Matzah Zu or Zo – Which Is More Correct?

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Halacha Podcast, Laman Yishmu, with Harav Yosef Yishaya Brown, Marah D'Asra and a member of the Crown Heights based din. This podcast is brought to you by the Ask the Rav platform in partnership with Laman Yilmedu, the premier institute for practical Halacha learning.

00:21 Speaker 2 So we have some interesting questions this week. I'll start with one which is relevant the whole year, but it's also relevant for Pesach. There's a Halacha that if you're eating food that's dipped into a liquid that's wet in one of the seven different liquids, then you're obligated to wash your hands since there's a Machloket about this, there's a dispute. Therefore, we wash our hands without a Bracha. Indeed, that's the reason why Urchatz at the Seder, we wash our hands before we eat the Karpas, because the Karpas is a wet, dipped food, a dipped vegetable. So the question being asked is, what about a food that you normally eat with a fork? So if you normally don't eat it with a fork or spoon, you don't eat it with your hands, you wouldn't have to wash your hands. And if that's correct, what is chicken considered? Is, is that something you normally eat with a fork? It might be more proper to eat it with a fork, but many people end up eating their chicken with their hands. So if it's wet chicken, would you have to wash your hands before eating it? So first of all, if the chicken was not put in one of the seven liquids that are considered a Mashke'a Koratitet, which could technically transmit impurity. The seven liquids are water, wine, oil, milk, uh, you wouldn't have milk with chicken anyhow, Jew honey or blood, and most people wouldn't have blood on their chicken. So for example, if you take a

01:44 Speaker 2 chicken and you cook it and boil it with its own juice, not adding water, you wouldn't have to wash. But what if it was boiled in water, was fried in oil? It's actually what we call a Daver Shetebulah L'Mashke'a. How do you define what's the normal way of eating it? If it's something that commonly people eat with their hands, you have to wash, even if you're currently eating with a spoon or fork. If it's commonly eaten with a fork or spoon, then you do not have to wash unless you're currently eating it with your hands. Let me, let me explain this Halacha very, very clearly. Something the def-- Something which is normally eaten with a spoon, if you eat... Or a fork, if you eat it with a spoon or a fork, and it's normally eaten that way, you don't have to wash. The definition of normal means that it's very common to eat like that. The Lashon of the Alter Rebbe is, "Pa'amim Rabos", many times it's eaten with a spoon or fork. It doesn't mean it's always eaten like that. The only time, if it's meant regularly eaten with a spoon or fork, and you are eating it with a spoon or fork, you don't have to wash. Only something which is, "Le'Olam Eino Neichel BeKad", it's never eaten with a spoon or fork, then you do have to wash. One of the examples brought in Halacha is Basar Mivushil, is cooked chicken. So cooked chicken is something that is normally eaten with

03:11 Speaker 2 a spoon or fork. It is normal, and if you're going to be eating with a spoon or fork, you wouldn't have to wash. But now it gets a bit more trickier. Something which is normal to eat, and we-- as we explain, the Alter Rebbe defines very clearly, normal means Pa'amim Rabos, many times. But if it's normal to eat with a spoon or fork, and you ended up touching it with your hands... So if you look carefully in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, and the Mishnah Berurah quotes this Alter Rebbe as well, the Alter Rebbe is very particular to write, if it's normally eaten with a fork and you Bemikrah, accidentally, as an occurrence, not a-- it wasn't a planned thing, you went and touched with your hands in the spoon or in the fork, then you don't have to wash. So that means that the Hetter of not washing because it's normally eaten with a spoon is if it's normally and you're also eating with a spoon, and you might have by chance touched it, I understand. But if you're going deliberately and going to touch it with your hands, it doesn't help the fact that it's normally eaten with a spoon or fork. That seems to be very, very clear. And this is relevant for Karpas. Some people, uh, say that when you're dipping in your karp-- your, your Karpas, whatever vegetable you're using, potato, onion, depending on custom, you shouldn't dip it in with a spoon or fork because of its... You should

04:31 Speaker 2 have to do it with your hands. Okay, granted. But there, there's an argument that goes even more that people use potatoes. Potatoes are normally eaten with a spoon, cooked potato. If they're normally eaten with a spoon, there's no point in washing. And if there's no point in washing, you really shouldn't wash because Chazal tell us, "Halenu et Hadyot L'Peiros", if somebody washes the fruits and vegetables that are not wet, "Harei Ze Megas H'Roch", it's a form of arrogance. We wash for bread or for wet food. So if you have cooked potatoes, which is made to be eaten with a spoon, why should you wash for Karpas? But if you-- Again, if you go back to what I mentioned before from the Alter Rebbe, the fact that it's normally eaten with a spoon means that we're not worried that you might end up touching with your hand. And if you touched it accidentally, Derech Mikrah, or by chance, you don't have to wash. But if you're going to eat it with your hands, for sure you would have to wash, even if it's normal to eat with a spoon. So therefore, when it comes to the Karpas, if somebody's eating potatoes, the fact that it's normally eaten with a spoon, who cares? But right now, you're dipping it with your hand, and you're eating with your hand, of course you have to wash. Liquid is very, very different over there. Even if you're drinking with your hand, that's not the normal way of doing it. But

05:43 Speaker 2 here we're talking specifically about food. How do you define the definition of normal? So if m- the-- If most people commonly it's eaten with your hand, and you decide to eat with a spoon, Batla Dai Toi, we, we say that you're-- what you do is different than everybody else, and we consider this a food that's eaten by hand. If everybody eats with a spoon- and you eat with the hand. So that's the same as someone who takes a food that's eaten with a spoon, and he uses his hands, he would have to wash unless it's bemikrah, unless it's just by chance. I think that's pretty clear. Let's move on to another question about netilat yadayim as well. Someone wrote to me that he saw a contemporary sefer quoting an Alter Rebbe Shulchan Aruch. He couldn't find this Alter Rebbe. And it seems somewhere that if somebody is washing his hands for bread, this is also a netilat yadayim question, and there's water that touched his unwashed hand, and water went into the cup of netilat yadayim, the cup has to be emptied and dried before refilling it. Now that's an extreme thing, that every time that some touched w-water that touched, you have to empty all the water and even dry it. Now, I know there were certain Chassidim that did not like when someone filled their, the, the cup of water for them. They would go and empty it out. I never saw people drying it, and maybe there might have been certain Chassidim

07:10 Speaker 2 that actually did that as well. There's people before that, that washed, and they didn't wash properly. You have no idea if the water is tahor or tamei, so they would always empty it out. But where does this Alter Rebbe come from? So indeed, actually, this Alter Rebbe is actually found in Shulchan Aruch, and what the Alter Rebbe is saying over there is about a halacha as follows: That there's something called mayim rishonim, that's the water the, the first time you wash your hands, and there's something called mayim shnim, the second time you wash your hands. Alter Rebbe's found, for those who want to look it up, it's in Siman kuf samech beis in the end of Seif Tei Zaim, in the parentheses. Mayim shnim is the second time you wash your hands. Now, mayim shnim, the second time washing, purifies the first washing. The first washing touched the hand, and the first water became tamei, so you wash a second time, so the second waters purify the first waters. But if somebody will touch water that was poured on the ground, water not on a person's hand, water so-- in some other area, you can pour a mayim shnim there. That water, if that water was tamei, that water doesn't become tahor again. Doesn't make a difference how much you pour the second time. And the Alter Rebbe concludes and writes, "Therefore, if someone is-- has a large container, and he takes a small dish, and he draws water out with a large container, and

08:33 Speaker 2 the rim of the small container is wet with impure water, he could immerse into a very large container. It doesn't accomplish anything. The rim remain-- The water that's on the rim, which was impure, remains impure." So seemingly, this will apply, the argument goes, that if you have non-pure water because the person didn't wash his hands properly, whatever, whatever that he touched his hand which wasn't washed, that impure water will never become nullified, and you could fill up the cup with so much more wa- fresh water. It's not gonna help. Now, that argument might be true, and some people argue that's indeed the position of the Alter Rebbe, but it's not a hundred percent conclusive that is correct. Over there, the Alter Rebbe was talking about th- with-- when the water is in the original spot. At the rim, there was impure water. Now, we add more water, and we're putting this small container into-- small cup into a big container. That water that stays there stays impure. But if the water moves to another place, might-- there might be a different halacha. There's also a distinction between pure water going onto impure or impure going into pure water. It could also be that even if it's not nullified, that water remains impure. But now when you're washing, you have a full amount of kosher water, arguably. It could also be that at the rim that doesn't mix very, very well. There's a lot of arguments to say why this Alter Rebbe is not a hundred

10:03 Speaker 2 percent conclusive. Nevermind the fact that this Alter Rebbe is in parentheses. We know when an Alter Rebbe writes something in parentheses, there's a number of theories why he did so. One of them is 'cause he might have had a doubt. So yes, there were Chassidim that were worried that maybe the original water that was there was not kosher water, and they would empty it out, and I understand that. I've never seen people going and drying it, and arguably they didn't take the chumra that far to go and dry the original water. Talking about stringencies of the Alter Rebbe, there's a particular stringency which is associated with Pesach, and many Poskim tend to adopt this. The Alter Rebbe instituted that when you're selling-- when people sell their chametz to a goy for Pesach, for mechiras chametz, they should make sure when the goy, when the goy has to pay for all the m- for all the chametz that he bought, it's not enough that he gives a deposit. He has to bring with him a guarantor, otherwise known as a arav kablan, for payment for the rest of the money. So technically, the goy is really paying for the full amount of money. He's buying off all the chametz in town. He's giving a very small deposit, but he's coming with a document, with a star, of a guarantor for the rest of the money, and he hands over to the Rav the deposit plus that document, which means he's paid in full. And according to

11:20 Speaker 2 the Alter Rebbe, this is very, very important, and if you don't do like that, it's questionable whether you might be violating Bal Yirod, Bal Yamotzem et Atzmo. This is a very, very serious matter. Therefore, people who are selling the chametz should make sure to sell through a Rav that use-- utilizes the meth-method of arav kablan, and Chabad Chassidim are very particular about that. The question was, after Pesach, people are buying chametz, and they're buying chametz from stores, and some of these stores did not necessarily use an arav kablan. Is there any room to be particular after Pesach not to buy chametz from such stores? No, there's no such thing. First of all, it's almost impossible to be particular about this. There's almost no-- Most people are not particular about arav kablan, only Chabad. Even if you know for a fact that the person at this bakery used an arav kablan, but he got ingredients, he got products, there's so many things that go into it, it, it eventually will boil down to some chametz that was sold not with an arav kablan Never mind the fact, this is a pen-- the reason why after Pesach you can have benefit from chametz that wasn't sold properly on Pesach, that's a penalty for people that didn't sell the chametz. But if a person sold his chametz because he follows a different opinion that you don't need to have an eruv chablin, how can you penalize someone who did the right thing? In fact, there's some people hold

12:28 Speaker 2 you're not supposed to have an eruv chablin. That's not our position. They're incorrect. But so somebody who didn't sell his chametz by mistake, that's a whole different story, and even that is room for arguments if it was a shogi or an oinos. We can argue about that. I'm not gonna go into that right now. But if a person sold his chametz, he did the right thing, but he has a different way how to do it. We also were talking about it's a penalty. A penalty is not as serious as the sell-- selling chametz is min haTorah, where they were very strict at the issue of bal yera. After Pesach, it's a question of a derabanan, of a penalty. There is room to be lenient. Besides for the fact that there's many different ways how the goy acquires the chametz. Money is one way, and he has to have a guarantor for the money, but there's other methods. When the Alter Rebbe says if a person didn't sell properly that he violates, he's talking about violating bal yera, he's not talking about what happens after Pesach. I will also point out that using an eruv chablin, the Alter Rebbe says that according to some of the Rishonim, you need to use an eruv chablin. The Talmud writes that's kol haRishonim, all the other Rishonim hold you don't-- you wouldn't need that. So we're trying to make sure that we cover our bases according to those Rishonim. And this is indeed the accepted position amongst almost all

13:49 Speaker 2 Chabad Rabbanim, and they in fact mock the idea of being stringent and not to buy such kind of chametz. There is some rumor which is unsubstantiated that the Rebbe was particular davka to buy chametz after Pesach from some who use an eruv chablin. We don't know if that rumor is correct. And even if all those details about this rumor would be correct, and I have strong reason to suspect it's not correct, this could have been a personal thing of the Rebbe. It could have been a hirhur rashah, a temporary thing. The Rebbe didn't want to strengthen someone that's doing the wrong thing. It's not something we necessarily have to learn from that. And moving on from this Pesach question, I'm go- gonna go into another Pesach related question. And this question is not only related to Pesach, it's related to chuppas. It's a dikduk question. In the siddur it says, in the Haggadah it says, matzah zu she'anu ochlin. Is it matzah zu or matzah zoi? Which one is correct? For that matter, when people give a ring to the kallah under the chuppah, they say, "Harei at mekudeshet li b'taba'at zu" or "b'taba'at zoi"? Some chassan teachers are-- tell their chasanim to be particular to say it in a certain way. Some of them tell them to say zu, and some tell them to say zoi. Which one is it? So let's start with the Pesach story of the Haggadah. The Rebbe was asked this question by one of the knights of the Seder.

15:10 Speaker 2 This was in the year תשכ"ז. And the Rebbe was asked that in the siddur it says matzah zu with a meluken or a shuruk. In the Haggadah, Haggadah referring here to the Haggadah that the Rebbe wrote. The Rebbe wrote a pirush on the Haggadah. And when they were asking the Rebbe this question, referring to the Haggadah that we have, that the Rebbe printed a Haggadah. This year marks sixty years from when the Rebbe's Haggadah was printed in תש"ו, and it's a good time to sit and study the Rebbe's Haggadah, Haggadah shel Pesach im Likutey Taimim U'Minhagim. So the Rebbe was asked why the siddur says matzah zu, but in your Haggadah it says matzah zoi. And the Rebbe's response was that the Haggadah that he made short a copy from Siddur Torah Ohr. The Rebbe's grandfather, Rav Avraham David Lavut, published a siddur. He was very particular with nekudos. In fact, the nekudos there are often different than other siddurim. And he wrote matzah zoi, and the Rebbe said he copied the Haggadah, the nusach from the Haggadah straight from there, not from other siddurim. This is what the Rebbe said. This, this-- what the Rebbe said then is, is written down in different places. In Toras Menachem it's brought down very briefly, but in other records of this conversation, this is pretty much the conversation. On another occasion, the Rebbe was asked again about this topic, and the Rebbe said it is a printing mistake. It's pretty obvious if you wanna compare it, this

16:30 Speaker 2 was in תש"ל, the second night Pesach. Three years before, the Rebbe said that matzah zoi was the way it was written by his grandfather, which was very particular and middakik in how he makes nekudos, so when the Rebbe said it's a printing mistake, he's obviously referring to the siddur, the siddurim that have matzah zu. For some reason, in, in most versions of this conversation, it says it is a printing mistake without saying what it is. Some of them, some of the people that write the sichos try to polish up the words, and they wrote the one that's in the Haggadah is a typo, is a toyes af al pius, which is hard to accept that the Rebbe would say that. The Rebbe said that in תש"ל, and it was never changed in the Haggadah. And he just three years before said in תשכ"ז that in the Haggadah it was printed that way because he copied it from the siddur, which was very particular for his nekudos. If you look in the Alter Rebbe siddur, in fact, most of the siddurim, and actually is it with a cholem, matzah zoi as well, so unlikely it's a typo, is that one of the original first medakdek of siddur was an individual by the name of the Trapzi Sofer. He writes in his siddur, in the Haggadah section, that it's supposed to be matzah zoi with a cholem. And in fact, many times in his pirush on the siddur, he writes how it's supposed to be with a

17:44 Speaker 2 cholem, and certainly it was supposed to be with a meluken, zu. In the Haggadah we have es anachnu zu atchad, zoi prish utzairei chet's, and he talks about all of that. Same with harei at mekudeshet li. If you look in the siddur, depending which siddur, in the siddur Im Dach siddur which has Ma'amarim in it, it says b'taba'at zoi. In Siddur Torah Ohr, b'taba'at zoi, and that's how it's printed in Al Tilas Hashem siddurim. In the early prints of the Alter Rebbe siddur, there was no nekudos at all, so you can't learn from that. Some of the prints had b'taba'at zu But following the same logic of matzah, there should be like Rav Shabsai Sofer writes, "Matzah zoi b'tabashanut, b'taba zoi." And in fact, many people comment that zoi is the more correct way of saying it. In Tanakh we have the word zoi a number of times. Sometimes it says zoi with a heh, not zai vav, zai and heh, which usually is zeh, but there's a, a note that it should be read as zoi. Zoi ho'ir gam zoi. And we have some other times the word zoi is a pasuk in Tehillim ve'ei doi say zoi al amdeim. Pasuk zoi la'agam. So ma-many pesukim with the word zoi and in manuscripts of Chazal. In Chazal, the word zoi is-- zai vav is much more common than the word zeh. So some of the manuscripts which have nekudos are actually the nekudos are zoi, not zu, and Sephardim and Yemenites, which are very

19:06 Speaker 2 particular about these things, when they learn a Gemara, they say the word zoi. Ashkenazim are not particular, they say zu very often. Now we do find the word zu in Tanakh as well. In the Shir, in Az Yashar, you have Am Zu Gaalta, Am Zu Kanisa. We have that word as well. But mefarshim say that the word zu in Hebrew, Am Zu means the nation, am the nation, zu that gaalti you redeemed. Am Zu Yatzarti Li. Actually, we have today this week's parasha, Parashat Haikav. The Dak writes that as well. In matzah zu, you can't say matzah zu. The matzah that shaanu acheinu, that we eat, that's repetitive. The matzah that, that we eat, that wouldn't make sense. Also, the word matzah is feminine. The word tabah is feminine. When it's zoi, it's feminine. When it's zu, it could be used for masculine as well. Now, there are some exceptions to all these rules, and mefarshim talk about this, but in a nutshell, that's pretty much a standard exception. In fact, some contemporary poskim write that the more accurate way with-- They don't talk about matzah. They talk about tabash or even tabash zoi. Now, it's not such a big deal if you say matzah zu, matzah zoi, both have a level of accuracy attached to them. L'chalah we have a rule that a Nezer writes anything which is not a living thing, zachrei hu ve'nakvei hu. Kol dover sheain beiruch hacham zachrei hu ve'nakvei hu. You could say the masculine, you could say feminine,

20:32 Speaker 2 you could say zu, you could say zoi. No, if it's matzah zu or zoi, either way, it should be, be mechayvim the mitzvah matzah properly, and if it's tabah zoi, tabah zu, she's certainly mekudeshes either way. Different question altogether, moving on. Somebody is eating food, eating fish for argument's sake, and then he's also drinking, sipping a tea. So he wants to finish eating the fish and make a beracha acharonah on the fish, but he wants to continue sipping tea. So can I make the beracha acharonah, the boreh nefashe just for the fish, not for the tea? The short answer is there's a machloket if you can do that. You should really avoid doing something like that. Only make one beracha acharonah when you finish the tea. What's the basis of this machloket? So in fact, the Pri Megadim already addresses this twice, both in his Piskei Teshuva's Berakhot and in his Sefer Eish LaAvraham on the Magne Avraham, and he writes that beracha acharonah is very different than beracha rishonah. We have in the Rishonim already distinguishing between beracha rishonah and beracha acharonah similarly, but he writes this, that beracha acharonah has nothing to do with your kavana. If a person makes-- is obligated to make a beracha on a couple of foods which have the same exact beracha, you thought about one food, who cares what you thought about? It covers everything automatically. Now, there is a machloket about beracha rishonah as well. If you could have kavana in saying it should, it should

21:56 Speaker 2 only work for one thing. It's not so clear about that also. And now about beracha acharonah, it gets a bit more confusing. The Pri Megadim doesn't say what he's talking about. Is he talking about that you clearly had in mind it shouldn't exempt another food? Is that what he's saying? When he says loud the kavana, it totally will, it's not dependent on your kavana, it implies even if you clearly had in mind it should only go for one food, not for another, it doesn't work. You finished. You made a beracha acharonah, it's over. So there's a disagreement what he actually means. The problem is that we have a Sefer, one of the Rishonim called Sefer Ha-Batim, and he writes a person ate two foods, made one beracha for-- and he clearly had in mind only for one food, it will only cover that food. It, it seems like he's talking about that he clearly had in mind. So the Sefer Ha-Batim goes against the Pri Megadim, and the Sefer Ha-Batim is a Rishon. Some wanna say the Sefer Ha-Batim follows the position of mitzvot zerichas kavana. We are closer to maybe mitzvot ein zerichas kavana, depending if you need to have kavana when you do a mitzvah. So according to the Sefer Ha-Batim, everything's dependent on your kavana. If, if you only had kavana for one food, it won't work for the other food. Okay. Farher tichala pilpul, this is becoming very, very confusing, and this is connected with another shailah, which is in Alfei

23:11 Speaker 2 Neber Mishchan Ha-Chaim. HaMagne Avraham says that when you make a beracha acharonah, you're finished eating, but if you made a mistake and made a beracha acharonah, that works very differently. If you make a mistake and it's not considered that you finished eating, only if you deliberately made a beracha acharonah. But they don't talk about if you make a beracha acharonah, but you're having in mind you're only, only for one food, not for another food. So because of this complication over here, it's usually not recommended to go into this shailah. This is a question of a safek berakhot. We don't go into safekes about berakhot. Also, if you're making a beracha acharonah only for one food, not for another food, you could go into a shailah of a beracha rishonah itzericha sometimes. Some people talk about this, that if a person is very worried that the time of the digestion, the time of the beracha no longer-- The beracha has a, a lifetime. It can't last for too long, and he's worried that it'll be past Shiar Ikul, maybe it's a good idea to quickly go and-- or you're afraid you're gonna forget a beracha acharonah, make a beracha acharonah and then continue eating the other foods. Uh, it is a complicated thing. We don't normally recommend people should do that because they're gonna run into serious shailahs. We spoke about Pesach. Let's talk about something Purim, but it has to do with Pesach as well, and it's about drinking on Purim. We know Purim just

24:27 Speaker 2 was. The Ari Z"L writes in a Sefer called Pri Etz Chaim, Kitzur Ari Z"L, and he writes something interesting which is not very well known, that on Purim you're supposed to have stiya meruba me-achila. He explains kabbalistically why on Purim you should drink more than you eat. This is brought in Pri Etz Chaim, in Machberet Ha-Kodesh of various manuscripts of the Ari Z"L. The mefarshim, there's Hagahot Mari Tzemach, Hagahot Maharash, they talk about why kabbalistically it doesn't make sense. They give a whole explanation why you should drink more than eating. Well, I don't know too many people, some people do a lot of drinking on Purim, but in a Seudas, typical Seudas Purim, we do more eating than drinking. Uh, are we being mechayvim this Ari Z"L? Now, one thing we know when something is in a Pri Etz Chaim, that n- doesn't necessarily mean it's authentic. The Pri Etz-- We, know that in the Ari Z"L's manuscripts, there's a section called Shmone... There's a manuscript called Shmoneh She'arim, that's eight different gates. One of them is Sha'ar Hakavannos. The Shmoneh She'arim are the most accurate description, uh, accurate representation of the Ari Z"L's position. The Pri Eitz Chaim is not that accurate. So we need to look is if it's in Pri Eitz Chaim. Whatever's in Pri Eitz Chaim is often found in Sha'ar Hakavannos. Is this found in Sha'ar Hakavannos? Well, it is actually in Sha'ar Hakavannos in the end of the drush of Purim, but Shmuel Vital, the son of Rabbi Chaim

25:43 Speaker 2 Vital, the scribe of the Ari Z"L, writes a few lines before this, "Until here is all the drush of, of Sha'al Hav of the Ari Z"L." That means till here was Ari Z"L. This new section where he talks about drinking more than eating is not from the original words of the Ari Z"L. In the language of the kabbalists, it's not soiles nekia, it's not pure flour. Rabbi Chaim Vital's writings are considered soiles nekia, pure. So if this is not so authentic, uh, maybe we don't have to practice that. Sounds like a very good explanation why people don't do it. In fact, in the Sha'ar Hakavannos itself, it seems like you're not supposed to drink much more. There's other contradictions. In one place, he writes you should become shiker on Purim, v'yetze midaito, go out of your mind. Another place it says in Rabbi Chaim Vital's writings, shelo yishtaker eli yisbasom. Don't become shiker, just drink extra. And people talk about how to reconcile these contradictions. So we have a bit of a mess over here. What's going on? Also, the idea of stia being meruba me'achila contradicts a different Sha'ar Hakavannos. Kabbalistically, it's hard to understand. The idea is because mochin d'ima come down, with Purim is all about mochin d'abba. Uh, there's a problem over here. Merir v'Shamesh, which is a sefer from one of the talmidi talmidai ha-Baal Shem Tov. The Rebbe writes about the Sefer Merir v'Shamesh, a sefer which was studied in a lot of Polish circles. The Rebbe quotes what

27:06 Speaker 2 he writes on Shabbosim of the three weeks al haChai Shabbosim, and he writes that kedoshei Eretz have said that. The Rebbe comments v'hu hoyu metalmid talmidai ha-Baal Shem Tov. He was a student of a student of the Baal Shem Tov. When he says kedoshei Eretz, he means the Baal Shem Tov, um, and his students. In Merir v'Shamesh writes that on Purim we eat more than we drink, and he gives a whole explanation 'cause yosid aba. So do we eat more or do we drink more? Some people do drink more, but most people don't. The Rashash, Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, was very into the authenticity of the writings of the Ari Z"L. He actually brings you should v'feire, sheyshteh beribu yois min ha'achila. Drink more than we eat, and this is quoted in many sefarim, Sha'ala, Tur, Bet Ekis, and it's also quoted in Chassidus. The idea-- They don't quote it from the Ari Z"L, but they talk about that klal, you eat more than you drink. Purim, this idea of drinking, they talk according to Cha- Chassidus what that means, drinking. Drinking means agadah, achila means niglah, and how it's more drinking. So this is-- it says. They say in the name of the Gerer Rebbe that generally the Gemara says, "Da asal Torah," the Torah approach, eating is more than drinking. Purim is the nefesh who said Purim drinking is more than eating. In fact, in the Megillah it says, "Yomei mishta." You want it to be a mishta? You want it to be a

28:16 Speaker 2 seudah? Ich kon gut. Mishta, mishta means it has the main thing has to be drinking. Uh, the truth is that it's actually called Seudas Purim in Halakha in the Gemara, and Achashverosh's meal is called a mishta, and the Gemara says Achashverosh's meal had more eating than drinking. So from the word mishta, what in Purim the word mishta means a meal that Chazal says you should make, a seudah, no, a proper seudah, and drink wine in your meal. But either way, clearly wine, it has to be a fundamental part of the meal. You can maybe even eat more. Every Yom Tov you're supposed to be kovea seudasai al hayayin, establish a meal based on wine. A seudah, Rashi writes in the beginning of Shir Hashirim, ki tov bim dei decha mi yayin. Any seudah is based on the wine. That's why we use the word mishta for a meal, and Rashi writes in Megillah says because every meal is al shem hayayin, the wine is ikar. So whether it should be more drinking or not, but it has to be a fundamental part of it for those who are capable of drinking wine, which in Amalek was a proper, kosher meal, always had wine. Their wine was not as strong as our wine. Their wine was almost like Coca-Cola or juice. It was, it was a lot of water added to their wine. They had strong wines, but they would add a lot of water to it. It could be when the kabbalah writes to do

29:23 Speaker 2 more drinking, they mean drinking should be a primary function. You drink more than you normally drink. You're not eating more than normal, although you're supposed to have an extra seudas Purim, mitzvah le'asot seudas Purim, but you don't overdo the eating. So, a- and the meal of-- primary function of this meal is a primary aspect of it, you kovea seudasai al yayin. That's called more drinking than eating. Unless we're gonna take a pshat, which is doesn't sound too, too Chassidish. Now, not too many Russians will like this pshat. Then when it says drinking more than eating, maybe it means drinking water. Not... Uh, I don't know if that's gonna work with the kabbalah, 'cause if drinking is based on mochin d'ima, that should be associated with wine, not with water. Um, we do find certain places that it talks about achila and stia, whether which one should be more and the associated with water. But the pashut when the kabbalah writes stia is more than achila, they mean stias yayin. The Avras de'Or Helfins, this is associated with Pesach. We also kovea the Seder on wine. Yom Tov is a mitzvah of oneg Yom Tov that was supposed to be kovea seudasai al hayayin. It's a very interesting point that there's a mitzvah of oneg Shabbos and oneg Yom Tov. In Hilchos Oneg Yom Tov, it's where you're supposed to establish every single meal at Yom Tov al hayayin, on wine. Wine, it'll be-- It's like a tea party, a wine party. It's a fundamental aspect.

30:39 Speaker 2 In Hilchos Shabbos, the Alter Rebbe doesn't bring it. Ten l'chacham yechtomeh diku. You should have the ayin haMeshumah of Moshiach take it from Yad Mamish.

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