פנורמה של הלכה 1

00:04 Speaker 1 I just-- yeah. Let me get the- Good koch, Brian.

00:40 Speaker 2 Good koch. Can you see?

00:42 Speaker 1 Yeah. Could you just, uh, angle your camera a little bit? Excellent. Thank you.

00:49 Speaker 2 Okay. So now we're ready to start. I'll just let in, uh, just wait another couple of people here. All right. Okay. So, a gute koch, and, uh, let's, um... This is a bit of feedback. We have-- I, I've-- After the shir, this was circulated to some shluchim in, in, uh, Europe. And one of them, following on our discussion last week about, uh, about the prayer in schools. So it came up, I got a bit of feedback about the, the Rebbe's position in relation to about the pirsum of, uh, Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach. So on the one hand, the Rebbe was very encouraging to share with umot ha'olam the Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach. But then it came to the question of actually writing very specific guidance, and here the Rebbe stepped back. So here we have two answers of the Rebbe. First one is the question to the Rebbe was written by Reb Hilal Dovid Krinsky, that's Rabbi Yudel Krinsky's son. And he writes, "Hayoys shkaneve kame mavshum choimer." Since there are numerous people who are requesting material. "Al dwar Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach," about the Seven Mitzvot of Bnei Noach. "Hinini shoyel im nochin lesader cheveres al dover ze." I'm asking whether it would be advisable to prepare some kind of booklet about this. "Chein im lesader cheveres ksoroh al dwar Lubavitch lemili bakosres kanal." And also to, to prepare a booklet, uh, ab-about Lubavitch to fulfill the request of these people who want to know more about this. And the Rebbe's answer is, "Betach

02:58 Speaker 2 yimtzer mumche boze." Certainly, you'll find someone who's expert in this. "Nossev al hatsad hahil chosi." In addition to the angle from the halakha side, but it should be also worded, "Besignoen shelo yargiz es hanochrim." It shouldn't, inside, provoke, uh, a negative reaction from the umot ha'olam. "V'gam yas im lo ha'emes." And in a way that it's not aggravating, but also be truthful. And if, "Shelo cheim besofek," if there's a doubt whether that can be achieved, "Lo lo hoitzi lo," don't publish. So the Rebbe took that stance to be very careful when you're publishing, not to cause problem with-- problems with that. I'm just trying to find. Yeah. So there was another letter which, unfortunately, I don't have here on the screen. Similar, similar style. The letter was written to Reb Dovid Leib Grossbaum, who was at the time in Melbourne, around taf shin mem alef, mem bet. And they had taken something from the Torah anthology, where it had a whole thing about the Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach, and they'd asked the Rebbe advice about publicizing it. And the Rebbe says, "If you read it, you see some very interesting messages. First of all, you see that if a, um, if you see that a woman has left her husband, even for a short time, so then there's no issue of adultery," according to what you've-- what, what's written there. "And, and then you also see that there's lots of things, every little thing is-- every, every-- So many details." Chayav misah, chayav misah, chayav

04:43 Speaker 2 misah. And there's this massive difference between the way Yid are treated and, and, uh, l'havdil, umot ha'olam. And therefore, the Rebbe says, "Li-im, li-lignois es kol hatfasim." To take all the, all the, uh, journals, all the copies which have been published, and they should be put in genizah. They should be put in a, in, in schemes, so to speak. Then he also refers to me-- he refers me to a, a talk given by Reb Avremel Shemtov. This is, again, those years. In the taf shin, uh, no, it's, you know, it's later. Uh, whatever. And he's talking about the fact that, that, apparently, Reb Nistan Mindel, the Rebbe's secretary, had been in Ame-- in Eretz Yisrael, and he had, in a public statement, said that there are-- there is a kitzur Shulchan Aruch on Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach in the pipeline. And this is several months later, six months later or a year later, and Rabbi Shemtov re- addresses this, and he says that apparently the Rebbe had responded, had said that the reaction which he's getting is that there are umot ha'olam, the nit gute freind, who are saying, "Ah, you see? This is where the Bnei Yisroel have got an agenda, and they want to impose, uh, olecho Yisroel. That Yisroel that they, then, are imposing their, their dictates on the Umos HaOlam. And that was why he's-- Rabbi Shemtov was explaining why this plan was, was shelved. So the Rebbe didn't want that there should be, uh, Umos HaOlam would say, "Ah, the

06:34 Speaker 2 Yids zot merpumkvos." Say, "He's dictating to me how I should run my life." The Rebbe felt that that was a, a dangerous, a dangerous situation in the-- He felt the time was unripe as at, at the time when he was speaking. Um, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be those seforim. There, but there are those seforim which we published and, but I think that particularly that it should be something published by the Rebbe, by Lubavitch, which would mean this is the leadership of Klal Yisroel. If someone does it, their own, um, uh, an individual will publish something, it's one thing. But if it's something which such a central figure like the Rebbe would publish such a thing, it would certainly, um, feed the, the, the concerns which the Rebbe raised in that, uh, in, in, you know, in that report.

07:22 Speaker 1 It was in an interview in Kfar Chabad magazine with Nissan Mindel. The Rebbe told him to say that they're working on Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach and preparing a Kisur Shulchan Aruch.

07:31 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

07:32 Speaker 1 Then later on, a very sharp letter was sent from, from lav davka lav se havdolos, from the Vatican to the Rebbe.

07:38 Speaker 2 Oh, really? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay. So then-

07:41 Speaker 1 The Rebbe showed it to Nissan Mindel.

07:43 Speaker 2 Uh-huh. And, and the-

07:44 Speaker 1 That was the day it was put to the-- it was shelved, that Kisur Shulchan Aruch.

07:47 Speaker 2 Right. So thank you. Thank you for that added pinaymen. And obviously, for diplomatic reasons, Rabbi Shemtov, when he spoke in public, he didn't, uh, he didn't announce that detail. But, uh, so b'shonus garet. So thank you for that, uh, extra piece of clarification. Let's go now to the... Also, this, um, sous vide has, has Baruch Hashem, uh, gotten quite a bit of a reaction. We spoke about this a couple of weeks ago, about three weeks ago. Sous vide, for those who are joining us, and I saw someone from Kharkiv, and I'm welcoming you to join us. I invited several shluchim out in, there around Europe to b- to join us live. So the sous vide is a kind of cooking system which has been introduced and invented recently, and where you have the f- uh, food is wrapped in a plastic bag, in a, in a vacuum plastic bag, and it's left in water, and it's not very hot water. It's left there for several hours. And s- the, the conclusion which I, um, presented a few weeks ago was that it's raises a problem of Hatmana. Hatmana bedavar hameis hefer, and therefore it's not allowed. So thank you, Rab Dov Ber Klein. You're with us this evening. Um, a gut Shabbos. And so Rab Dov Ber, and probab- I'm, I'm suspecting that Rab Berel, um, Korff was behind this, that, uh, tzni't da zeh poshet, and there is reason to say there's not a problem of Hatmana. Also, uh, Rab Avi Kora sent me

09:14 Speaker 2 a, a message. He's, he's somewhere in, uh, north part of New York, and he was suggesting that, uh, we spoke about the kugel, about in the, in the cholent, how you can prick holes into it, which I think I did mention. And then Rab Mendy Lent, who is a shliach in Nottingham, he, uh, sent me a tshuva of the Minchas Yitzchak to the late Dayan Wes time, speaking also about the kugel in the cholent, and whether you could say it's a derech bishul. All right. Having said all that, so after Rab Dov Ber told me this, I happened to meet Rab Gedalia Glebaiman of Heichal Menachem and told him I'm looking for a bit more information about this. So he referred me to the Farbrengen, the weekly Farbrengen, which comes out, yeah, obviously weekly. That's why it's called that. Uh, shmo yesheh nikra bein, uh, palashon Am Zu. And, um, or a bit of Yiddish also. At any rate, so there is a Rab Chaim Hillel Raskin, who writes a weekly Halakha column. He's, um, a son of my first cousin. And he had written also about this sous vide, and he had written that it's not okay. And the next week, he wrote the following retraction. So let's, let's read his, his, uh, statement. "It's been brought to our attention that according to the Alter Rebbe in Maadurei Basra, it would seem that sous vide in a clear package would not be considered Hatmana and would be allowed, provided the other conditions in the

10:38 Speaker 2 article are met." Okay. So for those who are not familiar, the, the Alter Rebbe has something called Maadurei Basra. And Maadurei Basra means it's, uh, an addendum at the back of the Shulchan Aruch. And I'll confess that even when I was in kollel, the Maadurei Basra was seen as off-limits. It was like seen as, as it's such an intense, um, part. It's such, uh, that it, you know, you'd-- at home, you'd have to be a, a genius to work through it. But Baruch Hashem, lo yaamin Yisroel, Chevre have worked through it. And so we have here a piece of Maadurei Basra where the Alter Rebbe looks at the dinim of Hatmana, uh, of, of, uh, um, ins- insulating foods, and it looks like itach is, it's okay. And so on this, on that basis, he retracted, and I sent to my, uh, my sh'eil, my questionnaire back in, in, uh, the United States who asked about it. I sent him this. So here we have, this is from the back of the Shulchan Aruch. I think it's page tef, tof, tof, pei alef. And he says that... He talk, he talks about the fact that they bec- if it, if it is, if it is, um, see-through, so then it's, um... Let's read that brackets, uh, over here. "Lein kein nos sanklich toycha mikasilin de Tveria shamaim besiloin mechusim utmana legamri." If you remember, the precedent was that the people of Tveria put a tube, a pipe- Through the boiling waters of, uh, Tiberias, and

12:13 Speaker 2 that was condemned under the basis that it is, is hatmona. So here the Rebbe is-- Alter Rebbe is saying that there the water was concealed because the, the, um, pipe was opaque. Even though the v- the pipe was visible, but that comes into hatmona. But from this itself, if you read it, you can see here that if the container where the food is within the hatmona situation is, is see-through, is transparent, then the issue of hatmona doesn't apply. So on that basis, I'm happy to retract and say that, that, uh, that there's no problem of hatmona with the sous vide, and it could be used for Shabbos. Uh, there's an expression, You're allowed to go to... Rabbonim are also allowed to admit that they got it wrong. All right, so Baruch Hashem, I'm pleased that we had this forum-- we have this forum, and it was brought up and, uh, so it was Baruch Hashem. So we found a heter. I'm very pleased. Okay, let's move on. So this came up. A, a couple of, um, girls asked me this, this week about braiding hair on Shabbos. And they know that you're not allowed to braid hair with three braids. What about, uh, with two? With two. So let, let's discuss it a bit more carefully. It says in when Hashem created Adam and, uh, Adam and Chava. He first created Adam, and then he... Adam went to... Was put to sleep, and then he separated, and he... Then, Hashem builds the the side, Adam.

14:01 Speaker 2 So the word can mean side. It can also mean a braid. And the way Chazal says, Hashem braided Chava's hair to bring her and to introduce her to Adam, to look at... to make her look attractive. And he says the word . He, he built. And on this basis, we learn that making a braid is considered boneh. And as we all f-are familiar, what is the definition of boneh? When you take, um, a ver-- a number of pa-- um, components, and you bring them together, and you make a structure, that's called boneh. So the, the braid, when you're taking se-- nu-numerous strands of hair and you're creating a structure, that comes under the issur of, the melacha of boneh. Of course, it's not a b-boneh min hatorah because it's not enduring indefinitely, but it is a issur of boneh. So here we have in Shulchan Aruch, . I'm bringing here from the Shulchan Aruch, not from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, because unfortunately, this is one of those pieces which are missing in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, the second part of Siman shin daled or daled shin. Yeah. So . A woman may not braid her hair on Shabbos. Nor to undo a braid. She's allowed to make a parting. And it's interesting, he has here the word sheitel, and the word sheitel here does not mean a, a wig, but it means here a parting. The notion of to separate. Anyway, so th-this is the source in Shulchan Aruch of not making a

15:42 Speaker 2 braid on Shabbos. The way I understand is that a braid is a structure which will stay. A... So, uh, but if it's just two... When you've got three, three, uh, uh, groups of hair, and they are braided in a way that you create a structure and that, that will keep, it has some kind of permanence to it or long endurance to it. With-- If you just t-twist two threads around one another, they're going to unravel. They don't have any, any . Of course, it depends what the quality of hair is, but it doesn't have much of a . So, uh, I don't see that as a problem. I don't think that's the issue of, of, um, of, of making a braid because it doesn't have any . The fact... So then I spoke to one of the girls, I was, I said, "Perhaps you're talking about you take two such braids on either side of the head, and then you join them together with a, with some kind of bobble or something." Okay, so then the bobble is holding it together. The, the braid is not a structure. If it doesn't have, it doesn't have the ability to hold itself, then I don't see that as a issue of, of, uh, of boneh on Shabbos. Okay, let's go on to something now. Jumping from, um, . Fascinating situation. A young lad is a shtikel collector. Oh, sorry. Before we go further, I said we're gonna look at the chat, so let's take a look at

17:04 Speaker 2 the chats. Is the screen share not switched on? Can you see the... Anyone, please. Can you see the screen?

17:17 Speaker 1 Um, it's not switched on. What-- It didn't say you were screen sharing.

17:21 Speaker 2 No. Okay. Couldn't see it. Couldn't see it. Okay. There we go. Okay. Better now? Is it visible now? Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Sorry. Okay, thank you for that feedback. Um, okay. Right. So, um, Rav Berklei mentions about the, the divine code with an introduction by Emmanuel Léchner. And there's also, I have a two-- I f-found it useful. There's a two-volume set called Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noach, I think, or it's, um- Sheva Mitzvos Hashem. As I said, I think there's a difference between if an individual publishes a book and when it's Lubavitch International. As a ma-- in my mind, I think there's a very big difference. If the, if Lubavitch prints it, it, it's, it's got a much, a bigger clout, so to speak, and therefore I understand why there would be the reaction to, to, to step back. An individual publishes a book, so what? There's, um, you know, thousands of books being published every day and so, you know. I don't s- don't think it's the same thing. Okay, let's come back to our, our topic. The question four on the, on the list is that there's a young lad who's a bit of a collector, and he picked up a, it's an old Gemara. And this Gemara had in it a name of the, a previous owner. He recognized it was some Rebbe Shneur. He didn't realize its, how, what value, what value it was. And he showed, showed it to someone who is a, is a Rebbe Shneur, someone, uh, in the

19:20 Speaker 2 Pelesh Rebbes. They're all intermarried in any case. So, um, so it happened to be s- some relative of his, and he bought it from him for a nom-- for a minimal sum, for some fifteen pounds. And now he looks, this lad now, ten years later, he looks and sees it's quite, it was, it would be worth several hundred pounds. So now he's asking the question, is he, has he been, uh, is there a issue of oino? Oino means you're not allowed to underpay. That's, you know, not allowed to cheat. So this very question has been discussed, or, or very similar question has been discussed in the, uh, by Rav, the late Rav Vosner, and we can read that inside. I was asked by a socher atikot, an antique, uh, dealer. He bought a, an antique book from a particular Yid, and the, this, the one who sold it knew that it was old. He knew it was an antique, and they, they paid the price for it. Then he, inside, when he came home with this antique book, this antique sefer, he sees that it's got some signature of some very prominent, um, gadol which, you know, shoots up the price of the sefer. And the one who sold it didn't know that he, he was, uh, that he had such a valuable. He knew it was an old sefer. He didn't realize it's got a, a particular value because it belonged to, uh, a, a well-known, a famous, um, gadol. Possibly he would, if

20:53 Speaker 2 he would have known, perhaps he also would... At any rate, so now he's asking, the one, the, the buyer is now going to Rav Vosner and asking, does he have to go and, and pay up, pay more or perhaps not, not so. And here's a fascinating psak of Rav Vosner. He says, when, when the, the, the first dealer, when he bought it, he bought something in his mind which was worth, let's say, a hundred shekel. Although in it there was a hidden value of a thousand shekel, but when he bought this article, he only bought a value of a hundred shekel. I want to share you a fascinate-- It's not exactly the same, but a similar situation. This is going back about thirty-something years ago, and a fellow who was working as a plumber inside a, a house here in Stamford Hill. And as plumbers need to do, they sometimes have to climb into places where most people don't, don't venture. So he was doing the plumbing, and he found somewhere tucked away in the woodwork. He found a bag of golden sovereigns. For those who are not part of the, uh, British Empire, golden sovereigns are old golden coins which would w- probably each be worth a hundred dollars each perhaps today or perhaps more. Um, uh, pardon my ignorance of the value of golden sovereigns today, but a very expensive, uh, thing. So now he asked, this plumber asked the question, does he have a chiyuv to tell the owner of the house,

22:35 Speaker 2 "I found these gold sovereigns in your, in, tucked away in your woodwork." And I looked into it at the time, and I came to the conclusion he does not have to. There's a concept called kinyan chatzer, and chatzer, kinyan chatzer means... There's a concept called kinyan chatzer, and but kinyan chatzer is only for the stuff which you anticipated that would be found, which, which could be anticipated. So you have sometimes an animal loses its way, it breaks its leg. Okay, that's one thing. But something which you didn't e-- would never have dreamt that it would-- wouldn't expect it to be, kinyan chatzer doesn't apply. So if any of us, uh, learned a bit of Gemara, we learned in Eruvin about stuff which the Amorim had, had left tucked into the houses. And let's say you bought a house from a pres- previous fellow who had, um, had, had a house from the Amorim which had a hidden treasure. It doesn't go back to the previous owner. When you bought, when he, when, uh, when you, when he bought the house and when you bought the house, you were not koneh those hidden treasures. You were koneh the things which were, which were obvious or close to obvious. The things which are totally hidden, you'd, you're not koneh. And so the Shevet Halevi, he takes this further. Not only kinyan chatzer doesn't work for the hid, but here, when, when the dealer bought a, a sefer with a hidden value, he was not koneh the hidden

24:00 Speaker 2 value. He was koneh the face value, not the hidden value, and therefore, he can't charge. He can't c- c-, you know, s- s-, um, claim that he was, uh, underpaid because he was never koneh that. And here's the n- the last part of that teshuvah. I, I skipped a whole alikhes. But towards the end, he says a very fascinating, another interesting variation of this. A fellow-- There's a beggar, and so someone sends his son, "Go to the beggar, give him, uh, a hundred shekel, and ask him for ninety shekel back." For those who are f- not familiar, shekel, uh, you got a ten shekel coin. So the fellow, the ya-- the lad comes back from the beggar with nine ten shekel coins. And this kid's fl- fiddling around with them. It turns out one of those coins was actually a gold coin. So now the shailah is, do they have to go back to the beggar and give him back his gold coin? And the psak was no. The psak was the beggar, when he received the gold coin, as far as he was concerned, it, it was a ten shekel coin. And so he was koneh a ten shekel, and therefore, there's no chiyuv. S- s- so coming back to our story with this, with this sefer, um, since you, you as the vendor did not realize the value of that which you had picked up, you can't, you can't claim onua, you can't claim that you were, you were misled when, uh, when

25:27 Speaker 2 you... as far as you were concerned, it was worth, um, you know, something, whatever it was, a reasonably, a much smaller amount than what you, what you now realize, but you didn't know about that, and therefore you were not coined of that extra value. It's a very interesting psak. Um, my sympathies are a little bit with the young lad, but that's, that was the psak. Okay. Here's now a, another quest which came up this week, and this is about using food for recreation. And I've had this a few times, that's why I wanted to spend... I spent a long time on this. So someone's asking, is there midas chasedes? Is there midas chased...? I'm not, I'm not sure. Uh, midas, I'm, I'm not sure of the, of the guidelines over here with midas chasedes. Uh, you give him some kind of extra bim, a little bit more, but... Okay. So coming back to, uh, this, this point, um, five. It's a very common thing. People use, uh, food for, say, sometimes lentils and make, uh, pictures with them, and they use, uh, beans for, beans for bean hunts. And, um, and then you, you, if you want to know how to make Play-Doh, you take flour, and you make Play-Doh. So all of these things raise the question: are you allowed to, uh, is there an issue with, with making these, these products? Uh, so now, where do you find this halacha? So it's actually in the dinim of, of brochos on food, et cetera.

26:58 Speaker 2 So we have the famous lashon hagamara. So I'm reading from the middle of the, of the screen. You are allowed to do your needs with bread, but the proviso of . It has to be that the bread does not get spoiled. But if it's the bread's gonna get spoiled, lo, you're not allowed to use it, even though you want it. So this is the hilchot. You shouldn't put raw meat on a piece of bread. You shouldn't pass a full cup over a, a loaf of bread or a slice of bread. You shouldn't use a piece of bread to prop up your bowl of soup. The boo-- soup will spill. It was, it, it will, um, spoil the bread. And then he says you're not allowed to wash your hands with wine, whether it's neat or whether it's, whether it's, uh, been diluted, even not to do with netilat for, for food, for bread. And then he has about not, not throwing bread. So here we're seeing that there's something about not using, not, not, um, she-sheain zocheh. You're not allowed to be, um, um, make food in a way that it sh-should spoil. Okay. So this is the way the Magen-- This is the She'echah Naruch. Now let's talk, look at the side to the right, and here we have the Magen Avrohom. Now, it says in the Gemara, he quotes from Shabbos daf kuf ches, I think, that . A person may dip a piece of bread in wine, and he puts it onto

28:44 Speaker 2 his eye. Ah. So that's some kind of, uh, soothing of the eye. So you see that even though, of course, bread soaked in wine is not, um, pleasant to eat, but if it's for medic-medical reason, that's okay. So that meanwhile, we've got to prove that for medical reasons it's okay. Then he goes on, and he says, You learn in the Gemara that they would sprinkle wine on the ground to make a nice fragrance in the house, and they would make sometimes other dips or, or even for soaking other things, and they would sometimes anoint themselves with wine or oil, and that wasn't for a medical reason. So now, so what's the heter? So he quotes now the Lashon HaRambam. You shouldn't spoil food in a, in a dismissive, in a, in a, in a disgraceful way. Says the Magen Avrohom, But if there's a human need being fulfilled, that's not called in a dis-- in a, in a spiteful or whatever the way it is, whatever the right word is, and therefore, that's okay. That's what the Magen Avrohom is coming to the conclusion. And then he quotes, uh, and that's in the, the be-- in the first part of the Magen Avrohom. Then later on, he addresses something about, it says in the Gemara about not squeezing olives onto your skin to, uh, and so he asks, "And that's because you're, you're spoiling the olives." Here you just said, if it's for anointing yourself, you are allowed to. There, it says you're not allowed

30:27 Speaker 2 to. So the Magen Avrohom says, that's talking about when he's got some other creams, he's got some soaps or something, therefore you shouldn't. I mean, he's got an alternative. But when he doesn't have an alternative, it looks from the Magen Avrohom, then you would be allowed. So this is the Magen Avrohom. Now, let's go to the Mishnah Berurah, refers to his own words in Bier Halacha. So you can... It's again just beneath the Magen Avrohom. That we've said that the Mishnah Berurah g- came up with a new solution to the question. And he says, "If it's derech ha-olam to do this, it's okay." So he comes up with a new solution. Again, what's the problem? We're finding in the Gemara various things where you are allowed to use- Food for other purposes other than eating. So the, so the, um, Mishnah Berura comes up with a solution. If that's the derech ha'olam, that's, that's okay, and that he proves from the sugya of pat soyazayim, of sp- of, of crushing the olives onto your skin, which the Magen Avraham brings it. And the Magen Avraham says that the reason there is because you could use soap, but that's... he doesn't like that answer. No, um, w- m- y- you find that you're allowed to put on oil, and we don't say you can only put on oil if you don't have soap. We must say, says Mishnah Berura, that when it comes to derech ha'olam, if that's the normal behavior, then that's okay. That's not

31:48 Speaker 2 called bizuy ochel. Whereas crushing date, um, um, olives, which have oil, that's not the normal be- uh, normal human behavior to do that, and therefore it's forbidden. It looks at that as disgraceful. So here we're seeing two, um, two paths. One is saying that you are allowed to use foods for other things, um, if you don't have a, a non-food alternative. That's Magen Avraham. Mishnah Berura is saying, so long as it's derech ha'olam, that would be okay. If it's not derech ha'olam, it's not okay. The Magen-- Alter Rebbe, you have, can see on the top on the right side, the Alter Rebbe ob- u- as is usual, he follows the Magen Avraham, and he's talking about using, um, various liquids. I think it's from Ma'amar Chreinim, if I'm not mistaken. Um, He talks about using various l- using, uh, various liquids, and then he says a third opinion says that even wine would be kosher netilat yadayim, but you shouldn't do so because of zilzal. And then in the brackets, he says, other liquids you are allowed to use im ein lo yimayim. So here he's saying the same thing as the Magen Avraham, that to use orange juice for netilat yadayim when you don't have water would be okay. So he seems to be saying the same as the Magen Avraham, that although obviously to use-- it's not derech ha'olam to use orange juice for washing your hands, but you are allowed to do so if you don't have, if you don't have water.

33:27 Speaker 2 So now th- then let's go down to the bottom of the page. We have this. Everyone quotes the Ben Ish Chai. Ben Ish Chai writes the following, that y- about the, the issur of throwing foods for choson kalah, it's for entertainment. And then he says the third line, "They make for the night of the bris, they prepare a table which has got anafim, it's got branches and ferns and, and, and flowers. To make a, a flower display, very nice. But the goyim, how did they hold of a flower display? So now they use sponges or something. Then they would make a dough. They would make a dough with flour, and they use that dough as the anchor to put in the ferns and the flowers. Then he says another thing. They take also a, a fruit called numi. Numi is apparently the Arabic word for, for lemons. I saw this in a later edition of the, uh, Ben Ish Chai. And they take it, a, a, uh, a kind of a lemon or orange or a rimon, which has got like a firmness to it, and they would put-- they would prick the various-- They make use this as the base for the display. And he says, obviously, these fruits which are used as the display, they are certainly getting spoiled by doing so. So he takes exception to this, and he says, "You shouldn't use fruit to, as, as display, um, which... in, as a display which is going to spoil them." So

35:11 Speaker 2 what's, what's, what, what, what, what are we, what we ge- getting from all of this? That if there is a, a non-food alternative available, then to use food would actually be, uh, coming into a, uh, a issur of bizuy ochel and it's not derech ha'olam, and there's not this, no, no. So l- the examples which I have on the list, to use tomato paste, tomato paste as paint. So it's, it's a ochel, and to use it, even though it's not a full, uh, not a ready food, it's not a food ready to eat now, but it's-- everyone knows that, that tomato paste is used to make food, for food. To use that as paint would be, l'chatchila, according to both the Mishnah Berura and the, uh, Magen Avraham, would be g- g- going to the ghetto of bizuy ochel. You ha-- It's not derech ha'olam, and it's, and there are alternatives. And similarly, about making, um, using potatoes, for example, as stamps. You want to make stamps and make pictures and cut out from a potato and make it and then dip it in watercolors and, and then dip it onto paper. So according to these l'chatchilas, it, it wouldn't be correct. You know the famous stories of the, uh, people taking potatoes and making them into lamps for a menorah. All right, if they didn't have anything else, so M- Mishnah Berura would still not be agreeable. But according to the, uh, Magen Avraham, the Alter Rebbe, if you have nothing else, then you

36:30 Speaker 2 could use foods. And so you, uh, may have heard a story of someone who took a piece of bread and blocked a hole, a leak, that the dam shouldn't overflow. When there's nothing else to, to... So in, uh, when you're desperate, then there are nothing, no alternative, then that would be legitimate. But when there is an, uh, um, a, uh, when there is an, uh, an, uh, a not, a reasonably available alt- alternative, then to use foods for these things, it doesn't seem to be corre- correct.

36:54 Speaker 3 Dan, would that apply to those toys that children have with a potato, they put in funny faces and different types of faces, the peels and-

37:02 Speaker 2 Uh, I, I, I think it... the question is, would it be used afterwards? And, um, s- I see here that a couple of people are saying, the, the people are older than me are saying that, um, using potatoes as stamps is a very old practice. Um, derech ha'olam. Um, I don't know. I, I think, uh, the, by default when you-- people buy potatoes, the pashtas, they are not being, being bought for stamps. They're being bought as... It's people are taking food and using it for other things. Uh, I, I don't know. Is it a Yiddish minhag or is it just a, like, those who cut out faces from, uh, pumpkins? It's, uh, it's lavdavka minhag Yisrael. I, I once... I don't know if any of you remember. There was a Yid here called a Russian fellow, passed away many years ago. His name was Kruglyak, and he told me that before he knew anything about Yiddishkeit, there was something, um, which somehow he-- someone told him, "Are you Jewish?" And what, what was it? It was that at the end of the meal, to gather the crumbs and put them together and, and dispose of them in a re-- in, in a, uh, respectable way. And the goyim would be-- they would just throw it onto the floor, and the Yidden would have this minhag of gathering the crumbs. And it looks like a part of our culture is, is, is a, a greater respect for food. And I was thinking a lot, I mean,

38:34 Speaker 2 what, what... Food is, it-- What's... Why is food so, so sacred? We have So we see, in the food we see that it's got a, uh, motzi pi Hashem, and so, uh, I guess there's a, there's a certain s- the word sacred, uh, uh, aspect to it. But, uh, we see here strong words not to, not to be, uh, mevazeh achilat. Now, I see here my good friend from, from Sumy in, uh, in Ukraine, he says, "In camp they build a Beis HaMikdash with sugar cubes." Okay. Um, all right. Uh, uh, Okay. Okay. Let, let, let's go further. Right. Here we come to a question about tevilas keilim, and here's a, a, uh, shliach, and he's w- planning ahead. He wants to do a, a coffee evening and, uh, rachmanut island with these lockdowns. So, um, you can't get people together for coffee evening. So his idea was to send around to each house to send a, a mug, which will have a special, uh, graphic, whatever, specially for the occasion, and also a blender. And, uh, then each house, they will, you know, and everyone will make a coffee together and blend it and, and it will be a, a wonderful thing. The shailah is sending around these things, what does he do about tevilas keilim? The problem, the what's the question that there's a, uh, the, you know, kedem, when they... Before they put the, you fill the fish in their jars, they don't toivel their jars, and I don't think they get

40:28 Speaker 2 them from a Jewish manufacturer. What's, what's the thing? Uh, uh, klei z... If, if the only thing that you have to toivel is klei seudah, and stuff which is not klei seudah, if it's not for your personal use, you're not mechuyav to toivel. Ad ke'ikkar, the many, uh, many poskim take the view that if you go-- that the shopkeeper cannot toivel the stuff in his shop before the customer has bought it. Uh, I used to go to Domestic Source on, on Old Hill Street. Rabbi Zishiv would ves, ke'levav shalom. He said, "First you pay for it, and then we'll toivel it." Because... And, and, uh, so this is, is, is it, it... So then how-- Here becomes the question: Can you toivel... Now, th-these people who are getting the, in this, this, uh, coffee evening, many of them are likely never gonna see a mikvah. And so now becomes another question: Can you give them an ontoeveld keilim? So when you've got a one bar mitzvah boy is one thing. So you can take it and be, uh, this eitzah. Shlomo Zalman perhaps talks about it, that, um, you toivel it. You first give it to the secretary to be koain on behalf of this bar mitzvah boy, and then when he picks up the, when the bachur is ready, he's ready, he is before it's toevelled. But here's a different story. Here you've got, let's say, a hundred people, but you're gonna bring each one a, a cu- a mug and a blender, and,

41:44 Speaker 2 uh, what do you mean you're gonna toivel each one l'shem, um, Susan Goldberg, and this one's gonna be a l'shem, uh, Ma-Marianne or whatever it may be. It's, it's, it's all not, it's totally impractical. So here the question is: Could we be koain a... when, uh, the, the, these mugs and the blenders. The mugs, this is a lesser problem, because mugs are not really chayav b'tevilah. Uh, it's not. The glazing perhaps, but if it was a glass, it would be a chiyuv d'Rabonon. But here about the blender, blender is, is, is, is a metal thing. It's a chayav, it's chayav b'tevilah. Could we somehow buy those blenders and be koain to them on behalf of each rece-- whoever it rece-- wherever it will land, it would be, have been koain, been bought for them. And that concept is called bereiah. So you say that whoever it lands in their possession, we'll say l'chatchilah it was already bought for them, it's been, been koain, uh, was acquired for them. So the, this kind of bereiah is, there's a, is, is used for a din d'Rabonon. If it's a din d'Oraita, so we will not allow the, uh, the use of bereiah. If it's a din d'Rabonon, bereiah would be acceptable. So now we have to look at tevilah. Is tevilah a din d'Rabonon or a din d'Oraita? So here I've got here from the Ateret B'sucha Nachoruch, and it's Derech Agav, obviously, in Siman Shin chaf Gimel. And so we have here about toiveling keilim on

43:11 Speaker 2 Shabbos. So he says, the first opinion is that you are allowed to toivel a keilim on Shabbos. And it's not called metaken keilim, not fixing the keilim, because it was usable before without tevilah. And the chirvov tevilah is midrabbonon. Now, those who disagree. And then the second, uh, but further on in that paragraph, it says, "Ve'ein socher loima ledivrei oim shetevilas keilim m'min haTorah." There are those who hold tevilas keilim is m'min haTorah. And therefore, we-- so the, the maise, we don't tovel keilim on Shabbos. But what we're seeing here, the weight is more to say that tevilas keilim is a din rabbonon. And when it says, kol davar, uh, bechol asher lo yovo eish, um, ya, ya tavir ba moeyim, it's not talking about tevilas keilim, it's talking about, um, it's talking about kashering. I didn't re-read now the sicha, which the Rebbe spoke when Rabbi Dayan Fish was in there, and which is printed in the Kuntress Sichos. I didn't look at it, at it now. But here you see from the Alter Rebbe, the weight is more to say that tevilas keilim is a din rabbonon, and therefore it should be okay to rely on the concept of braira. And therefore, when he... the shliach wants to buy all these blenders, when he buys them and is koina them, he has in mind that I'm buying it now for whoever it is going to land up, it should be theirs from this moment. So, when he's koina, it is already theirs, l'mafreia.

44:32 Speaker 2 And them, um, yeah. Right. Shlomo Fuchs is writing on the, uh, chat about e-excess bread. Is it, is putting it into a pa-- opaque bag, then into the rubbish okay? I think that's what's actually done in, by the caterers. You see at the end of the, uh, chasunas, they go around with these waiters, and they put them in a bag. I guess that's the best they can do. Right. Um, um, someone's writing, he was a mashgiach in a restaurant, and there were quite a few times they had two porters who were Muslims, whose responsibility was washing the dishes in the dishwasher. And before they put the dishes in the dishwasher, they had to clear the plates and thr-throw the leftovers in the bin. They would not throw away any leftover bread and left it to one side for other people to deal with. Okay. Well, we're over Chachmeini. Okay. Um, so Rab Aryeh is suggesting that we buy the blenders for ourselves and tovel them. Well, yeah, that's a little bit... Are we gonna start blending it, making a hundred coffees with your blenders, uh, be-between now and Purim? Evsh-- All right. Let's move on. Here again, this is a question which I got from overseas. Baruch Hashem, a very beautiful front door. And he's asking two questions. One question is about mezuzah, and the other one question is about Shabbos. So as you see, this, uh, front door, it looks like there's no front garden which has got a, a mechitza. So the question

46:14 Speaker 2 is, if it's under, if I'm gonna be... If it's under the, the, the roofed area, where I'm pointing now with the, uh, with the arrow, is he allowed to carry there? Is he allowed to carry from the house and stand over here? Is he allowed to carry from here into the house, et cetera? This is the one question. The other question, now, I use the word stoop. That's an American word for this, this, um, front area, the steps in front of the house. The Americans, um, created another word in English called stoop. All right. So, uh, standing on the stoop, is that reshus hayachid or is it not a reshus hayachid? And then the question is, does this area need to have a mezuzah? So, let's take one thing at a time. No, so we don't have it here. Let's go back. Right. So, there is a concept in... Uh, so-sorry I didn't bring, have the Shulchan Aruch on the screen. It's in Siman shin, nun, vav. And w-the, the way it's written in Shulchan Aruch is, there's a concept called pi tikro yored v'sois. Which means that the edge of the roof is as if it comes down, and if it cr-- as if it creates a barrier. So, looking at the screen here, it's as if over here, where I'm, where I'm pointing to, which is the lip of that roof, I'm not even sure where this is, but that would create a barrier, and therefore, this has got four mechitzas, by virtue

47:45 Speaker 2 of pi tikro. So strictly speaking, min ha-din, you are allowed to carry here. However, the Shulchan Aruch says that if this didn't, this, if this stoop area had less than four tefachim, it would not be a, it would not be identified as a separate reshus. And therefore, it would remain as a karmelis, and you wouldn't be allowed to carry there. The Shulchan Aruch continues, and therefore, even if your s- your, this area, this pi tikro, uh, is, is more than four tefachim, but people get confused. And the way it's comes fairly clear in Shulchan Aruch is that you would not be allowed to carry in this area. So again, this is open to the street. The street is, uh, there is reshus harabim or karmelis. This area, which doesn't have a proper separation from the street, has got, min ha-din it is a reshus hayachid, but the Shulchan Aruch says not to carry there because of the confusion of sometimes people have a similar arrangement, which is less than, less than, uh, four tefachim wide. That is as far as the, uh, the question of, of, of carrying on Shabbos. The next question is about mezuzah. And I often walk up, up and down the streets here in, uh, in Tottenham, and I see you have many houses have got a front door, and in front of the front door, there's like a kind of porch. And I see a stirrup. Sometimes they put the mezuzah over here by the, by the door. Sometimes they

49:21 Speaker 2 put the mezuzah on the masonry. And then you've got those who've got a mezuzah on the masonry and on the door. And it's all within about five houses of one another. I'm not gonna tell you the addresses, but never mind. Um, and what's tutzedah? So does, does this, does-- This is a very common situation, where you've got a wider entrance, and then it narrows. And the question is, does the mezuzah go at the widest point? Imagine you've got a fancy entrance, it's three meters wide, and then it's got architraves and whatever, what have you, and the actual door is one, one, uh, one twenty wide. Let's say. Where does the mezuzah go? At the width of the three meters or, or at the one twenty? And it looks like, now there's a discussion in Poskim, it looks like the main halacha where you walk through, and that would r-really be the narrowest point. So the mezuzah belongs over here. The, the issues are, in, in addition, although I said there's a Machloket Poskim about this, if you put another mezuzah here, you might actually be in violation of Bal Tosif, to having two mezuzahs on one door. If there's only, there's only one Chiyuv, you're going into a issue of Bal Tosif. That's one, um, way t-not to put a mezuzah there. Another issue, which is Mitzvah, Halakhic, not to put a mezuzah, is the Shitah Harambam is that in m-- a doorway which does not have a door is not Chayav by mezuzah. And

50:56 Speaker 2 therefore, Shitah Harambam, it's bottom in a mezuzah in any case. Few of those who say it is Chayav, yes, you, you can see, like, make like a kind of sfek sfeika. It's lav davka that it belongs over here. It makes... It possibly belongs over here. And as they say, more n-more note that the mezuzah belongs at the narrowest plate b-because that's the point where you walk through. So in, in the, uh, in the notes, I have here a reference to a Sefer called Sechel Tov, and that is, in my... For myself, one of the, uh, best seforim on, on mezuzah. You've got-- Everyone's familiar with, uh, Chayyei Olam and Mezuzas Melachim, and, uh, there's another one, Pesicha Orim or, right, so whatever, they're from Rosh Hashanah. Um, this, this Sechel Tov is a phenomenal malacha-malachit, and, um, he takes this view and... Right. So, um, um, that's, you know, one has to have-- make up sak. I think I mentioned this before. I heard once a hesber. Why do we say the Parposut or the Bracha L'Ikbiya mezuzah? And if you put up several mezuzahs, when you put up several tefilin, you say Al Tefillās tefilin. When you put up several mezuzahs, you just say L'Ikbiya mezuzah. Why not L'Ikbiya, L'Ikbiya mezuzahs? So the, there is a Shitah in one of the Geonim, apparently, who says, it says in the Poskim. No, not Geonim, earlier. It, it says, it says, "Am mezuzah is beser. Besertam am mezuzah is beser." So there is a Shitah, perhaps

52:18 Speaker 2 a Yesha, maybe some obscure Shitah, that you should have a mezuzah on both sides. When Chazal coin the Parpo- the Bracha, Al mezu- L'Ikbiya mezuzah, they also wanted to confirm one mezuzah, not two. That's on both sides. And sim-similarly, not to have two mezuzahs on one doorway. See, you, you'd be over in Bal Tosif by having two mezuzahs on one door, on one doorway, and therefore, you know, when, uh, in doubt, apparently, do without. Okay. Someone is w-pointing out that this st- this definition of mezu-mezuzah pesach is also not clear. I think you're right because it doesn't... This, the verticals come over here, and then it looks like the, the, the ceiling is extending a little bit further. I couldn't see that clearly and there, and therefore, no. Um, so again, about, uh, carrying, the answer is n- that the Shechem HaKadosh says you shouldn't carry over here bec-uh, because of those who have a shir of, um, of, uh, less than daas tochim. So it's like a, like a gezeirah. Um, and as I said, mezuzah, one shouldn't put up mezuzah. So now someone's asking: Is there an easy solution to make it mutar to carry? L'chozeret, I'm, I'm thinking that perhaps putting up an extra lechi over here, a pole, perhaps, uh, like you have door handles or, you know, like, you know, grab handles over here. Perhaps if you have a grab handle going ten tochim from, from here somewhere, going down till within three tochim of the ground, that would be

53:51 Speaker 2 a lechi. That would c-be, be, um, satisfy as a fourth wall. That's what I'm, I'm thinking of at the moment. Someone is pointing out to the side, this is a pillar. That's true. Um, and he actually asked, which you can see over here, it's, it's, um, there's, like, a bit of a gap over here. And he-- I asked him, "How wide is this space?" So this space between the, the white, the two white edgings over here was eleven inches, so it's too narrow to be called a pesach. On the other hand, he said, "Can-- But how can you say it's just a pillar? It's not even a wall." I think it's a little bit more than just a pillar. Uh, it's not just a column. To me, it's, it's more like a, uh, a wall, and so I wasn't satisfied just to be matir on that case, on that basis. All right. We've got one more question on our list, and that is about, um, um, someone called me up on, was it Thursday or Friday? And the question is that, if you make several cakes and you put them, and each one is made less than a shir halach, and then they were all put into the freezer, does the freezer, um, make them into a chiyuv halach? So we know that there is a concept called siruv sal, which means that the basket, um, takes... If you have numerous quantities of dough or bread, which e-each one was less than a shir halach,

55:12 Speaker 2 you put them all into one basket, so then they become chayav halach then. And that's actually the, the standard practice in the matzah bakeries. They don't take halach off the dough in the matzah bakery for the simple reason they want to get those matzahs into the oven as quick as possible. But, so they make... Each batch of dough is made davka less than a shir halach. But then they, as the matzahs come out of the oven, they, they are put onto, uh, some kind of trolley or shelves, and at a later stage, I saw this in the, um, you know, the bakery there, Dabrowski and, uh, was it Korff, uh, on, on Troy Avenue. At, at some stage, they take a cloth, and they cover a whole batch of matzahs, and they, what they used, the concept of siruv sal. And then they, they, as if they were all in one container, and then they take halach. So now the question is whether- Now you've made separate cakes and put them all into the freezer. Now, the freezer is like a one big basket. Now they make them into one, one big, uh, batch, and should make a challah. So a couple of points here. Number one, there is a on the fact that people don't take challah from lekach. And he explains that although the berachah is mezonos, but if not for the , we would say actually that the cakes are more shhakol than mezonos. He's talking about a very sweet cake, like

56:34 Speaker 2 a, like a lekach, which has got... He, he seems to be de-describing it as, uh, uh, more, more honey than, than, than, uh, than flour. That would probably be true for, like, chocolate brownies. Now, as far as I know, the recipe for chocolate brownies is there's more sugar, sugar than, than, than flour. And here, certainly for that, the certainly apply that it's, it's more as a sweet. We make it a mezonos because the halakha is that mezonos becomes ikar, but it's, it's really, it's more a, it's a, it's a shhakol in that sense. Having said that, in most houses, when, when you make a challah, you make a cake, it doesn't have a shir. In the bakeries, I've checked this out. I mean, the bakery, they are mafrish challah because the bakeries, they make much larger trays of, of cake, and they are mafrish challah in the bakeries. Um, I think they actually do it from the batter rather than from the finished cakes. Okay. And, um, but coming back to our question. So this, what you have in front of you is a tshuva from the late Rav Falk from Gateshead. Uh, uh, tremendous, uh, talmud chacham, and his, his way he takes things apart and, and is, uh, you know, really very, very impressive. So he's got a whole long discussion about this question, about does the freezer make them into, uh, one batch. And I'm just, I'm just quoting here his conclusion. That the loaves to become one batch, then the loaves

58:08 Speaker 2 have to touch. Now, here they are in plastic bags, so they're not really touching. Um, um, um, uh, . So one thing, they're not touching. Another point is that they are actually in separate containers, and therefore, the fact that they are in a larger outer keli doesn't make them into one, one batch. And he's discussed this at length. There's also another argument, which is not necessarily always the case, that is a freezer called a keli. Now, generally, there's a halakha in Shabbos and other places that if it contains more than forty se'ah, it doesn't qualify as a keli. So I, I can't rely on that because some freezers are actually smaller, smaller chest freezers or whatever. And then you're gonna ask if it's a double door freezer, do you look at each one separately? So at that-- to say that, uh, that a freezer is always going to be more than forty se'ah, I can't, uh, say that as a blanket statement. But we have other arguments to say that since everyone puts the stuff in the freezer in ba-in bags, and the bags keep the, the, uh, cakes separate from one another, then therefore they do not combine as a shir challah. And, uh, right. Um, just to finish off, I'm, I, I can't resist this, about this whole business with the lockdown, um, about communal prayer. when you're davening the Amida, there's also kein yechidei moitzim. And it's not communal prayer, but each one is davening. The fact that everybody is, uh, davening

59:39 Speaker 2 to that second house, but that's not called communal prayer. Communal prayer is, is, uh, . Everyone will daven, and the Rebbe shall also help in which the from them goddess and, uh, communal prayer.

1:00:01 Speaker 4 Good luck.

1:00:04 Speaker 2 I'm asking, are you saying you can't daven, you can't have a, a chazar shashats? I'm saying even as your chazar shashats, you should have in mind you're not moitzi anyone. a communal prayer. That's, that's my-