נשא תשפ״ג

00:10 Good evening. Welcome to tonight's shiur on, uh, this Sunday of Parshas Nasso. And so we'll go straight into our questions. So last Friday night, that is not, uh, two nights ago, but a week ago. So, a young rabbi who has a shul nearby, and he, uh, he's the only one in his shul who can do maftir, who do the Haftarot. So every week he does-- he has maftir. But his problem was that last Sh- the Shabbos, Ba- Ba- Ba- Habo Chol Hachodesh, there is the Todah. And for the Todah, it is our custom that the balkana has that Aliyah. So he's gonna have to have the Aliyah of Todah. And then maftir. So does he have a double? Does he have two Aliyas in the one morning? Is that the, is that the solution? Or alternatively, could he call up one of his congregants who will say the, uh, for maftir, they will say the berakhos, and he, the rabbi, would read the actual maftir, the actual haftarah rather. So these are his-- this couple of options which he was suggesting, which would be better. Now, I'm gonna tell you, I told him better to take two Aliyas rather than giving, uh, someone else the maftir and him taking over for actual reading for the navi. But thanks to this shiur, I had the impetus to look into it more carefully, and, um, perhaps I think I should have s- told him differently. So I want to discuss with you what is the, what are

02:22 the issues involved here. So we have here the, the, uh, two addresses where this is discussed is in Siman resh peh daled and resh peh beis. Resh peh beis is about Kriyat HaTorah on Shabbos. Resh peh daled is about maftir haftarot. All right. So we have here a rule which is, "HaMaftir BeNavi Sorerech SheYikra BeTorah Tekhilah." Before someone is going to stand up in public and read from the prophets, so he has to first have an Aliyah, has to read from the Torah first. "Veyevarekh Oleh Echil VeOseif," and say the attendant berakhos before and after. "V'akharkhakh yaftir benavi," after which he will then read from the navi. And the reason for this, why can't another person be honored to read from the navi? "Kedesh lo yihye kevoy Torah ukevoy navi shoveh." It shouldn't be that the Torah, the honor of the Torah and the honor of the navi are placed on the same level. "Im yikra benavi levado," if the last fellow will be reading only in navi, "kemoshé koru hu ha-oy limorishoy mib'Torah levado." Just they had an Aliyah in Sefer Vayikra, and he has an Aliyah in Sefer Yeshayah. It would put Yeshayah and Vayikra on the same pedestal. And therefore, there is an emphasis that he has to first read from navi and then-- read from the Torah, and then he can read from navi. Therefore, for the balkana to call up one of his congregants for maftir, and the rabbi himself would take over for haftarot, but he'd-- how can he

04:16 take over for haftarot if he didn't read the navi, he didn't read from the Torah just before? Now, this is not so pashut because I know that in the literature circles, tell me, the followers of the Vilna Gaon, there it's a standard thing that they call up one of the community for maftir, and the balkana does the haftarot. The reason for this is because the Vilna Gaon introduced to have handwritten scrolls of navi. Like in scr-- like you have a Megillas Esther, you have a scroll of Yeshayah, a scroll of Yirmeyah, et cetera. Scrolls of the, I guess it's, uh, at least, uh, at least, uh, seven scrolls. Yeshayah, Yeshu, Shephatim, Shmuel, Melachim, that's four. Then you got Yeshayah, Yirmeyah, Yechezkel, and Trei Asar. It'd have to be four, eight scrolls. So, so the Vilna Gaon introduced, uh, reintroduced perhaps, they use scrolls for reading the, uh, maftir. Just a second. The, uh, the, the handwritten scrolls, the handwritten scrolls wouldn't have the vow- the vowels, certainly not the notes, the trop. Therefore, most people of the community are not able to read the Navi from the scroll. Therefore, the baal koreh who's qualified to prepare the Parsha, he also reads the Na- he reads the Navi for them. So how do they get around this? We said that it's imperative before you read Navi to have read in the Torah. So how do they get around it is that there's someone, the baal koreh does the reading from the Navi on their behalf. So

06:31 here you have in front of you from the Mishnah Berurah, then this is in Siman resh pe daled. He addresses this, and he's actually, I can see here, he has quoted for the Chayei Adam. So let's... it's almost word for word for the Chayei Adam. "Uvezmanenu nowadays, vedominically in some places, luchtoiv to write the Nevi'im on parchment ubiglilin, scroll, like a Sefer Torah. If so, hakorei benovi pumoitzi kol hatzibbur k'kriyas haSefer Torah." He throws in a comment, which is a little bit puzzling. He throws in a comment that the one who's reading Navi, he's moitzi the congregation like if, uh, he'd been reading from the Torah. "V'lo chen, therefore, afilu lechatchilah mutar likros lemaftir. Therefore, it's even lechatchilah permitted to call up for maftir someone who's unable to read the Navi himself. Dehu yomir kol habrachos. So the congregant will read the brachos of the Haftarah before and after. V'hashliach tzibbur, and the, the baal koreh will read the Haftarah just like he read from the Sefer Torah." So clearly, and this is, as I said, the Chayei Adam is saying in our kehillah, in Vilna, although I don't know, he lived in, in, uh, I thought he lived in Danzig. But, uh, at any rate, he writes in our kehillah that the, that we've introduced to use, uh, parchment scrolls for Navi. So it's been introduced that the baal, the baal koreh does the Haftarah. Now, but then I looked at it and thought it, it, l'choe it's very straightforward. It's very straightforward because

08:17 like this, what will we say? That it's, i- i- it's imperative that whoever reads from the Navi has to have read from the Torah. Now, you call up Yankel Reich for maftir, and then he comes to the Haftarah. So Yankel Reich did not read the Torah because it was the baal koreh that read the Torah. Yankel Reich doesn't read the Navi because the baal koreh reads the Navi. So as far as the brachos is concerned, Yankel Reich made a bracha here and bracha there. As far as the actual reading, the baal koreh read here, the baal koreh reads there. So what's the problem? Either way, the one who's... has a privilege in Navi had the same privilege in the Torah, therefore, s- s- problem solved. Actually, what's bothering me is reading these words of the Aderabbon, the one who reads the Navi has to have read in the Torah. Actually, we don't do that. Most of us, if we're called up for maftir and Haftarah, yes, we're capable of reading the Haftarah with the trop from the printed, uh, volume, but we don't read from the Torah. It's the baal koreh who's reading from the Torah. So how are we fulfilling this halacha of the one who reads Navi has to have first read in the Torah when I didn't read in the Torah, it was the baal koreh? Okay, so I murmured along with him quietly, little bit schwach. But how do, how did we fulfill this? Good. To me, this is actually what

09:49 the, what is being said here in this line in the Mishnah Berurah, which as I said, is the words of Chayei Adam. The baal koreh is reading on behalf of the tzibbur. So therefore, he says like this: when I, r- when I'm reading, when I, the baal koreh, when I'm reading in Sefer Yeshayahu, I'm doing it on your behalf. You had the aliyah in, in Vayikra, a- and I, and I read it for you. And true, and now I'm reading for you from Sefer Yeshayahu. That's not a problem. So let me now switch this the other way around. I had aliyah for maftir, but I did not learn in the Torah. But actually, the baal koreh who read, he was moitzi me. When he read the maftir in Sefer Vayikra, he did it on my behalf. Okay, so I did read in the Torah. Of course, he was moitzi everyone, but particularly when I stood up there and I said the brachos, so, and, and he read, he was reading on my behalf. So he... I did read in the Torah vicariously through him. Okay, so then I was koreh baTorah, and therefore, I'm pre-- I'm, I'm allowed to read from the Navi. Good. So that's, that's the, the normal thing. But now to call in a third person, neither the baal koreh nor the mister maftir, calling a third person to come and take over to read maf-- to read the Haftarah, that is problematic. So then you have the scenario that someone, Reuven,

11:35 buys maftir Yono for nine hundred pounds, but he can't read it. Shimon can read it, but he doesn't have nine hundred pounds. So then they do a, a, a, a... they, uh, g- make a, a partnership. "I'll pay, and you'll read." That's not okay because Shimon cannot read Maftir Yono unless he read be- before that in the Chumash, in, in, in the, in the Chumash, right? So now, uh, coming back to the question which was asked. Can... Now I've, I've, I've, I've read the Torah and now it comes to Maftir. Can I give one of the congregants the Aliyah of Maftir, and I will take over to read the text of the Navi? And the answer is yes, because I read in the Torah also. Okay. So I read for you, so I'm reading the Na- the Maftir for you. So either way, it's, it's the same thing. Okay, that's the way I think it, it is legitimate, contrary to what I'd said to the fellow on the Friday night. Now, just one more thing. Reading in the Alter Rebbe, Sichah, in... So he has here the following statement. "If there's no one in the shul who can say Maftir, unless, besides any of the seven who had an Aliyah, so then one of the seven should have a, have Maftir." The fact that he read does not count because Kaddish has been said in s- in, in between. All right, so again, if there's no one else in the shul, if you had seven

13:23 Aliyahs and then the other three gentlemen are not able to do Maftir, so then one of the seven gentlemen will have Maftir and he'll have a double Aliyah. Then he says, "If any of the other people are, who are present, are able to do Maftir, then, then give the Maftir to one of the people who hasn't had an Aliyah yet, rather than doing the same person who had an Aliyah this morning should have again an Aliyah." To have twice an Aliyah in the same morning is not straightforward. It's only on the Navi. So now I'm asking the question, if it's so simple that the balkona can take over for Haftarah, so what's all this about there's no one else in the shul who can do Maftir? Let the, let them have, do their brochos and the m- and the balkona will do, will read, will read the Navi. Possibly, the answer to that is that the people, the other three people in the shul or more, not only are they not able to read in Yeshayahu, but they even will struggle to read the brochos. The brochos before and after the Haftarah, they can't handle that either. In that case, if they're so incapable not even to read the brochos, then, then one of the seven who had the Aliyahs till now will have an, a, a double Aliyah. But if one of the less capable people is able to do the brochos, then I feel that the recommendation would be, contrary to what

15:00 I said to this fellow on Friday night, the recommendation would be that let that, that person who did not have an Aliyah, let him have Maftir and you'll read, and let him say the brochos of Haftarah and you'll read. Right. Let's move on to something... So someone is challenging that it says that the part, the Alter Rebbe's wording is, if there's no one who's able to be Maftir Benavi, and I'm clutching into this, if there's no one who's able to read. Okay. Good, good. Point taken. Right. Let's move on. So a very common question, I've had this during this past week from half a dozen perhaps shluchim asking what's the story of starting Maariv, the second night of Shavuot, davening Maariv early. Now, obviously in Chabad itself, we daven Maariv on time. We don't do an early Maariv. And that's going back to the Alter Rebbe, that we don't, we don't do an early Maariv. Although it's difficult, and we know it is difficult, and yet we don't, we don't f- fiddle around with this Ma'ad of Maariv. We wait till night. We daven Maariv then. But many, many shuls and Chabad houses, they will do Maariv early, and so long as it's after Pelag Mincha, with the exception of the first night of Shavuot, where first night of Shavuot we don't want to, um, cut short the Temimot, the forty-nine days of the Sefira. Therefore, the first night of Shavuot, not only Chabad, in many, many communities, they will stick it out and, and

16:53 wait for Maariv till, till ten, ten thirty, whatever it may be. I remember once, I was once in Leeds for over Shavuot, and it was in the Eitz Chaim, like a United Synagogue type of Habad shul, and they waited till, uh, ten or ten fifteen, ten thirty, whatever. It was, you know, more extreme than here. Okay. But what about the second night? Is there any leeway to do Maariv early the second night? So two points. Number one, this year, this Shavuot, the second night is Shabbos, and therefore it's much more straightforward to start Maariv the second night early. From Pelag Mincha, you can do Maariv and have, make Kiddush, et cetera. Had it not been such a... Just, let's say it was just Shavuot is Wednesday and Thursday. See, here we read, this is from the Sefer Beis Nesivim, the Aruch L'ner. You've got the references there. But here we have from the Levush, who lived about four hundred some years ago, and he writes that Maariv, the second night of Yom Tov, whether it's Shavuot, Pesach, or Sukkoth, generally Maariv should be left- Till late, till after nightfall. The reason being, we don't want... If you daven Ma'ariv early, then there is the risk of melacha being done on that day for the night. So let's say, um, Shabbos came in this past Shabbos. Was it eight thirty? Was it... So the sunset was about quarter to 9:00. So let's say if you would daven Ma'ariv half past 7:00, and then you start your

18:39 meal at eight o'clock. What would... So that, that's still Yom To- Yom Tov Rishon. What would happen if you put up a soup at quarter past... To, um, boil the soup at eight o'clock, or quarter past 8:00, and it only becomes ready, because it's a small flame, it's only ready at 10:00 o'clock. So what have you done? You've cooked on Yom-- the real Yom Tov, which is Yom Tov Rishon. Quarter past eight was still the real Yom Tov. And it was only for the benefit of after the real Yom Tov, which was Yom Tov Sheni. You're not allowed to prepare from one day to the other. So this is the reason it's customary not to bring Ma'ariv early so as not to allow, or not to, not to cause the likelihood of melacha being done on day one for day two. And next point is that on the luach, on the calendars, it says second night you can't light candles until quarter past 10:00, let's say. So again, because if you light the candles earlier, so then you're preparing on Yom Tov Rishon and benefiting it from Yom Tov Sheni, which is not okay. However, if the meal is going to be eaten early, and if necessary, that is legitimate, so then, you know, let's say you're going to eat the meal at eight o'clock, then you'd light candles before the meal and you'd make Kiddush at eight o'clock. That's only if it's then not Nirtzah. Very interesting. The Ben Ish Chai says, he says

20:20 it's a good idea to do the meal early because he talks about the flies being so abundant at sunset, therefore, start the meal early so you shouldn't have flies in your food. Be that, be that as it may, there is a heter to do the meal earlier on the second evening of Yom Tov, but then you'd have to be very careful not to do any melacha before sunset, which is only gonna be for the benefit of, uh, uh, after, after sunset or after nightfall. So that's why it's generally not a good idea, but if it's necessary, it is an option. As I say, this, this Yom Tov, because it's sh- the second night is, is Shabbos, no melacha is gonna be done any case. And you're allowed to do melacha because of the Eiruv Tavshilin. Because you make Eiruv Tavshilin, you're allowed to do melacha on Friday for the benefit of Shabbos, therefore, it's not a problem to do Ma'ariv early and to do Kiddush early, et cetera. Which brings us kind of to the following question. Here is about the Eiruv Tavshilin permits us to cook on Friday for the benefit of Shabbos. So normally, on Yom Tov, you're only allowed to cook for the very same day. If I would cook on Yom Tov for after Yom Tov, I would be in violation. So although Torah allows me to cook, ochel nefesh, I'm allowed to cook on Yom Tov for the day, but I'm not allowed to cook for after Yom Tov. What

21:51 would happen if I violated this? If I, on Yom Tov, I baked something for next week. I'm making a bar mitzvah next week. I need some extra cakes. So I made some cakes. On Yom Tov, I had spare time in the afternoon, I baked cakes. So do I get malkes? I know it's not, not legal in this country. Um, w- if there were to be a Sanhedrin, would I get malkes? So there is a, a, a get-out clause. It's like, uh, it was five o'clock in the afternoon when I made those cakes. But what would happen if at six o'clock, a bunch of hungry bachurim came through my door? Oh, Baruch Hashem, I've got something to feed them. So then, plausibly, I... it was usable. It was-- It could have been served on the Yom Tov itself. Therefore, I'm not, I'm not punishable for what I did because it could have been used for the very day. So when is the violation a violation? If I took a steak or something, some meat which takes two hours to cook, and I put it to cook an h- half an hour before sunset. In a way, there's no way it would be ready for the day. So I did an act of cooking, and there's no way it could be edible today. If I did a cooking on the first day, on Yom Tov, for the day after, that's where I would be in violation and get malkes. So let's read this insight. This is in

23:16 the Aruch HaShulchan, Siman tof, kuf, chaf, zayin. And he says, "The Eiruv Tavshilin only permits us to do the needs of Shabbos on Yom Tov only, `be'od hayom gadol´, when there's plenty of time before the end of the day. `Neheinú sheyes shos beyom´, that there is enough time, that if orchin would suddenly arrive unexpectedly, and they haven't eaten today. So then what you cook today is-- they're gonna be able to eat it now before sunset, before twilight. But if the melacha that you did was so close that there's no time to benefit from the melacha on to- today, so then that's, `asur min haTorah´ to do this." He doesn't talk about the malkes here, but okay. Eiruv Tavshilin only works to... That does not, doesn't, doesn't... Eiruv Tavshilin doesn't undo something which is forbidden min haTorah. Since it's... people are not so familiar with this halacha, that's why when Yom Tov is on a Friday, it was common c- custom to s- do Ma'ariv a little earlier, before nightfall. So that, in that way, people knew they have to be in for Ma'ariv. Therefore, they would make sure that the stuff for Shabbos would be ready before the early Ma'ariv. Okay, so we said before, there's a... seems to be even a positive thing, not only just a heter, but even a positive thing to do Ma'ariv early when you s- there's an Eiruv Tavshilin. Which I may have mentioned before, our minhag is that we skip the first six chapters from the Chayei Adam,

24:52 and we start from Mizmor L'David. And possibly that's one of the reasons, in order that Ma'ariv should start, start a little bit earlier. It doesn't work. Never mind. Um, uh, all right. So now, so according to what we're reading here, if I want to put up a cholent this Friday, so that cholent has to be edible before sunset. Good. Comes along the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and says very similar, "It should be finished before He's talking about insulation in a way that it's also going to keep on cooking, um, in some way. It should be edible before Minchat Gerim, at least shlishi be-shulchan, at least a third of its cooking. So now let's say a cholent takes an hour and a half to cook. So the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch says, "So you can put up your cholent a half an hour before sunset." Now, as you know, I'm, I, I, I worked on an edition of the alt- of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch in with Psakim, with the decisions of the Alter Rebbe. So someone challenged me and says, "How come in that Kitzur Shulchan Aruch we don't have a comment here that the Alter Rebbe disagrees with this heter?" So the... Again, the Alter Rebbe says that the food has to be edible, that you can enjoy it by myself. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch says, "So long as it's a third cooked, that's enough." So according to the Alter... It looks like be- before you read the Kitzur, you have to put up your cholent

26:45 an hour and a half before sunset. According to the Kitzur, it's enough to put a half an hour before sunset. It's quite a significant difference. So how do... Does the Alter Rebbe disagree with this? Now, the source of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch is from the Pri Megadim, and we know there's those gangsters known as Benei Ben... There's a gangster known as Ben Durusai. And we know on Shabbos, if you cook raw food and you didn't make it finished, you just made it a third cooked, you'd get punished for... You'd get, get punished in Beis Din with all the, um, capital punishment. For what? For cooking a raw food and making it edible. Who's it edible for? Oh, there's a gangster called Ben Durusai. He eats his food on the run. Therefore, you cook because it's edible for him. So I wrote to him, this, my correspondent. I wrote to him this. When it came to Se'udah in the Beis Din, you said, "Oh, it's cooked. It's edible for the Ben Durusai." He could get Se'udah. And now I cooked on Friday, and before Shabbos came, before sunset, Ben Durusai could have eaten it. Other people would not. So if Ben Durusai is a factor to punish the Se'udah, so Ben Durusai should equally be a factor to acquit me from Malkis because it was edible. By myself, it was edible on Friday before sunset. I feel very strongly that this point which the Pri- which the, uh, which the Pri Megadim, the Kitzur is saying,

28:15 it's got... It's very, very convincing, that so long as the food is edible, even for Ben Durusai, if it's edible before the, before sunset, that should be enough that it shouldn't be, um, you know, there shouldn't be Issur Min HaTorah, and therefore it's permitted to do so. Um, so he answered this correspondent of mine. He writes, "But what would happen if someone took food from the fridge, which is a third cooked, and he put it on the fire just five minutes before sunset? And in those five minutes, it doesn't cook at all, but then it's going to then cook the rest. And in, on Shabbos, even though it's past Ben Durusai, but anything from Ben Durusai till all the way fully, uh, fully cooked is an act of cooking. So if you take food which is a third cooked, quarter, um, third cooked, and you put it on the, on the stove on Yom Tov, and it cooks, cooks further, and it's not... And no benefit today, only for tonight, then you're in trouble." Which I, I think is right. I think is right. But, um, if you did the act of putting the cholent up in a half an hour before sunset, I think that, that, that would be, um, would be... It would not be a problem. Taking out raw food... Sorry, um, a third cooked and making it, um, fully cooked on Yom Tov for Shabbos would be a problem. So I'm, I'm really, um, not sure whether we have to make

29:50 a comment in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch that the Alter Rebbe disagrees. He's talking about placing it there, how long in advance it has to be placed there. He's not talking about taking stuff out of the fridge. Talking about how long in advance, and he says it's, if it's a third cooked. Um, if, if it's... If you put it in, in time that a third will be cooked before Minchat Gerim, you're okay. Okay, let's move on. That conversation is an ongoing, it's a work in progress. Okay. So last week, we had a discussion about lighting candles and whether a man should cover his eyes when he lights the candles. So one of our listeners of the recording asked, he's a Bochur Yeshiva, and he's asking, in his Yeshiva, they have dorms. They have, like, apartments. Not in the Yeshiva itself, a little bit, uh, separate, few minutes away. He's asking whether the Bochurim need to light candles in the dorm. Now, Bochurim don't necessarily calculate risks very well But if I was running a yeshiva, I'd be very anxious about bochurim leaving flames because they've got a greater degree of, uh, confidence that everything's gonna be okay. Uh, especially if there's damage, they don't have to pay for it. So now, should the bochurim have to light in their dorms? So the answer is no. Not just because of safety or, or reasons. The reason- the word is like this. I asked the bochur, "Is it your apartment or is it yeshiva's apartment?" See, sometimes bochurim

31:34 rent their own apartment. If it's their apartment, then they should be lighting there. But here is, is the following. The yeshiva provide food, and they provide lodging, and they pr- part of that provision is also providing lighting. So there's one provider called the yeshiva, which provides food and beds and lighting. One bochur is lighting... Should, that's what it should be. I, I hope it's done in every yeshiva. Um, when I was in Brurova, that was done regularly. There were candles in the dining room. One bochur, it was his job, every Friday he lit candles. And they were... Actually, there was a niche, like a raised-up level. And so when we be- when we had our meal in the yeshiva, there were those candles which are visible. He made his bracha on behalf of the yeshiva, which is the host, and that bracha was covering for all the food, for all the eating, um, it's the lighting where the eating, and for all the other lighting in the other areas of the yeshiva. And therefore, there's no need for the bochurim to light, light their own candles because they, they, uh, their boarding and the lighting in the boarding is all provided by the yeshiva, and one bracha has been said, and that is in- incorporated, in- including for all of them. Separate question he asked, "Does the light in the bathroom, does that count for the mitzvah of Hadlakat Neris?" The answer is, I think, yes. Not... You wouldn't make a bracha necessarily, and certainly

33:09 not inside. But if that's enough for you to be able to u-use your room safely, to be able to open the door when necessary, that's an en suite bathroom. And you open the door, and then you can see what you're doing in your room. And then when you'rere going to sleep, you close the door. But if that works, that's, that's, that's fine. Yeah. Right. Let's move on. So here was a shailer, came to my attention that in a particular institution, there was a builder, and he accidentally spilled some paint. And then some kids running around, they didn't realize this paint, and they trod in it, and they perhaps got their clothes, um, damaged, ruined from the paint. So now, does the builder have a duty to pay for the damage caused by the paint left, um, exposed? Now, of course, there's a moral level, but we're talking about strictly Halakha. Um, so now there's... If I leave something which is, could cause damage, I did not inflict the damage. I left something dangerous, and the victim came into the damage. So again, it's not that the damage went into him, but he came. So that's called Be'er. We have in the Torah about a person dug a pit, and then this is BeMidbar Shehacha Rabim. So then someone, an animal was, was, was, uh, walking and didn't notice it fell into the pit and gets damaged, hurt, et cetera, uh, killed. So then the Torah says that the Ba'al Habayit, the one who dug the

35:02 pit, has to pay the damages. Now, here we have in Shulchan Aruch, it's in the Gemara, it's in, it is brought out in Shulchan Aruch, that if Keilim, if utensils fell into the Be'er, got broken, damaged, the Ba'al Habayit, the owner of that damage, uh, cause of damage, is patur because we learn from the Posit that, "Kenaf El Shor Bas Shor Ei Chamor," they will fall therein a, uh, an ox or a donkey. And the Torah, the Chazal infer from this, "Shor VeLo Adom," the liability of the Be'er, the mo-- the owner of the Be'er, is only if an animal fell in. But if a person fell in, so then he's not liable for the damage for the, for the person. "Chamor," the Torah says two examples, "Shor VeChamor," a dog, ox, or donkey. Why is there an extra word? "Chamor VeLo Keilim," only if the victim is, is an animal. But if utensils fell in, then again, he's not liable for that damage. Let's read further. "VeLo Nismat Odom Melamim Misa," that which the owner of the pit is exempt for payment is only if he, the person died. "Avel Im Huzak Boi," but if the person got harmed, had to have, uh, uh, you know, uh, hospitalization, treatment, "Chayav," then the one who dug the pit is liable for the damages to his victim. That's said with humans. "Avel Al Hakeilim," but for utensils which got damaged, "Ben Inish Ve'ulu Gamai, Ben Im Huzku Is Patur." So for inanimate objects, whether they got

36:49 totally broken or got damaged. So I left an exposed cause of damage, factor of damage, and utensils got damaged because of it. So the Torah does not oblige me to pay. So therefore, therefore, the, the builder- Was perhaps morally wrong, but is not liable to pay for the damage to the clothing or utensils. Um, now, I just recently was listening to a shiur online. What would happen if, by the next election in Eretz Israel, what would happen if there's a, there's a overriding majority of from a Yidden? Then their medina would have to run according to Halakha. So then how would you... You know, a lot of stuff is gonna be difficult. So this kind of thing, yeah. Um, how would this... I'm not sure how it would wash. Um, a bit of a pun in this instance. But, uh, how, how would it... So one, one of the points which they're saying is that, that the bezdin would be, um, would be empowered, right, to, to enact rules even beyond what's the Hiddurim Halakha. So if there's going to be for takanas hatzibbur, for the benefit of the welfare of the community, the, the bezdin may apply a penalty, even though according to Heresh Mishpat, it's, it's not applicable. So what would be if this would come to, uh, in a... It would, in, in a more established community, uh, in a situation whether it would be chayav beyond the Halakha of Shekhinaruk, possibly. But strictly speaking, according to Shekhinaruk, the, uh, the owner

38:46 of the, the, of the, of the damage is not liable for the damage. I think there's just one, one interesting... How much more, say, it was in a private domain. I mean, yeah, doesn't, doesn't make it, uh, worse. Um, one interesting thing is, I think that in... I once, when I was once... If you remember, many years ago, there was a factory in India which had a major disaster, and it was a whole discussion. Who is liable for disaster? Was it, was it called Bhopal? I don't remember. It could be. Um, is it the designer? Is it the builder? Is it the, the, uh, the owner of the factory? It was like a whole discussion. And at the time, someone asked me Halakha view about it, and just a, a feeling about this. In civil law, the... Ei-either it's either the designer or the architect or the builder or the... There has to be someone has to pick up the tab. What about the They don't have that. Therefore, they have... Someone has to pick up the tab. Grenfell Towers. Who has to be, who're we, who's liable for Grenfell Towers? Keep on pushing around. But in Ha- in Torah, sometimes there's a damage which Torah says the, the party who's the chayer, the cause, he's not punishable. So who is bro- who... So who gave the damage? It came from Hashem. This person is not liable to pay, and so it's a damage which you'll just see. It's a damage from which was sent

40:24 by Hashem. Um, let's go to the chat over here. In your example, one of the bochurim lighting candles for yeshiva. Does he dictate Shabbos for all the bochur? No, I don't think so. It doesn't... In fact, if he lights the candles a little bit early, I don't think that is... He's, he's doing the mitzvah of Hadlakas Neris. He's not doing Kabbalas Shabbos for everyone. For that matter, when a woman lights candles, it doesn't make it Shabbos for her husband. Right. But she's doing the mitzvah for him. Right. Um, let's move on. So here, a boy in my class in the, uh, yeshiva ketana in Golders Green, he asked me a, a challenging question. You know, in Chabad it's quite common for us, especially Shabbos, to daven a little bit later. The latest time for Shema is, what is it, nine o'clock, nine thirty, whatever it is, around then. When we're davening, we're starting Hiddur at nine, uh, at ten o'clock. So by the time you get to Shema, it's too late. So what do we do? We say Shema earlier. So you wake up, uh, whenever, whatever time you wake up, and you say Shema, three parshas, and then you go and sit with that. So now he's asking, it says in the Gemara, if a person didn't read Shema until after fourth or third hour, it says, what's the rule of the, the, the late Shema, which is encapsulated with Yoitzer Oy and Avas Olam and Mesubiyatsi. It's there. But does it have the

42:01 din of Shema that you're not allowed to interrupt for many things? Or is it , you're allowed to interrupt? This was his quest, which I think was a very good question. So I looked around and eventually came to this comment from the , and he writes the following. Those who read the Shema early in the morning, then later when they sang the davening, they're saying Birkat Krishema, and they're saying Shema again. So he says it's, has the din of bein haparokim. If there's two levels, there's em tzahapeilik and bein haparokim. So he says it's like bein haparokim, although it's a middle of a parshah, but it doesn't have the full impact of in middle of Shema because Shema. And therefore, you'd be allowed, whatever you're allowed to answer bein haparokim, you'd be allowed to answer there. Um, I'm going to leave that over there, and we're gonna go on to the next question. So here, one of our listeners asks me the following. You know you've got these boards in shuls where the number of the yomei, the day of the week, whatever, and you've got numbers And, or, or letters, and you slide, slide them into a sli- into a track, and so it becomes chaf zain, whatever it could be. Um, are you allowed to put letters, separate letters, into that slide, into that track to create a number? Now, there's a separate type, which I haven't seen it in years. I'm sure a lot of you remember these pegboards. You had a

43:40 board, which has got, you know, a thousand holes or th- five thousand holes, and you have letters which... They've got little, um, uh, little, you know, how do you say, studs at the back, and you fit them in and it says, you know, "Bingo at," uh, et cetera, outside. So that... To do those, that's not as- not allowed on Shabbos. But so, to put letters in those pegboards. Now, what we're reading over here is that to, to pin letters onto a surface, that's not okay. But then he says the following. This is from the Piskei Teshuvos. Um, so he writes the following. If you've got letters which are written on a card, and to put them into a track, and they're going to now form words, form a message, so long as they're not held firmly there, then that is okay. That's not, that's not an issue. So let's, let's c-compare to, let's say, a jigsaw puzzle. Are you allowed to put, make a jigsaw puzzle on Shabbos? So you've got the more, sh- uh, sh- shall we say, childish ones, where if you pick up one piece, the rest remain on the table. So to make such a, to do such a puzzle on Shabbos is okay because the pieces, therefore the picture, is not, hasn't become one unit. You've got the more, should we say, adult puzzles. That's a bit of a... Adults playing puzzles is interesting, but never mind. Um, so the, the adult puzzles, so then they... You stick them together,

45:13 then you can put the whole thing together. That would not be allowed on Shabbos because they've been... The, the parts, and therefore the pictures, it, has become one unit. So what is being said over here, you've got this track, and you put in letters, but they're not getting... They're not stuck there, and they're easy to slide, easy to slide in and out. Therefore, that's not a problem. It's not called writing. Writing is... The definition of writing is letters stuck onto a surface. Okay. Now, one of our listeners asks the question, "Can, may one use a knife sharpener for fleishigs and milchigs? Does a knife sharpener have to be kosher?" Could you go to a local... There may be so-some facility locally where they've got machines for sha- sharpening knives. Non, a non-kosher place, could you sharpen your knives there? So the basic answer is that interaction of taste is u- would be with hot, with heat, and, and with a liquid. So now, the, the... And if that's not there, then that would be okay. So this is from a Sefer Kol Shever Da-hakohosi, but it, this is, I believe it would be across, accepted across the board. To sharpen a knife, you are allowed to sharpen a knife, uh, on, uh, on a sharpener, sharpening stone, whatever, even though it may have been used for non-kosher foods. Or you are similarly allowed to, um, sharpen a knife on, a milchig knife, a fleishig knife on a, a milchig knife with the same sharpener. Then

46:51 he says, if it's a kind of sharpener which is used, they use, um, a lot of water during the sharpening, then one shouldn't use the same sharpener for, uh, one for the other. But if it's just a little bit of, of, uh, water. So then he says that's okay. So basically, generally for a knife sharpener, you can use the same knife sharpener for fleishigs or milchigs, um, because, because there's no significant liquid to say it became hot, and it took the taste from the knife into the stone, and then from the stone back into the knife. All of that is not happening, and therefore it's okay. Right. One of our listeners asks me for a little bit of clarity about non, uh... about pas palter. As you may know, several years ago, the Sephardi Kashrus Authority in this country made an arrangement with one of the big baking, um, chains, Warburton's or something, and that their bread should be without any animal fat. And so if, let's say, you're in Cornwall or whatever it may be, in Stoke-on-Trent, you could go into a shop and buy War- Warburton's bread, and you know that it doesn't have any treif ingredients. Of course, there's the other issue that it's n-not pas Yisroel, it's pas... The word palter means bread from a baker. So we do know that there's halacha that Chacham introduced, that we shouldn't be buying bread from, made from a, by a goy. Then we have here, the Shechinach says the following. There are places,

48:33 they are more lenient, and they allow buying bread from a goyishe baker where there's no Jewish baker available because it's a shaat zdcha. Because it's, you need to have something to eat. So they would buy from a J- goyishe baker when there's no Jewish bakery available. Of course, we're not talking about, chas v'Shalom, with treif ingredients. We're talking about it's just like French bread, which is just flour and water and salt, but it's made by a goy. So there are places where they would permit using that bread from a goyishe bakery. „Yesh oimrim da fila bemokin she-pas Yisroel motzu yesh choli." Now, those who would take this heter, even when Jewish bread is available also, to buy the goyishe, the bread from a goyishe bakery. So that's what we have here in the Shechinach. Now we're looking at the Kitzur Shechinach. You're not allowed to eat bread from a goy. There are places where they would buy bread from a goyishe baker, where there's no Jewish baker available, or even yes, but it's not as good q-quality. If it's from a private owner, from a private baker, that, or from the shop of themselves, you know. Now, those who say that when there's no baker available, you're even allowed to buy from a baal avodah, no, that's a separate thing. But meanwhile, what we're seeing is there is a little bit of leeway to be able to buy bread from a pas palter, from a goyishe bakery, um, when there's no... When, when it's better

50:04 quality, et cetera. So that's this yesh oimrim. And that's where those, these, uh, these, these, uh, so some people might be mekiel, think they're lenient view. I just want to say, certainly as Chassidim, we don't go for this. And I mentioned this story before, sorry I didn't put it online, that Rebbe Chitrik, halve a shalom, his stories, his Reshimat Devarim. He has a story of when it was... The Rebbe was in Rostov, as in, as they're going back 100 years ago, approximately, a bit, a bit more than 100 years ago. After 19- but then 1918, you know, during, during the, uh, revolution, et cetera. So Rebbe moved from Lubavitch to Rostov, and the Chassidim asked a cross question. There is, there is a, a, a Jewish baker in Rostov on the other side of town. But that Jewish baker doesn't wash Negel Vasil. There is a c- There's a goyishe bakery just around the corner, so who doesn't need to wash Negel Vasil. So when you... If a person didn't wash Negel Vasil, so there's a, there's a Ruach Hatumah. So perhaps they should davka buy from the goy who doesn't have a Ruach Hatumah rather than buying from the Yid who didn't wash Negel Vasil, there's a Ruach Hatumah. And the Rebbe said, "Better buy from the Yid." Because this is a Ruach Hatumah, but this one is, is, is the Tumah Mamash. So he'd, he preferred to buy from the Yid who didn't wash Negel Vasil rather than buying from the goy, which,

51:34 uh, as you can see, there's Heretelium, yeah? It's, uh, Shaas Hachak and et cetera. And yet he insisted on going to buy from the, uh, Jewish baker despite the, the, uh, how you say, apprehensions there. So certainly it's not something which we would g- go for. But there are those people out there who are gonna take that lenient view, follow the lenient view, and Yesh Hemam Al Ismo. Okay, let's go for our last thing. Now, someone's asking, what about Duché de Sakino? Um, yes, but Duché de Sakino, when, when it cuts through a food. If you cut an onion with a Fleishig knife, so then the onion becomes Fleishig. But then there's also, there's the, there's the, uh, fluid in the food is, which is, which is interacting. But if you, if it's just r- r- If you're rubbing... If you rub a, a Fleishig, a, a, a Treif knife and a Kosher knife, rub them one against the other, and they're both dry, then it would not make one... One would make, not make the other one Treif. Right. Um, the last thing which we had is, does the Chazan answer Amen of Birchat Grainim? So although in the Gemara it says the Chazan should not answer Amen when he's leading Birchat Grainim because he might lose track. But it's brought in Shulchan Aruch that nowadays, especially if you're holding a Siddur in front of you, so then you keep, you keep your finger in the place. Well, it doesn't say anything about keeping

53:00 your finger in the place, but you can, you can keep track. It's not so much you have to rely on your memory, and therefore the Chazan does answer Amen, um, between, you know, after each of the three Brachahs in, of Birchat HaTorah. We have another couple of minutes, so then just to finish off the vort of the Rebbe on Rav Yosef. We learned this recently in Gemara Pesachim. Rav Yosef is saying on the Shevu'ot, he would say that they should make for him a, a, uh, a quality c- c- calf of, for Gishmaket meat. And he says, "If not for this day of Matan Torah, how many Yosefs there would be in the Shuk that would be in the marketplace?" What does it mean? What's so special about this day? So Rashi says, "Shulamit Torah Minis Ramamti." That I've learned Torah, Rish Matan Torah. I've learned Torah and have been ele- and have been, uh, elevated. There are many other people in the street are called Yosef. If I wouldn't have learned Torah, what's the difference between me and them? The Rebbe talks about why it's the emphasis the Shuk. Why it's... What's the Shuk? And basically, the explanation is that the whole achievement of Matan Torah, the Torah was, was... He'd learned Torah before also. They always had Torah. It's trying, they, they, they were hidden, they were... Who knew the pa- parts of Torah. So what's the Chiddush of Matan Torah? So there's a famous idea of the El Yonim and Tachtonim to

54:25 bring Kidush into this world. That was anew by Matan Torah. Until then, there was like this divide that, uh, that the, that the, uh, physical will not become impregnated, so to speak, with the spiritual. And after Matan Torah, you write at the Mezuzah, so it has a Kidusha, et cetera. You bring Kidusha into this world. So that's the emphasis of the Shuk, that there's idea of... And Yosef. Yosef, Yosef means to add, to influence. And there's a new word in English called influencers. And so you've got a lot of people who say, "I'm an influencer." So they, they are Yosefs. Now, there can be Yosefs who do good things. Not to be totally, uh, you know, cynical. It could be they are inspiring to good things, and that's good. Yeah, they're, they're Yosefs. But they are Yosefs, and they are in the Shuk. But what, what is their influence, uh, achieving? Whereas Rav Yosef, who learns Torah, so their, their Chishuv, their in- their influence is something that's just within the Shuk. But Rav Yosef, he says, because he learned Torah, therefore, he's able, through Torah, to have a, an, a, uh, a spiritual input into the Shuk. And for that, he was, has the, every reason to celebrate, and that's why in Shevu'ot especially, uh, other Yomim Tovim may be an option. If a person doesn't want to, um, doesn't want to eat, wants to fast, he may be have a permission. But Davka in Shevu'ot, we want to show that we are thankful

55:59 to Hashem for giving us the Torah. Therefore, Davka, one should, one should celebrate in a Gashmius-tic way. Um, someone is asking, does the Chazan answer the Amen of the, of the Berachot Am Yisrael B'avo? I don't know. I'll have to look that up. All right, I'll wish you all a Good Yom Tov.