Can You Take a Cold Shower in the Mikvah on Shabbos?

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Halacha Podcast, Laman Yishmu, with Harav Yosef Yeshaya Brown, Mahara 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 Welcome to another episode of Laman Yishmu with Ask the Rav. The following question is an interesting question, and what's interesting about it is that it's something that faces us on a regular basis, and yet, strangely, we don't find many of the early authorities talking about it. Contemporary peskim do address this somewhat, but it is interesting that it hasn't been properly or appropriately addressed before. The question is, Friday night at the Shabbos meal. So the custom is, and this is brought down in Peskim, we have the challah on the table and it's covered. What about the dips? What about the rest of the food? Do we bring the food before Kiddush? Do we bring it after Kiddush? If we bring it before Kiddush, should it be covered or can we leave it uncovered? What's the story? So there are those who are particular not to bring any food to the table before Kiddush. The only thing they have there is the challah. Some people don't even bring challah, but that's not the mainstream approach. The regular mainstream peskim say the challah should be brought to the table but remain covered. But regarding other food, some people have it set up in another room and they only bring it after Kiddush. Others make sure-- have it there before and they have it covered. But strictly speaking, there's really no reason to wait till after Kiddush to bring it, and it does not need to be covered. It might even be advantageous to davka bring it before and

01:58 Speaker 2 have it already on the table beforehand. What's at the root of this discussion? There's a Gemara in Masechet Pesachim that it tells us that the table should not be brought until after Kiddush. If the table was brought, then the bread, the table should be covered, because when you cover it, it's as if you don't have a table over there. The Rashbam in Masechet Pesachim brings from the Sheiltot. The Sheiltot was written by Rabbi Chaim Gaon, that the idea here is that we want the meal to come for the honor of Shabbos. So you don't have the meal there yet. There's no table yet. Once you made Kiddush, now in honor of Shabbos, the table is brought. Tosfot on that Gemara asks a question, don't we all know that there's two angels, two Malachim that come along with us every Friday night? It's a Gemara in Masechet Shabbos, and they come to the house and they check if the table is set. So isn't the table already supposed to be set? And here you tell me there's no table there altogether. Tosfot, the Rosh, Mordechai, the Ran, and many others tell us the table is set. It's set elsewhere. It's not set over here. You only bring the table after Kiddush. So we have the table set in another room, and then we bring it here. But the Pesakim already say, brought down Halacha, that there's a difference between big tables and small tables. In those days, everybody used to have their own table, and you

03:31 Speaker 2 would literally bring the table for the, for the meal and then remove it afterwards. So with small tables, you bring the tables after Kiddush. Nowadays that we have big tables, all the Pesakim talk-- mention that no, it's-- you don't bring the table after Kiddush. We have the table there already before Kiddush, and the challah is there. What we do differently, we cover the challah, and then after Kiddush, we remove the covering of the challah. So the question here is, if part of the idea of covering the challah, there are other reasons for covering the challah, to commemorate the manna, which was covered from the top and the bottom with tal and dew. There's the reason that we cover the challah because we're making a bracha on the wine before the challah, and challah really has precedence. Wheat comes before grape in this seven species of Shevet Minim. It doesn't look proper for the challah that you're prefacing and preceding the wine first, that we cover it, not to embarrass it. Those are other reasons. We're, we're not addressing those right now. But according to this reason, the reason that the Sheiltot says, "Ki heicha diteisa sudasa beyakar deShabata," that the meal should come for the honor of Shabbos. So it's not only about the bread, it's about the other foods too. And if you look carefully, this particular Gemara talks about-- in Masechet Pesachim, it talks about bringing to the table at the Seder after Kiddush, bringing the table, and it also talks about bringing

05:08 Speaker 2 the vegetable, the karpas. So that means we're talking about all other foods that are only brought after Kiddush, which nowadays, if we have them there before, at least they should have-- they should be covered. That, that is not really a conclusive proof, and there are clearly the Shulchan Aruch that say that the idea is only about the table and nothing else, and not about the vegetables that are being brought. If we look in the Shulchan Aruch, we see different expressions. Some Pesakim, some of the Shulchan Aruch use the term cover the bread and the table. Most Pesakim only mention covering the bread, so we don't have to cover the table. And nowadays, we don't know of anyone that actually puts an extra cover to cover the table. I mean, the table is covered because we eat on the cover. We don't put a cover above that cover. We cover the bread. Clearly, the Maggid Avraham, the Alter Rebbe writes, we put a cover in order that the bread should be covered, not that the table should be covered. So they don't mention covering the table. They mention covering the bread. The implication is it's a specific thing related to the bread. But on the other hand, it could be they didn't bring any other foods. They only brought the bread, and the other foods were brought later. So they don't have to discuss covering the rest of the table and covering the foods. The bread they brought right away. Why did they bring the bread

06:32 Speaker 2 right away? The tables, we understand. Our tables are very large, and you can just bring it after Kiddush. But why do you have to bring the bread right away? So part of this-- There's a number of explanations to that. First of all, if you wanna have a set table, you should probably have the bread there already on it. If you don't have the bread on it, it's not like a set table. Secondly, we wanna bring out the idea that we're bringing the meal for the honor of Shabbos. In those days, we accomplish it by bringing the table. Now that the table is already there, how do we showing the idea that we're bringing the table in honor of Shabbos? The way we do it is we have the bread already there, so the table is already set. We cover it, and once we uncover it, that's the form of bringing the table. That's the bringing the meal for the honor of Shabbos, bringing the bread. When we bring the bread before Kiddush, and then we cover it, and then we uncover, that's, that's our way of doing things. So the bread is definitely brought before Kiddush, but we don't know about the other foods. We don't have clear evidence. The implication seems to be the other foods don't have to be brought. Don't have to be-- Sorry. The, the implication is the other foods could be brought before Kiddush, and they don't have to be covered. There's another point I should mention that the Mordechai

07:52 Speaker 2 uses an expression, Bread and food. Some-- The Sefer Haturim writes a similar expression too, and that seems to imply that it's bread and other foods should be covered. But I'm not convinced that that's what it means. When he says he means the bread, which is the which is the food. Unless we will say that Mordechai follows the position that the table, it's not only the bread that's to be covered, also the table, but we only cover the bread, so we don't have to cover other foods also. There is a very good reasons to make distinction between bread and other foods. Bread is the primary aspect of the meal. Bread is what you need for food of Shabbos. Bread exempts all other foods. We could have other foods there. It doesn't take-- We-- As long as we cover the bread, we're accomplishing the goal that we're supposed to accomplish, and we are bringing the meal for Shabbos through the bread. The biggest proof that you don't have to cover all the other foods is from the actual Seder night. Our custom is that we bring the karpas, and we set up each individual sets of the karpas by the Seder before Kiddush. That is the common custom. And on the karpas we have matzahs, and we have other foods also. And the custom is the matzahs are covered, but all the other foods are not covered. So we have a table with food on it. Matzahs are covered, and the other food is not covered. That

09:22 Speaker 2 should be pretty strong evidence for us that it-- the same thing would apply on any Friday night that we accomplish our goal just by covering the bread, and the salads and the dips don't have to be covered. I would say there's an advantage in actually bringing it before Kiddush. First of all, you, you wanna walk out after Kiddush and bring it. That's making extra Hefsek. These dips go along with the bread. The dips are part of eating of the bread. It's covered of the berakhah to actually dip bread into salt or into dips. And if a person-- According to Halakha, a person is-- asks to bring the dips after HaMotzi, it's not considered a Hefsek. So we're-- You're not supposed to say that. But if a person asks for a dip in order to give the bread a taste, that's not a Hefsek because that's important. So why should you-- You, you wanna have it there on the table. You don't wanna bring it after Kiddush. You wanna have a nice, beautiful set table. Part of setting a table is not only with bread. Bread, of course, is one way of setting a table, but a part of the setting a table is also to have the dips there. So I don't see any reason why we have to be particular in something which all-- hardly any Poskim say. There's hardly any implication for this. And it seems like the only thing that has to be covered is the bread and everything else. Such an

10:38 Speaker 2 obvious thing. Everybody eats dips. Everybody-- It's not, it's not a new thing today. Everybody eats other foods. And since the Poskim do not address it, that implies that they follow the position that it does not have to be covered. Okay. I wanna move on to another question altogether. We often come to weddings, and at the end of the wedding, after a very, very long wedding, there's bentching. After a long wedding meal, there's bentching and there's Sheva Berakhot. And it becomes an issue, do I honor this one? Do I honor that one? During the time of-- from the bentching till after the Sheva Berakhot, there's a lot of talking that goes on. Are you allowed to talk then? That, that's the simple question. And the answer, contrary to popular opinion, no, you shouldn't be talking. You really should be paying attention to the Sheva Berakhot, and you shouldn't be talking at all. And there's two reasons for that. Generally, the Sheva Berakhot is a whole question, whose obligation is it to make these seven blessings? Is this a communal obligation, or every individual that's there has the obligation to make these seven blessings? So certainly, if it's an individualized obligation, then you are hearing from other people, you're being goize, you can't be talking, and you're supposed to be saying these seven blessings. The only reason you're not saying it because someone else is saying it for you. But even if we would say it's not a personalized obligation, and technically you can leave without the

12:07 Speaker 2 Sheva Berakhot, which isn't so simple, we'll talk about that in a moment. But once you didn't leave and you're there, you're part of that cibber, you're part of that community, part of that group, you need to be part of it and not talk and ignore it. It's like Kriyat HaTorah, reading of the Torah. There's a question if every individual is supposed to hear the reading of the Torah, but you could only do it when it's ten people. Or no, it's a obligation for the community. It's a Cheves HaTzibur. But certainly when Kriyat HaTorah is being recited, no one's allowed to talk. I mean, it's not exactly the same case, but the primary argument is it is really individualized obligation to hear Sheva Brachot. It is mentioned clearly in Seforim about the time of the Chuppah, but the same thing will apply to the Brachot after Bentching. In fact, in some ways, Brachot after Bentching at the wedding meal are stronger. There's a Sefirah to say that it's part of Bentching. So if it's part of Bentching, you certainly shouldn't be talking. It's, it's the middle of Bentching. In fact, there are Poskim that say you shouldn't talk from be- the beginning of Bentching till after all the Sheva Brachot. I understand if there's a conversation that's related to the Sheva Brachot to give him, give that person, now we c- we can argue that's different. There's a serious discussion. There was a Rav called the Chechenover Rebbe, Reb Sholom Yechezkel Shrager Rubin Halberstam. People used

13:23 Speaker 2 to refer to him as the Shoel Hador. There's the one who's the Meshab Hador, gives the most answers, the Posek that everybody knows all questions were addressed to him. And he was the one that actually would ask a lot of questions. He would send the same question to many, many different Rabbonim. So he wrote a question to many Rabbonim. He wrote to the Rebbe, he wrote to the Moshe Feinstein, to many other people about people coming to a wedding meal, and then they wanna leave. They don't wanna stay for so long, and they walk. They make-- either they make their own Mezuman, but they don't do Sheva Brachot, or they don't even make their own Mezuman, their own Zimun. Is it perfectly okay to walk, to walk out? So there's different discussions about whether it is fine or it's not fine or what could be the reasons for leniency. But the very fact there's a whole discussion about this is because it's totally not simple even just to walk off. You have an obligation of Sheva Brachot. So certainly if you're there, you should be paying attention and listening. There's a whole other aspect of here altogether, and that is the idea that is Halacha of Shulchan Aruch, that when you're Bentching on a Kos, from the moment that the Kos was taken in the hand-- by the hands of the Mevorach, the person who's Bentching, there's no talking until Borei Pri HaGafen. Who shouldn't talk? Certainly not the Mevorach, the person who's Bentching, but

14:36 Speaker 2 also all the other Mesubim, all the guests are not supposed to talk. You're Bentching. Bentching's happening now. Till after the person Bentches says Borei Pri HaGafen, no one should talk. So if that's the case, by the Sheva Brachot, until after they finish the Sheva Brachot, that's only when the person who Bentches loud, the Mezamin, says Borei Pri HaGafen. So really should nobody be-- should be talking. I know there's a lot of people that are lenient about this, and there's different, um, explanations to justify that, but I'm talking about what the right way to do it is actually not to talk. Another topic altogether, and that is something which affects us on a regular day-to-day basis, and that is people often ask, "What is the time limit for a Bracha? At what stage do you lose your Bracha on food?" So when you make a Bracha on food, at a certain stage, that Bracha is gone. It's no longer there, and if you're gonna eat more food, you're gonna have to make a new Bracha. I don't wanna go into if there's m-m-more food of the same type, a different type, if you'd-- you-- it was in front of you, not in front of you. That's another whole discussion. I'm talking about there's a concept of a timeframe that after a certain amount of timeframe, your Bracha is over, and your ability to make another Bracha-- to make a Bracha Acharonah, a after blessing, is gone. It expired. And strictly speaking, that's when the food digested.

15:57 Speaker 2 Once the food begins to digest, it's no longer there. You can't make an after blessing, and at this stage, your first blessing has expired too. And if you're eating any more food, you need to make a new first blessing. How do you know when the food has begun to digest? So when a person is hungry again, that's an implication that the food has begun to digest. When it comes to drinks, when they're thirsty again. If you are continuously eating, or more than that, if you're planning to continue eating the whole time, you're sitting at a meal, and your stomach is already ready to ta-take all this food, the food has not digested. Now, sometimes it could be very hard to determine if you are hungry again. And the reason it's hard to determine, because there's a difference between a person who ate a satiating, sustaining full meal. In Halacha, we call that Achila Meruba, a large meal. He ate to full. He ate to full. He's satisfied. Now, after a long time passed, he becomes hungry again. But then there's someone who eats Achila Muetas. He didn't eat to his full. He's to begin with not satiated. So now how do I know if I'm hungry again, or is it because I never fully ate properly? So you need to really make a Bracha Acharonah right away. Mi Yad is the Lashon of Posekim, because you don't know. Ein Anu Baki Vlesha'ar. We don't know how to evaluate when you become hungry again when you

17:25 Speaker 2 eat Achila Muetas. Rav Avraham Chaim Na'ad, the Teshuvas Shulchan Dvir Chad or something, and he wants to suggest Mi Yad. This Mi Yad does not mean a second. It means you have up to eleven minutes. And the reason he comes with the argument of eleven minutes, there's a range of different views how to determine Kedei Achilas Pras. And since the maximum view is eleven minutes, so you would have at least eleven minutes. So i-if eleven minutes didn't pass yet, you can make a Bracha Acharonah. You could continue eating without making a new Bracha. But once eleven minutes passed, now you're stuck. You don't know if you are hungry again, you're not hungry again. You didn't eat a full meal to begin with. You only ate Achila Muetas. It's hard for you to, to, to evaluate and assess this. So what do you do now? You can't make a Beracha Achronah, can't make a Beracha Rishonah. What do you do? So Rav Avraham Chaim Na suggests this following. He says, "Take, eat another thing of the same type food that requires the same type of Beracha Achronah. Preferably, if you have a food that you were planning to begin with on eating, and it, it's covered by the same Beracha Achronah, so now you can make a new Beracha. This wasn't part of your plan. And now you'll make one Beracha Achronah, and it'll cover everything." If you don't have any other food, you have the same original food, you had your piece of challah, you

18:48 Speaker 2 have some more challah left, eat it without a Beracha. So much so, eat it without a Beracha, so you shouldn't lose out on the opportunity of making a Beracha Achronah because when you eat-- You can't make a new Beracha 'cause maybe the original Beracha hasn't expired yet. Can't make a Beracha Achronah just yet 'cause maybe your Beracha expired, maybe it didn't expire. I don't know if I can make a Beracha Achronah. So eat a new food, don't make a Beracha on it. After you eat this new food, you make one Beracha Achronah. If you don't have any food left, just don't make a Beracha. But because there's always an issue, you might lose the Beracha, you might not lose the Beracha, it's always best to make a Beracha Achronah right away, especially eating very, very little. Now, I wanna mention that there's a myth. It's not totally a myth, but it's just an inaccurate piece of information. People say, "I have up to seventy-two minutes." Where does the seventy-two minutes come from? So it comes from the idea that when people eat a large meal, achila meruba, which the way to determine if the food has begun to digest is if you become hungry again. Sometimes we have a hard time knowing, did I become hungry again? Did I not become hungry again? You can't evaluate that. So the assumption is that up until seventy-two minutes, when you're eating a proper full meal, there's no real reason to think that the food has digested. That's

20:10 Speaker 2 a minimum amount of time, and the maximum amount of time is six hours. So if you don't know if the food digested, you can assume that before seventy-two minutes it didn't digest. But when you're eating achila mu'etes, a small amount of food, it could digest right away. Like we said, even after eleven minutes. Some are lenient even then to wait seventy-two minutes. The Alter Rebbe does not seem to accept that, and therefore, once eleven minutes have passed, you've lost your Beracha, and you have to rely on one of these tricks that we just mentioned before. There is-- There are some people that question the fact that why the Alter Rebbe in his Sefer HaBerachos HaNelen did not go into all of this, into all these details. Um, if you wanna know more about that, you can look it up on our website, which we address this specifically. And again, that's a reminder again about all these halachas that most of them that we're discussing on the podcast, there are more extensive references on the website. Go on the website AskTheRav.com, and you type in the correct number. In this case, it's number one zero six eight eight, and you get the question about time limit after Berachos. If you look up on the website for the podcast, you'll find each podcast with the appropriate number with a link where this is addressed. I'm going to go now to another question. A woman, a young married woman, unfortunately lost her father about a half a year

21:31 Speaker 2 ago, and now they're, they're mechatanim are making a chasuna. Her mother, her mother's a widow, this young married woman. She lost her husband. The mother's going to the chasuna. She's allowed to go because the halachas of mourning for twelve months applies to a child, but not to a spouse. So the mother wants to go, but the mother wants her daughter to come with her. First of all, she wants the daughter to take her, give her a ride, but she's also asking that, "I want you to sit next to me. I will come to the wedding." She's her support. "I don't wanna be there myself. Um, it's more mechabeding for me if you're sitting next to me." The girl wants to know, should she go to the wedding or not? Kibud Av, respect to her father that passed away, is not to go. Kibud Eim is yes to go. And the answer is that in this particular case, there's a leniency. Even though she's in a year of mourning, uh, within twelve months, she can go to the wedding to honor her mother. Honoring her mother who is still alive comes before honoring the father who passed away. The whole idea of not going to seudos, parties, shal simcha, weddings within twelve months is a form of respect to the person who passed away. So much so that there's even an argument that a married woman might be able to go to a wedding when she's within twelve months out of respect to her husband who

23:06 Speaker 2 wants her to go. The Mishnah Feisa wants to argue so. Now, we can say over here that the fact that the mother is asking to go, that means the mother is telling him to violate the halacha. The halach-- And we know that if a father or pa-- a parent asks a child to violate halacha, there's no kibud, kibud Av. Ata v'avicha chayav bekvodi. You don't respect them. There's no respect in not listening to what the Torah says. So why don't we say that when the mother's asking her daughter to go to the wedding, it's like saying not to listen to the Torah? But it isn't. It's-- All she's saying is, "I want you to come to me. I want you to give me respect." She's not saying, "Don't honor the father." That's not what she's saying. There's another reason altogether to be lenient over here. The daughter's helping the mother is almost like a waiter. A waiter is there. They're doing a job. Her job is to do her kibud eim and look after her mother. Those are all good reasons why she's allowed to go to the wedding. Moving on to another question altogether on a whole different topic. A question that often people ask when they have Bar Mitzvah bachurim, how to measure the placement of the Tefillin Shel Yad, of the hand Tefillin, by the Bar Mitzvah bachur. We know the Shel Yad, there's a certain specific spot by the muscle where we're supposed to put the Tefillin, but it's very hard

24:39 Speaker 2 to know how to measure this, how to measure this. Do we hold-- We, we hold the arms down, we hold it open, we hold it closed? Some people suggest that our Tefillin, which are large Tefillin, we have-- We, we follow the position of Chabad that, that the measurement of Tefillin, etz ba'aim or etz ba'aim, two fingers by two fingers, is not the entire Tefillin. It's just the bayis, just the square bayis, but not including mamarto. So if we're measuring-- We're having such large Tefillin with large parshiyos, and when we're talking about little Bar Mitzvah boys, there's no to put the Tefillin there. That's, that's really the question, and some people suggest maybe we should get them smaller Tefillin. But commonly, people have always got this kind of Tefillin, and they weren't particularly worried about it. And the reason for that is because, first of all, we measure with the arm spread out straight. We don't measure, um-- That, that's the, the correct way of measuring. We also-- The Mavart-- The place where the Tefillin is supposed to be, it's not clear if it includes the whole entire Tefillin has to be in that spot, or the Mavarta, the part in which the Retzuah goes through, that can be lower than that. L'chatchila, it's appropriate to be Machmir, but there really wouldn't be a reason in most cases to buy for kids smaller Tefillin, unless we're talking about a very, very small child who has very small hands. Otherwise, there's really no reason to be Machmir.

26:11 Speaker 2 Now, we, we could go into this whole discussion about if the, um-- how to measure it. Contemporary Poskim talk about this, whether the Mavarta is included in the, in the spot where the Tefillin has to be. There's some pr-- evidence one way, evidence another way, but L'chatchila certainly we should try to make sure the Mavarta is in that spot too. And finally, I wanna talk about a topic which is, to me, a very bothersome topic. I've noticed a few times going to the Mikvah on Shabbos and Yom Tov, I've noticed people using showers in the Mikvah on Shabbos and Yom Tov. A person approached me, um, um... I don't remember now if it was Shabbos or Yom Tov, and he asked-- No, it was Shabbos. And he asked me, do I know if the showers over here work with electricity? I said, "What does that have to do with anything? You can't use them." He says, "Yeah, but I take showers always on Shabbos and Yom Tov." He's taking shampoo with him and going-- heading to the shower. I wanna go through the, the, the issues that exist over here, and why even a cold shower would be a problem. First of all, even if a shower is supposed to be a cold shower, you need to know what kind of plumbing system exists over there. A standard water tank, often when you turn on the tank, there could be hot water-- cold water going from the main supplier going into the tank, and when

27:36 Speaker 2 you use a single level, um, mixer, then unless the handle is all the way turned down a hundred percent to the coldest extreme, hot water will, will always come-- be drawn along. So you're thinking you're taking a cold shower, you're really heating up water. You're doing what we call Bishul, cooking on Shabbos. There's also a problem that there was tankless heaters or instant water heaters, so whenever you open a tap, you could be affecting-- activating the sensor. You can ignite gas flames. You can close electrical circuits. You need to know all about your plumbing. There's a different issue altogether, and that is when you're taking a shower in a public place, it's hard to know if it's cold water, if it's lukewarm water, if it's heated properly on Shabbos, not heated properly on Shabbos. Besides all of this, there is a Gezeirah which is brought down in Poskim, and the Poskim write very strong language about this. Poideitz Gedyish Chenon Achor, someone who breaks the fence of this rule. It's harsh things, Chas V'Shalom could happen to such a person. There's a Minhag accepted. The Pashut HaMinhag is Lehilchach Klal, Afili Betzoy Nedah to take a cold shower. So there is no Hetter for a cold shower. Even a cold shower one shouldn't take. I'm talking now about-- Not talking washing your face, not talking washing your hands. Of course, you're allowed to wash your hands with cold water on Shabbos. But a shower. Now, there are Poskim that say that if somebody has Tzar

29:04 Speaker 2 Gadol, is in extreme discomfort, I don't know. Whatever extreme discomfort means needs to be assessed independently. Then there's room for leniency. But that leniency is when a person is doing that in private. In a private-- In a public facility, Befarhesia, a person is publicly breaching a communal safeguard, a Gedar, a Poideitz Gedar. And he's publicly-- It's a public degradation of Shabbos. There is no Hetter if a person has his own unique situation of being a B'tzar, B'yozer, being in extreme pain to go and violate such a thing. I asked one of the individuals that were talking to me about the showers, and he wanted to know why, why shouldn't it be allowed to. I said, "Let, let me understand something. You've been around. You've been around for many years. You know that people don't take showers on Shabbos. You think they're all stupid? They all just don't like taking showers? Obviously, there's a reason why we don't take showers. You come into a place where we don't take showers on Shabbos, and you decide, 'No, I'm taking a cold shower.' Never mind these people wanting to take hot showers also," which is another whole discussion, which is clearly Isur DeRabbanan. There is this Gezeiras Merachets that Chazal made. Chazal didn't let people wash in public bathhouses way before there was a Gezeirah on cold water because they would-- the attendants would historically heat the water illegally on Shabbos, and they would always claim it was heated beforehand. So that's, that's the, that's the history over

30:22 Speaker 2 here. But BiDerabbonon is a universally accepted custom amongst Ashkenazim that we don't take-- bathe even in cold water. We don't shower or bathe even in cold water. Then there's another whole issue of Skhitah, where if you wash your body with your head, it becomes issues of squeezing the water out of the towel, squeezing the hair. So in summation, um, in a case of extreme heat or perspiration, there might be room to be lenient to have a cold rinse in private discreetly at home. Of course, making sure there is no issues of Skhitah and, and no issues of heating water, and no issues of soap, et cetera. But in a public setting like in a Mikvah to take a shower becomes a serious issue, certainly if you're using a fixture which is connected to hot water, to electronic systems, there could be very serious issues. Um, and I just thought I should mention all of that. You, you need-- B-basically, the bottom line is you need to know how your tank works, how the mixer works, if this is a tankless heater. There's a, there are a lot of important stuff you need to know over here. And the, the most important thing is that we have to f-follow what it says in the Torah and keep them in hugging us at all. This is Torah.

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