פנורמה של הלכה 26

00:10 Speaker 1 Good evening and, uh, today we're offering Erev Lag BaOmer. Getting into Lag BaOmer. Start off with a Kapital Tehillim. Um, for those who need a for Shlema. Particularly, I'd like to mention, um, Chana Yenta Rivka bat Sheindl, her for Shlema. I don't have any change handy. We're always encouraged to do tzedakah together with prayer and, uh, tefillah. Okay, let's start. So, going into Lag BaOmer. So, to share with you a word. Thank you. This is... This quote we have here, thank you, is from Sefer HaDores. Sefer HaDores lived about four hundred years ago. My father, alav ha-shalom, told me that he, that the Baal Sefer HaDores was a, Baal Ruach Hakodesh, Rabbi Chaim Halperin. He, uh, besides collating information from all of the Gemara, et cetera, about the various... It's like a list of biographies or, of, of, uh, personalities throughout the Tanakh and throughout the Gemara. But he also brings from the Sifrei Kabbalah, and so there's a lot about Gilgulim, identifying who is... Who's who, and what's their previous identity. So here's some fascinating stuff which I never heard until this year, and that's the following. Number one. So let's look at the pa-top of the page. "Rabak Kiva ho yo Gilgul Zimri-"

02:31 Speaker 2 No, I haven't started speaking.

02:34 Speaker 1 Yes. You can't hear me? Can't hear me?

02:42 Speaker 2 I can hear. I can hear fine.

02:47 Speaker 1 Okay. Right. So, again, so we have here, Rabba Kiva is a Gilgul of Zimri ben Salu, and he was the Nasi of the tribe of Shimon. Now, the tribe of Shimon, they had this kind of, the whole story with Zimri when... And, and there was a, then there was a whole fight, and it says that there were twenty-four. By here, you... The end of Parashat Balak. There are twenty-four thousand people fa... Who, who fell in the, in the attack on, on, on the tribe of Shimon. And we've got here, Rabba Kiva, we know this story, where Rabba Kiva, he had twenty-four thousand talm-talm-talmidim, and they all died in the same, in this period, and that's why we got the mourning during Sefirat HaOmer, and they stopped dying on Lag BaOmer, and that's the reason why we have-- one of the reasons for Lag BaOmer. That the many talmidich of, uh, Rabba Kiva stopped dying. So let's read this again. Z-Zimri, Rabba Kiva is a Gilgul of Zimri ben Salu. Zimri ben Salu is from the tribe of Shimon. Now, Shimon, as in Shimon, the son of Yaakov, they, he and Levi, actually, made a massacre in Shechem. Now, this information is new to me. That the, um, the number of people killed in Shechem by that massacre was twenty-four thousand people, by Sh-Sh-Shimon and Levi. But they actually were innocent- ... in a sense. Because they, they were innocent because-- And they had actually, um, they had had a bris. They had conformed with the

04:54 Speaker 1 request, and they'd had a bris. So now, because they, Shimon, had massacred the people of Shechem to the number of twenty-four thousand, therefore, as a, in a kind of retaliation, the tribe of, uh, Shimon was punished with twenty-four thousand, uh, people who were killed by that Magefa. The Gilgulom, that wasn't finished yet. and then the tikkun, so to speak, for the massacre in Shechem came back a second time with the Talmidim Rabba Kiva, and he gives here a reference to Masorah Mamoris from, um, that's name, that's from Rabbeinu Chayyun. That's, with the, that's, so that's one piece of information. Twenty-four thousand, twenty-four thousand, and that connects, um, Rabba Kiva to Zimri to Shimon. Then we go a little bit further. The next piece, I've skipped a little piece there. Because we're Chesed Avram. The Gilgul Nefesh Zimri, who Rebbe Akiva. Who Tikunot. Rebbe Akiva, he came as the Neshama of Zimri to rectify what Zimri had, where he had gone wrong. The Cosby, he Izevel. Cosby, who was the shiksa who, uh, Zimri was caught with, and she was also killed. She came back in the form of Izevel. And I'm gonna skip for a moment the next line. Where do we s- we see that Izevel had an obsession to chase Eliyahu. Why was she obsessed to, to, to, to punish Eliyahu? Because Eliyahu Ze Pinchas. Pinchas had murdered her. And therefore, she was obsessed to take revenge against Eliyahu Ze Pinchas or Pinchas Ze Eliyahu. Meanwhile, Izevel, so Zi- Cosby came back again

07:06 Speaker 1 in the form of Izevel, the wife of, wife of King Achav. And then she came back again. And this time she came back as the wife of Turnus Rufus. And there's a story in Gemara with, in the, of a Zohar Davchav, where Rebbe Akiva, um, he would often have debates with Turnus Rufus. And Turnus Rufus got very upset that he was always losing the debate. So he came home, and he was in a bad mood. And his wife said, "What's the problem?" She, so he said that there's this Jewish, uh, sage who is always vanquishing me in debates. So she said, "Do you give me permission to test his integrity?" And she dressed herself up as a zainah, and she went to Rebbe Akiva to try to seduce him to do something immoral with her. Rebbe Akiva obviously wasn't seduced. And when he saw her, he did three things. He cried. He, he spat. He cried, and he laughed. So Mrs. Turnus Rufus says to Rebbe Akiva, "What's the meaning of those three reactions?" So he says, "Two I will tell you. One I won't. I spat because you, as any other human for that matter, is born from a tipat sruchah, from a, a smelly bit of sperm." So people are proud with their beauty, but after all, what is a human being? It's just coming from a bit of sperm. It's, it's, it's, it's no- nothing really to be proud of. "I cried because of your, your beauty will, will, uh, decompose in

09:03 Speaker 1 the dust eventually. You'll die, and you'll become decomposed in the dust." So that's why he spat, and that's why he cried. And then she says, "But why did you laugh?" Or, "Why did you smile?" He says, "I told you, I'm not gonna tell the third thing." Years later, she, I don't remember exactly the details why. She, she, w- she was no longer married to Turnus Rufus, and she was intrigued about Yiddishkeit, and she was Megiyah. And re- she then got married to Rebbe Akiva. So that was why Rebbe Akiva smiled, because he could see in Ruach HaKodesh that she was destined to get married to him. And when she did, she actually brought with a fortune. And so Rebbe Akiva, in his later years, well, he also had a fortune because of his wife. Rachel was the daughter of Kalba Shabuah. That's a separate story. But more so, they, she brought a fortune to him. But that's, that wasn't Rebbe Akiva's, uh, biggest, um, excitement. So now, so let's come back. So we got here, Cosby comes back in Izevel, who harasses, who chases, uh, Eliyahu Ze Pinchas, and then comes back in the form of, uh, in the form of, uh, the wife of Turnus Rufus, and now meets up with Rebbe Akiva, who is a Gilgul of Zimri, who was her mate in a way, in a sense, in the previous Gilgul, or two, t- two, two generations back. Now, here comes another interesting twist. The Zimri hoya ben Dinah kodem Shem Nos,

10:29 Speaker 1 Shimon. We know that Shimon, sorry, we know that Dinah had been abducted by Shechem. It's well known that Osnas, who got married to Yosef HaTzadik, she was born from Shechem. And the, the reason why, and although she was, uh, brought up in, in Yaakov's house, but be-- And the name Osnas means lashon osoin, which can mean accident or can mean rape, whatever. Oines. So she was from that union. But here he's saying that actually Zimri is also somehow from that lineage, from, from Dinah before she got married to Shechem. In other words, Zimri actually had Shechem genes in him. So it makes all the more sense how he was, he was, in a sense, he was trying to, um, settle accounts. And, uh, then we, we, he, then, uh, he k- kind of leads this rebellion as if in the name of the twenty-four thousand people of Shechem who were massacred. So I'm not, doesn't s- no one's suggesting he had that in mind consciously. But subc- subconsciously, he was leading this rebellion, and twenty-four thousand people fell in kind of retribution for the massacre in Shechem. Then, what does it finish off? Well, Chavdal Elif, there's four, twenty-four thousand which were, were killed in Shechem and were killed by Shimon. They were, they, they came back again as a Talmider Rebbe Akiva, and they were punished because they didn't respect one another. Um, similar, they should have remembered the sin of Shitim, which they, and which had, they hadn't been cleansed for. So what

12:17 Speaker 1 we're having here, a fascinating journey of Rebbe Akiva Going back to, uh, again, going back to Zimri and going back to Shimon in a sense. And then we've got, um, his wife going back to-- Yael going back to Cosby, and the 24,000 kind of has, hap-happens three times over, so to speak. Finally, the, these, the-- there's a bit, it's a bit repetitious, and I'll explain to you why. Because the Hesed L'Avodah is dr-drawing from various sources. So, the first one was from, uh, one source from, uh, um, Sa- Sorma Morris, and this is from another source, from Hesed L'Avodah. So, there's... It brings them kind of, uh, more or less what they, what they say in full. But then the next comment is, uh, unrelated to this whole journey, and that is that Rabbi Akiva, his name Akiva, relates to the word akeiv, which means a heel. Now, when Yaakov was born, it says that he was seized, he seized onto the heel of Esav. His, his hand was h-holding onto the heel of Esav. So, in a sense... Now, we know that Rabbi Akiva was originally... His, his, his origins were from Gerim. So, he had non-Jewish-- He had Esav origins. So, Yaakov, as he's born, he's pulling something away from the heel of Esav, and that's Rabbi Akiva, who is re-kind of redeemed from Esav and brought over into, into Kedushah. And then the next piece it says about the verbs that Rabbi Akiva we see has later, he's, um, very much into

13:59 Speaker 1 darshing verbs, and he explains that's got to do with this story. Okay. So that's, I think, just, just some fascinating stuff, uh, as a hakdamah. Let's go on to the next thing on our list. And that is that someone asked me, uh, he had seen a, some kind of venture, but it had this famous song, Yehudi Nefesh. And it said there, Now, we say So, he asked me, was, was it just possibly a mistake? So I was-- My curiosity was piqued. And so here you have... This, what I have over here, I believe, is from a, uh, Sephardi siddur called Beis, Beis Oved or Beis Menuchah. Um, so the Sephardi nusach actually has and this is from a Chabad siddur. The lower one is from a Chabad siddur. Now, the- Is that a misprint? No, no, no, no, it's not a misprint. Let's, let's, let's explain. So, this goes back to the one who composed this song is, is attributed to the Haredim. That is Rebbe Elazar Azkari or Zaka- or Azakari, who was a, a contemporary of the Arizal. He lived in Tzfat at the time. And i-this is attributed to him. Although, there's those who say originally it had five stanzas, and the extra stanza had, was a daled, and therefore it had the name Yehuda. Then later, it was the daled stanza was taken away, and it's left with the of Yud Hei Vav Hei, and that's the way it is in most, uh, prints. But then the, in the first print

15:42 Speaker 1 of the Haredim, which I didn't manage to look inside, although I have it on the, on the, on the, uh, oitza. I couldn't find it there. The first print, it said, and so the printer didn't understand what does it mean . It should be a, a, a, a, a, "She shall become an eternal sl- uh, maidservant." So, he changed it to and then a later print, it was then corrected. It shows So here we have that it's talking about the love of the neshamah to Hashem. "Heal the neshamah and show it your, your glory, your beauty, and it will-- the neshamah will be bound to you, will be committed to you." So that's the, that seems to be the original form. However, the Ashkenazi form has, has evolved to that the, that the neshamah, by having this joy of getting close to the will have this tremendous, uh, this, an eternal joy. So they're, they're, they're both, they're both nusachos What's the pshat if you say shivchas? That the neshamah will be c-committed. I think we also eternally committed. That's, that's the, uh, that's the pshat. Okay. Let's m-go on. So, this is not so much halakha. Rabina, let's get to halakha. So, having discussed in the previous weeks about croutons, and I mentioned last week that the definition of the berakhah on the croutons will be, um, if they're deep-fried, is mezonos. Because even though it retains the, what we call toras ha'dena, it still has the constitution of bread. But because, because it's

17:37 Speaker 1 been cut down to smaller than a kazais, and now it's in a, uh... And, and it's been cooked, so then it goes down to mezonos. So, deep-fried croutons are mezonos. Okay, good. So, someone asked me, "What about matzah brei? What's the, what's the, what's the berakhah on matzah brei?" So, let's read here. This is again from the Alter Rebbe's Sefer Birchas HaMinim. And what you have at the bottom is from Rav Avrom Alashvili. He's a brilliant, uh, Talmid Chacham, and lives in Lud, and he's published numerous for him. But one of his masterpieces has been the, uh, presentation of Sefer Birchas HaMinim. And, uh, to the back of the vol-volume, you have a tavla, a table, of a list of all foods and berakhos, uh, the appropriate berakhos. So I'm gonna first read, read actually his table. „Lechem pirur lepirurim chusim mikazayis vegoval esam bemashehu betignon v'helach mehem toar lechem." You took bread, broke it into small pieces less than a kazais, mixed them in a liquid, you fried them, but it hasn't lost the appearance of bread. So he says, "Lo yurchel alo techas tzura." It's a safek, but it's mezonos or hamotzi, and therefore he's saying that you should, you should only eat it during a meal. You can't make mezonos on it, you can't make hamot-hamotzi on it because of a safek. So now let's learn the halacha properly. So „siv teshuva. Pirurei lechem chusim mikazais." If you've got crumbs of bread which are less than a kazais, „veshechibrom vedibkam al yedei

19:12 Speaker 1 d'vash o cholov im marak", they've been ju-- uh, uh, stuck together with honey, with milk, with soup. „Im al yedei nimuchehu ksas venasu ke'issar", if it become mushy, „ve'ein alem toar lechem of", they don't no longer have this kind of s- I'm, I'm su-suggesting this stringy fi- you know, fibrous, uh, structure of which bread has, like with pores and all that. It's become mushy, not that form. „Mevorech boreh mine ha-mezonos sheme'ein gimel le'olam." Then the beracha is going to become mezonos. Uh, „sheme'achas shemithilo lo hoyo kazais bechol pirur levado" because it doesn't, it, it, it was less than a kazais. So this we have, that's the basis of, let's say, challah kugel, which we all know from kids, that we didn't use to throw out bread, chas v'shalom. So it was leftover challah, so then it was recycled into challah kugel, and that was mezonos. By the way, uh, in, in, in Brunoy, um, Boruch, you probably remember, Bisol Noach. So, um, so in your times he was, he was an old man, he was seventy. In my time, he was an old man, he was ninety. And, um, so Bisol Noach lived with his son, who was seventy, and far in daven, and you need to have mezonos. So how do these two old men... I mean, there was, they, his wife had died years ago. So what do you, how do you make mezonos? So they took the French bread, soaked it overnight, and the next morning it became mezonos. And that was

20:33 Speaker 1 their mezonos far in davenin. Go tell it to the Bochum today. Okay. To myself, too. Okay. „Ve'im lo halach mehem toar halechem bebishul." But if the bread did not lose its consistency through the cooking, it's still got the structure of bread. „Yesh lechach m'shulei lechem d'eskili asuda kimatech hasuda." So even if you've cooked it and was smaller than a kazais, but if it didn't lose the appearance of bread, if you have it for a meal, that's going to be, uh, uh, can become h-possibly hamotzi. But the, the mich is the last line. „Uvetigun yesh lechach mibechol inyan k'mo she'nisa be'alamalo." When it comes to frying. So there's a question which is mentioned, uh, a couple of times in this chapter. We've got cooking and we've got baking. Cooking is with lots of liquid and softening the material. Baking is usually drying out the material. Um, that's-- don't know what baking does. Frying is with a little bit of liquid. Well, the food does sometimes become a bit more stiff through frying, but what is the definition of frying? Is it, is it considered bishul or... So if it's deep-frying, deep-frying is for sure can, is like bishul, and therefore that's why I said croutons, which are deep-fried, becomes, uh, become mezonos. But if it's just like matzah brie, you just, you got, uh, you break the matzah into small pieces, uh, and then you fry it with a little bit of liquid, a little bit of oil. Uh, even though it's a, a millimeter or

22:09 Speaker 1 two, but it's not, it's not a lot. It's not deep-fried. So then he says, "Uvetigun yesh lechach mibechol inyan k'mo she'nisa be'alamalo." So we're going, we're going to be stuck. When it comes to frying, is it called cooking, and therefore it's made the matzah brie into mezonos? Is it called, is it similar to baking, and therefore the matzah brie still remains hamotzi? And that's why Rabbi Elashiv really is telling us, because he says you should be machmir on both sides, so matzah brie remains safek, and therefore you'd only have matzah brie during a meal. Okay.

22:45 Speaker 2 Dan, what do you mean by during a meal? Does that mean if you only ate that as your main, uh, course, you would wash over it?

22:54 Speaker 1 That, tha-even then it's a shailah because, because pos-- If you say it's called mevushel, then it's, it's gone down to mezonos, and that's what he said before. If it actually lost its... What he said over here, „Mevorech me, me'ein gimel le'olam." Even if you ate a lot of it, even you kavea seudah, it still remains mezonos. When you mushed the challah, it becomes a mezonos gamur, even if you kavea seudah. When it doesn't lose its toar lechem, then he's saying we're not sure whether it becomes mezonos gamur or becomes, or... Well, in other words, mezonos gamur is not upgradable to hamotzi. Like pasta can't be, become hamotzi. Whereas if it's somewhere in between, so then it can be up-upgraded. And what he's saying here, we're not sure whether when it's not been really mushed and still left its toar lechem, whether it's gonna be, can become mezonos or it's gonna re-remain a hamotzi. It remains a safek. So there we go. So the matzah brie means, means it remains, um... But that, so he, wha-what he's saying, bechol inyan. Bechol inyan, whether it, uh, if you have a shiryo k'vechayav k'neged seudah or even less, either way he's saying. If it, if it's tigun... Again, sorry. Yeah. It's, "Uvetigun yesh lechach..." I can't make my mind up whether this has become a, a mezonos or is it still hamotzi. Okay. Let's move on. So someone asked me this week a shailah, um, that his optometrist has told him that he can see some kind of

24:28 Speaker 1 development, and it might develop into a cataract. But a way to discourage that developing is wearing sunglasses will help him, um, not have to have a cataract, uh, operation, um, in the next few years. So now he's asking about wearing sunglasses on Shabbos in the street. So the, the, the, the, we've got on... We're actually, we're learning... K-this came up because we're learning Siman Shin Alef on Shabbos afternoon, and we've got things which are garments, which we're allowed to wear on Shabbos, obviously, in the street. We are allowed to wear tachshitim, uh, jew-or ornaments, jewelry. We also allowed to wear other which are making our, our ability to function better. That seems to be the, the, the definition of glasses. Glasses enables you to, to function better. It's not th-that you're carrying the glasses because you need them somewhere else. They are a- and managing-- they're enabling you to manage your life better as you are. That seems to be the basis of, of, uh, wearing, uh, or the permission to wear glasses on Shabbos. I know that my uncle, David Raskin, alav ha-shalom, uh, for years he didn't wear glasses on Shabbos in the street. And then the Rebbe once in a sicha, kind of in a comment in passing, said, uh, explained why, uh, that-that's why you're allowed to wear glasses in the street on Shabbos. So from then on, he, uh, changed. He started wearing his glasses. But I, I, I don't know whether he did hoyf taharot hador or not. I

26:04 Speaker 1 never asked him. Okay. Let's read now what it says here in Shmirat Shabbos KeHilchasa. "Mishkavei shemesh regilim she'odo markiv k'dei la'agen al einav b'pni es karnei hashemesh." Regular sunglasses, which is not prescription ones, which are just to protect from the sun rays. "Ein latzet bahem lerush hasa'rabim." One shouldn't wear them in the street. "Uv'chalaze mishkavei shemesh shemarkivim oysom al gabai mishkefayim regilim." Included are if you're wearing the, the sunglasses on top of regular glasses. So these are, can be two forms. They can be either those clip-ons or you can have an, like a, like a bigger pair of glasses which sit on top of the regular glasses. And the meanwhile is saying that they, they shouldn't be worn on Shabbos. Now, but then we're not finished yet. And now here we have, um, the notes in the Shmirat Shabbos KeHilchasa, that they should, the Hardtzi. Hardtzi is, that's the, uh, Pesach Frank, uh, who was the Rav of Yerushalayim, um, about fifty, six years, uh, sixty years ago. I heard that Rabbi Shimon would say that, uh, many of the contemporary poskim, he's, he's, uh, uh, he's okay. You know, he's only... He can, uh, can So why are people not doing this? So look, let's read those words very carefully. The Alter Rebbe is saying, he's not talking about a regular blanket. "Ha-michse shemischasim bo sheyoshnim beyom." If you have a seder of sleeping by day, and you have this blanket with which you use for sleeping by day, then it becomes a beged

31:05 Speaker 1 yom. And therefore, it's chaya v'tzitzis. But if you're not used to sleeping by day, the Alter Rebbe is not talking about your blanket. He's talking about a blanket which you'll sometimes use by day. Now, if you're doubting this pshat. So then here, I've got here the Sefer Elio Rabo. It quotes here the Magen Avrohom. Elio Rabo is a commentary on the Levush. Rabbe Elia Shapira. It's got Elia Rabba, Elia Zuta too, a short commentary, a long commentary. So it's in the, it's built, it's in the, uh, Sefer HaLevush. The new edition has got it on the page. So he writes like this. Magen Avrohom says that if you have a, a woolen, if you have a woolen bl-um, sheet, you should make a round corner. A very interesting chidush. In this time of the year, the s- the sun rises, let's say, 5:00 in the morning. And so if you, if you wake up at 6:00, wake up at 7:00, wake up at 8:00, you've been wearing it for three hours in the day. That doesn't make it a beged yom. The fact that there's an overflow from the night into the day doesn't make your pajamas a beged yom. It's still a beged layla. Only such a garment which you're davka wear by night, then that becomes a beged, a beged yom. Sorry. That you're davka wear by day. That makes it a beged yom. That explains, um, that explains why m-most of our blankets... When do, when do you go, when do you

32:48 Speaker 1 go to sleep during the day? Unless you're, you know, people get a bit older, they sometimes have to rest during the day. They rest with a blanket, the other blanket. But that, that seems to be a, a strong basis why people are worried because it's only talking about a be- a blanket u-used for day, day, a, a rest during the day. I'm going to finish off this piece. I want to read something serious, and then I can tell you a, tell you a, a funny thing. That is, this is a s- a letter of the Friediker Rebbe, and he's, at the time, he is, he was born taf resh mem. So he's 36, and his chi- he's with his father in Rostov. And he says, "Nifle, I cannot restrain myself to see the pure God-fearingness of my father. When my father has a sha- haircut with a special machine, sometimes I do the haircut for him. I noticed that the cloth, this sheet which he wears not to get dirtied with its, the hair falling off when he has a haircut. Before he puts on the sheet, he cuts off one of the corners of the sheet and makes it round. And it's obvious the real intention. That it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be a garment of four corners and be chaya v'tzitzis. Now I understand when we came to the hotel, he wouldn't use the covers, the, the blankets over there, even if they're pure white and very clean. But he was con- he

34:19 Speaker 1 was worried not to wear a, a gar-um, a four-corner garment without tzitzis." Fascinating. So it looks like, so, so, oh, so now someone's asking: What about Shabbos? People have a rest. Shabbos, yeah. It's a mitzvah. Shabbos is Shabbos. Shabbos. Here's a fascinating halakha. It says in Siman Yud Gimel, you come to shul on Shabbos, and you don't have a tallis. There's only one tallis available, and it's got one tzitzit missing, or one of the tzitzis is a parcel. That's the only tallis available. So it says in Shulchan Aruch you're allowed to wear that tallis. And the reason is because, listen carefully, mitzvas tzitzis, this is from the Mordechai in the Menachos. Mitzvas tzitzis is not like Shabbos. Shabbos, the moment you put on Shabbos, you violate the Shabbos. Mitzvas tzitzis is not the moment you put it on, but it's the moment you put it on, you have to put in tzitzis. You are kind of... When you put on a beged of four corners, you've incurred a chiyuv to, to, to add tzitzis. Shabbos, you're on us. Shabbos, you can't put on the tzitzis. So on that basis, if you are stuck on Shabbos, and the only tallis available is one without tzitzis or with a parcel of tzitzis, you're allowed to put it on. So that, that explains therefore the fact that you s-have a, a, a shluf on Shabbos, um, uh, it, it takes off. It's not a problem. Someone's asking, a beged to protect clothing is not, is not chayav. And

35:57 Speaker 1 certainly, the hotel, the blanket in the hotel is not your beged. Bechalal is not chayav tzitzis. But you know what, the frumkeit of the Rebbe Rashab were. You know, we've gone through this before. He had this tremendous frumkeit. Perhaps he said, perhaps the shirius is considered like a balabatishe kaiten, therefore the blanket becomes yours. Whatever. Okay. Um, you ask, someone's asking: Does sewing in a corner work, or do you need to cut it? No. So cut-- Sewing, um, is not gonna be enough. You're gonna actually have to cut off a corner. But if it's a, if it's a quilt, please think twice before you do it, before you start cutting off corners. Yeah. Perhaps sew it and then, then cut the corner before, before you lose all the... Uh, but what I want to just share, share with you is, I heard from Rabbi Shukats Nelberg that when he, uh, came out of Russia. So he, um, vi-visited his brother in Cleveland, and it was about nine o'clock in the evening. And, um, and some visitors came, and he just came out of Russia. It was a very big novelty at the time. So he, so they, they, he asked them to come down from his room. So he, he had been, he had come to America, and they told him, in America, England, whatever. And they showed him that people wear at night, they wear pajamas. So there were these guests who'd come to the house. So Ramesja came down in evening wear. He

37:13 Speaker 1 was wearing his pajamas, and they found it very funny the way he came down in his pajamas. He said, "But you told me this is what... In this part of the world, in the evening, you wear pajamas." So, so he, he found it very funny. So, okay. Right. So someone's asking a question. If you see someone wearing plastic tzitzit on Shabbat in the street, that's like a, another question, which is a, a big shaila. Okay. Let's, um, go on to another question about the Bris. Very s-s, um, real question. A shliach somewhere in Europe has a... They know a, a, a woman who's Israeli, and she's married to a, a, a non-Jew. He's, he's one of these Russians who came to Israel and never was a M- There was never a megiah. So it's, uh, a goy l'mahadrim. And, uh, they had a baby, and it's been five years since they've, uh, since the baby... The baby is now five years old and never had a bris. Finally, now, they've agreed that... They've agreed to give the bi- uh, child a bris, but they're going to go to a goyish... They're going to go to a surgeon, a goyish, a surgeon. Then they asked the shliach, they asked him, "Would you be so kind to come along to the, to the opera- to, uh, to the operation, to this, uh, uh, the procedure? And you'll be the..." So he's asking, is there, is there any value in him going there? And there's one side of

38:57 Speaker 1 it is, is there any value? And there may even be a downside. What say, s-someone making a bris by a goy- with a goyish, um, a goyish, uh, um, a surgeon. So then there's going to be, uh, uh, uh, more people will learn that that's okay. So this is his dilemma. So he asked me. So here we have... First of all, we have here a quote at the top of the page, top left of the page. We have a quote from the Shekhinat, Siman Reish Samekh Heh, that it says, "A goy, even if he is circumcised, he shouldn't do a bris. He shouldn't be the mohel." But im mohel, but if the goy did circumcise, then you don't have to do it again. In other words, even if there was a possibility of, of, of cutting, some more, you wouldn't do it again. Then Vayesh Oim, the Ramo, says about Hatofet dam bris, which people are familiar with. So now, before I even started looking into this, in, in this, what's the problem if a goy does a bris? Why is it possible? Is it because he doesn't do it lishmah? So sometimes we have the idea of Yisroel Oim Dal Gabov. If a goy is doing something, but the Eid is there and saying, "We're doing this for, for this and this purpose," that may, may b- may even benefit. So I was right and I was wrong. So here we have, this is the Gemara of the Desera. Ta-starts off, if a, if

40:24 Speaker 1 a, um, if a goy does a bris, Yisroel, you can't layamal. It says, "Don't have a goy do a bris because he may do something wrong. He may, he may, may, um, ha-harm the child," as far as you... Then the Chachamim say that a, over the Chachamim, would be okay if a chelim oim dal gabov. If there are others there to see that everything is being done, uh, correct, it, it would be okay, but not in private. And then, so then there's a discussion. But then the Gemara says later that the Chacham, the various Chachamim say, "No. If a goy does a bris, it's pasul," because we learn ho-ho-him moil yimoel. HaMoel Yimoel. Only the one who's been chayim b-b-bemitzvah can do a bris. Minayim sh'lo. But how we see that a goy does a bris is pasul, we ato as bris it ishme. It has to be davka Yid. Davka Yid has to do the bris. So here we have, um... So that's why l'chatchilah, for sure, the Shekhinat says you, you don't give a goy to do a bris. There are those tanaim who say that it would be valid, and possibly that's the reason why it's valid b'diyeved. But then as I was looking for this, I found a fascinating chidush, which, um, this is from Rabbi Akiv Emden. Now, Rabbi Akiv Emden, he published a siddur, as I've mentioned numerous times. He also put together a sefer called Migdal Oz, Migdal Oz, and that talks about the mitzvah of, of, uh,

41:54 Speaker 1 milah and a few other things, pidyon haben, I think. So now, this is from the Migdal Oz of the Rabbi Akiv Emden, who was... Rabbi Akiv Emden was a contemporary of the Baal Shem Tov. Akum, a goy, should not m-m, um, do a, be circumcising at all. Now, even tzorich lo amar gam kein, even if b'de'eka la-ashkuchi Yisroel, if you can find a Jewish mohel, so you have to bring him from elsewhere. Kai gavna afi leha chamtza mitzvah, at shaya v'zmana. Even if it means a delay of the mitzvah. Past the time. Im metzapim sheyovi mohel Yisroel. If you are anticipating that a Jewish mohel will come, then you have to delay the bris until you get a Jewish mohel. De'i lav hochi. But if you are in a situation that you don't expect ever a Jewish mohel to come your way, od if it's better to use a goy, mil haniah ha'yeled or l'gamri. Fascinating chazak. If you are in a situation where you... There can be people in some deserted places, no mohel, and there's no, no one, no travel, et cetera. Uh, no, not expecting any mohel to come their way. So Rabbi Akiv Emden says have a goy do the, do the circumcision. Now, coming back to this. So therefore, if the goy is... Now, looking at this situation, the child hasn't had a bris for five years. Now, they finally agreed only with a goyish surgeon. So there is, there is something to be gained. If he is gonna be

43:29 Speaker 1 there, it's gonna be Omen Dal Gabo. If he's, if he's can persuade the surgeon to allow him to use the knife to do the actual chituk or part of the chituk, it will be done al yedae Yisroel. So there is... I feel there is, uh, what to be gained by him being there. Um, and then the repercussions, other people will say, "Aha, he did, had a goy to do the bris." So he could say that, he could tell people that, "I, the, the surgeon allowed to do him, allowed him to do something, and I, I can't tell you what he allowed me to do." In this way, they don't, it's, it's becomes, you know, private information. But he, he was there, and it would, he's, they made it as kosher as possible. That's, that's my feeling in this, in the given situation. After I looked into this, I just saw on one of the, um, websites that there's, um, in Hong Kong at the moment, they have a very serious problem that they, their children have been born, boys have been born, and because of lockdown et cetera and quarantine, there's no, um, in the foreseeable future, near future, they don't see, um, any mohel coming. But that, I don't think that would fall into the category of Ribakiv Emden because there, you know, a lockdown's not gonna be forever. So there's gonna be a possibility of a mohel coming, so therefore they're gonna have to delay until such time. Whereas, um, uh, in this

44:51 Speaker 1 case, it's like it was so, uh, open-ended that I think there's more reason to be make or I tend to recognize. Let's, um... Well, then we have here a question. A, a fellow, uh, he's actually a shliach, and he lent, he had a building fund, and the money was just sitting there, so he lent it to another shliach. And then the, now he's ready to go ahead with his building, and this, the borrower has been defaulting and not paying. Uh, it was a six-month loan, it's been a couple of years. And it's really... So he's now the, the, the lender is asking me, he's very, uh, a very Hasidish guy, and he says, it says in the Torah, "Lo siah lekonoishah," you shouldn't oppress your borrower. And I'm worried what happens if I have un, um, uh, you know, I've, I've perhaps o-overestimated the ability of my borrower. Perhaps he can't pay. By forcing him to pay, I'm doing something very wrong by, by forcing him. So what should I do about that? So I dug up this from the Alter Rebbe Zichronah, where he talks about l- the, the isur of demanding, so that's the Sif Beis. "Kol ha'noneis et ha'oni v'hu yodea she'ein lo ma yachzir lo." If you pr- oppress the borrower who's poor, and you know that he doesn't have with what to repay, neither money nor, nor, um, m- m- affordable, uh, items, then if you know that he hasn't and you still oppress him, then you're over lo siah

46:19 Speaker 1 lekonoishah. Now, there has been published a, a, an edition of the Alter Rebbe's Choshen Mishpat with a commentary by Reb Yaakov Meir Sternshlitz, a Talmud of Rav Vosner. So he's, it's called, called Imrei Yacov. So this is his commentary. Um, so he says here, "Mashmadavka v'yodea aval im hu mestupak mutar lo litvoia." If you're not sure, then you are allowed to demand. The Torah did it, "Lo ostrabo ze. Ki ein od v'yodea." You're not expected to know the other p- person's private accounts. And therefore, if you're going to say you can't because he might not have the money, then you're, you're going to be saying that people can't demand their debts to be repaid. And therefore, he says in the third line, he says, "The isur is only if you know for a fact that the borrower doesn't have any money, then it's wrong to oppress. But if he, if he may have the money, so then you are allowed to oppress." And, uh, I hope he will, uh, take that and, um, push for his thing, and he should be able to get the money back. The fellow can borrow from another, another source, and, um, he should be able to go, go ahead with his building plan as, uh, you know, for what the money was raised. Finally, this is a question which I wr- ar- arrived today, which, um, I find a very b'chiddush, actually. And Geman from, uh, he's a, he's a shliach in Germany. He said, "I, I, I bought

47:38 Speaker 1 a box of Israeli figs, and I want to give them as a gift to a goy. Is that okay?" So are you allowed to... We're, we're, if we want to eat those figs or dates, whatever, so we have to take terumah and maaser. Can you give... We are gonna assume that the stuff, the food coming out of Eretz Yisrael, unless there's a heresh, hasn't been maaser. Are you allowed to give non-maaser food, um, to a goy? Tevel. The word for that is tevel. It's not terumah, not maaser. Are you allowed to give it to a goy to eat? And so I looked around, and the halakha in Poskim say you're not allowed to, and the source is from this Mishnah. This is the Mishnah in the end of Peah, uh, Perek Aleph of Peah, where it says there's a concept called meruach. That's a certain kind of smoothing the surface of the pile, which is like finishing that, that, that pile, and that's when it's chayav b'maaser. So it says, "U'machil labheimah u'la'chay u'le'of efs upad b'maaser ad sh'yimrach." Until the moment of meruach, which is, in other words, it's premature for maaser. Then you can feed to an animal. But once you've done meruach, once you've actually finished the, the, uh, harvest and, and, and the pile, and you've smoothed it, so then you wouldn't be allowed to m- it'd be b'machil labheimah. And the same thing, you wouldn't be a machil lanachri. So in, in other words, what we're seeing here is that

49:00 Speaker 1 the consumption of food without terumah and maaser is being done, even though it's not for a b'chiuva, it still remains asur to do it. And therefore, this becomes now a- actually, though, a very b- big surprise for me. Because then if you were a Jewish grocer and you sell Israeli, a green grocer, and you have Israeli, um, product, produce, you wouldn't be allowed to sell it to a goyish customer because you're going to be releasing stuff, um, without, w- w- which is chayav maaser, and it's not gonna be maaser. Which seems to be a b'chiddush for me, but be that as it may. Meanwhile, I wish you all a freilichen Lag BaOmer. K'dayu hero b'Shimon. Lisnu chalom. And we should, we get out of this dachak, out of this pandemic, and out of this galus, and go to the geulah amitas v'ashleimo b'simchas Olam Ha'ba shem. Amen. Amen. Amen. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom. Oh, yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.