0606 - The Cleaned His Nail with a Key on Shabbos

00:00 The Alter Rebbe in Shulchan Aruch, Hilchot Netilot Yedayim, Siman kuf samach alef, Sif Gimel, says that before you wash your hands for a meal, you have to make sure that if your nails stick out over your finger, over the bosor, the flesh of your finger, you must clean it so it shouldn't be a ch'tzitzeh. If there's any dirt there, you must clean it so it shouldn't be a ch'tzitzeh when you wash. Then the Alter Rebbe adds that on Shabbos, you have to make sure when you clean your nails that you have to push down the bosor of the finger that's under the nail so that when you clean it, you make sure that you don't scrape the nail itself when you're taking out the dirt or the tit that's under there. So I remember in the Chofs, there was one Shabbos by Mincha. It was after Farbrengen, and the Rebbe would davven Mincha upstairs. The Farbrengen was downstairs, and the Rebbe would, after Farbrengen, leave and go upstairs for a few minutes and then come out to shul upstairs. He would davven Mincha, and he would stand by the side of the Cheider Sheni. So I remember at the end of Mincha, when the Chazan was saying Mishnayos, and the Rebbe took out his key already in his hands, ready to open the door of his room when he would leave the shul, I saw myself that the Rebbe took the key, and with the key, he was cleaning his finger, his nail. So I

01:22 assume what happened, since this was before the Rebbe ate the meal, after Mincha, he went home, and there he washed, eat the meal, and maybe he noticed that there is something there under it. So he wanted to clean it, not to waste any time when he gets home. I imagine this is all my smuda. So he took out the key, and with the key, he cleaned it by using the key. Probably that's the easiest way to press down on the finger that you shouldn't scrape from the nail. But this is what I saw. I saw he used the key, and he was cleaning the nail with the key. I couldn't see so close whether he was pushing down, but I imagine he was pushing down on the finger, like it says in Shulchan Aruch here, that you have to push down in order to make sure that you don't scrape anything of the nail, and that's probably what he did. But what I saw he did, he used the key to clean his finger under the nail by his finger before he went out to shul. Now, this was done during the time the Chazan was saying Mishnayos.