Torah Convention - month of Nissan 5774 - Kfar Chabad

00:00 Speaker 1 of Chabad communities. Perhaps I should mention something the driver asked me on the way. He asked whether I had ever been to Kfar Chabad. I told him I first came to Kfar Chabad almost sixty years ago, when the first families arrived. Back then it was called Safriya, not Kfar Chabad. The village had not yet been built; there were only the abandoned houses of the Arabs who had left the village called Safriya. The families arrived in Eretz Yisroel, and among them were relatives of ours—close relatives, uncles and cousins from earlier generations. There was the Krasik family, Reb Isaac Krasik and his family, may his memory be a blessing, and the Gofin family, Reb Feishe Gofin, may his memory be a blessing. Among them was the boy who would later become the mashgiach and mashpia, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Gofin shlita. He was a very small child then. I think the first home they came to when they arrived in Eretz Yisroel was ours. But what I found here in Safriya, with the Chabad community, was more than a visit to relatives. The great thing was that our grandfather—my grandfather—Rabbi Moshe Axelrod z"l... I don't know, perhaps you know his descendants, grandchildren or even great-grandchildren? And later generations too, yes. Rabbi Gedalia Axelrod, the head of the rabbinical court in Haifa, is my mother’s brother, may she live and be well. Right away, in those first weeks, our grandfather, may he rest in peace, sent us—I mean Rabbi Gedalia and me—to spend Shabbos here. He wanted us here for the first Shabbos, so we could see how Chabad communities observed the sanctity of Shabbos, as they had abroad, as they had in our communities back in the days

03:13 Speaker 1 when our grandfather served as a shliach. The Rebbe Rashab had sent him. They are considered among the very first shluchim, sent to preserve Yiddishkeit and protect the communities so the Communists would not succeed in uprooting their Yiddishkeit. The Rebbe Rashab had six students whom he sent out to communities. They would establish a community, and once it was firmly established, move on to another. That is what happened. He had already served as rabbi in three towns in Russia when the Russian Communists caught him and put him in prison. Then, quite remarkably, through Divine providence, instead of sending him to Siberia, they gave him permission to choose between going to America and going to Eretz Yisroel. He chose Eretz Yisroel. He and our grandmother came, along with the families. I’ll name the families, and you’ll see how large the extended family was. When my grandfather arrived, he looked for a place where he could continue his shlichus. He was also involved then with [unclear], and he began his shlichus in Ramat Gan. There he established the first communities of Chabad chassidim. Besides that, he was the director of Tomchei Temimim in Tel Aviv. And then, he told us, the community here in Kfar Chabad began in 5710—I think that was when it began here in Safriya. Yes. And so it began. But to return to the main point: Grandfather said, “You must be there.” And from then on, we came here

06:28 Speaker 1 not only to the Safriya below, I would say, but also to the Safriya above. The farbrengens and all that went with them were extraordinary. For the first Simchas Torah here, instead of spending Simchas Torah with Grandfather in his community in Ramat Gan, he told me, “Go to Safriya, to Kfar Chabad, for Simchas Torah. There you’ll see what Simchas Torah is—what joy, and what a connection to the Torah they have.” And truly, I will never forget the tremendous, extraordinary joy there was.

07:13 Speaker 2 What year was that?

07:14 Speaker 1 5710, 5712, 5713.

07:19 Speaker 2 It was in the center, and that building isn’t there today either. Right? The shul—

07:26 Speaker 1 Back then, everything was there. It was on this side, and I don’t know whether the central shul was actually built over it. In any case, that’s where it was. After that we never gave it up. As children we kept coming on Shabbos, and especially on Simchas Torah. Not to mention 14 Kislev and all the rest. I just want to say that being here and seeing the children and grandchildren of all those Lubavitch Chabad communities is deeply moving for me. I truly consider it a privilege that we can be together—especially when I see the mesirus nefesh you’re showing. During your break, instead of taking some time to relax, rest or travel, you decided to come and continue learning Torah. That is truly extraordinary. I asked the person who brought me here about it on the way, and he told me that people come because they want to. I don’t know whether they hand out prizes or offer you anything, but that isn’t what brings you here to learn Torah. There can be no greater love of Torah. So I consider it a great privilege to address the subject you’ve chosen to study. I don’t know how fully we can cover every aspect of it in one hour. But you should know that this is among the gravest issues today: people enter the Temple Mount, the site of the Beis Hamikdash. And when I say the site of the Beis Hamikdash, I mean the distinctions between [unclear], the Sanctuary, and

10:21 Speaker 1 then the women’s courtyard and then the Israelites’ courtyard, when we consider the whole Temple Mount in relation to the women’s courtyard. Perhaps I’ll address that later in the shiur. Maybe the rabbi should first finish what he wanted to begin. Then I’ll focus, as far as we can, on the great principles concerning the sanctity of the Beis Hamikdash and the sanctity of the Temple Mount. So, if that’s all—unless he wants to finish—we’ll continue. Actually, you’ve reminded me of something. I could sit here and speak at great length, but since you mentioned the permanent Chabad rabbinical court and that ruling, this is relevant to the ruling itself. I wanted to establish the standing of the rabbinical court of the Chabad communities in Eretz Yisroel, so I researched the entire history of its establishment. I don’t know whether I wrote this in the rulings, but I should have noted that the Rebbe requested that every community appoint not only a rabbi but also a rabbinical court. Establishing a rabbinical court is a Torah commandment. There had been no rabbinical court for the Chabad community in Eretz Yisroel. At that time, too, the Chabad community was not confined to Kfar Chabad, and the larger communities expanded later. Of course there were communities, but what I mean is... Then the Rebbe approached someone who was perhaps among the greatest Torah scholars, perhaps the greatest Torah scholar among Chabad chassidim: Rabbi Zevin z"l. Rabbi Zevin, incidentally, was

13:31 Speaker 1 He was also among the shluchim then, so he was in the same place when he served as a rabbi. Yes, he had been appointed by the Rebbe Rashab. And Rabbi Zevin also had a very close connection and friendship with my grandfather. I was privileged to know Rabbi Zevin, even though I studied at the Chevron Yeshiva in Jerusalem. A year before my grandfather’s passing—before my passing, sorry, my grandfather’s, a”h—he was very ill, and he asked me, “Where will you continue studying?” I said, “I’m studying at the Chevron Yeshiva in Jerusalem.” My grandfather said, “And what about continuing with Chassidus? What will be your yeshiva for Chassidus?” So I told him... My grandfather always said that Torah comes first, that everything requires Torah, so Torah comes first. He said, “I have a friend in Jerusalem, Rabbi Zevin, who lives near the Chevron Yeshiva. I’ll send him a letter and ask him to receive my grandson and teach him Chassidus.” From then on, I was privileged to have a very, very close relationship with Rabbi Zevin. In any event, I also took the opportunity to verify what I’m telling you with Rabbi Zevin himself. In any event, the Rebbe sent word to Rabbi Zevin and told him, “I want you to gather all the Chabad rabbis in Eretz Yisroel so they can meet and decide who will constitute the permanent beis din for the Chabad chassidim in Eretz Yisroel. After you make your recommendation, I’ll send you, I’ll send you...” And the Rebbe—this is also grounded in halacha; it’s mentioned there—once the Rebbe appointed them as the dayanim, they became the permanent beis din for the entire Chabad community. And when I ruled on the main issue,

15:55 Speaker 1 I said, “Why are you coming to us, to our beis din? Go to the beis din the Rebbe established, their permanent beis din.” Then the beis din wrote me what it wrote. There was no choice, so we had to get involved, and that is what happened and how it developed. I think the whole account is somewhere... The entire sequence of how the beis din was established is recorded. I had it; it may even be with me.

16:24 Speaker 13 It’s also printed in the book Betzur Hamishpat.

16:28 Speaker 1 Oh, he published that in Betzur Hamishpat too?

16:30 Speaker 13 All the rulings.

16:31 Speaker 1 Not the rulings. I mean the account of who... who describes the establishment of the Chabad beis din. It came out, and someone... It’s printed too. I saw it in... Well, in any event, as we said, the main thing is to come here to the Kfar Chabad above and really [unclear]. That’s what relates to that.

16:58 Speaker 13 Yes.

16:59 Speaker 1 Yes. All right, we’ll begin the class. Yes. Let me just tell you... No, I’ll stand. I’ll stand. All right. After the Six-Day War in 5727, which ended in late Iyar, a proclamation was issued immediately, about a month and a half later, bearing the signatures of more than fifty rabbis and dayanim: all the chief rabbis, all the members of the Chief Rabbinate, all the heads of the rabbinical courts, and rabbis of cities and towns. In other words, they came from all parts of Eretz Yisroel, not only Jerusalem. The proclamation forbids entering the Temple Mount precinct. I’ll read it, and we’ll focus on just one point of halacha in it, because the other points call for a much broader study than our time allows. It says: “After we were privileged, through the kindness of Hashem, may He be blessed, to have the holy site of the Beis Hamikdash, the cherished place of the Jewish people, under our control, and many among the Jewish people are streaming there to see the site of the holy Beis Hamikdash with their own eyes, some entering the Temple Mount area—from generation to generation we have been warned and have refrained from entering the entire Temple Mount area, lest, G-d forbid, we transgress a grave prohibition and violate the sanctity of this holy place.” What is the first principle here? We have been warned for generations. This did not begin then; for generations there was a warning not to enter the Temple Mount precinct. And when I speak of the Temple Mount precinct, I mean everything within the wall surrounding the Temple Mount: on the east, toward the Mount of Olives; on the south, toward what is called the Southern Wall, toward the City of David; on the west, the Western Wall; and on the north, the area called the Lions’ Gate area, entered from the eastern side. That is the surrounding wall; that is the Temple Mount. It says “the entire Temple Mount area,” without distinguishing between different parts of it.

21:42 Speaker 1 There is Machaneh Shechinah, the place of the Sanctuary and the Beis Hamikdash—that is, the Sanctuary and the courtyard. There are also the women’s courtyard and the cheil, by rabbinic law. This concerns the boundary between the Sanctuary and the Temple courtyard, where a person who is tamei through contact with the dead may not enter; the prohibition carries kareis, a severe penalty. That is one camp. The second camp within the Temple Mount is Machaneh Leviyah. Machaneh Leviyah is the entire Temple Mount, extending, as we said, to its eastern, southern, western and northern boundaries. All that surrounding area is called Machaneh Leviyah, and that is the Temple Mount. A person who is tamei through contact with the dead may enter that area. We should note that all of us today are tamei through contact with the dead, and we cannot be purified from that tumah, because it requires the water of the red heifer. Purification requires sprinkling that water, and we do not have it today. We cannot purify ourselves from tumah contracted through contact with the dead. But in Machaneh Leviyah, as we said, there is a prohibition concerning tumah that issues from a person’s body: the tumah of a zav or zavah, or any such tumah, such as that of a baal keri. And purification from this kind of tumah is possible. A person can become a tevul yom through immersion in a mikveh that is valid under Torah law, like a women’s mikveh. Men’s mikvaos today do not necessarily purify a person from tumah. Yes, living water—for example, someone who goes down to a spring, the spring called the Ari’s Spring below the cemetery in Tzfas—that does purify from tumah even under Torah law. But other mikvaos that do not meet all the halachic requirements for a mikveh do not purify. Therefore, to enter the Temple Mount, given that all of us are tamei through contact with the dead, in practice,

25:11 Speaker 1 the only way, if one wants or needs to enter—and I’ll shortly share an instance of such a situation—is to undergo purification that meets Torah-law requirements, with all its conditions. Machaneh Yisroel is the third area of sanctity associated with the Beis Hamikdash in Jerusalem: all of Jerusalem. Yes. A zav or a baal keri, or someone with another form of tumah that issues from the body, may be in Jerusalem. It is not forbidden there, because Jerusalem has the status of Machaneh Yisroel, as it did in the wilderness. If you compare them, it is just like the Mishkan in the wilderness. The Mishkan corresponds to the Sanctuary and the courtyard. That whole enclosed area—and what lies outside it is called Machaneh Yisroel, with all that entails. We learned in this week’s parsha who must leave Machaneh Yisroel and go entirely outside the camp: only a person with tzaraas. A person with tzaraas is excluded from it altogether. Yes. So when they write here that for generations we have been warned not to enter the entire Temple Mount area, they make no distinction. Here there is the prohibition of entering the Beis Hamikdash, which carries kareis; there, the prohibition concerns tumah that issues from a person’s body. They make no distinction. Did you want to ask something?

27:05 Speaker 23 No, but I have to leave.

27:07 Speaker 1 What?

27:08 Speaker 23 I wanted to ask something about the mikvaos. What’s the difference?

27:11 Speaker 1 Between an ordinary mikveh and—

27:12 Speaker 23 Yes.

27:13 Speaker 1 A mikveh for Ezra’s ordinance and another mikveh.

27:18 Speaker 23 No, between women’s and men’s. If the water goes out, it’s supposed to be outside [unclear].

27:22 Speaker 1 Yes. What do you mean, no?

27:24 Speaker 23 For—

27:24 Speaker 34 Women’s mikvaos need hashakah, contact with the reservoir water. Men’s do not.

27:26 Speaker 1 But they do have the hashakah.

27:28 Speaker 23 No, but—

27:28 Speaker 1 There is the reservoir and there is the hashakah, and the reservoir creates a situation where—

27:33 Speaker 23 We can discuss mikvaos. There are mikvaos that do not have [unclear].

27:39 Speaker 34 Yes, Mikveh Chava.

27:40 Speaker 23 No, a mikveh like that does not [unclear]. But he was speaking about mikvaos that do not—

27:43 Speaker 1 No, that’s what I said: there are those mikvaos used for Ezra’s ordinance.

27:50 Speaker 23 There are all sorts of unofficial mikvaos in operation.

27:53 Speaker 1 Those are mikvaos people use. Yes, there are people who go every day for the purification required by Ezra’s ordinance and are particular about it. But that is another subject. All right. They’ll pass on the rest of the material to you. In any event, that is what it says here. Then they continue and say: Why? What is this prohibition observed for generations? The prohibition is there so that, G-d forbid, we do not violate the sanctity of the Beis Hamikdash, of this holy place. That is one thing. Second, over the years the exact location of the Beis Hamikdash has become unknown to us. We do not know with absolute precision where the 500-by-500-cubit area is—the area of the Sanctuary and the Beis Hamikdash, the place we were discussing. So we do not know exactly where its boundary lies. We know there are 500 cubits within the Temple Mount area.

29:13 Speaker 35 The area that was added isn’t included at all?

29:15 Speaker 1 How?

29:15 Speaker 35 They expanded it later. Under Herod, they made it more than five hundred cubits. All of that was within...

29:20 Speaker 1 No, that’s not it. That already goes into the Temple Mount.

29:23 Speaker 35 It goes in.

29:24 Speaker 1 Herod’s expansion reaches—it starts from approximately...

29:30 Speaker 35 It isn’t included at all.

29:31 Speaker 1 No, no, certainly not. Herod’s expansion is only—this makes a very, very practical difference for those who allow themselves to breach such serious boundaries. From the Mughrabi Gate, on the southern side of the Western Wall—from that gate southward, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands—that really belongs to the additions Herod made. And to the north as well—I don’t know if we’ll have time to mention it today—there is a gate called the Gate of the Little Ones. What’s the name? They call it... It’s the green gate. When you continue through the market toward the Wall, one path goes down toward the Wall and another continues straight ahead, under a roof, with a market there. At the end of the market is the green gate, also called the Gate of the Little Ones or the Gate of the Wool Merchants. When someone opens it, he sees the site of the Temple Mount directly in front of him. But there, too, extreme caution is needed. It is much more dangerous there, and there is no doubt that someone entering from there could immediately violate a prohibition punishable by kareis. It is one of the most severe areas. There was even a period when they closed it and did not allow anyone through, out of caution. But that is the situation. On that northern side, too, those are Herod’s additions, outside the area of the Azarah. Yes. In any event, they come and say: But we don’t know precisely. Researchers have done a great deal of work to determine where this section is, exactly where the Heichal stood, exactly where the Levite camp was, and which parts Herod added—in order to know what definitely belongs to which area, what is definitely only the Levite camp, and which part of the Temple Mount one may enter while personally impure, and what about the windows? Again, there are whole chapters, whole books about this. How did they locate it?

32:23 Speaker 1 Great researchers investigated this. And then they say: After all, we do not know exactly. Anyone entering the Temple Mount area could unknowingly enter the site of the Beis Hamikdash and the Holy of Holies. Someone who does not know exactly where the boundary lies could, G-d forbid, violate a prohibition punishable by kareis. They continue: “We therefore repeat the warning already given: No man or woman should dare enter any part—any part—of the Temple Mount area, regardless of which gate they use.” And here the proclamation adds—this halachic ruling was written by very great Torah scholars who took part in issuing that announcement, among them, of course, Rabbi Elyashiv zt”l. All the rabbis of Jerusalem were involved, including Rabbi Zolti and Rabbi Yitzchak Frank [?] at the time.

33:58 Speaker 36 What?

33:59 Speaker 1 The Rebbe also wrote a sharply worded response: not to ascend the Temple Mount.

34:02 Speaker 36 Did the Rebbe sign it? No, no, no, he did not sign this.

34:05 Speaker 1 He said the same thing: not to ascend the Temple Mount. It was a private response to someone.

34:09 Speaker 36 Ah, and annulment, annulment. Yes. So that is what they write here. But “apart from the caution required by the severity of this prohibition against compromising the purity of the holy site and the Beis Hamikdash, there is also the great mitzvah of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash and safeguarding it.” So there is a third principle here: reverence for the Beis Hamikdash and safeguarding it. This principle of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash is something we may manage to look into a little, because—I’ll explain to you what the concept means, and I’ll go into more detail later. Almost forty—forty-two, nearly forty-two—years ago, I was the military rabbi for Jerusalem and the holy sites. In that role, I was also responsible for the army units in the area of the Western Wall and Jerusalem. One permanent unit in the Western Wall area was stationed there regularly. There were at least a hundred soldiers, and sometimes many more. It was in the area called the Mahkama, the site of the Muslim sharia courts, above the place where we enter the covered section of the Western Wall from the north. There is the open section, and when you turn left, there is the entrance to the covered section of the Wall. You also see a sign there saying “Opposite the Heichal.” Yes, there are places where it says that this is directly opposite the Heichal, opposite the Holy of Holies. There are also tunnels there, below and above. That was where this military unit was stationed. Almost at the very beginning of my tenure, the commander of the Mahkama unit called me and said, “Rabbi, a company of many soldiers assigned to the Jerusalem area has just arrived here. They are reservists. I told them they have to carry out their military duties. Among other things,

38:01 Speaker 36 what is the duty? To go into the Temple Mount area, throughout the entire area, and conduct operational sweeps there—to check that there are no terrorists or rioters on the Temple Mount. You’re not from that period. Back then they weren’t called Palestinians; they were called fedayeen. These were the people who attacked Sfaraya and Kfar Chabad, with the terrible tragedy of the five students. In any event, the soldiers were assigned to make sure that those people could not fire a mortar from there into the Western Wall area, or attack the Wall in some other way—as we see with the disturbances there now. There was a straightforward danger that they could harm visitors to the Wall and, in particular, all the residents of the Jewish Quarter. So the commander said, “I explained their duty to them. I told them: You have to enter here, pass by the Mosque of Omar, the site of the Holy of Holies, and then continue past the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There are set patrol routes throughout this area that you have to follow.” When he began assigning the soldiers—“You’ll do this”—they said, “We’re not going in. It’s forbidden to enter the Temple Mount. Don’t assign us this duty.” At first he thought he could work around it and not assign it to the observant soldiers. But he saw that most of them were observant, and most were afraid to enter and did not want to carry out the assignment. He said, “What? Is this written in the orders? It isn’t in the army orders. I don’t know anything about it.” So he called me in my capacity as rabbi and said, “Well, they don’t want to go in. They’re afraid.” I immediately told him, “I’m coming.” I arrived there, and the first

40:40 Speaker 36 thing I asked him was: “Give me a description. What exactly are you requiring them to do as soldiers? Show me the precise map of their operations, and then I’ll see exactly what you’re talking about.” He showed me. I was then only at the very beginning of my work as a military rabbi. What I had learned and knew about the sanctity of the Temple Mount came only from my studies in yeshiva, not from studying the practical halachah with all its boundaries. All of this was new to me. Suddenly I was facing a new practical question of ritual purity. We had not studied this in the books we used to prepare for rabbinic ordination. Meanwhile, I looked over the entire compound. Questions arose based on what I remembered from the Gemara. That building has balconies projecting over the Temple Mount, from the direction of the Wall inward. And again I faced the question: Were roofs and upper stories sanctified, or not? What should be done here? All of it touches on the sanctity of the place, the sanctity of the Beis Hamikdash. I immediately told him, “I have to give clear instructions here, but I want to check and consult halachic authorities about what instructions to give.” Of course, the soldiers’ argument that they were forbidden to enter because they would bring impurity into the sacred area does not hold in a case of danger to life. Saving a life overrides Shabbos, and it certainly overrides these prohibitions concerning the sanctity of the Beis Hamikdash, even one punishable by kareis. Shabbos is more severe than kareis. So in principle, it was clear that these operations, which involved saving lives, certainly had to be carried out. But all kinds of questions arose that I could not resolve on my own. I immediately went to Rabbi Elyashiv zt”l.

43:25 Speaker 36 And I put the question to him. I presented the problem to him. So he said, “ דווקא, it is precisely those who observe the mitzvos who need to go in and do this. They will have reverence for the Mikdash, and they won’t wander around there sightseeing. They will do only what their duty requires.” Then he said—and I’m telling you what he said—“There need to be people like that, who have reverence for the Mikdash. Someone who doesn’t observe mitzvos has no reverence for the Mikdash, or for anything at all.” So that’s what this is about. That’s what is mentioned here. There is an extensive basis for reverence for the Mikdash and guarding it. From the fundamental principle of reverence for the Mikdash, we can work out all the definitions relating to the sanctity of the Mikdash and the different areas of the Beis Hamikdash. The Rambam writes in Hilchos Beis Habechirah, chapter seven, halachah one: “It is a positive mitzvah to revere the Mikdash, as it says, ‘You shall revere My Sanctuary.’ It is not the Mikdash that you revere, but the One who commanded you to revere it.” Now, you know—the Rambam doesn’t add words unnecessarily. If he writes here that “You shall revere My Sanctuary” means you revere not the Mikdash but the One who commanded you to revere it, then the source of the mitzvah concerning any sanctity, whether the sanctity of the Mikdash or the sanctity of Shabbos, is reverence for the One who commanded it. Here he describes how this mitzvah is fulfilled. The details that follow are important later; they were all included in the instructions to those soldiers entering the area in a situation of pikuach nefesh. But the Rambam continues in halachah seven: “Although, because of our sins, the Mikdash is now destroyed, a person is obligated to revere it”—that is, just as one would when it was standing. The law of reverence for the Mikdash does not depend on whether there is a Beis Hamikdash, an altar, or any of that. Even if there is no

46:56 Speaker 36 altar and no Mikdash, this law concerns the sanctity itself. As he wrote, the original sanctity did not lapse when the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed. So the Rambam says it applies then too—meaning, in our own time. Although, because of our sins, the Mikdash is destroyed, the obligation to revere it remains. He writes: “One may enter only a place one is permitted to enter.” That is the first thing: if you enter the area, it must be somewhere you are permitted to enter. “One may not sit in the courtyard or act frivolously facing the eastern gate, as it says, ‘You shall keep My Shabbosos and revere My Sanctuary.’ Just as the observance of Shabbos applies forever, so too reverence for the Mikdash applies forever: although it is destroyed, it retains its sanctity.” That is the Rambam’s wording here. So this remains the situation today. Later, when he describes all the levels of sanctity—as we said, the Heichal and the camps: the Camp of the Kohanim, the Camp of the Shechinah, the Camp of the Levi’im, and the Camp of Israel—he details these different levels. In halachah ten the Rambam writes: “The Temple Mount is more sacred than it,” meaning more sacred than Jerusalem, “for zavim, zavos, niddos, and women after childbirth may not enter it.” On the other hand, “It is permitted to bring a dead body itself onto the Temple Mount, and certainly someone who is tamei through contact with a dead body.” Yes, such a person may enter. In any case, the point here is that the Temple Mount has a higher level of sanctity, and entry is forbidden to anyone whose impurity issues from their body. This is stated in chapter three of Hilchos Bias Hamikdash—chapter three, halachah eight. Someone who is tamei and must be sent away from the Temple Mount—that is, someone whose impurity issues from their body—if he does enter

51:03 Speaker 36 while still tamei, he transgresses a prohibition. As it says, “He shall go outside the camp”—that is the Camp of the Shechinah. “He shall not enter the camp”—that is the Camp of the Levi’im, which is the Temple Mount. Hence the laws concerning a metzora, and so on. So what does it say here? That entering while tamei violates a prohibition. For now, though, we have seen only a prohibition. The question is whether reverence for the Mikdash also applies to these matters. In the proclamation they issued, as we saw, they wrote: “Apart from the basic care needed to avoid the severe prohibition against violating the purity of the holy site and the Mikdash, there is also the great mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash.” The prohibition is clearly stated; we saw it in the Rambam. But where does it say that someone who violates these prohibitions and enters while tamei also fails to fulfill the positive mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash? At first glance, I cannot find that in the Rambam’s words. When we look at how he defines the positive mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash, he says: “What does this reverence entail?” At the beginning of his discussion, the Rambam says: “A person may not enter the Temple Mount with his staff, with shoes on his feet, with his money belt, or with dust on his feet. Needless to say, it is forbidden to spit anywhere on the Temple Mount; if he needs to spit, he must absorb it in his clothing. Nor may he use the Temple Mount as a shortcut, entering through one gate and leaving through another”—in other words, to shorten his route—“and he may enter only for the purpose of a mitzvah.” One does not go in there just to stroll around; one enters only for a mitzvah. The question is whether the mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash also includes taking care not to enter

55:58 Speaker 36 while tamei. That concerns the laws of tumah and taharah, not rules of conduct—how one behaves regarding spitting or what one wears, as in the list we just saw. Is that also connected to reverence for the Mikdash? We saw that in this proclamation they say explicitly: “Apart from the basic care needed to avoid the severe prohibition, there is in this the great mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash and guarding it.” In other words, they include the prohibitions concerning tumah within the great mitzvah of reverence for the Mikdash and guarding it. Of course, as I told you at the outset, the Rambam does not use flowery language. How does he define the mitzvah at the beginning of this halachah? He says: “It is not the Mikdash that you revere, but the One who commanded you to revere it.” That is, you must revere Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who commanded reverence for this place, reverence for the Mikdash. The mitzvah includes proper conduct: behaving with reverence and respect, not with contempt or disrespect, as reflected in all the actions he lists. But it also concerns everything He commands. So surely, when Hashem commands you to take care not to defile the Mikdash, that command relates to reverence for the Mikdash. In each area, you must guard against the relevant tumah: in one, impurity from contact with a dead body; in the Camp of the Levi’im, impurity that issues from the body. You must take care regarding these prohibitions. When you are told to revere the One who commanded, that also encompasses His command concerning tumah. So it too is included in the definition of reverence for the Mikdash. You are to conduct yourself here with the awareness that the Shechinah is here, that there is sanctity here. But what does the Rambam say? “The One who commanded.” So if there are other commands connected to this place, those commands too call for reverence for the One who commands. What practical difference does...

59:09 Speaker 36 What difference does it make? There is certainly a prohibition, and it is a very serious one. Impropriety and impurity—impurity. Any violation involving impurity is a serious prohibition, even impurity that originates in a person’s own body in other places. Why, then, must we add that this also involves reverence for the Beis Hamikdash, as a positive commandment? The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Zolti, was among those who signed that declaration. He examined this very point at great length—the point we are discussing: Does reverence for the Beis Hamikdash also include vigilance about impurity, apart from the prohibition? In other words, we have both a positive and a negative commandment. Does the positive commandment also reinforce the obligation not to violate Hashem’s word within the bounds of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash, even at the site of the Beis Hamikdash? Now, we saw that the Rambam defines all the laws of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash as laws pertaining to the place. It is not a law that applies only to the standing Beis Hamikdash or the altar, even after its destruction. How does he put it? “Although the Beis Hamikdash is now destroyed because of our sins, a person is obligated to revere it as he did when it stood.” Yes, that is the principle they derive from here. But look how he continues: “He may enter only a place he is permitted to enter.” That is, it is not limited to the other forms of conduct—not entering with his money belt, not spitting, not treating the place lightly or walking through it as an ordinary shortcut. The Rambam adds, “He may enter only a place he is permitted to enter.” What is the Rambam adding here? “He may enter only a place he is permitted to enter.” He is speaking about the boundaries of prohibitions, not only the rules of conduct expressing reverence for the Beis Hamikdash. He makes this point: one may enter only a place one is permitted to enter. That, too, falls under reverence for the Beis Hamikdash. So he is saying that you must take care not to violate prohibitions, each one

1:02:46 Speaker 36 in its own place—whether in one area of the Beis Hamikdash or another. In other words, you see that the Rambam includes this. Why does he add the words “He may enter only a place he is permitted to enter”? This shows you that, beyond the specific prohibitions concerning impurity in each place, there is a mitzvah of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash. And here he says: Look at the Rambam. The Rambam says, “He may enter only a place he is permitted to enter.” What happens when there is doubt? He is saying, from the outset, that you must enter a place you know you are permitted to enter. Earlier, in the declaration, they said, “And over the course of time, the exact location of the Beis Hamikdash became unknown to us.” We do not know exactly where it is. Now, as far as the prohibition is concerned, if there is doubt, I say it is a doubt about a Torah prohibition, or perhaps there are several grounds for doubt. In a case like that, I cannot always say that the prohibition applies. I have a doubt: Am I violating the prohibition or not? True, Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows exactly. I do not know where the site of the Beis Hamikdash is, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu does. So when I am in doubt, if we were considering only the prohibition, we would have to address that doubt. Perhaps there is no prohibition; I do not know whether this spot is forbidden or permitted. But on the Torah level, reverence for the Beis Hamikdash concerns a mitzvah toward Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is present here. Because of the doubt, the obligation of reverence still applies, and I will not do it even when I am unsure. In other words, reverence for the Beis Hamikdash requires that there be no situation in which Hashem’s word is profaned here. As I told you right at the beginning, the Rambam does not use words for nothing: “Rather, one reveres the One who commanded that it be revered.” The Rambam is speaking about the commandment, not only

1:05:16 Speaker 36 about the holiness. That is the aspect relevant to reverence. The whole law of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash speaks about the holiness of the place: do not treat it lightly, do not engage in mundane activities, and come there only for mitzvos. That is conduct befitting its holiness. But when I speak about prohibitions, those are the laws governing the mitzvah. The Rambam teaches us something further in his precise wording: “He may enter only places he is permitted to enter.” Enter a place that is definitely permitted, when you know it is. Let us take an example. A person has some food, and someone tells him, “I’m not sure, but there may be poison in this food. It’s possible there’s something in it.” There is a doubt. How much weight do you give that concern? Even if there is a ten percent chance of poison and a ninety percent chance it is fine, would you eat it? Because you must avoid harm, you would not do it. The same applies to what the Rambam says here, and this is the law of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash. That is its underlying principle. Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank, who was also Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, makes the same point in identifying this law of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash: the positive commandment encompasses the entire situation, while the negative commandments depend on their specific boundaries. Is there a prohibition or is there not? All these questions determine the practical halachah. What are you saying? I am speaking to those of you who say this. When I mentioned Rabbi Elyashiv, he said the opposite. A person who observes mitzvos, who has fear of Heaven, must do this. He has the obligation of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash; he must observe it. And that is how Rabbi Elyashiv explained

1:08:11 Speaker 36 the principle of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash: in practice, you can come to a situation like that of those soldiers whose duty clearly involves saving lives. There is no doubt that it is a matter of saving lives: they need to be there to prevent, G-d forbid, attacks that could come from the Temple Mount area, in all sorts of ways, as we see today. I do not know if you have encountered it—if you have been there when stones are thrown down from above. I would say yes, that is a matter of saving lives. But at that time, when they began protecting the Western Wall against attacks, security measures were needed so that people would not dare to attack and, G-d forbid, injure or kill Jews. But what? Let us continue. Rabbi Yehoshua explained it to me this way: On the basis of this principle, as we said, the soldiers also need a framework of reverence for the Beis Hamikdash, not just the concern about impurity that they spoke of. Why do I need that? After all, it would seem that they are commanded to enter. It is a mitzvah to save lives; that is what they are engaged in. Could there be a greater mitzvah? So I can say that saving lives overrides Shabbos and overrides these prohibitions, including the prohibition of entering the Beis Hamikdash while impure. It overrides that, and I may enter. But when halachah says that saving lives overrides a prohibition, what does that mean? Do I say that since saving lives overrides Shabbos, I can do anything? No. We have a halachah of [unclear]. We have a halachah that you must limit the violation involved in saving lives as much as possible, even though the purpose is

1:10:47 Speaker 36 of saving lives, because wherever saving a life does not require it, the prohibition of Shabbos applies again. The same is true here. When may you set aside the prohibitions concerning ritual impurity? Only when you are engaged in saving lives. So the first principle, the first principle is this: they established the route, the path, the course along which they carry out their activities—their regular activities. That is what routine security duty means. Of course, if there is a riot or a serious incident, then there is no question: you go even into the mosque. You go wherever you need to in order to save lives. If lives are at risk, then certainly the instructions say that if a terrorist, for example, opens fire on soldiers from inside a building, you warn them and go in. You do not start looking at where you are standing and whether it is a place you may or may not enter. That is not the issue. But he says that, to be careful, even though you are engaged in the mitzvah of saving lives, you must still understand that where it is not necessary, not everything has been permitted. You cannot wander around the Mount wherever you want, saying, “I’m saving lives.” It doesn’t work that way. That is why those soldiers—and this was written in the guidelines that we, Rabbi Yishai and I, gave them on these matters—were simply told: This is the route you take. You may not deviate from it. Suppose I am following a route that even passes through an area where entering carries the penalty of kares, opposite the Sanctuary, right opposite the Foundation Stone. That is the point you pass through, and suddenly you want to see how beautiful it is inside. There are decorations there, all sorts of designs. It is a magnificent mosque with a golden dome. So you say, “I’ll just step over for a moment to take a look. I’m on operational duty, so I’m allowed

1:13:18 Speaker 36 to take that little detour.” The moment you take that detour, you can no longer consider it permitted. The prohibition of reverence for the Sanctuary applies again, and even in a case of doubt, you must stand in awe of the One who commanded you. Yes, your commander ordered you to save lives, but Hashem commanded you not, G-d forbid, to defile the Sanctuary, not to defile the site of the Sanctuary. In practice, then, the guidelines said: Do not deviate. Of course, all this concerns routine security patrols. Yes, that is what they are called. In exceptional cases, each case is judged according to the danger to life involved. But on a routine patrol, you reach that point and you do not move. You do not go forward or backward. A group of tourists is standing there, and you think, “Wait, I’ll go over to them for a moment. Let’s hear what the guide is saying.” May Heaven have mercy on those tourists who enter the Temple Mount. Incidentally, this is one of the things the great rabbis always said: Hashem did us a kindness by preventing us from stumbling into grave prohibitions punishable by kares. He tells the Arabs, as it were, “Don’t let them stay here; don’t let them enter here,” and they do it. These battles go on day after day, hour after hour. I’ll speak about what happened this past Chol Hamoed with that group of Temple Mount activists, that whole movement. I haven’t yet said the serious things. I only wanted us to deal here with the Rambam’s basic principles, or with the law of reverence for the Sanctuary. Yes, but there are things here that are much, much more serious. In my opinion, this is a far more serious breach than the other matters. Perhaps we will just mention, in connection with reverence for the Sanctuary—and I mean

1:15:43 Speaker 36 reverence for the Sanctuary as against the [unclear] of those rabbis who issued rulings. On the basis of those rulings, sadly, hundreds and hundreds of people today—young men and young women—go in, enter together, as though, I don’t know, to wave a flag inside. It leads to—no, that isn’t right. If you ask them why, it is certainly as... I’m reading from someone whose rulings—he was effectively the first to break through and issue this ruling, the rosh yeshivah and rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Rabbi Lior. For many, many years we were together, but he issued rulings, and it was he who effectively opened the door. “Certainly, one should ascend the Temple Mount in our time, and it should be explained from both a halachic standpoint and the standpoint of national and Jewish importance.” National, yes. Now, as for the halachic standpoint, he explains everything here, and then he says: “Since today”—he says—“someone has determined precisely which area...” He explains here that one may indeed enter the Temple Mount apart from the site of the Beis Hamikdash, but that we must determine where the Beis Hamikdash stood, measure, and distinguish between the Camp of the Divine Presence and the Camp of the Levites, to know whether an area is forbidden or not. Rabbi Goren made measurements in his time, yes, based on the assumption that the Beis Hamikdash stood where the Dome of the Rock stands. Then he had a doubt about the stone, the Foundation Stone, and so on. He built the entire argument on that. Accordingly, if we take the five hundred cubits by five hundred cubits, the rest of the Temple Mount outside that area is permitted. So this fellow says: “I have an authority here who has determined with certainty, with certainty, that beyond this point the prohibition concerning someone impure through contact with the dead does not apply.” True, there is still the prohibition involving impurity that issues from the body—yes, for men,

1:18:38 Speaker 36 for men, for young men and for young women. That whole prohibition still applies. So of course he says we must enter—I’m reading his words: “One must exercise the utmost caution, because entering a forbidden area carries the penalty of kares, and it is a grave prohibition, given the holiness of the Sanctuary.” Yes, but once it has been determined where entry is permitted, then it is permitted, permitted, permitted. In addition, ascending the Mount must be done with solemnity, for the purpose of prayer. Entry should not be for sightseeing, not even to wave a flag. The national aspect is still not a mitzvah. Perhaps they would say it is a mitzvah, that it strengthens the state, but never mind. I am speaking about the underlying principle here. In other words, the “national” element does not seem to fit very well with the Rambam, who says entry is permitted only for the sake of a mitzvah. All right, moving on. And here is the most serious point: “One must conduct oneself with great reverence when ascending the Mount, wearing cloth shoes.” This is... the positive commandment of reverence for the Sanctuary. Not shoes, not leather shoes, but cloth shoes. The soldiers—Rabbi [unclear] saw that soldiers could not do their jobs in cloth shoes. How could soldiers do that? They have those high boots. So what? Rabbi [unclear] says to the soldiers, no, everything must be done in leather shoes. So I said that I had heard there are also special shoes made of rubber. And that is true—Palladium shoes. Although they are mainly used in the navy, some military units have them. Fine, give these soldiers rubber shoes. In other words, arrange in advance for them to have rubber shoes. That is all part of reverence for the Sanctuary. Yes. Moving on. And this is the serious, grave matter. And—

1:21:09 Speaker 37 It isn’t pleasant.

1:21:10 Speaker 36 What?

1:21:11 Speaker 37 There weren’t shoes—uh, rubber shoes.

1:21:14 Speaker 36 Yes, yes, certainly. And as for the orders, as we said, if it can only be done that way, they won’t enter. It’s just that there are... I won’t get into the different types here. There are types used by tank crews and types used by the navy that... Fine, but that’s it. Moving on, here we come to the heart of the matter: “One must also immerse as required by halachah, take care that nothing forms a barrier during immersion, and make sure the person does not have a form of impurity more severe than impurity from contact with the dead.” Now, I don’t know whether we have anyone with tzaraas today. There are many people, but I don’t know about people with tzaraas. Yes.

1:21:59 Speaker 37 A more severe form of impurity.

1:22:00 Speaker 36 So what?

1:22:01 Speaker 37 More severe than impurity from contact with the dead?

1:22:02 Speaker 36 Yes. “Make sure the person does not have a form of impurity more severe than impurity from contact with the dead.” So that would only be someone with tzaraas. Yes. “Therefore, women should not be permitted to ascend there either, lest they be niddos.” So the question is whether being a niddah is impurity that issues from the body, or whether this refers to the impurity of a zav and zavah, and they equated... a niddah with a zav and zavah. In any case, it is impossible to meet all these requirements. These are the guidelines this rabbi gives. And then I saw with my own eyes an entire school going in—

1:22:44 Speaker 37 Like for a convert.

1:22:45 Speaker 36 What?

1:22:45 Speaker 37 It is a mikveh like the one used for a convert and the like. In other words—

1:22:48 Speaker 36 It is a mikveh that meets Torah requirements. It is a mikveh that—so with a mikveh that meets Torah requirements, you are also allowing the young men, and we will soon discuss that prohibition too. And you... the unmarried women.

1:22:59 Speaker 37 It is more than a mikveh that meets Torah requirements. A mikveh would not suffice for that. A zav needs a spring. Since we don’t know, start with a mikveh that meets Torah requirements—but a spring is needed, and a mikveh would not suffice.

1:23:10 Speaker 36 No, but the impurity, the impurity of a niddah.

1:23:13 Speaker 37 Fine, but we don’t know what constitutes a zav today. There are people with illnesses.

1:23:16 Speaker 36 We don’t know about a zav. Correct.

1:23:18 Speaker 37 So how can one enter after going to the mikveh? What if he is a zav?

1:23:20 Speaker 36 Ah. So what? Let’s say not—

1:23:22 Speaker 37 A spring.

1:23:23 Speaker 36 Or—no. So I’ll stick with that. It isn’t a mikveh fed by a spring. He only says impurity—he writes—the rabbi defines it. I mean the rabbi, Rabbi [unclear], who writes about it. He says a person should immerse first and be checked to make sure there is no barrier to the immersion. He makes sure the person is not impure. But what about women?

1:23:41 Speaker 37 Didn’t the soldiers have a mikveh for immersion in a spring?

1:23:44 Speaker 36 No, but how was it not—

1:23:45 Speaker 37 In a mikveh?

1:23:46 Speaker 36 Yes, yes. In a mikveh, a mikveh for purification.

1:23:49 Speaker 37 That isn’t a spring.

1:23:49 Speaker 36 Yes. For impurity that issues from their bodies. Yes, that’s what we’re saying.

1:23:55 Speaker 37 Do the laws of barriers to immersion apply as they do for a convert and the like?

1:23:57 Speaker 36 Certainly.

1:23:57 Speaker 37 The laws of barriers to immersion are the same as for a convert and for unmarried women?

1:24:01 Speaker 36 Yes, the same laws.

1:24:02 Speaker 37 The same laws.

1:24:03 Speaker 36 Yes, this immersion is required by Torah law. This immersion is required by Torah law. Now you issue an instruction, and the young men and women follow it. They shower and come the next day to ascend and appear before Hashem. And with regard to Hashem, as we said: “I do not fear the Sanctuary, but the One Who commanded me concerning it.” They are going before Hashem. Now, here’s the thing: Who supervises the immersion? Who checks for barriers? Who supervises it? And what does this mean in practice? Women’s immersion. What care is taken with that? How meticulous are you, so that I don’t mislead her? These are Torah laws governing the removal of a prohibition. Are you taking responsibility for that? You say yes—that’s one issue. There is something even more serious.

1:24:58 Speaker 38 But that’s only—

1:24:59 Speaker 36 But nowadays. What?

1:25:01 Speaker 38 But that’s only a warning. Not, not in...

1:25:05 Speaker 36 No, that’s the Rebbe. The whole thing—the impurity that issues from their bodies, too. After all, they’re saying no; we’re also coming to the area added by Herod, which is no longer—this is supposedly Herod’s addition and not [unclear]. No. What I’m saying is that this addition is not considered part of that area.

1:25:23 Speaker 38 Certainly.

1:25:24 Speaker 36 Yes. So what? That’s it. In any case, you’ll understand why the first principle is the phrase we mentioned: to fear the One Who commands. It isn’t only about this. You do these things—but who supervises you? And here there’s something worse. Granted, I would say, the young men and the married men will know what to do. The married women will know what to do. They know exactly what an immersion required by Torah law entails. But students from the girls’ schools and seminaries would come there—young, unmarried students. Are unmarried women permitted to immerse?

1:26:12 Speaker 38 It’s prohibited altogether.

1:26:14 Speaker 36 Under halachah, unmarried women are forbidden to immerse. So what excuse do they give? Another one of the rabbis associated with the Temple comes and asks, “What should we do about unmarried women?” And he says, “We see that even before Yom Kippur, people were permitted to immerse.”

1:26:39 Speaker 38 That’s another astonishing thing.

1:26:40 Speaker 36 How astonishing! That’s why I say this shows that enthusiasm of theirs—and let’s say it really is national enthusiasm, and let’s say it’s also enthusiasm for serving Hashem. But even when you’re enthusiastic about serving Hashem, it must be as Hashem commanded. You cannot do it according to your own heart, according to your own feelings.

1:27:03 Speaker 38 The issue of someone who has immersed.

1:27:03 Speaker 36 Well, what?

1:27:05 Speaker 38 Seemingly, it would have been necessary.

1:27:09 Speaker 36 About—

1:27:09 Speaker 38 There’s a woman who doesn’t, let’s say.

1:27:11 Speaker 36 There you have unmarried women.

1:27:12 Speaker 38 Yes, but let’s suppose [unclear] wants her to immerse beforehand. A custom of our forefathers from many years ago, with all its complications, cannot come and forbid her from immersing.

1:27:21 Speaker 36 It certainly can.

1:27:22 Speaker 38 Why?

1:27:22 Speaker 36 To prohibit it. It says in the Shulchan Aruch that unmarried women do not immerse, doesn’t it?

1:27:25 Speaker 38 Fine, but that’s written only in the gloss. Also—

1:27:27 Speaker 36 But that requires permission.

1:27:29 Speaker 38 There is permission.

1:27:29 Speaker 36 To do this, to remove a prohibition. And it makes no difference to me what the basis is.

1:27:34 Speaker 38 That isn’t agreed upon.

1:27:35 Speaker 36 So I cannot come along—whether one rabbi, ten rabbis, or a group of Religious Zionist rabbis—and say that. All this is a serious breach. By the way, I haven’t even reached the main point. Today we won’t study—we won’t study the matter itself. What?

1:27:51 Speaker 38 I’ll tell you how the Rebbe addressed it. Perhaps the Rebbe’s ruach hakodesh on this subject is interesting. The Rebbe did not enter into the entire halachic question raised by the practice. The Rebbe only wrote that there must be some boundary.

1:28:02 Speaker 36 I haven’t started that part yet.

1:28:04 Speaker 38 I’m saying—

1:28:05 Speaker 36 That, in fact, is the central issue.

1:28:08 Speaker 38 It could be—

1:28:08 Speaker 36 It’s this breach. But halachah won’t help either. Say how to do Hashem’s will, whether it is good or bad.

1:28:15 Speaker 38 No, no.

1:28:15 Speaker 36 No. So they say it’s about drawing close, about standing before Hashem. Well, then let’s let these girls immerse [unclear]. But do you know what’s more serious? This is the most serious part of the whole matter, and these people do not understand it. How can you do such a thing, with girls going to immerse for this? Do you know what a serious breach that is, and not just regarding this prohibition? Do you know how serious a breach it is?

1:28:46 Speaker 38 [unclear].

1:28:48 Speaker 36 You know—there’s more to it than that. There’s already something in the Knesset today. Terrible things are happening there, truly terrible things. In any case, we know this issue has already come before them. They are discussing it: permitting this person or that person. So imagine a boyfriend and girlfriend going up to the Temple Mount to stand before Hashem. And afterward, what happens? It goes like this: you have to be careful about ritual purity, not touch anything, and so on. I’m saying, what shame is there? “Now I’m permitted.” There is no kiddushin, nothing; no sanctity, nothing.

1:29:30 Speaker 38 How can they possibly make sure that no one touched a dead person or something on the way?

1:29:35 Speaker 36 Not a dead person. Here we’re talking about impurity that issues from her body. Here it’s only [unclear]—it issues from her body.

1:29:39 Speaker 38 That doesn’t apply.

1:29:41 Speaker 36 Now, that raises one terrible concern. Second, how do you take this responsibility on your shoulders? Are you going to station police officers or supervisors there to watch these young men and women, or the older people, or these rabbis? We have pictures of rabbis who went in there. A disgrace! How can the rabbis actually take pride in it and pose for a picture against the backdrop of the—the Umayyad Mosque and the Al-Aqsa Mosque? A picture of rabbis—and I mean rabbis, their yeshivah heads. I’m telling you.

1:30:23 Speaker 38 Herod’s Temple Mount or the original Temple Mount?

1:30:25 Speaker 36 What?

1:30:26 Speaker 38 On what is called the Temple Mount, or on the original Temple Mount?

1:30:29 Speaker 36 On the Temple Mount [unclear], judging by the pictures they show.

1:30:36 Speaker 38 They were photographed there.

1:30:37 Speaker 36 Exactly. I’m saying, judging by—by... I didn’t understand. I have pictures from there. There’s a booklet by [unclear]. It’s called—

1:30:47 Speaker 38 Are the pictures from Herod’s Temple Mount or from the original Temple Mount?

1:30:50 Speaker 36 The original Temple Mount. You can see it next to the Mosque of Omar. I’m not saying Al-Aqsa—that’s Herod’s area. In any case, what’s the point here? And this may be the most serious thing. What we said about boundaries—that’s what you mean when you say the Rebbe spoke only about breaching a boundary. About this entire boundary. These are the underlying principles. Perhaps there will be an opportunity for you to come, or we’ll wait until the next break, when you can come like this. Maybe we’ll have the chance, and then we’ll really discuss the subject, this definition: what the Rebbe actually said about breaching a boundary, and how that is, in fact, the most serious thing that happened here. And you have to remember that here, I’m saying, you have taken responsibility on yourselves. You are not reliable guardians. You are not reliable—simply not reliable. Who will ask? Ask the young men: “Tell me, where did you immerse? Who checked you for barriers to immersion? Did you fulfill every requirement?” You brought up conversion. Yes, a convert’s immersion. Yes. Who oversaw it? For a convert’s immersion, the beis din is present, so that it will be a conversion, a conversion that truly takes effect under Torah law. So let’s apply that to everything. There really is supervision there. Who is in charge? Who is responsible? The same goes for a female convert, the same for that conversion. But here, who? Who? Have you built a system of supervision, issued permission, and ensured that everything will be done properly? I’m not talking only about the boundary against breaching a boundary, or about what you said. There are such serious breaches here, serious breaches that undermine this. That is, in fact, the... Yes, and there are other difficult things and shortcomings. All of this stems from—after all, we know why, in the case of Nadav and Avihu, it was a “strange fire.” Why was it called a fire? It was closeness to Hashem; it was even more—

1:33:16 Speaker 36 Closeness to Hashem. And yet it was a strange fire that they offered before Hashem. If you do something even out of holy enthusiasm, but, G-d forbid, the driving force is the enthusiasm rather than Hashem’s word, rather than what Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands—that is the principle. You can reach a place of sacred service, yet turn that service into a desecration of the sacred, an affront to the Shechinah, and above all an affront to the One Who commands. Yes, therefore we must not do that. I’ve tried to touch on it a little. I’m saying that studying this is the main purpose, the main purpose: studying the addition, these points, the Rambam. “It is not the Sanctuary that you fear, but the One Who commanded concerning the Sanctuary.” You must remember that this fear is not of the prohibitions that apply there, but of the One Who commanded the Jew.

1:34:31 Speaker 39 You have great strength.

1:34:47 Speaker 36 As I said, this is only an opening. Other subjects touch on this issue, on the serious matter of the underlying principles, that all of this is personal. We haven’t begun to discuss it. That is really the... But here too, it is about reverence for the Sanctuary.

1:35:08 Speaker 39 You have great strength. And thank you to Rabbi Shalman[?], who welcomed us so graciously and shared his words of Torah. We wish him, with Hashem’s help, robust health and success in all his other sacred battles—in all the areas where the Rabbi fights to preserve the foundations and against the breaching of boundaries. We won’t mention what it’s called.

1:35:31 Speaker 36 In the wider world, it’s the sanctity of a Jewish home. The sanctity of the site of the Beis Hamikdash, and above all, the sanctity of the One who commanded that it be sanctified.

1:35:43 Speaker 39 In the Rebbe’s words, this is called the integrity of the Torah, the integrity of the Jewish people, and the integrity of the... the integrity of the...

1:36:06 Speaker 36 L’chaim, l’chaim. Keep going, and keep rising higher and higher. Above all, there is holiness. Wherever there is a mitzvah, there is a foundation of holiness: “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us.” So all that is [unclear], and that’s that. But there is something more particular. I’m not speaking only of connecting through the act of fulfilling a mitzvah; the main point is the connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through purity.

1:40:16 Speaker 3 And the fact that he didn’t say anything—there are those who say there is room for him to leave.

1:40:21 Speaker 4 Tel Aviv, over there. That’s the whole problem. It’s a shame to blame Tel Aviv; a child does what he sees. Whoever was there—not him—if he organized it, then there’s something here that he said about religious obedience.

1:40:41 Speaker 3 Who?

1:40:42 Speaker 4 He’s the... [unclear]. I don’t know what happened. Maybe there’s something like that; let’s hurry up in a few hours.

1:40:49 Speaker 3 I saw it too. It’s strange how he told me that, but no, not... not National. No, no, not National. It’s Mitzna. I’m not really sure; he’s considering it, but he isn’t bringing it.

1:41:02 Speaker 4 No, he’s not like that.

1:41:05 Speaker 3 Yes. I don’t remember exactly what you...

1:41:11 Speaker 4 That intention—the opposite intention, not to fulfill his obligation. Precisely then, precisely then, that kind of intention helps him. The Alter Rebbe himself writes this here in siman 213. He writes it in several other places too, in siman 267 and elsewhere, in siman 296 and on a number of other matters where the Alter Rebbe addresses this detail: intending not to fulfill one’s obligation. The source for this ruling is the Rashbam’s words, cited in Tosafos on Berachos and in the Ran on Rosh Hashanah. Many, many halachic authorities cite it; there’s a very long list, including the Rishonim. The Rishonim cite it, and it’s mentioned in the Ritva too. They discuss this detail: if a person intends not to fulfill his obligation, he cannot fulfill it against his will. The Beis Yosef himself brings this and only notes that Sefer Ohel Moed cites the opinion of [unclear], who says that even if you intend not to fulfill your obligation, it won’t help. In other words, you will fulfill it against your will. You heard someone recite a blessing, and you fulfill your obligation against your will.

1:42:18 Speaker 3 If—if he fulfills his obligation only... only if he intended not to fulfill it, then he can also say, “Because I want to recite the blessing myself.” No? No, no, no.

1:42:29 Speaker 4 I’ll get to that. I’ll get to it in a moment.

1:42:31 Speaker 3 So he can’t.

1:42:33 Speaker 4 I’ll get to that in a moment. Does such a thing help? Does that kind of intention have any effect or not? The big question many have raised comes from what the Alter Rebbe himself rules at the beginning of his Shulchan Aruch, in siman 6. There’s a ruling there. There used to be a custom for a number of people to gather in the shul at Shacharis. Each person would recite the blessings on the Torah and all the morning blessings, and everyone would answer amen. That was the custom, one after another—all ten people. This custom didn’t just spring up recently. The Arizal practiced it too, and Rabbi Chaim Vital writes explicitly that the Arizal did this in his shul: he would wait to hear all the blessings to complete a hundred blessings each day. That way they were sure to complete them. Each of the people praying would go up and recite the entire series of blessings, and everyone would answer amen after him. That was their custom. It wasn’t universally accepted; the Maharshal came out strongly against it, in very sharp terms, and the Shulchan Gavoah also opposed it. But many agreed with the custom. The Mahari of [unclear] also opposed it.

1:43:42 Speaker 5 One person recites the blessing.

1:43:43 Speaker 4 Everyone recites the blessings. Each person recites them, and everyone answers amen.

1:43:46 Speaker 5 What’s the problem?

1:43:47 Speaker 4 Wait, I’ll explain the principle in a moment. The Beis Yosef himself cites this custom and writes explicitly that we have no problem with it and that there’s no need to abolish it. Why? These are the Beis Yosef’s words: “One should not challenge them by saying that they have already fulfilled their obligation through the amen they answered at the beginning, because the person reciting the blessing does not intend to discharge the obligation of others.” The person reciting it doesn’t intend to do that; he only intends to give them the opportunity to answer amen. The Beis Yosef goes further: even if he did intend to, it still wouldn’t work. Why? Because they intend not to fulfill their obligation through his blessing. That’s explicit. After all, each person praying there hears that person, that chazzan, recite the blessing and answers amen after him. Why? Not because he wants to fulfill his obligation; he just wants the merit of answering amen. He expressly intends not to fulfill his obligation. He knows that afterward he’ll have to come up to the lectern and recite those blessings himself. That means he knows that if he fulfills his obligation through the blessings of that person—the chazzan now—he won’t be able to recite them again and give everyone else the opportunity to answer amen after him. Therefore, says the Beis Yosef, there is no problem with this custom. They intend not to fulfill their obligation.

1:44:55 Speaker 6 Say something. All right.

1:44:57 Speaker 7 No, I don’t understand how it helps if, as he hears the last words, he intends that he doesn’t want to fulfill his obligation through the other person’s blessing. I don’t understand how this works.

1:45:09 Speaker 4 He didn’t say amen. A blessing is a blessing; that is, there are two separate points.

1:45:14 Speaker 7 What do you mean?

1:45:14 Speaker 4 There are two separate points. The matter of a hundred blessings, a hundred blessings, doesn’t necessarily involve blessings through which you fulfill an obligation. I’ll give you an example: with the Shemoneh Esrei, there are blessings that we count toward the hundred blessings on Shabbos. Not just the blessings you yourself recite in the Shemoneh Esrei; according to some opinions, some of the amens you answer to the shliach tzibbur are included in the hundred blessings too. In that case, these aren’t blessings through which you need to fulfill an obligation—you’ve already prayed. But other blessings included in the count are the blessings on the Torah that people recite over the Torah scroll. Blessings that I need to recite are the blessings recited by someone who hasn’t yet learned Torah.

1:45:49 Speaker 7 Why would he need to recite them? But what—does he have a problem reciting the blessings?

1:45:53 Speaker 4 Yes, that’s right there. But the point there is that you don’t intend to fulfill your obligation. You don’t need to fulfill an obligation through them at all; you aren’t obligated in them at all. Even so, it adds to your hundred blessings.

1:46:00 Speaker 7 To say a blessing in his name.

1:46:02 Speaker 4 Where? Among those blessings.

1:46:04 Speaker 7 Your Torah.

1:46:04 Speaker 4 Yes, right. Here too, with those who would recite the morning blessings and say a blessing—they don’t need those blessings, they don’t need the... They want the mitzvah involved, not that.

1:46:18 Speaker 7 What about the blessings? Let him recite the blessing.

1:46:20 Speaker 4 Right, that’s amen.

1:46:21 Speaker 7 What about the blessings? Let him recite them.

1:46:22 Speaker 4 There is, there is.

1:46:23 Speaker 7 Can someone hear it from another person and have it count as though he recited the blessing?

1:46:26 Speaker 4 Yes, in some cases, but not in others.

1:46:27 Speaker 7 How can he not fulfill his obligation through a blessing and still have it count as though he recited it?

1:46:30 Speaker 4 He doesn’t intend to fulfill his obligation through this blessing; he simply wants to recite it himself afterward. It’s the matter of answering amen, the mitzvah. No—sorry, I made a mistake about one thing. I mean ninety amens, not a hundred blessings. I got something wrong; sorry, I mixed up two things. There’s a separate matter here of having the merit to answer ninety amens. Seventy amens—sorry, ninety amens, ninety amens. There is an opinion based on Kabbalah, brought in the book Asarah Maamaros, that one should answer ninety amens every day. So they did this in order to answer ninety amens. Sorry. According to Kabbalah, one should answer ninety amens—ninety times. That was the point of these blessings.

1:47:09 Speaker 7 But it’s as though the Ran held that it does count as a blessing.

1:47:15 Speaker 4 No. The problem is that a person is standing there—the shliach tzibbur.

1:47:19 Speaker 7 Here it’s only for the amens.

1:47:22 Speaker 4 Still. You heard a blessing. Did you have any intention? Did you have no intention at all?

1:47:26 Speaker 7 If I don’t recite the blessings every day, then I can’t go back and recite them.

1:47:29 Speaker 4 Yes, but here you have an intention. You’re hearing someone recite a blessing now, and you too are obligated to recite that blessing. You, you too are obligated in it.

1:47:41 Speaker 8 Good morning, brother. How are you?

1:47:47 Speaker 4 And now, welcome to Rabbi—Rabbi Elshvili[?].

1:47:51 Speaker 8 We should introduce him. You know him, don’t you? Almost everyone does.

1:47:57 Speaker 4 I said I would speak about Sefiras HaOmer. I haven’t begun the subject of Sefiras HaOmer; I just want to finish the...

1:48:02 Speaker 8 So we can get into the subject.

1:48:05 Speaker 4 When you heard that blessing and had no intention either to fulfill your obligation or not to fulfill it, you have already fulfilled your obligation. So you have a problem if you want to recite that blessing again. I’ll be brief and sum up the point. On this particular issue, concerning those who customarily repeat all the morning blessings, the Alter Rebbe changes the wording of the Beis Yosef. The Beis Yosef wrote: “There is no problem with this custom, because they intend not to fulfill their obligation.” The Alter Rebbe wrote: “They do not intend to fulfill their obligation.” That is his wording. He changed it. He writes, “They have no intention of fulfilling their obligation,” and many have discussed this detail: the Pela David, Rabbi Ashkenazi in his notes, Rabbi Mistrotsky[?], and several others. Yet the Alter Rebbe himself writes explicitly in section 213 that if someone does not intend to fulfill his obligation, that is not enough. He must intend not to fulfill it. That is the point—especially since the Alter Rebbe changed the Beis Yosef’s wording here too. That is the question in a nutshell. The question becomes sharper in light of what is written about Sefiras HaOmer. There too, he points out that one must intend not to fulfill one’s obligation through the other person’s blessing. When he hears the chazzan recite the blessing for Sefiras HaOmer, he must intend not to fulfill his obligation through it. We’ll leave the answer for another occasion, out of respect for the Rabbi.

1:49:24 Speaker 8 What’s the answer?

1:49:25 Speaker 4 Huh? What’s the answer? There isn’t an answer?

1:49:27 Speaker 8 Huh?

1:49:28 Speaker 4 What answer?

1:49:29 Speaker 8 Do you know?

1:49:29 Speaker 4 I do. I’ll explain it briefly, without—

1:49:33 Speaker 8 Sorry, just the answer. Without the background.

1:49:37 Speaker 4 Do we have an answer to this?

1:49:38 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:49:39 Speaker 4 So we have another answer.

1:49:40 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:49:40 Speaker 4 Okay, one second, I’ll mention it. It seems to me as follows. The Alter Rebbe—I can demonstrate this point from several other places in the Alter Rebbe’s writings, including section 293, in what he writes about the laws of Havdalah. There the Alter Rebbe uses the expression “Some have the custom, after reciting the blessing…” He describes it as a custom. And we have a principle that the Alter Rebbe himself invokes several times—in section 41, section 42, the laws of lending, the matter of pruzbul, the laws of sukkah regarding its walls, and several other places where he cites this rule: when something is practiced by everyone, it is a custom followed by many. There is a principle concerning the force of such a custom: it requires no stipulation. A custom followed by many is considered as though they made a stipulation. In other words, once the entire community has a custom, there is no need to make an explicit stipulation about it each time. For example, in the laws of tefillin, the tefillin bag is designated for a sacred purpose. It serves the tefillin, so one may not put ordinary items in it. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe says it is permitted. Strictly speaking, before using it one must stipulate that it may later be used for ordinary items too. In practice, though, nobody made such a stipulation, and it is still permitted. Why? Because everyone has customarily used it that way, it is as though they made an effective stipulation. There is also an example in the laws of Shabbos, in section 279, concerning a non-Jew’s lamp. The Alter Rebbe writes that it can be moved by a non-Jew if, say, the lamp has gone out. One may ask a non-Jew to move it, because now the lamp is not muktzeh. It

1:51:20 Speaker 4 was muktzeh at twilight. So what must be done? One must make a stipulation at twilight: “I stipulate that when this lamp goes out, I will be able to have a non-Jew move it,” says the Alter Rebbe. But since that is the customary practice, no explicit stipulation is needed; it is as though they made one. This point appears in several places, including section 190 of the Shulchan Aruch, and in discussions of accessories used for a Torah scroll and other sacred items. That is the rule: when something is customarily done by many, it is as though they made a stipulation. This case, too, falls under a custom followed by many. The Alter Rebbe uses the words “Some have the custom.” This can be demonstrated from section 296. I’ll bring the proof. You know, the answer he proposed is a point.

1:52:00 Speaker 9 Almost.

1:52:01 Speaker 4 I have a proof.

1:52:01 Speaker 9 A little different. A little different, yes.

1:52:02 Speaker 4 I have a proof. Actually, I have a proof from the Chasam Sofer, an earlier source. The Chasam Sofer himself discusses another matter in the laws of Kiddush. He talks about it.

1:52:11 Speaker 9 The Chasam Sofer—you’ll get to the ruling. Bring in the Alter Rebbe.

1:52:15 Speaker 4 He has a ruling. He also brings up this point in the laws of Kiddush.

1:52:19 Speaker 9 Havdalah.

1:52:20 Speaker 4 He has one on Havdalah. The Havdalah one is addressed to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in a letter to him. He has a separate ruling on the laws of Kiddush. It’s in a collection of their responsa, about a kesubah and a chazzan, something like that. Anyway, that’s the point. If I… So this can be demonstrated from one more place in the Alter Rebbe’s writings. I’ll bring it briefly. In the laws of Havdalah, the Alter Rebbe discusses a practice that used to be customary: Havdalah would be recited in shul. Everyone would hear Havdalah in his own shul.

1:52:44 Speaker 9 Used to be? It still is today.

1:52:45 Speaker 4 Yes, today too, but less so. It was more significant then.

1:52:48 Speaker 10 Because that was our custom.

1:52:49 Speaker 4 So it is as though they made a stipulation not to fulfill their obligation. Even though they did not explicitly intend not to fulfill it, since it is a custom, they do not need to form that explicit intention. The custom makes it as though they explicitly intend not to fulfill their obligation, because it has become a custom followed by many.

1:53:05 Speaker 10 If he did fulfill his obligation, I can’t fulfill it for him.

1:53:10 Speaker 4 If they fulfilled their obligation through that? Yes, he can’t then fulfill it for them—unless he needs to fulfill it for someone in particular. Huh? No, he can’t. He has fulfilled his obligation.

1:53:17 Speaker 10 With Kiddush.

1:53:18 Speaker 4 No, he can’t, except after the fact. Someone who has fulfilled his own obligation cannot, in the first instance, fulfill others’ obligation for Havdalah—uh, Kiddush.

1:53:24 Speaker 10 I brought you food. They’re obligated, right?

1:53:27 Speaker 4 Right.

1:53:27 Speaker 10 So I go back home.

1:53:28 Speaker 4 That is something else. Fulfilling the obligation for his young children and his wife is a different matter. I’ll give the proof briefly, from the Alter Rebbe’s ruling in the laws of Havdalah. Havdalah used to be recited in shul, and some people, after hearing it there, wanted to recite Havdalah again at home. The Alter Rebbe says that the chazzan who recites Havdalah in shul, even if he intended to fulfill his own obligation, and others who heard him as well, may recite Havdalah again at home to fulfill the obligation for their young children who were not in shul. But they cannot fulfill the obligation for their older children. The older children—they can recite Havdalah themselves. Someone who has already fulfilled his obligation cannot fulfill it for the older children. So a chazzan, or anyone who heard Havdalah in shul and intended to fulfill his obligation there, cannot recite it again at home to fulfill the obligation for his older children. Why? Because they can recite Havdalah themselves. But, says the Alter Rebbe, someone who intended not to fulfill his obligation through Havdalah in shul—notice that he intended not to fulfill his obligation. He had an explicit intention. Even the chazzan himself might have recited Havdalah, saying, “I’m reciting Havdalah for others. I do not want to fulfill my own obligation.” The Alter Rebbe says he may recite Havdalah again at home. Not merely may—he must recite it again at home, because he did not fulfill his obligation through the Havdalah in shul: he explicitly intended not to fulfill it. The Alter Rebbe concludes: “Therefore, the common custom is for everyone to recite Havdalah again at home, even if all the members of his household were in shul, because

1:55:01 Speaker 4 they have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling their obligation through the Havdalah in shul.” Why? Why does that work? Why can they recite Havdalah again at home? Because they did not intend to fulfill their obligation. But that raises a question: Is it enough that they did not intend to fulfill it? In the preceding sentence, the Alter Rebbe said that someone who intended not to fulfill it may recite Havdalah again at home, even to fulfill the obligation for his older children. Then he writes that in practice, since this became the custom—“Therefore, the common custom is for everyone to recite Havdalah again at home.” Why? “Because they have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling their obligation.” In other words, they did not intend to fulfill it. But is merely not intending enough? The new edition of the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch addresses this. In a footnote, the editors write: “That is, they intended not to fulfill their obligation.” That is how they explain it in the new edition.

1:55:49 Speaker 11 That’s not my note. In any case, I don’t agree with that note.

1:55:53 Speaker 4 That was—that was the point there with them.

1:55:56 Speaker 11 In the original.

1:55:57 Speaker 4 In practice, based on our analysis, this was very understandable. Back then, it had not yet become an established custom. There was no such custom. Some people would fulfill their obligation through it, and others would not. In particular, some people slept in rooms adjoining the shul. They would observe it there, and presumably make Havdalah there too. So anyone who did not want to fulfill his obligation had to have that explicit intention. But today it has become a custom. That is why he says, “People have therefore adopted the custom,” treating it as a custom. With a custom, you do not have to intend not to fulfill your obligation. It is enough not to intend to fulfill it, and that is enough to allow them to make Havdalah again at home.

1:56:29 Speaker 11 Good.

1:56:29 Speaker 4 Now, [unclear].

1:56:30 Speaker 11 [Unclear], you can. Do you want me to go too?

1:56:35 Speaker 4 [Unclear].

1:56:36 Speaker 11 So I’ll address it if you want. I have no problem with that. It’s a well-known question. The Rashba was already asked this question.

1:56:48 Speaker 4 Counting the Omer.

1:56:49 Speaker 11 What’s that?

1:56:49 Speaker 4 That’s the conclusion.

1:56:50 Speaker 11 That’s the conclusion.

1:56:51 Speaker 4 That’s also evident from the Rashba.

1:56:53 Speaker 11 Yes, they ask him: Why is it necessary? Why does the chazzan count? If we do not rely on the chazzan, why does he have to count aloud? So he gives his answer, and it is the same idea. In fact, the responsa Divrei Nechemiah also raises this question and answers it based on [unclear], subsection 54.

1:57:14 Speaker 4 I mentioned what that is.

1:57:14 Speaker 11 I mentioned it. He says that this provides the answer. It is essentially the same idea. You presented it as though it were a custom. It is not a matter of custom; it is more a matter of what we presume. That is the more fitting way to put it: we presume it.

1:57:25 Speaker 4 He did not describe it specifically as a custom.

1:57:28 Speaker 11 Specifically, customs.

1:57:29 Speaker 4 He also spoke briefly about “some have the custom.” He said, “People have therefore adopted the custom.” You can treat it as a custom.

1:57:34 Speaker 11 That may be so. He says the questioner may count with a blessing, because when he heard the count, he intended to count again himself. He intended to count again; that is why he was listening. So he explicitly intended not to fulfill his obligation by hearing it. In other words, since I have an intention—I have a definite intention—I want to count now. That positive intention to count is as though I had intended not to fulfill my obligation through the blessing and the counting I heard. In other words, there are different kinds of intentions. There is a neutral state of mind, where I am not thinking one way or the other. Then, if I have no explicit contrary intention—an intention against fulfilling my obligation—I might fulfill it. But when I explicitly intend to make the blessing and count myself, I do not need a separate negative intention against the other person’s counting, because I have my own intention to make the blessing now. The questioner came to ask precisely because he immediately intended to count, so he has no problem. The person answering, whose state of mind was basically neutral, did fulfill his obligation. So when someone hears the chazzan make the blessing—everyone hears the chazzan—they intend to count for themselves right afterward. That intention is like a contrary intention regarding the chazzan’s counting, so they do not fulfill their obligation through it. That is more or less similar to your point, but not entirely. Here I am saying that my positive intention to count is comparable to a negative intention not to fulfill my obligation through the chazzan. That is what we are discussing here.

1:59:14 Speaker 12 The wording of the Rashba somewhat requires it, because when the Rashba gets to what they say about the chazzan, he says, “If the individuals intend not to fulfill their obligation.” He treats it as something pertaining to each individual, and an individual needs an intention not to fulfill his obligation. It takes some reasoning to say that all this works. I am approaching it—

1:59:29 Speaker 11 So also—

1:59:29 Speaker 12 In connection with—

1:59:30 Speaker 11 Yes, so with individuals it works here too. In other words, once I have a different intention of my own.

1:59:38 Speaker 12 Rashi says that their words [unclear]. There is some expression like that in the Gemara.

1:59:43 Speaker 11 I don’t remember that wording. It could be. There is a question about someone holding an apple.

1:59:52 Speaker 12 What you said about hearing—that their explicit intention is apparently to count for themselves.

1:59:57 Speaker 11 Their explicit intention is to count for themselves.

1:59:59 Speaker 12 Apparently.

2:00:00 Speaker 11 Apparently. Custom is a factor too, you know. This may raise a question. In other words, in Shulchan Aruch, section 13, there is a question: One person makes the blessing borei pri ha’etz over an apple, and I am holding an apple. Both of them are eating apples. He says borei pri ha’etz aloud, and the other person is not thinking about it at all. He hears the blessing and answers amen. The question then arises whether he should make his own blessing. There is a problem here—a doubt about whether to make a blessing. Why? Because the halachah may follow the opinion that one need not intend to fulfill one’s obligation. If intention is not required, then even though the first person did not intend to include him, he has in fact fulfilled his obligation, and he should not make another blessing afterward. This question arises even though he wanted to—he had intended to—

2:00:51 Speaker 14 You mentioned that halachah earlier. Why is it obvious that the person should not make a blessing? What does he need to be concerned about?

2:00:56 Speaker 11 That he will hear a blessing from someone else.

2:00:58 Speaker 14 He should make an interruption between them so that he can deliberately make his own blessing.

2:01:01 Speaker 11 I don’t know. I’m not mixing things up. It does not say what to do about it in the parentheses.

2:01:05 Speaker 14 One must be concerned.

2:01:05 Speaker 11 One must be concerned. It is quite surprising. He did not—I did not say anything to him. He is making the blessing aloud. Do you know the difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazim when it comes to blessings? Among Sephardim, someone eating makes the blessing aloud so everyone can answer amen. Ashkenazim eating make their blessings quietly. So there is always this back-and-forth: “Make the blessing aloud so I can answer amen.” There is always that discussion between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, because Ashkenazim do not make blessings over food and drink aloud. The Sephardic custom is to make the blessing aloud so others can answer amen. But there is a reason not to make it aloud. Incidentally, we did not see the Rebbe make a blessing aloud either, when the Rebbe drank wine at farbrengens. He did not make the blessing aloud so that everyone could answer amen. There is a problem here. What is it? His blessing could fulfill the others’ obligation.

2:01:51 Speaker 14 At that moment they are eating, aren’t they? They are not speaking, are they?

2:01:54 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:01:54 Speaker 14 If they are speaking at that moment, they do not—

2:01:56 Speaker 11 There would be no interruption between hearing the blessing and eating. Say people are sitting at a meal and one person says “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz” aloud. According to this, the others who want to make their own blessing have already fulfilled their obligation.

2:02:09 Speaker 14 That is true if the first person—

2:02:10 Speaker 11 So that is why we do not make blessings aloud: to avoid the problem of a doubtful blessing.

2:02:15 Speaker 14 But what was said earlier was that they intend to make the blessing themselves.

2:02:20 Speaker 11 Right, and that contradicts what I said. That is why I said there is a problem with this explanation in [unclear] section 13: it does not fit with what is written here.

2:02:31 Speaker 14 Custom.

2:02:31 Speaker 11 So you are saying it is a custom. But it is also the custom for each person to make his own blessing. Why do we not say that here?

2:02:35 Speaker 14 It is not a custom—not for everyone.

2:02:36 Speaker 11 In a congregation, the custom is that it does not—

2:02:38 Speaker 14 That is what contradicts it. Here, when someone wants to fulfill his obligation through someone else, it says he has to intend to do so.

2:02:47 Speaker 11 Correct, but there is a dispute as to whether—

2:02:49 Speaker 14 The moment he did not tell him, he does not—

2:02:50 Speaker 11 No, that is the question. There is a dispute about whether intention is indispensable or not.

2:02:55 Speaker 14 And it is indispensable.

2:02:57 Speaker 11 Are you saying that based on a halachic ruling or from what you know?

2:02:59 Speaker 14 He is saying it based on section 70—

2:03:01 Speaker 11 No, no.

2:03:02 Speaker 14 Someone who wants to fulfill another person’s obligation.

2:03:05 Speaker 11 Ideally, he needs to intend to fulfill it for him.

2:03:06 Speaker 14 So he needs to.

2:03:07 Speaker 11 Ideally, he needs to intend to fulfill it for him. But—

2:03:09 Speaker 14 If he tells him—

2:03:10 Speaker 11 But if he did not say so, if he did not intend it, is intention indispensable or not? Huh?

2:03:14 Speaker 14 To fulfill it for him. Just like that, he does not fulfill it for him.

2:03:16 Speaker 11 So that—there is—

2:03:16 Speaker 14 And suppose I am in a room and hear him make Kiddush.

2:03:19 Speaker 11 Good, good, good. On that, the Alter Rebbe says that since there is a dispute about whether intention is indispensable, one should, from the outset, intend not to fulfill one’s obligation. Without a contrary intention, I might fulfill it, because intention is not indispensable for blessings. There is such a—

2:03:37 Speaker 14 Proof that he took note of this in the halachah.

2:03:40 Speaker 11 Where, where is Part One here?

2:03:43 Speaker 14 There he says you have to tell the person that you want him to fulfill your obligation.

2:03:48 Speaker 11 That is ideally.

2:03:49 Speaker 14 From here.

2:03:50 Speaker 11 Correct. He needs to intend to fulfill it for him and say so—that is clear. That is the ideal practice. Thank you.

2:03:55 Speaker 14 There is the problem of a person benefiting from a blessing that someone says aloud—everyone who heard it.

2:04:03 Speaker 11 But a chazzan is already the shliach tzibbur; he doesn’t need to be appointed. The shliach tzibbur fulfills everyone’s obligation for them. He wasn’t even appointed. The question is about someone I didn’t appoint. And the question goes further: Is “one who hears is considered as one who responds” based on agency, or does hearing itself count as responding? Is it beyond agency, even without agency? That’s a big question. The later authorities disagree about it. And the Alter Rebbe himself writes one way in one place and another way elsewhere. It’s interesting. There’s a difficulty in the Alter Rebbe’s words: Is hearing considered responding because of agency, or not? Now, in section 213, which we just read and cited, there’s a paragraph. There was once a meeting between the Gerrer Rebbe and Rabbi Elyashiv, and people spoke about that meeting. The Gerrer Rebbe came to ask him a question. It was on a festival; he paid him a festival visit. He came and opened the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch with him. He asked Rabbi Elyashiv how to understand the Alter Rebbe’s words in this very paragraph. He said he didn’t understand it. What is it about? It says: “A person does not fulfill his obligation by hearing a blessing, even if he answered amen, unless he heard it from beginning to end and intended to fulfill his obligation through it, and the person reciting the blessing intended to fulfill his obligation for him.” He has to hear it, first of all, and he should say amen. Amen is not indispensable, but there has to be intent on the part of the person reciting the blessing or the person fulfilling his obligation. Then he fulfills his obligation after the fact even if he didn’t answer amen. Amen is not indispensable, but intent has to be there. “According to those who say”—this is in parentheses—“according to those who say that rabbinic mitzvos do not require intent, even if the person reciting the blessing did not intend to fulfill his obligation for him, and he himself did not intend to fulfill his obligation through it,” according to them, he has fulfilled it, whether it’s a concluding blessing or an initial blessing. Because according to those who say intent is not indispensable for blessings, it isn’t indispensable. “And if someone has been given a fruit to eat, or

2:06:30 Speaker 11 a mitzvah to perform, and before he had a chance to recite the blessing he heard that blessing from someone else who was reciting it for himself, he need not recite it.” Why? Because intent isn’t indispensable. Even though I didn’t appoint him as my agent and didn’t want him to recite the blessing for me. But since I heard it, hearing fulfills my obligation even if I didn’t intend it.

2:06:56 Speaker 15 That’s according to those opinions.

2:06:57 Speaker 11 That’s the opinion—“according to those who say”—that opinion. Magen Avraham, section 60, subsection 3. Not the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe also says: “One should take their view into account and be careful not to enter into a possible case of a blessing in vain.” Don’t get into that situation. What does that mean? Don’t listen. I don’t know how you avoid hearing it. If you see your friend reciting the blessing “to put on tefillin”—wait, reciting “to put on tefillin” when you’re about to put on tefillin—don’t listen to him.

2:07:26 Speaker 15 Intend not to.

2:07:28 Speaker 11 Or intend not to fulfill your obligation. Intend that explicitly. The opposite intent.

2:07:32 Speaker 15 Then why, when the chazzan recites the blessing for Hallel, do we recite the blessing again?

2:07:37 Speaker 11 Or here—so we didn’t discuss this earlier, because here we want to. So here there’s—

2:07:41 Speaker 15 If I want him to fulfill my obligation for me, I have to tell him.

2:07:43 Speaker 11 Because—

2:07:43 Speaker 15 There are customs in Ashkenazi shuls where, when the chazzan says it, they actually stop from the outset.

2:07:50 Speaker 11 Right, right. So Rabbi Chanon [?]—Rabbi Moshe Chaim Chanon [?]—spoke about this earlier and said that since there’s a custom, and our custom is to recite the blessing after the chazzan, and everyone follows our custom of reciting it after the chazzan, as with counting the Omer, then from the outset it’s as if we intended not to fulfill our obligation through the chazzan.

2:08:10 Speaker 15 We do fulfill our obligation through the chazzan.

2:08:12 Speaker 11 Yes, but here we were talking about the ordinary case. Ordinarily, you do fulfill it. But when I have a custom, and the custom is to recite the blessing, then the custom of reciting it means that, with the chazzan, it’s as if we intended not to fulfill our obligation—like counting the Omer. We hear the Omer count and intend not to fulfill our obligation, as if we had intended not to. Then we go ahead and recite the blessing.

2:08:31 Speaker 15 How do you explain that?

2:08:31 Speaker 11 No, so again: we explained the reasoning. Since there’s a contrary custom here, there’s a different, positive intent. Right now I want to recite the blessing for counting the Omer. I listen to the chazzan only to find out what today’s count is. That’s why I listen to him. So from the outset I know this chazzan isn’t coming to fulfill my obligation for me. That’s what—

2:08:57 Speaker 15 That’s well known.

2:09:00 Speaker 11 Yes, it’s known.

2:09:01 Speaker 15 A Sephardi understands it as fulfilling the obligation.

2:09:04 Speaker 11 Because they don’t think of it that way from the outset.

2:09:06 Speaker 15 It’s a custom adopted out of concern for those opinions.

2:09:08 Speaker 11 Right, right. You’re correct. Well, in any event, that isn’t the subject I wanted to discuss, though it does touch on it a little. I hope you’re fulfilling your obligation. Leave ten people here who have fulfilled—who haven’t fulfilled it, if there aren’t ten here. There’s such a rule in halachah. Yes, the boys from Lod know me already, so they pay them to make sure you don’t have to hear me again. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have... Oh, right? Look, get a taste, get a taste of these classes. Have you studied section 489? 489. Here, during the break. Huh? What’s 489? What—what is it about? Huh? Section 489 in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. What is it about? Yeshivah students! Huh? If someone asks you where the Shulchan Aruch discusses counting the Omer. Good, 489. Nice, you see? Whenever someone asks, you say, “Huh?” Pay attention: section 489 is a very, very important section. It has thirty paragraphs just on counting the Omer. Really, what is there to know about counting the Omer? You count, and that’s it. What’s the big question? Why make it so complicated? Thirty laws about counting the Omer—what could there possibly be? “Today is one day of the Omer.” That’s it, I’m done. We already know how to count in first grade. What’s the story? It’s not quantity we’re talking about here, but quality. How is the mitzvah of counting the Omer defined? That’s where all the laws—all the complexity—come in. Let’s see how the Alter Rebbe defines the mitzvah of counting the Omer. We’ve already counted more than eight days, right? Today is nine. So we’re almost up to ten, and we really ought to know what this counting is. What are we counting for forty-nine days? Let’s read it inside, and I’ll explain. “It is a positive commandment from the Torah for every Jew to count seven weeks of days.” So the Alter Rebbe’s first step is to define the mitzvah. First he says that it is

2:11:35 Speaker 11 a positive commandment from the Torah, and the mitzvah is “to count.” Counting is generally done aloud, right? Like recounting the Exodus from Egypt: when we say “recounting,” we mean speaking. When we say “remembering,” remembering is in thought. When we say “counting,” it’s done aloud. “Seven weeks of days.” What’s the mitzvah? To count seven weeks of days. What does “days” mean, as opposed to years? Why would it be years? Why? Why doesn’t he just say “seven weeks”? Why “seven weeks of days”? What does that mean?

2:12:16 Speaker 16 Weeks of years.

2:12:19 Speaker 11 Because there’s another count performed by the beis din, counting Shemitah cycles and Jubilees. There they count seven Sabbaths of years. So in contrast to that, he says that there it’s seven Sabbaths of years, while here it’s seven weeks of days. That’s one explanation. A deeper explanation is that the Alter Rebbe is already defining the mitzvah here. The mitzvah is to count seven weeks and also days—to count both weeks and days. That’s why we say today, for example, “nine days of the Omer; nine days, which are one week and two days of the Omer.” We counted both days and weeks. So he immediately states and defines what the mitzvah is. Those are two explanations for why he uses the word “days.” Because if you run a search—you know, today you can search Otzar HaChochma—the words “seven weeks of days” don’t appear in any other book besides the Alter Rebbe’s. There are fifty thousand books in Otzar HaChochma. Search for “seven weeks of days,” and you’ll get only the Alter Rebbe. In other words, that’s his definition. No halachic authority before him or after him defined it that way. And it’s the most precise definition there is of counting the Omer: counting seven weeks of days, not just seven weeks. That’s the first point. Now, when do we begin counting? Notice how the Alter Rebbe phrases it. If you had the books in front of you, I’d show you how to study a single paragraph in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, and then you’d spend a whole month studying section 489. Right? But what can we do? We still don’t know how to study the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. Let’s continue reading. So he says, “From the day”—when do we count the Omer? “From the day the Omer offering is brought.” From the day the Omer offering is brought. That’s the mitzvah. Not “from the day after Shabbos.” Notice the definition. In other words, the mitzvah has this “day after Shabbos,” the day after Pesach. He says “the day”

2:14:26 Speaker 11 “After Pesach” is just a way of marking the time, but that is not the point. The point is that we count from the day the Omer is brought. Not from the day it is offered—nor from the day the Omer is harvested, but from the day it is brought. Now, what does he call the Omer? He does not say “Omer”; he says “the Omer offering.” He is already defining the Omer as an offering. That is a novel point. It does not say—G-d forbid, the Rambam does not use the expression “the Omer offering.” Yes, the Rambam also defines the Omer as an offering, because the Omer was referred to together with the offering. What is the Omer? The Omer is a barley meal offering, and the barley meal offering came with an animal offering. So together it was an offering, the Omer offering. So from the day it was offered—why does he emphasize this? Because we count the Omer. Yes, the counting of the Omer. We say today, “nine days of the Omer,” since the Omer was offered. That is why he has to emphasize that the mitzvah begins on the day the Omer offering is brought, as it says—and he brings proof—“You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Shabbos, from the day you bring the Omer of the wave offering; seven complete weeks shall there be.” So he brings a verse for the whole matter. “From the day you bring the Omer of the wave offering”—that is when it is offered. We count from the day the Omer is offered. And “seven complete weeks”: “complete” already tells me there is a mitzvah to count both weeks and days, because if I do not count days, they are not complete. There could be seven weeks, seven Shabbosos, and they would not be complete. When are they complete? When there are days as well, because without days there is no completeness. So that is proof both that we must count days and that we must count from the bringing of the Omer offering.

2:16:26 Speaker 17 Why are they not complete if there are no days?

2:16:28 Speaker 11 What?

2:16:29 Speaker 17 Why are they not complete if there are no days?

2:16:30 Speaker 11 How are they complete? Seven Shabbosos could be forty-two—uh, seven Shabbosos with forty-two days. Do you know what that means? If you start counting from Shabbos to Shabbos—

2:16:42 Speaker 17 “Shabbos” here does not mean Shabbos; it means a week.

2:16:44 Speaker 11 Yes. So how do you know? It says “seven Shabbosos.” How does that mean weeks? What tells us they are weeks? How do they become weeks?

2:16:52 Speaker 17 [unclear]

2:16:56 Speaker 11 The Gemara asks: Could we count six Shabbosos? So they answer that in the Gemara. How do we know what to count? They say “complete,” meaning they have to be complete.

2:17:08 Speaker 17 The Gemara said they know that there are—

2:17:10 Speaker 11 It says, “Count fifty days.” Yes, we have to count. Maybe we should actually count fifty? In short, from the two teachings together, from the two verses together—both “seven weeks” and “fifty days”—if it had said “fifty days,” you would have had to count fifty days, just fifty days. First of all, fifty days is more than seven weeks, right? I would have thought we must count fifty days, more than seven weeks. It says “seven weeks.” I have to count seven weeks. The combination of the two verses tells me that we must count seven complete weeks, which is forty-nine days.

2:17:45 Speaker 17 What will you do with the verse that says “fifty”?

2:17:46 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:17:49 Speaker 17 Fifty days.

2:17:49 Speaker 11 I cannot hear you.

2:17:49 Speaker 17 We have to count fifty days.

2:17:51 Speaker 11 Well?

2:17:52 Speaker 17 What will you do with that?

2:17:53 Speaker 11 The fiftieth day comes on its own. “Until the fiftieth day” does not include the fiftieth day. It is like “forty lashes shall he give him,” yes—up to forty, but not including forty. Uh, let us continue. This part says: Fine, up to here it is straightforward. But there is another problem. There is another verse, which says “seven...” Yes, there is that, and it says, “Seven weeks you shall count for yourself.” There is another verse in Devarim: “Seven weeks you shall count for yourself.” So there is a contradiction here. What is the contradiction? Here it says, “You shall count for yourselves,” and there it says, “You shall count for yourself.” “For yourselves” or “for yourself”? “For yourself” means you. Who is “you”? Moshe Rabbeinu, right? It is a command to Moshe: “Count for yourself.” You count. Moshe Rabbeinu will count. The Sanhedrin will count. That is what he brings: “The Sages expounded: ‘Count for yourself’”—the verse says “count for yourself”—“could this mean through the beis din?” As with Yovel, when the beis din counts seven cycles of seven years and sanctifies the fiftieth year as Yovel. Perhaps we should say that “count for yourself” means through the beis din. Why the beis din? Because we find such a case: the beis din counts seven cycles of seven years and sanctifies each Shemitah, as next year is a Shemitah year. So the beis din established the Shemitah and Yovel years and sanctifies the fiftieth year. The same could be true here: the beis din would count forty-nine days and sanctify Shavuos, with the beis din establishing the fiftieth day. Not each person for himself; the beis din establishes it. According to that, if it depends on the beis din, then it makes no difference to a person who crosses the date line to Australia. Why? Because he does not establish the count; the beis din does. That would mean the obligation would not be on the individual, but on the beis din. So we would not establish Shavuos; the beis din would, as with all the festivals. Who establishes

2:20:08 Speaker 11 the festivals? The beis din establishes them. The beis din determines when Rosh Chodesh is and tells us when all the festivals will be.

2:20:16 Speaker 18 The Sanhedrin.

2:20:17 Speaker 11 But the calendar.

2:20:18 Speaker 18 A person does establish the festival dates.

2:20:20 Speaker 11 Yes.

2:20:20 Speaker 18 The Sanhedrin too.

2:20:21 Speaker 11 Who establishes them? Who establishes the festivals? We do.

2:20:24 Speaker 18 What?

2:20:24 Speaker 11 Who establishes them?

2:20:25 Speaker 18 No, but not the... not a beis din that exists today. It goes according to—

2:20:29 Speaker 11 Not today’s beis din, no. Not a beis din. The ones who established the calendars. The calendars—the calendar. Who establishes the Jewish calendar? Huh? The Sanhedrin. Right? The Sanhedrin. No, not the people at the printing press who print the calendars; they do not establish the calendar. The calendar has rules. So they established the calendar.

2:20:50 Speaker 18 I will show how many—

2:20:52 Speaker 11 So if the law rested with the beis din, then yes, it would follow the calendar, as I am saying now.

2:20:56 Speaker 18 Maybe we change when—

2:20:59 Speaker 11 What?

2:20:59 Speaker 18 If I travel to America—

2:21:01 Speaker 11 Right.

2:21:03 Speaker 18 Then that would be half a day of Shabbos.

2:21:05 Speaker 11 You have not lost anything, because it is determined by the beis din. That is the law for you.

2:21:08 Speaker 18 That until then I do not have to.

2:21:09 Speaker 11 It is like when you observe Shabbos. You arrive in Houston, and you observe Shabbos there too. Right?

2:21:14 Speaker 18 That is one day of Shabbos.

2:21:16 Speaker 11 Leave the days aside for now. On this point: you said you arrived for Shabbos. It says that you have to observe it. Could you say, “I already did; I just crossed five days”? Can you say such a thing? No. Because it was established in advance. That is how the beis din established it. Shavuos is the fiftieth day of the count for all the Jewish people.

2:21:38 Speaker 18 Even if it is that way, it is still the beis din. It is the beis din. The beis din presumably relies on the count customary in its location. The beis din counts according to halachah: one day, two days, three days.

2:21:51 Speaker 11 Yes.

2:21:51 Speaker 18 Now, when I cross over there, it is as though it really... If I say no, the situation changes. Now, for me, the beis din counts a different day. The beis din there counts a different day.

2:22:03 Speaker 11 No, you do not count anything. You do not count anything. I count for you.

2:22:07 Speaker 18 I do not count.

2:22:07 Speaker 11 The community establishes it, not you. It is not your private count; it is the count of the beis din, of the community as a whole, of the entire Jewish people. What is your name? Where do you study? Huh? Do you study in Yiddish? Oh, you speak Hebrew well. How?

2:22:30 Speaker 18 I studied in Lod.

2:22:31 Speaker 11 Oh, in Lod. Oh. Whose son are you? The son of...? All right. No, so I will wait. Three days. He asked a good question. Yes. Okay, uh, is everyone here in yeshivos? There are also some from the Talmud Torah. You—you are in yeshivah gedolah. There are a few ages here. Fine, all right. I see everyone is bar mitzvah age, yes? Fine, so, uh—let us give Dan a chance here. Uh, we are in the middle of the discussion now; we have not yet decided that this applies to everyone. Wait, we are still at the suspenseful part. Is there really an obligation on—why? Who says so? Maybe the beis din has to do it. Why must each of us count? And people keep forgetting. It is a mess. Better the other way, huh? Yes. So what does it say? The Torah says, “You shall count for yourselves.” There is another verse. “For yourselves”—so that each and every person should count. So that each and every person should count. The verse comes to tell us why it says “you shall count for yourselves”: because, as we said, each and every person has to count, not the beis din. “For yourselves” is plural. And someone once asked me: it says, “This month shall be for you the first of the months”—“for you.” Where does it say “for you”? In the plural. Yet we do not say that means each and every person. Why do I say here that “for yourselves” includes each and every person? Perhaps “for yourselves” means the Sanhedrin—you—just as in “This month shall be for you.” What is the answer? Can anyone answer me? The Rambam addresses this in the chapter on sanctifying the new month. The opposite cases. Let us see what it means. From where do we learn that each and every person is obligated to count? From the verse “You shall count for yourselves.” If it had said “for yourself,” it would apply only to the beis din; “for yourselves” applies to each and every person. I am asking: it says “This month shall be for you,” and there “for you” means the Sanhedrin. Why do we not say it applies to each and every person? Maybe everyone has to sanctify the new month for himself.

2:24:53 Speaker 19 There is the Pri Chadash at the beginning of next month.

2:24:56 Speaker 11 I am asking about the old fruit; what about the Pri Chadash?

2:24:58 Speaker 19 They did not see.

2:24:59 Speaker 11 Where is the Pri Chadash on the Rambam that explains this? The Rambam explains the verse this way. The Rambam says, “‘This month shall be for you’ was said to Moshe and Aharon.” That’s what the Rambam says. It says, “Hashem spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt, saying: This month shall be for you.” It says “to Moshe and Aharon” there; “this month shall be for you” was said to Moshe and Aharon. But if it had been addressed only to Moshe, it wouldn’t say “for you” in the plural. It would say “for you” in the singular.

2:25:26 Speaker 19 Why? But it could be the beis din.

2:25:28 Speaker 11 Certainly. That’s what I’m talking about.

2:25:30 Speaker 19 Aharon is also part of the beis din.

2:25:32 Speaker 11 Right: you, Moshe and Aharon, and the courts that come after you. That is, “You shall count for yourself seven cycles of seven years” addresses only Moshe, because Hashem spoke to Moshe alone. When He speaks to Moshe and Aharon, He says, “This month shall be for you,” because it applies to the beis din too. He didn’t mean each and every individual. He meant “for you,” Moshe and Aharon, and there too He meant the beis din. But here it says, “You shall count for yourselves.” From this, the counting passed from the courts to us. Now look at a wonderful precision in the Alter Rebbe’s wording. At the beginning: “It is a positive commandment from the Torah for each one of Israel to count seven weeks of days.” Again, we don’t find wording like this anywhere else. “Each one of Israel”—that’s how he begins the halachah. Usually the Alter Rebbe writes “every person of Israel” or “every man of Israel.” What does “each one of Israel” mean? If you search, you won’t find this wording anywhere else. What does it mean? He is saying that the mitzvah applies to each and every one, as we see from the verse “You shall count for yourselves”—there must be a counting for each and every one. He isn’t coming to exclude women or anything like that. Women are exempt, certainly. He is saying “each and every one”: it is an obligation on each and every one. That’s why he changed his wording. He doesn’t write “every man of Israel.” If he had written that, I might think he meant to exclude women, but that isn’t the point here. The point is to include each and every one. That’s why he said, “for each one of Israel to count.”

2:27:01 Speaker 20 I think they cited things from the Pri Chadash, right?

2:27:06 Speaker 11 They cited the Gemara, but it was discussing the halachos with them.

2:27:09 Speaker 20 There’s something like that later on.

2:27:09 Speaker 11 They cited it—say they cited it, yes?

2:27:13 Speaker 20 Yes.

2:27:13 Speaker 11 That part is mine. Whatever is right is mine, usually.

2:27:19 Speaker 20 The Pri Chadash himself went back—

2:27:21 Speaker 11 I know, the Pri Chadash went back to it because he heard [unclear].

2:27:23 Speaker 20 He went back and cited it. Still, at this point it would be worth noting that he went back to it.

2:27:26 Speaker 11 Yes, so no, I’ll write it that way. I don’t know. Point it out, point it out. That’s why we come here; that’s why there are explanations and why people write about these things, and thanks to that they get corrected afterward. There’s a writer who put out, incidentally, an errata sheet. The errata sheet for... There are thousands of corrections there to the Shulchan Aruch—I mean the first edition.

2:27:50 Speaker 20 For the new one?

2:27:51 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:27:53 Speaker 20 For the new one?

2:27:53 Speaker 11 For the new one. Corrections, corrections. There’s still a tremendous amount of work here, and hundreds of thousands of references. To be precise, hundreds of thousands of references; thousands of corrections are a small percentage. There are six hundred thousand references below, in the footnotes. We counted them. Six, yes. Exactly. Six hundred thousand references. So you understand how much work went into it. Now, let’s continue. And at this point I would say: fine, each one—it’s an obligation on each one. Yes, Ashkenazi, did you want to ask something?

2:28:29 Speaker 21 Regarding Moshe and Aharon, that...

2:28:31 Speaker 11 Yes.

2:28:32 Speaker 21 It says “for you,” meaning Moshe and Aharon said “for you.” We already know that applies to future generations. We don’t know.

2:28:40 Speaker 11 What?

2:28:40 Speaker 21 We know that...

2:28:44 Speaker 11 That is learned there too. You’re right. Good, good point. The Rambam learns both things: that witnesses can testify—even Moshe and Aharon can be witnesses—and also the point about the beis din. Right? You remembered one side, and you’ve supplied the other side for us. We’re filling it in for you. Very good. A sign that you’re learning the Rambam’s Laws of Sanctifying the New Moon. You learned it, right? Okay, let’s continue. There’s another law: “Neither the community nor the shliach tzibbur can count on behalf of everyone.” So what is the Alter Rebbe adding here? I might have said: perhaps it really is—although it isn’t an obligation of the beis din, it is an obligation of the community. What is an example of a communal obligation? The Torah reading, for instance. Is the Torah reading an individual obligation or a communal one? Huh? Communal. I might have said: not the beis din, but we can do it. But who among the community? Not literally every individual; rather, the community fulfills the obligation for everyone. Those who were in shul counted. As for those who weren’t there, the community fulfills their obligation, as with the Torah reading. If, for example, they read the weekly parsha in shul on Shabbos, and someone who wasn’t there comes back—does the shul now have to read two parshiyos for him? No. The community has moved on. He goes along with the community. The community fulfills the obligation for him. What he does have to do is read shnayim mikra ve’echad targum, because that is an individual obligation. That’s something else. But here we’re talking about the communal Torah reading. So those who travel abroad, finish a particular parsha there, then come here and want to read two parshiyos to make it up aren’t doing the right thing. It’s simply unnecessary. There’s no such obligation. It’s a communal obligation. The community here in Israel has moved on. Why go back and read it? There’s no point. The individual obligation is to read shnayim mikra ve’echad targum. This is the Rambam’s wording: “Even though he does not hear the entire Torah reading on Shabbos, he is obligated

2:30:35 Speaker 11 to read shnayim mikra ve’echad targum.” It is an obligation on every individual, on each person. That is an individual obligation—shnayim mikra. The Torah reading belongs to the community. So I might have said that Sefiras HaOmer is likewise communal; perhaps not every individual has to count. So he says that “for yourselves” means each and every one of you. The community cannot fulfill it for you. I might then say: perhaps the shliach tzibbur can fulfill it for everyone? A shliach tzibbur does fulfill obligations for others. For instance, someone who, due to circumstances beyond his control, cannot get to shul needs to hear Kedushah, Borchu, and Kaddish. Doesn’t the shliach tzibbur fulfill the obligation for all the people out in the fields? That’s written in Tanya too. The shliach tzibbur fulfills their obligation. Someone in the field is considered to have heard it. Why? Because the shliach tzibbur fulfills the obligation for everyone. So here too, I might have said, the shliach tzibbur can fulfill everyone’s obligation to count the Omer. He says: no, not even that. Let’s continue. He says something further. There are several levels here. Did you notice? Not the beis din, not the community, not the shliach tzibbur. He rules them all out. He goes on: “Even if a person instructs his friend to count on his behalf and appoints him as his agent.” “Instructs his friend”? It’s not merely an instruction; he appointed him as an agent. Even then, he says, “he does not fulfill his obligation unless he hears the count from his friend’s mouth.” No, an agent doesn’t help. Agency may work for betrothing a woman, but not for counting the Omer. Agency works for a mitzvah you don’t have to perform personally. Huh, what? Anything—searching for chametz. Anything that isn’t an obligation on the person himself. Counting the Omer is an obligation on the person himself. An agent cannot do it. He can’t. For example, there’s the question of nullifying chametz: can an agent do it or not? Some say that nullifying chametz depends on you. You have to nullify the chametz. Agency doesn’t work.

2:32:24 Speaker 11 We’re not working through the halachic authorities. We’re not; the matter hasn’t been decided at the moment.

2:32:28 Speaker 22 So that we know it does, where needed.

2:32:30 Speaker 11 Huh? After the fact, in pressing circumstances, we say perhaps it’s better than nothing. The Alter Rebbe says it’s better than nothing. But in practice we don’t rely on it, because nullification comes from—you have to nullify it. You have to think of it as nullified. Why appoint an agent? An agent can’t think for you what you—that’s incompatible with the whole idea. So with counting the Omer, you have to count. He can’t count for you. Now we go further. But what if he himself heard his friend count? Here we reach an important point, a very important question. What happens if I fulfill my obligation by hearing my friend? So he says: “If he intended to fulfill his obligation through hearing it, and his friend, who said the count, intended to fulfill the obligation on his behalf, he has fulfilled his obligation according to Torah law.” Why? Because “one who hears is as one who says it.” Another expression coined by the Alter Rebbe: “One who hears is as one who says it.” Usually the expression is “one who hears is as one who responds.” Here he changed the wording, because this isn’t a case of responding after someone recites a blessing; it’s saying it, saying it oneself. “One who hears is as one who says it.” That is, in the Alter Rebbe’s view, there’s no difference between saying it and responding. If he responds, then he’s also saying it. Because there’s speech, there’s hearing, there’s saying it aloud, and all sorts of questions. But here he chose the word “saying.” And this is provided that he heard it from someone obligated in this mitzvah. It has to be someone who is obligated—not a woman or a minor, but someone obligated in counting the Omer, like an adult man. If so, we see from here that “one who hears is as one who responds” is a general rule for all the Torah’s mitzvos. For example, there is the mitzvah of Torah study. You have to articulate the words, right? “You shall speak of them,” “You shall teach them diligently to your children,” and so on. You have to speak and articulate them. Now, someone who listens to words of Torah spoken by another person—here I am speaking and you are listening—are you also speaking? Is that considered

2:34:28 Speaker 11 Does “one who hears is considered as one who answers” apply to Torah study or not? The Rambam writes at the end of chapter 2 of Hilchos Talmud Torah that this principle applies to Torah study too. It’s a general rule for all mitzvos: hearing counts as speaking, as learning. So it’s as though you’re learning everything I’m wearing myself out saying here right now. You don’t have the effort of it, but you do have the speech. You have the effort of having to put up with me, but apart from that, the speech counts as yours. That’s the rule throughout the Torah. But he goes on to say: “And some disagree with this.” Who are they? The Levush and Chok Yaakov, two important halachic authorities. Who?

2:35:12 Speaker 24 Chok Yosef too.

2:35:14 Speaker 11 Chok Yosef. Who is that?

2:35:15 Speaker 24 Chok Yosef.

2:35:16 Speaker 11 I know Chok Yaakov.

2:35:18 Speaker 24 That’s the part by Chok Yosef.

2:35:19 Speaker 11 Who is Chok Yosef?

2:35:21 Speaker 24 Him too.

2:35:21 Speaker 11 After the Rambam? After the Alter Rebbe? Before the Alter Rebbe?

2:35:25 Speaker 24 Before.

2:35:25 Speaker 11 Before? Chok Yosef? I haven’t heard of him.

2:35:30 Speaker 24 They also say he was after the Alter Rebbe.

2:35:32 Speaker 11 Could be. I didn’t know about him. Now, the Levush writes that “You shall count for yourselves” comes to tell us that although throughout the Torah one who hears is considered as one who answers, with Sefiras HaOmer that does not apply. That’s what “for yourselves” means: you count yourselves; hearing does not count as answering. Here you have to say it aloud with your own mouth. That’s an extraordinary novelty. Throughout the Torah, I say that hearing counts as answering. Sefiras HaOmer is the exception: according to the Levush and Chok Yaakov, we do not say that hearing counts as answering for Sefiras HaOmer. That’s an extraordinary novelty. If someone asks you which mitzvah stands out as different from all the others, it isn’t Torah study, or the blessings, or any of those things. It’s Sefiras HaOmer. There is an opinion that says hearing does not count as answering for Sefiras HaOmer. Let’s see what the Alter Rebbe rules. Hm? What does the Alter Rebbe rule? What does he say? Is there another mitzvah?

2:36:35 Speaker 25 No.

2:36:36 Speaker 11 Please, if you find another mitzvah, I’d be very happy. I haven’t seen one. Do you have something? No? I thought so. He says: “And one should take their opinion into account from the outset and not rely on hearing the count from the shliach tzibbur.” We should not rely on it, because he may not have fulfilled his obligation. So from the outset, one should not fulfill the obligation through the shliach tzibbur. And if someone heard the shliach tzibbur and thought he had fulfilled his obligation, he needs to count again. But what’s the problem? He can’t make a blessing on it, because perhaps he did fulfill his obligation. When there is doubt about a blessing, we refrain from saying it, but he still has to count. That’s the practical difference nowadays.

2:37:24 Speaker 25 Now look at the Pri Chadash, Mordechai. In fact, the Pri Chadash himself later retracted the proofs he gave.

2:37:32 Speaker 11 We wrote that at the beginning of his discussion.

2:37:34 Speaker 25 Right, he retracted it at the end.

2:37:35 Speaker 11 What difference does that make?

2:37:36 Speaker 25 Ah, you caught me.

2:37:38 Speaker 11 All right, we’re noting it. At the beginning of his discussion he said this. The Alter Rebbe preferred what he said at the beginning.

2:37:42 Speaker 25 Even after he retracted it.

2:37:43 Speaker 11 Yes, never mind. If they cite the beginning of his discussion—

2:37:46 Speaker 25 Mordechai also—

2:37:47 Speaker 11 So, hm?

2:37:48 Speaker 25 Does Mordechai do that too?

2:37:50 Speaker 11 No.

2:37:50 Speaker 25 They ruled that way.

2:37:52 Speaker 11 Good. I don’t know. It may appear in the corrections; I don’t know. But then why are you bringing that up for no reason? It’s an important citation. No, I did write that. So... when I did this at the beginning, I was concerned. Ah, until what time is this—four? I’m finishing already. I won’t leave you on your own, all right? So we were already here. In short, there’s a very important practical consequence. First, we see something interesting here about hearing counting as answering. In short, hearing counts as answering not because of agency. According to the Alter Rebbe here, it is not based on agency, because agency does not work for Sefiras HaOmer, whereas whether hearing counts as answering is disputed, and we take into account the opinion that it does work. In other words, hearing counting as answering is not based on agency. And that contradicts what he himself writes in Shulchan Aruch, section 13, that it is based on agency. The wording there is that it’s like an agent whose mouth is considered his mouth. That’s a major question that many, many people have worked hard to resolve. But I think there’s no need to resolve it, because the Alter Rebbe wrote that passage in parentheses, and the Alter Rebbe himself was unsure about the matter. It isn’t clear that there’s a contradiction here. The Alter Rebbe offers two explanations: there he wrote one, in parentheses, and here he wrote another. He had not yet decided between them. But since the laws of Sefiras HaOmer were written earlier—they’re part of the laws of Pesach—and that passage in Shulchan Aruch was written later, there is reason to give more weight to what it says in Shulchan Aruch. We’ll leave that for another time. But what about in practice? There is a rule about someone who forgot to make the blessing and count on one day. Right? He cannot continue with a blessing, because according to the halachah—as I wrote—Sefiras HaOmer is

2:39:47 Speaker 11 either each day on its own or one continuous count. But when is there a double doubt? When someone counted during twilight, which may be day or night, or when someone doesn’t know whether he counted. He doesn’t remember. Then we say there is a double doubt: first, perhaps the halachah follows the opinion that one can make the blessing each day regardless; and second, perhaps he did count and simply doesn’t remember. Now what is the ruling in our case? Someone heard the shliach tzibbur, and that was it. He thought he had fulfilled his obligation. The day passed; he didn’t count himself, didn’t go back and count. Although the halachah says he must count again, he didn’t. He missed a day. Can he carry on? Later they told him, “You needed to count yourself.” Can he continue counting with a blessing or not? What do you think? Is this a double doubt or not? Does it qualify as a double doubt?

2:40:56 Speaker 26 Nowadays?

2:40:58 Speaker 11 According to what the Alter Rebbe rules here. The Alter Rebbe takes into account the opinion that hearing does not count as answering. He takes that opinion into account, but does not rule definitively like it. So it remains a doubt. In section 489, paragraph 20, the Alter Rebbe himself uses this wording.

2:41:16 Speaker 26 It’s a doubt whether he heard—he doesn’t remember whether he heard or not.

2:41:18 Speaker 11 No, he heard, but he didn’t answer or say it himself. He thought that hearing it from the chazzan... Some people come to shul and think, “The chazzan is making the blessing; why do I need to?” Among Sephardim, it’s common for the chazzan to say the whole thing. He davens on your behalf too; he does everything for you. Often it also comes from not knowing. By the way, just a question: Can one person fulfill everyone’s obligation for Krias Shema through their hearing him, or not? What do you know? “Shema Yisroel.”

2:41:44 Speaker 26 What do you mean?

2:41:45 Speaker 11 Hm?

2:41:46 Speaker 26 No, that’s intent. We need more than—

2:41:49 Speaker 11 Well, fine, what’s the halachah? After the question about Sefiras HaOmer, is there another example of this or not?

2:41:54 Speaker 26 We heard the counting being said.

2:41:56 Speaker 11 Can I fulfill my obligation for Krias Shema, which is a Torah obligation, by hearing it from the shliach tzibbur? What do you say?

2:42:04 Speaker 26 All the things you mentioned.

2:42:07 Speaker 11 You’re saying it works for counting? For counting. But the Alter Rebbe discusses this explicitly in section 59. He writes explicitly that the shliach tzibbur should not say Krias Shema aloud. Why don’t we in Chabad say “Shema Yisroel” aloud during Krias Shema? Sephardim say it aloud; that’s how they do all of it. So why does he say not to rely on that? Because after the fact, someone who hears it from the shliach tzibbur and intends to fulfill his obligation does fulfill it—when there are nine people listening. As with Shemoneh Esrei, and with the whole of Krias Shema: when the chazzan says it aloud and you hear every word, you fulfill your obligation. Hearing counts as answering there too. So there are things for which this works only with ten people. Hm?

2:42:55 Speaker 26 The law of pores al Shema, and pores—

2:42:58 Speaker 11 Right, pores al Shema, good, but pores al Shema concerns the blessings. I’m talking about Krias Shema itself, where one also fulfills the obligation by hearing it. So we do apply the rule that hearing counts as answering to Krias Shema, but not, according to one opinion, to Sefiras HaOmer. In that respect, Sefiras HaOmer is even more stringent than Krias Shema. So I think that, in practice, the Alter Rebbe says this: “In every case where it will be explained that one must count again without a blessing because of a doubt concerning the first counting, if he did not go back and count, he should count on the remaining nights with a blessing.” In other words, this is a general rule for every double doubt. Whenever I’m unsure whether I fulfilled my obligation, and the ruling is that I must do it again without a blessing but I didn’t, and I nevertheless continued, I can keep counting with a blessing. That’s because there are two doubts: perhaps I fulfilled my obligation by hearing it, and perhaps I did not; and perhaps the halachah follows the opinion that each day can be blessed independently. In such a case there is a double doubt, and we say to take the stringent course and continue counting the Omer with a blessing.

2:44:07 Speaker 26 What do you mean, “the stringent course”? That’s the default.

2:44:10 Speaker 11 Whatever you want to call it, look, nowadays saying the blessing is the stringent approach. For us, that’s the stringent approach. Anything you tell someone on a day when Tachanun is said is being stringent with everyone. Saying Tachanun nowadays, in our communities, is a stringency for everyone. Not saying Tachanun—is that a punishment or a reward? You should see the shul when a mohel or a chosson comes in. It’s a second day of blessing. What joy! As though the chosson were getting married right now.

2:44:38 Speaker 26 But it has to be. It’s something deeply felt.

2:44:42 Speaker 11 People want a quick solution. What is it? If there’s a chosson or a mohel from outside, let him come and exempt everyone. Nowadays saying the blessing is a stringency, so one should be stringent. The intention is to be lenient—call it whatever you like. So that’s what I take away from this. You see? You’ve just seen paragraph one in the section on the festivals, siman 489: how to study a single paragraph of Shulchan Aruch. From that, learn how to study the whole paragraph, the whole siman, and the whole Shulchan Aruch. At least let this message stay with you: the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch isn’t a book like other books. It’s a special book that takes a great deal of effort to understand. You can just read through it, or you can stop over every word, but at the very least you have to take it seriously. And yeshivah students like those in Chabad should—I think they should do even more. You need to know: I see yeshivah students from other yeshivos and how they approach every word of the Biur HaGra. The Biur HaGra carries a lot of weight with them. They examine every word and take every detail, every nuance, extremely seriously. So we need at least that level of care with the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. Look at Likkutei Sichos: I know you examine every comma there. And if it’s a ruling of the Alter Rebbe, you certainly examine it even more closely. Right? So we need to examine the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch closely too. That’s it. What?

2:46:14 Speaker 26 What do I do tomorrow? I didn’t count. Yes, on that day, yes, I counted then too. The next day I didn’t count. That’s because I heard—yes.

2:46:21 Speaker 11 You didn’t hear.

2:46:21 Speaker 26 So in our case, without a blessing.

2:46:23 Speaker 11 Without a blessing.

2:46:24 Speaker 26 Okay, so why? Because according to the individual—that’s what I said. When we said that he crosses the International Date Line, why not start according to the community here too? The community counted with a blessing.

2:46:33 Speaker 11 Who said we follow the community? Who said that?

2:46:35 Speaker 26 Isn’t that what we said?

2:46:36 Speaker 11 At the beginning, I said that if it depended on the beis din, we would follow the community. But now it depends on the individual. If he crosses the International Date Line, the Rebbe says—and this is the Rebbe’s novel ruling; many disagree with it—that he observes the festival according to the... he sanctifies the fifth day. But afterward the Rebbe said there was no need to come to that, so as not to create confusion, and instructed him to cross the Date Line.

2:47:03 Speaker 26 Why depart from that approach? Why not? It could follow the approach of [unclear].

2:47:11 Speaker 11 I don’t know, but we don’t follow other books in place of the Alter Rebbe’s works. We live by the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch.

2:47:19 Speaker 26 Fine, but that isn’t the whole world. How much is it?

2:47:21 Speaker 11 Ah, because he discusses it at length in [unclear]. There are various distinctions there. So what is this doing here? He discusses it at length in [unclear], so perhaps he’s the only one who discusses it this way. Opposite intent, not opposite intent. Yes, he says Divrei Nechemiah examines this closely. That’s Divrei Nechemiah on siman 489. The fact is that they don’t manage to establish it.

2:47:47 Speaker 26 That’s a question. Lack of knowledge isn’t—

2:47:49 Speaker 11 No, no. Divrei Nechemiah says that you don’t need to do it that way; it’s explicit that you don’t need to. You don’t have to say the blessing. Someone who wants to can say it, but it isn’t an instruction from the Rebbe. Each person can do it if he wants. We aren’t certain about everything. Yes, in the siddur he rules not to. He doesn’t say that. Even though in Shulchan Aruch he writes that one should quickly say the blessing, as we do when reciting Hallel individually.

2:48:14 Speaker 26 On Erev Rosh Hashanah.

2:48:14 Speaker 11 With the blessing over Hallel, right? We quickly say it before the... the one leading says it. Incidentally, I say the blessing together with him. There’s a problem with answering amen: I don’t know whether I’m allowed to answer amen after the chazzan finishes but before I’ve begun Hallel. Do I have to wait or not? I’ve wrestled with this a lot, so I say the blessing together with him and answer amen.

2:48:39 Speaker 27 There is such a thing, I think, with the Rebbe zt”l too.

2:48:42 Speaker 11 Ga’al Yisroel, yes: we don’t say the blessing—we don’t answer amen. Incidentally, you can see that at the blessing over the Megillah, the Rebbe would say the blessing along with the chazzan. Some say he answered amen too. That’s a little puzzling. If he said the blessing with the chazzan, he couldn’t—so he must have finished before him, or begun the reading a little. I don’t know. You can’t tell from a video exactly when the Rebbe answered amen, before or after.

2:49:06 Speaker 27 For Ashkenazim it’s harder.

2:49:07 Speaker 11 I know.

2:49:08 Speaker 27 That’s the problem with—

2:49:10 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:49:11 Speaker 27 Is it possible to say a blessing together and answer amen together?

2:49:14 Speaker 11 No, no, there’s no such thing.

2:49:16 Speaker 27 It says that answering amen to your own blessing is a rabbinic matter.

2:49:19 Speaker 11 Only if it’s the blessing of Yishtabach, or “Who blesses His people Israel with peace.” Those are blessings that... Sephardim answer amen to them. Or Boneh Yerushalayim—even Chabad chassidim answer amen to that in bentching. That’s the only amen Chabad chassidim answer to their own words, and even that is said quietly. Sephardim answer amen after Yishtabach, after “Who blesses His people Israel with peace,” and also wherever there’s a concluding blessing at the Seder night, huh?

2:49:51 Speaker 27 Hashkiveinu.

2:49:52 Speaker 11 Hashkiveinu, yes, right. The end—it’s the end of a series of blessings. In Chabad, and among Ashkenazim generally, we answer amen only in bentching, to distinguish between the Torah-mandated part and the rest, yes.

2:50:06 Speaker 27 What’s the problem with—

2:50:09 Speaker 11 Where? With...

2:50:10 Speaker 27 With the counting.

2:50:13 Speaker 11 You’re making an interruption between the blessing and the counting.

2:50:16 Speaker 27 If you count, then you’re just counting.

2:50:18 Speaker 11 No, not there. I was referring to Hallel, to half-Hallel. The Chabad custom now dates from 5741. Why did it begin in 5741? Do you know why? That was a hundred years ago—it began in 5741. It started at the end of 5741. The Rebbe remarked in passing that some of the elder members of Anash had the custom of saying the blessing themselves—of quickly saying the blessing in this case too. Once he said that aloud, suddenly everyone was an elder member of Anash, and everyone began saying the blessing over Hallel. That’s how it started.

2:50:54 Speaker 27 Nobody talked about it.

2:50:55 Speaker 11 Well, I was in yeshivah before then. The chazzan would say the blessing. None of us had this custom.

2:51:01 Speaker 27 It isn’t in the siddur.

2:51:02 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:51:02 Speaker 27 It isn’t in the siddur.

2:51:02 Speaker 11 Which siddur?

2:51:04 Speaker 27 The old one, I’m saying.

2:51:05 Speaker 11 That’s in the new siddur Kehot published recently. It isn’t the original siddur. It doesn’t appear in the first printing of the siddur. There’s a new siddur now. Do you know about it?

2:51:15 Speaker 27 That really...

2:51:16 Speaker 11 A siddur—there’s a first-printing edition of the siddur. Have you heard of it? It doesn’t appear there. Ah, you.

2:51:20 Speaker 27 That’s for an individual.

2:51:21 Speaker 11 Huh? For an individual. The truth is that the Alter Rebbe did say the blessing over it. Yes.

2:51:26 Speaker 27 Ah, sorry.

2:51:30 Speaker 11 The Alter Rebbe said the blessing.

2:51:32 Speaker 27 He said it every time.

2:51:33 Speaker 11 Every time. The custom of quickly saying the blessing is at issue there, but otherwise, no. It wasn’t accepted practice until 5741, and that was late in 5741. In a sicha, the Rebbe mentioned in passing that this is our custom. And as usual—you know how customs got started in Chabad? From something said in passing. During the counting of the Omer, saying Shehecheyanu on Shabbos. Yes. How did that start?

2:52:00 Speaker 27 Yes.

2:52:00 Speaker 11 That’s how it started. Nobody knew about it. In 5749, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu asked the Rebbe what the Chabad custom was regarding Shehecheyanu during the counting of the Omer. The Rebbe told him that on Shabbos we say it. That was the first time anyone had heard of it.

2:52:13 Speaker 27 From one Shabbos to the next.

2:52:14 Speaker 11 It isn’t written. Before then, nobody knew about it.

2:52:18 Speaker 27 And in Hayom Yom too.

2:52:19 Speaker 11 No. In Hayom Yom there’s a precise wording about the Three Weeks: it says that even on Shabbos we don’t say it. For the counting of the Omer, it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say either way. No, there wasn’t a clear custom. Here, people know it simply from his question. That’s it. All right, I think I’ve spoken to you enough today. We’ll see each other another time. It’s been a real pleasure. I see this young man is a little tired, huh? No, you’re not tired? Good. Good. All right? May you have strength. Wait a moment for Rabbi [unclear], okay? Finish the, the event.

2:52:57 Speaker 27 Yes, yes, just a moment. Rabbi Ashkenazi will be here in a second.

2:52:59 Speaker 11 No, I have to go.

2:53:01 Speaker 27 No problem. No problem. Just one second, I’ll only—okay, sorry.

2:53:03 Speaker 11 I really have to go now because I have work.

2:53:06 Speaker 27 It’s a shame you’ll miss it.

2:53:08 Speaker 11 I have to go. First wait—the rabbi is coming.

2:53:12 Speaker 27 Right away.

2:53:29 Speaker 11 What, is it over already?

2:53:30 Speaker 27 So I spoke.

2:53:31 Speaker 11 Now I’m...

2:53:33 Speaker 27 No need.

2:53:34 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:53:34 Speaker 27 I don’t have the energy. There was no need. What have I got? What have I got? What’s this? The guys came earlier like that.

2:53:40 Speaker 11 Then I’ll stay. I can. I need to stay. Yes.

2:53:44 Speaker 27 Decide otherwise.

2:53:45 Speaker 11 Huh?

2:53:47 Speaker 27 Yes.

2:53:47 Speaker 11 Stay?

2:53:47 Speaker 27 Let’s hear your opinion.

2:53:48 Speaker 11 Okay.

2:53:54 Speaker 27 Can you sit down? Would that help?

2:54:01 Speaker 11 I don’t have a siddur.

2:54:01 Speaker 27 A Sefer Torah.

2:54:02 Speaker 11 Why don’t you have [unclear]? An individual obligation. The obligation of “one who listens is considered as one who answers” with three people. Don’t worry. Why is there such an opinion that [unclear]? What’s needed. Huh? We learn this; it was at the end of [unclear]. You said I should speak. There’s no time. I’ll say something short, but it has to do with the meaning of the prayers. And I think that without Tanya, you simply can’t make sense of the words of the... We say in the morning, at daybreak: “Do not bring us to sin, or to transgression, or to a test, or to disgrace; and do not let the evil inclination rule over us. Keep us far from a bad person and a bad friend; attach us to the good inclination and to good deeds; and compel our inclination to serve You.” There are several questions here about the order in the Gemara. But a few questions stand out very strongly to me. We ask, “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us”—that it should not rule over us. Then we say, “Attach us to the good inclination and to good deeds.” After that, “Compel our inclination to serve You.” If you’re asking for our inclination to be compelled, which goes further? Which does more to overcome the evil inclination: “Compel our inclination” or “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us”? Clearly, “Compel our inclination”—then one’s inclination is already subservient to the good inclination. If you ask, “Compel our inclination to serve You,” why first say, “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us”? And if you say, “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us,” why also ask, “Compel our inclination to serve You”? If they mean the same thing, why repeat it? These things are very hard to understand. We begin with the evil inclination, and then speak about our nature—

2:56:42 Speaker 11 keeping away from evil, and “Keep us far from a bad person and a bad friend,” and “Compel our inclination to serve You.” We keep speaking about things that seem very similar. We say, “Keep us far from a bad person and a bad friend.” There’s the whole order of these requests: tests and disgrace, and the difference between tests and disgrace. What are we asking for throughout this whole sequence? We’re asking for good things, but there ought to be an order. What is the significance of their order? I think that according to the definitions the Alter Rebbe gives us in Tanya—and this is one of the principles the Alter Rebbe gave us—there are tzaddikim: a complete tzaddik and an incomplete tzaddik; there are resha’im: a complete rasha and an incomplete rasha; and there is the beinoni. And the beinoni is a level attainable by every person. That’s what the Alter Rebbe says. So, seemingly, if the beinoni is a level attainable by every person, it stands to reason that the prayers were instituted for beinonim. There are prayers for tzaddikim and prayers for... In some places we also pray as tzaddikim, and sometimes we pray about resha’im, but generally, most of the prayers are based on the level of beinonim, because that is the level attainable by everyone; it is the most inclusive. Seemingly, there are two places in the prayers that provide evidence for this, one at the beginning and one at the end: that the prayers were instituted for beinonim. The Alter Rebbe explains: What defines a beinoni? He has not committed a transgression. But on the other hand, during prayer his inclination is completely subservient to the good inclination. That is not his state outside prayer, throughout the day. So there is a kind of struggle. Granted, this struggle does not mean that, G-d forbid, he will come to commit a sin, but sin is still relevant to him, even if the thoughts of transgression come against his will, right? Not because he wants them. If we follow this line of thought, there is still [unclear]. He later explains that even in mitzvos between one person and another, there is the matter of avak lashon hara, the “dust” of harmful speech.

2:58:59 Speaker 11 What is avak lashon hara? If someone has hurt him, he must not take revenge or bear a grudge—just the opposite. From here we need to learn how to counter the evil inclination. There is the beinoni’s work in matters between a person and Hashem, and there is the beinoni’s work in matters between one person and another. Yes, even if he is good in matters between a person and Hashem, if he behaves terribly toward other people, he is not a beinoni. And someone who behaves properly toward other people but not toward Hashem is not a beinoni either. A beinoni has to be complete in both. But there are different periods during his day. There is the time of Shema and prayer, and there is the rest of the day, when he goes to his business and attends to his affairs. This is not limited to a Jew who sits and learns; it includes someone who goes to work, to do business, to his job. This principle defines the whole matter of the beinoni. And here there are two levels: “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us,” and “Compel our inclination to serve You.” During prayer, it is “Compel our inclination to serve You”; then his inclination is completely subservient to the good inclination. But that is only during prayer. Outside prayer, throughout the day, it is “Do not let the evil inclination rule over us.” His inclination is not completely subservient, because the evil inclination is still within him. If we follow this approach, we can understand the entire sequence of these requests. A Jew gets up in the morning and asks to be, with Hashem’s help, a tzaddik. He is not asking to be a tzaddik, or a complete tzaddik, or even an incomplete tzaddik. He is asking to be on the level of a beinoni.

3:00:40 Speaker 28 Every day anew.

3:00:41 Speaker 11 What?

3:00:42 Speaker 28 Every day anew.

3:00:43 Speaker 11 Every day we need to ask for this.

3:00:44 Speaker 28 All right.

3:00:44 Speaker 11 Yes, I corrected that too. We’ll see in a moment. How does it work? First, we try to follow the order in the siddur. Yes, there is something else very strange here. In our order of prayer, Birchos HaTorah comes at the end, after the morning blessings. For everyone else it is different: they say Birchos HaTorah right away, or before the morning blessings. We do not. So according to the Alter Rebbe’s approach, in which Birchos HaTorah comes at the end, why do we [unclear] before it? We should have made this request afterward, after Birchos HaTorah. Why put it there? [Unclear.] What we are asking for here is that a person reach a level where he has never committed a transgression in his life and will never commit one—not even a sin or an iniquity. [Unclear.] That is why he asks to be careful [unclear], and not even come to sin. Or to iniquity. First, regarding positive mitzvos; second, regarding prohibitions, that he should not come to iniquity. There are several [unclear]. I saw that the Gemara uses the word “iniquity.” It means [unclear], not just an iniquity involving dishonoring one’s teacher. That is, some kind of thought, a thought, something along those lines. And that is the point of this particular request. In prayer, when we ask for forgiveness, we say, “Forgive us, for we have sinned; pardon us, for we have transgressed.” Only once—only in this one place in the siddur—do we ask not to come to a transgression. It is only here, in this Yehi Ratzon. Why? Because, as the Gemara says here concerning the beinoni, throughout the day there is what the Alter Rebbe calls thoughts of transgression, which come to him [unclear]. Although—

3:02:44 Speaker 11 it happens against his will, he asks not to come to a transgression. What’s more, the Rebbe explains what a beinoni is, and this addresses what you’re asking. A person is not a beinoni only if he was born that way. Even if a person, G-d forbid, [unclear], he too can bring himself—certainly when he does teshuvah—to the level of a beinoni, a level at which he will never commit a transgression.

3:03:09 Speaker 29 A person needs to do this every day.

3:03:10 Speaker 11 Yes, yes. So perhaps this prayer is appropriate even for a bar mitzvah boy, not only for tzaddikim. In any case, the request is that we not be led into sin, even into thoughts of sin. And I think that explains the distinction between “into temptation” and “into disgrace.” Temptation applies to a sin in thought. Disgrace applies to a sin in deed, because a deed can be seen: people may see him committing the sin. But no one can see his thoughts. So we say, “Do not lead us into temptation or into disgrace.” The Alter Rebbe says there in Tanya that even if a person has a sinful thought, he believes he will never, G-d forbid, come to act on it. So he asks not to be led into temptation in his thoughts, and also not to be led into... But I saw in the annotated Tanya, in all the relevant places, that even a beinoni, even someone on that level, has reason to ask not to be led, G-d forbid, into temptation, because he could, G-d forbid, fall into it. He does not have that certainty about himself. So he asks not to face temptation or disgrace. As for what it says here, “Keep us far from an evil person and a bad friend,” that would seem to correspond to what we said. Yes, he concludes in chapter 12 with the ways one should conduct oneself toward another person: even if someone, G-d forbid, stole from him, he must not become angry or treat him as wicked to his face. On the contrary, he must repay him with kindness, as Yosef did with his brothers. So here he asks, “Keep us far from an evil person and a bad friend.” If we are not speaking here of a wicked person, [unclear], it means someone whose conduct is bad and displeasing to him.

3:05:05 Speaker 30 In his character traits.

3:05:06 Speaker 11 So he asks, “Keep us far from an evil person.” Why? So that he will not be put to the test. If that person, G-d forbid, hurts him, he must repay him with kindness, as Yosef did with his brothers. Who knows whether he could live up to that? So he asks, “Keep us far”—keep us far from coming to such a situation. That may well explain the repetition here, “from an evil person and a bad friend.” What is the difference between an evil person and a bad friend? Perhaps each word conveys something different. What you see at the end of Tanya—that one must instead repay him with kindness, as Yosef did with his brothers—applies when it is someone he knows. The person hurt him, and now he must act toward him in the opposite way. But if it is just some stranger in the street whom he does not know, repaying him as Yosef did with his brothers is not relevant. I do not know him; I have no dealings with him. So “a bad friend” means a friend who has treated me badly. That leads to the request not to be brought into temptation. That is what we say on Shabbos, [unclear], meaning during davening—during davening in our case. We could apparently clarify this from Tanya. It is quite possible to understand the connection here. After all, there is a difference between this “May it be Your will” and the second “May it be Your will.” The first “May it be Your will” speaks of—after all, we have just said, “who has saved us.” They also said [unclear]. At that point we are speaking of material harm. We ask to be spared harm; now let us ask about spiritual matters.

3:06:33 Speaker 31 It is in the plural because there are brothers.

3:06:35 Speaker 11 Yes, but this may be one place in davening. The second place is at the end of davening, where we say, “May He open our hearts.” Davening ends with Uva Letziyon. Even though, as we mentioned, various things were later added—Shir Shel Yom, the incense passage, and Aleinu; Aleinu also appears in the Rema—nevertheless, davening ends with Uva Letziyon. There we say: “Blessed is He, our G-d, who created us for His glory, separated us from those who stray, gave us a Torah of truth, and planted eternal life within us. May He open our hearts to His Torah and place in our hearts love and awe of Him, so that we may do His will and serve Him wholeheartedly, that we may not labor in vain or bring forth children for dismay.” What does this mean here? This whole passage, “Blessed is He, our G-d”—what sort of blessing is this? ... What are we asking for here? Apparently, the words can be explained according to their plain meaning. The Alter Rebbe explains the order of one’s day as going from the synagogue to the study hall: after davening, one must go to the study hall. And what will you have in your life? Not to fulfill a mitzvah. The Alter Rebbe connects this with the need to study after morning davening, and he mentions it and discusses it at length. The Mishnah Berurah cites it here. It should be immediately after davening. Uva Letziyon concludes davening, so now he is going from the synagogue to the study hall. He therefore says a blessing for the Torah he is about to study: “Blessed is He, our G-d, who created us for His glory.” There are a word or two along these lines; he does not explain the connection—that this is a blessing for the Torah study that follows. That is it: he blesses Him for having “planted eternal life within us.” It is a blessing over Torah. What did the Tur say? So this is what we say, that one should not undertake some labor for a mitzvah “in vain.” The Tur writes about the labor of... And now his... should be between someone who studies Scripture and someone who... he is in—

3:08:39 Speaker 32 Talmud.

3:08:40 Speaker 11 Talmud. So he will not... “that we may not labor in vain.” “And planted eternal life within us”—those in Bavel—so he says a blessing because he wants to study afterward. That is what “and place in our hearts” love and awe of Him means. But this point is not clear. He already asked earlier, “Unite our hearts.” Why not—

3:09:03 Speaker 32 “Unite our hearts”—why—

3:09:03 Speaker 11 “Unite our hearts”? Why does that seem right? After all, there is a passage in the Gemara. What does the blessing mean there? It says, “Place in our hearts,” [unclear]. What is meant by it? It is not clear. Now we say, “Unite our hearts,” and we say, “Place in our hearts.” There is a difference between “unite” and “place.” What is the effect, the progression here? It is very distinctive. Before Shema, before davening, he asks, “Unite our hearts,” so that he will have love and awe—to bring that love and awe into being. We are not speaking about a beinoni who returns to his daily service as he goes about his day. He no longer has that love and awe, only an impression of it. So he asks that the impression of what he had remain with him: “Place in our hearts.” So we say “Unite our hearts,” and we say “Place in our hearts.” These are two sides... because during Shema and davening, he has it...

3:09:57 Speaker 32 Descendants.

3:09:58 Speaker 11 Descendants... and from his descendants. But afterward, after davening, he cannot ask, “Unite our hearts,” because he is a beinoni; he cannot leap to the heavens and suddenly say, “I want to be a tzaddik.” He knows where he stands and what he is growing toward, so now he asks for this. He asks, “Place in our hearts” what I had earlier during davening—“Place in our hearts” love and awe of Him, and also...

3:10:20 Speaker 32 And this is also brought in connection with... and with what comes afterward. In other words, what we were just discussing—that it should not be...

3:10:25 Speaker 11 It is not simple... I think—no, there is something else here, something deeper, that I find difficult to speak about. Perhaps another time.

3:10:32 Speaker 32 All right. All right.

3:10:42 Speaker 33 Would you like something to drink?

3:10:45 Speaker 11 No, no, I want—

3:10:46 Speaker 33 Why? Why?

3:10:48 Speaker 11 I have gas right now.

3:10:49 Speaker 33 Water, water.

3:10:50 Speaker 11 No, no, it is fine, it is fine.

3:10:52 Speaker 32 Many thanks to Rabbi Ashkenazi for the great effort he makes, year after year, to join us at the Torah gatherings.

3:11:04 Speaker 11 It is nothing. It will be possible. ... What is it—did I miss something?

3:11:08 Speaker 32 Rabbi Avya[?], a few details.

3:11:10 Speaker 11 Absolutely fine.

3:11:11 Speaker 32 I need to add a few things.

3:11:12 Speaker 11 He is always laughing at me.

3:11:14 Speaker 32 The matter of the food and how many people.

3:11:16 Speaker 11 We need topics.

3:11:17 Speaker 32 To go out with representatives, as we did last week, and distribute it.

3:11:20 Speaker 11 At this hour.

3:11:20 Speaker 32 I will finish the lists. I can manage. A reminder: photograph the public figures of [unclear] at the beginning or during the month, and have the photographer sit with him for conversations as well. Another thing is to include whoever saw it. There are also a few people who can help each person pack up the... the gathering. So, with Hashem’s help, may Hakadosh Boruch Hu help you take from this gathering the tools for Torah study and the strength to study Torah, and to increase your Torah study throughout all the... all the long summer months, when we need to devote ourselves more and more to Torah study.

3:11:59 Speaker 11 I asked my rabbi to check it.

3:12:01 Speaker 32 There will be... Rabbi, I would be very glad.

3:12:05 Speaker 11 It looks special.