וירא תשפ״ג

00:01 Speaker 1 A gutten vokh. Welcome to the, uh, shiur for this evening, Motzaei Shabbos, Parshas Vayeira. I'd like to dedicate this, uh, shiur in the memory of Rabbi Tzahal, kin olavo shalom. I just heard Motzaei Shabbos he had passed away on over Shabbos. I have many very fond memories of Rabbi Tzahal. He had, uh, tremendous kuruv him from the Rebbe, which I'm sure will be shared in, in due course. One thing which I remember him repeating several times, that he once- Call from zero seven eight one seven three zero four four five three. That he, uh, asked Rabbi Kadakov about his pressures of, of his helping people and how does he prioritize. And Rabbi Kadakov telling him, "I'm marshal of an ambulance, which is in a war-- in, in a battlefield, and you take on what you manage. Uh, you cannot save everyone." And that was... Now, I remember the rest of the details, but I remember hearing this from him several times. So he's yichrei baruch, and I would love to see his, uh, his stories published. He has-- He really had a lot of geshmake zachen to share. Uh, let's, gonna go to our shailas. As I mentioned, last week, I was in Eretz Yisrael, and on Sunday morning, I go to the local Chabad house in... Actually, it was in Ramat Bet Shemesh. And in Eretz Yisrael and many places, there's Birchas Kohanim every day. I can't hear anything. Oh. Recording in progress. And the, the Kohanim come up to the front. There's a

02:01 Speaker 1 little carpet in front of the Aron Kodesh. And the way it happens there is that the Chazan says, you know, "Yevarechecha," Yevarechecha, in the undertone, and, and so on. And, um, here's the, here's the question. Why the undertone? In Chutz La'aretz, we have actually, when it comes-- On the, the few occasions when we do have Birchas Kohanim, the Chazan does not say, "Yevarechecha" in undertone. He says it in a regular voice. So not so well documented. Here you have in the Piskei Teshuves, where he's quoting from the Meiri, that the Shliach Tzibbur should be prompting, um, b'kol rom, in a regular voice. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Yeah, we can hear you. Yeah. Okay. Let's mute all. Okay. It's better. Okay. So the, the, the Meiri is quoted here saying that he says b'kol rom, in a loud voice, and other poskim also. However, there are those-- There's a, there's a, a Sefer, a set of, uh, teshuvas called Tzitzel Eliezer, and he gives a little bit of background to support, to justify the minhag of saying it on-- under-- in the undertone. Let's just go read the Alter Rebbe Shulchan Aruch in Siman kuf chaf ches, and just to discuss this a bit more carefully. This is a siman which talks about Birchas Kohanim. And he writes here, "Mitzvah lehakris laKohanim kol teivav vteivav." It is a mitzvah to prompt the Kohanim for each word of Birchas Kohanim. "She'ne'emar omer lahem yevarechecha." Tell them to say, "Yevarechecha." Tell them to say, "Hashem." Tell

04:20 Speaker 1 them to say, um, "Yevarechecha," et cetera. "Nishmarecha. V'dos shulchan aruch. Sheti'yamir lahem al kol devar vdevar." That there should be a prompting for each and every word. How do we see this? Because earlier in the Shulchan Aruch, he had said that the Kohanim only start their Birchas Kohanim when they are called upon by the Yisraelim, and that's where we say Ko-- the Chazan says, "Kohanim." And that's to kind of in-in-in-invite the Kohanim to give their bracha. And that's also learned from Omer lahem. But here, interesting, we have therefore Omer lahem, generally, we have to prompt the Kohanim to say their bracha, and then we've got a specific prompting word for word. Where do we see that? Why don't we just say, "Just tell them to..." and just get on with it? Because it-- Well, it says, "Vedabir el am el banav le'omer." It should have said, "Omer lahem kohes varchu." But it says, "No, kohes varchu omer lahem." As the already... And the kohes varchu still has to be the omer lahem. So this is where, where this comes from, the idea of prompting. And here is interesting. Although it's learnt from a pasuk, the Alter Rebbe adds it is mitzvah le'hiot-- m'kadesh lo yitav. There's a reason for this, that the Kohanim should not, um, get confused and get-- say the wrong words. So that's why we prompt them. If there's no one to prompt them, it says it's not me'akev, it's still the Birchas Kohanim can go ahead in any case. So just

05:53 Speaker 1 to look at this another-- give it another couple of minute-- a minute or two. There is another discussion about saying quietly the Elekenu v'Elekeav is saying V'habarechu v'habarchen v'habroch am shalesh. That in the Alter Rebbe's Schuchan Aruch, it says to say that b'lachash. In the Alter Rebbe's siddur, it does not say to say it b'lachash. And Rabbi Chaim Noah understands that the chazan should say, "Elokeinu ve'elokei avoseinu." The chazan should say it in a normal tone. Koanim, he should say loud. And Amkadeishecha koham, or it's said by the chazan, again, in a under- in a bit quieter. That's the-- That's, um, in the Litvisher world, they say that, "No, the chazan shouldn't be saying Elokeinu ve'elokei avoseinu altogether. That should be said, um, by just by the machri. And not the Elokeinu ve'elokei avoseinu, just the word Koanim." And in the Litvisher world, it is actually not the chazan who says Koanim. They're worried about a hefsek. Instead, they have another volunteer. So you've got, uh, another guy with another steering wheel who, um, and who, uh, uh, cries out, um, Koanim. So that's the Litvisher mahalik, because they're concerned that the, that preamble to Birchas Kohenim could be considered as a hefsek. So that's the Litvisher minhag. But certainly our minhag is, and many do so, that the chazan says that preamble of Elokeinu ve'elokei avoseinu. And, um, as I say, some, um, places it, it looks like it should say b'lachash, but the Rabbi Chaim Noah implies from the Alter Rebbe, first from

07:40 Speaker 1 the Alter Rebbe, it should be said at normal tone. That's the lachash in the preamble. Now we're talking about during the actual bracha. And here, there's very little documentation about saying it b'lachash. And actually, even the Tzit Tzerezer, who I quoted, who says-- he justifies some... He says a lotion of the Zohar in Parsha Emo Belchisho. But if you look in the Zohar in, a bit later, in Kaf Lamid Beis, Lamed Beis, in Chelek Gimel. So he says that there's, there's Omer and there's Daber. Daber is a more strident way of speaking, and Omer is a, is a calmer, uh, way of speaking. And the Omer Elohim, the Zohar kind of picks up on this. The Omer Elohim should be in a way of, of the softer rather than the strident way. So it is a little bit softer, but not necess- It doesn't mean Belchishas in the whisper. One ma- one last thought of my own, which you can, uh, accept it or dismiss it. What is the pshat of this Omer Elohim? Is it a conversation between the chazan and the, and the Kohenim, or is the chazan talking on behalf of the tzibur? My feeling is that the Omer Elohim is not just a mitzvah on the chazan, it's a mitzvah on the entire tzibur. All of us. All of us, Yisrael, Omer Elohim. Happens to be, for technical reasons, that we-- our, our voices are synthesized through the voice of the chazan. But he is speaking on all of our, um,

09:12 Speaker 1 the behalf of the whole kehillah. And therefore, it makes sense that when he says, "Yevarechecha Omer Elohim", when he's prompting, he should say it in a way that the tzibur are also aware of what is being said on their behalf. Not, not watertight what I'm saying, but that's just a feeling about it. Okay, let's go on to the next point, and that is a shlucha from the Ukraine. It was, uh, Baruch Hashem, in a place where the danger, uh, level is quite low, Baruch Hashem. But I was asking questions that they do have. They are affected by the power cuts. And so she had two questions. One is, if there is a power cut on Shabbos and the cholent was on an electric plate, goes cold, and then the power is restored and the cholent warms up, is that cholent permitted? Which I said, "Yes." But then she asked a separate question. She says that the kitchen, which is a part of the Chabad House, provides meals for, I guess, for refu- for, for locals, for refugees. But they themselves, Hasidisha family, very frum family, they also take food from that same kitchen. So she wants to know like this. If in middle of the... Normally, the, the staff in the kitchen are non, are non-Jews. So how does one deal with the problem of Bishul Akum? So every morning, she would go into the kitchen at, say, seven o'clock in the morning, light the fires, and then it's that where the, at least Ashkenazim,

10:55 Speaker 1 follow that if a Yid lights the fire, whatever they're going to do for the rest of the day is called Bishul Yisroel. But what happens if at eight o'clock there's gonna be a power cut, and nine o'clock the night the power is restored, um, the cooking from nine onwards, is that gonna be called Bishul Yisroel? Or is it necessary that she should come in and, um, switch off and re-switch on the, the, uh, appliances? So this, what you have in front of you on the screen, is from Siman Kuf Yud Gimel in Yoreh Deah about Bishul Akum. And it has-- It starts off with saying, "If a goy cooked without intending to cook, then that's not called Bishul Akum." So here's the example. A goy set fire to the straw in the field. You know, the stubble. He wants to get rid of the stubble, so he sets fire. Meanwhile, in the stubble, there happens to be some locusts. And the locusts happen to be in that region, oila shel chavalach, they are a fancy dish. Or let's say a goy was, was, uh, singeing a head of an animal- Obviously a dead animal. In order to remove the hair. But meanwhile, the, as he's singeing the hair to remove the hair, meanwhile, he's roasted the ears, which are now edible. And they are, I guess, also she'ayruch hashuch an halachim. Is it, so there the halacha is that it's not called Bishul Akum because the goy did not intend to cook. Intended to do

12:33 Speaker 1 other things, and the cooking was just by the way, uh, unintended. So that's not called Bishul Akum. Aval im kiven lesheim Bishul. But if the goy does intend to cook, he's boiling the... He's heating the s- the oven in order to cook. But he didn't know that there's also a piece of meat which was there, and that meat was got, got, got, got roasted without the awareness of the goy. So since he's intending to cook, so then the fact that there's another cooking which he doesn't realize, that is called Bishul Akum, even though he didn't intend that piece. So here, um, the, the, uh, if you're looking for kulos for sure, you could say that the goy who restores the power in the power, uh, station does not mean to cook food. But I'm not totally confident, because I would say that the goy who restores power is so that the citizens of that region should be able to cook, and should be able to, uh, have showers and, and, uh, whatever. So it's, it's not... I'm not so confident that there is no kavana for cooking, as remote as it may seem. So they're asking if there's any room to, is there room to be machmir. I feel that there is room to be machmir. Um, especially that when you have Goyim working in the kitchen, it is always a good idea to what's called yoatz v'nichnas, to snoop around, uh, at random times. And therefore, um, yeah, I, I recommend it. I'm not

14:08 Speaker 1 saying it's, um, chiyuv, but I recommend it that she does go in to relight the appliances once power is restored. Once we're talking about, about Bishul Akum, so the same area. I had a shail. I don't even remember who it was. But it was about a, a nursery where they made challahs on Friday as a kind of Kabbalat Shabbos for the little children. And a non-Jewish staff member took the trays of challahs, turned on the oven, and put the trays into the oven. So now here's the question whether those challahs are permitted or not permitted. So in the Gemara, there is something about the shaping of the bread being also part of the process of making bread. However, LaHalacha, the fact that the sh- the bread, the loaves were shaped by the Yiddishe kinderlach, that does not help. And we're gonna read here from the Aruch HaShulchan in Siman Kuf Yud Beis. He says, "Vadaa," you should be aware, "that the lishov v'aricho who kneaded the dough, who shaped the bread, el av klumu, that doesn't make any difference. Im ofer haYisroel, if a Jew baked the bread, achshav Akum losho iso v'aricho, even though a goy had kneaded the dough and shaped it, then that bread is mutar because the Yid baked it. Ulehefech also, or the other way around, if a Yid had sh- had kneaded the dough and shaped the loaves, but a goy had baked it, then it's not allowed. So it's, it's fairly straightforward. Um, and he says that's the

15:52 Speaker 1 consensus of the Gedolei HaAcharonim. There may be some others who are more lenient about this, but that's, that's what he paskens, and generally the Aruch HaShulchan is not known to be a big machmir, and so he says it's oser, and so I'd have to go along with that. Now, the, the, I mean, they, they said it. They did throw away the, uh, loaves of the challahs and... Okay. So here we have a question. Someone who has been listening to the shiurim, someone in Canada. And he was, uh, he had a, a Jewish man who's married to a non-Jewish woman, and he's interested to put up a mezuzah. And the Jewish-- Sorry, the non-Jewish woman is also all for it, and actually she read up on chabad.org exactly, uh, how to put a mezuzah, et cetera, et cetera. And is asking, "How do we deal with this? Is it advisable to, uh, to give a, to give a goy to put up a mezuzah..." Sorry, to give a Yid to put a mezuzah in a case of a mixed marriage. Mixed, um, yeah. So here we have from Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah. This is in Seif Siman Reish Peh Vav, Bemziras Mezuzah, where we have that a, a house of shutfin, a house of, which is owned by partners, is chayav b'mezuzah. But then the RaMBaM adds, davka if the, the partners are Jewish. But where you have a home which is a partnership of Yidden and Goyim, of a Yisroel and a Goy, then that

17:29 Speaker 1 house is exempt from a mezuzah. For that matter, yards and whatever larger areas which are partly populated by Goyim, partly by Yidden, are exempt of a mezuzah. So here we have that a, a, uh, a mixed accommodation would be exempt of a mezuzah. Why is that? So, and then we have here, you can see the vav, and the text refers us to the Shaar beneath. He says, first of all, ki mesham, because partly it belongs to a Goy, and his part doesn't have, it's not chayav b'mezuzah. Therefore, it remains patur min hamezuzah. Then he says, "V'gam mishum sakana. U'kede sheyoimar hagoiya oiveh kechavim sheYisroel oiser ma'ase kishofim." There seems to be an element of concern that the Goy should not accuse us of casting spells on them, et cetera. So that seems to be more out of, uh, uh, out of concern of being extra cautious. All right. So, but I think there it's talking about where the Yid and the Goy are sharing accommodation, but not actually sharing mamash one room, uh, as living together. Especially if you say the concern is because of kishuf, et cetera. The Goy is distrusting. If they're married, um, whether in common law or, or whatever, they're living together, yes, there must be a degree of trust, and especially if she's asking for the mezuzah. So I didn't see that as a, as a, as an obstruction, as an impediment. But still, it is a, a partnership of a Yid and a Goy. Now, then the... this fellow

19:06 Speaker 1 from Canada is asking me, but they have-- actually, this, in this case, the property belongs to the non-Jewish woman. She's the owner of the property, and it's the Jewish man who's kind of, um, enjoying her hospitality. Does that make any difference? So the answer to that, I said to him, doesn't-- it does not make a difference because the chiyuv of mezuzah, as you have expression, mezuzah chayav as hador. It's in the Ocean of Gemara, that it's a duty on the one who lives there. And if you, let's say, ha- live in borrowed place, um, borrowed premises, that means you're not paying rent. There's no contract at all, but you're living there with authority, then you have to put up a mezuzah. So it doesn't matter whether it's you're, you own the property. It remains-- depends whether you're living there with license. And therefore, the fact that she owns the property, but he's living with her, so with permission, obviously. So then he, from his part, he does have a chiyuv mezuzah. On the other hand, it's a partnership. It's part of a mezuzah. Therefore, the advice given is to put up a mezuzah without a bracha. Um, there is a story in the Kutat HaBurim of Rebbe Yehudah Balshem, who was several generations before the Balshem Tif, and he has a Talmud who has a great uncle who was a big Lamdun, but unfortunately, um, you know, he had dropped observing Yiddishkeit. And he would sit on Shabbos. The way he describes, he would sit

20:44 Speaker 1 on Shabbos with his big dog next to him, bareheaded, smoking, and learning Gemara. So he li-- he enjoyed learning Gemara, but he was, uh, in practice, and he was living with a non-Jewish woman. And the Rebbe Yehudah Balshem advises his Talmud how to go about having a positive influence to bring his u- his great uncle back to Shemiras HaTorah veHaMitzvos. So in this whole, uh, narrative, there is this thing that he says about bringing a mezuzah. And the Rebbe Yeh-- the Rebbe Yehudah Balshem gave a mezuzah to the Talmud, and he says, "On the second day that you arrive there, after Shacharis, you should put up the mezuzah without a bracha at the main entrance." It's, it's a long story, which I'm not gonna go into, but the interesting thing is that he tells him to put up a mezuzah without a bracha. And m- my hunch is that that was because, uh, it was, uh, shared with a non-Jewish woman. Although possibly here it was the Jew who owned the property, but it was because it's a sha- it's shared with a non-Jew. So then it's a bayis hashutrim, which may be put a mezuzah, and therefore, mezuzah without a bracha. Right. Um, let's go on. Then since we're talking about mezuzah, so often get this question about sh-- this was actually asked about a beauty parlor, um, and one of these nail whatever things, and, and do they need to put up a mezuzah, uh, with a bracha, without a bracha. So here

22:19 Speaker 1 you have in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, where this is in Siman Yud Aleph. That's right after Ichud Tefillin. He put mezuzah before Shacharis. Interesting. Um, so he writes, "A house which is not used for living in a regular basis is exempt from mezuzah." Then he says, "The chanuyos, the shops which are made only for market days, just for the duration of the fair, and then they are dismantled, or they're just left, um, without use, they are exempt. But chanuyos hakevuos bescheira, but a regular shop which has wares stored there, chayavim bemizuzah, is obliged to have a mezuzah." That's what the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch writes. But the Misgeres HaShulchan comments on that, and he says, "Indeed, you're right. That's what the Piskei Teshuva writes in the name of Yad HaChazakah. But look up Chayyei Odom and Taz and Siddur HaChaim, and you'll see that, that they don't agree with this." And they say that a shop, even a shop which is used, um, on a, on a, on a steady basis, not just, uh, for fair, times of the fair, one should not make a bracha. So the poel, what we're seeing here is a place which is not actually lived in, although it's got, uh, scheira, et cetera. So put up a mezuzah without a bracha. Here, I've got here one letter of the Rebbe. There's a couple of letters in the Sefer Ha-Nissim B'sefer HaShlichus. In, um, volume alef in the new edition, there's a couple of letters of the Rebbe. This is one of

23:57 Speaker 1 them, uh, on this topic of, uh, uh, putting up a mezuzah in a shop, et cetera, or in a school. ""Vechein meha'nochin livdichem. Yish'al es haRav." The Rebbe's writing to this person. "Check up with the Rav. Ask the Rav the shailah whether your shop requires a mezuzah. If it does, then put a mezuzah k'sheira in a kosher way. If it does not require a mezuzah, then make sure at least that there are in the shop a siddur and tefillin." So what, what would be... I, I, I, I mean, I don't know what the, the Rebbe's alluding to with these two sides. Possibly, if the shop is used by yom uvallaila, that it's also often is there in late evenings and... So it's by yom uvallaila, so then there, there seems to be an inclination that it should have, have to have a mezuzah. But if it's only used during the day and not by night, then, um, well, at least without a bracha. Yeah. So, and it's interesting because the Rebbe says with chayav or not chayav, whereas I've been talking about with a bracha, without a bracha. So I'm not totally clear what are the two sides or what the Rebbe's alluding to in that letter. But what we do, do see is it's not a such a straightforward, uh, halacha. Okay. So now, during this past week, someone contacted me that they had eaten a meal, and then at the end of the meal, they reali- or halfway through the meal, they realized

25:22 Speaker 1 that the bread which they had been using, thinking it was Mezonos bread, and it's actually Hamotzi bread. So now, halfway through the meal, they've, they've made Mezonos, because they thought it's a Mezonos bread, and then it turns out it's, it's Hamotzi. Are you Yotzer with the Bracha Rishona? So there are three questions. Are you Yotzer? Do you have to repeat the Bracha on, on the food? Do you have to wash Netilat Yadayim? And then there's gonna be a Bro- question about Bracha Acharonah. So let's go one by one. So here we have, this is from the Alter Rebbe siddur, where he talks about if you said the wrong Bracha on a food. So we know the Mishnah, if one said borei pri ha'adama on an apple, so you are Yotzer B'dieved, because what you said is true. Although you could have been more specific. You could have said borei pri ha'eitz. But it's, what you said is true, which is also a pri ha'adama. So B'dieved, you're Yotzer. So some Poskim say the same thing. Lechem, what is lechem in the Ohr? Lechem is, is a, uh, prestigious food. It's, it's, well, it's our main, our main food, main sustenance. Mezonos means it's sustaining, but it's not as... It's mini Mezonos. It's also has a form of-- it's a form of sustenance. So the first opinion says, if you said on regular bread, you said borei minei mezonos, you are Yotzer. V'yesh Khalchim, others disagree because it's the wrong Bracha, and, "Ve'saferek brachas lehachol," says

26:50 Speaker 1 Moshe is bare. So you do not have to repeat the Bracha. So that's clearly the case. The bottom line, although you should have said Hamotzi and you said borei minei mezonos, you do not have to repeat the Bracha. But if you want to continue eating bread, then you should be washing Netilat Yadayim. The fact that you didn't wash Netilat Yadayim in the beginning has nothing to do with it. Now you realize that you didn't do Netilat Yadayim, you do Netilat Yadayim. If you, in the, this, um, um, for Netilat Yadayim, the rule, Halacha is, if you int- tend to eat less than the volume of an egg, which is approximately, let's say one slice of bread, so then you would wash Netilat Yadayim without a Bracha. So obviously, this now will depend on where in the meal this person is holding, whether they would say a Bracha on Netilat Yadayim. If they intend to eat another slice of bread, so then they would wash and say on Netilat Yadayim. If they only have-- want to have a smaller amount of bread, then they should wash, but not say the Bracha on Netilat Yadayim. So the third, uh, aspect of this question is what about, um, what about Bracha Acharonah? Namely, if the person realized the mistake only after they had said Al Hamichya, do they have to now repeat and say the full Bentching? So that I did not find clearly in the Alter Rebbe. In the-- This you can see, it's the Piskei Teshuva,

28:22 Speaker 1 siman kuf pei zayin. Now, it is-- it-- there is a Halacha in the Gemara, "Kol she'omar bris ve'Torah lo yotzer yorech ha'asai." There are two men-- the two, uh, items which are mentioned in the second Bracha in Oseh Darchei Chaim. "Al briso shechasamtu bifsarenu," the covenant which you have placed in our flesh, "ve'al Toraso shelimadtanu," and the Torah which you have taught us. And if you miss out those two items, you're not Yotzer your Bentching. And so on this basis, so he writes that there are some Poskim say, some Acharonim say, that if you said Al Hamichya instead of Bentching, you're not Yotzer, because Al Hamichya does not mention those concepts of Bris and Torah. Others disagree with that, um, position, and they say, if you Bentched the regular Bentching and you missed out those items, so then you're not Yotzer. But if you said Al Hamichya, then it's not im-- It doesn't matter that you did not say, um, Bris ve'Torah. So here we really have a dilemma, and you can't use here-- It's not so easy to use the concept of Sofek Brachos Lehakil because of the Sevara that, that, um, that Bentching is a DeRabitza. Although this detail is obviously Minyan Brachos is Derabbanan. But nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe has in a different context, in siman-- also in, yeah, Siman Beis, I think, that since Bentching, the first Bracha, was instituted by Moshe Rabbeinu, we treat it with a certain reverence, uh, almost as if it was Min HaTorah. So it's not

30:08 Speaker 1 so Poshit to dismiss and say, "Sofek Brachos Lehakil." And therefore, if you did have this dilemma, that you've eaten, uh, Mezonos-- Sorry, you've eaten Hamotzi bread in the, on the-- and, and you realize now it was, uh... And you Bentched already. You thought it was Mezonos bread, and it actually turns out it's Hamotzi. So then what do you do now? And you already said Al Hamichya. So the advice, if possible, if there's another person in the house who hasn't Bentched, or perhaps hasn't eaten, and they'll eat a kazait or more of Hamotzi, and they'll Bentch aloud, and you'll listen, and that way you'll be able to, um, solve your predicament. Otherwise, it doesn't, it doesn't give us a, an-another solution. Right. He said-- Well, what he does say, yes. If that solution isn't available, he says you should go through Birchat Hamazon in thought without uttering the words. Okay. Let's move on, and that is, what's our next question? Question, um, eight. Oh, okay. So some of you may remember we had this discussion a long time ago about lighting candles eighteen, uh, so twenty-three minutes before the Shkiyah. And I was in-- Whilst I was in Eretz Yisroel, I met Rabbi Levi Kahn, the Rebbe of Anash in Paris, and he added something which I was-- I, I, I found in my files that I'd spoken about this in Tov Shin Peh Alef in Parshas VaEschanan. And at the time, I'd said I don't have an explanation, and I'm pleased to be able to

31:55 Speaker 1 share with you a shtickel explanation. What you have on the top of this screen is a quote from Likutei Dinim, writ- put together by Rav Wolf Greenglass, Rosh Yeshiva of Montreal, and, uh, it was published by Kehos or Merkos. I'm not sure, but for practical, you know, it's the same thing. He talks about the Zman on the Luach, which is, you know... What he's concerned is that people in Montreal should not be relying on the Zmanim of a Luach in New York and so on, because, you know, uh, it's true for where it was published, but not true for other parts. And he says it's, it's us- you can find out when is sunset. You can look at the loc-local newspaper, and that's gonna tell you when is sunset at that, in that locality. And then, sindin achtsin minut freier, to light candles eighteen minutes before the time of sunset, which is in the newspaper. To that, there's a note with a two with an asterisk. Medakdikim sindin licht dreie un zwanzig minut far di shkiah. People who are more particular with Halakha will light candles twenty-three minutes before sunset. So that's one thing which I knew about. And it also, at the time then, going back in summer Tov Shin Peh Alef, uh, someone sent me a conversation of Reb Leibel Groner, alav hashalom, with the Rebbe. Now, there's a volume published called HaMazkir. It was published first in Hebrew, and it's now also available in English. So kindly, one of our, uh, audience

33:42 Speaker 1 sent me on Friday these two, um, pieces. I don't know which page it is. I once had the Sefer in Hebrew, and I gave it away to someone, and so I don't ha- I couldn't look it up, but I'm, I'm keen to know which page it is. So what it reads here, I'll read it out. Um, it was Parshas Vayigash, Tov Shin Lamed Alef. I'm curious what's the significance that I've got that, that Shabbos. And, um, I didn't look it up in, uh, my old calendar. And the Rebbe asked, "When is the time for lighting candles?" And Rabbi Leibel Groner said that it's four twenty-one PM. The Rebbe asked, "Is that twenty-five minutes before sunset?" Reb Leibel said that he understood that it was eighteen to twenty minutes before sunset. So the Rebbe was surprised, but the Minhag of Lubavitch is to light twenty-five minutes before sunset. So Leibel says to the Rebbe that, "Generally, Anash light eighteen minutes before sunset." So the Rebbe says, "In my mind, twenty-five minutes is poshet. I never thought otherwise." Leibel adds that his mother, who was a descendant of, um, well, uh, Menuchah Rochel, the daughter of the Al- of the Mitteler Rebbe. So his bubbe used to light Hanukkah twenty-five minutes before sunset. The Rebbe said, "I never asked my mother, but it's, uh, self-evident. It's poshet." And he says, "You can check with Reb Sholom Mendel Simson, who's no doubt expert in such matters," which I don't understand that comment, but, um, fine. But here you

35:20 Speaker 1 have a conversation of Rabbi Groner with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe again taking this, "Pshitas is twenty-three minutes, twenty-five minutes, but it's, it's more than eighteen minutes." So let's explain where does the eighteen minutes come from. And actually, if you look in the Union Luach and probably, uh, other London Luchos, it's gonna be fourteen minutes or fifteen minutes before Shkiyah. So we have a Gemara in Shabbos, and we have a Gemara in Pesachim. In Gemara Pesachim, it says that the transition from day to night takes the time it walks to walk dalet mil. So let's, let's call that seventy-two minutes. So there's the sunsets, and then seventy-two minutes later, that's when it's fully night. The Gemara in Shabbos says that the transition, the, of twilight is only the time, the time it takes to walk three-quarters of a mil. So we've got here a transition, a physical transition from light to dark, which takes seventy-two minutes. But then there's a transition which is from day to night in Halakha, which only takes three-quarters of a mil. Here is the famous Machloket of Rabbeinu Tam and the Geonim, where Rabbeinu Tam says that after sunset, that that's the Shkiya Rishona. And three mil and a quarter afterwards, that's the Shkiya Sheniya. And then there's the three-quarters of a mil, and then s- an, a full night. So he puts the th- He takes the wider, the four mil margin, which of seventy-two minutes. He says the last slot of that last, um, um, few, few minutes

37:10 Speaker 1 of that -expanse, that's called bein hashmashot. The Goanim, by contrast, they also do this, of saying you got a four-mil expanse, but only a small part of it is the twilight, lail omer. Well, they put that at the beginning of this window. This four-mil window, they say right after su-sunset, you've got, um, three-quarters of a mil, and then it's considered tzeis hakochavim. So, the Alter Rebbe, as we know, developed this concept to, uh, make it more-- to reconcile this with the fact, because the Goanim's cheshbon, uh, you can't see three stars. Thirteen and a half minutes after sunset, you can't see three stars, even in Eretz Yisrael. And so here, the Alter Rebbe introduces that, uh, with, um, shkiat mitah, shkiat nirtz, somehow he adds it and he, he reconciles the, the Goanim's opinion with the, with the, with the Matzias, and that's what we generally follow. Okay. Having said all that, there's a third opinion, and that is Reb Elazar of Metz. So as you know, Metz in the north part of Strasbourg, so you had in the times of the Tosfos, the late Tosfos, the Reb Elazar, and he says that... And he says, this is now what you see on the screen, is from the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Siman Res, Samech Alef, Seif He. He says from the beginning of Shkiah, really as soon as the sun sets, it's Lail or Gomor. And Bein Hashemashot is three-quarters of a mil before Shkiah. That's all we need to know for the moment.

38:50 Speaker 1 So again, we've got two opinions of Rab- Rab- Rabbi Natana and the Goanim, who put the Bein Hashemashot within the four-mil stretch. But then we've got Reb Elazar of Metz. The-- who wrote the Sefer Yere'im, who says that the, the three-quarters of a mil is before sunset. So now, since we have need to give a bit of a margin before Shabbos, to light candles before Shabbos, therefore, we... although the Halakha is not, Reb Elazar of Metz is not generally followed the Halakha, but that's the inspiration, so to speak, for giving a margin of three-quarters of a mil before sunset. Now, there are two main, uh, opinions. How long does it take to walk a mil? One is it takes two, um, takes 18 minutes to walk a mil, and therefore, three-quarter of that is 13 and a half minutes. There's another opinion which says that it takes 24 minutes to walk a mil. Three-quarters of 24 is 18. So the Velt follows the shorter period, and therefore, they also follow Reb Elazar of Metz. But they say we'll make Licht Zinden 14 minutes before sunset. That's the three-quarters of a mil according-- of, of Reb Elazar of Metz. In Chabad, we have been following the opinion. Although that's how the Alter Rebbe Paskens, the Ikre in, in Sinai, in, think of Nogez, in Chesh Peisach, uh, 24 minutes is a mil, so 18 minutes is three-quarters of a mil. So we light 18 minutes before sunset. So that's the well-known thing. And but here we

40:31 Speaker 1 have this business of the 23 minutes or 25 minutes. It's, uh... but this is more than that, and that was-- puzzled me all this time. And so Reb Levi Kahn gave to me, uh, gave-- told me, gave me a very good explanation. There's a din of Tosfos Shabbos, that you should add Michol Al HaKodesh. So according to Reb Elazar of Metz, 18 minutes before sunset, you're mechuyav to stop. Then you should voluntarily add another few minutes before. It's a din of Tosfos Shabbos. So how many minutes? So the Alter Rebbe talks about four minutes of Tosfos Shabbos. On this basis, so you go back from 18 minutes, you go back to 22 minutes. Okay, so 23. Well, that's where it's coming from. On Friday, some people asked me, or someone asked me, "When we talk about the 18 minutes before Shkiah, does that be-begin beginning of lighting, or does that mean by then you're finished lighting?" So the first thing we have here in, uh, the Shochan Aruch, Siman kuf lamed beis. So it talks about the Kaddish after Aleinu. And he says, the Ramah says, "Even if there's no yasom and sh'ol, it should be still said by someone who has no parents. And if someone does have parents, if the parents don't mind, they should say Kaddish." So it's clear that the Ramah is-- the Ramah is saying clearly that the Kaddish after Aleinu should be said even if there's no chiuv. And I'm actually very surprised because I go-- Sometimes when I,

43:47 Speaker 1 I miss the minyan for whatever reason in Bais Lubavitch, I go to other shtiebelach, and I haven't-- I've noticed that it seems to be not so, um, not a popular minhag. Myself, I-- Sometimes I'm a little bit slow as I'm not finished, so I don't say the Kaddish, but it seems to be somehow-- doesn't seem to be so popular, this, but it's a clear halacha in Shochan Aruch. There's a couple of points which I'd like to add to this. One is just interesting to know. Why is, um... You know, uh, we'll come to that later. Uh, the story here, there's this, this letter of the Rebbe in the back of the Tehillim. And the letter is sort of a design or something. It doesn't have the name in the Tehillim, but it was a letter written, I believe, to Reb Zalman Duchman. And I heard from my shver alav hashalom, the story was like this. Now, in seven seventy, as we know, there are minyanim after minyanim. And even back then, it was also-- there were lots of minyanim. And Reb Zalman Duchman was an elder, elder Hasid, and he would go from minyan to minyan and say the Kaddish. So it's nice to hear that there were all these minyanim, and there were no chiuvim or necessarily. But when people down in the minyan and then the people were saying, "Reb Zalman, there are no chiuv. Why are you, why are you delaying us?" You know. And so there was this question. And so

45:23 Speaker 1 Reb Zalman Duchman wrote to the Rebbe, "Is there-- Is it advisable to say all the Kaddish when there's no chiuv?" So what you have on this screen is just one out of several points which the Rebbe writes. It's a long letter. It's about three pages. And he quotes this piece of Shochan Aruch, that even there's no chiuv, no, no yasoms, the K-Kaddish should still be said. But then he goes into more detail about Al Pi Kabbalah. Now, Al Pi Kabbalah, the Kaddishim are said as like a pause from one olam to the next. So you've got till Hodu relates to Olam Ha'asiyah. Then Brachas Re博zim corresponds to Olam HaYitzirah. And therefore, you've got a Kaddish between Hodu and, and, uh, before Korbanos and Hodu. Then you've got Olam, um, then Birchas Kohanim is Olam HaBria. Therefore, there's a Kaddish after Yishtabach between Olam HaYitzirah and Olam HaBria. Shemoneh Esreh does not have a Kaddish. It's goes into Tachtilut. It's another discussion. But then you've got what's called Seder Hir'eh Zot or something that you have after Tachnun that you go into Uvetzion. That's corresponding to Olam HaBria. And then you got down, go to Yitial Yom, which is Olam HaYitzirah, and then Kaveh is Olam Ha, Ha-- related to Olam Ha'asiyah. I just want to point out that there's a parallel. Just like in Birchas Kohanim, which is Olam HaBria, we've got Kaddish, Kaddish, Kaddish, the Kedusha. So too in Uvetzion, we have Kaddish, Kaddish. So you've got here Kedusha on the way

47:08 Speaker 1 up and Kedusha on the way down. Going back to-- What is Yitial Yom? It's basically Tehillim. And what is that? That's Olam HaYitzirah. What's Brachas Re博zim? It's, again, same idea. So it's the same idea on, on the way up and the way down. And then we have what's Korbanot. Well, yeah, Korbanot is Korbanot. And what's in Kaveh is, again, the emphasis on Korbanot. It's the same concept on the way up and on the way down. So we've got here the Qaddishim to, um, to, um, to recognize, so to speak, the pause, the transition from one item to the other. So that's on the Kabbalah level, and which the Rebbe brings in this letter. What I want to share with you is an interesting point. What-- If that's the reason for the Qaddishim, and just to clarify, it's not that the tzibbur are, are indulging for the avelim to be able to say Kaddish again and again. That's not the pshat. It's not the pshat that the tzibbur are saying, "Oh, well, because he's a chiuv, we're gonna let him say Kaddish." The Qaddishim are for the tzibbur or, well, they're, they're part of tefillah. It's just that there are Qaddishim which are, uh, they, they, uh, they, they allow the avo to say that Kaddish, but it's not that it's-- that the Kaddish is because there's an avo, with the exception of the Kaddish after Mishnayot. Because the m-- the, the avo wants to have a certain quota of Qaddishim, so then the

48:34 Speaker 1 avo will say an extra, l-learn a Mishnah, and then they'll say Kaddish. So what I'm, I'm clarifying this, that even after Tehillim, there's no chiuv. Kaddish should be said after Tehillim. But for saying Mishnayot and an extra Kaddish, that is not necessary unless there is a, a chiuv, so he should be able to have his quota of Kaddish. Um, coming back, though, one, one last point about this. If the Qaddishim have got to do with Seder Hir'eh Zot, so why is the Kaddish after Yitial Yom, why is it called Kaddish Yasom? It's a Kaddish at a particular juncture in davening. Why is it called Kaddish Yasom? I know it's also got its, its, its, its ramifications because we have, we have here just so in the Ramah that normally a Kaddish Yasom is only said by someone who has no parents. But if it's just got to do with Seder Hir'eh Zot, I'm gonna come back to that in a second. There's a letter of the Rebbe-- oh, sorry, the Friediker Rebbe in Taf Shin Tes, in the Maase-- printed in Maase Taf Shin Tes about promoting the Kaddish before Hodu. And the Rebbe mentions in this letter, he mentions about that. There was a certain neglect in s- in some places, and the Friediker Rebbe encourages to make sure that the Kaddish before Hodu is said and that, as far as I can see, in Chabad at least, is said whether the person does have parents or not. We're not worried about that. So

49:59 Speaker 1 now back to the question. Why after Yitial Yom, why is that called a Kaddish Yasom? So let's go back to-- Let's go back two hundred and fifty years, three hundred years, approximately, and, um, most of us were Ashkenazim. We davened Ashkenaz. Then comes the Mesarit Shemagid, and he encourages your Hasidim to start davening Nusach Sfarad. So in Nusach Ashkenaz, davening finishes, "Aleinu, amar, asher bade-atzien aleinu." If time allows or if there's a need, if there's a yosem, the next-- and yosem wants to say Kaddish, so in the old Ashkenaz minyges, there's no multiple, uh, Kaddish zogers at the same time. So one said Kaddish after Aleinu. Oh, there's another person wants to say Kaddish. Okay, we'll say the Shir shel Yom, and then there'll be a Kaddish after Shir shel Yom. That's the historic, uh, Ashkenaz minig. So Shir shel Yom comes after Aleinu as an optional extra. So Shir shel Yom was to accommodate the avelim who wanted to say Kaddish. Okay. So now, when Hasidim now switched over and started davening the Nusach Sfarad, and Nusach Sfarad, Shir shel Yom is after v'al atzmu before Aleinu, and they also got Keteres, which again, in Nusach Ashkenaz, Keteres is only said on Shabbos, not in the weekday. So things were changed. But the perception that the Kaddish after Shir shel Yom was a Kaddish yosem, that perception remained. And since we're talking about being makpid, uh, so therefore, it remained the, the, uh, titles called the Kaddish yosem remained, and with the, uh, the--

51:37 Speaker 1 with the ramification that if the person doesn't-- does have parents, that Kaddish, he doesn't say that Kaddish because that's, I, I believe, is a residue, so to speak, from having davened Nusach Ashkenaz, and there it's clearly a Kaddish yosem. Therefore... And indeed, by the Sfaradim, they don't call the Kaddish after, um, Shir shel Yom. They ha- they obviously davened Nusach Sfarad, but this Kaddish after Shir shel Yom is not called Kaddish yosem. It's called the Yahadu SheHecheloma because it's, it's nothing to do with in, in, in concept. It's, it's just because of the, how you say, transition of one Olam to the next. Right. That's our second last point. And the last point which I want to share with you... Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This just-- Someone sent me this. Just I had to share this with you. That someone sent me, uh, talking about barcodes, the Talus barcode. So his son had made this cartoon some years ago. So I did not inspire this cartoon, but I still think it's funny, and I thought I'd share it with you. Um, okay. So what I wanted to share with you is the last thing that someone, just to make up the minion of number of shailas for today. So someone asked me today, "Why in Shemoneh Esreh do we say mechayellanu and elsewhere it's mechayellanu or mechayellanu? So why is it mechayellanu?"

52:58 Speaker 2 Pull back the cartoon at the end.

53:01 Speaker 1 Okay. So I told him it's, it's, it's Al Pi Kabbalah. And, you know, I, I hate it when people say Al Pi Kabbalah and just, you know, uh... I like-- If it's Al Pi Kabbalah, it has to be, you know, documented. So here you go. Mechayellanu is Gematria a hundred and seventy. Look at that. You got a Nun, it's fifty. Two Lameds and Mem. So two Lameds is sixty and a Mem is, is, is, is forty. So there you are, a hundred and fifty. Ches is eight, so that's a hundred and fifty-eight. Two Vavs is twelve. Hundred and fifty and, and twelve is a hundred and seventy. That is-- A hundred and seventy is the Gematria of Shem, Hashem's name, Eheiye, in spelt out. Alef, Lamed, Peh is a hundred and eleven. And the Hei is fifteen, Yud is twenty, Hei is again fifteen. So fifteen and twenty and fifteen is, is, is fifty. So fifty and a hundred and eleven brings us to hundred and sixty-one. Then with the ten letters, because Alef, Lamed, Peh and Hei and Yud, and Yud, Yud, Vav, Dalet and Hei, Yud, there are all of ten letters. So that brings us to, of course, it's one out. It's, it's a hundred and seventy-one. But all right, that you have in mechayellanu, but that's the, that's the background. In Shemoneh Esreh, do we have the mechayellanu, and that gets spelt there. Although it could have been, it could have been-- The pronoun- pronunciation would have allowed to say mechayellanu

54:33 Speaker 1 in a, in a softer way, but that Vav is added there in order to conform to the Gematria. Uh, now, of course, you can ask why davka here is it necessary to have a remez to Shem Eheiye. And my answer to you is, I don't know. Um, homework, fine. But meanwhile, I'm gonna leave that with you. And, um, I was asked to, to re-re-re-show the, uh, the barcode story and, um, yeah. All right. I wish you a gutovoch. And, um, next week, I will be, Be'ezrat Hashem, at the Kinus Hashluchim. And therefore, I hope to record the Shir in advance before Shabbos, so that you should be able to enjoy your Melaveh Malka with your regular entertainment of the Shir. And so I wish you all a gutovoch, and we should meet in good health. Kol tuv.