Can ChatGPT Pasken Halacha?

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Halacha Podcast, Laman Yishmu, with Harav Yosef Yeshaya Brown, Maharad da 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 Welcome to our next Laman Yishmu podcast together with Ask the Rav. So a question I've been asked recently, there are some people that are particular Lekoved Shabbos, they wanna make sure that the knives, particularly the challah knife, should be a non-serrated knife. The standard knives that we use to cut bread are serrated knives. They're not straight, they're not smooth on the bottom. And some people are particular, they definitely want to get a flat, smooth knife. Is there a source about for this? Do we need to be particular about this? So while some are particular, the answer is no, there's no Halakhic requirement as such, and as we will explain why there's reason-- no reason to be concerned about this. The source seems to be the Pesik-- it's brought down in Halakha in the Kol Bo in Beit Yosef, the Rama, the Alter Rebbe talk about the Halakha of sharpening knives for Shabbos. Lekoved Shabbos to make sure your knives are sharpened. Now, there are certain sources, the Karban Shabbos, the Chesed Le'Alafim, the Chesed Le'Avram, Rav Chaim Palaggi in his Sefer Kaf HaChaim, which-- who we've quoted a lot recently. They mention to make sure that when you sharpen the knife before Shabbos, there's absolutely no pergimus, there are no defects whatsoever. So a, a serrated knife would be a problem. There are clearly defects in the knife. It's actually-- That's the way it's made. It's made that it's not smooth. So that's, that's the argument. We don't wanna have any pergam, Chas ve'Shalom. We

01:59 Speaker 2 wanna have a straight knife. Now, there are circles that are particular about that, but let's examine this. So first of all, the serrated knives are a more recent invention. It's from the nineteen twenties or nineteen thirties. Exactly when it became popular for the masses, it's hard to know, but there used to not be such a thing. So in earlier generations, it's hard to say there was a minhag not to use serrated knives. They just didn't even have serrated knives. It wasn't a common thing. So there are people that are particular about it, but it's a more recent innovation because before that, that-- it wasn't even an option. But if we think about it even further, these Sefardim talk about how according to Kabbalah it's make important that your knife has no defects. But it makes a lot of sense to say that this pei that this factor to be particular according to Kabbalah are with those knives that are smooth knives. Now, when there's a defect, it doesn't cut properly. And since you're supposed to sharpen your knife very, very well before Shabbos, make sure not skimp to sharpen it. Sharpen it so well that it has zero pergimus whatsoever. Our knives that to begin with are made with pergimus. That's how they're made. They don't-- They hardly have to be sharpened. When you sharpen them, by the way, you're not supposed to sharpen them normally. You're supposed to hone them, and even that doesn't have to happen that often. Doing it too often can

03:15 Speaker 2 actually ruin the knife. But the main thing is these knives work very well, they cut very well, and there really shouldn't be a problem with it. They're talking about a knife which has a pergam. If it has a pergima, it actually won't cut so well, which is why there's something about sharpening knives. I, there's explanations according to Kabbalah. So there's explanations according to Kabbalah work very often. It doesn't mean you have to do something Vepalel Ma'amar, there's Yichudim Al Yoniym, there's the Pnimiyus of the Inian. Who says that it ha-- it has to happen bePatrus? If you look at the simple reason for sharpening a knife, the reason is so there should be Shalom Bayis, 'cause if the knife doesn't cut very well, it creates problems when you're eating and people could get into fights. And our knives, this whole thing doesn't apply. They, Baruch Hashem, cut very, very well. If you look at the other reason why to cut knives-- why to sharpen knives before Shabbos, because of the Hachanat for Shabbos. You're gonna prepare on Friday for Shabbos, cover Shabbos. You're preparing yourself for the eating that's going to be happening on Shabbos. According to all these different reasons, you have, Baruch Hashem, a good knife. Everything is prepared. It cuts very well. There's really no reason for the sharpening altogether. These-- There's a difference what the reason is, because maybe there's an issue davka to sharpen it Friday morning because Hachanat for Shabbos is supposed to happen in the morning. Maybe there's

04:25 Speaker 2 an Inian davka. If it's a Hachana for Shabbos, maybe you should do it yourself. Mitzvot Bo Yeaaseim Bishlucha. At least one of the items of Shabbos should be done by the person themself and not delegated to a Shliach. If it's just for Shalom Bayis reasons, just to make sure there's no mess up, then anybody can do it. It could happen later in the day too. But if you're looking back at these reasons-- So we have a Halakha about washing laundry. Ezra made a Takana to wash the laundry davka on Thursday night on Friday. There's a discussion if it applies nowadays too. But the Takana is to wa-- not to wash laundry. The Takana is to make sure you have clean clothing. And if you have, Baruch Hashem, clean clothing... If you're washing, you're supposed to wash it on Thursday. If you have clean clothing, there's no reason to wash. So if you have a knife that works, there's no reason to sharpen it. And you could argue that washing clothing, there was no Takana to wash it. What's the issue? Wash it davka on Thursday. Well, here also, there was no real essentially Takana of sharpening. The same way it doesn't make sense to cut your hair or cut your nails if there's nothing left to cut, or check your pockets Friday afternoon if you have a garment that you use only specifically for Shabbos. If you look in the Kol Bo, the Alter Rebbe writes that a lashon you should sharpen Bechol Erev Shabbos.

05:34 Speaker 2 The Rama takes out the word Bechol Erev Shabbos. They write to do it every single Friday. Now, but again, if you talk about every single Friday, that's because those knives, every time you sharpen it, it becomes better and better and better. The Chesed Le'Avraham writes in the name of the Mekubalim, "Sharpen it so well that sh-- if you could able, you ma-- if Ashrei MisheYichol Asah Yeh, if someone is capable of actually sharpening it so well, it shouldn't have any pergima at all, that would be a gevaldiger thing." So the more you sharpen it, the better it is. It's like a person who takes a shower before Shabbos, Lekoved Shabbos, even though he took a shower yesterday, 'cause it becomes more clean. But if you have a knife that was sharpened the day before and it wasn't used since, there's no point in sharpening it again. Our knives are so to speak as if they were sharpened the day before. There's another suggestion for the reason why to sharpen knives on the Erev Shabbos, because the Karaim had a minhag. The Karaim, the Karaites held they are not allowed to cut anything with a knife on Shabbos. Anything they need to have cut, they would slice it on Friday. So if you take this reason, even if you take this reason, so there's a stafke in minhag to show that we don't follow the Karaites. Again, there's no point in sharpening something that doesn't need to be sharpened. That reason, by the way, is not

06:41 Speaker 2 the reason that's brought down in poskim. That's an invented reason that happened later on. And when, when we have these added reasons, we have to know how to put them in context. They were added as another additional reason, which is hard to-- This reason anyhow is hard to understand because if it's to, to, to show that we're not following the Karaites, so we should dafka go and not cut on Friday what we need for Shabbos and make sure all the cutting happens on Shabbos. There is a minhag, by the way, that some people don't cut on Fridays. They don't cut their knives on Friday if they're eating-- Sorry, cut their knives. Cut their bread on Friday if they're eating bread. They just don't cut it, and they slice, and they, and they rip it with their hands. It could be it's connected with the min-- this, this Karaite, um, interpretation. Be that as it may, if we look at all the different reasons, there's no reason dafka that we can't use our knives that cut very, very well and everything is fine. There's a-another invented reason in later generations that the ma'alah of sharpening a knife is to make sure there's no crumbs. Well, our serrated knives are even better. They make even less crumbs than the non-serrated knives that were sharpened. Chala-- Especially if you're talking about a hard challah, if it's a sourdough challah, the way they used to make it. So it's better to use a serrated knife. If you look in

07:54 Speaker 2 the Ben Ish Chai, the Ben Ish Chai says, "Nowadays, we don't use knives in our circles. And since we don't use knives, maybe there's no point in sharpening a knife. But since Chazal spoke about sharpening a knife, you should sharpen your knife anyhow." And that would imply there's dafka to sharpen a knife whether you need to or you don't need to. But he finishes off, "Because you'll always need a knife for something. You'll need it for your fruit. You'll need it for that." So let's not stop doing something garnishment, garnish for no reason. In his Sefer Mekubtzil, he writes, uh, uh, slightly differently. He writes that everything that Chazal say have a hidden secret reason. But again, that's if there's a need to sharpen. But if there's no te'eles, no benefit, no use, who says you have to do this? You wanna prepare for Shabbos? There's a lot of ways to do preparation for Shabbos. Preparation and show how all the food is ready. S-and take your silver and polish your silver. And if you look in Poskim, there's a Sefer called Seder Shana Ha'achronah, which describes the last year of the Munkatcher Rebbe, the Mekubtz Elazar. A very interesting Sefer. And over there, written by his Shamash. And over there, it describes that the Munkatcher Rebbe's grandfather, the Shem Shlema, in his house, they never sharpened the knives before Shabbos because it wasn't safe to have the knife sharpened. And many times we f-we find in different places there's, there's, um, sources that indicate

09:12 Speaker 2 not sharpening knives for various different reasons. And again, we spoke about that maybe kabbalistically there's a reason to sharpen a knife. The kavana al pi Kabbalah goes according to the pshat. The Kabbalah is like the neshamah, and the pshat is the guf. So if according to Halacha, there's no problem with our knives that are serrated because they cut very, very well, then there's really no problem according to Kabbalah also. And indeed, nowadays, the common minhag is people do use serrated knives. It's maybe Chidas school that don't use them, but the common m-minhag is to use serrated knives. Yet, Mizrach Mizrach, you could hone them, make sure they work better. And it-- I, I clarified that the Rebbe would also use regularly a serrated knife. There are some of those knives still around. Certainly in the library, the Rebbe used a serrated knife, and there's really no reason to be concerned.

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10:25 Speaker 2 Let's move on to the next topic over here. So the next topic that we have at hand is, and this has been coming up frequently a lot, people asking shailas via AI, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, whatever system of artificial intelligence. Today, there's Rabbanim also that use ChatGPT. We recently had a conference of quite a few Rabbanim that came together, and we met, and the topic on the table was all about AI in Halacha, for or against, Rabbanim sharing their experiences. We had a guest speaker that works in this industry, the ma'alas, the chisaros. Now, what is indeed the problem of people using AI to ask them shailas? I've had it many times where people came, came to me or they wrote to me a question that they a-- they asked me a question, and AI gave them an answer. And mechumazal, they actually came to a Rav to confirm the answer that they got from AI. But AI, in most cases, literally gehatt un sheinech and said things that didn't-- that are not true. There are two parts to this question. One part of this question is, if in theory AI would be, uh, so good and there wouldn't have any-- there wouldn't be any problems with it and it wouldn't make mistakes, which they always warn you that they do make mistakes. But let's say one day, beyomein hayom, they'll invent an AI which is perfect. Straight me'ashanayim, are we allowed to use AI? And then the, the question which I wanna focus more on

11:52 Speaker 2 is not on the theoretical question, but on the practical question, how AI is being used today, unfortunately, sadly, and misleading a lot of people in serious, severe inyanim. So first about the theory. There are arguments that, that have been put forth why according to Halakha AI is not acceptable kidapsak, whether because you need to have a living day and a living judge. A posek, what a posek says could only-- A psak could only become Halakha when a posek, a human being actually says so, a neshamah beguf. The software can't give us peskedinim. Also, the fact that a rav needs many, many years of shimush, and AI cannot replicate the idea of shimush. There's the idea of Siyata D'Shmaya, which a computer doesn't have, assistance from heaven. The fact that Torah is Torah sheba'al peh, it's transmitted from one generat-generation, from one person to another, that's the foundation of Torah. And AI b'chalal doesn't give you multiple opinions. There's one answer on AI. This is the answer. I mean, you could ask it to give you multiple opinions, but AI is very confident about what it says. This is the question, this is the answer you get. So that's problems with the whole setup of the way AI is done. But even if there would-wouldn't be any problem, Halakhic Hashkafa problem with AI, the-- in the current situation that we have today, it's really not safe to use AI for Halakha, and for that matter, for many other things too. And there's no serious posek that

13:24 Speaker 2 I know of that endorses using AI to get peskedinim. I tried it myself, and I was excited and horrified simultaneously. I saw some fascinating things there, some things that I wouldn't think of myself, and I saw some mamash misunderstandings and misquotes and fabrications. Um, someone told me it's almost like a child that has autism, who's extremely exceptionally gifted and extremely behind in many, many different ways. So AI fabricates sources, and it says it with absolute confidence. It-- I myself had a run-in after a number of times because normally they tell you you're right, but it actually kept on telling me that I'm wrong. And I remember the Halakha, and I sent them the source. I told them, "Look over here in Alter Rebe Shimon, look over here in Number two, you need to make sure your tallis cotton has the proper shir. Unfortunately, a lot of tallis and katanim are not the proper measurement. A tallis gadol is big, it has a measurement. A tallis cotton is not necessarily so. Number three, when you put on the tallis cotton, usually it's in the morning, sometimes a person's hands are not clean. It has to be in a way that you don't have to wash your hands right now because then you can't make a beracha. It has to be in a place-- A person puts it on in the bathroom, you can't make a beracha there. So if a married-- A person puts on his tallis cotton in a time or place, a situation that

18:47 Speaker 2 he can't make a beracha, if he's a married person, he'll just make a beracha on his tallis gadol and cover the tallis cotton. Why do you need to make an extra beracha on the tallis cotton? Also, if you're putting them on one after another, you put on the tallis cotton, and right afterwards the tallis gadol without a proper interruption, half second between this runs into a shail of a beracha she'ain tzricha, unnecessary beracha. Why do you need to make two berachot on a tallis cotton and on the tallis gadol? Make one on the tallis gadol. If any of these conditions are absent, you just make a beracha on the tallis gadol, and you have in mind this will exempt the tallis cotton, too. There are, however, those that-- Married people that never make a beracha on a tallis cotton, even if they put it on in a clean place and even if they know it has the shir. Uh, whatever. They'll make the tallis gadol. Why do they need to make this tallis cotton beracha? Th-so they always just make a tallis cotton-- gadol and have in mind it should cover the tallis cotton. The only time they'll make a beracha on a tallis cotton in the rare situation where they already daven Shacharit, they already made the beracha on the tallis gadol. And now during the day, for whatever reason, they're going to change the tallis cotton, so now they have no way to have a beracha exempting the tallis cotton. A practical case

19:59 Speaker 2 is people who have a separate pair of tzitzit for Shabbos and a separate pair of tzitzit for the week. They go Friday afternoon to the mikveh, they come out of the mikveh, and they change from their weekday clothing to their Shabbos clothing. And now erev Shabbos in the afternoon when they're putting on their tallis cotton, here's an opportunity for them to make a beracha. Again, assuming that it's, that it's-- has the right shir, et cetera. So if this discussion about not making a beracha on a tallis cotton, if you look into HaYom Yom, which we just had on Yud Dalet Tammuz not so long ago, it's quoted afterwards in Sefer HaMinhagim as well. Over there it comes out that if a person puts on a tallis cotton in a time and place that he could make a beracha, then make a beracha on the tallis cotton. If it's in a time or place that you can't make a beracha, then you'll rely on the tallis gadol, provided you're a married person who wears a tallis gadol. That's what it says in HaYom Yom. In this new Hagodos Tois Shalom to Reb Chaim Palaggi, it seems to imply from the Ksav V'Hatkedush of the Rebbe Rashab, it seems to imply that people always make a beracha on tallis cotton. That's the implication there, and we'll get back to that in a moment. There's a third source, Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe, where the Rebbe writes a letter to someone, and he says that it's already been

21:21 Speaker 2 ruled that always, we just always make a beracha on a tallis gadol, and that's it. Now, that letter, you can argue, is maybe not Halacha. The Rabbeinu is not, is not for the public. But the Lashon the Rebbe uses, the Kvar Paskut, it's already been ruled. In other words, the Rebbe's not saying his own personal Halacha to someone. This is something which has been ruled by the Acharonim, and they are indeed Acharonim. The Shela Abraham, the Shulchan Aruch HaAshkenazi, the Munkatch, the Munkatch Alei Chai. Quite a few Acharonim say there's a lot of reasons why BeChlal we should avoid making a beracha on tallis cotton, whether because our tallis cotton is too small. One of the Itshiyyum of a Beged is that you're comfortable walking to the street with such a Beged as a proper Beged. A tallis cotton is too small. Our size of tallis cotton is small that people are embarrassed to walk with that in the street. The way, the way our tallis cotton is, you can't wrap yourself with it. A-and many other reasons they provide why we should try to avoid making a beracha on a tallis cotton. To say that this letter that the Rebbe wrote is not a lesson for the public is hard to say because the Rebbe wrote this to a person who was putting out a siddur, and his siddur had it in Halachas. And the Rebbe was telling him, "Do not print in your siddur a instruction to make a beracha on a tallis

22:31 Speaker 2 cotton," because a siddur which has Halachas in it, BeChlal Halachas, Piski Dinim, especially a siddur, has to be Ba'adam La'am Pa'al Na'avish. And Ba'adam La'am Pa'al Na'avish, the ruling has been not to make a beracha on a tallis cotton. That doesn't fit in so well with the HaYom Yom. But there were definitely Chassidim that said that, that the Om that had this Minhag, they never made a beracha on tallis cotton except on Friday afternoon when they change, which it says in many Sefarim you're supposed to change your tallis cotton for Shabbos. BeChlal it says you're not supposed to wear Shabbos what you wear during the week. The Alter Rebbe brings a Minhag to have a special tallis. Seems like he talks about a tallis gadol for Shabbos. So q-- how do we resolve the HaYom Yom and the Igros Kodesh? I don't know. But even according to the HaYom Yom, a beracha on a tallis cotton is only if you switch it every single day, it has a proper shir, you put it on with clean hands and a Makom Tehor. Not everybody has all those opportunities. But now we're gonna move on to another question associated with the tzitzit and back to the Toirashol as well. People who do make a beracha on a tallis cotton, whether married people who are not following the position of always just make a beracha on a tallis gadol. There are those-- There's among Chassidim, there's two different Minhagim. So those that follow the Igros Kodesh approach and

23:45 Speaker 2 always make a tallis gadol, and those that follow the HaYom Yom and Sefer HaMinhagim approach, which is depending on circumstances, sometimes they make it a tallis cotton, sometimes they don't. So-- But unmarried people m-just have a tallis cotton, so they make a beracha on a tallis cotton. Now, how do they go about this? If they have a night, a, a night-- If a person has a night tzitzit and then they have a day tzitzit, they can make a beracha in the morning on the day-- They change from the night tzitzit into the day tzitzit. They can make a beracha on the day tzitzit. The problem, however, with doing that is that, that means the tzitzit you're wearing at night is what we call a Kasus Layla, a garment which is designated for the night, which according to some opinions is not Chayav a tzitzit. And since you wanna have the idea of wearing tzitzit at night, if it's not obligating tzitzit, that means you're not wearing tzitzit at night. So the Temech Tzedek writes in Piski Dinim, and the Rebbe brings this down in his Ahutus that he wrote on Sefer Sha'ar HaKohelet's grandfather. The Temech Tzedek writes in Piski Dinim, "You should not have a tzitzit special for the night, a night tzitzit, shlof tzitzit like some people have. No, you should have a tzitzit that's for day and night together." So the best thing would be to do, to change your tzitzit every morning and then wear it every twenty-four hours. In the

24:58 Speaker 2 morning you change your tzitzit and wear it for the day and for the night, and you change it the next morning. If a person is married, he'll wear the same tzitzit for many days straight, and, and he'll just make a beracha on a tallis gadol, or he could do the same and switch it every morning like an unmarried person. We're-- Ma-- Um, some people rather change it at night. They'll change it at night. Every night they'll change it, but that's not such a smart idea. So you're not making the berakhah when you change it. You'd have to wait till the next morning to make the berakhah on it, which isn't such a good idea. And in, in this case, it's also not so simple because that means it's a garment for the night that you continue to wear throughout the day. So that's not a recommended thing. Some people, um, have reported a rumor that the Friediger Rebbe said to a particular chassid, Rab Nachum Lefkowitzki, when he gave to this question, when do you make a berakhah on your tzitzit you had? You wore the tzitzit-- If you're following the Tzemach Tzedek and you wore the tzitzit last night, you continue into the day. So, so when-- So if you change them in the morning, the tzitzit, that's very simple. But if you didn't, when could you make a berakhah? So there's a rumor in the name of the Friediger Rebbe that he said, "Well, you go to the mikvah." Now he took a

26:15 Speaker 2 break. He took off his tzitzit. Now he put tzitzit on. That's a rumor. It's very hard to rely on rumors. Cl-- The Rebbe has a letter where the Rebbe's metayek in the Alter Rebbe Shulchan Arukh that a separation for tzitzit is an interruption that requires a new berakhah, is kama sho'a, is more than an hour or two. Going to the mikvah is much shorter than that. And although you can't actually go into the mikvah with your tallit katan unused, that's some form of interruption, but it's not an issur. And anything which is not an issur, a posek can clearly say that washing is not a hefsek to the berakhah of a tallit, of a tallit, or tallit katan. They bring the Arizal would make a berakhah after he went to the mikvah, but there's many ways to explain the Arizal. He spent a lot of time in the mikvah. He had his kavanot. Whatever the explanation is, maybe he's talking about it as a different tallit. The common minhag is that people do not make a berakhah after they take a shower and after mikvah. And it's not clear what the Friediger Rebbe said. It doesn't-- it, it align with what we know that the Friediger Rebbe told Rav Chadakov slightly differently. That doesn't, does- doesn't go along with the siddur. And i-it's a rumor, and we don't know exactly the-- to authenticate this rumor. In this Toi L'Shalom, there's even a bigger chiddush. In this Toi L'Shalom, it seems like no hefsek whatsoever. After

27:29 Speaker 2 you sleep at night, you wake up in the morning, you check your tzitzit, the same tzitzit that you slept at night, check it, and you can make a berakhah without any hefsek whatsoever, which is very, very hard to understand. There's two ways how to understand what the Rebbe Rashab is talking about. He's talking about if people take it off and put it back on right away, or is he talking about if you just slept with it, you didn't even take it off. So the Friediger Rebbe required, according to this rumor, a break of going to the mikvah. At least it was some break. Over here, it's taking it on and putting it off, or maybe not even taking it off altogether, which is hard to understand. This doesn't align with the Piskei Dinim of the Alter Rebbe in the Shulchan Arukh and the siddur. If-- Th-there's ways how to resolve this, and I don't wanna go into ha-techinos over here. We wrote a lengthy post about this on the website on Ask the Rav. You can have a look over there. There's a button called Hagot Toi L'Shalom on Kaf HaChaim Pelagi, and we sp-spoke over there about a svara that maybe if you make a berakhah al mitzvat tzitzit, which is what we do today, the Alter Rebbe did not print a berakhah al mitzvat tzitzit in his siddur. In the Toldos Hashem siddur, it's there, but not in the original Alter Rebbe siddur. If you make a berakhah al mitzvat tzitzit, which the

28:34 Speaker 2 Ramah says is a birkat hashevach, it's a berakhah of praise. It's not a berakhah on, on doing the mitzvah. It's even if you're not doing the mitzvah properly, you still can make a berakhah. There's such an implication of the Ramah in Darchei Moshe, which the Alter Rebbe brings la-halakhah. Arguably, things might be different. And there's some strong support for this in a ktav ya'ad that we have of the Rebbe. The Rebbe tried to put out-- The Rebbe was involved in putting out, which never came out, a Kitzur Shulchan Arukh for the youth. In that Kitzur Shulchan Arukh for the youth, it talks about different halakhot about tzitzit, and there seems to be an implication over there the same way that if a person slept with a tzitzit and he doesn't have a tallit gadol, he could just make a berakhah without changing. Same, on the same tzitzit that he slept with the night before. Not he changed it in the morning. He has it from the night, and the next morning makes a berakhah. The difference between the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh for the youth and what the Rebbe Rashab writes is that the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh says if you have a tallit gadol, you shouldn't rely on that. The Rebbe Rashab seems to imply you can rely on that even with a tallit gadol, although it's not clear, maybe he's talking about if he took it off and put it back on. L'ma'aseh, it's very hard to pasken on these things. We have a psak

29:45 Speaker 2 of the Alter Rebbe in Shulchan Arukh, a psak of the Alter Rebbe in siddur. The Toi L'Shalom hagot that the Rebbe Rashab wrote, he wrote to himself. He writes clearly what he writes is not fitting with the Siddur. He writes, "This is the minhag." Kimidumali, "I think this is the minhag." Nowadays, we don't know of such a minhag. These hagot the Rebbe Rashab wrote to himself on the Kaf HaChaim, which is a svara he is safe in. It could be he's following the position-- He's writing according to the svara of the position of the svara of the Bais Yosef is if you take off tzitzit for one minute and put it back on, you can already make a berakhah right away. And what the Rebbe wrote in this Kitzur Shulchan Arukh for the youth also is not very clear, so it's hard to prove one way or another from these things. I just wanna finish with one more final topic. It's been commonly done recently that people at chuppot give a kibud of birkhat kohanim. There's a rumor that the Rebbe made a comment about this, that maybe looks like people needed a kibud, but in other words, the Rebbe was saying in jest, "Why, why are they calling people out to-- kohanim to say birkhat kohanim?" But that is what's done. And the question is, so if a kohen is there and he says the kohanim, "Ana birkhat kohanim," does he have to go up? Is halakha of amor lehem, if the kohanim are

30:51 Speaker 2 told to go up, they have to go up. Does that apply only in davening, or there's a chiyuv to do that even not in the context of davening? The short answer is no, this is only in davening. The Midrash Rabbe says, "L'metzon hanesiot kapayim velo t'fila." There's no such thing as duchning outside of davening So he's not over anything. It's not during davening. Bechalal, it's a different kind of Berchos Kohanim. They're asking to bench the Chasan and Kallah. This is not the bench Klal Yisrael. So why are people duchaning not during davening? You're not supposed to do duchaning without a davening. So that's a, that's a question about Klal, about Kohanim, and it's a question about people who bench their children and use-- and they're not Kohanim. If you're not a Kohen, why are you saying the Brachos Kohanim? And one of the answers is because they don't put out their two hands. If you look in the Sefer HaPidion HaBen, a lot of Rishonim, they said the Kohen gives a berachah, and he puts one hand on the head of the child. Some of them write that he puts yadav. It's hard to know yadav, yado, when it's a typo. But some, some of them write yadav, his hands, and they actually don't bring the nusach Brachos Kohanim. So if you don't put your hand-- Or another explanation is you don't have a mind for the mitzvah of Brachos Kohanim. You're not following the regular rules. You're not making a berachah. You know, you're

31:58 Speaker 2 not following the regular-- the berachah before the mitzvah. It's as if you haven't kavanah for the mitzvah. It's as if you're, you're not duchaning out of davening, and it's not a non-Kohen duchaning. That's one of the reasons why we say the pasuk before VeYidaber Hashem Malchei Olam, and we finish with Vesamchu Shmi R'bonei Yisrael. The Rebbe did that as well. It's like the Chazan in davening says, "Al kehn u'al keveseinu, b'cheir u'ba-bracha." He's-- It's not part of duchaning. It's not l'sheim mitzvah. That's why in the siddur, we also have an atah in Birchas Hatorah. We also have an atah ve'salahim. When someone had a negative dream, they bench them, and they use the pasuk in the Brachos Kohanim. It's, again, it's not, not for the mitzvah. They once benched the Rebbe, and the Rebbe commented on chaf ches zayin. This time of the year, Taf Shin Alef. The Rebbe commented, you could hear it on the tape that it makes this comment. The Rebbe said he should start again from the beginning, from VeYidaber Hashem, that people shouldn't learn from this and do the wrong thing. So there's a lot of explanations why non-Kohanim do Brachos Kohanim, and we mentioned some of them. You could also say the idea because it's not during davening. That's another explanation. But either way, whichever pshat we say, it's-- see, it's pretty clear you can't say that if someone asks a Kohen to give a berachah, he's mechuyav, and if he refuses, he's going-- doing an aveira. And if

33:05 Speaker 2 we're gonna-- The-- There's an old kovetz called Tell Tale Pieces. There was a discussion about this. If a Kohen is in front of ten people, and they-- so it's a tzibbur, and they ask him to give a berachah, and if he doesn't agree, is he over? So one of the writers write over there a very valid point. If you're gonna say that a Kohen is mechuyav, that means he has to make a berachah. Clearly, Brachos Kohanim, the Kohanim that are called up by a chuppah are not making a berachah. So clearly, that wouldn't be an issue. Besuras tovos, kol tov.

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