תצוה תשפ״ב

00:00 A good shabbos and, uh, welcome to the shiur tonight. And, uh, as you see on the front, uh, slide, uh, we're f-asking for a refuah shleima for Levi Ben Asher. Rabbi Levi Farish was, uh, rushed into hospital on Friday. Um, davened we haven't heard any, um, confirmation of... Meanwhile, we're waiting for Yeshua, as well as our refuah shleima, hopefully having a good news. Let's go on to our questions. Okay, so someone asked me towards the end of the week, one of our listeners, what is the significance of ear lobe, thumb, and, uh, toe, as far as the dedication of the, the investiture of the Kohan-- of Aaron and his sons when they were being, uh, made into Kohanim. This we read about it this week. I think it's from Ravvi or from Ishi. So what you have in front of you is from the Sefer Toras Shlema. It's some-- It's a kind of encyclopedia, HaTorah by Rabbi Nachum Kasher. And he brings from various, um, sources. He has-- In s-in his main text, he has like a Midrash, Midrashim from all over, and then he has in the footnotes from latest forum. So the first quote he has is, "Meein ze, the sifsei kohen." That's the Shah Al HaTorah, which was a, a Talmud of the Ari z"l, alav ha-shalom, his name. And he writes, "Why was the, um, blood put on the earlobe and on the thumbs?" So he says three things here. When it came-- All related to the, to the, uh, the

01:44 Egel Hazahav, to the golden calf. The Erev Rav, they had crowded on Aaron, and they'd asked him to make for them an image, a, a mascot of some-- for-- to, to lead them, and, uh, he listened to them. And it says in the Gemara that the, the ear is overall is rigid, but the bottom of the ear is soft. And the reason for that is, if there's something which you shouldn't be listening to, you should be able to bend it in and not listen. But Aaron di-- he listened to them, and he didn't bend his lobe of his ear to block his hearing. Therefore, he needed to have an atonement. That was why the blood was placed on his ear. Then the thumb is because when the people brought their contributions for the Egel, so he accepted them. Now, when someone hands you something, you hold it between your thumb and your other fingers. So the thumb is crucial in accepting things. And so therefore, the hand-- the thumb was needed a tikkun. And thirdly, when it comes to the toes, the, the, the-- they told him, "Kum asei elohenu eleim," arise and make for us a god. So when you rise from a sitting position, so your, uh, toes are, are, are, uh, crucial for that standing up, apparently. Baruch Hashem, we never have to experience not doing it so. And so those three, those three organs, the earlobe, the thumb, and the, um, f-uh, large toe, were involved in the Egel, and therefore

03:29 they needed to have a tikkun. He doesn't explain why the right one, not the left one, but that's at any rate-- that's, that's his explanation. Lower down, he brings from a Sefer called Tol das Yitzchok, as you can see. I'm not familiar with it, with that Sefer. And he says that the Mishkan corresponds to three worlds. You've got the world of angels, the world of the Malachim. We've got the world of the planets, and we've got the world, the world as we-- uh, uh, the world which we are familiar with, which he doesn't mention here. I just want to bring your attention to. In Psukim de Zimra, in Hallelukah, et cetera, we are focusing on the wonders of nature, of the world around us. After Yishtabach Yozer Ohr, we are acknowledging the planets, the sun and the moon and the stars, and then we switch over from, from Tizborech, Hashemayim veha'aretz. Then we say, "Seh baruch...," we, we-- Then we say the second Tizborech, and that's referring to the world of Adam Alachim, when we say, "Kodesh and Baruch." So we've got the three worlds. We've got the familiar world where we are, the world as in the, of the planets, and then we've got the world of the Malachim. In the Mishkan, we've-- with these, these would be the three areas. We've got the Kodesh HaKodashim. That would be the inner sanctuary. That would be the world of-- correspond to the world of the angels. Then we have the outer area of the sanctuary

05:02 where the Menorah and the Shulchan, that corresponds to the world of the, of the planets. And then we have the, the Chatzir, the outer Chatzir, the outer ya-ya-yard, and that corresponds to the, to the world as our, our familiar world. In the human body, the head corresponds to the world of Malachim, the heart corresponds to the world of planets, and the-- for the lower down, from the wa-waist downwards, corresponds to the lower world which we are familiar with. And therefore, when the Kohanim are being in, in, um, invested with the, the privilege of serving in the Beis HaMikdash, so we've got the, the, uh, lobe of the ear corresponding to the head relating to Olam HaMalachim, the, the thumb relating to the torso, to which is relating to Olam HaGalgalim, and the toe relating to the Olam HaShafal. Those-- So these are two Pirushim amongst many, as you can see. Let's move on. One of our regular listeners sent this to me, um, it was Friday a week ago. It was very close to the Shabbos, and so I didn't give him an answer, but I did ask him to send a picture. So the story is the following. This is the... You can see the front door to the house. The, the front yard does not have a wall separating it from the street. As a result, he does not carry in his front yard on Shabbos. You've got here now, beside the main entrance of the house, we've got this narrow door, which

06:43 is a door to a store, a storage. And then we've got the up and over door of the garage. His question is the following: if one-- if the two doors of the garage and the store are open, and let's say there's some stuff which has to be taken from one to the other, furniture, supplies, whatever it may be. Now, we understand that to, to walk from one to the other carrying stuff is not allowed because it is a karmelis, you're not allowed to carry there. Could they pass from one to the other over the airspace of the karmelis? That's the question. So, um, I was a little bit, you know, I, I didn't have the answer right away. Spent some time on Sunday looking into it. So now let's go to the Shulchan Aruch. Um, we're gonna have, we're gonna have two places in Shulchan Aruch. In th-- and this is in what are broadly called Hilchot Eiruvin. It's the first few Simonim, Siman Shim Mem Ches first, and then Siman Shim Mem Zayin. So the Shim Mem Ches, anyone who's learned Gemara Shabbos knows this Halakha, that if someone stands in Reshus HaYachid and he stretches out his hand holding food, let's say, over the Reshus Harabim, within the tent fochim off the ground, or even in a karmelis, we'll come to that in a moment. Also, the Hachzirah is not allowed to bring his hand back, even the Chamaylamasa. To-- Just for those who are not so familiar, just to clarify that the

08:20 Halakha defines Reshus Harabim only up till tent fochim. Above tent fochim is not called Reshus Harabim. Why, if you have something in your shirt pocket and you walk through the street, why is that a problem of carrying? So the answer is because your body is attached to your feet, and your feet is attached to the floor, whatever it may be. But the, the, uh, strictly speaking, the Reshus Harabim is only within the lowest tent fochim of the ground. So now, this fellow, he had... What, what's, what's, what's the act? You know, uh, everyone knows the Mishneh, the Oniya de-Ba'al Habayis. He stretches out his hand over the fence from the front, from his front yard over into the street. If he put it down, that would be a full melacha of carrying out from the house. So that would-- So the, the, um, the Chachomim imposed a penalty, that if you stretch out your hand with fruit-- with food or something in your hand, and you violate it halfway, you just cross the border with something in your hand, then you're, you're gonna have to stay put until the end of Shabbos. You can't retract your hand. Goes further. Not only you're not allowed to retract your hand directly, even to go with your hand higher up above tent fochim and to retract. So above tent fochim is Vakam B'tul. Even then, the-- you don't have permission to retract. That's the, that's the penalty. You violate it. You stuck out your hand with something into

09:48 Reshus Harabim within tent fochim, so you kind of were very close to doing a Melacha de'Rayeisa. So then there's a penalty that you have to stay, stay put. Then, but in the brackets, there's an addition here, that now it's not only in Reshus Harabim, but even in the karmelis. So now, looking to our story with this, uh, the, the, the karmelis, my front yard is a karmelis, am I allowed to stick my hand out with something in my hand within tent fochim? And the answer is I'm not allowed to. And if I did, I'd be penalized and have to stay till the end of Shabbos. What about L'malameh Asarot Fochim? What happens if one stretches his hand out above tent fochim? So this is not addressed clearly in the Shulchan Aruch. In the Mishneh Brurah, he does bring a place that is more lenient, that R Ashri is, is stricter. Uh, but you know what? We now, we're dealing with, we're dealing with whether there's a penalty, whether they have to stay put. And so that's not spelt out clearly. There is room to say that above tent fochim, especially because it's a karmelis, uh, there wouldn't be a penalty. That still doesn't make it a Lo Techal. So that's in Shin Mem Ches. Now we're going over to Shin Mem Zayin. Now, again, for anyone who's learned Gemara Shabbos, it's familiar that there is a Melacha of Moishit. A Moishit is when there's two balconies jutting out or, or similar. Two properties on the

11:38 length, the same, same side of the road. And if you'd pass from one to the other, that would be similar to the way the Leviim, when they're transporting the Mishkan, they would tr-transfer the Kroshim, the beams, from one wagon to the next wagon above tent fochim. So passing from one Reshus HaYachid to another Reshus HaYachid in the length of the Reshus Harabim, and there is a bit of Reshus Harabim in between them. So that, the picture is, as I said, like similar, like two balconies, uh, and there's a bit of space in between. And they are in the same length of the street. That would be an isha mehatora. That would be is of Moishit. That's not exactly the case over here because they're not stretching out. Here we've got two... They, they're both flush, and so this doesn't apply... The concept of Moishit doesn't apply here. But let's read Aloche. Here, this is in... So you see it's Shin, Mem, Zayin, Sif, Tes, and Yud. Et cetera. Uh, Vechol zeh bezorik. Aval haomit beshus hayochid. Omoishit meshus, meshus hayochid. Zoi leshus hayochid. Acheret shebetsido. If you passed from one pri-private property to another private property, and oirech leshus harabim mafsik benei. And it's along the length of the street, and it says, like, you have a ziz habolet. You have, like, a balcony sticking out from one and sticking out from the other, and you pass from one to the other. That would be a problem, and it'd be a problem in a toy.

13:12 I'm skipping that whole discussion because, yeah, now if you, if you remember the, the, in the history books about the... In medieval times, the way these... And the, uh, the houses were so close to one another that they had the first floor, let's say it was eight feet apart on to either side of the street. The next floor was a little bit closer because they b-built out, and the third floor would be jutting out to the point that the two sides of the street, they could even shake hands over, with one another from window to window over the street. That's how, at least that's the history books, um, tell us. Now, to pass in that way from Reshus Hayachid to Reshus Hayachid, that's what we're describing over here. Aval im reiachav reshus harabim mafsik benei. If they are on either side of the width of the street, ki ven she'einam. Kegon she'einam zeh betzat, zeh bediu ta'achaz. They're not on the same length of the street. Elo zeh k'neged zeh. It's two properties, one facing the other on either side of the street. One is, yechel yoetz mikosop shebetzal, zeh shush arabi. One is jutting out from one side of the street, and the other one is from the kosha shebezach kenedi, on the other side of the street. Ve'roei chevrushus harabim mafsik benei. The width of the street is in between those two properties. Hamoishit lemizel ozer patur. Passing across from one side of the street to the other, from Reshus Hayachid to Reshus

14:36 Hayachid over the width of the street, that would be patur because there wasn't such a act in the Mishkan. It goes further. Va'afil alecha tchila mutar. Ki veshe moishit derech ma'ala ma'asara shemakam patur. Even lecha tchila it's mutar. Okay. So it's not our case. It's not mamash identical because it's not that the Reshus Harabim is mafsik beneihem. What we'd... It doesn't fall into the category of Moishit because it's no Reshus Harabim between one door and the other. Yeah, so let's go back to the picture. Yeah. There's no Reshus Harabim be-between these two properties, therefore the subject of the, uh, issue of Moishit doesn't apply. And what we've just seen, passing from one to the other would be allowed. Uh, he says it's mutar. Across the street, a neighbor across the street would be an issue of edup. If you don't have an edup with a neighbor across the street, so how can you pass across to their Reshus? But if you owned two properties on either side of the street, uh, and you could pass, uh, from... If it's possible to pass from one to the other, then that would be mutar, as we can see over here. Right. Um, interesting. I'm just thinking. Sometimes I've had these shailas about people who have a sukkah, and for some reason, they can't build a sukkah mamash adjacent to the house. Wondering whether there's a way they could get their food through their window to their sukkah. If they were to have, like, a, put a, uh,

16:10 a line, like a, um, a kind of washing line with a pulley, might be able to, um, transfer from their window with a transfer basket to the sukkah and back. That would be this, this thing of Moishit, Reshus Hayachid to Reshus Hayachid, the ma'ala me'asara, and that would be, uh, that would be okay. Um, and if people think you're meshuga, you know what? That's not the first thing they think about. There's actually plenty till now. Okay. Let's go on to a question which... Interesting. I, this, I've mentioned before that someone who's written a Sefer call- uh, in English called Mezuzah. I'll just show you the Sefer. It's Rabbi Bresman in, uh, Los Angeles. And he was in communication with me about this this week. And separately, someone asked me the question amiss. So the question is the following. Um, no. Question is: When we have... W- the, the mezuzah is meant to put, be put on the right as you enter. Where do we learn this from? It says, "Our mezuzah is Beisecha." And the Gemara says, "Read Beisecha biosecha, as you enter." Mezuzah should be as you enter. I think I've mentioned this before. There are opinions in Chazal who say that you should have mezuzahs on both sides of the, of the door. And for that reason, the brocha was composed to say, "Al kikbo ya mezuzah," in the, in the single sen- in single, um, tense to, to exclude from the opinion that you're meant to put up mezuzahs on two mezuzahs

17:55 on one door. So we don't put up two mezuzahs on one door. The mezuzah has to be on the right as you enter, and that's what we learn from Beisecha biosecha. How do you define what is the right? So well, it's not so straightforward. So there's a Gemara which talks about two, uh, two... There was a husband and wife who had two, uh, apartments, one next to the other. Both had the door to the street, and there's a door between one and the other. And so how do you decide which is the derech be-beyoscha? So, the Gemara answers, Heketsir. We see which way the hinges dictate. Which way, way does the door swing? If the door swings into the room, the door where the, the room where the door swings into, that's called the interior, and you put the, the mezuzah on the right as you enter that room. That's the concept of Heketsir. Now, this, th-this is one way of deciding which is the, which is the, uh, right. There can be other ways of working, of, of deciding. And let's say, you can think which... As you come in from the street, which way is the first room, which is the second room, et cetera. Like, you know, there are other ways of which is the more important room, et cetera. In-- The way it's described in Gemara is, the, the, be-gavri be-nash it's an, it's a fifty-fifty. It's, it's an equal, um, doubt. It could be one way or the other. And

19:31 the Heketsir dec-decides which way. Chabad take this Heketsir to the extreme, and that's the tradition which we have going back to the Rebbe MaHarSHaM, probably earlier, that we take the Heketsir as being that which, which way the door swings, we're gonna take that to the extreme. That even when it's doesn't seem to be logical from, from other angles, still, the way the door swings, that's the interior. Which becomes, you know, really very interesting because in public buildings, at least, there's fire regulations dictate that the room, the doors have to swing outwards. So we have in, I'm sure in many public buildings which belong to Chabad, the doors and the, the... As you enter the, the hall, the mezuzah is on the left. Why is it on the left? Because the door swings out, and so the corridor is the interior, and the, then the, uh, main hall is the exterior. All right. That's, that's Min HaChabad. The question is, we're not gonna go into that for the moment. We're dealing now with when there are no doors. So then there are various ways of, of deciding. One of them, as I said, is what is the inner and what is the outer, and the other one is which is the more important room and which is the less important room. And the question is, which is the first criterion and when, when, which is the second criterion? So, most malachim, most contemporaries for him, take the view that which first-- They put Heketsir actually at

21:08 the bottom of the list, even though that's the one which is written in the Gemara. Fine. But they between Hashivas and Derech Hiluchai, they put Derech Hiluchai first and Hashivas second. Rav Zalman Schimun took the other view, and there is a, there's a Sefer of Rashash of Shuvus from Rav Yaakov Breish of, um, of Zurich, and he take, he, he was a mechutan with Rav Weiss, the Minchas Yitzchok. So there's-- Apparently, they, they, they'd visited the children's home, and the way they put the mezuzah, so Rav Breish challenges his mechutan on why the mezuzah was put that way. It should be a different way. And it looks like Rav Zalman Schimun was following, um, the same view as Rav Breish, which we're gonna look at more c-carefully. Um, look at this example. So this is a house. I don't know where it is. What you're seeing is you've come in, we're standing at the, just coming from the front roo- front door, and we see this archway. You see this slight, um, curve there with a mezuzah there. This is the main room. And then at the, at the end of the picture, you can see another doorway, and that, as you can see, is a kitchen. In the rules of ikar and chashuv, et cetera, it's o-obvious that a dining room is a more chashuv room than a kitchen. So according to that ruling, the mezuzah, as you're going to, from the main room to the kitchen, should be on the left because it's

22:43 gonna be on the right as you come from the kitchen to the more important room, which is the dining room. If you'd go according to Derech Hiluchai, you're coming from the main road, from the main s- main entrance, you come through the dining room, then you come to the kitchen. In this instance, happens to be that the kitchen has a side entrance also, but that's the, not the main usage, and therefore, this re-raises the dilemma. Does the mezuzah from kitchen to dining room go on the right as you come to the dining room or the right as you're walking towards the kitchen? So now let's read two quotes from Rav Zalman Schimun. There's a vo- a volume called Kovetz Rashash, and that was published posthumously. But it-- Rav Zalman Schimun did not write very much, unfortunately, but that's the reality. Um, so he has here the following, the, the second quote, which starts with the gimel. "Kol hachadorim hap'nimiym she'ein lohem dlasos." All interior doors, doorways. All interior rooms, sorry, which don't have doors. "Cholchin ach aymin hakanisor v'hacheider ha'ikri." You'd follow the way you enter the main room. "Sheba'bayis. Haine she'ik hatashe she'adam bo." Where the main usage. So therefore, that's addressing this case of the kitchen and the dining room, so there's no door there. So then it would go on the right as you enter from the kitchen to the dining room. So he said you go according to the, the, uh, Hashivas. Um, the, the more chashuv room is the interior,

24:23 and the others are servicing that room. Now, it's not, uh, so straightforward because someti-- Now, this is where, um, this person who asked me this week. So this was a conversation with Rabbi Bresman, and another conversation with someone else who asked. He's got a, a, a main room, and off that, there is a corridor leading to some bedrooms or something. It's going into the basement. It's like a half basement. So the only way you can get there is through this, um, through this doorway. So do you put the mezuzah on the left because that's meeting the big room, or do you put on the right because that's the only way you can get there? So this is from a second publication, which was published within the shloshim of Rav Zalman Schimun's passing. I think it was Taf Shin Heh, Purim time. I was there, I was in New York at the time. And, um, writes the following. If it's a room which has no window and only, only one entry, entrance. You'd put the mezuzah on the right as you enter. And there's no roo... There's no door. So then he says you should put the mezuzah on the right as you enter. So let's say you have a large room, and then you've got a, a den, a cubby hole, a den coming off. It's got dal, dal. Dal is a but it doesn't have a door. So between the den and the main room, there's a doorway. The only way you can get

26:04 to the den is from the, from the dining room. So then he's saying, then you put on the right as you go into the den because there's no other way to get there. So coming back to our case with this kitchen, if there hadn't been an, an alternative door and windows, then Rab Zalman Schim would say, "Put the mezuzah at the right as you enter the kitchen." But because there's an alternative way, then he says you should go, um, then you'd put it on the right as you enter the main room. So this is just putting together two things together. And yes, there are other, um, poskim who, as I say, most po- most contemporary poskim don't pask in this way. They just say follow the, the, um, the route, which is et cetera, which is closer on the or, et cetera. Um, you know what? Let's move on. It's just, it's a complicated parsha and, um, but this is part of, part of the putting up mezuzahs correctly is also knowing where to, where, where they belong. Right. Let's move on. Okay. So Shliah asked me this week. He was out and about, and he, he, uh, is concerned if he meets a, a student, uh, or the students. If he meets a student who's in-in, who's inclined to put on tefillin, but he only has his Rabbeinu Tam's with him. Would you-- Would it be correct to put a Rabbeinu Tam's with the fellow or not at, not at all? It turns out

27:40 that they wish to help, that he only met female students that day, so it wasn't relevant, the meizah. But this is the question. Now, when the Rebbe spoke about, um, Rabbeinu Tam's, when he opened it up for everyone, that's in Purim Tof Shin Amad Vol. This is published here in Shocher Menachem. He, he, uh, he did say that it would be contingent upon the person having their own tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam, so that they should be able to keep up the practice of putting Rabbeinu Tam and not miss a day. So once you've started putting Rabbeinu Tam's, then you, you don't, you don't miss a day. Is there, is there anything intrinsically wrong if someone says, "I just want to put it on, on the one-off?" So I looked around. I couldn't find anything. So the, the... What I'm, what I-- my impression is that this is like any other dovortoyv, any other hanhoga toyva, that once you've started and you have intention to do so indefinitely, it becomes like a neder, and therefore you mustn't, you mustn't miss a day. So yeah, once you start. But to say that, um, that a, a, that there's something in, in itself, an, an objection to putting on Rabbeinu Tam's as a one-off, I couldn't find that. Um, perhaps by next week, someone will tell me, uh, they have a source against what I'm, what I'm saying. But meanwhile, I, I didn't feel there's any harm if there's, he only has Rabbeinu Tam's and this person's ready

29:12 to put on tefillin. I don't see any harm in doing so. No bracha because in Siman Lamed Daled, the halacha remains that the, uh, that, that, like, basically like Rashi, and the sequence of the parshas has to be the way they are in Rashi's tefillin, and therefore we would not, uh, be able to make a bracha on Rabbeinu Tam's tefillin. Okay. Let's move on. Okay. So someone asked me this week about, um, a particular product, whether a particular cheese, uh, whether it's reliable hechsher, et cetera. So let me, um, just fir-first say the following. There is a din of cholov Yisroel. Um, there's a din of cholov Yisroel, uh, cholov, cholov akum, and then there's a din of gevinas akum. More a mission of a dezorah, that there's a separate isur of cheese made by Goyim, and the reason for that is that cheese is made with rennet, and rennet is taken from an animal's stomach. And when the Goy would make cheese, he would use the ren-- the, the, the stomach of an, a non-kosher animal. And that would be a catalyst. Perhaps more than a catalyst. It would be a dover ha-mayim. It would make the cheese. And since it's made from a treif animal, therefore the cheese is, is, uh, is, is, is forbidden. Are you gonna ask how do the Yidden make cheese? From a rennet from a kosher animal. But most of it's bas b'cholov. So the answer is that the- The, the, the rennet is, is tasteless. So therefore,

31:08 as far as Basar BeCholov is concerned, that is dependent on taste. And since the rennet is tasteless, therefore, uh, cheese made with rennet from a, a, a, a shechted, a kosher animal, that's allowed. But rennet from a non-kosher animal, which was, which was killed, a nevelah, mejes trefes, so then that would make the cheese as... That-that's just to understand that Gvinas Akum is a separate story to Cholov Akum, which perhaps not such common knowledge. You'll take a look, take a look in the Beznos, uh, London Beznos, um, Really Kosher Food Guide. They have a, a short, uh, paragraph about this to say that there's a difference between Cholov Akum and Gvinas Akum. Now, we are, certainly my age, are familiar with this hechsher on the top right. This is also . The, the Dutch hechsher, we remember we had the butter or the, the, what they called shashana or silver, whatever it was, um, the Dutch butter. Dutch, Dutch butter was always known to be not Cholov Yisroel, and we used it at home. We used to use it, and because the Shulchan Aruch says that as far as butter is concerned, you wouldn't be moiche for those who... And we couldn't... When, when I was a kid, we did not have, um, Cholov Yisroel butter available in London, and so in the house, we used it. My father, alav ha-shalom, personally did not use it. I remember actually one time I, um, made myself a, an omelet, and I used the butter to, to,

32:54 um, uh, to, for, or to, to grease the pan. My father was quite upset with me because he wouldn't use that butter. For, for the family, he was meikel. For himself... I remember when we went to America, he'd come back with some Cholov Yisroel, uh, butter. But as though he was mehale for himself, for the family, he allowed us to use the, um, the, the regular meshach asia butter. So that's the hechsher of Rabannu Torah Shita of Holland is Meshach Asia. That means that they've got a hechsher on the factory. The milk is not supervised in the farms, in the dairies. It's brought by tankers, whatever, to a factory, and they'll have a hashgacha, the factory, to make sure it's all okay. That's their hechsher. They do not have, uh, the kind of staff to go around to all the farms to make ho-make it Cholov Yisroel. Then we have here a second hechsher. And my information is that this is using video cameras, and that is that they have video cameras installed in various dairies. And so relying on the video camera to say that this is called Cholov Yisroel. Okay. Um, I'm not saying it's, it's not allowed. I'm not saying it is allowed. I want to just show you here from... This is a recent, uh, Sefer, Pesachim HaTshuvos, and, um, it's only published a few y-a few years ago, but he addresses here the whether a video camera would be sufficient to make something called Cholov Yisroel. Now, we have to

34:29 understand that even in Eretz Yisroel itself, they also have an issue of if there's a non-frum, uh, farmer, so they would want to have a, a shomer to be shomer the milk. But of course, there I can understand more room for leniency because after all, the farmer is Yid in any case, um, so there's more room for leniency. The point is that most res- res- most hechsherim do not allow the use of video cameras to call it Cholov Yisroel. Um, then there is a, an argument towards the bottom left of the text that if the milking is not done with a human hand, if the animals enter the pl- milking parlor and the, the, uh, machinery kind of connects itself to the udders and milks, so then it's perhaps more reason to be meikel. I find that difficult to accept. The notion is To say that because it's milked by a robot rather than by a goy, therefore there's more room to be lenient, I find that a difficult thing. I don't think Chazal ever meant to say that it's the hands of the goy on the udder which makes the milk, uh, any, any worse than, than before. It's, it's just the absence of a I think is the ikar. At any rate, um, w-I was gratified to look... And when looking carefully, it does not say that it's L'mehadrin. It d-it says it's Cholov Yisroel. It does say so. It... But it, it's not, it would not be a product which would, um,

36:16 qualify as mehadrin. I just discussing with some boys last night. Um, I asked them, "How much do you spend on a lock for a door?" So they said, "Five pounds." "And what happens if it was a jewelry shop?" So they said, "Five hundred pounds." So I said, "Yeah, that's the, that's the point. The more, the more dear to you the contents are, the more you're going to spend on protection." And that's what Hidur Mitzvah is, one way of looking at it. Simplistic way, Hidur Mitzvah is that because the mitzvah is more precious to you, you, you go a little bit further, and you're more, more, more careful. So, so, so just to summarize, and this perhaps is opening a whole, uh, whole Pandora's box- But there are hechsherim out there which will say whole of Israel, but they are, um, not mehadrin, and, uh, so I'll leave the choice for you. Okay. Now, one of the, uh, our listeners, uh, teaches, uh, Halakha, and he's, he's ask- he asked me the question: What bracha do you make on lasagna? Is lasagna haMotzi or is it Mezonot? So first we're going to now for ex- to explain for a noshim keerki, a lasagna is made with sheets of pasta, which apparently are cooked first, and then you put them a layer, and then you put a bit of cheese and vegetables after. Then you put another layer of, of, of, of, of pasta, ainot hamotz, zeh hu meitzah, and then like another sheet of pasta, in

37:58 pa'amon v'rim, pa'amon v'rim, you know, so it's one, uh, one and the other, and then you put it in the oven, and, uh, becomes, uh, a ma'achol asrei l'olam l'olamis halshultam halochim. Beautiful. So the shayela is, is pasta... Pasta itself is mezonot. You can have, um, a, a mountain of pasta and it's still mezonot. We know that if you have a lot of mezonot, a lot of mezonot as bread, it becomes hamotzi. Four slices is called a lot. Yeah. But if you, uh, if you have a, a, a large amount of pasta, it's not bread, so you never it becomes hamotzi, lechem min ha'aretz. The question is, something which was first cooked and then baked, is it hamotzi or mezonot? So let's read from the Alter Rebbe in Sefer HaChasananim, um, talking about this whole mezonot, et cetera. "Bechol zeh betigun," ah, which means frying. "Aval is shofin is bashal bechdei." If a dough was cooked in a pot, "aino leah toeas lechem klal, ga'on hashatan." No, it is not called bread, and therefore, the bracha is a mezonot. Uh, even if it's big pieces, it talks about kneidlach and kreplach. Second paragraph. "Ach in chozer va'afot betanur," if you took the pasta and you baked it in a oven or bemachvas or in a pan, belimashe, without added liquid, it's just like a, a dry pan or perhaps a little bit of grease or whatever. "Chozer ve'yora dalo toiras lechem gomer." If you take something which was first cooked and now you baked it,

39:41 it becomes hamotzi. "Afilu hein chateichas ketanas mikazar yayis, vauch mallei hem hamotzi ubechas hamozain bechazais," it becomes hamotzi. Oh, we're not finished yet. Don't worry. Um, so now this raises the question: What is the dough story with a k- with a lokshen kugel? Lokshen in-- is, is, is mezonot, yeah? But then you take, make a lokshen into a kugel, and then you put it into an oven, you bake it. So then lechayeida, it becomes an issue, it becomes hamotzi. All right. So there you have the various other ingredients. You make a lokshen kugel. You put in oil, et cetera. What about if you have a lot of lokshen kugel? So Reb Shlomo Zalmen Auerbach maintains that the minhag of Shalain was that when people would go to Chiddushim after Shab-- uh, after Musaf, they would inf-- uh, would avoid having cake because then it might be a problem of krias shma. They're hungry, and they have a large amount, it becomes krias shma. So instead, they had lokshen kugel, because lokshen is, is, is a pasta. You may never have to make-- Uh, it never becomes hamotzi. But Reb Zalmen, Reb Chaim Noah was not so confident. So let's go-- We're reading from Reb Chaim Noah in Shulchan Aruch. Let's read this carefully. "Aval bekugel milokshen, shetchila asasi esa lokshen hoya bemayim v'lo b'meibei." Um, the dough for making lokshen was just water and flour, no eggs. "V'nikras lechem beli shosa." As far as the dough is concerned, the dough for pasta is a, is

41:06 a hamotzi dough. "V'chakh mevashlin halokshen, v'chozir m'arvin bahem," and then you cook the pa-- the, the, the lokshen, and then you mix it with eggs. "Afilu harbeh nikolka, k'mishi shemisgabal halokshen im havei." The, the lokshen does not get re-mixed. In other words, the dough is not now blended with eggs. It's, it remains kmo yisa mamash. It, it ma-- it doesn't, doesn't become mamash a part of the dough. "Va'halokshen shor behanum." So the lokshen remain flour and water. Okay. Now they've got company, got eggs in between. "Vachak m'tagno, es li k'harei gavna lo havei paskis nin." Actually, it's not called mezonot. At any rate, he says, "Lechach me lo lechem hem sheyechbieh krias shma." At least don't have a large amount, which would be amount for a meal. "Lo choshla yeshoim lehem shetigun hu kaba kafia v'tzarchia." See, he's not so confident. All right. So that's with the lokshen, with lokshen kugel. So, um, so actually, someone mentioned to me, someone mentioned to me that there's a particular sefer, Chachmeias HaBrachos, who says lasagna is hamotzi. And as you're reading this, it's quite convincing. But the picture, look at the picture. Schmucke picture. The picture does-- I, I cannot re-relate to that as bread. Sho, let me finish. I'm sorry. It's not, it's not bread. This is made in an oven. Whether it's cooked before or not, doesn't matter. It's made in an oven with lots of liquid, lots of the, the cheese, with the sauce. It's saturated. Baking means that it takes a, a, a

42:51 moist dough, and it makes it more crisp. That's called baking. When you take a dough and you saturate it with more liquid, that's not called baking. And therefore, yeah, if you'd ba-- if you, if you moshel how a bagel's made- You take dough, you make a bagel, and then you put it in boiling water, and then you bake it. That's what the Alter Rebbe says. That is hamotzi. The fact that it's bishul, and then afio, so the afio makes it hamotzi. But I, I'm looking at this, it's, it's not an afio, it's a tigun. It's, it's, it's, it's saturated in, in other stuff, and it remains moist, so I don't see this as being, uh, a bread. And, uh, you know, if someone says it's hamotzi, fine, but, um, my, uh, in his deity, it doesn't qualify as hamotzi. It remains mezonot. Right. Let's move on. So someone asked me about trimming his mustache. Um, actually, his question was not about the mustache. It was about the lower, uh, um, the, uh, beneath the, the lips, where some of the hair is getting in the way. Um, so let's read the following. This is an answer of the Rebbe. "The Shulhan Arukh doesn't give us, et cetera, about trimming the mustache. I haven't heard a clear guidance from, as in from the Friedik Rebbe, et cetera, and there are arguments in either way." And he gives a reference here. The, the publishers put a reference to Rabbi Venus Sefer Hadres Ponazokin. A lot as far

44:24 as say that they're concerned that your mustache gets into your cream, and then it gets into your chicken soup, and you have a problem, basar bechalav. And so he's... the Rebbe is, is not giving him a definitive answer. He says, "You should check what is min hagannash bozer and, um, what, what is from Elter Chassidim and Maisira." So the Rebbe doesn't give a clear answer. I do remember, um, Moshe Katznellenbogen once came into the Yeshiva, and his mustache had been trimmed quite close, and Reb Mendel Futerfas ranked him out. He says, "Even if you do trim, but don't do it so in such a blatant way. Make it in a, uh, not so obvious way." So that's that story. Um, but then he asked about the lower part. I said that, "For that, I don't have a heter. I couldn't find any heter of, at least from Chabad, of trimming the hair beneath." I said, "If you're nervous, you can bite, if you bite it a little bit." I wanna just tell you a story. My elder Zayde, his name was Reb Chaim Ben Zion Raskin, and he was... First he used to be a, a... He went... He used to go to Kopust, and then he went over to the Rebbe Rashab and became a very devoted Chassid of the Rebbe Rashab, and he had two brothers. One was called Moshe, and one was called Mendel. Mendel later lived in Kovno, and Moshe lived somewhere in Russia. And, um, Moshe, in his later, at

45:45 some stage, quite a young man, he became, he had a stroke. He was paralyzed, and Zayde Chaim Ben Zion took care of his family. He had a daughter called Masha, and Masha was the wife of the late Reb Nissan, so a cousin of my Zayde. Um, so one time, the Zayde Chaim Ben Zion is standing with his two brothers, who were less familiar with the Rebbe. He was the more familiar one. They brought them to the Rebbe in Lubavitch, I guess. And, um, he noticed that the Rebbe is avoiding making eye contact with his brother, Moshe, and he's wondering what the Rebbe has against his brother. Then Moshe had a, had a, uh, nervous twitch, and whenever he was learning, he would be pl-plucking at his beard, and he'd be biting his beard. It looked like he had a trimmed beard. So Zayde Chaim Ben Zion went through his mind, "Efshar the Rebbe thinks that he trims his beard." So he stopped the conversation at some stage, and he says, "Rebbe, my brother Moshe, he's got a nervous twitch. And sometimes, you know, he often plucks the beard. Efshar the Rebbe has some advice for him." Anyway, from there, from that point onwards, the conversation, the Rebbe was... made eye contact with, with, uh, his brother, with Moshe. Um, the hemshacha of this story is that, for myself, about thirty years ago, well, a bit more, I was living in, uh, New York, and someone asked me to help him by, to represent him by

47:10 a din Torah in the Lower East Side, uh, with the Sarabanim. And one of the Sarabanim there was Rav Oshri. And, uh, Rav Oshri, some of you may be familiar with, he's written a series of books, a Sefer called Mi Ma'amakim. He was a rav in Kovno during the war, during the, uh, uh... And he, he was a rav in the ghetto, and he wrote down the shailas which he was asked whilst he was in the Kovno ghetto. So before the din Torah, he intro-- he, he gave me a Shalom Aleichem, asked me, "What's your name?" So he says, said... So I said, "My name is Raskin." So he says he remembers Raskin from the Kovno ghetto. In his Sefer, in the Sha- Shaals D'Shulchan Mamakim, he describes someone came over to him and asked for a shailah, "Can you have Mesirus Nefesh? Can you be Moshe Nefesh not to cut your beard?" And the one who asked that shailah was this Mendel Raskin, who perished in the ghetto. But I'm just wondering whether his, you know, the, the story back then with the Rebbe Rashab was what pushed him to this, uh, degree of Mesirus Nefesh, of, of, uh, refusing to have his... to, to cut his beard, even, even to a degree of Mesirus Nefesh. Okay. Um, Hashem Yimlech al Hamedabra, Yenhi Zichro Baruch. That's Ein Eklach. Baruch Hashem, it survived, but not that, not, not the time for the story. Okay. Someone asked me the following shailah. Can... He's asking the question,

48:29 "Can you, uh, take a can of tuna, which you've opened..." Um, um, I'm describing that you opened it. Um, so can you open a can of tuna... Sorry. Personally, I, uh, I tell you, I've, I've been taught by Rabbi Heller, zal z"l, and Reb Zalman Schimel, of the, of Chabad of the same opinion, don't open cans on Shabbos. I know others take the more lenient view. That's why I describe the shailah as the can is to open before Shabbos, but you want to drain off the oil from the can of tuna to be able to use the tuna. So he's... Now, we know the Alter Rebbe in the Siddur talks about, talks about the fly in the soup, and he says, "You are allowed to pour the fly, to pour, g-go overboard, and then you're allowed to keep the soup." So you're allowed to take the good from the bad. From, so from that, that description, where you're allowed to, um, send the fly overboard and retain the tuna, you get the impression that the one which you hold in the hand is the focus of the... That's called the ochel b'toch apsolas. That's one way of understanding it. So, um, if that's the case, if that's the case, that you can pour off the fly and hold the back, the soup to use it, so then he's saying, perhaps I should be able to also, the can of tuna, to pour off the oil from the tuna and retain the, the, the tuna inside

49:58 the can. And it's, uh, semi, it's semi-open, so he wants to put the, keep the lid semi-open, but cle- in a c-closed position, and then the tuna will stay in the can, and the oil will drain out. So this is, this is his question. So I like to contemporaries for him. Um, so this is, uh, from Rabbi Farkash's Sefer Shabbos Kahalucha. So the first volume is on Mishul, the second volume is on Boire. So this is in chapter Yud Dalet, and he writes the following. „Michseh Hakeili O Kufsas Hashimurim." The lid of a keili or of a, of, of a jar or of a can of, um, of a can, if you leave it in place and you're going to just leave a small crack for the liquid to drain off. So he says-- He makes the following distinction. In boire, there's a difference whether there's a mixture. Mixture means confusion. Then you have where you have, uh, very distinct. So let's say, uh, there's three eggs in a pot with water, and you pour away the water, and you keep the eggs. The eggs are not mixed in the water. They are, have... And, uh, a similar idea to take out, let's say, a chunk, a large chunk of meat from the cholent on Friday night, and you wanna put it in the fridge for tomorrow. So that's not a problem of boire. Because it's so distinct, that's not a-- that, that wouldn't be a, a, a problem of boire. If it was, let's

51:32 say, goulash, you start picking out pieces of meat out of the mixture for tomorrow, that would be a problem of boire. „Ochal Miteich Ochel Even Polach Hazman," which wouldn't be allowed. But if it's a very distinct piece, then there's no problem of boire. So therefore, he says, let's say you've g-got a can of, um, pickled cucumbers in whole, whole cucumbers. So then to pour off the water from that is not a problem of boire because there's no mixture there. By contrast, with the flakes of tuna, he sees that the oil is mixed in, so draining off would be a problem of boire. And because you're using the lid, never mind, even though you're saying you're taking the good from the bad, but because you're using the, the, the, the implement, you're using a keilim, which is assisting you in this separation, you're using the lid to hold it back, then he hol- sees that that is a problem of boire. So let's just read that inside. „Lishpochas Shemen," the pour of the oil from pieces of tuna. Um, that is limited to the problem and to the issue of boire because the oil is mixed in well with the, uh, with the chunks, and therefore, that would be, uh, that would be an issue. By contrast, if it's gonna be cucumbers or tomatoes, uh, whole chatilim. Uh, chatilim is, um, breadfruit, whatever it's called. So then w-would not be a problem of pouring it off because they are lar-large pieces. But small pieces... And he

52:55 says at the bottom, he says, "What about olives?" So he sees that olives are considered small pieces, and so to wo-pour off, to, to use a lid to pour off the, uh, juice from the olives and to retain the olives, he says, that would be subject to the issue of boire. Okay. Um, just got a couple of minutes left. Don't have too many things on our list left. Um, before going on to the next point, I want to share with you also, someone called me this week, and they had, um, managed to get a bargain, a whole box of peppers for a, for a, for a very cheap price. And then as they are middle of, uh, cooking them, et cetera, they noticed that the peppers are from Eretz Yisrael. So now, peppers at this time are from Eretz Yisrael would be under the issue of sefichin. And so we're not gonna go into a whole shiur of shmitah again. But vegetables from Eretz Yisrael now, you're not allowed to use them. They're gonna be a issue of sefichin, and you're gonna have-- You can't take them back to the shop either. You're gonna have to leave them to rot. Um, I also saw on a, some WhatsApp group, um, some yarden or something, uh, chatilim or whatever. If it's from vegetables from Eretz Yisrael at this time of the year, it's going to be an issue of sefichin, and we shouldn't use it. Now let's come. Someone here, someone from Riga, he's asked me,

54:20 he finds by the time he goes to bed, he's completely, uh, exhausted, and he's, he can't, he doesn't have the, the mental energy perhaps to start putting on his hat and jacket and a gartel. And so he's asking, could he say Shema, um, the, the whole long Kirsh Ma right after Ma'ariv. And then just before to going to sleep, he'll just say Parshat HaShavua. That's his question. So actually, this is, there's a famous Yechidas, and so I was told this was a Yechidas of Rabbi Moshe Feller. Um, so that's going back a good about sixty years. That when he was a bocher pro-probably, and he writes the following. "When in response to, I'd asked the Rebbe during my Yechidas, 'What should I do that in the evening when I'm about to go to bed, I'm exha-- I'm totally exhausted, and I read Kirsh Ma, Shema without Kavana, and sometimes I fall asleep in the process.' So the Rebbe said, 'The solution to your problem is very simple. You should say Shema before you reach that e-extreme tiredness. You'll say the whole Shema un-until the Bracha Hamapil. And when you go to bed, that's when you're actually go-going to bed, that's when you'll say the Bracha Hamapil." Now, I asked this fellow who, this fellow from Riga, I asked him, "Are you intend-- Uh, is this before supper or after supper?" Well, he says, "It depends if it's winter or su- or summer." I felt it didn't make sense to me that you're gonna say, um,

55:52 Davening Ma'ariv, let's say, at six PM, and you're gonna say Kirsh Ma, Shema, and then you're gonna do a whole night's activity of, uh, um, a supper and putting the children to bed and, and, and perhaps some work and some learning. And all of that, I felt it was a little... I, I didn't think that was included in what the Rebbe says over here. So what I did suggest to him, um, I don't know about everyone has this, but many people I'm sure will take a break at some stage in the evening, later evening, to have a, a hot drink before, uh, the e-end of the evening. And as I said, if you have such a break, make it a minute that you have your coffee or whatever your hot drink, and after that you'll say Shema with your, uh, with, you know, al ha-seder, and then after that you'll continue doing whatever you have to do, uh, and then say Mah Amah just before you go to sleep. Someone's asking, did I say that vegetables from Jordan are forbidden? No. They... I didn't say that at all. Um, there is a company called the Yarden, and they have a hechs. They have some, some of their products are with one hechsher, some with another hechsher. Some of them say hechsher, and it says it is with heter mechira. So, uh, so if it says heter mechira, that's not for you, yeah. Finally, one of our listeners, last week we had the whole discussion about

57:13 the burning of challah and the challenge that once you've burnt your challah, you see that inside it's still white, so it hasn't burned through and through. So this, uh, listener sent me a copy of that same sefer which I had before. Um, they have Sukkah mit Shuvus. Hm, interesting how it's in Siman Kuf Ches. Siman Kuf Ches talks about reich or milsa, lav milsa. He talks about burning it in the oven, and he says if you want to burn it in the oven, so that it shouldn't have the vapor of... which is not, you know, you're not allowed to eat it because it's challot mayo. So to, to prevent the vapor going around the oven, if you wrap it in two layers of aluminum foil. But fi... But then the i- the main thing I want to share is the last paragraph. He says that you should put the challah in... It should be like a thin layer, like a matzah, not round like a ball. In that way, because it's just a thin layer rather than a ball, then the, uh, the heat will burn it through and through, uh, much more swiftly, and that will solve your problem of having the interior still, uh, remaining, um, un, um, un, un, uh, you know, not burnt through and through. And so that's, uh, that's the last point for tonight. Um, someone is asking, since we're talking Mah Amah, "Is it true one shouldn't speak after Mah Amah? What if someone, uh, uh, calls you?"

58:35 We have a whole language. Mm, mm, uh, no. We have a whole language, and now with Klal you have a phone you can text. So s- we, we've got solutions, Baruch Hashem. Okay. Agut ha-chalamim, and we should hear besuras tovos, refua shlema le'David Machsia, ve'sheor acharei Yisroel. Agut ha-chalamim.