פקודי תשפ״ב

00:02 Speaker 1 As you can see, uh, on the front page here, which is express a tefillah for our brothers and sisters who are in Ukraine, and for that matter, those who have managed to flee the Ukraine are also in need of Yeshua. They should be-- They should, should help. They should have a Yeshua, um, to go out of their difficulties very speedily. Amen. I'm going to first, um, go to a question which I got from the Ukraine last Shabbos, last, last Motzaei Shabbos. So one of the shluchim sent me a picture of his children sleeping on the chest freezers in their basement, which they-- they are using as, as an air raid shelter. And the children were asking about, "Tati, if we sleep on top of, um, the air-- on top of the food, so then the food will become, uh, have a ruach hatumah. So is it okay for us to sleep on the, uh, chest freezers?" So he, he asked. You know, obviously the circumstances, there's no question that we would-- it would be okay, but he was, he was asking. Baruch Hashem, they're, they're now in Moldavia, I believe, but at the time, they were still in, in Ukraine. And, uh, I tell them it's okay. And bec- you know, the, the reason which I said it's okay is because the underneath the bed, by default, is a, is a vacuum. It's a place where, where it's just a place for rubbish, et cetera. Uh, it, it-- and because it's a vacuum, therefore it

01:44 Speaker 1 invites ruach ra. But when the underneath the bed is used for something specific, so let's say it was a larder or something, there would be room to be more lenient about this. There is a, a shiur of the late Rabbi, um, Rav Pfeifer Schneebaum, where he talks about a baby's, uh, carriage, what we call in English a pram, and they have often a tray for shopping underneath. And he says that that's, uh, that's okay, the fact that there's food underneath the baby sleeping. But meanwhile, I did find the following. This, I found there's a sefer which specializes in these inyanim, which is called Shmiras Haguf VeHanefesh. And here, he gave me a reference to the sefer which you have on the screen, which is called Azharat Shabbos. It's obviously from about a hundred and fifty years ago, I presume. And he writes in the name of, someone called Rabbi Yisroel Broide or whoever that... I don't know who that is. That the idea which is of not putting food under a bed, which incidentally was in Rambam last week toward, I think it was Thursday's Shiur Rambam. So he says, "Davka underneath a bed, but if it's under a canape, canape or under a shloff bank." So that's not a problem because, and he takes a policy which I've, I've always, um, followed, but I'm pleased to see it in writing, that when it comes to something which we don't understand the logic, so then, and we kn- don't have a reason written, we only

03:18 Speaker 1 follow the literal, uh, psak. But if it's something different to the original precedent which is addressed clearly, so then we can take a lenient view. I wasn't sure what canape is, and then I looked up, I googled the word, and I found out it's a French word for a couch. Um, I'm still not sure what a shloff bank is. I know sleeping is, shloff is sleeping, a bank is a bench, but I'm not sure what he exactly means. But under a couch, he's saying that since a couch is not made for sleeping the night, it's more for just relaxing. So even if someone did sleep on a couch, there's food under the cou- under the couch, that would not be a problem of, um, food tachas hamitah, under a bed. Let's come back to the first question, though, which I had put on the list. Whilst scrolling, I had a call just, um, about an hour before Shabbos from a Shliach in, uh, in Germany, that there's a group of Yidden who are crossing the border out of Ukraine on Friday night. And it, because it's pikuach nefesh that they're going on Friday night despite obvious... And then they're, they're asking a question. They have with them pieces of luggage, probably very little. But are they allowed to carry their luggage? They, apparently, they had to at some poi-point, where they have to cross on foot. Cross through the border, they have to cross on foot. Are they allowed to carry their luggage? So what

04:45 Speaker 1 I told him, and I didn't have much time to, um, think it through, but what I told him is, if they have-- And he said that they do have food with them, and we don't know how long those, their journeys are, and the food could be actually a pikuach nefesh. It could be, um, vital that they take that foo-food with them. I said, once they have food in the bag, and that food is pikuach nefesh provisions, so then anything else in the bag can go along with it because it has something, um, uh, it's, you know, you have the redee- redeeming factor of the food which is pi- for pikuach nefesh. My, my, um, cue I took from, there's a sefer from the Chofetz Chaim called Machaneh Yisroel, which he wrote for soldiers who were fighting in the First World War. And, um, he says about the tefillin. Now, you're not allowed to be mechalel Shabbos to take tefillin with you. But he says they can t-- If they have in their knapsack, where they have their pikuach nefesh stuff, and they, then they can take that tefillin with them, even though they're gonna have to travel on Shabbos, so it's, because it's in the one bag. So that's, uh, the psak of the Chofetz Chaim, so I use that same principle over here. Um- So now I see on the chat about the question about under the bed. Would a built-- a bed with built-in drawers underneath be different and allowed to keep food?

06:11 Speaker 1 Um, so right. So, uh, I, I'm, I'm not so keen on it because it's a . So I would avoid doing so, but certainly in a et cetera, one could rely on it. But I would not advise to put food in a drawer which is underneath, uh, underneath a bed. In principle, I think it's okay, but I don't, don't want to rely on it. Um, if Arya is pointing out, originally the night pot was put under the bed because they didn't have toilets and so they have this. Yes, that would explain why it's invitation for Ruach Ra. We all know the, uh, the last in Gemara Sota, which talks about et cetera. So the English, um, the English expression, cleanliness, uh, is close to godliness, is, has, has got certain truth to it. That, that, uh, where there is-- where there's a place of dirt, it's a place which is inviting Ruach Ra, and you can see that it's fairly consistent. I'm not going to discuss it too much now. Okay. Um, so someone, a friend of mine in Melbourne, contacted me this week, and he's asking-- We have here in the first print of the Alter Rebe Siddur, which was discovered, um, about five, six years ago, print of Shklov, Samach Gimel. Um, I think that's called Seventeen oh three. So it has there in Shemoneh Esreh, Ve'es Kolminei Svu'aso. In the later prints, it's Ve'es Kolminei Svu'aso. I wonder whether what prompted the question was the Kriyas HaTorah at the beginning of Parashat

07:58 Speaker 1 Pekudei, it's Es and Eis, and Eis and Es. And so then you see there a discrepancy. The first print is Ve'es Kolminei, and the later prints have got Ve'es Kolminei. So he's asking whether which one is correct. Okay, fine. Meanwhile, Bashgoha Protes. This past week, I've been working on the Siddur, and Beth Hashem almost finished the editing, and I just came across this point in, in the Bracha of Boneh Avos. So here in the first print, which you have to the right of the screen, it's Al Kol Ma Sheberaso. And in the second print, it's Al Kol Ma Sheberaso. So Kol or Kol. So I want to explain something that where in, in-- as a, as an amateur, Be'er Balkire, how do you know when it's Es or Eis? So the answer is that when there is a trop, when there is a note on the word, it's gonna be Eis. When it's going-- When there's no trop, then it's Es. Now, typically, there's a word in Hebrew called Makaf, which means a line like a hyphen. When it's Es, it doesn't have its own tune because it is appended to the following word. So, uh, there'll be a Makaf. So in-- Although the Siddur doesn't necessarily have those symbols, Ve'es Kolminei, it would have to have a line connecting the word Ve'es and Kol. At least in the Chumash, that would be the case. When it's on its own, so then it's Ve'es. The same thing is with Kol and Kol. When it's on

09:32 Speaker 1 its own, it's Kol. When it's appended to the following word, it's gonna be Kol Dvorah, et cetera, Kol Mar, et cetera. Before scrolling to the next scr-- next, um, slide, where we have, we have here, uh, or in the first print of the Alter Rebe Siddur, in the davening of Rosh Hashanah. Al Kol Ma Sheberaso, and there's another-- I've forgotten now. Two lines later in the next paragraph, it's also Al Kol Ma. Now, so again, this fellow in Melbourne is asking me, perhaps the first print is correct, and the second print was a typo. This is his question. So when we, we know, we know the history of the Alter Rebe Siddur, and we know that he, he, uh, really worked very hard on getting it accurate, and he perused. There's a, a story of s- of sixty ed-editions of the Siddur, something. There's another version of thirty-six. But certainly, he did read the works of the master Medaktichim in his, in, in his generation and just before his generation. So there we have. There was a, a Medaktek who was in a, a contemporary of the Baal Shem Tov called Reb Zalman Hena. He was, as I've mentioned him before in the Shiurim, he was a, uh, a master Medaktek. He had his own Chidushim, that's true. But in his Siddur, he has, uh, it was called Shaarei Tefillah. He has Dikduk notes, where he explains each of the changes. All right. So Reb, Reb, um, Yaakov Emden, uh, goes to town to, to

11:13 Speaker 1 challenge him, but that doesn't take away from, from a l- you know, uh, from the genius and the mastery of Reb Zalman Hena. And he has the following. He explains why it should be Ve'es Kolminei Svu'aso, and he says also it should be Al Kol Ma Sheberaso. And in Kol Ma Sheberaso, he gives us a reference to what he discusses in Al Kol Ma Sheberaso in Shemoneh Esreh for Rosh Hashanah. Now, I just want to explain be-- in simple English. If I say, "Jack lives in a large brown house." So large is an adjective describing the house. Brown is also an adjective describing the house. Between large and brown, there, there is room for a comma. Doesn't have to be, but there is, is, is, is, it's, it, it makes sense. But there's a... Because you've got two, two, um, words which are describing the object, there's room, there's, there's, there's a light slight pause. A light brown house. Okay. Um, sorry, did I say light? A, a large brown house, yeah? Otherwise light and brown would go together. But it's a large and brown. It's two, it's two separate things. And that's what he's saying here in the, uh, Rab Zalman Henner. When you have two words, two words coming one after the other, and they're s- followed by a word which they are both describing, so then there would have to be a pause, and hence a tsere. Since the s- kol, kol is describing to also, and minei is describing to also,

12:55 Speaker 1 therefore, there is a necessary kind of pause between kol and minei, and therefore it would be the ace kol minei to us. Uh, sorry, the ace... I'm sorry, between the ace and, ace and kol minei. Well, all right. Between the ace kol and minei. So there's, he's saying because it's a, so many words before the ar- the article, therefore it, it, there's a reason for a, a pause there. And because of that pause, it becomes ace instead of s. And that's the same thing. Kol Mar Sha Barasa is a similar idea. So let's just come back to the previous slide. Um, so although in the first print, in Shmoneh Esreh weekday and in Birkat HaMazon, the Alter Rebbe did not include the change of Rab Zalman Henner. He did include that in Shmoneh Esreh of Rosh Hashanah. And what we do know is that the first print, the Alter Rebbe was not totally pleased with, and he ma-made m- many corrections. The second print, there was three prints in his lifetime. We don't have the second and third in his lifetime. We do have this print, uh, in Tov Kof Ayin Vav, which was printed three years after his passing. But it makes sense that when we see a change, and the change has got a co- a, a coherent explanation, so we're not gonna say the change is because of a typo, but rather, we're going to say that after the first print, this was advised that this has to be, um, ch- updated.

14:31 Speaker 1 Um, on Wednesday, there was a beautiful Hasidim in Oxford, and Rabbi Eli Brackman, the Bas Simcha, he published a Tsura. And one of the things which he points out is... I can perhaps just show it on the screen for a moment. He is showing you here where the Rambam changes the heading of a chapter. He changed it from Perek Shmini to Perek, um, Echad Asar or something. He changes the heading, but he doesn't necessarily update all the other chapters. So the Rebbe made this comment. It was a Sicha of Shabbos. It was Sicha of Achrensh or Pesach Tov Shin Mem Dala. Just, just when the Rebbe launched, uh, the, um, the idea of the, the cycle of learning Rambam on a daily basis. So the Rebbe makes this comment that w-when the Rambam updates it at one place, it doesn't automatically update all the other places where it should have been updated, but he left that to the copyist that it should be updated. And I'm using a similar idea. If in one place, the Alter Rebbe did adopt the, um, the approach of Rab Zalman Henner, the Kol Mar Sha Barasa, although it wasn't necessarily updated consistently in the first print, but it should have been, and it was updated in the later print. That's as much as I can offer, uh, and I'm quite happy to continue the way it is in the siddurim as we have. In general, we know, um, that with having to , you know. If you're not sure,

16:08 Speaker 1 you just stay way, ways in the siddur, and, uh, that's, you know, you know, it'll do the job. Okay. So here I have a new, necessarily new question. Um, this is written to me as a hypothetical question. That Reuven is traveling for his, uh, his, uh, work. He, he's flying overseas. His trip is paid for by the company. Shimon is a friend of his, and he says, "You're going to that, that and that place. Uh, I have need for something to be brought from there. Could you bring it for me, and I'll pay you for the effort or for bringing it to me?" And, uh, Reuven brings the package, and Shimon pays him s- five hundred dollars. I know five hundred dollars for a package is very suspicious. Um, I don't know. Or does it... I'm su- that's not the, not, not, not my problem. That's how the question was put to me. The issue was that the accountant, the, um, Shimon, um, perhaps unwisely, put the five hundred dollars into the work account rather than to, directly to, to Reuven. The accountant who's looking at these pay papers, I know we've got some accountants online, and they say, "Wait a minute. This money belongs to the business. It w- with the business paid for your flight, and therefore, um, therefore, the earnings which you made, the s- the side benefits which you earned during your flight should also belong to the business." So who's right? Uh, Reuven, who wants his money, or the accountant

17:36 Speaker 1 who says it belongs to the business? So I, if I ha... don't have, uh, Mamish Halakha, but we have a similar Halakha, and this is in Shekhinar of Chesch and Mishbet, Siman Ayin Reish. Metsiyus Poel Le'Atzmo. I've hired a worker, um, let's say a w-- he's a porter, a builder. I hired him for a day. Ava Bi She-Amar Lo Asse Im Mi Melacha Hayom. I've told him, "I'm employing you for these next eight hours." Whilst he's working, he sees a, a, a purse. He sees a, a, a watch, a valuable watch. He picks it up. So the Shechinach says, "But she has pearl of Atzmi. He can keep it. The worker can keep it." The, the wo-- the work being that I employed him to work, to do building or to, to, to do schlepping. The, the fact that he found something was not part of his work. So that's, uh, incidental, and it doesn't belong to the employer, it belongs to, to the worker. And I think the same thing would be here too, um, that when Reuven is in this other country, it's his-- totally his choice whether to do this errand for Shimon. Uh, and he chose to do it, but it's nothing to do with the employer. That's the way I understand the Halakha, and therefore the accountant should, uh, release the money. And how he's going to do it, well, that I'll leave to the accountant to work out, uh, how he's gonna register it in the, in the, in

18:58 Speaker 1 the books. But meanwhile, um, someone asked me on Friday, right, these, the notes came, went out, so he asked, "What is the story about airline miles?" You know, people who travel a lot, uh, for business have a lot of airline miles, and it's quite substantial. You can go on holidays with it, et cetera. Who do the airlines belong to-- airline miles belong to? To the traveler or to the company? So this, the, uh, there's a, in Shechinach, and Alter Rebbe brings it in, uh, in Cheshbon Hashav Mispat. What's the story if, let's say, a buyer for a company, he, he's, he's buying for an employer. He goes to whatever, to a wholesaler, and he's buying for his company, and the wholesaler gives him a bonus, gives him a gift. So obviously, he didn't give him the gift just because he's got a nice smile. He gave him a gift because you, you've spent money with me, and I want you to come and spend more money with me, and therefore I'm giving you a gift. So if he hadn't been spending the money, so then he wouldn't have given the gift to the worker. On the other hand, uh, perhaps he's giving it to, um... Well, uh, because the worker had chosen to spend the money by him, not by someone else. So you, you-- so here we have, we've got the Baal Ha'Moetz and the Baal Ha'Rotzen, if you want to call it. And so Shechinach remains, it's Ashofek. Whether the... It's a doubt

20:23 Speaker 1 whether the money, the bonus, the, the gift belongs to the, the, the, um, the Ma-- Baal Ha'Moetz, the owner of the money or the one who has the decision, who made the decision to buy here. And, and therefore we make it a fifty-fifty. And so if you're traveling for business, but you have a choice which airline to travel with, and the, the airline which you travel with offers you mileage in order to entice you to spend, um, your, your money with them, all right, so then that mileage should be divided equally between yourself and the employer because it's up to-- it's your choice on the employer's money. Let's move on to the next question. Uh, I hope we have the, uh, slide here. Ah. Are figurines kosher? So last week, we had the discussion about those sculptures, uh, in the ceiling, you know, under the cornice of some fancy place in, in France. And, um, so this brought the question about people, people, uh, who, someone asked me, he has these, these figurines, and are they, are they kosher? Are you allowed to keep them in their house? So let's, let's scroll down to the next-- some, we have some quote here. The, um... There is-- we're going to, before going into the detail, there are going to be a difference between children's dolls and those figurines. So let's go. First, the first quote here is from the Maharit, Yosef Mitrani, Italian posek, who lived about five hundred, four hundred, five years ago. Not sure

22:14 Speaker 1 exactly when. Um, prominent posek. He asks, "What's the difference between..." It says in Shechinach about making, uh, an image and, um, um, me keeping an image. "Ma li oysher, ma li mekayem." Um, and in Shechinach, it has-- We had that, like, on the screen last week. It can, it can bring to it. It can bring, um... He says, "". He says in... You're not allowed to make a, a, uh, an image, a sculpture for a decorative purpose. So he says, ". If it's something of respectable, a sep-- something of sub-substance, respectable, then there is a concern. ". People might think, oh, they have this image, and they might see it as a, a, they, they, they value it as some kind of for worship at all. Uh, but ". But if it's something which is just ad hoc and not respected, not given a proper, a prominent place, ", it's just a play, playing with it, ", uh, or just for teaching something, ". Then people won't see that you, you wor-- it's an article of worship. ". The, the, uh, images which are made for children, for entertaining, for playing with. "some kind of other form of entertainment. ". So he's saying, the Maharit is saying that you're allowed to make dolls which are made for playing around. They've got no... They're not prominent. They're not placed on a pedestal. They are left lying around, and therefore you don't have the worry of them

24:04 Speaker 1 being, you know, the suspicion that this is an i- an image which is worshiped, et cetera. The next source which I have here is from the Chayei-- from the Chochmas Odom, who was a contemporary of the Alter Rebbe. Um, so he's-- We have here that he's quoting the Halakha in Shechinach, that just like you're not allowed to make an, a, a sculpture of a person, you're not allowed to ask a goy to make it for you. "a human image. Nowadays, you are allowed to hold on to it. "there's no Hashad because nowadays no one worships a human image. "There are images which are worshiped, but they're made in crude and grotesque or, uh, strange forms. But then a normal human image would not be an object of worship." Then he talks about the disciples of, I guess, of, of Yoshke. Um, so he says, uh, he says, "But a, a, an image nowadays is not an object of worship. Therefore, you are allowed to hold on to it. And because you can, how much more so if you made, if you made a damage to one of the eyes." Okay. So he's not totally sure because he also adds a persmida, um, something with the eye. So that's, that's him. And then we have... There's a Sefer called the Eshkol, um, Rishon. And then their Eshkol is published with a commentary called Nachal Eshkol. So he, it says a similar idea. «תורת אדם אין יש אלה באזיה והשלה למד סנה גוריו». With

25:39 Speaker 1 this, I want to, um, um, talk in the merit of Chachme Yisroel, of the Chachamim, the, the Rabbonim. «שלא מיכו באשירי עם». Why is it the Rabbonim do not protest about the, the fact that the wealthy people in the, in the community, «שיש להם בחדרי מזכיות», they have in their fancy rooms, «תנורים עם צורת אדם בוילטס». Now, they have their ovens, the stoves or their fireplaces, and they will have a human image, uh, on, on those, um, mantelpieces or whatever, under the mantelpiece. It says that since the whole reason is «משום חשד ולא יהיה גזירה כללית», and et cetera, et cetera. «ובזמן הזה שאפילו הגויים אין עובדים לתורת אדם לק חשד». Nowadays that people no longer worship a Tzurras Adam, a human image, therefore it's okay. And then he later he says he saw that the Chachmas Adam says the same thing. So we do have, we do have, um, Poskim who do, how do you say, um, Melamed Zechus. They do allow the i- the, the Melamed Zechus of having those images. But, um, really, it still, still remains a question, who makes these things? Even when there may be a heter to hold onto them. But then... So I called up someone who sells Judaica, or Judaica, if I pronounce it wrong, and I asked him, "Do these... Are these produced by frum Yidden?" So he says, "No, they're produced by these kind of images. They're produced by non-frum Yidden, and they're cute, and people buy them." And so they, so they produce

27:24 Speaker 1 them. But really, um, making such images, I think still remains highly questionable. Um, and, um, and h- holding onto them is not like a, a doll which is lying on the floor. This is put in a respectful... So there are Poskim who are more mehikel. But I, I, um, personally, and I think achas this year with Machmir in so many other things, I, um, I'll tell you personally, I had a, I had a, a, uh, figure which someone I met on the hospital and started putting on tefillin with him, and he gave me a memento, uh, a figure of a, like a crude thing made out of w- out of wood. I've had it for years, but now I went through this halacha, and I felt ginuk, and, um, it's somewhere outside in the recycle at the moment. Um, yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm really not so confident about these things. Um, what I did manage to discover since last week, that the reason for not holding onto the images would... is mainly because of chasidá, because of suspicion, that you're, that people might suspect that you're worshiping it. And what I suggested to the, to the, um, prospective buyer of this property with this, with this problem, if he would put in a suspended ceiling so then those, those images would be out of sight, then the issue of possessing it would be, uh, wouldn't be a problem because there's no chasidá. Now, s- a few people have pointed out that the Rebbe's, in

28:59 Speaker 1 the Rebbe's room, there were, there are some images of human faces. Um, they're not whole. They are just pa- a l- a part of it, and possibly that's the reason why, um, they were left there. But, uh, that's why... All right. Fair enough. But, but here is, here is a whole image, a whole, whole body, and this is clearly what the Shulchan Aruch is talking about, that one shouldn't be making a whole image. So, yeah. Okay. Let's go on to the next, um, question. I've, uh, what's question five? And now the questions, um... No, that was question four. Question five, which I don't have any pictures, is someone asked me about mashed eggs or tuna. Are you allowed to mix them with mayonnaise on Shabbos? And is there a permissible way to do it with a Shinui? So let me explain what is the Shailah. The Shailah is that the, one of the Lamad Taklotos is Losh, kneading, K-N-E-A-D-I-N-G. And that is, you take flour, and you add liquid, and that releases a stickiness. And then the flour becomes, because you added the water, now the flour now becomes a mass. So taking loose particles and now binding them into a mass, that is the melacha of losh, of kneading. So when you have mashed eggs, so you've got loose particles of mashed egg, and they, if you have them in a bowl, you'd tip the bowl slightly, tilt the bowl rather, and they would start tumbling out. If you mix in a, a reasonable

30:48 Speaker 1 amount of mayonnaise, they're going to be all bound together, bonded to whatever the word is, and they, it will not tumble out. It'll hold them together. So you've taken particles and made them into a, into a mass. And so you should not be using mayonnaise- Mixing with eggs on Shabbos. Similarly, with, uh, tuna, uh, flakes of tuna which are loose. To, to, um, to bind them together with, with mayonnaise wouldn't be allowed on Shabbos. Now, in the, uh... On the agenda, I, I gave a reference to the Sefer Shabbos Halacha from Rabbi Furkas of Zangezunt, exactly where he talks about it. That's, that's his psak. Um, I recall reading the same in the Sefer Zocheh Rashome, I think, on the notes. Rav Falk, um, uh, alav hashalom, from Gateshead, he, he used to teach, um, about the Lamed Heh Melachas in the Gemara, and his notes, he also wrote the same. Uh, Rav Falk does note that there's a Sefer called Nishmas Shabbos, who says it is okay, but he points out he's, he's misunderstood the source which he's quoting. And that's why I, I feel quite confident that that is... That that should be the Halacha. That it should not be okay because you are, are, are taking particles and make them into a mass, which shouldn't be done on Shabbos. Baruch Hashem, we've got fridges nowadays, so this can be done before Shabbos, and it will, uh, stay, uh, perfectly fresh, I believe. Okay. Let's go on to the next question, and that

32:17 Speaker 1 is, does a tub of hummus qualify for Mishloach Manot? So what's my worry? Now, this time it's my own question, rather than the questions of someone else. Um, we're seeing in the... If you, uh, get all these different advertisers, all different ideas of Mishloach Manot. It looks like you can give jewelry as Mishloach Manot. You can give, I don't know what. But, uh, we all know that Mishloach Manot has to be food. And, um, a, a, a peeve of mine, a question of mine rather, can you do Mishloach Manot with a bottle of water? Now, that's a bottle of water with a challah. Is water called a portion? We talked in Shul. Pascal talked about, uh, about, uh, uh, wine, beer, but would you say a portion of water, is it... Does such a thing exist? Or is it just, you know, you have water as much as you need when you need it, uh, if you have it. So I wouldn't think that a bottle of water, uh, plain water would count for a portion for Mishloach Manot. But now the question here is about hummus or similar. It can be a tub of cra-- a, a jar of crane. It's not the kind of thing you eat by the spoonful, and therefore, is it called a, is it called a portion? Because the word Mishloach Manot, Manot means portions. So does that count? So here we have a story in the Gemara, in Dav-- in Megillah Dav Zayin. It talks, uh, uh, uh,

33:41 Speaker 1 it's the top of the page, and it's talking about Matanos L'evyonim, and it tells a story of Rabba Shodar Le'l'Mori Bar Mar. Rabba sends a Mishloach Manot to Mori Bar Mar, Be Yad Abaye. In the... The messenger was Abaye. And what did he send him? Moleh Taska De Kashba. It was a whole bag of dates. Moleh Kosos Kimchu Davshona. And a full, uh, cup, a jar of a kind of toasted flour, which apparently is tasty as is, like, uh, because it's been toasted. Omar Lei. So this was... Well, now, at that time, Rabba was already the Rosh Yeshiva, and the, the Mishloach Manot was a little bit low-key. It was something, uh, not, not very fancy. So Abaye is the nephew of Rabba, and he was the messenger. Omar Le Abaye. Hashtu Omar Mori. Mori, when he gets this Mishloach Manot, he will say the following. I'm, I'm putting words in his mouth. Ich Aklo Malko Lehevi. People have this following, uh, phrase. If a peasant will become a king, Dikulo Mitsavor Le Nochris. He won't take the basket a-a-away from his neck. Like, the peasant carries stuff on, on his shoulder. And now, if a peasant becomes a king, he will be still addicted to carrying the basket on his shoulder. So what he's saying is, "Now that you're the Rosh Yeshiva, why are you sending such a low-key Mishloach Manot? You should send something, something more respectable." That was Abaye's comment to Rabba, to his uncle. Be that as it may, Hodar Shodar

35:39 Speaker 1 Leihu. In response, that's the way I understand. In response, Mori Bar Mar sent with Abaye back a Mishloach Manot to Rabba. That's the way I understand the Gemara. Moleh Taska De Zangvila. So here is a whole bag of ginger. Moleh Kosos De Pilpaltu Haricha. And a cup full of, uh, a, a jar full of long peppers. And Omar Abaye. So Abaye now comments. And he says, "Hash Tu Omar Mar." He's now guessing what Rabba's comment will be. "Anos Shadi Leihu." I sent him sweet stuff. He sent him dates, and he sent him this, this flour which was, uh, sweet. Has a sweet taste. Reihu Shodar Lehu. And he's sending me back sharp stuff like ginger and pil-- and, and, uh, pepper, which is sharp fruit. All right. So this is the story in the Gemara. Now, that's on the right of your screen. On the left of your screen, you have a co-- a copy from a Sefer called Riach Dudaim, and this is written by the Bnei Yisaschar. Reb Meir of Modzitz had a great nephew who wrote... His most famous Sefer is Bnei Yisaschar. He wrote numerous others for him. This is a Sefer of his own, Gemara Megillah. So he comments on this, um, gift, this Mishloach Manot of ginger and pepper. Nishma. The yoetz yedei chivotsim shel l'chmonos, afilu b'dvorim she'aino necholim be'atzmom. Here we see that yoetz shel l'chmonos, even with the food which not eaten on its own. Rak asuyim l'ma'aseh ma'acholim. It's made as a condiment for other

37:27 Speaker 1 foods. Pe-pe-pepper, et cetera, and ginger is not a thing which people eat on their own. It's, it's, it's used to flavor other foods. The Salka, uh, the Salka d'aita chamina, one might have thought. Monis davka harui l'maachel b'fnatzmo. And you might have thought that you can only give shel l'chmonos portions of food which are edible on their own. Hu gankin oso ze. And he's saying, he's suggesting that Mori Bar Mar chose this as his shel l'chmonos back to Rabo, le'agmor halacha lamaysa, ki hoya ba'yeshom. He wanted to teach the halacha that you can be yoetz shel l'chmonos also with, with the pepper and with ginger. Um, obviously, they are usable without cooking. They're usable as they are. But he says that's, that's the same. So on that basis, if you can be yoetzer shel l'chmonos as, let's say, a jar of grain and a piece of fish. So you're yoetz shel l'chmonos with that. So the same thing, a tub of hummus, uh, together with a challah, let's say. So even though you don't eat hummus on its own, but it would qualify as one of two portions of food. Okay. Let's move on. Someone asked a question about a, um, someone who's not fasting for some reason. Can he, uh, read the Megillah? And I feel there's no reason to hesitate on that. Uh, let's just read from the, um, Nittei Gavriel. Also lechu kodem kriyas haMegillah. This is written in Shulchan Aruch. Af al pi shetain is kosher olaf, bein ba-layla, bein ba-yom.

39:14 Speaker 1 You're not allowed to eat a meal before Megillah, whether by night or by day. Even though if fasting is difficult, you shouldn't eat before the Megillah. But then it goes on. Adam chalo sheshatan is kosher loi. A person who's frail or the fasting is difficult for them. Mutar lito im pas, bachas mekabetzol. They can have a bit of, um, food or bread or biscuits, less than the volume of an egg. Kosher kein lichres cafe atei. Certainly, to have a cup of coffee or tea. Uh, it's okay to have a ti-- little snack to have before hearing the Megillah. Befrat ha-baal koreh. Uh, certainly the Baal Koreh who needs to have the energy to lain, it's okay if they have a cup of coffee, uh, after the fast before doing the laining. Bevad ha-shemutar lichtech. There's no question that they can rinse their mouth before the laining. Kedesha yuchal lichres koroy. So, so that you, you see that there's no imperative that the Baal Koreh has to be still fasting at night. So if for whatever reason, he's, he's, uh, had to break his fast for health reasons, there's no reason why he should not be able to lain the Megillah. Okay, let's move on. So now, someone asks me, one of our, our regular listeners, he's asking, "When you have kavanot for tallit and tallit cotton and tefillin, when do you have this kavanot, um, before or during or after the bracha?" So, you know, Baruch Hashem, people are, are concerned about having-- when to

40:47 Speaker 1 have the kavanot. Let's just take a look at what is the correct kavanot. It's good for me to refresh my, my memory. Um, we get used to things just, uh, doing them by rote. So, uh, you have here from this Alter Rebbe of Sidit, similar in Shulchan Aruch. When you put on the tallit, so you should have in mind that the Haboch commandeth us to put on the tallit with the tzitzit to remind us of all the mitzvot. As it says, "Od isem ois zochartem." As the Rebbe mentioned, mentioned many times, there are three mitzvot where the, um, the awareness, the, the kavanot is ma'ake-- is, well, not ma'ake, but is, is, uh, part of the mitzvah. And they are tzitzit, tefillin, and, uh, and sukkah. The Bach pointed out, I think, all three places that the kavanot is part of the mitzvah. And here we have the mitzvah of tzitzit is, is, um, isem ois zochartem, to remember. What's this kavanot with tefillin? You should have in mind that the Haboch commandeth us to, um, write these four parashat, where it talks about yichud Shemei, it talks about the oneness of Hashem. Shema Yisrael Hashem echad. And yetzias Mitzrayim. And when we put on the tefillin, we, we-- those are the messages which we should be, um, registering in our mind to remember the nisim and neflos, which are the miracles which Hashem did when he took us out of Mitzrayim. And those miracles are, um, indicative of Hashem's oneness, that he has the

42:13 Speaker 1 dominion in the upper and lower to do as, as he sees fit. And Hashem has commanded us to put them on our, on our arm, near the heart, and on the head, near the, near the brain, so that we should subjugate the, the neshamah, which is in the mind, and the passions of the-- and the thoughts of the heart, that they should be subjugated. And that's the-- these are the kavanot of, of tefillin. So it's quite a, a, a mouthful. It doesn't really work for a machshava, but it's quite, um, a few lines there to think about. So, um, so now he's this-- the man is asking, "When is the time for those kavanot?" So this is, as I said, this is in Alter Rebbe of Sidit, which is halacha. But then let's go down to see what the Alter Rebbe has, um... Go down. No. What's happening here? Here we are. So now in, in-- The Alter Rebbe talks about the kavanas of, of, uh, so, of, of mitzvahs, and he spells out, "K'mo lifnei l'visha talisat tefillin." Talks about the kavana, he says, ex-emphasize before you put on. So it seems to be fairly clear that the kavanot, the time for the kavana is before you're about to do it, then you, uh, have in mind what are you going to do. Um, and here, further, further in Tanya, he goes into detail about k- your, your mind, your chochma bina should be bottled to Hashem's chochma bina, and he goes into more

43:42 Speaker 1 details of the, uh, the various parshas. And, uh, and similarly, when it comes to the tzitzit, have in mind to bring upon yourself, malchus yisborach, malchus kol olamim. So he... Or these kavanas are not identical to what was said in, in Shulchan Aruch. But what we do see is that kavanas is lifnei, uh, l'visha, uh, talisat tefillin. So the time is before you do it. And so, generally, that's be-chasidim bechalal, the inyan of hachana. There's always a strong, a very strong point, the preparation for a, for a mitzvah, preparation for davening. So before you do it, then you stop for a moment, what I'm going to be doing. Okay. Let's move on to the next question. Um, this is not on your agenda. This came in on Friday, but it's, uh, I think it's of, of, um, popular, uh, popular, uh, um, application, so I wanted to share it with you. So this is a front door opening onto the street. And as you see, there's a safe, a key safe, right? With, um, probably a number lock. You'll probably open the flap, and there's some numbers there, and that allows you to r- take out the key and open the door as you're standing in the street. So are you allowed to use that on Shabbos? And so the answer is yes. Um, certainly if it's above ten tefachim, for sure, but I believe even within ten tefachim. What I did point out is the following. That when you have a s-- Now, when

45:12 Speaker 1 you have a door s- uh, open onto the street, so if you would put the key in the door, where you got the key, let's say you took it off your belt. If you push the door in, so now you've taken the key from the outside into the inside, into the reshus hayachid. You're taking the key from reshus harabim to reshus hayachid. Now, most of us don't have front doors straight onto the street. Many of us, though, do ha- live in apartments or you go on holiday. You may be in an apartment building, some resort, and there's no eruv. So the corridor is a karmelis, and your, your, uh, apartment is reshus hayachid. So the same would apply if you're living in a building without an eruv. So to put the key in the door and to push the door in with the key is a, an issue of, gonna be a problem of taking from the karmelis into reshus hayachid, which isn't allowed. So what should be done, you put the key into the lock, you push the lock, you push the door just an inch or two, whatever, just past the door jam, whatever it's called, but it's still, it's still, uh, there's no... You, you haven't exposed reshus hayachid yet, so it's still reshus harabim. You withdraw the key, and then you put it back on your belt, you put it back into the safe in this case. So we-- I think we've discussed this before, but not everyone was online last

46:36 Speaker 1 time, and you never know where, how it's going to apply. What I-- As I was refreshing myself on this halacha, I ha- gave a reference. I have a reference. There's a sefer called Nesivas Shabbos from Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Heshel. So he, um, talks about it and, um, he points another interesting thing, which I, I, I did notice before. I forgot, forgotten this. If you have the front door has got a porch, and that porch is more than four tefachim deep. So min haTorah, a, a, an area which you've got three walls is a reshus hayachid. So you, imagine, you say, here, this por- this front door does not, doesn't seem to have a deep porch. I don't know the rest of the picture. But let's say the, the, the, it was a surround in front of the door, which is four tefachim deep, which is not very much. Um, one, two, how much is it? It's, uh, twenty... So thir-thirty-two centimeters, just over a foot. Now, if you would be standing in the street, which is reshus harabim, and you put your hand with a key through the, the porch into the door, so you've actually taken your key from reshus harabim into reshus hayachid. So we know that that front porch, min haTorah, mid-mid-Rabbonon, has got a status of karmelis. Min haTorah, it's reshus hayachid. So therefore, you should not be taking your key from, as you're standing in the street, and putting it into this, uh, through this porch, into the, into the

48:20 Speaker 1 keyhole, because you're taking reshus harabim to reshus hayachid. Therefore, instead, you'd have to, if it's a deep, as I say, if the porch is four tefachim or more deep, you'd have to stand in the porch and then take off your key and do, do what you have to, you know, open the door and still do the same as just open the door, jam, ja- just that little bit, and withdraw the key and then open the door. So I wanted to share that because it's, uh, it could be shtark in the geulah, I say. Okay, let's go on to the next, um, this is the piece from the, um, as I said, from the Sefer Nesivas Shabbos. Um, where he says, "If the mashkan is rochav dalet tefachim, we have a problem." Okay. So that's where I got it from. Okay. Let's go. Finally, last week, mentioned two stories of the Rebbe, and I'm amazed how some of our listeners came up with the exact details, when it happened, and the details. So the details were not exactly as I had told them, although I told them the way I had heard them, but there's, so there was two stories. One is taf shin chof, and one is taf shin chof tes. And so here you can see the, the, this was sent to me by Rabbi Glasman, but also a Rabbi Karasik in Machneh Chabad called me up to set me right exactly when these events happened. And here, the story is the following. This

49:48 Speaker 1 was a dia- this is a diary from vav tavis taf shin chof, a few days after Hanukkah, and the fellow is writing the following. "It was on Friday. It was on Friday, the second day of Rosh Chodesh tavis. They called up the Rebbe for Levi." So the first three aliyas on Rosh Chodesh are the aliyas of, uh, are in the, um, Kriyat of Rosh And the fourth aliyah is the second Sefer Torah is going to be in, in Parashat Nasso. So they took out a Sefer Torah, and they had rolled it to Vayom Hashvi, which was the-- it was the correct day of Hanukkah, apparently. But they had rolled it to Sukkot because Hanukkah, the Nesium, we read the Nesium, is Vayom HaRishon, Vayom HaSheni, Vayom HaShlishi, Vayom HaShvi, et cetera. And also Sukkot has Vayom HaSheni, Vayom HaShlishi, Vayom HaRiv'i, et cetera. And by mistake, instead of rolling the Sefer Torah to Parashat Nasso, it had been rolled to Parashat Pinchas. And the Rebbe made the bracha, and when the baal koreh started reading, then he noticed he made a mistake. And he's reading from-- he should have read the Parsha from Nasso. The Rebbe motioned to Shmuel Levitan to pasken what he should do, um, whether he has to make a bracha again. And Rav Shmuel said he have to make a bracha again. So the Rebbe started again from Boruch Atah. He did not say Boruch again. And one could hear during the bracha, as he said the bracha again, one could

51:26 Speaker 1 hear bechiyus, one could hear tear and cries, crying as the Rebbe said the bracha again. So that's that story. So it wasn't with the Shabbos cholim, it was on, uh, Kriyat Hanukkah, and a mix-up between that and Parashat, um, the Kriyat of Sukkot. The other story with the mix-up of the Haftarah was the Tov Shin Chof Tes. It's published in the, uh, this, in, in, um, Toras Menachem, volume Nun He, is that the Rebbe, um, it was I think also Shabbos Hanukkah. And because when you have a, the Parashat Shavua and Hanukkah, so Hanukkah pushes away the, the Parashat Shavua. What happens when Shabbos Hanukkah is also Rosh Chodesh? So which one dominates? Rosh Chodesh or Hanukkah? It's Hanukkah dominates. But then there is the minhag of saying the first and last passuk of the Haftarah of Rosh Chodesh. So again, the main Haftarah would be the Parasha of, of, of Hanukkah, whether it's Raani or Simchi, whatever it was. Um, and then also to say the first and last passuk, um, of the Haftarah of, of, uh, Shabbos Rosh Chodesh. And the Rebbe didn't say those extra two pesukim. And ra-afterwards, by the farbrengen, the Rebbe complained, "Why did no one correct me?" Uh, and, and he says, "When-- Let's by the Hag-- By Pesach by night, we have a Haggadah, and you look in the Haggadah, it tells you exactly what to do." In his mind, he's-- the Rebbe explained, there is a concept that you don't jump from one Sefer in Navi

53:04 Speaker 1 to another Sefer in Navi. So the Haftarah of, of Hanukkah and the Haftarah of Shabbos Rosh Chodesh is not in the same volume of Navi. Therefore, in his mind, he had an issue of not going from one to the other. But on the other hand, later, the Rebbe says, by the farbrengen, in the luach of Kol HaKavod, which is published in Shalem, it says there clearly that you do say, after the Haftarah of Hanukkah, you say the two pesukim of, um, of Shabbos-- of beginning and end of Shabbos Rosh Chodesh. And the Rebbe says, just like a Pesach night, you look in the Haggadah, it tells you exactly what to do. Similarly, you should also be following in the, uh, uh, in the luach to, to exactly what to do each time when it comes, you know, uh, what, what to do at that time. And the other correction is that what happened afterwards wasn't-- I said it last week about Rebbe Yehoshua Gordon, so I heard that it, it was actually, um, Rebbe, uh, Yisroel Jacobson. And I'm telling this detail, um, it's perhaps valuable knowledge which, uh, that the Hanhalat HaYeshiva would go into the Rebbe once a month. I guess they would have a briefing of-- they would brief the Rebbe perhaps on what's going on with the Talmudim. And the Rebbe would-- Well, it's been once a, once a month a meeting, uh, with the Hanhalat HaYeshiva. And at that meeting, after this, uh, event in Tov Shin Chof Tes, so

54:27 Speaker 1 the Rebbe asked why didn't anyone correct. And it was Rabbi Jacobson said, "Because the Rebbe doesn't make mistakes." And the Rebbe said, "But Moshe Rabbeinu made a mistake." To which Rabbi Jacobson said that that was when Moshe Rabbeinu was angry, but the Rebbe wasn't angry, and so that, that-- So the story was as it was, but with, uh, the details are slightly different. Let's finish off. We have here, um, someone's asking if it is still on the belt. Uh, I don't think the fact that it's still on the belt-- We're going back to the key. I don't think the fact that it's still on the belt solves anything. It's still you have-- you're not allowed to stand in reshus hayachid-- reshus harabim and stretch your hand over into reshus hayachid. The fact that it's on your belt, I don't think so-solves anything. You still have to, uh, do the-- what I just said. Open the lock, push the door an inch or two, and then withdraw the key and put it ba-and put it back where, you know, on, on your waist, et cetera. Um, someone is saying that the picture does not appear to show a door opening onto the street. I was also looking at that picture. It looks a bit-- It looked like a front door. It looks a bit flimsy for a front door. Um, the letterbox is on the outside. Um, I don't know. All right. Listen, this is, this is what I re-I received. And as, um, Rabbi Chazan

55:47 Speaker 1 of Manchester as it does, uh, would say, "Let's not spoil, um, let's not spoil a good story because of some facts." Okay. I wish you all a, a gut Voch, and we should hear Besuras Tovos, um, especially from our Cheinu Bnei Yisroel who are Bemotzer in the Ukraine. Sh-should have Yeshua. Uh, Chaver B'tva Nir B'nigla. Gut Voich.

56:09 Speaker 2 Amen.

56:10 Speaker 3 Good night.

56:11 Speaker 2 Good night.

56:12 Speaker 1 Yeah, Gut Voich.

56:14 Speaker 2 Gut Voich.

56:26 Speaker 3 Gut Voich.