חיי שרה תשפ״ג

00:00 Good morning. It's Erev Shabbos. I'm here in New York for the COVID, uh, Kinus Hashlachim HaOlam. And, uh, some of you by the time you hear it, it'll be Motzei Shabbos. But meanwhile, wishing you all a good Shabbos. I'd like to dedicate this, uh, Shir, the Zechus Esther Golda, Bas Chaya Basia. She'll have a, uh, refuah shleima, and everything should go in a good way, in a healthy way. And, uh, kol Yisrael. So let's go through. I will have a bit less than usual. A busy week with the traveling, et cetera. Let's go through the first question on our list, and that is, having poured hot water from a power of kettle into a steaming pot of chicken soup, does the kettle become meaty? Now, this is something which l'chatchilah should be avoided. And what you have in front of you on the screen is from a safer, contemporary safer called HaKashrus, written by someone called Rabbi Yaakov Fuchs, and he recommends to avoid it. There is a discussion in Shulchan Aruch in Yoreh De'ah Siman kuf ches about reicho, about foods being together in the same oven and sharing same smell and s-- and the, uh, perhaps even a bit of vapor. Generally, the, the bedieved, the, uh, view is that reicho lav milso, having shared the same smell, does not contaminate the other foods. But meanwhile, l'chatchilah, there is this concept called nitzek. You may know the word yotzak, which means poured, and nitzek means the stream being poured from one to the

02:12 other. Now, we understand that the stream is going downstream. Is there also an interaction going upstream? That's the question of nitzek chibur. Does the, the, the lower bowl, the contents of the lower bowl, do they have an effect to contaminate the upper container and its contents? So indeed, in the context of yayin nesech, of non-kosher wine. So it is-- this is indeed the halacha, that to pour kosher wine into a bowl of non-kosher wine, so then the non-kosher wine will have a, an effect on the pouring, on the wine being poured and the, the wine in the bottle which is being poured from because of this concept of nitzek chibur. Just compare it to perhaps to electricity, where we do know that the current can travel upstream as well as downstream. Doesn't mean that halacha works in the same rules as, as electricity, but in the context of, of yayin nesech, a non-kosher wine, that is indeed the case, that one should be careful not to pour from... Let's say you have a goy who is sitting near you, and you're sharing wine, and for some reason, it's not yayin m'burcho, and you already poured wine into his glass, and now, and now you want to top it up. Well, the wine in hi-- in the g-glass of the goy is asur, and now to top it up directly from your bottle does present a problem. It could be done in spurts rather than pouring a direct stream just to have what's called kiluach haniftzach,

04:16 that interrupted pour. I'm not gonna go too much into that, uh, uh, area. That wasn't our question for the moment. But there, there we do see the concept of nitzek chibur, that the stream is considered a connection between the upper and the lower. Also, in hilchos Pesach, we do see this idea of the downstream causing an effect. So therefore, let's say on Erev Pesach, which would be on Shabbos, so to pour from a Pesachdika pot of soup into chametsdika containers, chametsdika dishes, also raises this problem of nitzek chibur. Does the chametz status of the dishes, does that have any effect, effect on the pot of soup? So in the context of chametz and in the context of, of yayin nesech, indeed, the, the, uh, inter-- the, the, this, this nitzek going upstream is indeed regarded as a, an ishura halacha. By contrast, in the case of other isurim, so then nitzek is generally not considered a problem, and therefore, the pouring of the, from the pot of kettle into the hot chicken soup does not make the kettle fleishig. L'chatchilah, we avoid this. So l'chatchilah, we avoid pouring from a kettle into a cup of milk. Or, or etcetera, because we want to keep our kettles pareve. But if it was done, you don't need to kasher anything. So it's a lechatchila, not a bedi'eved. Let's move on to the next question, and that is, Shliaf asked me that he has non-- he has plastic containers, like fridge containers, which are-- which were used by

06:29 Goyim or for non-kosher food. He now wishes to use them for kosher food. The foods which we're talking about include liquid, both in the past and the present desired use. And the question is: Does the cold liquid or the previous use with treif, does that make the dishes, the containers treif? And therefore, does he need to... Would he need to kasher? So really, I, I advised him... Uh, let, let's, let's understand this for, for, for, for starters. A f-- let's say a fridge container. We put, uh, soup in the fridge or other foods. It's-- although it's generally stored in cold, but it is normal to pour hot food into those containers, leave them to cool off for some time, and then to put them in the fridge. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't be so confident to say that these containers were not used with hot food. On the other side of it, it's not so pr-- so difficult to kasher. You can kasher plastic dishes. If necessary, you can kasher them in boiling water in the same way as you'd kasher metal d-dishes. So if you need to use them, so kasher them without a... But meanwhile, let's analyze the question and try to give an answer. Where, where is this question coming from? We all know that when something is cold, it does not-- food which is cold does not make the kli asur. But here, because the food, the non-kosher food, had been left in the storage containers for more than twenty-four hours.

08:24 So here we come into the concept of kovush k'mevushal. Something which has been soaked for a prolonged period is equivalent to cooking. So what you have on the screen, which we're gonna, let's say, read carefully, is in the beginning of Siman Kuf Hey in Yoreh De'ah, where the Taz has a discussion where the klim will become forbidden through the steeping, the soaking in them for a prolonged period of non-kosher foods. And what you have on the screen is from the Aruch HaShulchan over there in Seif Yud Gimmel. So I'm gonna read the Aruch HaShulchan straight into English, and he says the following. Just like we know that soaking of foods, even as they are cold, they will-- there will be, uh, interaction. It will be, uh, become, uh... Let's say if you soaked a piece of meat in a bowl of milk. So then, even though they weren't cooked together, but the understanding is that the, the meat will absorb the milk as if it had been cooked. So if it was just for a minute, you can wash it off. But if the m-meat had been sitting in the milk for twenty-four hours, washing off is not gonna be good enough. You're going to have to, you, you, you... Because we assume that there's been an absorption of milk into the meat, similar to the way it would have been through cooking. So he reads further. Just like there is the concept of kovush k'mevushal with foods, so too with a utensil, with a

10:22 kli. That if you had taken non-kosher foods with liquid and left them in a kli, in a u-- in a, in a container for more than twenty-four hours, then that dish will become also-- it's contaminated by the non-kosher food. Then what about the other way? You have a non-kosher dish, and you left kosher food in it for twenty-four hours. So I have a treif kli, and I left in that kli, I put in food, not cold kosher food, for twenty-four hours. So then the kli should make the food asur. Now, similarly, he says, if you've left milk for twenty-four hours in a meaty container, so then that milk would become asur, even though it was all cold. Others disagree with this. That when you put kosher food in non-kosher containers, the issue is, uh, it has to be, to be considered soaked as if it were, um, cooked. It's only when it's past twenty-four hours. But by the time twenty-four hours have elapsed, so then the kli itself, which is-- ha-has an element of issur, but that element of issur is more than twenty-four hours. And we know that if a kli is ain-- not a ben yo-ben, uh, ben yomo, if it's ha-- if it's non-kosher Um, absorption is more than twenty-four hours, so then it does not cause a issue. So very, very often people ask a shailah. I made, um, I, I, I, uh, cooked, uh, let's say, uh, uh, what do they call this? Uh, ro-not rugelach. Um, borekas. I warmed

12:34 up some borekas in a fleishig pan, and then I realized that they are cheese borekas. So what's the answer? If the pan had been clean and it hadn't been used for fleishig for twenty-four hours, so those borekas are kosher. Your pan is, is in trouble because now it's got fleishig and milchig in it. And lechatchila, you can't use, should we say, out-of-date fleishig and milchig together. But the, the actual borekas, they're kosher because the m-- the fleishig taste in them is more than twenty-four hours, by which time it would've, would've lost its flavor. So th-this is where some of our poskim are saying it's true that by leaving non-kosher food in a dish, it makes it from twenty-four hours or make a dish also, but by putting, taking a non-kosher dish and putting kosher food in it, when twenty-four hours have elapsed, where you say, "Oh, well, that's koveish k'mivusho." Well, meanwhile, at the same time, the, the, the, uh, the dish has become twenty-four hours since it was used for non-kosher or for milchig, fleishig, whichever, whichever it was, and therefore it should not be a problem. Others disagree with this wise, um, solution, and they say, "No, it, because it doesn't..." Right? They say that it's kind of synchronized however they work it out, that it may actually cause an, uh, uh, it to be a problem. So there we remain that koveish k'mivusho. Does a non-kosher contain contaminate kosher food by having to be-- Because the kosher food was more than twenty-four

14:30 hours in the non-kosher container, it's not so straightforward. Um, somebody ever, certainly there's going to be room to be lenient. Uh, but as I've said, uh, that it's plastic containers can be kashered besides the fact that they're not so expensive to buy dedicated ones. But whatever the situation may be, kashering them is not such a big deal. They, you, you prepare a large pot of boiling water, and whilst the water is bubbling, you're gonna lower one by one each of those containers into the hot water and, uh, then wash them off with cold water, and they're kosher. Let's go on to our next question, and that is about candles at a chuppah. Okay. So there is... The candles at a chuppah is clearly on the level of minhag. And as minhogim go, there may be variations from place to place, subject to the conditions. And, uh, I was at a wedding on Monday here in New York, and the, uh, the layout, the way things are, um, operate over here is that the people want to have the chuppah in front of seven seventy, but there's no hall, which is a use-- a suitable hall r-right, right nearby. It's across the street or some use a further hall. So what's gonna be done is they ca-- have Kabbalas Panim. The reception for the chassan is held in the hall, and in an adjacent r-room, there will be what's the, uh, the, the Kabbalas Panim where the bedeken will take place. And at the end of

16:23 the Kabbalas Panim, when the chassan has, when, uh, said the, when the redded sh'nei luach and the broken the plate, and then the chassan has recited the maimer. Then the chassan is led by the unterfirers, by the mechutanim usually, and goes over to the kallah and puts the cloth over her face and over her head, and then pros-- the chassan proceeds to the chuppah. Now, in this particular chassan which I was involved with, so the father of the kallah took candles from the Kabbalas Panim and gave candles to each of the unterfirers or the men, men folk, and they were-- they proceeded to the kallah, each one holding a candle. The local people here in New York are, were quite surprised. "And what's this? You go to bedeken with candles?" And, uh, apparently, that's not the done thing here. They only will, um, um, put, uh, candles in operation once they've come across the street to seven seventy. As the chassan's going to be led to the chuppah, that's when they'll give candles, I guess, s-similar with the ladies, with the kallah. So I just want to explore this minhag of, um, of candles by a chuppah. And as I say, v-v-very, n-n-no, uh, m-minhag can vary from, from place to place. That's, that's legitimate. But let's look at this minhag. Now, what we have in front of us is the Sefer Mateh Moshe. Who is a Talmud of the Marshall, so probably in the region of four hundred and fifty years ago, four hundred

18:21 years ago. And he lists Minchokim, and he says, "Viesh Mekomes." I was talking about at the Chuppah. "Viesh Mekomes" that "Shkol Ach Shayochim Bo Noisim Neyris Harbi Lefana." There are places that there's many people who all the affiliated people will carry candles, which may also be supportive of the Minhag Chabad, uh, practically. It's not, not on record, but that's the reality, how the Nachotonim also grandparents will also join the procession going, uh, around the, the Chosson under the Chuppah. I've seen that even by very prominent Rav Chabad, a member of Moshe Landau, alav ha-shalom, at a Chassid of his grand, uh, daughter. And he was very struggling with walking and with tremendous effort. He insisted on going around the Chuppah. And, uh, later, he was-- he, he commented he had this opportunity to be, to, to reconnect with his father, alav ha-shalom, because as we know, under the Chuppah, the previous generations come. And so, but I just, um, you know, personally respect very, very much. And, uh, he, he took this very seriously of going around the Chuppah, uh, even though it was an Einikel, not, not his, uh, child. He wasn't the, a direct Ontifer. So all right. So then you have sometimes, and Baruch Hashem, you've got great-grandparents and, uh, lots of candles. Fine. So we have really Matty Moshe, Kol asher yochim bo, nosim neris halev. Then he says, Yesh makomos, it's only the shnesh shvinim. And I think he's talking only about the male Ontifers, that each one has got

20:17 one candle, so we've got two candles. And he suggests the following reason. In the Gemara, sorry, in the Mishnah, in Ahalus, it lists the number of organs in the human body and how a man has got two hundred and forty-eight limbs in his body. In this context, the definition of a limb means bone, meat, and s- you know, flesh, and, and sinews. So the Mishnah there says on, in the hand, there are thirty evarim. So the hand has got... In the fingers alone, you've got fourteen joints, and that's the mistah of the word yad. But including the bones within the palm, et cetera, there's a number of thirty, and well, same thing in the feet, thirty m-m- and, and so on. So in total, the Mishnah lists two hundred and forty-eight. Uh, this is also interesting that kidneys and heart and lungs and, uh, et cetera, those, t- your tongue, they're not counted in the two hundred and forty-eight organs because they don't have bones. So that's very interesting when you make a Mishaberach, you say, "Laromacheh evaro." And, um, unfortunately, many, many times the, uh, problem which the person is suffering from is not in the Ramacheh evarim, it's the, what is called Evarim Hapnimim. It's the inner organs, vital organs, et cetera. But that's the, uh, another, another discussion. Meanwhile, so a male has... In a male body, there's two hundred and forty-eight limbs. A woman, the m- the body of a woman is slightly different. And as a result, there's two opinions,

22:15 it's two hundred and fifty-one or two hundred and fifty-two. But be that as it may, the combination of two hundred and fifty-two and two hundred and forty-eight equals five hundred. The word ner is two hundred and fifty. Two, two candles is five hundred. So this is the remez of having two candles under the chuppah, leading to the chuppah, and that is corresponding to the male and the female, which this Gematria, by the way, is also brought in Shulchan Aruch in Resh Samach Gimel, somewhere around there, about the meaning of lighting Shabbos candles. That a married woman will light a minimum of two candles, and that is, one reason i- for that is given of Zocher v'Shomer. That's in the story in Gemara Shabbos, uh, with the man running Erev Shabbos with two twigs of hadas, and he said, and the o-- and he was asked by Reish Shima b'Yochai, "Why do you need two?" He said, "What do you mean? One for Zocher, one for Shomer." Then the, uh, the other reason give-- brought in, in Shulchan Aruch is male or female together, you got the, the, uh, Gematria five hundred, and two nerets is five hundred. And then he brings another nice thing, that here that the two hundred for that Pru ur'vu also equals to the number five hundred. And the Chassan is obviously with giving the bracha that they should have children and be multi, uh, uh, multiply. So that's the, that's the background for the minhag of having two candles. Now,

23:54 does it do any harm to have more than two candles? So you can look in Al Tarabish Shulchan Aruch in Resh Samach Gimel, and he says, it quotes the Rosh, that although you have something which has been established because of a particular number or relating to it, has a remez to a particular number, it doesn't do harm to add to that. The proof to that is, the Gemara Megillah talks about why we have, um, five aliyas on Yom Teru and six aliyas on, on Yom Kippur and seven aliyas on, on Shabbos. Uh, but then it's permitted to add to the number of aliyas. Chabad don't do it, but there is in Halakha, certainly, you can do Heshachev. So it's the, and that, the fact that you add to the number of items, even though there was a specific number, uh, doesn't detract from the remez value of the, the, uh, minimum, uh, number of, of that minhag. Okay. So this is a bit of background about the general custom of, of, uh, carrying candles to the chuppah. Now, coming back to the question, should the candles be used at the badechin? So elsewhere, we certainly in Chutz La'aretz, in, you know, other, wh- what I've seen, we, we do, uh, to go to badechin. And just to clarify a point here. The, but the, the, uh, the Poskim, there's a word chuppah. And chuppah is an a, should we say, an instrument, a vehicle to transform the relationship between choson kallah from what's called erusin,

25:32 betrothal, to nissuin, to become fully married. That's got bearings l'halacha. That's also the question of whether she has to wear her, her hair covered from what point. So chuppah, there's a word you have kiddushin would be the betrothal, and nissuin would be consummation of the marriage on a, in a legal sense. Under the chuppah, we have two sections. We have the first part, which is the kiddushin. The rabbi says the beracha, and that's done because sometimes the choson struggles with the Hebrew, so the rabbi says a beracha. So to be mesader kiddushin, at least you have to know how to read Hebrew, uh, without making mistakes. Then the choson says, "Harey at," and puts the ring. Then the ketubah is read, and then is the next set of berachahs, seven berachahs, and those are formalizing the nissuin. That is really because there's a chuppah. But what exactly is this chuppah? So there are actually four or five different, uh, understandings in Poskim, what exactly the chuppah is. Some say it's the canopy, some say it's the yichud room, some say it's, um... Well, one of the opinions is that when the choson covers the kallah with a cloth. There's, um, if you remember, the Poskim in Rus, "For, for astok nafecho al amosecho." So there is an opinion that the badeken is actually the, uh, instrument, vehicle, which makes the chuppah be chuppah. Although they say there is afterwards, the kiddushin is done and, and that it doesn't matter. There has to be at some

27:10 stage this inyun of chuppah. So, um, that's by the way, if you noticed, I mentioned before that the choson covers the face and the head of the kallah. And the reason why I'm emphasizing this is because it's not the, badeken is not just that she, her face should be covered under the chuppah, which there are reasons for that. But the badeken is also by, by basically a statement that till now, as a unmarried girl, you've been wearing your own hair, um, exposing your own hair. Now that you're married, so your hair will be covered because you'll be married. And so this is, the badeken is a statement of now we're, we're getting married, and we're gonna be, it's gonna be a new relationship here. Which is, parenthetically, the reason why at a second marriage, if the woman has been married before, there is no need and that the, the choson should cover the kallah. And there's actually no need for the kallah to have her face covered. Although it's usually by second weddings, the kallahs do cover their face, but that's more for their own choice, uh, perhaps feeling of privacy, uh, et cetera. So to summarize this point, since the badeken is already the first instrument of the chuppah, it makes sense that the, the whole, the, should we say, the seriousness and the, and therefore the, the accompanying with the candles, this is actually going to the chuppah. Okay, so I, I that's how I feel it's time. We go into high gear

28:58 when we go to the badeken, and, uh, so we go with the candles and, um, that's when the fathers will give a beracha to the kallah. The fact that in, in New York it's impractical, okay, that's, that's, that's, uh, it's a question on its own. But there is certainly, uh, a value for the minhag of going to the badeken with the, with the, with the candles. It's ready. Gearing up to this very special moment of, uh, the badeken, which is the beginning of the chuppah. A separate question is until what point should the candles be left alight? We all understand that to stand there holding a candle for twenty minutes may not always be so comfortable. Um, the late Rabbi Tzvi Hirschenstein, alav ha-shalom, would, we insist, would insist that the candles are left alight all the way till the end of the chuppah. I remember he showed me some source for this. Whilst I'm traveling, et cetera, I haven't located that source, but I seem to only remember there was, there was basis for this. And I know in some places that as soon as you finish your seven circuits, then they, someone takes away the candles. Could be, listen, if there are some people who are frail, elders, uh, you know, great-grandparents, they can't handle it, but it is nicer that the candles should remain, uh, should remain there in, in, uh, alight throughout the chuppah. In addition to sometimes the chuppahs are in the eve-evening, and there's not necessarily so much light,

30:49 so they do add to the atmosphere of the chuppah. So there is, there is value in leaving them on alight until the end of the chuppah, just once we finish the seventh beracha. And the chassan was giving up with, you know, take the gla-glass and we start wrapping it up, uh, for the chassan to break. And that's certainly a point where the candles should be taken away from the mechutanim, from the interferers, et cetera, because right after that, there's going to be a whole crush and, you know, the mazel tovs, et cetera. So you don't need the candles in the way at that point. Let's move on to our next question. Someone writes to me, he was present at a shiva house, and as is common in some parts of the world, that you have two rooms in the house, two reception rooms, one used as a lounge and the other used as a dining area, and there's doors connecting the two. So you got a larger area and someone's at the... This, um, fillah was saying, "No, no, they have to have all the men or ten men have to be in the same room, where, where the chassan and nine men, and the chassan should be in the same room." That is two separate rooms. It presents a problem. So he asked for clarification. So let's read. This is from Siman Nun Hey in Ohr HaChaim. Now, uh, the structure of Ohr HaChaim is, talks about getting up in the morning, then talks

32:21 about tzitzit, then talks about tefillin, kerias shachar, and then leading up to Yushtabach. That's when you'll need to have a minyan for Kaddish at Yushtabach. Talking about Min HaDin, where, of course, we know the Mefriadi KeRabbah encouraged, uh, them to upkeep the minag of saying Kaddish before Hiddur. Mentioned that last week. But Min HaDin, the first Kaddish comes in by Yushtabach. So that's where in Siman Nun Hey, talking about the need of a minyan and that what, what constitutes that the minyan have been duly formed. So, Siftes Vav. "Tzorich sheyu kol ha'asara bemakom echad ush'niach tziburi im heim." The ten p-men of the minyan need to be in one space together with the chassan. "Av al im miktsatsam b'cheider zeh o miktsatsam b'cheider zeh." If some of the minyan are in one room and some of them are in the other room, "einam mitztarfim," they will not combine to constitute a minyan. "Afp el pi shehapesech passuch beinehem," even though there is a doorway between the two rooms. "Afilu harov ad omedim bebeit hakneses vehamiut ba'azarah shel lifnei beit hakneses." Even let's say you got six or seven in the shul, and you've got another three in the forecourt of the shul, "einam nigarim achar harav." Tha- tho-those three people will not be drawn to as if to make up the minyan. So here we have the idea that s- a space kind of defines the, its contents to be a unit, and therefore, when there's two spaces, two rooms, they, they, they are in

34:13 separate spaces, so therefore, they're separate units. I want to just point out here for a moment that if the doorway had been more than ten amos wide, then this would not be an issue. Because you have in Hilchot Shabbos, if you have a doorway, a gap, which is more than ten amos wide, that is considered, uh, "paratz bimluo, ei lerchu sarabim." It's no longer considered a doorway. It's considered totally exposed. So we can use the same concept here. Sometimes you have shtiebelach, which, but, uh, there, there is a, a, uh, it w- it's a, a house which has been refurbished, and they t-took, made a through lounge into one large room. So if that gap is more than ten amos, which is about five meters or fifteen feet, then you wouldn't have to worry about it. It's all considered like one large room. But in the more typical, um, domestic situation, this does become an issue of the two separate rooms being separate units. I've skipped some of the, kind of the hemseh of Sifte Vav. But let's go to now to Sifte Zayin. "Vamed vorim amurim shehaomdim bachutz einom nirim lahaomdim bifnim." This, which we say, that the outsiders do not make up the minyan on the inside. It's only if they are not visible to the insiders. It-- Let's say it's a sha-- an L-shaped area or something like that, where they're not necessarily visible. "Av al mi shemareh panav lehaomdim bebeit hakneses," but if the outsider is showing his face to the

36:03 insiders, "afilu hu omed acho bebeit hakneses umareh lahem panim dech chalon shebineyhem," even if he's at the back of the shul and is just peeping through a window, "afilu gavo kamah koimos," even if this is several floors up, "afilu eini rochav daalot," and even if that window is less than four tefachim wide, "mitztarifim al heim." Uh, those who've been keeping up with this shiur from the, from COVID times, from the beginning of COVID times, this became quite an issue, was relevant of combining people for a minyan from balconies, et cetera. So back to the current question, do people in the lounge combine to the people in the dining room? So if they are mareh panim, if they're looking in that direction, then they are mitztarif. If they're looking the other way, they're not mitztarif. So yeah, that's, that's more or less the answer. And then, then the details are, what does it mean? Does it have to look, face, et cetera? How exactly the details are, I don't know, and that's another discussion. But, um, so there is a solution if they are looking towards where the chazan is, so then they would also be mitstarf. But it is more straightforward that there should be ten people in the one room. Let's move on. Here, same person asking that in some circles, before the baal habayis makes hamotzi at the Shabbos table, so he says birshus. And he's asking why he has not seen this in Chabad. And apparently, this concept of birshus, saying birshus

37:52 is written in Shulchan Aruch. Okay. So here we have in Siman Kuf, S'amuch Zayin, the upper quote is from the Shulchan Aruch, um, which has the Mishnah Berurah at the bottom, but this is in the Shulchan Aruch itself, in Sif ю Dalet. And talking about breaking bread, betzias hapaz. And talking about who should be given the honor, Kohen, Talmid Chacham, et cetera. Baal habayis. Then it says towards the end of Sif ю Dalet, "If amongst the various diners, there is the baal habayis, the host, then the baal habayis, he should be the one to break bread. Even if one of the guests is more prominent than the baal habayis, an honorable per-personality, but because he is the host, so he should be making the hamotzi." Then he says, "V'hamvorech yomar b'tchila b'rishus morei v'rabosai." Before saying hamotzi and breaking bread, he should say, "With permission of my teachers, my masters." So here we have this idea of before making hamotzi, saying birshus. The Alter Rebbe in the same location in Siman Kuf, S'amuch Zayin. Just a moment, we'll see, see if it is. Um, no. Uh, yeah, Sif ю Tes. So Alter Rebbe brings this inyan, and he says the following: "Omidas anavo hi she'afshaha b'ritzehu hu hagadol," even when the one breaking bread is indeed the senior of that group of people. Nevertheless, "notel rishus mikol bnei hahaburah," he requests permission from the rest of the group. "Ve'im b'tchila, b'tchila," he starts off with saying, "b'rishus morei v'rabosai," I'm doing so with the permission

39:59 of my masters. "Ki'ilu heim gdolim mimenu," as if to say, "Well, you are really amazing. You are more prominent than myself. Well, "ahem noaleh vorech," and really, you should be making the beracha, the opening beracha, but you kindly allowed me to take the lead. So we have here this idea of before making hamotzi on behalf of a group, then to open with the word rishus, birshus. In the notes in the current edition of the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, the editor writes the following: "Uleinyan birchas hamotzi raey lial," Sif ю Ches, "s'nog u'shekol echad mevorach le'atzmo." Nowadays, at least in Chabad, it's common that when a baal habayis will make hamotzi, the other men present, when even if they get just a piece of the lechem mishneh, they will say their own beracha hamotzi. There's a well-known letter of the Rebbe about this, as someone asks the Rebbe that we've seen this cu-custom in Anash, that they-- people take their own piece, and how are they fulfilling the idea of lechem mishneh if they are not making a beracha over two loaves? And the Rebbe quotes the Beth Yosef. We've discussed this once in one of the shiurim. And that the point is that lechem mishneh, so long as the setting, and you were there at the beginning of the setting, so long as the setting started with lechem mishneh, even though you are making your own hamotzi on your own slice of bread, that's, that's okay. On your own, your own slice of bread from

41:46 the lechem mishneh. Why do we make our own beracha? Well, we are less focused as than, than perhaps in previous generations. And therefore, the worry is that when a baal habayis is making hamotzi, the other people around the table are not necessarily focusing properly. And therefore, instead of being yoetz from his hamotzi, they make their own hamotzi. And therefore, for those assembled who are not ma-- who, who are going to make their own beracha, there's no need to make this announcement of birshus because they're going to make their own beracha. It's only when you are being motzi the others. So it could be in, in other circles, they still keep this minhag of the baal habayis making the beracha, and everyone is a yoetz from his beracha. Therefore, you wouldn't need to... Therefore, they would use the prefacing of birshus morei v'rabos. Now, what about the, the, uh, ezras nashim, the womenfolk? In my own home, they-- my-- I make hamotzi and they, the, my wife, et cetera, are yoetz from my beracha. It's a separate discussion. They don't make their own hamotzi. But on the other hand, I don't ask birshus because that is the way, uh, a, a, uh... But they don't think in, in a frum family that the, it's the balabast who makes the ha motzi at the table, and therefore, they don't need to say birshos because that is, like, the expected thing to do. Let's go to one more question, and that is yesterday morning, I was sure, and,

43:25 uh, I must say it's gratifying, I meet a lot of people saying that they are, uh, regular listeners of the shiur, so, so very encouraging. And, um, by the way, if, if you're interested, there's also, uh, if you wanna buy the book, there are three vol-volumes on the Siyum HaShas, which were written very much to, uh, for assistance for shluchim particularly. So, if any shluchim or wives of shluchim are listening, um, if they want to get home, take something home for reading over Shabbos, especially when you can't go online. So, the, in the bookstores here, there's, uh, the volumes of the Siyum HaShas, Baruch Hashem. We reprinted the first volume totally anew a couple years ago, so they are available. Just a plug for those for you. But, uh, coming back to the... So one of, a young man comes over to me, he's a sofer, and he's discussing with me about these huge mezuzahs. I'm sure some of you have seen these oversized mezuzahs, talking about thirty inches high or something. Large, but very large mezuzahs. Uh, thirty inches. No, sorry. About thirty centimeters. But, you know, you can see I was just saying there's also some huge mezuzahs. And I'm, I'm not being a sofer, so some of the, I, I wasn't aware of the challenges, which perhaps we'll discuss in a moment. But meanwhile, he's asking a technical question. There is, on the one hand, the mezuzah should be within the first tefach. It should be, uh, from the outside. This is

45:16 written in the Gemara. We've discussed this once before at the shiurim. The mezuzah should be, "B'tefach hasomoch l'reish ha'seradim." And even in interior doors, we discussed how it should be near, the nearest, near the beginning of the doorway. There's another issue that mezuzah should be placed diagonally. The reason why we do that, there's two opinions in the, in, in, in Rishonim. The Gemara says about a, a mezuzah should not be placed like a bolt. So what does it mean, a bolt? Does a mo-bolt mean vertical or horizontal? You can have a bolt going horizontal, and then you can have a, a bolt going to the floor to the... And so, as a result, we have here a machloket of Rishonim, whether the mezuzah should be vertical or should be horizontal. In order to make them both, uh, I don't know, happy, but, uh, at least heeded to some degree. So the minhag is to put the mezuzah in, uh, diagonal. So usually that's not such a challenge, is that it can be a diagonal, and still the whole diagonal is sort of within a tefach. But once you have these huge mezuzahs, so if you place them on a diagonal, it's almost inevitable that the upper part of the mezuzah is gonna be on, be beyond the first tefach. And so here, here's the question. When there is the emphasis of the mezuzah being in the first, in the outer tefach, does that also, it means the whole mezuzah, or does it mean is even

46:54 if the beginning of the mezuzah is in the outer tefach? So, this same young man later, he sent me a copy of this sefer, which I've never seen before. It's obviously a contemporary sefer called Ogur Ba'alecha, which is focusing on hachas mezuzah. And he writes, "Nira," that, uh, that, "Even if part of a mezuzah is in the outer tefach, that's also adequate." Now, in the note, which you also have on the screen, he says there's two reasons given why the mezuzah should be in the outer tefach. One is, in the Gemara in Kunachos Laf lamed gimmel, that as you come, you should encounter the mezuzah the first thing. So therefore, if you encounter the bottom of the mezuzah in the first tefach, that's also good. What's the difference? I mean, you're, you're, you're in-- In any case, you're not reading the mezuzah because it's rolled, um, closed. So that's one reason. So, "Hifga," you me-uh, encounter, confront the first thing encounter. So even if you confront the bottom of the mezuzah, that's fine. Then there's another reason given that the mezuzah should protect, and it should protect even from the first tefach, uh, the, the entire house from beyond the first tefach. So he's suggesting also that, uh, does it mean that shmiras from the entire mezuzah? Possibly. That the shmiras also from where the mezuzah, for the bottom of the mezuzah, is, that's gonna be adequate to... Although he's, he's not so confident about this other, uh, explanation. And he quotes from Sha'arei Tallevi,

48:33 who says that you can rely on, um, the fact the bottom of the mezuzah is within the outer tefach. This is as much as I've managed to, uh, research for the moment. I'm sure there's more to it. But what I found very interesting is, uh, the, the one who, who discussed this with me is a sofer, and he says there is a halacha that the Shem Yud Kei Vav Kei should be written in an immediate sequence. Not, not to have to pause to dip the pen, the quill into the ink between, uh, letters of the Yud Kei Vav Kei. Uh, which Yud Kei Vav Kei appears several times in the, in, in the mezuzah. Now, practically speaking, on a regular writing or regular-sized letters, you can write Yud Kei Vav Kei with one dip of the quill. But if you have these super-sized mezuzahs, so you need to have much more ink, and the likelihood is that you, that even after one or two letters, so you're going to, you're gonna have to re-dip the quill into the ink. And that raises a question whether, uh, you know, I'm sure that it's, it's kosher, but, uh, whether it's considered a hiddur mitzvah. So whilst generally is there a hiddur to have a larger lulav, to have a larger esrog, to have larger Chanukah candles, um, is there a mitzvah, is bigger better? There may be some value in that. But here, the bigger has also got its technical challenges that it would mean that the,

50:15 the writing of the Yud Geyl Gof Khey would not be able to be in an immediate sequence. And, uh, that may raise a, a question, is it indeed a hidur? So, uh, that was something which was totally new to me, and I found it very interesting. I thought I'd share it with you. With this, I'm going to wish you, again, a Guten Shabbos, and we should meet in good health. Simchas Olam Al Roshom and have the hakhel, uh, with