Shopping and Preparing the Needs of Shabbos - Rabbi Michael Shlomo Avishid shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Simanim 250, 251, and 256. These aren’t difficult halachos, but still, there are details, and people aren’t always aware of how important some of them are. So first, preparing for Shabbos. Boruch Hashem, Jewish women do a great deal—salads, food, bread—as we already mentioned in siman 242. So how should we prioritize the time spent preparing for Shabbos, including shopping and cooking? Incidentally, if you noticed, the Alter Rebbe has his own arrangement. Some things that appear in siman 251, he puts in 250. The discussion of Hillel and Shammai and how they shopped—Rabbeinu puts that in 242. If there’s time after the class, we can look at why the Alter Rebbe chose to move certain things. It’s all done with wisdom and in an exemplary order. But we learned that Shammai—what would he do? He would see something especially fine, even on Sunday at the market, think of Shabbos, and buy it if it could be kept until Shabbos. Hillel, though, had a different approach. You learned the discussion in Beitzah. He had a different approach: he trusted in Hashem that, close to Shabbos, they would find everything they needed. But the poskim, including the Alter Rebbe in siman 242, say that in practice we follow Shammai specifically. Hillel had extraordinary trust, and that’s wonderful, but if someone notices something special—say, he’s visiting another city and sees a particularly fine fish or a cut of meat he usually can’t get—then yes, there is a reason to buy it. It’s for the sake of Shabbos. But generally, when someone goes shopping for Shabbos, people usually start thinking about it around Thursday, right? More or less. So the question is whether I

02:47 Speaker 2 shop on Thursday or shop on Friday. The same goes for cooking: should I cook on Thursday to get ahead? Or make challos already, freeze them, and take them out later? Or get a head start on some salads? Let’s begin with cooking. We learn about cooking from the verses, right? “And they shall prepare what they bring in.” The ideal time to prepare for Shabbos is Friday, and on Friday itself, early in the morning. Not to get up and start—or sleep until ten. I’m talking about a man who is supposed to get up for davening. But a person should—a woman can get up early, send the children to school, and cook. So there is a point to preparing the food specifically on Friday, and to starting early. There’s an allusion to this in the verses about the manna and so on. That’s why it’s important. Sometimes it costs nothing to do it this way; you just need to know about it. People often say, “It’s summer. I’m in France, Shabbos doesn’t begin until, I don’t know, nine-thirty or ten at night. I’ll start cooking in the afternoon. I have a very small family. What’s the problem?” No. There is a point to preparing it early on Friday. Or a woman might say, “I want to start things now,” because she knows herself: perhaps she’s a teacher, and by the time she gets home, with Shabbos coming early, she won’t have everything needed for Shabbos ready. There won’t be enough time to have the house clean, shower, and bathe all the children. Fine, I’m not talking about that. If that’s the reality, that’s the reality. But where there really is a choice, and it’s possible to cook on Friday instead of Thursday, that is

05:03 Speaker 2 the ideal. The Knesses Hagedolah puts it in the sharpest terms. He says that a woman who prepared for Shabbos, or began preparing on Thursday, when she could have done it on Friday, did not do it properly. That’s his wording: she did not do it properly. It’s not forbidden. You can also see in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, in siman 250, that he writes what to do if one has already done everything on Thursday. So we’re not talking about transgressions here. That’s why the Knesses Hagedolah’s wording is the most precise: there’s no prohibition, but it isn’t the proper way. Okay. Now, again, we really have to pay attention, because these are fine distinctions. Many women truly have a great deal to do on Friday, and if they don’t start earlier, things won’t work out. Fine—then clearly, starting earlier seemingly becomes the right thing to do. As you can see from one of the examples, if a food tastes better when you prepare it a few days in advance, that’s for the sake of Shabbos. So here too, if she’s a teacher and has various obligations and constraints, and otherwise she won’t manage, that’s fine. That’s what happens in many Jewish homes: women get ahead, cooking on Wednesday and Thursday and preparing things. But the most proper thing, where possible, is what it says in Shulchan Aruch, siman 250: do it on Friday, and early on Friday itself. Many women are able to do that. Now, when it comes to shopping, it isn’t like cooking and “they shall prepare what they bring in.” With shopping, what difference does it make if you buy things for Shabbos on Wednesday or Thursday? Must you specifically shop for Shabbos on Friday, especially with the pressure on Friday, when there are more people and the lines are longer? So if you read the halacha carefully, you’ll see that it’s less stringent.

07:06 Speaker 2 Cooking—the actual preparation of the food—is more appropriately done on Friday. Shopping is different. If you saw the Magen Avraham, this is based more on Kabbalah, right? He cites the writings of the Arizal. Now, that doesn’t mean we’ve become kabbalists, right? There are many things the Arizal says to do that we don’t do. We don’t conduct ourselves according to Kabbalah in every matter, but the poskim did adopt some things from it. No one should say, “I’m now going to take the Arizal’s writings and start doing everything he says.” No. Even within Chabad, where we’re very attentive to Kabbalah and the teachings of the inner dimension of Torah, we don’t adopt every practice we find there. But you do see that many things were brought into practice. Some people singe the wick of the candle before the woman lights it. That comes from the Arizal’s writings. We’ll discuss what we actually do in Chabad when we get to that siman, but there are many things we have adopted on the basis of Kabbalah. There’s also the practice of tasting every dish. It’s brought at the end of siman 250. Yes, not just one dish—every dish. The simple reason is to check that it tastes good. Perhaps it needs more salt or something else; perhaps something can still be corrected. But according to Kabbalah, they say there’s a significance to it. So there are many Kabbalistic practices that we have adopted, and that applies here too, regarding shopping. Shopping on Friday is ideal according to Kabbalah, and that’s brought in the Magen Avraham. Still, an attentive reader studying the siman will notice that shopping is less stringent. And here too, in fact, since there are many

09:05 Speaker 2 The supermarkets are crowded on Friday, so you can’t tell a woman, “You know, you don’t work on Friday, so do the shopping then.” No—she doesn’t want to waste an hour standing in line on Friday. Or I might tell her, “At seven in the morning it’s still empty.” Fine, but at seven in the morning she’s sending the children to school. So you can’t get clever about it. But let’s say there are things you know about. Take an example: you usually buy nice wines, good wines, whatever it may be, from a wine shop rather than a supermarket. You go there to buy them. And you know you’ll be in that area anyway on Friday. So instead of buying the wine for Shabbos on Thursday, buy it on Friday. There are no lines there; it takes two minutes to go into the shop. The Magen Avraham, in the relevant siman, mentions the concept that there is an advantage to doing one’s shopping on Friday. The Alter Rebbe and the Kaf Hachayim bring it too; they all do. So, practically speaking, don’t put women under pressure over the big shopping trip, even though the writings of Kabbalah say to do the shopping specifically on that day. Let women live. We say: let people live and shop when it works for them. Cooking, yes—there is an advantage to doing it specifically on Friday, and doing it early. But use your judgment there too: if things are terribly tight and she has to get ahead, then she should get ahead. Otherwise, there is an advantage to preparing for Shabbos on Friday. A young couple, or older people whose children have already married and don’t visit much—if it makes absolutely no difference whether they cook on Thursday or Friday, they should cook on Friday, as it says in Shulchan Aruch. That is the most appropriate thing to do, in the words of the Knesses Hagedolah. That’s on this point. Now, regarding—you saw many things cited here in the name of Seder Hayom. Did you notice

11:17 Speaker 2 that sefer? It’s a sefer from the period of Rabbi Chaim Vital and his colleagues. Yes, Rabbi Moshe—Rabbi Moshe ben Machir. He wrote Seder Hayom, with a great many details about honoring Shabbos as well. So there are many things that the Alter Rebbe brings from it, and everyone else brings too. In short, there’s an issue here that you saw concerning learning. There were yeshivos that would stop learning on Erev Shabbos. Today many yeshivos don’t stop. First of all, the wording doesn’t describe a universal custom; it says “in some places.” That’s the wording. So it doesn’t mean yeshivos have to close. Particularly since many yeshivos don’t actually have a full iyun study session, with intricate analytical shiurim, on Friday. Usually they don’t have that. I think perhaps—you know—perhaps in the Sephardic-Litvish world they have iyun shiurim. Yes, more so. With us, sometimes there’s a test or something; in yeshivos it’s easier. Now, as for trying—since we’re being recorded, please keep the noise down. If there is an iyun shiur, we also have to remember that there was once a time when householders learned too, as did married scholars. You hear in the Gemara about Rabbi Akiva and his twenty-four thousand students. And look at the beginning of siman 263 in Shulchan Aruch, regarding candle-lighting and young men who are learning. Men would leave their wives. Yes, mine and yours—mine too. Yes, it applied to them too. There were women who let their husbands go off to learn. Even-Shlomo? No, Even HaEzer 76 discusses how often a husband is required to be with his wife. For some, it was once every six months, when they returned. That was a reality. Yeshiva wasn’t only for... Particularly many years ago, people didn’t marry at twenty-two or twenty-three as they do today. They married at fourteen or fifteen. So

13:41 Speaker 2 many of the yeshivos you hear about in the time of the Gemara were made up of married men. Keep that in mind. In short, those people often helped prepare for Shabbos and prepared for it themselves. It wasn’t a yeshiva with a cook making food for everyone. People learned, and even if they slept away from their hometown when they went to yeshiva, how did they prepare for Shabbos? They went to the market to buy things and prepared them. So, to leave them enough time to prepare what they needed for Shabbos, the instruction was: don’t learn subjects that have no fixed endpoint. That means entering the world of in-depth analysis. It doesn’t mean learning Daf Yomi, where your aim is to finish the page with Rashi. That’s Daf Yomi. But there are subjects where you’re in the middle of an in-depth sugya. Even learning that as a group isn’t a good idea, because you might get drawn into a lengthy discussion. There’s a concern about that. But if you’re learning in a group and there is a fixed endpoint, it’s permitted even if the material is new to you. That used to happen often; today it happens much less. When you learned this, it may have seemed odd to you, because our approach is to keep learning new things: you finish one thing and move on, finish and move on. That wasn’t how it used to be. One reason was that there weren’t many seforim, so people would often review their learning many times. Review was simply part of learning. So if you’re learning alone something that has a fixed endpoint but that you haven’t learned before, that too carries a risk. Now, if it’s something like Chumash with Rashi, which people regularly learn, that’s fine. In short, there are many details to this subject. What I do want us to notice concerns, say, learning in depth. In-depth learning is

15:57 Speaker 2 truly something with no fixed endpoint. Sometimes people get drawn into deep sugyos. Some people naturally learn more on the surface; they focus on covering the material. Fine, that’s not really who we’re talking about. But for those who learn analytically and open one sefer, then another, then another, there’s a question here. Say a person has traveled to the Rebbe, has to somehow prepare his own Shabbos, isn’t invited anywhere, and now wants to go to a beis midrash there, take out seforim and get involved in intricate discussion. There’s a halachic question about learning something with no fixed endpoint at all. You couldn’t do it together with others in a yeshiva then, either. But this is a straightforward point stated in Seder Hayom, and it’s also clear from the text here: all of this concerns a person who has to prepare for Shabbos himself. But what about a yeshiva student? Are you now going to interrupt his in-depth learning? Or an older person who knows he isn’t the one doing the Shabbos preparations? If he is doing them—well, we’ll discuss the principle that it is better to perform a mitzvah yourself than through an agent, and honoring Shabbos. We’ll get to that. But if you know that, boruch Hashem, you have many daughters at home and they’re cooking everything, then this restriction doesn’t apply to you. Okay, that’s important, because otherwise you might learn this and say, “Wow, perhaps I’m not allowed to learn anything in depth.” If you’re one of those people who is in the kitchen with his wife every Erev Shabbos, preparing things, that’s different. But if that isn’t your situation, then it doesn’t apply. Seder Hayom says explicitly that if others take care of these things for a person, there’s no problem at all. Now, what’s interesting is that every matter

18:01 Speaker 2 has its own halachos, even when the reasons seem to be the same. After all, what’s the reason here? To leave him time to honor Shabbos and prepare for it. But regarding work, the Alter Rebbe writes in parentheses that even if someone else is doing the work for you, there are still restrictions on when you may work. So sometimes it makes a difference, and sometimes it doesn’t. We saw regarding traveling three parsaos that if someone is preparing Shabbos for you along with other Jews, you don’t have that problem. So when does it apply, and when doesn’t it? First, we have to be precise: sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Here, if everything is ready, there’s no problem. It’s like the beginning of siman 249: if someone has prepared Shabbos for you, you may travel three parsaos because someone is preparing it for you. But each matter has its own reasons. In any case, this whole halachah here isn’t a sugya in the Talmud stating an outright prohibition on Erev Shabbos. It says that “in some places” they don’t do this, so there’s more room to work with it and say it’s all right. Now you might ask a question that we’ll see shortly regarding business: more time is allowed for business than for other work. If the whole point is to leave you time to honor Shabbos, then stop at the same time in order to honor Shabbos. What’s the difference? The Chofetz Chaim asks this question in his discussion of Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim. So, first of all, this is very important. Before getting to the explanations—we’ll offer explanations as we go through the shiur—pay attention to when the restriction applies and when it doesn’t. Okay, what I wanted to emphasize here is that with in-depth learning, there’s no problem if your Shabbos is ready or someone else is preparing it for

19:49 Speaker 2 Shabbos—there’s no restriction on that. Now, there’s an interesting question that’s discussed at length at the beginning of siman 50: Can I go shopping before davening? The question can come up on a weekday or in connection with Shabbos. I’ll give you an example. You’ve just gotten up, gone to the mikveh, and you’re ready. It’s 7:45, okay? Your minyan is at 8:30, so you have forty-five minutes. Either you go learn Chassidus, or you say, “It’s Friday, so I can quickly pop out. I only need to buy a few things we’re missing. We already did the big shopping on Wednesday. My wife told me, ‘Bring this, bring that—we’re out of this at home, pick up that.’ Five, ten minutes.” Okay? The same question comes up on a weekday. Someone has the same situation: it’s 7:45, and davening is at 8:30. Why not? What do I want to do afterward? I want to stop at home for a few minutes to eat breakfast. I want to buy two baguettes at Carrefour, right? So you say, “I’ll pop in, put them in a bag, daven, and head straight home afterward.” After all, I have time. So on a weekday, this question comes up... First, there’s a well-known Gemara on page 14 of Berachos. Starting on page 10, it discusses various things you don’t do before davening, eating and so on. Then on page 14 it says that you’re not allowed to attend to your own needs—that is, go about your personal business—before davening. Now, it doesn’t say what it means by “davening.” Presumably it means Shemoneh Esrei, but it says that before davening, you don’t deal with your shopping, with your personal affairs. That wording isn’t incidental: it says it’s forbidden. The Terumas Hadeshen was asked: What if someone gets up in the morning, says the brachos, even goes to shul to say them, starts

22:08 Speaker 2 saying some of the psalms, but before Baruch She’amar, before davening—or before Hodu—wants to pop out? He wants to go shopping. That question is put to the Terumas Hadeshen in question 18 of part one.

22:25 Speaker 3 On a weekday?

22:26 Speaker 2 They ask him about a weekday. Rabbi Yisrael Isserlin. So they ask the question, and he says: The Gemara is explicit—it’s forbidden. Berachos, page 14a, says a person may not attend to his own affairs before davening. And what does “davening” mean? Every five-year-old knows: Shemoneh Esrei. If you haven’t yet davened Shemoneh Esrei of Shacharis, you don’t go shopping. Period. That’s what he explains. Then, three or four lines before the end, he says, “However, I see many Jews doing this—and they’re meticulous, G-d-fearing people. I see them say some brachos, for example, Birkos Hashachar and Shema, and then go shopping on a weekday. I see them quickly pop out. The shul isn’t far from the market, so they go buy a few things to have in a bag, and then they can go to work and eat something after davening. I see what they’re doing.” So he says that he sees people doing it. “Nevertheless, I’ve already written what seems right to me. I’ve made my position known.” What is he saying? Quite simply: I’m telling you it’s forbidden. Yes, I see people doing it, but I’ve explained why I say otherwise: it’s an explicit Gemara. Although I’ve seen meticulous people do it differently, I’ve already written what seems right to me. That’s his wording. Then, in siman 89, se’if 3, in the laws of davening, the Rema writes it this way: the Mechaber says not to attend to your own affairs before davening, stating it plainly, like the Gemara. Then the Rema says, “Some are lenient about this after saying a few praises”—for example, brachos and the like, after which they go shopping—and the Rema concludes, “But it is good to be stringent,” with Terumas Hadeshen in parentheses. So it’s always good to look at things inside, because it isn’t the Terumas Hadeshen who says, “It is good to be stringent.” He only, apparently—

24:33 Speaker 2 The Rema—or sometimes it isn’t the Rema; the source references aren’t always from the Rema himself, and sometimes other people added them. It’s just that the Terumas Hadeshen is the one who mentioned that some are lenient, but “it is good to be stringent” isn’t from the Terumas Hadeshen. In fact, the Rema is somewhat more lenient, because the word “good” doesn’t indicate an obligation. It’s like “it is good not to participate beyond the family,” as at the beginning of siman 249. “Good” means an extra measure of care. Right? Or “it is good not to do chazarah close to Shabbos.” It’s good to be careful if there’s no particular need, in se’if 21 of siman 253. Fine, that’s the best way to do it, but it isn’t obligatory. That’s why, for example, those laws say that, but look at the beginning of siman 259, where he gives a practical summary of all the laws of shehiyah and hatmanah. He doesn’t mention at all the stringency against doing shehiyah—uh, chazarah—on Friday. So many people ask: Didn’t you say it’s “good to be careful”? Yes, precisely “good”—meaning it’s an extra measure of care, so he didn’t include that extra measure in the summary. So when the Rema writes “good,” he’s saying that many are lenient. He saw that this custom apparently continued, that many G-d-fearing people would pop out to shop after saying the brachos, so he said it’s good to be stringent. And how do I know that some are lenient? It’s documented in the Terumas Hadeshen. Do you understand? But it’s a completely different picture when you look inside. Sometimes, when you read only on the surface—even something straightforward like the laws of davening in the Mechaber and Rema—it makes a difference to see the precise wording inside. So what comes out is that you shouldn’t shop before davening. Period. Now, as for shopping for Shabbos, you’ve seen that there is an allowance—but when? In a very specific case: when you know you won’t be able to find the item later if you don’t

26:41 Speaker 2 buy it early now. It’s a place where the good cuts of meat sell out very quickly, where the good fish sell out quickly. If you come at eleven, or after your davening, you won’t find them anymore—or there’s a risk that you won’t. Now, we can add something that makes the case even stronger. Baruch Hashem, there’s often plenty of stock of many items. But what we can add is that sometimes, if you go a little later, the lines are much longer. If you go into the market at 7:45, you might be done very quickly. But if you go at nine, that’s another story. Maybe you’re pressed for time during the day and need to prepare for Shabbos, or a woman can’t afford to lose an hour shopping, so she wants to pop out early. If doing so will help her honor Shabbos better—either because she’ll get what she needs or because she won’t lose too much time—then this doesn’t contradict what we saw in siman 89, se’if 3, because that is talking about something that isn’t for a mitzvah. Here it’s for the mitzvah of Shabbos. Now, even on a weekday—though that isn’t our topic—and even though we established that you shouldn’t shop even after saying the brachos... In other words, if you want to pop into the grocery store so you’ll have something to eat after davening, buy it after davening. But sometimes—and we established this, as we said earlier—there can be a situation like this: you know your daughter or son likes a particular thing, and having it makes them happy to go to school. If they have their chocolate milk, or whatever it is, and it’s very important—and we’re educating them at school. It

28:32 Speaker 2 Not a secular school. We’re talking about children learning yiras Shamayim, learning proper conduct, learning Torah—both boys and girls. Obviously, the morale of a girl who leaves home happy is also a need. So in cases like that, yes. You’re leaving at 8, and you have davening at 8:30. You’re taking the children to school. Their bus leaves at 8, and at 8:05 you run downstairs for a minute. It’s before davening, but you buy them the fresh thing they like, and that’s how they leave for school. After all, it’s written in the laws of Torah study: the Alter Rebbe rules that you can’t use maaser money to pay for your sons’ studies—not for Written Torah, and according to the Alter Rebbe, not for Oral Torah either. But the things surrounding their Torah study, like paying for their bus or their sandwiches or food, the things they like—that is included. Those are expenses surrounding Torah study. But look, he rules in the laws of Torah study that if a person cannot afford it, if it’s difficult for him, he can use maaser money for that instead of, say, paying with his own money and using the maaser money for something else. So if things are a bit tight, you can rely on that allowance. Of course, with girls it’s easier. The problem with girls—well, this belongs to the laws of maaser—is more complicated, because much of the time, often most of the time, it isn’t Torah study. So there isn’t necessarily a mitzvah involved. You need to use maaser for something that is a mitzvah but not an obligation. But if, say, a third of the studies or the expenses qualify, then there’s room to discuss it. Those are the laws of maaser. But we mentioned a certain allowance along similar lines regarding shopping on a weekday. Okay, let’s move on. As we said, you really need to prepare things in honor of Shabbos on Friday.

30:34 Speaker 2 And we said that early Friday is best, rather than Thursday; we won’t go over that again now. Who actually does the preparing? Of course, everyone should help in honor of Shabbos. We’ll get into the details now, and I’ll remind you of what’s written in the name of the Arizal. It isn’t brought in the Magen Avraham; it’s brought in the Kaf Hachayim. The Arizal says that when someone sweats on Erev Shabbos because of the Shabbos preparations, Hashem takes that sweat and uses it to atone for sins, like tears, and so on. That’s a very, very significant thing. So make an effort for Shabbos. Besides helping your wife, it simply atones for many sins. Now there’s the well-known discussion in Kiddushin 41: a woman can be betrothed by the man himself or by his agent. What does that mean? The man betroths her himself or through his agent? Yes. So why do it himself? Because a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent. Right. And then it gives examples: this Amora would prepare one thing, and another would prepare something else in honor of Shabbos. That’s the example brought there. And there are formulations in the Rishonim, including the Rambam, that sometimes say a person is obligated to honor Shabbos and do something, and they give examples as well. So there are examples in Kiddushin 41 and examples in Shabbos 119, yes, and if you look closely, the wording there is “obligated.” In the examples in Kiddushin, though, the wording is “a mitzvah.” And the Alter Rebbe, remarkably, explains it in the Kuntres Acharon at the beginning of section 250. He lays out the principle and puts the clear points succinctly. He says this: if you can actually help and prepare for Shabbos yourself—say you have servants, you have helpers; today we don’t have servants, but you have helpers—if you can do it yourself instead of having someone else do it, that’s what “a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent” refers to. Because the Alter Rebbe specifically emphasizes that wording like “a mitzvah”

33:00 Speaker 2 means that, strictly speaking, there is no obligation. So he needed to reconcile the sources. Sometimes it says a person is obligated to honor Shabbos; sometimes it says it’s a mitzvah. He focuses on the word “mitzvah.” And by the way, as I mentioned to you, in section 249 he says that it’s a mitzvah to refrain from starting a meal from the beginning of the tenth hour. That’s the example he gives there: it means that, strictly speaking, it’s permitted. You could have an ordinary meal right up until Shabbos begins without refraining. When it says “a mitzvah,” it means it’s permitted, but preferable not to. So he says that “a mitzvah” in this sense isn’t like a mitzvah such as wearing tzitzis throughout the day—that is an obligation. But here, when it says “a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent,” it’s like those cases where the word “mitzvah” is used even though, strictly speaking, the alternative is permitted. So he reconciles that with the places that say “obligated.” Preparing all of Shabbos yourself rather than having someone else do it falls under “a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent”; it isn’t obligatory. You have a helper who can help you? You have someone who can help you? Let them help you. Yes, you can. But if you do it yourself, that’s better. A mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent. But it isn’t obligatory. Doing one thing for Shabbos, on the other hand—someone going and doing one thing in honor of Shabbos—that is obligatory. Doing all the Shabbos preparations yourself is a matter of a mitzvah being better done by you than through someone else. But you must do at least something. So one person can say, “I’ll cut the salad.” Another might say, “In our home there’s already plenty of help,” or “My wife has taken complete charge,” or whatever it is. If you want to do more, it’s certainly good, because a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent, but you have no obligation to do more. But to do nothing at all—

34:50 Speaker 2 there certainly is an obligation here to do something. Why? Because you have to honor Shabbos. And what does it mean to honor Shabbos? As we went on to explain in the Kuntres Acharon, honoring it means doing something for Shabbos yourself. That is called honoring it. So clearly everyone needs to do something. Even in a family with, say, lots of daughters who all help, the father should take on one task. Doing a lot is only a matter of “a mitzvah is better done by the person himself than through his agent.” Doing at least a little something is honoring Shabbos, and that is obligatory. It isn’t up to your free choice. That’s essentially the approach of the Kuntres Acharon. And it also says, as you saw, that just as there is a point in preparing things early on Friday—and someone who doesn’t do that is acting improperly, as we mentioned from the Knesses Hagedolah—there’s also a point in doing something small again just before Shabbos. Yes, so you should do something again. And that’s how we’ve conducted ourselves among the Jewish people: the husband, too. The women, in any case, don’t need to be told—they’re doing things from morning until night without stopping. So don’t say, “I’m doing one more thing in honor of Shabbos.” They haven’t stopped from morning until night! But you should do some little thing again. Some people only inspect work that’s already been finished. Yes, an inspection de fin de travaux. But that’s not it; do a little something more. You cut—I don’t know—paper. Nowadays everything comes precut. Back when we were young, that was one of the jobs: taking scissors and preparing toilet paper, or things like that. Anyway, doing things in honor of Shabbos at the very last minute is good too. Now let’s look at a few short topics we can manage

36:46 Speaker 2 before Minchah. There’s the discussion in Pesachim, page 50, that one must finish working on Erev Shabbos from Minchah onward. In other words, a person can’t just work as long as he wants. We’ll get into the details, of course. But for now, we need to understand the basic point of this discussion: even though Shabbos has a time when it begins—and we’ll learn about the time Shabbos begins at the start of section 261—even before Shabbos begins, from Minchah onward, there is a requirement to stop working. That’s it; you have to stop. We’ll see what that means. First, what does “Minchah” mean? In the sense used in Orach Chayim, we learned in section 233 that there is Minchah Gedolah and Minchah Ketanah. So what does “from Minchah onward” mean? The Rosh says it means Minchah Ketanah there in the discussion in Pesachim. But the Mordechai, citing the Maharam of Rothenburg, brings an opinion that it means Minchah Gedolah. That’s a world of difference. Let’s take an example of work: a sofer, a sofer STaM. The Gemara says there’s no allowance even if he’s being paid. So it matters to this sofer; he wants to write a Sefer Torah. It’s a world of difference whether you tell him, “You have to stop now”—when does he have to stop? At 1:15 in the afternoon, or sometime after four? That’s a big difference. Someone is a computer programmer and works for hours at a computer. It matters: do I stop at Minchah Gedolah or at Minchah Ketanah? Someone’s work is tailoring, or she’s a seamstress. She wants to know: do I close at 12:30? There are many jobs, really, where you can ask this question. Some people work landscaping gardens; a gardener needs to know whether to stop at 12:30 or closer to Minchah Ketanah, which is much later. Minchah Gedolah is half an hour after midday.

39:20 Speaker 2 Minchah gedolah and Minchah ketanah—that’s nine and a half hours. So there’s a dispute among the Rishonim. Now, what did the Alter Rebbe write? You have to pay attention, because you need to know how to learn: not just read the lines, but understand one thing from another. He says that this whole matter here is rabbinic, to give a person time to prepare for Shabbos and so on. And here there’s no distinction, no room for individual opinions: “My wife does everything, so I can keep working.” No, no. Although the Mishnah Berurah, in Biur Halachah, brings several such opinions, we are stringent about this. There are no exceptions here. Look, I’m putting this in parentheses, but there are no exceptions. Yes, there’s no distinction. When they said to stop, they meant to stop. So what does the Alter Rebbe rule? The Alter Rebbe follows the Taz, who says that since it says someone who continues will not see a sign of blessing, “One who is lenient in this rabbinic matter and does not stop working until Minchah ketanah has not forfeited the blessing.” I think you noticed the wording. Does that mean the Alter Rebbe is saying explicitly that there’s no reason to be stringent because this is rabbinic? Is that how you understood it? Or did you understand: Fine, you’re under pressure, you want to be lenient—fine, you won’t forfeit the blessing. Not forfeiting the blessing doesn’t mean it’s something positive, something to do as a matter of course. Now, why? This is very important. People often say you have to follow the rules. There is a rule that in rabbinic matters, the halachah follows the lenient opinion. The Alter Rebbe repeats this several times in the laws of Shabbos; you’ll see it a number of times. But when someone is actually studying the sugya, they’ll always notice when something is an unqualified permission and when it’s more qualified. Because here, among the leading halachic authorities—first of all, there are many Rishonim. Regarding Rashi, there’s even a debate among the halachic authorities whether he was a commentator

41:23 Speaker 2 or a halachic decisor. There’s a great deal to say about that, though many leaned toward the view that you can derive a ruling from Rashi. But besides that, the Maharam of Rothenburg was considered an exceptionally powerful authority in halachah. Right? That’s why they say all his students shaped halachah as a whole: the Rosh, the Mordechai, Rabbi Meir HaKohen, who wrote Hagahos Maimoniyos—his great students. And that’s why I’ve mentioned to you several times that the Rivash says, “For from France shall go forth Torah”—without Rashi and Tosafos, we wouldn’t have had accessible Oral Torah—and “the word of Hashem from Ashkenaz”; halachah came from Ashkenaz. And he was Sephardi, the Rivash, a student of the Ran, but they knew that halachah came from the Maharam of Rothenburg. So that’s one point. In addition, many halachic authorities hold that the intention is that work is forbidden half an hour after midday: the Levush, a student of the Rema; the Bach, the Shach’s teacher; the Maharsha in Pesachim, on page 50; the Maharshal; and the Olas Shabbos. Now look at the wording of the Tosefes Shabbos. The Tosefes Shabbos says, “Who would dare be lenient and stand against these great halachic authorities”—meaning the Levush, the Bach and the Maharshal. That’s his wording. He says, how can you imagine granting a leniency from the outset in the face of the Bach, the Maharshal and the Levush? That’s what the Tosefes Shabbos writes. So that’s why the Taz, and also the Alter Rebbe, wrote: Fine, you won’t forfeit the blessing. Because they know there are people under pressure in life and so on. Now, by the way, take someone who is under real financial pressure—a sofer, for example. If a sofer asks you, “I write STaM,” then tell him: Ideally, you need to stop half an hour after midday. That’s what you should tell him. But if you know a sofer who’s really struggling—there are many sofrim. Some have a good reputation; boruch

43:47 Speaker 2 Hashem, Hashem has blessed the work of their hands, and they write such beautiful letters that everyone rushes to order from them. If you want tefillin from them, you have to wait two years. So they have a livelihood, and because they have a good reputation, a Sefer Torah they write doesn’t cost thirty-five thousand dollars. It’s Alter Rebbe script, something very special; it’s already a hundred thousand dollars. So they have a livelihood. Fine. Now, if he’s under tremendous pressure because he’s running a little late and there’s a hachnasas Sefer Torah, there’s room to discuss that too. But often that’s not the case. These are people writing mezuzos and tefillin. Nothing terrible will happen: stop at twelve-thirty. But if this person is simply always in debt—there are many like that in the world of sofrus; it’s well known, and many struggle—then he knows that if you tell him not to work for several hours now, that’s his children’s livelihood. There will be fewer mezuzos, less money next week, and he lives from hand to mouth. Money comes in, goes straight back out to repay debts and buy something. For a person like that, clearly you can give him permission to continue working. On what basis? It’s explicit in Shulchan Aruch, section 8, the last section. What does it say there? That this is no more stringent than the laws of Chol Hamoed. A person who has no livelihood and needs to live—of course there’s a dispensation. So in halachah, a rabbi always needs to move between one section and another and know what applies where. But if that’s not the situation, if things aren’t critical and he just wants to make progress, then tell him, “You won’t forfeit the blessing.” But not as the preferred practice. So you might say, “But look, it says, ‘One who is lenient in a rabbinic matter.’” Don’t take that phrase on its own. “One who is lenient

45:31 Speaker 2 will not forfeit the blessing.” That isn’t blanket permission. And you see a whole host of halachic authorities here. More than that: you know that although the Gemara says “from Minchah,” some say it means Minchah gedolah—and not necessarily the time of Minchah gedolah, but midday itself. Many halachic authorities followed that view. There are opinions that hold you work only until midday, so you lose another half hour. The Alter Rebbe did not rule that way, so there’s no problem instructing someone to work as usual during that half hour. But just so you know, many halachic authorities argued that the cutoff really is midday. There’s the holy Shelah and a very, very long list of halachic authorities who say until midday. And it’s not just the Eliyah Rabbah; the Eliyah Rabbah is one of the leading halachic authorities, and he says that “Minchah gedolah” here means midday, not half an hour later. So some authorities are stringent in that way. I’ll tell you a story to illustrate this and give us a little encouragement to actually stop working on time. The Rema’s father was named Rabbi Yisrael. Yes, Rabbi Moshe Isserles—his father was Rabbi Yisrael. He was wealthy. He had a large silk shop and was very successful in the silk trade. He had a fair amount of money. The Rema hadn’t yet been born, and he would close his shop at midday without exception. That was how he understood it: at midday, you close the shop. Not at Minchah gedolah, but half an hour before Minchah gedolah. Once, a very wealthy man came to buy a huge amount of silk. They began negotiating, examining the merchandise and so on, just a few minutes before midday. Rabbi Yisrael saw that they weren’t going to finish. He said, “Excuse me, I’m closing the shop. If you want, come back on Sunday. I’m closing now.” “But wait, give me a few more

47:40 Speaker 2 minutes to choose.” He said, “I won’t make the deal.” “Then don’t make the deal.” He showed him out and closed the shop. He was particular about midday on the dot, so to speak. So they say that in Heaven—as tzaddikim relate, and it’s written in books—it was said that because of his mesirus nefesh in closing at midday in honor of Shabbos, he would have a son who would illuminate the Jewish people. And that’s how the Rema was born. So this isn’t a small thing. Of course, at the very least, we have the Alter Rebbe’s ruling of half an hour after midday. That is what we should instruct people to do as the preferred practice. Someone is under pressure, and that’s all right. Sometimes you give him a leniency to keep working even later on Erev Shabbos, as with Chol Hamoed; and sometimes you can say, “No, you won’t forfeit the blessing.” But ideally, as we said. What are we talking about? Types of work. That’s why I gave examples: a seamstress, a tailor, a gardener, electrical work. Now, of course, sometimes some poor person’s air conditioner breaks down an hour and a half before Shabbos, right? And otherwise you’ll spend Shabbos in forty-degree heat. So people also say that anyone who sees the person coming to repair your air conditioner—and he, too, leaves before Shabbos—will understand. Everyone in the building will understand that if they see air-conditioner repair, it’s because you don’t want to suffer on Shabbos. Right? Or your electricity trips, and someone fixes it before Shabbos. Everyone understands that it’s connected to Shabbos. What did we learn? When you do work that everyone understands is for Shabbos—like a barber; a barber may even work for pay. What does he say about payment? Yes. Right? Why? Because everyone understands that it’s in honor of Shabbos. Okay? So that’s why, and we also don’t want the person to have to suffer all Shabbos. So here it’s

49:54 Speaker 2 It helps with Shabbos, and it’s clear that it’s in honor of Shabbos. So I’m not talking about that. But some people have jobs—they’re renovation contractors, right? And you have an empty house now, and you’re doing renovations. When there’s a major renovation, what do people do? They go live somewhere else, or they haven’t moved into the apartment yet. It’s a new apartment being renovated. Now you’re a Jew, and you’re going to do renovations. That’s the case we’re talking about. You really need to stop. Now, if that will cause you problems and delays, and the apartment has to be ready and you’ll lose a lot of money and so on, then you shouldn’t lose out on the blessing. But in principle, this applies to all kinds of work—even computer programming. Some people work from home; some people are lawyers. They prepare their cases for court. They work on a case, write down with a pen what they’re going to say and what they’re not going to say, look up laws, print out laws to select what will support their arguments. Those are forms of work. You may not work until Minchah, and ideally that means Minchah Gedolah. But business—business is commerce. A person has a store and sells things. Not just Shabbos necessities like bottles of drinks, wine, and so on; we’re talking about someone who sells merchandise. That’s commerce. Here it isn’t specifically about food; it’s simply merchandise. You’re not sewing or doing work; you’re just taking money and handing over the goods. That’s called commerce. So if you look carefully at section 251, in the first Kuntres Acharon—it’s a little long, yes, but there he goes into an explanation to resolve contradictions. That’s one of the Alter Rebbe’s aims in this Kuntres: to resolve various contradictions in— So he explains that there are two types of commerce. There’s commerce where each sale doesn’t take long. Right? I’ll give you an example. Someone who sells

51:53 Speaker 2 wine and has a wine shop—there’s no such thing. There aren’t lines. I mean, it depends what city you’re in, but it’s simple: someone comes in, you make the sale. When you want to close up, you close up the store, and that’s it. There are sales that take time, that can drag on, and those are more of a concern. So basically, to reconcile the sources, he says that with a store where it’s just a straightforward sale and that’s it—now, with food sales, if someone has shopping carts, sometimes people bring two carts, or they’ve bought food for a Shabbos gathering of fifty boys and they have a lot of carts, so it takes time—things like that. But let’s say there are quick sales and there are sales that can take longer. For example, someone works at a Toyota dealership and sells cars. Those are all things that can take time. You finally get a customer who seems interested, but before he decides, he takes you around in circles a thousand times. And then there’s how he’ll pay: “Well, I have money coming from here,” and so on, and you arrange financing for him. So there are stores where you know it can take a while. But look, he makes a distinction: a regular store where things move quickly may, according to the basic law, stay open until Shabbos begins. Otherwise, commerce actually takes more time than work. So when must it stop? The Alter Rebbe says that, in principle, stores—today, in many places, it’s customary to close at least an hour before candle lighting. Some are careful to close much earlier; those are stringencies they observe. In any case, the Kaf Hachayim writes that if a person himself needs to prepare for Shabbos, needs to shower and go to the mikveh, then obviously, the Kaf Hachayim says, you have to take all of that into account. But

53:45 Speaker 2 we’re talking about someone who only needs to shower and go to the mikveh, and then he’s ready. So the Alter Rebbe says that the time to close the stores is an hour before the stars come out. In the time of Chazal, that worked out to about half an hour before—uh, actually, sunset. Right? Now, usually that even works out to about half an hour—more precisely, half an hour before accepting Shabbos. Now, accepting Shabbos at Barchu is a completely different matter; people pray while it’s still day. But for someone who hasn’t accepted Shabbos early, we’ll learn at the beginning of section 261 that people more or less measured a certain number of minutes. We’ll see how that developed into today’s eighteen minutes, twenty-three minutes, thirty-nine minutes in Jerusalem. We’ll discuss that at the beginning of section 261. But in principle, it’s supposed to be about ten minutes before sunset. So when you say an hour before the stars come out, that was more or less about half an hour before candle lighting. That’s an example, anyway. I don’t know—in the stores abroad, there on Kingston and so on, they close almost right before Shabbos. Maybe half an hour, forty minutes before, right? They close. That’s more or less it. So, in short, stores doing business generally keep selling until fairly close to Shabbos. Still, you have to take into account that you need to shower, go to the mikveh, and prepare for Shabbos, but there are special allowances for this. Some halachic authorities disagreed. For example, the Eliyah Rabbah and the Machazik Berachah, the Chida. They said, why make a distinction? What’s the difference between commerce and this? After all, if you have to stop working to attend to Shabbos preparations, and that’s why they also restricted commerce, what difference does it make that you’re selling? So they argued that commerce should also stop at Minchah, let’s say, at least from— The question is even stronger for those who are stringent about Minchah

55:58 Speaker 2 Gedolah, but even Minchah Ketanah is still much earlier than when the stores close. They say, what’s the difference? If work has to stop so you can deal with Shabbos needs, what difference does it make that you’re selling? So they concluded that one should be stringent to that extent. Don’t rely on this leniency for commerce. And Rabbi Ovadia Ravach [unclear] asks, and says it requires further examination, regarding those who make this distinction. It’s not so clear. There are various answers people give to reconcile it. I’ve seen them in books. The best answer I can offer is this: commerce is business. In business there are far-reaching allowances, as we saw with traveling from Tyre to Sidon. We didn’t go into the Tyre-to-Sidon case. We said it applies specifically when someone will host you for Shabbos, you know that, you’ve already made the arrangements, and it’s no more than four parsaos. We didn’t say three parsaos; we didn’t say that. Why? Because it’s business. Along the lines of what the Maharch said, as we mentioned, there are special allowances. So you might say: a person who’s a tailor, someone who sews—isn’t that business? No, it’s not the same thing. You have orders; you need to—most people who worked in that field had to sew something, make something. So even if you want to sew something for someone for free, you can. Right? It says that if it’s in honor of Shabbos—someone needs a garment for Shabbos. But in short, buying and selling is something the Sages apparently didn’t want to interfere with. A lot of people need to make a living. Here a person is bringing in money directly. All right, if you’re a sofer STaM, fine, finish his mezuzos tomorrow. He ordered ten mezuzos from you, so finish them after Shabbos. And there are many things you can do later; that’s how it is with most types of work. A tailor—fine, the customer has already lived for forty years without that suit, so he

57:51 Speaker 2 can get the suit a little later. If he needs it in honor of Shabbos, there are sometimes special allowances. But that, basically, is the distinction in these matters.