תולדות תשפ״ב

00:02 Welcome to the, uh, shiur for this Motzaei Shabbos, Parashat Toldot. Lots of interesting thi-things which we're gonna share today. We'll start off with a question which someone asked about the schedule of Tehillim as it's divided according to the month. And the Friediker Rebbe, we know, encouraged this as part of Chitas, but the actual division, distribution of the Tehillim into 30 sections has its source in Rishonim. The earliest-- The one, the one who put it, who did it is someone called, uh, Menachem ben Zorach, a Talmud of, uh, the son of the Rosh. So that puts it about 600 years ago. This is a, a copy of the sefer which was printed in, uh, a town called Sabioneta in Italy in the year shin chaf zayin. So that's, uh, 1667, something like that. Uh, whatever, it's o-o-over 400 years ago. And you see how he writes here, "Va'ele hem hachalokim shechilachti hatehillim lilmod, um, bachol yom mimei chol chodesh bechodesh." So he's taking credit that he divided the Tehillim to be recited on a monthly cycle. And on the twenty-fourth, he says, "Ad asرفت mimei darech." And, uh, on the twenty-fifth, "Til mohafty torat echad." So the question which the person asked was that the... Kuf Yod Tes, as we know, is divided. It's, uh, 22 letters of the Aleph Bet, and each one has got eight psukim. So half of 22 is 11. So it would make sense that the Tehillim should start off at the position 12, and that's letter Lamed. So now this

02:04 is his question: Why does the Tehillim start with Mohafty Torat Echa rather than, which is letter Mem, why does it not le- uh, start with, um, with the letter Lamed, which is the 12 letter? So, so there we have the Tehillim, um, where it sta-start with Mohafty, and this is the question. So on the left of the sheet, of this screen, we have here a co- a copy from the Sefer Yashni Hakol Tilah. This is a Sefer written by, uh, there is a Talmid Chaham, a Ba'al Shem Tov, Chossid by the name of Reb Shmuel Heber. And he raises this question, and he says, "The division of the Tehillim according to the days is divided in, and it starts with Mohafty. L'chore, it should have started from Lamed. Venira lima that the emphasis of chapter Kuf Yod Tes in Tehillim is about Torah." If you notice, every pasuk says, "Pikudecha, Eidi Secha, Mi-Mi-Mishpatecha, Torat Echa." Almost every pasuk in Tehillim has got one of those, or Mitzvot Echa, it's got one of those re-references to Torah. And therefore, he wants us to-- The, the, the choice was to emphasize the beginning of the second half should be with, uh, Mohafty Torat Echa. Okay. So that's the-- that's his, uh, suggestion. I'd like to add another possibility that we have a very well-known concept- Largest airport in the world, O'Hare Field in Chicago. That the, HaShem's signature is the word Emes. And this I've traced. It's, it's-- You have here on the side of the, right

03:42 side of the screen. This is from Yerushalmi, the beginning of Sanhedrin. "Ma hu chosom shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu?" What's the signature of Hakadosh Baruch Hu? "Rebbe voi beshem Rebbe Reuven," says, "Emes." "Ma hu Emes?" "Shehu haElokim chayim u'melach olam." HaShem is eternal. "Se zeh shlochish." Emes is Alef, Reish, the Alef Bet. Alef is the first letter of the Alef Bet. Mem is the middle of the Alef Bet. And Tav is, be seifer, is the end of the Alef Bet. And this is relating to the concept of Ani Rishon, that HaShem is, is not a re- on the receiving end from anyone. So he's the f-first primary existence. And there's no, um, um, there's nothing, nothing besides him. "Ve'sachroni ma ani hu." I'm not going to give it over to anyone else. Okay. So the Alef to the Tav we understand, and the Mem is, HaShem is there, or is, is, is continually present. So that's the Mem. But it says here in Yerushalmi that the Mem is the middle letter. Now, you can just go back to the question. Why is the Mem the middle letter, l'chore, if it's 22 letters? So the Mem is not the middle letter. Um, actually, it's the Lamed and the, the Chaf and the Lamed. So let's come back to our slide again. So there we are. That, um, so the answer to this is that if you include in the Alef Bet not just the 22 letters but also the final characters, as in the final Chaf and

05:09 the final Mem, so instead of having 22 characters in the Alef Bet, you have 27 characters. The middle of 27 is 14. So let's take a look at this. Um, the, the Yud is obviously the tenth letter. The Chaf is the 11th. The long Chaf is the 12th. The Lamed is the 13th. And the Mem is the middle, is the, the 14th. And hence, the Mem does become the middle letter of the Alef Bet. So this is where you see it's Yerushalmi says that the Mem is the middle letter. I just want to share with you, since this has come up, about the, the five extra letters. Um, we have this famous Gemara in, in Megillah Daf Bet Amud Bet. Talks about the final letters, and they are known as Mansepach. A Mansapach, the whole discussion that they were introduced by the Neviim, in other words, how could it be? That in, and, uh, it looks like they went through a phase that they were forgotten and they were reintroduced. Without going into the mechanics of that, but we do have this group, they're known as the Mansapach. The five-- These five final letters are known as the abbreviation of Mansapach. Just you have here, we say every Shabbos in Musaf, we have the Tikant of Shabbos. Now, Tikant of Shabbos, now look at, if you didn't notice it before, it's the Aleph Bet back to front. Tikant of Shabbos, what it's covering. It says, Taf Shin Reish Kuf. It's, it's g- it's going the

06:43 whole Aleph Bet back to front until the word Oz. So from Taf through Aleph, it's every letter of the Aleph Bet. Then it has the five letters, five double letters. Oz means Sin and it's Tav. It's Sivan, Pola, Koroi. I'll say in Nusach Ashkenaz here, it doesn't have the five letters, but this is in Nusach Sfarad that you have the, Nusach and it's Hariza, that you have the five letters of the, of the, uh, the double letters. Of course, you may ask the question, why are they put in the sequence of Mansapach? Why not in the sequence as they are according to the Aleph Bet, which is Cham, Cham Lapas rather than M-Mansapach. Good question. So in the Gemara, now if you notice, the Gemara says, "Mansapach Tzobim Amram." It's said by the Tzobim. Tzobim means the gazes. Of course, it means the Neviim. The Neviim, sometimes it's called the Choizeh, um, Onochi Haroia. You've got various names for the Neviim. Here, the, the, the word, the name for the Neviim was the Tzoife. So some of our should say Mansapach has got in it Min Tzoifecha. It's, it's, w- its source is from the Neviim. So that's one, one shot which we have. But then I saw in a s- another Sefer. I have, I haven't noted if someone wants to know the source, but here, a fascinating thing. We all know this phrase, as you have at the bottom of the page here, Hashem Melech, Hashem Moloch, Hashem Yimloch. We discussed it not

08:13 long ago. Melech is forty, thirty, and twenty, which means ninety, yes? So Melech is ninety, Moloch is ninety, Yimloch is a hundred. Take a look at the word Mansapach. Mansapach. Mem Nun is ninety, Tzadik is ninety, Pejof is a hundred. So the Mansapach was p-put in Dafke in this s-sequence, not Chamdapaz, in order to have the Remez to Melech, Moloch, and Yimloch, as I saw in this, in Sforim. And perhaps we'll come back to the, the fascinating insights in Dikduk, but I just wanted to share with you, uh, th- just this point over here. And so that's why I'm suggesting that the reason why the Tehillim is divided in the way that it starts with Mohavti is to be Maramez to the Mem being the middle letter of, uh, of, uh, of the Aleph Bet. In the f-- I know that in, in, uh, obviously in Kuftu Tes, you don't have twenty-seven sets of, of, of Sukim. You have twenty-two. But there's a Remez to this Mem being a middle letter, as in the, uh, the word Emes. Okay. Um, a more serious, more worrying, uh, issue is about what are the parameters for correcting a Bal Kore. So let's first read the Sikha, and then we'll read the Shuk Hanarach. Why? Because that's where, how the question aro-arose. The Rabbeim, it says here, and th- this is from the Sefer Hasichas of the Pedek Rebbe. And he says the Rabbeim were very, very pedantic about Kriyas HaTorah. That they should be keeping the notes,

09:57 the Ta'amei HaHanegim, or the notes. The word in Yiddish for a note is Terop. We, so they, and very often it would be that the Bal Kore, the re- the, the, the reader, made a mistake in one of the, the notes, and he was called to repeat the word. Sometimes he had to repeat a half a Pasuk or a whole Pasuk if it wasn't a Pasuk which has Hashem's name in the Pasuk. So it's, looks like, like this. When there was a mistake and it had to be corrected, so they immediately, they was thinking, "Is there a Hashem's name in the Pasuk? Then just repeat the word. If there's no Shem, ha- name of Hashem in the Pasuk or not thus far, then perhaps, probably got to do with the context." Sometimes repeating a word, it looks out of context, and therefore you have to go through the whole sentence again. At any rate, so sometimes they would tell them to go, go back to the beginning of the Pasuk. And the mistake in, in Kriya Sata, in, in the, in the Terop was as if he had made a mistake in a pronunciation which changes the meaning of the, of the word in the Torah. So here we have a significant point here. There's something which is, how do you say, the, the baseline is a mistake which changes the meaning of the Torah. And then we've got lesser mistakes. And with Rabbeim went so extreme that even if it was a, what we

11:20 would think a minor mistake, they would correct it. Okay, now let's look at the Shuk Hanarach. So this is, as you see, it's in Shuk Hanarach. And the Mechaber, that's the block letters. You have Safka writes, Kor Avator. If the reader made a mistake, Afu Medikduk Ois Achas. Even if it was a, the, the, the, uh, precision of even one letter, so he has to repeat. Vechein Din Achas. Then he, um, then the Rabbeim adds. Now, the Rabbeim, he, sometimes he comes ac-across clearly as Ve'yesh Oimrim. As, and sometimes he comes across as if he's making a clarification. But it could also be this, this clarification is disagreeing. Whether it's the person who has the Aliyah, as in Sephardic communities it's still done, that the one who has the Aliyah himself reads. And in Ashkenazi communities, it's more common that they have a, a s- uh, an appointed Ba'al Koreh, and he does the reading. And the same thing would be that if he makes a mistake, you should correct him. However, he says, "But after Beshinu Hamishtane Al Yedei Zehu Inyan." It's only if it's a change which changes the meaning. Omar, Omer. Yoshev, Yoshav. These are... Yoshev means he is sitting. Yoshav, he sat. So these can-- these, uh, change the meaning. Aval Im To Be-Neginas Taham. But if he made a mistake with a tune. Oi Be-Niqud Or, with a vowel. Ein Machzir In Osrei. So let's say he said, "Oretz, Eretz. Eis, Es." So those things do not change the meaning.

13:06 Then Ein Machzir In Osrei. Then one doesn't, he doesn't, he has, doesn't h- we don't make him repeat because of such a mistake. Aval Goyim, Goyrim Bo. He should be reprimanded. All right. So here we have the Ram- the, the, Mechaber, the Shechinaturuch has taken a Dikduk Esachas. He read it Es instead of Es, Es instead of Es. That's enough of a reason to c- to, uh, tell him to go back to correct it. The Rama takes a more lenient stance, and he says, "If it does not change the Pshat, then he doesn't have to repeat it." If he, if he misses out a drop, the wrong drop, or if he mis, he mispronounced in a way that it does not change the Pshat, then one doesn't, uh, he does not have to repeat it, but one should reprimand. So now, here comes the question. What is the... That's, so the Rabbeim were obviously Lefrimi Meshorah Sadin. What should be the standard practice? Um, very difficult, difficult. Now, the, the background, if you take a look in the, Shechinaturuch and the Bes Yosef, the background, I think it's in the Maroi, Rabbi Israel, Shaul Israel, where he says that it is from a Sadeshen, where he says that they didn't want to embarrass the Ba'al Kore. And I, I, I, definitely, if you, uh, want to discourage a fellow from being a Ba'al Kore, keep on correcting him. Hakarai every two minutes, another correction. And then you'll be, next week, you'll be looking for another

14:36 Ba'al Kore. Uh, it's not, not a clever thing to do. Uh, it's, it's an embarrassment. But then I think one could say, "Hakole Fi HaMevayesh VaHamisbayesh." And I think there's a very big difference in, in, uh, a regular setting and a, a Chassid by the Rebbe. There is a certain, already an aim of, uh, of the Chassid, a bitul of the Chassid's Rebbe. And so in that setting, I think there's the, it's more acceptable that he will be corrected to get it right. I was thinking also on a, on a, if that the word, the right word, is emotional level. But in, in, in, uh, in Buckingham Palace, protocol has to be exact. It's like you can't have little mistakes. Lahavdil, but the idea by a Rebbe, the, the, the, the, uh, to get the drop right, everything has to be correct. You can't, a Rebbe shouldn't have anything but the Eret. Well, people like us, we do the Eret some other things also, but the Rebbe is, everything is a Lechatchilah. Should be on the level of Lechatchilah. Um, this is on a Herzl level. I think it also has to do with a, a deeper appreciation of the drop. And here, just a quote. This is from the Kaf HaChaim. And Kaf HaChaim, actually, he identifies that the Sephardic Shapsak is more rigid than, than the Rama. Although, as I said, the Rama can be read as just clarification. The Sephardim take a view that you actually, you do have to correct if

16:08 there was a, uh, mistake in, uh, Dikduk. So, he has here from, Kaf HaChaim brings, um, from, a sefer from, uh, Kisva Arizal, uh, that the Sefer Torah has got no Nekudus, got no vowels in it, no, no, no notes in it. So it's like the Melachim, it's like kings, but they are like dead because they are just, um, uh, mute. When the person reads them, see, he's bringing a Chayes into them. And the, the time of the Nekudus, they bring a Chayes. They are, like I said, bringing them, the Melachim to life by bringing them with the right, with the right Taamim. So, so I, I think we, by, uh, appreciating, which it says, I mentioned last week, I think, which it says in, in, uh, Kabbalah, that Taamim Nekudus, Tagin Oysius, Tanto. Tov, Nun. Tes, Nun, Tov, Alef, Tanto. Is, is, is L'Moshe Misinai. That the Taamim, the drop on L'Moshe Misinai. So therefore, they are important components. And therefore, um, one should be careful n-not to miss out on them. And again, I don't think this inyun of being, of correcting, um, by, uh, because the Rabbeim corrected on every, every little note, therefore, it means that the Chassidim have to do the same. You have to be, you have to be, uh, if, and it says the Loshon Goyrim. Goyrim, so first by Krishe Mishalamito, you should be Goyrim Yon Yiron Yef Nefesh HaBamis. And you should say, "Ata Nuva Manuva Mesuka Tzemesua." Once you finish Goyrim and Yon Nefesh HaBamis,

17:41 then you can do the Goyrim on other people also. Um, you know, uh, the kidsa. Let's move on. So that's, um, just one, one more, uh, interesting, interesting thing. There, there has been the question raised, is Dikduk Torah? I heard from Remoh HaSafen Alav HaShalom that someone asked the Rebbe, "Why does the Chassidic Chadarim not learn Dikduk?" So the Rebbe says, actually, it's Dikduk. It's milra, not milel. But, um, is Dikduk, the rules of Dikduk, are they Torah, or is it just language? Is it just grammar? And I just, this week in the Hiskashrus, the weekly, um, booklet of Hiskashrus, they had a fascinating insight, a fascinating article about the five parts of the pronunciation. Hey mitzvos hapair. And you have in Zohar talks about it and it gives to Ariza, and it's got to do with Hey Gvurus, and it's got to do with, with, with Sefiras and Itzotzach. The, the, the Hey mitzvos hapair, and they got a-- there's a whole, a whole Torah in Kabbalah about this. And therefore, I, I... You know, you s- you have the-- They seem to be just rules of grammar, but they're grammar of Lashon HaKodesh, and therefore, certainly on, on Der Hasid, there's definitely, uh, they are in Yonah Mamukim in Torah, without question. Okay. Unrelated to this, so another Yinger man sent me a copy of the Tilos Hashem siddur, and the one on the-- lower one on the page has got the word Hoso twice. Actually, four times. But in the passage, "Even

19:27 moza boim," Hoso has got the asterisk. And in the passage, "Emes Hashem hososoi," it doesn't have the asterisk. So he's asking whose-- Well, why is-- Uh, is there a difference between this word and that word? And, um, then, who, who put in these asterisks? So I want to give you some history. He was fascinated with my answer, and therefore, I want to share with you also. The Alter Rebbe who published his siddur in Tov Kov Samach Gimel, which is now about a hundred, uh, two hun-- Um, two hundred and seventeen years ago. Two hundred and seventeen. Fifteen year, uh, fifteen years ago, whatever. Two hundred and seventeen years ago. The Alter Rebbe did not put in symbols to identify what is a Sheva or Sheva Nach. Sheva Nah is the audible Sheva, the moving Sheva. A Sheva Nach is the resting Sheva, the silent Sheva. The Alter Rebbe did not differentiate in-- when he, he published his siddur. In the year five thousand nine hundred and ten, which is about a hundred and ten years ago, the siddur was printed in Vilna. And the-- Vilna was certainly the, uh, the best quality printers in the whole of Russia, um, and, and Poland, et cetera. Vilna was the top quality place. And, uh, they were, they, they... There was a company which, which produced a very nice siddur. See, they published other siddurim, Ashkenaz also, but they also published a siddur, Ari Z"l, and it was called Seder Hava'od. And it's very, very-- The, their Dikduk

21:07 is on a very good standard. And when the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe comes to America in nineteen forty, our Rebbe comes to America in nineteen forty-one in summer, and one of the things that started off then was the Merkaz LeYoneich Chinuch and setting up schools. And this grew, and they were teaching them. A part of the scheduled curriculum in schools is also Tadaman. But there was no Chabad siddur which was, which was user-friendly for a, for a school. The Torah or siddur, besides being big, also you have to keep on flipping pages, which is not, not good if you're trying to control a class. Um, and then there, there was the very thin Rastover siddur which is, again, very small and not, not, not, not easy to use either. So there was a, a plan. They were-- They had to find a decent user-friendly siddur. So they took the Seder Hava'od siddur, and they made photocopies of it, and they, then they, uh... Of course, there's a lot of, uh, copy, um, cutting and pasting, but overall, the siddur Tilos Hashem, Hashem, which we are familiar with, which we, which we're brought up with, that is a photocopy of the Seder Hava'od. And the, the vowel, the, the, uh, the asterisks were added in that edition. So the a- the asterisks denoting when it's a Sheva Nah were added in this Vilna print a hundred and ten, ten, ten-odd years ago. And that kept on, kept on being reprinted, and it came a certain, uh--

22:44 You know, you can't keep on reprinting the same text because it gets a bit fuzzy. Comes a point where you need to re-typeset the stuff. And about twenty-odd years ago, in Kfar Chabad, there's a kahos in New York and there's a kahos in Kfar Chabad, and kahos in Kfar Chabad undertook to re-typeset the whole siddur. Here now, then, here's another important point, though. That the rules of Dikduk are not written in Shulchan Aruch, and they're not totally, uh, there's not a total consensus either in some of the things. The printer in Vilna was following the policies of a medakdek who lived in the times of the Bal Shem Tov by the name of Reb Zalman Henna. Reb Shloime Zalman Henna. Reb Zalman Henna. Zalman Henna developed certain chidushim in Dikduk, and he had the good fortune of running into a, uh, at loggerheads with none other than Reb Yaakov Emden. Reb Yaakov Emden was known for his strident approach to his opponents, and, uh, so he had issues with other people. Reb Zalman-- Also, Reb Yaakov Emden was a printer, so he, he would publish his own stuff. So the, uh, Zalman-- Reb Yaakov Emden has a whole sefer called Luach Eretz where he is, uh, attacking, challenging the chidushim of Reb Zalman Henna. Be that as it may, Reb Zalman Henna still remains a very respected authority in, in Dikduk. The Prim Godim talks about him in glowing terms. Fine. One of the chidush, one of the areas of the chidushim of Reb Zalman

24:30 Henna is in the Sheva. But not ev-- Most other medakdekim don't accept the approach of Reb Zalman Henna. So, and just to add to this, the Rebbe encouraged Reb Mottel Schusterman, who was the Baal Koreh in seven seventy. The Rebbe encouraged him to teach Dikduk to the, to the talmidim in seven seventy, which he did, and he put together a manual mo- fo-following the general approach of Dikduk, and he teaches, uh, also the rules of Sheva Nah. It so happens to be that Reb Mottel Schusterman is the father-in-law of Reb Menachem Wolf, who is the director of Kahos in New York, in, in, in Eretz Yisrael, in, in, in Kfar Chabad. So when Rabbi Wolf was pre-printing the siddur, retyping, type-setting, so he, he, he followed the policies, not of Rabbi Zalman Henner, but they followed the policies, uh, the more, uh, popular policies as taught by his father-in-law, by Rabbi Mottel Schuster man. So therefore, if you start comparing the asterisks in the Kfar Chabad print and the American print, you'll see many, many differences. I once did-- I was teaching Dikduk in class, and I took a, a page out of, uh, Shir Shalyoyim, and it was-- I was, I, I had taught them from Rabbi Schuster man's book. And I'd taken a page out of Till Hashem, and there were so many differences. So this is the background. Um, that still does not explain why you should have Chosor once with asterisk on it. That doesn't make sense. I'm just saying it

26:06 was all retyped-- typeset, um, anew, and that's why sometimes things c-crept in, mistakes. But this, this is the history of the asterisks. I also want to show you one, one example here. Al kanfi v'gdechem. So one of the rules of, of, of Sheva Na is your-- if you have two Sheva Na consecutively, the second one will be a Sheva Na. So like in the word tishmeru. So it's shmer, but you don't... The tish is a, a silent Sheva, and the second one, the, of the mem is a, is audible. Tishmeru. So when you have two Sheva Na consecutive, is, is the second one is audible. That's the general rule. Rabbi Zalman Henner came up with a... That's, that's cons-- That, that, that's everyone agrees. Rabbi Zalman Henner made a Chiddush. The word kanfi, for example. Well, the plural of kan-ka-kanof is chnofayim. So perhaps it should have been k'nofe. But you can't have two Sheva Na consecutive, therefore it's expanded to kanfi. But you should treat it as if it's two sh- consecutive Sheva Na. Same thing, melech. So it's melachim. So if you have the kings of, it should be melechei. But you can't read it that way, so it becomes melechei. But then the sh- under the lamed of melechei should be a, a, a, uh, a, a Sheva Na, uh, Sheva-- a Sheva Na. That was one of his Chiddushim. And as I say, most other Midrashim don't follow that. So this is where you'll see a difference. You know, whichever way

27:41 you say it's okay. They hoyta her in any case. But this is just a history of how it, how it developed. So the Till Hashem siddur, someone, Rabbi, Rabbi Boruch Noah writes to the Rebbe, there's lots of mistakes in the, uh, you know, in the, um, in the, uh, Till Hashem with the Sheva Na. And the Rebbe says when we worked on it, there were bigger problems with the, this, this... It's daunting. Imagine how t- a whole siddur, uh, two hundred and fifty pages to start t-uh, ta-tampering, adjusting every single Sheva. At the time, they had a pressure, and they prepared a siddur the way it was, and, uh, the major Inyonim they sorted out, and the Sheva Na they didn't deal with. Okay. Let's take, um... appears to approach Sheva Na slightly different. Yes. So there we are. So the, the, uh, this is, this is the history of the Sheva Na. And let's move on. Someone asked me this past week about making a berakhah, boreh min ha-veshamim. First asked about cinnamon and abou- then about pepper. So the, the berakhah on besamim is not only on Motza'i Shabbos. It's, it's, uh, it's a Halakhah throughout the week. Whenever you pick up something k- to enjoy its fragrance, you make a berakhah. See, here we have in the Pe'erid Yud Aleph. I'll say, say the Birkat Ha-onan. It says, "Pilpul in the Zangivil, Sushin, crushed pepper and crushed, uh, ginger. Even though you enjoy the, the fragrance, some say you shouldn't make a

29:11 berakhah or borei whatever the berakhah should be, or boreh me'inashan lecha tov apeiros, whatever. The fisha mikrivan sha'asuyin latavlil bilvad. They are there as a seasoning. Ve'ein regil is kol kach l'riakh bahem. You put pepper into a food to make it tasty, not because you make it there to get a good smell. And therefore, lo yom nikro yom delariakh hal. It's not designated for smell. It's not there to add a fragrance. And therefore, they are-- Of course, they do have a smell, but then that's not the purpose which they are used for in, in cooking, and therefore one would not make a berakhah on them, boreh me'inashan lecha tov apeiros, et cetera. By contrast, he says, "Kinomoin betzipayren," uh, cinnamon and cloves. Regil is ula l'riakh bahem. First of all, it's common to smell them to enjoy the fragrance, even not during eating. And also, when they are put into a tavshil, into a food, they are also with the-- put there with the intent to enhance the fragrance, the smell of the food, to give it a, a wafting. If I pronounce it right, I'm not sure. So therefore, um, uh, so this is the Halakhah. Cinnamon, you could say a boreh min ha-veshamim, whereas a pepper one would not say boreh min ha-veshamim. Let's move on. Now, apparently, in Eretz Yisrael, there's a, uh, possibly got to do with COP twenty-six, I don't know, but, uh, there's now a big push to reduce the amount of disposables being used. And the government wants

30:43 to raise a, uh, exorbitant tax on, on disposable paper dishes, plastic dishes. And the alternative is obviously, if you have a larger, uh, operation, is to, uh, you have a dishwasher. So this is perhaps the background- I got a shailah, someone, a shliach from somewhere in the middle of Europe sent me, and I didn't realize the, the news around this. He asked, "If you have stuff which is in a dishwasher before Shabbos, and then the dishwasher was in operation as Shabbos came in, and then it's now two hours into Shabbos, dishwasher switches off, are you allowed to open the dishwasher to take stuff out?" So I'm reading here from a Sefer Orchos Shabbos, which is a relatively recent Sefer. It's become very popular, very nice Sefer, uh, contemporary. It says, "If you have put in before Shabbos, you put in wet, uh, laundry into a dryer, or you put dishes into a dishwasher, and the function did not stop until the onset of Shabbos." And there's a question whether you can open the door once it's finished. And the, uh, the, the pro- question here is, we know the rules of Muktze. Anything which was out of bounds at the onset of Shabbos, it remains Muktze for the whole of Shabbos. So during Bein HaShemashot, you weren't able to open the door of the, of the dishwasher or of the... because that would involve switching off the power. By opening, it switches off the power. So then that makes that door Muktze. The fact that

32:25 later, the s- the power stopped running through, and now you could open it without switching anything off. But because it was out of bounds during Bein HaShemashot, for the duration of Bein HaShemashot, it should remain Muktze for the whole of Shabbos. Now, not so pashut, because sometimes Rav Moshe-- Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, he says that if washing was on the line at the beginning of Shabbos, and it dried on Shabbos, he says it's not Muktze, because there's a notion of gam urah b'dei odem. You are standing and waiting, uh, for it to dry, and you are anticipating it should dry, and therefore, it's not a problem of Muktze. Ai, if you took, um, um, um, um, uh, grapes, and you put them out to dry to become raisins, and they somehow became raisins a bit sooner than expected, they remain Muktze for the whole of Shabbos. So there he says there's a difference, dochak v'yadayim. There's a whole, a whole lamdus. So sometimes we do see that something which is anticipated, a change which is anticipated to happen on Shabbos, so some say that that is considered not Muktze for the whole of Shabbos. So this he says, "Reija ora, look in the note," but it, it does remain a bit of a question. Could you say because you are expecting it to go off, therefore it's, it's, it not Muktze for the whole of Shabbos? Or do you say because it was out of bounds with the onset of Shabbos, it remains Muktze for

33:52 the whole of Shabbos? So, um, he, he leaves that as a question, so I'll also leave it as a question, but it's something that... and therefore, I would say don't do it. Can I just ask- Now comes a different question. Can I just ask what's the difference between- What about having a dishwasher running on a timer? Now, the Sefer which I have in front of you here is the Sefer Pirkei Shmuel which we've men- quoted many times. But here, he's dealing with, it's, um, it, it, it's, let's say you put it in before Shabbos, and you have it set at eleven o'clock at night it's gonna go on. Is that allowed to have a machine switching on on Shabbos? I must tell you that there is a very sharp shuv in Igros Moshe about using time switches. And he has a, a lotion. He says, "Had Chazal, who made the Takana of the Isur Amiri LeNochri, had there been time switches in their times, they would have forbidden time switches. Only for lighting, yes, but not for anything else." All right, we, we use that time switch for lighting and heating, but not for anything else. The background for this was, I heard, that there was someone who asked, uh, Rav Moshe, could he set his box. I was bo- in school. Rabbi Chazzan used to call it the tummer box. Um, could he set... and the, and the, the Dodgers are playing the Yankees, uh, on Shabbos afternoon. No. Could he set a timer

35:26 to switch on the, the, the tummer box? He should be able to see, uh, have Oneg Shabbos with the Dodgers and the Yankees. And Rav Moshe was so upset with the question, and that was the, kind of the Kanois, almost, uncharacteristic of Rav Moshe, where he talks about this in such, uh, da- condemning terms about using time switches. But this is, this is a, um... What, what you see here, it's talking about the Avsha Miltsa, a thing which is normally switched on as you use it. That, and it makes noise. That shouldn't be, uh, uh, activated by a time switch on Shabbos, um, even though it was set in, you know, the time switch was set up before Shabbos. But I have a b-- I have a bigger problem with this. There's, there's a Braisa which says the following: "echad mevi et hamayim ve'echad mevi et ha'esh." So there's someone, there's a f- there's a, uh, there's a, uh, stove, and I brought water and placed it on the stove, and later, someone else came along and put, put coals or put in wood. Uh, and, and then the water which I brought at nine o'clock, at ten o'clock, someone put in, um, um, uh, fuel, and it starts, uh, cooking. So the Issur d'Rabanan, for me to put the water at a place where the power, the fuel, the heat will come subsequently. So for me to put it there is a Issur d'Rabanan. So now I have a dishwasher, and now it's, there's

36:57 a timer which is gonna s- go on at three o'clock. It's now two o'clock. If I don't close that door, the dishwasher will not switch on. So by me closing the door, I am enabling that at, at, at three o'clock, the power will be able to activate it. So that's certainly Yasim DeRabon. Echad MeBeHasamaim, VeEchad MeBeHaAish, the one who brought the Mayim, where the Aish will come later, is Is the Rabbon. Certainly, if you want to follow the approach of the Chazanish of, of, of electricity being Ganien of Boine. So you can certainly see here that it's not that the electricity running through the tracks is Boine. It's placing the circ-- creating the circuit that the, the, the track, that the electricity can, can, can travel. So by you closing the door, so you have completed the track over here. Of course, there's another switch fur-further on, but that's the Boine, that you have been made-- you've made the, the, the, uh, the, the, the track for the electricity to travel. So therefore, certainly according to that sheet, it's definitely-- it could be, uh, you know, uh, according to him, it would be Sederisen. But even... And not so, but certainly it's Echad MeBeHasamaim, VeEchad MeBeHaAish, which would be Yasim DeRabon. Okay, let's go on to the next question. Unfortunately, a couple of people in, in Bes Medrash BeYus were wearing bandages last week, and they asked about Netilas Yadayim. And so let's take a look about Netilas Yadayim when you have a bandage or

38:42 plaster, et cetera. So here we have the Shevet HaKehath, Rebbe Shneoruch. One who has a bandage on his hand, he has a, he has a wound and a bandage, and the wound is such that it's-- he cannot remove the bandage because of the pain of the wound. So then you should wash the rest of the hand. So you don't wash the whole hand, you wash the rest of the hand where there's no wound. Ah, you can't wash half a hand. You have to wash it all in one go. So imagine if a person, Rachmana Litzlan, had, uh, a finger missing. So he washes what is, what is available. So the same thing here, he's not gonna use the first, the start, the part of the hand which is under the bandage, he's not gonna be using in any case. So, uh, to touch the food. So he washes what is, what is, uh, um, beyond the bandage. But then he says, this gets a little bit tricky. Om Nom, Tzadik Lizoy, you have to be careful that the water shouldn't touch the bandage because we don't want that water to come back to the hand. So I have to explain something. There in the Mishnah, Mishnah Yadayim, talks about Mayim Reshayim and Mayim Schneer. Chacham MeDet HaKonah, Shelo MeHaMelech, to wash Netilas Yadayim, and your hands are Tomei. You wash the first time, so your hands become Tome- Tohor, but the water is Tomei. Then you have Mayim Schneer to purify the water which is

40:07 on your hands. So then you got Mayim Reshayim and Mayim Schneer. If you're wearing a bandage, so then as you pour it, so some of the Mayim Reshayim will go onto the bandage. And then you'll pour Mayim Schneer. But then some water, Mayim Reshayim, which are Mayim to Mayim, will trickle from the bandage back onto the hand, and they will be Metame your hand. So he says that's why you should be careful not to pour water onto the bandage because it will then, it coming back, it's gonna create a problem. Difficult to avoid this. So therefore, he says, "Use a-- Pour a Revi'it." Reish Nishbek, Revi'it, Ka'achas, Al Kol Yad, She'oz Lo Nikbeh HaMayim. So the, um, assumption is because you're using a Revi'it of water, it's immune to Tumah. Fine. So now what we've seen so far is that you'd pour a Revi- a Revi'it plus. Baruch Hashem, that's not a problem. And you pour it on, on, on, on the hand, and if a little bit spills onto the bandage, it doesn't matter. The problem which we have here is that in this que-- this concept, that the Revi'it of water is immune to Tumah, is a Machloket Tana'im. It's Machloket Rebbe and Rebbe Yosi. Rebbe Meir says it's immune to Tumah. Rebbe Yosi says, our Revi'it is also eligible for Tumah, prone to Tumah. In Seuder, Netilas Yadayim, in the Seuder, the Alter Rebbe is Machmir like Rebbe Yosi. So therefore, Challa Bava Shalom says, "Oh, wait a minute. Here, the Alter

41:35 Rebbe says, 'Use a Revi'it.' But Netilas Yadayim, he says that a Re- a Revi'it is also eligible for Tumah. So what?" I say, "I don't have a solution." So Rab Chaim Noah raises this question in Ksav Veshofar. And he gives us an interesting reference. And I'm discussing this because it's in the Geya. What happens if you wake up in the morning, you want to wash Negel Vasen, and you don't have enough water to wash three times on each hand? Alternative, whatever it may be. You don't have enough water to wash three times. So the Alter Rebbe says, "Wash once, because the main Tumah is removed by the first time. You wash another two times, that's to complete the removal of the Tumah. But the primary, uh, p-purification is achieved by wa-washing once." And there, the Alter Rebbe says, "If you've got only one, a small amount of water, so then you should wash with the Revi'it on both hands." Ah, so he's talking about the Revi'it as being immune to Tumah. So there, the Alter Rebbe does accept the opinion of Rebbe Meir that a Revi'it system is immune to Tumah. So what's the answer? Mishah Zechak. Of course, when we can, we'll be Machmir like Rebbe Yosi to say that a, a, a Revi'it is, is eligible for Tumah. But when we're stuck, you only have a Revi- a Revi'it, the tiniest amount of water, you only rely on the more lenient opinion. So then says Rab Chaim, "The same thing here. The fellow's

42:56 never got a bandage on his, uh, hand." So we'll rely on the lenient opinion that the Revi'it is immune to Tumah. That's, that's the bit of the Lamdus behind this. Someone's asking to clarify. That's on Shabbos itself, Masakim. So let me, let me... Perhaps it wasn't clear. My question here is, when-- if on Shabbos... So I'm going-- We've finished this point about the Netilat Yadayim, going back to the dishwasher story. When you close the dishwasher, until then, there was no possibility for the, you know, s- dishwasher to switch on at three o'clock. When you close the dishwasher, you have done an interesting thing. But you have enabled that later a Melacha will take place. That I'm comparing to someone putting a, a, a pot of water on an, on a, on a, uh, cold stove, knowing that subsequently the fire will go on. So here's the same thing. You're c-closing the thing. There's... Closing the dishwasher. Nothing's happening now, but it will happen later. So you are enabling something to happen subsequently. And if you do that on Shabbos, that's not okay. Even though the t- the, uh, timer was set on, was, uh, uh, was, you know, set in motion from before Shabbos. But the, uh, closing the door is, uh, is actually, in a sense, a kind of Maké V'patish to the enabling. So someone's asking, opening a dishwasher after a cycle is finished, why is it different from opening an oven after the timer has gone off? The question is a good

44:42 question, and it also depends which type of oven you're talking about. Is it a fan oven? Is it, uh, uh... It would de-depend which type of oven. Is it got to do with, uh, uh, therm-- Why, why couldn't you open the oven earlier? All right. So we'll have to discuss that more carefully at another time. Let's move on. Very important Shailah. A woman called me up. She had gone to Tesco, or someone had gone to Tesco, and they bought... Now, as a Machloket Poskim, is it basil or basil? See, or you may call. I'm gonna say basil. Fine. Um, and it's, and she comes home and looks at it, it says it's Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael, we all know that this year is Shmita. So now I wanted to clarify, Mamash, Negia, to a lot of people. Everyone, all from Eden. In case you do get some produce from Eretz Yisrael, what are you going to do now? So, I'm sure many people have refreshed their knowledge of, uh, Hilchot Shmita. But for those who are still a little bit dusty, let's, let's remind ourselves. Shmita is Lo Ochlo. Shmita is that you're allowed to eat it. On the contrary, it's made that it should be free for everyone to eat. It's Kedushat Shevis. Lo Ochlo L'vatalah Hefsed, you mustn't waste it. Lo Ochlo L'vatalah S'chorah, you're not allowed to make business with Shevis. You shouldn't export it to Chutz La'aretz. There are restrictions. But in principle, Shmita produce is for eating. During the times

46:17 of the Mishnah or perhaps earlier, the Chachamim, po-possibly earlier, the Chachamim observed the following. The word, there's a word, Sfiach. Sfiach in Yiddish is translated Wiederwuchs. It gr- it's as if it grows by itself. You, you, uh... This year you have tomatoes, and, and you, you, you, you cleared it away. And then next year, Mitamol, there's tomatoes again. Whatever it may be. Uh, you didn't plant them. They grew by themselves. So if things grow, vegetables grow by themselves, so then it shouldn't be a problem to use them in Shmita. However, Chachamim saw the following. They saw that some farmers had fields full of produce, of vegetables, and when they were challenged, they said, "Uh, Sfiach. It grew by itself." The Chachamim therefore made a very, very draconian Gezeira that no Sfiachin or vegetables are allowed in Shmita. You're not allowed to eat them. So again, Shmita in, in principle is that you should be allowed to eat. You and your family should be Hefker for everyone to eat. Here they made a Issur on Sfiach. Those who are learning Rambam three Perakim a day, it was just yesterday's Rambam. There's this Gezeira on Sfiach. So what I have in front of you is the Sefer Pa'as HaShulchan. It's written by a Talmid HaGra, Reb Yisroel of Shklov. The dealing of Mitzvot Ha'asot Leolot Ha'aretz, the stuff which is relevant, Halachas are relevant to Eretz Yisrael, uh, particularly are not discussed very much in detail in the Shulchan Aruch because largely they weren't relevant for most

48:03 people at the time. Very Bikitzur. And so Reb Yisroel of Shklov, two hundred and some years ago, he made like a k- a, uh, HaShlamah to the Shulchan Aruch on these Halachas. It's one of the classics for him. So you have here, "Yarok She'Derech B'rei'ot Adam Le'zoreh." The vegetables, the greens, which are normally, it's normal to plant them, and grain, and beans, et cetera, pulses, whatever grows from them are also Midivrei Em. So anything which grows from, from kidney yeast or, or, or, um, vegetables which grow during Shmita are also Midirabbonim. And this is a penalty, kind of, in case the farmer had secretively been planting and he says it's Sfiach. What is the Halacha about vegetables which started growing in Tof Shin Pe Alef and they are harvested in Tof Shin Pe Bet? In Tof Shin Pe Alef, you're allowed to plant those vegetables. So here's the question. Do Sfiach from Pre-Shevi'it, from Shishit, which are now harvested in Shevi'it, do they have the, the, um, Issur of Sfiach? Let me explain something. The, the status of a fruit is like this. Pri Ha'ilon, Pri Ha'eitz. The status, whether it's a Shmita or not a Shmita fruit, depends on when it blossomed. Bozach Hanat, Hanat, um, Hanatosom. The status of Yaroket depends on when they were harvested. So if you pick radishes two days after Rosh Hashanah, they are Shmita radishes, Masakim. But whether the Issur of Sfiach applies, according to the Rambam, it looks like he holds any vegetables, any time in Shmita,

50:00 are subject to the Issur Sfiach. Most Poskim, other, other, Akapom, other Poskim don't follow the Rambam, and they say that Sfiach is only when it started growing in Shmita. But here, this is what Rab- the Pa'as HaShulchanwriting. they started growing in the b- before Shemitah. they were ripened already in Shesh. and they were now harvested in She- in Shemitah. but they are . There are... You can see there's a little bit of, uh... He said they were totally ripened. According to him, there is room to say that s- vegetables or greens which started growing in Shesh and harvested in She- in Shemitah, that they are not subject to the Issur Sfeichin. They are subject to the Kedushat Shevi'it, but they're not also under the Issur of Sfeichin. So, um, before answering this, uh, lady who asked me this question, I looked up the various lists which you have from the various, uh, Kashrus authorities. And you could see that they gave, like, till somewhere in, I think somewhere ar- around now, perhaps in Kislev. They gave a kind of, uh, uh, um, that the Issur of, on these greens, like basil, things like that, only begins, like, a month and a half or two months into Shemitah, and that's for this reason. Because whatever was harvested earlier will have started growing in, in the, either before Shemitah, and therefore it's not subject to the Issur of Sfeichin. Or perhaps it means that the majority had grown already before, but they-- when does it really

51:39 start, the Issur Sfeichin on those, uh, um, um, species grows later, uh, starts later. So what I want to say is, of course, practically, uh, one should be vigilant and try to avoid, uh, by, buying these things. Why? Because it's a Issur of She'or. And by buying it, you are, uh, a- assisting the trade with, with Shemitah stuff which is not allowed. Other problems, um, that, that, that's, might, might be true. But on the other hand, at the moment, some of these things would be permitted. Later on in the year, even if, let's say, next month, it could be that the, the Halach- Halacha on that particular species will not, it will not be okay to use. And what you'll have to do is just hold on to it, leave it till it's decomposes, and then dispose of it then. Um, this is all said about BeDePri Ha'adama. Things which are BeDePri Ha'etz, they are s- largely not subject to Shemitah rules yet. Of course, the farmer is not allowed to cultivate and not allowed to prune, but the f- f- most fruit which are now available will have started growing, have blossomed last year. And therefore, the Kedushat Shevi'it doesn't apply. Uh, but they, uh, on the other hand, they will spill over well into Tov Sheini BeGimel, will be still, uh, the a- applicable the Dinim of Shemitah for Pri Ha'etz. Okay. Let's go on to the next, uh, question. Okay. The question which we have here is... I'm just gonna come back

53:10 to the, uh, link for those who want to know. A, a, a, a link for, uh, recordings, so you have it over there. Um, but someone asked a question. So Shliach, in a town which is not a very, a very small Shomer Shabbos community. Probably you can count on, on, on, on, in, on your two hands the amount of Shomer Shabbos there. And happens to be a Shomer Shabbos modern Orthodox co- family moved in. They couldn't find anything near the Shul, so the closest they found is something which is an hour's walk. And they would like to come to Shul, so they want to, but an hour's walk is, uh, Too Chek Gdoila. So they want to rollerblade. Some young people this time, yeah. According, are they allowed to use rollerblades to come to Shul? Or should the... Rabbi's asking me, should he object? Should he say, "You can't come to Shul with rollerblades"? So I spent quite a while looking around this, about, about, about this. There's a concept called Ovdeendechail, which is a mundane behavior. So even if there were an Eisv, but we would not ride a bike. Now, some people say because it might develo- develop a puncture. Uh, you might come to pump it, uh, pump, pump and then repair, repair it. But one of the reasons given is Ovdeendechail. What's the definition of Ovdeendechail? So one of the definitions given is, if this is the way people go about their, their d- daily, um, schedule for work, for shopping.

54:47 So that's the kind of thing which is called Ovdeendechail. So in communities where bikes are used by adults, and becoming more and more popular here, uh, also. So then bikes are used for going to work, bikes are used for going shopping, so that's Ovdeendechail. A children's tricycle is not an Ovdeendechail. It's, uh, it's, it's for entertainment. It's not used for, uh, for going shopping. You can now, now it's, it's interesting, but the scooters, I would, I would, uh, think twice whether scooter now is called, um, Ovdeendechail. Because it increasingly, people are, looks like they are going at least, uh, to work w- with these adult scooters, but let's not go into that. Um, but let's come back to rollerblades. Rollerblades, I think, are still not the kind of thing which people would go shopping or, uh... It's more very much an entertainment type of a piece of equipment. Uh, the Sefer which I, uh, did find discussing it is a Sefer called Be'er Sorim by the Rav of Geneva. And he, uh, looked at the rollerblades, and he wanted to see whether they would c- create sparks when you'd scrape across the pavement, but it's not. It's made with, with plastic. It's not made with metal. And the, the general take is a certain kind of ambivalence. Uh, of course, it's not so Pasik, it's not so Shabbos Dik. But, but we had, you know, certainly not enough grounds to say to someone that you can't come to shul with their rollerblades. There's not, there's

56:16 no, no, not enough grounds to do, to say such a thing. And, um, so I told the, uh, the Shliach, the Rav there, if this fellow is coming with rollerblades, you should not object. Of course, they, uh... Once he comes into shul, he would be expected to change into more conventional, uh, um, footwear. Fine. But, uh, coming to shul with them, uh, is not, it's, it's something which one should certainly be able to, uh, live with. Right. Someone's asking, what if the supermarket doesn't show the country of origin? I once asked the late Rav Padva, Rabbeinu Chalavashalom, I asked him, um, this question. When you buy a, a ca- a carton of orange juice, and it says produce of more than one country, are you allowed to use it? So he relied on the principle of kol depatish meruba patish, that you can rely that it's come from the majority, from one of the majority. The majority of countries are not... Eretz Yisrael is not the majority. And therefore, of, of orange juice, uh, producers, you can rely it's from Spain, it's from Morocco, whatever it may be. And similarly, if it doesn't say on the packet where it's from, then you would be permitted to rely on, on, uh, a row of countries which this comes, comes from, and you'll be allowed to, uh, use it without worry. There are certain times where you may be aware that this kind of, um, I don't know, is, is actually majority from Eretz Yisrael or very

57:48 high incident from Eretz Yisrael, that would change the, uh, the rules. But if it's, if it's that the same thing can be from anywhere and just, or from many countries, and Eretz Yisrael is a minority, you'll be allowed to, uh, rely on the RoI. Let's, um, one, one last question which we have. We're, we're running, we're running late. Um, Shemoneh Esreh. Now, the fellow, the fellow who's asking me has got a dilemma. His schedule, his work schedule is, he has to be at a certain time, then he has a break later. Now, l'chatchilah, one should try to daven Shacharit min Shemoneh Esreh, after sunrise. But, um, if he does wait for sunrise, it will mean he'll have to first do a first shift of work and then daven. So he's got a question. Should I daven before sunrise and, and, um, and not, not, not, not, uh, do work before davening, or should I do my work shift and then daven later? So this seems to be a fairly straightforward halacha for, for, for, for Psak. This is from the Piskei Teshuvas, where he takes, takes a very strong position here. Uh, he says that, um, to daven-- to do work before daven is Issur. To daven before Netz is, is, is not, uh, re- it's recommended you daven after Netz, but it's not, uh, it is not a Issur to daven earlier. And therefore, be-between the two, so he writes that you should actually daven before Netz and, and then go to work, rather

59:20 than work, uh, and then daven later. Um, okay. Let me just... I'll just finish off with something which someone asked me. Why is it that in the Siddur, at the end of Musaf on Shabbos, we have V'lakachta sosles, and then we say, sh- there's indicated, remember to say the Shehecheyanu. Why is it not the other way around? Because we have a principle, Todah v'sheina todah, todah kodem. So Shehecheyanu is every day, V'lakachta sosles only Shabbos. And so why is Shehecheyanu seems to be second after V'lakachta sosles? So I answered him, if you look in the wording of the Siddur, it says, Musaf and, um, it says, well, akdam d'vazichin, that the, the lechem upon him is following on straight from, from, from the Korban Musaf. And therefore, there's a special connection between V'lakachta sosles and Musaf. Shehecheyanu can be any time of the day, whereas the V'lakachta sosles has got a certain affiliation davka to Musaf. And therefore, like you see, the Alter Rebbe in, in, uh, Ichas, uh, you know, in Ichas B'dikas Chometz, he talks about B'dikas Chometz and Ma'riv. Of course, Ma'riv is first, Ma'riv every day. But Ma'riv can be davened the whole night, whereas B'dikas Chometz should be done just as nightfall. And therefore, the Alter Rebbe says, you do B'dikas Chometz first. So without going to the longest, but coming back, that V'lakachta sosles has got a special connection to, uh, to Musaf, and therefore it takes precedence to the Shehecheyanu, which can be done any time of the

1:00:49 day. Wish you all a gutte vokh and, uh, alles sol zayn gezunt un shtark. We should meet in good health, Kol Tuv.