שלח תשפ״ג

00:07 This meeting is being recorded. Good evening. Welcome to today's shiur. It's Sunday, Parashat Shlach, and, um, I'd like to invite you. If you're g-gonna listen to the recording, it's gonna be thanks to, uh, Yaakov Raskin, who is on shlichus in Laramie, that's in Wyoming. And he's doing a fundraiser for, uh, his activities there. So that's his page for this week. That's jewishlaramie.com/c. So you're very welcome to visit there and help out. Meanwhile, let's go to our questions. So first question here, someone asks about separating- on Shabbos, separating the white of an egg from the yolk of an egg. It's quite an interesting topic. And the... I asked the person what they're interested in the separation for. This is talking about a raw egg. They like to put the white of the egg into a drink, into whiskey or something, and somehow it enhances the flavor, the color, I'm not sure. Probably, I-I think it was about the flavor. But be that as it may, we're not dealing with that aspect. We're talking about the aspect of the separation. So here we have from Siman Shin Yod Tes: "Ein mesanen et hashardal m'hatzuvin shelayim." One's not allowed to strain mustard to separate from the bits in it, even though that those bits are also edible. They're not actually total waste. And therefore, min haTorah, it's not considered boiler. Nevertheless, mid'Rabbanan, it does... it is forbidden to strain the mustard paste away from the mustard bits because it looks like boiler of taking the good away from

02:16 the bad, because you are straining in order to have the smooth paste and to discard the bits. Okay, that's, that's, uh, the premise. Then it goes into a further interesting development. How about if the, this mustard mix is already in a strainer from before Shabbos, and you mix in an egg. You put in an egg yolk, apparently, in order to enhance the color of the mustard. And what's gonna happen then is, now we've got the white of the egg and the yellow. The yolk is called in Hebrew, chelem ain, and the white is called chelem bein. It just helps you if you think of the word chalav, which is white milk, white milk. And therefore, the albumen, the outside, is called the, uh, chelem bein, and the y- the yellow is called the chelem ain. Now, if you're gonna mix this yolk of an egg into this mustard, which is in the strainer, what's gonna happen is the yolk is going to go through the strainer with the mustard paste, and the white will stay. It's viscous, and it will stay on, on top of the strain. It won't go through. So you're separating. When you're putting in this... When you're putting in this, uh, yolk, egg yolk into the mustard, you are also separating the white from the yellow. So really, he says, it's not really boiler, separating good from bad, because both the yolk and the white are both food. And your separating here is not because you want to have the yellow

04:12 and not the white, but rather because the yellow is effective in enhancing the color of the mustard, and the white doesn't have that effect. Then, however, you are in this process of using an egg to enhance the mustard. You're going to leave the, the, uh, the white of the egg. It's going to be on the, on the top of the strainer, and that's gonna be discarded. So you're going to be discarding the white, and you're going to be using the yellow. However, since the purpose here is not for eating this or not, it's just for coloring, therefore it's not considered boiler, since both of them are actually food. And a little bit more pointed, I didn't miss-- I didn't focus on that word. "Kim shebe'emet shnehem min ochel echad heim." The yolk and the white are one food. So in principle, really, the egg and the, the, the white and the yellow are considered one food, therefore there's no problem of boiler. We go on to Seif Kuf Beis. That's against Shin Yod Tes, Seif Kuf Beis. Even if the straining here was in order to, for eating, and you wanted to have the, the yellow and not the white, that wouldn't be... that would not be asur, only in this instance. And he says, "Why?" Because the white is not totally mamash hashem ochel. It's not as, it's not, not so edible as it is, and it's normal to discard it with the waste. Therefore- In this given context, the white is considered like

06:08 the waste being separated, strained away from the yellow. And therefore, if you did want to separate, if your interest here was to separate the yellow from the white, there would be a problem of borer midirabon. Avod b'inyan acher, but otherwise, if there wasn't an interest of discarding the white, then the separation of the two would not be forbidden at all, even midivrei soferim. B'bereiras min ochal echad. There's no borer if it's all one food. So let's say you've got food, you've got pieces of meat. You've got s- tiny pieces of meat and larger pieces of meat. And let's say you are in the mood of just having the large pieces of meat, and you're gonna throw away the tiny pieces of meat. That's still not making it psolas. It's not considered waste because they are all edible, and they, uh... and they're all meat. Therefore, there's no question of borer when it's all, it's all meat. So what he's saying here is that in, um, in the s- s- similar with the egg here, with the white and the yellow, if your, if your interest, um, is, well, i- if you're not trying to, to want to... If your intent is not to throw away the white, you want to use the white, then there's no question of borer because they are all one food. So that's quite powerful that the, that the, uh, white and the yellow are considered one food. And really, if you're separating them, it's not really considered borer. Now, if

07:51 I'm not mistaken, the Mishnah Berurah has a different view, and he sees the white and the yellow as separate minim. Well, the Alter Rebbe says they are both. Now, if you are, coming back to our question, if you are intending to use the white. So the whole thing here is, we're seeing here, uh, that when in comparison to the yellow, the white is considered waste because it's commonly discarded. But here in our case, it's the other way around. He actually wants to use the white. I don't know what he wants to do, do with the yellow, but he does want to use the white, and therefore, this isn't a problem of borer. And this was particularly, I asked the, uh, the shoyel. There are special tools which are made to separate the yellow and the white. It's like a little recessed piece of metal with slits at the side for the white to go through the slits, and the yel- yellow will stay in this little, um, recess. And according to what we're seeing here, that is not considered borer at all, then possibly that would also be permitted even to use the, the tool made for it. Let's read further here. So this is now, now we read from the Alter Rebbe's Shechinat HaNachat, Sheini Yoreh Deah. Now I'm reading from Rav Forchheimer's Sefer, Shabbos KeHalacha, volume two. The white and the yellow of the egg. There's a dis- debating poskim whether they are considered one species or two species. Majority of poskim, including

09:20 the Alter Rebbe, considers them as one species. However, to separate them in order to use the yellow to make food. Now, I'm not sure what he means here, oyl lelaben boy cafe, to whiten a coffee and to throw away the white. I don't understand what he means by using the yellow to whiten a coffee. Sorry, I'm not, not familiar. So then he says, if you are separate them, um, and one is gonna be discarded, then that would be a question of borer. As he quotes from the Alter Rebbe, the white, although it is food, but since it's not so edible on its own, if you're throwing it away, then it's therefore gonna be considered separating, uh, uh, bad from good. But I think in our case where he... And, and not, even, even if we're not gonna use the yellow, but the, the white is, i- is, uh, the lesser of the two. But he's go- he wants to use the white, therefore I don't see a problem of borer. Let's go on to the next question. Uh, the question of a woman who's not so young. She, uh, from, brought up as, in a Chabad upbringing and never got married. She's, mm, mid-thirties possibly. And she l- s- since she's three years old, she's been lighting one candle every Friday, uh, before Shabbos. And someone pointed out to her, why is she lighting one, why not two? And she's not keen to change, because she's keen to get, uh, kind of shidduch, kind of

11:00 get married and et cetera, and have a family. But meanwhile, this is, this is her question. So I'm looking here at a letter of the Rebbe. This letter was written to Rabbi Gedalia Felder. This is, you can see it's from Tisch Lamed Heh. Shortly after the Rebbe had launched the campaign that little, that girls should also be lighting Shabbos candles. Now, part of that was that the Rebbe said that they should light one. And Rabbi Felder, who had spoken about this and, and promoted the inyan of girls lighting, but he asked the Rebbe why one and not two. So why did I... So in it... Now, although that you have, you, Rabbi Felder, have written your letter that when you do Chinuch, it should be in the appropriate way. And he refers to also an article in the Noam, which is an annual journal, where there's an article about, from Rabbi Sal Zolti, alav ha-shalom. Um, and then y- you're asking what's, what's, what's the downside of, of, of the girl lighting two candles. So the Rebbe says a couple of points First of all, I've seen several mothers, when they hear this recommendation that their daughters should light candles for Shabbos, they saw this as a, how do you say, affront to their prestige, to their, uh, perhaps the word is control, perhaps, their, their, their mastery over their, their daughter. And I'm equally or more so concerned that shouldn't be an expression, uh, a feeling expressed by the children, by the daughter, and

12:39 a kind of rebelliousness, uh, which it was, the Rebbe was concerned. And that's, that, that concern became strengthened by me when a particular rabbi in his kehilla, a lot of his community are to show mature mitzvahs, said he's concerned to introduce this idea of girls lighting because a significant number of his community are girls who are living away from home. And if they are, are going to light candles in their, their... where they live away from the parental home, then perhaps they will not even be in, uh, uh, have an incentive to come home for Shabbos. Because they're saying they can do it all, have a whole Shabbos in their own, in their own apartment. And the results which could arise from them, that alienation, so to speak, of them managing on their own, it's obvious that that can lead to not, not good things. Therefore, the Rebbe didn't want to create that the girls in their lodgings should have a totally complete, uh, entity. They should feel that there's, there is something, uh, incomplete, and therefore they would be encouraged to go home to their, their parental home for Shabbos. There's another point which I did not want to mention in public. There are women, and it is I haven't searched, I didn't have the time to search this forum. Later in the note, there are references to this, to which there is this i- idea that the two candles correspond to a husband and wife. In Kabbalah, Shomer and Zochan, which are... that's

14:20 the reason given for wearing, for having two candles, Shomer and Zochan. Well, Shomer and Zochan in Kabbalah correspond to the feminine and the masculine. The Shomer, the, the me- the feminine, and the Zochan is the masculine. And there is the meaning to go further when another child is born, to light an extra candle for each child which is born. It's your extra mazel. Uh, actually, in the forum which I referred to in the footnotes, you have the idea of ner being gematria two hundred and fifty, and twice ner is, is obviously twice two hundred and fifty is five hundred. A man has got two hundred and forty-eight limbs. A woman's got two hundred and fifty two limbs. Together, they make five hundred. So there is this idea of the two candles corresponding to a husband and wife. Now, you are, you, Rabbi Felder, are, are aware of the Hefkerus. And the Rebbe says he's using the word Hefkerus, uh, as putting it very mildly, Balashon Nekia. The Hefkerus which is, prevails in the campuses, in the colleges, in, in matters of, uh, uh, how people behave in private in yonim. And therefore, if you are aware of this, if we are aware of this, do you think it's appropriate to, uh, to, uh, recommend to a, a, uh, a girl who is in such a college that she should light two candles? And therefore, Lo Palug. Therefore, I d- didn't want to differentiate. In every situation, whatever the level of Yerushamim is, to keep it

15:49 to one candle. Not to have this idea that there's a husband and wife there, unless there is. Finally, he f- brings from the Alter Rebbe Sichei Nuach, where he says quite emphatically that m- me- ikar hadim one candle is enough. As we have the Lashon HaMishnah, uh, the three things a husband should say, uh, before Shabbos, esharti, meravti, hadlik es haner. Haner, Lashon Yochid. Then there is a kavana to make, to have two, zochan shomer, et cetera. Well, these are all additions. The main mitzvah is to have one candle, and therefore Rebbe remains to keep to one candle u- until she's married. So, meanwhile, my... she, she wants to keep to one candle, and this seems to be the Rebbe's guidance. And they wish to should help that she should find a, a shidduch speedily and be able to light two candles and subsequently more with brochos of Ruah Ruach. Let's go on to the next question. There is the idea in, that we don't do Kidush Levanah on Friday night. What we have here on the... This first quote is from the Rama in Siman kuf chaf vav. That's towards the end of the Dinim of Rosh Chodesh, where he says, "When Shabbos is going into Yom Tov, you would not say Kidush Levanah on the night of... Motzei Shabbos going into Yom Tov." To this, the Magen Avraham adds, "How much more so you would not do Kidush Levanah the Friday night." And he refers to Menachem Azaria, Rabbi Menachem Azaria Mapano, who,

17:36 who was a contemporary of the Arizal, who gave various reasons for it, for this, and also the Ra- the Rakant, uh, the Rakanati, who also talks about this. So I'm, I'm, I'm just w- want to go through the piece of the Rama Mapano. So he says like this, this is in Siman ayin ches, that there is a, there is a debate whether the issue of terumin, of going more than Two thousand amos beyond your place, whether that applies also in, in, in, uh, above ten tefachim. In heaven, if you're flying in heaven, is there an issue of traveling more than a tefach? For example, the whole discussion in the Gemara whether Eliyahu HaNavi could come on Shabbos is contingent upon this question: Is traveling above ground, above ten tefachim above the ground, is that bound by the restrictions of, of, uh, not traveling more than two thousand amos? So there is an opinion, and we should be concerned for that, that there is an issue of traveling more than two thousand amos, which is a kilometer, even though it's above ten tefachim. And he refers to a Sefer HaGudot, which was written by a late Rishon in Cologne in Germany. Pirush l'divrei, and what's that got to do with, with Kiddush Levana? Well, the heavens are very high up. From here to the heavens, it talks about mahalach tach shona from the dep- from down here all the way to the heavens. A tremendous distance. Now, haflagas ha'aretz b'negued la'arets. The distance... Now, think of

19:14 a clock, and you have the center of the clock, and then you've got two hands. So then a centimeter difference, distance between the second, the, the minute hand and the hour hand, that centimeter of distance between those two hands towards the outer, um, edge of the clock, that sa- distance is much, is much wider. It's gonna be five centimeters and so on. The... So what he's saying here is that a small distance here, uh, high above is a big distance. So now y- let's finish off. Okay, sheyida ha'adam atzmo lema'ala meha'aretz. If you would visualize yourself above ten tefa- above ten tefachim, all the way up, straight above your, where you are. So then, as you would be going towards the, um, uh, moon to, to greet it and to bless its, its creator, you are going beyond the tefach. So he's, what he's saying is, as if we're going to greet the, the, the, uh, Shekhinah, which is manifest in the moon. And although here we're not walking very far, but if we were to go straight up and then walk towards the moon to greet it, we'd be going beyond the, the tefach. So that's the, uh, reason of not going... or not, not... One of the reasons we're not doing Kiddush Levana the night of, of... on Friday night. Then he has other reason that since you've idea of Kovod Shabbos. So Kovod Shabbos is, is a greater virtue than greeting the moon. And ein davar bimkom habjim. Don't detract from the,

21:01 the, uh, Kabbalah's Malkus of Shabbos by going to greet the moon, which is another, another energy, whatever it may be. Okay. What you have here is from the, uh, Sefer on Rosh Chodesh, written by Rabbi Chaim Rapaport, published by Kehos. And he brings this idea of, of t'chumin, uh, et cetera, and he brings various other reasons. He brings here, in the notes, he brings, um, some say that the bre- the brocha on the moon is like a kind of prayer, a tefilah, which we shouldn't be saying on Shabbos and Yom Tov. Um, some say it's got to do with the dancing, whatever. Some say, what's it got to do, you might come to carry out. They say, look, the point, this is the general psak, that we don't do come... We don't do, um, Kiddush Levana on Friday night. I have a... I can share it with any, whoever a-asks for it. I, uh, there's a reshimah, a, a, a, uh, memoir of the later Yaakov Landau from Shvat, taf resh ayin tes. And how he went into the Rebbe Rashab, was the night of Voshalech, and was asking, was late, whether to do Kiddush Levana on Friday night. And the Rebbe Rashab says, "No." He, he's quite, he dismisses it, and he says, "Wait till Motzaei Shabbos," which was gonna be much, even much later, after the middle of the month. And so, and the Rebbe just says he never s- he never seen they should do Kiddush Levana on a Friday night. What's

22:44 very strange is that my late Zayde, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Raskin, he came to Lubavitch about four years before, and he writes in him's memoirs that he saw the Rebbe making Kiddush Levana on a Friday night. So I'm a bit confused, but he was a young boy at the time. Perhaps he misunderstood what was going on. Okay, let's move on. So now we go to a new question about such a stand, as you can see on the screen. It's, uh, actually produced by one of our boys, called Rabbi Zalmi Lawrence, and it's got very bigger ones, smaller ones. So one of the bochurim in the, in the Yeshivat Chatanah asked me, "Are you allowed to do this, set it up in place on Shabbos?" It's a very good question, and we're going to go through the Dinim She'chunaru, and we'll see whether the question is a good question, yet it is permitted. Okay, so here we have in Siman shin tes vov that you're allowed to put a, let's say, trestle table. You're allowed to put the board on the legs. Even though you are creating a roof, that doesn't matter because that's not your intention. You're not intent... You're not putting the board there to shelter at the, underne- underneath the table. You're putting it there to use the shel- the, the board. Then he says, however, if beneath that board there are also walls around, mechitzas aray, even though they're temporary, so then it is doma l'ohel, and you wouldn't be allowed to do

24:20 it in a normal way. So if you had a, a walled-in area, and then you put a board on top, even though you don't need that protected area, that would not be okay to put, to put it on place on Shabbos. So that's where we have this problem. Okay, let's go back for a moment. We've got this area enclosed inside this, this diagra- um, triangular, um, shape. So it's got... It's an enclosed area, and it's more than a tefach cube. And then putting a lid on it would be, would be, uh, a question. Well, happily, we have a, a little bit for... That was sif tes. Then he goes on further in sif yud gimel. That we've said that which we're not allowed to put a roof on top of a shelter it's only when the roof was not attached to the walls before Shabbos. But if it was already attached before Shabbos, it's just they were folded, folded flat, then you are allowed to, uh, open them and put them in place. So he says about a ta- a chair. I'm just thinking from the... I've seen like fisherman's, uh, chair, stools, which I've seen in, in Argos catalog, whatever. So it's made, it's a folding chair, and when you want to use it, use it, you open it, and it creates, and it creates a sheltered area in s- underneath it also. But even though it has mechitzas, but because it's all, it's all c-connected, so he has the... He says it doesn't

26:03 resemble making an oyhel, ki m'sh'eino osek lum, because you're not making anything, you're not in-innovating at all. So had this lid, had this top piece being a separate, a loose item, so to put it on top of this sheltered area, this protected area, would not have been okay, even though you had no interest, uh, to do it. Um, but because it's all one piece, it is, it's okay. It comes to remind, years ago I, I read that there was once that the Rebbe was leaving the farbrengen, and for some reason there wasn't, uh, uh, steps in the place, in the place, and someone wanted to put a milk crate, a milk box, for the Rebbe to tread on. And the Rebbe declined. He was... He said, "Don't do it," because he's worried about asiyas oyhel, which I don't fully understand. Don't really, I don't understand. And afterwards, this Rabbi Aharon Chaitrik tells the story, and then, uh, he was... Discussed it with Rebbe in Yechidas. I don't really understand what was the problem there because the, uh, the box, taking a box and turning it upside down. I think we may have discussed it once on this, in this shiur. An upside-down box is, is, is, is better than this folding chair because it's mamesh, yeno oisek lum. So to turn a bo- a barrel upside down, um, should be a problem of oyhel. It's, like, strange. Unless it was a situation where they were going to put an upside-down box, then put a board

27:34 on top of it, which then that I can, I can see would have been a problem. Okay. So here we have a question, question number five, about making Havdalah for children on Sunday morning. So although the time, the main time for Havdalah is Motzaei Shabbos, but if you didn't manage to make Havdalah for... on, on, on, uh, Motzaei Shabbos, so then you'd make Havdalah on Sunday morning. Um, you wouldn't be allowed to eat anything before doing so. Actually, I had a question this morning. Someone hadn't made Havdalah last night, and he's... This morning he wanted to have... He, he hadn't davened yet. His question was, if he wants to have a cup of coffee before davening, is he allowed to... Sh-should he make Havdalah before davening? I felt that, like, yes, he should. Yeah. Right. So anyway, this is not the, the question which we want to deal with now. The question is that when you do Havdalah on Sunday morning or later, you would not make a beracha on the flame because you only make a beracha on the flame on Motzaei Shabbos, which is when it was created. You wouldn't make a beracha on the besamim, because that's only when you're le- going away from Shabbos, as the, uh, losing the atmosphere of Shabbos. So then that's when you have the besamim to re-revive yourself somewhat. But at a later stage, if you're doing Havdalah on Sunday morning, you shouldn't be making the beracha on the flame, shouldn't be making, making a beracha

29:14 on the besamim. So now here's the question. With the children, do you... Well, let's say, during the summer, do you, do they just not have, do they just have Havdalah, do they not have Havdalah altogether? Do they have Havdalah, just a beracha on wine, grape juice, without the flame, without besamim, or do that, do it, do all of it? So it's not, it's, it's not so widespread that always to make Havdalah for children Sunday morning. But even yes, um, it, it, I think this, it's not so terrible that... Either way, I'm gonna say a child's gonna get used to Havdalah without, without, uh, without a fire, without besamim. You know what? This is summer, and come winter, he will hear Havdalah and he'll see Havdalah. It's not as if it's just the only, the, the one-off. And on the contrary, it might be that if he sees that you can do it when he's, uh, now, on Sunday, with besamim and with the, uh, fl-flame, then he'll think when he gets older also. So it's, uh... I'm, I'm more, more inclined to say that on a Sunday morning, it should be just, uh, just Havdalah, just, just, um, just a hagafen. If you want afterwards, you give them besamim afterwards. There's no problem to make a beracha on besamim afterwards. To make a beracha on the flame, that would not be okay because it's, uh... Actually, I just wanna share with you, I saw a quote from the Rashba. Why... Someone asked the Rashba, "Why

30:46 do we make a beracha on the creation, on the, so to speak, commemorating the time when fire was created? There are many other things created during the six days of creation, and we don't have anything specific to co-commemorate those. So why the, why d'afke on this?" And the person was asking, perhaps this is because this is the one thing which was a human, a human innovation. To which the Rashba says, "You don't need to go for that. It's, it's simple. The reason is that this, uh, inyan of fire was not available, was forbidden for the whole of Shabbos. And therefore, because now it's permitted, that's why we make the beracha now, and that's obviously the reason for Yom Kippur." That way it's nothing to do with commemorating when it was created, but the fact it was unavailable. And as we've discussed before, Yom Kippur, there's an additional aspect to the mitzvah of Havdalah o- on a, on a flame, that the flame has to have been burning for the twenty-four hours without being involved in any melacha. Fine. Let's move on. So here's a, a question. A Jewish man was previously married to a non-Jewish woman, and now he's a baal teshuva. He has a daughter who's celebrating her birthday, and she's turning forty, and she's inviting lots of friends, and she's gonna be celebrating by making a picnic on Saturday afternoon in the park. And she's asking her father, would he join them at the picnic. And they, they've got a good relationship. He'd

32:19 happy, be happy to join her for her party. His question is, would he be allowed to partake of any of the food at the party in the park? So we... here we have a halacha. In Simashir Chof Hey. Now, just to, uh, uh, explain something. We've got many halachas about Amir Olam Nachri. What we're now to instruct, what we're not allowed to instruct. Then there's another area of halacha, benefiting from what a goy did. These are two separate things. Whether you're allowed to say or not, you know, give instructions or not. And a separate thing, that which the goy has done already, are you allowed to benefit from? And those are fairly concentrated, those halachas, in Simashir Chof Hey. So let's read here carefully. A goy has drawn water from the well to feed his, his, his, uh, animal. The well is ten tefach deep and four tefach wide. Therefore, the, the well is a reshus hayachid. The street is a reshus harabim. So he's drawn water from the reshus hayachid, from the well, to the reshus harabim, to the trough, which is in the street. So after he's finished, a Jew may give his animal to drink thereof because the goy had no intention to draw water for the person standing behind him. Well, who she'ein haNochri makiroi. That's only if the goy doesn't know the Jew is standing behind him. Av od hu makiroi, but if the goy does know, uh, is familiar with the Jews n- right nearby, also then the Jew

33:54 is not allowed to, you know, feed his animal from that water. Because the concern is that the goy will then draw more water for the Jew, for the Jew's animal. So what we're seeing here is that even if the goy has done an act for himself, but if there is the concern that he may do more melacha for the benefit of the Jew, then you're not allowed to benefit from it. Now, that's how much more so in our instance, where, of course, she wants her dad to be there, and there's every likelihood that she will go out of her way to bring something which is going to be kosher, uh, and that the father would be able to eat. And a- as a result, I believe that that's the halacha, that he's not allowed to partake of anything because of the likelihood of the, uh, his goyishe daughter, uh, carrying a little bit more for him. Uh, that, that was my, um, response. Although at first I thought it would be okay, but, uh, that's what I s- I understand at the moment. Let's move on. From the same part of the world, this was... Actually, the question came from Scandinavia. Some people like to hear the, um, where the questions come from. So here is a question also from Scandinavia, and that is that there's a Jew who's got into a partnership in a brewery with a goyishe partner, and they produce gin. Is it brewery? No, it's not brewery, it's a distillery, yeah.

35:36 So they're producing gin, and he would like to have a hechsher on it. He's getting more involved. Yiddish guy, very nice. Then he realized that last year he did not sell his chametz. And he was already a partner in this distillery, and he didn't sell his chametz. So what's the story here? We're talking here about probably a fortune of, of gin, which is... Is it all, is it all, uh, go down the drain? So here we have in Hilchos Pesach in Siman Tov, Mem Bet. Now, chametz which was possessed by a Jew after Pesach is forbidden for us to have benefit. What happens if it's not the chametz itself, it's just the taste of the chametz? So let's say you had a soup which had lokshen in it. If lokshen is chametz, it gave a chametz taste. And you took out the lokshen, it's just, just the taste. I'm just giving an example. So if it's just the taste of chametz, then that's, that's more lenient. The question here is, is alcohol distilled from grain, is it like the grain itself, or is it just the taste of grain? So generally, the view is taken that if alcohol is considered the grain itself, it's like, uh, mamash. However, here we have, this is a note of the Alter Rebbe's brother. If there's a huge loss involved, one may rely on those who say that even if there's a certain density, an amount of grain per, uh, volume of, of, of a drink- But it's, it's,

37:21 he said it's a strong drink. You can't have a large amount at once. Um, then, then perhaps you would be allowed to possess it, you know, Torah. And, and as a result, therefore, if it wasn't disposed of a Pesach, it still remains mutab hanor. You're allowed to have benefit from it. So what I told the, uh, the person who asked the question about a hechsher, forget it. There's no chance of getting a, giving a hechsher for chametz, which was possessed by a Jew over Pesach. But I was pleased to be able to say that the, it's not osib hanor, and it can be sold to goyim. And once they've finished this, this stock, and they, they want to start a, a new run, okay, that can be done with a hechsher. But meanwhile, this, uh, is mutab hanor. It's mutar to sell it to goyim. But you're not, a Yid would not. You wouldn't be allowed to sell it to a Yid. Let's move on. Someone is asking about a water filter. Now, the water filter can be either, some people are more fussy about their, about their drinks. Um, okay, I'm missing something on the screen. Or in a place where there's a problem of infestation, there's bugs in the water. Now, as far as straining wine, et cetera, in, again, in Siman Shin Yod Tes, we have the following halacha. That, it's not on the screen. You have the following halacha. Straining wine. If the wine is essentially drinkable, you just want to

39:08 strain it to enhance it, then you would be allowed to strain it on Shabbos. Because it's not really changing the, uh, the, the, the, the drink. If it's not drinkable as is, then you wouldn't be allowed to strain it. So that's the basically the, the distinction. So generally, I can say in, uh, in this part of the world, our drinking, our tap water is drinkable. So putting our tap water through a filter jug is an enhancement, but it's not the make it or break it. Therefore, it is okay. There has been a lot of discussion about, particularly in New York area, where there's a lot of kind of bugs in the water. There's something called copepods, which I don't know what they look like. But I, I read this afternoon a whole article in Rabbi Blumenkranz's Pesach guide, where he goes, discusses it at length. So the, it depends, you know, different, different areas, how common it is. At any rate, there they did have, they have a big problem. And then comes the question, can you use the water from, can you have, can you use a water filter in those places where otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to drink the water because of the likelihood of bugs coming through? So now he writes, this is from the Piskei Teshuvas, in, uh, also Siman Shin Yod Tes. And he says, yeah, you have places where sometimes there are bugs in the water, and it's essential to strain the water to avoid having those bugs.

40:55 So there are various Limudei Zechus for those who are lenient, are very, um, especially because, uh, uh, another point he's saying is that the, if not for the bug presence, the water would be quite drinkable. It's not as if the water itself is, is, is repulsive. The bugs are hardly noticeable, et cetera. Most people don't worry about it. So here's an interesting question. When we say don't take bad away from good, what about if the bad is, is not a physical bad, it's just a ruchnistiker bad? Is that also called boreh? That's, that's a little bit related. Although here's a physical presence, but I think that's what he's alluding to, that the water is a drinkable water. And therefore, it's not so straightforward to say that boreh applies. And here he has another very interesting point in the notes, that actually, you know, we have in many of our taps, we've got a built-in strainer. And further up the line in the water supply, there are s- several strainers along the w- along the line. So he brings here from the Chazon Ish an, um, a- an idea that if it's something which is there the whole time, it doesn't fall into the gedra of boreh. I did not look this up further, but the pe'al we have here, um, you, you, you, he says you have to f- find some kind of heter because even without the strainer at the e- at the end of your tap, the t- the water supply goes through

42:36 several, you know, the municipal water supply has got several strainers on the way. And without that, you're not going to be able to drink the water. So we are somehow relying on some heter there when we're using that water supply. So bottom line is that, that, uh, to have a fixed, to have a water filter, if the water would be drinkable in any case, just to enhance it, that's okay. And even where there is a need for, for filtering the water because of infestation, there are also bases to be, uh, to drink that water as is. Um, I'm sure there would be a hidur, though, to use bottled water for personal, you know, for, for drinking in such a situation. Right. I'm talking about Shabbos. The ninth question on our list. So someone's asking about counting people. Now, there is such a count people, it's a Regamora, and it's brought down, brought down in Mogdavrom, Koftun Vov. The Alter Rebbe in Koftun Vov talks about it, about counting people. Now, in the Chasam Sofer, he said that's also forbidden even in writing. And he brings the, his argument is, we know that Shaul HaMelech counted the Bnei Yisroel and each one gave a shad, the Bezek. And then we have the story where David HaMelech wanted to count the Yidden, and he had given Yoyav the job, and Yoyav was very reluctant. And he says, why do they have to go out of the way? They could have just done it in writing rather than,

44:09 rather than verbally. He must say that even in writing is also forbidden. So then becomes a simple question. How do you manage with a register, running a bank, running a school? Of course you're having, you're having names, and the names on the register have got numbers, etc. Is that always falling into this problem of counting Yidden? By minion, we count Hasheha Samecha, but I can tell you that the school registers I've seen do not have Hasheha Samecha on the margin. So how do we, how do we deal with this? There was also, and we once discussed this, about joining in a census. Whether you'd be allowed to join a census, where the census is also going to count how many Jews there are in the country, etc. At any rate, coming back to our question about simply you are a group leader, and you have a list of, or a teacher, a list of names. I think the following, that counting would be, you know, one, two, three, four, five. And then counting by num-, by, by writing. Okay, number one, I write a one, I write a two, etc. I'm, I'm count, I'm writing, uh, as, as they pass by, or as I pass by them. That would be counting by writing. But if I've written down a list of names, I've written down the list of names to have an identity of who they are. Then I look at the names, I know the number, but it's not that I've written, I haven't

45:35 written them to count them. I have, I've written to keep track who they are, but not necessarily the number. That's a secondary thing. Once the name is already there on the list, I'm allowed to count the names which are on the list. That's my, uh, way forward on that. Um, a couple of other points, um, to finish off feedback, or finish a couple of minutes early if that's okay. One was about, last week we discussed about french fries being subject to visual outcome. So my conclusion was last week that I don't see it being a problem. So Meir Zurkin gave me a link to some quotes from the Devar Tzinero, who also he's, he's, he's toing and froing about this. But he says, LePoel HaMinig is to consider it an issue of visual outcome. Simply the question is, if you did not switch on the fire, could a Goish HaShech make french fries for you? That's really where the question is. And so, uh, LeChatchilah, you're gonna, you have Yiddush switch on the fire, but, but yeah, but I would say you would be allowed to have them. The other question, which one of, which came up last week, was about saying HaMapil for children who are going to sleep before nightfall. And so both Meir Zurkin and someone else, Rabbi Vlotner of Monsey, pointed out that the, the question was, in the Brocha HaMapil, it says Hashkivenu. We're going to sleep now. And that's why after dawn, according to Mr. Brewer last week, saying

47:11 you can't say Hashkivenu after dawn, so you can't say HaMapil after dawn. Very well. But that's interesting, because people who daven Ma'ariv early, from after Plag Amincha, they are saying Hashkivenu in Ma'ariv. And therefore, someone who's going to sleep early should be also allowed to say HaMapil after, and say Hashkivenu in HaMapil, because they, they, they, be- because after Plag Amincha, you can say Hashkivenu. I saw the Piskei Tshuva mentions this, and he's not so confident about it, but I, I didn't understand what's his, why he's not confident about it, but okay. So there seems to be correct, good many, uh, good, uh, basis to allow children to say HaMapil to, before they go to sleep, uh, even though it's not, uh, yet sunset, as long as it's after Plag Amincha. Let's just finish off, and I said finish a bit early. I mentioned at the beginning of this year that the recordings of this year are being put up online, et cetera, for the last almost three years, or is it more? Uh, it's been done by, uh, Rabbi Yaakov Raskin, who is on shlichas in a small town in Wyoming called Laramie, and he's doing a fundraiser this week. And so if you are able to help him out, uh, help out Yiddishkeit, jewishlaramie.com/seed. Zeit Alegezunt, good night, and be well. We should meet at, in, in good health. Le'ola shleima. Scott. Thank you. Yes.