Erev Shabbos - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Friedman shlita

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

00:09 Speaker 2 Today we’ll discuss what happens if a firstborn forgot to hear a siyum on the Fast of the Firstborn when the fast was moved up to Thursday. I was shown a new book from Machon Halacha Chabad called Halacha Lemaaseh, on the laws of Pesach. Chapter 17 collects the laws of Erev Pesach that falls on Shabbos. But the laws of the Fast of the Firstborn when it is moved up are covered only briefly, in section 2: when the calendar falls this way, the Fast of the Firstborn is moved up to Thursday. The book does not mention two additional laws that we’ll discuss today. Question one: What if a firstborn forgot, or did not know, that the fast had been moved up to Thursday, and on Friday morning someone told him that the Fast of the Firstborn had been the day before? Or what if he woke up late on Thursday, after the siyum meal had already ended? Must he make up the fast on Friday or hear a siyum, or can the fast not be made up on Friday? That is question one. Question two: What if he did not hear a siyum on Thursday? He fasted on Thursday, but finds it difficult to continue fasting until after the search for chametz, which, with this year’s calendar, takes place on Thursday night. The law is that once the time for the search for chametz arrives, one may not eat until after the search. Can the firstborn who fasted eat as soon as the fast ends on Thursday night, or must he wait until he himself finishes searching for chametz? As for the second question, the ruling is explicit in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, section 470, paragraph 7: if it is difficult for a firstborn to fast until after the search for chametz, there are two options. First, he may eat a small amount before the search, because the prohibition against eating before the search applies only to a meal. Or, second, he may instruct someone else to search for the chametz, and then he may eat immediately

04:07 Speaker 2 after the fast ends. In practice, because of the principle that it is better to perform a mitzvah oneself than through an agent, which the Alter Rebbe mentions in the laws of searching for chametz, section 432, paragraph 8, the firstborn should first search one room or one corner. He may then instruct someone else to continue the search, and he can eat. As for our first question, there is a sicha of the Rebbe printed in Likkutei Sichos, volume 17, page 66, and also in volume 40, page 193. The Rebbe discusses the subject at length and demonstrates that when Erev Pesach falls on Shabbos, the fast is moved to Thursday. Someone who did not fast on Thursday does not need to fast or hear a siyum on Friday, because the obligation has passed and cannot be made up. This is unlike an early Fast of Esther, when Purim begins on Saturday night. The Rema rules in section 686, paragraph 2, that someone who did not fast on Thursday because of a bris milah or something similar can make up the fast on Friday. The Fast of Esther was established for 13 Adar, because on that day the Jews assembled and stood up for their lives. So when the Fast of Esther is moved because of Shabbos, that is a change from the original enactment, and the fast can therefore be made up on Friday. But with the Fast of the Firstborn, the original enactment is itself a fast moved from its proper date. As the Alter Rebbe writes in his Shulchan Aruch, section 470, paragraph 1, the fast commemorates the miracle of the firstborn being saved from the Plague of the Firstborn. That miracle took place on the night of 15 Nissan, not on the 14th. The fast is moved up to 14 Nissan, Erev Pesach, because fasting on Yom Tov is forbidden. Therefore, moving it to Thursday because one cannot fast on Shabbos is not a change from the original enactment, which already moves the fast to the 14th. In practice, then, someone who did not fast on the Fast of the Firstborn when it was moved up to Thursday cannot make it up and does not fast on Friday. And really, this is

07:54 Speaker 2 interesting: why did the editors of Halacha Lemaaseh leave these laws out of their book? True, volume 40 of Likkutei Sichos was only just printed, but the ruling we mentioned also appears in volume 17, which was printed long before Halacha Lemaaseh came out. I now see that the book’s editors did cite volume 17 of Likkutei Sichos there, but only in connection with a different law: a boy who becomes bar mitzvah on Erev Pesach when it falls on Shabbos must fast on the preceding Thursday. Perhaps the editors included only commonly applicable laws. They may have thought it unlikely that a firstborn would forget or not know that the fast had been moved up to Thursday, or that he would wake up late, after the mitzvah meal for the siyum had already ended. But not everyone is born on 14 Nissan, either. Yet the book addresses whether a boy born on 14 Nissan must fast on Thursday when Erev Pesach falls on Shabbos. Since we have a representative of Machon Halacha Chabad with us, I’m sure he will pass on to the book’s editors that they should add the two laws we discussed today in their next edition.