קרח תשפ״ב

00:08 Speaker 1 Good evening. Shalom aleichem and, uh, regards from New York. Welcome to this shiur tonight on, uh, Parashat Korach. Thursday of Parashat Korach. So, let's go straight to the first question, and this came up in the learning of the Ticha last week. It talked about the difference of Hashgacha protis between part... And this is in Chelek Yichus Chasad Likutey Sichos and part of the Project Likutey Sichos program talking about the difference between Hashgacha protis on Eden and Olam HaZeh Olam. So it came up, a, a, a question which the Rebbe very often would r- say, how a Ben Noach does not have Bechira Chofshis. And I was intrigued. What does it mean that he doesn't have Bechira Chofshis? So, here we have a quote from the Rebbe's letters, um, where he writes about the Inyan of Bechira of Olam HaZeh Olam, of, uh... So then he has a references to various places in Yechidus, Likutey Torah, from the Rebbe Rashab. And, um, if you say that a guy doesn't have Bechira Chofshis, then why should he be rewarded or be punished if they, for, for choices if they don't really have free choice, and they can't really be, uh, held liable or, or for what they do? So this is, this is the struggle of how to understand this. Um, I don't know whether I managed, if I managed to, uh, do it justice, but I'm just gonna read what's here in this letter of the Rebbe. So he says, "Inyan Haschav VeOnesh BeOlam HaZeh Olam."

02:02 Speaker 1 So what does it mean that there is reward and punishment by Olam HaZeh Olam? So he says, "Alef can be the following. Schav UOnesh, the reward and punishment in this context could be a Shem Hamush- Mushal. It could be a borrowed term from the real Schav UOnesh, which is, uh, related to Bnei Yisrael. But it's more what he calls here, Sibah Mesubet. When a-- He says an example, if a child puts his finger in hot water and scalds his finger. So it's not, uh, it's not a punishment. A small child doesn't know that it's hot water, doesn't know that this is a consequence. But it, the, the punishment is a consequence of, of a, of a violation. So he's, it's not like where the idea of Schav UOnesh by Eden, which is, uh, a, a reward in Gan Eden, et cetera, whatever, which is awaiting them as a re- reward. But here it's like a, more like a, a consequence of a misconduct. That's-- So that's the first point. The second point, which the Rebbe says is that the, for the Sheva Mitzvahs, which are given to the Bnei Noach, for this, they do have Bechira. So when-- So therefore, the second approach seems to be saying that the usage of saying that Olam HaZeh Olam do not have Bechira Chofshis, that is in relation to their, what they do to you, what they don't do to you, um, that's where they don't have Bechira Chofshis. When it comes to their own responsibility of Sheva

03:35 Speaker 1 Mitzvahs, et cetera, so then they do have Bechira Chofshis, and as a result, they are, um, they are rewarded accordingly. Okay, let's go on to something more Halakhic. Last Friday... So I got a call about two hours before Shabbos, and it was a family that they, some of the girls had lit candles already. The mother was going to light, and they told them that there's a concept of Plag Hamincha. But then there's a, a, the whole thing was a bit new. They're not used to starting Shabbos early, but, um, so the idea that you can't light, um, Shabbos candles before Plag Hamincha, to the point that the girls who had already lit, I said they would have to put out the candle and light it again with a Bracha. I told them that you have to wait till after Plag Hamincha. Okay. So then a couple of minutes later, the mother calls me back. She says, "Well, actually, I realize that last week, I also- Ryan, I've lost your sound. Um, can you hear me now? Um, last week, he says, uh, she says, "I also didn't, uh, I, I lit earlier. So what's, what's the, uh, what do I do? Do I have to light an extra candle for having not lit on time last week?" So here we have from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Siman Reish Samekh Gimel. Okay. So, um, uh, we have here about the beginning of Siman Reish Samekh Gimel, the dinim of, of lighting candles. So it has

05:18 Speaker 1 here, if a woman forgot once to light candles, so it's customary that she should continue lighting for, for then onwards a third candle. And if she forgot several times, she should keep on, each, for each time she forgot, she li- adds another candle. And this is a kind of, uh, should we call a kind of penalty, so that she should, should be more careful in the future and not forget about lighting candles for Shabbos. Now, about this thing about lighting an extra candle for forgetting, generally, we try to take, uh, the most lenient way of view possible on this because it's, uh, an element of embarrassment, and there's a reluctance that they should have to start lighting extra candles. And here, in this case, it wasn't as if she did not light candles. She lit them too early. And so it came Shabbos, oh, sorry, it came Plag Hamincha, the candles were there. So it's not a neglect which should be-- where-- which, uh, warrants a penalty. It was a miscalculation, but I didn't, I didn't feel it was necessary to apply the Kinas, the, the penalty in this case. Okay, let's move on. One... next question was... Okay, so I had a question fro- earlier this week. A, uh, other people seem to be able to hear what I don't know what to do. Um, so there's someone traveling from, um, Paris. He's traveling to Nice. He's traveling in the morning, leaving house or whatever in the morning, and perhaps for a family flow,

07:03 Speaker 1 um, event. And later at night, he's gonna take a plane back. So he's asking, "Should I say Tefillah Haderech on the way out and on the way back?" So to explain the question a little bit more, we have here a question, what is Tefillah Haderech? Is Tefillah Haderech for the journey, a prayer for the journey, or is Tefillah Haderech a prayer on the day that you're gonna be traveling? Where does this make a difference? If you're going to have a journey which takes a few days, if it's a Bracha for the journey, so you say it once for the journey. If it's a Bracha for every day that you're traveling, for the day of traveling, so then it's over several days, you should say one each day. And it's for this reason, there's two opinions in Poskim, and it's for this reason that the Alter Rebbe says when you're traveling over several days, you should say Tefillah Haderech the first time with Hashem's name at the end. And after that, you should say Tefillah Haderech every day whilst you are on, uh, in a journey, even whilst you're staying in a hotel. He says you should continue saying Tefillah Haderech without Hashem's name at the end. Just say, "Boruch Atah Hashem, Atzmus Ve'or." That is because of these two opinions, whether Tefillah Haderech is for the journey or for the day. And since it's a, a new day, as far as to say Tefillah Haderech again. Now, let's take the same question. Is it for

08:37 Speaker 1 the day or for the journey? What about if you are traveling and coming back on the same day? So it's the same day. As far as the day is concerned, you've had a Tefillah Haderech for the day. If you're doing several journeys in one day, it's all included in the, the Tefillah for the day. If it's Tefillah Haderech, it's for the journey. So each journey, um, so each journey should be a, a, a separate Tefillah. And this is where the Alter Rebbe in our siddur, we have if-- it says, "Im dai telach l'me'yaad," you should say, "Vesach zireinu l'shalom." Because you're gonna do a journey back. So if you, if you go according to the Seforah, that it's for the journey, you should say it again. If you say it's according to the Yom, you've already said for the, for this Yom. In order to solve this problem, the Alter Rebbe says, in the morning Tefillah, you know, when you're going out, you'll say, "Vesach zireinu l'shalom." In this way, it covers-- that Tefillah will cover the return journey also. Now, here comes the question, though. When the first-- the outgoing journey is in the day and the return journey is at night. So this is where the question is. Is it, is it considered the same day? So here you have a quote from Shevet HaLevi, from Rav Vozner, zichrono livracha, where someone's asking, one who's traveling by day and is coming by night, does he have to say Tefillah Haderech again? And he

10:18 Speaker 1 says, um, "Dam lomar baila." Um, he says, "If you stay overnight, you have to do Tefillah Haderech again. But if it's, um, if it's there and back the same day, you don't have to make Tefillah Haderech again." So although halacha, the day normally switches at sunset, meerev ad erev, but for example, it comes to Birkat HaTorah. So we say a Birkat HaTorah in the morning, and when it comes sunset, we don't say Birkat HaTorah again at sunset. I, It's a new day. And the answer is that because when you said-- Rabbeinu Yerucham says this in Brachot. He says, "When you said Birkat HaTorah in the morning, you had in mind that i-i-if I don't manage to cover my, uh, my j- my, my, my Hishtadlut during the day, I will be mashlim by night." So the night is the overflow of the Limudim of the day. By that-- By taking that Seforah, we'll use the same for the Tefillah Haderech. That it's the, the, the, uh, the night journey is a conscious, how do you say, continuation of what you-- When you made that Tefillah in the morning, you had in mind, um, the, the following night also. Whereas if you've gone to sleep, you don't have-- Then you do have a hesed hadasa, it's a new day. So if you go overnight, you'd make another time Tefillah Haderech. But if it's on the same day, it would still be included in the Tefillah Haderech of the morning. Okay. Someone, one of our listeners asked

11:57 Speaker 1 me a question. What do you do-- What can you do if you have a swarm of ants which have gathered on a windowsill? Are you allowed-- On Shabbos. Are you allowed to brush them away? Are you allowed to blow them away? So- There's a saying in the Mishnah Gemara, one who kills a louse is as if he killed a camel. A louse is alive, and a camel is alive, and there's no difference in the melacha of k-killing a louse as to killing a camel. So you're not allowed to kill even a, a small animal, small creature. So what I'm reading here, and, and this is from the Piskei Teshuvos. In Shin Tat Zah, in there it talks about issues of bugs, trapping bugs, closing a, a chest where there might be, um, flies inside. Meanwhile, he says here, on Shabbos when you're washing the dishes and washing the, the table, the, uh, countertop, if there are lime ants or other, um, uh, pests which are there, you should... You can blow them away or, um, with your mouth or you can move them lightly with a, whether it's a stick or with a, with a, a brush, but not to sprinkle water i-in a way that for su-- most likely they will die because of it. They also talk about what happens if you see in the to... in the toilet bowl, if you see some flies, would you be allowed to flush, which would then possibly be killing the, uh, the flies. But let's

13:40 Speaker 1 skip to our, our question here. So he's saying that you, obviously you cannot, uh, use a more forceful way of brushing away these, these ants. He does say you can blow them, which I find actually interesting. I didn't have a chance to go through this further. If you remember, some of us have been, um, following this for a long time. A while ago, we had a discussion about taking a book off the shelf on Shabbos and blowing off the air, the, the dust. And I quoted then a, uh, source saying that that is a subsidiary of zoreh. That using air power, wind power to separate bad from good. And they said that you're not allowed to do that, which for me that was a surprise at the time. But if that's the case, if blowing off, blowing off dust from the, from the top of a book is a problem of zoreh, so I'm not sure why you should be allowed to blow those, those ants either. Um, using a light brush, perhaps. Um, and because of muktzeh, that's, that's in the question. Obviously, he's, he's suggesting it because it's tiltem min hatzad, which really is a bit of a schwacha thing because the Alter Rebbe disagrees with the Taz. The Taz says, "If you take a knife and you sh-shove away the crumbs at the table, that's called tiltem min hatzad." And he allows it. The Alter Rebbe says, "That's not tiltem min hatzad. That's called yod arichto, and it's extension of your hand,

15:18 Speaker 1 and you wouldn't be allowed to do that. You wouldn't be allowed to move muktzeh with a knife." What is called tiltem min hatzad is when you come to your favorite armchair, and there are coins on it, which are not comfortable to sit on. So you'll tilt the armchair so that the coins fall off. That says the Alter Rebbe, that's called tiltem min hatzad. But to use a tool to move things, um, so he sees that as a yod arichto. So I don't see using a stick as being a solution, uh, of tiltem hatzad for muktzeh. So really, I'm, I'm a little bit stuck. I've been saying blowing, I'm worried about zoreh. Using a stick, I'm worried about muktzeh. Um, so I'm not really sure what the solution is. Um, let's go back to the previous question. Someone is raising the point that surely if the lady lit before the plaque, then the candles are still burning after the plaque, and therefore you're saying therefore the mitzvah was done. She's-- You're saying that perhaps there was a brachah levatalah, but the mitzvah, but she would have done the mitzvah. Yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm inclined to agree with you that, um, it's even more. The, the contemporary poskim say, "You know, she didn't light candles, but the electric light was on." They say, "No, that's not good enough," because there, the electric light wasn't done in the same mitzvah at all. But here in this case, she lit before the plaque. She did do

16:49 Speaker 1 the act of the same mitzvah. It wasn't valid, but it wasn't dark either, and they were there on time. So yes, I, I would go along with that. So, so probably we've said that she didn't, doesn't need to have a penalty of lighting another candle, um, you know, for, for future weeks. Let's go on to the next question. This is a very, uh, a hot contemporary question. So, this question was from somewhere, uh, in the United States, Long Island somewhere. And this, uh, Jewish fellow says that he works in a, in a school, yeshiva, whatever it may be, and there's another person working in this school. I understood the other person was Jewish. And this person has gone through a, a procedure and from now on wants to be referred to in the feminine form rather than the masculine form. And so now the person is asking, "Am I allowed to cooperate with that request, or should I not cooperate?" So this, uh, I don't know exactly the details of what this person did and, and halakha, the, this, uh, this procedure does not change the person's status. The person is still, um, feminine or masculine the way they were created. Whatever they've done to themselves, you can say they mutilated themselves, but it doesn't change their status. Very interesting that, um, I'm sure those who followed the news recently, um, in about the sports. Uh, there's been a whole thing about, um, that men who have gone through a procedure who are disqualified from

18:31 Speaker 1 women's sports, and so they, uh, the mater is, is it doesn't change the person. All right. Now, let's now look at the Halakha. We have a, a, a passage in Torah. "Lo yilbash gevah simlas isha." A man shouldn't don a woman's garment. Says Rashi, I'm sure it's from the, uh, um, ...</b <b For the Sefer... Sefer, "Leilech leshev ben anosh." What's the use of a man dressing up in a woman's clothing? To enable him to mingle amongst the women. So, this procedure or this trans procedure, whatever it is exactly, is, I think, "Ein lo chol lo yilbash gevah simlas isha eguzlim ze." It's a, it's a violation. It's a clear violation of "lo yilbash" in the most, uh, radical way, I think. Now, if a person has done an Aveira, so then we have a Mishnah. This, uh, I came across this Mishnah, or I'll say that I'm learning. "Mishnah es shviris. Ein mechazek yaday avira aveira." If someone does something wrong, you can be nice to the person, but you cannot bless them. You cannot, um, con-- How do you say? Congratulate them for something which is an Aveira. And therefore, to, to, to acknowledge that something has happened here and their, their status has changed. Lo chol, lo chol, I think is, is, is, uh, inappropriate. Uh, it's mechazek yaday avira aveira. So, whilst I was here in Crown Heights, I was asked, uh, to give a share in one of the shuls. So, so Baruch Hashem, you know, the, uh-

20:08 Speaker 2 Panorama.

20:09 Speaker 1 The panorama is something. The panorama is available. It's ready, you know, stuff which I have to hand. So I discussed this shaila. So listen to this. So one of the people said at the shir that in, in, in my-- in the United States, if a person wants to have such a procedure, they have to give, they have to be given... Sorry, they have to give a signed document that they are sane, that they are balanced, that they're not doing it, uh, not a meshuggas. And it has to be signed like an affidavit of some sort by someone responsible. Uh, like employer or someone who's confirms that this person is acting, um, you know, conscious of, they're aware of what they're doing, et cetera. So now comes a Goyishe worker to his Jewish employer, and he says, "I want to make this procedure, and I want you to give a, uh, haskomah, not on the procedure, that I am, that I am s-of sane of mind." Is a Jewish-- Is a Yid allowed to give that, uh, that haskomah? Now, it goes a little bit further, and the question here is, I've said it's, "Lo yilbash gevah simlas isha." Is a Goy allowed to do this procedure? And, uh, if, i-if, if he's not allowed to, then is it pro-- I'm not allowed to, um, uh, support them doing an, an Aveira. If a Goy is allowed to do this procedure, um, then yeah. I mean, this, this is the question. Uh, am I allowed to

21:38 Speaker 1 assist a Goy in going through such a procedure? I don't have clear, um, a clear answer on that. I had a question from a teacher this week that one of the girls in school has got a meshuggas of writing on their skin, writing their arms and pictures, writing. And the teacher obviously told her it's inappropriate. The girl said, "What's wrong with it?" So I, uh, what I said to the teacher, the Umos HaOlam have got the impression that Hashem has given them a canvas, and they can put on the canvas what they want, uh, on the, their, their, on their, their body and their hands and the face or whatever it was, tutza. That's not true. We are part of Hashem's canvas. We are not, we're not-- We are She-- We are, we are created in Tzelem Elokim, and Hashem has created us in a particular way to project in a certain way, and we shouldn't be mutilating that. So it's not respectful for a Tzelem Elokim to be, uh, all, all, uh, you know, graffiti all, all over. Um, there's a-- So in, in that thought, okay, that should apply to Umos HaOlam also. But to make from that an Issur and, and, uh, apparently it also involves, it can be involved of a lot of money. Um, could be court cases, et cetera. So I don't know how strong you could take, take that. Gabay not, not cooperating with a Goy who wants to go through such a procedure. Okay, let's move on.

23:07 Speaker 1 I mean, then they said, I mean, it's not normal. The, the word normal is a little bit elastic, and when something becomes very wide, uh, widespread, it's difficult to use the term it's not normal. Um, there's a famous word about someone came to, I think it was a Tzamzerov. He says, "My, my, my son has gone meshuga. He, uh, uh, uh, uh, esch chazer, esch chazer on a tanz with shiksas." So the Rebbe said to him, this Rebbe, we don't know, we don't remember who he was. No, no. If he would, if he would eat shiksas and dance with chazerim, he's a, he's a meshuga. If he's dancing with-- eating chazer and dancing with shiksas, he's a Baal Taim. Okay, let's move on. Um, a question came through this week about a family. Zayde, Baba, grandchild-- children, grandchildren, and they want to do something spectacular. Uh, they're renting a yacht for a, for a week, from Tuesday till Sunday. And it's just the family. It's not, not a, not a cruise on a, on a bigger group. It's just, just the family. And the, uh, crew of the yacht are, uh, professionals who-- Goyishe, Goyishe professionals. So asking whether they would be allowed to, what should they do about Shabbos? So Be'emus, it's a fairly straightforward Halakha in Siman Resh Mim Hes. Where it says you're allowed to travel with a ship on Erev Shabbos if it's for a bar mitzvah. "Upoisik imo sheyishbos." And you should con-- You should agree with the sailor, the

24:56 Speaker 1 captain, that he's going to halt for Shabbos. "Veim achak lo yishbos." And if the captain decides to c-push on, "Ein b'lach" it's not, not your problem. "Dvar herzshus," you shouldn't travel out of Shabbos. Rather, you should travel at least three days before Shabbos. So there's this difference betweenand has been addressed here because they're traveling on Tuesday, so that's not a problem. And the, the g-guidance should be that they should say to the ca-- to the captain, to the, uh, whoever it is, that as far as we're concerned, we have no interest to travel further on Shabbos. If you want to stop wherever we are, and that would be fine. But, um, and if the captain decides to keep on traveling, that's for themselves, not for you. Now, this, this famously, the Rebbe was very involved in the saga of Israeli ships traveling on Shabbos. Was-- It was in the '50s. There was this Israeli company called Sim, which is the, uh, one of the words in Hebrew for a boat, uh, or ferry, whatever. And they would, they would travel from Israel to United States, and they, uh, were many Jewish passengers. And the Rebbe saw this as a major Chilul Hashem, that Jewish, uh, a Jewish boat, a Jewish, um, uh, um, is, is traveling, a Jewish-owned boat is traveling on Shabbos. And the Rebbe here d-- shows his understanding, his knowledge of how boats work. He says, "Don't just talk about the travel. Talk about the logbook. Talk about the, the water

26:30 Speaker 1 purifying system. Talk about..." You know, he goes through various mec-mechanics which are involved in running a boat. And some of them are not m-- not, not, not, um, Pikuach Nefesh. Keeping a logbook is not Pikuach Nefesh, but it's, it's a legal requirement. And so he's saying there's lots of things which are going on which, uh, which are forbidden to be done on Shabbos. But there, the difference being that there you're talking about a Jewish-operated... The, the, the captain and the crew are, are Yidden. That's why the Rebbe took such exception to it. Here, we're talking about it's, uh, operated by Goyim, and you've taken contract. And if they do their own things to keep on traveling, uh, that seems to be quite okay. Uh, and the fact that they're going to do the logbook and the, the various other systems, well, they also want to drink water, so they want to have a water, water purifying system in operation. That's for themselves rather than for, for you. Let's move on. So here come up a question, um, about a Sefor Torah, which was felt it was too heavy for the people, most of the people in the shul to lift, and someone had decided that they're going to trim off some of the parchment. The Sefor Torah has this requirement. There should be a margin on top the size of three etzbaos. The margin at the bottom should be four etzbaos. So I don't know the details whether they left that margin or they cut

28:02 Speaker 1 into that margin. It's obviously they didn't ask, uh, doesn't look like, look like they asked a shailah by anyone very competent. Um, but are you allowed to do this? Are you allowed to trim off, uh, the margins? Now, if you remember last week, we had the story of, um, of a piece of silver pendant which has Hashem's name on the pendant, and they said that the, not only is the Shem sacred, but also the rest of the pendant is also sacred because it's like the margins of a Sefer Kodesh. And so here, too, the, even the, even the excess, even if the excess, um, margin. In other words, you've got beyond the three etzbaos and the four etzbaos. You've got more of that. Because that's part of the unit of the, uh, Sefer Torah, then that also has been kind of absorbed in the kedushah of the Sefer Torah. And to start cutting it off is something which should not be done unless, unless, unless, if not, it was going to be put in shames. If it's so extraordinarily heavy that really it's not possible to pick up, then okay. Then, then nothing. Then that Sefer Torah is, in its current form, is useless, and it would be justified to start trimming it. But if in the more likely scenario that, yes, it, it is heavy and most people cannot lift it, but there are a few young, young strapping fellows who can. So then that would not be grounds to start trimming off the

29:43 Speaker 1 parchment of the Sefer Torah. This is what you have, the psak of Rav Wosner. Again, this is for Shevet Halevi, um, where he was asked this question, and now I'm just reading his text. About trimming off, I'm, I'm quite hesitant about this. Even if it's a very heavy Sefer Torah, but there are the Baalei Koyah who are able to lift it, even though because of its heaviness, it's not going to be used on such a regular basis. But that's not a, a reason to actually, uh, how you say, um, that it's going to have to be put into genizah and to shames. Unless it's extremely, extremely heavy, which is very unusual. Um, and therefore, no, he doesn't allow you to trim off the margins. If the margins were trimmed off, does that disqualify the Sefer Torah? Um, unfortunately, I, I don't have the answer to that. There are many inyanim, the, uh... That, in other words, I've said there has to be a margin of three, um, etzbaos at the top and four at the bottom. Um, I would imagine that those are the l'chatchilah guidelines. The Ram-Rambam says a lot of these things or most of these things are all inyan l'chatchilah. But if they weren't followed through, um, that would not pasul the Sefer Torah. I would not think the margins, lack of margins would be a reason to disqualify a Sefer Torah. Um, I'm saying that as speculation. Right. Here, I just want to share with you an interesting, um, Shila. Interesting,

31:09 Speaker 1 well, application. The Torah says that if you lent an, uh, an animal... Let's say I, I own a-an ox and someone comes to borrow the ox. My name is Reuven. Shimon borrows the ox. Goes out to the field, and there is an accident, and the ox gets damaged. So he's liable, he's liable for accidents. What happens if I'm not only generous with the ox, I'm also generous with my time, and I went out to help him to start plowing, and then afterwards he continues plowing, and there was an accident later. So here is a Halacha. It's, how you say it? It's, it's a gzeras hakasuv that the, the borrower does not have to pay for the damage. But all of imo lo yeshalel. That's a possuk in Chumash in Parashat Nishmatim. But all of imo lo yeshalel. So when you loaned your property and you loaned yourself in the same setting. I'm not going to go all the details. It's a lot of, more above, and see a lot of Halachas. But if you loaned yourself along with the loan of your article, that is reason for the borrower not to be liable for an accident. So here's the co-question. I'm going to, um, suggest... I, I was-- Someone asked me, "Can I give them a ride to this and this simcha?" And so, yeah, I s- I gave them a ride. We come there, and I also want to go in, and so he offers to park the car. So he goes and parks

32:57 Speaker 1 the car. Meanwhile, there's a truck, a lorry, uh, which backs up and smashes the headlight. So now is the driver who, who, who, uh, who, who's my passenger, who now, um, took, taken the car to park it, is he liable for the damage to the light? So according to what we've just said, if I was doing him a favor of taking him to this venue. So I'm lending him the use of my car, and I'm giving him personal service also. I'm g- driving, I'm driving him. The fact that afterwards, as part of this journey, there was a, an accident, so I felt that he is not li-liable on the, on the basis of the rule of the baalim, because it was a loan of the owner as well as the, as the, uh, loan of the article. Mm. Uh, just a couple of days ago, and a new question. A couple of days ago, I got an email following on from our discussion some time back about Parashat Bechukotai. That's, I mean, I'm not sure about this, but, uh, it's about, it's about five, six weeks ago. And someone had asked, what do we do if, um, if the balkana, on the week of the Totefarah, the balkana is a Levi or a Cohen. Because normally, the balkana takes that aliyah. But, um, because we don't want to call up someone for, to be honored to be the, hear the Totefarah. So we don't like to personalize it. So normally, the balkana just takes that

34:34 Speaker 1 aliyah without being called up. But what happens if it's a Co-- if the balkana is a Levi or, or a Cohen? So he takes Rishon HaShani. And in Bechukotai, the Totefarah is Shlishi. In Parashat Ki Savo, the Totefarah is Shishi. So Mishne Berura, Siman Totefarah says, "In this case, let the Cohen or the Levi take their aliyah on all the way till the end of Shlishi." So balkana will take it, or go, go to the end of Shlishi, and now you, you, whatever left, instead of dividing into five, you'll divide it, instead of dividing into four, you divide it, divide into five. You'll accommodate the seven aliyahs later on by dividing one of those aliyahs into two or into three, whatever it may be. However you'll work it out. What do you do about Parashat Ki Savo? There, the Totefarah is Shishi. So there, the Mishne Berura says, "Get your seven aliyahs until Shishi, and then from Shishi till the end of the Sedra will be Achron, and the, the Cohen can, and Levi can have Achron." At the time, I had said that that won't work for Chabad because we don't do chisofis. Don't do more than the seven aliyahs plus the Mafteir. So someone wrote to me. He says that the reason for that is only because in the times of the Gemara and the Mishneh, which says you can have chisofis, that in those times, the balkana, the person would read their own aliyah. Now that because of the balkana reading, therefore

36:04 Speaker 1 it's, uh, we don't do chisofis. But here, he is reading the actual extra aliyah, so why should there be a hesitation? Why couldn't we have a, a, an Achron since the balkana himself is late. So actually, the source, and, and why am I discussing it now, it's relevant for this coming Shabbos, where Gimmel Tammuz, every Chassid of the Rebbe will want to have an aliyah to cover the Gimmel Tammuz. And there's not enough, uh, in, in one Krias HaTorah. So we look at the letter which the Rebbe wrote leading up to Yod Chet Tov Shin Yod Alef, the first Yahrtzeit of the previous Rebbe. And he says, "The Shabbos before the Yahrtzeit, each person should be-- Mishtadel should try to have an aliyah. If there are not enough aliyahs for the Chassidim to have, to have each an aliyah, they should read the Torah in separate rooms, but not to be moiser al mitzvah akrum. Not to, not to have chisofis." And in the footnote, there's a reference to the Tzemach Tzedek in Siman Lamed Heh in Ohr HaChaim, in Shulchan, in Shulchan, where he discusses this at length. And I just want to explain a little bit. The question here is, I know we've discussed this before, but, uh, I'm sure it's worth refreshing. What is the meaning of... Why- what is a shot? You've said in the morning, you said birkat hateirah. And now at, at, uh, whatever the time is, eight o'clock or ten o'clock, you're now in shul, and they call

37:32 Speaker 1 you up to the Torah, and you're saying birkat hateirah again. Why are you making a birkat hateirah? You've said birkat hateirah. The answer is because I'm leining now. But Adam, it's a different story. It's a bigger thing. I'm, I'm, I'm reading the Torah in public, in a, in a congregational setting. Wonderful. That's all very well if you are yourself a leining. You are leining now in a more privileged setting, so you make a special bracha. What if the balkana is leining? What are you making a bracha? Why are you making a bracha i-if he's leining? So the Rosh says that indeed that when you have an aliyah to Torah, you should be saying the words together with the balkana quietly. That doesn't really answer the question. Because the fact that you are murmuring si-- in, uh, an undertone along with the balkana, you are not doing anything. You're just standing there. It's the balkana who's doing the, the, the, uh, he's, he's doing the pu- the public broadcast. You are just standing there. And indeed, the Masas Binyamin, who was a contemporary of the Ramah, I believe. In his Sefer, he learns differently to the Rosh, and he learns that nowadays, in the olden times, each person would have an aliyah, and they would lei- read, read their own piece. Nowadays, what's happening, it's as if you have a community that has only one literate person. All the nine out of ten are illiterate. There's only one literate person. It says in Shulchan Aruch, if

39:07 Speaker 1 that's the case, this literate person should have seven aliyahs. He'll, he'll re-- make a bracha, tchila v'soof, sit down. Ya'amod. Again, he'll summon again. Bracha before, leiing. After bracha, sit down, and so on. He's going to have seven aliyahs, one after the other. What's happening now is, because most of us are not seasoned baalei kriah, so we've got a balkana, and he is d-- having seven aliyahs. Instead of him saying his bracha seven times, fourteen times, so it's fourteen brachos. So what's happening is we have a Kohen and a Levi and an Israel, another Israel, and they are saying the brachos for the balkana. They are saying it on behalf of the balkana. Really, the balkana should be saying these brachos. And we are saying the brachos on behalf of the balkana. Tchila v'soof. But effectively, in our setting, in the current con- con-contemporary setting, it is the balkana who's having three aliyahs, seven aliyahs, and we are honoring people to say the brachos for him. Now, going back to that illiterate setting, when there's only one literate person, and the Takanas Chazal, you have to have seven aliyahs. He has seven aliyahs. How about he's getting near the end, he says, "You know what? This is going serugish mach. I'm gonna want to give myself a hischalas. I want to have an eighth aliyah. I want to have a ninth aliyah." Of course, that, that wouldn't be legitimate because the whole-- it's all a kind of stretching to accommodate. You should be able to,

40:42 Speaker 1 the, the, um, that we should be able to have the seven aliyahs, but don't do hischalas in that. And so coming back, is there any difference whether the balkana will be le-- whether, whether the acharon is someone else leining or you yourself leining? It doesn't matter. The word is, by the time you've gotten to acharon, you already have seven, seven aliyahs, you have balkana. And therefore, it's not, not, according to the Masas Binyamin, you shouldn't be giving yourself an eighth aliyah. Uh, and therefore, what-- So what is the solution? Coming back. So again, so the, just to retrace. The Takanah from Parshas Kesavim, it's maybe in Shishi. How the-- and the balkana is a Kohen or a Levi. So the Mishnah Berurah says he should, um, we should give that as acharon to the, to the balkana. And I'm saying that wouldn't work for Chabad because we don't do hischalas. And even though he's going to be the balkana himself for that acharon, uh, instead, uh, you just have, let's say, the gabbi or someone will have that aliyah without being called up. Same, same idea. The balkana or someone else will have that aliyah without being called up. Let's move on. Now, we've been discussing the last, was it last week or two weeks ago, about the cholents with the barley. I want to confirm. And after last week's shiur, I was told with, uh, with authority that the cholent in seven seventy does not contain barley. Or that, that barley was not part

42:12 Speaker 1 of the recipe. And therefore, what was the reason that the late Rav Marlowe basking that it's mezonos was because of the kishka, but not like a neat bala vatishe kishka sitting on the top of the cholent and then cut up, uh, at serving time. No, it would already been, um, duly, um, broken up into pieces. And therefore, in every ladle, as you pick up a, a ladle of cholent, it would also have a chunk of kishka there too, which is mezonos. And that would therefore dominate that the mixture is mezonos. Meanwhile, came up a question. What about, what about if it's a cholent which just contains meat and potat-- so beans and potatoes, no barley. It does contain meat. Does the meat require a separate bracha? Now, this is, again, a milui deshechya. It's a common thing. Um, does the meat in a cholent require a separate bracha? So here's very interesting- Let's say you have a, a salad, um, carrots and whatever, and you put in raisins. You don't make a separate berakhah on the raisins in the salad because they are there to flavor the salad. If the salad is basically a vegetable salad and you got a few raisins, they are there to flavor it. But let's read this from the Alter Rebbe in Beis HaShanei in Pereik Vav Ha'lo Hayeud. And he's talking here about foods, um, vegetables, let's say, which have been cooked, and he says, if they were, if they were, uh, let's say, um, it's not... He says,

44:03 Speaker 1 if it was downgraded and then it was upgraded again. It was, it was spoiled by having a kind of, uh, a food that's not normally cooked, and it was cooked, so it was spoiled. And then you p- uh, m- put in sugar or something, and then it made it nice and gishmak. You know the, um, cherries, the ones which you have the, on the, the birthday cakes. So those cherries go through a, a stage where they are totally inedible. And then they kind of do a tekhiyas hameisim, and they become, become gishmak cherries. So the question is, what berakhah do you make? Yeah. I remember the Reb Blazer, a tafeh by my well, sholom, saying that you bamash. It goes through a stage that's like a piece of paper, like a piece of cardboard. So there we have the halokha, that you have a food which was spoiled by cooking, and then it was revived with honey. So the berakhah is revived also. So now let's read the next piece, which is relevant to our discussion. :"Ein sorekh leih im mithil otih gommid var shoand vishel mim boshem nishnav." If you took apples or whatever, and you cooked them, fried them in honey or in, with meat. "Shelo nigru al kapha nim be'er ve'haitem khayim," or at least they weren't worse than when they were, um, fresh. "Arei ha'devar she'itaam ve'shuman ha-bosher oto fel aliehem uniftach bebirkhosa." See, if you took peaches, apricots, and you cooked them with chicken. So the, um, so the apricots

45:31 Speaker 1 remain and the, the apricots got, got also gishmak. So then the berakhah remains right. But then he adds in the brackets. This is where it, it threw me. "Orakh shehabos or, uh, rak haboshe shebe'en einu tofel." Let's take this, uh, example of, of, of apricots and, and chicken cooked together. But there is pieces of, are pieces of chicken. So that is not tofel. "But sorekh levorakh olov shehakol nihya midivar." So now I'm, I'm very puzzled. What's the... Why should meat in a, such a dish of cooked vegetables, why should that meat be more, a, a certain more of a, uh, independence or of a p- presence, whatever, more so than, uh, the, the raisins in a vegetable salad? And what should be the difference? So actually, what you have underneath here is, um, the notes of Rav Avrom Alashvili, where he published it for the, um, Beis HaShanenin, uh, lots of notes. And his, his, his first suggestion is that the meat here was cooked to be eaten separately. Again, habosher len is basher. Again, havanas yuh katav she. It wasn't cooked that the meat and the, should be eaten together. It was cooked with the fruit, but then the bo- the meat would be then put away to be eaten separately. Now, sometimes people put in their meat in a cholent, a la- large chunk of meat, and then they take the meat away and put it, uh, separately and serve it separately. In that's the case, and then bosher is not tofel to

47:16 Speaker 1 the parents. But if he cooks it in order to eat it together, then it should be included with the berakhah of the, of the, uh, of the vegetables. That's his first approach. Oy efsholomo, that perhaps, no. Perhaps meat is different to the case of the, the raisins in the salad because the meat is hoshef in relation to perets, and he gives a reference to perets. To, to save you time, there it's talking about a soup. As you may know, that sometimes a vegetable soup is made a pri adamah. If you cooked vegetables and the, together with a, with a soup, with a, with a, with liquid, and you even have this, if you have that soup, even without any vegetables, that soup is adamah. What happens if you had vegetables and meat? There, the soup becomes a shahar, because between, in, in this liquid called soup, you've got two components. You've got meat and vegetables, so the meat becomes the more dominant one and becomes the b- the soup becomes the shehakol. But there, there is that's a different story. With re- all due respect to Rabbi Alashvili. There, it's a question, is the soup a shehakol or adamah? Here, we have a different story. We've got a cholent, which is no question that is adamah. What do we do about the meat, chunks of meat in it? Does it have a separate berakhah, or is it included in the adamah? So the fact that meat over, kind of overrides the vegetable taste in a

48:44 Speaker 1 soup, it is not a proof that the meat should become a, a, a standalone element in the cholent to require a separate berakhah. So, um, so he, so he's struggling with this. So there's a couple of, uh, ingalaita we're sitting with today, and someone came up with a very interesting explanation, which I, I like and I'm gonna, I'm gonna share with you. When you have raisins in a salad, if you take, now you'll take the raisins. Why do you have the... You only, you have a certain taste. The raisins give a certain flavor to the salad. If you'll put the salad, the raisins in, and then just before you serve the salad, you take the raisins out, the salad will not have a raisin flavor. With meat, if you cooked your cholent with meat and you remove the meat, the cholent will still have a fla- fla- a, a, a meaty flavor. So it's done its job of flavoring, and now it's here, not as a flavoring, but as a food. And therefore, that's what he's suggesting. That's why the Alter Rebbe is saying here. You can see q- quite clearly, I think the first approach is, is, it doesn't fit in the words of the Alter Rebbe. He's saying, if it's the shuman habosher, if it's just the f- the flavor, the fat of the meat in the vegetables, then if it's just the flavor, then it's rinc- includ- it, it's included in the adamah. But if the bosher, if it's, the bosher is

50:14 Speaker 1 visible, it's chunks, visible chunks, not too tiny little slivers. If it's visible chunks of meat, then they do not become Ɣtaf, because they've done their job of flavoring. They are still present there as a food, and therefore, so the baskona, it looks like that if you have a cholent and, mm, visible chunks of meat, you should be making a separate brocha sh'hakol on those chunks of meat. Um, I spoke to Rabbi Heller today. I went into the kollel, and he says, "Cholent, you would have during Yishuv HaAretz, Y'shuv HaAretz, and have it during a Shabbos meal." This whole business of having cholent, um, sh'lebizmanu is, uh, yeah. All right. I wish you all a Gutten Chodesh and a Gutten Shabbos and an inspiring, uh, Yom Ha'atzmaut. Come bring to Ɣchlot os tovus and, uh, zeit alig iz uns.

51:06 Speaker 3 Amen.

51:07 Speaker 4 Gut Shabbos.

51:09 Speaker 1 Gut Shabbos.