עקב תשפ״ב

00:00 Good evening, shalom aleichem to, uh, all of you. Hope you can hear me. Um, I'm presently, uh, somewhere halfway between, uh, between Gatwick Airport and Stamford Hill. So let's go straight to our questions. So there we are. First question is, can we use a, uh... So here's, here's a T, um, it's a humidifier. Because it's hot weather, so they want to have the room to be cooled off. And the way it works, apparently, is that there's an internal fan and there's a tank of water, a tub at the bottom, and the fan blows air over the water, and that gives a, a refreshing cooling e-effect to the room. So is that okay for Shabbos? Would you be allowed to add water to the, uh, to this tank so that it should be able to continue cooling on Shabbos? So when I, uh, looked at this, I was concerned. We have here a halacha in the end of Siman Shin Yod Tes. Siman Shin Yod Tes is about boiler. Boiler has got another two variations on it, zoireh and marakeit. Marakeit is sifting and, um, zoireh is wind, um, is winnowing, using wind for separating the chaff from the grain. So that's the halacha of boiler. Oh, sorry, of zoireh. Uh, here we have a Yerushalmi which says the following. One who spits in the wind. One who spits and the wind, um, scatters the spit. So it's . It comes in the isur of zoireh. In, in other words, the original halacha of zoireh is

02:04 to use wind to separate bad from good. The p'shat of this mahala is to say that even if it's just a ruik, just spit, and it's using the wind to s- distribute it, that comes under zoireh. That would really raise the question where any use of sprays on Shabbos could be a question of this. So the poskim say that generally the aerosols are just a distribution of, of, uh, of, um, liquid without a mixture of air. So an aerosol could be used on Shabbos. But if it is here clearly a mixture of water particles and, and, uh, air pressure, that comes under the isur of a zoireh. It's not unanimous, but it does come into this, this, this thing. So therefore, I told the, the person, well, I wanna ask me about this. I told them not to use it on Shabbos. Okay. Let's move on to the next point. That is, um, is there a specific minimum size for a yarmulke? This came up hemsh after last week's discussion about the inu of Hukkat Sagoy, uh, about why it has to wear a yarmulke. Someone asked, someone asked me afterwards last Thursday night, is there a minimum size for a yarmulke? So here you have from... This is from the Sefer Bisket Shivas, a volume, uh, well, Siman Beis. And, uh, let's read the text here. That was the tradition always to have a larger yarmulke which would be visible. and that which we see in recent generations. make tiny yarmulkes. which don't cover

04:22 the majority of the head. Some say if it doesn't recar-- cover the majority of the head, that's not good enough. Um, there are those who say, so long as the kippah is co-- is visible, so long as it's visible from whichever way, that would be also adequate. So even if it doesn't cover the majority of the scalp, but if it's visible from any, any direction. but the very small kippahs, even if they are, they even if they're just in the middle, . So listen, there certainly is here a position that the kippah, the yarmulke should be something which is visible and preferably large enough to cover the majority of the head. Let's, let's go on to the next point. Um, he-here's the third question is about... Listen. The, um, story here is about a woman who doesn't have eyebrows and is asking to put on to, to what's called microblading, is apparently to create artificial eyebrows. So is that okay? So here, this is what I have here is from the Sefer called, um, Nishmas Avraham, which is dealing with medical issues. Relating to Halacha, and this is in the section which talks about lo, um, uh, where it talks about, about not wearing, not, but putting on a tattoo. So here he has the following. He says, "Rabbi Azria Bazri was asked about, uh, the doctors wish to give a woman who does not have eyebrows. They want to make some kind of engraving, which is gonna be similar to, um, to eyebrows. That's

06:36 gonna be with a sc-- a kind of tattoo. Is that, uh, forbidden or is that okay?" So Rab Bazri, in his response, says, "Since it's not a tattoo of writing, it's just of a, of, uh, of ink, uh, a, a line, et cetera. Plus, you're not interested in..." Well, he says, "Halacha sheni shehicho legufo." At any rate, he says, "Yesh lismoeich lahati lechatchilah mishum kvod habriyot." Person's embarrassed that they don't have, um, eyebrows, so this would be permitted to ma- give them eyebrows so they shouldn't feel embarrassed. Okay, um, let's move on to the next question. So here, one of our, uh, listeners who's online now sent me an interesting piece where, um, talking about taking a towel after use and spreading it out. Now, there is a Mishnah which talks about not spreading out a towel. It looks like you've just done your laundry. But then he, here, this Sefer is Medayek from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, um, that it's only if it's been heavily soaked, that's when you shouldn't be, uh, spreading it out to dry. But if it's just a little bit wet, then that's okay. So this is, we have here from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch. I think it's a Shiur Ksav V'rab. Um, it says, "You shouldn't go on Shabbos in a place where you might slip and drench yourself, um, in case you'll soak your, your clothing." And, um, then if you did walk in a, and you got drenched, um, so he says, uh, here it

08:32 says, "Beche-" Second line, "Bechein lishenoshu ragado bekeshomim harbeh." If his clothing got drenched with a lot of rain. Then he says he doesn't have to take them off, and then the second paragraph says when he does take them off, he shouldn't spread them out because of Maras Ayin, it'll look like he's done his laundry. So here we have, though it's not so Mamash direct, but here this, uh, this Sefer is showing Alter Rebbe, Alter Rebbe has seen the concern of, of, uh, concern of it might be be seen that he's done his laundry is only by beshom, beshomim harbeh. Okay, um, someone's asked something. Let's see. Sorry. So here we have, "Can you hang up soaked clothing?" The answer is no. If it's been soaked, you should not be hanging it out on Shabbos because of Maras Ayin. Let's move on to our next question, number, question number five, opening cartons of drink on Shabbos. Okay, so here someone sent me, one of our regular listeners, um, uh, opening a carton on Shabbos. So there's two things. Here's about sc-- unscrewing this cap, and not so sure about that un, although I'm inclined to take the lenient view on opening plastic ca- uh, caps, like say, a milk bottle, et cetera. Um, but here the next problem is you open the cap. Sometimes you twist the cap. That itself breaks the seal. In this case, you open the cap, and then there's a seal which you have to pull and open it. Um, so what's

10:23 the problem here? So let's, let's go into Shulchan Aruch. So here we have the Simash Yud Dalet talking about building on Shabbos. So the principle is there's no din of Binyan Ostita. There's no din of building when it comes to Keilim, unless it's Mamash from scratch. So to take a, a, a flat pack and make it into a table, that's Oser. But if it's just, um, a lesser kind of building, it's not a problem. Therefore, he talks here about a Keili which was broken and stuck together, um, so you would be allowed to break it open, um, to take out the food. So this is the basis of opening Keilim. This is the basis of opening, um, cartons, et cetera. The assumption that it's not a strong Keili, and therefore you'd be allowed to open it to take out the food. However, the Alter Rebbe then says, "Why is it not Stira?" Because it's not a Binyan Gam. "Velvat shelo yiskaven lenakbon nekev yofe sheheilo lepesach nahe." You should, um, you should, uh, avoid making a neat opening because that will... You know, you shouldn't be cutting a neat opening. So this is, this is where we have a problem. Coming back. When you would, um, break this seal open, you're gonna make a neat opening that's gonna be a convenient way of pouring in a neat way. It's not gonna spill in all directions. There usually is a plastic lining underneath, and when you pull this ring, you're going to release it. You're going

12:10 to snap this plastic lining underneath. You're gonna create a neat opening. So all of these cartons, which when you open them, you're making a neat opening. So here you have that problem of and . So instead, what I would recommend is take a knife and jab, stab the carton towards the top. Just stab it with a knife, and then that's not gonna create a neat opening. How will you then use it? Either you will pour the whole contents into another jug, or you'll manage with a not neat opening, but to make a neat opening is a problem. Now, there is another... And perhaps we've addressed this before. There are those who talk about making a hole in the bottom of a can before making, opening at the top. I want to make that clear. That is the opinion of the Chazon Ish, and he's seeing in a s-- a closed can as if it's not a kayeli. Therefore, by making a hole at the bottom before you open at the top, you've preempted, you've, you've, you've made it a non-kayeli before you make it a kayeli. Rav Shlomó Zalman and others clearly disagree with that, and they say that a can is a kayeli, so making a hole in the bottom of the can is actually not a solution at all because you're taking a kayeli and you're being-- you're ruining a kayeli, and so that's not really okay. So, um, this should be-- I hear it again and again. So it's not a mazel.

13:44 It keeps on coming up, that people say, "I'll make a hole at the bottom." According to the other Poskim, making a hole in the bottom doesn't solve anything at all. On the contrary, it's actually, um, you're de- ruining a kayeli, which was a good kayeli. Let's move on. So here, pe- someone asked a question about giving a name after a grandparent who died young. So normally, when there's, in such a case, a person who died young, there's a concern on not giving a name after them, um, because not such a good mazel. Now, I wanna tell you, years ago, I once asked Rabbi Groner about this, and he said that in similar cases, the Rebbe had said that the Niftar... This was a person who wanted to name after his brother who was killed in a car crash. And the Rebbe, Rabbi Groner, told me that in similar cases, the Rebbe had said that the one who was Niftar tragically young was named after a previous person. So you have in mind, you're naming after the previous generation. Be that as it may, here was a case of a grandfather, and here we have a clear answer of the Rebbe, that, "Ed, don't worry about it because there's a mitzvah of Kibud Av." Sorry about that. A mitzvah of Kibud Av, which the Torah compares to Kavod HaMokheim. Therefore, don't worry about it and, um, you can give the name. All right. Let's move on. Um, okay. We're jumping ahead. So here, someone's asking about

15:17 davening Mincha and Ma'ariv both one after the other, one before Shkiah and one after Shkiah. So we have a man called Plag Hamincha, and the time of Plag Hamincha is an hour and a quarter before the end of the day. And according to Rav Yehuda, you can daven, um, you can daven Ma'ariv, uh, after Plag Hamincha, and for him, it's too late to daven Mincha after Plag Hamincha. In other words, according to Rav Yehuda, you have to daven Mincha maximum an hour and a quarter before the end of the day. So we have these two opinions, and just certainly during the summer, people tend to rely on Rav Yehuda to daven Ma'ariv early. But if you're davening Ma'ariv early, so you can't daven Mincha l-late because it's either you're following Rav Yehuda or you're following, following the, uh, the other opinion. Um, either you're following Rav Yehuda or the Chachamim. So someone's asking me the following question: Is there any saving factor by davening Mincha just before Shkiah and davening Ma'ariv right after Shkiah? So to make things simple, I know there's a lot of back, uh, background noise, so just try to make it simple is the following. There's two ways of calculating Shost Manios. Is it from sunrise to sunset, or is it from, um, from dawn to dusk? So there's two ways. Now, if you say that the, the, the, uh, day is counted from dawn to dusk, now that means until Tzeis HaKochavim. Tzeis HaKochavim from Shkiah is seventy-two minutes. Dalet

17:09 Minuit. An hour and a quarter is seventy-five minutes. So if you say that you're gonna count your Shost Manios from, from dawn to dusk, so then three minutes before Shkiah is Plag Hamincha. So then if you, then if you daven Mincha ten minutes before Shkiah, you daven Ma'ariv just after Shkiah. So according to that opinion, you've davened Sha- Mincha before Plag Hamincha and Ma'ariv after Plag Hamincha. In any case, the Poskim say that for, uh, Friday, Friday evening, one can be more Makel, even though it seems to be a contradiction. If it's Mincha time or Ma'ariv time, but on a Friday evening especially, we, um, one can rely on the, uh, even though it, it, it-- Just to daven Mincha and Ma'ariv one after the other, especially when otherwise you wouldn't be able to get a Minyan together. Let's move on. Oh, so this is where you have Sefer, as I said, called Yishas Yisroel, a specialist Sefer on Eichas Tefilah. Excellent Sefer. And where he writes, " Places where there's a concern that if you wait between Mincha and Ma'ariv, and you won't have a Minyan for Ma'ariv, then you can be Makil to daven Mincha after Plag Mincha and before Shkiya, and right afterwards to daven Ma'ariv, even though Ma'ariv will be before Tzet HaKochavim. I, I quoted from this Sefer from the Yishai Yisroel, although it's discussed in Mishne Berura, but Mishne Berura is not so clear. Now, today, Mishne Berura, this whole area is missing, unfortunately. But even Mishne Berura is

18:45 not so clear, so he, he spells it out quite clearly that if otherwise you wouldn't get a Minyan together, you can do Mincha just before Shkiya and Ma'ariv just after Shkiya. Here we have a question. Um, okay. Point seven was about asking a Goy to bring a baby through the street on Shabbos. This is something which, um, generally I take a stricter view, especially in bigger cities where there's a, uh, um, hundreds of thousands of people living, more than shishim ribui, then I'm worried this is a Issur of Avodah Zarah. My, the advice in this case is generally to em-employ a babysitter. Tell the babysitter, "You can join us, um, if you wish. You can join us at, at this and this address." But we're not, we're not telling the babysitter to, to, um, drive to ca-- to take the, uh, buggy through the street. If she wants, she can. Okay, let's move on to this question, um, about Mezuzah. So here what we have, as you can see on the left, a, uh, kind of... looks like a, a conta-- a shipping container. But, uh, it was a, it was a garden shed. The neighbor needed to do some cutting down this overgrown bush, as you can see. And so they dismantled the shed with the Mezuzah. The question is now when they all rebuild the shed, do they need to make, uh, put up the Mezuzah again, or can they just, um, leave the Mezuzah as is? So this, this question is dealt

20:18 with by, by Poskim. Um, there's a similar question about a Sukkah. If you te-- A, a house without a roof doesn't need to have a Mezuzah. If you've got a room which has a roof and it has a Mezuzah, then you took off the roof for Sukkos. Sukkos, a Chag veChag, is put in a Mezuzah. And after Sukkos, you put back the roof. Do you have to take off the Mezuzah and put it back? So what is this question? It comes to the question of ta'aseh lo mimino asui. Mitzvahs have to be done, and you cannot take a, a posul piece of Mitzvah and put it in place, and it should be all ready. So, for example, if your tzitzit is snapped off your ga-- your Tallit, your Tallit's curtain, you can't take it and sew it back. Because once it's snapped, it's posul, and it has to be, um, well, seem... You have to tie it into the garment as it is a, a, a Mitzvah. So in this piece of Mishne Berura in Siman tes vov, this is in regard to Tallit. What would happen if you had a Tallit, big Tallit, and it was torn in half? And now it's torn namush all the way through, two separate pieces, each one's got two tzitzits. To now sew them back together, will you have to dismantle, un-unravel the tzitzits, or can you leave the tzitzits where they are? So here, the Poskim say, Mishne Berura here in Siman tes vov, is saying that

21:44 since each part is, is the size of a Tallit on its own, it's large enough to be a Tallit. Therefore, the two halves of the Tallit can be sewn together because the-- when you make a Tallit, in any case, you put two tzitzits, and then another two tzit-- you put a Tallit, you know, one at a time. And therefore, here you've got a Tallit, it's a Kosher Tallit, Kosher tzitzits. But what would happen if the piece which was torn off was too small to be a Tallit? And certainly, if it's not connected to a Beged altogether, then you wouldn't be able to. So coming back to the, um, Mezuzah question. So when it, when it's dismantled, there's no Chiyuv Mezuzah altogether. So the Mitzvah kind of has become, uh, how you say it? It's, it's no longer fulfilling a Mitzvah. Therefore, when you put it back, you would have to, um, take off the Mezuzah and put it back again. So the fellow asks me, "With a Bracha or without the Bracha?" So here, this is a different question. I asked him, um, "What exactly do you keep in your shed, in this shed?" He told me he keeps the schach, he keeps the Pesach dishes, he keeps the, um, he keeps some, uh, old clothes, et cetera. Now, I ask a simple question. Now, it's very popular, people put their stuff in storage. I have in yellow, uh, yellow storage, I have a, a room, uh, where I put storage. Do I have to

23:13 put the Mezuzah there? The answer is no. It's not a dwelling, therefore, there's no need for a Mezuzah. So why do I need to have a Mezuzah on a sh-- on a garden shed? So the answer is hakya. Or let's say a garage. Uh, uh, the fact that the car sleeps there doesn't make it Chayav Mezuzah, yeah. As, uh, as much as I love my car, but it doesn't, just doesn't make it a dwelling. What makes the-- So I've got in the house, for example, I buy a bit of, uh, supplies. I buy wholesale. So then I don't have space for everything in the house. So then I put it in, in, in, in, in, in, into the storage room. It can be an internal storage between-- But it's a kind of thing. I buy flour. I need some flour, I'll go to the shed and take some flour. Wine, lemonade. But these are-- It's, it's an overflow of the larder in the house. That kind of shed does need a Mezuzah. It's near the house, and as I say, it's an overflow of the house. The fact that you store schach there, or even if in the Pesach dishes, I don't see that as an overflow of your dwelling, in the, uh, in the rigid sense. It's, uh, it's, it's long-term storage, relatively. And therefore, I told him that when such a sh-- If that's what you're using the shed for, m- it's not really for domestic stuff as such, therefore, you wouldn't need

24:36 to have Mezuzah. I mean, same thing, people have bi- uh, bikes, buggies. Um, I don't think that such a shed, which is just for that kind of stuff, would need-- would, would, would require a Mezuzah Al Kapotem. I, I would not make a Bracha on such a, um, storage. Right. We've almost finished our, uh, our, uh, list of questions. And, um, sorry about the noise, but there we go. So w-- the story was that someone in, uh, this country, Shabbos, at some stage, noticed a hedgehog in the house. Very unusual. Don't see hedgehogs very often. Uh, and hedgehogs in the house is Ɣameh kalpah, so you call the mossiers, but they weren't very impressed. And, um, there we go. So they ch-- they kinda tried to chase the hedgehog, and the hedgehog found a convenient corner under the stairs and curled itself into a ball as hedgehogs do. And now what else can sit up? So they, they said he used a stick to move the hedgehog away from its protective corner, and then moved it with his foot, moved the hedgehog with his foot to the door, and the hedgehog went on its merry way. So now, I... Was that the right thing to do or not? Now, here, there's a difference between the Taz and the Alter Rebbe. The Taz says that there's a concept called tiltul min hatzad, indirect movement. So the Taz says, "Moving something with a stick is considered tiltul min hatzad." The Alter Rebbe quite emphatically disagrees, and he

26:27 says that let's say you have... At the table, you have crumbs, which are muktzeh. So to move them with a knife or something, so the Taz says that's okay because that's tiltul min hatzad. The Alter Rebbe says tiltul min hatzad means when, let's say, you come to your favorite armchair and there's some coins on it. So you can't lift the coins, it is in the tzorech mekomech. So you tilt the armchair, and the coins fall on the floor, then you sit comfortably. That's called tiltul min hatzad. But to move it, something with a, a stick, that's called ayod ha'arech. It's an extension of your hand, and there's no-- There's-- That doesn't, that doesn't solve your muktzeh problem. And therefore, to kick, to move it with a stick, the answer is no, that's not okay. On the other hand, to kick it with your foot, moving things with your foot is considered kilach hayad. So here we've got... They sometimes seem to be interchangeable, but they have two different halachas. There's tiltul min hatzad and tiltul kilach hayad. Tiltul kilach hayad means moving things in an unusual way. I know it's not the normal way. So using your foot for hedgehogs is probably the normal way. But the chlal, moving stuff with your foot is not called a normal way of moving. And therefore, the halacha is that moving things with your feet is considered tiltul kilach hayad. So to mo-- to move the hedgehog, I have to be careful the way I say, but tza'ar

27:55 ba'alei chayim and, and, you know, caring about animals. But to move it, uh, gently with your foot is, is okay. Now, the other question was, allow put-- about are you allowed to put out poison? Because the family were now traumatized, um, by these hedgehogs, and they thought that if they're gonna put out poi-- pellets or poison, that will solve the problem. Um, are you allowed to put out poison for pests on Shabbos? So the fastest, you're not allowed to because, um, killing an animal is a issue of shocheit of netilas nefes. You're not allowed to kill an animal. Now, that's direct. Of course, if you put out poison, you didn't actually kill them. They just left them, um, to their own devices. So you could say it's not. It's certainly not oiver of the, of, on shocheit. They're putting out some poison. On the other hand, I don't see how you can get out of muktzeh. Um, it's, uh, so lechatchila, there's no heter to put out the poison on Shabbos. One last thing, and that is... Let me try and get it. Right. Um, uh, well, that was actually another last missed question on our list. Let me find it now. Okay. All right. Um, oiver habayis. We better stop a little early and, um, we'll make our way from, uh, as I said before, I'm halfway between Gatwick Airport and, um, the Eretz HaKodesh of Stamford Hill. And so, uh, I wish you a good evening and a good Shabbos and, uh, zeit

29:32 aligezunt, and we should meet in good health, um, talmid kalayomim kal tu.