a living in exile. They have no way to provide for their households except through the bread they gather by the sweat of their brow, day after day, and they are not in a state of joy. Therefore they do not raise their hands on a day when the people must work. Why do they not raise their hands on Shabbos? Because their thoughts are preoccupied with their work, and they need their bodies to rest a little from their labor. They are not as joyful as on Yom Tov, as it says: “And you shall rejoice

2:08:28 Speaker 10 “On your festival.” That is how the custom came about. I sense a little disapproval in that wording: “the custom came about” that they should not recite the priestly blessing except on Yom Tov. That is how it seems to me. Those are the words of the Rema in Darkei Moshe. If we have a little more time, we should apparently discuss the question of a blessing without the Explicit Name. When the kohanim said, “May Hashem bless you and guard you,” in the Beis Hamikdash they pronounced the Name as written. Perhaps that is indispensable, and without the Name it is not a Torah obligation, only a rabbinic one. This is something that needs investigation; I am not saying it is my view. The Keren Orah says that even without the Explicit Name, it is a Torah obligation, and he brings many sources for this. There is, indeed, a discussion in the Gemara about establishing priestly lineage on the basis of reciting the priestly blessing. The Yalkut there cites Sifrei Zuta. The Gemara in Kesubos, page 24b, says: “In every place where I cause My name to be mentioned, I will come to you and bless you.” Rav says: outside the Beis Hamikdash. The Pri Megadim discusses the Magen Avraham’s treatment of a non-kohen who goes up to recite the blessing and thereby transgresses a positive commandment. Tosafos famously say that they did not understand what prohibition a non-kohen would violate by going up to the platform, unless it is making a blessing in vain. That would apparently conflict with the passage in Kesubos about establishing priestly lineage from reciting the blessing, and the prohibition involving a positive commandment. At any rate, reciting the priestly blessing establishes a presumption of priestly status in Eretz Yisroel and in Syria, where they would come up to recite it on Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh, and it served as evidence. Alexandria, too, had a permanent beis din. In any event, that is apparently what the Beis Yosef means when he says that in Eretz Yisroel and also in Egypt, they were accustomed to go up every day. That is the custom of Eretz Yisroel. We cannot go into the subject at length, but according to several of our great authorities, one who goes up fulfills a positive Torah commandment. If he is called to go up and wash his hands and does not go up, he transgresses a positive commandment that counts as three positive commandments. According to Rabbi Manoach’s understanding of the Yerushalmi, he transgresses one positive commandment even if he is not called. If he is called, he transgresses more.

2:10:34 Speaker 10 One of our great later authorities, the Mor Uketzi’a, says in Orach Chayim, section 128, that outside the Beis Hamikdash, both when the Beis Hamikdash stood and nowadays, the priestly blessing is only a rabbinic obligation, not a Torah obligation. That really is a distinctive position of the Mor Uketzi’a, and most later authorities reject it. The scholar who wrote Pesach Hadevir goes to great lengths to bring proofs from the Gemara and from the great early and later commentators that this is a positive Torah commandment. He also writes that the Mor Uketzi’a himself retracted his position. That is what he writes concerning the Yaavetz’s view, and he also rejects the arguments concerning Shlomo and the first fruits—all of it... Anyone who wants to look into it can find it in volume seven of Sdei Chemed. The [unclear] cites all the later authorities, the Kaf Hachayim, and so on. The Kaf Hachayim cites a responsum by one of the early authorities, Rabbi Yaakov of Marvege, in She’eilos Uteshuvos Min Hashamayim: In a place where there are kohanim fit to recite the priestly blessing, but the custom is not to recite it even once a year, both groups transgress—the kohanim and the Israelites who do not call them. It is as though they are unconcerned; Heaven forbid, they do not care about letters from Heaven. The Chesed LeAvraham says: One who does not recite the blessing forfeits a great deal of good and shows that he does not desire the mitzvos or the blessing—and what harm that will bring him. Therefore, a kohen who fears the word of Hashem and desires His mitzvos—these are the words of the Radbaz, of the Chesed LeAvraham—should not fail to recite the blessing and bring gratification to his Maker. The kohanim should raise their hands every day, and that is how it should be everywhere; one should not seek stratagems to set aside a positive Torah commandment. And although a kohen does not transgress when he is not called, nevertheless an abundance of blessing will come to the upper and lower realms. That is already Chassidus, concerning the priestly blessing. These matters go back a long way. The intentions of the priestly blessing are profound, full of secrets upon secrets. In general, though, the kohanim should intend that the One Above establish the work of their hands, and that their intent accords with that of Aharon the Kohen and the holy ones. That is the end of his words, though the Kabbalists mention other intentions. Rabbi Chaim Vital and [unclear] in the discourses on

2:12:44 Speaker 10 the repetition of the Amidah says that the priestly blessing should be recited every day during the repetition of the Amidah. He explains the mystical aspects of the matter. The Chofetz Chaim, in the Mishnah Berurah’s Biur Halachah to section 128, paragraph 102, writes that if a kohen is genuinely weak or ill, he may leave and not go up to the platform. But if it is not a matter of illness, it is forbidden to set aside a positive commandment for no reason. The Mateh Ephraim, Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margolioth—may his merit protect us—does, however, go to great lengths to justify the custom outside Eretz Yisroel, where kohanim recite the blessing only on Yom Tov. But this is an ancient custom, more than five hundred years old, and the custom is only on Shabbos and Yom Tov. When I am outside Eretz Yisroel, I know that it is not even on Shabbos, only on Yom Tov. The Beis Yosef wrote [unclear], but he did not undertake to abolish the custom outside Eretz Yisroel. After all, this is a matter where [unclear]. In other words, if we do not require the Israelites to call the kohanim, the kohen is not obligated to go up without further clarification. No, no, there is no obligation. That is what he means to say. This is a custom established by venerable authorities and endorsed by the great early authorities and the great sages of every generation. So, no, it should not be abolished; he discusses the words of the early and later authorities at length, such that they would have to compel me to change my position. When I published my lengthy responsum on this subject, it concerned Haifa. The Raavad of the Eidah Chareidis in Jerusalem argued: What is this chossid doing, investigating [unclear]? It is a custom; it is forbidden to abolish a custom. Jewish custom has the force of law. There is a Yerushalmi in Eruvin that says a custom can override the halachah. But that refers to a custom of doing something. A bad custom, says the Aruch Hashulchan, is called a bad custom. A custom of not doing something is not called a custom. He wants to say that it is called a custom. So that is the question. At any rate, to make our position clear, after bringing some sources—and many more could be brought; as I said, this comes to some fifty pages—in Eretz Yisroel

2:14:46 Speaker 10 the custom was to recite the blessing every day. When I came to Haifa, kohanim would arrive from Jerusalem, from— I came from Jerusalem; people would come from Tel Aviv to Haifa. In their own cities, their status as kohanim is established and they go up. Does coming to Haifa nullify their established status? Why? I received no answer from anyone. To sum up, I saw what the Aruch Hashulchan writes. His words are the exact opposite of those of the Beis Ephraim, Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margolioth. I will read his words, because this is very important: “It is known that every custom, whether of an individual or of a community, must have a basis. If there is concern that a custom involves any prohibition, the custom is abolished.” That is why he said this custom must be abolished. Regarding the argument that in a single city this would violate “You shall not form separate factions,” he says that none of that applies when one is setting aside something mandated by the Torah. When it is a Torah matter, it does apply. In Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, there was the distinguished Rabbi Mordechai Fogelman, z"l. He published a book, Beis Mordechai, and brought all the sources. Apparently, since the kohanim there did not recite the blessing, he sought to defend all the kohanim who did not go up: they were not called, and the custom was not to call them because of concerns about priestly lineage. All are kohanim by established presumption. There is also the question of requiring them to discontinue the practice, and more; that is what he wants to say. And that is the halachah. At any rate, it seems to me—and I will read from what I wrote—that the practice in our city is a custom to which the great sages of the generation did not agree. Therefore, it is proper not to rely on it to set aside a positive Torah commandment according to most opinions. The Sephardim and the other communities of Eastern origin in particular, of course, go up every day even in Haifa; they go up every day outside Eretz Yisroel as well. I will tell you later about a conversation I had with the Rebbe, and there is also a letter that, with your permission, I will read to you. At any rate, it is clear that there are—there were also several Ashkenazi yeshivos in Haifa, and also matters

2:16:54 Speaker 10 concerning Rabbi Dunin, Rabbi Tanchum Dunin, whose son is a staunch Ashkenazi and a Chabad chossid, where they went up every day even in Haifa. That was the reality. It is not that it never happened. I am speaking now about the Ashkenazim.

2:17:06 Speaker 12 And Ruskin.

2:17:07 Speaker 10 Huh?

2:17:07 Speaker 12 And Ruskin.

2:17:08 Speaker 10 Vatikin. Yes, yes, yes. He had a minyan there in his home. You see, Tanchum was the father of the family whose son was already a tractor driver—the one about whom the Rebbe said that it suited Haifa to have a Chabad tractor driver, there in the workers’ city. That was how things were years ago. In any case, there is no issue here of “do not form separate groups,” and I think even the Beis Ephraim would agree here that one should follow the local custom and recite the blessing. In the calendar for Ashkenazim by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, Luach Eretz Yisrael, he writes that in our time, in the Galilee, the custom is not to perform Birchas Kohanim on weekdays, but only during Musaf on Shabbos and Yom Tov. It is not clearly known who instituted this or why, but it is the custom, he writes. Eretz Chaim writes that in Tzfas, too, they perform Birchas Kohanim only on Shabbos. In any case, it is also brought in the book Shaar Yerushalayim that in Tzfas, Tiberias and Hebron, Ashkenazi kohanim did not perform Birchas Kohanim on weekdays—he included Hebron as well. Now I have heard that in Kiryat Arba, my friend Rabbi Dov Lior shlita performs Birchas Kohanim every day. Regarding Haifa, I found no written source for abolishing the daily Birchas Kohanim. What emerges from our discussion, ladies and gentlemen, in brief, is that the Ashkenazi Perushim in Eretz Yisrael should certainly follow the custom of the Vilna Gaon. We also find, in several places, the view of the Rabbi who authored the Tanya, who writes that this is the proper practice. I’ll also tell you what the Rebbe wrote to me on this matter concerning his ancestor, the author of the Tanya. Pe’as Hashulchan writes: “It is a fine custom throughout Eretz Yisrael for the kohanim to perform Birchas Kohanim on every weekday, and that is the custom throughout the regions of Sepharad.” That is what he writes. In any case, Rabbi Munk z”l, who was head of the beis din of the Eidah Hachareidis in Haifa, told me that when the Gerrer Rebbe z”l came to Haifa to rest, he sent him a messenger with a letter from Rabbi Yisrael Yitzchak

2:19:22 Speaker 10 Belsky [unclear] shlita. He wrote on the basis of Kabbalah, and the letter was publicized, urging people to uphold the custom of Eretz Yisrael to perform Birchas Kohanim every day. The Gerrer Rebbe z”l considered the matter and replied that perhaps Rabbi Yisrael was right, but it would not do to institute one practice in one shul and another in a different shul. Either everyone should adopt it or no one should. In any case, they agreed, and this letter was written to all the rabbis in Haifa—Perushim, chassidim, Ashkenazim and Sephardim—to bring their customs into line. For it is a great merit: Birchas Kohanim is one of the important elements of the prayer service, and it brings many blessings and protection. We need that protection. I will tell you what is written in Knesses Hagedolah: One should not look for ways to set aside a positive commandment of the Torah, through which an abundance of blessing comes into the world by way of Birchas Kohanim. Perhaps they were concerned about the kohanim’s lineage, or about ritual purity if they had not first immersed. In any case, the Gemara in Megillah does say something that could be seen as a source. Rav Asi said: “A person from Haifa or Beis She’an should not perform Birchas Kohanim.” They would interchange alef and hei in their pronunciation. So, G-d forbid, the meaning could come out the opposite way. Instead of “May Hashem shine His face upon you,” with the letters interchanged, it could come out the opposite—a word of curse, may G-d spare us. Some write that this is why they said that people from Haifa and Beis She’an should not perform Birchas Kohanim. Beis She’an is what “Beishan” means. It is known that there was such a pronunciation in the Galilee. I knew elderly Jerusalemites who had come from the Galilee and could not pronounce an alef. They always said hei, hei. That was how it was. Today it is not like that. Everyone pronounces the guttural letters—alef, hei and ches—as they should, and there are speech-therapy specialists who can correct the problem, so that a person can pronounce the hei properly, and so on. So it seems to me that today this situation

2:21:43 Speaker 10 no longer exists. There was one family in Peki’in in the Galilee, the Bachin family [unclear], who may have retained that pronunciation. In any case, as for reciting the blessing at Musaf rather than Shacharis, they say it is because when the kohanim get up in the morning, they are not yet quite ready. By Musaf they are more settled. That does not seem right to me. I think they were following the practice outside Eretz Yisrael, where the custom was to perform Birchas Kohanim at Musaf on Yom Tov. So in Eretz Yisrael they extended it to Musaf on Shabbos as well, but there is no source for that. Therefore, we appeal to all our brothers, the dayanim and rabbis, to institute daily Birchas Kohanim in their shuls. This was something written thirty-five years ago, I think, among all the rabbis. After we sent it to all the rabbis, there was also a circular from the Chief Rabbinate of Haifa, signed by both Rabbi Bakshi-Doron and my humble self. I also received a letter of support from my teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook z”l: “A thousand thanks and blessings,” and so on. I won’t read all the honorifics he wrote to me. “I cannot thank you enough for the joy you brought me with your letter informing me that you merited to establish our mitzvah there in its true observance, with its blessing recited in love. In this you have brought the written words to light for me and strengthened my hands.” I studied under him in yeshiva. He cites Sefer Chareidim, which says that this fosters love; and love between Jews is a great rectification that brings the Geulah closer. So we certainly need to do this—to turn a curse into a blessing. “May the merit of the mitzvos stand by you and by all [unclear].” Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Akiva—who blesses the kohanim? Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu bless the kohanim, or do they bless? Those are two opinions. Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Akiva disagree. “May all of Israel be blessed and filled with perfect love.” That is what he wrote to me in the letter. I sent this letter to Rabbi Tzvi Dov Gandlein [unclear]. There was no reply. I think I sent it

2:23:45 Speaker 10 around Pesach, and I prayed. Usually you receive an answer after a few weeks, but then, during the days of Selichos in 5739, from Brooklyn, New York—[unclear]. I don’t want to read all the—perhaps I will read it. What, should I read the honorifics?

2:24:10 Speaker 14 If they’re written there.

2:24:11 Speaker 10 They’re written there; I won’t read them. “The distinguished Rabbi, the eminent chossid, a G-d-fearing man, of noble character, devoted to communal needs, a man of many accomplishments,” and so on, thank G-d. “Rabbi Yosef...” He reads out the entire name, because I had asked for a blessing in a note. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, submit notes, and he remembered exactly what was written in mine. That is truly astonishing. “...Yaakov, may he live, greetings and blessings. As the new year approaches for us and for all of Israel for good and blessing, I hereby convey my blessing to you and all that is yours: may you be inscribed and sealed for a good and sweet year, materially and spiritually.” Signed, “With respect and blessing, Menachem Mendel.” Then something is written at the side, and this is what concerns our subject: “I ask your great forgiveness for not replying on the subject of Birchas Kohanim in the Holy Land, for I have been much troubled over this matter.” The Rebbe writes, “I have been troubled”—that is what the Rebbe writes. “...in reaching a conclusion, particularly regarding what should actually be done, for that is the main thing. On the one hand, since, in the words of our Sages, ‘There is no day...’”—I don’t want to say that part either. The Rebbe did not write it out, and I won’t read it—“...greater than the one before it, there is reason to advocate and work, and so on, to increase blessing in every respect, and especially Birchas Kohanim, which flows swiftly through all the worlds, with nothing to prevent or delay it, and without any examination of a person’s judgment at all.” These are the words of the Alter Rebbe, the author of the Tanya, in his Likkutei Torah. “On the other hand, although the Alter Rebbe was undaunted by anyone—he was resolute, and clarified and established the wording of the prayers, and so on—with regard to Birchas Kohanim, it is related that he said, approximately, that he would have liked to restore it, and so on, so that the positive commandment would be fulfilled every day even outside Eretz Yisrael. He would have liked to restore it, yet despite all this he did not act on it, and so on. And the very fact that the matter and its reason are not clearly known makes it all the more difficult. I weigh both sides, and so on. In this matter, I should not issue a partial ruling—which itself rules out the negative half, of course. Therefore, I have acted in accordance with the instruction of our Sages: ‘Leave the Jewish people as they are,’ and so on.” That is what the Rebbe writes. That is the end of the letter.

2:26:21 Speaker 10 There is another story about this, if you’ll allow me. After receiving this letter, I merited a yechidus. I was in New York, and I asked the Rebbe: I remember two places in the Talmud that say, “Leave the Jewish people as they are.” One continues, “If they are not prophets, they are the children of prophets,” and the other, “Better that they act unwittingly than deliberately.” I think those are the two places. I don’t remember another, and the Rebbe did not correct me either, which suggests that is so. Which saying did he mean by “Leave them as they are,” and so on? He said one word in Yiddish: “Beide”—both. Meaning both of them, this one and that one.

2:27:03 Speaker 15 Both.

2:27:04 Speaker 10 Both of them. That was his answer, even in Yiddish, in just that way. The conversation went no further. Another time, when I was in yechidus again, the Rebbe asked me, “Did you recite the priestly blessing today?” I said, “But they don’t do it here.” He said, “No, there are Sephardim here. You can go to a Sephardic shul.” That is, every time I came afterward—and I came several times—he would ask, “What’s happening with the priestly blessing? What’s happening?” Apparently he held by this practice; otherwise he would not have kept asking. But since he was bound by the Alter Rebbe, who had not instituted it as practical halacha, he encouraged it in this way. I mentioned earlier that I also had an experience with the Rebbe involving the priestly blessing. I’ll repeat it. Before we parted at the end of yechidus, he shook my hand. He had also instructed me to sit; I usually stand during yechidus. Then he said to me, “Git mir a bracha”—give me a blessing. I was startled. I should give the Rebbe a blessing? I even said something like, “The Rebbe is the Kohen Gadol and blesses the entire people. So I should bless the Kohen Gadol? Who am I?” He answered firmly. I’ll say it in his words: “Ir zait a kohen, a kohen mevarech”—you are a kohen, and a kohen blesses. Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought a verse to mind: “For length of days, years of life and peace they will add to you,” and I said that verse. He held my hand and said, “Amen.” So I had the privilege of receiving a mitzvah from the Rebbe and blessing him. That was a special privilege. Later I learned from two other rabbis that the same thing had happened with them: one was the late Rabbi Avraham Kahana Shapira, z”l, head of Yeshivas Merkaz Harav and Chief Rabbi of Israel; and may our friend Rabbi Simcha HaKohen Kook, shlita, rabbi of Rechovot, be distinguished for a long and good life. He asked them for a blessing too.

2:29:02 Speaker 10 And he asked them about the priestly blessing. So the conclusion is that he did want to renew the practice; it just needed to become established. And therefore, thank Hashem, today in most of Haifa’s shuls the kohanim go up to give the priestly blessing every day. May it be Hashem’s will to fulfill for us: “May Hashem bless you and guard you. May Hashem shine His face toward you and be gracious to you. May Hashem lift His face toward you and grant you peace. They shall place My name upon the Children of Israel, and I will bless them.” Thank you.

2:29:23 Speaker 16 In this shul they do it every day.

2:29:25 Speaker 10 Huh?

2:29:26 Speaker 16 In this shul.

2:29:27 Speaker 10 They do?

2:29:28 Speaker 16 The priestly blessing, every day.

2:29:29 Speaker 10 Really?

2:29:29 Speaker 16 This is a Sephardic shul here, Moroccan.

2:29:34 Speaker 10 If anyone wants to ask something, they can. I’m a little tired. We’ll leave out some of what I had to say.

2:29:44 Speaker 17 On this occasion, of course, we all thank the Rabbi, shlita, for making the tremendous effort to come from Haifa to give us Torah classes.

2:30:00 Speaker 10 I came from Jerusalem.

2:30:01 Speaker 17 Jerusalem.

2:30:02 Speaker 10 I was in Jerusalem on the way back.

2:30:05 Speaker 17 We would like to present the Rabbi with a book, a Chitas—

2:30:10 Speaker 10 That’s certainly worthwhile. Chitas.

2:30:12 Speaker 17 For the Rabbi.

2:30:13 Speaker 10 I forget, I forget the size.

2:30:15 Speaker 17 According to—we just heard what the Rebbe said—

2:30:16 Speaker 10 Even with the name, yes.

2:30:18 Speaker 17 Don’t put a name on it.

2:30:19 Speaker 10 Thank you.

2:30:20 Speaker 17 The Rebbe said several times that the book—

2:30:22 Speaker 10 It’s a segulah.

2:30:23 Speaker 17 Serves as a segulah for—

2:30:24 Speaker 10 Taking it along, taking it on the road.

2:30:26 Speaker 17 Right.

2:30:26 Speaker 10 [unclear]. Thank you. Thank you very much. May we truly merit that Hashem grant us all peace, and may we merit the complete Geulah, wholeness and peace.

2:30:37 Speaker 18 What about reading the Megillah in Haifa?

2:30:40 Speaker 10 What?

2:30:40 Speaker 18 Reading the Megillah.

2:30:42 Speaker 10 There’s a story with the Rebbe about that too. I wrote a booklet saying that it should be read on two days: on the first day, the 14th, with a blessing, and on the second day without a blessing, because there is a doubt. Rabbi Michael cites a practice in Haifa of reciting the blessing on the 15th as well, and I did not know the basis for it. I sent that booklet to the Rebbe too. I did not receive a reply from him, but there was a gathering of Chabad chassidim on Mount Carmel, at Rabbi Finger’s shul, I think—he is now z”l—and a letter was sent to the chassidim of Haifa, where the practice is to read on both the 14th and the 15th. Since then, when I want to read the Megillah on the night of the 15th, I go to the Chabad House and read it there.

2:31:29 Speaker 18 That’s the answer.

2:31:32 Speaker 10 Minchah, if we can daven.

2:31:33 Speaker 17 Now we’ll have the photograph, and then go to Maariv.

2:31:40 Speaker 10 Rabbi. Rabbi. Something... Excuse me. No, no, no, no, one second. I’m getting old. It’s a little hard for me to sit for long.

2:31:49 Speaker 18 What the Rabbi said he heard from Rabbi Kook.

2:31:52 Speaker 10 Huh?

2:31:52 Speaker 18 What the Rabbi said he heard from Rabbi Kook—that the same thing happened to him.

2:31:56 Speaker 10 What happened?