פינחס תשפ״ב

00:00 Speaker 1 Good evening. Welcome to tonight's Shiur, Parshas Pinchas. And, uh, we'll go straight to the questions which have come in during the past week. So someone called me up, uh, texted me on last Friday afternoon, asking about whether it's okay to use a goral to make decisions. Now, possibly this is actually someone from Eretz Yisrael and so already they were reading Parshas, uh, Pinchas last week. So he's asking, are we allowed to use goral to make decisions? So actually, it's meforsha in Shulchan Aruch to the contrary. Uh, here you have in front of you, in siman kuf ayin tes Yoreh Deah. Ein shoealin bechozim bekochavim. One should not be consulting stargazers for-- astrologers for, uh, guidance. Velo be goralis. Nor should one be doing lots. In other words, if you have a totally, uh, even one way or the other, you say, "I'll flip a coin, it's heads or tails. If it's heads, we're going to, um, Scotland for holidays, and if it's tails, we're going to France for holidays." That would be, um, making a decision, random example, of making a decision based upon a goral, and that, that would not be okay. There are goralis where people know about the goral Hagarul. There's a goral of, of, of opening Seforim. So those are because they are based upon Torah. So there are-- there, there is license to do that. And obviously, people are using, uh, Igris Kodesh and drawing guidance from that. So you can see in Rabbi Gerari's Sefer Chikkurim and Hagim, he

01:59 Speaker 1 talks about that. But just a simple goral. So this is very interesting that whilst to divide the land where it's Yisrael, the goral was, uh, is this, you know, divinely, uh, sanctioned. And, and then you have also, for example, where there would be, uh, a question of, let's say, a gabai has, uh, aliyas or privileges, and there's different candidates for that. So to use a goral to arbitrate, that is acceptable. And yet, when it comes to making a goral for a ticket, who's gonna go to, uh, you know, win a ticket to go, uh, to, to the Rebbe, go to, to a chasuna. This kind of goral is done to arbitrate between A and B to choose who's gonna be privileged. But to use a goral to make your own decision, but it's not a Torah-based goral as in like, uh, using Seforim, et cetera, just to flip a coin or something like that. So here you have a clear halacha in Shulchan Aruch that that isn't allowed. Let's go on to the next question. And here on last Friday, I have-- I'm sitting in the Beit Midrash, and I get an unusual phone call. I don't even know who it is. And he says that I'm marrying off a child in the ne- in the next few weeks. And my parents, unfortunately, are divorced, all living in London. My father has several sisters who also live in London. And my mother is, uh, insisting that I do not invite her ex-sisters-in-law. Now, she doesn't

03:39 Speaker 1 have-- So he tells me he-- she doesn't have an issue with them personally. She gets along with them. The-- H-her issue is that her ex-husband should not be able to have the, uh, benefit of having his, uh, sisters joining in at their simcha. So he's asking, does he have to listen to his mother about this? Now, actually, in the mitzvah of Kibbud Av Va'em, the mitzvah is primarily to provide the parents, uh, their needs, to honor them and their needs, to respect their needs, et cetera. But th- whether a parent can tell me whether to go on holiday to Scotland or to France, there's no, you know, is-- it, it nothing to do with their, uh, own li- own lives. It's just dictating something which I should do in my life. It's not so poshut that they really have that, um, authority that I'm, I'm, I'm chayyav to listen to them if it's something which doesn't affect them. Doesn't mean you can say besurein and be in-- and contradict them, but whether they have the authority to dic- dictate how I should do things which are not affecting them is actually quite questionable. But, uh, without even g- taking that route, I saw here that it-- she, uh, uh, we have a halacha. Well, here we have between a father and mother. F- this is Yoreh Deah siman reish mem if you're daled. If the father and mother both ask him to give them a drink and say he should give the moth- the father

05:17 Speaker 1 before the mother, because the mother also has a chiluk of honoring her husband. However, says the Shulchan Aruch, if they are divorced, then they are equal priority, father and mother. Here, however, I felt that this comes into the next, um, uh, halacha, where if a father or that mothe- mother tells the son to do an aveira, whether it's an aveira, mitzvah asa, aveira asa, then one should not be listening to the parent to do something against Torah. My feeling is here that, that to, to, to, uh, instruct the son to, to, uh, cause pain to the father, that he can't invite his sis-- he can't have his sisters coming to the simcha, I think it was, was, uh, out of order. I think it's, uh, la aveira al diba. Telling the son to do something which will upset the father. And, um, I told him that he can invite his aunt and, um, somehow try to calm his mother down. That's, that, that's, uh, whatever. That's a diplomatic issue, but fine. Let's move on. So someone asked me some time at the beginning of the week, when it comes to Kiddush, is there an emphasis to drink the whole cup of wine? Um, or is, uh, is, or, or... So the, what you have in front of you is Alter Rebbe's Shechinach, the din of, of the Seder night. And here you see very clearly-- Well, let's just quickly read this. There are those who say that Seder night, there's a mitzvah to drink the

06:56 Speaker 1 entire cup of wine, even if it contains several times the revi'it. He says, "Although Kiddush of other Yomim Tovim and Shabbos, it's enough to drink melei lugmav, the majority, like a, a cheekful, which is a majority of revi'it. However, the night of Pesach, for the talis Pesach..." So this is the shitah of the Ramban, who says that the night of Pesach is a different din, and here it's based upon a notion of the Gemara about drinking the entire cup or the majority of the cup. Others say when it says in the Gemara about having the majority of the cup, they meant the majority of a revi'it. And that's the common minhag, to say that even Pesach by night, it's enough to have revi-- revi'it. But then the advice in the next paragraph is that Pesach night, in order to be choshesh the first shitah, that you should finish the whole cup, so better take a smaller cup and drink the whole one rather than having a big cup and only having a revi-- revi'it, et cetera. So what it boils down to is, uh, that Pesach by night, there's an emphasis on drinking kol hakos, and if not, rove hakos. That doesn't apply to Shabbos or Yomim Tovim. There, l'chatchilah, it's melei lugmav, and that's enough. Um, why is there a difference? This I haven't seen in meforshim, but I'm just saying and, and suggesting. By other Yomim Tovim, Shabbos and, uh, like, and Kiddush, the issue here is, you praise Hashem and you have

08:36 Speaker 1 a cup of wine, and that kind of enhances the, the, the praise. The same thing with bentching, the same thing with the chatzi. So it's shira al hayayin. Of course, the yayin has-- the wine has to be in a container, so there is a cup. But the, there isn't the emphasis on the cup. The emphasis is on the yayin, which is an accompaniment to the shira, to the praise. Pesach by night, there is an emphasis on kosos. Arabah kosos and it's got to do with Kosos Yeshua and Kosos of, of Punishment. Whatever the symbolism is in cups. But there's definitely an emphasis on kos, more so than just the fact that it's con-containing an amount of wine. And possibly because of this, the-- according to the first opinion, kos yayin. So you should drink the whole kos, cup of wine. Whereas other times, it's, the, the-- that emphasis isn't there. Okay, but that-- it remains that for the rest of the year, there's no emphasis dokah to drink the whole cup. The rove kos is rove revi'it. That's enough. Besides the fact, in any case, uh, other times, you usually, if you have a few people around, you're going to be sharing. So you're not gonna drink the rove kos. You're not gonna drink the whole kos because you're sharing it with other people at the table. But fine, that's no harm. So about twelve o'clock Motzaei Shabbos, I get a text. "Can I ask a question?" So I, I was still outside the-- I

10:02 Speaker 1 text, "Yes." So here's his problem that, um, generally, we make, we, uh, Havdalah. We use cloves for, uh, besomim. Here's interesting that, first of all, that Ashken-- There's, there's, there's several berachos for fragrance. There's a beracha on food which has a fragrance, and you smell it consciously because you enjoy the fragrance. If it's herbs, as, uh, um, borei iti b'besomim. If it's a woody substance, then it's borei ati b'besomim. And what happens if you don't know which category it falls into? So then we've got boreh min ha-besomim. So boreh min ha-besomim is the generic beracha, s-similar to bore-- to shehakol nihiyya bidvaro with foods. You know, if it doesn't clearly fall in one category or the other, it says shehakol nihiyya bidvaro. Cloves are interesting that they-- no one eats cloves on their own. On the other hand, they are included in food, in cooking, and therefore, there is a dilemma whether to say the beracha, boreh ri-choi v'pereh, on cloves because they're food, or do you say boreh ati b'besomim. So this, it's because of the dilemma. Therefore, the halakha remains that on cloves, we make the beracha boreh min ha-besomim. Ashkenazim say boreh min ha-besomim regardless. Uh, whereas the Sephardim will, uh, they will use, let's say, mint, and they'll say borei iti b'besomim. For Motzaei Shabbos, so Ashkenazim will say boreh min ha-besomim. Without going into detail what you're smelling, you just, you just say boreh min ha-besomim without getting into complications. Whereas the Sephardim are more into getting, uh, whichever, um,

11:56 Speaker 1 whichever type of spice it is, just say the, the specific beracha. So, uh, so we make the beracha boreh min ha-besomim. And now coming back to our question with bay leaves. So here we have a-- This is from the Alter Rebbe's Sefer Ha-Berachos Ha-Ne'enin, and he says the following. Pilpelim, zangvil, ground pepper and, uh, and ginger. Even though you enjoy their fragrance, some say you should not make a bracha on gin- on smelling ginger or pepper. The reason is because pepper and ginger are mainly used for a seasoning, for a flavor. It's not common, ein regil utzkal kach, it's not so common for people to pick up a, a jar of pepper or ginger to enjoy the fragrance. Hence, they are not omedim leriya. They're not designated for fragrance. By contrast, cinnamon and cloves, although they are used in food, but it is common for people to smell them as a fragrance, even not as part of the food. And when-- also, when cinnamon or cloves are put into cooking, so the kavana is not only to enhance the taste, but also to create a, uh, attractive fragrance. That's part of the reason why we put these ingredients in the, in the food. So what we have here is that a, a spice which is primarily used for flavor rather than for, for fragrance should, uh, according to this opinion, does not have the bracha beruch min hashamayim. V'yesh cholkim bo zeh. Now, those who disagree and they say it's, it's got a nice smell,

13:50 Speaker 1 so you can make a bracha on, uh, on, upon that, the fragrance. And therefore, lo chinam noiah shelo lehariach bahem. One should avoid smelling those things because you're entering in a sofek. Should you make a bracha or should you not, you not make a bracha? And similarly, he says about consciously smelling hot, freshly break-- baked bread. So to do that consciously, so you are getting into a shailesh, should you make a bracha or not? Because the fragrance of the, of the bread is obviously incidental. It's not why we bake bread to create a nice smell. So coming back to the bay leaves, they are primarily used for flavor rather than for s- for, uh, smell. And consequently, it's, it's, uh, one should avoid using them and shouldn't make a bracha beruch min hashamayim, as in the famous rule of, um, sofek brachos lehakel. Let's move on to the next question. Okay. Very important question. Now, I'll tell you what happened this past week. It was last week was, uh, this past week, Sunday, was a, uh, was a fast day. It was Shivah Asar B'Tammuz. In one of the provincial communities, so they struggle for a minyan. Well, they were planning to have a minyan Sunday morning. Uh, it turns out, however, that they were expecting three or four guests who had come to their town because it was the Hakamas Matzeva of their late father. The father, and therefore the sons, are kohenim, but they're not fasters. So now if-- it would be a

15:41 Speaker 1 very awkward position, and they might even be just making up the ten. So to have the kohenim there, to not give them an aliyah as kohen, well, that's gonna be a problem. Uh, and to, to ask them to leave the room even... Well, first of all, if it's only one, but even if it's a few of them, um, you might not have your minyan. But on the other side, to give them an aliyah, to give one of them an aliyah, but they're not fasting. And, uh, that's written in Shulchan Aruch, that one doesn't give an aliyah to s- on a fast day to someone who isn't fasting. So here we have a, a dilemma. So I told the, the, the rabbi there, "Just don't do Krias HaTorah," because strictly speaking, you need to have 10 fasters for Krias HaTorah. And so I want to look at that. And, uh, and, you know, this is, however, probably a very common thing you have in smaller communities. People come out to help you with a minyan, but they're not gonna be fasting, and what do you do? Can you re- make, m-tsaref them to the minyan or not? So let's read this carefully in Shulchan Aruch. This is in Siman, um, in Siman Taf-Kuf-Lamed-Vav. It's missing-- The, the reference is missing on the, on the, uh, on the sheet. Let's just add it to the side. Well, it says the following. Ein... Now, there's two issues here. One is about Aneinu, and one is about Krias HaTorah.

17:20 Speaker 1 And interestingly, Aneinu is gonna be a bigger concern than Krias HaTorah, and we'll s- we'll discuss this then. So the Shulchan Aruch says, "Ein l'hiyyot tzibur omer 'Aneinu' bracha bifri atzmo." As you know, Aneinu, as a yachid, we say that in Shemoneh Esrei tefillah. But the chazan says it as a separate bracha. To say-- For the chazan to say Aneinu as a separate bracha, "ela im kein yesh b'beis hak nesses asar o misanim." It's only said if there are 10 fasters. Now, normally, we rely on six people who are davening to make up your, uh... and then you have a roiv. That doesn't work over here. You need to have 10 people who are fasting. "Af al pi yen yesh beiro asar misanim," that doesn't help. You need to have 10 misanim, 10 fasters, in the, in the shul. Why is it different to a, uh, regular minyan situation where six- Daveners make up, and in that, that's a roiv, then you can have, uh, four non-daveners can join in. The difference is that not, uh, uh, well, everyone is eligible for davening. In other words, a person, even if they have daven, going to the daven, halavai y'hichez pal al odem kol ha'yin kol ha'yin. A person is, every person, every Yid is a davener. Therefore, they can make up the minyan even if they're not davening. When it comes to fasting, well, not every has-- one has to fast. If they're not part of the fast, then they are out of the picture,

18:53 Speaker 1 so they can't even join as a minority. Uh, that, that, that similar idea when it comes to ziman. When y-y-you want to do a ziman with 10 people, the minority also have to have eaten something. They cannot be mitzarif to a minyan if they haven't eaten because they're not mechutanim, they're not eating, so what's, well, they're not mechuy to eat, not mechuy to bench at, at this point. So they, it only be mitzarif the, um, if you have seven, then it has to get rid of a nikur. Seven people have washed, now we're benching three who have eaten something. Similar idea. Okay, let's come back. Now, now let's read the Mishnah Bura. On, uh, this, uh, halacha, the Shechinach talks about aneinu. Mishnah Bura goes into Kriyas HaTeyah, reading Vayichal. So he says, "If it's a Monday and Thursday." So that makes it easier because in any case, you're going to do Kriyas HaTeyah. Whether you're going to be reading Parshas Pinchas, you're gonna be reading, um, in, in, in Ki Sisa, you're laning in any case. Therefore, there's no question of bracha. In other words, there's a slot now for Kriyas HaTeyah. So it doesn''t matter which Kriyas. It doesn't matter if they're not fasting. Uh, sorry, it doesn't matter if not all of the people are fasting. In the next, um, seif, it says, uh, I mean, seif vov, sorry. It says, perhaps in the next slide. Um, yeah, so this is, so talk on seif vov that you should not lane the

20:29 Speaker 1 town of Sibu, Mishloi is ane, if you're not fasting. And if the Kohen is not fasting, he should be leaving the shul and you have Yisroel instead of him. So, so, so a person who's not fasting is not, shouldn't have an aliyah, but nevertheless, that's not so crucial for the Kriyas HaTeyah. So now he says, "If there are six fasters in shul, you can read Vayichal. By Mincha, then you'd need to have 10 fasters." And he says the same thing with Mishacharis, if it's not a Monday or Thursday. That's one opinion. Some say on a town of Sibu, since there's a, it's a very divre kabbalah. In other words, since it's written in Tanakh, in, uh, where is it, Malachi somewhere, that it mentions about the four fasts which are related to the Churban. So the fasts are kind of very strong, uh, occasions that they're, they're here to fast. And therefore, even if not fasting, you, they are also mitz-- you can do a Kriyas HaTeyah. And here he says in Mishnah Bura, "If there are seven fasters, that's, that's also okay. And if the minority are not fasting because of Chayil, then you can do Kriyas HaTeyah." Right. Now, then we have here in the next piece, it says, "Ve'im yesh bohem echad she'eini mashlim lo yomer birkas anenu." He shouldn't be saying anenu. Okay, I know that he, he says that you can say anenu if there's not seven fasters and three who are chayilim. Okay. Now, in the times of the

22:19 Speaker 1 Tzemach Tzedek, there was a, uh, some kind of epidemic, and the Tzemach Tzedek was very, um... He writes a very strong letter to his son, Yosef Yitzchak of Overuch, who was apparently quite sickly. And he's talking about the fasting and because of, especially because of the, uh, of the, um, um, pandemic, whatever it was. So therefore, he's telling people not to fast on, you know, on Tisha B'Av, et cetera. And in that correspondence, so there's a correspondence with his son, and there's also a correspondence with the Devarim Nechemya, Nechemya of Dubrovno, who was like a colleague of the Tzemach Tzedek. So in this, uh, letter of the Tzemach Tzedek, in this teshuva, he says, "As far as Vayichal goes, if there are even three people who are fasting, then you can do Kriyas HaTeyah. And it's not comparable to what's discussed in Tzemach Tzedek of Samach Val." Because here, similar to what the Mishnah Bura is saying, because here he's talking about voluntary fasts or like Bahabi says, which are extra fasts. But if it's Tisha B'Av, which is a more established fast, then Kriyas HaTeyah can be done. And now he's, he's more generous than the Mishnah Bura, who says seven fasters for Kriyas HaTeyah. Here he says even three fasters, you can do Kriyas HaTeyah. However, it's aneinu, that's more of a problem because it's an extra bracha, and yet the, the Shechinach says you need to have 10 people. Um, and then if you don't have 10 people, so like if you

23:56 Speaker 1 forgot to say aneinu, if the chazan forgot to say aneinu in the right place, then you incorporate it in Shema Kol. However, he says, "If there are three who are fasting properly, "Ubevadai yiyu oyshiva sheyoichlu rak pochas mikashir." So his, his scenario that Tzemach Tzedek is describing, you've got three who are fasting authentically, and then you have another seven who are eating, but pochas mikashir, therefore they are technically fasting, then you could say aneinu. So what you're seeing here is, though, he's not giving, um, license to say aneinu without 10 fasters by, to some fashion. Has to be three proper fasters, and then the others are also fasting after a fashion. Um, it's, it's interesting, Mishnah Bura, it also talks about, well, the alter, Tzemach Tzedek is saying the other seven are eating pochas mikashir. Mishnah Bura is saying if the others who are not fasting is because they are chayilim, therefore they're mitz, they are, um, mitzarif. They, they would have liked to fast, but they're not able to. Okay. Um, now that Tzemach Tzedek is summarized in Sefer Haminhogim, which is, uh, this part I believe is, is, um, written by the Rebbe. Later put into Sefer Haminhagim. And here he spells out, for Vayechal, Bedavod Tzomim. If there are three fasters, you can rely on Vayechal. When it comes to Aneinu on the Bedavod Tzomim, then if there are three fasters, Ve'al Kohanim, and the way, this way I understand this, he's saying that the, the others, there should be seven who

25:44 Speaker 1 have eaten pachas mikashir, but, uh, what it looks like is that if the other seven are not fasting because they're just not interested in fasting, then looks like they're not midstaf to the, to the minyan. So there would be a minyan. You could do Kriyas Vayechal, you could do with them, um, possibly. Yeah. But to do Aneinu, if you don't have 10 fasters, uh, after some kind of fashion, then you shouldn't be saying Aneinu as a separate bracha. You should be, uh, putting Aneinu just in, in Sh- Shemoneh Tefila. Um, what comes back about this story with the ... So with the Kohanim, say, if not for the political problem, that you can't give them Kohan because they're not fasting. So he could have done Kriyas HaTorah with three fasters, if he had. Um, I just felt in, in the circumstances, I don't know whether he had three fasters. If, if he did, by the circumstances to get into a whole politic with the Kohanim, with his visitors, and, uh, and better just to go into the Ikkar HaDin, uh, and say, "We're not gonna do Kriyas HaTorah," and I'm sure no one would be terribly upset about it. Okay, let's come to one of the questions. Um, when trying to sell a house, this is going back to the very beginning of the summon question. When trying to sell a house, it's common practice to bake bread to make the house smell nice. What bracha would one say? Interesting question. Second point. So it

27:19 Speaker 1 says, shul in Press, Hamburgtel, and no one was fasting. They couldn't have anyone on leave. Well, they shouldn't have been doing Kriyas HaTorah. Um, yeah, what would happen if Kriyas HaTorah is taken out? There's no fasters. I don't, you know. I don't know. I think you have to put it back. Do a Hagba. Uh, you can do Hagba. That you can do. Someone asked me this question, and I thought it's valuable to, to, to share. So here's the question. Tisha B'Av, which works out on a Sunday, whether it's, um, scheduled on a Sunday, or whether it's, whether it's been, Shabbos is pushed off to a Sunday, what, what does one do about Havdalah? So we all know that you do Havdalah on Sunday night, and this is written in Shulchan Aruch. Leil Tisha B'Av SheChol BeEchad BeShabbos. If the eve of Tisha B'Av is on a Sunday, so then you bring out a candle, you make a bracha, boreh minei ha'eish. No bracha on besamim. And Motzei Tisha B'Av, one makes Havdalah on a cup of wine. And on Motzei Tisha B'Av, no bracha on the flame, nor on besamim. And for that matter, whenever the Havdalah is delayed to Sunday or later. So the bracha is only on the wine and on the, uh, the long bracha or Havdalah. But when it misses out, the bracha on the w- flame and besamim. So let's come back to our question. Ah, sorry. Actually, this, this halacha, which we're reading in Shulchan Aruch, has a Dvar

28:52 Speaker 1 HaPoshet. It's going as a poshet. And there, there is a Ramban and the Rashba, apparently, who say, "No, no, no, no, wait a minute. When Tisha B'Av is on Shabbos... Sorry, when Tisha B'Av is on a Sunday, there's no Kiryat Havdalah. Havdalah isn't, is, is... It doesn't apply on Motzei Shabbos. And the Ramban brings out a, brings in a fascinating, uh, background to this, uh, and argument. We have-- Originally, you have the mitzvah of Havdalah was just in tefilah. It's a bracha seudah. And then, He'ashiru, when Yidden became more comfortable financially, so they said, "You know what? Let's do Havdalah with a cup of wine." And then there was a stage when Yidden became poor again. They said, "You don't have to do Havdalah wine. It's enough with tefilah." And so it seems to have been that where people are, where the population or the c- c- um, the community is poor, then you can suffice with Havdalah, with, uh, with just in, in Shemoneh Esreh. You don't have to have Havdalah al yayin. Says the Ramban, "Well, Tisha B'Av, Kulanu Aniim Umerudim. We're all like the poor people, and therefore, there's no need for Havd- Havdalah al kos. It's enough to have Havdalah in a, in davening." So according to the Ramban, when Tisha B'Av coincides with... When Tisha B'Av is on a, uh, is on a Sunday, the fast of Tisha B'Av on Sunday, Havdalah is suspended. There's no, no, no Kiryat Havdalah. Here, what you have the Rosh on the, on the

30:34 Speaker 1 page we have over here, he disagrees, and that's the background to the Halacha in Shulchan Aruch. And it says, "You do have to do Havdalah, and it's, it's the next night." And if you can see here, the Ramban... Sorry, the Rosh, he quotes a story of a Rabbeinu Yehuda, who was once an oinen. He lost a relative, uh, that passed away on Shabbos, which meant that Motzei Shabbos, he was an oinen. And an oinin does not have to do Havdalah. Kind of, does what we call a mitzvahs. So he ate Motzei Shabbos without Havdalah. The levaya took place on Sunday morning, and they... After the levaya, the talmidim said to him, "Rebbe, why don't you do Havdalah now?" To which he answered, "I only have to do Havdalah as a hashlomah if I was obliged to do it yesterday, and I didn't manage to do it. So now I'll do a ha-hashlomah. But if I was exempt from Havdalah at the time when it was, uh, applicable, then I don't have to do hashlomah for something which I was exempt at the moment when it was, you know, the original chiyuv." So according to that, you could say that with Havdalah on Motzei Tisha B'Av, since it's been suspended at Motzei Shabbos, therefore, it's suspended on, on, on Sunday night also. That's what you could argue. So the, uh, Rosh finishes off, "Le-domi kulei hai." Don't compare one to the... Don't compare Havdalah of Motzai Yom Kiv- or Motzai Tisha B'Av to Havdalah of an

32:21 Speaker 1 oinin, because by the oinin, he himself was exempt of any mitzvahs. And therefore, when he becomes eligible, those mitzvahs which were in ex- in a state of exemption don't come back again. Similarly, an oinin, as long as we're sitting, if he didn't say Birkat Hashachar after the levaya, he doesn't say Birkat Hashachar either. Because Birkat Hashachar, at the time, he was exempt, and therefore he doesn't have to say them later. But Birkat HaTorah, he does have to because he's gonna be learning Torah later. Aval, anyway, come back. Aval hochacha gufei michayav. Rosh is saying that when it comes to Tisha B'Av, Mo- Motzai Shabbos, really, you do have to do Havdalah. It's only that because it's fast, you're not, you're not able to do Havdalah. But it's, it, in a sense, he's saying the Havdalah is incumbent. It is obli- it is obligatory. It's just that you can't fulfill your obligation, but the obligation is there. And therefore, as soon as that, uh, obstruction, it, it goes away, so then you'd take, um... you'd, you have to do Havdalah for that. Okay. So this is a bit of background to this discussion about making Havdalah. Now, I'm gonna read from your next slide, from the Netivot Ariel, and let's see whether we're okay with it. So he writes, first of all, that, "Achail hu eats on Tisha B'Av because it's unwell, has to make Havdalah. Someone who's not fasting at all will make Havdalah already Motzai Shabbos." Then he goes into the second paragraph, or

33:57 Speaker 1 the, the sixth paragraph. "Noshim, women who do need to eat on Hav- on, on Tisha B'Av can eat without Havdalah. And Motzai Tisha B'Av, they will hear Havdalah. Some say they should hear Havdalah before eating, and the husband can make Havdalah and bemotzi her and a child, and a child to drink the wine." And then he says, "If there's no man, then she can make Havdalah herself." So it's a little bit all over the place. And this goes, bemshich, to our discussion last week about women making... have got a certain, uh, aversion about women making Havdalah. Instead of we don't, according to the Alter Rebbe, that's not an issue. So his, his... what his hesitation is possibly the following. Possibly, there's no real chiyuv. A woman doesn't have a chiyuv of Havdalah, according to one opinion. But just like she can make a bracha on a lulav during the days of Sukkot, so she can make a bracha on a, on a blow shofar or shofar. So even though it's not a chiyuv, she can make a bracha. So same thing, even though there's no chiyuv to do Havdalah, she can elect to do it. So he says, "Yeah, that's all very well if there's a chiyuv. But according to the Ramban, who says there's no chiyuv of Havdalah on, on Tisha B'Av until Mot- until Motzai Tisha B'Av." No, sorry, he says, "No chiyuv on Tisha B'Av." So he wants to say perhaps there's no chiyuv at all on Tisha B'Av. And therefore, it's

35:36 Speaker 1 like if you want to bench lulav on Hanukkah, uh, you can't elect to do so. It, it, when there is a chiyuv on the, on, on, on, on a, a man, so then a woman can elect to do the mitzvah. But when there's no chiyuv, so then, uh, so then she, she, she can't elect to do a mitzvah when there's no chiyuv at all. But I, I feel his, his, uh, his, his wrong because once we've paskened like the Rosh. We should not paskens like the Rosh. And clearly, the-- he said, you can see the words of the Rosh. He's saying that there is a chiyuv. It's just that you can't address it. So it's not as if there's no chiyuv of the man to make Havdalah. He does a chiy- have a chiyuv. And therefore, I believe that I would, I would go along with the second opinion that, when, perhaps a little further, that if a, a woman needs to hear Havdalah because she's not fasting, so either you make Havdalah on, if you want something on, on, on grape juice or better, perhaps she should use, um, a cup of coffee, which is Chaim Medina. A cup of coffee, a cup of tea to avoid the question of having, uh, wine during the nine days. Um, or else the- if she's not comfortable to do that, he could make Havdalah, and she would... So the alternative is the husband would make Havdalah also in a cup of coffee, but he's fasting. So

36:59 Speaker 1 all right, he'll make the bracha, shakir libbe devorai, and she'll drink this, and then she'll drink the coffee. After he's finished, uh, making Havdalah, he'll, he'll put down the cup, and she'll, then she'll drink the coffee. The, the importance of drinking, he said, otherwise it's a bracha l'vatala. But-- and, and so if the husband makes Havdalah, um, and the wife drinks because she's gen-- um, she's not fasting, okay, so that, that would be legitimate. And, uh, he would then not have to make Havdalah on Motzaei Tisha B'Av because he's already b'yotzer with Havdalah. So basically what I'm saying is contrary to what Nitte Gavriel is concerned about, the shitah of Ramban, the Halakha remains in Shulchan Aruch like the Rosh, that there is a chirur Havdalah and it's just we can't do it on our own. So, but if we have-- we make Havdalah on a child who, who's over the age of chinuch or a woman, or for that matter, a man who's, who's not fasting, uh, and he's not able to make Havdalah themselves, so then you can make Havdalah for them. They drink it. That would be, um, that would be okay. So, yeah. So the, the, the answer is, um, what this person said, he gave the, uh, uh, the wine last time. It was this krias, he gave the, uh, his son to drink the wine. So yes, if his son is over the age of chinuch, so then his drinking justifies the bracha. It's not a bracha l'vatala because

38:20 Speaker 1 he's the age of chinuch of brachos. And then the wife and the son, uh, are able to eat. And the husband who made the, uh, Havdalah, he's also been yotzer Havdalah, and he doesn't need to make Havdalah on Motzaei, uh, Ta'anit. Okay, let's go on to our next question. Um, so question came in yesterday. Was it, uh, the-- in one of the provinces, they have a food bank. In the middle of a shiur. Can you call later. So they have a food bank, and they f- they were contacted by an oval home, Un ruhom l'tzlan, and they said that, that people have been bringing so much food, much more than they need, and the food bank is welcome to take that food and dis- and, and distribute it to poor people, uh, as the food bank does generally with, with surplus foods from various places. So the background to this question, which is a good question, is now what you have in front of you is the, uh, the Sefer Eliyahu Rabba. Eliyahu Rabba is a commentary on the Levush. So in Siman Res Chaf Dalet, the end of those Res Chafs are the various brachos v'chasarei ia. So one of the brachos which is discussed is when one sees a, a, a cemetery. So there's a bracha, um, which we have when we go to a cemetery. We have that bracha, mechayav meisim. So, um, in, in that context, in that area of the Shulchan Aruch, in Siman Res Chaf Dalet. So the Eliyahu

40:00 Speaker 1 Rabba quotes, um, from a source that lo yagin not to take adav ha'koton v'gadol mibais ovel. It's customary not to take anything from the avel home during the seven days of avelus because there's a ruach hatumeh which is, uh, clinging to the whatever is those ho- then for the seven days. So there's an ancient minhag of not taking anything away from the Bais ha'ovel. So that's the background to the question. So in the Sefer, um, Shemiras Guf VaNefesh, so he brings poskim who say that this only applies if, uh, it's, it's the house where the person actually passed away, where yitziat haneshama took place. Um, so I don't know what the circumstances were over there, but that's, that's-- first of all, if that wasn't the place of yitziat haneshama, you already have a clear heter to give away the food. The second thing I felt, though, even-- O-others say they, they are more dismissive over this whole thing, and for all of that food to go to waste rather than giving it to poor people, I think it would override the consideration which we have here about ruach hatumeh. And, um, one, one should be allowed to give it to the Ani. Are you gonna ask, are you allowed to give Ani, um, questionable stuff? Well, you do have a Mishnah, mafaresim, you give dmai, um, uh, to, to Ani, you're allowed to give dmai. Okay, let's move on. So last week, we spoke about the, uh, Beis Chabad, who wants to expand and use

41:43 Speaker 1 the premises which was previously used by, uh, by Salvationists. And someone raised the question during the shiur, "But what about paying rent to these-- this church? You are effectively supporting the church." And I dismissed the question, and I'm gonna come back to that now. Um, and someone came back to me during the week and said they had a situation many years ago, must be about thirty years ago plus. No, pro- more, more than that, um, because they were thinking perhaps the Ashra V'Etzraikin. They live in a small community, and the only swimming pool, which is, uh, non-mixed, is belonging to the church, and they want to teach their children to swim. And they asked, are they allowed to use that pool? And they were told not to. And they understood that the, the psak was because by paying dues for using the pool, they are supporting the activities of the Tumeh, uh, et cetera. So they asked, if so, then that's contrary to what I j- I'd said, that it's not a problem. So here we have from Siman kuf mem gimel yaredeia, talking about a garden, a bathhouse, which belongs to the Avel Zecher Chovim, and it talks the difference whether the benefit of your payment, whether your payment is gonna go to the, um, to the priests, or it's gonna go to the, to the users, to the, to the community. But then that's the mechaber. The main thing I want to share with you with the, the Ramo. V'yesh oimrim. There are

43:19 Speaker 1 those who are more lenient, and they say that you are allowed to have- Benefit from that facility of the Avodah Zarah, the, uh, their garden, their bathhouse, even if the benefit which you're paying is going to go to the priests. And the only problem is, if it is part of the complex of Chotza Avodah Zarah. You mustn't enter the complex of Avodah Zarah, even if it's a bathhouse. But if it's part of the, uh, evidently and obviously part of the complex of Avodah Zarah, you wouldn't have to go in. But if it's not adjacent to the Avodah Zarah, even though the benefit is going to go to the priests, uh, the, uh, the Avodah Zarah, then you would be allowed to have benefit from it. Unless the benefit is going to be for the Avodah Zarah itself, or whatever that means. But, yes, resembling Halzel HaHakel. So, the Halacha, uh, the Ramon says, and Ashkenazi, we follow the Ramon, that you are allowed to, um, pay for your benefit even though the benefit is gonna go to the, to the clergy of that Avodah Zarah. Now, then, the Ba... In the, in the Shah, on that piece of Shechinat HaRuach, he says the following. The Bach is Machmir, um, where they... If, if the only customer for this benefit would be the Yidden, then you wouldn't be allowed to give them the benefit. Avodah Zarah, if the Avodah Zarah garden, uh, farm. If you wouldn't buy the, that produce, if you wouldn't bathe in that

44:56 Speaker 1 pool, there would be other customers. So then you are allowed to use, you're allowed to buy the produce. You're allowed to bathe in that. Then, what he's saying is, if that facility is available for the open market, therefore you cannot be, uh, held guilty of supporting the Avodah Zarah in their activities, where it was... If you wouldn't be the customer, it'd be someone else. So coming back to that apartment that, that, that, um, we're, we're talking about. That, that Bes Chabad. It's a, it's a, it's a apartment which is available for the, for the public to, to rent. And if you wouldn't rent it, someone else would rent it, so you can't say that you are crucial to the, to the activities of the Avodah Zarah in that area. That seems to be the Psak. And, uh, what happened to that swimming pool? Why did the Rav tell them? Possibly the swimming pool was, uh, actually part of the complex of the, of that, uh, church, and that was the reason for being told not to patronize it. Someone is asking, does the Avodah Zarah of Tzedakah after... Now, the, the, the, um, approach of the Ramban in-- He's saying that... Come, going back to Avodah, yeah. The approach of the Ramban here is saying that there's no Avodah because it's suspended at the time of Motzei Shabbos. Then you don't have to do Hashlomah. You only have to do Hashlomah for something with Avodah at the time. But he's saying it's suspended at the

46:29 Speaker 1 time, therefore, there's no Avodah to do at Motzei Sunday either. Um, someone's asking the question: What about accepting a cold drink on the premises from or not even a closed bottle? Um, in, in, in the church premises, the, the answer would be no, you shouldn't be, uh, having... You shouldn't be in there altogether, if that's the question. Right. Um, thank you about the information from Manchester. I didn't know whether it was about that house or a different house. Okay, let's move on. Um, let me holding. Oh, lost my picture.

47:16 Speaker 2 Wasn't the question about the Salvation Army, that they are themselves Avodah Zarah?

47:22 Speaker 1 Yeah. But they, they're, uh, they're, um... The point is that w- that what we said was that, um, the question was wh- whether the rental is going to support their activities. There's two issues. One is about to use the premises, and that we went through, whether it's considered Tashmishe Avodah Zarah. But that we went through. But then the, a question there is, what, what about the rental? Isn't that supporting the activities of the Tumah?

47:57 Speaker 2 So how can you use-

47:58 Speaker 1 I guess the answer over here is that since it's an, a, a, uh, product which is open, on the open market, the fact that you are buying that product instead of someone else buying that product, that is sa- It's said that it's okay.

48:11 Speaker 2 That addresses the benefiting, but how are you a-able to enter the premises?

48:15 Speaker 1 So that was, this was discussed last week, that it was disused and they had taken away their, their, their, their Tehillim.

48:22 Speaker 2 Ah.

48:22 Speaker 1 Therefore, they, they... It's no longer. They had been Mevatel it. If it was ever considered, uh, Tashmishe Avodah Zarah, by them taking away the Tehillim, they've been Mevatel it. On top of it-

48:33 Speaker 2 Ah

48:33 Speaker 1 ... which I said, since they're not actually worshiping a, an icon, they're just... It's more an abstract form of worship. Therefore, it didn't become... There's no Cheftz of Avodah Zarah.

48:44 Speaker 2 Ah.

48:44 Speaker 1 The worship itself is Avodah Zarah-

48:47 Speaker 2 Cheftz

48:47 Speaker 1 ... but there's no Cheftz of Avodah Zarah.

48:49 Speaker 2 Ah.

48:49 Speaker 1 Which leads me now to the next question. Uh, and this, it's interesting how one brings to the other somehow. And, and actually, Zener Etro. Uh, Chidishin Geman. Uh, highly pre, highly, uh, qualified in music. And this is his Ganzt HaChayis. Really, he's, he's Chidish music. But meanwhile, he has the following question. As part of his experience in, in music, he, he listens also to classical music, whatever it may be, and there are sometimes recordings of music which have been performed in a, in a church. Using the church organ and whatever other instruments are normal in a church. And his question is, am I allowed to listen to a recording of music, of secular music, not religious music. And it was made in there because of the equipment and because of the acoustics are good. And this is his question. Are you allowed to have benefit from it? So really, this is a Hemshuch to what we just now discussed. Yeah, there's a question here. If it's a Avodah Zarah, then the musical instruments are also Meshamshe Avodah Zarah, and as a result, you wouldn't be allowed to have a Noah. And listening to music produced by Meshamshe Avodah Zarah would be, uh, would be awesome. However, he, he quote-- he showed me this, um, who quotes are not really and says therefore, there's the din of You see the bottom line-- second bottom, line from the bottom, the but the idea that the seizes the articles, that they become also, also because of he says

50:43 Speaker 1 that doesn't apply because they, it's I said to him further, that if you could just find out which form of worship this temple is, if it's a place where there are then there is then the musical instruments are If it's again, like I described before and last week, I don't want to indulge too much in it, um, if it's more an abstract form of worship without, uh, bowing down to actual icons, then there's no din- no cheft of and therefore, there's no musical instrument. The musical instruments don't become and therefore, they're mutar b'hanuah. So that was my answer to him. Okay. Um, our last question for tonight is, um, a mohel asked me, "What's the story about..." Well, we know part of the simchat ha-bris is the mohel comes to the shul and, uh, mohel comes to shul and there's a bris today, so no tachnun. Before reading this further, just to finish off, the question was about a drink in the Beis Ha'Avo. That's an interesting question. I would think that that would be okay. The whole thing, the kpedah, is to take it away. I'll just tell you, I, I heard once, uh, svara, that the reason why they made this whole thing about not taking from Beis Ha'Avo is because people used to sometimes, um, take benefit and fill their pockets with, uh, bits and pieces from the Beis Ha'Avo. But, um, yeah, so I think i-if it's inside the whole-- it's, it's not included in the kpedah. I'm not taking things

52:18 Speaker 1 out, so lechatchila that would be okay. Let's, uh, let's come back to the, the question about, uh... So here's the question. If the mohel is there for, uh, in shul, so at Shacharis, we don't say tachnun because there's a mohel present. Or for that matter, if the sandek or the avi aben is present, we don't say, uh, tachnun at Shacharis. When it comes to Mincha, the bris is over. They c- the, uh, immediate celebrants, the, the avi aben, the sandek, and the mohel, they don't say tachnun at Mincha, but everyone else does. Here, the question is, a mohel had done an early morning bris, and now he comes to shul after he's done a day's work, and now he comes to shul afterwards, and th- is that Shacharis? Says, you know, the mohel by Shacharis, th- there's a mohel there. But it happens to be Shacharis after the bris is done already. So this was the dilemma. My, my, uh, feeling was that the difference between Shacharis and Mincha is because typically Shacharis is before the bris and M-Mincha is after the bris. It's not always the case. And so that's, that's the question. Um, bichlal, why is it not discussed extensively? Because typically in the, uh, in the Alter Heim, there would be one minyan in town, uh, and that was in the morning, and the bris would be right afterwards. This idea of, of hopping around from one place to the other, doing a bris here and doing a-- and, and coming to

53:44 Speaker 1 Shacharis later, wasn't so common, certainly in the smaller towns. And it wasn't so, it wasn't a common, uh, uh, issue. But meanwhile, what we have here is, uh, from Shevet HaLevi, from Ra- the late Rav Vosner, zichrono lebrocha, and this is in Chelek Ches, Sof Siman Chaf Daled, and he addresses s- a similar question, a few questions there about, uh, tachnun with, in relation to bris. And here he says about a sandek who was at a bris before Shacharis, and then he went to da- to daven elsewhere. Now, he says, "Le'ira acheres." So hadaas noita, or perhaps it's wrote instead of hadaas noita, um, that since it's after the bris and he's somewhere else, therefore, he sh- they, they should be saying tachnun there. Perhaps if you see still traces of the simcha. My question is, you're bal simcha. You know, if, if you're, you know, the Baal Shesh, you don't see a difference between Shabbos and the weekdays so much. But if you're a person who wears a shtreimel, if you're bal simcha, why are you not wearing a shtreimel? If you, if you still wear your shtreimel, your bekishe, you know, so you're, the simcha is still, um, you know, it is bal simcha. But if it's, you know, back into regular civ- civilian clothes, um, so it looks like the simcha has, uh, is in the past. So that's what... He, he seems to be saying a similar idea, that, that the, uh, once the, once the bris is over, so Shacharis

55:09 Speaker 1 after the bris, the mohel, um, himself would not say tachnun, but there's not a reason for exemption for everyone else. So I'll stop with that and wish you all a good evening and a Guten Shabbos. And, uh, Amen.