חיי שרה תשפ״ב

00:00 A good shabbos and welcome to tonight's shiur. Thank you, Rabbi Pinchas Rabin and Mrs. Rabin for sponsoring today's, uh, shiur. Le'echad yamim shalom tovos, to your wedding anniversary, and sh'mat machnes, children, grandchildren, and good health. I'd also like to take this opportunity to ask everyone to join in to a, um, a bracha, a refua shleima to all those of our community who are suffering, uh, from COVID and from other-- whatever else it may be. Should have a refua shleima, a krevo, uh, be able to get back to their avodat hakodesh and good health, uh, speedily. The, the fact that we're sitting here has got to do with COVID. That's how the, this whole shiur evolved. And it's also because of COVID that we're here this Motzei Shabbos, because, uh, we still don't have permission to enter the, uh, United States. But meanwhile, just certainly needs to me-- a-appropriate to mention about the Kinus HaShluchim and how the Shluchim-- by the Rebbe, Kinus HaShluchim was a, a very elated moment. All the, the idea of all this kindalachu he'd sent in all different difficult and challenging places to come together to celebrate together. So it's really a very special time. Let's go to our shiur and a bit of feedback from last week. We spoke about chamar medina. And just to remind you, the, the conclusion last week was that if you don't have wine and you have a choice between challah or, or chamar medina as an, uh, a alcoholic drink, let's say. And the

02:00 r- this-- the balance was that by night, you should make kiddush on bread, on the challah. And by day, it's preferable to make kiddush on the chamar medina. That's, that's the balance. So two points. One which is feedback over here. And it may have been-- I may have, may have left the impression last week that there's no way you can make kiddush on challah Shabbos by day. But if you take a Tillos Hashem siddur at the ki-kiddush for Shabbos day, it shows you, uh, the options of, uh, of, um, bore pri hagafen and ha motzi. Plus, I think it even says the savi moronim. So there seems to be... And actually, look in Shulchan Aruch, there is also, uh, b'sha'at hachetz. If you had-- if you only had bread, then you'd make, uh, have, um, kiddush on bread by day also. So that's the, that's one side of it. That the preference to the... Again, the-- by day, wine. If no wine, then chamar medina. If no chamar medina, then you make on challah. By night, so the preference is wine. If there's no wine, then on the challah. And if necessary, it looks like chamar medina is also okay. So one of our regular listeners, a shliach somewhere in, uh, in Europe. So he sent me two clips from the Sefer L'Shem Ha'Ozen. Now, L'Shem Ha'Ozen is a book of stories, um, recollections of the Chassid, Rabbi Zalman Duchman, who passed away, I think, in the late fifties perhaps, perhaps a little bit later.

03:38 But he writes two s- there's two stories here. So one, I'm gonna read them, um, um, straight into English. "I heard from the Chassid, the Gvir." That was a wealthy man in Warsaw, a devoted Chassid, Yosef, Yosef Gurevich. That he and his son-in-law, Feivel Zalmanov, Hashem yimchu et domem. It looks like they, uh, he perished in the Holocaust. Uh, this Yosef Gurevich happened to be also-- He had another son-in-law who was a, a, a great uncle of mine, um, Leibel Raskin. And, uh, he also perished in the Holocaust. And I had an occasion to meet Rav Oshri, which I'm, I'll-- I'm digressing for a moment. Rav Oshri is the author of a se- of a series of seforim called MiMa'amakim. And he was the Rav in the Kovno ghetto. And, uh, he wrote down... MiMa'amakim means from the depths, and actually, part of it has been published in English. And he, uh, wrote the questions which he was presented whilst he was in the Kovno ghetto. So I met Rav Oshri, it's about probably, uh, thirty-five years ago, perhaps a bit more. I met him at a dintaira in, uh, the Lower East Side, and I was trying to help someone, and I introduced myself. So he says he remembers there was a Raskin in, uh, in the Kovno ghetto who-- I'm mixing up with Kovno ghetto and, uh, Warsaw, uh, whatever. And he, and he says that there was one in, in his Sefer, he has a question. Are you allowed to have mesirus

05:08 nefesh not to remove your beard? The one who asked him question, that was Mendel Raskin, who was a, a brother of my great-grandfather. This is-- I'm mixing up with, um, Yosef Gurevich had a, a son-in-law called Leibel, Leibel Raskin. And all right, let's come back. So they had come to the-- father-in-law and son-in-law had visited the Rebbe, as in, uh, probably Rebbe Rashab. And he was-- They were in Oysland. The Rebbe had traveled out of the country, and they came to that resort where the Rebbe was. And so he instructed that they should come in to, to, uh, to mekabel Shalom, to greet. Friday night, they were invited to the Rebbe's table. It looks like they didn't have wine there. So the Rebbe said, "This is nisht savestne." It's not appropriate, I guess, to hold a knife whilst you make kiddush. So he told them to make kiddush on, on brown-- on, on yash, on vi- on mashke. Even though he himself, the Rebbe himself had actually made Kiddush and challah. The next day when they came to the Rebbetsin and asked him, "Did you daven?" So they said, "Yes." So, "I he heard from the Friediker Rebbe at the Tateh. It was once a Friday night. Friday before Shabbos. He told them they should boil the, um, the ch- kettle and they should, um, bring it in. They brought in the kettle before Shabbos, and he took the kettle and he wrapped it between two pillars. That Friday night, they had a visitor, Reb

07:19 Osher Niko- of Nikolaev. Those who remember Shmuel Grossman, this was his father. A very devoted Hasid. The father-- My father had finished saying the Maimer and he said, no, Kabal. And, and he said Reb, Reb Osher should come in to be Mekabel Shabbos. And he came to us for the Shabbos meal. The father told him, Rebbe Rashab told him to make Kiddush and Mashke. And then he told him to wash and have a Kazais challah. And then he told him to, to, uh, to drink the entire kettle of, of, of, uh, hot tea, to drink the whole lot. La- afterwards, the-- my father said that Osher, Reb Osher Nikolaever, uh, he, he had an idea that he's gonna fast from Shabbos to Shabbos. I guess that means with drinking a bit, but he was gonna-- he fasted from that for the whole week. But he didn't want to do it on his own, uh, with-- on his own bat. So he got into a carriage and he trav-traveled to Lubavitch. When he came to me, he told me this. And he's already by on, uh, Wednesday. So I told him he should finish. So Reb Osher Nikolaever had been fasting a whole week and now it came Friday night. So the Rebbe told him to make Kiddush on, on, on, on, on, uh, on, uh, vodka I guess, and then to make-- have a little bit of challah and then to have this massive amount of, of, uh, hot drink. I guess to be able

08:41 to, uh, that it shouldn't cause him any harm. So very beautiful stories. I think though they're not, they don't, uh... I think they are Yoitzim Min HaKlal rather than the Klal. And so there were very, um, es- you know, uh, uh, how do you say, exceptional occasions where the Rebbe's told someone to make Kiddush and Mashke on a Friday night. But that, I don't think that's an indication to make it on a as a regular Minchah. Okay. I do think most of the people on this, uh, conference call or the Zoom, uh, don't have a problem with that. Okay, let's go on to the next thing. So we did have a discussion about the Nekudos and have some very interesting feedback. I want to point out, you have here at the bottom of the chart or the Aleph Beis, you've got the series of the Nekudos. Now, in, in, uh, Dikduk, you've got the Nekudos are divided into, um, Tenua Gedola and Tenua Katanah. How you translate that master and minor, major and minor, however you pronounce, you can define that in English. So the Kamatz and the Patach. So the Kamatz is the, is the major and the Patach is the minor. Tzeire and Segol. So the Tzeire is the ma- major and the Segol is the softer one. A and E. So Segol and Segol. Also you have Chirik can be major and minor. You can have in English you say A and E. See E is a more stressed one. That's the

10:15 major one. Chirik followed by Yud. The minor is just a I without a Yud. Similarly with the U. So you have U and U. So, um, food or food. So food would be the minor and food, um, good. We say good. We don't say good. So it's different words. Different, different pronunciation. So this is-- one is the, with the Malacum, with the, the, the Vav with the, with the dot, that's the major and the one with the three dots, that's the minor. I know we're not always so fussy about this, but this, this is, uh, in Dikduk you've got this, this hierarchy. Five, five major and five minor. The Cholem, uh, the, the, the, the Cholem is a major and the minor of the Cholem is what's called a Kamatz Katan. Now, for Ashkenazim, we don't make any difference between a Kamatz Katan and Kamatz Gadol. By the Sefardim, by them it's a big difference because, uh, uh, the word Kol or Kol. So the major is Kol. When it's shortened, like because as I say it's hyphenated, um, with a Makaf like Kol Davar. So from Kol becomes Kol. Typically it's gonna be followed with a, with a hyphen. So the Sefardim, a regular Kamatz they pronounce A. But a Kamatz Katan they pronounce O. So they will say Kol Davar. We would say Kol Davor or Dovor if you're really Ashkenazi. Um, but they s- they, they will have this distinction. So the Ka- the, the Tenua Gedola is the K-Cholem and the

11:57 Tenua Katanah is the, is the, uh, Kamatz Katan. In Taf Shin Mem Beis, which I'm going to scroll to in a moment, the Rebbe Spoke about this in the Elul and Elul. Before we go further, though, I want to show you a very interesting thing. In the name kamatz, you have both vowels. You have the major and the mi- and the minor, all, ah. In the word patach, you have the mi- the, the minor and then the major. Patach. In the word sere, I pronounce it wrong. Yeah, it's sere, yeah? So you've got the major and the minor. According to this, it should be, the segol should be segal. Um, okay. In literature, it sounds good. Then we have also, look at the word shuruk and kubutz. In the shuruk, which so it is first with the major, shuruk. And, and the kubutz is the other way, should be the other way around. It starts off with the minor and then with the major. Ku- kubutz. Okay, so j- that's strange. It's an interesting, uh, observation. And f- before we finish off, also the cholam. The cholam is o-o. So it starts off with a major and then with a minor. Okay. So now, um, uh, o- one of our regular listeners is, uh, Bunim Weinbaum, and he told me that in, when his first yechidas, and he's just got married, and the Rebbe, well, like unexpected, the Rebbe speaking to him about publishing and about, uh, various heroes, about publishing. And one of the

13:35 things, he's already been involved a little bit in teaching, uh, Alefbeis in Cha- in the, in the Chadoreim Sunday schools. And the Rebbe so emphasized the ending of, of, to teach kamatz, alef, o in the traditional way, rather than just a, va, vo. He published a book called Lamdaini, and this is in Tov Shin Mem Beis, in, in 1982. And it was in Sivan, 18th of Sivan approximately, where he wrote to the Rebbe about this. And a few weeks later, he sent the Rebbe a color copy. Now, this is how many years ago? 40 years ago. So color copies there, then, was quite a rarity. And he made a color copy and sent it to the Rebbe around, it must have been around Tammuz of. And it's shortly after that was this, uh, uh, this, this sicha is quite well known, especially those who are dabble in Dikduk, where the Rebbe spoke about, he was concerned about the seder of the nekudos. Why is it major, minor, kamatz, alef, kamatz, patach, sere, segol, major, minor. And then, so why is it the kubutz and the shuruk? It's the minor and then the major. That was what the Rebbe addressed at the farbrengen. And he says, he's already, uh, he was talking about the menora with the round branches, with diagonal branches. There's another thing which I want to address, something which needs to be corrected. And so he spoke about this on the Rosh Chodesh farbrengen. And then in the footnotes, there's a comment that

15:24 Al Pi Kabbalah, the sequence as it is here, um, kubutz and then shuruk, is correct because one is hod and one is yesod. Don't ask me for more explanation of Pi Kabbalah because I, I, I haven't gone through that. But the Al Pi Kabbalah, that is, the se- the sequence is correct the way it is in the seder. However, Al Pi Pshat, since you're teaching Alefbeis and reading to little children, the Rebbe was still, um, not satisfied. And by the second farbrengen, he revisits the topic and he says there was, "Then what I spoke about made a whole tumult." "I was actually quite pleased that it made a whole tumult." And, um, the poiel, they, they were going to ta- there was actually one printing Chabad that changed the table of the nekudos. Later, they kept, it went back to the original format, and so the, the, with the Rebbe's, uh, instruction to leave it the way it is. But that's, there, there was a whole, whole discussion about that. Call from Bobby Fisk. At some stage, the Rebbe apparently told, sent out a letter to Mr. Weinbaum, Dr. Weinbaum, to check up in Paardes Sha'ar HaNekudos. Now, so just, um, I don't think I have the Paardes on the screen. No. But the Paardes is a Kabbalah sefer written by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who is the Rebbe of the Arizal, and he lays down things very clear. He's got a whole chapter. Chapter chaf ches is about the nekudos and their significance in Kabbalah,

17:07 and I mentioned last week about Malachim, et cetera. So in the sicha, um, he mentions about the siman of Pituchei Chosam. If you want to remember a mnemonic of the five mast nekudos. So you've got Pituchei Chosam. So you've got Chirik, Malarum, Sere, Cholam and the kamatz there, I guess, is a kamatz koton, which is, uh... Wait a minute. No, that's a reg- regular kamatz. Yeah. So you've got there, the five nekudos are there, the five mast nekudos. So that's, like, copied from the sicha. In the, um, in the, uh, in the, uh, Paardes, he shows a, a mnemonic for the, for the tnuos katanos, for the minor ones. So he has, um, no, no, no, ta- Re, yi, kun. So the, the comets there is the comets cotton, that's the minor of the cholem. The patach of under the tes is the minor of the comets. The re-- the, the segol under the reish is the minor of the segol. The yud, without a yud following, is the minor of-- is the minor chirich, and the sh- kubutz under the kuf is the minor of the malchut. So you have the pituch chechousom is the simen for the major nekudos, the five major nekudos, and, uh, uh, notar rey yukon is the, uh, mnemonic for the, for the, uh, minor nekudos. So this is a, the bit of a f- feedback, behemishef, to last week's discussion about the, about the nekudos and them being names of malachim, et cetera, which can be, uh, looked

19:04 up in the pardes in Shaar HaNekudos. Okay, so here was a question that someone asked me last Motzei Shabbos. The, uh, tenth man walked out of shul in middle of Maariv, in middle of Shemoneh Esreh. Now, there's a general rule that if you had ten people when you started a unit, and the tenth man, the ninth man even, so long as they're roiv, as long as you have six men still in the room, so you finish off the unit which you are in middle of. The question is: How do you define a unit? So, for example, if a person walked out on a Monday in middle of Shemoneh Esreh, you wouldn't be able to do Krias HaTorah. That's obvious because Krias HaTorah is a separate unit. Here, the question was: Is-- How do the units work by Maariv? Is Shemoneh Esreh a new, uh, unit or is it part of what went from, you know, from beginning of, of Maariv? So let's read here from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch. Simen nun he. "V'chein im yotzu lehabe'ach mik'tzat sun lach achit chinu yotzer." If-- This is at Shacharis. If during Birkat Krishma, number ten, missed the n- um, the tenth man left, so they cannot. "Lo yasgol ha'shliach tzibura tfila bechel rom." You can't do Chazarat HaShatz because "tfila shel chesed kedusha." Because the Shemoneh Esreh, "ein hahem yudim bekadish vebaruch hu." The Kaddish, which you said be-- after Yishtabach, is a separate unit. The Shemoneh Esreh is a new unit and therefore you wouldn't

20:48 be able to do Shemoneh Esreh because, um, um, uh, Chazarat HaShatz because you had ten at, at Yishtabach and Vybaruch. Then he goes on to be Maariv. "V'chein kayotzer hozeh be'arvit." Similarly, by Maariv. "Lo yomer hakaddish elach at tfilas yudches." You cannot say the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh unless there were ten "b'tchilas tfilas yudches." So if someone had walked out in middle of Emes Veemuno, so then you could say the Kaddish after Yehashkiveinu, but you couldn't say the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh. Which tells you, but if he was there when they start Shemoneh Esreh, there were ten at beginning of Shemoneh Esreh, then you could do the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh and the Kaddish after, um, you know, Motzei Shabbos after Vaychi Noam, Vayomer Hakadish. So that, that's, that's pretty clear from the Alter Rebbe and the Mishnah Brurah says the same thing. I hesitated because I didn't remember this clearly. And why did I hesitate? Because we know that by Shacharis, we go straight from Gual Yisroel, gr- straight into Shemoneh Esreh. By Maariv, we have a Kaddish. Hashkiveinu and then a Kaddish. The Gemara says, "Gul arichta." Hashkiveinu, uh, is, is a gul arichta. Fine. But where-- why is there, why is there a Kaddish there? And you know, in, uh, all the-- most other shuls, in Chutz La'aretz at least, they say a whole, a whole piece of Yud Ei Nei Nu with the Psukim and, and, and then finish off, um, Al Kol, Al Kol Ma'asav. A whole e- an extra

22:20 bracha. So I've read somewhere that originally there was a time that they would do, um, Birkat Krishma in shul, but they didn't do Shemoneh Esreh. They finished off. After Birkat Krishma, they said eighteen Psukim corresponding to the eighteen brachos of Shemoneh Esreh. After they finished the eighteen Psukim, then they said Kaddish, and everyone said good night and went home, went to their respective homes. So because of this, it, it bothered me that in my mind that after Tacheh, that, uh, the, the Kaddish after Hashkiveinu is the end of the unit, and Shemoneh Esreh is a new unit. Therefore, I was pleased to see that the Alter Rebbe addresses it pretty clearly. That if there were ten at the beginning of Shemoneh Esreh at Maariv, then you can say the Kaddish after Maariv. The Mishnah Brurah, as you can see on the other side, if there were ten when the beginning of the quiet Shemoneh Esreh, you can say the Kaddish afterwards, and he spells out, "V'gam," also, the Kaddish, um, o- after, uh, Vayomer Hakadish on a, on a Motzei Shabbos. The, uh-- And in the Mishnah Brurah, he says so in the footnote, and he has it in the Shaar Hatziyin. He is saying, "I-- This is how I pasken, contrary to the Cha'ey Adam." So at the bottom of the page, you have here the copy from the Cha'ey Adam. But he says, "By Maariv, if you had baruch, you had ten, you can say the Kaddish after Hashkiveinu." So-- But you can't

23:53 say the Kaddish after davening. "Vafilo sheyischilu at tfila beyud." So the Cha'ey Adam, who was a contemporary of the Alter Rebbe, he says that the-- If, if you had ten at the beginning of Shemoneh Esreh, that doesn't allow you to say the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh. But the Mishnah Brurah doesn't agree with him. He says you can. And the Alter Rebbe, well, we saw already, the Alter Rebbe says that if there were ten at the beginning of Ma-- at beginning of Shemoneh Esreh, then you can, um, say the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh. Okay. Just clarified something. Uh, okay. Okay, so now we have a shailah, a very, very common shailah, unles- tragically. But can you count in for a minyan a man who's married, a Jewish man who's married to a non-Jewess? Now, if you're gonna start looking in the, uh, various, uh, halakhim, this is not addressed clearly in Shulchan Aruch. You do have the concept of a person who has been ostracized, nidui, et cetera, and they cannot be joined for a minyan. So certainly, the, the, um, the, the, this, this sefarim written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, are very, uh, strident that a person who's married out is considered, uh, is left Klal Yisroel. And we have this concept that, uh, like we had before, a, a person's Michal Shabbes, a person's Eruv Avodah Zarah. So they, as far as Kidushin and, and Gittin, they're considered as Jewish. But for o- for all other practical, in Yoni of Yiddishkeit,

25:30 they would write a Sefer Torah, do a Shchita, whatever it may be, we would not count their act, acts as an act of a Jew. So therefore, if you're, is a person who's married out, is he considered like a mumer who's walked away from Yiddishkeit? And so they take the view he is. He's walked away from Yiddishkeit, and even the, um, the Mechashit Skhok who lived fifty years ago takes that view. The, the, the reality, however, has, has changed. And whereas, let's say, fifty years ago, or certainly a hundred years ago, if a person wanted to get married to a non-Jewish woman, the likelihood was he would-- it would happen in a church, and it would be a, a, a very strong statement, uh, of, of departing from Yiddishkeit. Possibly, I'm just venturing another Svara, that the institution of marriage was a much more stable institution back then. Today, in the broader, you know, broad- broader community, I'm talking about not Yiddish community, the broader community, uh, um, marriage is n-not seen as a, as a such a long-term, uh, arrangement. And for, for these various reasons, and this I have here in s- in front of me, copied from a Sefer called Umekarevimin. It's a Sefer a- all about Kiruv. It's written by a fellow, not Lubavitcher, called Zakutinsky. I've been in correspondence with him. Um, he quotes from the Minchas Yitzchok that, um, that even e- when you use the language of Tinok Shenishbe, that he's been, uh, brought up in, in ignorance,

27:11 but this is something which is so far out that even most Yidden will, will keep away from that. And he, he, he writes towards the end, though, that nowadays, people, Jewish people who do th- who do get, get married to non-Jewish, they, they just think, think that marrying Jewish is a recommended practice. They don't see it as an absolute no-no. And on that basis, we ta- we can take a more sympathetic view. No, n- Rabbi Zakutinsky is not the greatest, uh, posek in the world. But they're in the... I also have on the, if you could see in the notes, there's a reference in the reference four to a note from Rav Oyerbach, Rav Shlomo Zalman, quoted in the Mishne Bura, in the Dirshu edition, where he also, Rav Shlomo Zalman is obviously one of the greatest poskim of, uh, the, the contemporary poskim, and he also takes a, a sympathetic view to a degree. I wasn't able to look up his so- the source where he's quoted from. Um, but certainly that's what's, uh, what is, I believe, followed in many, uh, Botey Chabad, et cetera, that if a person comes to shul, uh, even though they are married to a non-Jewish woman, they, uh, they will give them an aliyah, et cetera, and do whatever they can to be mekarev them. That's, I mean, that's, that's no question you have to be mekarev. The question is whether you can give them... what's their status. No q- no question about Kiruv. The question is

28:37 what is their status. And so we would follow a more sympathetic status nowadays than may have been the practice back then. Um, I see someone has put in here a question. Okay, um, okay, something for later. Let's, let's, um, go on to, however, the next question. You know, there's a, there was a string attached. He's married to a, he's married to a non-Jewish woman, but he actually, he goes to church every, every, um, Sunday. And he comes to shul. Can a person who, who is, uh, posea hashneihaseefim, can you, i- what's, what's the story there? So this is a quote from Mishne Bura. But if a person's actually a mumer labez gilulim, if he's action in active, he's active in, in, uh, an active, uh, Christian, and when it cr- cr- he's, he's in behaving in Christian behavior, then that would be much ha- harder to justify that they should be able to be metzarev to a minyan. Uh, as you say, whilst he's here, he changes his mind. But if you know that he's act- he's active over there, it's more difficult to justify, uh, allowing to be metzarev to a minyan. I once had a fellow in the, here in the house. He was, he had, this is about thirty-four, thir- thirty-five years ago, possibly. He had, uh, he had spent time in Gateshead, um, boarding school. And then he, then he was told then that Yiddishkeit is like a hole. I, it's like you can't have half a hole. Like a hole

30:19 as in H-O-L-E. Um, and he had become a, he had become a galach of some sort. I don't know. He had other problems also, but yeah. But he, he, this is a problem, to be metzarev a person who's active, uh, in Christianity. Uh, and I just want to throw in one more thing, that if a person was baptized and they want to come back, Baruch Hashem, there is a opinion of taking them to mikvah. In the last seif in Yoreh Deah, when it talks about geyrus, there is a concept there of, of tevilah of a baal teshuva. And that's done particularly when the person had gone through baptism. So to take them to mikveh, and they make like a, a, a recommitment to Yiddishkeit in, um, and rejection, uh, rejection in, in the presence of, of, um, the bes and the besim don't have to be at the mikveh. Afterwards, we had a few times, we had, um, women or girls who went through this, and they, they come from Russia and come in here. And there's one of the girls, uh, told us how she feels, feels so, such a tremendous relief after having gone to mikveh. She went, uh, with a woman. Then afterwards, she stood. We brought into the front of our Kodesh, and she stood and made her, uh, commitment to Yiddishkeit. Baruch Hashem, Ad Hoyom. She's a, she keeps a Yiddishkeit house. Um, there's actually also a letter of the Rebbe which is published. I don't remember exactly where. A

31:56 letter of the Rebbe to someone to do the... It was to... And he says, the Rabbi, he, he apparently lived in Seattle, and the Rebbe says to get this mikveh done as soon as possible. And he tells him to contact Rabbi Levitan, who is a shlicha in Seattle, to help him facilitate this tevilah as soon as possible. So this inyun of tevilah for a baal teshuva after a baptism is something which is, uh, it's, uh, in where it's applicable, it's something which one should do ASAP. I, I actually want to sh-share with you something. Uh, I have a colleague, uh, Rabbi, Rabbi Feigstock in, in, uh, in Buenos Aires. So apparently in Southern America, uh, the, these, witchcraft is still practiced. And when a lad has got his eye on a particular girl, he will use witchcraft to seduce her, that she feels like an obsession. She has to come after him. And they use it, and it apparently it, uh... So there were some Yiddishkeit girls were also ensnared in this kind of, um, spell, and he was encountered. They came to, came to him. He told, told them to go to mikveh. And, uh, after they went to mikveh, the, the, uh, the spell kind of wore off, and they felt re-relieved of this, uh, pressure from this, uh, shaggit who had, uh, an eye on them. Okay, let's go on to a totally new topic, and that is about Kriyat HaTorah. So there is a minhag written in Shulchan Aruch about not

33:30 giving aliyas to two brothers or father and son, one after the other. So this is in Shulchan Aruch. It's tucked away in Siman Kuf Mem Alef. I'm gonna read it for you. It says, two... You, "Yacheil Likros Schnee Achim Zeh achar Zeh." You are, min haddin, you are allowed to give aliyas to two brothers consecutively. A ben achar av, a fa-a son after a father. "Ve'ein Manichin El Bishvil Ayin Hara." But it is not done because of, of Ayin Hara, of evil eye. Okay. Now, so th-that, so therefore, gabbaim know this, and sometimes they have to juggle, especially when there's a family simcha, lots of aliyas, how to avoid, uh, having to give, um, siblings or father and son one after the other. So now, this is on the right. You have Mishnah Brurah. There's no Alter Rebbe. This is Shulchan Aruch in Siman Kuf Mem Alef. And he writes, there's no difference whether they are brothers from the same father, which then when you call them up with the father's name, it's gonna be more evident that they are from the same... That they are brothers. Even if they're brothers only from the mother's side, also one would avoid giving them an aliyah one after the other. Even if the person says, "I don't mind about it. I don't care about Ayin Hara." But that's the, this is the minhag when doesn't. Then he says that those who are machmir, even a father and a grandson, a grandson also, ein habisha. And if there's

34:54 a toeleh, you can be meikel on that. If there's a need, you can be lenient about a, a grandfather and a grandson. So that's on the right side. On the left side of the page, you have a quote from the, from the Piskei Teshuvas, where he says that's, uh, that's a ben achar ben. A son's son, that's where there is a minhag, uh, taking it further of being machmir not to give one after the other. But if it is ben bito, if it's his daughter's son, then there's no problem of calling up Zayde and, uh, his grandson one after the other. Then he talks also then about, uh, a son-in-law and a father-in-law. Okay. But that's, that's basically that I've answered the question, can a grandfather and grandson for consecutive aliyas. So if it's, um, uh, through a daughter, then it's not a problem. If it's, um, a son's son, so then it's something which we-- Chabad Chabad would avoid. Let's go on. Now, here's a question. A fellow is working in the, uh, in the shares, uh, stock exchange, that kind of job, and he has to be at work at 7:00 a.m. So now he has, especially now, and, and this coming week, we're gonna change. The clock is gonna be a little bit of a relief. But he has a problem about davening, um, tallit and tefillin, et cetera. What's the earliest you can do? Doesn't really have a private spot to take, you know, a ten-minute davening break at his place

36:23 of work, and I have to take into consideration that it, it might not happen. Is it-- So what... Can he da- put on tallit and tefillin early? So with the tefillin, I'm much more at ease with this. There's a teshuvah of Rav Moshe Feinstein, and he wrote this when he was still... Before he emigrated to America. There was someone who needed to go to work at 5:00 a.m., and there was no possibility, talking about eighty years ago, more, ninety years ago, there was no chance of him putting on tefillin at work. This is in, in Russia, in Lithuania or whatever. So let's explain something. We don't put on tefillin by night. Is that a, uh, min haTorah o midirabanan. Some machloket tanu, whether mi yom mi yomimo, um, but the word mi yom mi yomimo means that you shouldn't put on tefillin by night. So some pasuk that layla lav is mantefill. The halacha we, we follow is layla's mantefill. Why don't you wear tefillin by night? Shemo yushon b'han, might fall asleep, and once you fall asleep, then you don't have control of your body, et cetera. So Rabbi Moshe takes the view, he says, "That's all very well, it's middle of the night. But this fellow's got up to go to work. You think-- He's not gonna fall asleep now." So he, he allows him to put on tefillin b'shaas hakak, even before daybreak, before be- before dawn. Then he asks a interesting thing. With a bracha, without a bracha. So he says,

37:52 "If he is a talmid chacham, he should put on tefillin without a bracha. If he's a simple person, not a talmid chacham, you should put on with a bracha." A talmid chacham, you tell him put on without a bracha, he'll understand, the lambdas, et cetera. A, a pashta person, you tell him to put on tefillin without a bracha, it means he's not so serious. So he may skip it altogether. So this is Rabbi Moshe's advice. If he's not a talmid chacham, it's always with a bracha. So with the tefillin, to put on tefillin early, certainly after dawn, I am or- more easygoing about. My shaila is about the tallis. What is the earliest time you can put on a tallis with a bracha? So we have a concept called Mishayach here. It's a time when you can see the difference between the blue and the white in the tallis. So kind of, what about earlier? You've got the time which is called dawn, alos hashachar, and then you've got a time of Mishayach, which is later. So what's the earliest, you know, really when push comes to shove? So this is obvi- You can see it's from the Alter Rebe's Shulchan Aruch. We'll go through the lashon. From what time can you make a bracha on the tzitzit? Some say from the point you can recognize the difference, can distinguish between the blue and the white in the tzitzit. Because it says, "From the time that you can recognize the tallis." Only then. So according

39:06 to this opinion, before Mishayach here, you make a bracha on tzitzit is a bracha lav tal. Kol ponim. Okay. All right. Not, not kol. Everyone says this is back in Yoma, but Lailah Zchut, okay. V'yesh oimrim. V'she'as ri'iyo nikra mishayach lamor hashachar. There's a second opinion that says no, that actually from dawn is already called she'as ri'iy, at least min HaTorah. Because from that point, there's actually, you can see the tzitzit, even though you cannot dis- differentiate between the blue and the white. And therefore, already from dawn, you can make a bracha because it's already here. Vechein noi hageen. Wow, look at that. That the minhag is to allow a bracha from alos hashachar. The mitzvah is oilechet chilo, not to put on a tallis with a bracha until Mishayach here between the blue and the white. But, meanwhile, we've seen here something very powerful. That already from alos hashachar, you can already make a bracha when, you know, if, if, if there's a need for it. There's, of course, there's another solution. He can make the bracha when he just, at the end, before he takes it off. But at any rate, we have here sound, uh, basis to be matir, that you can make a bracha. And as I said before, a person who is not such a talmid, talmid chacham, you start telling him, "Bring a cup with a bracha, without a bracha," it may weaken the, uh, mitzvah in his eyes. And therefore, we have here a heter to make a

40:27 bracha from alos hashachar. And then there's another parasha. How do you work out alos hashachar? That's another discussion. Okay, um, does a bread bin need to be toveled? And so the rules of tevila, I'm, I'm clarifying this because people get confused. Min HaTorah or the mitzvah of tevilas keilim applies to metal. Midirabanan, it also applies to glass. Wood does not typically need to be toveled. Earthenware is toveled without a bracha because of the glazing. The glaze of earthenware, therefore, there's a sevarah, it's called glass. But, uh, other than metal and glass, wood, someone asked me, "Do I have to tovel a wooden thing?" And the answer is no. Um, so now... But there, I would just want to point to the word keili s'uda. Keili s'uda means utensils which are used for serving to the table, et cetera. So a bread bin is not a keili brought to the table. A bread bin typically is sitting at the side, and you store bread in there. But, uh, and therefore, it's not really a keili s'uda. Additionally, m- m- many of us will put stuff in the bread bin only when it's wrapped in a bag. So it's a, it's a, it's a container of bags. So you don't actually put food directly in there. And on that basis, uh, it, it doesn't really require a, um, tevila. If you actually put bread in without a bag, then it does, um, then one should tovel it, obviously, without a bracha. Into... Now, you might ask, what's

42:06 this bag business? Does a bag make a difference? So as I was researching, it's very interesting. Well, sometimes people ask, what about a baking tin? But you always line the baking tin with greaseproof paper. Does that take away the need for toveling the bread, the, the baking tin? And the answer is, it does not ch- ch- change. Bread in a bag, you can carry the bread from place to place in the bag. So the bread, the bag of bread is a proper keili. The, the greaseproof liner of a baking sheet is not a keili per-- itself. You don't carry around cookies in, in a, uh, in a greaseproof liner. So therefore, that kind of b- that kind of lining does not, uh, how do you say, dispense the need of tevila or the baking sheet, a baking tin. Whereas in the case of bags which contain bread or whatever, and you put that into the baking, i- into the, into the bread bin, so they are keilim bifnei atzmam. So therefore, like you don't tovel a fridge, yeah? No one's asked me about toveling a fridge. Now, you put food in the fridge, but it's always in containers, yeah? So a similar idea, and you certainly don't serve food to their table from, you know, in a fridge. Okay, let's move on. Um, so one of our regular listeners, um, listens to the recording, and he came across some kind of YouTube, uh, demonstration about Shabbos with a cholent in the crockpot. And the rabbi

43:32 who was displaying this, the, the-- demonstrating, he took the, the crockpots have got an outer housing made of metal, and that's where the element is, the heating element, and then you've got an inner ceramic insert. And he'd taken off the ceramic and put it down on the counter. He was holding it with one hand, and he stirred it. Well, he, he added water. We went through this recently. He added water from the urn, and then he stirred it, and then he puts it back. And the fellow was shocked. S-stirring a klir ishoin, and he was always under the impression that you're not allowed to stir a klir ishoin even when it's not on the fire. So, so here we have in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch and Mishnah Berurah, they both say the same thing, but, uh, the graphics are different. The Alter Rebbe first says, "In this bashul called sorkon," including-- talking about a, a, a pot which is fully cooked and it's taken off the fire. So then you are allowed to stir it. Then he finishes off, "And there are those who machmir with a, a pot even when it's off the fire. And the ikar is like the first tzurah. The one who wants to be stricter should be machmir mamash stirring. But to ladle out, that's okay. Now, now on the left side, you have the Mishnah Berurah. He says the same thing. He says, "Talking about a klir ishoin o-off the fire." Scroll down a bit in the Mishnah

45:02 Berurah. So really, the same lashon. Mishnah Alter Rebbe wrote , he also has written, but it's not in the same seif. So here in Seif Kuf, Seif Kuf as Rabbi said, that you're allowed to stir a klir ishoin which is taken off the fire. In, uh, later Seif in Kuf Yod Zayin, then he says, "Oh, there is room to be machmir." So that's why this rabbi who was demonstrating, he was taking kapshuta that you are allowed to stir the cholent off the fire in a klir ishoin. But, uh, the one who learns the Alter Rebbe Shulchan Aruch, it's in the same seif, and you, you go away the impression that we don't stir, uh, stuff in a klir ishoin even when it's off the fire. I wanna just share with you another interesting experience. So, um, in this demonstration, the rabbi who was holding, he, he had put down the crockpot, the ceramic, on the counter, and he was holding his hand. So about thirty years ago, I was learning Mishnayos, Mishnayos, um, Chirah, and I was reading the Rambam, where the way-- when it says , that one of the conditions of chazora to be allowed to put it back on the, on the, on the heat is . So how do you translate ? Does it mean that you haven't left go of it or that you're still bearing its weight? And Shmiras Shabbos K hilchoso, he had written that you don't have to hold it in the air. So long as you're

46:41 holding it, you don't leave go of it, that's called . But the Rambam in Pirkei Mishnayos is very clear. He says means that you, you are bearing its weight in the air. You can hold it partly on the table, partly off the table, but if you'd leave go, it fall. That's called . So at the time, I wrote a letter to Rav Neuwirth, the author of the Shmiras Shabbos K hilchoso, and I pointed out that the Rambam writes differently to what he writes in his Sefer. I... A few, uh, or a couple of weeks later, I got an aerogram. If you remember those old aerograms, all, you know, folding over with the same paper. So I got an aerogram from Rav Neuwirth, uh, , he thanks me, , whatever. He-- and in the next edition, he's gonna include it, and he gives me a reference also et cetera. But he gave a reference to Dammesek Eliezer, which is a Pirush on Pirush, um, Bier HaGra, where he takes a, a, a, uh, a, um, perhaps a more lenient view. Okay. So that's about the stirring. Now, I, I skipped from le- I didn't have a slide for number eight, but I... Oh, I did. Wait a minute. Wait. Oh. Uh, we had two sevens. Sorry. Right. Okay. Um, right. So we have another couple of minutes. So now, someone pointed out to me that in one of the Hanukkah leaflets, it says that on Friday afternoon, the Menorah, the flames of Menorah should last for

48:14 one and a half hours. And he's asking: Where does the number of one and a half hours come? Now, one of the hour is just ninety minutes. And we have, uh, Seif. Th-thirty minutes, the Chabad is fifty minutes. Where does the ninety minutes come? So let's first go to the Shulchan Aruch in Hilchos Hanukkah. It's already Shabbos Mevorchim, uh, Kislev. It's already, you're talking about, uh, Hanukkah. So this is Siman Tof, Halacha Ayin Beis. So Mechaber says, "The time when it says in the Gemara, when is the time for Menorah? " From when the sun sets. There's an ambiguity here. Does it mean from the beginning of the Shekiya or the end of the setting of the sun? So now, the way the Mechaber, the, um, Rav Yosef Karo writes , "The time for lighting the Menorah is at the end of the setting of the sun." And then you leave it there for another half an hour until , you see people stop walking the streets. So that is the opinion of the Mechaber. However, the Pri Chadash disagrees, and he says means from it begins to set. And he brings a lashon of Gemara, which I learned with my Melamed, a special Melamed, Rabbi Berel Levin of Boston. And it talks about blossoming and about cucumbers growing from what... I don't remember the actually, but about mayser. I don't remember exactly, but it says . From when they start blossoming. So means from when it started. When it begins blossoming. So the same

49:58 thing, means from the beginning, the beginning of the sunset. So we have, uh, two opinions. When does it-- When is Mishah Tishkah, from beginning of sunset or from the end of sunset? This is the background for the Minag, as you seehere in Minhagi Chabad, where it says that we be Okay. Um, um, someone had asked here, if I have time to address this. Can you use utensils from a dishwasher that was on during Shabbos, Friday night? Okay. It's a good question, and, uh, the-- I'm, I'm not gonna deal with it now because there's a shaila here. The... if the dishwash-- I'll explain the question. The dishwasher was switched on before Shabbos, and then, uh, half an hour into Shabbos, it switches off. The question is, is the door of the m-b-- during the onset of Shabbos, the door of the dishwasher was, was muktzeh. You weren't able to open it because it would mean switching off the machine. So since it was out of bounds for the onset of Shabbos, there's a svara it should remain muktzeh for the whole of Shabbos. But I'm gonna put this onto the program on the agenda for next week. BeEzrat Hashem, we'll be able to get a, get an answer. Finally, though, the last point I want to share with you is a new, uh, thing which was pr- a new word from the Rebbe, a new gilui Arier. And that is that they found in Rabbi, Rabbi Gronoh, Al Sholom's, uh, archive. They found a, a,

53:22 uh, a r- a record of when the Rebbe had gone to visit to be Menachem Oven, the late Bobover Rebbe. The Bobover Reuv, Reb Shloime, had lost a child. This is in Tov Shin Yud Ches, in 1958, approximately. Yeah, it was in, it was in the summer. And the Rebbe went to be Menachem Oven. And this is a very, a very interesting conversation, but this is the last piece. This was just now published. The Rebbe said the following: There are opinions that nichum aveilim, that comforting the, the mourners, is a mitzvah min haTorah. And therefore, that entails a quest, a discussion. Should you make a bracha? Now, it's interesting because n- you don't make a bracha normally on a mitzvah which involves a second party. For example, you don't make a bracha on kibud av. You don't make a bracha on tzedakah. There's another reason. You don't want the fellow to, uh, to starve to death while you're putting on your gartel to give him, to make a bracha giving tzedakah. Um, but generally, a mitzvah which is relating to someone else, um, b'meida u'lachaverah, b'klal, we don't make brachos on. But meanwhile, there is a svara, a discussion whether you should make a bracha on nichum aveilim. And therefore, says the Rebbe, therefore, it's customary to associate nichum aveilim with a tefillah. So the Bobover Reuv said that, "Actually, we're gonna daven Mincha right away." The Rebbe then said that he has already davened Mincha, but I'll stay for Mincha, which Mincha, as you

54:55 know, Galitziana daven Mincha quite late. It was after the time for Ma'ariv in, in our language. Um, and it came late. And, and, and the Rebbe stayed for the, this late Mincha, and he answered Kidusha. Reb Shmuel Livitin r-then related. Reb Shmuel Livitin was, uh, one of the very eminent Hasidim, and obviously, he had gone with the Rebbe on this visit of the nichum aveilim. And he commented to the Rebbe that he had heard that by-- when the Alter Rebbe was by the Berditchever in Hutin and the Berditchever davened Mincha very late. So then there was a shailah whether to answer Kidusha. That's what Reb Shmuel Livitin said. And he said he doesn't remember what the Alter Rebbe did, whether he did say Kidusha or not. To which the Rebbe responded, "By me, it zois ge kummen. By me, it makes sense that when idin are saying Kidusha, it's impossible not to join in together with them." Very beautiful, uh, uh, reaction of the Rebbe. Idin sang Kidusha, you d- you don't make a lamdus, you s- you say Kidusha together with them. Um, what I find interesting here, and I'm not sure of the history exactly, is at-- In Chabad, we are particular to daven Mincha before Shkiah. Obviously, the, the Bardichever wasn't standing, and we know that, all right, he's, uh, following Rabbeinu Tam, et cetera. Um, so they, they-- so possibly he was following Rabbeinu Tam's Shkiah, and therefore he was davening Mincha later. I'm, I'm just curious at, um, at what

56:26 stage does, you know, the, the Alter Rebbe go all the way, like the Goanim to daven Mincha before the ear-earlier Shkiah, whereas his colleagues still, um, were following the, uh, Shkiah of Rabbeinu Tam, Nechira, on davening Mincha later. But I, um, what I once read that, um, that, that there's a Sefer of one of the Talmidi HaMagid called, I think, Menorah HaTorah, a Halacha Sefer and he was a colleague of the Alter Rebbe and he also, p-p-perhaps, perhaps before the Alter Rebbe, he, he takes also very strongly the view to pasken like the Goanim rather than Rabbeinu Tam as far as Zmanim goes. Uh, and there's also a story that the Alter Rebbe and this, uh, author of the Menorah HaTorah, I don't remember his name, they had traveled together to a fundraising trip for a pidyon haben. And so the theory is that they kind of-- the, this kind of helped the Alter Rebbe formulate his opinion of paskening like, like, um, the Goanim, not like Rabbeinu Tam. Anyway, it's just a historical, um, tidbit which I'm, I'm curious. Rab Aryeh points out that a pidyon haben, um, involves two parties. Now, tongue-in-cheek, if someone is standing there with five Seforim, uh, and you've got your hand out there, I think the reason why you don't make a bracha on ben adam lechavero is perhaps the person is not ready to accept it or perhaps you kibud av, perhaps he's not really, uh, appreciating the kibud which you're giving, that form of kibud. But

57:57 if he's got the, if he's got the, the father of the child, he's got the five Seforim and you put your hand out, I think he can with, with, with, with, uh, uh, confidence say the bracha, uh, and there's no chashash that you're gonna walk away and leave the money in his hand. So, uh, maybe, uh, yoetz min haklal. I'll wish you all a gut Yovot and we should meet in good health. Kol tuv.