פנורמה של הלכה 28

00:11 Good evening. Hope you can see me and hear me. We'll start off with saying Tehillim for the Matzav in Eretz Yisrael. We'll say Kapitel Chof, and, uh, we'll say also Kuf Nun. And then we'll put in Tzedakah, and then we'll start the Shir. Lamnotziach mizmor l'davi. Ya, an'chu adinai b'yom tzarah. Yasagev chu hashem elohei ya. Kai yishlach ezricham m'kai dei shmitziyon yisadeka. Yizker kol min chisecha v'elos cha yidash neselo. Yiten l'cha chilbo v'echa v'chol atzo tsecha yimale. V'rananu b'shvasecha v'shem elehenu nidge. V'imale adinai kol neshascha. Ata yodati ki yeshi adonai m'shicho ya nei u mishmei kodesho biguro. Esei esha yemino. Ei levorechei v'ei levasosim. Vanachnu v'shem adonai elehenu nazkir. Hei makoru v'nafalav anachnu kamnu v'nisadod. Adinai heshiyo amelchi aneinu v'im kareinu. Kapitel Kuf Nun. Halelu Ya, halelu El b'kodesh. Halelu hu m'ficia uzai. Halelu bigbor eso. Halelu hu krev gudlei. Halelu hu b'se kashefo. Halelu hu b'nei v'chi nei. Halelu hu b'sefe mocheil. Halelu hu b'mini b'rugo. Halelu hu b'tol tze lei shomo. Halelu hu b'tol tze lei serua. Kei v'neshomot halelu HaMevorach. Okay. So, let's start the Shir. We'll go down. The first question which we have today is a continuation from last week, where we had the discussion about a case of a Bris. And the, there was a child who was... If you want us to remind you, it's a child who's, who's, uh, five years old, non-Jewish father, Jewish mother, and they are taking the child to a surgeon, to a Goyshe surgeon, to do the circumcision. And the question was,

02:17 should the Shliach, um, be present or should he not be present? That was, that was the question. And so, my weighing up of the situation was that it's, that he should be there and his presence is better than his absence. So, I got feedback from, uh, someone by the name of Rabbi Mendel Notik, a German, uh, whom I don't know, but he heard the recording. And he was-- First, he took exception to the view which I'd taken, and he ga-gave me a reference to Har Zvi. Har Zvi is Rebbe Zvi Pesach Frank, who was the Rav of Yerushalayim going back some 50, 60 years ago. And his Sefer, he has this question. So I'm just reading from the text. "I was asked, and where there's no Jewish Mohel, there's only a Goyshe doctor, is it appropriate that you should have the Goy do the circumcision and the Yid is standing and, uh, viewing what's going on?" And if you remember from last week, the question was whether the Omed Al Gabbo, which is mentioned in the Gemara, does that-- has that got to do with safety, or has it got to do with Kavana? And the Har Zvi takes the view that the Omed Al Gabbo has got nothing to do with the Kavana, it's only got to do with safety or something like that. So not like other places where we have in Halakha that a Yisroel Omed Al Gabbo will make up for the lack of DeShma, lack of Kavana by the, um,

03:49 by the, uh, by the Yisroel-- by the Goy. So, and, and then it's very interesting, a couple of days later, this same Rabbi Mendel Notik, he sends me a further information about a Teshuvot of the Achiyezer, which I don't have on the, on the, on the screen. Rav Chaim Achiyezer is from Rav Chaim Ozer, who was the Rav of... Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky, who was the Rav of Vilna, brilliant Talmid Chacham. And he deals a very similar question of whether a, a Goyshe surgeon doing a circumcision, and there's a, a Jew present, whether there's any value to it. And he takes a view that the, the Yisroel Omed Al Gabbo actually will contribute to the Kasrus of the Brit. So, Chas v'Shalom, no one's suggesting that this is a good idea. What we're saying here is, here's a, a, a... You are confronted with a situation where there's going to be a circum-circumcision going to be done by a Goy. Should you, um, boycott and not be there and possibly also run the, uh, the risk of losing contact with that family, or should you go along? That was really the, the, the, the, uh, the s- the, uh, weigh-weighing up, the, whatever the wor-word is which I'm looking for. And what I w-would like to mention this similar context, um, about if a Kala, if a Kala refuses to go to Mikvah, do, does, does one-- would, would one o-o-officiate by such a wedding if you know that the Kala refuses to go to

05:25 Mikvah? And there is a letter of the Friediker Rebbe to, I think it's to... I, it's to Ch-Chi-- I-I'm pretty sure it's to Chicago. I think it's either to Rabbi Schusterman or to Rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Hecht. Anyway, he write, he writes, "Do not, do not reject them." In other words, when someone comes through your door and you have a contact with them, they've asked you for contact, don't, don't, uh, t-don't send them away. Uh, do whatever you can to keep that dialogue open. Okay, let's move on to the next question. So here we are. The next question which I've been, I'm, we're dealing with is a- Uh, he's, uh, he's actually in Canada. He's a, a sh- a Rov Shliach, and he deals with Yidden from the former Soviet Union. So what we call Russian Y- Jews. And they are very careful about, very, um, conscientious to say Kaddish for a parent. They'll come-- You've never seen them before, let's say, perhaps once or twice a year, but o- they're not, they're not regulars. Wh- when it comes to a, uh, the year of avelus, they're there day in, day out, and possibly three times a day to say Kaddish. And then come the end of the avelus, you won't see them again. Now, there is the 11th month... Sorry, after 11 months. So normally, mezonish virsin, but if a, Kaddish is said for 11 months, and the 12th month, one is-- we don't say Kaddish. And the reason for this is... Now, we

07:02 can read this on, in the text. I know, I'm sorry it's very blurry, but that's what I have. The Noah Gu- Noah Gu, the third line. The Noah Gu She'ein Omrim Kaddish Betefilah Rak Achad Asar Chodashim. One, one would do Kaddish would be only for 11 months. K'desh Le'aseh Avihem, um, V'imom Rash'oy. Not to give the impression that the parent is a, is a rasha, is a wicked person. Ki Mispat Rash'oy Mishnah Asar Chodesh. Because the judgment of the, the wicked in Gehenna is 12 months, as learned from Sukkah. So if one... And the Kaddish is seen to be to give relief to the neshamah in the world of truth. And so if one would be saying Kaddish for the full 12 months, then you would be alleging that the parent was a rasha. That's why you need to say it's to a Kaddish 12 months. Therefore, we are particular, we say Kaddish only 11 months. We stop a day earlier, only 11 months. The issue here is, if he tells this fellow, um, you know, uh, "Now, for this next 28 days, you don't, y- you don't say Kaddish." So the likelihood is he won't come to, uh, he won't come to shul. He won't put on tefillin, he won't daven, et cetera. So here is the question. Do we stick to the minhag of not saying Kaddish in the 12th month and lose tefillin and davening, et cetera? Or do you macha shvig, don't say anything, and he keeps on coming until the

08:37 yahrtzeit at least. You've gained-- Meanwhile, you've gained a whole, a whole, uh, whole month of, of putting on tefillin and, and, you know, davenning and being present amok Yidden, you know. So my, my response to him was that the mi- minhag is, uh, very important, but the, uh, uh, mitzvah d'oraita of being out, putting on tefillin every day is certainly much more important. And therefore, you shouldn't say anything. There's another aspect of it. And, uh, to it, sorry. There is an aspect that it's written in Meforshim Minchat Shai that if one, a person knows that the parent was indeed on, uh, an, uh, deserving of the title rasha, then he should say Kaddish for 12 months. It talks about a case of a mamzer would say, nebech, a mamzer, he would say Kaddish for 12 months as an atonement. So Chas v'Shalom to say a blanket statement. These are Yidden who never went through, um, s- 70 years of communism. And when the s- the previous Sadigura Rebbe, that's, um, uh, the, about 40 years ago, he went into the Rebbe and they were talking about Russian Jewry. And the Rebbe said, "You can jump off a roof, you can't jump u- onto a roof, even with a serious nefesh." And they, this is what Russian Jewry has gone through for the last, was it 56 years at the time. And so we're not, Chas v'Shalom, saying that they are Rash'oyim. But on the other hand, there's such a, uh, lack of knowledge in, uh,

10:18 in that community that I don't think there's gonna be anyone who's gonna say, "Oh, the fact that you're saying Kaddish for another few da- another few weeks means you hold your father as a rasha." I don't think that's really a concern. And therefore, I felt weighing this up, that better let him continue say, come, uh, coming till yahrtzeit at least, and, um, continue doing, uh, putting on tefillin every day. Let's go on. Just after last week's shiur, I got a question from one of our listeners about the inyon of saying, um, uh, Kaddish and, um, Yizkor, et cetera, for y-- Because last week we'd had a discussion about Yizkor. And so how, how long does it go for? So actually, this is in Shulchan Aruch in, uh, in, in Yoreh Deah, in Siman shin ayin bet, where it talks about Kaddish, and it says on, about yahrtzeit, it says, "Leolam." And you can see the, the, this quote on top is from a sefer called Divrei Sofrim. Sorry about that. So a sefer called Divrei Sofrim, a brilliant s- uh, s- series of sefarim. Um, this is on Hilchas Avelus. And he, he, uh, takes the word "leolam" from the Shulchan Aruch or from the Gemara. He says, "Mevua She'ein Gvul L'yahrtzeit. Ela Leolam Kol Yemei Chayav Olam HaBen Kaddish Al Aviv Shemes." There's no expiry date for yahrtzeit. Throughout the person's life, he will say, and, uh, and he, uh, has a parent who had passed away, he'd continue saying Kaddish as long as

11:56 he lives. And he quotes a Sefer Rav Polin, that's from the Ben Ish Chai, whose... It's interesting, he writes the word yahrtzeit, although the Ben Ish Chai is obviously a Sephardi. But it looks like in, in Baghdad, they would use the word yahrtzeit Rather than, I don't know what the Arabic equivalent is. So this says, "Yoim yortzeit, ein lu gvul beshonim." There's no limit of an expiry date. You don't say, "Oh, well, you know, by now he's in, as high as he can come." You don't say that. Vafilu im yichi ha-ben me'ah shanim. Even if the son s- lives 100 years after his pa- pa- parent passed away, you would still say Kaddish, observe yortzeit throughout the, throughout his life on, on the yortzeit. And the idea, Kaddish, candles, Sukkah, uh, learning extra because... and now he adds, ki nefesh ha'adam, because a person's soul, even though it's departed from Olam HaZeh, and even though it's gone through safely out of the punishments of Gehenom and is now in Gan Eden, it's still ain't, it, it doesn't acquire shlemus. It doesn't acquire perfection in one go. It keeps on going, um, bizmanim chalukim. Um, it keeps on going, uh, ha- ha- at various steps, and there may be a sh- a neshama which even in a thousand years will not reach to all the miles which it can reach to. And so, uh, the, he goes on longer. He talks about the Rashbi, how we still observe the yortzeit of Rashbi although obviously been so

13:24 many years since he, um, since he passed away. So that's so far as, is there an expiry date for yortzeit? For, uh, and he's saying very clearly the Ma'aramas says, "Leolam," and this Divrei Soferim is explaining this a little bit more. So what we're seeing is, though, in the explanation that the idea of observing yortzeit does continue even, um, for much longer. The question of this young man or middle-aged man is about relatives from previous generations. Ah. So what about that? So the other quote we have here is, um, this I think is from Littei Gabriel, I think. Um, not sure. Yesh noagim k'shemagia yortzeit shel zekeinim mitzad ha'av vemitzad ha'em veha'bon sh'lo heyman kayman oim em v'olam asis yortzeit. Some would observe if their parent is, uh, no longer here and there's a grandparent's yortzeit. They, they would also light a candle and say Kaddish. If there's no one, they don't have priority over anyone else, but they would observe a yortzeit of a grandparent. So there is a, there is a value, particularly I would say if it's a grandparent whom, who, who, who you, you remember. You had to, to go, go back generations. I don't think... I haven't seen that being done other than in the case of tzadikim, et cetera, um, Rebbes possibly. But overall- Right. Let's, um, just, just one, one- My first- My first memory of the Rebbe was my father, alav hashalom, brought me to the Rebbe on Yutza Kislev, Taf Shin Lamed Dalet. And my first

15:19 memory was the Rebbe in the corner of a small shul upstairs saying Kaddish. Uh, and so he would, Rebbe would say Kaddish several times a year. One of them was on, on the night of, of Yutza Kislev for possibly for some relative. I'm not sure. Okay. Um, I see that someone on, on the, on the chat, someone has put in a comment. I'm gonna read it out for you. "I heard from Dayan Lopian that the shailer of the kala refusing to go to mikvah came to Rabbi Moshe and he said that Dayan Lopian should definitely be in tzadik condition, otherwise the kala would go to Reform who would be happy to look after her." Okay. It's also a hechsher, yeah. And possibly that sounds actually very similar to what I said before from the Pshevurcher Rebbe, that someone is, uh, who, who has, uh, engaged with you, you don't send them away. You try to do whatever you can to, uh, keep on, keep up the contact. Let's move on. Thank you for that. Um, so a, a woman called me up. She had a sister who's unfortunately a, a young widow and her, the, the late husband had, uh, instead of le- leaving money for settling a kasuvah, et cetera, unfortunately, he left a lot of debts. And she's asking does she have a, a duty to settle the debt. And we're talking about quite significant amounts, um, unfortunately. So I said, I, I told her that she does not have a duty to

16:51 settle her, the late husband debts. But let's take a look at the Halakha. This is from a Sefer called Piskei Choshen, which is a, kind of a, a contemporaries work on Choshen Mishpat. So he writes here that, Meis haloiveh. If the borrower died and did not leave any, any assets, the, uh, yorishim, his heirs, do not have a duty to, to settle the, um... They don't have, they don't have a duty to settle the, the, uh, the debts of their, of the parent. Uh, but and then he says, Mikol mekoin ro'i levonim lefroi achai v'avin. It is a- appropriate, but it's not a, they, they don't have a duty, but it's, it's, it's advised. And so in the notes he has here that there's a mitzvah of kibud av. Now, there's a mitzvah of kibud av, but who, who, i- if the, if, uh, kibud av costs money, does that come from the child's money or from the parent's money? So the general Halakha is that the Hala- that the costs would be from the, from the parent. Uh, the child not obliged to fork out money to If a person borrows money irresponsibly, then we've got a concept called lo verosh aval yeishal. If a person borrows money irresponsibly, then i-the fact that he hasn't repaid is wicked, and it would be midas chassidus for the child to redeem the father from the consequences from, from leaving those, those debts. So there can be irresponsible, um, borrowing, uh, debts. Let's say a person borrowed

19:08 without having a, a plan to be able to pay back, and there could be other cl- there could be, uh, other forms of expenses incurred which he never managed to settle. So that's, that, that would be a difference. So let's say, and in this case particularly, there were medical bills which were left unpaid. I don't know whether you could say a medical bill would be considered a, a rosha for not paying. Um, that's difficult, difficult question. Uh, if a person doesn't have the money to go to a doctor and then incur medical bills, uh, I, I feel a certain sympathy not to call that person a rosha. And in which case, there wouldn't be a, a duty on the children to settle that bill. That's all talking about the children, and certainly a, a, a widow would not have a duty to settle those bills. Um, but if there had been, uh, bad debts and irresponsible borrowing, if they, she had the money somehow, it would be, uh, it would be a zechus for that neshamah to be relieved of that duty, but it's not a, not a, not a, not a chiyuv, not an obligation on, upon her at all. Let's move on. Okay. Let's move on here. Okay. So here I got this question. A family, they have these children's books, and the rest of the book is, I don't know, uh, just children's books. Stories. Uh, Yossi and Mendy, uh, whoever, Mimi and Simi, whatever. But at the front page, by the,

20:48 by the end, beginning of the book, there's the one page, o-one, that, that little pasuk, or half a pasuk, la'ashom nova seha, in case you're not sure, tells you where it's from. Does that make the book holy to the point that, you know, let's say the children would otherwise take their b-books sometimes into the bathroom. It-- What, what is, what's the story? Does one little, one half a pasuk like that make the whole sefer, um, uh, darah kodesh? Now, this is relevant to all of us who sometimes buy a Yiddish newspaper, that is a Jewish newspaper, and it's got a Dvar Torah here, there, and somewhere. And what about the rest of the paper? Uh, uh, does that have a kedushah? So, um, what I've got in front of you is from a sefer called Ginzei HaKodesh, and the sefer is all dedicated to the inyanim of what we call shemus, things which need to be put away, uh, um, you know, to be buried, et cetera. So this is the famous question about news- Jewish newspapers and... So, of course, it's very easy to advise that they should have a separate section, a, a pull-out section, and all the Dvar Torah should be there. And yes, some of the magazines do have, um, a separation. They, they have Dvar Torah in one section, but that's not always possible and doesn't always happen. So does that make... Well, what's the status of the whole newspaper? Now, let me just say the other side. That the

22:13 gedolei Yisroel, and the Rebbe mentions this in letters, they understood if they're going to make the Divrei Torah totally separate from the newspaper, they're going to people, they're going to people they're not gonna reach to. They davka wanted to put the Divrei Torah in a place where unwittingly the reader's looking for some politics or for the sports or something like that, for contemporary news, and meanwhile they come across with a Da- Dvar Torah. And that was, that was their moral justification for putting Divrei Torah into newspapers, even though they will likely end up in, as wrapping, um, fish and chips, et cetera. So I'm just now reading the text. He's saying here, "A newspaper which is dedi-" basically a m- a, a choil, a mundane newspaper, but it also has bits of Divrei Torah. Some say you are allowed to take it into bes hakisah without checking if there are Divrei Torah. If whilst you're there you see, oops, here's a Dvar Torah, okay, so turn the page and, uh, or put, put that piece in your pocket. So on that basis, the... I'd say with these, these children's books, they could take them into the bathroom but should not have that paper, page open. I'm not too worried because that doesn't... For, for toddler, there are more exciting parts in the book than that, uh, first, you know, uh, opening inscription. If... Then he goes on, though, ho- in the next thing. If you know that they're Divrei Torah, you shouldn't bring it into

23:39 the bes hakisah. If they are covered, then you are allowed to, and you should be careful not to expose it. Um, let me just finish off with this. Um, a couple of points. One is that sometimes people write, on a invitation, they write a ha- a pasuk or something, um. And that is a problem. We shouldn't be really writing psukim on things which are gonna end up in the bin together with the tea leaves and the chicken bones. It's, it would be a disgrace for the pasuk. And on the other hand, sometimes we use a pasuk, not really as, as a limud Torah. We just... It's, it's a nice expression, so we borrow the expression. So it's not so clear-cut whether... But here they actually gave the address where the pasuk is from, which makes it a little bit less comfortable. You can't say it's just a borrowed term. Why did they give the reference? The other thing I wanna say is, what do you do with your Divrei Torah in, you know, with the, with the newspapers? So the general advice in contemporaries forum is that you could wrap them in a bag and put them out by the recycle. The-there's an issue here. There's a difference, very important. There's a difference whether it's got actual Yud Hei Vav Hei or Alef Lamed or Adni, et cetera. If it's got mamash shemus, then it's much stricter. But if it's just Divrei Torah, like you have in the, the Jewish Tribune this week, I, uh,

25:20 have an article, um, on that, that, more than, more than cheesecake. It's all about Shvu'ot. It's a Divrei Torah. So that kind of thing, it's in the, um, in the Good Yom Tov section. So, but if it's, uh, so even that, it's got no Shemos there. It's got no Shem HaL'chaim or Shem Havayah, et cetera. It's just Divrei Torah. So then there's a issur to disgrace it, but there's, it doesn't have to be buried. So therefore, you could take that and wrap it and put it into the recycle and, uh, it doesn't need to be buried. Whereas if it were something which, a Siddur or a Tanya which has got HaShem's name spelled out, then it would need to go into, into binis, into burial. Okay, let's go on to the next point. Okay, so this is a question from a teacher in, in, uh, France. She asks me, she's teach... Oh, so not there yet. Um, this question six, straining the liquid from a tin of vegetables on Shabbos. Pickles, olives, and, uh, or corn. So what's the issue here? It's the issue of boirer. By using the tin lid to separate the juice, whatever it's called, the liquid from the fruit, from the food, says you're, you're, it's a question of boirer. So boirer means to unjumble when there is a jumble. So in the case of what Americans call pickles, we call them pickled cucumbers. They're large items. They un- There's not, they're not jumbled. Therefore, you are allowed to drain off

26:59 the liquid and retain the little cucumbers inside the jar or inside the tin. That's okay. But when they are smaller particles, therefore it would be more tricky to, to separate them from the liquid, then you would not be allowed to pour off the liquid away from the produce. And Rav Farkash, in his Sefer Shabbos Halacha, he defines olives also as being small pieces, and he says you should not be trai- straining, uh, the liquid away from a jar of or a tin of olives. Right. Let's go on to the next point then. This is a Shliach somewhere here in, uh, in London area, and they're expecting people to come on... Um, before I go further, I think I should go and deal with the, with the chats. Thank you for those comments. Let's go one by one. So someone's asking, "Does that apply..." Um, one thing at a time. Just a second. Um, can you put them in recycle? Is, is it the same as the dustbin? Does that apply to the weekly Parsha sheets in shul? Then someone writes, "I believe recycle ensures destruction. Ordinary rubbish is dealt by landfill, not destroyed." All right. Th-the point is, though, that putting a Divrei Torah, especially if it's my Divrei Torah, putting it in together with tea leaves or together with the left- leftover, um, cholent, et cetera, that is a direct, a frontal disgrace. By contrast, if it's gone, going through a machine, it's going to be des- It is gonna be recycled, it's gonna

28:44 be, um, whatever the word, the word is, um, uh, gonna, gonna be, um, shredded. And then it's gonna be, uh, recycled into a new paper. You're not gonna-- There's, there's not, not gonna be any text which is gonna be in disgrace. That takes away. It's not gonna be exposed in a disgraced way. It's not going to see a Divrei Torah which has got oil all over it or, or, or gravy stains. And that's what we're trying to avoid. So, so it should be... Then, then, then there's a difference again between recycle and, and the, uh, the dustbin which has got disgraceful stuff there and w-we should put it in recycle rather than into the, uh, other bin which is... Right. Now, so it kind of back to point seven. So we've got this, uh, this, uh, Shliach here expecting visitors or g-guests over for davening of Yom Tov, et cetera, and they want to give them pieces of cheesecake, and they will give them in little boxes like you, when you buy a birthday cake from Krisinski, et cetera. And so they, what happens, they've got this flat piece of card which has been scored and cut into particular position, and you'll fold it, and you'll create a box. So are you allowed to create that box on Shabbos or Yom Tov? So what you have here is a quote from, from, uh, Piske Teshuvas. Um, the exact address is in Siman Shin Beis. It's, um, Sif Katan Yod Beis. So he talks about folding

30:14 serviettes. To stand, fold a serviette, um, in which, w-with, with no significant message to it, that's okay. But, um, then he says here, If it's... Then he says, "Sheets of card which would be folded and made into a Keili, then you wouldn't be allowed to fold them because that's called Gamar Melacha. By folding them in a, in, in the right place, you are making a finished product." Actually, what he's saying in the first part, you know, if you've got some, uh, leaflets which were made on A4 paper, but you want to fold them into A5, that, that's the way they should be as a finished product. So to fold them neatly would also be a f- He's, he's suggesting that that's also a form of Makeh Bepatis. You're, uh, giving a finishing touch. So you shouldn't be doing that folding either on Shabbos. But certainly with these boxes- To take those boxes, to take the flat carton and fold them into the shape of making a box, that wouldn't be allowed on a Shabbos because of making the pa- Tikun Keilim, making the patish. Let's go on to the next point. Okay. So the question as I've got it written down in point eight is, "Due to the lateness of nightfall in our locale, for the second night of Yom Tov, we're planning to do Kiddish and have the Yom Tov meal just after Plag Mincha. What do we do about lighting candles?" So this is the s- first night of Shevus, most of us

31:52 will be, uh, davening Maariv Bizman and having the meal very late. Well, if you go up to Manchester or to Gateshead, you'll get... And Edinburgh is gonna be even later, so feel makinky. Yeah. Okay. Now, the lower quote on the page is from the Sefer Shmirat Shabbot K'Halacha, Chelek Bet. And he's saying the second night of Rosh Hashana or second night of Yom Tov in Chutz La'aretz, one shouldn't do Kiddish until after Tzeh HaKochavim, after Maariv. And so that's his, his, his recommendation. But then in his footnotes, he d- he does give a little, a little bit of a leeway, and, uh, this other qu- uh, the upper quote is from my Sefer, Nesiv Misteh Hashlichot, where I wrote about this, saying at first that the general minag is for the second night of Yom Tov, one, uh, doesn't light candles until nightfall, and it's written on the calendar. The earliest time you can light candles is going to be, um, I didn't... What's it? It says here on our calendar it's 10:03. On Monday night, the earliest kind- time for lighting candles will be 10:03. Now, what happens if you're not gonna be eating at 10:03? For some reason, you're gonna be eating at 8:30. So is there any point of lighting candles at 10:03 when, well, you're not gonna stay there. You're, you're not gonna eat the, the meal then. So th- this, this is the second point which you have over here. If you are eating the seder earlier, then you can

33:26 light candles. You should light candles before Kiddish. So again, it's Monday evening, you're not going to, for whatever reason, because of your circumstances. So generally, we try to eat Bizmanah, after, after Nach. But if you're not gonna do that, and you're gonna have your meal at, at, uh, eight o'clock, let's say, so then before Kiddish, you should light the, the, uh... Whoever lights the candles should light the candles with a bracha. Now, it's not like making Havdalah early, because Havdalah is taking away from Kedushat HaYom. But when you, on Monday, when it's still Yom Tov Rishon, and you say again a bracha of Kiddish, you're not taking away from Kedushat HaYom. You're, you're, you're, you're proclaiming Kedushat HaYom. It's not a problem, um, if necessary. To do it g- later on, Ben HaShmashot, is more worrying. So you'd have to, you'd be, be very careful not to put up a soup, let's say, at nine o'clock, and it's going to be, uh, ready at, at, um, at 10:03, because then you're doing your melacha on Yom Tov Rishon, but so you're on Yom Tov Sheni, which that's not allowed. But if you're going to be eating well, uh, you know, well before sun- sunset, then it's okay to warm up the soup and to, and to have it. So Min Hatosechet, it's, it's Yom Tov Rishon. You're allowed to cook on Yom Tov Rishon for Yom Tov Rishon. And now you've ma- you've, you've made Kiddush for Yom Tov Sheni. A very interesting thing. Um,

34:55 in the Ben Ish Chai's Sefer I mentioned before, the Rav Pe'alim. I think it's there. Uh, either Rav Pe'alim or Po'alim or the other, his other Sefer, Terumat Deshen. So he says, why should... Well, he, why, why was he akin with the idea of, of davening, um, and having the meal earlier on the second night? He says, because, uh, at sunset, there tends to be flies, much more flies present in the atmosphere and there, and there's more likelihood that you might unwittingly eat, uh, eat a fly which came into the food. That's, that's his, one of his reasons for having the meal earlier. But fine. But that, that's, that's the story here. We ha- we have here. That if, if a person is eating the meal earlier, they should make Kiddish earlier, and before the Kiddish, they'll make the, the Havdalah also early. Let's go on. Okay. So someone... This was, like, a question. Someone had passed away on, on a Shabbos afternoon, Shabbos evening, and it's not sure whether he passed away, uh... So he passed away Ben HaShmashot. So to explain what Ben HaShmashot, in English, we'd call it twilight, and that's the zone after the sun has set, before three stars have, have appeared in, uh, uh, to be visible in the heaven. And that is a zone which is, as far as we're concerned in Halakha, it's a safek. It's a doubt whether it belongs to the preceding day or to the following day. And so now the person passed away

36:24 in this zone, and now the son wants to know whether, whether to observe yortzeit one day or the other. It so happens that this was more important that the, uh... It was relevant. The son actually wants to make a chasuna, and it's a question whether he can make the chasuna on the, on the second day, or does he, if, w- well, you know, as, whether the yortzeit is which da- uh, he prefer. Well, it would be easier, he could make the chasuna on a particular date, but that's the day after rather than the day before that twilight. You know, for the following year. Um, this is in the first year of aveilus. So now, here you've got a quote from the Sefer Nittei Gavriel, Me'es Ben HaShmashot. So a person passed away during twilight, and pa- let's say it's a Sunday evening. There's a safek. We have a doubt whether the person is considered passed away on Sunday or on Monday. So some say you go the earlier date, and some say you go for the second date. Well, so you've got your choice. Um, and some say you should observe both dates. Now, let me explain something. My, um, take on it has generally been the, the former because a yahrtzeit has got... Another word for it is Yom Hazikaron, perhaps, and it's a day of remembering the nifter. Now, it, it's better that the day of remembrance should be observed earlier. It shouldn't come a moment to say that the nifter says, "Oh,

37:51 they forgot about me." And therefore, that's my which I've seen in Poskim to take the earlier date. The second svara, which is from the Munkacser Rav, Rav Ben Cassel Ozer, he says there is a concept, let's say, Tisha B'Av is not brought forward. Tisha B'Av is delayed because the Gemara says, ". If it's an element of punishment and of suffering, one does not bring it forward. And he's taking the view that a yahrtzeit is seen as a day of, of, uh, ill, um, ill fortune for the person, for the, for the, uh, for the living. And therefore, why bring it forward? Do it later. So we've got here two views, and I'm not sure exactly what is the, uh, . I don't have a clear clue, okay. But what, yeah, what happens to be a useful thing is the next point, which he says this happened-- it happened to be this person passed away on a Shabbos, Shaul Shabas time, right? In the evening between Shabbos and Motzaei Shabbos. Now, here, there's a strongest way to say that the, uh, person passed away on Shabbos. Since that Benosh Moshiach, there's a Halakhah of Shmiras Shabbos. So all Yidden, all from Yidden, have been keeping that as Shabbos, um, uh, until the Bed Ha'avdah or till the Day of Ma'ariv. So that would, uh, kind of relegate it more to the preceding day rather than to the following day. Um, fine. So these are the svaras which we have over here. Let's move on. So

39:20 I was inclined to say, obviously, that it, it's, uh, to use the earlier date, which happens to work well for the, this family who want to make a wedding on the following day or the day after the, you know, the, uh, yahrtzeit. Okay. So here we have point ten. And last week, we had a discussion about tzitzit and during the night. And, uh, as a result, we kind of branched off into a little discussion about Negel Vasser, if you wake up in middle of the night. And so, and I got some feedback from one of our listeners from overseas. And so I wanted to address this carefully. So here we have... This is in the Ateres Zkenim, which is in the margin of the Shulchan Aruch, quoting the Shalah. And the of the Shalah is, "As soon as you wake up, and you don't wish to sleep. You tell your-- If you wash your hands, even , even if you're staying in bed a little longer, , certainly you shouldn't walk Dal Damis. So here we've got those three words. You don't want to continue sleeping. So you've gotten up to stay up. That's when you need to wash Negel Vasser. So that's, that's the dyuk which we're, which we're working on. And then we've got a Sefer Kol Avraham, which is just two volumes, um, Rav Avraham Alcalai, a Sephardic Shulchan Aruch. Then it goes according to the alphabetical order. So you have Orach Chayim, the letter Nun. So that's probably Netilat Yadayim.

40:51 So he says, it looks like if a person got up, behatas, in middle of the night for some need, and he's going straight back to bed, that you don't have to worry about the Dal Damis to-- um, business. He, the Kol Avraham, Rav Alcalai himself, is not so happy about it. He would say that you do have to wash Negel Vasser. Then we have the Aish Avraham, I've mentioned several times, the Bachocher Rav. And he, uh, also, um, uh, yeah, Bachocher Rav was a contemporary of the Mizrahi Rebbe, Tzemach Tzedek, a Talmud of the, um, Mekubal of the, uh, Badichava. Um, so he justifies taking the lenient view. If you're just getting up just to go and to deal with nature's call and go straight back to bed, he says, "You don't need to wash Negel Vasser." And then we have the Kotynover in the Mishmeres Shalom. He's not so keen about it, but he's, he said, "you can." And then he says, "." He takes the view that, okay, if it's the middle of the night and you go back to bed, don't worry about Negel Vasser, uh, if necessary. But if it's-- If you wake up at this time of the year and it's quite light outside, even though you're still going back to bed, he's, he's more inclined that you should have to wash Negel Vasser. So you've got here a variety of opinions. But there are-- there is room to be sameach, uh, especially in the middle of the

42:16 night, that you don't need to wash Negel Vasser. As I said, I said last week, of course, before you go back to bed, you're gonna have to, uh, say Berachot Ashayot, sir. Um, and therefore, you're gonna have to wash your hands, but not necessarily with a kali, uh, three times and all that. Okay. Let's go on to the next point which we have. Um, hmm. All right. Okay. That's all we have. Uh, we have another two points on my list, but there, there's no, no slides for those. Okay. So here I have this shaila, um, Shliach on campus. And... Oh, it is here. Good. So, uh, uh, first night of Shavuot. Now, this is, this is a question from Italy, and Italy is under curfew from ten PM. By the time they daven Maariv, it's going to be-- If the daven Maariv is manual, we're gonna be up by nine-- about, about nine thirty. And so he wasn't planning to have a, a meal for the students and let them all, you know, deal with it themselves in their, in their, uh, lodgings. But several students did approach him to make a, a-- to have a meal together on the night of Shavuos. Now, they... and they ha- they have to respect this curfew, so they're gonna have to be back in their lodgings by ten o'clock. Which the only choice is then to do, uh, Kiddush earlier. And so there's no difference between davening Maariv early or Kiddush earlier. It's the same thing. It's

43:52 the issue of shortening the last day of Sefira. So let's read that Halakha in the Shulchan Aruch. This is from Siman tof tzedek daled. And the Arugot Rebe, it's the second Sefer of tof tzedek daled, Dinim Shavuos. "Afal pi shebechol erev Yom Tov, no'agin lehakdim tefilat erev shel Yom Tov bebeit din, be'tam shun is ba'al Siman ve'samav zain." Generally, there is on a Friday evening or an Erev Yom Tov, there's idea of starting the Kedushah, the holiness of the day, bringing it earlier. "Ve'kol kamoleil Shavuot me'achrin lehispalel le'arat tzet ha'kochavim." But the night of Shavuos, we wait for Maariv until the stars appear. "Sheim yakdimu veyiskabulut kedushat Yom Tov be tefila bebeit din." Because if they would accept the Kedushat Yom Tov earlier in the day. "Harei ze kemoy shechisru me'at mimem tesimei ha'sefirah shel lifnei chag hazeh." So by declaring that now is, um, Chag HaShavuot, Zman Matan Torateinu, so you've brought it... You've, you've, you've cut away a little bit from the last day of the Sefira. "VehaTorah omrah sheva shavuot temimot yehiyu." It should be seven full weeks. "Umezeh atah." In the Kadesh. "Gam kein kidush hayom bebeit din mafkidun tefilat aravit." So there's no difference between Kiddush early or Maariv early. It's going to be infringing upon the Temimot. So this is the reason why we Machmir. I remember I was in Leeds once for Shavuos, and it was, I was, it was-- I think it... It was Shabbos was on Erev Shavuot, and, uh, it was eleven o'clock or something,

45:24 and the local people, you know, Poshei Teudis, Azidus, uh, Shavuot, the first night of Shavuot, it has to be Bizmanit. And so we did that. Um, having said that, but here you've got here a, a group of students who the Chesbon you have to make is, if you're going to decline their request to have a Yom Tov meal at the Chabad house, whatever, so what's gonna happen in their, in their, in... What are they gonna be doing in their lodgings? And certainly, I mean, this, this business of not davening Maariv early, it's a Chiddush of one of the very prominent early Acharonim, or perhaps one of the very late. Which I... I think it's one of the early Acharonim. I don't remember the name now. It's, it, it, it is a Halakha, but it's not a very strict Halakha. And therefore, I felt that it would be justified for this Shliach to accept their-- to go along with them and to do an early Maariv and to do an early, uh, early Kiddush, and, uh, host them for the meal, and they should be able to get home in time before the curfew. And we've got the concept of Sha'at Khak, and I can't think of more of a Sha'at Khak than this whole pandemic and coping with the, you know, curfews and all that kind of stuff. Um, it's definitely defi- qualified as a Sha'at Khak, and one, one does take a more lenient view when, where, when, where possible. Now, having said that,

46:47 I got-- last night, I got a, a email from someone, um, who is spending Shavuot in Iceland. And he's, uh, there, um, Sh-shkiya, sunset is about ten thirty, I think, and tzet ha'kochavim is twelve thirty-seven, and, uh, alot ha'shachar is about one o'clock or something, or one thirty. And what should you do? So there, I told him that you should wait for Kiddush. Wait for Maariv and wait for Kiddush until twelve thirty-ish, and then you'll do, uh, you'll, you'll done Maariv, make Kiddush, have a piece of, um, wash and have a k-kaveitz of, of, of challah, and y-you're just as Yom Tov. Uh, the difference being that there he's on his own. It's not as though he, uh, in-affecting a tzibbur or anyone else. No one's losing by... other than himself, yeah? And in any, in any case, it's the night of Shavuot, so you're staying up in any case. So that was, that was our discussion. So where w-w... If, if it's for ourselves, then we would keep to this Halakha of davening Maariv and Kiddush davka after nightfall. If it's, uh, affecting other people and, uh, compro-compromising their, their, um, kiyum mitzvahs, then one should think, think differently. Finally, we have the last thing on my list, is if there's no minyan, may we take out a Sefer Torah and read Aseret Hadibrot? So a Sefer Torah is made for learning Torah. That's what it's made for. And of course, we are very careful about the Kedushah of a Sefer Torah, but it's

48:35 not a problem to take out a Sefer Torah to read something from it. And so, uh, many Shluchim are trying to get, uh, people to come. And of course, the Rebbe's primary push for Mivtza Aseret Hadibrot is that children and adults, obviously, should be present in shul, um, for Krias HaTorah and hear Aseret Hadibrot. But where that's not possible, so people are making minyanim, et cetera. But when there's no minyan, this is the question, can you take out a Sefer Torah? And I feel that yes, you can do. And you could... If it were a minyan, I, my feeling is that you can't just do Aseret Hadibrot. If you take out a Sefer Torah with a minyan, it has to be five aliyot, which is the pray-- Seder of, of, uh, of Yom Tov. You have to follow the Takkanot Hakachonim of, of Krias HaTorah of Yom Tov. But if there isn't a minyan, then you could just do the Aseret Hadibrot. Then, um, here's another cute thing, that if you so happen to have one of the people there who didn't say a Birkat HaTorah because he didn't say Birkat HaShachar. Well, make sure he washes Netilat Yadayim. But then, uh, you can call him up, so to speak, and he'll say the Birkat HaTorah before, before, uh, um, he'll say Birkat HaTorah before, uh, the, the, this reading. Not a Bracha Acharonah because it's, it's not a, a Krias HaTorah. But a Bracha Rishonah he would be able to say, and, uh, right.

50:06 U'vimalu mazaki him to say a, to say, um, a, a Birkat HaTorah. Um, let's just finish off then. The, the Chabad traditionis to use the wi- the wishes of Kabbalah. And that means to-- if, if we are Mekabel Torah and we are happy about it. So now that's one way of it becoming more B'pnimius, more internalized. And I was listening-- I, I participated in the Kinus HaTorah today and listening to, uh, various Rabbonim who spoke. Two thing, two nice ideas came up. Uh, nice might not be the right one, right word. Rabbi, um, Da-- what is, um, Zimmerman. Was Gateshead Rav, now of the Federation. He was talking about the, uh, tragedy in Meron and talking where we, where we have in the Torah how we just read about the Kosher Ish B'achiv, one stumbling over the, his brother. And so the one message of being so careful not to tread on another person, uh, in our, obviously, in, uh, in our, in our hand-- dealings with other people. And Rav Asher Weiss, uh, zo zei gezunt, he was speaking about the Bracha of, um, of, uh, HaArevna. Now, it says in the Gemara, uh, why was the, uh, of the HaArets Al Ozvom Es Torosi. Why was the Churban Bayis Rishon happened? Because they neglected the Torah. And then the Gemara says, um, Gemara says, "Al Sheli Beracha BaTorah T'chila." They didn't say the Birkat HaTorah. And you ask, because they didn't say Birkat HaTorah, that's, that's the cause for the destruction? So

51:47 look at the Birkat HaTorah. We've got three Brachas. Al Divrei Torah, which is Rosh Yeshivah's Daas or in the Ashkenaz version, Laset Divrei Torah. Then we have a, have a HaArevna, then we have Asher Bocha Bonum. HaArevna, we say, "Hashem, um, make the words of Torah sweet in our mouths." faintly. And then we, and then we ask Tze Tzeinu, our children, should also be, um, uh, affiliated and involved in, in Limud HaTorah. So he, he, he brought those things together. That if the Torah is HaArevna, if the Torah is sweet, if we are enjoy the words of Torah and Ke'Hilchot Mitzvot, if we have a joy, then that will be, have an impact on Tze Tzeinu, on, on our offspring, that our children will also absorb that Gishmak in Torah and Mitzvahs. So that's what the Gemara's saying. Why was the Churban? Because they neglected the Birkat HaTorah. That, what, what he, what is being said there is that they were missing out in the HaArevna. They were missing out in the Gishmak or community of, of Gishmak of Torah and therefore, as a result, it wasn't being shared to the next generation. So these are the messages which we have here. We should, uh, have a Gishmak in Torah and, and share that Gishmak with our families and children, Ein Klal, each one to their own. And, uh, bezrat Hashem, b'meah al fin gezunt, and we should, uh, be Mekabel Torah, as you said, B'simcha B'pnimius. And we should be zoche to celebrate, uh,

53:14 Shavuot with the Moshiach Tzidkeinu.