פנורמה של הלכה 5

00:06 Speaker 1 A gute vokh. Start the shiur. And welcome to you all for joining, who are joining us. I hope you can hear me. Can you s-- Yeah. Raise your hand if you can hear me. Good. And can you see this screen also, the, you joined the shared screen? Wonderful. Okay. Right. So, let's start with the first thing on our agenda. Someone sent me this picture. Of the-- Well, he was-- He lives in Eretz Israel. One of the people who join our shiur regularly from Eretz Israel. And his son was-- gave his tefillin to a sofer to check, and the sofer did the kesher, as you see it over here. And he's asking, where does that come from? And is it, is it any, any, any question about it? The sofer said that that's how the Rebbe's kesher was. So, what I have at the side here. And the other two pictures are my own, from my own tefillin. And as you see where it comes over here, there's only one circuit on both, both of these. Whereas over here in the, in the picture, which is, uh, he sent me, there's two circuits over here. So actually, I told him I don't see any... Uh, gen-generally, I'm quite careful, and I don't like to answer shailas about sofris. It's a very specialized field. I don't see any, any question, any hesitation, halachah about it. But, uh, meanwhile, today I actually spoke with one of the soferim here, my, uh, good friend, Rabbi Aharon Tiefenbrun, and he

02:04 Speaker 1 said he, uh, had some observations about this. So I think I'm going to keep, keep shtum until I get great, greater clarity on this. But there is... In other words, there's different ways of making a kesher. What I also would like to point out is that there's different ways of the, the right strap, which is what I'm pointing to over here. So there's one way that it's, it's exposed at the back of the kesher, which makes it easy if you want to adjust the tefillin, the chi-- size of the strap. Here we have how the diagonal is blocking, which makes it harder to adjust the, this, the, uh, girth of the strap. The Mishnah Berurah seems to be a little bit unhappy about making it accessible this way, but, um, Rabbi Meir Zurkin, whose father was a sofer in Carn Hatzor, um, Rabbi Eliezer Zurkin, alav ha-shalom, he tells me that the Rebbe, he did have the strap in this way that makes it easier to adjust. Okay. But let's not get into, to that. As I said, I'd like to leave that for when-- once I get greater clarity from Rabbi Tiefenbrun. And meanwhile, I want to share with you something which is not on the agenda, and that is we say in bentching. When we bentch, we say, on the weekdays, we say Al Naharos Bavel. On Shabbos or other times when we don't say Tachnun, we say Shir Hama'alos. Really, they're both serving the same purpose. That we have-- When we, we're

03:40 Speaker 1 going to, um, uh, we've eaten and we've, we, you know, we're happy that we're satisfied, so we want to remember Yerushalayim. And so Al Naharos Bavel is remembering Yerushalayim, and Shir Hama'alos, veshuva Shomer Shivas Tzion is remembering Yerushalayim. The only difference is one is in the way of joy, and the other one is the way of, of, of, uh, mourning, of grief. So it's-- They are both, it's both serving the same purpose. So in a day of, when there's a day of joy, we say Shir Hama'alos. When it's a day where it's, uh, not such a... N-no special cause for simcha, so we say Al Naharos Bavel. Fine. But then in, in the Chabad siddur, and this is also in, in, uh, from the Ari Zal. In Siddur Ari Zal or various sources, to say Lamnatzeach B'neginos Mitzrayim. On the... Sh-when we say Shir Hama'alos, we also say Lipnei Choier. When we say Shi-- um, Al Naharos Bavel, we say also Lamnatzeach B'neginos Mitzrayim. And I've been searching to find why is it that we're saying that chapter of Lamnatzeach B'neginos Mitzrayim. We are familiar that Lamnatzeach B'neginos Mitzrayim is said alongside with the Sefiras HaOmer. And Lamnatzeach B'neginos Mitzrayim, take off the first four, f-five words, the rest of the chapter has got forty-nine words, and we s-- we kind of emphasize one of those words for each night of Sefiras HaOmer. There's-- It's called Mizmor HaMenorah or Shir HaMenorah. That this chapter, samech zayin in Tehillim, uh, is associated particularly with the menorah.

05:30 Speaker 1 Uh, incidentally, that is actually the Shir Tehillim, which on Yom Yom Yerid Beis, it's the Shir Tehillim of today. And I saw in Seforim that in addition to the fact it has forty-nine words, looking at the menorah itself, the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, as it's described in such detail in Parashat Terumah, had forty-nine features. So, so listen carefully. Each, each of the, uh, branches has got three cups. Plus another one down near the bottom of the, of the menorah. So that means twenty-two cups. Then there were... There were, um, s-- then there were, uh, nine bloss-- nine, nine, um, bowls. Nine, uh, um, nine, nine round bowls. And then there are eleven, eleven blossoms. So let's count that up. S-sorry. Um, yeah, uh, so again, sorry. There's ele-eleven, there's eleven, eleven bowls because where the menorah, where the branches meet together, they are those bowls, the kaftorim. So there are eleven kaftorim. There are nine prachim. So nine and eleven equals twenty. Plus the twenty-two cups. So twenty and twenty-two equals forty-two. Plus the seven branches. So you have, in all, you have forty- forty-nine, uh, details of the menorah. So again, the menorah has the number forty-nine kind of built in, and this mizmor has got forty-nine words. This is all very beautiful, but what's that got to do with saying... What's that got to do with saying it where before we bench? So that was really what was bothering me. So why we say this in association with good. And, um, for

07:38 Speaker 1 those who dabble a little bit in Kabbalah, you may know that has got to do with elevation. So we have many times we say . we say, uh, um, by and we say it by s- by, um, Kabbalah Shabbos. When there's a moment, by , when there's a moment of elevation, we say . We also say we say it by, um, at . But there, somehow it becomes . So back to our question. Why are we saying this chapter of K- of, of, uh, ? Was it, was it? Sorry, yeah. You see at the top it says . So in, in, in Sephardic Siddur this is very, very standard. In Ashkenazic Siddur it's not so common. But there is this idea of saying the, saying, saying the, um, mizmor, this mizmor and having in mind the, uh, union of c- of the menorah. So as I say, I'm, I'm looking for explanation. And so now going back. Okay, let's go back. Yeah. So this came to mind today and I'm, I'm really, um, if someone has a better explanation, I'm very happy to hear. We have, when it goes to the details of the building of the Mishkan. So it has here . The table in the, in the sh- in the, in the Mishkan should be outside of the curtain before the Kodesh HaKodashim. The menorah is on to, on, on the south side opposite the shulchan. The passage is like really a bit of a puzzle. Why is it so long-winded? It could

09:27 Speaker 1 have said, "The shulchan should be on the north side and the menorah should be on the south side opposite the shulchan." It could have saved another five, four or five words. So there seems to be something about the menorah radiating light to the table. And so this is just... Now, now this is my conjecture. That you have a, you have a table, and you've eaten your meal, and you want to bring kedushah into the meal. You want to bring an element of kedushah. So by saying this capital tehillim, so you're like, you're bringing the light of Torah to the meal. So the b- say, the, the, uh, saying the k- the Mizmor HaMenorah is like bringing the light of Torah, the light of kedushah to your meal. So then you ask, "Why on the Shabbos and a Yom Tov you don't need it?" Possibly when it's a seudat mitzvah, like a Shabbos and a Yom Tov, so it's already a seudat mitzvah, so it's already kind of got the light of kedushah on it, therefore it's not necessary to say this capital tehillim. But w-when it comes to a, a regular weekday meal, so we say this chapter of tehillim to bring as if the light of Torah, the light of kedushah, to, uh, en-enhance the, and elevate the meal which we're eating. As I say, um, if someone has a, uh, better, uh, um, a, a clearer explanation, I'm really, um, all ears to hear. Let's go on. The next question on my list

10:55 Speaker 1 here is that a... Someone has a cleaning lady, and the cleaning lady took the wine. There was a bottle of wine in the fridge, which was not mevushal, which wasn't boiled wine, and the, she handled it. And the question is: Can you use it? Can you use it for Kiddush? So now we have a term called yayin nesech. Yayin nesech means wine which has been consecrated by an act for worship, for Avodah Zarah, for i-i-idol worship. And of course, anything which is used for worship becomes asur b'hanah, becomes... You're not allowed to have benefit from it. If a goy handles wine, handles wine means he actually swishes his finger in the wine, then he actually makes the wine asur. But if the goy just picks up the bottle, that on, on a l- in, on its own would not be enough under normal circumstances to make the wine forbidden. Then there is a next step, and that is where Al Pi Kabbalah- There is something if a Nochri sees wine, and by seeing the wine, he causes a Pagim, causes a, a, uh, blemish to the wine. This is mentioned in a Med-- in a Sefer called Tell Talpiyot, subsequently brought by the Shala. And so many people are particular to cover the wine. Now, wine we're talking about which is not Mevurchel. And so some say not to use that wine altogether. Some say just for Kiddush not to use that wine. So there you are. That, that if she handled this bottle of

12:42 Speaker 1 wine and po-- likely saw the wine, so then there would be Mokim LeChumra not to use it, not to use it for Kiddush. But Min Hadin, strictly speaking, the wine is Mut. I must share with you one of my favorite stories, you know, one of my, uh, experiences. I got a call on Erev Rosh Hashanah from a Shliach in California, and I don't know whether I've told this story over this, um, program. And the story was that they had... It was about two o'clock in the morning in California, and that's why he couldn't get a, uh, a Rav who he would dare to telephone at two o'clock in the morning. So, um, so he calls, uh, Europe. So what had happened, he has a Goyishe chef who's preparing, and they're preparing. This is about three, four years ago, perhaps more. And they were preparing for Rosh Hashanah, expecting about eighty people. And so there's a Goy working in the kitchen. And as good cooks do, you add wine to the cooking. It so happened that the bottle of wine which he used was non-Mevurchel wine, and he'd poured all, poured it all over these, uh, you know, eighty portions or more of chicken, and he put them all roasting in the oven. And now what does he do? So, big problem. So according to my understanding of the Halacha now, at the time I wasn't, uh, knowledgeable enough in that, and I'd asked someone else who said it was not okay. Having learned Halacha since

14:18 Speaker 1 more carefully, just the mere fact that the Goy handled the wine and poured it over the chi-- the chickens would not be enough to make the chickens Oser. But what you may not want to know is that good chefs, when they scatter the wine over the chickens, et cetera, they will put their finger to give it a bit of a biological taste, and they will scat-- put their finger in front of the bottle as then they'll... In other words, they will touch with their finger every bit of wine which goes over it. If that was the case, then, uh, the Psak was definitely that the wine-- that the chicken would not be, uh, usable. Okay, let's go on to the next fairly simple, straightforward question. Here is, um... Can I just ask, um, Andrezi, do you mind bringing me a cup from the kitchen, please? So the question here is, can you use such a collapsible cup for Kiddish-- for Kiddush or for Netilat Yadayim? So the answer is yes. The answer is it's, it's okay. It's acceptable for Netilat Yadayim. And perhaps I want to explain. Thank you very much. So there we are. Uh, now, if you can see the glass in my hand, I'm gonna use. If, if there would be a leak over here in this glass or it was a cup, then it would not be valid for Netilat Yadayim, and I want to explain why. If this were full of water and I would pour it over, now, because

15:49 Speaker 1 it has a leak o-at this point, the po-- the, the two inches or whatever, these five centimeters above the hole, they are not called Keili because they don't hold water. The wa-- It's only from here belo-beneath the hole it's called, it's called a Keili. Now, when I pour the cup, from the cup onto my hand, imagine if that part was missing so that the, the, the water wouldn't have reached my hand. So what poured the water onto my hand? A non-Keili. Well, Netilat Yadayim is not valid, uh, with, with non-Keili. So that's the reason why a leak in a Keili will d-- invalidate the Keili. Because when you pour... So if the leak were very near the top and the water would have reached my hand regardless, then it would still be kosher. But be-- if the leak is lower down, then it, it, it indeed would invalidate it for Netilat Yadayim. So I asked the person who sent me this beautiful picture, "Does... When you pull it out as it is in the picture, does it leak from the seams?" And he says it doesn't. Says then that's the case, then that's okay to use for Netilat Yadayim. Actually, about forty-something years ago, I asked this very same question to Reb Zalman Schimin, um, who was the Dvorkin, who was the Rav in seventy seventy. He says, you know, he understand. He didn't have the picture, but he understood, um, what I was asking. He says it's okay. So someone's asking, "Can you pour

17:17 Speaker 1 from the side without the hole?" So the answer is no, you cannot. If you have a hole over here, then the... Whether you pour from this side or from the other side, it makes no difference. Anything above this is considered not a Keili. And therefore, it doesn't matter which side you pour from. It's, uh, above this is not a Keili un-uh, unless you turn it in, in such a steep angle or it's near the top where the water would have reached your hand regardless. Let's move on to the next question. Okay, so here we have a group of, uh, Yiddishe girls, and they are in somewhere in, going, going for a, uh, some kind of trip in Europe somewhere. And they are six girls, and they have a non-Jewish driver. This is somewhere in Eastern Europe. And, um, they are asking what do they do about yichud. So let's go through a principle in yichud. We know that yichud means a m- a woman being secluded with a man other than her husband, et cetera, uh, is, is a, is, is forbidden. Midrabona, Midra- Midra Agada depends on what the conditions are. Then we have here it's not, not one woman, it's, it's, uh, it's six, um, young ladies. But there's a difference between if the man is a kosher or the man is a porus. If the man is a kosher person, so then, uh, if it's two, three women... If it's three women-- Sorry, two women is still a issue of yichud, but

18:51 Speaker 1 with three women it would be okay. But here's a goyisher man, as you know, he's considered a porus, and therefore it does raise a problem. Now, very often people ask the question about yichud with taxis, et cetera. Where there's... One of the ex... One of the, the, um, deterrents which we can use in the dinim of yichud is pesach passuch leshosh rabim. If what's going on, uh, if there's access from the street or if there's visibility from the street, these are two forms of pesach passuch, passuch rabim. Very often people call me, "I, you know, I'm stuck at home and there's someone, I'm in the house." Uh, one, one, one of the solutions which I have is if they are on the ground floor and they can open the curtains that they can be visible from the street, it's, it's, it takes away the shailah of yichud. Similarly, if there's a car which is driving in a built-up area or even where there's a lot of traffic, every couple of minutes another car passing, and the windows are not tinted, so then also that's called pesach passuch rabim. It's visible from the street, one can be meikel. But here they're talking about driving in somewhere in East, in Eastern Europe, and it's talking about driving country lanes, quiet places, which is a different story, and therefore it, it does raise a, a question of yichud. So, um, and what I've got over here in front of you is a quote from the Sefer Nitai Gavriel,

20:17 Speaker 1 who's written one of his very many, many very good seforim. So he has here a, a quote. "Bottei sefer, schools which are making tiyulim, which, um, excursions, outings for the talmidim to travel for long journeys out of town. They should be careful not to travel in a way that there's a issue of yichud, even if there's me'on nosim, unless there would be another man who is a kosher with an addition to the driver, me'anaal mechanech. Um, ve'ein shum heter bema shenosim beyoim." And the fact they're traveling during the day, but they'll come late at night, that's not okay. If a, im nisei mohe nochriss echad yesh lehatir. So he has here another etze. But the overall, it does raise a problem. Here in his footnotes, he writes, "Kayma lan shebe poritz afilu ime'on noshim." Also, if a person has got no reason for... got no restraint in, um, um, built in, in his system, so then even with me'on noshim, that would raise a problem. And so, yeah, so this does raise a problem of yichud, and so no easy heter for them. Um, right. Someone is asking, did I say a collapsible cup cannot be used for kiddush? No. The answer is, it's, it's, it's a keili, it's valid for kiddush, and it's valid also for netilat yadayim. It's both basically the same halakha. Since it's able to retain the liquid, it doesn't leak, then it's valid for netilat yadayim and for kiddush. Let's move on to the next question. Glasses lenses. So someone

21:55 Speaker 1 asks me the following. It looks like this fellow is learning hilchot muktzeh very thoroughly, and he's asking the question, if lenses fall out of the glasses frame on Shabbos, are they muktzeh? So the background to this question is, here you have halakha in Shulchan Aruch, talks about a bench where one of the legs has been dislodged, so you wouldn't be allowed to move it, uh, et cetera. Um, the reason which we have over here is g- so here we have it earlier about a, an, an, uh, an oven. Gzeirah shemayachzir lo haregel vehitkein noshom bechozeh veyeschaiv beshum boina. Where there is a concern that the person may forget for a moment that it's Shabbos, and they will put back the leg and fit it tight, so you can... Let's say a bench has got legs. You could put them in loose. That would not, would not be a violation of Shabbos. But by putting it and screwing it tight, taking components and putting, building, putting them together is a issue of boina, is cons- construction. So whenever there is a concern that you might put it back and, and, and tighten it, that raises a question of boina. Now, um, the second quote is from siman shin yud gimel, also in the dinim of muktzeh. Talks here about a door which has got some kind of bar which is jutting in, up into the upper, um, f- uh, uh, of the door frame and into the bottom of the door frame. Talks about pu- putting,

23:31 Speaker 1 um, putting it back, which you wouldn't be allowed to. Then he talks about in Sifte Zevach, what about if you have a, a kind of... I don't really have the picture clearly in my mind. A door frame which the bar is not at the top of the door, nor the bottom of the door, it's in the middle. And I don't understand the picture exactly. And therefore, there's not really such a concern of shemayitka. There's not really a concern that you might come to fix it tight because that's not the, it's, that's not the way it's done. And still he says, "Ve'oso lechazir tzir zeh lechochui beShabbos." You wouldn't be allowed to put it back in place. Gzeirah mishum tzir she'eineh beemtzah d'lo. So here we have even where, in a c- door where there isn't, in this door, a concern that you might come to tighten it, but since it's similar to another type of door, which, uh, where tightening would be applicable, so you wouldn't be allowed to put it back on, on, on Shabbos. On Yom Tov, this is different. Yom Tov is a bit more lenient. And, uh, on Yom Tov, you are allowed to... This idea, some- I actually got caught out on it, uh, this once. Someone asked me if the lenses come out on Yom Tov, are you allowed to put them back in loosely? And I said, I, I s- you know, off the cuff, I said, "It's not allowed to, you're not allowed to. It's a chashash.

24:46 Speaker 1 You might..." And he showed me the halakhas, no, that this idea that you might come to tighten it is applied on Shabbos. On Yom Tov, the halakhas are obviously more lenient, and therefore, this idea of putting it back, the lens, in case you... You're not allowed to tighten it, but to put it back loose in case you tighten, that is, that is permitted on Yom Tov. So that's what we have over here. And then we have here on the, on the left side of your screen, we have here from the Shmiras Shabbos KeHilchasa. So he's talking about adasha, which means a lens. Um, those who like, uh, um, etymology might know that the word lens and lentil come from the same word, and that's why the Hebrew, modern Hebrew word for a lens is adashah. It's, um, because they've got the same... Originally, the lenses, if you remember the old goggles, so they used to be the same shape as lentils. Um, that's really relevant to, what was it? Last week's Sedra or two weeks ago. Okay. So here we have a, a lens which has fallen out of the gla- uh, glasses frame. You're not allowed to put it back where there's a chashash, where there's a concern. Because there's a concern, you might come to fix it. You're not allowed to straighten the s- the, the bars or the, the strides on the s- on the sides of the glasses. And you have this word, epunim. I don't know epunim. I don't really

26:01 Speaker 1 speak, um, that part of Hebrew. Um, so you wouldn't be allowed to straighten a pair of glasses, um, if the lo- gr- if the, if the, uh-

26:09 Speaker 2 Epunim.

26:10 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:10 Speaker 2 I think it's the thing that hold it to the af.

26:14 Speaker 1 Ah.

26:14 Speaker 2 The little-

26:14 Speaker 1 The ah. Oh, very good. Very good. Okay. The bits which hold it on the nose. Epunim, very good. Okay, thank you for that piece of etymology. Good. Uh, and then he says, um, you're not allowed to tighten any parts. There seems to be, a little bit further, there's a difference between plastic lenses, plastic glasses frames, and metal glasses frames. Metal glasses frames re- you're, you, you use, um, screws and, and therefore there's more... There, the chashash, the concern of, of, um, tightening it does apply, and therefore if your glasses falls out of your metal len- len, um, frames, that would become muktzeh. It would be... You're not allowed to put it back. It becomes muktzeh. The frame becomes muktzeh, et cetera. Um, by contrast, if it's a plastic frame and it's already a bit loose, um, from before Shabbos and it pops out, and you're not going to... There's no, there's no screwing, then there's room to be m- more lenient. Now, I'm just reading the last, uh, paragraph in the Shmiras Shabbos K'Hilchoso. If it's a lens which often falls out, you don't need to have might and strength to re- put it back in place, then you would be allowed to put it back on Shabbos. So yeah. So if the... I would differentiate between where there is a screw which could be tightened, and that makes more of a problem, and when it's, uh, um, there's nothing to screw, then it's less of a question. Let's go now to the, some of

27:43 Speaker 1 the chats. Some, some people have put in some questions on this. Um, uh, he says, he say, says it in the female, um, about the yichud. Um, perhaps because she is shomer. I'm not sure exactly what his reason is. Um, right. Is the n- if a lens is muktzeh, can it be held in one's hand to read through? I don't think so. Um, the, in other words, once it's subject to this chashash that you might come to tighten it, then it becomes muktzeh. The, the... And they say, not only does the, the, the lens become muktzeh, the, the, the whole frame becomes muktzeh, and that's what you can see over here. Um, unless you've used it already in its incomplete form before Shabbos, then you don't have to worry about it, but if you haven't used it, then the whole thing becomes muktzeh as, as well as, um... Yeah. Now you can't use it, and it becomes muktzeh. Right. Right. Let's move on. So the next thing which I have on my list here is, before we get to the one which is on the screen, does footwear called UGGs, if I pronounce it rightly, um, or UGGs, however, is, uh, it's a kind... It's becau- a, a popular brand, and the question is, is it a problem for muktzeh? Uh, sorry, for shatnez. So shatnez, as we know, is a combination of wool and linen, and sometimes these UGGs do have, they are like fleecy on the inside, which, you know, they're obviously made

29:25 Speaker 1 of, uh, of wool, and often there are parts of it, sometimes there's an upper which is made of linen, and it does keep the foot warm. And therefore, without going into a list of which UGGs are shatnez, which are not shatnez, if you are buying these UGGs, you should take it to someone who's, uh, an expert in shatnez, uh, shatnez laboratory, and have them checked before, um, using them. Let's now go on to someone asks me the following question. A Bible printed by Notzrim. I'm just a little bit conscientious which words I use over here. Um, so is asking, there's a, we, we have, there's a well-known concept in, in Halakha, Sefer Torah written by a heretic should be burnt. So now when you... If this question was someone was clearing out a house, uh, and there was, uh, some Seforim there, unfortunately, they also found a Bible printed by Goyim, and you can understand there was, uh, the two parts to it, and the first part is, is, is, is, is, is the Tanakh, and he's asking what should he do with it. So the, here we have a tshuva from the, the Shevet HaLevi. He talks about this, and this actually might be a bit surprising, but he says the following. When a... You're not allowed to disgrace Hashem's name, and when you have a Sefer which has Hashem's name there, you're not allowed to disgrace it. When a min, when a heretic wrote it, then when he wrote that name, he had

31:07 Speaker 1 in mind Avodah Zarah. He had in mind something which was not unholy. It was just not holy at all. Okay. Then you can burn it. Says Rav Ozner, zecher l'vrachah, he says, "But the machine which printed, the machine doesn't have kavanah." Like, it's like the flip side of the, of the machine matzahs. The machine matzahs, we have a question about kavanah, yeah? It's, uh-uh, kavanah lishmah. So here it works to the bene- in a way, uh, call it benefit, whatever you want. The poil is that the machine doesn't have kavanah. You can't say that this Shem, this name of Hashem, Yud Kei Vav Kei or, or whatever it, it was, is written, um, l'shem Avodah Zarah. It wasn't written l'shem anything. It-it's, it's, uh, almost like it happened by itself. It was a grammar, someone pressed a button. So it, it doesn't have lish-- it doesn't have a wrong kavanah. On that basis, um, Rav Ozner paskins that you're not allowed to burn it. So that's an interesting chidush, but that's, that's, that's his psak. That you wouldn't be allowed to burn it. So what I tell people is if they pick up one of these things, um, they should wrap it up in a bag and put it toge- in the shemos. But because it's, you don't want the shemos, the shemos don't have to suffer by being in company of these other, um, unsavory, uh, texts. So therefore, wrap it up in a d- bag out of kavod for the other, other sefarim,

32:28 Speaker 1 but it has to be put in genizah. It can't be burnt. Okay. So that's the teshuvah in, uh, in the Shevet Halevi. Let's move on.

32:37 Speaker 2 So we don't really have today a scenario of a, of a Sefer Torah shekas vamin anymore?

32:42 Speaker 1 Un-unless it's, uh, handwritten. Unless it's handwritten, yeah.

32:47 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

32:48 Speaker 1 It's a great chidush because I, I remember as a kid, I remember seeing, uh, we had a, an assembly, and the teacher took, uh, the, the New Testicle and terangelicht in a, in a, um, on a, in a, put a fire, and we, it was a whole, it was a whole, you know, sreif shel mitzvah. Yeah. But if it's j- If it's just the second part, if, if you call it the second part, then yeah, there's no problem to burn it. But, uh, if it's, if it's got a Tanakh with it, then we, we, we have a problem.

33:16 Speaker 2 Not-

33:18 Speaker 1 Sorry?

33:21 Speaker 2 I'm not sure if my memory is failing me, but I seem to remember your shver, alav hashalom, burning one in the back of, uh, Beis Levavi.

33:29 Speaker 1 Okay, there we are. So it may have been just the second part without the first part.

33:34 Speaker 2 No, it was definitely-

33:36 Speaker 1 Okay.

33:36 Speaker 2 Definitely, uh, if it was, it was definitely because it, it was a Chumash. It wasn't-- I don't think it even had the second part.

33:42 Speaker 1 Ah, ah. All right. So that was obviously-

33:44 Speaker 2 It was a, a, a missionary Chumash.

33:45 Speaker 1 Obviously, he wasn't aware of Rav Ozner's psak.

33:48 Speaker 2 Sure.

33:48 Speaker 1 Uh, okay. If he was, I mean, probably would have taken into consideration. Okay. Let's move on. So someone's asking me now about the Minchag Chabad to use, for Kiddush, to use wine rather than grape juice. What's the reason for this? So, before we go further, someone's asking, can this, uh, book be put in recycling? I, I would say no. It actually should be put in genizah because, uh, it was, there's no, there's, the, uh, the Shem was not written shlo lishmah, so it, it has kedushah to it. Right. Uh, it's kedushah, it's, uh, shchinta b'chol ustam. Let's come, come back to our question over here. The wine, um, so here we have, this is from Siman ain reish beis talking about the wine for Kiddush. And we have here, mikol mokom mitzvah min hamuvchar livrerei yayin hameshubach b'yosei l'kadesh alav. You can, it talks about different qualities of wine. Mitzvah, the, the ideal to use the choice wine to make Kiddush. We saw, we nog sidim, uh, way, way aware and ninth, in tov shin lamed ches, when the Rebbe had a heart attack, and it was, it was night of Shemini Atzeret, and he was, uh, went to his-- so he wanted, they wanted him to, uh, have something to eat or something to drink, and he says, "You have to make Kiddush." So after a heart attack, they thought that it might be an idea that instead of having wine, he should have grape juice. I'm not a doctor, b'meheirah, I don't know

35:25 Speaker 1 the difference, uh, whether it makes a difference to a heart patient. But l'poal, the Rebbe was, is quoted as having said then, "Kiddush mach min havvin." He insisted on making Kiddush on wine, and so generally, Chassidim are particular, Chassidim Chabad. Which is interesting because most other chreiden, as far as I understand and, uh, and what I've seen on, in, in written down, are quite easygoing to use grape juice for Kiddush. My father, alav hashalom, once asked Reb Zalman Schimmin, my mishtichah meshpacha from my mother's side. He asked Reb Zalman Schimmin about making Ki-Kiddush in grape juice, and he said, "It's a good tav to, of tzusugissen." There's a, there's an inion of, of diluting the wine with a bit of water. And so Reb Zal-- But I don't think Reb Zalman Schimmin was saying that in, in full seriousness. He was, he was probably saying more in a, in a Chassidish way, th-th-use, use proper wine, and you dilute it with, with, with a bit of grape juice, which I always do, tacha, just to make it a bit more pleasant. Um, because certainly in the situations where people ca-ca-cannot handle, uh, proper wine, so then, of course, we would, uh, say that they can make Kiddush or Havdalah on grape juice. But, um, the, what, what, what's the... Although it says in the Gemara, it says, "Socheit adam eshkol mekadesh aleiha." A person can squeeze, obviously before Shabbos, can squeeze a, um, a cluster of grapes, and he can use it for Kiddush right

36:53 Speaker 1 away. But there, it's got the potential that it could, it, it could, um, what's it called? Um, oh, I've forgotten the word. It can, um, it could mature-

37:05 Speaker 2 He meant

37:06 Speaker 1 Ferment. Uh, thank you. And it can become into, um, um, wine. Whereas the grape juice, the reason why it's grape juice is that they've actually pasteurized it and cooked it so to, and it's to stop the fermentation, so it doesn't have a chance to become wine. All right. Then you can, you can pick holes in that, uh, approach, but the point is that's why I, instead of going through that approach, I'm just showing the Halacha that there's a mitzvah ben al muchra to use, uh, yayin hamushav. Therefore, there is a preference, BeChsidai Chabad at least, to use a tack of wine for, uh, for Kiddush, uh, or a combination of wine with grape juice. Okay, let me go to the questions over here. Um, someone's asking, what about Havdalah? Is it wine as opposed to beer or as opposed to, also as opposed to grape juice? Also, by Havdalah also one should... Unless you have a particular health issue, but even for Havdalah, you should also be using, uh, wine. And again, you can com-you can have, let's say, if you have a problem of handling so much wine Motzei Shabbos, you have study work to do, chulum, so you combine a bit of grape juice. Okay, have it three-quarters of grape juice and a quarter wine, but it should be, it should be using wine also. Someone is writing here, the story of the rabbi telling someone who a mop handle damaged his eye to use wine for Kiddush, and it cured him. Okay.

38:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. Right. Um, then, uh, Mendel is asking, what about the wine which is three and a half percent? Is that called yayin mashuv? The answer is yes. It's... I don't, mashuv, I don't know. Is it yayin? Yes. Yayin mashuv is, uh, I'm sure there's better wines than that. Um, it's fascinating. If you want to read up, why did they draw the line at three and a half percent alcohol to be, uh, the sheer for how much alcohol, which should be the minimum to be wine. If you get a hold of the book from, on, on Pesach from Rabbi Blumenkranz, he has the whole fascinating explanation of the, uh, how much can be the maximum wine, um, the alcohol content of wine, and then he compares that. Then he says, "Then you can, you're allowed to dilute wine by a sixth." On that basis, he comes to the, um... So, all right, you're saying Nachman says six percent, but all right, Blumenkranz says something like four percent or three and a half percent is, is good enough. Okay, fine. Um, then we're going weiter. Um, Rabbi Jonathan, if you could just tell us, where does Rav Nachman say this? In, is this, is this in his Shulchan, um, Sefer?

39:41 Speaker 2 No, I heard it indirectly.

39:43 Speaker 1 Uh, okay. This is Nachman from, from, uh, Chovat?

39:47 Speaker 2 Chovat, yeah.

39:48 Speaker 1 Okay, fine. All right. J-j-just, can you mu-mute yourself now, yeah? 'Cause, uh... Yeah, thank you. I've got Okay. Then some, this, I think it was the same fellow, was asking me, many Polish Yidden are particular to add a little bit of water to the wine at Kiddush, et cetera. And he's asking me, what's the reason for it and why in Chabad is this not done? So the dinim of kos elokah are in, actually in the dinim of Birkat Hamazon. It's interesting. People think kos elokah is from Havdalah. The, the, uh, how you say? The primary kos elokah is the kos of benching. And the dinim, it says there's ten dinim, ten, ten rec- ten, uh, how you say, characteristics for the kos elokah. And one is chay, and it says here, and how it should be neat. The wine should be neat. And then when it comes to Birkat Ha'aretz, you add a little bit of water to it. As a mitzvah min ha-Muvchar that the wine should be diluted, should be more pleasant. So this is the, um, this is the background. Then he says, um, If the wine is a strong wine, it doesn't need to be diluted. Leave it as is. However, there are those who have a particular apikar bola always to add a bit of water to wine, and that's got to do with Hamtoch Shehakavod, et cetera. So that's the background to the Polish Munich of always adding a bit of water to the wine for Kiddush, et cetera.

41:31 Speaker 1 They have a little drop, and they add it always to the wine because of this thing of apikar bola, which is interesting then in Chabad Bechalal, we are conscientious about stuff apikar bola. So why is it in Chabad we're not so particular about this? I haven't seen it being done regularly. And so now we have... That was, there was a quote from Siman kaf peh bet. The lower quote is from Siman, um, ayin reish bet, the dinim of, of Kiddush on, on, on, uh, on yayin. And so here we have Then he says, So here, the Alter Rebbe writes that our wines are better undiluted. So possibly, that's where the Chabad Munich comes from. Don't, don't, don't bother with it without, without adding, uh, without adding water. So now what you have here on the left of the page of the screen is a quote from, there's a sefer called Kitzur Halachot. It's a turquoise sefer put out by Olas Shalom, by Rabbi Horovitz, Rabbi Alashvili. Excellent sefer. And he's being midak from the words, Not just you don't need to, but Therefore, there's a preference not to be mozig. Especially, and then he says, "Some of the better quality wines do not add water. Uh, but other, on the other hand, there are those who do actually add already a lot of water." So therefore, um, when in doubt, we just... That's, that's what I've seen in Munich Chabad. We're not particular about this and possibly because of this lashon, is I see here

43:08 Speaker 1 there's a, a note here, and Rabbi Reuven Cohen's writing. "Dayan Refson explained that as wine we buy is diluted to its maximum already." But maybe, um- The, uh, grape juice actually, uh, uh, officially is not diluted, but the wine you might probably right. My zayde, alav ha-shalom, lived in Rishon LeZion, and he was friendly with the people at the Carmel Winery. And when I was a bocher learning in Eitz HaZohar, he called me one time, you know, to come to help him make the wine. And he got-- had the, uh, s-three or six, uh, cr-crates of grapes, and he plucked them and put them in the, um, in the tubs. And, uh, after three weeks... I think he added sugar. After three weeks, it came out a, a wine which was like a syrup. Very, very thick, uh, wine. So he d-- he siphoned off the first wine. Then he added water again onto the lees. He added a similar amount of water, and another three weeks later or whatever, six weeks later, and it came out, and it was, uh, also just the same alcohol content as the first lot, but it was more, uh, it was, it was thinner, more runny. And the, they did it a third time, and this time it came out clear. It looked like a vodka, but it also had the same alcohol content. So he had used the same grapes with, uh, to, to create three lots of wine, and then he blended the three groups of

44:34 Speaker 1 wine, the three batches, uh, together. And then, then that was the wine which he used. So, you know, he d-- obviously did add a lot of, uh, water to it. I'm not sure now at this moment what the halachas about that, because it was not water added to wine. It was water which was fermented into wine. But let's leave that. Um, but just, just you're right that some wines they do have, they come already diluted, and therefore there's a limit of how much you can dilute. Again, if you look at the, um, Kedem advertisements close to Pesach, they will tell you, and also in Blumenkranz's book, it's there at the back, in the inside back page. They will tell you what proportion of water is added to the wine, and therefore how much you can dilute it with water. So, uh, it's gonna vary and, yeah, which wine you're using. Let's move on. Um, okay. Question: When we talk about, uh, Sheva Brachos, so when is-- how do you count the seven days of celebration? And so what we have over here, this is on the page of the Shulchan Aruch Even Ha'ezer, Siman samech beit. I'm sorry, sorry. No, it's in, it's in Ku-- it's Orach Chaim kuf lamed alef, the Dinim of Tachnun. And here's a question: How do you calculate the seven days for, uh, of, of a chasuna? And, and the question is then, if a chassan got married on, on Tuesday afternoon, when... and he comes to shul next Tuesday

46:22 Speaker 1 morning, yes Tachnun or no Tachnun? I, I, I heard that the late Rav Hutner said, "If the umos ha-olam would know the geschmack of missing a Tachnun on a Montag and Donnersteg, velt ze zenen gielocht fun di' Meshuggene." So, uh, there's a... So here we have, um, a question. It's Tuesday morning. That's not a Montag and Donnersteg. And so, so do you say it's goes seven times twenty-four hours? The twenty-four hours is called mezla'es. So some say, so some say that it goes according to, starts from the first seudah. Then we have that the Knesset HaGedolah says it doesn't work according to mezla'es. It works, and, and if the wedding was on a Tuesday, so already by Monday evening, the celebration is over. Then we have, lower down, we have here a quote from a Sefer Mahzik Bracha. That's from the Chida, who quotes from the Sefer Ginas Veradim. And he says, "No, it works seven full days. It's seven times twenty-four hours." And therefore, he says, even let's say, if the chasuna last y-- last week was late afternoon, and now it's Mincha early afternoon, you could still, um, you would not say Tachnun. And so, so we have here two opinions, and the general consensus is that when it comes to brachos, and you're going to a shailah of Bracha L'vatala, so then you'd, you would, the last... If, again, the chuppah was on Tuesday afternoon, the general consensus is that the last Sheva Brachos would be on Monday till shkiya. By, f-as

48:23 Speaker 1 far as, uh, Tachnun goes, we would take the more lenient position, um, and he quotes here from, I think it's, uh, Birshua Molcho, the last couple of lines. The im yesh safek. If you have a safek, yes Tachnun, no Tachnun, so then you don't say Tachnun. When there's a sa-- a genuine safek, uh, whether to say Tachnun or not, so you miss out Tachnun. Therefore, the hakara when it comes to Tachnun is to work out seven times twenty-four hours from the chuppah. When it comes to Sheva Brachos, I mean, making brachos, the general, uh, as I said, the general consensus seems to be that you'd, um, call it, uh, the end of the celebration by Monday sunset. Having said that, I've been told this past week that the late Rav Ashkenazi, quoting also the previous Rav of, uh, of Chabad, Rav Schneer, they would rely on the seven mezla'es also for, uh, for, for Sheva Brachos, too. But as I said, that's not the, the... what I've, I'm sure most of us have been, um, brought up with. We don't go for that. So, okay, there is such a thing. Okay, I'm just seeing here a couple of, uh, questions, uh, on the chat. How about what chassanim are often told? As long as you treat your wife as a malka, you are a melech. Thank you very much. Yeah, good idea. Um, right. And then what about shmiras chassan v'kalah? Um, probably would go, you'd, you'd, you'd take the stricter view until, uh... and

50:00 Speaker 1 also the, the biggest question is, when does he take off his kapote for another jacket? Okay. So, uh, yeah. Ve, ve miton is good. Okay. Um, I'm gonna finish off a little bit earlier than usual.Um, just the chassidic is about next week. So next week is, uh, Shabbos is, is Yutza's Kislev. And so, uh, there's Baruch Hashem, uh, for the last ten, fifteen years, we've had in-- a, a big event for, uh, called Inspire and lots of, uh, shluchim will come with their balebatim. It's a very beautiful English maki event and, um, that's c-- being called for, for, um- That's being called-- That's being for seven to seven thirty. The program is up until seven o'clock. So I've, I'm, I'm, uh... Just to play on the safe side, BeEzrat Hashem, next week we'll have the shiur finished. I don't want to be mevatel the shiur. So the shiur will be from six to seven PM, and the recording, BeEzrat Hashem, will be available shortly thereafter. I just want to share-- finish off with a story. Wha-what I like about this Inspire event. Uh, just a couple of minutes. There's someone in Golders Green, and actually in Hampstead, by the name of Mr. Seymour Gorman, and his wife, Sonia, uh, is an artist. And going back in the, uh, the Lamed, the Rebbe started launching the Mifsoim. At the time, there was six-- there were six Mifsoim, and she made a portrait of the Rebbe, uh, pencil portrait. But she made the Rebbe in the

51:44 Speaker 1 middle, and she made like, um, pictures of the various Mifsoim around the Rebbe. Like, like little pictures, six pictures around, and the Rebbe's picture was in the middle, and she m-made this, uh, portrait. And she and her husband, uh, came to the Re-- to, to New York to the Rebbe, and they... Not sure whether it was Yechidas, but they wanted to present it to the Rebbe. And they had framed it, like a fancy frame, and they want to present it to the Rebbe. So the first thing the Rebbe said to them, said to her, "I, uh, he-- I am pleased the way you picture me." The fact that the, the Rebbe is surrounded with all-- with the, the Mifsoim, the Rebbe liked the way he had been, he'd been, uh, pictured, surrounded by the Mifsoim. Then the Rebbe says, "But I have a problem with accepting the gift because I don't accept gifts. The picture, I can pass it a-as a, as a ma-- like a manuscript. And the library, for the library, I collect manuscripts," collect, collects for him. "So the picture can pass as a manuscript, but the frame, I, I cannot accept, uh, the frame, and therefore I want to pay for it." So Seymour Gorman is, he didn't need the hundred dollars which the Rebbe was offering him, but he says, "Rebbe, it's okay." The Rebbe said, "No, but if you refuse to accept payment, I'll have to refuse the, uh, the picture." So, uh, reluctantly, they accepted the hundred dollar

53:11 Speaker 1 bill which the Rebbe gave. And, uh, when the Rebbe took the picture, accepted it, and then when they got back to England, they looked at the invoice, whatever, for the framing. It worked out the exchange rate. It was almost to the penny, the same as the hundred dollars which the Rebbe had given them for his, uh, payment for the, uh, for the picture. for Motzei Shabbos, and I wish you all a, a, a gezunte Voch, and, uh, celebrate your Dalde Kislev and your Tes Kislev and, uh, alle gute zachen. And, um, yeah.

53:58 Speaker 3 Thank you very much. Good Voch.

54:01 Speaker 1 Thank you.

54:04 Speaker 3 Thank you. Thank you.