ויצא תשפ״ג

00:00 Speaker 1 Welcome to the Shiur tonight, and I'd like to dedicate this Shiur tonight to the schus of the shulcha in Virgin Islands, uh, Henya, Bas Brocha V'Rola, should have her refuah shleima, to be able to come back to her family, twelve children, and her shlichas in, in, uh, good health. We should see that b'karov. We'll go straight to our first question then. Someone contacted me that they don't have a sense of smell. Coming back to our question, we have here a man who's not able to smell, and his wife is able to, and he wants to make Havdalah Bracha on B'rim Min Hashomayim to be motzi his wife, and she should be the-- justifying his bracha. So here we have a po-- a halacha in Shulchan Aruch in Siman Res Sadik Zayin. It's really straightforward in Shulchan Aruch, but, uh, it's not so well known, so let's read it. "Mi she'einu nehen mi'reiyach, she'einu chosher riach." Someone who doesn't have a sense of smell, so he doesn't enjoy smell. "Lo yevorech al ha'b'samim k'sheyavdil." He should not be making the bracha on the b'samim. "El im ken niskaven lehotzi b'nei beis hak'tanim." He can do so in order to be motzi his ch-children, "ham'richim shekvar megir l'chinuch brachos." Children who are on the age of chinuch, then he can make a bracha to be motzi them. That's justified. But, um, "aval eino yachel levorech bishvil gdolim ham'richim." But he cannot make a bracha for the adults who are able to, uh, smell. "Af she'einam yode'im levorech

01:55 Speaker 1 be'atzmam." Even though those adults are u- are unable to make their own bracha. "N'fish b'rachaso yibirchas hanen." Because this bracha is a bracha on, uh, enjoyment and benefit. "Ubirchas hanen ein she'eini nehen yachel levorech bishvil mi she'nehen." I cannot make a bracha for you to be ben-- to have benefit as discussed in Kuf Samach Zayin. To explain, I can make kiddush for you. If you haven't heard kiddush, I can make kiddush for you. And it's not a problem of bracha levatalah or anything like that because I have a responsibility that you should hear kiddush. Therefore, I could even say, "Asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu," to blow shofar, for example. So you'd hear shofar because I have a mitzvah that you should hear shofar. But if you want to eat an apple, I don't have a responsibility for you to now eat an apple. Therefore, I cannot say a bracha, um, um, um, sha- um, be-be pri ha'etz for you to eat an apple because b-birchas... That's the rule which is being said here. Birchas hanen, a bracha on benefit, I cannot do for you. Whereas a bracha on mitzvahs, I can do for you. So the bracha on b'samim, although it's part of the, you know, ceremony of Havdalah, but it's basically it's a birchas hanen rather than a birchas hamitzvot. And therefore, one who doesn't have the personal duty cannot, um, make the, the bracha. Someone's asking: What about someone who is unable to see? Can he make the bracha on the Havdalah candle? And

03:28 Speaker 1 probably the answer is n- probably the answer is no. Uh, he cannot say the bracha. For sure, he cannot say the bracha, "Pakeach ivrim." The, um... As far as saying the bracha, uh, in davening of "Yoitzer ha'meir," "Yoitzer ha'meir rechashach," thanking Hashem, acknowledging, there the halacha is that he can because he benefits from other people. But, uh, the brachos which he himself, uh, ostensibly is benefiting now, that I think a person who's not able to see will not. But all right, we're not dealing with that now. We're going into the next question, and that is that last-- every week, there's a new, um, sicha which is published from-- a sicha of the Rebbe published from years ago. And gradually, these have been put together in the seventy-eight volumes of Toras Menachem, uh, from Taf Shin Yud through till Taf Shin Lamed Heh, something, and it keeps on coming, coming out, Baruch Hashem. At the back of those booklets, the weekly booklets, they have letters, uh, answers of the Rebbe which also have never been published. Last week, there was a fascinating, uh, list of points which the Rebbe had jotted down back in nineteen fifty-two. Rabbi Lazar Zirkind, who many of us remember, the sofer in Crown Heights. So he had a-- he was drafted in the American Army during the Korean War in nineteen fifty-two. And the off- the officers in command were insisting that he takes off his beard and payos. Well, he resisted that in-that instruction. He called in help from rabbonim.

05:13 Speaker 1 Also, there's a Jewish Welfare Board, and they contacted various rabbonim, and some rabbonim were saying, "You mustn't take off the payos or the beard," and da, da, da. They were more ea-easygoing. The Jewish Welfare Board also met with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe made the point very strongly not to compromise on this. And even though there was a threat that if he would not comply, he would be court-martialed and given ten years of imprisonment, and the Rebbe is not phased by that. Okay. He makes seven points, but then towards the end of this list, after the seven points, the Rebbe adds in the following. "Be'issur giluch hazakon, afilu be'misparayim." As far as trimming the beard, even with a scissors. So look at . is famously known, has got a 20-page article about this, where he says that shaving the beard comes under the issue of . Then we have also the Menachem Mendel who follows this enough . And then the rabbi says the following. This is just very significant for me. So don't try to do on this since there's a rule in in absolving vows that if there is-- a person had committed to a, a particular posek, to follow this particular posek, and now he wishes to retract from that, um, a-approach, so you cannot do . This is a rule in . Now, the editors gave-- so the, in the letter, the rabbinic-- rabbi does not give any references, but the editors add the following references. First reference is to Magen

07:09 Speaker 1 Avraham nine days rather. And it says there about doing trade. So it says there about . So some posekim say that, and the way Magen Avraham himself holds, diminish in commercial activity means activity related to simcha. Says the Magen Avraham, "Despite what I've just said, but if there's a custom in a particular place, the diminish in all activity of, um, ma- commercial activity during the nine days, you can't..." You can't undo that commitment. There are posekim who say, includes all forms of commercial activity that should be diminished, therefore one cannot undo that. That's the Magen Avraham. Okay? Then there's a reference to several other sources. I just want to d-indulge in the Maharam Schick for a moment, and then we'll come back to why it was so significant for me. The Maharam Schick was a Talmud, one of the most prominent Talmudim of the Chasam Sofer. And in his article, in his teshuvah, he writes the following. It's a long teshuvah, a few pages. But he says, "One day, I was a bachur in yeshiva in Pressburg, and someone came in, he wanted to have a . What was his need? He was a smoker, apparently. And Shavuot was com- was coming, and he had made previously a commitment not to smoke on Yom Teruah. And now he wanted to undo his vow, that he should be allowed to smoke on Yom Teruah. And he asked a few bachurim, could you come, you know, to make . And says the Maharam Schick, "I said, I

09:05 Speaker 1 don't think you can be matir such a neder. I can't think you can, because there are posekim who hold that you're not allowed to smoke on Yom Teruah." Now, just to d- uh, d-dabble in that for a moment. On Yom Teruah, you're allowed to cook. You're allowed to, you're allowed to indulge in what's called shavu l'chol nefesh, benefit, which is universally appreciated. The kind of things which are-- some people do enjoy, some people don't enjoy, you're not allowed to do on Yom Teruah. And that's why, for example, bathing is not allowed, um, um, um, uh, on Yom Teruah. It's not allowed because in those times, it wasn't standard for people to bathe every day. Medicines are restricted just like on Shabbos, on Yom Teruah. Why, why can't you take medicine on Shabbos? Because you might come to grind your own things. Why can't you grind your own things on Yom Teruah? The answer is because medicines is not shavu l'chol nefesh. Most people don't necessarily benefit from having medicines if they don't need it. So we have this concept. So smoking is not shavu l'chol nefesh. It's not universally appreciated e-even then, and certainly now. And going back a hundred and something years ago, already posekim objected to people smoking on Yom Teruah because it's not shavu l'chol nefesh. Not everyone enjoys the smo- the, the smoke of cigarettes. So of course, those people who are addicted to smoking will find a terim. But this fellow had made a, made a commitment that he's gonna

10:37 Speaker 1 go follow the stricter view. He wanted to undo the, his vow. And Maharam Schick says, "I was abo- one of the few, few bachurim, and I, I resisted. Afterwards, the Rebbe, the Chasam Sofer, he called me over. He says, "I saw there was a bit of commotion in the corner of the, uh, bes medrash. What was all that about?" As he would often do. He wants to know what was going on. And I told him, "This is, and this is what it was." And the Chasam Sofer agreed with me that we could not undo that vow. This, this triggered something very significant for myself, that some time ago, a person I got to know had made-- he told me that he had made a commitment. He was in a moment of duress. He had been in very serious, um, circumstances. He didn't know whether he was gonna get out of it, how soon. And he made a, a commitment he's going to keep Shabbos till Rabbeinu Tam's zman. Now, this was not in-- this was somewhere in Europe. But he's in-- he lived, he lived in Eretz Yisrael. Baruch Hashem, he got out of his predicament, and he went back to Eretz Yisrael. Now, in-- here in London, the difference between Rabbeinu Tam's zman and the regular zman is, I don't know, let's say 15 minutes. It's not that significant. But in Eretz Yisrael where the- The transition from day to night is much faster than it is in, on, on our latitude. So taking

12:08 Speaker 1 on Rabbi Talmid's man means another half an hour at least of extra time, and, uh, it's... family are waiting, wants to, Shabbos, whatever. So he's, he wanted to undo that vow. So at the time, I r- I told him I cannot help him, and my main reason was because if a person makes a vow on the, in a moment of a ‑‑ sorry, in a moment of duress, well, it's not so easy to undo it. Now, uh, be- at a later stage. But here comes another point, which is very significant. Rabbi Talmid is obviously, no question, one of the most eminent poskim. And to say that although we don't pasken like Rabbi Talmid, but he made a vow, a commitment to keep, uh, Rabbi Talmid's man, so then we can't really take that away. That's, that's the point. Um, yeah. So... And then, then, uh, uh, you have over here at the bottom of the page or screen, we have here from a Sefer called Kol Nidre. How's that for a, uh, you know, on nedarim? So it's a Sefer called Kol Nidre, a very much contemporary Sefer. And he writes, . If there's a region where they've undertaken to follow, there's a, a point of question which is argued about in Boston, but they t- have taken a particular view. So then you cannot, , you cannot undo that vow because it's a bit more than a regular neder. There's others disagree, but that, that's his view. Um, that's based upon, upon that Mogan

13:41 Speaker 1 Avrohom. This also brought to mind when I published the first volume of Mesiv and Meshiach's L'ches, I'd written there an article about eating in the morning before putting on tefillin. Now, there's various sources in Chabad which talk about eating before davening and also about putting on tefillin in the morning for Kirsh Makdano. Is it imperative to put on t-- If you want to eat before davening, is it imperative to put on tefillin before doing so? And I was told that the Rebbe was not particular about this. And then came, was published a letter of the Rebbe's father to the Rebbe shortly after his wedding. It's about, it's about, um, tof shin and tes. It was published, um, well, whenever, about fi-fifteen years ago. Is that what it is? Um, no. More like tof shin and tes. Uh, where it's about twenty-four years ago. And there in that ar- in that letter, the father writes to his son, "I've heard that you are spending many, many hours a day davening or y- and you're leaving your eating till very late. And I'm, I'm instructing you as a father that you have to eat earlier on in the day." And then he says, "If you can put on tefillin, it's even better." So from there I saw that it's not so, um, not so imperative to put on tefillin. He says, it's an extra, an optional extra. So when I published the Sefer, I'd written a whole article based upon this letter. So if you, many of

15:25 Speaker 1 you remember Ronnie Greenberg, uh, who's used to be a teacher in Carmel, and now I believe he lives in, uh, New Jersey somewhere. But at the time, he said when he was a bocher, he had asked Rav Shimon to be matan neder. He had been putting on tefillin every morning before eating, before davening, and he wanted to matan neder Rav Shimon. And I can't... Says he can't be matan neder. So now I'm, in, in retrospect, I say, well, he not, doesn't, wasn't saying necessarily that there's no heter to eat without tefillin before davening. He was saying, once you've undertaken following that opinion of, of davka putting on tefillin, so then you couldn't be matan neder. Possibly that was his thinking. Let's move on. What's the next slide? Okay. So here we go on to an- another question. In one of the Chabad houses in this, uh, United Kingdom. So then a, they have a non-Jewish waitress, and she, uh, someone says to her, one of, one of the lads over there or girls, I don't know, says to her, "Well, look, look at this. What a beautiful scene. And it's, it's worth a picture," or something like that. And so the waitress pulls out her phone and makes a picture. And now the question, now it's after Shabbos, and she sends a picture to the shliach. Are you allowed to use a picture, enjoy a picture, which was snapped for you by a goy on Shabbos? Now, it's after Shabbos, obviously. This is the question.

16:57 Speaker 1 So this is actually addressed by several... I did a search, and several contemporaries for it. And what you have in front of you is a Sefer, Orchis Shabbos, which has become very popular in the last few years. There's three volume, I think now there's a fourth volume. And he writes, quoting actually, uh, Psak of Rabbi Eliyahu, the Chafetz Chaim, that if a goy makes a photograph of an event which took place on Shabbos, one would not be allowed to benefit from it. And now, the explanation is fairly straightforward. If you did have a goy do a melacha, let's say you, you asked a goy, in violation of their rules, you asked a goy to, to iron, iron a shirt for you. It's now Motzei Shabbos, so you'd have to wait after Shabbos the amount of time it takes to iron a shirt, which is five minutes. Yeah, I'm, I'm not talking from experience, by the way. Um, if a goy made it for you a, washed a, washed a garment, it takes two hours to wash and dry. So you'd have to-- So you shouldn't benefit from the time gained by the goy doing that Shabbos. That's the logic over here. So a Goy did something for you on Shabbos, you have to wait what's called somewhere in Europe has, uh, excess amount of Shaimos, and for some reason, they don't have enough space to bury Shaimos in a cemetery. May they bury the Shaimos in the shul yard? Does burial Shaimos need to be

20:46 Speaker 1 Now, the second question of this sh'elah actually is, if he buries it in the base-- in, in the grounds of the shul, what about... is that ground sacred or you're allowed to tread on it? So at the time, I had not, uh, followed that up. But here, you can see in the Knesses Yechzel, where he addresses this, and he says, "

25:15 Speaker 2 having to have a mezuzah of, of the, of the criterion being where people eat? And it-- I had a hunch that, that I would- I should find it in the Sefer HaMed. And I'll explain to you why I, I had that hunch. Because the Sefer HaMed is an encyclopedia of Halakha which was published by, uh, Yehoshua Medini in the times of the Rebbe Rashab. And in the early, in, well, in the late, later years of the Fradecher Rebbe, the last years, the-- Meir'chus, um, Kahos undertook to publish that series, those 10 v- in 10 volumes, which was a monumental undertaking at the time. You're talking about very shortly after the war. And the Rebbe was the editor. And as the editor, he would've pro- pro- produced the entire, the entire set. And it's well known, the story, that when it came to the celebration of the, the of the printing of the Sefer HaMed, the ma- major donor was a Mr. Robinson, I believe from Chicago. But he was there, and he asked, um, about the Sefer HaMed, uh, you know, based upon the summoning of the Sefer HaMed. So the Rebbe says to Mr. Robinson, "Okay, you select a volume. You ask me what to speak about." So Mr. Robinson, I don't know whether he could read the Rashi writing, but he, at random, he pulls out a volume off the shelf, and he gives it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe goes, "Give me a couple of minutes." And then afterwards, the Rebbe gave

27:01 Speaker 2 a whole talk. I was told it was about Arba Minim. So just coming back to the point that I was, I was-- I'm guessing that this f- source of eating out of space makes it into a dwelling to be o- obliged with a mezuzah would-- I would find it in the Sefer HaMed. So happens to be my hunch was correct. And in the Sefer HaMed, which you can see on the screen, we have here a s- quote from a sefer called Chemdat Shalom. And he clearly disagrees with the Taz and his position. He says that chazakah being night and day has got nothing to do with our topic. And he says it-- and he says like this. Therefore, he says, "Our shops, which are their permanent dwellings," per-permanent, sorry, "permanent premises, they are like a house and like a storehouse, and they are also designated for people to live there a who- the whole day and," , "and people eat there. Therefore, for sure the chaiv mezuzah." So he disagrees with the Taz, and therefore he disagrees with the Mishnah Shulchan, and he says on a shop you could put up a mezuzah and without any doubt. Now, actually, we've gone through this not so long ago perhaps about the beis oyts. The fact that he says it's a storehouse, that's not such a strong proof because if I have a store... Let's say I've, I've got, say, storage. I have stuff in long-term s-s-storage. I don't put up a mezuzah. If I've got a

28:38 Speaker 2 store of-- I've got a warehouse of paint, w- with the pallets of paint, I don't need to put a mezuzah there. When it says in Shulchan Aruch about a, an, a storage, means I've got-- I have my house, and then I've got a storage of an outside building for a pantry. I store there wine, I store there oil. And sometimes, whether during a meal or while preparing for a meal, we'll take food from that storehouse. But it's a storehouse which is an extension of the dwelling. But a storehouse which is purely a commercial storehouse does not need a mezuzah. So that, I don't think he's right about his basis about because the shop has got storage of wares. But people are this. The people are there a whole day. And then he adds the, you know, of eating. So, all right, so now I know that he sees eating as being significant in making chaiv a mezuzah, but still, where does he get it from? So now, hasgacha protis, we're learning Gemara Pesachim, and we came across a Rashi. And Rashi brings us to the, talking about that, uh, idea of the achilat seudas. And refers to the concept of a house which is affected with tzaraas, which is in Halakha called a bayis hamenugah, which is plagued with tzaraas. And there, the Torah says two things. A person who enters that house becomes tamei, becomes impure. Then the Torah adds, ", that one who sleeps in that house or one who eats in

30:11 Speaker 2 that house will become tamei, not only for himself, but also his garments will have to be washed. So it's a greater, uh, degree of, a more, um, severe level of tumah. And the b- here you have on the screen, we have the Torah Shayayim. And he says it doesn't matter whether he eats in the house or not. The question is, how much time? You see, if he sleeps in the house, lies down, how long does he have to lie, to lie down to incur the greater impurity that he has to go and wash his cl- uh, take his clothes to mikvah, basically. And it says, it's talking, hashochel. The ochel is the, telling us the amount of time, amount of time it takes to eat a half a loaf. And it's going, it's going to take so many minutes. If he spends the time eating or s- uh, sleeping or lying or standing, doesn't matter. If a person enters a house- Of Toras. For a moment, he becomes tamei. If he stays there three, four, five minutes, whatever the number is, then not only is he tamei, but also his clothing have become tamei. So what we're seeing there is that eating in a premises makes you more settled in that premises. This, this, p- uh, idea that ochel babais makes you more settled is the basis of the concept of Eruv Chumin. As we know, if one, one person wants to walk out the built up area, he has to... I- if he wants

31:35 Speaker 2 to walk more, more than 2,000 amos, there's a way of g- of g- of extending his radius, and that is by putting a, a measure of bre- bread, uh, further out in, in the sticks. And then from there on, thereafter, he has another 2,000 amos. Where does this come from and how much food has he put there? So, Rash over here connects it that this has got to do with just like the praskes, the food, the food becomes crucial to, in the, uh, in the story of Tumah. So too, the food is going to help. Instead of living here, he lives over there, and therefore he has another 2,000 amos. So what we're seeing here is very strong sources that where you have food, that is, you're settled there and has its repercussions, whether it's got to do with Tumah or got to do with, um, what to do with Eruv, it doesn't matter. But we're seeing a very strong basis that where you eat is going to be your dwelling. So coming back to Mezuzah, therefore, I have here a very strong basis of , that kind of stuff. We talk about serious stuff, that we have that, a basis that eating in a place does generate, that that place becomes a dwelling. And in our context, therefore, it's Chayav Mezuzah. There's a separate discussion. Let's say if a person has got a... They eat in one premises and sleep in another premises. Where do they light Menorah? This is very relevant, let's say,

33:08 Speaker 2 in Yeshivas. There's a dorm and there's a dining room. Where does, where does a-- where such a person, where, where do they live? Where they eat, where they sleep, and their weight seems to be more, at least from what I've seen for a moment. That is more where they actually, where they eat rather than where they sleep. That's the impression from the Ramon, Tofshei Ein Zain, Sif Alef. Let's move on. So someone asked me a simple question. We've had this question before, but it came up again, about a, a, a woman wants to... Well, she's a Shabbos guest, lives somewhere in Northwest London, uses the Eruv. And she says, "Can I bring a gift to my Shabbos hostess, Shabbos host? Friday night, I want to come over and bring them a gift. I want to give them a, a book." So it's-- So the, the rule over here is, is fairly straightforward, that you're not allowed to give gifts on Shabbos. It's a form of trade or Mechal Achim Emekor. You can give food. That, yes. With... I, I can't find it in my notes now from a pretty recent shiur, but I seem to remember we had a discussion about, let's say, by a children's rally to give them out toys, and then the children could take their toys home. But to make a raffle is not okay or to give a child a, a, a, a g- a gift, a toy to take home, that would not be okay. What do you do

34:29 Speaker 2 for Bar Mitzvahs, et cetera, if you wanted to do a presentation on Shabbos? So then the solution is that the rabbi or whoever gives the, gives the, uh, on, uh, Berakhah before Shabbos or whatever, the siddur, whatever, give it before Shabbos to the secretary to make a Kinyan on behalf of the Bar Mitzvah boy, and then it becomes the... It belongs to the Bar Mitzvah boy from before Shabbos. And on Shabbos, they're just using it. Now, they're, they're, they're not... They're doing the publicity, they're giving it, but really the gift has been given before. So that's really the solution for this lady who kindly wishes to bring a gift to her hostess for Friday night. So then, okay, so she'd give it to someone else to be Koain. You know, to, you know, the Yid to be Koain, on be- to acquire on behalf of the hostess, and then she can bring it on Friday night, um, w- because she's relying on the Eruv. Right. Someone's pointing out in Burnwa they would lighten the bedroom. On Hanukah, they'd lighten the bedroom. That's true. And you say there wasn't much to eat in the dining room. And, um, since you're in England, the English boys used to have their stash of, of nush in their bedrooms. So therefore, the bedrooms also became a Mechoim Achilah. But okay, that was a long time ago. Um, yeah. Right. There's a little issue there because of the fire hazard. If the Bochum would light in the bedrooms and then

35:46 Speaker 2 they all run off to Mefsoim, there have been, uh, worries in the past. Let's move on to the next question. And that is about Kaddish at Mincha after Krias HaTorah. Now, this is a thing which has been through the ages of Chabad, has gone through a lot of interesting changes. And just going back 150 years ago or more, or more like 200 years ago, we see that there was a... In some places, they would actually-- The Chazan would say Kaddish, then people would start Shemoneh Esreh. And meanwhile, whilst the people started Shemoneh Esreh, the Hagbah fellow was, was taking the Sefer Torah into the Aron Kodesh, which I find very, very strange, especially following on last week's discussion about walking in front of people Davening Shemoneh Esreh. It seems to be so, um, so real to Masuda. But anyways, that's not on the list. Okay. We, we... In, in the Siddur, which was published in Tof Shin Lamed Ches, when it was an overhaul of the Tehillas Hashem Siddur, there's a footnote, which is a s- shortened from Sefer Minhagim, that the Chazan starts Kaddish- Short-- somewhere near the end of Galila, and he draws out the Kaddish in a way that he should finish the Kaddish when the Sefer Torah is already in the Aron Kodesh. To explain what's going on here. We have here normally on a weekday, Ashrei, Kaddish, Shemoneh Esreh. Here we've got Kaddish. Sorry, we've got Ashrei, , Kaddish. We've got Krias HaTorah. Now, Krias HaTorah itself deserves a Kaddish

37:34 Speaker 2 afterwards. Shemoneh Esreh deserves a Kaddish to launch just before Shemoneh Esreh. So we've got two activities. K-Krias HaTorah run, like, needs a Kaddish afterwards. Shemoneh Esreh needs a Kaddish before. But you're not gonna do Kaddish, two Kaddish one after the other. So here becomes a dilemma. How are you going to address this? Are you going to say the Kaddish right after Krias HaTorah, and then do Mehagbir, and then Shemoneh Esreh will start without a Kaddish. So that's the problem there. You know what we do on Rosh Chodesh, we-- how we, how we work it out, we do the Kaddish just before Shemoneh Esreh, before Musaf. So this is a dilemma. And this system of doing the Kaddish kind of during, during the Galila is somehow to say that the Kaddish is also after Krias HaTorah and also it launches Shemoneh Esreh. So it says double . Now, what happened in the last few years of the Rebbe's that the Rebbe was several times chazan because he had yortzeit on Shabbos, whether it was Hof or whether it was Hof Tishrei or Yud Shevat. Those are the times when the Rebbe observed yortzeit. And there, unlike what had been a custom until then, the Rebbe actually waited until the Sefer Torah was put back in the Aron Kodesh, and only then said Kaddish. So that, that was departure from what had been customary until then. So some, some, uh, fine Hasidim are under the impression that the Rebbe changed the rules here. Yours truly has reservations

39:13 Speaker 2 about that, and my, my understanding is the following. Those of us who remember, the Rebbe would sit at the farbrengen on a raised platform, like towards the back of the shul or halfway. And his place for davening was at the front of the shul or upstairs in the small зал. In those last years, instead of the Rebbe having to go down from the-- his place, from, from, uh, the farbrengen to go upstairs or to go to the front, they would bring the bimah and a stender on the platform where the Rebbe was by, by the farbrengen. They would bring there. And so the Rebbe would not go to the front of the shul for being the chazan. He was chazan a-right near his place by the farbrengen. And Krias HaTorah was also held there, as I just said. And then by Mehagbir, it meant taking the Sefer Torah from the Rebbe's platform for, for the farbrengen, to take it all the way to the front of the shul where there was the Aron Kodesh. Now, for the Rebbe to say Kaddish during Galila and it would, it would take a long time for the Sefer Torah to be brought from where-- from the bimah all the way to the Sefer Torah, to the Aron Kodesh. And that would cause an un-an un-an unnecessary, an undue delay. So because of those circumstances, so that's my understanding, that the Rebbe chose not to say Kaddish during Mehagbir as or during Galila as was done hitherto, but instead

40:54 Speaker 2 to wait till the Sefer Torah is back in the Aron Kodesh and kind of merged and kind of settled, and everyone's in their place, and then he said Kaddish, so to speak. That's my understanding of what was going on there. And therefore, I would like to suggest that there wasn't a departure of minhag. It was the circumstances were different. But where the circumstances are that is this, uh, more reasonable sized, um, sh-shul, and you could under the circumstance, you can take the Sefer Torah during Kaddish to the Aron Kodesh, and it's not gonna be an un-an undue, um, delay so to continue the minhag as it was hitherto. So that's my, uh, understanding of the, the, that, that development. Let's just take a look. Someone's put in, uh, here a question. The Rebbe writes that giving food on Shabbos is a form of tzedakah, which is allowed on Shabbos. Yes, definitely. To give food on Shabbos is permitted, and to... You can, you can bring food around. If you have an eruv, you can bring food around to a neighbor. That would be okay. Just interesting one, just, um, a minute. Last night, someone knocked on our door, and as often ha-often happens here on a Friday night, and they had a question that they had... Now, they noticed that the blech was not switched on. So the food was-- some food was hot, some food wasn't hot. Is, can he ask a goy to switch it on? And he says, "I'm Sephardi, and so

42:24 Speaker 2 we're quite strict about asking goyim to do melachas for us." So he's, so, so I says to him, "Do you, um, um, do you have an eruv with a neighbor? If you have an eruv with a neighbor, you could take the, the food which is hot and put it on the neighbor's, on the neighbor's blech." So he says, "Well, I'm Sephardi, I don't rely on the, on the eruv." Okay. We-- Well, I mean, I think we managed to, he, uh, with, with that, that he would get a neighbor who does rely on the eruv to take it round. Or so-- But he-- We didn't discuss that too carefully. I think the eruv is... Um, actually, why I'm mentioning this is if someone out there knows why the Sephardim are more machmir on eruv, I, I don't know why. Because, um, we, we discussed this, the eruv in the N-Fifteen in the past, so I don't know why Sephardim are, uh, not relying on that eruv. But fine. Let's move on to our next question. And that is- Last week, I believe, we had the discussion about walking in front of people who are davening Shmoneh Esreh, and I was saying that people who, in a shul where this is a problem, where it's a long... It is a wider, very wide and short shul. From front to back it's wi- it's short. So to m-ma-- to try to daven towards the front of the shul, not to cause people to walk in front of you

43:42 Speaker 2 whilst you're davening Shmoneh Esreh. So someone mentioned last week about, about walking in front of someone who says Kaddish, and I was possibly a little bit dismissive. I said I'd, I once asked Rabbi Ginsburg about this. Now, here's the source of where there is this chumrah. This is in the Shaarei Shul. I think it's Siman Nun Hey. He quotes the Birkei Yosef in the name of Mari Molcho in his manuscript that just like one shouldn't walk in front of a person davening Shmoneh Esreh, one shouldn't walk in front of a person who's saying Kaddish. So the person this week d- sent me that also Rabbi Chaim Noah quotes this in Gesher Shulchan, that you should al-also... That you shouldn't walk in front of someone who's saying Kaddish, and this, his source is the Shaarei Teshuva, Birkei Yosef, et cetera, which that's wonderful. And, I mean, I say s- Ha-Halavai we'd seen improvement in people being conscientious not to walk in front of people davening Shmoneh Esreh, um, then, uh, then we can go to the next step about Kaddish. But perhaps one will impact on the other. Just today, I was seeing someone, uh, happens to be that in our shul downstairs, there happens to be a, a, a Sforim case. Sh- bookshelves in front, right near the, uh, where the chazan davens. And people sometimes go and put a Sefer there or take a Sefer there and, uh, you know, just using this f- this forum again to say, when chazan is davening Shmoneh

45:04 Speaker 2 Esreh you shouldn't be walking in front of them for taking or removing Sforim. Right. Let's move on. Okay. We had this discussion some, uh, yeah, several weeks ago where in... Although we have 18 minutes given for, for, uh, licht zunden before sunset, and the Rebbe is quoted as saying 23 minutes, 25-minute margin. So two things. Number one, I had made a comment about in London they have-- the basic timing is 14 minutes. Yeah. Someone is not muted. I can hear it. Yeah. I think that's solved the problem. So someone from... One of our listeners in New York sent me a comment that actually in America, 18 minutes is the standard time. So all right, I stand corrected on that. What you have in front of you is a copy from the book called Jewish Chrononomy. That was its original name. Reprinted. It's by Leo Levy, who I believe he lived in London, and later reprinted as Jewish, Halachic Times or something like that. So he, he, he tabulates Halacha as 18 . So then just to refresh your memories, I've given two sources. One is in this booklet of Halachas published by Rabbi Ingliss, and he says, has a note there that medakdekim are lighting candles 23 minutes before shkiya, before sunset. And then there's a, the diaries of Rabbi Groner saying that the Rebbe made a comment that, you know, in, in Lubavitch it was 25 minutes before the sunset. And so, uh, uh, struggling to understand where does this Cheshbon HaZman of 20...

47:19 Speaker 2 23 minutes, 25 minutes come from. And again, to refresh you. So Rabbi Kahn of, of Paris has suggested to me that there's idea of Tosfohet Shabbos, so in addition to the 18 minutes, add another four minutes for Tosfohet Shabbos, and that's where he got the Cheshbon of 22, 23 minutes. Someone else, uh, whereas in America, someone I guess listened to the shiur, and he go- came up with a very interesting s- uh, explanation. Rabbi Elazar Mimed says 18 minutes, yeah? Now, as we know, we've got what we call Halacha hours or proportional hours, and in summer they are longer, and in, in the winter they are shorter. So now, I'm-- Here I've got a, uh, from the same Sefer from, uh, by... From Dr. Leo Levy for Moscow. And here in July, which are the longest days of the year. And see, here he has what a shaas manis. What's, what's gonna be the proportional hour. So you can see here it's, can be almost... Well, the longest is 127. An hour 27. So it's like it becomes a, a 50% increase. If that's the case, let's say in summer, the 18 minutes can grow to become 27 minutes. Yeah. Another nine minutes. So possibly, that would be the explanation why there would be a minhag to have not just 18 minutes, because in, in the summer's days, it would be longer. And the Rebbe's explanation-- ex-expression was at least 25 minutes. So it could be in Russia, the, then they saw the need to

48:54 Speaker 2 expand the 18 minutes to more than that, to more than 18 minutes to be yotzer that, uh, for shaas manis according to Rabbi Elazar of Metz. So why 25 minutes and why is it in winter? Possibly to kind of standardize. If you're adding time in summer, so you can, should add the same amount in winter. But that's another explanation which I found interesting, I wanted to share with you. And just to finish off today's, uh, shiur, and I'd suggested, uh, that I'm going to discuss about the Haftarah. So here we've got a very confusing situation where we've got between the Ashkenaz Haftarah and the Sephard Haftarah and the Vayishlach and, and, and, uh, Vayeitzei, how it switches around. And it's basically, the, the, the Haftarah is from Hoshea. And the Minhag Chabad is to start from , and then whereas the Minhag Ashkenaz in Parashat Vayishlach goes till , that same Haftarah is said by Chabad, and I believe Sephard, on Parashat Vayeitzei but adds another two pesukim of . Minhag Ashkenazin Parshas Vayishlach. Sorry, Minag Ashkenaz Parshas, in Parshas Vayishlach, okay. We'll go to Al Talmei Sodoi. And in Parshas Vayeitzei, they start from Vayivrach Yaakov, and they continue till Posim Yikosh L'von. So just to explain what I see here, what's going on here. The Haftara has to reflect the content of the Parshah. And in this passage in Hoshea, we've got two passages which are rese- re- relating to the Parshas Vayeitzei and Vayishlach. Vayivrach Yaakov Stei Aram. Yaakov flees, uh,

50:57 Speaker 2 from Eretz Yisroel to Aram, and he marries, he works and gets married. That's obviously relating to Parshas Vayeitzei. Then we have this passage earlier on in Hoshea, Vayosar El Maloch, Vayuchel. He prevailed over the angel, and, and, uh, the angel pleads with Yaakov, and he, uh, et cetera. That is the event where Yaakov-- That's gonna be in Parshas Vayishlach. That explains to you why the Nusach, uh, Minag Ashkenaz takes Vayivrach Yaakov Stei Aram for Parshas Vayeitzei, and Vayam Isruim with Vayosar El Maloch for Parshas... Again, Vayam-- They will take Vayivrach. Yes, they take Vayivrach for Parshas Vayeitzei, and Vayosar, Vayam Isruim, Vayosar El Maloch, they do that for Parshas Vayishlach. Whereas Minag Chabad is to say Vayam Isruim and Vayosar El Maloch, but then we also say those two psukim, Vayivrach Yaakov and Venovi He'elo. We add those two psukim. In that way, the, the crucial psukim, the crucial pasuk, which is relating to Parshas Vayeitzei, is included, albeit at the, almost the end of the haftara. So that's, that's, that I understand is the reason why we davka, if we're saying Vayam Isruim, we davka add those two psukim so that we have Vayivrach included in Parshas Vayeitzei. And for Parshas Vayishlach bichlal, we read from Evadyo. Just as I was looking at this, why does it, why does it go till Uvenovi Nishmor? Why not any further? Why-- So there, the next one is actually, the next pasuk is a ne- a negative note, and I think then, and then that's the end

52:46 Speaker 2 of the passage. And generally, we don't like to end off on a negative note, and therefore it stops before. I'm still not totally clear why the pasuk, Uvenovi He'elo, Hashem, Hashem Isro M'mitzrayim, Uvenovi Nishmor, why did that have to be included in the Parsha, in the Haftara? I don't have a problem with it, but I'm just... In, in any case, I counted. There aren't twenty-one. There, normally there's a minimum of twenty-one psukim in a haftara, unless the concept, the, the, uh, the topic has kind of been, uh, adequately covered. So I'm, I'm not sure exactly why that pasuk of Uvenovi is included, but that is, at least I think, it's a little bit clearer than what I was, uh, aware of on Friday. So I hope it's a bit clearer for you, and wish you all now a, uh, a Gutte Woche. Actually, I see there's someone left a, a note here, and I'd like to answer the notes. Chat. What does it say here? Okay. So gezunt, a Gutte Woche, and we should meet, meet in good health. And She'asit Keno, Simchas Olam Al Reishon. A Gutte Woche.